Choice Mindsets

01 May Send in the Clown

“Tell Jeff Puthoff I appreciate him lending his big shoes for the Clowning Around for Charity costumes.”
– Kari Egbert, City of Sidney

Anyone who knows Jeff Puthoff knows that you can hear him coming from a mile away. Maybe it’s the cowboy boots, maybe it’s his unique stride, or maybe he’s just repeatedly trying not to fall down…

Jeff, don’t take offense at Kari’s comment. What she’s really saying is that someday, many years from now, when you retire from Choice One, we’ll have big shoes to fill. Geez, just think! We’ll have to find someone else who can nap at the drop of a hat, has the ten-day weather forecast memorized by 4:00am each morning, and who wears green every day (even on the weekends!) with such pride. Oh, AND be that one guy who handles all those residential, commercial, and industrial land development projects—with a few utility and roadway projects on the side.

There’s an old saying that goes something like, “A good house needs a good foundation. An outhouse can stand on anything.” So don’t think of your feet as big, Jeff, just bask in the revelation that someone who isn’t a socially clumsy engineer was caught staring at the floor to manage conversation, too.

Oh, and by the way, we hope those of you who attended the Charity Cup in March had a good time—big shoes, clown outfits, rubber ducks and all. We can’t thank all who donated enough. The Miami Valley Down Syndrome Association thanks you all, too in the letter linked here.

17 Apr Charged Up and Ready for Life!

“[Mark] wants to help a dad be able to be a dad.”
Jenny Goubeaux, Brian Goubeaux’s wife

We hope you don’t mind the lack of silliness today, but we have something more powerful on our minds. Right now, literally as you may be reading this, Choice One’s Brian “Goub” Goubeaux (right photo, on left) is receiving an incredible gift from a complete stranger: a kidney. Moreover, Brian is regaining the ability to be a father to those three smiling little Goubeauxs above (left to right that’s Jaci, Toby, and Cole).

Some time ago, Brian discovered his kidneys were failing. His only option was to receive a new kidney, and the waiting list is years long—too long for his condition. But a complete stranger named Mark (far right, above) saw Brian’s story and was compelled to respond because, as Brian’s wife Jenny paraphrases it “ [Mark] wants to give Brian his life back… He wants to help a dad be able to be a dad.”

From all of us at Choice One, thank you, Mark, for your remarkable, selfless gift. Without a healthy Goub around Choice One, we wouldn’t have a Steelers fan to grumble about, we’d forget how to push Ctl + Alt + Delete to fix our computers, and we’d be sorely missing a warm smile, an easygoing chuckle, and a helpful heart.

Toby, Cole, and Jaci supporting Daddy and Mark last night.

If you want to pass along a message to Brian, Mark, and their families, please feel free to reply this email or post on Choice One’s Facebook page and we’ll be sure that he gets it (we’ll be updating Facebook with Brian’s progress, too). And if you still have a couple more seconds, here are some more words of appreciation from the Goubeaux family over the past few months.

“Thank you God for hearing our prayers: we officially have a donor and he has been cleared for surgery! We are so blessed to have Brian’s donor become a part of our life. He and his wife saw our story and wanted to help. He went to church and prayed about our situation and knew that he could help Brian. We have never met this family, but he still felt the need to help. He wants to help a dad be able to be a dad. He wants to give Brian his life back, all because of his love for God. We are blessed to be on this journey with this very special family who, because of a love of God that we share, has now become a part of us and our family. We will be forever grateful for him and his family and will never know how to show them how thankful we are. God bless them for changing our life! We are also blessed for our family and friends for their support, love, and prayers. Please pray for Brian and Mark as they are having surgery Friday! God is good!”

03 Apr It’s All in the Details

Tony: “Dan, is Barney having you topo the whole office?”
Dan: “Yeah, I told him it wasn’t level and he needed to reconstruct the whole thing.”

Topographically surveying the entire Sidney office to ensure it’s perfectly level isn’t a stretch for a details person like Brian “Barney” Barhorst. In fact, Barney has a to-scale AutoCAD drawing of both offices, complete with desk assignments, filing cabinets, and, of course, Canteen snack storage*. (Yet we’d be darned if those drawings don’t come in handy when we want to rearrange furniture or provide a “map” for new hires.)

AutoCAD isn’t the only software we’ve uncommonly employed. Our traffic engineers daydream of laying out the traffic counting tubes indoors to transfer interoffice “traffic counts” into Synchro software*. Then we could predict when Jeff Puthoff is coming to harass the Michigan fans (oh wait, the clunky cowboy boots give that away) and analyze the optimal times to find an open restroom by avoiding peak hours (like after Tony’s long meetings).

Like a lot of engineers, we use fancy MS Excel spreadsheets for the NCAA pool* and the large format printer to display embarrassing photos on birthdays*, but we like to imagine that our particular use of engineering technology borders on engineering creativity. (Yes, we just used “creativity” and “engineering” in the same sentence.) And if that means Ryan Lefeld can use HEC-RAS software to calculate the forecasted Lake Erie water temperature for Ty Thobe’s upcoming bachelor party to Put-in-Bay, we’re all for it.

*Not an exaggeration.

20 Mar Fountain of Youth

Office Supply Deliveryman: “Looks like you hired someone new?”

We sure get them started young around here, don’t we?

Meet Ryann, Megan Bornhorst’s delightful baby girl. She stopped in the office to visit and we didn’t miss the opportunity to put her to work. Apparently she’s not impressed with filing—it’s put her to sleep.

Whether she knows it or not, Ryann is now a part of the Choice One family. (Poor thing!) Before long, she’ll understand the finer points of traffic signal timing and intersection safety, be able to command three computer monitors right from her crib, and be tying tiny shopping bags over her tiny feet to keep her tiny shoes dry just like her mom. But all joking aside, Ryann’s pretty lucky, as we feel the Choice One family includes not just us here in Sidney and Loveland, but all of you who have become our extended family and friends over the past 20+ years. Just remember to ignore our crazy Uncle Tony.

Oh! One last thing, Ryann. Your mom must have forgotten to tell you: you’re not in mandatory Choice One green while in the office. Soooooo, you owe us all lunch.

P.S. Only 5 more days until the 2015 Choice One Charity Cup. Come help us support a great cause!

06 Mar I Scream, You Scream

“One of the benefits of riding a bicycle for 15 minutes as fast as physically possible is that we will get to enjoy ice cream, right Nick Selhorst?”
– Michael Seeger

This weekend, the Choice One crew will be participating in the Cincinnati area Race to Anyplace, a fundraiser that benefits the Tri-State Chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. For those not familiar with this event, it involves riding a stationary bicycle as fast as possible in 15-minute shifts. For each mile ridden, participating teams—Choice One’s “Wheels of ONEder” included—collect donations.

For some crazy people (ahem…Tony and Kaye), having a crowd watch as we thrash about awkwardly on a bike sounds like a blast. (Although Kaye can’t help being awkward on or off a bike.) But all of us are more than willing to make the sweat fly for such a great cause. The complimentary bagels, pizza, sandwiches, chili soup, Mt. Dew, and ice cream are just gravy. Or sprinkles.

Considering the high likelihood of overworked legs, sore butts, and hastily consumed ice cream, we expect plenty of aches resulting from the Race to Anyplace on Saturday. Most importantly, we expect a successful fundraising event for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, not to mention plenty of laughter. Good luck to all of the teams participating—if there were dust in the Mason Community Center, our inexperienced riders might be left in it!

20 Feb Avalanche

Text conversation between Kecia Flaute and Wes Goubeaux:

Wes Goubeaux, Tony, and Brian Barhorst are soon headed out together on a four-day ski adventure in Colorado. Tony and Brian are experienced skiers. Wes is not. In fact, other than a few trial runs at a local Bellefontaine slope (which is a far cry from Vail and Beaver Creek), Wes has about as much skiing experience as Kecia’s son Kole. And to be honest, Wes, Kole is a touch more adorable flailing about in the snow than you.

Fortunately, Wes has a good sense of humor about learning to fall-er, ski-and gets right back up. Granted, he got back up in this instance to avoid being teased, but being able to laugh at himself is commendable, regardless. Indeed, Wes’s good-natured attitude is going to be put to the test in Colorado–not because he could twist an ankle, but because he has to spend FOUR WHOLE DAYS with JUST Tony and Brian.

The bonus? Not only do the rest of us get the better part of a week free of Wes, Brian, and Tony, we can be sure that if Tony or Brian would happen to fall, Wes will be on the spot to snap a photo (even if he has to fall down, too). And fear not, we’ll make sure THAT photo makes its way into a Choice Mindset, too.