… from caffeine that is.  I read this article today regarding the effects of caffeine withdrawal.  Seeing as I haven’t posted anything to the blog for a while I thought I’d at least comment.

Last August I swore off caffeine.  Admittedly, I wasn’t a coffee or tea drinker, so the only swearing off was for soda.  I drank 2 - 5  caffeinated sodas a day.  I would often get headaches or feel sluggish at times.

The first few weeks were rough.  Headaches, often tired, etc.  But I’m happy to report that today things are much better.  I’m usually more alert.  In fact, I didn’t fall asleep during conference once! 

The only downfall is that there often isn’t much choice for what to drink from restaurants.  Most restaurants don’t have sodas that are diet AND caffeine free.  So sometimes I end up exchanging the caffeine for a sugar rush.  But I’ve also begun to get water most of the time.  Saves me some cash too.

So I’m calling you out… give it a try.  Your body will thank you for it.

Yesterday I put in some time at the Deseret Industries thrift store as part of a service assignment from church.  I admit, I am terrible at getting out to do service projects.  There is always something that is either in the way of the schedule or something.  I’m not often the first to volunteer — a fault I should try to improve on.

So I had a three hour shift, and while I would like to say it was a fantastic experience and I did a lot of good work, it just didn’t turn out that way.  Honestly it didn’t seem like they needed the extra help.  There were plenty of people there, many of them employees.  But I said I would help for three hours, so I did.  I spent the entire time “merchandising” the floor.  Which essentially means waiting for carts of items that have been sorted in the back room to come out to the floor and then sort items and put them on the shelves.  It certainly wasn’t glamorous work, but I didn’t expect it to be.  But I did expect it to be work, and it just wasn’t.  Slow paced and just trying to pass the time.

So to help pass the time I spent a lot of time observing people.  The DI is certainly a good people watching spot.  So I make note of the items I saw here, for future reference:

• I had not one, but two people approach me and try to haggle on prices.
• One little boy (probably 7 or 8 years old) went down the toy aisle and immediately found a robotic dinosaur right after I put it on the shelf.  He picked it up and spent the next 15 minutes or so following his mom around with it, every now and then pausing to make the dinosaur “roar”.  It didn’t look like he could get any happier.
• There were not one, not even three, but five singing fish on a plaque.  Ughhh… I never want to hear Bobby McFerrin or Talking Heads again.  They should both be punished for licensing their songs to a singing fish.
• The phrase “one man’s garbage is another’s treasure” is so true… absolutely true.
• A mom came up to me with her little girl (about 7 or 8 years old) and asked where the bikes were, so I pointed back to the doors and told them there were plenty.  The smile on that little girl could have lit up a room.
• I watched a little boy pull a Mouse Trap game off the shelf and set the whole thing up on one of the coffee tables.  He was still playing when I left.
• I’ve decided that there is a lot of unused Tupperware in the world.  Lots of it.  Please recycle it people.
• I met a lot of employees who thanked me for volunteering.  They all seemed to like their jobs a lot.  I think that’s the real reason for Deseret Industries.
• They have a lot of books.  However, I think some of them just need to be pulled off the shelf and recycled.  They had reference books for Windows 3.1, DOS 6.0, and Lotus 123.  Even at $0.75 those ones aren’t worth it.

Did you feel that?  I’ve moved andrewlawrence.us to a new webserver.  If you’re seeing this message, then congrats!  Your browser/ISP found it.  If you’re not seeing this, well, then that doesn’t make sense.

Big thanks to my friend Jeff Patton who continues to let me host my website off of his server.  Give him a visit at http://www.agileproductdesign.com.

The news is filled with reports of layoffs at all sorts of companies.  2000 here, 7000 there, etc.  It’s one thing to read about it, but it’s another thing to watch it happen in front of your eyes.  Yesterday my place of employment (Tomax) initiated a layoff.  I’m fine as far as still having a job, but because of my position in the company I was involved in the planning and the actual implementation.

It’s been a rough few days.  I haven’t slept at all.  I’ve been through it once before, seeing it happen, but I’ve never had to actually be involved in the execution — and I would prefer to never do it again.  It was the hardest thing I’ve had to do in recent memory.  Being involved in the planning and the decision of who goes and who stays was not something I want to repeat.  I had to meet with managers under me 90 minutes before the layoffs start to inform them of what is about to happen, completely ruining their day.  I had to go get people from their desks individually and bring them into a meeting with upper management.  I had to sit in the room while the message is delivered.  I had to walk them back to their desks to collect their things and escort them out the doors.  I had to watch as everyone else around wonders what is going on, and then as realization sets in the paranoia begins.  I felt terrible.  It was the longest day of work in my life.

There have been many lessons I have learned from the whole ordeal.  Nothing that I’m going to mention here.  And if any of those people that I walked out of building are reading this, I apologize again.  You are all excellent workers.  Place me on any referral list that you need.

Say whatever you want about our new president, but there is no denying that history was made today.  January 20, 2009 will stand as a day that the United States of America finally throws off the chains of its legacy of slavery and segregation.  That’s not to say that racism doesn’t still occur, because it does.  But we have certainly reached a new level of equality.

I spent all day in meetings at work.  I finally got a chance to watch President Obama’s inaugural address at about 8:00pm tonight.  The man is a great speaker.  I don’t know what it is about certain people, but some people are just able to inspire.  I did cast my vote for Obama in November because I wanted to see something different in the White House (Like your vote for president in Utah really matters… stupid electoral college…).  It will be interesting to see how the next 100 days and how 2009 progresses, but I do think we may finally start to see changes.

Note to self… check back in 365 days…

Elena cleaned the carpets in the family room the other day.  As I was putting the furniture back into the room I moved back in two chairs (like the picture at the right) and thought to myself… “man, if these chairs could talk!”

These two chairs have existed for literally decades.  They were given to Elena and I when we were married so that we had something to sit on.  They came from my grandparent’s house and I know they were with them for many years.  Those are some sturdy chairs!  I tried to think if there is any other piece of furniture that Elena and I still have from when we were first married and I can’t think of any.  Those chairs have been through a lot.  Here is their brief story of life with us:

• Placement in the first Lawrence home, a tiny basement apartment.  The bathroom was so small you could sit on the toilet, put your feet in the shower, and wash your hands in the sink all at the same time.
• Moved to the duplex where they lived in the kitchen at a tiny table.
• Moved to an apartment where they then lived with a bumper pool table.
• Moved to a basement apartment (translated: cheaper) where they still lived with the bumper pool table.
• Moved to our first home, still with the bumper pool table (I think…)
• Then began the beating… they became the ultimate step ladders.  They were used to paint ceilings, stain an arbor, change light bulbs, and build a play set.
• Moved to our current home, sans bumper pool table.  Here they have still filled the step ladder role for all the same things plus construction and insulation install.
• And now they are often the resting place of the backside of two little girls as they eat their meal and watch TV.

And that’s just the 17+ years they’ve been with us.  I bet Grandpa could tell some great stories about the chairs!

Well… haven’t posted for a while, eh?  Not good.  So how about some social commentary to get us going?

I just got back from Costco where gas was $1.94 a gallon.  That is less than half of what it was just three or four months ago!  That means that it now actually costs more to get gas from Taco Bell then from a gas pump!

I’m all for cost savings.  I admit it will certainly help out my pocketbook for the holiday season.  Why would anyone complain about cheap prices?  I’m not going to complain, just express concern.  I didn’t like paying $4.35 a gallon.  That hurt.  But it did cause a great shift in people’s thinking in this country.  A great thought process towards “going green”, getting better fuel efficiency in vehicles, recycling, and trying to find ways to get this country off of its silly addiction to foreign energy.

I just hope we don’t regress.  I worry that people will revert to old habits.  I’ve read articles in the paper where they interview people about the lower prices and people say things like “now I can visit my family more frequently” or something like that.  But you know what?  Maybe you shouldn’t.  We’ve got to still try to cut back.

I’ve even found myself doing it, so I’ve got to focus.  There is no way that these prices will stay this low for too long.

Enough of the soapbox speech.  It all comes down to the same advice I give to all my employees — just don’t do anything stupid. 

UPDATE: Just got back from Costco again - it $1.87!  Honestly, when was the last time it was this low?

I read this article from ESPN from one of their writers who spent Sunday afternoon with Larry Miller, instead of being at the Jazz-Lakers Game 4. Nice PR work on Larry’s part to allow the guy to drive with him. I think the article is pretty good.

And I should clarify… I am not as reserved as Larry, but perhaps I should be. I did sneak away during church to check the score. As soon as church was over I told the kids I would meet them in the car and I went out to the radio. I focused on nothing else on the drive home. And when we got home the TV came on and then low and behold… overtime. Had to watch it. Even made everyone wait for me to start dinner until it was over.

I think I might have a problem…

Today was the annual Tomax Easter Egg Hunt. That’s right… a bunch of software/retail geeks running through the parking lot for maybe 60 seconds to gather as many plastic eggs as possible. I think someone said there were over 200 eggs this year. There ended up being about 30 people.

And yes, yours truly did participate. I stood at the back doors with everyone else for 10 minutes before the doors were opened. Grown people trying to weasel their way to the front of the line.

There was candy in the eggs, but there were also about 20 eggs with pieces of paper in them corresponding to prizes. I gathered twelve eggs in the front of my shirt and returned to my office to count my loot. Twelve eggs, and only one had a prize. Last year I only got 4 eggs, but two of them had a prize! Not bad though, not everyone got a prize. So I now have an extra $25 to spend at Redrock for a date night.

Think this sounds too insane!? Gordon was kind enough to video tape the entire session again this year. You can see the video by clicking here. If you look carefully, I’m the guy that runs out at about the 10 second mark in the yellow shirt! Thanks Gordon!

Have you ever had one of those days where it just seems that everything going on around you is just utterly depressing? I admit, the things I list out below are rather superficial, but still… it just makes me sit back and go “what is going on!?” All of these things have happened today and it just bums me out:

• The stock market is in the toilet. I’ve watched my retirement funds lose 16% of their value in the last 45 days. So today, the Fed announces a big cut on the interest rate. Good news! Or at least it should be… but the market still dives and in reality, the cut can’t help the long term problem.
• Oscar nominations come out and there is literally nothing on the list that I have seen. Not only that, but 90% of what is on the list I have no desire to see. Hollywood has definitely lost touch with reality.
• I bought stock in Apple when it slipped a little. Only problem… it was just the beginning. It’s now down 20% since I bought it. To make it worse, they announce the best earnings in the company’s lifetime and they are rewarded with the stock slipping another 12% after hours. Good crap.
• Actor Heath Ledger is found dead in his apartment from an apparent drug overdose. It’s just sad. He was a great actor. And what’s even more sad is that the first thought that pops into my mind is “gee, I hope all of his scenes for The Dark Knight were finished!”. What is my problem?

But in the meantime… the family is doing fine and I love my wife immensely! Tomorrow everything will be better.