Dad was my best friend. And as best friends do, we’d discuss different topics and often leave each other with something to think about. Two days before he passed away, he left me with a question to ponder. It was five words actually …

Lowell Elliott Foster’s obituary as it appeared in the Raleigh News & Observer on Monday June 22, 2015. Lowell was born on July 5th, 1922 in Corning, Iowa and died in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina on June 17, 2015.

It’s been said we’re the sum of our experiences. That may be true, but I think alot of what we are – who we are – comes from our parents.

Some things our parents try to teach us will shape what we do and how we act. Some things our parents don’t try to teach us will shape who we are. My dad gave me both.

Punkin’ chunking is a rather eclectic sport, and certainly not as well known as soccer or football. In fact, even though you can find “chunkers” throwing things all year round, you’ll only find them tossing pumpkins (aka punkins) each year a little before Thanksgiving. The picture above is the first …

Walk into Bank of America and you’ll see Cisco IP telephones. Lots of them. Want to know how they got there?

Let me tell you my best sales story.

The first time I saw voice and video work over a data network was at our Cisco sales lab in Raleigh. My boss Matt Mullady was standing beside me, watching a demo, shaking his head. “This is amazing.” he said. ”This is going to change everything.” …

Discovering who you are can be really tough.

For me it happened when I was unemployed and had to (re)write my resume.

Bob was a good friend of mine and the VP of HR for a big six accounting firm. I thought he could give me some tips on how to make my resume better. He took it, looked at it, then handed it back to me. He said “Who is this?” …

“Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.” – Jerry Avins

Shortly after I graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Iowa State, I told my friend Jim Mackey “Cindy and I are going to build a geodesic dome home.” “Figures,” he said, “you living in a regular house would be like like an architect living in a mobile home.” …

R. (Richard) Buckminister Fuller was a man of many talents. I had a chance to hear him when he came to Iowa State University back in 1975. Unfortunately I passed on the opportunity – using the excuse that I had to study for a test. Looking back now, I SO wish I had gone.

“It’s hard to believe Jeff did that.”

“Did what?” I replied.

It was 1975 and I had just started at Iowa State. Reb’s mom and I were were standing by the fence, watching Saydel play their first home football game of the season.

“You didn’t know … Jeff committed suicide.”

Reb, Jeff, and I had graduated …

My senior year in high school wasn’t all bad. In fact, at times it was pretty fun.

Close to graduation I started wondering what pranks I could pull on a few best friends, or even teachers. Our chemistry teacher, “MadMan” Larry Dean, was one of my favorites. MadMan’s nickname was well deserved.

“If you learn one thing, then it was worthwhile.” Dad told me that when I was a kid.

He was talking about reading books, but I’ve found his quote rings true for almost everything.

Sometimes you learn more than one thing. Last weekend at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee I learned …

I’ve been working with data/voice/video networking – and especially Voice over IP VoIP – for most of my career. I love it.

So why am I writing this short story? Because the other day I lived through the audio conference call from hell. The voice quality was abysmal. In fact …