I had a conversation with my mom on Saturday and I told her I was not feeling well. She got that mom tone in her voice and I realized I had better explain myself.
That morning ESPN had their first College Game Day, a preview of the upcoming season, and it was hard to watch. As in I did not care. Did not care, she asked. Something must be wrong…
I have tickets to the Minnesota vs. Cal game on September 9th. My fraternity brother Jason and I are making this our third year in a row to an away game. The last two years were at Michigan and we are 1-1.
Tuesday I was invited to the luncheon by Rick Beeson, President of Park Midway Bank and a board member of the Goal Line Club.
I had been busy the whole morning and it felt like it was more trouble than it was worth to drive over to St. Paul. But I went anyway.
The program and lunch were good but I was still feeling a little ho hum. Then Coach Glen Mason started speaking.
He told us why he likes doing what he does in coaching and teaching young people. About the relationships and friendships that are built. That there is something on a day like Tuesday with a warm afternoon but a sense of fall in the air. Maybe not so much in temperature but with state fair going on, school starts next week, it just starts to feel like a football season.
And then he started speaking about the last three years of Michigan games and my enthusiasm started kicking in. He talked about the game three years ago up by 21 going into the 4th quarter on national TV and then mistakes are made and we lose.
Two years ago up by four with two minutes to go, Michigan with the ball, and no timeouts. They score to win.
But then there was last year. The sweet sound of 111,117 in the Big House, except for a couple of thousand screaming Minnesota fans, stunned in silence as we kick the game winning field goal.
It was awesome to hear him talk about his experience that day and I started reflecting on mine and how I am fortunate to remember almost everything from our bar crawl in Ann Arbor that night. (Good thing I was the sober driver on Friday night)
I left there with a hop in my step humming the Minnesota Rouser.
7 days until I leave for the Bay Area and 9 days until the game. As I started typing this I realized that I somehow deleted a couple of posts from last season so I will do a 2005 In Review later this morning and my 2006 Preview this evening.
Let’s Go Gophers…

More Northwest Airlines 101 Ways To Save Money
This is a follow-up post to last weeks Northwest Airlines List Of 101 Ways To Save Money. I apologize for not updating this story sooner. I have had to remind myself that I am a tech recruiter first, and blogger second.
Unfortunately I did not get on the National Public Radio (NPR) segment of Wait Wait… Don’t Tell me. They were able to get quotes from a union rep and for as much as I wanted to get in the story they made the right choice.
To hear the segment go to This Week’s Show. Then look for:
While not getting on the show was a bummer NPR does have on their front page “Links Heard On Air” with a link to this story Northwest's Advice to the Laid Off: Dumpster Dive. There is also a 2+ minute audio of the piece they did which includes comments from those that received the material. At the bottom of the story is a link to my blog posting. Very, very cool.
There has been a lot of attention to this story. Last Friday I had 1,100+ visitors to the 101 tips. As I type this at 6:00 pm central time I have had 6,100+ visitors just today.
Frankly I find this all a little overwhelming. What I thought was an interesting local story has brought 55+ links from other sites, quite a few comments, and 85 email messages. I am slowly responding to the email.
The most frequented question I have been asked is, “What do you think of this?” As I said in the original post I found that many of these “tips” are reasonable actions people could take to save some cash.
The problem is that the material was given to those losing their jobs. If I had been a recipient of the material I would have wanted someone’s butt on the chopping block. And not some mid manager person, a ranking official.
For those who have said the workers were being overly sensitive I ask them this question, “If it had been you how would you have reacted?” I doubt they would have laughed.
The problem I have from where I sit is that this was a complete failure on NWA’s part. So they really did not check the material before it was presented? Geez, that’s an awful lot of trust to put in an outside vendor.
My understanding, and I may be wrong, is that the 150+ page packet was going to be the standard packet moving forward. Can you imagine if this happened to more than 50 employees and not in three small towns?
Finally, even NEAS (the firm who put the material together) is saying that the material was prepared by someone else. Were they aware of what was prepared? Have they passed this same brochure on to other clients? Better yet, who did prepare it?
I lied, one last thing. I have been asked which “tip” I thought most about. #53 Bicycle To Work. Dude, they don’t have jobs!!!
I have gone through my referral pages and I always hesitate to point out one site over another. Some sites have referred quite a few people but only have the original story. Other sites have been either more original with what they wrote or have had great comments on their site.
Here are a few of the many worth taking a look at:
From the local crowd here in Minnesota:
-Metroblogging Minneapolis: Northwest Airlines to employees: go dumpster diving!
-City Pages Blog: Frugal Flyer
-MNspeak.com NWA Says 'Screw Your Dignity'
From the national crowd:
-Funny Business: Distributor of NWA's "101 Ways To Save Money" apologizes--sort of With a copy of the NEAS “apology”.
-SmartMoney.com: northwest to laid-off employees: dig through your trash! A special award for this one, many stories have had a picture of a person digging or sitting in a dumpster. This one comes with Oscar the Grouch From Sesame Street in a NWA trashcan.
-STL Recruiting: 5 More Ways to Save Money If You're A Northwest Employee I know Jim well and he is not serious about his tips. He is just taking the original 101 steps another step to show the absurdity.
-Lifehacker: Ask the Readers: Cut your expenses when things are tight?
-FatWallet: Money Saving Tips from Northwest Airlines
-Don’t Mess With Taxes: In case of an emergency firing, dumpster dive
-Super Happy Funtime Blog: And People Thought This Was INSENSITIVE????
Posted at 06:06 PM in Commentary, Minnesota Business Scene | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)