Fred Sandsmark's Blog

I learned today on the CSUEB View that one of my CSUH professors, Douglas L. Peterson, has died.

The View article says that Prof. Peterson left CSUH in 1977, but I know I had at least one class from him in the early 1980s. I remember one episode very clearly.

I was a young and nervous underclassman, still trying to decide on a major. I had written my first paper for Prof. Peterson's class, and was surprised when he started reading the paper aloud in class one day. (He didn't say who had written it.) He read my thesis paragraph, then looked up over his half glasses and said to the class, "I don't agree with that." My heart sank a little. He read more, then gave another disapproving remark. The pattern repeated. With each of his comments, I'm sure I slumped deeper into my chair. He eventually read the entire paper, taking it apart bit by bit.

When he finished, he looked up and said (I paraphrase), "I didn't agree with much of what this writer said, but he presented his arguments well and thoughtfully. It's a well-written paper. I gave it an A."

It was there and then that I decided to be an English major. That a teacher could put aside his opinions on my ideas and judge my writing on its merits impresses me to this day. It's a goal I aspire to when I edit others.

Labels: CSUH, language, obituary, people, writing

When I tell people that I work at home, a common reaction is a sort of swooning: Oh, that must be nice, they say. Yes and no; I like setting my own hours and not having a commute, but I sometimes miss having colleagues whom I see regularly.

But perhaps I shouldn't long for coworkers after all. A survey (sponsored, almost inexplicably, by some mysterious Hormel lunch product), showed that 51 percent of surveyed workers identified their coworkers, and not the work itself, as the number one source of on-the-job stress.

Other findings:

Your Desk Is The New Water Cooler. A majority of office workers in America can’t get away from office gossip because most of it takes place right at their desk or a co-worker’s desk (53 percent), rather thansomewhere outside their workspace such as the water cooler (just 2 percent) or the kitchen or lunch room (22 percent).

Catchphrases That Drive You Crazy. The top three clichés that drive office workers nuts? “Think outside the box” (22 percent), “Team Player” (20 percent), and “Shoot me an email” (19 percent).

Flattery Doesn’t Get You Everywhere. Brownnosers are a major office offender. Among office workers familiar with NBC’s “The Office,” the character they’d least like to get stuck in an elevator with is irritating brownnoser Dwight Schrute, played by actor Rainn Wilson (27 percent).

A Lack of Long-Lasting Lunches. Unfortunately, many office workers just aren’t satisfied by their desktop dining: nearly half (46 percent) say they feel hungry again within just three hours of their midday meal.

Ah ha! That last point shows why a lunch-meat company sponsored the study. Another lunch-related data point from the survey: Nearly half of Americans who work in an office eat lunch at their desk at least three times a week.

The results don't strike me as all that surprising. What does surprise me is the casual use of the word "brownnoser" in the press release. Did the Hormel PR folks think at all about its origin? Then again, Houghton Mifflin on dictionary.com (linked above) says "Despite its scatological origin, today this slangy term is not considered particularly vulgar."

Labels: marketing, surveys, words, work, writing

I'm catching up on posting some older stories. Here are two I wrote for Diablo Magazine:

The Illusionist - a profile of magician and Alamo resident Lee Grabel - January 2007. Snippet:

His den is covered with playbills and pictures of Grabel and his wife, Helen, onstage. Files overflow with newspaper reports of their performances in the 1950s, when Lee was America’s preeminent magician.

The Shark Whisperer - a short item about John Valentine, a Pleasanton man who nurses sharks in his huge home aquarium - December 2006. Snippet:

A money manager for wealthy clients, Valentine began keeping reef fish in 1999 to unwind. In 2000, he adopted an 18-inch whitetip reef shark when a customer reneged on a deal with a Danville aquarium-store owner. The shark grew to four feet; Jigsaw now stars at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Labels: clips, writing

I recently got my author copy of Save $20,000 With a Nail, a Reader's Digest book. I researched and wrote the Home Appliances chapter. My friend and colleague Aimée Oscamou also contributed to the book. (Aimée, I know you check this blog occasionally; what chapters did you end up doing? Honk your horn in the comments.)

The book was packaged by Gonzalez Defino in New York, and provided me with a welcome opportunity to work with the brilliant and kind Joseph Gonzalez.

Labels: books, clips, writing

After a brief hiatus, Symantec has resurrected its CIO Digest magazine. for the current (April 2008) issue, I interviewed three healthcare IT leaders, asking them about their challenges with device management, enterprise security, storage, compliance, and communications. The article, entitled Best Medicine, can be found here (pdf).

Labels: clips, health, marketing, medicine, science, technology, writing

The new issue of Boalt Hall Transcript (the UC Berkeley law school alumni magazine) is out, and I realize that I hadn't yet linked to articles from the last issue, published in Spring 2007. I had two:

Does Money Talk? discusses the research of Professor Eric Talley, who's done work linking creative executive compensation to securities fraud.

Patent Trolls Take Their Toll talks about patent reform with Professor Pamela Samuelson.

Please check them out, and share your comments. For the current issue of Transcript (which I'll link to when it's live online) I profiled Howard Chao, a prominent Silicon Valley attorney who does private equity work in China.

Labels: clips, law, technology, writing

Those of us who love The Book Shop in Hayward were happy to see the article about Hank Maschal in Saturday's Daily Review. In it, Staff Writer Kristofer Noceda got a lot of the details exactly right. For example: "If friends were made solely on first impressions, Maschal wouldn't have many. Yet he does, several of them longtime, loyal customers. That customer loyalty is what helps keep the store open." Count me among them. I also liked Noceda's calling Renée Rettig "the sweet to [Hank's] sour." An excellent article about a gem of a place.

Labels: books, friends, fun, Hayward, writing

I was sad to read that Ray Orrock, columnist for the Daily Review, has died. I read him daily when I was growing up and until he retired a few years ago.

I liked so much about him. His unadorned wit. His power of observation. His devotion to friends and family. His love of sports cars. The fact that he was a cartoonist. And the fact that writing was a second career for him -- he had originally worked in the public sector, if I recall correctly.

One of Mr. Orrock's taglines was "I'd buy him a drink." (As in, "If I met the guy who invented flavored lipstick, I'd buy him a drink.") About a week after my 21st birthday, I had the good fortune (with the help of some friends) to meet Ray Orrock for a drink at a bar on Winton Avenue in Hayward. It was a great visit.

I really wanted to buy him a drink, but Mr. Orrock insisted on paying. What a gentleman.

Mr. Orrock said in one of his columns long ago that he wanted a palindrome on his grave marker. Here's what he came up with: "Risk Corroded a Jaded Orrock, Sir." Brilliant. I hope he gets his wish.

Labels: obituary, writing

My pal Cary Nasatir has a new article on the Vic Firth website entitled Taming the Volume Beast in the Percussion Section. He talks about drumstick selection, drum stands and hardware, the angle of the drum itself, and tuning up drums. He also addresses player confidence and motivation. Good reading.

But it's funny: Cary doesn't explain how to get drummers to stop talking between pieces. That's the real volume beast! (Just kidding, buddy ...)

Labels: friends, music, writing

There's a funny essay by Giles Turnbull in The Morning News today, discussing author bios -- those little one- or two-sentence blurbs in books and at the end of magazine articles that tell the reader something about the writer. Well worth reading.

I've had a rough time with author bios, but not for the reasons that Turnbull mentions. My biggest problem has been with bios that embarrass me because they list the many defunct publications that I've worked for. Somehow -- I suppose because of cuts-and-pastes from old articles -- Silicon Valley TechWeek still appears in my author bio sometimes. TechWeek hasn't been published for years and years.

My favorite version of my own author bio is the one that appeared in How to Organize (Just About) Everything:

Fred Sandsmark is a freelance writer in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering technology and home-related subjects. Working on this book inspired him to organize his garage, a task that should be completed sometime next week.

Labels: clips, writing

Now that I sport a healthy Body Mass Index of 23, I'm more relaxed reading stories about obesity and related health challenges. I sense (but can't document with multiple examples) some pushback against the very concept of an obesity epidemic. I also sense (but again can't document) that science writers stories on this topic to have some fun with language. For example, this paragraph from a story found on PhysOrg.com, discussing a British Medical Journal article on debate about an obesity epidemic:

In summary, a large body of evidence documents that over-nutrition and obesity are a major global health problem, say the authors [emphasis mine].

Cheap joke, but it made me chuckle.

Labels: health, science, writing