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Robert's Blog

This is my "personal" blog. I guess that's a neat way of saying that the content is all over the place. Some posts are about my family. Others are about general goings on in my life. There's also a smattering of music, travel, politics and a few rants about customer service. The usual disclaimers apply.

Planning Goals For The New Year

Submitted by Robert Safuto on Mon, 01/02/2012 - 14:41

Happy New Year! It is now 2012 and there are 364 full days (after today) to get things done that we want to accomplish in this leap year. So what do you want to accomplish this year? That is the question that I have been thinking about over the last couple of days. I have a pretty good idea of what my goals are for the year. As I work on goals for the year I am also working on what I think is the right mindset for goal setting. That's what I will share with you in detail in this post.

They Went Up

Submitted by Robert Safuto on Sat, 09/10/2011 - 20:12

As we approach the tenth anniversary of 9/11/2001 of course I have many thoughts going through my head. The twin towers of the World Trade Center were a personal thing for me in addition to the people who I knew, and who my friends and family knew who died that day. My mom took me and my brothers to the observation deck on the first day that it opened in 1973. I still have pictures of that day. It also happened to be that the tops of the towers could be seen from my neighborhood park in Queens. Throughout my life in Queens the towers were always there.

9-11

An Adventure From A Decade Ago

Submitted by Robert Safuto on Wed, 07/06/2011 - 19:50

Ten years ago I went on a wonderful trip to Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia. I did so many things and met so many people during the six weeks weeks I was traveling. One of the great things I did was to partake of some of the extreme sports action that Queenstown, New Zealand is famous for. I was most excited to try bungy jumping. The folks over at AJ Hackett run the Nevis Bungy which I heard was the bungy to do if you could only do one. At 134 meters the Nevis Bungy is the highest in New Zealand and offers an eight second free fall. Of course I went for it.

The World According To Bob

Submitted by Robert Safuto on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 20:07

About ten years ago a friend of mine turned me on to a musician named Bob Schneider. The introduction was definitely an eye opening one. We went to see Bob play at a small bar in Austin, TX and when we arrived there was a long line out the door. We didn't get in. So even though I had never actually heard Bob's music I was already pretty impressed. The next day I was able to find some live bootleg tracks that I could download on the internet. What I heard was an eclectic pop mix that included acoustic bits and nods to various styles including jazz and funk. I vowed to hear and see more.

Music

Crossing The Finish Line

Submitted by Robert Safuto on Tue, 05/17/2011 - 17:32

Throughout my life I have taken on challenges that most other people tend to shy away from. My decision to join the military as an infatntryman comes to mind as one that few will try, and with good reason. There was no guarantee of success in that endeavor. Indeed, a decent number of my fellow trainees quit before completing basic training. I went on to complete airborne training and officer candidate school, courses that had even higher drop out rates. I completed all of them and although I may have been at different stages of miserable during the process I always felt like a million dollars when it was over.

The Graduate

Submitted by Robert Safuto on Sat, 05/07/2011 - 10:42

Next week I'll walk across the stage a full twenty years after I did so for my Bachelor's degree. It has been a long road over the past three years since I first made the decision to pursue a Master's of Business Administration. I clearly remember spending late nights studying for the GMAT exam in the months before the program started in August of 2008. At the time I had a new baby on the way and was getting ready to move with my family from Woodstock to the Albany area. It definitely wasn't the ideal time to take on graduate school classes at night. I did take it on though. Now, less than three years after taking my first class, I will be graduating.

In the future people will undoubtedly ask me two questions about this.

It's Snow April Fools Joke

Submitted by Robert Safuto on Sat, 04/02/2011 - 12:01

A few days ago I was completely depressed by the forecast of six to twelve inches of snow for April 1st. How appropriate that it was forecast for April Fools Day. Unfortunately the forecast was no joke. The winter had been tough enough without the possibility of more snow. I was just getting used to seeing the grass again. We got lucky though. The storm shifted to the south and east so we only got a heavy dusting that didn't stick to the roads. I was relieved to say the least. The video below shows what the scene looked like in the morning when I departed for work.

winter

Earthquakes In New Zealand And Japan

Submitted by Robert Safuto on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 08:15

The earthquakes in Japan and Christchurch, New Zealand over the last couple of weeks are horrible tragedies. I was shocked at how badly Christchurch was damaged and now the devastation in Japan is surpassing that, in part due to the effects of the tsunami that followed the earthquake there.

The news of the losses in this countries is truly heartbreaking. The scale reminds me of a comment that New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani made on 9/11/2001 when posed with a question about possible casualty figures. As I recall Giuliani said something like, "More than we can possibly bear." Indeed. Tragically the number of people lost in New Zealand and Japan is likely to be quite a bit higher than any disaster, natural or otherwise that we have had in the modern United States.

tragedy

American Innovation

Submitted by Robert Safuto on Fri, 02/18/2011 - 19:36

Last night in my Entrepreneurship class I had an opportunity to give an answer to a question about what could be done to get America innovating again. The answer I gave wasn't really a good one as I got caught up in the emotions in the room which were running high, and on the negative side. In fact, hearing the solutions of some of the people in the room I thought that perhaps I was sitting in a class on another topic. People mentioned things like more government subsidies for specific companies, limits on immigration, government mandated cap and trade systems, forced urbanization, United Nations intervention, and even altering our form of goverment to help put America back at the top of the class. Those aren't entrepreneurial ideas in my mind.

Cutting The Cable Cord - Part 1

Submitted by Robert Safuto on Sun, 01/30/2011 - 13:34

Each new year seems to result in a big new tech idea for me and 2011 is no different. Last year my big tech idea was all about creating a personal "cloud" for my home. I accomplished that mission with the help of an HP MediaSmart Server which collects media automatically from all computers in the house and centralizes them into one box that can be accessed by a variety of devices (including my iPad) and over the internet. One benefit of this setup was the ability to access all of our photos, videos and music on the television via my WD TV Live Plus box.