Many of you know that I’m a soccer referee. I’ll just get this out of the way, now. I have no clue what the referee called that denied a goal for the US team. I have been yelled at by so many English coaches in my career that I hate to side with them 😉 but the English announcers on ESPN had it right. The referee had let so much physical play go on in the penalty area for 88 minutes, that to call something that had to be fairly minor to disallow a goal was a mistake.

Also as bad was the referee in the Brazil v Ivory Coast match. Even at the level I referee, when the score became 3:0 my first thought was “watch out for the nasty fouls in retaliation for losing.” Well, the poor guy got duped by several Oscar-winning acts, ejected a player who probably should not have been, and probably lost another chance at a World Cup game. Most of the officiating has been very good. The poor guy from Saudi Arabia who drew the Chile/Switzerland match this morning really had his hands full. I’ve had games where the lads just don’t want to play the game. You leave the match mentally exhausted from keeping them from killing each other. He did as well as could be expected.

I’m at the beautiful Dearborn Inn awaiting the kickoff (of another sort). If you grab a quick plane to Detroit and bring a checkbook, you could still get in what looks to be a very interesting MESA International Conference. Last I heard we’re expecting about 200 people.

Marketing guru Seth Godin posted some thoughts on how even B2B (that’s business-to-business) marketers could stand to be passionate about their products.

Keith Campbell, retired packaging engineer, OMAC leader and now columnist for Packaging World, is on a kick about teaching kids something that they could use to find a real job. He also announced a mechatronics certification program at the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (PMMI).

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