Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

Sakura Japanese Steakhouse in Christiansburg hits the spot!

I have had my eye on the new Sakura Steakhouse in Christiansburg ever since it opened, but I had not found time to drop in for a meal until a few days ago. I was really impressed with the food and the service and will make this a frequent stop from now on.

I had the Bento Box with steak for lunch. I received excellent service and the food was perfectly prepared and efficiently served.

As I recall, the price of the meal was six dollars and change, so I was surprised when the meal included a bowl of excellent onion soup (I thought it was Miso at first) and a crisp tasty salad

This was an ample lunch and there was enough tempura and steak left over to ask for a take home box which I shared with my wife Gretchen later.

I have eaten Japanese food all over the US in all sorts of restaurants and I would recommend this restaurant and its current menu to anyone.


The food is far better than the decor would indicate. The restaurant looks like an ordinary diner. It is not an upscale Japanese steakhouse where you would take clients you want to wine and dine. You take clients here who appreciate good food.


I appreciate good food and I appreciate people who care about their products and service. I hope they do not change anything as they seem to have a winning combination.

Scott Adams gets it - Skype can change your business

Skype is one of those new fangled things that have been around for years and is finally finding general use.  I use Skype video conferencing to do face-to-face business meetings every day with clients and suppliers in far-off places like Brisbane, Birmingham and Moscow. And Adelaide, Seattle and Dallas...and Las Vegas...

Dilbert is a creation of Scott Adams

I look forward to the day when I can do business in Roanoke, Salem, and Christiansburg from my Floyd workshop without driving an hour or more over mountain roads.

Skype is free, for now at least, and you should look into it if you have high speed Internet and would like the convenienceof face-to-face communication with people who are important to you.

Instant video conferencing lets you build tight relationships with like-minded people. I am already looking forward to my next smartphone which will give me mobile Skype video conferencing when I am out of my office.

We are invited to be the Earth Healers

I see that the Concerned Citizens Network has the solution to global warming, unemployment, and our huge deficit and it will only require a totalitarian government, presumably run by the CCN.

For those of you who are skeptics and unbelievers, the following quotes are taken verbatim from their latest letter which urges us to support their version of the 2012 Farm Bill.

The fundamental point of their ultimate solution is this:

"For the continual survival of the human race, food choice is no longer a personal preference."

How could we have overlooked that fact? We must obviously adopt a slave mentality and eat what the government tells us to eat.

Their way to attain this utopian state is unbelievably simple:

"A shift to plant-based Organic Agriculture is the quickest way to restore the health of each American and the health of our Planet."

Just in case you missed the flag they are waving, it is vegan totalitarianism:

"We urge you to help American recognize the cruel truth about the meat culture."

They want to subsidize plant-based organic agriculture, not sustainable organic farming. This isn't about making healthier people, it is all about taking control of your life and your diet. These are fascists masquerading as vegans.

Kiss those cheeseburgers goodbye if these zealots ever get their way.

Here is their letter in full:

December 6, 2011

Food Policy Determines Our Destiny

Dear Fellow Journalist David,

If you know of an important solution which could save millions of lives and the world, would you choose to keep quiet or to help to put out  the fire?

We all want a healthier nation with cleaner water, cleaner air, food free from toxic chemicals and genetic modification, and to curb the climate change crisis. With a huge financial deficit, high unemployment, food security issues, water shortage crisis, and rising health care costs, with just one single change in our food policy, we can significantly alleviate each  of the issues above and reset things back to the right track. Now is the time to do it.

The 2012 Farm Bill does not only impact to the future of United States, it also affects the welfare of people all over the world. Tell Congress to start subsidies for Organic Plant Farming. By helping farmers transition and succeed in Organic Plant Farming, United States will build a solid foundation for sustainable agriclture. It is a win win policy for the government, farmers, taxpayers, consumers and the world. This new food policy will determine our destiny.

A good practice goes a long way beyond staying with the law. We urge you to help American recognize the cruel truth about the meat culture. A shift to plant-based Organic Agriculture is the quickest way to restore the health of each American and the health of our Planet. For the continual survival of the human race, food choice is no longer a personal preference.

Join us. Sign the letter today and  share the solution.

For more information, please visit http://http://www.concernedcitizensnetwork.org/take_action/.

Job hunting for the older professional

If you are trying to find a professional position in an organization and you are 50 years old or older, you need to adopt a different strategy because you will have extreme difficulty finding work through conventional means.

Conventional job search includes sending out resumes, responding to ads, and working through a headhunter or professional placement agency. These are pretty much a waste of time unless you are a prime candidate with current experience, no health issues and show interest and enthusiasm ... and are as young as the other candidates for the position.

There are job opportunities for older applicants with the right qualifications. But this is the typical scenario:

You get the interview with Human Resources instead of the hiring manager with the live job requisition. The HR person is probably your daughter's age. She will be very polite, but it will be difficult to bond with this person and your experience probably started when she was in grade school. She will probably feel sorry for you but you will not meet any of the requirements she is looking for. The interview has nowhere to go but down.

If you don't know what the situation is and you walk in cold for an interview, you are not doing yourself any favors. I want to emphasize that your biggest enemy is exposing yourself to situations where you will get rejected for reasons you cannot control.

Repeatedly exposing yourself to rejection will damage your self esteem and will eventually cause you to doubt your suitability for any job. The conventional job search procedure is a real confidence killer for the older job applicant. Save yourself a lot of grief and avoid the conventional job search entirely.

Most positions are still filled through personal recommendations. This means that you need to know someone who knows where there is work and is willing to introduce you to the right people who can help you get the job. This is where you must learn to make new friends through the friends you already have.

This is called networking and is done daily by all successful people. It is a process of sharing information about job opportunities and potential clients with others. If you can connect people to people who can help them, they will manage to find ways to connect you to people who can help you.

Almost all job opportunities are discussed informally with employees and their families before the organization places an ad for the position. You need to meet and become connected to people who are employees of organizations that are hiring. To get started, you ask your friends who these people are.

If you network wisely, you will have already had several informal discussions with the hiring manager or his very close friend or wife before you show up to "apply" for the job. At this point, you only have to show competence to the interview team and that you will probably do very well.

I was 62 years old when Sun Microsystems hired me as a Project Manager, and it was because of a friend's recommendation, so I know that networking works. I became a Senior Project Manager and I was 67 years old when I was laid off, so I know that experienced older people do command high salaries.

By that time I realized that I needed to start my own business to get the hours and benefits I wanted. I had finally realized that control of my time and freedom to work on interesting projects was more satisfying than being a highly paid cog in a giant machine.

If you have been looking for work for more than a year, you should seriously consider creating a job for yourself rather than looking for a position created by others. I will cover this on future articles.

‘You’ve Been Gored’: The Climate Change Fraud

 Larry Bleidner wrote YOU’VE BEEN GORED, after his six year-old, parroting her teacher, proclaimed, “If we don’t fix Climate Change, we’re all gonna die!”

(Reposted from Andrew Breitbart's Big Government)

The environment has become the hottest political issue of our time. And when anything is politicized, falsehood flourishes. The volume of lies, disinformation, propaganda, hypocrisy and exaggeration far exceeds the quantity of material pollutants – and is more hazardous.

Green has become the convenient, safe, lucrative cause for politicians, corporate weasels, celebrity eco-frauds, power-hungry government agencies and fast-buck swindlers hustling everything from gas-to-water engine conversion plans to carbon offset credits.

There’s a combination gold-rush/Armageddon’s a-comin’ zeitgeist that’s very troubling. It’s like watching the panicked crowd flee from Godzilla. Their mindless fear is more dangerous than the monster.

Statistics of doom are conjured and accepted without vetting. Idiotic “solutions” are clutched in desperation. Most terrifying of all, leaders are anointed and followed — without scrutiny.