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 April 2015

It Is What Every Blogger Wants

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The best posts make you feel like you shared an intimate moment with the writer/reader.

Not long ago in a galaxy that wasn’t far, far away a blogger told me the reason why my blog isn’t more popular is because I don’t provide what every reader wants.

So I did what every successful blogger wants to do.

I defenestrated them.

Sadly it wasn’t captured on video so I couldn’t share the moment via Instagram, Facebook or even a Vine.

Hell if I didn’t share the moment here with you it would almost be like it didn’t happen and that would be a shame.

Can you imagine a life where you fail to record every moment or a blogger who didn’t have the good sense to carry a camera around so they could record all that happens for posterity.

My Confession

I made part of that story up.

Some of you are shocked by that, imagine the kind of nerve it takes to fabricate a story you share on social media. Not everyone has that kind of chutzpah.

Doesn’t it make me ever so special.

It Is What Every Blogger Wants

Any time someone tells me they know what every blogger wants I roll my eyes because those types of blanket statements are frequently based upon opinion and not fact.

Maybe that is because most bloggers aren’t held to the same standards we hold professional journalists or academia too.

If you don’t cite your sources or fake your research there is little chance you’ll be penalized for it. So people take the easy way out and just throw out opinions on this and that because they can.

Blogging and social media bring out strong opinions in people, myself included.

After 11 years in the game I have my ideas about how it goes and what I want to see.

Still I try to remember that Blogs and Bloggers Evolve.

Nothing is stagnant.

Some of us complain because we miss what once was and fail to recognize that what we have is just as good or better.

And some of us complain because we don’t like how a set of tools and resources are being used.

You should see some of the responses I got from other “old timers” about Triberr And The Challenge Of The Twitter Thank You.

More than a few people claim that  one tool killed Twitter.

The funny thing is some of them are the same people that accuse Twitter and Facebook of killing commenting on blogs.

What Every Blogger REALLY Wants

If you asked me to break my own rule and say what every blogger really wants I would say we all want to increase the number of comments we receive.

Ok, maybe not all of us want more comments but I would be willing to say most of us do.

Most of us want someone to acknowledge our words and to engage with us in our comment section.

That is why I decided to try something called Postmatic.

postmatic

I am not as good as I once was about commenting but have found that when I come across blogs that use Postmatic I am more inclined to do so because it is ridiculously easy.

Comment and reply via email?

Count me in.

Ask me if I miss old fashioned blogging and I’ll tell you the thing I miss most is the engagement and that is why I am a beta tester for Postmatic.

I want to see if it works the way I think it will.

I am interested in your thoughts too. Let’s talk about it.

The Art of Making Hard Choices

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forestacorn

Many years ago someone asked me in a job interview what I want to have happen upon my death.

I told the interviewer that I wanted the devil to call G-d and say “you better take him, because we can’t handle him.”

What I learned that day was the guy behind the desk was a man of significant faith and he thought it was inappropriate for me to speak about the devil in such cavalier terms.

Since I realized it was unlikely I would be offered a position and was certain I didn’t want to work for him I added my standard question/answer about why the devil went down to Georgia and not LA.

That didn’t go over very well either but I was ok because I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I didn’t want to work there.

Life is always easier when the choices we have to make are easy but ease isn’t always available because life is filled with big decisions that are made harder because you can’t determine which decision is the best to make.

The Art of Making Hard Choices

Many years ago my family and I went on a day trip with my in-laws.

Since we had a Honda Odyssey that would seat everyone we figured it made sense to all travel in one car. It was a nice idea that lasted for all of 20 minutes.

Why?

Because my in-laws managed to find  a way to make me so angry with them I drove them back to their house and told them to get out of the car.

As you might imagine my wife and children were not happy and the ride down South was ugly. I was the only one who wasn’t crying and if I told you I didn’t second guess my decision I would be lying because I did.

But it didn’t happen in a complete vacuum.

Five minutes before I decided they had to go I pretended to have a bathroom emergency and pulled over at a gas station so that I could try to calm down.

I remember the moment vividly because I called my dad and said I had a question for him.

He asked me what I needed and then I shared my side and said, “I need your best advice.”

Dad laughed and told me that he couldn’t tell me what to do.

“This is your decision and I have confidence you’ll figure it out.”

“Dad, there is an art to making hard choices. I was really hoping you had figured it out and could help me.”

“Jack, try not to splash paint in your mother-in-law’s eye while you are painting and remember sometimes the best precedent you set is the one you don’t take. But don’t forget to establish clear boundaries either.”

He was laughing as he hung up the phone but I understood why and I made the best decision I could which is why they got kicked out of the car.

A Father’s Advice & A Man’s Choice

Why did I think about that story today?

Because I am in the midst of this transition I keep talking about and it is filled with some decisions that are more challenging in nature than whether to wear black or blue slacks.

And because last night my son asked me for some advice about a few things and I realized I couldn’t give him the kind of black and white answer he was looking for because sometimes it doesn’t exist.

But it didn’t stop me from thinking about what sort of advice and counsel I should give him. That Emerson quote above came because it fit my search for answers about hard choices.

“It is a reminder that the big things we try to do/achieve start with small steps and or gestures.

How Can I Make Better Choices?

The 17 long time readers know I don’t carry many regrets around with me.

That’s because I see little upside beating myself up about what I could have done. Doesn’t mean that the few regrets that I have aren’t substantial because they tend to be huge.

Those are the ones where I sometimes shake my head and wonder why I didn’t make a better choice. But I also know that some of that regret comes with the benefit of hindsight.

I can see what happened and pretend that if I had gone the other way it would have been better for me.

But even though I don’t spend much time wondering and worrying about what I could have done I still like to think about ways to make smarter/better choices.

Remember I am the dad who talks to his kids about working smarter and not harder whenever we can.

And that is how I came across a TED talk Ruth Chang gave about How To Make Hard Choices.

I thought it was interesting which is why I embedded it into the post and am sharing the excerpt below with you.

“So when we face hard choices, we shouldn’t beat our head against a wall trying to figure out which alternative is better. There is no best alternative. Instead of looking for reasons out there, we should be looking for reasons in here: Who am I to be? You might decide to be a pink sock-wearing, cereal-loving, country-living banker, and I might decide to be a black sock-wearing, urban, donut-loving artist. What we do in hard choices is very much up to each of us.”Ruth Chang: How to make hard choices

I like the idea of using hard choices as another tool to identify who we are and who we want to be.

How about you?

Who Are You Blogging For?

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One of the old timers asked why I don’t update my blog seven days a week anymore and told me they wondered who I was blogging for.

“Nobody comments on blogs anymore and if you are not getting any comments who are you blogging for?”


writing

I didn’t have to think about my answer because I knew the gut response is always the same but I decided to take a moment to try and dig deeper to see if there was more than the I write first for me and then for you.

So I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try to dig around in the archives to see how many times I have addressed the question and to try to figure out how much has changed.

I stumbled onto The Sloppy Kisser and knew it had to be included because it is a story and it wasn’t me airing out my thoughts about this and that.

Flipped and clicked my way over to What I See- Part One and What I See Five Years Later and realized I have to write part 3.

Why?

Because that will provide a quick snapshot of life in 2005, 2010 and 2015.

When I read the first two parts I smile because I remember the man I was for both of them and recognize I am not quite him anymore.

Too much has happened, too many major changes have led to an evolution that would have taken place anyway but is probably more significant than it might have otherwise been.

This time in life is all about who I am on the way to becoming and not who I once was.

Life Changes Are A Writer’s Best Friend

If you want to tell a good story that is entertaining, educational and informative then you are going to want to get up close and comfortable with life changes.

They don’t have to be good changes any more than they have to be painful ones because both are useful.

Real life experiences do more than provide credibility, they help you paint a better picture for the readers.

When my son tells me he is nervous about entering school or when my daughter gives me a list of places she is willing to move to and those she isn’t I can smile and say I understand.

I know all about children and changes and can write about it from multiple perspectives.

Ask me to talk about what it is like to lose your job and fight to keep things afloat and I can tell you about it at length.

I bought a home and felt like I owned a castle and then when things went to hell knew the time had come to sell it because if I didn’t I wouldn’t get a dime out of it and all I had worked so hard for would be taken.

Those experiences are weighed against the joy and laughter of life, measured in small increments called moments in time.

Most possessions have become of limited interest to me, except for the few have morphed from ordinary into extraordinary.

Self Reliance


Blogging at times is a funny. unpredictable and unreliable beast.

The posts you are most proud of because they are finely crafted examples of your finest writing are often ignored, passed over and overlooked.

Replaced by silly tales about how to hard boil eggs or stories about how you tore your pants and spilled coffee on our shirt.

Laughed at by stories of the time you tried to change a diaper and were peed on by a baby whose bladder couldn’t possibly hold that much liquid but somehow did.

My stories about supermarket mayhem, fist fights with Santa Claus and drunk and horny clowns always out perform the posts that I think display the best examples of my writing abilities.

It used to bother me because I was worried that I was developing a brand that was too narrow in its focus but once I took a hard look at it things changed.

Why?

Because I am a writer and a good writer is required to make people feel something.

Those posts did their jobs and they helped provide opportunity and reason to continue.

They also helped build a foundation for writing other posts that are not necessarily based upon stories that have the traditional beginning, middle and end but are more…abstract in nature.

If I had any particular criticism of the abstract it is that they are less likely to inspire comments than some of the others.

Why You Have To Keep Writing

The reason why you have to keep writing and the reason I keep going is because I can’t imagine not doing it.

But it is also because of the unpredictability of it all. I never know for certain what people will love, like or hate so I keep swinging.

Babe Ruth

I like swinging for the fences but I never forget that sometimes a post that fails may still contain some gold within.

You never know when you might coin a phrase or parse together a few sentences that are both magical and magnificent.

That alone is worth it to me.

What about you?

The Crossroads Approaches

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Midnight approaches and I am back at the computer listening to Johnny sing Hurt and I Hung My Head.

The music eases my mind but there are no answers to be found within.

They say that if you want to make an informed decision you need to find the balance between the facts and you know and the things your heart says.

Tonight I get the sense that the crossroads of my life approaches soon and that I will be required to make some significant choices about what direction I choose to go in.

I don’t believe we only have one of these moments because I am certain there are multiple times that they appear. But the thing about them is that we don’t always recognize the moment they arrive nor do we always notice when that moment has passed.

All I am certain of is that I have done my best to open my eyes and expand my awareness so that I recognize them when they appear.

The Choices We Make

Perhaps I am mistaken about this moment and its magnitude. It wouldn’t be the first time it happened but I doubt it.

It might be premature.

Could be a few days or a week. Might even be a month but it doesn’t matter because the crossroads is coming and the time to make some big decisions approaches.

The moment in which I look at the present and peer out at the future and try to determine what the best course of action for my children and I will be.

When it happens I’ll do my best to do as Gladwell says and pick a course based upon deliberate action and instinct and hope that it works out half as well as I think it might.

I suppose you might say my mind is already made up about a few things and all that remains is for me to make the decision to take action.

And I will do it because I can live with being a man of action. I can accept making mistakes and adjusting on the fly whereas I cannot stand to watch life pass me by.

If our role in life is to serve as a painter than I choose to be the man who takes the brush and splatters the canvas with colors and deep brush strokes because it is better in my world to paint than be painted.

Life is about the choices we make.

A Battle Of Wills

I suppose part of what has me lost in deeper thought is the sense that this particular moment at the crossroads is going to be punctuated by a battle of wills and that my choices are not likely to be supported.

But the sense I get is that the opposition isn’t based upon fact or reason but upon fear.

I am not a fan of making choices based upon fear because far too often such choices are guided by surges of adrenaline that push us to run without thinking.

That can be effective for eluding lions and tigers but it is not a great way to make more complex decisions.

Adrenaline surges aren’t going to be useful for trying to encourage me to take a different path. I choose not to walk

I choose not to walk down the paths I already know because that is moving backwards and I see no reason to believe the scenery will be prettier or more exciting than it was the first time around.

It is time to take the road not taken because there is more opportunity for growth and progress. More opportunity for a happier and healthier dad and that has bigger benefits for my children than old and grumpy.

Into The Future We Go

It is time to move into the future and find out what lies behind door number one. See you all on the other side.

500 More Ways To Have Better Sex & Earn Money From Blogging

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I knew a man who once told a woman that he knew if they were trapped on an island with no one but each other he didn’t care because he was certain they would never get bored of each other.

Three days later they found his body on the banks of the Cuyahoga river. A large black purse lay next to it and

A large black purse lay next to it which I suppose is why the older couple that found him thought that perhaps it was the murder weapon.

Midway into their call to 911 they were shocked to see him roll over, dust himself off and stand up.

“Have you ever tried to catch a Pepper Pike? Those suckers are tough but what do you expect, anything that can survive the burning river is going to be a bit harder to handle.”

He paused for a moment and then told them the best places to catch one was in the Heights but made a point to say they still didn’t compare to capturing the mighty Gefilte, king of all fish.

Five Songs

  • The Living Years- Mike & The Mechanics
  • Something The Beatles
  • Baby, Now That I’ve Found You Alison Krauss & Union Station
  • Take The Long Way Home- Supertramp
  • Dazed And Confused- Led Zeppelin
  • Immigrant Song- Led Zeppelin

The more observant among you will notice there are actually six songs and not five in the bullet points above.

If you ask me why I’ll tell you I don’t wear a sweater because you are cold nor do I do things as other people do.

For example, when you say that is an exaggeration and that everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time I’ll shake my head no and demonstrate how I jump into them both legs at once.

Is is unorthodox?

Yes, but it is damn effective and let me tell you it really impresses the ladies. Except when you accidentally trip and fly face first into the wall or door.

That doesn’t impress them, however it does make them laugh and if you play your cards right that laughter is useful. Make a girl laugh and you never know where the damn long and winding road John, Paul, George and Ringo told us about can take you.

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When I wrote 500 Ways To Have Better Sex & Earn Money From Blogging 982.3 people complained that I didn’t provide 500 items they could use.

One man called me a dunce so I called him a dimwit and suggested he take a look at the word count of the entire post.

He did so and told me that it was more than 500 words so I pointed out that I under promised and over delivered.

Since he never responded I took that as proof of my victory over his provincial outlook and small minded manner.

Make More Money From Blogging

I need to focus on making more money from blogging because I have an evil neighbor who is playing his music so loud it feels like I am standing next to the speaker.

This shlemiel thinks that blasting the neighborhood with elevator music is a public service but he has no idea who he is dealing with.

Not only am I willing to hire a marching band to perform in his driveway from 3-5 AM five days a week I am ready to revisit How To Use 5000 Pounds of Bananas To Terrorize Noisy Neighbors.

They probably don’t know I am the guy who beat Inigo Montoya in a sword fight or that I once was the Captain of The Revenge but then again these aren’t things you typically share with people you aren’t particularly close with.

Six Songs

  • Kashmir- Led Zeppelin
  • Candy- Iggy Pop & Kate Pierson
  • Calypso- John Denver
  • Ain’t No Grave- Johnny Cash
  • Save the Last Dance for Me- Michael Bublé

The more observant among you will notice there are actually six songs and not five in the bullet points above.

If you ask me why I’ll tell you I wanted to see if the people who noticed there were six songs instead of five above noticed there were five songs instead of six here.

I walked out the door and set off for adventure all those years ago never imagining that life would be as entertaining or as tough as it has been.

Fought the monsters I could see and a few I couldn’t and though I didn’t win every battle I never did lose the war.

Midway through it all I wrote the story here and included the words below.

“Submit to possibility and potential and watch what happens.”

Who knew that would be taken literally. Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride began shortly thereafter or maybe it started before it, I’m no longer certain.

What I do know is that when I told my kids life is filled with magic and mystery I did so because if you go through it with blinders on you miss out on both.

How This Ties Into Blogging and Money

Part of making a few bucks from blogging is tied into making sure you have eyeballs reading the words you put on the page.

You who have just finished reading this post are a part of the eyeballs I referred to.

Maybe you hung out because you thought this was too crazy to ignore or maybe it is because you were entertained. Doesn’t matter to me why because it is more important that you did.

Not every dad blogger writes about diapers or basic parenting. Some of us used to do those things when the kids were young, but now they are older and the tales we tell are different.

Now we see glimmers of a future that we couldn’t before and we are pushing to enter because the next chapter of life is almost ready to start.