The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for February 2011

Facebook Comments & Blogging

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Not unlike many others I have developed a love hate relationship with Facebook. However like the proverbial 800 pound gorilla they have gotten to be far too big to ignore. They have cool tools like a Facebook Fan Page and the ability to use Facebook to comment on blogs.

In theory that nifty little trick of allowing your readers to use Facebook to comment on your blog can provide you with massive exposure to new readers. At least that is the theory that I like to operate behind which is why I installed the plugin that provides that function.

However, I didn’t know that it didn’t provide notification of these comments and for the past five weeks or so I have been stumbling onto comments that people made using Facebook. Comments that went unanswered and for that I want to apologize. If you comment here I try to do my best to respond.

Anyway, I understand that there is an upgrade for the plugin that will solve that problem. I hope to have that installed and implemented sooner than later.

When Mean Girls Grow Up

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Unfair

There are some mean girls in my daughter’s class. Little girls with big attitudes who have been over indulged and have a sense of entitlement that should embarrass their parents. But the parents are not embarrassed because their daughters are only mimicking their mothers. They watch and learn. The comments, the gestures and the tone of voice all carbon copies of mom. I would really like to give them the benefit of the doubt. I would like to draw a distinction of some sort. I would like to say that they aren’t mean girls, spoiled maybe, but not mean.

But I can’t and I won’t because they are mean. They learned long ago how to exclude others and how to sneer at those that don’t meet whatever superficial criteria they have created.  I am at the school frequently and I see them on the yard. I have volunteered inside the classroom and seen them there too. I see them. I watch and take notes of who I don’t want my daughter to play with. I am judgmental and intolerant of this. I don’t care if you drive a Range Rover or a Mercedes. Your money means nothing to me and in many cases it is not yours.

I know because I have been a part of the community for years. I know that grandpa is funding things. You should be proud. You are a thirty something housewife who hasn’t ever worked and you have managed to use your money to buy some influence. It is the downside of attending private school and fortunately you are a minority. A very small minority to be precise, but your sense of entitlement doesn’t allow you to sit back and watch. You volunteer and are active too but that is because you want to feel important.

Being a part of the school is important and the parents play a vital role. But there is something to be said for being a nice person. I can’t help but wonder if you were a mean girl who grew up to be a mean woman. Last week I ruffled feathers because I sent out an email calling some of you on the carpet for behavior that I found to be intolerable. I am not bothered by confrontation. Your money doesn’t mean anything to me and frankly my children don’t play with yours. If they did I might have been more careful because my children don’t need to suffer because of my issues.

But that is not the case here. I almost feel badly for you and your mean girls collective. Someone forgot to tell you that email provides a nice paper trail. Someone forgot to teach you how to blind carbon copy or BCC others. Someone forgot to tell you speaking about others on campus isn’t smart. I don’t need magic powers to hear your words, not when I am standing around the corner.

I sent that email expecting to be forwarded. I intentionally copied everyone because I am documenting your nonsense. If it was possible to ignore you I would have, but you know that in this case it wasn’t. And now you know that I am not kidding when I say that I removed the filters from my mouth.  Someone needed to tell you that you are mistreating others. Someone needed to hold you accountable. I am not a hero. I am not noble. I am just the curmudgeon of the class. You didn’t know that before, but now you do.

The Parent-Child Dance

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“If you get her pregnant I don’t have to worry.” That is not an exact quote of what my mother said, but it is the focal part of the memory. I hesitate to share these thoughts with you because I don’t want my mother to be painted in a bad light and really there is no reason for her to be. But I am a protective sort of fellow and I can’t help but worry about mom. If anything I am probably being overprotective because when it is told in context the story isn’t bad.

Here is the setting. I am a 25 year-old man who is living by myself. I have my own apartment and am working full time. My office is about three miles from my parents house and a couple of miles from my place. It was never my intention to live so close to home, but I live close to work and that is close to home. It is coincidence and some of my friends give me grief about it. I don’t care. No one shows up at my place unannounced, at least no family members do. It is long before cellphones become prevalent so I enjoy a different sort of freedom than we do today.

Most days I work from 8-5. I usually hit the gym after work. I play ball with the guys, lift weights and then sit in the steam room. I may be working full time, but the job pays peanuts so I am poor. I live down the street from a bar and grille. A few of my neighbors and I have made friends with the bartenders. So after work I’ll come home and head over there for happy hour. If you buy a drink then you can eat at the happy hour buffet. And since we have become friends with the bartender we know that we’ll only have to pay for every third beer.

I don’t hit the restaurant every night. There are nights spent with friends and a few lady companions. One night my mother calls and complains that she never hears from me. She tells me that it would be nice for me to come by to have dinner and asks if I am sleeping more than a few hours each night. She knows me well. I have been a night owl for years. I promise to come by soon and then she tells me that one of her friends saw me with a girl. I can tell by her tone that whomever saw me provided something more descriptive than “I saw Jack with a girl.” I grunt some sort of reply and she asks me if she should meet her. I tell her that there is no one to meet and she is silent.

It is the parent-child dance. She wants to know more and I want her to know less. One day far in the future I’ll sit on the other side of that discussion, but not yet.

Time passes and I leave my first job and take on another. I leave the country on a business trip and wander the streets of Jerusalem. I have friends from America who have already made the move to Israel. When I am not working we meet for lunch or dinner. Inside pubs we drink beer and talk about life. They bring some of their friends along. The table is filled with people from all over. The conversation slides from English to Hebrew to Spanish to English to Hebrew and to whatever else happens to be comfortable to those with us.

There are a million stories that could be told about those days. Really, I do the story an injustice by not providing more background. The sights and sounds and the smells provide layers that add flavor and feeling. Really, it is a shame not to include more but we’ll save that for a different day. Instead we’ll take you back to what happened when I got back to the states.

Time has passed and I am back in my apartment. I just got engaged and am on my way to my mother’s office to pass along the news. That is when she’ll tell me that she won’t worry about me getting her pregnant. It is not the only thing she says nor the first thing. In fact it is among the last, but that is not the sort of thing that I expect to hear from my mother.

Flash forward a thousand years and I think about what sorts of memories my children will have. What impact do my words have upon them. What will they remember.

Not so long ago I shared that memory with my mom. She has no recollection of saying anything like that. Perhaps I imagined it and perhaps not. At this point it doesn’t really matter. What I concern myself with is exactly what I mentioned before, the impact of my words on my children.

An Introduction To Blogging

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If you are interested in a nice overview about blogging and the various elements that are involved go take a look at this. It is a long list of things that bloggers should know about.

The section on managing comments has some good stuff too, such as an explanation of trackbacks and pingbacks.

The Blog Post That Made Me Rich

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Sometimes I feel an overwhelming urge to lampoon the social media experts. Not all of them, just the ones that take themselves too seriously. The people who write long authoritative posts in which they outline the rules of social media. I look at those and think about this quote from Thomas Edison:

“Hell, there are no rules here– we’re trying to accomplish something.”

Part of what I love about social media is that the rules say that there aren’t any rules. There are a million different ways to try and get something done. There are a million different perspectives and it is hard to say that one is superior to the other. It reminds me of a discussion that cropped up between another blogger and myself about the Blogging with Integrity badge. If you are interested in reading the exchange go to  Jason Falls’ post The Cautionary Tale Of Mom (And Other) Bloggers. If you scroll down the page you’ll find an exchange between Wendy Piersall and myself about this.

I am not sure that I had ever heard of her before today and I suspect that the same could be said for her about me. I can’t really say that there is anything of significance in that last line, but I felt like adding it. Mostly because it is after midnight and I am wired from too much coffee. The real significance of the exchange is that we disagree about simple rules of blogging. That is ok with me. I don’t think that either one of us will lose any sleep over it. But what I liked about it was that there was an exchange of ideas and an opportunity to engage.

See, that engagement is what I dig about social media. I love the interaction. I love talking to people I might not otherwise have ever met. The blogosphere is filled with some fascinating people and some amazing stories. When I think put on my magical marketing helmet I remember that people are what it is all about. Marketers love people because the people buy the products that pay for the people who sit in offices thinking of slogans to sell the products.

And as the 17 long time readers know I like the people because I know that if I reach them I can get marketers to push product out to me that I can promote to the people. And with that I’ll turn into a blogging superstar. Soon I’ll be my own brand and I’ll make like George and Weezy and sing about moving on up to a deluxe apartment in the sky.

Ok, enough of that nonsense let’s move back over to something far more interesting to me. Watch the video below and you’ll see one of my favorite movies. No, not the whole movie but a music video that a fan made.

One of these days I’ll put together a serious post about why I enjoy the movie so much. For now I can share a few things about it. It is a simple storyline but one that is easy to follow and relate to. I know, you are trying to figure out how I relate to it. I am not a Spaniard who left his farm to become a general for Rome. Nor am I a gladiator who died avenging the murder of his family. But I am a hopeless romantic who loves action and sees the battle of the gladiators being acted out on the basketball court. Really, my favorite thing to do is rebound.

Why? Because rebounding is more about will than skill. It is a question of who wants it more. But that is a post for a different time. And now it is time to get some sleep. Goodnight from your 3rd favorite Daddy blogger.