Author: Chris Matheus

Historic FOCM Card Ceremony

This FOCM card-membership ceremony was a very significant one for several reasons –

  1. It just happened on November 11, 2017 – making it very recent given my usual delay in posting such things
  2. It’s too important to delay until I catch up
  3. recipient and I probably first met when we were pre-schoolers and
  4. we spent our formative years in that oasis in the desert known as Yuma, AZ
  5. we slow danced to Stairway to Heaven or maybe it was Nights in White Satin in 8th grade
  6. wandered around Yuma on New Year’s Eve with a few friends and a few bottles of Boones Farm wine generously donated by our sisters when we were 13

At the recent Kofa High School reunion, this significant event (photo below) was captured.

Jody (Ambur) Nestell received her FOCM membership card.  Other than family members, I believe she is the youngest card-holder that I’ve known the longest.  Perhaps only Brady Leffler and Jody’s cousin, Ray Face, if they’re ready to accept the responsibilities of card holdership could surpass this.

Jody (Ambur) Nestell receives her card!

 

FOCM Members at Wilmington NC Event

Here’s an interesting item about FOCM that I just realized comes from my having grown up in a small town in Arizona – if there’s a party in town – join it! You may call it crashing it, but in Yuma, AZ, if there was a wedding reception in town, regardless if you were invited, you went to it.  So in that vein, when I organize Wilmington Pharma/Bio/CRO Networking Events in Wilmington, NC, it’s an open call for all FOCM members.  While in this case they do belong to the Pharma/Bio/CRO industry, they do also belong to FOCM.

Kris Klein, John Peterson, Wendy Revenaugh, Gayle Grandinetti and Steve Simpson

FOCM Sticker Seen Downtown

So there I was on March 26, 2016 a few blocks from downtown Wilmington when I spotted FOCM member Gayle Grandinetti’s car proudly sporting the FOCM window decal!  Any member is eligible to get one at the reduced member rate of $5.00.  I’d like to say they make a great Christmas gift, but that’s a bit of a stretch.

FOCM Window Decal

More Funny Things I Have Seen

More humor seen in Reader’s Digest:

The chihuahua at my vet’s office was quiet right up until a huge Rottweiler came in.  Suddenly, the six-pounder became Cujo -barking and growling.  It’s owner said, “oh please, the only way you could hurt that dog was if you got stuck in its throat.”

Parent tweets:
Four year old said he went potty and I asked if it was number 1 or 2 – he said 7, i’m terrified to go into the bathroom.
I can’t find my kid’s birth certificate, but apparently I saved one for every Build-a-Bear we own in a special file because I’m insane.
I try to explain to my kids during the movie that in reality even a cowardly lion would eat a girl and her little dog.

Remember Brexit – shorthand for British Exit, here are some names for other countries if they wish to exit the country groups to which they belong:

  • Czechout
  • AufWeiderSpain
  • Boltswana
  • Fleeji
  • Scootland
  • Dubaibye
  • Afghaniscram
  • Farewales

What if the person who named “walkie-talkies” named other things:

Forks would be stabby-grabbies
Wigs would be hairy-wearies
Socks would be feetie-heaties
Defibrillators would be hearty-starties.

How to spell searches

Saw this recently and think it’s amusing.  Google published the most searches for “how to spell” a word by state.

Here are a few of them:

California – beautiful

Maryland – special

Nevada – available

Pennsylvania – sauerkraut

South Dakota – college

Wisconsin – Wisconsin

Arizona – tomorrow

In my opinion, Pennsylvanians win for actually having a word that I could see people needing to look it up, the others – rather embarrassing.  “College”!! seriously South Dakota, come on! and Wisconsin Wisconsin?!

Newly created words

Saw these in Reader’s Digest October issue which were excerpted from “That should be a word” by Lizzie Skurnick:

Bangst – noun; stress over diminishing funds. Example: He read hte ATM printout carefully, filled with bangst.

Fidgital – adjective; excessively checking one’s smartphone.

Flabsolution – noun; pardoning yourself for weight gain.

Palbatross – noun; A friend you’d like to drop.

Tyrunt – noun; child who bosses everyone around.

Wordition – noun; being stuck around people who won’t stop talking.

Laughter is the good for our health

Going through some things and found these funny things in several Reader’s Digests:

  • When people tell me “you’re going to regret that in the morning,” I sleep until noon, because I’m a problem solver.
  • A woman was lying in bed one night when she felt her husband’s hand caressing her neck in a way she hadn’t experienced in quite a while.  The hand then slid down her side, stopping at her knee.  Then he moved closer and did the same on her other side before abruptly stopping and moving away.  Feeling rather aroused and delighted by the unexpected attention,  she whispered, “Honey, that was wonderful.  Why did you stop?”
    He replied, “Because I found the remote.”
  • Why can’t you trust an atom?
    Because they make up literally everything.
  • I saw a guy with a question mark tattoo, which seems like an incredibly permanent commitment to uncertainty.
  • A new patient handed in her medical history form.  On the line marked past traumas, she’d written: Married twice.

A few funnies from the work place:

  • I asked the job candidate if he considered himself a punctual person.  He responded, “well, I’m not a grammar Nazi or anything.”
  • I had a guy show up for his interview drunk and wearing a powder-blue tuxedo jacket. The interview didn’t last long, but before it was over, he was crying about his uncle who had died.  We asked him how long had he been gone: the answer – 6 years!
  • At PetSmart, one of hte questions we ask job candidates is: “if you could be any animal, what would it be?” This candidate replied that he would be a turtle, because he’s always really slow and he’s never in a rush.

A few from lab research notes on their study or process method:

  • We incubated this for however long lunch was.
  • Slices were left in a formaldehyde bath for over 48 hours because I put them in on Friday and refuse to work on weekends.
  • This dye was selected because the bottle was within reach.
  • We didn’t test as many clams as oysters because someone found the samples and ate them.
  • I used that specific sequence of biotinylated DNA because I found some in the freezer.
  • The experiment was carried out from 9:00 a.m. to 5: p.m. because the lab is deserted and creepy after office hours.

History does teach us

At the recommendation of Jack Minster (or maybe he actually ordered it for me), I read a book called Jerusalem by Simon Sebag Montefiore.  What an amazing history that town has seen.  The book covers the history of the town from roughly 2000 BC to current day.  I highly recommend it for any person who likes World history.

One thing stood out to me, in line with the subject of this blog – happened in 1855-1860.  An Italian man named Moses Montefiore, later knighted by Queen Victoria for his service as Sheriff of London and in recognition of his services to humanitarian causes on behalf of the Jewish people.  He followed the Jewish religion and after visiting Jersualem in 1827 he became a more devoted observer of his religion.

In 1854 his friend Judah Touro, a wealthy American Jew, died having bequeathed money to fund a Jewish residential settlement in Palestine. Montefiore was appointed executor of his will, and used the funds for a variety of projects aimed at encouraging the Jews to engage in productive labor. In 1855, he purchased an orchard on the outskirts of Jaffa that offered agricultural training people.

In 1860, he built the first Jewish residential settlement outside the walls of Jerusalem.  Living outside the city walls was dangerous at the time, due to lawlessness and bandits.  Montefiore offered financial inducement to encourage poor families to move there. Montefiore donated large sums of money to promote industry, education and health amongst the Jewish community in Palestine.  

His life’s mission of helping Jersualem’s Jewish people caused him to give so much money that many people became dependent on his charity and that was their sole means of support.  When he tried to wean them off of his handouts, they rioted in his camp.

This is certainly been repeated in countries around the world.  When people get used to receiving support with little or no contribution put forth to earn it, upon the support being reduced, the response too often is to scream and shout and demand it not stop.  This is becoming a problem in Saudi Arabia as unemployment is so high, it costs the government a lot to keep the people complacent by giving out so much money.

I think history shows that the best solution is democracy and capitalism where hard work and effort are rewarded.

FOCM World of Beer Networking Event

I am determined to catch up with my backlog of posts and pictures.  It was March 15, 2016 at World of Beer in Cary, NC where a FOCM Networking Event was held.  It was the night before Arena International’s Outsourcing in Clinical Trials Southeast meeting.

Quite a good turnout and FOCM membership cards were given out to deserving members.  Attendees included: Chad Pollio, Lisa Campbell, Bernie Linner, Jeff Hudak, Vince Hoefling, Constance Hopkins, Deb Carfagno, Mark Paul and a colleague, Denee Oakley, Peter Payne, Paula Heyer, Jennifer with Acurian, Dana Edwards and a colleague, Kim Martinez, Erin Tabet and a colleague, Rosina Pavia, Michelle Jacobson, Sue Joor, Paul Eisenmann, Brian Langin, Jon Gardow, Diane Romick, Alison Greenwood, Laura Peters, Mike Markowitz, Garrett Smith, Chris Ramm, Pippa Wilson, Paul Oldfield, Breyona Fenner and two that I only have down as ‘knows Ken Billard’ and ‘Brit TRX guy’.

Diane Romick
The Crowd
Sue Joor, Michelle Jacobson
Breyona Fenner
Sue Joor
Deb Carfagno, Chad Pollio