The Golden Kraut

Nick likes tacos and Gummy Bears.

Quote:
“The happiest memory from my childhood was waking up to watch Gummy Bears on Saturday morning.  Winning the Golden Kraut is like meeting a Gummy Bear in person.”

Reasons for winning (straight from The Big Cheese substitute — Chip Hayner):
“This month’s winner is our leader and captain, Nicholas Holland.  Nick throws himself 100% into everything he’s doing — even if that means he’s using 500% of his available time to do it!  He is seen around the office as not only a strong and wise leader, but also one who is a great mentor and friend.  His infectious personality, audacious creativity, and tenacious versatility make Nick a pleasure to work for, with, and around. Among the other awards Nick has won on behalf of CentreSource, the Golden Kraut is the most deserved and longest overdue.”

Describe the myriad of ways your life has changed since winning Golden Kraut:
Its only been 2 hours since I won, but the Kraut is already taking effect.  I was at Ugly Mugs Coffee shop sitting next to a cold, half-consumed cup of coffee when I got notice of the award.  Before I finished the email, I noticed a pleasing aroma coming from the cup near my laptop.  To my amazement, the cup was full of fresh, hot java.

As I was taking a long draw from the tasty brew, my phone rang.  As a side note, the ring tone was Simon & Garfunkel’s “Feelin’ Groovy” – which is amazing because I’ve never even loaded a single ring tone on my phone (Thanks GK!).  I answered and it was my mother, asking if she could baby sit my 6 mos old as a small repayment of how much joy I brought her as a little boy.  It was a great conversation.  We laughed, we cried, and by the end – she said she was going to make me tacos (my favorite) the next time I came over.

Finally, I hung up and checked my email – only to find the effects of GK in my Inbox.  To my astonishment, my Inbox was clean.  At first, I thought something was wrong with GMail and it had deleted my email. Silly me – I forgot about the Kraut’s goodness.  Upon further inspection, I saw that all my emails had been responded to (correctly) and the underlying work was done!  INCREDIBLE.  This afforded me the luxury of taking the afternoon off and spending time with my wife and child.

Thank you G.Kraut – you’ve brought my family closer together, hooked me up with a ‘Groovy’ ring tone, and ensured that I get Tacos! … and that’s just within the last 2 hours!!!

If you had any advice for the throngs of people desperate to win Golden Kraut, what would it be?
The Golden Kraut has been pretty elusive, at least for me.  I pined away for it month after month, hoping that the motto ‘give kraut to get kraut’ would finally pay off.  After months of giving, I’m grateful to finally receive.

If you’re desperate the win the Golden Kraut, spend 10 minutes analyzing all the places in your life where you don’t give Kraut.  If you can fix those, the Kraut will bestow its Golden goodness upon you.

If a kraut-scented Genie were to pop out of your Golden Kraut can tonight, what would you wish for?
I think I would ask him for ’self-completing’ Time Sheet technology and then give that to my staff.  Our billable hour time sheets really stress certain team members and it would be a great gift for them.

I’d also ask him for a positive review of gpsAssassin on TechCrunch.com

If Golden Kraut were a canned food item spray-painted gold, what would it be?
Rumor has it that it could be Wax Beans, but I think that stems from people who don’t understand the true nature of Golden Kraut.  I’m guessing that its actually full of Tacos (at least I hope), but I’m also pretty sure that opening it would cause permanent madness.  One time, someone described heroin as being 100x better than the best feeling you’ve ever had.  I believe that opening the GK to actually see and smell the contents could result in an experience that’s 1,000,000x better than your best experience – which would, of course, lead to permanent madness due to the shear bliss.  But who knows…