It’s not hard to be happy when life is good. The real task is to be happy when life isn’t good. Like this economy. Stress, frustration, the feelings of helplessness combine to make a formidable opponent to happiness. I’m a happy guy, and so far I’m doing okay in this economy, but I’m lucky. And I know it.

What weapons do we all have to find happiness?

more

“Hold yourself to a higher standard than anyone else expects of you. Never excuse yourself.“

This is among the few quotes which I try to adhere to in my life. I expect myself to perform better, act better, be better. Better than I always am.This is a continual drive to improve.

more

When I was a Boy Scout, during one of the meetings we held a competition between the different Patrols to see who could work well together and come up with the best paper airplane.

Now, I was part of the senior Patrol, made up of the elder scouts, so we tended to more experienced and perhaps a tad cynical. Maybe.

We quickly realized that we were provided a few sheets of paper, but more importantly we were allowed to use any change we had (supposedly to add balance and weight to the airplane.) We circled up to block the view of any of the leaders or other scouts, and quickly came up with our design.

We pooled our change on one of the unfolded sheets, and then balled it up around the change, creating a nice, heavy, paper ball.

We kept it hidden behind our backs and shoo’ed any curious people away, letting all the other patrols make their flights first. We then went and one of our baseball players stepped up with our crumpled ball of paper, he threw it all the way across the room, hitting it against the opposite wall where it exploded in a shower of coins.

No one else’s plane had even made it half the distance of the room. Unfortunately we were disqualified for the ‘spirit of the competition.’

Which is too bad, I think the catapulted flight pod could be a viable flight option…

The point is that we followed the rules, destroyed the competition, but were given nothing for our work. If you make it a competition, give it strict rules, but realize you’re going to be outsmarted.

1. The stores are in shambles. Everything is in disarray and groups of employees at my nearby store stand in circles talking rather than working the floor or trying to get some sort of order.
2. The cashier asked me if I found everything alright, and when I told her ‘No, your movie display is like a warzone.’ She replied with ‘Oh I know, it gets that way after a sale.’ I can’t even begin to explain how that’s the wrong answer.
3. The prices suck. They’re not even attempting to undercut the competition and work on quantity rather than quality. Every piece of electronics is overpriced as compared to what I can find online or in other stores.

I should have just called this post ‘3 Reasons Circuit City sucks balls‘ but I felt the current title was more to the point.

Last week I got a renewal document from GEICO for my car’s insurance despite it not expiring for another few months. This set me off to research alternatives as I’m fairly sure I can save money in that arena next time around. Progressive has an office near work so I was looking into them, I did a Consumer Reports lookup on car insurance companies to see who has the best record as well as surfing Consumerist looking for red flags. Since I still have a few months I didn’t do anything other than get a quote or two.

Just yesterday I get a plain envelope in the mail, open it to find a well written and somewhat personal feeling letter from a local State Farm agent. I get to the bottom and it’s got a printed signature using an obvious computer font.

I turned to K and said, “If only he had signed the letter.”

I am sure it was one letter in a mailer going out to thousands of car owners in Florida, but the effect a personal signature in blue ink would have had on the letter would have swayed me and made me much more eager to possibly switch to State Farm.

I guess the letter is better than the form letters I get from GEICO all the time trying to get my business (despite already being a GEICO customer) but I just wish he had gone that extra step and had a real signature.

There are a number of wealthy individuals that I find fascinating and have a deep desire to meet, just to learn from them. At the top of this list is Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin empire. Here are four questions I’d ask him were I given the chance:

1. What do you regard as your greatest business choice and why? – I’d ask because I think he’s had such a fascinating journey in business and he’s made so many choices, I suspect his values don’t run along what money he made, and rather what his choice accomplished for his business.
2. What is your average day like? – Is there anything more interesting than the life of the super wealthy? He’s the head of a massive conglomerate and as such he has to have some interesting insights into how to get the most out of his day. I imagine it involves getting the news condensed by a personal assistant, talking into the phone on the drive into work, etc.
3. What do you consider to be the penultimate skill for making sales? – That’s really what the business comes down to. Making the sale. And so is it the gift of gab, the ability to relate with others, or something else?
4. When did you realize you were a billionaire or going to be a billionaire? – Was it a specific business deal or did the day to day business drive your wealth up to where you officially became a billionaire? To me, someone quite a distance from this amount of wealth, it seems like news you’d remember for the rest of your life and you’d remember where you were when you first heard it.

Losing your job affects you. It makes you question your comfort, your skills, it makes you ask is this type of job right for you, whose fault was it, what can you do better next time?

I’m a confident guy, I’m not perfect but I am the perfect example of someone who believes they’re Superman and cannot be harmed.

But when Databanq let me go, I was rocked and it took me several weeks to figure it all out and then soon after starting the job hunt again MindComet found me and it’s now been over three months. Here are a few things I’ve learned from MindComet and about myself.

more

Years ago at college I wrote a very vivid, politically incorrect, and extremely explicit blog post entailing my frustration at an ordeal Comcast had put me through concerning pay-per-view charges which kept appearing on our account for no reason.

Today I’m not going to do that to T-Mobile, though I am beyond frustrated, beyond angry, beyond belief that T-Mobile is acting this way. They’re rated the top cell phone carrier for customer service and yet I’m facing the third dead phone of theirs in just 5 months.

more

At first I was shocked I had missed the news that he died given that he’s an idol to me, Don LaFontaine passed away on Sept. 1st which is while I was at Dragon*Con and so the headline slipped by. I still hold secret dreams of doing voice overs, movie trailers and such and for that he’s an icon to me.

Your voice will be missed, the movie trailers will be worse without you sir.

Watch the short video about Don after the jump.

And remember, Heaven’s got a new announcer for St. Peter.

more

It took most of yesterday for Gmail to acquire all my emails from the google app hosted email, it was downloaded in batches varying in size ranging from 150 emails at a time to 250. But I can’t tell you how much of a relief it is to only have to check 1 place for the vast majority of my email.

Another interesting thing took place yesterday, I got home and took my contacts out (as is my routine) to let my eyes rest. Normally I just go without glasses and just deal with my astigmatism. Well last night I was struggling to read the satellite tv guide on screen so K brought me my glasses. I put them on and all was well. I was able to get to watch the Bears vs 49ers game, and then put in The Rock on DVD.

more

It’s a topic that has been lightly touched on several times over the years. The tales of families trying to regain control of deceased family members emails or blogs etc, but it has never been put forth that a serious solution is needed.

With the passing of mom, I was lucky in that she used the same password for everything and that I knew the password. Allowing me to go in and take care of things, archive emails etc. For example, my family has a little used family mailing list through YahooGroups and I wanted to reclaim control of it for our use but I didn’t want the red tape that would be required to get through for them to take care of it. So I instead logged in as her and switched control as needed.

There is something eerie about logging in to her email or to her yahoo groups and seeing the pile of messages from her knitting group, or things like that. I was struck with the question – do I remove her from these groups? Or do I let her account sit there? It’s a very deep and philosophical question.

On the one hand, many probably don’t even notice the idle account on the list, but on the other hand I don’t want mom’s email address continually getting these emails because there is a sense that you should take care of these sort of things, just like stopping mail to a vacant house. Gmail will continue to expand her box and it’s unlikely her account will ever fill up, but there is just something about it that bothers me.

So how should sites like Google, Yahoo, Facebook or Myspace handle the death of members? What about World of Warcraft players or other MMOs? Or on an even more important level, how about domain registrars? It must be a solution which is fool-proof safe from pranksters as well. Is it simply a procedure for handling the submission of death certificates?

The libertarian in me cries out in pain as I consider this suggestion: Is it something the government should regulate? I need to think more about this.

I got teary eyed listening to him sing. I can’t wait to follow this kid in the coming weeks.

This weekend makes it a year since mom died and the week has gotten progressively more and more difficult. It’s coming on the back of working 16 out of the past 17 days (including weekends) and so my body, brain, heart and soul are just exhausted.

Tomorrow K and I will make our way up to Atlanta for a family gathering, we’ll pick up my grandmom on the way and we’ll be there through the weekend.

If you’re a friend in Atlanta, it is possible that Saturday night I’ll be looking to go out but more than likely this is a weekend wholly devoted to family and I won’t see any of you. My trips into Atlanta seem to echo this trend frequently and I’m sorry, but this more than others holds true to this meaning.

Sunday will be a memorial service and the actual burial of mom’s ashes at a plot in Roswell. It is just a family event, so no details are forthcoming.

Thank you all for your support over this past year.  It’s been tumultuous and has had many highlights, of which K has been a shining star, I don’t know how I would have survived this past year without her by my side.

That being said, I still miss mom each and every day. Many many times something has happened and I’ve wanted to pull out my phone to call her, only to remember that I can’t.

photo credit: Tom Purves

Last night I finally did something I had been meaning to do for K for a while. We went by Whole Foods and snagged two nice pieces of New York Strip. Marbled and just looking delicious. I threw them in the fridge while we took Mattie to the dog park for a while.

I have a goal of continuing to further my grill-fu and it seems to be working.

Yesterday I did our steaks on the grill which I’ve borrowed from my dad and they were so tender we cut them with our butterknives. Here’s how I did it, step by step, largely gained from Alton Brown (or AB, as real fans apparently refer to him.)

1. Pull out the steaks and allow them to warm to room temp.
2. Douse in olive oil and cover both sides liberally in sea salt (aka kosher salt). – When I say cover liberally I mean it. Don’t just sprinkle it on, I was pouring it in my hand and dumping it over the meat.
3. Wrap in cling wrap and let sit for 20-30 minutes.
4. Start grill and heat to approx 300 degrees (my grill has a temp guage) the truth here is that heat is up to you. Just don’t put the steaks on a cold grill.
5. Put both steaks on and start your timer. My cuts were 1.5 inches thick, to give you some idea of size for comparison when it comes to time. I follow the 3 minute rule, as explained below.
6. Put the steaks on, cover with lid and leave for 3 minutes. Then come out and flip the steaks, rotating each 90 degrees. You’re aiming to only flip them three times. You want to leave the meat well enough alone! Seriously! You don’t need to continue to move these.
7. After another 3 minutes I flipped the meat (do NOT rotate this time.)
8. After another 3 minutes flip and rotate 90 degrees again. This allows you to hit both sides twice in perpendicular directions and get the nice criss-cross of grill marks.
9. Pull the steaks off and give a small cut for done-ness. If all is well, cover them and let them sit for a few minutes to cool. This was a tip from AB and I don’t honestly know what difference it made but they sure did taste fine.

This timing is aiming for the medium level of doneness. When I checked the meat I thought I had overdone them but they came off perfectly! K and I sat down at the dinner table and enjoyed a damn fine meal.

photo credit: BullsEyesOrg

Tiger Woods is on a tear. He’s just absolutely unbelievable. This story describes the shear domination in all of its gory details. It’s inspirational. I mean, we’re watched a Legend truly just in the prime of his game and he’s, in all meanings of the phrase, unstoppable.

I’ve written before about my feelings for golf. I grew up caddying for dad, and I’ve played it some with very very limited success. Though as I grow older and more mature I find myself wanting to try again and believing that with a properly sized set of clubs and some lessons, I could come to enjoy the game. Though, I think even then I’d find that 18 holes was too long and that I much preferred just 9 holes.

However, I don’t think there is anything I wouldn’t pay for the opportunity to just go with Tiger on eighteen holes of golf. To pick his brain in terms of his competitive nature and his drive to win. It would be an experience well worth its weight in gold.

There is also some level of intimidation and frustration which must be creeping over the Pro Golf circuit as other players discover just how frustrating it can be to be overshadowed by a legend.

Keep an eye on the golf news. I expect we’ll see Tiger continue to dominate. And by dominate, I mean demolish + raize + pillage + burn any course which stands in his way.