February 2012
25 posts
Mentors
Went to a thingy last night honouring. I’d nominated one of my ab fave, john warner, plank holder and instigator #75.0, the swamfox, because he gave me advice that both shocked and inspired me. When discussing the long term scalability of this project, he asked how big COULD it be? I threw out a#, and he countered with a10x amount.
I gasped.
Started making all sorts of reasons that wasnt...
A beta for promokitchen
Ok, so yesterday some fellow hammer tossers asked me to write for their thingy. They are trying to change the world, change the perception of our industry. Our well deserved reputation. As #kooziemongercorporateassclowndouchecanoecatalogcarpetbombingtrunkslammerstalkergladhandguys. And many, many of us are. But a handfull ain’t.
Here’s what I sent our internal editorial board. ...
My c note. It prolly aint gonna be yers.
In a blatant display of hubris, pluck, AND sheer unrestrained cheek, I’ve taken on the affectation of carrying a c note. Everywhere.
Ok.
Wait.
It’s really my last ditch effort at staunching the hemmorageing of the real currency that flows through my grimy little hands like a drunken sailor. Ok, not criticizing the standard issue drunken sailor- been one, done that, got the...
Really!? You've been working here a month?
And you’ve never eaten here?
Crazy talk, I know. But it’s true. Happened last night. Nineteenth anniversary dinner with duchess, a surprise run to her abfave sushi place.
There was a slight kerfuffle over choice of rolls. Slight. So we decided to get the waitress involved.
“what’s YOUR favorite roll?”
‘Um….only been here a month. I haven’t...
Not spending another minute on you.
We went to hear elizabeth smart last week and her words still haunt me. She survived nine months of kidnapping by a crazy man. A crazy man who kept her chained to a tree, in a tent, where he raped her and didn’t let her even shower. Nine months abuse at the hands of a lunatic.
As a teenage girl.
And her mum said to her, as she got outta the bubble bath- the first bath in nine months- he...
And the winner is........ You
Addy night always kinda confuses me, and heres why-the categories dont always have winners as one would expect. Take a standard horse race, or swim meet, each category will have a first, second and third place winner, with occasional ties.
But addy judging is different. Addy categories MAY do that kinda standard distribution, but more likely have several winners, some as multiple gold or silver...
This is why most people suck on the fb.
Stumbled across this fine little Bon mot this am- “LIKE us on #Facebook and join our network of many more people who think just like us”.
Yeah. Lemme know how THAT works out for ya.
First, a confession- I love love love Facebook. But not the one you see. I love the secret one. private one, the secret groups, the underground conversations. In fact, as much as I love the private...
First, do no harm.
Wow. Just wow. Heard a swag horror story, I’m still in shock. Look, I’m always focused on results, best case, ideal outcomes. NOT worst case. But damn, have I ever heard a worst case. A coupla good old boys went to this trade show, see…
#goodoldboys
Rugged individualists. Rough and ready. Tough guys in trucks. Mans man. Not the effete, manicured, metrosexual. Hardy,...
Late dayand ...
It totally warms my heart to drag ass up two days a week. Both tues AND thurs I can sleep in like a drunken sailor, till as late as six or even six fifteen. It feels languid and naughty as all hells. Of course, the neighborhood squirrels, and the corresponding cul de sac squirrel patrol- made up of a three legged boarder collie, j.kitteridge snickett, and our shirty mascot mollybendium...
Date lunch
When its the last time you went on s proper date lunch? Not an impassioned and frantic nooner, but a slow and languid date lunch.
notthattheresanythingwrongwithnooners
Kinda excited about my date lunch today. Chick fil a, ice cream, hall pass, oddly sized chairs, loud school lunchroom, old matronly women in hairnets.
Its sugarmouse date day, in which……
inwhich
Her daddy arrives...
Shared experiences
One key component of a tight tribe is shared events. Things we do together,or, if not at the exact same time at least in some sorta way that we can discuss. Some sorta conversation launching off ledge.
Shared experiences are launch pads, skid pads, for connecting.
“We were in the shit together, remember that part where the guy did the thing and then we took flack from the goat and things...
Trackside thoughts
Got twelve hot laps in today. So cold that my glasses froze. But my brain was working pretty damn well, imho. Looks like I mighta brainstormed up some serious anti- #kooziemongercorporateassclowndouchecanoecatalogcarpetbombingtrunkslammerstalkergladhandguy action for a little caper we gots going on. It involves my favorite things- purpose, mastery, and autonomy. For a client with pain, budget,...
A southern thing. Reason #149 boys are dumb. We...
We fried that sommabeech. But good.
It was cold, coldest it’s been all winter. So cold the wind drove us into the garage,and we shut the damn garage door 7/8of the way. Butt chafing cold.
The irony of us, huddled around the blazing burner and bubbling grease barrel, while our wives sat around the fireplace inside was lost on this group. We shoulda been together, watching that sucker...
Ssclbaggels. Defined, lightly.
Sscl? Super secret club leader. Dunno who placed that title upon me, I think it was #14.5 or praps #148.5. Whatever, it stuck.
Baggels?
My daily journaling behavior, in which I write a sentence or praps two about what matters. B- behavior, MY damn behavior. A- attitude. um, MY damn attitude. Gratitudes- what’s real, and important that day to be thankful for. Goals- the measurable goal...
Early breakfast, late day. Always writing. Even...
Baseball workouts are cancelled today, so Hk can sleep in till a decent hour. I’m good with sleeping in, but Molly wonderbeagle never gets the memo. Ever.
So, even though we could prolly sleep till nearly 0700, I’m shocked but not surprised that shirty little bitch is ready Togo for walkies at a quarter till five. 0445. Isyn.
That’s prolly a good thing, I gots a burgeoning...
What we have here is failure. Failure of...
It would be hard to say that bovinova was a total failure. Four lightly overlapping tribes threw the mother of all cow roasts. In which a cow, six sheep, and a goat were cooked over an open fire. The equity partners started as friends ended as even better friends. Hundreds of people got fed and no one got food poisoning. Children were entertained. A band played great music. Fire breather knife...
Your website sucks. Really. Prolly worse than you...
So, what exactly do you INTEND for your website to do? Let’s extrapolate that out to your online footprint. Nowwidenthat net open even wider. What do you want the world to say about you?
Are they saying it?
If yera self serve online store, your reputation is a major deal. Do people trust you?
#trust
Why or why not?
I got this feedback the other day ‘From your website I can see...
Late day
In which, breakfast is made.
breakfast
Thats my favorite meal, when it makes sense. One of the many problems with early day is that it makes breakfast untenable. Wheels up at 0530, there is no possibility of a hot breakfast for the survivors. Those lucky souls who get to sleep in, well…they also get cereal.
The poor suckers who go to early workouts? They get cold green apples.
Praise the...
Water cooler talk
Ooops. Double post day, please excuse. #lessok
Water cooler talk
What would four million dollars buy? Certainly more than a minute of exposure. Exposure in the cavalcade of all the other shiny faced, apple cheeked big spenders. Well done,a super bowl ad COULD get traction. Go viral, be the belle of the ball, move the needle. Could. But if it goes flat, if the joke hits the wrong ears, if it’s slotted to play out of context against something better....
Broken window theory, extended dance
Several years ago in new york city there were areas with abandoned buildings. And as I understand it, as more broken windows and graffiti were allowed to be visible, the worse it got. Like, the mere existence of broken windows and graffiti somehow helped to create a culture of broken windows and graffiti. And worse things tended to follow.
Dunno exactly how scientific the study of THIS strange...
Vampire wakeup
It’s a drizzle morning, coulda slept in till damn 0900ish. We’re it not for the vampire weekend in my head. It woke me at 0400. Makes me rise.
Rise and shine.
Rise and fight.
‘Your souls grown old and rusty, beneath the rising sun. Locked up like a trophy. Forgetting all the things it’s done. ‘
I couldn’t sleep. Listing capers, projects, mind ablur of...
Early day just got earlier.
Baseball workouts start today, 0600. Isyn. And of course it’s on the other side of the damn county. I shot off my mouth again, as I often do, about commitment. Told #14.9 if he’s up working out, then I am too. Made the same kinda crapassery empty statement to #74 during football season. I gain three pounds but dropped twenty points of blood pressure. Dunno what results will be for...
A dying pen
Being an old textile town, its no surprise that I stumble across old mill stuff. Rooting around in the pen jar I found one great example of another bit of mill trivia.
The pen jar is like the island of misfit toys; too good to toss, too crappy to give away to grown people. The kids use em for their homework. Duchess and me use it for grocery lists.
This pen was from a long since failed cotton...
Ben Franklin never met will Rodgers
Yeah, it’s early day. Again. And it’s about to get dramatically earlier. There’s rumours of baseball, a normally languid sport, and hints of extremely early work outs.
We have been making the trek to the fancy lad high school three days a week for a seven o’clock start. That’s been a fun but doable challenge.
Baseball.
Wait for it…..
Starts at six.
Not...
January 2012
31 posts
Dunbar wasn't just right. Peter was.
Dunbar? Chrissakes, man, prof. Dr. Robin Dunbar?!
#149guy
Ok, technically he’s the #148.3 or somesuch guy, but it’s commonly rounded to a cool #150. The rough size a group can be.
#suchanelegantnumber, right?
No.
Wrong.
When dealing with social science, the term ROUGHLY really needs to be repeated. Alot.
I know this because tyler knows this.
Math is easier.
Take Pi. ...
On the naming of things, extended dance...
What really drove this increasingly misnumbered series wa the arrival of an (currently) unnamed car recently. I took a tangent yesterday, riffing about dogs and boats, and in the stream of consciousness, missed the new naming project.
x3.2012.arcticwhite
When she first drove up I immediately thought of winter. Yes, it IS winter here, if only a light one. But SHE is winter on wheels. So white...
On the naming of important things, two of two....
Seems like we’ve always had great vehicle and dog names. Evocative, story provoking, challenging sorta names. I’d love to take credit for the best ones, as this IS my daily dose of narcissism. That would be an outright lie, I’ve never had an original name issued to anything in my life-just a shameful repurposing of someone elses words, typically misused and out of context.
But...
On being a shill.
Yeah, my ass still hurts from yesterday. I was taken. A pair of cnotes, and half a day. I went in, eyes open and fully aware that when you pay for a professional development conference, you are gonna get a sell. And don’t get me wrong, there was value galore. It was a leadership development thingy, and as a leader of an emergent tribe I am always looking for better ways to connect and...
On naming. Part one of two.
One of the greatest pleasures of being a father is naming a new child. Chrissakes at the fun we had with hunter kamran, #14.9.
And Jacob Campbell Todd,#74.
And my sugarmouse,katherine elizabeth,#1.5.
Damnnnnn. I still get misty eyed at the thought of those three impact full, life changing, affirming moments Those were prolly my abfave naming projects.
#causekidsarehopeincarnate.
But,one...
Go somewhere.
Hot sarah was supposed to fly out this morning at some ungodly hour 0dark30 or somesuch. I did NOT try to see her off, although I’m sure some of her fans were considering a last minute ’ say anything’ moment. Standing in the airport with a massive boom box playing a peter gabriel song.
No.
I say go.
godspeed
Go, go out, go make a diff. Go serve.
Shes headed to korea, hopefully...
A proper length of the daily narcissism
We built last night. Several hours of playing with wooden planks.
boatsflagsandbuildings
We have hundreds of them, duchess got them at some sorta crazy discount close out price-like 90% off or somesuch mishagas.
Ok, theres maybe a thousand or more. Two massive, tall, wheelled bins. Chock full of danish wooden precision architectural slats.
Like lego, but uniform size, shape, and color. Its...
That awkward moment when you think you broke the...
I pulled up my abfave list the other day. Like i do a hundred times a day, just checking in on my besties. The response?
nolists
What? Hold please,i gots dozens and dozens of lists. Whazzat ’ NO LISTS’ tomfoolery?!
nolists
I’m not one to overreact, but this is an awkward moment. I know them all by name (&#,itykwim) but they all call themselves weird...
Early day.
The hardest part of early day is when they happen after a several day break-like a weekend. On THOSE auspicious mornings I highly encourage the children to sleep in as long as possible. Longer the better, and I even TRY to sleep in myself. Of course, the 2.75 dogs are the weakest link in the chain.
The dogs are honey badgers when it comes to disrupting an quiet house.
Our dogs seem to take...
Bright lights. Big city.
We made a trek to ikea yesterday, it was training cats and dogs all the way there. Funny thing about THAT MUCH rain, it really beats down your morale. Hands clutched onto the steering wheel in a pale knuckle death grip,heart pounding, eyes wide with fear, shallow breathing, scared passengers. It was a hell of a trip up to charlotte from spartanburg-felt like several damn hours.
And then, just when...
Bandicoots blanket
One of my abfave gifts from the highly controversial unbirthday(in which, a dozen flaming four foot tall balloons were launched from ken’s back yard by some very, very well lubricated and liquored up instigators. And the paella made by rhino was again tremendous) was a blanket. Originally locked up in the mother of all briefcases with a host of makers and moonshine as more padding than...
Bread and circuses.
We in south carolina have the peculiar institution of an early primary, making us the center of attention. For awhile. For a relatively small state-a mere twenty five or so electoral votes-we get a disproportional amount of media and candidate attention. It’s flattering, sorta kinda, to be so popular. But saturday after the primary we will drop off the map again. That’s prolly not such...
Sometimes a project just needs time. To coalesce....
Soap. My first real self promo was soap. Yeah, I did pens before I even had a logo. And the now ‘super rare AND valuable’ first generation business cards were done before the soap project, but those were more of a necessity. The pens were because my colleague, the self proclaimed ‘promotional AUTHORITY’ didn’t believe in metal pens. Said they were too expensive, the...
A damn good event.
Weird what a good turnout will do for an event. Aaf was standing room only, and there was just a damn good vibe. I had to bail before it completely broke up, but I’d bet it coulda had a proper length of afterparty.Yes, the speaker was great and the venue was right, but there was just a vibe-something in the air. Its good to see that, to feel that energy. Smart and funny kids, just hanging...
Sawing logs
Had the sheer unabashed pleasure of sleeping in the other day. Dogs, children, duchess, even me- the whole company was sawing logs. That good kinda deep sleep, not restless-restorative. There were snores, fluffy pillows, thick blankets, pitch black house, and a special kinda quiet. Not the haunting, creaking, scary movie quiet. A comforting quiet, like freshly fallen snow. It was glorious, until I...
Dark corner.
Now that our tree is gone, our festive and massive friend, we have a new Dark corner. And it’s pretty damn dark over there. Since the thanksgiving weekend she has been lighting up our house, literally and figuratively. We got lights up and fully decorated faster then we ever have before, and she was light up like a Pensacola whorehouse during fleet week.
A shining beacon, from curbside to...
Ooooooops. Every four years, innit?!
Yeah, I’m an ass. So self aggrandizing, sanctimonious, hypocritical,& fulla puffery. Just couldn’t WAIT to start beating my chest about what an awesome job I’m doing as #sscl, what with all the sketch events, projects, and thought leadership on so many channels.
‘Creating for creations sake’, ‘swag worthy of stealing’, and the ever hated...
Puppies!
For the love of dog! I love puppies. All ages of dogs,actually. There’s an elegance to a creaky old teen age dog(our .75boarder collie,for example), and a innocence about a young girls first heat cycle (as our kitt snickett found out a month or two ago-she’d never been so popular with the local boys!). I always wanted a beagle or three as a kid, surely the snoopy effect.
Beagles are...
Winter, finally
I think of you, sitting there in the dark. In the cold. Away from our campfire.
Our campfire. Our tribe.
I opened up my brand jacked iPad to a lively and robust conversation on half a dozen channels. With half a dozen different threads. With #149 of my favorite people. In front of a roaring fire, mascot beagle in my lap. My heart is full this morning, my pipeline fulla crazy interesting...
Die, you gravy sucking pig.
Heres why I hate you, you coward of a #kooziemongercorporateassclowndouchecanoecatalogcarpetbombingtrunkslammerstalkergladhandguy.
You, sir, are a poltroon. A lilly livered, cowering, stalking, insipid, flaccid, passive aggressive troll. I’ve open asked you to join my battle against crapassery. I’ve publicly asked you to join me on stage, highlighting excellence in our industry. Yet...
Rains and pours.
It may be a rainy few days, but that’s nothing compared to the reign of terror about to be unleashed on our haters- wheels are turning. Things are happening beyond my control
I got called into a couple of awesome pieces of work. Work that matters to me, work that’s interesting. It’s funny that when it rains it pours, like almost more than you can do.
ALMOST.
So glad to...
We tend to annoy the neighbors. Just instigating....
It occurred to me just how bad it must be to be a neighbor to an instigator party. Fire balloons are just the latest. Bovinova (which had the slaughter of a cow,six sheep,and a goat)in which we lost two tents and very nearly the bouncy houses, sword opened champagne, and the knife thrower-dwarf tosser-fire breather left because of the extreme weather.
Sausagefest had ankle breaks, chairs broken...
O.c. Original content.
The person who pulled me into the twitters channel,#009, said something that really resonated. That was several years ago, and actually it’s more relevant today.
She slagged the rampant retweeter, saying she unfollowed people with too much repetition in their stream.
‘Give me YOUR ideas, YOUR words, or go away. I dont need another parrot.’
yourideas
Yeah, I’m really into that. Prolly too self...
Got referrals?
Reason#149 I’ll never be rich. Like filthy, lighting cigars with fifty dollar bills rich.
I’ve been violated over referrals so much, so many times, its hard for me to ask for them.
happenedagainfriday
Friday morning our sandler training class was graced with the randomly reoccurring presence of a direct competitor. I’m not judging his regularity, some of my favorite people...