I’m the “Terry” in Tuesdays with Terry, Terrance Lee Merriman to be more precise. I’m also known as Dad, Pops, Grandpa, Pop-Pop, Pondering Pops, Honey, Sweetie, Hey Bro’, and sometimes Hey You depending on who’s talking at me. You can call me about anything you want but the sweetest name I’ve ever answered to (other than those used by my wife of course) is the one that rolls off the tongues of my toddler-aged grandchildren: Pop-Pop. Ah, I just love that sound from those tiny little voices; it’s music to my ears. It seems I share that name with a groundhog living in the backyard of my daughter’s former home down south. (She, in the process of teaching the granddaughter, says, “It’s a ground – hog, growwwnd – h-o-g.” Granddaughter struggles and then with complete confidence replies, “Ground-pow…ground-pa…grand-pa…POP-POP!” I have my daughter’s rendition on tape, but I guess you had to be there.)

I’m a seventy-something grandfather, father, husband, son, brother, and grandson, eleventh in descent from my eight times great grandfather Nathaniel who was one of the founders of the town of Wallingford, Connecticut in 1670. My avocations include biking, paddling (canoes and kayaks), camping, reading, writing, model railroading, genealogy, listening to music and watching sappy movies with the love of my life. I love music of most genres (well maybe not hip-hop, heavy metal, punk- and acid-rock, and rap) but I particularly enjoy jazz and Sixties and Seventies pop ballads, and I very much love and enjoy performing choral music; probably because it moves me and it’s my favorite way of expressing my faith.

I’m fascinated by technology, having used my first desktop computer in the workplace in 1982 in the pursuit of a then new career in Information Technology Auditing that I entered in 1980. For those technophiles in the audience, it was an IBM PC with a monochrome monitor, an 8086 processer, 256K of RAM, a 5.25 inch floppy drive, and a whopping 10MEG hard drive which my department purchased for the tidy sum of $5,200.00! Man, have we come a long way from that one! At home we progressed from a Commodore 64 through a TRS80 Model III, Amstrad, Toshiba Desktop, Compaq Desktop, and HP Desktop and several laptops to our current homebuilt desktops (2) and HP laptop. My current desktop system with portable 3TB hard drive nearly matches, maybe even exceeds, the mainframe computing power and storage in the 4500 square foot data center of a prior employer about 35 years ago.

I’m a former internal auditor, audit manager, department manager and Air Force officer with more than four decades of work-life experience. I manage and presently own in whole or in part three businesses, and I’m active in my local chamber of commerce. These days, besides Grandpa, I find myself mostly in the role of independent business advisor and, of all things, blogger! Go figure…

My pen name is Pondering Pops, because I actively and unapologetically engage in the pursuit of pondering. Life in the sandwich generation, business basics, organizational and personal performance, and workplace ministry; these subjects propel my pondering and provide fodder for my blogs. If you’re interested, you can find my other blogs here: Better Business Basics, TPS on Performance, and More Than a Business.

It is my sincere hope that you find my posts on all of my blogs practical, stimulating, reflective and occasionally entertaining. Please do not expect them to be intellectually deep; I’m introspective and down to earth, but I’m not a philosopher. I want my writing to be an easy read that provokes the, “hmm, I know that, it makes sense, think I’ll give it a try” type of reaction. I want to share ideas in my business and personal blogs that are practical applications of what works, not boat loads of intellectual gibberish.

That’s about all the relevant stuff in my life that I thought might help you understand where in the world these thoughts are coming from. Even so I’m sure you’ll occasionally pause and wonder, “What was he thinking?” That’s OK, even I do that sometimes.

Well, I’m off to ponder some more; hope you continue to enjoy the result. Don’t be afraid to express your thoughts in reply to my posts, I’d love to hear them. Thanks so much for reading…Pops