October 20, 2017
If you are looking for a reason to have that extra adult beverage on Saturday, October 21, you can raise a glass to recognize the birthdays of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kim Kardashian and Alfred Nobel. I decided several years ago to lead a Kardashian-free life and Coleridge’s insufferable poetry and prose was a major reason that I dropped English as my college major.
So, let’s raise a toast to Alfred Nobel- He of the famous Nobel Prize. 
Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist and engineer born on October 21, 1833.Despite the lack of a secondary or tertiary education, he became a highly accomplished inventor and entrepreneur. In his lifetime, Nobel was granted 355 patents, became proficient in six languages, and was a published poet and author.
Nobel’s inventions include smokeless gunpowder and dynamite which was used extensively in mining construction. Nobel amassed even greater wealth by investing in his brothers’ oilfields along the Caspian Sea.
The reclusive Nobel never married and had no children. He once said, “I am a misanthrope, but exceedingly benevolent.” (I’m guessing that line wasn’t a real winner at speed dating events)
In his 1895 will, Nobel declared that the bulk of his estate should be converted into a fund managed by four institutions. In 1900, four years after Nobel’s death, the four institutions agreed to create the Nobel Prize. And with apologies to my friends in the legal community it should be noted that Nobel wrote his will without legal counsel. He felt that lawyers made a living “by inducing people to believe that a straight line is crooked”
So as the weekend begins, my only question is which Kardashian is Kim? The one who staged her own robbery in Paris? The one who won a men’s decathlon and then became a woman? Or the one who makes bad marriage decisions? This curious mind wants to know.
Thanks for reading and please check out this recent Black Dot Messaging blog:
Why printed sales collateral rocks!
Have a great weekend,
Ted Curtin