By Paul Losch
About this blog: I was a "corporate brat" growing up and lived in different parts of the country, ending in Houston, Texas for high school. After attending college at UC Davis, and getting an MBA at Harvard, I embarked on a marketing career, mai...
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About this blog: I was a "corporate brat" growing up and lived in different parts of the country, ending in Houston, Texas for high school. After attending college at UC Davis, and getting an MBA at Harvard, I embarked on a marketing career, mainly in the Bay Area with different companies. My former wife went back to medical school after we had been married a few years, and we moved into married student housing at Stanford, had our two now adult children while she was a medical student, and moved into Palo Alto when she started her Residency. Been here ever since. As my kids were going through the Palo Alto schools, I was actively involved in their activities, most notably head umpire for Palo Alto Little League and 9 years as a member of the Parks and Recreation Commission, among other activities. My kids both are grown, my son teaches 5th grade locally, and my daughter, fluent in Mandarin, is working in China. I sold the business I owned and ran for 8 years in 2012, worked on the Obama campaign, and am consulting for non-profit organizations, which gives me a nice, flexible schedule. Lots of stamps in my passport, and for fun, I like live performances &emdash; theater and music - and of course the Giants!
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I wish to all a happy holiday season.
I write this not to address what the newspapers typically discuss around people down and out at this time of year.
Instead, for those of us who have been more fortunate in our lives, there still are Christmases that have not been merry, for a variety of reasons.
Here is my nightmare Christmas experience:
I had been married for 2 years, I was working for DHL Worldwide Express (the marriage and the company are both over ;+<) and I had gotten a career development position in Indianapolis.
The assignment started on December 1, and my travel priveleges limited my ability to get home for Christmas, Time in a hotel, OK we can deal with that.
It turned out that the hotel I was in was hosting some sort of cult group on Christmas Day. I tried to have a meal in the dining room, and I had to share the table with someone from this cult. The place was so so crowded with this group that I had to share.
I made the "innocuous" Merry Christmas greeting, and this guy started on me about why he was there and it was not about Christmas. I had already ordered my meal, but I got up and left, I just could not imagine spending time with such a person on a day when I was so far away from where I wanted to be and had no interest whatsoever in getting "enlightened" let alone prosletized.
At least there were movies in the hotel room that day.