Observations made while driving to work this morning. The roads are less traveled. This is an observation by Lloyd Graff in an Acura, not Robert Frost. The four-lane highway angling near my home is virtually empty at the stop sign where I enter. It is 10:45 in the morning. It is my new normal since COVID-19, since I shut the doors temporarily in April of 2020. It felt like half the country was on a ventilator then. I got used to working from home and realized I did not really add much value by being at the company at 9…
Author: Lloyd Graff
I lingered in the tourist bus while everybody else filed into the structure. Then I walked down the steps and began to deliberately strip off my layers of clothing. Warm coat, sweater, white shirt, under shirt. It was dark out, snow flurrying. I wanted to shiver before I went into the building. I looked around the fenced-in area and saw the small homes had Christmas lights. Lublin, Poland, was outside of the building. Peaceful. Then I put my shirt back on and walked into Majdanek Concentration Camp to inspect its gas chambers. It was 1999. *** Every day I take…
It’s the feeling that enables me to fall asleep. The kinesthetic memory of the dimpled leather, the seams spaced across the leather ball, feeling it roll up my fingertips toward the rim. And then the swish–the perfect swish, no rattling iron, 15 feet of perfection. It’s my meditation, the meditation of a kid who spent hour after hour developing his shot, my unique defining shot, similar to a million kids’ free throw motions, yet imprinted with my singular DNA. Winter, spring, summer, fall, it’s always basketball season when you have it in your blood like I do. I’ve been reminded…
I wrote a blog recently about an NBA referee, Mark Davis, who seems to love making the close calls. I don’t. I am confronted now with one of these annoying close calls, which will have an effect on how I feel, how I act, my decisions, and maybe everyday actions like driving. I have a mild seizure disorder, a form of epilepsy which I have been aware of most of my life. Most of my seizures express themselves as a magnification of sound, a feeling of electricity down my spine, and maybe a fogginess in my brain for 10 to…
Last Friday, I visited George Breiwa at his company DynaVap, in Deforest, Wisconsin, right next to my alma mater, University of Wisconsin Madison. I had interviewed George on Swarfcast twice already, and he had invited me to visit his company for a tour several times in the past. It took an opportunity to broker a very interesting machine to finally get me off my butt and take the three hour drive. I know some people might be wondering what that machine is, but I’m not at liberty to say at the moment. I’ll just say it’s what I’d call a…
It is hard to run an airline, much less make any money doing it. On the other hand, it is hard to be as inept as American Airlines and still manage to be in business. My wife Risa and I had a firsthand view of American’s chaos over these past couple of days, trying to get home from a family get-together in Charlotte, North Carolina. We had flown down from Chicago on Thursday, our first visit in two years because of COVID-19. That trip went smoothly despite my vision and hearing issues, which make every plane trip a challenge. We…
I have always been baffled why anyone becomes a referee or an umpire. Is it a passion for power or authority? Is it a love of the game and a desire to be around it when you are not talented enough to play it? I heard some of the answers while listening to People I (Mostly) Admire, a podcast hosted by University of Chicago economics professor Steven Levitt who co-wrote Freakonomics. In a recent episode, Levitt interviewed Marc Davis, one of the most respected NBA referees. Davis, now 53 years old, played college basketball at the Naval Academy and Howard…
If you consume the newspapers and watch and listen to the daily media torrent, you would think Americans are living in bubbling misery. The existential threat of climate change, the border crisis, the catastrophic shortage of workers. I’m sure you could add a few more. But for me, admittedly privileged by being white, affluent, educated, and a Cubs fan, the United States of America continues to be an amazing place to live that manages to shift and sway whatever comes its way, despite the politicians and charlatans who thrive on the perception of an engulfing tar pit. What do I…
Tom Brady and I share something more important than being University of Michigan grads. We both want to keep doing what we do for as long as we believe we are good at it. I watched Brady Sunday night, playing his former team, the New England Patriots. I was mesmerized by him. I wasn’t betting on either team, but I watched every play as it drizzled on the players’ helmets at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts. The game was as even as it could be, with Tampa Bay losing by two points, then taking the lead on a field goal…
I didn’t think I would see it in my lifetime. I’ve been mocking them for years. I thought it would take another nut like Elon Musk to produce a competitive electric, self-driving car that could compete with Tesla, and in my mind a GM, Ford, Toyota, or VolksWagen would never have the guts to get to the finish line before the game was already over. The stock market thought so too. Tesla was at $750, Ford was languishing at $12. Then, out of the blue, Ford decided they would actually go for it. They would convince Tom Brady, metaphorically, to…