RJA Blog

April has more than its share of historic horrors, from the San Fran earthquake, MLK assassination, and Lincoln’s night at the theater, to Waco, Chernobyl, the Great Mississippi flood, and Titanic. But enough about tragedies. We need to lighten up. Here are some other things that happened each day in Aprils past...  read more >

No matter what we do or where we go in life, doesn't everything boil down to tiny memorable moments? Listen to the stories people tell at work-they're about moments that made them feel great or awful. This is about 2 moments.  read more >

Between novels and extraordinary film making technology, today’s planetarians can experience just about any historical event personally. But what happens to our world view when the drama is unfolding now, on tv, in real time?  read more >

Mergers and acquisitions of behemoth corporations dominate the news with combined assets that are incomprehensible. Throwing in the impact of the new alliances on their markets makes for some stunning headlines. Meanwhile, another story goes unreported…the story of commercial enterprises loosely referred to as “small business.”  read more >

This time of year always reminds me of being spellbound by the stories read to us during the holidays.Not a creature stirred until the end. Even now, kids enjoy those classics because they take us out of our world and into another. So why not tap into another vast resource of memorable stories?  read more >

Not everyone will spend this Thanksgiving with family huddled around a fat roasted turkey. There are just some years when you end up alone on the fourth Thursday of November.  read more >

Back during my youthful struggle to stay afloat, decisions were so easy. Should I buy the blue jacket or the pink one? Should I go to this movie or that one? The answer was always ‘none of the above.’ It was very simple. My boundaries were clearly defined by reality. I never had to waste time shopping or ordering food because new cars, clothes and restaurants were not in the budget. So, I stopped asking myself to choose.  read more >

Other than one weird kid on our block, my friends and I grew up hating spiders. We screamed when they crawled on the furniture or hung from the basement ceiling until someone came running to kill the little beasts for us. Then when we got older, we did our own spider disposal. Arachnophobia marched on. (Thanks, Jeff Daniels.)
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Yesterday I got into it with someone about genius. Should brilliant innovators be excused from civil communication with coworkers and family because of their intelligence? Are rude geniuses entitled to their rudeness? He says yes.   read more >

First, I feel for everyone who has suffered at the hands of Mother Nature like the storms that blew through the northern Midwest this week.Hopefully your power, pumps, and peace of mind have been restored to normal.  read more >