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

NaBloPoMo 2013

Could You Sum Up Your Blog With One Post?

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spongebob
Got less than a month until my son’s Bar Mitzvah and while most of the heavy lifting has been taken care of there are a million little details to be handled and one or two big ones that require my attention.

Some of it is what you can categorize as easy and some of it is just…nuts.

Took him to the LA Auto Show today and we came across the Toyota Highlander in the picture above. Toyota took the back of the car and turned it into a real aquarium and then for good measure added Spongebob. Can’t tell you if they did it because they thought it would get more attention than an aquarium without or not and I am not sure it matters.

Speaking of things that matter I have to give a short speech at the Bar Mitzvah and I have spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what it is I want to talk to him about. What matters most? What should I pass along?

Sum Up Your Blog With One Post

Sometimes when I am faced with an important subject and I want to be certain I do a good job with it I focus on something else entirely. That is part of why I have been thinking about the old elevator pitch as it applies to the blog and as I wish to use it.

If I had one post to try and sum up the blog what would I write/say? If I had to use that one post to provide significant and real insight into the almost ten thousand posts here what would I say and how would I say it?

“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.” ― Albert Einstein

Don’t know about you but I love that, probably because there is nothing in life I can’t apply it to. It works for the blog and it works for the Bar Mitzvah.

Truth is if we are talking about summing up the blog than we really shouldn’t be focused on trying to do so with one post. Really it should be a couple of sentences, something I could say in about a minute.

If people aren’t regular readers they are not going to understand or appreciate all of the little details and there is no way to include that without making things complicated.

It Is a Conversation, Not A Speech

Circle back to the Bar Mitzvah for a moment. I have given a million speeches in my life and done more presentations than I care to remember but I don’t want that for this particular moment.

What I want is to have a conversation with my son. Sure I’ll make a point to announce to everyone how proud of him I am but he knows that and the moment isn’t about me telling everyone how much I love him.

Nah, it is a different version of the elevator speech. It is a different form of summing up the blog. It is me doing my best to offer him something that has value, meaning and significance.

It is me trying to give him something that he can remember, take with him and apply. He is not six anymore so the conversation can be a bit more sophisticated than it was then, but the goal of making it easily understood remains.

Maybe I’ll use one of these:

“I fear the day technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”
― Albert Einstein

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
― Albert Einstein

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.”
― Albert Einstein

Sometimes the real trick in life lies in taking action and not wasting time categorizing things as being big or little details because the difference between success and failure is often as simple as being able to say you did something instead of responding with “I did nothing.”

Good night from Los Angeles and goodbye Nablopomo

Blame It On The Food Coma

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Airport Barbecue, Close Up

I said I was going to do the 99 Things challenge. Really, I said I would add my name to the list of people who have done it so far but it hasn’t happened yet.

Blame it on the food coma or on Halley’s Comet but I haven’t yet produced the list that you see cropping up at Judy’s, Gini’s and Kaarina’s places.

Hell if it makes you feel good you can blame it on my hating the holiday season, doesn’t matter to me. Besides do you really expect the guy who beat up Santa Claus to make one of these lists.

I cooked the Easter Bunny and served him for Thanksgiving dinner so coming up with a list of things I love is a bit like asking me to admit to the Shmata Queen that I would consider visiting cleveland with her.

Damn, did I just write that out loud.

Did You Read The Last Post?

Did you read  The Blogging Jedi Trick That Might Work or any of the post that ran before it? Have you noticed that more of our compatriots seem to have hung up their keyboards and if so, did you reach out to them and ask them why?

I haven’t checked in with them, but I have been meaning to. Really, not making that up but I have been living in my own world for a while now and been so caught up that I barely remember my own name.

Some days when I walk away from the computer I wonder if I should load up my car and move back to Texas.  Been great to be back but in the old country we would say I wandered into a balagan and have been dealing with more mishegoss than anyone person ever wants to.

If I wasn’t already meshugeh this would turn me into a full fledged meshugehneh and that is saying something.

For years I have joked around and said that I am the original storm walker. Been a big joke to say that I wander where storms fear to tread but lately it feels a lot like I wandered out of the eye and right into the storm.

Not really where I want to be.

Thanks and Gratitude

Maybe I should chronicle these things in the journal I won through Yeah Write. Got it because I have been participating in NabloPoMo and because Zoe contributed it.

She did a hell of a job and I owe her a thank you.

But like I said I have been living in my own world and people keep telling me that I am not telling them anything. Keep telling me that  I have forgotten to tell them basic things as well as the not so basic.

Got no good reason other than I get lost doing whatever it is I am doing and I forget that I never mentioned it. Kids told me today that I didn’t answer a couple of questions that I had promised to answer.

Supposed to take Little Jack to the car show and I never told him that I planned on going tomorrow or Sunday. Swore that I had, but he insists I didn’t and he is probably right.

So I suppose that this is part of why I am ready to go back to Texas. Ready to go find a new cave where I can slow things down and figure out what I am supposed to be doing.

In the interim I have a mental list I have been making of things I am grateful for. Stuff like my health, family and friends’ health and numbers like 8/31/68 and 1724.

Grateful that overall things are moving in very positive directions and that my best friend and I have had so many good times together and have so many yet to come.

Grateful to have much to look forward to.

Now all I have to do is slow the world down just a moment and I’ll figure out how to do the 99 things and write a proper post. In between it all I’ll try to visit more of your blogs and even leave a comment to let you know I am around.

Life is pretty damn hectic, but it is good and I suppose sometimes that is all we can ask for.

What do you think?

 

Have You Ever Wrestled With The Universe?

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Compass and Scale Image for Horsehead Nebula
Source: Hubblesite.org

I don’t like bad meals, bad movies and bad music.

Don’t know about you but those three things just rub the the wrong way, maybe it is because they all are tied into pieces and parts of me that matter and that is enough to make a curmudgeon truly cranky.

Been a month since I got back and everything here feels a bit off, all of it is familiar and yet most of it isn’t quite right. Rejoined the crew for my pickup basketball game and found that things are off there in some odd ways.

Got a 23 year-old boy who keeps fighting with me. I try to just ignore him, remind myself that at 23 you are young, dumb and stupid and your ego really messes with you but I can’t seem to just ignore him.

Entitled Brat

Maybe it is my ego getting in the way, but this entitled brat talks shit the entire game and gets upset when it is given back. I am not dead yet and while I have lost a step I can keep up for a short while with the twenty something kids that play with us.

And yet no one but me seems to be willing to tell this kid to stuff it. I love the game. Love the competition and I love the contact. I take a charge and set a pick that rattles your borns.

I love it.

He hates it and cries…every time.

But no one checks his attitude and when I play nice he gets mean so when I match his level of physicality he cries. So I ask myself if I am the problem or if it is entitled brat.

Takes two to tango and it would be wrong not to ask myself the hard questions.

Broken blog and Technical Difficulties

Been dealing with a broken blog, technical difficulties and car trouble. Been tearing out what little hair  have left trying to figure out how to fix something.

Most of the crap I have been wading through would be classified as “minor, yet irritating” and in small doses it would be simple to deal with but there has been so much I am wondering if someone is trying to get my attention.

Got this crazy feeling inside that makes me think I know the answers. Got this crazy feeling that makes me feel like I know where I am going to end up but that I have to go through a few things to get there and it makes me ask questions again.

Want to know if I am back in the place intuition and desire intersect and wonder if the universe hasn’t figured out that I am old, stubborn and stupid.

I am the guy who will hold the bridge against ten thousand orcs. I am the guy who will fight until he is overwhelmed and or physically incapable of fighting.

If life is a lesson then why not use the kind of learning that is easy to understand. Why must I feel like I am under attack. That is the kind of thing that sets me off and makes me want to grab the universe by the balls.

Not because I want to or am trying to be a tough guy but because I don’t like this behavior.

I want to have a normal conversation and focus on writing better stories than are filling here now.

Sometimes The Answer Is On The Other Side

Sometimes the answer is on the other side. Sometimes the only way you can figure it out is by going through. That is what I feel in my gut.

Alongside that sense of knowing where I am going  to end up and who I am going to be there with there is this voice that says keep pushing forward and you can rest/know when you get there.

But there are parts and pieces of me asking if what I hear is real or if it is something else. There are parts and pieces of me that have been left with others until I can come reclaim them.

So I keep writing even when I don’t think the content is up to the standard I want to set. You can’t ever please everyone and I won’t play that game.

I hear ghosts of the past trying to claim me while I reach for the echoes of the future so I dance in the fire because it is what I know how to do and if that means taking up the sword or being pounded with hail then that is what it means.

Because if you want to get to the other side you do what is required.

What Happens When Your Dog Has A Panty Fetish- Five Minutes Of Writing

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Dog Shades

Got five minutes before I have to pick up my son from soccer practice so I thought I would write a quick post that includes a link to My Dog Has A Panty Fetish.

Going to play ball tonight with the twenty-somethings and some older gents. Can’t wait to run but tomorrow I may regret it or at least I might want to pound down some Ibuprofen.

This getting older thing isn’t as easy sometimes as I would like nor is it always as much fun.

Most of the time it is pretty good but there are days like today where the only way to describe it is as awful, horrible, terrible and just plain bad.

Call it a shit happens kind of day but fortunately it will pass like everything else and it will get better. Of course it might feel a bit like a Kidney Stone in the process.

Never had one of those but I understand they are rough, much rougher than giving birth.

Really, that is true. Ask any mother if childbirth was easy and they’ll give you a long story about how hard it was. It is a conspiracy among women to try and make men feel badly.

Well, we don’t and we don’t leave the toilet seat down–look before you sit.

Five Minutes Is Up

Time is up, this moment of silly and sublime has come to an end. See you in the comments.

Should We Care About Unsubscribers?

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Empties

I am not sure if aliens captured me or if someone tried to do a lobotomy on me using a butter knife and a tire iron but it has been the kind of day where I can’t tell you what happened or how so much time has passed.

All I know is that the sun has set and I feel like someone has worked me over. Years of contact sports have made me quite familiar with many aches and pains so the ones that have chosen to visit me today are the familiar sort.

That is my way of saying that I am pretty certain the back pain comes from two hours of basketball last night and not the aliens, but one can never be sure ‘cuz the little green men are devious.

Readers Come & Go

I don’t pay as much attention to my stats as I once did, at least not on a global level. I tend to focus more upon subscribers and though I have a respectable number it is small enough that I notice when people disappear.

When people disappear I tend to shrug my shoulders and just move on because there are a million reasons why they might choose to go. The primary one is that these words don’t provide enough value to make it worth their time to continue coming by.

I am not going to lie and say that it never bothers me or that I never think about it because I do for personal and professional reasons.

If the goal is to build something bigger here and to turn this into something more than it is important to pay attention to what people do and to figure out what the draw is.

Once you know why they visit and what they want you do your best to give them more and then they recognize that they can’t afford not to keep visiting.

That is the theory and in practice it tends to work except I don’t listen to my own advice, nor to any other. I just keep marching to the sound of an a drummer who has no rhythm because I like doing things my way.

And I believe that doing it my way will lead to where I want to go, albeit at a slower pace than I might like.

A Lost Day

Remember up above when I said today feels like a lost day and I wondered about little green men? Well I feel like I should tell you that the Shmata Queen hasn’t seen Inception yet and she needs to. Maybe she’ll get lucky and see it with me,

Casablanca is still my favorite movie and I’m not sure that I would rank Inception in my top ten but it is good enough to merit watching.

Don’t ask me to give you a list tonight of my favorites because today has drained me and after walking through mud for 18 hours I don’t have a list to share.

But I will tell you that I watched The Notebook this summer and was pleasantly surprised.

Lost days like today make me a bit crazy. I don’t particularly enjoy this feeling of wondering where the time went because it is not associated with feeling like I was productive and that is not easy.

Not easy because I have this long list of things that have to be done and this sense that if I don’t figure out how to move them from “to do” to “done” something bad will happen.

It is probably not true but I have that little itch that makes me wonder and I am having trouble shaking it off.

What Kind Of Blogger Are You?

Maybe that uneasy feeling is what is pushing me to look at unsubscribers and to think about why they are moving on. Maybe that is what has me taking the hard look and asking what kind of blogger am I because success in blogging is related to knowing the answers to questions like that

Or maybe it is not.

Maybe it is the muscle spasms that never used to visit me but now consider themselves invited guests. Maybe it is tied into the ongoing fight with aging and frustration with myself for not adhering to a diet.

Or maybe it is not.

Might be something else entirely but what I am certain of is that writing always makes me feel better even when the posts I write aren’t quite as good as I hope them to be.

Readers come and readers go. If you show some passion and personality and invite them to join you on your journey many will walk with you for quite some distance and a few might even go all the way.

What do you think?

The Secret To Supporting Multiple Blogs- NaBloPoMo

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My Old Kitchen
My Old Kitchen.

I don’t believe in Writer’s Block nor do I suffer from it. The only problem I have with writing lies in how much I dislike most of what I write.

The words flow from my fingers onto the page and when I look at them I cringe and wonder why I would ever publish something as awful as what I am looking at. I stare at it and wonder why when I call the words forth they refuse to assemble in a way that is pleasing and then I just shrug my shoulders and move on because the only way to get to the other side is by going through.

I Just Murdered 800 Words

Yeah, I just deleted 800 words because I thought they were simply awful and I couldn’t stomach giving them life. It was another case of bad blogging and I wasn’t willing to be guilty this time around so you are getting this post instead.

This is where I tell you that NaBloPoMo is an exercise in which people blog daily and that if you can blog daily you can support multiple blogs because both of them are exercises in discipline.

Look at the blurry photo above and you see the new kitchen from my old house but I see 10,000 memories and that reminds me that the best bloggers are storytellers.

That is the trick we all want to master, learning how to tell a story that is so compelling people can’t help but keep reading. It is a big part of why I write daily because the goal is to figure out how to master that trick and I haven’t a clue how it is done other than to practice writing with reckless abandon.

Give Life To Old Posts

Sometimes I try to revive old posts by sharing them long after they ran with the hope that readers who haven’t seen them will find a golden nugget among them.

It is why I decided to share the links below with you. Something in it may resonate with you or maybe I still feel guilty for murdering those other words.

There is always time for one more story. All you need to do is write it down so that someone can discover it. I write bunches of them over here. Or you can check out one of the samples below