100 Bloggers

What is success?

2008-02-17T06:26:00.000-08:00

What is success? According to the dictionary, success is a state of prosperity or fame. Success is very relative. Consider the homeless person.
Certainly attaining a one-room suite with an efficiency kitchen and money to buy food would make this person feel very successful. Success is also
defined as the favorable outcome of an attempt or endeavor.
Should we be able to attain a status such as Bill Gates, that would certainly define success wouldn't it? You may feel that it would, but not
necessarily to everyone. Every rose has its thorn. Bill Gates is wildly successful in his endeavors; however, a status of that nature certainly
would require a lot of upkeep. He must stay on top of his game to stay there. Even Donald Trump can end up in bankruptcy. Do you really need to
reach a Donald Trump or Bill Gates status to be successful and happy?
Success means different things to different people. There are persons that would only consider themselves successful if they were to attain a
multi-millionaire status. However, I don't believe that this is the case with the average person.
I believe that success to the average person has another definition. The definition of success to the average person is FREEDOM. Freedom from being a slave to the 9 to 5 doldrums in a job they hate....Freedom from worry over bills......Freedom to spend quality time with their families and
loved ones. One would not have to be a multi-millionaire to achieve this level of success. It depends on what makes YOU happy. Would you be
happy in a two bedroom home that is paid for, driving a car that is dependable and paid for, while having the cash to meet expenses and have the
time to do the things you and your family enjoy, whether it be golfing, sporting events, travel to the beach, or entertaining your friends at home? Or could you only feel succesful with a ten bedroom home, a new car every year, the newest fashions to wear, dining at the finest restaurants?
Both are levels of success to someone. Which is it for you? Obviously the first level of success can be fairly easily obtained, and would
definitely be less stressful allowing more time to be spent enjoying your success. Although the second is a very lavish lifestyle, it certainly
would require more effort to get there, and more effort to maintain it. We've all heard about the lottery winners who become bankrupt in a
few short years because they didn't attend to their finances.
Success is usually thought to be referring to a financial situation. As you can ascertain from the above examples, that is not always
necessarily true. Success is very personal. What would it take to make you truly happy? It depends on your priorities. Is time with family
and friends without stress most important to you? Or is an outward show of wealth more important to you, even if it means less freedom?
We have all seen the cartoons of the "successful" businessman living on the antiacids to try and control his ulcers. Is he truly successful?
Maybe yes, but at a price. Consider this situation: the businessman (or breadearner) of the family is very successful in a financial sense.
He has a fine home, is transported to his destinations by his personal driver, a loving wife, two beautiful children. The American Dream, right?
Then look deeper. He spends everyday from 7am until 9pm at the office, or with clients. The wife has to have a life too, so she lives her
own separate life attending luncheons, shopping, etc. while the nanny raises the children and the housekeeper feeds them. The nanny teaches the baby to walk, to say its first word.
Really think about success. Success equals happiness right? Is this family successful? Anyone with children knows the joy of a toddler
taking its first step or saying its first word. I do understand that not all persons are interested in raising a family. They claim to be perfectly happy
remaing single and childless. That is why I say success if relative to the individual.
Think about your own personal situation. We instantly think that success means the mansion on the hill with a limo driver and a housekeeper.
However, I don't believe that it takes that much to make the average person happy and successful.

Customer Service: Can I Help You?

2007-12-17T10:41:00.001-08:00

Mind if I rant a little?

Most of the time I really enjoy my work. But some days it just gets me down. It's not the long hours or the stress of the usual things that can go wrong in any business.

I've been in the mail order business, selling natural baby products - cloth diapers, etc. for 22+ years. And most of my dealings with my customers has been wonderful and so gratifying! It is great to know I am helping the environment and tons of moms and babies!

It's the constant questions and demands. I honestly love to help and often go out of my way to help wherever I can. Everyone who has ever dealt with me knows that.

But some days, I start to feel like the Know-It-All Answer Lady - on any subject in the world! Sadly, the following are all real questions! And yes, I did answer each and every one, kindly and carefully, to the best of my ability....

The following is what people have actually written and called me to ask... and what I wished I could have answered!

(None of these questions came from anyone I knew!)

Question - What is the current exchange rate? (Not buying from me - he was buying software from someone else and was angry when I said I hadn't checked that day.)

What I wish I could have answered - Well, sir, it seems that the Canadian dollar has made a drastic turn-around today, and it is now paying out $1.22 on every US dollar!

Question - My wife and I are going on holiday. Where do you suggest we go?

What I wish I could have answered - Have you considered Timbuktu? I heard it is beautiful this time of year!

Question - I love (some Canadian chocolate). Could you go and buy a box of it and send it to me? I will send you a cheque when it arrives here.

What I wish I could have answered - Certainly! Don't bother sending a cheque, just know that we love our customers enough to do these little things for them!

Question - We are building a new house - would slate floors be safe for our 9 month old baby girl?

What I wish I could have answered - Yes, of course it will be fine! I am sure that after she splits her head open a few times, she will learn not to fall down.

Question - We want to buy (something I don't carry, like a brand of stroller). Would you search the Net for us and find one for the best price?

What I wish I could have answered - Certainly! It's been a slow day here anyway, and I was wondering what to do with my spare time.

Question - My husband is a teacher. it's the end of May and he doesn't get paid again till September. Could you send me 36 diapers and an assortment of covers now, and I promise to send you payment in Sept?

What I wish I could have answered - Of course! And can you tell all your friends that we are giving away merchandise?

Question - My husband and I only make $60,000 a year with one child, and we are having a terrible time making ends meet. Could you send us free diapers? Name brand, top-of-the-line only please!

What I wish I could have answered - Oh, you poor thing!? Have you applied for WIC yet?

Question - I am writing a paper for school. Will you write out all the reasons why, costs and concerns, etc. on using cloth diapers. I need the paper in by tomorrow morning and don't have time to do the research myself.

What I wish I could have answered - Would you like that single or double spaced?

Question - Do you believe in using cloth diapers? Would you use them on your own child?

What I wish I could have answered - Excuse me??? I sell cloth diapers! Of course I believe in them and use them on my own babies!

Question - My child has (some uncommon medical problem). Could you research the situation and get back to me with articles, references and medical practitioners who can help?

What I wish I could have answered - Finally - something to do besides sit and answer this phone all day long!

Question - My friend doesn't have Internet access. Will you print off your entire site and mail it to her? (I currently have nearly 1,100 pages!)

What I wish I could have answered - Would you like me to send that by Same-Day Courier, or deliver it personally?

Question - My 12 year old son wants to buy (some software program). Could you let me know who carries it?

What I wish I could have answered - I'm sure our company must sell it, it would probably be in with the diapers somewhere?

Question - I can't figure out how to wash these diapers. Will you come to my house and do it for me?

What I wish I could have answered - Certainly! I will jump into my private jet and get right over there!

Question - We're having a baby! Can you send us a free sample of each one of your products (I have hundreds of products!) and we will let you know if we are interested in making a purchase.

What I wish I could have answered - Of course! And don't bother making a purchase - just let us know if there is anything else you need after we send you all your diapering supplies!

Question - I am calling (long distance!) to tell you I found your product for $0.50 cheaper. Why are you ripping people off that way???

What I wish I could have answered - And exactly how much did you spend to call me long distance to tell me that??

Question - We bought our diapers at (some other company, I don't carry the product). Could you tell us more about this particular diaper, how to wash them, etc?

What I wish I could have answered - Why don't you call the company you bought them from? Why call me???

Question - Can you tell us where we can buy all of your products cheaper? An itemized list will be fine.

What I wish I could have answered - Would you prefer that alphabetically, or arranged by price?

Question - We bought your diapers a year ago, used them and they no longer fit (or we have decided we don't really like them). Can we return them for a full refund, and will you pay the shipping to send them back?

What I wish I could have answered: - Of course we will! And don't bother washing them either before you ship them back. We like old, poopy diapers. It gives us something to do in our off-hours!

Question - We bought our diapers from somewhere else. Can we return them to you for a refund?

What I wish I could have answered - Sure - it gives us a jump on the competition if we take back their products. And this is our double your refund week, if you return a product from one of our competitors!

Question - I have a Canadian friend in Surrey, BC. Could you call her and tell her I am coming to visit?

What I wish I could have answered: - Do you think she would mind if I call her collect? Things have been a bit tight lately, with all the merchandise we've had to give away, free boxes of chocolate we've shipped to the US and refunds we've had to make for competitor's product and year-old used returns.

Question - Why don't you carry disposable diapers???

What I wish I could have answered - Umm... Because we are a cloth diaper company and you can buy disposable diapers anywhere?

Question - We live in Small Town, USA, and can't find a Diaper Service. Will you make arrangements to set one up for us?

What I wish I could have answered - Certainly - right away! What time would you like your diapers picked up?

Question - I live in Hawaii - why can't you get an order to me by 9 AM tomorrow? (from Canada!)

What I wish I could have answered - My private jet is broken down - sorry...

Question - Send me a complete list of all your suppliers - with phone, email and fax numbers please - as I am starting a competing business.

What I wish I could have answered - I actually get a call like this at least once a week! Do people really call up Sears and ask for a list of their suppliers?

Question - Go through your list of diaper companies on the World-wide Diapering Resource listings and send me all the contact info for the manufacturers only. I looked at your site, but don't have time to do it myself.

What I wish I could have answered - It's not enough that I gave in and provided a list of all the diaper companies for easy access to new business starting out??? Do you want me to run your business for you too!?

Question - I've taken some of your (copyrighted!) ideas off your web page and put them on mine. Can I use your pictures too? I don't have time to take my own.

What I wish I could have answered - Why did she even bother to ask permission for using the pictures - after admitting that she had stolen my ideas and was using them as her own???

And my all-time favourite...

Question - I like to wear diapers and use them. Could you call me long distance so we can discuss my fetish at length?

What I wish I could have answered - Eeeeewwwww!?!?!

I hope I don't offend anyone with this bit of humour, but it is wearying and time-consuming to constantly have to answer all these questions. I have to laugh about it...

But I still love my job!!

~*~ Catherine, owner of www.borntolove.com , all your baby needs, naturally!

Typo Caligraphy

2007-06-23T14:41:00.000-07:00

Watch typography become illustration. Incredible to watch, and the soundtracks are perfect. Don't miss this.

"Why Don't You Just Adopt?"

2007-06-22T13:09:00.000-07:00

A common question asked of those struggling with infertility. But not everyone is eligible to adopt - due to lifestyle, health problems, age.

Who Can Adopt? http://www.acceptadoptions.org/whocanadopt.html

China's latest restrictions on who can adopt:
1. No one on antidepressants
2. No one making under 80K a year
3. No one obese
4. No one older than 50
5. No single parents

A baby is not guaranteed, my step-brother and his wife went through 3 failed adoptions before they received their son. After many miscarriages, stillbirths, failed IVFs, moving on to adoption can be more than a couple, or single parent, can handle emotionally.

Adoption can be beyond a person's financial means. Adoption often costs MORE than IVF.

Some really want to raise a child from infancy, and there are not many newborns available. Here in Ontario, it can mean a wait of 5-8 years! There can be the fear that the birth parents will want the baby back. There can be concern about the kind of prenatal care the mother received. Did she drink or smoke?

There can be a great deal of grief at giving up your dream of how your family would become, before people are ready to move on to adoption. It's not just, well that didn't work, let's adopt!

Adoption is incredibly difficult and extremely invasive. Some can't deal with the invasion of their life, their home, their morals, their beliefs - to prove themselves fit parents when others can get pregnant easily, without thought, and without "permission".

"And it's not like you just pop back to being just like the fertile couple once you bring your child home. There are life long issues with adoption. Adoption is hard and it is not the right choice for everyone. How a couple chooses to build their family is a very personal decision. When the traditional option for family building is ripped away from you and all the other options are riddled with scarring difficulties, you quickly realize that you had no idea what infertility was like and that it is not as simple as "Why don't you just adopt."

From: You Can Get Pregnant in Your 40's
Sharing articles I find, discussing options you might consider & suggesting what might help. Each person is different, what works for one might really mess up another. So what you do with this info is entirely up to you! A Zen thought: A true expert is not the one with the most knowledge, but one who causes the most others to have knowledge. Questions, subject ideas to research & suggestions welcome!

You Can’t Manage Time

2007-01-06T12:30:00.000-08:00

Trying to manage time is like trying to hold water in your hand. It can’t be done. I don’t know who coined the term “time management” but it is misleading. You cannot control time.
What you can control is your actions. You control how you spend your time. You are in complete control of what you do and when you do it.

Good time management begins with examining your personal efficiency. Ask your self the question: What do you do each day and how can it be done with less effort and in less time?
Let’s look at three of the time-related choices you make each and every day and see if there are opportunities to improve them. I call these three areas “foundational activities” because they are building blocks of your day. If you get off to a bad (slow or inefficient) start in one of these areas, it will have an impact on the rest of your day.

Sleep

How much time do you spend asleep? Each person has individual needs when it comes to sleep. I know that I personally can function with as little as four hours each night but I am at my best when I get between six and eight hours of good quality sleep. Generally, it is difficult to reset your body to need less sleep. You can do it, but it takes time and it can really wreak havoc on your system so I don’t advise it. Instead you should surrender to the need for quality sleep time.

Accept that you need X hours each night (in my case I shoot for seven hours). Adjust the time you go to bed to make certain that you have the proper number of hours from the time your head hits the pillow to the time you need to get up. Don’t cheat yourself on sleep time. Manage your actions properly.

Daily Routine

How much time do you spend doing necessary repetitive things each day? Can you make them more efficient? Let me give you an example: Each morning I have one cup of coffee at home as I read the news. It takes about ten minutes for the coffee to brew. Instead of waiting for the coffee maker to finish and then starting my routine (I can’t function, let alone read, until I have had a couple of sips of coffee) I set the coffee pot to a timer so the coffee is waiting for me when I get up.

How long does it take you to get dressed and ready for work each day? Is there any wasted effort in this process? Each of us has our own ritual that we follow as we prepare for work. Generally, if you are organized you can save yourself a significant amount of time doing what I call “search and match”. Search and match is the time it takes to match shirt and tie, pants and jacket or make-up with your “look” for the day. Organize your closet. Put suits in one section and shirts in another. Separate your make-up by color. Put matching items together (Note: I’m not an expert on make-up but my wife has a huge tackle box that is segmented and easily accessible and she gets ready quickly so I know this system works).

Commute

How long does it take you to get to work? Can you take a quicker route? Does it make a difference if you leave at a different time? In New York City I take the subway to work. If I get on the train before 7:30AM I have no problems and it generally takes me about twenty minutes to commute to my office. If I get to the subway station after 7:30 I usually need to let a couple of trains pass before I can even fit into one of the subway cars. Once I get on the train (after 7:30) it takes an extra five to ten minutes to get to my stop because people are pushing and shoving at each station and it takes a couple of minutes for the conductor to get the door closed at each station. Generally, leaving my house after 7:30AM will cost me an additional twenty to thirty minutes on my morning commute. That’s a big difference.

Does it make a difference when you leave your house to get to work? Is there more traffic at a certain time? Can you adjust your schedule?

I’m willing to bet that if you look at some of the things you do each and every day you can find at least a few minutes of extra time. What is even more valuable than the time that you find is the habit of looking for new and more efficient ways of getting things done. If you constantly examine your activities you will find ways to become more efficient. Controlling your activities– and how much time you spend on them – is the essence of time management.

Politics in Missouri

2006-10-31T13:06:00.000-08:00

I've been deeply involved in a local campaign for state house rep, trying to unseat the incumbent whose only successful legislation has been to name the chanterelle "Missouri's Official State Mushroom."

By all that is holy, how can that be? I've walked in the woods mushroom hunting since I was a kid, looking for this magical sight:

photo via pfly on flickr

Furthermore, I've lived in Missouri my entire life, majored in horticulture at one point, and still, I wouldn't know a chanterelle if it sliced itself up under a flashing neon grocery sign and sang "Blue Suede Shoes." But I've hiked for hours, with a cranky toddler, a migraine and a stone bruise, for a plate of morels.

I am not alone. From The Missourian:

… three mushroom-hunting legislators on the Tourism Committee questioned the proposal, which was expected to be noncontroversial. “To make this the state mushroom when everyone in this room has heard of the morel would be a travesty,” said Rep. J.C. Kuessner, D-Eminence. “I just can’t believe that we’d do something like that to our public citizens of the state of Missouri.”

It was a travesty, and I, too, can't believe what's been done to the public citizens of the state of Missouri. With life and times as they are, the travesty is that anyone had time for any of this nonsense.

Important things are at stake. Be sure to vote Tuesday.

Defeat the Snarky Smirkers

2006-07-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

Life makes some people cynical. Looking for the worst? You'll find it.

Some would have you believe their negativity and cynicism are actually hard-won wisdom, a kind of advanced degree in critical thinking. But in fact, cynicism and negativity do not add up to wisdom; rather, they add up to negative patterns of thought that can be habit-forming and destructive.

It takes minimal cleverness and maybe seven facial muscles to produce a smirk sufficiently smirkly to paralyze creativity. We've all had ideas, work, art, children, partners, etc., all victims of murder by smirk. It's an awful feeling. Even a non-lethal injection of scorn has the power to shut down many people once and for all.

Someone recently told me a significant percentage would rather be hit by a bus than speak in public. Imagine willing to risk such physical damage just to forgo public speaking, a very rewarding skill to develop with all sorts of fringe benefits. The fear of being publicly scorned is so deeply ingrained that we might not even figure out the core fear.

The smirk murderer gets a cheap (and fleeting) sense of superiority from their generous disdain. "Look how clever I am to have seen this thing for the drek that it is." Negativity is not a philosophy, it doesn't uplift anyone, it teaches nothing constructive, and it hurts people in more ways than we'll ever know.

One thing is for sure, a life spent avoiding the risk of falling prety to smirk murderers can become a kind of prison. Expecting the worst can attract it.

The reverse is true, too. When you face the world with honest expectations of basic human goodness, people respond in kind. There's a kindness and guilelessness people with optimistic expectations exude. People, young, old and in between, all respond to someone who's actively ready to believe the very best of them.

I've been running an experiment. I generally do expect goodness from people, but I've been making a concerted effort to make that more obvious.

I get a lot more smiles. I have chats with interesting sptrangers all over the city. It lifts us both up to a nicer place where we can begin to conceive of brotherly love.

Plus, I'm happier. Life feels less fearful, my relationships deepen, and my prospects become more abundant. Once in a while, I actually notice that I've had a long spell of being pleased, grateful and content.

Have I ever been fooled by expecting the best? You bet. I've got a couple of BeeEffDee stories on that subject. Have I been cheated? Once or twice. Has it been worth it? Absolutely.

Crossposted at: cambium creative's blog.

Brain dominance, happiness and sex.

2006-06-14T17:01:00.000-07:00

There's the life we see, and the one we don't. Humans have depths of kindess and blind spots of ignorance co-existing within the same brain.

If you suscribe to the popular old saw that insists there are just two kinds of people, I'd help you make your case. Type A or B. Elvis or the Beatles. Religiously dogmatic or freethinking. Liberal and conservative. Frightened by violence, thrilled by it. Sanquine or activist. Liver lovers and liver haters. Them what spell and them what cain't.

Take the left and right brain discussion. In case you can't keep them straight, the left brain folks are better at logic unfettered by unquantifiable emotion, while right brainers are more feeling, verbal, and creative.

Artistic people, especially the genius sort, have long been associated with mental illness. After all, how many accountants lob off their ears? But I've never seen a correlation drawn between everyday happiness and hemisphere dominance.

Kathy Sierra, Girl Genius behind Creating Passionate Users suggests that angry, negative people can be bad for your brain. Artistic sorts, especially the genius variety, have long been associated with addiction and mental illness--proven seeds of discontent. On the other hand, how many bookkeepers cut off their ears?

But Kathy draws a connection between the left brain tendency for logic and a greater sense of well being, while pointing out that the creative right brainers labile emotional responses to life lead to unhappiness.

So, we creative sorts suffer persistent existential angst. But there's an interesting component in the mix from another source altogehter. Turns out that creative sorts have more and better sex with more partners over the course of a lifetime. If I have to be unhappy as a price for my neurology, at least I'll be well and properly laid.

100 Bloggers has moved!

2006-04-02T21:14:00.000-07:00

Our new location is http://www.100bloggers.com!

Weekend Rotation

2006-04-02T12:26:00.000-07:00

A playlist to get your weekend thumping (click song to hear an iTunes preview).

B-Side Wins Again (DJ Spooky + Public Enemy)
Random Celebrity Insult Generator (Mclusky)
Liberty Belle (Super Furry Animals)
Walk a Mile (Holly Golightly)
The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (Flaming Lips)
Blue School (Blue Scholars)
In My Tree (Pearl Jam live @ MSG)
Apologies to Insect Life (British Sea Power)
Everything (Sleater-Kinney)
Revenge (Spoon)
Little Dawn (Ted Leo + Pharmacists)

Remember: If it's too loud, you're too....err..turn it down just a titch. And, would you like some wine with your tunes?

--Basic Juice

You Get What You Negotiate

2006-04-02T12:10:00.000-07:00

Did you know that negotiation is a learnable skill? And that if you don't ask, the answer is an automatic "no?" Skip Angel's recent post addressed his frustration with others who seem able to take advantage of hidden deals that he doesn't know anything about.

I just returned from a week away, attending a 5-day intensive Guerrilla Business School, put on by Peak Potentials Training Company. We spent a half-day just on learning how to negotiate. Then we were sent out into the field to actually do it.

So instead of going to the grocery store this afternoon to fill our empty cupboards and frig, I'm going to share a few of the negotiation secrets I learned and used myself. I won't be going into all of them, but using the few I share will save you money.

1. ASK for a better deal. You'll get it 50% of the time, as opposed to 0% if you don't ask.

2. Create affinity with the person early on. Find something in common, such as kids, sports, weather, something they're wearing etc. Be friendly, and courteous, never critical.

3. Good negotiations end up in a win-win. So hold that intention, and convey it to the person you are negotiating with. "Let's see if we can put our heads together to come up with something that works well for both of us."

4. Have a hook - a rationale that makes sense to the other person. Here are some examples:

- the object you want to buy is not "perfect." Perhaps there is a scratch, discoloration, small imperfection, a wrinkled book or magazine cover.
- volume - you offer to buy more if a discount can be arranged;
- repeat future business with the vendor;
- saves vendor money if you offer cash instead of credit card;
- make yourself a "special situation." For example, you tell them that you believe the object is probably worth the suggested retail price, but that you are not in a position to pay it because . . . Make sure you are in integrity with your reason. Be honest!

5. Use a weakness as a strength. Don't look and act shrewdly. Don't be too polished. Leave your expensive jewelry at home and don't drive up in your Lexus. You don't want to appear more sophisticated because that makes it harder for them to relate to you, and to want to help you get a better deal. Use the phrase - "Can you help me out here?"

6. Negotiate with the person who has the authority to give you the deal. You can ask for the manager upfront. Or you can be kind to the underling and ask who has the authority. One of my fellow seminar participants went into a store, but the manager was not on the premises. Because he had taken the time to create a positive connection with the employee, she offered to call the manager on the phone, who ended up giving him a cell phone for free!

7. Don't go first. Rather than naming a price, and giving your position away, ask what they can do, and then go from there. You will have the advantage if you don't go first.

Keep in mind that you are not taking advantage of someone when you negotiate. If the negotiation is not a win-win, if it doesn't feel right for the other party, they will walk away from it.

So how did my fieldwork go? First of all, I had no idea I could go into a retail store and negotiate for a reduced price! Big surprise to me. My small group headed out to a mall in Orlando. I chose a national sports shoe store that I shop at regularly. I've been needing a new pair of aerobic shoes.

I tried on a pair of shoes identical to the ones I purchased a year ago. I mentioned to the person waiting on me that I really liked the shoes, had used them in the past, but was not happy with the color choice. I asked him why they didn't offer it in other colors, and wondered aloud why the price wasn't discounted on last year's model. He replied that it is a great seller, so they haven't had to discount it. I mentioned again how much I liked the shoe, but was disappointed in the color. Then he brought out their newest version of inserts (which I'm a big fan of). At that point, I decided to negotiate on the inserts. I mentioned that I could probably go back to South Carolina where I lived and get the shoe in another color (create competition), but that perhaps he could discount the inserts and I'll buy the shoes from him. He readily agreed and gave me 50% off. I was pleased to save $10.00 just by asking.

With more time and practice, I might have negotiated a better deal. But it's a start. By the way, some of the other seminar participants negotiated for free soft drinks in a restaurant, or free lunches; others negotiated further discounts on items already reduced.

Ask and you shall receive. Who would have thought it?

Sign of Spring

2006-04-01T04:46:00.000-08:00

Variations on a theme.

Kind of like a jazz group grooving.

I started with a few variations on the Sign of Spring theme today

Steve's 2 Cents
blog Synergy
Passion for Good Customer Experience
Passionate Runner

Just imagine if 100 bloggers did a variation on a theme here and on our own blogs?

Technorati Tags : theme, variation, spring, blog, blogging

Face the Fears and Learn for Life

2006-03-31T08:59:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago I experienced the first of what as known as panic attacks. At the time it was the scariest thing I have experienced. A big part of the attacks were fears concerning my health. I would lie awake at night fearing I was having a heart attack or something worse. Some of these attacks may have been brought to a boil in my life because of several factors including the poor health of family members and concern I would experience the same thing. This went on and off for a few months as I tried to work it out though various non-medical means. While I don't believe medicine should be the final solution for everything I think it has it's place. I'm not on the medication anymore. I am currently controling the issue through a strong exercise program and knowing the truth concerning my own condition and the deep things of my faith.

What I learned goes beyond the initial relief provided by the anti-anxiety medication to a lifestyle discovery of not only my own fears but the fears of others around me. I'm not talking about fears you would only encounter in movies or "reality shows" but irrational fears that keep us from performing at our best.

This is a situation I have seen in my work and my wife has noticed it as well. She teaches private music lessons (piano and voice) and we both provide web development and technical services among other things. Perhaps you have received a good laugh from "computer stupidies" and other similiar stories of non-technically inclined people do thing consider bizzare by many. I've often heard those in the technical field say that their's no hope for these people but I don't beleive that. At one time I had no desire to learn about computers. In fact I wrote a couple of posting (part 1 and part 2 ) on my own blog concerning the matter. My wife has meet potential clients (adults who have expressed an interest in learning to sing or play the piano) but when presented with the opportunity to take lessons they say they are too old or some other excuse.

I admit I have some fears of my own that have kept me from learning things that could make me a more productive person and have also made a list on my blog and in the future will take on these challenges and report on them.

I could go on and on but I will close by challenging you to think about those areas of difficulty in your life. Are you being held back by an irrational fear? As I was writing this Steve Pavlina also posted a related article called, Silent Approval on his blog. Are you dealing with issues of this kind on a personal level or with people you know? What can you do today to address these fears and promote personal growth?

50 Reasons Why More People Aren't Using Your Website

2006-03-31T04:58:00.000-08:00

Via Mark Hurst at Good Experience comes this listing from Scott Heiferman on:

50 Reasons Why More People Aren't Using Your Website

1. Because they don't want to generate content, they want better life
2. Because it solves a problem they don't have
3. Because it won't help them with their problem
4. Because oprah didn't mention it
5. Because everyone they know isn't using it
6. Because it doesn't let them spy on people they care about
7. Because they just don't care about what they see
8. Because nobody at work said they should use it
9. Because it's not fun enough
10. Because it doesn't make them smile

Read more of these, they may make you smile!

Technorati Tags : good+experience, smile, blog, blogging, hurst

Cool photos

2006-03-30T20:00:00.000-08:00

The Flying Dutch Jew took this photo off a building in Warsaw, Poland.

Jewish Nation took this photo of East Berlin.

Sushi Kiddush took this photo on 14th Street and 3rd Avenue, NYC.

London In A Day took this photo of St. Martin In the Field, London.

A Crystal Candy Dish

2006-03-29T17:47:00.000-08:00

Herschel Grynszpan is a name that probably does not ring a bell, but the events that resulted from his actions will go down in history as a key turning point in Nazi policy towards Jews and has been disputed as the spark that started the Holocaust.

Zindel Grynszpan was a Polish Jew living in Germany. Through the thirties, the Nazi Regime, which came to power in 1933, was slowly and systematically restricting the rights of German Jews. In 1935, the Nuremburg Laws where passed, which made German citizenship for Jews very difficult, if not impossible; in 1936 Jews could no longer vote in parliamentary elections; in 1938 Jews began to be deprived of economic and occupational opportunities; and on January 1st, 1939, a law was passed that required all Jews to have identification cards. If you did not have a card, you were deported. Almost 20, 000 Jews were deported to Poland and ended up in “relocation camps” along the Polish border.

Zindel Grynszpan who had a family-owned business in Hanover since 1911, was removed from his home at gunpoint by Nazis, all his possession confiscated, and deported to the Polish border. His son, Herschel, hearing of the news from France decided that he was going to take the matter into his own hands. He went to the Germany Embassy in Paris with the plan to assassinate the German Ambassador to France. He never got to the Ambassador, but he did kill a lower-ranking German official named Ernst Vom Rath.

Herschel Grynszpan

Ernst Vom Rath

Joseph Goebbels’s, the Nazi Propaganda Minister, considered the murder a fortuitous gift. He now had an excuse to order a pogrom against German Jews. Goebbels’ used the assassination to confirm his anti-Semitic beliefs that there was a international Jewish conspiracy to control the world.

On November 9 and 10, the pogrom, which would become infamously known as Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass, was ordered. Nazi gangs roamed the streets breaking the windows of Jewish businesses, synagogues, and homes. It soon escalated to looting and violence. 91 Jews died, 101 synagogues were destroyed,7,500 businesses were destroyed, and 25, 000 Jews were beaten, arrested, and taken to concentration camps.

This event was the beginning of the Holocaust. It was the veritable straw that broke the camels back. Anti-Jewish policy was becoming more restrictive in the years leading up to Kristallnacht, but this event which was ordered by the Nazi government, set the stage for the unfathomable terror that we would all come to know. The passive reaction of the German citizens, in essence, gave the Nazi regime free-reign to conduct such operations. Read Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioner's for a thorough and accurate account of the German culture of acceptance.

Today, my client, Ms. Glueck, shared with me some recent events that have touched her life and gave her some peace. On the first night of Kristallnacht, her father, who owned a Jewish jewelry store, was beaten, his store ransacked and destroyed, and taken to a concentration camp to die. He would never see his family again. Ms. Glueck was able to escape with her mother to France and eventually make her way to the United States in 1941. But, like all survivors, her early experiences have always been with her like a shadow.

She was able to get on with her life. She became a jewelry designer, the profession of her late-father, she got married, and she lead an intellectual and active Jewish life in New York City. In later years, she became very involved with the Leo Baeck Institute and archived the extensive photo collection of the Institute, so future generations would be able to learn about their Jewish forbears. She also organized a weekly soiree, which she titled a"Stumptisch" (German for round table). It was a loose, but dedicated group of survivors who got together to talk about their experiences, their fears, and their dreams, but, most importantly, it was a support group for Jews who were strangers in a new country.

Recently, she has been in contact with a German gentleman from Wetzlar, Germany who was doing research on his family during the war years. It turns out the gentleman found out through his mother that some of the objects that adorned his childhood home were taken from Jewish stores on the Night of Glass. His father had stolen some of the objects and brought them home. His father, like many Germans on Kristallnacht, was doing what the government silently condoned, but had surreptiously plotted. His behavior was legalized crime.

This German gentlemen felt it was his duty to make right with himself and his family. The guilt was too much for him. Through a laborious and circuitous route, he was able to connect a crystal candy dish "of not much value,"in his words, to my client Ms. Glueck. He first contacted her by letter to make sure Ms. Glueck was open to seeing a German whose family had pillaged her murdered father's store. She was. He then came with his wife to New York and handed her the crystal candy dish that for the last 66 years has been sitting on a coffee table in Germany. She cried when she held the dish. She said her father's name. She felt like she had finally reclaimed something for her dead father, the man she would give anything to talk to just one more time.

Today, the crystal candy dish sits on her table where the Stumptisch meets every Wednesday night at 8pm. They are going on 50 years together.

More on Hershel Grynszpan:

Hershel Grynszpan

The Fate of a Forgotten Assassin

Different deals for different people?

2006-03-29T11:44:00.000-08:00

When you pay for something, are you getting the best deal? Chances are that you aren't and you don't even know it!

Everybody knows when purchasing a new car to never take the first offer that the dealership gives you. In fact, to really get a good deal you must be ready to walk away. When you get to the point where the dealership is feeling you are getting "a steal", you have probably gotten to a price point where you are getting a deal and the dealership is getting sufficient margin.

Ok, so we all know that example. But, I would guess that many of you don't know this one. Go to your local McDonald's and ask for a 75 cent large soft drink (which usually costs an additional buck or more). Yours might not do it, but I have found that at least a couple near me do. Why do some do it and others don't? Why don't consumers know about this? Why not just give me the drink at 75 cents?

In talking with my friends, they will give me other examples such as electronics or appliance retail stores that will allow you to name your own price to a certain point. If you know that you can do it, you could save an additional 10-15%.

So, I guess my frustration is knowing that somebody else can get a better deal than I can because they found out about these "hidden" deals. Something about that doesn't seem right, or fair, or honest. I say we either go truly to the barter system (name your own deal) or everybody pay the same price. Anything in-between doesn't seem right to me. Is this really a good business practice?

Dimensions of an organization

2006-03-29T04:28:00.000-08:00

It’s widely accepted that every of us needs to develop or at least be conscious of our different dimensions: mental, emotional, corporal and spiritual. All of them become us complete beings. If one of them is missing or if we are not aware of it, we won’t be balanced and we could feel that something is not going properly.

An organization, as far as it is a social system, is alive, changes, suffers, connects with other, exchanges value and richness, growths …etc. In this case, we recognize its mental dimension and due to Daniel Goleman we can assume emotional intelligence importance. Lately spiritual dimension (values, significance, vital objectives even vocation) is taken in high account in lots of organizations.

What I see missing is the corporal approximation. And it is in this way where I am interested. Knowing the principles of corporality in organizations can bring keys to understand which conditions allows organizations growth and wellbeing and which ones could be obstacles. Making a comparison between human corporality (what at least is much more known) and organization’s one can lead to those keys.

This is an exciting field for me, because my corporality has been one of my greatest discover lately. At the moment I only have question (which in some way is better than having only answers):

Being conscious that breath is one of the more important aspects for a human being, how does the organization breathe? What can be made to improve his breathe?

When a muscle is exposed to an excessive stress, it contracts to prevent higher damage. Due to it the contracture avoids flexibility and mobility. Does it make the same sense for a department in organizations?

Normally when we look at a strict or inflexible person, his body and way of moving is rigid. The same could happen with the org.

If someone knows where I could find more information or people working or interested on it, please contact me.

Let’s expand the organizational corporhability!

organizations , corporality

Blog evolution: Managing change in blog focus

2006-03-28T02:00:00.000-08:00

Blogs evolve over time. They change even when we aren't thinking they are changing in any way. The movement toward a different blog focus may also take place by design. In either case, the focus of your blog may be entirely different from its initial goals. That is not necessarily a bad thing.

Let's examine some possible examples of blog evolution and the possible reasons for the changes.

A business blog may have begun as a sales and marketing tool for the company. The early posts on the blog may have been simply to call attention to the industry in general, and the blogging company's products and services in particular. The goal was to sell the company's products and services through the blog.

Over time, the blogger may have noticed that the overall readership was low. The blo owner understood that the posts were not providing what the visitors sought. Over time, the writer began to add posts providing advice and information related to the industry. Instead of continuing along with the failed business blog, the company blogger made some very conscious changes in the posted material presented to the visitors.

The blogger reviewed books, films, and products pertaining to the general industry and its current and potential customer and client base. The blogger started a conversation with the readers that developed into longer term relationships. The company blog became a success.

Not all blog changes are quite so obvious, however. Some changes are more subtle and are often not noticed at all.

The blogger may have started a business blog to enhance their internet search engine optimzation efforts. They had heard correctly that blogs have tremendous SEO power. With an eye to boosting their blog's search engine rankings, and those of its accompanying company website, links were sought aggressively, and keywords placed everywhere and anywhere throughout the posts. While some improvement in the search engine rankings did take place, the overall SEO results were weaker than expected.

The blog owner grew tired of seeking link exchanges with other blogs. Many of the blogs linked provided little or no visitor traffic, and often shared no related topics with the company blog at all. Along with losing interest in the aggressive link seeking strategy, the urge to place keywords here, there, and everywhere on the blog also declined. No conscious effort was made to change the blog's focus. The changes happened because none of the anticipated benefits ever took place.

The blogger simply wrote posts that were interesting for herself and her readership. After all, she thought, the SEO value of the blog was obviously exaggerated completely. Links and keywords all of that other SEO jargon was pointless, it seemed. Posts that were more personal, interesting, and informative began to appear on the company blog.

As if by some magical spell or potion, the blog's readership also increased. Links to specific posts were arriving to the blog, as if from thin air. As a surprising bonus, the blog rose in the search engine rankings on Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search. The blog focus had indeed changed for the better. Interesting and informative posts attract natural inbound links from theme relevant blogs and websites. Search engines give those theme related links the most weight in their ranking calculations. Less focus on the rankings can indeed improve a blog's SEO power.

Blog evolution is a natural part of blogging. Over time, a blog's focus can and does change. Blog changes are more frequent than most bloggers think, or even consider ever taking place. You might notice changes on other people's blogs. As with your own blog's evolution, the alteration of focus might have been intentional, or it may have been the result of unplanned circumstances.

Part of the true power of having a blog is its flexibility. The blog's ability to grow, adapt to changing needs, and to reflect an entirely new focus is a strength of blogging. As with all change, it's inevitable. We can either let the changes roll over us, or we can put the altered times to work for us.

Blog evolution is a prime example of how change can often work to enhance the blogger's goals and reputation.

Embrace the change.

Tags: managing change, blog evolution, SEO, posting.

Thanks for the invite!

2006-03-27T05:55:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Phil for the invite to 100 bloggers. Great idea and great reading!
I blog at Positive Perspectives (among others).

Wisdom from the past: A guide for living a meaningful life

2006-03-27T05:47:00.000-08:00

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) believed in self-improvement and worked to improve his body, mind, and spirit. In his late 20s he listed thirteen values that he attempted to live by for the rest of his life. By all accounts, he was successful and he made a daily commitment to incorporating these virtues into his life.

His thirteen virtues – listed below in his own words (along with the original spelling) - can help us live a life of meaning and purpose.

Temperance: Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
Order: Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
Industry: Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
Moderation: Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
Tranquillity: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Benjamin Franklin made it a point to begin and end his day with these questions:
What good shall I do this day? What good have I done this day?

Important words of wisdom from the past that we can put to good use today.

Lucy
Positive Perspectives Blog

Looking to Succeed? Here's 3 Quotes to Help You

2006-03-25T17:28:00.000-08:00

What are you waiting for in order to achieve the success you know you have inside of you? Today is the day that you can, you WILL succeed, if you step out of your comfort zone and try something, anything, that you think can make a difference.

I shared a few quotes over at Orbit Now! and I challenge you to make it great!

Don't wait another minute. Do...something...NOW!

Phil Gerbyshak
http://makeitgreat.org

Past, present and future

2006-03-25T16:32:00.000-08:00

Something to think about this weekend:

Learn from your past, and don't repeat past mistakes
Focus on your present, and live each day to its fullest
Plan for your future, and make tomorrow better than today

“Not to alibi”

2006-03-25T11:59:00.000-08:00

I’ve jumped ahead this March morning in my reading of The Daily Drucker, because this entry for April 11th caught my eye: The Four Competencies of a Leader.

“As the first basic competence, I would put the willingness, ability, and self-discipline to listen. Listening is not a skill; it is a discipline. Anyone can do it. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut.

The second essential competence is the willingness to communicate, to make yourself understood. That requires infinite patience.

The next important competence is not to alibi. Say: “This doesn’t work as well as it should. Let’s take it back and reengineer it.”

The last basic competence is the willingness to realize how unimportant you are compared to the task. Leaders subordinate themselves to the task. When effective leaders have the capacity to maintain their personality and individuality, even though they are totally dedicated, the task will go on after them.”

What do you think?
[The entry is found on page 113 if you have the book.]

I like the book editor’s Action Point: something to incorporate for those who practice David Allen’s Weekly Review?

“Set aside ten minutes every Friday afternoon to give yourself a weekly report card on all four skills: listening, communicating, reengineering mistakes, and subordinating your ego to the task at hand.”

New Orleans Election Follies: The Winner Take All Web Poll

2006-03-25T10:07:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Phil and Troy for giving me this platform. From it, I am going to draw your attention to the City of New Orleans, it's people, it's politics, and it's reconstruction.

My blog is Alan's Blogometer.

Rig The Vote

How would you like to influence the outcome of the city elections in New Orleans on April 22nd? You don't have to be a registered voter in Orleans Parish. You don't have to visit Louisiana.

Heck, you don't have to do anything but click a link. Go ahead and Click for Nick, I'll wait here.

Telocracy

You see, WDSU Channel 6, is hosting candidate debates. They hold a debate with all candidates, but then they hold final debates with a few chosen candidates. These few chosen candidates benefit from the valuable TV time, but with the added prestige that the exclusivity bestows.

How do they choose the final candidates?

With an online poll.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk for Mayor of New Orleans

Anyone can vote in this mock election. You can vote multiple times, if you wait a few minutes.

Does anyone recalls how proud Turks nominated Mustafa Kemal Ataturk for Time's man of the century? It is an example of how how these polls are so easily manipulated.

That the outcome of this poll can profoundly influence the lesser contests is staggering.

Click for Nick

I'm encouraging everyone I know to Click for Nick Varrecchio for Clerk of Court, by the way. He's my candidate. I'm workin on his campaign. Nick Varrecchio has a bunch of solid endorsments, a strong campaign. He can make it without the debate, but he really ought one of the two up there.

I want to make sure Nick does well in this poll, but I also think it's a big mistake.

My good friend Paul Christman had this to say over at my blog...

It seems like a horrible (if well-intentioned) abuse of the power of media to influence an election.

Knowing that its happening, and that the system is broken, I think you should do whatever is in your power to take advantage of the system *AND* highlight its injustice. What would WDSU say if one candidate has a million votes, while the next candidate has a thousand?

I'm not sure I can convince WDSU that the disclaimer that they themselves attach to their web polls should be taken seriously.

Please keep in mind that our polls are for entertainment and are not conducted in a scientific fashion.

We make no guarantees about the accuracy of the results other than that they reflect the choices of the users who participated.

Maybe a whole bunch of blogger participation would draw attention to the flaws in this system.

Let me introduce myself

2006-03-24T11:16:00.000-08:00

Thanks to both Phil and Troy for providing this opportunity to participate with these other bloggers. I already know many of you, and am exciting to work on this project with you. For others that don't know me, I have a blog called Random Thoughts from a CTO that has been out there a little over a year. If you have a chance, check it out and let me know what you think.

I'll try my best to keep up the quality of this blog by sharing some of my Random Thoughts along the way. It's a pleasure to be a part of this collaboration!

Writing is like...

2006-03-24T11:02:00.000-08:00

A while back, I wrote something in one of my blogs about how writers are a lot like actors. I had just listened to an interview with a voice actor who said something about one of the great challenges of his job is to deliver interrupted lines like the rest of that sentence actually existed.

I sat there and thought about that for a bit. I used to do all manner of performing arts, including drama and ballet. I think it's not just a need to understand that the line you only have a portion of at one point in time also had a rest of itself, but also understanding the comings and goings of your character. The character came from somewhere into the scene we see on the stage. The character is going somewhere when they leave the stage. The stage is just as focal point.

It's much the same way with a well-written story. The writer has to know and understand what isn't seen "on stage" and tell the story with this certainty that something does happen to the character before they appear or after they disappear. This is what leads to beloved characters, favorite worlds, and adoring fans. It creates a believable world.

I thought myself pretty happy with that comparison until a writer friend last week listed things her dance teacher used to say that she felt apply to dancing. While writing and the performing arts share a great deal in common "on stage", they share things off stage in common, too.

It was simple things like, "Practice", "If you can see the audience, they can see you", etc. Writing, like the performing arts, has this technical side that must be worked on and honed to a fine craft. I knew this already, but for some reason reading this list just made it stand out for me.

I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to make this work for me, but something tells me it'll stay with me for a long while.

What to do about what to do?

2006-03-22T22:52:00.000-08:00

Today's thought:

It's troubling to think about how much time I waste looking for ways to waste less time.

NW Corner, 36th & 8th, NYC

2006-03-22T21:23:00.000-08:00

The Power of Story Telling - Trevor Gay

2006-03-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I have been glued to a story told by someone – my concentration has been total. In more reflective moments I think about the process I have been through. How is it that:

I remember the story almost word for word - without rehearsing?
I create pictures in my head from a story?
I can relate the story to another context and use it to transmit a message?

I am not suggesting everyone learns through stories, or that stories are the best, or only way of learning. Stories are simply one of many methods of teaching and learning - but it is interesting to muse that before the written word was invented, all information was passed on orally. Arguably, the oldest skill in the communications book of tricks is the spoken word. With the words we speak there is no electronic spell check or grammar check. When we are talking we don’t think about left or right justified so maybe we are more ‘on the spot’ with our spoken word. Little wonder many like to think carefully before opening their mouth to speak – little wonder equally, that many regret speaking without thinking first. The power of the spoken word is immense.

Some have the ability to deliver the story in such a compelling way that we never forget it. I cannot recall a page of A4 text from my Physics lessons at school - but I can probably recall almost word for word, some of the stories I have been told – twenty or thirty years ago.

In the world of organisations, management and leadership I believe we are beginning to appreciate the value of story telling.

I think we should not under-estimate the power of story telling in management and bisiness. It is one of the most potent weapons in the arsenal of any manager and if used sensibly, wisely and sparingly it can prove a most effective way of:

Getting your message across
Inspiring others
Spreading your message
Making work an interesting place to be

Walmart, Monticello, NY

2006-03-21T19:59:00.000-08:00

Hey, look where we are!

2006-03-20T18:52:00.000-08:00

In good company:

No, we are not done yet.

There is still room on the upside.

Technorati Tags : Technorati, tags, Favorites

You Can Go Home Again ... With Your Memories

2006-03-18T15:46:00.000-08:00

The year is 1959 and the location is Shamrock, Texas. I am in the first grade and it is Tuesday, March 17th and this is the first St Patrick's day I really remember. I am so excited because we are heading to downtown for the parade.

The parade is massive, with bands from all the high schools from hundreds of miles around. They march in that stiff, six to five, style that is popular in parades and play Sousa marches. Their uniforms are full of cords and colors and I think they are the coolest folks around with their hats and feathered tops.

I was born in Houston, but did most of my growing up in the Panhandle of Texas. We lived in Shamrock for a couple of years, but my great grandmother was a resident for more than 70 years, and when we didn't live there, we made our annual pilgrimage on March 17th. Back then, they didn't move the celebration to the nearest weekend, it was held on the real date. Nowadays, that almost seems foreign.

Right after the parade, which began at about 10 AM, the beard contest starts. I am still amazed that all these men will grow a beard for three months, just for this contest. That's the rules, you see, you have to start off fresh on January 1st and grow the beard until March 17th. I think the judges are giving style points for the men that have dyed theirs green. This is so much fun watching the men strut and having fun showing off for the crowd.

Now it's time for the Miss Irish Rose beauty pageant and the girls are coming on stage. They are all dressed up in their best gowns and walk the stage for the judges. A little later, here they come for the talent portion and there sure are a lot of twirlers while the rest sing. After deliberating, the judges award 1st place to a pretty girl that twirled, I believe.

It's about 3 o'clock and the fiddle contest is starting. This is my Dad's favorite part and he and his dad are extremely excited, though neither are participating. This is THE contest and fiddlers from all over the United States arrive to play for the expert judges. This competition will go into darkness, and all the tunes are familiar to me, because Dad plays recordings of them all the time. He and his dad are two of the biggest fans here and they won't leave for the entire thing. Hours later in the hazy brightness of streetlights at night, in downtown Shamrock, the fiddle contest winner is crowned, to be revered for the next year. This is quite an honor for such a young man.

Time for young boys to go home and head off to bed, but the grownups head to the bull barn for the dance. One of the local western swing bands is playing and the dance will go late into the night. This is almost as much fun as Christmas, but without all the presents.

Things sure were fun back then, especially to a seven year old boy as he dreamed of all the colors of the day and of the men with the funny green beards. These are very fond memories of days spent in Shamrock, Texas with the extended family.

Happy belated Saint Patrick's day to all.

Emotion + Style = Passion with a WOW

2006-03-18T12:38:00.000-08:00

"Whenever emotion and style meet, a kind of passion is kindled." - Garth Fagan, Choreographer - The Lion King

Emotion. Style. When they come together, the passion produced is of the contagious kind. It pricks at our imaginative consciousness and compels us to create a "WOW" of our own.

We witness messages filled with emotion and no style - and the message gets lost in the delivery. We see deliveries filled with style and no emotion - and yawn.

Craft your message (or brand/project/day/life) as if it's a cause. Be generous with an abundance of emotion. Be creative with style. As my friend Phil says, "Make it Great!"

Life's a journey...drink it up!

2006-03-17T19:28:00.000-08:00

A quote crossed my plate that made me remember that we're on a journey, not a race to a particular destination.

"Our life's journey of self-discovery is not a straight-line rise from one level of consciousness to another. Instead, it is a series of steep climbs and flat plateaus, then further climbs. Even though we all approach the journey from different directions, certain of the journey's characteristics are common to all of us." - Stuart Wilde

Just what I needed to fuel me as I embark on down a new path in my life.

Drink it up!
Phil Gerbyshak

100 Bloggers Gets Play at Gaping Void

2006-03-17T18:50:00.000-08:00

Possibly the coolest blog ever, Gaping Void, has served 100 Bloggers some weird link love, but the comments are creepy.

BTW, if you haven't read Hugh MacLeod's How To Be Creative manifesto at ChangeThis, do. "If you've ever felt the draw to do something creative but just haven't been able to pull it together, you'll love this manifesto."

I did.

What is “walking the talk” of Great Leading?

2006-03-17T18:37:00.000-08:00

Question 3 of Rosa Say’s five questions on leadership at the blog Synergy is: What is “walking the talk” of Great Leading?

Rosa writes, “Perhaps I’m the one you don’t quite believe … Do you buy that everyone can lead? What do you think I have to coach would-be leaders in? What is “walking the talk” of Great Leading?

WALKING THE TALK = LEADING BY EXAMPLE

Anyone can be a leader. I think the most important thing to teach would-be-leaders is to embrace their uniqueness, to be genuine, and to have integrity. I believe anyone who does these three things can effectively lead by example, can affect change, and can be an inspiration to others

Black & White Fraternal Twins?

2006-03-17T18:33:00.000-08:00

Experts say there is a million to one shot that a woman can give birth to one black and one white fraternal twins. Is this an urban legend or true? According to Snopes, a website dedicated to debunking urban legends, a couple in the UK hit the lottery.

Fan letters: Are they for bloggers too?

2006-03-17T16:58:00.000-08:00

Authors, newspaper and magazine writers, and columnists of all types receive fan mail. Many readers admire the creative and journalistic talents of the writers and want to praise the published works. As writers, bloggers might be a new group of fan mail recipients.

My friend Vikk Simmons (pictured above left) of Down The Writer's Path provides some thoughts on fan mail for book authors. Vikk considers fan letters to be something that brightens a writer's day like little else.

Vikk Simmons writes:

There are days when it's downright nice to be an author and today was one of them. When I finally powered up the laptop and checked my email after almost two weeks absence, I found a wonderful note...

Notice Vikk's joy at receiving some positive feedback about her books and her blog. The recognition of the writer's craft, in the form offan letters to authors is appreciated. Often writers toil away at their creative work, not hearing anything about the quality of their finished product. For everyone who puts pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, it's nice to be noticed. In this case, the appreciation was for Vikk's young adult novel Divided Loyalties (shown left).

Bloggers appreciate feedback for their work as well. Thanks to the wonder of blog commenting systems, thoughts on various blog posts are fast and easy to provide. When visiting your favourite blogs, it's nice to leave a few comments; at least once in awhile. Let the blog owner know that you have paid a visit, read the post, and found it thought provoking enough to require a comment. From little things like comments, blogging relationships can be formed.

E-mail provides another way to express your thoughts on a blogger's work. Like Vikk Simmons' delightful e-mail, a fan letter to a blogger can work wonders for everyone. The sender has expressed appreciation for the time and effort taken by the writer to provide an interesting an informative post. The blogger is pleased to discover that the work of posting has helped, informed, or entertained someone else.

Linking to favourite posts, on your regular blog reads, is another way to share your appreciation of the blogger and the resulting blog. Not only does the linked blogger discover that postings are being read, they are also being shared with others. More readers exchanged between two or more bloggers helps everyone; bloggers and readers alike.

Send a blogger a fan letter today.

Brighten a writer's day with your words of appreciation.

Originally posted on Blog Business World

Tags: Vikk Simmons, blogging, fan letters, writing.

Wake up.

2006-03-17T15:04:00.000-08:00

There are those of us who are rich beyond belief. There are people that walk this planet that cannot imagine the plight of the poor. The long tail.

Some of those people are us.

Correction always starts with awareness.

Wallace on Wine

2006-03-17T12:51:00.001-08:00

Wallace on Wine

(originally published on Basic Juice)

I find it difficult to write about wine in a consistently engaging manner. Let me explain. If I were to simply write a few sentences each week about the wines I’ve recently sampled, the column would be about as interesting as reading the rules of Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes. So how on earth can I keep this column interesting to me and the five of you who read it? In the past, I’ve tried writing wine reviews in the form of Haiku and Limericks. This led me to ponder how some of my favorite poets and authors would approach wine writing. David Foster Wallace is a favorite author of mine. He’s “playfully erudite.” He writes in a nonconformist style. His writing also aggravates some readers. However, I find his writing engaging, challenging, and humorous. With sincere apologies to Mr. Wallace, to those who enjoy his work, and to those who become cross-eyed with frustration and/or rage at the mere mention of his name, I present a wine review in the David Foster Wallace style.

Lustau⁽¹⁾ “Los Arcos”⁽²⁾ Dry⁽³⁾ Amontillado Sherry ($10) – Very bright⁽⁴⁾ caramel/copper in color. This Sherry offers dizzying⁽⁵⁾ scents of roasted almond⁽⁶⁾, salt⁽⁷⁾, date⁽⁸⁾, and wood.⁽⁹⁾ In the mouth, The Arcs⁽¹⁰⁾ tastes like a dry Tawny Port.⁽¹¹⁾ This is a tasty wine⁽¹²⁾, wrapped up⁽¹³⁾ in a tangy, food-friendly⁽¹⁴⁾ package.⁽¹⁵⁾ Sip⁽¹⁶⁾ Los Arcos alongside your favorite Tapa.⁽¹⁷⁾ It is the perfect accompaniment to Gazpacho.⁽¹⁸⁾

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

⁽¹⁾ Lustau was actually established in 1896^(a) by Don Jose Ruiz-Berdejo y Veyan. I’ve no idea why the brand isn’t named “Ruiz-Berdejo y Veyan,” unless it simply costs too much in terms of label real estate or ink outlay.

⁽²⁾ Or “The Arcs” if you have limited or no command^(b) of the Spanish language.

⁽³⁾ And when the Spanish designate Sherry as “dry,” they aren’t whistling Dixie.^(c) There will be precisely zero fruit scents, aromas or flavors to be pried^(d) out of the glass.

⁽⁴⁾ I’m not implying the wine actually glows in the dark. Rather it shimmers in the glass. Perhaps the description should have read, “Shiny, shimmering^(e) caramel and/or copper in color.”

⁽⁵⁾ When sniffed or drunk in moderation, Sherry does not cause dizziness. It is dizzying in the sense that the mind struggles to conjure up adjectives for all the volatile molecules ascending the nasal passages and making contact with cilia-equipped neurons.

⁽⁶⁾ Preheat oven to 350F^(f). Spread almonds over baking sheet. Roast for twenty minutes or until almond skin begins to crack.

⁽⁷⁾ Many Sherry producers and enthusiasts claim that Sherry grapevines are imbued with salt from ocean spray carried on the breeze.^(g)

⁽⁸⁾ Fruit of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera), which is mentioned in both the Koran and Bible.^(h)

⁽⁹⁾ This is one of those annoying adjectives used by wine writers the world over. I don’t mean that the wine smells like a plank of wood. Rather, it smells like the inside of a toasted barrel⁽ⁱ⁾. Of course, not many folks have actually sniffed the inside of a barrel; let alone a toasted barrel.

⁽¹⁰⁾ On-demand Spanish translation!

⁽¹¹⁾ To my knowledge, there is no such thing as a dry Tawny Port.

^(j) Tawny Ports are actually quite sweet. Their unique flavors can be partially attributed to wood (see ⁽⁹⁾).

⁽¹²⁾ One of the major struggles in wine writing is avoiding repetition when referring to the wine under review. I’m tapped out after, “this wine,” “the wine” “this Sherry,” and “Los Arcos.” I now must resort to inserting adjectives such as “this tasty wine.” Redundancy is a killer.

⁽¹³⁾ The reader is being set up here for a whopper^(k) of a metaphor. I am attempting to paint a mental image of the Sherry as a gift - wrapping paper and all.

⁽¹⁴⁾ Another all-too-commonplace wine adjective.

⁽¹⁵⁾ Metaphor delivered.^(l)

⁽¹⁶⁾ While sipping isn’t required, it is recommended. Los Arcos tastes deceptively light in the alcohol department. However, it packs an alcohol-punch of 18.5%.^(m)

⁽¹⁷⁾ Tapa literally means cover or lid.⁽ⁿ⁾

⁽¹⁸⁾ A cold^(o), tomato-based Spanish soup that is popular in warmer areas and during the summer. It is usually spicy, but a milder variant has also become popular.

^(a) Also the year in which Utah was granted statehood

^(b) And really, shouldn’t we all learn Spanish as a sign of friendship to our southern (as in Mexico) neighbors?

^(c) Or whatever ditty your typical Spaniard might whistle

^(d)pry tr.v. pried, prying, pries

^(e) Thus I would have been able to employ the timeless literary device of alliteration, which is clearly illustrated by the phrase, “Sally sells seashells by the seashore”

^(f) Tc = (5/9)*(Tf-32); Tc = temperature in degrees Celsius, Tf = temperature in degrees Fahrenheit

^(g) This needn’t be a Wizard of Oz-type breeze. The Sherry region is, in fact, on the southern coast of Spain. So there is close proximity to ocean spray; although I’m not sure if I buy the whole salt-imbued-vineyard thing

^(h)And, I assume, the Torah

⁽ⁱ⁾ Barrels are often toasted on the inside for purposes of adding complexity to ageing wine. The toasted wood imparts buttery, spicy-sweet, scents to said wine

^(j) Tawny port is aged in wooden barrels, exposing it to gradual oxidation and evaporation, causing its color to mellow to a golden-brown after roughly ten years "in wood"

^(k)As in a large-sized, heavy-duty metaphor – not a big hamburger or malted chocolate candy

^(l)!!

^(m)A higher alcohol percentage than even most hefty California Cabernet or Zinfandel wines

⁽ⁿ⁾ "The association with appetizers is thought to have come from the old habit of placing a slice of bread or a piece of ham on top of one's wine glass, perhaps to keep out insects. This edible lid was the precursor of modern-day tapas”

^(o)In both fiction and real life, there have occurred embarrassing situations in which a Gazpacho-ignorant diner insists that his or her cold soup be heated up

Dear reader, if you have made it this far, I raise my glass^(aa) to you. If you wish to rant or rave about the Wallace style used in this wine review, please leave a comment.

^(aa)Cheers!

Tags: spanish wine, wine

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2006-03-17T12:51:00.000-08:00

To all the Irish and friends of the Irish on this wonderful day, a Friday no less, you have an excuse to toss a pint of Guiness down.

Drink responsibly!

Love fully!

Live joyously!

Technorati Tags : Irish, Guiness, holiday, St+Patrick

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Are you ready to be one of the most popular bloggers on the planet?

2006-03-17T11:52:00.000-08:00

DON'T WAIT FOR PERMISSION TO SUCCEED! Join 100 Bloggers NOW!

Then add 100 Bloggers to your Technorati Favorites.

It's a numbers game. If we ALL participate, we will break into Technorati's Top 40 Favorites by the end of the week-end.

Technorati is currently tracking more than 30 million blogs. The Corner on National Review Online, No.100 on Technorati's Top 100 (by links), has more than 12,700 links from 2,400 sites. Generating these kinds numbers takes time.

This is your opportunity to shortcut evolution.

GENERATE MOMENTUM FOR 100 BLOGGERS AND THEY WILL GENERATE MOMENTUM FOR YOU!

BlogHer is On Fire!

2006-03-17T11:43:00.000-08:00

I know you know who they are, but have you actually visited their site? These women have their act together.

BLOGHER'S MISSION: to create opportunities for women bloggers to pursue exposure, education, and community.

Clearly, BlogHer sets the standard for blogging communities.

It's good to have something to aspire to.

100 Bloggers Rattle the Cage!

2006-03-17T11:37:00.000-08:00

Spread the word! Here 100 Bloggers Rattle The Cage!

What does great leading look like?

2006-03-17T11:31:00.000-08:00

Question 5 of Rosa Say’s five questions on leadership at the blog Synergy is: What does great leading look like in the blogosphere?

WHAT DOES GREAT LEADING LOOK LIKE IN THE BLOGOSPHERE? This is a great question. When I think of leaders in the blogosphere, the following names come to mind: Jory Des Jardins, Lisa Stone, Rosa Say, Lisa Haneberg, and Elisa Camahort. What do these people have in common? They are all wonderful writers. They are all community builders. They are all women.

All four responded to my original post at Orbit Now! and dished major props to a lot of dudes.

Don't wait for permission to succeed (from a slightly different perspective)

2006-03-17T11:28:00.000-08:00

Are you looking for a different perspective on your career? David St. Lawrence offers one which might be slightly different from your own.

I became a fan of David when I started reading his writing last year. His unassuming and candid style is a refreshing change from so much of the overbearing flogging of the blogosphere.

David writes “to stimulate thought and possible action, not to prescribe to others what they should believe.” His blog is called Ripples. If you are employeed, I am writing from your future and Life strategies are two recent examples of his writing.

Read David St. Lawrence.

Your Money or Your Life

2006-03-17T10:38:00.000-08:00

Everyone gets emotional about money. Most of us link it to happiness and/or success. It almost certainly results in anger and frustration at some point in our lives. It appears as if money has some power over us – the power to make a difference in our lives. The truth is that money only has the power we assign to it.

The cornerstone of personal finance is your ability to manage your cash flow. Taking in more than you spend is essential to growth and prosperity. Most people rely upon their job as their sole source of income. All too often we become emotionally connected to the income our jobs provide. This connection can prevent us from making sound decisions when it comes to our lives. It is this emotional connection that forces good people to stay in bad jobs.

The emotional connection makes our present job seem larger than life. No matter how hard we try we just can’t break free from the bonds of this terrible situation. “I hate the job but I need the money” becomes our mantra. In essence we become addicted to the income that the horrible job provides and we don’t see a way to break free.

Here are three things you can do to help break your addiction to your horrible job and take back control of your life:

Admit you have a problem. Admit that you are miserable in your current job. Admit it to yourself and to your family. You will be amazed at how good you feel when you get the burden of denial off of your chest.

This admission will allow you to begin welcoming help and support into your life. You will suddenly feel free to consider other options. A solution will not magically present itself, however your eyes will be open to some possibilities that you may not have previously noticed.

Develop some form of secondary income. This does not need to be an income stream that rivals your current role. Even something that provides a limited amount of cash will help. The object here is to build your confidence in earning some money in a situation outside your traditional comfort zone.

The occupation for your secondary income is totally up to you. The one nonnegotiable factor is that it must be in an area that you enjoy. The idea is that once you see you can make some money – any money – from something you enjoy, your mind will be open to leaving a job you hate, but feel you need.

Put limits on your unhappiness. In order to get your life back and take control of your career you must set an end date with yourself. Give yourself ample time to explore new opportunities and learn about your hidden talents. Set a date for when you will have a job that is rewarding both emotionally and financially

Setting a date does a few important things for you psychologically. First it shows that you have control. If you can set a date, then you can walk away. Second, it removes any anticipatory anxiety. Sometimes the dread that comes from going to work everyday is about not seeing an end. Setting a date changes that. Finally, when you set a date you give yourself the ultimate motivation. Your mind will drive your actions to become consistent with your thoughts. If you set a firm date and stick with it, you will find a better job because of your internal motivation.

Too many people today are forced to choose between making money and being happy. If you take control of your career you will no longer have to make that choice.

Originally posted on The Career Intensity Blog

You Can Shortcut Evolution!

2006-03-17T09:12:00.000-08:00

Are you ready to be one of the most popular bloggers on the planet?

DON'T WAIT FOR PERMISSION TO SUCCEED! Join 100 Bloggers NOW!

Then add 100 Bloggers to your Technorati Favorites.

It's a numbers game. If we ALL participate, we will break into Technorati's Top 40 Favorites by the end of the week-end.

Technorati is currently tracking more than 30 million blogs. The Corner on National Review Online, No.100 on Technorati's Top 100 (by links), has more than 12,700 links from 2,400 sites. Generating these kinds numbers takes time. This is your opportunity to shortcut evolution.

GENERATE MOMENTUM FOR 100 BLOGGERS AND THEY WILL GENERATE MOMENTUM FOR YOU!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2006-03-17T07:35:00.000-08:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day. I converted to Judaism two years ago. I was doing some research and was surprised to find out that there are still small communities of Jews living in Ireland. Unfortunately, the communities has been diminishing since the second World War. Many Irish Jews have emigrated to Israel or the United States where a Jewish life is easier and there are more economic opportunities. Because of our inter-connected world and technology, geography is no longer a barrier. The good news is that there is great religious and economic opportunities for creative and pioneering Jews. I hope more Jews will return to Ireland and make a once thriving Jewish community active again.

No More Mommies?

2006-03-16T05:44:00.000-08:00

Tricia Smith Vaughan calls herself the Comic Mom, though I didn't find the two columns I read this morning particular funny. I haven't read them all yet, perhaps I missed the comic part.

But I did find the two columns I read this morning thought-provoking - No More Mommies? and Too Busy to Reproduce? While I would not want to side with some of her politically-incorrect opinions - she does remind me of some of my own concerns.

Too Busy to Reproduce? reminds me of the post I did on FertilityFriend.com about how If You Wanna Make a Baby, You Gotta Do the Dance. Several people responded to tell me why they just didn't have time for sex. I understand that life is busy, but if twice a month just isn't getting you pregnant after several months of trying, perhaps it's time to step up the frequency a bit?

Now No More Mommies? - I have spend a great deal of my life reading, researching and thinking about the effect of conception, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and early childhood on children. I had books like Immaculate Deception, Spiritual Midwifery, Birth Without Violence, The Secret Life of the Unborn, The Continuum Concept and Breastfeeding Matters (and many more!) in my own personal library.

All of this is a big part of who I am, though I don't say very much about it. I am aware that my ideas are not popular in the mainstream world. And that is OK. But I really believe it matters, that it makes a difference, and that it has long-reaching effects on a person's life. I know this is not a popular belief in today's world, but since everyone is allowed to have their opinion, I think I can have mine as long as I don't force it on someone else.

However, I already have 3 children, I am not in the position of a woman who is unable to get pregnant unassisted. I can't say how I would decide if I were in that position. Probably it wouldn't bother me as much, because I never would have done all the reading and research that I did after having my children.

My perspective would be totally different. But I still don't believe anyone should be denied a child because of my beliefs. It's not any of my business how a child comes into your life, as long as it is a much wanted, much loved child.

My favourite aunt was adopted, and I wouldn't wanted to miss having her in my life. My step brother and his wife adopted after many heart-breaking years of infertility, and I know he is the light of their lives.

Yes, there are many children whose lives are made much better by adoption. However, the reality of our world is the children who would most benefit from being adopted into a loving family, are left with their abusive parents. It is a sad world, and I have no answers for any of this...

I have several friends who suffered devastating losses, before they moved on to adopt their children. I know many online who have suffered years of infertility and loss and have moved on to donor egg, and I honestly do believe that it is a wonderful option for them.

I have seen the heartache they have suffered. These are not uncaring career women who scheduled time for a baby late in life, as Tricia says. They didn't simply wait till a convenient time, then realize it was too late. They are usually women devastated at years of trying, either unable to conceive or unable to maintain a pregnancy. I truly want them to have the baby they so much desired.

But it does worry me where Tricia says it is all desensitizes us. I do see what she means. I don't know know what the answer is though. I am able to see both sides, feel for each side.

In fact, I think I could comfortably debate either side of most arguments - despite my strong feelings on a topic. Because there is no absolute right or wrong, no good or bad with most decisions. But the dark side that Tricia mentions may have implications in the future that we, as a society, had never considered.

I know I am weird, but I tend to worry about stuff like that...

Originally posted on Life Begins... blog

A Call for Bloggers

2006-03-16T05:20:00.000-08:00

The Carnival of 100 Bloggers, Issue 4 will be posted on March 19. Send me your links! Now. This carnival is open to all. No themes. No guidelines.

If you are interested in joining 100 Bloggers or know someone who might be, write me.

Success is attracted

2006-03-14T20:39:00.000-08:00

I just finished up the basketball season with my sons youth league team. We had a really good season. We had a great group of kids that did not understand the meaning of quit. Each and every kid on the team showed an incredible amount of leadership skills. I was most impressed with their courage and determination. We were a very small team. Every other team in the league towered over us. However, no team fought harder or outworked us.

There are so many things that go into the makeup of a leader. These little guys have what it takes to be leaders and winners. We lost our playoff game in a really hard fought contest. Our team was really outmanned, but put on an incredible performance. Afterwards, the guys were really down, but I was really upbeat. No one likes to lose, especially me. But I did not have the sense that we lost. I was so taken by their grit and determination that I realized how special this group of little guys is. It struck me that success is never given. It is not even earned. Success is attracted. These little guys do everything to attract success.

How did this team teach me that success is attracted? By working hard everysingle second, understanding the power of teamwork, self sacrifice, never giving up, believing that they can be (and should be) successful in everything they do, never giving up, believing in each other, being persistent, being passionate, caring, being honest, counting on each other, being accountable to the team, being humble, and being tenacious. They did not lose anything. They gained my admiration and respect. They taught me the true meaning of leadership.

Rosa Say asked at the blog synergy "What is great leadership?" The answer is a group of 9 and 10 year olds that will not quit. I hope to grow up and be just like them some day. They did not win their championship. (They will win many throughout life.) What they did win is my respect. They won the right to be teachers and leaders. They taught me that success is attracted. It is attracted by your actions, your attitude, and your willingness to live life with the enthusiasm, persitence, and humility of a child.

My Conversion Essay

2006-03-11T06:43:00.000-08:00

This post appeared on my other blog, Sushi Kiddush, about a month ago, but I felt it was a great way to introduce myself to 100.bloggers. I think this blog is an amazing idea and I hope it facilitates democratic discourse that breeds understanding and tolerance. I look forward to being part of something very special. Thanks Troy.

4/8/03

Spiritual Biography

I grew up in a secular family. My mother came from an Irish Catholic background and my father, being Japanese, came from a Shinto/Buddhist background. However, both my parents, like most children, drifted from their religious backgrounds as they moved into adulthood. As a child, we celebrated Christmas and Easter, and even celebrated some Japanese religious holidays like Boy’s Day, but they were not filled with much religious meaning. In fact, I never connected Christmas to any religious meaning until my mother enrolled me in confirmation classes at the local Methodist Church at the age of thirteen. Christmas, until that time, was a holiday to receive presents and to have a big roast beef dinner. I enjoyed it very much, but I never thought of Christ when I voraciously opened up a Star Wars figure or zoomed down my block on a new dirt bike.

From about the age of eight my mother was taking my sister and I to the local Methodist Church for Sunday school and to attend services. My father stayed home and watched football. He had no time for religion and made no bones about not going. What I realized later in my adult life was that my father would not have gone to a football game either. He became more distanced from the family emotionally and slipped into a deep depression. He still, to this day, has not adequately treated his depression, and I, as a social work student, think he suffers from some sort of social anxiety disorder.

So my mother took us to church on Sundays, and helped at the church fairs, and became friends with the congregation, not for the religion, but for the support and community. In hindsight, I think she did it because she knew my father was drifting farther and farther into himself and his private world. She needed the social outlet.

For my sister and I, it was great – we made friends and went to church outings. We played, laughed, sang and danced. It was fun. It was a childhood experience that I will cherish for the rest of my life and it has made me who I am today. But then my life changed the day I walked into my first confirmation class. Jesus was brought into this world from a virgin birth. We are born with original sin. We must repent for our sins in this world so that we can have a better world in the after life. These tenets just did not make sense to me. Why pray to some abstract guy with thorns in his hair because he tried to do some good in the world? I knew plenty of people trying to do good in the world and there was no religion called Mom. Why should I repent for something I did not do? Why repent in this life when I could live in this life?

I eventually finished the class to please my parents, and stood up on the altar and ate the body of Christ. The congregation clapped, cameras flashed, the choir sang, and I stood on the altar facing a sea of smiling Christians saying to myself, “I will never go to church again.” Well, it was not this revelatory and deliberate. Months earlier, I heard my mother saying that once you are confirmed, sign the church book, and you become a member of the church, you can do anything you want. I made a choice not to go to church once I got confirmed. And I didn’t.

Through high school and into my earlier twenties, I dabbled in different religious ideas. I liked the solitary meditative approach of Buddhism, I liked the practical-I’ll-see-it-when-I-believe-it approach of agnosticism, I liked the cathartic rebelliousness of nihilism (don’t worry I only joined a rock band and sang about rebellion, I didn’t actually do it), and I liked the community of Judaism. I always saw my Jewish friends surrounded by family and friends and celebrations. Even in sad times there was community, support, and bagels and lox (just kidding). But, there was this sense of togetherness despite it all and I liked the comfort of that.

I played in a rock band until my late twenties using creativity as spiritual experience. And it is a spiritual experience. There is a oneness and nowness to creativity that takes you outside of your selfish needs and connects you to a higher state of reality. You just trust enough to let whatever comes out of you be what it is and that is cathartic, exhilarating, introspective, and evolutionary. You evolve and understand yourself better. This is what I am currently trying to experience in prayer - to think of prayer as a gift you are giving to God, instead of some ritual act that you must complete because the Torah says to. When you think of prayer as a gift to God it takes the pressure off yourself. You are not concerned with yourself anymore, but for something outside yourself. I don’t want prayer to be expediency. I want that oneness and nowness that I experience in my creative pursuits. I want Kavannah.

I went back to school to complete an art degree and in the process met my soul mate Ellie. She grew up in a Modern Orthodox family and, as you know, it was rather tough on our relationship. Here is a joke to explain what I thought the situation was like; A nice Jewish boy meets a Native American girl at college named Dancing Cloud. They fall in love and the boy works up the courage to bring his girlfriend home to meet the parents. He says to his mother, “Mom, I would like you to meet my girlfriend Dancing Cloud.” His Jewish mother says, “Nice to meet I'm sitting shiva.” Very funny, but true in many cases. And Ellie was more terrified than I was. So there was not a lot of confidence that we could make the relationship work, unless I converted to Judaism.

In the meantime, Ellie had been bringing me the Chumash, canonical Hasidic stories, Jewish folklore, tractates of the Talmud, and anything that might interest me, depending on what holiday was occurring at that time. We ate at kosher restaurants around Queens College, I attended events at the Hillel, and I even started talking to different Rabbis to see if Judaism might be right for me. It felt right, but I just wasn’t sure. It took awhile to work up the courage to attend a Sabbath service, but I eventually did. I loved the sound of Hebrew, I loved the singing of the cantor, I loved the movements of the men davening. I wanted to know more, to be able to contribute to these mystical foreign words, to be able to say these words with Kavannah.

I felt like this was right for me and when I found out from my mother that my great-grandfather was a Russian Jew I knew I had a Jewish soul. She showed me a kiddush cup she found in her basement as a child and I immediately connected to the pogroms of Tsarist Russia, the persecuted people of the thinning Diaspora, the Holocaust, Theodore Hertzl, everything Jewish. I cried for people I once only had a distant connection to.

I know I have family now that was persecuted by anti-Semitism and I know I am a Jew. Not by law, but by soul. I want to become a Jew by law. Ellie has since told her parents and they support us in our journey together through this program and beyond. My parents have always supported us because religion was never an issue. I originally had a problem with religion dictating a person’s choice of partners - how could religion dictate love? I still feel that love should not be dictated, but I also understand why the Jewish people preserve such a unique and tested religion. They have been dictated to disappear for millennia, but they are still here based on survival and halacha.

I want to join the Jewish community and live a Jewish life. I am eating kosher, I have mezuzahs on my doors, Ellie and I celebrate Shabbos, and I am wearing a kippah more regularly now. It takes time, but I am getting there. I learn something new each day about Judaism and I strive to fulfill the mitzvot. I love the structure of a Jewish life because it reminds me of a higher purpose in even the simple things. People always say things like, “How can you follow all those rules?” or “That lifestyle is so oppressive.” I was one of those people before I gave it a try. It has its moments of frustration and tedium, but so does life. Everybody has to set limits on their life and I choose to set these limits. If not, we’d be a disordered chaotic wasteland of self-interest. Only when I began to follow these rules and set limits did I feel freer. And for that, Omayn.

I am a dead bunny

2006-03-10T14:40:00.000-08:00

That's how one of the younger writing students remembers me now.

Last week, I was working with this student on prepositions. I don't know how anybody else learned prepositions, but I had to watch this dorky video about a rabbit and a box. At least, the rabbit was cute! So, I was using the idea of a rabbit and a box to teach the student. I made a little bunny with one hand and a box with the other (It was a fist, but she got the point).

I kept making the rabbit hand do things in relation to the box hand, trying to help her see diffferent prepositions. At one point, my little rabbit was jumping off the the box, and the student kept saying "over". Trying to get her to say "off", I had the bunny fall sideways off the box. The student gleefully said, "The bunny falls off the box and dies!" She even drew a picture of it on her worksheet.

We finally managed to get to an understanding that the preposition was "off", but when she saw me earlier this week, she pointed at me and said, "Dead bunny!" I just walked past and said, "Yep, that's me. I'm a dead bunny." I don't think the teacher was particularly amused. I was. After all, I am a Rabbit.

A Rabbit who will forever be "Dead Bunny" to one of her students...

...and that student will never forget prepositions again!

A baby lost, a baby grieved

2006-03-09T05:05:00.000-08:00

My world is spinning, and I don't know how to respond???

How does one respond when someone who was so very cruel to you during your miscarriage, loses her baby???

Not just thoughtless words, not just careless actions - but deliberate cruelty. Spreading lies that turned people you thought of as friends, against you. That left you with little support, and few to turn to for answers and comfort? Who, when confronted by her behaviour by others, said that just proved that her lies were truth. Hardening hearts that use to care about you???

My heart was pierced through when I read the news of her loss! OMG, I would NEVER wish this on anyone, NEVER want another to lose her baby. NEVER wish anyone to feel this pain, to have her heart ripped out.

Every baby that is wanted, every baby that is loved, every baby that is longed for - should NEVER be lost. Every baby that is awaited with joy, should grow securely under the mother's heart, until ready to be placed in the mother's arms. The world is such an unjust place...

I fear that my expression of sorrow at her loss, my participation in a gift of flowers - would be unwelcome, unwanted. So I will grieve quietly here for her, and for her husband. Wishing her peace and comfort.

And most of all, I grieve for her little baby. Never to be held, never to be known.

Goodbye little one...

Uncle Sam Wants YOU!

2006-03-03T18:04:00.000-08:00

Vote for Troy Worman's manifesto NOW! Don't wait for permission to succeed! What does Uncle Sam want you to do?

Make it a great day!
Phil Gerbyshak
http://makeitgreat.org

Technorati Tags: troy worman, orbit now, uncle sam, humor

A Call for Links!

2006-03-03T14:03:00.000-08:00

The Carnival of 100 Bloggers, Issue 4 will be posted on March 19. Send me your links!

Also, I have compiled a list of 50 bloggers to whom I will send invites to join us. Please advise if there is anyone you would like to ensure is on my list. Currenlty, we are 51, but almost half are inactive. "Inactive" means they have not posted in the last 90 days.

How do you feel about removing members who cannot fulfill a commitment to post once every 90 days?

Clear communication: a leader’s asset

2006-03-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

In a time span of a couple of days, I came across a number of posts that talked aboutthe need for communication, clear communication specifically. For a leader, clear communication can help get a project finished, build team confidence, and head off misunderstandings before they become full-blown problems.

Let's start with this quote found at Fast Company: "If you expect those below to support your leadership and step into the breach when needed, they will need to understand your strategy, your methods, and your rules." --Michael Useem I've often found with the teams I lead that a little communication goes a long way in promoting trust and loyalty. When they can see where I'm coming from and where I'm heading, then they feel empowered to strike out and go above and beyond my expectations for them as they work toward helping me reach the end goal. They feel a part of things because they undertand what is going on. I also try to communicate when something has changed as soon as I'm aware of changes.

This post started by asking what one quality people looked for in a leader. The following gem showed up in the comments: Clarity is key. Clarity is the key component, because you need to have clarity in your communication to the people you lead, and to the people you serve, you need to have clarity of mission, purpose and passion so people want to follow you, and you need clarity of purpose to wade through all the information that will come your way to find the truth, or at least the most relevant information. Again, people respond well to someone who doesn't feel the need to be mysterious in passing along information. When they can see that you are clearly on a set path, and they can clearly see the path themselves, then they are more likely to follow willingly and do what it takes to get to that ending. Mysterious directions and unclear goals are best left to guided discovery teaching moments and scavenger hunts!

This post illustratres a few ways to not communicate clearly and links to a post on how not to have a conversation. I always like to assume my teams are composed of intelligent people who will understand me, or will ask for clarification if they're unsure. As I tend to surround myself with independent thinkers for the most part, this method works well for me. Occassionally, I get someone who needs to be directed or coached through every tiny thing, and even then I refuse to belittle them. I like questions.

The moral of the story: Communicate. Communicate clearly. Be willing to clarify when there is confusion.

Cross-posted to CareerNiche.

Freedom’s Price

2006-02-27T06:21:00.000-08:00

I live in freedom, here at home
But my freedom it wasn’t free
Your life and heart, your mind and blood,
Pay freedoms price for me.

I send my little boxes,
Packed with love and wrapped with prayer
Hoping that when they reach you
Smiles and laughter will light your life
While you read these odds and ends from one
Who’s safe at home.

I read the lists,I check them out
When I do not hear
that you’re alive and fighting still
My heroes over there.

I write your families of the pride I feel in you
My unsung heroes who live and die,
protecting those under the shield
of freedom being bought.
I tell them just how much their love;
it helps you to be strong
Their fears, their tears I pack away,
and send them up to God.

Until our freedom is secured
I will write and I will pray.
That our nation will stand as one.
Offering you honor as you pay
The price that freedom costs.

crossposted Feb 27,2006

New Challenge

2006-02-26T17:49:00.000-08:00

Patti Digh has tossed out a real good challenge. If you follow her writing, she carefully crafts a post per week. I visualized her posting process like this. For the next 37 days, however, she is going to just wing it. Do shorter posts, less complete, more single thought and potentially reuse them later for the longer posts. You will find these shorter posts here.

Her challenge is for us to do likewise.

Ah, and therein lies the rub!

For me, those posts are longer than I do write. And as many are aware, I already post almost daily so that is not a challenge. The challenge will be to make mine longer. Stick around, it could be fun.

Seriously, the challenge is a worthwhile exercise. I recall hearing Laurie Rosenwald at last year's GEL Conference. I sumarized what she presented as follows:

She did not convey an imposing personae, yet her insights were amongst the best of the conference. She teaches folks to work quickly. To work without thinking. To just let it happen. Many times. Then step back and select of what you have done, what you would choose to keep.

Sounds similar, doesn't it?

Technorati Tags : 37Days, GEL2005, Rosenwald, writing

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Marketing is a good thing. So are blogs.

2006-02-25T10:22:00.000-08:00

I like the way that John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing presents this:

He says, that while blogs may have had a "fad" period, that time has already passed into history.

Jantsch writes about business blogging in particular:

Thank God The Blog Craze Is Almost Over

Blogging as a business fad seems to be passing - and that's a good thing.

Now maybe people will settle down and look at a blog, at using a blog for business, for what it is. Just another, albeit powerful, marketing tool.

Yes, every business needs a blog, not so they can say they have one, so they can finally say something because they have one. Now I'm not saying that you can't have open and transparent conversations with your clients and prospects through other means, I'm just saying that people don't.

Via Wayne Hurlbert at Blog Business World

True, Jantsch is a marketer, but I see that as credibility, not a lack of objectivity. Even if you cringe at the thought that someone would see your personal blog connected to business, there is no escaping the undeniable fact that your blog markets YOU.

So what's your message?

Link indexing blogs aside, how do you "have open and transparent conversations" with your readers???

Think about it: Even if you feel you just write on what interests you, those thoughts that spill out into your blog post as content convey a message about you.

Go back and read your own blog's entries this weekend. You might discover your ho'ohana, (your intention, and your passion for worthwhile work) and that would be pretty exciting.

Then you can market away! Marketing is timely. Marketing is relevant.

You are relevant.

So get passionate about it.

Thought for the day

2006-02-24T16:29:00.000-08:00

"If you didn't know how old you was, how old would you be?"

--Satchel Paige (1906-1982)

Who's Satchel Paige?

At the age of fifty-nine, Satchel Paige became the oldest player in the major leagues. He is also believed to be one of the best pitchers in baseball. Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige was born on July 7, 1906. He earned his nickname, Satchel, when he was a young boy carrying bags (and satchels) at railroad stations for passengers.

Initially barred from the major leagues because he was African-American, Paige played in what was referred to as "the Negro Leagues." Paige's pitching took the Kansas City Monarchs to five Negro American League pennants. Paige got his chance to play in the major leagues as a Cleveland Indian in 1948 - one year after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball and went to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Friends

2006-02-22T17:01:00.000-08:00

Friensdship is a relationship that cannot be bound by time, distance, age, culture, or race. It is one of the truly beautiful things in our world. The best way I can describe friendship is to say it is the sibling of love. Friends have a bond that can endure time, distance, racial differences, cultural challenges, and generation gaps.
Friendship has an energy that transcends prejudice. It overcomes hatred, disregards educational biases, and lends a helping hand to others in need. Friendship is sharing triumphs and tragedies, dreams and failures. Friendship rebukes when neccessary and comforts when needed. Friendship rejoices in good times and endures through the bad. Love cannot survive without it and hatred cannot stand in the face of it.
Friendship is the hope of the world, friendship is the fuel of the world. Why not think of an old friend today? Why not make a new friend today?

You could not make this up

2006-02-20T07:30:00.000-08:00

From Shelley Powers writing at Burningbird comes another wonderful piece of allegory, no, wait...this is real stuff happening...

... A community, which now it seems, must absorb the Nine Champions of RSS 2.0, because they have been banished from the round table that was the RSS Advisory Board. A Board that is no more, created by a man who resigned from it, and who gave up any intellectual ownership of the specification, but still retains ownership of the specification, to wit, making decisions about who is or is not on a board that no longer exists for a technical specification given intellectual property rights by a University that had little or no involvement with the specification, under a license that has little or not applicability to specifications, mainly created for songsters and photogs and other artsy types AND which has little or no legal standing within the rules of the land because there are no rules of the land when great bodies of water separate most of it.

If you can follow that, then you won't need to follow the link to read the whole thing!

Technorati Tags : blog, RSS, Atom

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Just don't be surprised when you get left behind

2006-02-18T15:07:00.000-08:00

From Hugh at the GapingVoid comes this gem:

So to Big Media, Madison Avenue, journalists, bloggers and citizens everywhere, I say: If you think this is just a game of bubbles, bandwagons, favoritism and knowing the right people, as opposed to having good ideas and plain old hard work- Fine, go ahead and believe it. Nobody cares. Just don't be surprised when you get left behind, same as you did every other time the world changed.

You'll need to click trough to read the full posting and see the cartoon, but you knew that.

And of course you know that when Hugh speaks it is anything but from a gaping void!

Technorati Tags : blog, blogging

Truth

2006-02-16T19:24:00.000-08:00

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." - Galileo Galilei

Hmmm...Very interesting quote that reminds me of what I do for a living. I manage an IT help desk. People call me, actually they usually call my team, and ask us questions, easy questions...to us. We're IT experts. Gurus if you will.

But to the person on the other end of the phone, they're asking questions. Difficult questions. And they don't know the answer.

And then we show them the answer. And assure them that it's going to be all right, and that's it's okay they don't know the answer.

And they understand...they understand the truth. That they're not IT experts...and that's okay. In fact, that's more than okay. That's GREAT! We don't ever want them to be IT experts. We want them to be EXPERTS at whatever it is that they do. No more, no less, be an expert at whatever it is you do.

And that's the truth.

Make it a great day,
Phil Gerbyshak
http://makeitgreat.org

Don't Wait for Permission to Succeed!

2006-02-16T18:12:00.000-08:00

Don’t Wait for Permission to Succeed! The Manifesto is the running!

Check this out. My manifesto is up for vote at ChangeThis. Goto ChangeThis and vote for me! You can vote once per day per computer through March 18, so vote often and tell your friends.

Thanks!
Troy

Customer Service Are You Kidding?

2006-02-15T08:22:00.000-08:00

Like many other ~~idiots~~ people new to the world of hosts and hosting, I thought bigger was better. I thought wrong. After months of endless frustrating on hold phone calls, snotty responses, less than accurate information, with ~~go-evil~~ an unnamed host. I was fed up.

I decided to change hosts before I was reduced to screaming into the phone, Contemplating doing serious injury to the “support techs”. At the time, I had no idea what to look for; I knew I wanted control over my site. I wanted to be able to get into and change whatever I wanted, when I wanted. Not too much to ask is that? Apparently it is. Unless you come across a company called blue host.

I had a list of questions that I had unfortunately had plenty of time to practice asking before I got to blue host. I have to tell you when I called blue host; I had never seen a control panel for a web site. I was absolutely clueless. Not only did they patiently hold my hand and answer the same questions several dozen times; they were nice about it, really nice. By the time I was off the phone, they knew I was a grandmother, and an artist, Amazing, human interest from a company.

Ok so what’s the point? Blue host subscribers received a letter from Matt Heaton, Bluehosts president asking for some customer care feedback on his company a while ago. I sent him an email, visited his blog, made a couple of comments and went on my merry way.
Frankly I was amazed to get another letter, giving some update information, an announcement about a couple more bells and whistles, and a thank you for responding.

This company has my loyalty. Why? Because they have shown me that I as a customer matter. And to me today, that means a bunch.

Microsoft Abandons PowerPoint

2006-02-15T05:42:00.000-08:00

Redmond, Washington February 14th, 2005 (Wacky News Service)

Bill Gates announced today, that in spite of its popularity, Microsoft (MSFT) would be abandoning PowerPoint. Originally developed by a former Berkeley PhD student, Bob Gaskins and software developer, Dennis Austin at Forethought Software - PowerPoint was launched for the Mac in 1987. Forethought was purchased by Microsoft later that year and PowerPoint was released for Windows in 1990.

Gates made the announcement at a symposium put on in Seattle by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Eyeballs. Commenting at P.E.T.E yesterday, Gates stated,

"Listen this has nothing to do with Apple releasing a purportedly superior presentation program they call Keynote. I just feel that after almost twenty years, PowerPoint has served it's purpose. If you remember, I didn't even use it for my presentation at CES in January. But, quite frankly, that isn't the real reason we've canned the product.

As you may remember, Time Magazine voted Bono, my wife and me, Persons of the Year for 2005. It's because of our efforts to make the world a better place.

Dispensing with PowerPoint is a part of that initiative. We realize that no matter how wonderful the software is, it's being used in ways that are hurting people."

Gates said that one of the main complaints he'd heard about the presentation software was its use in churches. He stated that there are over 300,000 churches in America and it would seem a vast percentage were using PowerPoint. And using it badly.

"From cluttered screens to using every font in their system, churches are making a mockery of the power of this program. Things fly in, things zip out. It's making congregants sick. And Microsoft has had enough litigation issues without having to worry about a class-action lawsuit from the millions of pew sitters in America."

This reporter asked Mr. Gates why he hadn't recommended the writings of Garr Reynolds to the church PowerPoint audience. Gates said,

"Listen, I've really appreciated Garr's comments about my own PowerPoint presentations. I've taken them to heart. Unfortunately, Ballmer has been less willing to change. But the problem is that Mr. Reynolds calls his website PresentationZen.com and churches really aren't into the whole Zen thing."

Gates stated that Microsoft (MSFT) would continue to support PowerPoint for Windows XP and earlier but that all development for Vista was being curtailed. He also said that all PowerPoint packages in the retail channel would have labels added to them stating "Not Recommended for Church Use."

Gates also told the gathered reporters that he was attempting to talk to Steve Jobs about Keynote as he feared churches would just move to the Apple platform. "As yet, I've not heard back from Steve."

Originally published @ achievable ends.

Somebody Loves Me

2006-02-13T08:04:00.000-08:00

There was a certain point in my teen life where I was no longer found entirely repulsive by boys. Having spent so many of my preteen years being teased and bullied by my classmates, I saw this change as both a new beginning, and proof of my self worth. For the first days and weeks of any new "relationship", I would spend my time in a euphoric stupor. Someone likes me, life is worth living, la la la. But soon the feeling was over, until the next boy came along. Lather, rinse, repeat.

A good example of this happened in Grade 7. Right before lunch on a Friday, this boy in my class hands me a note. I head to the bathroom and unfold the piece of paper, which reads:

I think your cute.
-Victor

Now, at age 12, I'm already a grammar Nazi, and the first thing I notice is the use of the incorrect homonym of "you're". But the second thing I see is that YAY! SOMEBODY LIKES ME!

Thus began a weekend of limitless bliss. I took the note everywhere, showing it to strangers, even. I think to myself, I'm not disgusting, I'm capable of being liked (hey, the bullying had been pretty bad; as far as I knew, I was disgusting). But I was now so happy; I still remember how good I felt.

It hadn't occurred to me on the Friday to write the boy back. On the Sunday I compose something like "I like you back" but with correct spelling, and hand it to him the next morning. He had assumed the delay in response had meant a lack of interest. And in a way, he was right.

A few weeks of note passing ensued. The boy wants to see me after school, or on the weekend, but I refuse. You see, it was enough for me to know that he liked me, and it didn't need to go any farther than that. As you could guess, the relationship didn't last. It seems you're supposed to actually spend time with the person you're dating. Go figure.

As my years and experience progressed, I didn't get much better. Each time, I didn't necessarily want, or need, to see my boyfriends all that much. Once a week was fine, even if they went to my high school. The rest of the time, I preferred to sit at home and fantasize about being with the person. I'd relish the images and feelings of love (or what I thought was love) I'd created in my head, and go to sleep smiling.

But, teenage boys being themselves, they needed a bit more from me. Namely, attention (though probably other stuff too that they never had a chance to ask me for). I was actually quite crushed when I got dumped, but another boy would come along soon enough to help distract me again.

Cut to my early university years, and maybe I'd gotten a little better at relationships. Or maybe too good; I spent all of first year with my boyfriend, to the exclusion of anyone else. It was so good, I was so happy, I had visions of marriage, even. And then it all changed, because I was 18, and what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be was in flux. So the relationship ended less than a year in.

I was in a similar situation a year later. The same happiness, the same utopian dreams of a married future. It lasted five months.

It was around this time that my mother said to me, "Gillian, you're in love with being in love." I think she said this as an offhand remark, not caring if I was paying attention. But it stuck, it really did. I thought about it, and realized that she was exactly right. I was addicted to the ignorant bliss of the start of a new relationship, but didn't want anything to do with the guy once that feeling was gone. All these years, I'd just been getting off on the "somebody likes me". Holy cow.

So I stepped back from dating for a few years, not wanting to unduly hurt people by trailing them along for a few months and then dumping them when they turned out to be less than perfect. In fact, I never really stepped back on the relationship bandwagon as much as I was once on it. Knowing my weakness for the early relationship daydreaming, I tried my best to counter it with cynicism and bitterness, with moderate success. It hasn't always worked; even now a boyfriend will do something human and fall off the pedestal I'd subconsciously put him on. But at least I'm aware of myself when it happens.

What I've learned most of all from this is the folly of putting so much importance on having a boyfriend, or in having someone like me. Have you heard that cliche about needing to be happy in yourself before you can be happy with someone else? I totally buy that. I've realized that there is nothing good in waiting for boys to make me feel good about myself. It makes sense not to; I mean, do others think better of me when I have a boyfriend, versus when I'm single? I hope not. I certainly don't think better of friends when they're in relationships. Though I might think less of them if they're choosing bad relationships over no relationships at all. There's no shame in being single.

My Valentine's Day message for anyone who will listen, then, is that if you're alone, be happy alone. Don't base your self worth on whether somebody loves you, but on whether you love yourself. If this has to be a day about love from others, think of the less fickle types, like the love of family, friends and pets. The feelings they give you may be less euphoric, but they last much, much longer.

Fire Ants

2006-02-12T10:43:00.000-08:00

I am not ready for the man eating ~~evil straight from hells door~~ big as a house fire ants. But they are back, I saw one.
My strategy this year was going to be; soak our entire property in a zillion gallons of concentrated DDT or some equally effective and safe pesticide, and laugh, hysterically as I watched the little demons die. The hardware/feed store said they couldn’t sell me DDT, at any price, because it's dangerous. Boy are they wrong.
So plan B is now in effect!
That is: call pest control frequently, maybe daily. They have to come, they put it in writing they would, wasn’t that nice! The pest Control Company only charged us half of our lifetime income for the privilege of keeping our yard fire ant free. The problem is, they forgot to tell the fire ants, to die.
They are very nice people, I am on a first name, how are your kids, what did you do for fun over the weekend basis. That should be the only clue needed.
They told us that spraying twice a year was going to control the fire ant population on our property. Somehow they were confused about that, because I had to call them weekly, sometimes daily.
I wonder if they know their secretary has such a magnificent command of swear words. She is almost as good as John, when he is really mad.
I did notice they start shaking uncontrollably when they open our gate. Not really sure what's up with that. We have decided to take them up on their guaranteed renewal contract price for the 5 years they offered it.
Although after I mentioned it, the next time I called, they were experiencing phone problems. The phone company tried to tell me they had disconnected their phone. I finally tracked them down in South America, they remembered me.They are coming tomorrow. We will show those fire ants what extermination is.
Crossposted at petsgardenblog

The only stupid question...

2006-02-10T09:46:00.000-08:00

I have a very simple theory: the only stupid question is the unasked one. I try to impress this on my students as often as I can. If we don't ask questions, that's when miscommunication happens. Answers to questions inform, clarify. They can't do that, though, if we don't ask the questions.

I ask a lot of questions. I encourage those around me to ask a lot of questions. It should come as no surprise, then, that I was completely intrigued by this article that suggests smart people ask questions. It's true. So many people are afraid to ask questions because somehow this idea that questions somehow make you stupid or antagonistic has pervaded our cultural identity.

We need to shake that and ask more questions. Questions lead to answers, and answers can often lead to an increased awareness that benefits those around the inquirer.

I spend much of my teaching time asking questions. I tend to teach a concept, and then start asking questions until I feel that my student is comfortable with te concept and can work on his or her own. When a student is struggling with an assignment, they know I'll start asking them questions to help them think through what they're working on.

I've actually started wondering if my teaching method borders on the Socractic Method, but honestly, questions work.

Posted to EducationNiche

In Which I Talk About Prayer

2006-02-09T13:18:00.000-08:00

Don’t be scared. I’m not talking about putting on a black lace mantilla and kneeling on a pied a dieu in some smoky, candlelit chapel, though to be honest, I think I’d rather like that.

I like ritual. The problem, lately, is that all ritual feels empty. It feels like I’m going through the motions.

I wrote to a support person yesterday:

“I am not the prayin’ kind, but when I realized that my coworkers and supervisor were behind me, and my job was not at risk, I felt something grow in me and extend beyond my body. It was like a part of me reached out in gratitude, reached for divinity.”

My support person (who is a psychotherapist who works with troubled kids, and is also a member of the COPD quit smoking support group I’m a member of) replied with the following:

“You said that you are not the praying type, but that you felt something reaching beyond your body. I have some very interesting news for you. Teresa of Avila, one of the most renowned mystics in the Western world defined prayer as “A silent reaching toward the transcendent.” There was a very special mystic from Toronto, Catherine Doherty, she died in the late 1980s, and she defined prayer as “the soul’s silent reach upward.” Maybe you were praying and never knew it.”

I was mind blown by this. It felt good to have some perspective applied to my experience. I started thinking out loud on paper and wrote this:

“The understanding that I can feel a sense of reaching for divinity, that this feeling can extend beyond the boundaries of my known self (body), and that this can be recognized as prayer, is - wow. Mindblowing. I’ve studied shamanism and altered states created by various disciplines (meditation, chanting (words!), dance), but what you said put a new spin on these activities (which I enjoy, but which I never felt all that spiritually fulfilled by).

All honest, pure reaching out for God is prayer. I’m not required to sit on my knees with my hands folded and say the right thing. I am required only to stretch my knowing outward (or inward?), remain receptive to what I might experience, and leave it at that. It need not be complex or even ritualistic. Just a gentle pushing against my own edges to find where I end and divinity begins.

At least, that’s where my thoughts are leading me today. “

All honest, pure reaching out for God is prayer. No words. No posture. No rules. Just reaching…

Profoundly, deeply inspiring, that thought.

::Reaches, and believes::

Feith
x-posted at My Place

Where's your ladder?

2006-02-08T16:59:00.000-08:00

From Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People calendar for 2006:

It is incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall.

Where is your ladder leaning?

Technorati Tags : passion, life

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The darkness I want to see in someone else's heart

2006-02-05T11:09:00.000-08:00

This is my first post on this blog. No one knows me really here. This is how is used to feel to write in my own blog. No one you know is reading, no one out there. Just me and the computer. I can write down my thoughts and not know who reads it. There is no one out there just trolling to start an argument. No one who expects me to have something to say. No one who wants to get into long or heated discussions about politics. The blog was just me writing into the void. Feeling that I can let my thoughts out there, so I no longer have to hold it inside.

It's a good feeling as I look into the empty "compose" blog. I didn't expect this is how I would feel about writing here. I just promised Troy I would write something. I didn't know what I was going to write. I just came here.

I had forgotten the feeling of anonanimity, at least in my mind. I now remember why it was somehow a more peaceful practice, practically meditative when I wrote in my blog in the time before. I like this.

So now, this isn't the protangonist of the other blog speaking, this is me...

And what does I have to say today?

I think I am dissappointed that the man I loved isn't the man i thought he was. He is not who I thought he was at all. I think it's sad that he can never be who I need him to be because he's just not that person. I called him tonight because he was sad the last time I talked to him and I wanted to check on him and see if he was okay. Instead of thanking me or being glad I called, he seemed annoyed, as if I was butting into his life. How fast things change. A few days ago when he was sad, he wanted to talk. Today, he is fine and he doesn't want to talk to me anymore.

How good it feels to write this into the void. How maybe that's what's the best thing about having a blog. I can write down my thoughts and share it with some people, people who don't know me, or know the situation. Who don't have a lot of opinions of who I am, and what I should be. Do not know the history or the people. I feel lighter. I think maybe I can refrain from calling him up and telling him that he makes it nearly impossible to be friends with because he can be so unlovable. He can be so brash and blunt. He has no softness that one can fall into.

Once upon a time he was the only softeness I could fall into. He was the first person in years that I felt like I could meld with. I remember thinking, "this is the first day of the rest of my life," after I met him because suddenly the world openned up. Like it was a safer place. Like out there, when I wasn't looking, when I thought it couldn't happen, I would bump into the person who I needed most to bump into. Who would kiss me just the way I needed to be kissed. He would let me lean onto him and make me feel safe and that there was someone who would let me lean onto him.

I don't know if it was just the time. I don't know if he had changed since we met. I don't know if I just mistook everything. Just got everything wrong in my head. Like I read the subtitles wrong as if it was foreign language and as I learnt to speak it more clearly what I thought I understood is not what was to be read at all. I have no answers for that. I will never know. It's like sometimes when I looked at him he didn't seem like the person I met before.

I think he probably thinks the same of me. In fact, I often thought that. He's forgotten who I am. I was the girl who he told me changed his life. Who made him think there was something else out there. And I ceased being the person who was "out there," that he wanted. When I was standing in front of him, I was this other person, and that girl he fell for is somewhere else out there, so he had to go find her. He didn't see I was that girl. He had forgotten.

If he reads that, he would have a lot to say about how that is not true. He would find the meanest, most cruel way to tell me about how that was not true. In fact he would say that he knew very well that I am that girl and he didn't like her at all. She is just not the right person for him, he's looking for something else. Then I think he would get a little pleasure from knowing I would be hurt.

That's just who he is.

I think he actually gets pleasure from being cruel because in his head, it gives him power and he's better. If it hurts someone, it means they care and if he can hurt them, it means he has control. He's is one up on them. These days I actually think his heart is shaded so not much light goes in.

That is until he's vunerable. Until suddenly he has some feelings, that he becomes the person who I once knew. That's when he calls me and need to talk. That's when he suddenly rememebers why i was so special to him, because I understood and I could listen. That moment something openned up and he craves the light. So he needs to talk to me and say he's sorry.

"For what?" I ask,

"For everything." He says.

"And what would that be? What did you do?"

"For hurting you."

"I don't think you know what you really did. I don't actually think you're sorry for any specific thing you did because when i tell you, you just tell me that it doesn't matter. That what I felt was not important. That's what you say, "That's not important.""

That is actually what he says, when i was sad, "That is not important."

It never occurred to him that is was important to me.

If it was important to him, he would not have done it. So obviously it wasn't. But I wanted him to know it was important to me.

But even if it was important to me, it didn't matter because for him it wasn't.

I think some people would call him selfish, but I have gotten passed thinking that. I have given up using that word. It doesn't even seem to feel like it applies.

Now I feel it's more stupidity. Just plain stupidity. Thickness. Denseness. Unpenetrable blankness that turned dark. The inability to open one's mind to put a different thought from a different perspective into the equation.

Sometimes I cry.

I cry sometimes for myself obviously. But sometimes I cry for a little boy who will have to contend with that person as he grows up. That this is his father and as much as I can just eventually walk away, forget, move on, live life. That boy will always have him as a father.

I cry because I think. He really really cared about me. He really really respected what I thought. Sometimes when things are quiet in the stillness I think I can see that he loved and maybe still loves me.

He called me to tell me that he hadn't forgotten about me. That he still thinks of me. That I am different from the other women. That when he is down and he is sad, when the blackness has truely gone into him, he uses the memory of me to hold him up. To warm him up.

He wouldn't do that if he didn't care. He wouldn't have done that if he didn't care at that moment. He did that because he did care, and cared at that very moment because he wanted me not to think that he didn't. That he had moved on faster than I had. That he wanted me to know so I didn't feel that pain anymore. He called to tell me that he cared.

And that makes me cry because he cared about me and my feelings but did everything to break my spirit. To not listen. To talk over me. To make fun of my thoughts. To be angry. To be mean.

I like to think that was the darkness in his heart speaking.

It's better to think that he has some innate darkness than to see him as incompetent. To admit that he can do no better when his heart if full is more frightenning. To know someone loves, cares, and wants the best for someone else but can't achieve what needs to be done is more depressing, sadder, more hopeless than to think it's just part of him.

To be innately dark is nature.

To hurt, to let down, to dissapoint when one wants to do something else is far more tragic.

--

Getting Blogs Done

2006-02-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

It seems nearly a month since having been invited to participate on this amazing collection of thoughts, inspiration, and just plain interesting writing. How to add to it? Troy Worman's great post about not waiting for permission to succeed got me thinking. What about blog productivity? Getting Blogs Done.

In case the reference is lost, my favorite productivity guru, Dave Allen, wrote an excellent book about productivity in general, "Getting Things Done". A blog is a thing, thus "Getting Blogs Done". David Allen's book and thinking has become so popular, it's almost a cult. It's great stuff, all about getting things out of your head into a trusted system so you can spend more time in flow. Getting your thoughts out into blogs will help you experience flow.

Here's some inspiration, some link food for getting your blogs done.

One of my favorite blogs is written by Kathy Sierra, one of the authors and conceivers of the Head First series of computer books. In her blog Creating Passionate Users, she exhorts and encourages a wide variety of folks in a very non-techie fashion to help users "kick ass". The quickie advice she gives for bloggers is to write less about ourselves and write more about what would make a difference in the lives of the readers.

That's what to blog about. How about motivation to get blogging. Blogs are changing the marketplace. Here's some inspiration from Kathy Sierra and Robert Scoble to get on with it!

And finally, a couple paraphrased quotes and a link. Mickey Rooney is quoted in one of David Allen's books that when he has an article to write he sits at his desk and he better well have a good idea. There's a great book out,
Never Eat Alone. Apart from a book full of great pearls of practical wisdom for success in life, he repeats the most important lesson I've ever heard about writing. Do it, and do it often. You'll get better.

Thought of the day - Play More!

2006-01-31T19:48:00.000-08:00

"We
don't stop playing because we grow old; We grow old because we stop
playing." - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish playwright and
essayist (via Fast Company blog)

I love this quote for it's simplicity and for it's pure truth. I think writing is a type of playing, and I try to play and write as much as I can. It's one of the reasons I'm a big brother/mentor. I get to enjoy playing with my 14 year old brother in whatever he does. We play basketball, we play video games, we go to the mall, we hang out, and we never take ourselves too seriously.

At work, it's the same way for me. I try to laugh as much as I can and I encourage others to do the same.

Stay young. Start playing more NOW!
Phil Gerbyshak
http://makeitgreat.org

Technorati Tags: play, quotes, age

ChangeThis Proposal

2006-01-30T20:28:00.000-08:00

Inspired by friends Felix Gerena and Trevor Gay, co-conspirators at 100 Bloggers, the blog Synergy, and Rattle the Cage, I’ve submitted a proposal to ChangeThis. Stay tuned! I will be soliciting your votes.

But first I would like your feedback on my proposal. It follows.

I’m fed up with life-long self improvement evangelists and their seven steps to happiness. I’m tired of Jack Welch and Donald Trump preaching from the pulpit of unimaginable success. I’m sick of the management gurus and their how-to be what I see doctrines.

Tom Peters says, “Blow shit up!” This is easy enough to say if you own a farm in Martha’s Vineyard, free and clear, and you are pulling down 50k a pop for speaking engagements.

But…

What about the recent college grad with an IS degree and 30k in student loans who can’t find an entry-level position because they have all been off-shored?

What about the 30-something mid-level manager whose upward mobility is limited by a gaggle of baby boomers with 25 years of tenure and an organization in a perpetual mode of right-sizing?

What about the everyman and everywoman with two kids in college and two car payments and aging parents and shrinking benefits?

Sometimes re-invention is not so easy. Or not an option.

What then?

I would appreciate your feedback.

Who would you be?

2006-01-30T20:23:00.000-08:00

George Canyon. A Canadian man. Competed at Nashville Star a couple years ago, and was one of two semi-finalists. Great singer from Nova Scotia, Canada. Canyon isn't his real last name, but an agent said it suited him.

With that deep voice, it sure does. He's got one song that really makes me smile and think, by the above title. Who would I be if I could be anyone in this world?

Well, sure, I'd like to be Elvis shaking up Memphis and making the young girls scream. And I'd love to be Martin Luther King Jr. changing the world with just a speech. Or John Lennon bringing hope with just a song. I'd be a cowboy like John Wayne, too. But who would you be?

On second thought, I like ME. Why not be all of that in me ? I am a cowboy, in my mind anyways. No, not as in the old west, or even as those still down south with their ATV's and trucks and helicopters. But in the attitude, definitely.

Let freedom reign. I can never hear or see that speech of Martin Luther King Jr.'s without breaking down in tears. Do I change the world with my words, not likely, but do I make others smile and think, I hope so. And a smile does wonders for the soul, so maybe I do bring a bit of hope and sunshine.

I don't make the young girls scream unless you count the times when Hailey has a sleep over and I scare them. Can I bring truth with just a speech? Not unless you count the times I sit with my son and show him the problems that arise when we don't tell the truth and how lying gets you into corners you don't want to be in. Do I bring peace with just a song? Not at the level John Lennon did, that's for sure. But when my two kidlets are fighting in the back seat and I turn up the music really loud and sing along and Colton stops fighting because he can't help but sing along, and it makes Hailey smile because she loves to hear her Daddy singin', well then on a small scale, my work has been done.

So maybe it's just how he ends it. I'd be a father to make my young kids proud. I'd earn every word on that coffee cup that says "world's greatest dad". Because I can think of no better job or person in this whole world than being a father to my two kidlets. I have them this weekend for the whole weekend. It's these days that I long for all week. It's these weekends that make the whole two weeks worth gettin' through. It's those hours spent cuddling on the couch with my arms wrapped around them, reading or watching TV that I miss the next two weeks. I may not be the world's greatest Dad, but in their eyes? I am, and that's all I need.

I love being a Daddy. I did from the moment I first held my little girl in my arms. When she was colicky, I walked for hours with her, patiently singing and talking to her.

When she was sick with croup, I'd sit by her bedside singing to her as the kettle and vaporizer steamed away, rubbing the Vicks on her chest. When she had the chicken pox, I'd sit there putting that sticky pink stuff that I can't remember the name of on her itchy spots. (I remembered its camomile, right?)

I love being a Daddy, though with my son it took a warning from the Ex when he was three and a half to wake me up. Little boys need cuddles and hugs and kisses too. I have made up for those first couple of years. Not that I didn't do those things when he was a baby, but once he was motoring around, I bought into that stereotype, boys gotta be tough.

Yes and no, they do have to be tough, cuz there is a whole nasty big ol' world out there ready to take a piece out of any of us. But they still need to feel a father's love.

I love how his eyes light up when he's singing, how he needs a hug when we say goodbye and runs back for one more because he misses me so much. I love how we have little rituals for things like saying goodnight when he was a little guy and now how we say it when he calls to say goodnight. "hanging up in 3, 2, 1" (I say two) then we say, "goodnight, I love you, mwah, teeheehee, bye"

You can't see the tears rolling down my cheeks right now, but they are there. I love being a daddy. I think, a little bit that, it may have been one more piece of the puzzle as to what came between the Ex and I. I placed them above all else, even her. I find myself still doing that. Above anyone else in my life, even me or others dear to me. And you know what, that's not something I really can change. Others say, that maybe it shouldn't be so, because eventually they'll grow up and move on and I'll be left all alone (just read Wanda's post and she says it's happened to her). Maybe it will for me too, but for these few years I have left with them as children, isn't it worth it? To show them such unconditional and undying love, even above myself? Because that's really what it comes down to, it's not above the significant other so much as above myself, because, then if I lose that other, I am doing myself out of that love. You can't go back in ten years and say to your kids, gee I wish I would have done this or that for you. Do it now, because in ten years, I'll only be in my 50's and still be able to deal with my life and what I want or need in it, but I won't be able to re-live those years or the relationship with my children, I'll be dealing with young adults. So, I think, I'll be a father, and earn every word on that coffee cup, that says World's Greatest Dad. That's who I'll be.

What Should I Write About?

2006-01-29T05:28:00.000-08:00

The page is blank. The screen is blank. And as each moment passes by, the vice in your head turns one more crank. Ten more minutes and the vice will have squished any remnants of brains that could possibly have produced a word or two. No sense bearing witness to this sordid outcome so you get up and walk away. Then, you're not sure whether a couple of words penned out might not have been better than pancacked brains and this beast gnawing and clawing from inside your chest trying to get out.

Why do I have this sense that I should be writing in the first place? I haven't written a book. I haven't been published in a magazine or newspaper. I might blog a little bit, but Boing Boing doesn't know who I am. Actually, I don't know who Boing Boing is either, nor do I care to. Maybe I'm not a writer afterall?

Did you ever stare at a blank screen? Do you question your involvement in the writing process? Do you question what you should be writing about?

To begin with, don't worry about whether others classify you as a writer or not. If you pen one sentence in a journal every five years, you are a writer. I write because there is something inside my head that must get out. It's not comfortable enough for me to hold a discussion with myself. It must get out and get in print. I am much more at ease and able to function on a daily basis when I am able to do so.

Writing is purified water. The mountain sheds its coat of ice; rain fills the rivers and lakes; the rivers pour into the lakes. Water bombards our senses, filling our world. We purify it, make sense of it, and unleash it back upon the world.

You could no longer more eliminate water from your world than you could daily experiences. Think of daily experiences as the water that fills your reservoir. It's up to you to pay attention to the world unfolding around you everyday. Take it in, run it through your purifier and open the flood gates.

The voice inside my head told me to write this today. His reservoir has run low. He reminds me that I am not like Emily Dickinson, who withdrew from societal contact and proceeded to crank out pristine literature. He tells me to get out of the basement, get out into the world and get him some water. That's what I should be writing about.

People Matter!

2006-01-28T18:26:00.000-08:00

I get a few quotes of the day in my inbox that strike me, so I thought I'd share one that sums up how I try to treat people every day!

"Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they will not be here tomorrow. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again." - Og Mandino, 1923-1996 (Adapted) Author of 'The Greatest Salesman In The World'

Every time I think about the happiest times in my life, I realize that NONE of them were spent alone. If none were spent alone, that means that each and every one of my favorite moments happened with another person. Often these great times were spent with friends, but sometimes they were spent with those that at the time of the event, were not yet my friends. If I hadn't treated them with great care, kindness and understanding, I would have never experienced what I did.

Think about how much richer your life will be if you surround yourself with good people...and start realizing that everyone you encounter has the potential to be a good person if you'll help them unlock their personal greatness.

Make every day a great day!
Phil Gerbyshak
http://makeitgreat.org

Technorati Tags: quotes, people, relationships

Won't it be great....

2006-01-27T19:56:00.000-08:00

Growing up I often saw bumper stickers that read "Won't it be great when schools have all the mony they need, and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a stealth bomber?" As a child, I laughed it off, even if I understood how true it was.

As an adult, I find myself not laughing.

Recently, I found "America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.", attributed to Evan Esar, and just found it sticking in my throat. Granted, I'm only a tutor (and quite happy with my job), but I'm seeing the products of this odd economic situation every single day.

Becasue schools are hurting for funding, I have seen children taught math by someone with only an English certification. I've run into odd math programs created because there just weren't enough teachers to cover the subjects in a rational manner. It's painful.

How can we expect to prepare our students for an increasingly-challenging world when our resources keep dwindling? What kind of message are we sending students when certain industries are allowed to strike over salaries that teachers could never even hope to achieve?

I don't really expect an answer to my questions. They're not original by any stretch of the imagination, but I do often worry about my students and the service we as teahcers are doing, knowing that we as a profession are doing everything in our power to help prepare these students for life outside of academia.

Time will tell, I suppose...

Summer

2006-01-26T22:46:00.000-08:00

The body wants, and I take it out on paper with pen-as-blade. Jab fact into page. The body wants.

Sweat. Fluid movement to music on grass. Moon. Heat. Sarong-wrapped hips. Salt-licked lips. Cicadas.

The body wants Austin. Acid burn in legs as I take those hills on bike. Free swim at Barton Springs. Kid diving for the first time. Magnolia Cafe. Life music. Belly dancing beauty full under tiny twinkling starlight lights. Coffee roasting at Ruta Maya. Poetry slams. Walks in bath water warm air. Green like none I’ve ever seen.

The body wants day long naked under ceiling fan with books, cigarettes, and tequila. It wants a long, lazy fuck somewhere blue-bonnet-Indian-paintbrush speckled. It wants live oaks sprawling overhead and slow rivers. Even grackles. Even palmetto bugs. Even 120 in the shade and sunburned shoulders.

It wants none of that he I went there for. None. No memory, even, except to remember what helps to love better. No hint of ambivalence. No speck, even, of dependence. None of the old sick, chaos-lust. The me I am now and the he of me I’ve found and all the loves I love under hot moon, drunk and twirling, blissful.

Hot.

The body wants Nag Champa smoke billowing before candle flame. To dress him in paisley and baptize him in jasmine, in vanilla, in patchouli and yes, tell him, grow your hair out, and yes, twist it into dreds.

***

It was the wrong time. It was for the wrong man. I should have waited, should have gone on a lark when ‘need’ was no part of the equation and all was passion-led. Or I should never have gone at all, should never have known what winterless was. Would have been happier, then, in this black and white photograph this life becomes each godforsaken, frozen half-year.

The body wants summer.

F

x-posted at Frippery

Thought of the Day

2006-01-26T19:00:00.000-08:00

"The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself." - Henry Miller

Technorati Tags: quotes, attention

Walk the talk

2006-01-26T17:56:00.000-08:00

From Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People calendar for 2006, yesterday's entry:

I suggest that you shift the paradigm of your own involvement in this material from the role of learner to that of teacher. Take an inside-out approach, and read with the purpose in mind of sharing and discussing what you learn with someone within fourty-eight hours after you learn it. You will not only better remember what you read, but your perspective will be expanded, your understanding deepened, and your motivation to apply the material increased.

Hence the daily writing (blogging) effort to share my thoughts about what I find in my reading with you.

Do you have a similar practice?

How do you learn and share?

Technorati Tags : learning, sharing

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Blog happennings.

2006-01-25T17:12:00.000-08:00

Vote for Trevor Gays Manifesto Proposal, Simplicity is the Key, at http://changethis.com You can also visit a very cool new blog at http://bloodandtreasure.com It is witty,cynical, and packed with information. Noel Guinane and Cassandra Helm are the blog host. Give them a check. I think you will like it. Another cool site is http://shadow.wordpress.com These guys would make good 100 bloggers.

Buddhism and an African Greeting

2006-01-23T14:27:00.000-08:00

This essay is an extension of my post on "The Beauty and Wisdom of African Languages" in my Island of Spice blog. It's an attempt to describe how the emotional associations and meanings of certain African words can create an intuitive bond between people that has a transcendental wisdom and natural beauty. This kind of linguistic intimacy and transference is virtually entirely lacking in English and European languages, and in the Western world we desperately need some way to connect with each other emotionally and intuitively in day-to-day simple encounters. As we move into a new year perhaps people will be open to new perspectives and to new kinds of thinking. While we have a vast proliferation of words, phrases, technologies, terms and terminologies, we have somehow lost a sense of wholeness and unity that is refreshingly present in African culture...

In the Zulu and Xhosa and the Nguni languages of Southern Africa, many millions of times every day people greet each other by saying "Unjani?" or "Ninjani?" ("How are you?" or "How are you and yours?") and answering "Nkhona" or "Sikhona" ("I am well" or "We are well"). But the word "khona" has an interesting double meaning, as it also means "to be present" or "to be here" and I always thought this was curious pun, and at different times I've tried to work out in my mind the significance of the associations. African languages are full of these words with multiple- layered meanings, and they often lead to many natural intuitive connections and realizations and this is one of the reasons why many Africans feel strongly about using their own languages. I imagine the "khona" double meaning probably evolved from a common saying, "Nkulungkulu nkhona," meaning both "God is good" or "God is here" and "God is present" (with us).

But as I've given it more thought, I'm beginning to wonder if there is a deeper connection in the meanings. If you're speaking one of these languages, you have to know the context of the word in order to intuit whether the speaker means more specifically that the person is "here," or the more general meaning that someone is "good" or "well." I recently had a flash that this idea of goodness can perhaps be related to idea of "presence" in Buddhism. The idea of using the practice of meditation to see things as they are, without mental projections and illusions and to cultivate wisdom ("prajna," in Sanskrit), is central to Buddhism. Buddhist "sitting" meditation involves mindfulness, or continuously watching the mind, observing thoughts and feelings as they arise and fall in consciousness. Through regular meditation and disciplining the mind to be in the here and now--the eternal present--the practictioner develops an ability to cut through the confusion and "mental noise" of distracting thoughts and emotions. The objective or end result of this continuous practice is peace of mind and a strong sense of presence where a person relates to situations and circumstances directly, authentically and honestly, without being lost in labels, categories and extraneous attachments or projections about the past or future. Maybe in this sense being "present" is also something that has an inherent beauty and value in and of itself.

I'm not suggesting that Africans speaking these languages have an outlook on life that is meditative or like a Buddhist worldview. But I do think that this particular use of language lends itself to a similar use of the sense of "presence," in an intuitive connection. When someone asks, "Unjani?" or "Ninjani?" the answer, when it's given intentionally and not mechanically, almost automatically puts the answerer into a frame of mind where the dual meaning becomes salient. In my experience, the greeting has a way of making people feel emotionally grounded with each other in the context of that encounter. The answerer can be saying "I am good," and "I am here" or "We (all of us) are good/here together." In fact, the latter phrase is even more commonly used, as African language speakers more often use the first person plural to build a feeling of inclusiveness. As these meanings reinforce each other, people almost instinctively help create a stronger feeling of presence that can have wider associations.

More presence to listen carefully and hear what others have to say.
More presence to respond compassionately and tactfully.
More presence to think carefully and moderate one's speech.
More presence to recognize the needs of others.
More presence to help avoid misperceptions and misunderstandings.
More presence to see a person and a situation on its own terms.
More presence to stop a situation from unraveling.
More presence to take care of details that later may lead to problems.
More presence to think of a possibility that might not be considered.
More presence to notice something that may be significant to others.
More presence to be aware of children.
More presence to be respectful of elders.
More presence to be aware of neighbors and the people around you.
More presence to be one with a circle of friends and family.
More presence to celebrate the moment.
More presence to affirm the joy of being.

I believe these qualities are at least tangentially associated with the "nkhona" or "sikhona" because they are also elements of African culture itself--the idea of community, inclusiveness, togetherness and family, love, respect for elders, etc. One finds in these constructs a sense of connectedness to other people, a feeling a unity and oneness that is held together in very basic, fundamental day-to-day interactions. Another common answer for "Unjani?" is "Ngiyapila" (I am well) or "Siyapila" (We are well). "Pila" is another African word with multiple meanings. "Pila" can mean "life," or "to live," "to feel," "to be healthy," or "to be well" depending the context. It's fascinating that this root word has so many associated meanings. When a person answers "Siyapila," they are saying "we are well" or "we are alive" or "we are feeling" or "we are healthy" all in one breath, in one simple phrase. In the Nguni languages, life is equated with health, which is equated with being, which is equated with wellness or goodness. Once again, this circular connection of meanings is continually reinforced with African cultural qualities that emphasize unity, oneness, compassion and togetherness. Hence profound meaning, emotion and feeling are transmitted or conveyed with a few elementary words. From a fundamental ground of compassion and unity, there is also no guilt, no sense of separation between God, life, goodness and human existence, and there is an infectious joy and celebration in ordinary encounters.

All cultures and languages have their strengths and limitations. I'm definitely not trying to suggest that African cultures and traditions are perfect. After living in Africa for many years I have my own way of thinking about Africa without trying to idealize or patronize it. The question of why many African countries are burdened with political conflict is an issue that has historical antecedents and is something quite different from the experience of day-to-day language and culture. Despite outward appearances and media images of poverty, strife, disease, etc., there are many things that people living in dominant Western societies can learn from Africa. In the new emerging cultures of the global village, we will all inevitably take constructs of different cultures and different ways of thinking and perceiving and patch them together in our own experience. Africa has many gems of wisdom, many rough diamonds and other treasures--and much to offer in its great reflection.

My Friend

2006-01-22T08:40:00.000-08:00

I guess as fate would have it, it was Friday the 13th. I am not a superstitious person at all. However, I found it ironic that that an event that has a big impact on my life happened on that most talked about day. The event I am talking about may not seem real important to many people, but to me and my family, It has changed us. My dog, Peanut, passed away on friday the 13th.

Many may think that is not that significant. To my family, it is a major change and loss. What has changed?Well, for nearly 16 years, we had a very faithful companion. We got Peanut just as he was weaned and raised him from a pup. He was the first pet my wife ever had. We had peanut before we were married. We had Peanut before we had our children. He was apart of all our family functions and traditions. He was a protector of our house and family. He was with us when we bought our first house and was there when we moved to our dream house. He was there with playful happiness in times of celebration and laying at our feet to comfort us in difficult times. It didn't make any difference to him if we were successful, rich, powerful, or broke, alone, and living in a hut. He just wanted to be with us. He loved us, no matter what the circumstances were.

When I found him I saw 16 years of my life lying there. As I buried him I hoped he had the same comfort that he gave us. I thought of my kids who never knew life without him. I wondered what it would be like to not have him greet me at the door every day when I returned from work. I couldn't help but to feel guilty for the times that I failed to return his unconditional love. No more barking at strangers at the door. No more licks to the face. No more laying at my feet (probably what I will miss the most)

I often wonder how the world would be different if we could have that kind of unconditional love for those in our lives. I am sure the world would be different. He may have just been a dog to some people, but to us, he was a major part of our family. I miss him. We Miss him

Carnival of 100 Bloggers, Issue 3

2006-01-21T20:13:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Issue 3 of the Carnival of 100 Bloggers featuring Rosa Say, Ken Camp, Pet Campbell, Phil Gerbyshak, Felix Gerena and Troy Worman. This one is short and sweet.

Rosa leads off... bringing Hawaii's universal values to the carnival with I predict these things will happen in 2006...

Next up is Ken Camp from Digital Common Sense. Ken writes about Web 2.0, keyloggers, VOIP and more...

Pet Campbell dusts off her magic ball here. And Phil Gerbyshak rounds out the group with his 8.75 Predictions for 2006.

And finally, here are several additional predictions I lifted from around the blogosphere.

And here is one I forgot. Sorry Felix Gerena!

Answer

2006-01-20T12:01:00.000-08:00

All evening. He did some laundry and shot surly looks at the teenagers that had frayed his last nerve. She hid upstairs, tired of playing referee. He banged around in the kitchen some. She banged away at her keyboard some. The distance between the main floor and the upstairs bedroom did a mushroom trip, pulsing, throbbing, closer and farther away as the hours passed.

It could no longer be borne. An excuse to be upstairs was found, and a basket of folded clothes were hauled up to the bedroom. He dropped them just inside the bedroom door. She kept her eyes on the screen. He kept his eyes on the piles he was making. Hers. His. Bundles of socks and t-shirts, jeans and brassieres. Towels made a third pile. He put them away, stuffing things into drawers, rattling hangers in the closet. The air between them popped, as though they were coasting down a hill at high speed. He dropped all pretence. Undressed. Crawled in to bed beside her.

Another hour passed. They have hard talks sometimes. They approach these talks like dogs. Circle in. Tail low. Snuffling out the scent of things. Teeth parted slightly. Mouth taking in the taste of the air. Is it a good time? Is it the right time? Dare they?

They must, and so, they do.

The hard talk isn’t about toilet seat positions or who did the dishes last. It isn’t about who spent the last ten dollars on what or the hours he works or the hours she works. It’s deeper, far deeper things that draw them into tighter and tighter circles until, nose to nose, they talk like this.

It is always the same conversation.

This is hard. This is tiresome. I am anxious for the end of this chapter. I look forward to writing our chapter - the one with you and me and no one else. No obligations to this one or that one. No reason why not to go for a week or stay in under the covers all Sunday.

They are in total agreement. They are echoes.

This is hard. This is tiresome. This is worth it. This will pass. We need to remember one another at times like these, need to remind ourselves that we are more than parents, more than heavies and must dos and grounders and praisers and oh, God. We don’t feel like much more than automatons sometimes, our voices flat and monotone, our responses pre-recorded, but we are more. We are, and we have days when we know it.

Today hasn’t been one of those days. They are lost in the list of things to do the length of their arms. They are chastisement and responsibility. They are do the dishes and get your homework done. They are earth, solid, beneath stomping feet. They are frozen water, slippery denials. There is little of fire left in them, and as for air, it’s all hot around here what with three teenaged boys blasting testosterone and bravado like a steam powered train.

They come nose to nose to remember. They speak what reminds them.

You are like this wonderful package I got at Christmas, all wrapped up in fancy paper and tied with ribbons. I opened it to find this completely unexpected six foot tall toy, and I played with it and played with it and played with it. And now, it’s my favourite toy. I have to know where it is before I go to sleep. I don’t play with it all the time like I used to, but I’d die if I lost it…”

Tears come to her eyes at this. These are perfect words. She wants to be his favourite, just as he is hers. She wants to know that even when he’s been away all day, he still reaches for her before sleep, pulls her body towards the question mark curve he makes of himself, wants to know that she is his answer.

F. Stuart

Quote of the Day

2006-01-18T18:36:00.000-08:00

"Make your work a calling. If you see your work as only a job, then it's dragging you away from what you really want to be doing. If you see it as a calling, then it is no longer a toiling sacrifice. Instead, it becomes an expression of you, a part of you." - David Niven, Best-Selling Author, The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People

Think about it...Do you want just a job...or do you want a calling?

It's up to you...Make it a Great Day!
Phil Gerbyshak
http://makeitgreat.org

Initiative

2006-01-17T19:17:00.000-08:00

"The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become."
Harold Taylor

The ability to get things started or done without needing to be told what to do. That is how Websters new World Dictionary defines initiative. people that have initiative are those special people that get things done. They make things happen. People with initiative are the ones that others look up to. The ones people say they want to be like. Quite simply people with initiative are winners. They are winners because they constantly take on new challenges and. They find what has to be done and they set about doing it. They don't make excuses and find failure in every opportunity. It is just the oppossite, they find opportunity in failure. When others make excuses or give up, people with initiative step forward. initiative is vital to success.

Take the Technorati Survey

2006-01-16T17:24:00.000-08:00

Please join me in providing input, feedback, direction... From Niall Kennedy at the Technorati Weblog

We'd like your input! Please take a few minutes to answer all or part of our 33-question survey to contribute to the future of Technorati.

Technorati Tags : Technorati, blogs, blogging

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Pennies In Life

2006-01-15T14:45:00.000-08:00

A friend and I were out walking, and saw some pennies just lying on the ground.
As she bent to pick up the pennies, I said pennies are kind of like people they have no value until they are found.

She said sometimes when she drops a penny, it’s easier to leave then bend down.
Cause a penny by itself has no value, so she just leaves it there on the ground.

I said people are sometimes like pennies, there are many that life has tossed down.
They sometimes believe they have no value; but I think that they have never been found.

Some pennies are worth lots of dollars, but they are just laying there on the ground.
Some people have more value than silver or gold just waiting out there to be found.

I said I am a collector of pennies; when I walk I always look down.
You’d be amazed at the money I have made, Just picking the pennies up off of the ground.

I am also a collector of people; I look for the ones that are down.
You’d be amazed at the friends I have made, just waiting out there to be found.

So now when I see a penny, I take a deep breath and look around
In case there’s another collector.
Of people that may have been tossed down.

The power of attitude

2006-01-15T11:07:00.000-08:00

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation. -Brian Tracy

Teach your child

2006-01-14T16:59:00.000-08:00

Poor Richard wrote wisely

Teach your child to hold his tongue, he'll learn fast enough to speak.

Technorati Tags : Franklin

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Politics

2006-01-14T13:29:00.000-08:00

I’ve never been much interested in politics. I didn’t really have the time or energy to invest in the future of the country I lived in, being busy as I was trying to feed myself and my kids. At least, that was my excuse.

What I didn’t realize at the time (no one ever sat down and explained the importance of my vote to me) was that my vote, a tiny little drop in an ocean of votes, mattered a great deal, and the hour or two it would take me to go to the polls and make my mark would mean I was in this thing. Not a bystander. Not at the party but not in the party. In it. A party to it. Part of it.

That’s pretty empowering.

My coven sister, Tarma, has been gently encouraging me to take an interest in politics. She didn’t make me promise to vote. That would be going way too far. She made me promise to talk about voting with my kids. So, I’m talking to my kids about voting. Problem is, I have no idea who’s running or what they stand for, so I can’t really talk to my kids about voting, can I?

Nope. I can’t. Solution? Step One: Begin reading political blogs. Start small. Quips and blurbs. Take a passing interest. Step Two: Actually ask people how they are voting and then ask why. Step Three: Pay attention to the people who actually sound like they know what they’re talking about. Summarily ignore the people who say things like “My people have always voted for [insert party here].” Step Four: Engage in a conversation with coven sisters about strategic voting and how that just doesn’t work. Get a little wide on over the idea that I can vote in accordance with my principles and okay - the party I want to win will probably not win, but at least they’ll get more funding due to my little vote. Turns out my little vote is like a royalty. If you buy a book, a portion of it goes to the author. If you vote for a party, they get a little chunk of funding.

Swoon. So, it actually does make a difference. Maybe not short-term, but in the long run. No vote is a wasted vote. Well, unless you’re voting for the Flying Yogis…

ANYway. All this to say that I read through the websites (platforms included) of the Liberal Party, the PC Party, the NDP, and the Green Party, and it’s official. I’m Green through and through. I know they are not going to win in this election, but my little chunk of funding creating vote will help them run a better campaign next time, and getting involved means my kids get to see their parents getting involved, and that means they’re more likely to get involved, and hey! When I tell Axe that the Green Party is for the legalization of marijuana, you *know* he’s going to become a Green Man (ohhhh….the pagan in me SO loves that), and so on and so forth until one day, maybe, just maybe, we will have a Green Economy, (not to mention happy Aboriginal people, reduced child poverty, reduced emissions, etc. etc. etc.,).

If I don’t vote, I’ll have effected nothing.

For the first time ever - and yes, I admit that I’ve NEVER voted before in all my 37 years of life - I am going to vote on election day.

And yes, I’m voting for Pot…er…The Green Party.

F. Stuart

(x-posted at feithline(dot)com

January 12, 2006

2006-01-12T18:32:00.000-08:00

Yes, where does time go?

Is it really true that the older you get the faster time goes?

Already the 12th!

I have been writing regularly.
I have added tags to most of my postings.
I have folderized my Bloglines (thanks, Rosa!).
I have been more regular about clearing out the folders I really don't need to read, concentrating on the ones I have chosen to focus on.

But it should not be all about me, though should it?

What should I do for you?

How can I help you?

creating passionate users
passion

Secret

2006-01-11T13:37:00.000-08:00

I have a secret, a secret affair.
I can't tell it to anyone, I don't dare.
His eyes are blue and his soul is bare.
Only to me will he this share.

I think I have found a true kind of forever,
only we can't ever risk, being discovered.
Hiding it all from friends and other lovers.
I am ashamed,please don't tell my mother.

I sneak out at night, just once and awhile.
To see that light shine in his eyes and smile.
He has a certain apeal, with his animal style.
I want to abandon myself to him and his wyles.

His name is a whisper on my silent lips,
His presence is known to only my hips,
Business meetings and far away trips,
When I hear his voice my heart does flips.

I want him all for me.
And yet its unforseen,
Would that we were free,
A him and I be.