Is blogging on your lunch break universal?

Sometimes I think it is really interesting how certain things can be universal to everyone. I recently had a meeting with a leading scientist in the field of sensor detection and he began our get together by pulling an old Starbucks paper cup off of the back shelf of his top filing case. The cup had a quote printed on it by Dave Grusin that said "In my career I've found that 'thinking outside the box' works better if I know what's 'inside the box'. In music (as in life) we need to understand our pertinent history...and moving on is so much easier once we know where we've been." The scientist I was meeting with said that he always keeps this in mind when he is doing his work.






He is a pretty quirky fellow and really interesting to talk to. In the middle of a sentence, he would stop. Get up from his seat. Leave the room. And come back with something in his hands to show me, explain to me, and then we'd go on with the conversation. I can just picture him stopping to get a coffee one day from Starbucks with someone and probably being in the middle of a conversation when he suddenly realized there was a quote written on his cup that he really identified with. Having whatever conversation he was mid suddenly be gone from his head and stutter around in circles for a few moments and wanting to save the cup. I feel like someone else may have suggested he go ask for another one.


But anyways, Dave Grusin is a musician. An Academy Award winning musician! He has composed music, arranged, and played the piano for a number of classic movies… the ones that mean the most to me are Tootsie, The Graduate, The Firm, and who know this, but The Goonies! What struck me as amazing about this quote is that it was presented to me by an analytical chemist in a Chem/Bio Sensors Laboratory as his motto, yet it was written by a musician. Me? I'm not sure what I am but definititely not either of those, yet it resonates with me as well. And someone, somewhere in corporate Starbucks found it appealing as well and chose to print it on coffee cups that circulated perhaps around the world.


I wonder how you get a job like that? The coffee cup quote selector. I think I'd be good at that...

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p.s. That is not my hand in the picture-- I just found that online somewhere.


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