I don't know why I'm updating on this???

Last year I intended to use this blog as a weekly journal on my Ironman training. I wrote one post at the beginning of my journey, and then like the blog itself; I stopped updating. Here’s my update if anyone cares!!!!

When I arrived in New York last July for the event I was feeling a little run down from a sinus infection I had no idea I had. We flew into New York City, so we could take in some sites, before driving up State to Lake Placid. We got in really late, so we went strait to bed; that is once we finally got to the hotel(NY traffic.) When I woke up the next day I noticed what appeared to be a bite on the side of my face near my right eye. I thought it was a spider, or some kind of insect bite. It didn’t appear to be spreading, so I wasn’t too concerned. We stayed a couple of days in NY City, and then drove up to Lake Placid. I think we got there on a Wednesday? Since the Ironman wasn’t until that Sunday I had plenty of time to acclimate myself to the course. I’ve had a few sinus infections in my time, so I made sure to get plenty of rest, and really concentrated on drinking extra fluids. This was my first mistake, as I probably should have spent more time studying the course and working out stratagy. Sunday morning rolled around in a blink of an eye. I got a good nites sleep, I woke up rested, and strangely not the least bit nervous. I double checked everything I had set out the night before. I was worried about how food might affect my stomach, so I ate lightly(another mistake). My wife and I strolled to the swim start area, where I got marked up with my race number, and dropped off last minute items.

A day earlier; race veterans had warned me about going for the line too early. Stay back and waitout all the faster swimmers, then make your move, but did I listen? Hell no! Before the start everyone gets in the water, and while I was warming up I got the bright idea to get up towards the front and just go for it. Bad idea!! I spent the first 10 minutes just trying to survive while 1900 other swimmers took turns trying to drown me. During the mayhem I got kicked in the face, which isn’t that unusual, but lacerating your cornea is. At the time I just figured my eye was stinging because of the anti-fog application I had applied to my goggles before the race. It didn’t hit me(no pun intended) that something was wrong until half way through the second lap. The sun was really starting to beat down, and every time I turned for air it stung my eye. I was in a real grove though, and I was now exacting my revenge on some of the participants who had run me over at the start. I finished the swim in 1 hour and 21 minutes; better than I had anticipated. As I exited the water a volunteer striped off my wet suit, and I ran to the transition area for my bike.

I had a lot of adrenalin when I exited the transition area and I was passing people like they were standing still. That is until I hit that first hill! I was grinding it out though; then someone standing on the side of the road yelled out spin! I didn’t care for his advice, so I kept grinding it out, and frying my legs. Half way up the hill my back tire began to rub, and I stopped to check it out. I had it tuned up the day before, but I didn’t feel like testing it out, and now I realized that was a bad idea. I got back on thinking I had gotten it fixed, but about a half a mile down the road it happened again. I was so frustrated with the mechanical problems I made a critical mistake. I passed the first aid station without taking anything to eat. I did grab a water, but I was so paranoid about littering, and being penalized, so I held on to it as I started down the first big descent. I was really trying to hit the hill hard, but my eye was stinging so bad I couldn’t hold it open. Holding the water bottle with one eye open; I was helplessly out of control. I hit the brakes and flipped over my handle bars. A volunteer asked if I was ok, and even though I was hurting pretty bad I kicked my bike, grunted a couple of times and jumped back on for more punishment. I stopped at the halfway point of the first loop, and I thought I was actually doing ok on time. I stopped to eat a very ripe banana, and chat with a volunteer who had given me said ripe banana. I said my goodbyes, and started to pedal when the friendly volunteer noticed my rear tire was flat! I changed the tire with the help of the volunteer,I decided to really crank the wheel down, so it wouldn’t rub anymore. My bike performed pretty well after that, but I didn’t. When I came around the first loop I thought about quitting, but I was stupid and continued on. I downed a little soda, and surprisingly caught a second wind, but I was running out of time. I pushed my body until the 103 mile mark; where I pulled over on the side of the road and collapsed. A state trooper helped me into the shade and pored water over my head, and gave my half his sandwich. I had an hour to get 9 miles, but I knew I couldn’t make it. They called for a volunteer, and he took me in his car back to the start, he even offered to let me out near the finish, so I could ride in and see if I wanted to continue, but I was done. I went to the medical tent where they diagnosed me with Hyponeutremia, and of course I had that lacerated Cornea. A couple of days later the bite started spreading, when we landed back in Denver I went directly to the emergency room where they verified the Laceration, the sinus infection, and shingles. It took about a month before I was back to normal. I was so depressed that I failed to finish. I had trained for a year, and I had nothing to show for it, not even a lowsy t-shirt.

After all that you’d think I would never try it again, but shortly after returning from NY I signed up for Ironman Idaho. The date is June 25, 2006. This time I will finish, or die trying.

36 years on the lamb, and now he's in the brig

I was reading about this guy who was recently arrested after 36 years on the lamb for deserting the Marines. The poor bastard is in jail waiting for the Marines to come pick his ass up, and throw him in the brig at Camp Lejeune. Don’t we have better ways of spending our money then tracking down deserters from Vietnam? We pardoned all the draft dodgers, so why not pardon all these guys? Why not spend our money on the troops in war zones? I guess that would make too much sense! Ooh Rah, Semper Fi, or whatever else you guys say after catching these guys.

Elephant Rock Ride

I did the Elephant Rock Ride this weekend in Castle Rock. It’s a bike ride of 50, 65 or 100 miles. You choose your poison. I chose the 100 mile ride, and today I’m paying for it. I’m not as sore as the Marathon three weeks ago, but I think this challenge was harder than the two marathons I’ve done. The first mile had one of those hills that reminded me of the Jane Fonda exercise video she put out years ago “feel the burn” I believe she used to say. Michelle always corrects me when I say lets go up to the Springs because you’re actually heading south, but I’m talking elevation not direction! The scenery is really beautiful and thanks to all the officers who kept me and the thousands of other cyclists safe. At the 61 mile marker they had an aid station and while glancing at the map I noticed one at 68. I found that strange, being that the other aid stations had been about 20 miles apart. I found out why and the name Roller Coaster Rd. Holly crap that road sucks! From mile 77 to about 86 was fun, it was all down hill and I think I got up to 38 miles an hour through that stretch. For the next month it’s swim, swim, swim. I plan to do an open water swim or two, then next month Lake Placid!

The Giving Tree

My mother is one of the most unselfish people on this planet. I remember doing a play based on the book “The Giving Tree” when I was maybe 5 or 6. If you don’t know the story it’s about a boy whose best friend as a child is a tree. As he grows up he needs more and more from the tree. At the end of the story, all that’s left of the tree is a stump. He has nothing left to give the boy, who now is an old man, except something to sit on. You get the feeling in the book the boy (old man) doesn’t fully appreciate the sacrifices the tree has made for him, yet it makes the tree happy giving unconditionally to the boy. In a lot of ways my mother has had a hard life, but through it all she continues to come out on top. I admire your strength, determination, and unconditional love. These are values you have taught me, and ones I hope to pass on to my kids. I hope I am half the parent and human being you are mother. Thank you for everything you have done for me, and Happy Mothers Day.

I had a genius for a stepfather

How do you measure success?
by Joseph Pecukonis
Copyright Ó 1995 by Joseph Pecukonis, All rights reserved

If you’re not monitoring it, you’re not managing it, should be every manager’s credo. There is an inseparable union between successful management and good information. This union started in 1494, when a Jesuit monk named Luca Pacioli created the double-entry accounting system. His system is still the foundation of our modern business management systems. Thanks in large part to the IRS, our modern accounting system has developed a level of quality and reliability that seduces us into using it for a far larger role than it was originally intended. But as a management tool, it can fall short. This article evaluates the pitfalls of using our modern accounting system as a management tool and looks at three other monitoring systems that can fill the gap.

Leading and lagging indicators

The modern accounting system is a lagging indicator of financial performance. This means that it is good at showing us what has happened, but it is not good at showing us what will happen. It creates a snapshot of the past. Making management decisions based on a company’s financial data is like driving a car by looking out of the rear view mirror. Using financial data as a predictor of future stock performance has frustrated even Wall Street experts. They would love to have an accurate leading indicator for their stock purchases. Fortunately, there are information systems that can act as leading indicators of financial performance. Some examples that will be examined later are operational metrics, employee attitude surveys, and customer surveys.

Short term and long term focus

The pressure on management is to increase the bottom line. Unfortunately, this tends to focus management on the short term. With the logical result expressed by the phrase, "The quickest way to increase profits is to cut costs". Cutting cost sounds like an improvement in operating efficiency and it can be. It sounds like management is really doing their jobs. In reality, good managers don’t normally operate with excess costs that are available to cut. What gets cut are programs that are investments for the longer term, the future of the company.

There is an optimum level of investment or expenses that result in maximum profits. If management has been doing its job properly, the company should be running at or near this optimum level of efficiency. Cutting costs can cause reduced efficiency, lower morale, and lost opportunities, with the result of lower sales and profits in the future. The profit and loss statement cannot determine future organizational effectiveness. In other words, modern financial reporting systems can encourage reducing costs to increase short-term profits while sacrificing longer-term profits and growth.

This focus on the short term is magnified by the typical management bonus program, which rewards managers on a basis of a percentage of profits. In a discussion with the president of a medium size manufacturing company, I asked him why he didn’t plan for a smaller bonus this year, so that he and his managers could have larger bonuses in future years? He responded, "I have no guarantee that I will be working here next year, so I’ll get all I can right now." Unfortunately, the shareholders and most of the employees will be around next year when the results of not investing properly in the business will be evident.

This situation is similar to having a saboteur within the company. This saboteur plants a financial time bomb disguised as more short-term profits in your company, that will eventually help your competitors and hurt your shareholders and employees. The bomb goes off with a flurry of cost cutting. This starts a vicious circle of reduced earnings followed by more cost cutting. The result is a company with a poverty mentality that cannot adequately compete in the marketplace. Eventually the best employees leave and the damage is virtually irreversible. (For a more detailed examination of this process read, "The Sick Company Syndrome" from "The Entrepreneur’s Manual" by Richard M. White.)

There have been attempts to modify financial reporting to encourage management to operate with a longer-term perspective regarding their incentive programs. One system is called EVA or Economic Value Added. With EVA reporting, expenses for new product development can be pushed out of the current management bonus calculations and included as an expense when the new products enter the marketplace. This is designed to encourage investments, like new product development, without penalizing the bonus or incentive program. EVA addresses only one part of the problem. In the end it is still an accounting statement with the numbers moved around. It also tends to reduce management’s concern about process issues like minimizing time to market and product development effectiveness.

Managers and shareholders will need to look deeper at the elements that determine success. I will examine three alternative systems that measure performance. I believe these are essential for every company to operate at maximum effectiveness.

Operational Metrics "The pulse of the organization"

Measuring the processes within a company is called operational metrics. These measurements contain information that determine the effectiveness of both the processes of the company and therefore, the company as a whole. The following are some of the processes that should be monitored. I learned how effective operational metrics can be in 1985, when I first started monitoring the marketing criteria below. I know this works. I reduced media expenses by 90% and increased sales by 20%!

Marketing Criteria

• Cost per lead by media type and advertisement. This measures the effectiveness of advertising formats, placement, and repetition. There is a strong correlation between the number of leads in the present month and the sales for next month. Therefore, monitoring the number of leads per month can be an excellent method of forecasting next month’s sales.
• Sales per lead or close rate. This monitors the effectiveness of the sales literature and the sales process. Sorting this report by geographic area can be effective for monitoring sales rep effectiveness.
• Time to respond to leads. This should be in the form of a monthly histogram of how long it took to get sales literature to a prospect. Research suggests that the longer it takes to respond to a lead the less likely that person will purchase from your company.

Production

• Ratio of overhead costs to direct labor costs. It’s surprising that management tends to focus on the cost of direct labor when the manufacturing overhead is many times greater. If the overhead rate is over three times the direct labor rate, you have a problem. Overhead can be reduced by properly utilizing computer information systems like Material Resource Planning (MRP). Unfortunately, most companies that claim to be using MRP are still operating with inventory restock levels to trigger inventory purchases. If you are using restock levels or are manually counting your inventory, you are not using MRP.
• Percentage of rejects or rework. This can be an early warning of defects before the product goes out the door. Quality problems internally raise the cost of doing business and quality problems that go out the door can destroy a business. The better manufacturing companies monitor rejects in parts per million instead of percents. A common phase among professionals in the quality area is that, "If you are measuring quality in percent, you have a problem."
• Inventor turns ratio. This monitors the effectiveness of your purchasing and shop floor systems. It also indicates the effectiveness of your sales forecasting system.
• Shop floor-processing time. There is a direct relationship between how long it takes to convert raw materials to finished goods and production effectiveness. Shortening the shop floor processing time will improve inventory turns, working capital, and cash flow. If you reduce processing time from four weeks to one week, you will convert 25% of work-in-process to cash!
• Rush shipping and expediting charges. When there is a problem with production it usually shows up in extra shipping charges. Management should always be watching this indicator.
• Cost variance from standard. This metric is effective in anticipating production or purchasing problems and the effect of inflation. It amazes me how many companies claim to be using standard costing and never review these variances.

Human Resources

• Percent employee turnover. It costs approximately $7,500 to replace the average employee. Does one manager have a much greater employee turnover than the norm?
• Accidents per thousand work hours. Accidents are avoidable and cost money. In Singapore, companies are required to set a safety standard that, "An employee cannot hurt themselves, even if they try." This may seem like an extreme approach. It is not extreme, because these companies are doing this with the result of significantly lower on the job accident rates.
• Employee Opinion Surveys. This is critical feedback about employee perceptions. It is so important I will cover this in depth later in this article.

Product development

• Time to market, and time to break-even. Every development project should have a graph posted in a common area that shows the accumulated development costs for each project and the accumulated profits. This will show both time to market as well as the time to break-even.
• Labor hours per task. This will monitor both the effectiveness of personnel as well as create a basis for more accurately forecasting and budgeting future projects. This can take some of the guesswork out of managing technical type people and supply the supporting data to justify capital purchases.
• Engineering change order costs. Getting a product into production is only part of the job of product development. The cost and quantity of engineering changes is directly related to the quality of the development effort.

It is a common misconception that getting data from an organization increases employee workload and therefore reduces organizational effectiveness. This is true if the data is collected manually. I recommend a system of databases and bar readers. This way as each employee does his or her work; the data is available for management reporting. Then reporting is a transparent and painless function.

Because these metrics are leading indicators of financial performance, I cannot stress enough the importance of monitoring these processes. But monitoring is only half of the system. The other half is the presentation. Graph and post these data for employees in their public areas. Graphs allow the easy analysis of trends.This system tends to motivate just by having the data public. When employees understand that they are being measured in an area, they are more likely to start looking for ways to improve. To amplify this effect, the trends in the operational metrics should determine bonuses. In other words, the people who can affect a particular operational metric should be rewarded for improvements in their area.

Employee Attitude Surveys

Surveys provide a powerful management tool that can convert subjective information into objective data. Employee attitude surveys provide a tool to monitor the level of morale, uncover organizational and personnel problems, and EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) issues. These surveys can also be used to provide a "Needs Assessment" if management decides to enlist the help of a consultant. Then a follow-up survey can be done to measure the consultant’s effectiveness. Employee attitude surveys provide the feedback management needs to make effective decisions.

In general, there are two types of employee attitude surveys, the General Assessment survey of the organization and the 360o or Peer Review survey. The General Assessment survey consists of a series of questions regarding the organization and environment that are grouped by logical categories. Every employee answers these questions anonymously. After the results are tabulated, management receives an overview of which categories and questions received the lowest scores. These are the areas, from the employees’ perspective, that need the most attention. The good news is that in many cases, employees’ perceptions can be changed by improved communications or by changing some policy or procedure. When management acts on the results of a survey it can have an enormously positive effect on both morale and therefore productivity, with benefits throughout the organization. It should be stressed that if management is not committed to acting on the results of a survey, then they should not do one. It is much more damaging to do a survey and not follow-up than to not do one at all. Before performing any survey, management should make the commitment to communicate the results to the employees, and then act on the information received. If this is not done, then employees will view any future surveys as a waste of time and will think that management does not care about their opinions.

The second type of employee attitude survey is the 360o or Peer Review survey. This survey consists of a department or group of employees that anonymously evaluate each member of the group. Each person is given his/her individual results and an indication of how they scored relative to the rest of the group. The manager gets to see a summary of all the scores, as well as individual results to use in determining training needs and employee performance management.
The power of this approach is that employees present a different side to their boss than they do to each other. This is why the boss is usually the last to know about employee problems and backstabbing that can destroy productivity. This type of survey keeps relationships honest. How many "team killers" do you have in your organization?

Presently, the fastest growing expense in an organization is the cost of employee rights, harassment, and discrimination claims. An example of this cost is that the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies and Philadelphia Insurance Company have introduced employment practices liability (EPL) policies, with annual premiums from $100 to $150 per employee. (Quoted from Nation’s Business April 1994.) Part of what makes these claims so expensive to defend against is that the employer is assumed to be guilty and is expected to prove his/her innocence. This is an enormous disadvantage. How would you prove that you are not, "maintaining an environment of harassment?" Management needs to be proactive. An employee attitude survey can gauge these areas. No matter what the outcome of the survey, the company wins. If the company scores well in this area, then fine. But if it scores low, management can implement an improvement program and then six months later repeat the survey. Either way, management is protected.

Management can also use this data as support for performance reviews. Performance reviews are something that consumes a lot of time and most managers do them poorly. As a result, when a manager wants to terminate an employee, they often find that they have not properly documented this decision. Peer reviews are self-documenting and are very effective.

Customer surveys

Every business needs to have a graph in a common area that charts customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is the result of the efforts of the whole organization, so everyone must be aware of the customers’ perceptions. This is where the "rubber meets the road." If a customer has a bad experience with your product or service, your company will rarely get a second chance. There is no amount of advertising that will bring them back. You have to know the bad news first. An unhappy customer will tell many other potential customers about their experience.

There is no standard method for customer surveys, and the responses may vary from the time of the sale throughout the life of the product or service. It may be valuable to segregate the results by the length of time the customer has used the product or service.
You can collect feedback with return-reply cards, phone follow-up or follow-up sales calls. When you do this, it is important to ask your customers to be very candid. Most customers will be happy to give their opinion.

Conclusion

There are many ways to monitor the performance of an organization. Financial reporting tends to be the predominate method of management feedback. Managers, and even members of boards of directors, should look deeper into the organization by using both operational metrics and opinion surveys to better gauge performance and determine bonuses.

Most companies are an open loop system. Control, directives, and policies travel down the organization, but feedback from the bottom does not travel back up. Open loop systems tend to be under utilized at best and unstable in the worst cases. This system is like a person who has no feeling from the neck down. "Everything must be OK, I don’t feel a thing." But there could be major problems that take time to surface, and once they do, are not obvious as to the cause or cure. As an example, our person with the feeling disorder could be bleeding from a limb. The head would notice that there is less response from the body but not know what to do to fix it. The head would just try harder to get the body to move. This is the dynamic in many organizations today.

Management needs to know how the employees and the customers perceive their decisions, directives, and policies. Surveys are one of the only ways to do this. I recently asked Sherry Fox, President of Business Survey Systems in Denver, "If surveys work so well then why do so few companies do them?" She replied that, "There is a fear in top management that the results will not be good, so only the best run companies tend to do surveys."

Anything worth doing is worth measuring. Getting the right information and using it, is crucial to the performance of an organization. Every company should be monitoring operational metrics, employee, and customer attitudes.

Daydreaming slows motor response

When you wake up as early as I do and I’m talking three to four hours before the sun comes up, all your motor factions and functions tend to outpace your brain by seconds, sometimes minutes. Driving while still half asleep presents its own set of challenges. Even on my best day, when I’m alert I occasionally drive on auto pilot. In this context I would define auto pilot as driving for a good distance, but not remembering covering that distance. So this morning I’m driving down Pena blvd at my very typical 70 mph in a 65, When I realized I’m not doing 70 anymore I’m going 55. Have you ever noticed how daydreaming, or just taking your mind off whatever your doing automatically slows down you motor response? It makes sense, but I really never thought much of it until this morning. Van Halen’s song “Right Now” was playing on the radio, and the lyrics were speaking to me “Miss a beat, you lose your rhythm and nothin’ falls into place only missed by a fraction slipped a little off your pace”……. It’s funny, but I think maybe this song was speaking to me. While looking up the lyrics to this song to put in my blog entry, I thought about how this song fit me in so many ways. Oh well, I’ll go into that some other time.

Ironman Lake Placid

When I was 12 I had a dream I would run a marathon, and compete in a triathlon. When I awoke from that dream, I immediatly set a goal to run the marathon before the age of 30. May 11th 2003, 20 days before my 30th birthday, I ran the Old Town Marathon in Fort Collins, Colorado. I finished in 4 Hours and 10 Minutes and it was probably the hardest thing I've ever done. To set a goal and acheive a result is truly rewarding! Even though I didn't set a time frame for my triathlon I decided, after watching my sister in-law compete in the Danskins triathlon this summer that it was indeed time to finish my boyhood dream. I have never done anything the easy way in fact I sometimes go out of my way to make things more difficult. It's part of my make up and in honor of that I signed up for the Ironman. An ironman triathlon is a 2.6 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and 26.2 mile run. I started training about 8 weeks ago and so far it's going quite well. I will use this blog as a diary of my training, and if anyone is out there left to read it I would appreciate a kind word.

Personal responsibilty

I think there should be mandatory classes teaching personal responsibility. It’s possible most people don’t understand what personal responsibility is. Some of what accepting personal responsibility means to me include:

Acknowledging that you are solely responsible for the choices in your life.

Accepting that you are responsible for what you choose to feel or think.

Accepting that you choose the direction for your life.

Accepting that you cannot blame others for the choices you have made.

Tearing down the mask of defense or rationale for why others are responsible for who you are,
what has happened to you, and what you are bound to become. (That’s a tough one.)

The rational belief that you are responsible for determining who you are, and how your choices affect your life.

Pointing the finger of responsibility back to yourself and away from others when you are discussing the consequences of your actions.

Realizing that you determine your feelings about any events or actions addressed to you, no matter how negative they seem. (Another tough one.)
Recognizing that you are your best cheerleader; it is not reasonable or healthy for you to depend on others to make you feel good about yourself. (My favorite.)
Recognizing that as you enter adulthood and maturity, you determine how your self-esteem will develop.

Not feeling sorry for the “bum deal” you have been handed but taking hold of your life and giving it direction and reason.

Letting go of your sense of over responsibility for others.

Protecting and nurturing your health and emotional well being.

Taking preventive health oriented steps of structuring your life with time management, stress management, confronting fears, and burnout prevention.

Taking an honest inventory of your strengths, abilities, talents, virtues, and positive points.(err.)

Letting go of blame and anger toward those in your past who did the best they could, given the limitations of their knowledge, background, and awareness.

Working out anger, hostility, pessimism, and depression over past hurts, pains, abuse, mistreatment, and misdirection.

Proactive/Reactive

Being proactive simply means taking control of the situation instead of being controlled by it.

That should be the behavior of everybody: act in advance to avoid problems. But in most situations, we are reactive, we are waiting for a problem to become a crisis.

Hello

Genealogy

Dad,

I've created your very own post for more family history.
Love,

John

Slow going

It's been slow going on the test thus far, but hopefully if everyone forwards the email it will continue on. Thanks to everyone who has posted so far, including the few posts that seem irrated.

Guestbook

If you're reading this post it's either because you happened to click on my blog, or you got my original email with the link to my blog. I want to see how many people I can get to sign my blog by sending out one email. Post as anonymous if you dont want to sign up, and then add your name, city, state and anything else you want in the comments area.

Thanks,

John Dent

Dad, I deleted your genealogy posts out of here and put them under Genealogy.

Ground Zero

Ground Zero 

This is a picture of the last piece of Metal from ground Zero. They cut it in the form of a cross. I really recommend taking the trip before the memorial goes up, and then you can truly get a sense of what we are fighting for!

.04

I was watching the Lakers vs Spurs Game 5 last night. Good game! It was back and forth the whole way. At the end of the game with the Lakers up by one Tim Duncan of the Spurs hit an impossible shot leaving four tenths of a second on the clock. I am not a spurs fan, but I hate the Lakers and I was very happy they were about to lose. Phil Jackson, the coach of the Lakers was so calm I couldn't believe it. Maybe it's the fact he has 9 championships, or maybe he knew .04 in sports is just enough time to destroy the Spurs chances of winning back to back championships. Well thats exactly what happened the Lakers threw up a prayer and the basketball gods answered! Is there anything else but sports where .04 means as much?

Memories

I was talking with my cousin Michael yesterday about our crazy family and I realized how little I know. I have few memories from when I was little and as I get older they get more, and more blurry. I hope it’s not that way with my adult memories! I felt a bit disconnected after our conversation. I can’t imagine how someone with early dementia must feel. How frustrating it must be to see a face and have no idea who that person is.

Ramblings

Hello everyone,

I started a new blog where anyone who wants to read my random thoughts can go. I also encourage anyone out there reading my blog, especially friends and family to reply.