Being Remembered

There is nothing like a funeral to put you in mind of dying.

Especially the funeral you find yourself at when you do not know the person who died.

As you sit in the memorial service, packed with people you don’t know, talking about the accomplishments and good qualities of the man who died, you start to think.

Self-centered thinking.

Thinking about – when your time comes – who will be sitting in the audience at your memorial service. Who will speak on your behalf to express a lifetime worth of thanks to those you have known, respected, revered and loved throughout your life.

And how many people would there be?

Would the room be overflowing with people who respected, revered and loved you?

As I sat in the funeral parlor’s memorial service room listening to all the great things being said about our neighbor Ed, I felt bad that I did not ever make the effort to meet this man. I didn’t know anything about Ed until he passed.

And I felt very guilty.

I can do better than that.

Another person I could have learned from slipped right by me.

Another missed opportunity.

And now it’s too late.

Ed was a musician. That much I knew. As part of the therapy to recover from a stroke he had over the summer, Ed frequently played the bongos. You could hear them over the fence as we sat in the summer time heat in our back yard on the deck by the pool.

And Ed was very good. We would actually turn the radio off and just listen to Ed.

And that is all I knew of Ed.

I rarely saw Ed, only the odd time to see his head poking above the fence when he cut the lawn in the summers before his stroke.

But Ed made me do some big thinking today.

Ed died of a massive coronary heart attack last week. We awoke one cold rainy morning to the red and white and blue lights of ambulances and fire trucks and police cars shining through the sliding glass door that leads to our back yard.

Ed left this world early.

And when you see people leave this world early, you can’t help but reflect on the state of your own lifestyle.

I smoke.

I am over weight.

I have the odd drink.

I cannot run up the stairs. But I have been taking the stairs more often at work, all three flights – to go out and have a smoke.

Now as I sit a year and a handful of months from reaching the age of fifty, I take this thought seriously.

I have two little girls, and a lovely wife, and wonderful home.

And what would my faithful black lab Suzy ever do without me.

Does age quicken its pace to catch up to us? Or do we simply slow down to let age catch up?

And what have I really done to inspire people to take time out of their day – spend an otherwise luxurious Saturday morning off work – to come to a memorial service for my passing?

I remember when my Dad passed away in September of 1990. He and my Mom had moved to Pensacola for nicer weather after Dad fell ill in 1983. No family lived in Pensacola, and his sickness did not lend itself to a social lifestyle. So when Dad passed, a man of significant status in his professional life, a man who many have told me inspired them with his leadership – there was no memorial service. Just a brief visitation of the shell of my Dad lying on a gurney as my Uncle Fred, Aunt Sheila, my brother Paul and his family, and my Mom and I stepped in for a few final moments alone with him, before he was to be cremated.

When my Uncle Fred passed two decades later, the small country church in Ilderton, Ontario was overflowing with people. And wonderful words were said. The same happened when my Aunt Sheila passed only a few short years later.

But that being said, the most memorable experience of my life came the summer following my Dad’s passing. On my Mom’s first visit back to Canada since Dad passed, she brought Dad’s ashes with her.

My Uncle Fred and Aunt Sheila, my Mom and I hopped in Fred’s big white Crown Victoria and we took a drive with ashes. We went to the beautiful little town of Goderich on Lake Huron. There was a long point there with a lighthouse on the end of it.

Dad used to love to sit and look at this sight as the sun set.

So we marched out there in the mid-evening and we spread Dad’s ashes around the point by light house.

It was a beautiful summer night. The kind Dad loved.

And as we pulled out of the parking lot of the old fashioned little town with freshly cut grass and trimmed hedges, we passed a sign pasted to a wooden telephone pole.

“Steak and Lobster Dinner“

A local church was having a steak and lobster dinner.

Steak and Lobster was Dad’s favorite meal.

So we pulled in. And we ate the most perfectly barbecued steaks, and savored the most sumptuous lobster tails drenched in butter that one could ever hope to find in any restaurant. And we sat and talked about how Dad would have found this to be a perfect end to a perfect day of sailing.

It were as though Dad had held that dinner just for us.

So in the end, I only hope that those who might take the time to remember me have such fortune as we did that beautiful summer’s night in Goderich remembering my father.

Who could ask for more than that?

Five Tips For A Positive Mindset

Keeping yourself in a positive frame of mind is hard … if you let it be.
 
I wrestle with it every day.

I want to be in a positive mindset, but sometimes – the path of least resistance leads me to be negative.

Skeptical.

Cynical.

It’s easy to be cynical. The world is full of so many frustrations.

But when I am fortunate enough to catch myself red-handed at being negative, I do have a couple of tricks that help me turn my disposition around.

Everyone benefits when you’re in positive state of mind. But no one benefits more than you yourself.

The real trick is to put yourself in a mood conducive to positive thinking. A good mood. These five tips will help you through this process:


1. Smile

Yup, that’s it. Simply force yourself to smile. In the same way you force yourself to get out of bed in those wee early mornings of winter where all you want to do is continue sleeping in the warm comfortable bed rather than put your feet on that cold floor and start your morning preparations so that you can meet whatever obligations face you for that day.

Smile. Like stretching. Hold it for a minute – square on your face. As your mother always told you when you were little about making scary faces at people “your face will freeze that way”.

I promise you that after a minute of forcing a smile, you will actually feel like smiling.

Don’t ask me why. Why isn’t important. Just do it.


2. Laugh

In the same way you forced yourself to smile, just break out in a forced laugh. It works the exact same way. And it’s good for you to. Nothing to laugh about? Laugh anyways. Just do it.

Granted – you do have to be careful about where – you can’t really just break into a laugh if you’re in a meeting and being told information you don’t like. But once you have a moment alone – break out into a good hard laugh.

A word of warning though - you should never do it in the washroom stall in a public bathroom either.

Once you have gotten past points 1 and 2, step three actually comes more easily.


3. Listen to yourself

Absolutely. Hear your own words (or thoughts in your head) and ask yourself “If I were someone else – would I want to be around me right now?”.

This usually is enough for me to shake myself out of the negative mindset. But if not, I move on to step 4.


4. Go find somebody else and tell them a joke

Anyone who works with me has probably experienced this. Suddenly I will simply appear at a colleague’s desk or office … and I will tell them a joke. They often look at me strangely and I walk away … because usually I am the only one who enjoys my jokes.

Did you hear about the pirate filing his health benefit claims?

After being on the high seas for several years, he arrives home and heads to his insurance company to pay his medical bills.


“I see you have a hook for a hand, how did that happen?” asks the adjudicator.


“Arrgggh … I was in a sword fight, and the bugger cut it off”, answered the Pirate.


“I see you have a peg for a leg?”


“I had to walk the plank and a shark bit it off”, replied the Pirate.


“hmmm, I see…. And the patch on your eye?”.


“Seagull poop”, explained the pirate.


“Seagull poop? I didn’t know it was dangerous enough to cause you to lose an eye?”


“Argggh … it’s not”, explained the Pirate. “It was the first day with me new hook!”


5. Turn obstacles into challenges

This is the tough one. This is the one that requires the most practice. This deserves to be the topic of a whole book. I’m certain many volumes have been written on this topic. But in short, the times that cause us the most frustration are those times where we feel we are not in control of meeting our obligations. You can identify these situations because you find yourself using the term “they”.

When you find the cause of your problems appear to be “they”, then it is time to empower yourself. You need to use instead terms like “I” or “we” to regain control.

Once you catch yourself saying something like “They really messed this up”, you need to answer that sentiment by, “here is what I / we are going to do to resolve this problem”. Then list your options as to what you can do to remedy the situation.

Don’t let “they” put obstacles in front you. Instead accept that obstacle as a challenge that you will address.

It is amazing how assuming control of a situation injects a positive confidence into your mindset.

In short, the first four are easy. And they do work. They can be applied at the drop of a hat. But the fifth tip is really more of philosophy that I am simply sharing with you. Should you choose to attempt to turn obstacles into challenges, understand that it is an effort you will likely not achieve perfectly the first time you attempt it. But with practice … you will find … over time … your thinking start to change.

Negative people blame others for their woes.

Rightly or wrongly. It doesn’t matter.

But a person successful in maintaining a positive mindset is one that accepts the cards they are dealt, and takes control of how the hand will be played.

Al Is Always Right

In an average sized town lived an average man named Al.


Al worked for an average sized company doing average work as a web designer.

All the changes made to the average sized company’s web site was done by Al.

If someone in sales wanted prices changed – they sent the information to Al and Al did it.

If someone in product development wanted a new product posted, they sent the information to Al and Al got it done.

Al also took care of the little page that was only shown inside the company. This page would show job postings in the company, new policies for employees to follow, news from the president and such.

Al worked with the other programmers in the company in a tiny room in the basement of the building of the company. They wrote programs that allowed the company to process sales, manage inventory and managed the company’s payroll and accounting systems.

When programmers put something new in, they were praised for how great the systems worked.

When something in their systems went wrong, the programmers were praised for fixing the problems so work could continue.

But Al’s websites were very simple – with static text he simply added to the page and pictures he simply placed where he was told by the marketing department. Nothing was posted on the website unless the marketing department approved it.

The programmers didn’t respect the work that Al did.

When the website looked great, the Marketing department took all the credit. But when something didn’t look right, Al got blamed.

The marketers didn’t really respect Al’s opinion.

Al had no real friends in the company. He simply showed up each morning, did what he was told, and went home at night to his tiny little apartment and his fat cat Larry, who never really paid any attention to Al – except to demand food for his bowl and that his litter be cleaned.

Nobody said hi to Al in the morning when he came to work.

Nobody said goodnight to Al when he left in the evening.

Al was very lonely. And Al had pretty much accepted the state of his life to be his lot. It was just the way it was

At lunchtime, Al would simply eat a baloney sandwich he packed in lunch bag and drank a bottle of generic soda. He would sit at his desk while eating his sandwich and read his favorite web site that talked about web design – all the tools that were out there to automate sites to do amazing things like stream video and handle sales online.

Every once in a while Al would see something that he thought the company would be interested in to make the average sized company’s web site more useful. And Al would approach the Manager of Marketing to tell her about his idea, but Al was always told no.

One spring day, the little company was busy developing a brand new product that they were all very excited about. The girls in marketing were very busy setting up the copy for advertising the new product, and in the course of this exercise, they decided a change to their logo was needed to convey how modern the average sized company was so that their logo could better represent this exciting new product.

They sent Al the new logo artwork to post on the little web page shown only inside the company. Al did so, and the whole company would then look at the logo, and send their opinions back to the Marketing department.

Al didn’t really like the new logo very much. It was loud. It was gaudy. But the President of the company really liked the logo. He would mention the new logo to those he bumped into in the hallway or in the lunch room or in the parking lot, saying “our new logo, looks great, don’t you think?”

Nobody wanted to tell the boss they didn’t like the new logo, so everyone pretty much agreed. The opinions sent back to marketing all said the new logo looked great – ensuring they attached their name to the opinion, in case the President were to see their comments.

One day in the hallway, Al overheard the President asking the Manager of Human Resources “our new logo, looks great, don’t you think?”.

“Oh, I just love it. It will make us look so … cutting edge!”, said the Human Resources Manager – smiling at the President.

“It’s too gaudy”, said Al as he passed by.

But the President took no notice although he heard Al’s comment.

When Al returned to his desk, he opened up the logo image in his image editor. The back ground of the logo was a very dark blue. Al set the color of his text tool to be one slight hue of blue lighter, and typed into the image

“This image is too gaudy”.

He looked at the image on his monitor to make sure he couldn’t see the text he wrote.

Later that afternoon, he received a new version of the logo from one of the girls in the Marketing department.

“I thought everyone loved the logo?” Al said to the young stuck up girl from marketing.

The girl explained that the president came down to the marketing department and said

“This image is to gaudy”.

Al smiled and looked the new logo. It was subtler and much better. Even Al liked this image. So while the girl from Marketing sat beside him, he replaced the gaudy image with the new one.

Al went home that night, thinking about what had transpired. Did the President change his mind because of his comment in the hallway? Or did he change of his mind because of Al’s hidden text in the logo?

The next day, Al passed the President in the hallway on his way to his desk.

“I really like the new logo”, said Al.

“Ughhh .. g’morning”, said the President.

Al sat down at his desk and looked at that new logo. He opened it up in the image editor and wrote in the same blue background setting his text to the same color of blue he used before, and he typed

“Al is a great guy!”

Around eleven o’clock, Al made his way through the hallway to the washroom. Along the way, one of the managers in Research and Design smiled at Al in an enthusiastic voice,

“Hey Al! How’s it going?”

Al looked at the fellow, his name he couldn’t even remember, and said “uh… good”.

On his way back to his desk he passed one of the ladies in Accounting, who looked at Al, and she smiled.

Nobody ever before even acknowledged Al existed before.

At lunch time, one of the programmers stopped by Al’s desk and asked

“What’re you doing for lunch Al?”

Al looked up at the smiling programmer – not knowing what to say – and replied

“I have to work through lunch today, thanks”, and he turned back to looking at his monitor.

Later that day, Al was taking some copy text back to the Marketing department. When he walked into the room, all the girls turned to see Al standing there and greeted him with

“Hi Al!”

Al’s face went red and he looked down at the ground and smiled.

On his way out of the building he passed the President in the hallway. Al looked at the President who said to Al

“Hi Al! Are you heading home? I’ll walk out with you …”

And as they headed to the averaged sized parking lot, the President told Al that he was interested to hear what could be done to make the averaged sized company’s web site do more to help launch the exciting new product.

“… you think about it tonight Al, and come see me at ten o’clock tomorrow morning, ok?”

“Sure”, replied Al, and he smiled at the President.

“You fish, Al?”

“No, sir”

“Too bad”, said the President. “Too bad indeed”.

Al met with the president the next morning at ten o’clock. He drew a picture on the whiteboard of what Al’s vision of the web site could be – showing areas where video of the exciting new product in use could be shown, and where the people could request more information about the exciting new product and how people could purchase the exciting new product online.

And the President was impressed.

“I never really realized what a great guy you are Al”, said the President as they ended their meeting.

And over the course of the next few weeks – Al was put in charge of putting his ideas into place. He worked with the marketing department to design the videos that would demonstrate how the exciting new product worked.

The Marketing department could put nothing on the website without Al’s approval.

And the girls in Marketing respected Al and his opinion.

And over the course of the next few months – Al led the development project to create means to allow people to purchase the exciting new products from the web site.

And the programmers respected Al for the work he was doing.

That was ten years ago.

The averaged sized company is now a large corporation.

And the exciting new product was a huge success.

And most of those sales of the exciting new product are made from Al’s huge website.

Al always had great ideas. But nobody ever took the time to listen.

As time went on, you see, Al actually did become a great guy.

In fact, Al even took up fishing. And golf.

Al is now the Vice President of Corporate Media relations.

And Al married one of those stuck up girls in the Marketing department. And they live a very happy and socially active life in a nice neighborhood.

And the large corporation’s logo now has the words hidden in a slightly lighter shade of blue on the slightly darker blue background

“Al is always right”

Beware The Ostrich And The Bear

You all know about the Ostrich.

When the Ostrich perceives danger he sticks his head in the sand – to hide – believing that nobody else can see him.

But he is still in plain sight. In open view. Visible to all around him – save his head buried beneath the ground.

He thinks he is invisible.

He thinks he is safe.

He is in his "happy place".

Often when we think of the future … we only envision our happy place. Where all is well. Where no problems can be seen.

But often when we think about the present … we think about all the obstacles facing us at the moment.

We think about the insurmountable debts we owe.

We think about the people around us who seem to be causing us problems of one type or another.

We think about our jobs and the frustrations that our daily work prevails on us.

We think about the things around the house that need repairs. And convince ourselves that our home is falling apart.

And we come to the conclusion that life – at this moment – stinks.

Very seldom do we look at the current status of our lives with the same optimism we hold for our future.

Very seldom do we take into account all the good things about the here and now.

We dwell on the bad. We swim in the pool of negativity. We embrace it and we wallow in our own self-perceived misery.

And we feel sorry for ourselves. We seem to actually enjoy feeling sorry for ourselves.

Because nobody else could possibly have it as bad as we do right now.

The grass is always greener in everyone else's yard.

We convince ourselves that times are … bad.

There is an old story told by theologian Emmet Fox . I tell this story every chance I get to anyone who I see who has convinced themselves that everything is just plain horrible at that moment.

I tell it to people who only dwell in the negative moments.

And quite often I tell it to myself.

Because I am as prone to dwelling in the negative as much as anyone else.

There once was a Bear that was foraging through the woods when he happened to stumble upon a hunter's camp.

No one was at the camp – the men were all out hunting.

But the Bear smelled something good coming from a big black kettle cooking over an open fire. The Bear grabbed that kettle in his big old bear arms to get a better smell … and perhaps to eat the stew inside … simmering in the kettle.

But the kettle was very hot, and it burned the arms of the Bear.The Bear knew only one line of defense and squeezed the pot even tighter. And the tighter he squeezed the more the kettle burned.

Until finally the Bear could stand it no more and passed out from the excruciating pain.

You are probably asking yourself "So what does this story have to do with dwelling in negative thoughts?"

Well, consider yourself to be the Bear.

And consider that burning hot black kettle to be negative thoughts in your mind.

Had the Bear simply let go of the kettle, he wouldn't have gotten so badly burned.

When we dwell on the negative – our immediate response is to think about such things harder … and harder .. and harder … until it simply burns you, scars you, possibly even destroying you.

You have to let that kettle go.

This is not to say you become the ostrich , who sticks his head in the sand to hide from his problems.

Because then you are prone to let the problems destroy you as well.

You have to change how you approach your problems.

You have to change your approach from that of how bad everything is .. to an approach of "how can I make it better?".

For example – you can make a list of all your options you can think of to make the negative to be a positive.

You have to figure out how to make lemonade from the lemons.Yes, I know – I hate that cliché too.

But the funny thing about the clichés we hate is that a cliché becomes a cliché only because it's so true.

When bad things happen, you cannot afford to be the Bear who hugs the kettle – it will burn you too badly.

But you cannot afford to be the Ostrich with his head in the sand – or the problems you are hiding from will prevail.

Instead you have to sit down and figure out a plan of attack.

A business plan if you will.

So you can open up a lemonade stand.

Don’t Know Dew Ya

It's such a beautiful summer morning here on the back deck, my faithful black lab Suzy laying in the shade by my feet … always optimistic that I will get up and play.

But I don't – the coffee is just so good.

You can't forget beautiful days like this – temperature in the mid-seventies with a thread of coolness in the air.

And the smell of lilac wafting over the patio from the garden.

It makes you think back to beautiful summer days in the past.

I was nineteen in the late spring of 1981. I was a soccer play for the university, taking classes in a small Georgian village of Milledgeville. As rural a southern town as there was in the day. The buildings were all colonial style – likely there since the burning of Atlanta in the American Civil War.

I was fortunate at that time to be dating a very pretty girl who was a gymnast – and for a few months we kept company together. She was very southern, and I loved to listen to her special lilt in her drawl.

On one such beautiful summer's day Saturday morning, we went for a walk into town to find the local sporting goods store.

I forget now what it is that we were in need of, but it seemed pretty important at the time.

We thought we knew where the sporting goods store was. But as we walked up and down the main street, it became obvious we didn't have a clue where this place was.

A little boy came riding his bike down the street. I would say he was probably seven or eight years old. The bike was a rusted copper color – with a big banana seat and the handle bars and front wheel gave it that "chopper" look.

He was making motorcycle sounds with his mouth and making tire squealing sounds when he turned.

He was having a ball – all by his lonesome.

He noticed us, and as all little boys do when they see a pretty girl, he tried to pop a wheelie - to show off. But he lifted the front wheel too high, and his bike slipped right out from under him.

He landed on his butt. The bike rolled a good twenty feet further on its back wheel – hit the side brick of a storefront, and fell over on its side.

My girlfriend ran up to him, concerned as pretty girls are when little boys fall down. But the little boy would have none of it, and got to his feet and ran to his bike.

After we determined the little boy was alright, I asked him, "do you know where the sporting goods store is?"

No reply. The boy just looked at me.

My girlfriend bent down into that squatting position that pretty girls use when talking to little boys and asked in her sweetest southern drawl:

"Do you know where the sportin' good store is sweetheart", in that sing-song southern belle cadence - smiling at the little boy with her eyes.

The little boy simply looked at her – and then at me – and he said to me:

"don't know, dew ya!".

I shook my head and tried my hardest not to laugh.

The little boy had picked up his bike and straddled it to ride off.

I reached in my pocket and pulled out a dollar bill I had received as change for breakfast.

"What if I gave you a dollar, would you show us where the sporting good store is then?"

The little boy jammed his hand far down into his pocket of his very dirty blue jeans and pulled out his own dollar and held it up high for us both to see.

"I already gots one!" and he smiled at my pretty girlfriend and rode away.

I don't remember if we found that store that day or not. But that doesn't matter.

And the very pretty girl was not my girlfriend for long, as in University you know, you keep company with many people.

And I no longer live in Georgia, of course.

But thirty years later I still remember that little boy, his very country southern drawl, how much fun he was having and how embarrassed he was once his butt hit the cement. And his cute but indignant attitude he displayed afterwards.

I can still hear those two phrases quite clearly in my head.

"Don't know, dew ya!" and "I already gots one!" – as spoken in the country drawl of a little boy.

I wonder what ever happened to that little boy. Did he spend the dollar? What did he get? How many times later in that day did he crash that bike again.

What story did he tell his Ma and Pa when he got home? About the pretty girl who smiled at him, and the big ugly guy she was with?

Or were we completely forgotten once he rode away.

I loved most of the parts about living in the rural areas of Georgia. But as a University student, I didn't really appreciate it while it was there. I have used Google maps to go back and look at the main street of Milledgeville – but it, nor the campus of the University look anything as old and southern as it did back in 1981.

Is 1981 really so long ago?

I can still juggle a soccer ball on my feet – up to my knees – and catch it on the back of my neck. My little girls think it's so great. And they think I must have been the greatest soccer player in the world.

I don't exactly dissuade them from such a wonderful misconception either.

And every time somebody asks me – to this day – if I know where something or some place is – I look at them and smile and I say …

"Don't know, dew ya!"

Little Fish In A Big Pond

Indeed the world has gotten much smaller in the last twenty years.

So small that good friends around the world almost seem local to us.

Tools like Facebook and Twitter bring us the status and relevant thoughts of their lives in short snippets of text. In Twitter the limit is one hundred hand forty characters. Facebook provides a bit more.

And tools like Skype let us call and talk and see each other while we do.

Global events like the World Cup soccer tournament can now be analyzed and debated – scrutinized in real-time as the match is being played – with the world – amongst the noise of the cheering fans typing in their cheers and jeers as well.

The internet has changed the world drastically. So much that the name Internet no longer really represents this global connectedness.

The opportunities this new connectedness (a phrase coined by the online gurus of this new connected world – first seen by me in tweets from great pundits like Ian Aspin Andrew Keen and Patrick Dixon) has opened up a world of opportunities.

Opportunities we are still trying to get our heads around.

For example, it has allowed for me to write here on headstuffing – and share my musings with the world (or at least my .006% of the Earth's population that I can reach) – in hopes of that someone of influence will trip over my stories and open new doors for myself and my family – to let me put headstuffing to work for my daughters education and to maybe add to the pittance of a retirement fund I am acquiring after twenty years of dedicated service to the various employer's throughout my career.

Sorry, I got on a bit of a tangent there.

But you see what I mean.

When I was a young man – first looking to get my foot in the door – my Uncle Fred once told me that if I offered my services for free – then the parties that benefit from those services would gladly pay you to do them once they realiuzed their value.

A debatable concept – which led me to poverty in my early twenties – until a friend – already successful in the field – suggested that I charge an exorbitant fee for my services – because that would create the illusion of value.

My friend was right. And together we made a pretty good little living together for a couple of years.

But neither of these concepts seems to work on the Internet … err … in this connectedness.

You can't charge people for what they get for free. And you can't charge exhorbitant amounts of money for something people can find online for free – by sources much more talented than yourself.

This connectedness has taken all the big fish in small ponds and thrown them into one great ocean. And the whales and the sharks in this ocean simply overshadow – and sometimes eat – the once big fish in small ponds.

Newspapers are the shining example of this – once great fish – in their local ponds – overshadowed by online news services - extinguishing their readership and subscription revenues as people find that bundled little gem of local news on their doorstep to be of less and less value. Overshadowed like the tiny elm that can't get nourishing sunlight because that damned gigantic maple tree next to it has left it permanently in the shade.

Would you pay your local newspaper as much as you do for a subscription – merely to see the local high school sports scores?

Maybe in the case of the Atlanta Journal of old – and that was the only place you could get the latest Lewis Grizzard column. But in those days, Mr. Grizzard's writings became valuable enough a service that he became a syndicated columnists printed in thousands of papers across the United States.

In short – he jumped from the little pond to the big ocean of the connectedness available before the Internet.

So how do writers like myself and headstuffing – and others as or more talented than I – how do we find that next level?

Some would say the best source of revenue from a blog (and I hate that term so desperately) is to put tiny little advertisements all around it. Monetize it.

I did. Not a single Google Ad cent over the last four years since I started. Not a single nickel from Amazon for touting their books on my pages.

Of course I didn't go chasing those nickel and dime clicks very hard.

But advertising someone else's wares to earn money when you want your writings to be respected seems to me to be a bit – hypocritical? No that's not the right word.

Misdirected.

"But it's your writing that will draw people to the ads … the ad money directly correlates to your popularity as a writer".

No it doesn't.

I don't buy into this concept that people are so prone to impulse buying that they will click a link off of my site to go purchase a hat or a sweatshirt or the latest paperback novel.

Not unless they could only get that merchandise from headstuffing. A headstuffing hat or t-shirt or sweatshirt – a collection of headstuffing stories in a book form.

Do I want to be a merchandiser? They say the big Hollywood movies make more money on merchandising than they do on the movie – some times. It depends on the movie.

I doubt seriously there was tons of merchandising opportunities for Brokeback Mountain.

I guess in short – I am simply wanting for what those of us who call ourselves writers want … to be called writers by other people.

That respect goes a long way. And opens even more doors.
Some of the great writers have earned tremendous fortunes from their writings. Because their writings became books. And their books became movies. And their movies often became merchandise.

Damn, there's that merchandise avenue again.

But it's such a big ocean. The little ponds are all gone.

And I'm wondering if I am a good enough swimmer.

A Championship Season

Summer officially arrived in the opening minutes of this fine Monday morning.

So I am taking the day off work in remembrance.

Although I must say it has felt like summer here where I live for the last month or so.

The barbecue has been going full blast since the last week of May.

The pool has been opened and in full use since the last week of May.

The baseball has been fast and furious now for several months.

And yesterday was the last day of Turtle Club little league t-ball baseball.

I guess they never heard the expression "boys of summer".

And yesterday – my little girls of summer – along with their other ten team mates – won their league championship.

The "Speedy Pinkies" win the 2010 Turtle Club League Championship for Senior Girls T-Ball
bottom (left to right) Kayla, Avery, Alannah, and Olivia
top (left to right)  Ashley-Rae, Breanna, Jordan, Kaitlin and Emily.

Both my daughters – Alannah and Ashley-Rae – played for the pink team – sponsored by a local Doctor Mary Buchanan – her name taking up two lines on the back of their shirts above the number. The classic Turtle Club logo across the front in black.

And the Brill Girls contributed their share of offense and defense in route to this championship. Of course I am a proud papa – so take my praise of their play with a grain of salt if you wish to.

I wouldn't blame you.

Who knew T-ball could be so exciting?

I guess you had to be there.

But there is a thrill to watching a child stand at the plate – bat in hand – lining it up with the ball – the bat a bit to heavy – the ball a bit to high – and the first couple of attempts resulting in a teeth tingling clank as the metal tee is knocked out from under the ball by the aluminum bat – only on the third try to see the youngster connect with the ball and send a line drive through the gap that results in the runner on second coming home to score the go-ahead run.

And there is a thrill to watching young children just learning how to field a ground ball cleanly and throw it on an arch to first – then to see the young first baseman extend their glove in a self defense motion – head leaned back out of the way with eyes half shut in anticipation of the ensuing pain they are expecting – only to see the surprise and victory on their faces when they realize the ball trapped itself neatly inside their little glove – with secondary care as to whether the little batter beat the throw to first base or not – the play was successfully completed!

It's surprisingly exciting – and even more so rewarding when it's your own child now catching and throwing with proficiency – after spending hours in the back yard tossing pop flies and ground balls to them – helping them learn the right way to hold their glove when a ball is above their shoulders or below – and insisting their throws be aimed at your chest.

The hardest part of the skill of catching a baseball to teach a young child – younger than the age of ten – is to not catch every ball with the glove pointing at the ground – how the glove is really an extension of their hand – and is something you wear – not that you hold onto in hopes that a ball will fall into it – you have to reach out to the ball flying in the air and snag it in your webbing – instead of hoping it will merely hit the mitt's webbing and lodge itself there for you.

Then there are the rules of the game – not all of which are learned in t-ball.

Rules like you have to tag the runner when there is no force at the base you are playing – and what scenarios constitutes a force out. Try explaining to a little catcher that they have to tag the runner at home because while there are runners at second and third – first base sits empty because the last play got the runner at first.

Rules like the batter is automatically out if you catch their batted ball in the air – before it touches the ground – and if the runners on base go to the next base, you can throw to the base they just ran from and force them out because the runner never tagged up.

In yesterday's game such a play did occur – the ball hit on a line at the pitcher – who in self defense held up their glove in protection – only to find it lodged in the gloves webbing – and the stands full of over-anxious parents screaming "throw it to first!" – which she did – and the first baseman indeed caught her throw – doubling up the little runner who did not understand she could not run.

In the dugout my youngest daughter said to the coach "my daddy says that's called a dubba play", to which the motherly coach smiled and said "your daddy's right, Ashley-Rae".

That made my day.

My Father's Day.

The little team of twelve little girls ages seven and eight – sporting pink jerseys and black shorts – sang chants from the dugout like "fans fans in the stands, when you gonna clap your hands?" and other sing song works of poetry worthy of a boot camp marching cadence caller.

Every parent in the stands rooting for every little girl on the field. But rooting just a little louder for their own little girl – and hollering instructions from behind the backstop as each comes to the plate.

"back up a bit"

"watch the ball"

"swing hard"

"straight through"

All while the coach at first or third base is pantomiming a swing – pretending to hold an imaginary bat – showing the movement they want the youngster to mimic at the plate.

Clink – as the tee falls to the ground and the ball falling as well.

Swoosh – as the bat swings over the ball – over compensating for the previously missed attempt – the young batters body uncoiling to the point near falling down.

Crack – as the bat meets the ball

Hooray! - as the fans explode in the celebration of the youngster's success

"Throw it to second!" – as the other team's fans instruct the little fielder where to throw the ball

And the resulting mix of cheers and groans as the play is either successfully completed with the runner out or the play fumbled and the runner found to be safe.

It's really quite magical.

But their favorite part is after the game – when they gather in a corner of the outfield – each team in their own corner – and the coolers containing the after game snacks come out – juice boxes or freezy pops and granola bars passed out – and they sit in the corner and share the experience of the game – and how fun it was – and how good they played – like a bunch of adults playing beer league softball sitting around a pitcher of draft beer in a pub after the Tuesday night league game.

But yesterday's game also included trophies – each little team lined up along the first and third baselines – names announced over the loudspeaker – and the awards distributed proudly to each little girl who ran up to take theirs – holding them up for the world to see – for the world to acknowledge them.

Acknowledge them as champions.

And then they had freezy pops.

Getting Under My Skin

I got a little rash on my ankle.

Okay, both ankles, and it's not really all that little.

I have had it for some time, but as summer grew closer and closer, I started getting nervous about what these ankles would look like with a pair flip flops on.

That and it itches like hell.

So I went to see the Good Doctor to get a referral to a dermatologist.

A month later, the Good Dermatologist gave me an appointment. Yet another month after that I found myself sitting in the Good Dermatologist's office waiting room.

I filled out the forms you must fill out on your first visit. I put down my name and address and checked the NO box beside each terrible disease they were curious about.

Then I sat. I sat and I sat and I sat. The room full of patients dwindled to a few in the matter of an hour.

On the wall read a sign:

OFFICE POLICY

You will be billed a $50.00 charge for not giving 24 hours notice before cancelling an appointment – or for simply not showing up for your appointment.

Office Policy.

Right.

On the other wall , another sign was posted.

OFFICE POLICY

If you are in a grouchy or irritable mood, we will charge you a $10.00 fee just for putting up with you.

I think it was supposed to be a joke. But the first sign dispelled the humor in the second sign.

"Be nice, be nice, be nice be nice…", I repeated to myself. My patience eroded after the first hour had passed.

I walked over to the magazine rack on picked a periodical from last summer – and an article about how historians portray the historic aspects of his life. It was very interesting discussing how the historians have so much trouble finding other credible historic references to the life of Jesus of Nazareth other than the New Testament.

The article went on to discuss the observations of one historian actually found Jesus' name on a tax roll, from a village he was in that was not a part of the stories of his life recorded in The Holy Bible. It really became interesting as he was being interviewed in by another historian who claimed the Bible was indeed the only reference needed to document this mans life and pointed to other historic figures that had been credibly certified to have lived based on the writings in other books and so to close his point he ….

"Mr Brill?", said a nice feminine voice – awaking me from my thought and contemplation.

Finally a nice nurse lady came and apologized for my wait.

As I tried to clear my thoughts to remember why I was there, it became clear to me that my right leg had fallen asleep. I limped on the tingly extremety – dragging it across the floor until it finally came back to life again.

The nice nurse lady led me into an examination room, told me the Good Dermatologist would see me shortly, and closed the door behind her.

And in this room I sat and sat and sat. And I sat some more.

I left the magazine out in the waiting room.

My patience was clearly at its bottom line on the gauge.

Finally, the door opened and in came the Good Dermatologist.

He was a shorter sized man, squatty but athletically built. He was wearing a golf shirt most likely bought in a pro shop earlier that morning. His forearms were strong and very tan, but his left hand was pasty white –

most likely because of the golf glove he was wearing.

"Mr. Brill?", he smiled and stuck out his hand.

"Nice to meet you", I said through a forced smile.

The pleasantries dispensed, I took off my shoes and socks to show him my wretched ankles. He looked at them.

"That's nothing but a little eczema", he said, and he spun around to write on a prescription pad.

"I assume you have a drug plan", he asked. Somehow he knew I worked for a health benefits company in town. I didn't tell him.

"Yes, yes I do…", I answered but was interrupted.

The good doctor then started complaining about my employer and all the forms we make him fill out to get new topical crèmes accepted as benefits, and it was turning into a rant on his part.

"Excuse me …" I tried to interrupt – but he just kept on going …

"Excuse me!", I said a little louder, my complete absence of patience now apparent in my voice.

"Our policies are in place to ensure that only proven and tested procedures are used in the treatment of our plan members", I said, taking the simple script for an eczema curing cream from the Good Dermatologists hands.

And he started in again….

"I must let you know that I have a policy!", I stopped him again. "My policy – much like those you posted in your waiting room, is that I will send you a bill for $25.00 for making me sit here and listen to you bitch about my employer."

He smiled at my joke.

But I wasn't really joking.

As he sat there smiling, I simply looked into his eyes and I raised my eyebrows high.

"Uh … oh … well, you use this crème three times a day, and remember to wrap it up …"

And I thanked the Good Dermatologist and left his office.

I have been using the crème for the last two weeks now. And its working a little bit.

But I still have the rash.

And it still itches like hell.

And I never did collect my twenty-five dollars.