You’ve only one year to live.

What do you do with yourself?

Your business?

     Far-fetched?  Hopefully, yes.  But possibly, no.  It’s often been said that all of life is simply preparation for death, and that all we ever do from the moment of birth, is begin to die.  That’s admittedly some pretty heady philosophical stuff that many of us shy away from thinking about. 

     But is it worth considering? 

     Of course (unless, that is, you have little or no regard for yourself, your business, your family and friends, in which case –assuming you are reading this– you are probably a hermit in a cave with a laptop, and it’s probably time for you to rub some sticks together and begin thinking about what’s for dinner!) 

     Okay, back to serious for a minute, what are the first three things you think of in answer to each of the two headline (in dark red) questions above?  What do you think about your answers?

     What about if those questions followed a revised headline statement that said: You’ve only 6 months to live . . . ? 

     Would your answers change?  How?  How much?  And what if the headline statement only gave you one day? 

     This exercise can be very useful in the thinking process of establishing both life and business priorities (as well as delegating, and decision making) because whatever your responses may be, they serve to push the envelope.  It’s hard to imagine choosing to spend time doing tasks of avoidance, and harder still to imagine assigning lesser values to the tasks that are most important. 

     By forcing your focus on this for a minute or two, you can almost always prompt yourself to assess and evaluate situations and options (especially stressful ones) more realistically.  You will certainly make yourself more productive (the way you are the day before you leave for vacation?) more often. 

     Yes, yes, I know, you might rather join the hermit hunting down some berries and a squirrel to BBQ.  (I’ve heard the furs can actually be quite warm, assuming you’ve managed to save them from a few dozen meals’ worth, and sew them together. Okay, Gorilla Glue.)

     So, give it a chance (not the squirrel fur!).  For a grand total of about 2 minutes of applying your mind to such a “what if” circumstance, you stand to gain a finely-tuned and highly accurate appraisal of what’s important and what’s not, and what should be tackled in what order.  It sure beats dusting file tops, alphabetizing your DVD’s, and counting out-of-state license plates in a parking lot!

     “Bah!  Dis exercise is nuttin’ so revealin’,” you might exclaim. 

     Okay, so take it one more step.  You with me?  Get a piece of paper out (I know, you don’t own any paper; well, borrow a piece!) and write out your own obituary notice.  Ah, now there’s a challenge.  Notice what you mention first and second and third (and last) about your life.  Pay attention to what you have to say about you.  THAT’s what’s important!                halalpiar  

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 114 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

SKIM, MEMORIZE, CHEW,

DIGEST, OR JUST DELETE ~~~ 

Here’s a short list of what I think were some of my best blog blurts for 2008.  If something strikes you and you want the whole story, just go to Archives in far right column and click on the month, scroll (and if the dates not showing, just click on next at bottom of the page)!

Anyway, here’s a compilation of hot headings . . . stuff that makes you think about where you are and where you’re going which, on the cusp of a brand new year, is probably a good thing for all of us.  A few more tomorrow.  But for now: 

1) Think and

2) Laugh and

3) Have a great (and safe!) New Year’s Eve!   halalpiar

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — ’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”  Mark Twain  5/1/08

“The solution to any group or organization problem lies within the group or organization that has the problem…No one knows you better than you…Knowledge is strength”  5/2/08

“Write a billboard–7 words or less with a beginning, middle and end, and be persuasive–that encapsulates what you want to express before you express it in a letter, business plan, print or broadcast advertisement, sales pitch, speech, short story, editorial, script, sermon, novel, poem, email, chapter…”  5/6/08

“If everyone in your company knew how to deal effectively with customers, you wouldn’t need any customer service reps!”  5/18.08

“A sale is made or broken in the first 10 seconds, and there is no such thing as a second first impression.”  6/1/08

“OPEN MINDS OPEN DOORS!”  6/4/08

“If you think your head is worth $24.95, buy a $24.95 helmet!”  7/8/08

“Life is more like baseball than any other sport!”  7/11/08

“Do you have all your marbles but can’t find the playground?”  8/6/08

“You ARE your attitude!”  8/15/08

“Your every action, your every thought, is your CHOICE!”  8/19/08

“We do best what we most enjoy!”  9/7/08

“Besides that they suck, meetings waste time; hold your next meeting STANDING!” 9/16/08

“Hustle your muscle — SOME action beats no action!”  9/24/08

“People need to be rewarded and motivated at the level of what’s important to them at the time.”  10/5/08

“The sooner you accept the ugly fact that you have to be a salesperson, doctor, the healthier your practice will be!”  10/10/08

“You have a stableful of race horses that act like they came from wagon-train school?”  10/13/08

“I’m tellin’ you, ball, next pitch . . . you gotta be a strike!”  10/20/08

“Just go to the basement and make more money!”  10/24/08

“Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.”  Dr. Wayne Dyer 10/29/08

“Take two talkwalks, get a good sleep, and call me in the morning!”  11/8/08

“Where laughter fails to heal, it never fails to ease the pain.”  11/13/08

“Sleeping With The Boss?”  (Family Business Ups & Downs)  11/22/08

“What one thing could you be doing better?”  12/1/08

“I coont efen spel untreeprenewer, an’ now I are one!”  12/6/08

“EVERY purchase decision is emotionally-triggered!”  12/12/08

“Is what you’re doing right this very minute taking you to where you want to go?”  12/27/08 

… and thank you, worldclass #1 novelist Dean Koontz for being such an authentic, inspiring, and upstanding human being! 

# # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 111 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

A toy truck, a stroller, 

and pub coasters

strung with dental floss…

     A few years ago, our second or third trip to Ireland, Kathy and I –romanticized by the classic Bing Crosby Christmas song, “Christmas In Kilarney”– spent Christmas (our first away from home) at Kilarney Country Club. 

     Up a rocky, grass-between-the-tires dirt road from downtown Kilarney, jockeying “the wrong side” car controls to bounce cheerfully along between the seemingly endless stone walls that separated cows from sheep, we drove under a brick archway and pulled into a historic-looking brick complex that seemed to sport about three dozen two-story townhouses. 

     There was one other car at the far end.  We parked, found a smiling, green-eyed, freckled face and bubbling thick Irish accent at the office counter.  We registered and unpacked.  We had a spacious two-bedroom upstairs arrangement with living room and kitchen downstairs.  Our windows overlooked the property’s main courtyard and pathway to the Country Club Pub. 

     It seems when I think back that after the first day of being rebuked by a rude non-English speaking tourist family of six that literally comandeered the odd 3ft-deep indoor pool, we were actually the only guests there for the rest of the (Christmas) week. 

     We made the trek into town everyday, a beautiful, historic, bustling hub filled with happy holiday shopping locals, who seemed to visit a shop or two, then stop in a pub, then visit a shop or two, then stop in a pub . . . you get the idea.  And we drove hundreds of miles of picturesque unspoiled (and unlittered) countryside during the week, meeting only pleasant, accommodating-to-a-fault natives all along the way. 

     Night driving seemed a bit perilous, so we opted for evening visits to the Country Club Pub (the alternative was staying in our unit with three tv stations, two of which were German!).  The only Christmas tree we could find ($45 American) made Charlie Brown’s look like Rockefeller Plaza.  I think it was about 30 inches tall and had about 16 (or maybe it was 14?) scrawny branches. 

     We had no ornaments, but confiscated a wide range of carboard pub coasters in our travels, and strung them up with pieces of dental floss, a homemade alluminum foil star on top.  We stuffed two “Season’s Greetings”-scrawled plastic shopping bags with small sofa pillows and hung them in our windows. 

     We grocery-shopped for the all-time elaborate brunch of Irish rasher (bacon), eggs, cheese, jam, butter, toast, fruit, crackers, cavier, coffee, tea, and a bottle of asti that (being entrenched deep in beer and ale country, cost 11 trillion dollars American) tasted a lot better than it was. 

     We exchanged gifts we bought walking down opposite sides of the downtown, waving in between shops, a book for me, a piece of Irish crystal and a little stuffed Irish Christmas Bear for her, plus some other goodies.  It was great! 

     Every minute there was great, even when 15 native Kilarney guys had us singing with them (at the Country Club Pub where they’d hiked to by flashlight from their nearby farms) until 3am which led us to the discovery that no one there had ever even heard of the Crosby song, “Christmas In Kilarney”!!! 

     With the rows of “y’got ta finish dem” topped-off pints of beer and ale lined up from one end of the bar to the other, planted there when 11:15pm closing time came, it ultimately mattered not that anyone heard of any song as long as you sang.  And sing we did!

     So much for that, but we had a wonderful experience there.  Just one thing was missing.  Family.  We spent half the afternoon trying to phone home, with circuit connections going from where we were on Ireland’s West Coast, to Northern Ireland, to Boston, to Florida, to New York, to the clan in New Jersey who sounded like they were in a tunnel. 

     It made us realize that all the happiness of the week there was momentarily lost to being lonesome for family.  We managed to bounce back after that when the resort manager and his wife (who we suspect might have been listening in to our phone connection efforts) invited us to their home to see the doll baby stroller Santa brought for their daughter.  (Last Christmas, Santa brought the doll!).  I think their son got a toy truck.  One single present each and those children were in heaven! 

     That certainly gave us cause for pause.  We in America are blessed with so much, and family is, well, what Christmas is all about now, isn’t it? 

     I truly hope for you that you enjoy what you have today, and not take any of it for granted. 

     Oh, one last thing: Please remember to God Bless Our Troops for their eternal vigilence that grants us the freedom we have to celebrate this joyous day and season!  Enjoy!

Peace be to you.           

The original of this Christmas story appeared on 12/25/08 on this blog site.

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Hal@TheWriterWorks.com

Not A Cursor Is Stirring . . .

     I started a couple of nights ago with a post of some nostalgic recollections of some Christmas’s past, but then got myself caught into a second-wind rush of business thinking again for the last two nights’ posts.  Is that kind of like going on vacation and taking half a week to unwind and realize you’re on vacation? 

     Anyway, I hope you will take a look at all three of those posts.  They’re certainly two of my writing extremes.  You may like all or neither, but if you prefer one direction over the other, please call or write me and let me know. 

     I continue to straddle the line between literary fiction interests and hard-nosed (but light-hearted if one could possibly have both a hard nose and a light heart?) business teachings. 

     Having been a businessperson, professor, consultant, and author makes it hard to get it out of my system, but I love writing fiction too, and often find myself writing blog posts on a coin toss!. 

     As for this blog site, I have all kinds of analytical stuff to digest, but it rarely helps me know how to most effectively divide my writing pursuits because YOU –you who actually return here without threat of punishment– are really the only ones who can help me do that. 

     So do pass along your thoughts on what you’re more or less interested in.  I may not pay any attention, but I’ll love you for trying.  Seriously, I will greatly value your input. 

     I figure if you’ve read all this, and gotten this far, you either relate to something I’ve written, or you wish me off the planet, or you’re stealing my ideas to start up a new government in Bongo-Bongo (I DO get a lot of regular visits from many foreign countries!), or your tv is broken and you’re ready to join a lonely hearts club, or you’ve got 16 kids with stockings to fill and toys to assemble and you’re doing tasks of avoidance right now by pretending to be engaged in important research as you hover over your screen, or you’re a really sick puppy?!  

     SO:  Tis the night before Christmas, and all through your mouse, not a cursor is stirring, not even the souse who lives next door and pounds on your door when you stomp on the floor and call him a louse . . . whew!  Can you tell I had a glass of Christmas Eve wine? 

     Really, all you dear visitors, I wish for each of you the happiest, healthiest, and Merriest Christmas of all time.  Stay close.  Stay Safe.  Stay warm.  Love Those You’re With and Miss Those You’re Not With.  Relax.  Smile.  Laugh.  See you sometime after a late Christmas brunch (with some fun comments about one very memorable Christmas in Ireland!). 

     Have a great sleep (unless you’re in Bongo-Bongo and just woke up!) and a great day tomorrow!  

# # #

See Nov 29th post (below) for New Year’s contest prize and rules – Then GO FOR IT!  Emails to Hal@TheWriterWorks.com with “SOUNDS OF THE SEASON” in the subject line.          # # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 106 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

You didn’t know Santa smoked?

     The stockings (um, our real socks, not today’s designer specials that hold ten gallons of goodies) were hung (actually safety-pinned to the back of the stuffed chair because the only “chimney” in our 3-room apartment next to the railroad tracks was the incinerator out in the hall that spewed nose-killing smoke around all the door openings when the garbage was burned in it every week) with care (rolling pin threats insured that the safety pins were delicately applied).

     Yeah, carrots for the reindeer and milk and cookies for Santa (left with a note begging for one or two things each) were inevitably transformed to early morning crumbs, drops of spilt milk, an empty booze bottle (Santa needed to warm up after all that North Pole snow) and cigarette butts (you didn’t know Santa smoked?).

     Let’s stay with the socks.  So, these were always the best because when we reached in, we pulled out great stuff like walnuts, and maybe an orange (depending on how big your feet were since this measurement dictated the sock you were allowed to pin up).

     Sometimes, we’d get hard candies, maybe even a candy cane, or Topps Bubble Gum with baseball cards, and almost always the big deal-breaker: a comic book!  If you were really lucky, you might get a new pair of shoelaces or (Zounds!) a pink rubber ball!

     I was probably 15 before I realized that not everybody removed and counted every single one of the 3,000 shreds of tinsel strips and laid them neatly in wax paper wrapped batches of 50 to save for next year, always a challenge after they had been sprayed with canned white “snow.” 

     We never got much in the way of gifts, but we were never hurting for canned white snow, which seemed to just miraculously appear somewhere in between the booze bottles.

     Relatives we hated always showed up with stupid presents we didn’t want (a new set of wheels for a toy car I didn’t have, a boat compass –whoot whoo!– a great amenity for my used, bent 24″ balloon-tire Schwinn bike that had a broken chain and a hitch in its git-along, a plaid shirt from the Salvation Army).

     Neighbors showed up to drink.  Dad’s drinking friends showed up to eat.  It was like somebody robbed the delicatessen across the street once a year.  From Christmas ’til New Year’s, we ate pounds of bologna, salami, cheese, ham (if the economy was good), and coleslaw ’til it was coming out our ears.  My little brother opted for his new shoelaces, which he claimed tasted better.

     Sounds pretty gruesome, huh?  Well, when you don’t know any better . . . it was just fine with us.  I guess there was too much drinking and smoking going on too, but, hey, it was what people did then (and some still do!). 

     Anyway, we did have two very special things that not many people seem to have today: family love and appreciation for what we did have.  I wish these two things for all of you.  They made a difference in my life.  (I do, though, have a rather hefty-size stocking over the fireplace right now!)     halalpiar 

   # # #

See Nov 29th post (below) for New Year’s contest prize and rules – Then GO FOR IT!  Emails to Hal@TheWriterWorks.com with “SOUNDS OF THE SEASON” in the subject line.          # # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 103 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

Do it upsidedown

insideout

and backwards!

     Stop just THINKING outside the box.  Hop, skip, and jump outta there! 

     It’s been a while since we’ve talked about creative and innovative business methods and models, but I’m sure you remember me saying that creative ideas in business are worthless unless you can follow through with all the details, which takes a creative idea out of its tailspin and thrusts it forward onto an innovative runway.  Much like taking fantasy into the realm of reality.

     Well, now I’m about to share the thinking that creative ideas in business are really okay when they’re used as a stimulous to entrepreneurial thinking, like a trial and error approach to deciding worthiness for innovative applications.

     Here’s the bottom line.  When you hit a wall, a writer’s block, a blank, and nothing in your traditional arsenal seems to work, it’s time to get down on the floor on your hands and knees and play with the nearest baby, or puppy. 

     Now, I’m not talking token play here.  This is serious stuff!  That means you need to laugh!  Let’s face it, if you can’t laugh at yourself and giggle with the baby and bark back at the puppy, you’re not cut out to run a business.  You need corporate confinement, or a shrink.   

     Here’s the deal.  Got stuck?  Don’t waste a minute.  Immediately withdraw from your computer, your desk, your office, your briefcase, your cell phone and any other business entanglements, and RUN! 

     Run to the nearest source of relief, the nearest distant world, the farthest away mental or physical place you can, then shake your booty, rattle your cage, stick out your tongue.  Put yourself in a totally foreign situation. 

     Hey, a trip to the islands is great if you can afford the price and the time, but I’m talking about an entrepreneurial quick-fix approach. 

     Take a different route to work, and home.  Brush your teeth with your other hand.  Scrub under your other armpit first for a change.  Put your underwear on insideout.  Try doing things backwards and upsidedown.  CAN YOU DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY FOR A DAY?  Watch what happens.  You will amaze yourself! 

     Don’t take my word for it; visit or call someone you know who makes a living by being creative (a writer, painter, musician, stage performer, broadcast personality, sculptor, designer) and ask her or him what’s the best way to stimulate the creative juices.  The answer will relate to doing things differently.

     INVENTORY YOURSELF.  How does it feel?  After you get past the feeling stupid part, how does it feel? 

     What does doing things differently do to your thoughts and expectations about who you really are and what you normally do in different circumstances?  What can this exercise teach you about you? 

     Remember the more you know about what makes you tick, the more you can control your own destiny and the better you’ll relate to others, and be able to help them.  In business, making a sales means helping someone to get what she or he wants or needs. 

The more you know about you, the more you’ll sell!      

# # #

See Nov 29th post (below) for New Year’s contest prize and rules – Then GO FOR IT!  Emails to Hal@TheWriterWorks.com with “SOUNDS OF THE SEASON” in the subject line.          # # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 100 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

Dogs, music, and BJ’s

. . . sounds a little raunchy, but remember the source.

       How hard is it to keep your stomach from gurgling with anxiety when you’ve got blog posts to put up and articles that need writing and editing, and the hours tick by, while no one at the cable company knows more than to tell you that your connections are not functioning?  Duh!  Uh, we called you, remember? 

     So me, the great 30-year teacher of stress management needs to . . . well, you know the rest. 

       A little diversionary follow-up report to yesterday’s post, btw, is that the BJ’s I mentioned, that had the gall to charge prospective customers for the privilege to shop in their new (197^th) store, opened today.   

     The most telling comment I heard was that there were more people inside the store at any given moment of the day than live in the entire town (and probably four surrounding towns as well).  So that just goes to show you how little I know about what works anymore in retailing.  Who woulda thunk it?  Right, BJ’s! 

       But the good news is that the store is 100% perfect, bright, cheerful, beautifully laid out, lots of quality merchandise at very low prices, and offering a huge selection.  Just too crowded!  Oh, well.  We’ll try it on a weekday.  I’ll let you know.  Humpf!  

     I just wrote a reminder note for Monday Vet checkup appointment for my two dogs and that stool samples are needed.  Best place to put it is with my papers for early morning meeting with clients so I remember to get on the road asap after the meeting.  Hope the note doesn’t fall out.  “Bring poop samples to next meeting!” might be hard to explain.

       It’s weird to be typing this in Word instead of my friendly little blog window. 

I was reminded today of two things you can never get back:

the stones you throw and the words you use.

     Belated Happy Birthday to my son the musician.  We spoke (and I sang!) on his day, 12/11, but I hadn’t yet managed to squeeze Christopher www.alpiar.com into my blog.  Anyway, he sent me the following link that he ran across:  http://video.stumbleupon.com/?p=kkdpiahine . . . a pretty cool solo performance no matter what your level of music interest.

       Oh, right, dogs.  So now you know the slow motion truth of my brain activity.  But since you already know about their poop, you should want to know that one’s an all black 5 year-old cocker spaniel, Tuckerton (he’s named after NJ’s Tuckerton Seaport, a mile from where we once lived), and the other’s an 11½ year-old golden retriever, Barnegat (she’s named after NJ’s Barnegat Bay, where we once welcomed the waves onto our front yard).  Now you know why I’m not moving to Machipongo, VA, anytime soon.  

     I promise more substance tomorrow, assuming the great awakening of my cable company.  In the meantime, have a wonderful night.   halalpiar

 # # #

See Nov 29th post (below) for New Year’s contest prize and rules – Then GO FOR IT!  Emails to Hal@TheWriterWorks.com with “SOUNDS OF THE SEASON” in the subject line.  # # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 95 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

C’mon, everyone, let’s

play more and work less! 

     You know, I really look forward to the annual holiday slow-down many businesses  start to experience at this time of year.  It’s chance to finally catch up with all the “I’ve been meaning to” projects.  So, that’s a good thing. 

     But, I notice as I get older (is it just me?), that the workforce in our country gets . . . lazier(?).  When I was a kid, everyone’s parents got off early on Christmas Eve and maybe New Year’s Eve, plus Christmas Day and New Year’s Day (or maybe just one, and not the other). 

     And the week in between?  Work went a cog or two slower than usual and people drank a pint or two more than usual.  Kids played with their new toys.  Emotions were harp strings.

     When did this all change?  Can someone fill me in?  We no longer have a holiday week.  We now have a holiday season.  It starts with Halloween and runs through January White Sales!  Kids now play with new toys (and emotions now run fragile) all year long.   

     To be completely honest, I must admit I can appreciate that we all need that vital first week of the new year to collect our business selves and put them back together. 

     It is, after all, a great week to just fall off the calendar while we do lots of Alka-Seltzer, cover whatever we can find of our heads with our pillows, gargle mouthwash, eat mints, brush teeth and take however many deep breaths our lungs will tolerate. 

     So, okay, let’s chalk up that first week of January as necessary recovery time, and a period to re-learn to change the last digit or two of the year we write on checks and memos.  Good.  We took care of that one.  Now that period from Halloween to Thanksgiving, and then again from Thanksgiving to Christmas, needs some adjustment.

     I mean why not just start with making Valentine’s Day a week-long lovefest that simply dissolves into a heavy-drinking St. Patrick’s Week and then just cruise through to Earth Day?  Hmmm, only one day for the Earth?  Oh, yeah, and take off your birthday too! 

     Seriously, folks, we’ve already got 4th of July and Labor Day, both of which started as a day (Labor Day even says Day!) and then –as if by a miracle– both suddenly (like POOF!) turned into whole weekends, and are now both settling into a full week each.  Maybe we should just close everything for the whole summer.  I mean schools do it!

     Oh well, at least as we head closer to that great White Sale week under all those new sheets and pillowcases, we can be excited about anticipating all the new Christmas clothes we can start wearing (if they’ll still fit!) when we finally drag our sorry selves back to the reality of some serious labor . . .  at least until Ground Hog’s Day.  Maybe that could spread out some?  Hmmm, Ground Hog’s Week.  Sounds good to me.  halalpiar                                                       # # #

See Nov 29th post (below) for New Year’s contest prize and rules – Then GO FOR IT!  Emails to Hal@TheWriterWorks.com with “SOUNDS OF THE SEASON” in the subject line.  # # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 92 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

Aaaargh, OOoooh, Umpf,

GlugGlug, Gurgle, Gobble,

FaLaLaLaLa, Hiccup, Yum,

STOP YELLING!   

     Well, a little digest-yesterday’s-turkey-soccer-game today with my son-in-law, my all-state soccer star nephew, my travel team soccer star grandson and my two soccer-player grandaughters reminded me about the notion of time slippage (funny, I would have sworn I was hitting my late teens before the game started as surely as I felt 95 by the time we finished –10 to 8 final score), and the need to eat less next year!

Have you ever seen a beaver wearing glasses? 

      As for sounds of the season, btw (thumb-basher-text-messaging-shorthand for “by the way”), by the way, I’m really not a bah-humbug guy; in fact, I LOVE Christmas, BUT I TRULY HATE Christmas music and commercials that start before Halloween, and that steamroller over Thanksgiving like it was Ground Hog’s Day. 

     What in the world makes retailers think they will make more money if they advertise earlier? Right-o, jolly-good, and all that.  Of course I’ll just dig deeper in my wallet and start pulling out all those sequestered thousand dollar bills to spend on gifts because all that wonderful, exilarating advertising is reaching me earlier this year!

     Oh, yeah, and all those blessed charitable moods that start to kick in about now . . . you know, the ones that are sabotaged by print, broadcast, online and direct mail requests for my hard-earned dollars that came by way of hard-working wage-earning needy neighbors right here in my community.   

     Well, la-de-dah, now I’m supposed to pile up those hard-earned dollars and kiss them goodbye (along with my needy neighbors!), and immediately wire my money half-way around the planet to such needy causes as the NFACLISSYBB (Nonprofit Foundation for the Astigmatic Correctional Lens Implants of Speckle-Spotted, Yellow-Bellied Beavers).

     Of course, with some tenacious googling, I might find that these poor, afflicted beavers are critically essential (like cones and cups are to ice cream) to nocturnal pigmies in the Outback who rely on them for nighttime navigation when the moon is not full . . . because numerous pigmies will undoubtedly wander about aimlessly through the night, midst crocodiles, snakes and wild boars without beaver beacons to guide them.  I mean have you ever seen a beaver wearing glasses or contact lenses?

     So present-wise, what’s a person to do?  Do you go for these needy charities and hope your relatives and friends will understand and appreciate the potential tax deduction possibilities? 

     OR, does one, for example, spring for the $400 electronic book reader as a potentially emancipating Christmas gift accompanied by expressions of your seasonal hopes and prayers for cousin Billy Bob (whose idea of a book is something he was told that the judge once threw at him when he was brought in on a DUI charge for riding a large senior citizen tricycle . . . yes, of course one with a tall antenna brandishing a bright orange pennant . . . for cutting across the 20-something lane plaza at the foot of the Driscoll Bridge on New Jersey’s infamous Garden State Parkway at morning rush hour when the 65 mph speed limit goes to 387 mph (350 mph if roads are wet!) OR, do you just get him the antique Arthur Godfrey ukulele he fawns over at the corner pawn shop?

     Such a quandary!  Oh, and to the sounds of the season list, add:

Y  I  K  E  S  !               

  halalpiar

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 80 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

Well, it’s here: Thanksgiving,

and my 200th posting! 

     Now you not may think much of either of those milestones, but suffice it to say about the first of these that I do love turkey (except the species featured in yesterday’s post!), and about the second, that it’s like a baseball player reaching 200 career errors (because I’ve learned something from every post and miscue!).

     Actually, I never thought I’d find anything as challenging and rewarding at the same time as writing a daily blog.  It’s challenging because I rarely know where the inspiration is going to come from ’til I’m staring at the blank screen like a post-surgical labotomy patient.

     And the discipline involved?  I’d rather do push-ups.  The nightly time crunch and rapidly advancing bedtime with a take-out-the-dogs thing sandwiched in between doesn’t do much for my heart rate when all I’ve figured out is some dumb headline that I’ll inevitably scrap and redo anyway.

     I know, it’s welcome to the journalist’s world.  God bless ’em, I really admire the talented few writers who can pump out daily newspaper features that educate, inform and entertain . . . night after night. 

     Anyway, enough of me spamming your brain.  All I really want to say today is thank you. 

     My blog visitors have grown from a weekly count-on-one-hand number seven months ago, to a consistent few hundred-and-growing-steadily every single night. 

     People tell me they laugh and they learn.  Who could ask for more? 

     I am so grateful.  I appreciate every time you stop by and every new person you send along to visit . . . and every laugh.  YOU are my adrenaline. 

     Have a safe, peaceful and happy Thanksgiving wherever you are and who or whomever you’re with.  Thank you Michael Infusino for your skillful, good-natured tech support.  And thanks, Kathy, for always letting me stay glued to my keyboard without complaining when I know I should be doing chores.  I love you!  

     Oh, and remember our troops out there, will you?  Their courage, sacrifices and vigilance make this special day and all the freedoms we enjoy possible.  Thank you.  Hal    

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 79 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.