David Soubly

We’ve all been to the zoo. Some zoos do better than others at recreating natural habitats, so the animals they confine can enjoy the illusion of freedom.

Visiting one such zoo, I studied a female elephant in her enclosure. The elephant’s behavior puzzled me. She would step forward onto a horizontal log, and it looked like she was about to cross over it. Then her rear leg would lift and bend slightly. As if this slight movement had tugged a rope, she would stop, then step backward off the...

This happened to me quite a few years ago, when I was a relatively new manager. Early one morning, I was in my office, doing manager things. Suddenly, one of my supervisors burst through the door and shouted, “Why did you fire my programmers?”

That was a lively start to the day, especially before coffee. I knew I hadn’t fired anyone. Had I? Still, I worked for a big company, and anything could happen. Had I missed a headcount meeting?

“Sit down,” I said, which was stupid, because she’d...

Let’s discuss a number.

500,000.

Numbers by themselves are merely data or at best, rudimentary information. Individual bits of data are rather meaningless (and thus, without much value) until we connect them to other bits of data. Take your social security number. A string of nine digits and two dashes that don’t mean much, unless you — or a criminal — attach your name and other elements to it. It’s then valuable. It’s then information.

There are different connections we can make to this...

So I turned 65 this last weekend in January.

Yippee.

It was a Saturday, so I started it the usual way, which is to do a morning workout. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, I do situps, upper body strength training, and (recently - thank you, COVID), stair stepper. The other days, you’ll find me on a morning hike in the woods.

I read email, opened a lot of ecards, most from close friends but a few from websites I didn’t even know had my birthday in their files, somewhere.

One thing I...

When I was a kid, the world didn’t seem dangerous. It was just out there. Whether backyard or neighborhood park, it was a place to explore. I didn’t realize my parents and other adults were watching out for me.

I went to kindergarten when I was five. The school was several blocks away, across a somewhat busy street that had adult crossing guards. But there were still side streets to cross on our own.

My very first day, Mom walked me to school, and a genial old man, the school principal,...