The power you're supplying. It's electrofying.

It happened so inconspicuously. One minute the garbage disposal was there. Next minute, it was a silent gaping hole in my sink. When I flipped the switch, the sink stayed mute.

Not good.

Down the street, in the distance where a jackhammer or other such machinery making a jackhammery kind of noise, rumbled against rock and pipe, it also - apparently - rumbled with an electrical line and won. No electricity.

This reality, this stark and frightening truth, hit me where it counted. In my hair dryer. It wasn't going to work. And, because of that, neither would my hair.

Then it hit me in the iron. Meaning a day wearing wrinkly clothes.
And hit me in the heater. Which meant a day of multiple layers of wrinkly clothes.
And the stove.
And the refrigerator.
And the computer.

Dear Father in Heaven, that meant the internet was down. No way to work. No way to produce. Suddenly, my silent house rang with...well...more silence. The clocks didn't tick. The vents didn't rattle. The indescribable and ignored hum of electrical appliances couldn't hum. And, therefore, I couldn't ignore them.

It was anarchy!

Showers were no longer hot. Cell phones no longer charged. A light bulb teased me from it's socket, mocking and leering but never lighting.

I couldn't go on like this. It was too much, too exhausting. Everything was suddenly...dead. I felt useless and impotent. After a long and tedious battle against the nothingness, I succumbed. And gave in to the inevitable future - a life of bad hair, wrinkles, freezing showers, and room-temperature soup. Was there really any reason to go on?

Then, like a trumpet from heaven, my house alarm beeped, the heater kicked on, and life resumed. Electricity was back. Oh the honey of it. Oh the rejoicing. It had been so long. It had gone on forever. Days. Years. A century, even. Or, according to my watch, roughly 40 minutes.

Merry Christmas PSO and all you PSO workers. I love you.

Life of Crime. The difficult years.

Is there really any easy way to make money? Of course there is. You steal it. Yes?

Here's how:
1. Get a gun.
2. Get a victim.
3. Put the two in the same space.

Tada! Easy money. Right? Well...not quite.

Meet Anthony Miranda. He had all the equipment necessary to succeed in his lifestyle of choice (already served time for several convictions and now, at the age of 24, back at it again).
Gun? Check. Victim? Check. Pointing said gun at chosen victim? Check. Choosing a victim who is an ultimate fighter? Priceless.

In the end, Miranda ended up looking like...well...that...along with accidentally shooting himself in the ankle. Where did he go wrong? Who knows. Maybe he never learned to share his Oreo's in Pre-K.

But here's his fatal flaw: he lives without expelling effort. Literally, none. Not only does he refuse to actually be a benefit, not only to society, but to himself by earning his money, he is a terrible judge of character. He refuses to even think. Let alone work. He prefers crime because it requires nothing.

Supposedly.

But does he now look like a guy who is taking the easier route?

Here's the bloody (oops, sorry Miranda) truth: Life takes work. Forget the easy way out. There isn't one. Forget doing as little as possible. What about doing more? What about giving it everything we've got? What about breaking a sweat? What about testing our physical/mental/courageous limits and finding none? Could there be a benefit in living with effort? Could it possibly bring us satisfaction? A sense of purpose? Self worth? Appreciation from our peers? Are we really cool with sacrificing our integrity simply because we're lazy?

Apparently Miranda is. Sadly, his choice is a poor one. And, though he isn't looking very happy now, it's unlikely the heathen will change anytime soon. First, before life will get better, he must accept the premise of true success. That it requires all of us, all from us. All that we have to give. To our fullest. Unabridged. Nothing held back. Until we sweat the exertion and collapse in our beds at night totally spent.

That, my friends, is real success. It's sweet and whole and peaceful.

So what can we learn from Miranda's butt beating? That life without effort is no life at all. Also, never pick on a guy with a mean uppercut.

Meanwhile, until Miranda values his honor, neither will we. Feel free to point and laugh.

Ahhhhahahahah!

Groucho Marx: A mustache of brillance

Because today feels more like Monday than Monday ever feels. I give you...Groucho.

 A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.

Groucho Marx 

Business advice you didn't ask for. Or want? Probably.

Cleaning out my email box isn't the same as cleaning my toilet. But it's close. I get all kinds of oddities waiting for me each morning in bold. Some aren't even in English. And no, they're not spam.

Oh the elusive email lists I'm put on. How do these things happen? And why don't they take me seriously when I tell them, "No, really. I want to unsubscribe. Take me at my word."

Today I received one of infinite newsletters giving me business advice. Mostly from writers. And that's not a bad thing. Not always, anyway. Years ago, a certain professor at a certain college who discovered a certain curly-headed girl in a certain small town newspaper office and offered to certainly take her under his wing, gave me some great advice: LEARN! That's right, a professor told me to learn. Earth shattering, yes?

As a writer, he said, you must always be experiencing life or reading about it. You must feed your creativity. And your ideas. And your gut, because bouts with low-blood sugar can really slow down my typing speed.

I took it to heart. Learning is like cold, fresh, spring water to me. Laced with a little tequila and lime juice.

And so today, ready to LEARN!, I opened up the newsletter and read some expert advice about...wait for it...focusing.


I'm sorry, did you just say "focus"?

The nugget of wisdom was about focusing on the task before you. Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree. Focus. Yay! Love focus. But is this really beneficial? Do I really need to be told to "focus"? It's like reading the safety warning on a plastic shower cap that says, "Not safe for ingestion." Really? I can't just gnaw on that baby all afternoon?

When I researched these sage gurus, most have careers no longer than my right pinky. And I do not have an abnormally long right pinky. They had no more, often times much less, experience in the writing field than I. And I don't feel I have anything in the advice arena to offer.

But I had to ask myself...while focusing...can I do better than that?

This is where I'm going to give it a try. So tune in, tune out, but expect some advice you neither asked for or perhaps even want. I'm making it personal because...I feel like it.

Until later. For now, I need to focus on dinner.

Shatner's PSA: good idea? bad idea?

State Farm doesn't want you to burn down your house. Or your kitchen. Or singe your eyebrows. It costs them money. And they don't like that. I don't blame them. I don't like it either.  So we're simpatico there.

It's a decent strategy. Educate the public. Stop unnecessary accidents. Save millions in damages and insurance pay-outs. Nothing wrong with that. State Farm having a prosperous holiday season means their customers had a safe one. That's called capitalism, and it's good for the whole family.

But here's where, if you're State Farm, you have a glitch. How do you tell the public not to burn down their house costing you money without them pretty much hating your guts? 

Here's an idea.

So did State Farm make a good decision? Bad decision? Do you have warm fuzzy feelings about them now? Or would you like to dunk your insurance policy in a large turkey fryer?

In the end, the biggest question is, will you drop a frozen turkey in a gallon of boiling oil? If so, I fear for the future of Shatner's arm hair. And State Farm, though still not hated, paid out a pretty penny without saving themselves a dime.

Bob Hope on Unions

While working a project for a client - honest, I was - I found this old joke from Bob Hope buried in his archives. It's even got his scribble. And his tell tale humor.

Oh, Bob. You're humor is sooo...accurate.

What IS this place?

Think of it as a grocery store. And this blog? An empty aisle.

But the tasty stuff is coming. I'll be stocking the shelves one interesting morsel at a time. I'm going to go out there and find people.

Tough, I know.

Then I'm going to do what no one...at least on this site...has done before. I'm going to find out what makes them good. No, strike that. What makes them GREAT. Why they do what they do, how they do it, what success means, what can bring success to others, and what that means in our great big world of life.

For too long, we've stopped applauding talent. Real talent. Not the talent of a movie star to have seriously flawless skin or of an NFL quarterback to have seriously flawed morals - or switch those roles - but of people who actually make the world work.

The mechanics and electricians and accountants and construction crews and cleaning crews and checkout people and convenience store clerks and personal trainers and paper bag makers. Everyone! The people who keep our earth rotating. The ones who make our world...easier. When all evil breaks loose in my pipes, I have no interest in being entertained or watching sports or hearing Lady Gaga tell me to "Just Dance".

I want a plumber. And no one else can fill that desperate void.

So this site is to them. All the businesses who provide what I need and the people who create those businesses. This is about the true grit of commerce. About finding the flair where the flare is burning.

If you think business is boring, wait until I'm finished with it.