I just bought the first fabulous cherries and peaches of the 2019 farmers’ market season. The following blog is a past favorite of mine. I give you Fruitsposé! Every day another prominent guy is forced to admit how his desire got the best of him. Today I must reveal my secret passion. I have had a lifelong affair with fruit. I was reminded of this a couple days ago when I was in the produce department of Bizio’s, my local fruit seller of choice. He had THE BLUEBERRIES. I am very fussy about all my berries, and I usually shun blueberries…
Author: Lloyd Graff
This is just a guess, but I’m betting the following conversation took place recently between Warren Buffett, who owns $50 billion of Apple shares, and Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Corporation. “Hi, Tim, it’s Warren. I’ve been thinking about Apple’s China exposure, Tim.” “Yeah, me too, Warren.” “Tim, what if this Huawei stuff really gets out of hand, or Trump and Xi start to snarl at each other in Japan, or Hong Kong really blows up, do you think China might retaliate against Apple?” “Yeah, Warren, that’s our biggest nightmare. We have no backup plan in place, honestly.” “Well, Tim,…
What else doesn’t count anymore? PURCHASING DEPARTMENTS. The bottleneck of “purchasing” in big companies has become laughable to me as an outsider and to shop folks who make the money in manufacturing. The big gripe used to be “management,” but I don’t hear that as much now. Today, the outcry is with purchasing departments in larger companies that slow everything down with paperwork and “justifications.” When you need 1,000 pounds of 12L15 round tomorrow, and Central Steel is happy to get it to you at a fair price so the company can make five grand on a hot job, and…
We’ve all done it. We’ve all done it and gotten away with it. We’ve all done it and suffered the consequences. Tuesday night in the potentially climactic game of the NBA Finals Kevin Durant, the seven-foot shooting star of the Golden State Warriors, played ball after sitting out 32 days with a calf injury. After 10 minutes of playing beautiful and surprisingly fluid basketball his leg buckled on a seemingly inconsequential move, and Durant crashed, all 84”, to the floor in Toronto. Some ignorant Raptors fans started cheering, but to their credit, Toronto players immediately shushed them to silence. They…
The scary, little, chubby chess piece sat in the old Scottish antiques dealer’s desk for 50 years. He bought it for a few pounds and stuck it in a drawer. After his death his heirs were checking out his belongings and discovered the elaborate carving made from a walrus tusk. One of them thought it might have some value. They guessed correctly. On July 2, it will be auctioned off by Sotheby’s. Its anticipated sale price is around $1 million. It is a piece from the collection of Lewis Chessmen, carved in the 12th century in the form of Norse…
If you are interested in women’s soccer, obscure foods, and the tortured lives of Congressional Medal of Honor winners, last weekend’s Wall Street Journal provided hours of Gatorade for your thirst for quality content. As a writer I appreciate a well-researched and written piece. As a former magazine editor, I know what it takes to put together a readable monthly publication. I can only applaud the editors of the Journal who produce a superb publication five days a week and an absolutely brilliant one on the weekend. As the supposed competition, The New York Times and Washington Post, have deteriorated…
In the world of professional sports “tanking” has become the trendy strategy for a losing team to turn a losing franchise into a contender. In baseball, the Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros both transformed themselves by becoming ultra-awful losers for several years in order to draft potential stars and develop them into the nucleus of a winning team over five years. Many teams try to “tank” and rebuild only to languish for years in the purgatory of sports. The Cleveland Browns and Buffalo Bills of pro football come to mind. The path seems pretty clear in pro sports, though not…
Around the world May 1 is May Day, a holiday celebrated by Labor as a demonstration of its power and determination. In the United States it is another work day and essentially forgotten as is the organized labor movement except by government workers and teachers. The industrial labor movement in America still has its vestiges in the United Auto Workers and Steelworkers and electricians, but it is a withering movement in the small- and medium-sized businesses I deal with. Retail is a wasteland for organized labor. UPS is organized, but FedEx is not. Uber and Lyft are totally nonunion. McDonald’s…
I am in the process of making a lot of changes in my surroundings. The axiom used to be that as you get older it gets harder to change, but I don’t find that to be true. Seeing friends and associates get sick and die makes it easier because I want to sandwich more stuff into my life while I still can. If I have the energy and the money to replace the old appliances in the house and sand the floors and paint the walls I want to do it now. The redo in my house has nothing to…
Francesco Molinari, the Italian professional golfer who has entered the top tier of pros who are factors in every major tournament, led by two strokes going into the final round of the Masters Sunday. I have followed Molinari with more than a casual interest of late because he has used a putter made by a 90-person job shop just down the road from Graff-Pinkert in Tinley Park, Illinois. I met the owner, Bob Bettinardi, at IMTS. We were both resting our bones for a few minutes next to the Universal Robots exhibit, and we talked a bit about CNC mills…