28 February 22

 My Dilbert® work spiral tie has a double purpose today -- it symbolizes some of the rigmarole I face in our "university business" environment, and it celebrates the announcement on this date in 1953 of the spiral "double helix" structure of the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecule by Francis Crick and James Watson.

13 August 20

 Today I'm working through about three hundred emails and problem-tickets (well, it feels like that many) to help instructors get ready to teach their classes at Eastern Kentucky University. That unending spiral or tunnel is captured a little on this Dilbert® tie!

 

10 June 19

I'm wearing my Dilbert® "work spiral" tie today to honor Scott Adams' birthday on Saturday, 8 June (1957). But I'm also celebrating Ball Point Pen Day. Repeating my post from last year:

Today is Ball Point Pen Day, marking 76 years since the ball point pen was patented. Here are some fun facts about the pen:
* An average of 100 people die each year from choking on a ballpoint pen.
* In the past, ballpoint pens were bent in order to increase the pen’s capacity of ink, but they were later produced with straight rods in order to save money.
* In almost all European languages, ballpoint pens are named using the word “ball.”
* László Bíró, the inventor of the ballpoint pen, died on October 24, 1985 (aged 86).
* 125 ballpoint pens are sold every second.
* One-third of the ballpoint pens in the United States are owned by BIC.
* Since 1983, BIC has sold more than 7,000,000,000 ballpoint pens in the United States.
* An average person in the United States uses 4.3 pens annually.
* A ballpoint pen has a lifespan of about 50,000 words.
* The most expensive ballpoint pen in the world is the Mont Blanc Ball Point which costs $730,000.

20 February 18

I have no special occasions to pass along for 20 February, but I will note that this year if you write the digits for the date and add a single line, you get 20 - 2 = 18. It's been a long time since I wore this Dilbert® tie, and sometimes I do feel like my work spirals around and around.

23 May 16

Franz Mesmer was born on 23 May 1734. His name is the basis for the word "mesmerized." He tried to find some kind of natural energetic transference between living and inanimate objects, which he called animal magnetism. Some of his techniques later became the basis for hypnotism. On my tie, Dilbert® is mesmerized by his spiraling workload and the list of upcoming meetings . . .

16 April 15

26 years ago today, Scott Adams began publishing Dilbert®.

14 November 13

Yesterday I was bogged down all afternoon in THREE group meetings. So today it's time to catch up with plain old ordinary desk work.

7 Jun 12

Tomorrow (a Friday) is Scott Adams' 55th birthday. He's the artist/creator of Dilbert®.

25 July 11

Today is the first of two days of mandatory Customer Service Training for our staff in Information Technology at EKU. The workbook has the inspiring title "We Care." If you are acquainted with the movie Office Space, you will be amused that our consultant's name is Bob (although there's only one).

8 June 11

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert®, is 54 years old today. I had a department meeting this morning that provided several moments of spiraling mental wanderings. Monday's Dilbert® cartoon was great.

26 April 10

This is World Intellectual Property Day. So I made sure this Dilbert® tie had the appropriate trademark symbol on the label. I missed celebrating the 21st anniversary of Dilbert's first cartoon back on April 16, so this will have to do.

14 October 09

This is "World Standards Day," celebrating the use of standardized units and protocols around the globe. Next year I hope I will have a meter-measuring-tape tie. This time I'm wearing my Dilbert® swirl tie, honoring the "ISO" standards that engineers must follow and also referring to the two-hour staff meeting I must attend today.

08 June 09

Today is the 52nd birthday for Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert®. It is also the first day of workshops I am leading to acquaint our instructors with the next version of the Blackboard® software. So I wore a Dilbert tie, but I also covered it with an appropriate t-shirt during the workshops.





















By the way, I wore my "pandas" tie yesterday. June 7 has a great occasion--National Chocolate Ice Cream Day--but I had no suitable tie for that.

9 June 08 (corrected)

Yesterday was the birthday of Scott Adams, creator of "Dilbert." He is now 51 years old.









(Originally posted as "9 May 08")