Deadlines. We all have them. Some of us have more than others, but, yes, we all have them.

Most of us learned about deadlines when we were in school. We had to finish a paper that was due by Monday or complete a class project by Wednesday or study for a test on Friday. If we missed any of those, there were direct penalties, often showing up in our grades. 

That’s not the case in some classrooms today. Don’t turn a paper in on time? No worries. Just get it in by the end of the semester. Didn’t complete your class project? That’s OK. You can get an extension. Flunked a test? Relax. You can retake it. Some administrators and teachers think they are helping students by allowing these exceptions to deadlines. They aren’t. Deadlines are important — and inevitable — in the working world. 

I recognize that meeting deadlines is more difficult for some people. We all have friends or family members who are continually late with seemingly everything in their lives. They are the folks who think deadlines are merely suggestions. Despite this ongoing tardiness, a few of them are still successful in life, as their strengths compensate for this weakness. Most others aren’t so fortunate, as their inability to meet deadlines hampers them for life.

We also know those who thrive in a world of deadlines. It gives them extra motivation or drive to complete a task. They not only want deadlines, they request them. These folks perform better when having the discipline of deadlines. 

A few decades ago, I managed a commercial printing plant. We would create our press schedules and line up press operators and assistants each week to cover the workload. Our customers would tell us when they needed papers back, and we would work in reverse and tell them when we would need files by. Most customers understood this. Some didn’t. I had one customer in particular who was not only hours late but sometimes days late. He would bring his files in randomly and say he would wait at the plant to pick up the printed copies. I would explain that he missed his press time and that we are printing for other customers now. He would reply, “That’s OK. I will wait.” I would clarify that he would need to wait a couple days, and he would then look at me with dismay. This happened almost every month. He simply could not — or would not — meet a deadline. 

Now that I am back on the other side of the printing press, I am now the one working to meet those deadlines. The popular movie phrase “STOP THE PRESS” simply doesn’t happen, at least not in today’s world. Even this digital newsletter has deadlines, and many of you let me know when you think it is sent out late. That adherence to deadlines is a good thing, because, in the real world, there are no do-overs, retakes or extensions. And that’s the way it should be. 

Have a fantastic Friday, and thanks for reading.

Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital editions
shane@gctimesnews.com
641-332-2707

I am convinced that most of us, over time, can learn to do just about anything. Just about. I have several kryptonites, but one comes to mind each morning when I drive to work — washing my car windows. No matter how hard I try, I leave streaks. I try more solution. Less solution. Various cloths. Even newspaper. Doesn’t seem to matter. Streaks. My wife does it once, and it’s perfect. 

I don’t mind washing windows, especially in my car. It’s worth the small effort to have an unobstructed view out of my windows. And I do an OK job on the exterior windows.

For years, I kept a small bucket in my vehicle that had a roll of paper towels, a small scrub brush and a spray bottle of window cleaner. I used to travel a lot for my job, and when I got home each evening, I would wash the exterior windshield by hand. Yes, I would do this when filling up with gas, too, but there was something about having a clean windshield every morning that I truly appreciated. One of my good friends recognized this when we were in college. When I would be driving, and we would stop to fill up for gas, I would see him cleaning the windshield of my car. I thought it was a nice gesture, until I realized he would only clean the passenger side. Jerk. 

Later in life, I discovered the pre-packaged window wipes in flat, resealable packages that fit in the glove box. Those came in handy with my obsession of cleaning my dog’s nose prints off the windows. My kids learned that cleaning the inside windows of my vehicle was a ritual when they rode with me. They even learned to start cleaning before I even asked. Wonderful. 

If you, too, appreciate clean car windows, then you know the struggle in cleaning the inside of the front window. This brings me back to my kryptonite. As much as I try to clean that glass, it ends up looking like I wiped it down with a raw egg. I am reminded of this each morning as I drive to work heading into the sun. 

I once bought one of those cleaning pads on a handle that promised to make washing the inside of the front windshield easy. The handle broke off in my hand the first time I used it. Ugh.

Aside from the initial frustration and the deductible cost, I actually look forward to a cracked windshield on my car, as that means I get a perfectly clean replacement — at least for a few months.

How about you? Do you like clean car windows? Do you have a few tricks of the trade? Send them my way. 

Have a terrific Tuesday, and thanks for reading.

Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital editions
shane@gctimesnews.com
641-332-2707

It was a late-1960s era Volkswagen Beetle, but this car was not owned by any hippie. Quite the contrary. This “Bug,” and several others like it, was owned by a farming family in Kossuth County where I was born and raised. 

Its orange paint was faded by the Iowa sun, but the usefulness of this VW held strong. A large iron hitch was welded to the front of the car, and it was used to hook it up to farm machinery as a way to pull the vehicle to the farm fields. This allowed the tractors and combines to stay in the fields overnight and provided the farmers a vehicle to drive home. The VWs were light, easy to pull and inexpensive to replace. As such, they were a common sight on some farms in the area.

As a teenager, I was employed on one of those family farms, mostly working with livestock. In the north-central part of this state, that meant hogs — and a lot of them. And when you work with hogs, you smell like hogs, despite your best efforts not to do so. Some of the farmers claimed that if you washed your hands with toothpaste, the smell would go away. It didn’t. Instead, my hands smelled like minty hog manure. I didn’t mind, though, as I was happy to have a job. 

Back to the orange Bug. The farmer I worked for was kind enough to allow me to drive that VW to and from my house in town. This saved my personal car from the aroma of hog manure, which those who rode with me certainly appreciated. The Bug wasn’t so lucky. The scent stuck with it, so much so that my mother wouldn’t allow me to have it in the driveway. So I parked it in the street — unlocked. Nobody dared to get close enough to break into it. 

This Bug had issues. Windshield wipers didn’t work. Gas gauge was broken. Speedometer was stuck. The brakes were iffy. There were holes in the floorboards, and a 2×4 propped up the driver’s seat. The list went on, but you get the idea. Even so, that car provided me with the necessary transportation to get back and forth to the farm, and I was grateful. 

Orange Beetles weren’t too popular in rural Iowa, so most people would recognize me coming down the road from a mile away. The large iron hitch was the giveaway. 

I sometimes wonder where that car ended up. Rusting away in some junkyard. Restored by a VW enthusiast. Or maybe still collecting dust in the machine shed I first pulled it out of. You might not be able to see it from a distance, but I am guessing you could still smell it. 

Have a fantastic Friday, and thanks for reading.

Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital editions
shane@gctimesnews.com
641-332-2707

In searching through old newspapers recently, I found articles with spelling and grammatical errors. The writers of that day surely cringed when the publications came back from the printer and saw the errors. But what was done was done. Printed. Delivered. Read. Errors and all. Unfortunately, these errors also became a permanent record, often microfilmed and stored in libraries or other places of record for centuries to come. 

Our media friends in radio certainly made similar mistakes, but there was no permanent record that the average person could refer back to. In television, it was much the same, except for the few recordings that might have been saved to video tape. But newspaper folks had to learn to live with those errors — forever. 

The digital age has changed this, to some degree. Mistakes in print are still mistakes in print, but the work of journalists online can now be changed, as if the errors never happened. That’s a good thing in some ways but a bad thing in others. All too often, in a reporter’s or editor’s mission to get a story out quickly, sloppy journalism happens. The online stories are edited, and the errors erased — but not before at least some readers noticed the blunders. 

Of course, you don’t have to be a paid journalist to make a mistake in writing. Most everyone has sent a text with errors. Some have emailed messages that are regretted. And a few of us have even mailed Christmas cards to friends and family with boo-boos. (Sigh.) 

Thoughts of these errors got me thinking about a product that was once commonly purchased but is less and less useful today — correction fluid. Most of us know it as the brand names Wite-Out or Liquid Paper. It was essential for those who used a typewriter and didn’t want to start over with a fresh piece of paper for every “g” that was supposed to be an “f.” 

According to an article at atlantic.com, correction fluid dates back to the 1950s when Bette Nesmith Graham took on typing jobs to make money. She apparently wasn’t a very accurate typist and made many mistakes. Bette started experimenting with ways to cover up her errors, and, in 1958, she patented Liquid Paper. A few years later, in 1966, George Kloosterhouse and Edwin Johanknecht created Wite-Out, an improved formula of correction fluid that wouldn’t show up when a document was photocopied. 

Many of you reading this may have a crusty bottle of one of these correction fluids tucked away in a desk somewhere, waiting for its day of need. Utilizing it could be a trick, though, as opening the bottle may take a herculean effort now — as could finding a typewriter to use it with.

Have a terrific Tuesday, and thanks for reading.

Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital editions
shane@gctimesnews.com
641-332-2707

I wrote a column a few years back about Tupperware containers and my ongoing frustration in matching the lids with the bowls. It’s still maddening. I finally realized at least part of my match-game problem. I can’t find the appropriate Tupperware counterparts because our cupboards are filled with overpriced, insulated tumblers and their mismatched lids. Now, where did this insanity come from? 

Well, you can blame it, at least partially, on Sir James Dewar, a Scottish scientist working in cryogenics who invented the “vacuum flask” in 1892 to keep a chemical placed in a container at a stable temperature. According to thermos.com, Dewar put one glass bottle in another larger glass bottle and evacuated the air between the two bottle walls. In doing so, he created a partial vacuum to keep the temperature of the contents stable. He hired some professional glass blowers to make a sturdier flask, and this led to the manufacturing of the “Dewar Flask” in 1898.

The glassblowers, Reinhold Burger and Albert Aschenbrenner, soon discovered that this vacuum technology could be used commercially to keep drinks cold or warm. Dewar never patented the vacuum flask. These two did, and the double wall insulated cup became known as “thermos” in 1904.

So, we can’t really blame the scientist. It’s those thieving glassblowers’ fault. 

Enough history. I understand the fascination. I like my liquids cold, too. That’s why I use ice in an open cup. Then I can crunch the ice with my teeth, which I find keeps discussions with others short. 

Aside from keeping liquids hot or cold longer, I appreciate the other benefits of these adult sippy cups, too. No cup sweating. No spills. And they fit somewhat easily into the cup holders in cars.

Believe me, I am all for having a handful of these cups around the house, but do we need one in our cupboard for every day of the month? The mass quantities we have are simply ridiculous, and good luck trying to find matching lids for these tumblers. It’s like that square-peg, round-hole game you played as a toddler. If I do find a matching lid, of course, it’s the one with the tab that never stays closed. So much for the no-spill benefit. 

A few years back, I was convinced to have some of these insulated tumblers engraved with our company logo and given to staff.  Seemed like a good idea at the time. Now we have 50 of these things filling the cupboards around the office, too — along with a bunch of lids that don’t match. 

Have a fantastic Friday, and thanks for reading.

Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital editions
shane@gctimesnews.com
641-332-2707

I heard a “stages of life” story the other day that hit home. I am guessing many of you can relate. 

The story explains how most all of us go through three stages of life that deal with accepting and understanding other people’s views of us. And, as such, we most all pass through each one of these stages and enter the next. 

The first stage is one that most all young people go through when being overly concerned with what others think of them. In an effort to fit in, they become obsessed with the shoes they wear, the haircuts they have, the music they listen to, the phones they have, etc. These are unhealthy obsessions, but ones that many young people — and, unfortunately, many grown adults — have.  What will others think? Will they like me? Will they make fun of me? Will they think I am cool? Or will they call me a nerd? If we are being honest, most all of us have been there (and some of us still are).

The second stage often happens during middle age when people say they don’t care what other people think any more, and it shows. They now wear only clothes that are comfortable, eat only food they enjoy, and listen only to music they prefer. They don’t care if others agree with them or not. The predominant attitude at this stage is, “Love me or hate me; I am who I am.” Sometimes, it is because the pain in doing things others may like is greater than any pleasure that comes from being more readily accepted. Those in this stage now wear shoes that don’t make their feet hurt, eat food that doesn’t give them indigestion, and drive vehicles that make financial sense. 

The third stage is one when older adults realize not very many folks were ever interested in what they were doing to begin with — and they certainly don’t give two hoots now. This is the stage of true enlightenment that would be good for us all to realize earlier in life. It is in this stage when people realize how big the world is and how insignificant their individual impacts are. Those in this stage certainly want to be positive role models and help others with their actions, but they realize they are not the center of everyone else’s thoughts — and they never were. 

What I find most interesting is how those in the first stage can’t envision being in the other two and even laugh at those who are. Those in stage two are relieved to no longer care about those in stage one but continue to cling to their self-importance. Those in stage three truly get it, but why? Because they are getting closer to their end of life? Because they have let go of their egos? Or because their life experiences have led them to what is truly important? The answer is probably a mix of all three.  

Regardless, most all of us will get to that stage… hopefully. 

Have a terrific Tuesday, and thanks for reading.

Shane Goodman
President and Publisher
Big Green Umbrella Media
shane@dmcityview.com
515-953-4822, ext. 305