Oscar's Other Heart Attack

I authorized complete physical examinations for all the Directors at the company, as well as their spouses. Oscar and Vanessa went last week. The exam started at 6:30 a.m. with a blood-pressure check. Oscar's blood pressure was high. Then, during the stress-test on the treadmill, his heart-rate became very erratic and very fast, so they had to stop the test, even though it was less than 50% completed. They put him on a gurney and were ready to apply the defibrillator. Fortunately, it was not needed.

The next day Oscar confessed to the real reason he had such problems: He was worried about the proctoscopic exam. It seems Claudia had told him all kinds of horror stories the day before his exam.

Customer Service

I have several automatic payments set up at my bank. Most of them work flawlessly. But one payment never gets processed, and I get a notice from the bank saying

'Could not schedule payment to process on 06/13/2008 for $XXX.XX, to payee FULANO

From: System'


Thanx for the notice. Now I need to know why. So I asked, using the banks secure message system.

////////////////////////////////////////

Subject: Technical Problem

See below. Can someone tell me why???

######################

5/23/2008 4:01:35 AM
Subject: Could not schedule payment to process on 06/13/2008 for $XXX.XX, to payee FULANO

From: System

/////////////////////////////////////////

And the answer is:

Dear DAD-THE-BAD
Thank you for your inquiry in regards to your issue I am showing a pending payment for FULANO scheduled to be processed on 06/13/2008 in the amount of $XXX.XX, with a due date of 06/22/2008. Thank you for using BIG BANK'S online banking.
Jessica


I sent the message 2 times, and received the same answer from Jessica. That really makes me wonder if Jessica is just a machine.

So, I'm still asking: '¿CAN ANYBODY TELL ME WHY?'

Oscar's Heart Attack

The sales director at NextiraOne is Oscar Rojo. Oscar does his job very well, and he is a wonderful person. He and members of his sales team had worked long and hard on a $54 million dollar proposal, for which I needed to sign legal documents. The signing was last Sunday night. I went and signed the documents, about 700 pages in all. Since my cell phone was dead, Oscar could not locate me Sunday night. But I know he tried, since on Monday morning I had several missed calls and at least 1 message from Oscar.

So, on Monday morning I called Oscar.

'Oscar, you called me last night.'

'Yes Mr. Reed, I did.' (He jokingly calls me Mr. Reed all the time).

'What did you need?' I asked.

'I just want to make sure you went to sign the documents last night,' was his reply.

'What documents?', followed by at least 10 seconds of silence from Oscar.

Oscar didn't think I was very funny.........

Humility

Reading through MTB's blog, as well as some other today, I came across several interesting comments.

From MTB
'I'm on the High Council. ... Dad attends the meetings, and brings my assignments... '

'Ryan's persistence at learning how to ride a bike that was WAY too big form him (money saving idea from DTB)'

From Poodle the Noodle
'Have dad talk to them. Sometimes he is really good at being mean...'

God gave me a family to keep me humble....

Mom Really is the Bomb

MTB and Bex arrived in SLC earlier today. I'm on my way, waiting for a delayed flight from Houston. I called MTB to tell her my flight would be late. She took that in stride. But she seemed a bit 'flustered' about something, so I asked her what was going on.

MTB: 'I've just been really busy since I got to Houston.'

'Really?' I commented.

'Yes' was MTB's reply.

'It's always really busy where you are. You should be used to that by now.'

'So it's ME?' she asked.

What do you think? Let the voting begin!!!!

Brasilians in Mexico

A person from IBM was at our office today. He is from Brasil, and has been working outside of Brasil since January of this year. He is learing Spanish quickly. Given my experience of learning Spanish, based on knowing Portuguese, I told him some of the words he should use with caution or avoid in Mexico. Most of these words are very normal for Brasilians. One of them is 'correr' -- to run. The word is the same in Spanish and Portuguese, but the Brasilians say it like Mexicans would say 'coger' (or for gringos, 'coher'). The word means to get or to grab in every Spanish speaking country in Latin America except Mexico, where it is used as the 'F' verb. So the Brasilian says, 'Now I understand why the concierge seemed offended last night when I asked her where I could go run.'

Stake Activities Committee

I was recently called to serve on the High Council of our Stake in Mexico City. (For those of you not of our faith, a Stake is somewhat analogous to a Diocese. The High Council supports a 'Stake Presidency' in administrative and leadership responsibilities.) My assignment on the High Council is to chair the Stake Activities Committee. I've never been much for organizing activities, especially dances. So, my first opportunity is to organize a dance for adult members of the Stake. Me, organize a dance? In Mexico? With music that Mexicans enjoy? Well, I believe in miracles, do you????