As we head into the holiday season, there are few things that occupy our minds more than our families. This week, we are sharing a blog I wrote about Dave Dahl, creator of Dave’s Killer Bread. In 2019, Dave appeared on the “How I Built This” podcast, conducted by the finest interviewer I’ve heard, Guy Raz of NPR. Dahl slowly recounted his story of almost 40 years, much of it about misery, depression, and failure, culminating in enormous financial success and more disappointment. From a journalistic viewpoint the podcast was a masterpiece of storytelling – a slow, meticulous, layered presentation…
Author: Lloyd Graff
The images overwhelm my mind. I want to write about them, but the visions will keep me awake for years. You don’t need that either. The forensic experts who have been working for five weeks in South Israel still cannot Identify some of the incinerated bones of mothers and children burned and massacred on October 7. October 7 was Israel’s 9/11 but multiplied by 10. The murderers carried GoPro body cameras to take videos to laugh over at home in Gaza. The goal was not just to maim and kill the babies, it was to crush the spirit of the…
The Chicago Cubs “requested” their extremely well-liked manager, David Ross, to vacate his job on Monday. His boss, Jed Hoyer, flew to Ross’s home in Tallahassee, Florida, to give him the news in person. It was a shocking surprise to Cubs fans because Ross had another year to go on his contract, with an option year. By all accounts, he was well-liked by Cubs players and fans. He was chosen by General Manager, Jed Hoyer, four years ago, after being carried off the field by loving Cubs players when the team won the World Series in 2016. Ross retired and…
The leaders of the Big Three shrunk to midgets as they walked to the mound against the electrician from Kokomo, playing for the first time in the big leagues. The corporate players had $20 million dollar contracts. Shawn Fain from the UAW team was on a rookie deal after barely making the squad. How did Fain and the UAW sweep their World Series? First, he seemed to understand the game better than the well-paid veterans. He asked for much more than he expected to get, including a 4-day workweek and $40 an hour. He knew the weaknesses of the Big…
Last week, Lloyd Graff wrote a blog called “What Brings Me to Work,” which we think will speak to a lot of you out there, people who work in a family business, and people of retirement age who keep working—not because they have to, but because they get to. Maybe you’ve read the blog already, but even if you have, we think you will enjoy hearing it in podcast form, being read by the man who wrote it. Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link, or: …
It is a day to talk about stupidity and how it usually catches up with you if you are in a big public position. First, it is the heads of Ivy League colleges who have in many cases allowed their schools to subvert what I consider to be the goal of colleges–liberal education, the right to doubt, ask questions, create new ideas. Sadly, particularly at our supposed elite schools, dissenting from the prevailing left-wing, fake liberal point of view is frowned upon and often receives ostracism and expulsion from the “club.” When I went to college it was a place…
It felt like a knife to the kidneys, slowly sinking into my flesh, twisting to inflict even more pain when I heard the initial news reports on Saturday morning. I didn’t know how bad the vicious massacre in Israel was, but just imagining the mass killing at the Music Peace Festival was devastating. I have felt a love affair with my homeland from a distance since I was 13 years old in 1958. That was when the fiction book Exodus was published, written by Leon Uris. The movie, starring Paul Newman, came out in 1960. It was about the founding…
The Sam Bankman-Fried trial opened this week with jury selection. I have been fascinated by the case, not just because of the size of the losses of the investors or because some of the people he had paid were sports celebrities like Tom Brady and Steph Curry. The heart of the case, which makes me feel like I want to sit in a box seat, revolves around Bankman-Fried and his occasional girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, who has decided to become a witness for the prosecution. Has Ellison come down with a case of guilty conscience or is she trying to soften…
In 2009, we ran a short commentary about an intriguing product, a brass bell made on an Acme screw machine. The post generated a lot of commentary about the item, its creation, and the history of these machines in general. We are resharing this in a unique format with the comments, so that you might also add to the discussion. Though we do not have another bell to give away, we believe the subject matter to be of interest to our current audience, prize or no prize. The Original Post From https://todaysmachiningworld.com/precision-machining-rings-out/ Original Text By Lloyd Graff and Noah Graff…
American Ninja Warrior just completed its entertaining 2023 season with 17-year-old Vance Law winning a million dollars by completing incredible challenges of strength and coordination faster than any of the other contestants. All of the finalists were in their teens or 20s. Now we get to watch the not-so-entertaining American Bungling Warriors battle it out in Detroit for a new UAW contract with the Big Three auto companies. Unfortunately, everybody on this show will be a loser. The precision machining business will be a loser too, at least in the short run. The prominent players are all playing their roles.…