Category Archives: Uncategorized

Best Experienced With:        Indigo Girls;     Closer to Fine

(please right click on the link below to open the suggested background music to this evening’s treatise in a new browser window.  Happy Singles Awareness Day.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUgwM1Ky228

My friend Mav commented here last week, asking why the ex would pop up in a MLOG since I stuck a fork in her three years ago.  Great question!  Writing things in a semi permanent location makes them real and fits the Mind of Mully “hit by a bus” test.  Were a kryptonite laden bus to run me over later today, a real estate agent might show Chez Mulligan next month.  This real estate agent may have to field the questions: “Why would a single guy have such a massive walk in shower?  Wouldn’t a great big Jacuzzi tub be better there?”

Said hypothetical real estate agent would simply have to pull up his or her laptop, point the potential buyer to that MLOG, and remain silent.  Mostly because that was not an objection…..it was simply a question.   Same real estate agent might also have to explain the dog house safely and strategically placed on the ledge outside the shower window.

Mom and Glove Man will celebrate their 47^th wedding anniversary on May 4, 2010.  My three sisters will celebrate their, respectively, 22^nd , 14^th , and 10^th wedding anniversaries in 2010.  Each has a unique relationship, different from the others.  All love and fight in a different fashion.  Would imagine they fight like cats and dogs at time because they are all at 100% in this era of 50% of marriages failing.  Am certain they learned the following cycle from mom and Glove Man:

Fight……fight…..….fight……come to agreement…….hug it out.

This is a love story.  A very long love story.

This is a love story.

The love story began one summer morning in 1995 when I awoke to the soft gentle sound of “SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE” in the room that is now Chez Mulligan’s surfboard room.  In those days it was an open, overgrown garden.    “SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEE”.  Thought maybe the nine volt battery in the downstairs smoke detector had died of natural causes overnight.   “SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”.  Rolled onto the floor, pulled aside the blinds, and saw four teeny tiny kittens hidden in one of the overgrown shrubs.  Mama Cat (as we creatively named her that evening) was out making the acquaintance of more gentlemen callers for when the kittens left the nest.  “SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE” is kittenspeak for “please may I have some kitten milk…I am famished.”

“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”

 

As the Mama Cat family got older, they moved from the back patio to a more comfortable spot in the bottom hallway.  They came in when hungry, had snacks, and then went back outside for badminton, volleyball, or whatever was on that day’s list of feral cat activities.  None ever allowed petting and we all kept our distance during meal time.  Some lived in the board room and shared nose kisses through the screen with the indoor cats.

The Mama Cat family, along with a host of others, took their meals at Chez Mulligan and took shelter from the storm here for as long as they wanted.  5433 ½ La Jolla Blvd has been a halfway house for wayward and feral animals since that morning.  Over fifteen years we have trapped and released fifty-four ferals and most spent some part of the life in the doghouse just above the zillion foot walk in shower my ex installed.  All but three have moved on.  Some tell me the other fifty-one are dead, yet I never saw their bodies.   I prefer to  believe these fifty-one moved two blocks over because some more wealthy home owner feeds their feral colony serious gourmet cat food.

The “love” part of this love story began in Q1 1997 when the Hale Bopp Comet cruised by Earth for a visit.   While the Heaven’s Gate folks were lacing up their tennis shoes for their rendezvous with the master ship, I was taking out the trash to the dumpster behind Chez Mulligan.  On the way back, met a very plump, very preggo cat eating at the communal feeding dish for the first time.  Named her Haley and did not see her again until I found her body near my back door two months later.

That’s love, yes?    Haley chose to die near my door because she wanted me to find her six week old kittens and make certain they had a longer life than she did.  Saw Haley exactly twice:  once that first evening and the second time when I buried her.

Searched high and low for the next week for Haley’s litter.   One evening I saw three tiny shapes trying to get into a garbage can two doors down.   The next evening we set up a cat carrier with two cans of smelly salmon.  Sat in a prone position with three hangers tied end to end for a few hours until out of the darkness came a single file line of three shadowy, tiny kittens.  Look left.  Five steps.  Look right.   Single file kitten sprint!!!!!  Attack smelly salmon and BOOM…..pet carrier door slams shut.

We spent that evening in the spare downstairs bathroom picking roughly seven million fleas off of three feral kittens that had no desire to lose these fleas or be indoor cats.  Spent the next five weeks sleeping in the spare bedroom with the feral kittens cowering under the couch in the spare bedroom, visions of me carving coffee mugs out of their skulls running through their little kitten heads.  Woke up one morning with the black and white kitten sitting on my chest, gently tapping my chin with her paw and then rearing back after each tap.  Was a great deal of fun to watch her swatting my chin through squinting, fake asleep eyes.

Two weeks later the kittens (named Marsha, Jan, and Cindy by my friend Jen) were ready for adoption.  Overnight their internal switches flipped from “fully feral” to “awesome pets” and they were ready for loving homes.  Posted the following ad around The LJ:

Then I thought about Haley and kismet………and I kept the stupid morons.  Haley loved them enough to crawl over and die near my door as a message, so Marsha, Jan, and Cindy were clearly mine for life.  Marsha still owns my chest and she has been at the top of the stairs each time I return from a business trip.  Should a significant other choose to spend the evening, Marsha will perch like a vulture on my shoulder as we spoon, staring at the date and doing her darndest to make date-erasing laser beams shoot out of her green kitty eyes.  Marsha is not overly fond of female visitors.

Jan still makes me laugh like a hyena each time I reach out my finger and say “smell my finger”.  As the shiest of the three, she has sniffed that index finger 2,634,986,003 times before allowing me to pet her and I still laugh like a hyena when she does it.

Cindy has taken over the top floor of Chez Mulligan and brooks no nonsense up here.  Her kitty treats must be delivered to the top of the table.  She will not jump down, even for kitty treats.  I give Cindy the kitty treats up top because she is here more than I am.

Bruiser and Sage joined us after that and added to the fun.

Then, Ceeeeeeeeeeatie and Deeeeeeeeeeegie made it just a bit more ridiculous ten years later.

I like to think the reason my sisters all have marriages lasting between ten and twenty years is that mom and Glove Man taught us to fight to the finish and then hug it out.  None of that nambly pambly passive aggressive crap while we were growing up.  No, sir.  You dug right in and you fought to the finish.  Afterwards, you hugged it out and passed the peas because only the strongest of relationships can handle and respect the differences.  Life would be boring and intolerably vanilla if we agreed all the time.  Attraction and love are easy because they are surface feelings and emotions.  True love and marriages are decisions we make each morning when we hear “SREEEEEEEEEE”.  We should be willing to fight for true love and marriage………………….sometimes with each other.   Be happy when you hear “SCREEEEEEEEEEE”.  Handled properly, it is an excellent opportunity to grow closer.

Thanks, mom and Glove Man for teaching us Mulligan kids the value of fighting and hugging it out.  Erudite scholars and PhD’s have opined on love for years and would benefit from watching the cats here in Chez Mulligan beat the snot out of each other and then clean each other’s heads.  It is a time tested, solid offense.

To those of you out to dinner this evening with potential “last first dates”?  Have fun and I hope it works out exactly like you want it to work out.  Those of you madly in love?  Slow clapping, rising to a loud crescendo as you bow before us with your beloved.  The rest of us celebrating Singles Awareness Day in The LJ…..  please direct your attention to the sheet on the south wall where we will show Pulp Fiction in exactly three seconds.

Three, two, one……………………………………………..disco.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

\

 

 

Darkness has a hunger

That’s insatiable…..

Lightness has a call

That’s hard to hear.

 

 

This is dedicated to Cupid and my friends Patty and Jillian.  Happy fifth wedding anniversary you two kids……have enjoyed watching your love.  Always find it hard to understand how some folks can experience true love and yet not embrace all couples’ love.  Interesting.  Perhaps they are afraid and that’s OK.  We all get scared.  Come over here all you homophobic folks!  Give me a hug. 

 

 

 

Last minute gift suggestion?  Of course I have last minute gift suggestions:  I’m the gift freaking master!  Get him or her one of the books below.  Each is a love story and one is told from the point of view of a dog.  Brilliant!  The thing in the middle?  Oh, that’s just from church this morning.  I highlighted the part in the middle that says it’s perfectly awesome for anyone to marry whomever they love.  Silly left wing Christians……..that’s just crazy, blasphemy talk!

And yes, as Too Much Joy opined musically years ago in their theme song, one of the precepts up here in The Attic is “to create, you must destroy”.  In fact, one of the walls has a colorful mural, lest we forget.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a love story.

 

 

 

Best Experienced With:    Pearl Jam:        Yellow Ledbetter

(please right click the link below to open the suggested background music for this evening’s treatise in a new window…WAIT FOR IT…along)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs8y3kneqrs

 

Outside of the long paragraphs with seemingly endless punctuation that power the hamster wheel daily, have not thought about William Faulkner in a while.  Over the past week, The Random smashed Faulkner into me three times.  First when his town in Mississippi voted to allow beer sales for the first time in fifty years.  Second time was when a friend compared Rick Bragg’s style to Faulkner this afternoon.  Third time was this evening when the NY Times had an article on the origin of Faulkner’s character names.  They were from a list of real slave names he found in his barn.  And Faulkner assigned the slave names to white characters.  Brilliant!

Clearly the ghost of Faulkner is in The Attic this evening.  To honor Mr. Faulkner, we will post some of his prose on the bulletin board and we will ruin the Faulkner quotations by ending each in a random preposition.  All hail Faulkner.

 

“Caddy held me and I could hear us all, and the darkness, and something I could smell. And then I could see the windows, where the trees were buzzing. Then the dark began to go in smooth, bright shapes, like it always does, even when Caddy says that I have been asleep….WAIT FOR IT…………for.”

 

“And maybe when He says Rise the eyes will come floating up too, out of the deep quiet and the sleep, to look on glory. And after a while the flat irons would come floating up. I hid them under the end of the bridge and went back and leaned on the rail…….WAIT FOR IT……..…to”

 

 

“They lead beautiful lives, women. Lives not only divorced from, but irrevocably excommunicated from, all reality………WAIT FOR IT………at.”

 

 

“I could not be a virgin, with so many of them walking along in the shadows and whispering with their soft girl voices lingering in the shadowy places and the words coming out and perfume and eyes you could feel not see, but if it was that simple to do it wouldn’t be anything and if it wasn’t anything, what was I……..WAIT FOR IT……oh, hell…we can’t wait for it on this one because it goes on forever and ever and ever and ever……………….”

Faulkner prose should always go on forever and ever and ever and ever.  As the frog quickly learned from the scorpion, you cannot change the nature of things.  Nor should we try.  All hail Faulkner.

We appear to have some prepositions left over from our Faulkner fun.  How about if we stack them in a nice pile right here for the next time we choose to end our sentences in prepositions? 

 

In

Via

Past

Under

Toward

Outside

Opposite

Regarding

Underneath

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mind of Mully

Once I saw her

Mumblemumblemumble

Mumblemumblemumble

I want to leave it again……..yeah

 

 

This is the Rick Bragg book referenced above.  It is the finest non-fiction book I have read in twenty years.  It will make you laugh, cry, and think.  Thus, it is the perfect book.  I double dog dare you to not cry when you read pages 74 and 75 and get to the part where she says “he raises his arms to show her how brave he is”.  Double dog dare.   All hail Bragg.

 

 

Make me cry, Stone………….

 

 

 

 

 

Night

 

Best Experienced With:          Chicago

(Please right click on the link below to open up the suggested background music to this evening’s treatise in a new browser.  Ever hear of Occam’s razor?    Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitate.   Mmmmmm and chocolate mousse for dessert?  I’ll take two, please)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soLIZ4W0rZw&feature=related

Been a while since we sharpened our noggins with some Maff.  Please pull out your number 2 pencils with the dinosaur erasers and begin the three Maff problems below.  Since everyone loves them some choices, we will offer some choices in two of the sections.  The answers are at the bottom of the page.  When you finish please turn over your paper and sit quietly (and smugly) while you wait for the rest of the class to finish.  Didn’t you hate that kid?  He/she would always turn over their paper loudly and look around, as if anyone else had finished.  No, you may not have a hall pass.  Shall we begin?

 

Part A

 

Before a collision, a 25-kg object is moving at +12m/s. Find the impulse that acted on the object if, after the collision, it moves at:
a. 8.0m/s
b.-8.0m/s
 Relevant equations
(c)=changes in:
To find impulse, we would use the F=ma, so F=m*(c)v/(c)t
So, F(c)t = m(c)v
Therefore, F(c)t=p2-p1 (impulse-momentum theorem).

OR…………………………please solve the following:

105 is what term in the sequence 9, 13, 17……. (using solve for n:  an + b = x, where x is the given number.

 

 

 

Part B

What number should replace the question mark?

Part C

¼ is the reciprocal of _______    

 OR…………………. please solve the following:

_____ factorial is written as __! and can also be expressed as 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 24

 

 

Part A

25

Part B

6

Part C

4

 

Scientific parsimony at its finest with a hell of a Chicago tune.  A wonderful lesson to practice daily for all those charged with driving top line revenue, cutting costs and serving the magical dual headed beast that is your customers and your sales teams.  Thank you William of Occam!

Thank you all for visiting this evening.  Anyone up for a snowball fight, please meet on the reflecting pool in front of the Washington Monument at midnight.  Bring stuff for s’mores and as many Foster’s Lager oil cans as you can stuff into your parka

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mind of Mully

Should I try to do some more?

25 or

6 to

4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Extra Credit:  The product of two consecutive negative even integers is 24. Find the numbers.

 

Extra Credit Answer:      -6 and -4

 

 

Best Experienced With:          Whitesnake;        Still of the Night

(please right click the link below to open the suggested music for this evening’s treatise)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSOl81lVFfM

How many of you right clicked on that link up there and immediately began playing air guitar?   Please keep your hands up until I finish counting.   76,78, 79.  79 out of 87 and the rest of you are liars.   Saw Coverdale and the boys in 2004 and he looked the same.  He looked eighty-four or so at the 2004 concert and he always looked like he was in his mid eighties.         Where were we?

Wending my way through two  hundred and fourteen sections of vampire novels (cooking with vampires, self help for vampires, vampire history, ad nauseum) at Barnes and Noble in Layton, Utah this evening to find the single non-Vampire novel section, started getting excited about the first Mind of Mully book club this coming weekend.  In the event you are new to The Attic, the instructions and qualifications for the Mind of Mully Book Club are on the following shelf:

https://mindofmullybizhausshoppe.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/blinded-by-passion-you-foolishly-let-someone-in-one-two-three-four/

 

Used a combination offense to get an entire row to myself on the San Diego to Portland flight the other morning.  Pulled out the pink headphones and bought a New York Post for the ride.  Quite clearly, because everything you see in print must be the truth, Governor David Paterson did not have sex with that woman.   Very few things get you an entire row to yourself faster than the pink head phones and a prominently displayed New York Post.

 

Oh, and if you jog through Central Park, please remember to bring at least one large caliber pistol along on your runs, along with a speed loader.  Those coyotes are wily.  Sorry.

 

And this one?  This one is just fantastic!  How can you not just adore the crack writing staff at the New York Post?

 

Found the Mind of Mully (business) Moron of the Month on the same flight.  That is his back and partial profile in the photo immediately above.

Imagine if you had some folks over to measure your windows for new window dressings.  Imagine that if right after you met, they went out in your back yard and started discussing how the window dressing meeting went and what the strategy would be for matching up your needs and stated budget with their offering and their prices.  Now imagine the window dressing people discussing your deal were talking really loudly and the other companies you were considering for window dressings  were playing on your swingset in the backyard.

The Moron of the Month sat on an airplane for ten minutes loudly discussing with his boss the deal structure he was going to present to Emory University for an oncology machine.  The Moron of the Month discussed it in great detail and I took copious notes.  Take a look.

 

Yes, we all recognize that you are a big important bsuiness man.  Yes, we are all probably quite impressed at how you are handling the negotiation.  All of us on this Boeing 737 are even more impressed by how you are tactfully telling your boss that it is all about price and that times are tough and that a deal at 19% margin versus 29% is better than no deal at all.  You self absorbed, self important, poorly negotiating, whining twit.

If you have worked with me, you know that I will never, ever, ever, ever discuss business while in an airport, on an airplane, in a restaurant, ad infinitum.  If you clear all the strangers from all those public places, will gladly yammer on and on about business.  The Moron of the Month has never worked for me because I have never worked for GE Healthcare.  Two years ago, I had two buy side deal attorneys sit in front of me all the way from Boston to San Diego.  They not only discussed the term sheet the entire flight, they had their computers open with the NPV calcs there for the world to see.  Lots of people miss the day they teach common sense in B School.

I had a CEO once who left a meeting at a faith based, non drinking hospital group and dragged us all to a restaurant right next door to the building where we just had a two hour final meeting.  Did he get us a private booth in the back where we could download and discuss the strategy?  Did we get ice tea in case someone we just met with came over for a late lunch?  Nope.  The whole group of us sat at the bar and drank alcohol.  Brilliant! 

Global perception………………………few are called and even fewer are chosen, it seems.

Think.     Action      Reaction     Think      Response      (rinse, repeat)

 

 

 

The Mind of Mully

 

 

 

Look how awesome that view is.

 

Closer.  Look closer.

 

 Smoosh your face up against the window….we have the e ntire row thanks to the pink headphones and the New York Post

 

There you go.    Night.

Best Experienced With:           Neil Diamond;      I Am I Said

(Please right click the link below to open up the suggested background music to this evening’s get together)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwircEDCss8&feature=related

 

 

“No”, said Peter Penguin to Mr. Walrus, “I just got some ice cream while walking around downtown and it was messy”.

 
“Kick start the golden generator
Sweet talk but don’t intimidate her
Can’t stop the gods from engineering
Feel no need for any interfering
Your image in the dictionary
This life is more than ordinary
Can I get two maybe even three of these
Come from outer space
To teach you of the Pleiades
Can’t stop the spirits when they need you
This life is more than just a read through”

Skin that flick
She’s such a little DJ
Get there quick
By street (but not the freeway)
Turn that trick
to make a little leeway
Beat that nic
But not the way that we play

Dog Town……Blood Bath….Rib Cage……Soft Tail

 

Can you feel the voltage?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best Experienced With:          Foo Fighters;                 Monkey Wrench

(Please right click on the link below to cue up the suggested background love song for this evening’s treatise.  The third in a series of three treatises on Haiti and how you can help Haiti over the next twenty years.  Long after CNN is gone, we should all kick in and help out.  Because many non-Haitians will forget and many Haitians need help)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKp5v588-Vs

This is the story of the only time I killed a man or, at the very least, the only time I saw the body.  This is part three of a three part series on what you can do to help Haiti.  To keep the musical motif the same, the Foo Fighters background music is the third of three love songs. Mostly, because love makes the world go round.  Please adjust your volume knobs to eleven.

Shall we begin?

First time I went to Hispanolia was in 1999 with The Woman Who Loved Eddie Vedder (https://mindofmullybizhausshoppe.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/i-wish-i-was-a-neutron-bomb-for-once-i-could-go-off/).  TWWLEV had a time share in the Dominican Republic and I had seven trillion air miles to blow.  We flew in business class from San Diego to Santo Domingo and finished off six of the seven drink carts on the way.  We landed at 10:00 p.m., grabbed a bottle of rum, jumped into a cab, and headed to the resort.

Fifty minutes into the cab ride, we saw a single headlight coming towards us in our lane.  During tenth grade Driver’s Education class in The Land of Cleve, they taught us to always, always, always swerve to the right if a driver is approaching in your lane.  Our cab driver clearly did not have that same instructor in Cleveland or he was out sick the day they taught that defensive driving maneuver on Hispaniola.  Our driver swerved to the left as the motorcyclist swerved to his right and we ended up in the same lane.

We were going sixty or so and, based on the sonic boom and the cracked engine block, the motorcyclist was doing roughly the same speed.  He bounced off of our windshield and flew a hundred yards or so.  Into a tree.

While the cab driver called someone on his cell phone and TWWLEV wisely stayed in the cab, I went back to check on the motorcyclist.  No carotid pulse and most of his head was gone.  The village folks circled me and started yelling.  Five minutes after the crash, a white van pulled up.  Three men grabbed our luggage, herded us into the van, and we drove the rest of the way to the resort in silence.  I could hear the Krebs cycle actually happening in TWWLEV’s cells during the white van ride.  That’s pretty dang quiet.  Our new Dominican friends left the body and the cab in the road.  They did not say a word to the screaming crowd.

Next morning:  “knock, knock, knock” on the door.  Impeccably dressed gentleman in a sharp linen suit and floral tie.

“Mr. Petretti, we are very sorry about the traffic accident you had on the way here and hope it does not reflect badly on the resort.  We want you and your wife to know that the man is now in the hospital resting comfortably and he is going to make a complete recovery.”  No, we were not married.  Yes, that is TWWLEV’s last name.  It was her time share.

They either have a very interesting full skull transplant program at the University Hospital in Santo Domingo or Lazarus and Jesus were out causing mayhem with their shenanigans that evening in the Dominican Republic.  Regardless, that motorcyclist was resting comfortably in his bed that evening and that’s a wonderful, miraculous thing.

The 1999 vacation motorcycle story is 100% true. Please consider that this is how human life is sometimes valued on the right side of Hispaniola….the rich side of the island.  The second wave that DOCTOR Sanjay has been going on and on about is not going to be cholera.  Absent an intentional, well thought out effort and a fifty year event horizon with measurable plans that match Kofi Annan’s Millennium Development Goals, the second wave is more corruption and silliness.  You can find the Millennium Development Goals here:

http://www.undp.org/mdg/basics.shtml

Please note that #2 thorough #5 of the Millennium Development Goals are related to women.  The Man, especially the weakest of The Men, loves to keep women down.   That is why The Man drives Hummers and Corvettes.  Those of us that rage against the machine and The Man truly appreciate how society’s success depends upon the “held mirror” symbol part of society.

Who owns this behavior?  Whose rear view mirror has the blood spatter?  Remember those 1980’s anti-drug commercials that worked on very few of you?  “I learned it from watching you, dad”!  Haiti and The DR learned that behavior from The Man. 

The Man has been messing with Haiti for hundreds of years.  Be it the face of the Spaniards, the face of the Reagan administration, the face of the Carter administration or the face of the do-gooder “missionaries” that show up daily in Haiti to steal jobs from locals with their own paint brushes and hammers.  Just like the Baptist missionaries that got caught stealing some kids to brainwash in Haiti last week, they all have the face of The Man.  The Man only screws things up more and The Man does good deeds so he can tell his friends about his good deeds.  Project Haiti is as far from The Man as my beloved Browns are far from the next Super Bowl.  Light years far away.

If you choose to rage against the machine and tell The Man to pound sand, please join me in rebellious activities such as the one shown below.  The picture below, taken at Cambridge Hospital in Massachusetts illustrates just how far I am willing to go to rage against the machine and The Man.  Feel free to continue the $10 contributions to The Man……or….join us in the grass roots campaign and get your hands a little dirty!

 

You can choose to help with the gathering of trauma related gear and such discussed Friday evening.  You can choose to help us create a surgical destination location centered around The Charity Hospital in Pignon, Haiti.  You can choose the help by sending your money to Project Haiti, Inc instead of The Man.  You make the call, just please make the commitment to yourself that you are in for the long run.  It took The Man 400 years to make a mess of Haiti………..…it’s going to take us at least 100 years to get it back on track.  Long event horizon, indeed.  Game on, Saint Jude.  Game on.

In advance, thanks for your help and your commitment to helping the first black republic in the western hemisphere and the poorest country in the western hemisphere.  Fixing what The Man has turned askew.   Could be a fun little adventure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mind of Mully

 One last thing before I quit I never wanted any more than I could fit into my head I still remember every

single word you said and all the sh^t that somehow came along with it still there’s one thing that

comforts me since I was always caged and now I’m free…..

screamscreamscreamscreamscream

 

 

 

Temper……………………..temper.  

 

 

Find Project Haiti, Inc here:         http://projecthaiti.info/Project_Haiti/Welcome.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This MLOG is dedicated to TWWLEV because all of us up here on the unmatched carpet squares in The Attic  know that you will kick the crap out of cancer.  You are Corsican and cancer is far, far weaker than anyone with Corsican blood.  Keep that stubborn, French jaw up and squared away.  Thanks for the Dominican Republic trip……….never killed anyone with someone I loved before.  Bet Eddie Vedder can’t say that.  Hugs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best Experienced With:           Faces;                   Ohh La La

 

(Please right click on the link below to cue up the suggested background music for this evening’s part two of a three part series on Haiti and what you can do to help, outside of texting $10 to the Red Cross so they can spend $8 of that $10 on administrative fees and such.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  It’s your money….am simply providing alternate options for your $10.  Jeff Back and Rod Stewart back in “the day”.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhjHBV20ZV4

 

 

 

The Attic is now an “Anderson Cooper Free” zone.  To purge his spirit, we shall begin with a little something from Bobby Frost, one of our poet laureates up here.  This is for you Mind of Mullyites over there on the right coast.  Brrrrrrrrrr……

 

 

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

 

Take it from a native of The Land of Cleve:  it will melt.  Pinky promise. 

 Shall we begin?

My ex wife had grand plans for Chez Mulligan.  Most of them involved sums of money available only to African dictators using slave labor to mine diamonds for the Dutch.  Or those with unfettered access to NASA’s annual budget checkbook, brought mathematically to the power of Germany’s GDP.  After “we” remodeled the bathroom in the master bedroom, I became a big fan of the scope of work.

If, when “we” remodeled the bathroom, we had an agreed upon scope of work, would probably still have a big two person tub in there instead of a 700 square foot walk in shower…………for one.  Would probably have a nice glass door on there and would probably have not spent exactly six times the budget allocated.  Perhaps if we had a scope of work and I did not leave The LJ for a week when the crew was here with jackhammers and visions of dollar signs in their eyes as I walked out the door with my suitcase. 

Ooh, la la.  Always have a written scope of work in work and in life.  Always.  Ohh la la.

Lots and lots of hand wringing and folks screaming at the top of their Fox News, MTV, and CNN lungs “WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING TO HELP HAITI HELP THEMSELVES”.   Agreed!  The next six months people need food, clothing, and medical care.  Take care of that part of the Maslow pyramid.  No reason we cannot collectively start thinking about Q4, 2010 and how we are going help long term.  Maybe a good plan will stop MTV from broadcasting another evening of mumbling morons that could not point to Haiti on a world map.  That was embarrassing.  If you are MTV.  The cats here in the office averted their eyes often during the MTV broadcast and coughed in an uncomfortable fashion throughout MTV’s Haiti show. 

How about if we find a group of intelligent industry professionals and folks with tons of extra cash burning a hole in their pocket that are willing to spend the next ten years executing the outline below?  How about if you read it and send an email with the names and email addresses of those you feel are uniquely qualified to help.  Hearts as big as Alaska and bank accounts large enough to remodel any room in Chez Mulligan with my ex wife.  Those are the kind of folks that we need for this ten year adventure.

After the remodeling of the bathroom incident, I choose to do nothing without a scope of work.  Here is a 10,000 foot view and scope of work for creating a surgical destination location in Haiti. 

 

Executive Summary:  Pignon, Haiti as a Surgical Destination Location

 

Goal  

Generate an additional $30,000 per month in top line revenue, minimum.  This equates to an additional 40 cases per month at $750.00 per case.   Grow this over five years to an additional, incremental 800 cases per year by 2013.  This will allow the hospital to meet their monthly payroll and begin saving money by 2011.  When we meet our 2013 goals, the hospital will be able to begin reinvesting excess capital into expansion projects.  End goal is cash flow positive without any external inputs.

Definition of Success

 

Outside of the obvious top and bottom line revenue growth, definition of success is that every single patient and every member of their families returns to either their home in Haiti or their home in another country and say the following to their family and friends:

          “We just had the most fantastic experience when ________ had his/her surgery in Pignon, Haiti!  The trip was perfect and completely planned for us and we did not have to worry about a thing.  Everyone we met was professional and fantastic, the medical and surgical care was top notch, and we would do it again, if the need arose. “

 

This is especially critical in the first two years.   We will not have the opportunity to stumble.  We need net promoters from day one.  We will measure satisfaction daily and adjust accordingly.  Should we have personnel issues, we most likely will not have time to performance manage and we need to be very clear about this from day one with everyone involved in the project.

A growing industry of any kind helps to educate, gets women into the work force and creates a source of pride.  By establishing Haiti as a surgical destination location from 2010 to 2020, we accomplish these three and many other activities that will lead to self sustaining economic growth over the next one hundred years.

Plan

Pignon has the finest surgical suite in all of the Caribbean and it is underutilized.   We have everything in place to be a destination location for not only Haitian patients, but from patients from the United States, the Caribbean, and Mexico.

Haitian surgeons can choose to work wherever they wish.  The Charity Hospital in Pignon has done an outstanding job of creating an excellent surgical environment with modern technology, engaged teams, and on-going training.  The surgical suites there are world class and air conditioned.

Goal over the next twenty four months is to put what has already been accomplished on HGH and steroids simultaneously.  We are successful when:

1. Within one year (April 2, 2010) most surgeons and the correct, paying patient population in Haiti knows about our hospital and the advanced surgical work that can be done here.  Measurement is an additional case load of at least 20 per month (240 incremental cases between 4/15/09 and 4/01/10)

 

1. Within two years (April 2, 2011), we are known throughout the Caribbean as a destination hospital for advanced laparoscopic and CT/CV.  We have had a minimum of 30 patients fly in from outside of Haiti for an advanced surgical case from outside of Haiti between 4/15/09 and 4/01/11

 

1. Within three years (April 2, 2012) we are well known in the Haitian communities in Miami, New York, Boston, and Montreal.  Incremental cases from the United States between 4/15/09 and 4/01/12 is 890, ramping up like this:

 

1. 2009:       10
2. 2010:       30
3. 2011:       250
4. 2012:       600

 

1. By 2013, we are known in Mexico City as a destination hospital for the wealthy with an experience wrapped around the visit.  We are successful on this goal when we have 15 VIP patients from Mexico in 2012 and an additional 45 VIP patients from Mexico in 2013. 

 

We will accomplish the goals above by continuing to modernize the hospital and add new advanced lines.  Moreover, we will continue to make it an experience for patients so that they tell their friends about their amazing experience in Pignon.  As more and more of these patients tell their friends, patients will begin asking their surgeons if they “have operating privileges in Pignon”.

We can leverage patients better than surgeons, long term because there are fewer visionary surgeons than there are patients that want great surgical outcomes and special treatment.  This will be especially true for the key demographic we are after:  Haitian expats.  When Haitian expats start going back to Miami and telling friends and families how fantastic their care and experience was in Pignon, our expat caseload will grow exponentially.  This is our sweet spot over a ten year event horizon.

Project Haiti has done an exemplary job perfecting an SOP for teams coming in to teach and for the Haitian residents and surgeons that come in for courses.   We need to duplicate this for patients and their family.  We need to make it effortless and smooth for patients to get to Pignon, stay in Pignon, and return home. 

Step one is to look at their entire experience from a patient and their family’s point of view.  How long does it take to get to Pignon?  What are the barriers to getting to Pignon directly?  How can we eliminate these?   Who meets us at the airport?  Does anyone try to sell me a time share?  Do I feel safe the minute I land?  Can I walk anywhere I want safely and without molestation?   Where does my family stay?   Can someone arrange everything from start to finish for me?   Can I get a fixed price on everything?  Is there a VIP area or is everyone treated the same?  Can I pay extra and get better treatment?

For example, if someone were to ask me to compare and contrast Los Cabos, Mexico and La Paz, Mexico my choice would be La Paz.  Reason for this is as soon as I arrive in Los Cabos I am approached virtually every minute by people wanting to sell me things on the beach and time shares.  We do not want that type of atmosphere in Pignon.

The additional upside of building up the infrastructure and culture needed to create an experience for patients is we will create industry in Pignon and throughout the central plateau.  We get people coming here for surgery and everything else falls into place.  Charity Hospital in Pignon can become the Rochester, MN and Cleveland, OH for those that cannot afford the Mayo or the CCF.

 

Examples of Successful Surgical Destination

(see full sales and marketing plan)

Shared Features and Benefits

(see full sales and marketing plan)

Differentiating Features and Benefits

 

(see full sales and marketing plan)

Training

 

Just as you have trained the surgeons and hospital folks over the past years on surgical procedures, we need to train folks in town to make the patient and family experience a special one.  Think Disney, American Girl, or Starbucks.  We need to create a replicable, sustainable culture that is talked about when patients and their families fly back to Miami, Mexico City, etc after their surgery.  Proper training is a critical success factor.

          Gevy has hands on experience and does a great job here.  He would be an ideal choice for a formalized concierge training program.  We can put together a formal, quarterly training week, run by Gevy, where kids that want to be “guides” for patients in the future learn the skills.  

We will have a formal application process, a full syllabus, required reading and a graduation at the end, provided the student meets all the requirements.  Only those individuals that commit themselves to the course and graduate from the course will be able to make their living as guides.  This will help to create the experience we need to grow Pignon into a destination for surgery.

From a patient perspective, we need to have a better pre-op experience.  Have not seen post op and cannot opine on that experience.  

We can also have a formal vetting process for the remainder of our value chain:   charter airplanes and pilots, hotels, car drivers, hotels, etc.  Reward is twofold.  First, we know that our patients and their families will get treated the same way, every single time.   Second, we will create competition among the industries to get the “Charity Hospital of Pignon” gold seal of approval.   Competition makes everyone better and a rising tide lifts all boats.

Conclusion

 

Many cities in relatively “under developed” countries have refashioned themselves into surgical destination locations over the past thirty years.  With the right team, a good plan, and a long enough event horizon we can make Pignon and the Haitian central plateau a surgical destination that drives the economy.  Most important, within ten years this can be a Haitian self sustaining economy driver, needing little or no input from anyone outside of Haiti. 

 

The Mind of Mully

 

I wish that Iknew all I know now

When I was younger

I wish that I knew all I know now

When I was stronger

 

 

 

Contact information is at tab above cleverly titled “Contact Info”.   Hey Natalie I, I have three guitars here and we can play this Faces song together after our Valentine’s Day date.  Will you please play the Jeff Beck part?  I still suck pretty bad at guitar playing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best Experienced With:        Counting Crows;           Round Here

 

 

 

 

I was not always a cat whisperer and Chez Mulligan was not always the furry rescue habitat it is today.  Have always been amused by people that comment dismissively; “oh, you are a cat person”.  Most of these folks do not ask questions such as “do you love all animals or just cats”?  All animals are welcome up here in The Attic.  We are listed in the most search engines as a cross between The Island of Misfit Toys and Marshall University’s 1972 football team.

In fact, due to travel and such, Chez Mully started out with an easy to maintain pet that only ate once a week or so.  A ten foot Burmese python.

Once she got aggressive, progressed to eating large warm blooded animals, and decided my arm looked tasty, the ten foot Burmese python moved on and three green iguanas moved in.  John, Godzilla, and Rodan were perfect pets.  They slept on the seldom used pilot lights on the stove from 5:00 p.m. until 9:00 a.m.   At 9:00 a.m. they moved outside to the deck where they worked on their tans, hummed show tunes, and snarfed down kale and blueberries with reckless abandon.

Dogs are out of the question when your career adventures take you away from the house more than two nights a week.  Given enough land and time (and no business travel), would opt for a few dozen Tibetan Mastiffs.  Compared to a cat, the only pet easier to care for are the fish you win at your school fair by throwing a ping pong ball into a goldfish bowl.  Goldfish bore most of us to tears after the first three minutes.

What do you want your obituary to say?  Mine?  Short and simple, unlike most of the MLOGs we pin to the bulletin board up here in The Attic.   Mine will say this:

 

Mully had the most remarkable and diverse collection of friends and acquaintances that he amassed through adventures over the years.  He laughed like a hyena as much as possible and never passed up the opportunity to hear a good story.  He loved beer and Hostess snack cakes, as well as the magic and mystery that are Razzles.  First they’re a candy and then they’re a gum.  Little round Razzles are so much fun.

 

Here is Sage’s obituary.

Sage Mulligan, 10, died at 3:00 a.m. on December 23, 2009 after a bravely fought, but far too short, battle with liver cancer.

 

As near as most can figure, Sage was born around May, 1999 in the vacant lot next to Chez Mulligan to an unknown male cat and an unknown female cat.  He was captured  at the age of seven weeks by Mully and Opes when they arrived home from Street Scene at the crack of dawn.  Deemed “unadoptable” due to a developmental issue, Sage chose to live out his natural life in Chez Mulligan with the rest of the pack.

 

 

 

Sage never had the opportunity (or need) to work, but had he chosen a career we are certain he would have given Ricky Bobby a run for his money on the Nascar circuit.  He never took a wife, instead choosing at twelve weeks to live the life of a eunuch-like monk, dispensing wisdom for those that sought him out.  Hence………..his name.

 

 

 

Sage was a member of the New Reformed Church of the Holy Feline and enjoyed bathing in sun rays, saying his own name aloud in a mimic form, and kitty treats.  No cat has ever loved kitty treats more than Sage.

 

 

 

His family wrote: “Sage loved rolling around in catnip and chasing fake mice with feather tails when he was younger. As he matured, he most loved walking upstairs to eat as much food as possible, then retiring to the big bed downstairs for an eighteen or nineteen hour nap . Sage always told a good story and was a gentle cat.  He will be missed greatly by his best friend Bruiser and the man that fed him the kitty treats.”

Sage is survived by his sisters and brothers Marsha, Jan, Cindy, Bruiser, Ceeeeeeeatie, and Deeeeeeeogie.  His silly antics, lack of balance, and propensity to fall to the right will be sorely missed by the guy that kept Sage fat over the years. 

In lieu of flower arrangements, please feel free to go adopt an “unadoptable” pet like Sage before they get euthanized by The Man.  The shelters are brimming with Sages and there is no such thing as unadoptable.

 

The Mind of Mully

 

 

Thanks for visiting us for a while, Sage.  You and Mr. Samuelson have a wonderful time up there postulating economic theories.  Please tell Jesus “happy birthday” from all of us at His birthday party on Friday.

The Attic now has six cats, because seven would be just plain weird.

This MLOG has two purposes.  First,. since we are not going to lay down tracks for my debut album I’ll Be Your Emperor Penguin until we have a great big cash advance from a major studio (and  helicopter), this MLOG will establish prior art for the title track below.  Thus, should Prince, Metallica, or The Hanson Brothers release a similar song, they will owe us millions.

We have now established a date, in a public venue, and clearly this is original.   That, my friends, sums up the concept of prior art!

James Hetfield eat your heart out.

I’ll Be Your Emperor Penguin

Chorus is  Dsus2, Gsus4, D (if you see fit)

Refrains are Gsus2, D, A7….repeat

___________________________________________

Gsus2

Unemployment hasn’t killed me,

Gsus2

But your thigh highs thrilled me

D

And your (expletive deleted) blew me straight through the wall.

Gsus2

The Ramen was easy

Gsus2

And your buttocks were squeezy

D

And now we’re in the middle of fall

A7

450 a week ain’t nothing to sneeze at.

Gsus2

Because it’s better than 449.

A7

And when we have movie night, for the three hundredth time,

Gsus2

I’ll still scream to the world that you’re mine.

Dsus2

I don’t want to be your lion, baby

Gsus4

Cause I ain’t got much of a roar.

Dsus2

And I don’t want to be your tomcat, honey

Gsus4

Cause people will call me a whore.

Dsus2

I can’t really be your cuddly bear

Gsus4

Cause I never want to share my honey.

Dsus2

But I’ll be your emperor penguin….

Gsus4                                                   Dsus2

….and you can bring home all of the money.

Your daddy looks for extraterrestrials

And picks fights with basketball refs

And if you promise not to recruit me,

For asta kalapa,

I’ll stay right here in the nest.

Don’t want squid or krill

Raw herring or crustaceans

Or anything smelly, my dear.

Just make me that pot roast

Give me three Foster’s Lagers

And I’ll hang right here with my beer

I don’t want to be your lion, honey

Cause I ain’t got much of a roar.

And I don’t want to be your tomcat, baby

Cause people will call me a whore.

I can’t really be your cuddly bear

Cause I never want to share my honey.

But I’ll be your emporer penguin….

….and you can bring home all of the money.

You can’t trust me with plumbing, electrical connections

Or folding the laundry the right way

But I’m a mean cat herder, a marmoset juggler
And I’ll kiss your stupid face all day

If you bring home the cash,

I’ll grab your neck in my beak

And we can have nekked Saturday

All week………….

I don’t want to be your lion, honey

Cause I ain’t got much of a roar.

And I don’t want to be your tomcat, baby

Cause people will call me a whore.

I can’t really be your cuddly bear

Cause I never want to share my honey.

But I’ll be your emperor penguin….

….and you can bring home all of the money.

(Editors Note:  I would, indeed, stay home in the nest should anyone care to make me think, feel and laugh like a hyena AND bring home all the money.  Am very self actualized that way.)

 

 

 

Best Experienced With:          Hoodoo Gurus;              1,000 Miles Away

 

(Please right click on the link below to open up the suggested background tunage for this evening’s missive.  Then, please say the name of the band fourteen times aloud….rapidly)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDlavnA1ck8

 

 

 

 

Twas the night before Thanksgiving

And all through The Attic,

Permeated the odor of Stella Artois

And the sound of raw static.

Ceeeeeeeatie with pink headphones

And me with a Kangol

Were looking for Bernie Madoff

Who surely we’d strangle…………………

 

 

 

 

 

Hmmmmmm. Far too trite.  We used to mock newspaper columnists that did “holiday” specials as original as oxygen transfer in capillaries.   Going to stop that one right there, even though we took some great shots yesterday as illustrations (see immediately above.  Going to retain the right to strangle Mr. Madoff.  Looking forward to seeing Mr. Madoff in hell.  Have some fun ideas on how he and I will spend eternity. 

 

 

 

Writing on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day have been my favorites for the past four years.  On Thanksgiving Day we always have Cornucopia of The Ridiculous and on Christmas Day we have Santa and The Savior’s Non Sequitors.   If you are new to the Mind of Mully, please make certain you drink as many of your grandmother’s slushy whiskey punch drinks as humanly possible tommorrow morning and then climb on up here for some fun during the Detroit game.

 

 

 

“Istanbul was Constantinople.  Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople.  Been a long time gone, Constantinople.  Now it’s a Turkish delight on a moonlit night.”

 

 

 

The Rule of Rattay.  You will read nothing in this incarnation of The Mind of Mully that I would not feel comfortable saying out loud to the entire Rattay family at the Thanksgiving dinner table after asking John to “pass the peas” for the seventeenth time.  Were I at the Rattay Thanksgiving table tomorrow, here is the joke I would tell.   72% of the Rattay family lives in Arizona.

 

 

 

A couple from Phoenix, Arizona is on vacation in La Jolla, California.  They are fighting like cats and dogs about the correct pronunciation of the seaside town they are visiting and decide to settle the argument by stopping at a local fast food establishment.  The couple walks in, each convinced they are correct and say to the pimply faced seventeen year old cashier:  “excuse us, how do we pronounce where we are”.  The cashier looks at them and very deliberately says:  “Burrrrrrrrrgerrrrrrrr Kingggggg”.

 

 

 

The first time I heard this song you are listening to was while driving home late on a Friday evening to Fairfield, Ohio from a surgical evaluation at TJ Samson Hospital in Glasgow, KY.  1991.  If you broke the rules and did not cue up the music listed up at the top of the page?     Leave.    If I came into your house and you had a “no shoe” rule because you chose stark white carpeting (what were you thinking ?), I’d remove my shoes.  If you want to play up here with the rest of us in The Attic, you cue up that music.  Get yourself some headphones if you read at work.  We have extra Skullcandy headphones up here in The Attic and will loan them out as needed. 

 

 

 

Please always cue up the music.

 

 

 

Now the rest of us, the people that follow precise directions precisely, will continue discussing the lyrical stylings of the Hoodoo Gurus and why this song might be quite personal for those of you that choose to carry the bag or desire to carry the bag down the line.   This is one of the finest sales songs ever and a perfect tune for a long drive home on a Friday night!

 

 

 

Those of you that have found that person with whom you chose to share that “last first kiss” and also sell well year after year, our collective hats are off to you for managing that balance between home and work.  Carrying the bag and being a great partner and parent is an art and a science.  A decision made daily as the alarm clock goes off and a strategy executed hourly, regardless of the curveballs thrown.  I could no more do what you do on a daily basis than I could dunk on a ten foot rim against King James, patron saint of The Land of Cleve.

 

 

 

Have seen many of you do this balancing act exceptionally well.  This next four days is especially for you.  Have a wonderful time with that “last first kiss” person and the others in your life that allow you to find depth at low tide. 

 

 

 

All of you that carry the bag!  We are most thankful for you on this the most caloric of all weekends.  The rest of us in every company in every market space are overhead.  Management, operations, R&D, finance, ad infinitum…..we do not generate revenue.  Sales teams are the only teams that generate revenue and for you, we are most thankful.  Your individual efforts put the food on our tables on Thanksgiving.

 

 

Thanks for allowing the “no’s” to slide off of your Teflon exteriors.  Thanks for getting up every morning at dawn knowing that it’s a new day and believing that someone, somewhere is going to buy from you.  Thanks for walking into a place where no one knows you to cold call.  Thanks for staying up late to do copious follow up.  Thanks for being strong enough and malleable enough to deal with days that always deconstruct at 9:42 a.m.  Thanks for asking questions.  Thanks for not just yapping and yapping and yapping.  Thanks for having courage and discipline.   Thanks for driving revenue and allowing each of us that does not have “sales” on our business cards to have jobs.

 

 

 

We will always be thankful for the sales people because you are the most important people in any organization in any market space.   You.     Alone.    Drive.   Revenue.  Growth.

 

 

 

 

Thanks to all of you that carry the bag, from all of us that do not carry the bag.  Thanks for paying for our jobs.  You are unique.  You deserve our praise.

 

 

 

 You rock

 

 

 

Going to spend the rest of the evening here in The Attic getting this stocking hung with care and preparing for the writing of the Cornucopia of the Ridiculous.  Thanks for popping up here tonight.  See you soon.