Happy Holidays!
Remember in the old days when people used to talk about the “paperless office”? Frank Pfenning, who runs our Ph.D. program, was just in my office extolling the time-saving virtues of our new on-line system for managing the “Black Friday” assessment of our graduate students. Still, in the end, a hardcopy letter gets printed and mailed to each graduate student. Another thing that has remained firmly paper-based is the tradition of sending out Christmas cards.
Like a lot of people, I receive my fair share of cards, from both personal and professional contacts. The ones from professional contacts sometimes feel a bit impersonal. On the other hand, I find that I do get therapeutic value from taking the time to write a short note in each card that I send out, even the professional ones. Doing this ensures that everyone on my list gets at least those few minutes of “mindshare” each year. Not a bad payoff for me, at least.
Among the “professional” cards I received this year, one of my favorites was from Randy Bryant, who did a little bit of tasteful bragging. (Well, I suppose if you’re not fond of CMU you might not find this so tasteful ;-):
A pretty sweet ride for Santa, wouldn’t you say? I’m not sure that all the presents my son has asked for would fit inside the Boss, but I’m sure that it would have no trouble finding our house on Christmas night!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!
Peter Lee @ December 20, 2007
Great card. Thanks for sharing.