Every time I read about another set of layoffs at a major company (which is about every day), I wonder how the Chairman, CEO, and CFO feel. Do they bleed, or are they too far removed from the faces of the people they let go?

I am a small business. I realize it could happen to us, though I believe it will not, in part because my staff is so very, very good. Could I do it? Well, yeah, you do what you have to. But it would be incredibly painful. We’ve reached the point where my success is due at least as much to my employees’ talents as to my own. I care deeply about each and every one of them. They work hard. They put up with my idiosyncrasies (which I make no attempt to suppress). And they truly want Rosenberg Communications to succeed.

So I just wonder, do the corporate titans bleed or does running a business of a certain size stop the blood from flowing?

There are lots of reasons I live the risk, adrenaline, and exhaustion of owning my own business. One of them is that we can share our blessings. We try to open our lives to our children’s friends. Recently, our family, plus a friend of each of our 14-year-old twins, went to the Kennedy Center to see the musical Legally Blonde (big thumbs up, by the way.) My daughter’s friend, whom we’ve known since they were little, wrote us a note:

Thank you so much for inviting me to see the musical Legally Blonde with you and afterwards taking me to dinner. I had one of the most amazingest experiences. I had a ton of fun and it was thoughtful to think of me. Thanks again for the invite! Have a great year!

How can I not feel like the bestest dad?

My wife is out of the country. One thing I am quickly learning: tasking a type A personality (me) with the job of getting two teenagers out of bed in the morning and off to carpool is an explosive mixture. The Department of Homeland Security has issued a warning, noting that the possibility of a massive explosion at my house has reached threat-level red.

Sometimes I surprise even myself with what a jerk I am. I was on a conference call yesterday. We were discussing an aspect of a project that is to take place in March. One vendor noted that they were just waiting for confirmation to move forward. “Confirmation of what?” I asked. “That March is still on the calendar for 2009?” A very funny line me thinks, but too snide, even for me. I apologized.

Is CNN not embarrassed by its mid-day “host,” Rick Sanchez? How can they not be? It would at least be honest if he just announced that he had a deep, deep crush on President-elect Obama.

This is almost a direct quote from the play-by-play guy from last night’s broadcast of the fake national college football championship game: “If you are fortunate enough to be around Tim Tebow [University of Florida quarterback] for 5 minutes, 20 minutes, you are a better person for it.” Wow. When is the beatification?

This week’s recommended reading from your friends at Blogenberg:

• How do you find and groom true innovators?
• A marketing lesson from Guitar Hero.
• Might social media change how the government does PR?
• The Los Angeles Times ran this interesting piece on President-elect Obama’s head of text messaging.
• Merlin Mann offers some thoughts on critical distinction between “feeling” creative versus people who do creative work.
• The Air Force recently developed this interesting framework for assessing when they should respond to blog posts.
• Harmony and balance? At a business meeting? Evidently you can use feng shui to enhance your business meetings.

The New York Times, aided by, you know, numerous websites and bloggers, has, if you haven’t noticed, declared war on Caroline Kennedy. They make fun that, you know, she says “you know” a lot. To the New York Times I say, you know, shut up.

I do a lot of, you know, media training. I tell folks that if you have a verbal tic, don’t worry about it when you are, you know, speaking in public. I tell them, you know, that I’m much more interested in them focusing on their messaging than wasting intellectual energy on thinking, you know, don’t say, “you know.” I tell them that the place and time to worry about a verbal tic, you know, is at home — never during an interview, panel presentation, etc.

So let me, you know, ask you? Did you get that the message of this post is that the New York Times, you know, should shut up, and that, you know, worrying over a verbal tic, in the moment, doesn’t make anybody a better communicator? Because, you know, you may have found this a bit irritating to read but you got the message. (Plus, were I talking and not writing, it would be less, you know, irritating.)

So just chill, you know.

I have a hygiene problem. I have tried new after-shave, new cologne, and new deodorant. But every time I go to the bathroom in our office building, the automatic deodorizer mounted on the wall sprays. Every time. I am hurt.

My 6-year-old nephew spent the weekend at our house. My son introduced him to lox (smoked salmon, for those of you lacking Jewish roots). Later, my nephew asked me for some more of that “ham that tastes like fish.”

We are invited to a pre-inauguration party on the 19th. But my wife will be out of the country so I will be going by myself. Since I am the white half of my interracial marriage, I will not seem nearly as cool at a Barack Obama inauguration party without her on my arm. Yes, Blogenberg is indeed that shallow.

Two things happened over New Year’s Day that have made me realize there is nothing left. I have reached the point — a point I guess all men reach as they age — that the reservoir of cool that God gave me when I was born is completely depleted.

One, I started ordering my lattes from Starbucks by specifying exactly what temperature it should be — “triple Venti skim latte, 175 degrees.”

Two, I have discovered that there is now video of me dancing. No white guy should ever allow himself to be videotaped dancing.

It is all over.

Blogenberg cool is now an oxymoron.

I saw the movies The Reader (which would be great even if Kate Winslet did not take her clothes off so much), Rachel Getting Married, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

I read all of Stephen L. Carter’s fiction and both volumes of Edmund Morris’ biography of Theodore Roosevelt.

I gave my staff raises, and one of them, a promotion.

I kept a promise. At a luncheon in the fall, I sat next to a guy who runs a local charity. I told him I’d send his organization an end-of-the-year contribution. I did.

I quit the occasional flirting, deciding that that was disrespectful to the extraordinary partnership my wife and I have forged. (Of course, I’m not suggesting that, being almost 50 years old, anybody was flirting back.)

I treated my three kids with enough respect to let them hear my anger and disappointment when appropriate, and my love all the time.

I kissed my dog every day, even though she keeps stealing and eating my cashews.

I tried hard to be a good Christian every day, failing constantly, and picking myself up to try again.

I discovered a lot of people who enjoy reading this blog that orbits my ego like the moons of Saturn.

God Bless you.