The Dobrindt Family

Austin Powers in Goldmember trivia

Signs found in the background of Dr. Evil's sub
- All Henchmen Must Clock In With Their Own Timecard
- 42 Days Since Last Accident/Liquidation
- Hang in There!

Megan Charlotte Schmitt

I can’t believe I didn’t “officially” post this, but congratulations to my sister Lori and her husband Craig on the birth of their first child, Megan Charlotte Schmitt. Born 5 pounds, 18 and ¾ inches long, on December 19 at 6:57 PM. Emily has a Dobrindt cousin 8 months apart in age. Good times.

Quick update

As you might have noticed, I haven’t posted many things lately. I have a bunch of pictures I need to put up, some movie reviews, and some other random thoughts. But with the holidays, moving into a new house and other typical life distractions, my website has taken a back seat. Sorry about that. Please keep checking back, I hope to reengage soon.

Dave

Merry Christmas

<p>To all of our friends and family, and especially my sister Lori and her husband
Craig who had a baby girl on December 19, Merry Christmas. <div align="right">
<a href="http://www.dobrindts.com/pics/Christmas/Gifts-122502-01-web.jpg"><img src="http://www.dobrindts.com/pics/Christmas/Gifts-122502-01-hp.jpg" title="Merry Christmas" name="Merry Christmas" alt="Merry Christmas" name="Merry Christmas" width="110" height="102" border="1"></a></p>

An atheist and a shark

An atheist was swimming in the ocean when he saw a large shark come after him. He started swimming back toward his boat but realized he wouldn’t make it in time. Just as the shark was about to bite down on him, he yelled out “God, please save me”.

Everything suddenly stopped. The skies opened up and God said “If you don’t believe in me, why did you ask me to save you?”

The man thought for a second and replied, “I might not believe in you, but you could make the shark believe in you.”

God thought about this, and just as suddenly as he appeared, everything returned to normal. The shark stopped, closed his eyes, lowered his head and said, “Thank you Lord for this food which I am about to receive.”

Update on our life

A couple of updates.

First, Emily. We went through her teething period a couple of months ago when the bottom ones were coming in. Now we are going through it again for her top ones. We can see them and feel them, but they are not there yet. So she is pretty uncomfortable which, because we are 100% responsible for her happiness, makes our lives pretty tough. Lack of sleep never killed anyone, I think. She is still standing when holding onto something but not standing without help yet. Who knows when walking will happen? She is not really talking but makes pretty interesting noises a lot. She says “ma-ma” when she is getting ready to become really upset and despite my argument that she is calling for “mom”, Patti thinks she is just making a noise.

Now on to our house. We closed last Friday, December 6. We took the keys and stopped by the house. We both had things to do, so we just wanted to stop by and walk through our first home. Besides an early snow storm still lingering, it was pretty cool. From the outside. Then we went into the house. It was very unclean and there was a ton of s**t in the basement, in the garage, on the walls, and in closets. Later that day we talked to the home owners (previous) that (this is making a very long story short) told us we can keep want we want and throw out the rest. The cool thing is that the first couple of days in the house were like a treasure hunt where we found some very cool stuff. The bad part was that we had to throw out 37 years of stuff. Oh well, life could be worse. We spent the first two days (weekend) and the next few nights (after work) cleaning, ripping up carpets, moving furniture (we bought some antique furniture that had to be moved from the second floor to the basement), painting ceilings, and throwing stuff out. The floors are getting done tomorrow, then we paint the walls and trim, then work on the kitchen, then the bathroom, then the garage, then the…you get the idea. We got a good deal on a house in a nice neighborhood, in an over-inflated Boston market because there was a lot of work to do. But hey, time is one thing I have on my side.

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.

Making jello

Patti getting ready to make jello. <div align="left"> <a href="http://www.dobrindts.com/pics/pattijello-2-web.jpg"><img src="http://www.dobrindts.com/pics/pattijello-1-tn.jpg" title="Big Box of Jello" name="Big Box of Jello" alt="Big Box of Jello" name="Big Box of Jello" width="140" height="102" border="1"></a>

My night at the Celtics game

Part of my role at IBM is to be part of marketing/sales efforts. This includes client briefings, meetings, presentations, and the occasional evening event. This past Friday, I was asked to attend an evening at the Fleet Center to watch a Celtics game (they played the Knicks), have dinner, get Premium Level seats and hang out in the IBM luxury box, not necessarily in that order. Myself, the VP of Marketing for Lotus (Lotus is a software company IBM bought in the mid 90s, they are a very large company in the Boston area and have as large of a presence as IBM in the technology industry here in Boston), and one other person were going to be entertained by some executives of the Fleet Center. This is what happened.

We had dinner in Mr. Jacob’s private dining room. <a href="http://www.bostonbruins.com/meet/management/jacobs.html">Mr. Jacobs </a>owns the Fleet Center, the Bruins, all the concession for the Fleet Center and is extremely wealthy. During dinner, <a href="http://espn.go.com/abcsports/columns/mcdonough_sean/bio.html">Sean McDonough </a>joined us and discussed the latest in his negotiations with the NY Mets to call their games. I then watched the game between the Premium Level seats, where I ran into a partner I used to work with at PwC, and the IBM luxury box. Very good times.

Japanese Culture

Yesterday I was involved in a meeting with a large Japanese company, the second one in as many months. Entertaining Japanese guests in our office in Boston is fairly rare, I thought I would share my thoughts on some cultural learnings.

1) In the Japanese culture, it is common practice to put “-san” at the end of a colleagues last name as a sign of respect. This is done all the time. To try to do this with your American colleagues in front of your Japanese colleagues will come off sounding strange and awkward. Don’t try it. Leave it as a Japanese custom.

2) Business cards are a big deal in Japan. Immediately after shaking hands, it is customary to give your business card, or present your card, to the person you are meeting. Japanese business cards often have information in Japanese on one side and English on the other. The proper custom is to hand the card to the person you are meeting with the appropriate language up, with the words in the direction the person can read them. Also, do not put the card in your shirt or pants pocket after you get it, and don’t write on it, both are signs of disrespect. You are suppose to put the cards neatly in front of you and, well, not sure what to do other than keep them there.

3) In meetings in the US, it is customary for the person moderating the meeting to introduce him/herself, then go around the table in single form, with the person next to the moderator going next, then the person next to him, etc. In Japanese culture, right after the moderator or host introduces himself, you should allow the most senior Japanese colleague introduce himself, and he will decide who should be introduced next. We learned this the hard way.

4) When giving a presentation in front of a number of Japanese businessmen, don’t be insulted if they speak to themselves while you are speaking. They are not talking about the Chunichi Dragons. The ones who speak good English are translating to the ones that don’t. It is a natural reaction to stop the presentation to allow them to finish their conversations or ask questions, but you have to overcome that and realize there is translating going on.

5) When presenting a topic one is familiar with, it is often a tendency to get slightly animated about the topic and talk with passion. When giving a presentation in front of people that do not speak your language, pretend you are running under water. Slow down, pause a lot.

6) Playing charades to try to overcome the language barrier will look goofy and stupid.

7) Never, ever, ever, allow the subject of World War 2 to be brought up. In Japan, 99% of insurance agents are women, compared to probably around 10% in the US. When asked why this was, one of our American colleagues wrongly answered because women are the financial head of the household. This not only was slightly insulting to fairly high level members of the Japanese contingent, but it was wrong. The most senior guy, whose father was probably in World War 2, explained it was because widows of WWII had to find work and it has remained the same since then. Very bad. We forget that it was only two generations ago that our boys were fighting their boys, that a war was going on, that very bad things happened.

8) It is customary for the visitor to bring a gift for the host. It is also common practice for the host to provide a gift for the visitor. This was fun but kind of awkward at the end of the day. It felt like Christmas with 18 strangers.

9) Bowing is customary in the Japanese culture. It is not in the American culture. Do not try to bow when introduced to a Japanese person. Ever. You will look funny and it is not expected when in the US.

10) In the US during working lunches with members of different organizations, it is common practice to site together and either work or get to know each other. When this happened with Japanese members, they sat together in an adjoining room and enjoyed lunch in their native language, among themselves. Not sure if this is a Japanese thing or it just turned out that way.

11) Finally, and this is a well known piece of advice, talking louder to someone who doesnot speak English will not get them to understand your language. It will just sound like you are shouting, which can be amplified in a conference room. Better is to speak softer, slower, and look at the translator to help out.