goals – Page 2 – HappyStinkingJoy

National Champs… WNCC Lady Cougars Volleyball!

In my last post, I kind of painted Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman as a dolt. Let me rephrase that: Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman kind of painted himself as a dolt and I wrote about it. I really didn’t have anything positive to say about good ol’ Dave. After thinking about it, I decided that he did deserve a couple of props, so I am going to right that wrong right now!

Governor Dave made a lot of fun of The Star-Herald ! I like making fun of The Star-Herald myself, so I enjoyed Dave’s ribbing of our “local” paper! However, Dave made a comment about The Star-Herald not being like The Omaha World-Herald, and I kind of tend to disagree. The Star-Herald is owned by The Omaha World-Herald and is a lot like its parent paper. I want to emphasize that The Star-Herald has a local staff of reporters, marketers, and support personnel who are, for the most part, good, hard-working people who do a bang-up job! However, just because you are owned by an Omaha company does not mean that you can charge Omaha prices. Also, The Star-Herald does not seem to have a local paper “feel”… and I can’t quantify what I mean by that, it’s just the way it is. So bravo, Governor Dave, for making fun of The Star-Herald !

Second props go to Governor Dave for his honoring of Western Nebraska Community College’s Lady Cougar volleyball team for bringing home a national championship at the NJCAA level! Dave proclaimed December 3, 2010 as “Cougar Volleyball Day”.
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It’s pretty cool when little podunk Scottsbluff can claim a national anything, let alone a championship. WNCC has a great athletics program, and I don’t think we local residents appreciate our student athletes as much as we could. Great job, Cougar volleyballers… we are proud of you!

It would have been cool to see a little higher-profile coverage given to our local national champs in our local newspaper, but I think the Huskers played that weekend…

WEB SCAVENGER HUNT: #1

UPDATE: 10/28/2010: WE HAVE A WINNER… TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON!!!

PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE INTRODUCTION AND INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE BEGINNING SCAVENGER HUNT!!!

INTRODUCTION:

The first ever Happy Stinking Joy Web Scavenger Hunt begins RIGHT NOW! The first (and only) prize is a t-shirt made with my semi-gay, semi-grotesque logo thrown on the front. The t-shirt is available in a multitude of colors and sizes, including and limited to “white” and “X-large”.

The scavenger hunt is relatively simple. Further down in this post, you will find a list of 20 links to websites and questions regarding information that can be found on those websites. The first person to get me the correct answers to the questions I have asked will win the t-shirt. Pretty cool, huh?

INSTRUCTIONS:

Answers to the questions must be submitted via the “Tiny Contact Form” found on my website. For example, if question #1 is “What color is red?” and question #2 is “What color is green?”, you would click on the links provided. When you scour the site and discover the answers to the questions, you would go to my “Tiny Contact Form”, type your name, your email address, and put “Scavenger Hunt” as the subject. In the message portion of the form, you would put something like the following:

“1. red” (’cause that’s the color of red)

“2. green” (’cause that’s the color of green)

…and so on and so forth, until you have answers to all of the questions. Some will be relatively easy and some will relatively hard. Some of you may feel tempted to try to find answers to the questions at sites other than the sites found through the links provided: do so at your own risk! Although the answers on the sites I provide may be found in other places… or may be incorrect on the sites I provide… I am looking for very specific information from the sites provided, and only these answers will be correct for this scavenger hunt… period! The first person who gets all of the correct answers submitted to me through my Tiny Contact Form wins the shirt. I will contact the winner via email to get his or her shipping address to ship the shirt to. I will use the “time received” notification from my Outlook as the final determining time for awarding the prize. I reserve the right to eliminate any entry for any reason whatsoever, including, but not limited to: spelling errors, partially complete answers, and whatever else comes to mind now or later. Any owners, authors, or employees of any of the websites used in this scavenger hunt are ineligible from winning any prizes (but, feel free to participate in the hunt just for fun). The winner agrees to let me publish his or her name and region of the country (for this scavenger hunt, I’m limiting it to residents of the United States only… international shipping isn’t something I’m interested in getting into at this point) on happystinkingjoy.com, and it would be cool if the winner would send me an email picture of him/herself wearing the shirt-prize to post as well, but I’m only requesting… not demanding…

I will list the results of the scavenger hunt within 48 hours of receiving the winning submission. Thank you to everyone who is checking this out. I hope you all have fun, and I wish you all the best of luck!

Okay, are we ready? Let’s get set! GO!!!

1. On this home school blog , there are some very useful product reviews… including one for The Handbook of Vintage Remedies. By what percentage is the immune system lowered by the intake of sugar products, and for up to how long?

2. Jokes are always fun, if not always funny. On this joke site , there is a bar joke about Sadar. He walks into a New York bar, listens to a conversation, and says something. What does he say? Yeah, I know… I don’t get it either 🙂

3. This NFL team sucks in almost every imaginable way, but they do have one thing going for them… and that thing involves pom poms 😉 The 2011 Swimsuit Calendar for these hotties was shot on location in Mexico; what is the name of the stretch of Mexican coastline where it was shot?

4. This website offers advice for the average schmo to gain control of his or her finances. Many people will testify as to the difference that this website and program have made in their financial lives. So, with that in mind, what did Pamela S. from Georgia find her credit rating at after implementing some of this program’s advice?

5. The poignant poem “Mullet Inspiration” by Jill and Nichole H. found at this site is not only a rhyming masterpiece (seriously, even though it doesn’t always make sense, it rhymes), but the love the narrator has for mullets cannot be denied. Since what year has the narrator been growing his/her mullet?

6. This bizarre site offers some interesting ways to look at life. The author of this site has some very stringent recommendations for a healthy diet. In fact, if you get your Chakras all in alignment and whatnot, you may not need actual food at all. The author of this sight states that there are humans living today who receive their sustenance entirely from what non-food? See, why couldn’t the person who wrote the Sadar joke have had a sense of humor like this?

7. The site for our local library encourages visitors to become “friends of the library”. How much would it cost an individual to have a lifetime membership as a “friend”?

8. Who doesn’t think motorcycle racing is cool? I think motorcycle racing is cool, and so does this site. In fact, this site is so into motorcycle racing that it has an “Official Car”?!? Really, I ain’t kidding! What is the “Official Car” of this motorcycle racing site?

9. Ahh… a fellow blogger. This site is funny (some of it is adult humor). A depressed chick making her way through life, what could be funnier… except maybe a dude dealing with a mid-life crisis, but I digress. Her family includes a dog named Coco. What kind of dog is Coco?

10. Who can’t get enough of LOLcats? Yeah, I’ve had enough too. However, there is a site that not only has the disgustingly cute LOLcat pictures, but it has some pretty cool merchandise available! There’s this t-shirt… hahaha… about Pluto… hahaha… that starts, “Silly Pluto”… hahaha… what is the rest of the saying on the shirt?

Alrighty, boys and girls, you’re half way home! Time to relax, maybe take a breather. That first half wasn’t so bad, now was it? Ten down and ten to go, right? Go grab a soda pop and a slice of cold pizza from the fridge… except there is probably someone who has already moved on… and YOU WANT THAT STUPID T-SHIRT… SO THERE IS NO TIME TO WASTE! GET YOUR BUTT MOVING, SOLDIER! WHAT ARE YOU: A SPINELESS JELLYFISH, DRIFTING SLOWLY IN THE OCEAN WHILE LIFE & OPPORTUNITY PASS YOU BY… OR ARE YOU A TRUE ADVENTURER ? BTW, the links may be a little more difficult to find in the second half of the hunt 😀

11. This next website is by another fellow blogger… but she has only written a couple of posts and her site seems (thus far) to focus on the “stinking” part of life that I attempt to make fun of in my blog. Check out this butterfly’s blog, because her inspiration to start her blog (which she needs to write in WAY more often) is AWESOME! She writes of the blogger who inspired her to start her own blog, and she writes that he and his blog are full of “_____, _____ and _____”. Surprisingly, none of the answers begin with “s” and end with “t”, but filling in the three blanks is the answer to this question.

12. Okay, on to a musical siren’s site. Okay, she isn’t really a siren in the “musical” sense (’cause her singing isn’t really that good)… more in the “seductress” sense of Greek mythology, but whatever! Whoever said “blondes have more fun” hasn’t, apparently, checked-out many non-blondes! On this site, you will discover that the singer is going to be in a fashion show on November 30th of this year. What is the name of the sexy fashion show? Double whammy… second part of the question: what is the location where will she be performing live on April 5, 2011 (it’s almost like my hometown).

13. This movie was okay… just okay… but I feel some sort of personal connection to the main character… probably because I’m a major stud… or not. What is the main character’s full name (first name, middle initial, and last name)?

14. WOW… talk about an ADVENTURER ! This Nebraska entrepreneur (the husband of a husband-and-wife team) holds a world record for traveling over 5300 miles in 43 days using what mode of transportation (manufacturer and model are part of the answer)?

15. I had this site commented as a suggestion on my blog post asking for suggestions for websites to use in this scavenger hunt… or some other such confusing, seemingly run-on sentence. When I first visited the site, I thought ‘Way too chickie and feminine for me to admit I had read it and found some meaningless tidbit of info to use in the hunt’… then I noticed Charlie. Charlie is pretty cool. The blogger/photographer/whatever wrote a post about Charlie and had a picture of him in a bath of light. She made a very profound statement about Charlie. She says that there is this pattern for beings like Charlie… you have to, from time to time, be there and welcome them with open arms. ‘Cause the Charlies of the world tend to realize that they’re __________ again. Fill in the blank.

16. This site is pretty cool. A coworker of mine is a co-owner of this site (in fact, almost all of my coworkers have their own websites… we work at an Internet company, so we’re kinda geeky like that… and 4 of my coworkers’ sites appear in this hunt). One of the DJs conducted an interview with the lovely Joy Whitlock. In that interview, Joy discusses the meaning of the word “beautiful”. In the interview, Joy states that when she thinks of the word “beautiful”, she immediately thinks of _______. Fill it in.

17. This blogger, in one of his posts, touches discusses exactly how fast we need our Internet to be. If you really think about it, the Internet speed we actually need to increase the quality of our lives isn’t nearly as fast as one may think. In fact, according to this blogger (who uses as an example the world class broadband connections of South Korea), ultra-fast speeds often are little more than an enabler for online-gaming addition. In South Korea, there may already be an entire generation of kids turning into ______ _______. Fill in the blanks.

18. I like short stories. So, here we go. This particular story is one of my all time favorites. The answer will be in three parts, and you can just separate the answers with commas on my Tiny Contact Form. For the Lottery, who assembled first? Who is the oldest man in town? Who selected “… a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands…”?

19. People often ask me why I’m so hard on the Craphandle of Nebraska. What is it about the Scottsbluff, NE area that drives me so absolutely nuts? Well, anyone who spends a little time at Walmart will be injected with all of the negative energy that this place puts off. Don’t want to visit Walmart, then stop in the local Verizon store when it first opens in the morning and count how many f*bombs you hear come from the mouths of people waiting in line. Many people in this area seem to feel a sense of entitlement, and when they don’t get exactly what they want exactly when they want it, they want everyone within ear-shot to know exactly how upset they are. That kind of negativity tends to rub off. If the negative energy isn’t enough, there is the fact that wages aren’t exactly stellar… which probably leads to the negative energy flying off of so many of the residents here. The organization that offers this website attempts (very poorly, in my opinion) to bring new businesses to the Craphandle. On this site, the economic development association provided some census-style data. Included in this data is a snapshot of data from Scotts Bluff County. According to the snapshot from 2008, what is the per capita income for the average resident in Scotts Bluff County. If you are thinking that this number cannot be right, this figure is about half of what the average individual in the United States made in 2008 (according to http://bber.unm.edu/econ/us-pci.htm) Also, from this same 2008 snapshot, which household income level finds the largest number of households resting in its range? Yes, this is a two-part question with two answers… and yes, it is a shock anyone wants to call this place home.

20. Best blog on the Internet… PERIOD… or not. Man Toes seem to be an issue for this blogger. What is the name of the restaurant where preppy-boy-freak-long-toe and Mr. 65+ almost ruined the consumption of World-Class pizza?

That’s it… that’s all! Thanks for checking it out, and I hope you had fun 🙂

Scavenger Hunt Approaching!

Alrighty, kiddies, The first-ever Happy Stinking Joy scavenger hunt is right around the corner! The official Scavenger Hunt will begin this Sunday, 10/24/2010, at 6:00 pm MST and will show up here as a post on this blog. What else do you have to do on a Sunday evening… church is over, no work until the next day, a free t-shirt up for grabs… you know you have time for this 🙂 I had a special t-shirt made with my semi-gay, semi-grotesque logo thrown on the front for the grand prize, and it is screaming to get out of my house (or maybe that’s my wife screaming to get the stupid t-shirt out of the house… whatever!) The scavenger hunt will be relatively simple. I will ask questions about specific websites, and within the questions will be links to the sites. By “hunting” through the site, answers to the questions can be found. The first person to get me the correct answers to the questions I have asked will win a Happy Stinking Joy X-large t-shirt. Pretty cool, huh? Answers to the questions must be submitted via the “Tiny Contact Form” found on my website.

For example, if question #1 is “What color is red?” and question #2 is “What color is green?”, you would click on the links provided. When you scour the site and discover the answers to the questions, you would go to my “Tiny Contact Form”, type your name, your email address, and put “Scavenger Hunt” as the subject. In the message portion of the form, you would put something like the following:

“1. red” (’cause that’s the color of red)

“2. green” (’cause that’s the color of green)

…and so on and so forth, until you have answers to all of the questions. Some will probably be relatively easy and some will probably be relatively hard. The first person who gets all of the correct answers to me wins the shirt. I will contact the winner via email to get his or her shipping address to ship the shirt to. I will use the “time received” notification from my email client as the final determining time for awarding the prize. I reserve the right to eliminate any entry for any reason whatsoever, including, but not limited to: spelling errors, partially complete answers, and whatever else comes to mind now or later. The winner agrees to let me publish some form of his or her name and region of the country (for this scavenger hunt, I’m limiting it to residents of the United States only… international shipping isn’t something I’m interested in getting into at this point) on happystinkingjoy.com, and it would be cool if the winner would send me an email picture of the winner wearing the shirt-prize to post as well, but I’m not going to require that…

The scavenger hunt will appear as a post on my blog and will start, once again, Sunday, October 24th, at 6:00 Mountain Standard Time. I want to thank everyone in advance who decides to embark on this adventure 🙂

Looking for Websites…

Alrighty, kiddos, Adventurer Rich is looking for some help. I have the gall to call myself “Adventurer” when I rarely, if ever, actually “adventure”. Oh sure, I have my little adventures with Boy Scouts… and I consider my time spent amongst trailer folk at Walmart a semi-adventure… even daily life could be considered an “adventure (in “adventure’s” mildest form), but I never really truly “adventure”. All of that is about to change…

I’m looking for your favorite websites. You know, those wacky pages on the Internet that you visit on occasion (or daily… or every fifteen minutes…) looking for humor or advice or just a little escape. I am not looking for social networking sites like Facebook or your E*Trade account or any site that requires a login to access. I am looking for blogs and advice columns and fun places you like to visit. I will visit these sites, pick the ones I like, chose random information from these sites, compile a list of links, post the links on this blog… and let the scavenger hunt begin! It will be up to my loyal readers to follow the links, search the sites, find the information I am looking for, and return your answers to me (seriously… this is gonna be a blast for all ten of you!) There’s gonna be a prize and everything… don’t know what it will be yet, but I’m sure it will be relatively cheap and stupid… but YOU COULD WIN IT!!! I won’t even charge you shipping to get it to you 🙂

So you’re wondering, “How can I help Adventurer Rich and submit my favorite website?” Well, it’s all really easy. Just comment on this post with a link to your favorite site.

1. At the top of the blog post, where it says “No Comments” or “6 Comments” or whatever, click on that link; this should automatically take you to the comments section of this post. Under the incredibly long list of comments, you will find the section where you can “Leave a Reply”.

2. You will need to enter your name (please do not enter your real full name… ’cause it will be available to anyone and everyone on the Internet who ever happens to stumble across my site… enter your first name or a nickname or make up a really “cool” Internet name… like “Adventurer Rich”, but that’s already taken…)

3. You will have to enter your email address. Please do enter your real, legitimate email address. I will not sell or give away your address, but I may at some point use it to notify you of contest dates and such. Your email address will only be accessible to me… and I’m relatively harmless…

4. Enter the website address of the site you would like me to check out. If it’s your own site, SUPER COOL! If it is the site of someone else, that’s pretty cool too:)

5. Please re-enter the address of the site you would like me to check out in the “message” section (this is the big box under the “website” box). By putting this information in the message section of the site, everyone who visits my comments will be able to know your favorite site! Also, please give me a very brief description of why I should visit the site (i.e. why you like it).

I have a few of my favorite sites in mind that I already plan on using for my scavenger hunt, but I need many more to make this challenging and fun 🙂 I have very few restrictions as to which sites I will or will not use, I just have to like it. I do ask that the content of the site be PG-13 or cleaner. There are a few young people who stumble across my site, and I don’t want to lead them into the world of porn and obscenity… I’ll leave that to Google.

I would like to have all recommendations entered by Saturday, October 2, 2010 at noon. I will not consider any sites submitted after that date and time for this scavenger hunt.

One final way you can help out old Adventurer Rich is to hit the “Like” button at the bottom of this post if you have a Facebook account. This will let all of your Facebook friends who are not my Facebook friends see this post and they too can contribute their sites! I guess if you know how to “Digg This”, you could do that as well; I’ve just been too lazy to research a good plugin to add that feature to my site 🙂

Thanks for visiting my site… thanks for taking the time to read this post… and thanks for helping me start a true adventure 🙂

Sometimes, Life is Like football?!?

Everyone has probably already seen the following videos, but it struck me as I watched them on a Yahoo! News earlier this week… these are SO like life. In this first video, the poor running back gets an awful pitch from the quarterback. He gets turned around and begins running the wrong way. You can tell he is trying to veer back in the right direction, but his momentum and the players on his back prevent him from gaining positive ground. Yet, the little whipper-snapper just keeps plugging away. He is giving it his all. He is trying to make a positive outcome out of a very negative situation. He is an optimist.

With a certain realization, he becomes desperate. He tosses the ball to no one and suddenly he is either the biggest optimist on the planet, or he has come down from the ozone to join the rest of us and realized that all of that effort really wasn’t worth it. Whichever the case may be, I highly doubt he was much of an optimist for the next few days (or years… or decades). Welcome to the real world, Sparky.

This second video shows why sometimes, just sometimes, it’s better not to succeed. The Otters have this game in the bag. The field goal is well short of the mark. YEAH us! We win! We have succeeded! All of the hard work we put in finally paid off! A big “V”!

Caught up in the momentum of “victory”, the young optimist goes into celebration-mode… a bit too early. He forgets the fundamentals of his “profession”. In less than 4 seconds, he goes from probably one of the happiest moments of his young life to utter horror. Watch the clip again. After Mr. Prep spikes the ball and the other dude scores the touchdown, you see Mr. Prep falling to his knees and grabbing his face mask in utter disbelief. You can almost feel his stomach churning, can’t you. You can almost feel his tears running down your cheek, can’t you? “WHAT DID I JUST DO?” HAHAHA! See how easily one stupid mistake can undermine all of that hard work? See how easy it is to disappoint many people by losing your head for one brief moment?

I guess the positive is, if there is a positive to be found, in both of these videos: you can find your own success through the miserable failings of others. Be on the lookout for someone else to make a huge mistake, because therein may lie your huge opportunity for success. If you can’t find success on your own, wait for some poor sap to screw up for you.

Wireless Cowboys in St. Louis

I haven’t flown in a lot of years. I hate lines, I hate large groups of people, I hate being searched, I hate being presumed guilty until proven innocent, and I think hurling to my death from 2000 ft knowing survival is not gonna happen would be the absolute worst way to die. So, on the flight to St Louis for the WISPA Regional Meeting, I entered a sweaty, heart-poundy, semi-zombie trance state for an hour and a half, clutching the armrest on one side with both hands and quietly chanting, “We’re all gonna die, we’re all gonna die, we’re all gonna die…”

Even stewardesses tend to avoid me on flights.

And then we landed. I was kind of hoping I’d see the Arch on the way in, but I didn’t. All I saw was the Missouri River flooding part of the city… and, let me tell you, it was kind of cool!

So, the boss and I get on a shuttle bus to the Renaissance Hotel, which we are staying at and where the conference is. Little do I realize at this point how close that hotel and I are about to become. I’m still under the illusion that I’m going to get to see the city… hahaha… foolish illusion.

So, we get into the hotel, check in, put our crap in the room (which I am sharing with the boss… and sharing hotels rooms with dudes makes me uncomfortable… but I know that my ability to explode eardrums with my snore will prevent any future sleeping arrangement similar to this), and go check out the conference area. There are already WISPA dudes working on putting together welcome packets and I am quickly recruited to help. Stuffing packets turns into checking in attendees as they arrive turns in to many hours sitting at a stinking table in front of a stinking computer looking out a stinking window at a stinking fountain.

Oh, I know, “that’s a pretty cool fountain,” you may be saying to yourself. Yeah. it was… for about the first five hours staring at it.

So, we had arrived in St. Louis around noon and it was pretty much sitting at that table in the “prefunction area” (i.e. the hallway outside the concourses) until around 8 or 9 at night.

Around 7pm, a group of people talked one of the hotel shuttle drivers into a trip to go see the Gateway Arch (something they apparently don’t do, but for the right amount of tip…)… and I needed to man the WISPA table, so actually seeing the Arch wasn’t in the cards for this trip to St. Louis… maybe next time. It only took me 40 years to make it to St. Louis the first time… so maybe when I’m 80 (me, live to be eighty… hahaha) I may make it back to St. Louis to see that arch.

After a supper of what tasted very much like overcooked Freshetta pizzas at the meet-and-greet (which I enjoyed from the WISPA table while staring at the fountain)

I was finally allowed to shut down the WISPA table for the day.

Next morning, back to the WISPA table, checking people in, selling tickets, registering new members, selling shirts (yeah… selling shirts), and once again I have a lovely view for the day.
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Lunch rolls around, and all the WISPA dudes and attendees go to the 13th floor for lunch. Of course, I’m asked to man the WISPA table through lunch. I do, and lunch is brought to me… I think it was a bologna sandwich. So far, I’m loving St. Louis!

Lunch gets over and all of the WISPA members seem to be enjoying the meeting. Everyone is friendly and excited and, every once in awhile, someone goes all tech on me (apparently thinking that because I’m sitting at the WISPA table staring at the stinking fountain
I must be techie myself). I’m not very techie, so I smile and nod.

“You know, if the FCC would allow us access to portion of the white space spectrum, many of our current interference issues would fall by the way-side,” says the techie dude.

I smile.

“Just the thought of getting into that 3650 MHz spectrum makes my routing redirect, but in a positive way, if you know what I mean,” the techie laughs, nudging me with his elbow and winking.

I nod, having not the foggiest.

“Nice talking to ya, man,” says techie. “Nice to find someone with a similar point of view.”

I smile and nod.

Evening rolls around, and one of the vendors at the meeting sponsors a supper for everyone. Well, I, of course, am sitting at the WISPA table. Everyone goes upstairs to the big feast. I sit at the table looking at the fountain.

Around 7pm, when I finally shut down the WISPA table, I decide I’m gonna go for a walk. My boss warned me, “Uh, I don’t think this is the best area to go walking around in.”

“How bad can it be?” I glance at the fountain one more time

… and I start on my walk.

Within a couple of blocks of the hotel, I notice that the neighborhood may be a little questionable.
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Still, I’m thinking, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

As I continue, I notice that the neighborhood really isn’t getting any better
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“Well, if I can just find someplace to get something to eat, I’ll be fine.” I continue on my way when I notice these dudes strolling my way:
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Being completely homophobic, I quickly turn down a side street
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and I run into
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these guys:

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CRAP!
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Roofers! They are insisting that they “fix roof cheap, less than gringo, insurance will pay.” I tell them that I don’t even live in St. Louis, but it’s like they don’t understand English. So I run away and find myself down a dark alley. At the end of the alley I see:
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Killer clowns… seriously?!? St. Louis SUCKS!

Not wanting to mess with killer clowns in any way, shape or fashion, I quickly turn around and make my way back out of the alley. I’m not going to take on killer clowns. The odds of surviving a killer clown attack are like 1 in 900,000,000,000. A person has a much higher chance of winning the Lottery than he or she does of surviving a killer clown attack. I’m not that stupid.

As I’m leaving the killer clowns in my dust, I notice something in the shadows up ahead. It seems to be moving. As I get closer, it starts to emerge from the shadows. When I first see its face, I can’t believe what I am seeing. I freeze, a deer in the headlights, sure I am about to meet my ultimate doom. As It comes into full light, I scream the scream of a little girl being eaten alive by rats
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I turn and run back at the killer clowns. They are about to pounce when they spy the monstrosity behind me. They, too, scream like little girls and fall in behind me as they retreat from certain doom.

I run and I run and I run until I find myself sitting at the base of the fountain outside the hotel.
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Okay, there may be a slight amount of exaggeration in my description of my escapade into St. Louis… slight… but it wasn’t very fun. Stupid fountain never looked so good. I went in and up to my room. Ordered an Imo’s Pizza (a St. Louis classic, I’m told) and was very pleased with my supper choice. At least I got to try some real St. Louis style pizza while in St. Louis.

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Next day, another day at the WISPA table; another day staring at the fountain. This time, for lunch, there was no bologna sandwich. This time for lunch, there was nothing.

By the time the WISPA Regional Meeting started wrapping up in the late afternoon, I was starving. After we got everything cleaned up and everyone headed their separate ways, I snuck out of the hotel and went the opposite direction from which I had gone the night before. On the next block… Jack In The Box. I like trying places I’ve never eaten at when I travel, and I had never eaten at a Jack In The Box, so I did. Had me some Jack In The Box tacos… you know, the 2 for 99-cent kind.
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Seriously, nastiest tacos ever. Deep-fried grossness with almost no filling. These are something I will never eat again. What a disappointment.

Later that night, the boss told me a bunch of guys were meeting by the hotel pool and just kind of hanging out. I decided to throw aside my loathing of St. Louis and try to hang out with these guys (and I don’t really like people, so I thought this would be a challenge). I ended up having a pretty good time. Before going to bed, I actually went outside and ran through that stinking fountain in front of the Renaissance Hotel (which is kind of supposed to be off limits). I went to my room stinking like rancid pond water and feeling a bit of the sweet, sweet taste of revenge on that stinking fountain.

The next morning, the boss and I grabbed a ride to the airport, flew an excruciating flight back to Denver (my hands once again gripping the one armrest I had access to the entire flight), and came home. I was glad to be back in the Craphole of Nebraska… ok, not really, but it was better than the killer clowns of St. Louis.

Overall, I am glad I went to St. Louis. Did I see the Arch? No. Did I have a splendid time? Did you see the picture of the anti-Christ Clinton? Not really. I did, however, gain a couple of insights. First, I learned that the people (or really, person… Rick H 🙂 ) who prepare for and execute at these conferences are amazing individuals. Everything at the 2010 WISPA Regional Meeting went pretty smoothly. I wouldn’t say that it went off without a hitch, because there were a couple of hitches; but considering the amount of variables that could have worked against us… things went quite well. Second, as technologically geeky as many of the participants at this conference were, it was utterly and completely cool to be surrounded by a bunch of men and women who are so passionate about what they do! My biggest bitch on this blog is the fact that I can’t find and follow my passion. Did I learn that wireless Internet is my passion? Nope. I did find, though, that there are really people out there who have a passion, follow that passion, and better the lives of those around them with their passion. Most of these WISPs are not raking in bu-cu bucks. They aren’t in it for the money. They are in it because they believe all people have the right to access the wonderful world of the Internet at something faster than dial-up… and these people should not have to take out a second mortgage to be able to afford the service. And there was serious passion.

My trip to St. Louis didn’t make me more passionate about anything. My trip to St. Louis did, however, help me see that wireless Internet is something to be passionate about. Seeing people with passion for something, whether it is a passion you can share or not, is good for the soul. My trip to St. Louis enriched my soul. Now, if only I could rid myself of the nightmares…

Wireless Cowboys

I work for a wireless Internet service provider. What exactly is a wireless Internet service provider, you may ask? Well, a wireless Internet service provider (WISP for short… which I could have notated a couple of “wireless Internet service provider” mentions ago… but I’m a sucker for the want to hunt and peck out extremely long, tedious sentences… which is why, I figure, most people who visit my blog stay less than 53 seconds… a person can’t read one of my posts in less than 5 minutes, ’cause I’m way to wordy and I take WAY to long to get to my point… as the current sentence proves… and if you are still reading this far into the sentence, you have my eternal debt:) ) is a person or company that provides Internet to people who cannot get (or are sick of dealing with) cable and DSL Internet.

Anyway, back to the whole wireless Internet provider (WISP) thingie. Three years ago, I had very little idea what a WISP was. I knew my wife did the finances for one, but I was still clueless. And then, out of nowhere and thanks to the urging of my wife, the owner of this WISP approaches me and says, “How’d you like to work for me?” Well, at the time, I was working for Alltel… which sucked… and I really liked the way the guy combined “how” and “would” into “how’d”… ’cause that shows a laid-back persona, as far as I’m concerned. Now, I was making fairly good money at Allhell… er… Alltel, and I would be taking a pretty significant cut in pay to work for this “WISP”… but I figured with the approaching-forty thing and the high blood pressure and the inability to deal with stress and/or pissed-off customers, how could I say no. So, I said yes and the rest is history. Now, I deal with the stress of pissed-off customers every day and I get to make less money. YEAH ME! Of course, I’m kidding (i.e. my boss reads this blog). In all seriousness, although not perfect, I don’t hate my current job. It frustrates me at times and there is stress (I don’t think the stress-free job exists because there is not a job where you do not have to have any contact with another person… and people cause stress… period). But, the lack of the corporate rules and rigidity and BS makes this job much preferable to the hack job I held at Alltel.

My boss is very active in an organization called WISPA. WISPA is the Wireless Internet Providers’ Association. WISPA is also Womens International Squash Players Association, but that may or may not be the topic of a future post.
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WISPA, the one with sweaty chicks.

Founding members of WISPA, the one without with less sweaty chicks… or maybe this is Microsoft… who knows. All them tech people look the same to me.

WISPA, a candy bar from Cadbury containing no known sweaty chicks.

WISPA is a non-profit organization that serves the interests of WISPs not only in the US but around the world. So still, you’re saying, “I still don’t understand what a WISP is.”

A WISP provides an alternative to the crappy, government-subsidized telephone company DSL and dial-up Internet services provided around the country. WISPs also compete against outrageously-priced cable and satellite Internet providers. A WISP does not need telephone lines or fiber-optic cables to bring the Internet to your home or business. WISPs mount radio equipment on towers and broadcast the Internet through microwaves to a receiver on your property that gives you the Internet. In other words, WISPs provide Internet in rural and hard-to-reach areas that cable providers and DSL providers are not willing to spend the money to service. WISPs are the cowboys of the modern age; they go into uncharted territory and do whatever it takes to bring civilization (i.e. high speed Internet) to the wastelands. I am, of course, stealing from my boss with the whole cowboy analogy. If you are at all technically savy and want to learn more about this industry, check out the boss’s blog at Wireless Cowboys .

Long-story short (I know… too late), the boss is active in WISPA, so somehow I end up handling a large portion of the billing and member-support responsibilities for WISPA as part of my job responsibilities. Normally, these responsibilities are a breeze and take little of my time. Then, all of a sudden, the WISPA people decide they need to hold a regional meeting. “Regional meeting” means that there are registrations and tickets and confirmations and whatnot and, somehow, a large portion of the dealing with this stuff gets thrown in my lap. All of a sudden the easy and somewhat fun WISPA responsibilities become a several-hour-a-day monstrosity that consumes much of the time I am supposed to be spending on my real job. This goes on for well over a month. This would probably not have been that big of a deal… except for the facts that I took a week off for scout camp with my son, and the family and I took our week-long family vacation, all during this registration period for the WISPA Regional Conference. It was kind of like ‘take some time off’ and then ‘really bust your ass’… then ‘take some more time off’ and then ‘really bust your ass’. I’m feeling like I am not meant to come back from these vacations. Then, the boss says, “I know you’ve been working hard, so I’d like to bring you to St. Louis to help with the conference.” I’m thinking he’s kind of blowing smoke up my rear to keep me from freaking out. Then, the president of WISPA calls me and says, “We know how much time you’ve put into this, and we are trying to talk the board into allowing you to help at the conference.” Well, all of a sudden I feel appreciated. All of a sudden, I’m potentially going to be rewarded for all of my hard work with a trip to St. Louis. I’ve never been to St. Louis, and I’m getting kind of excited.

As the conference approaches, the board decided to allow me to help at the conference… and I’m thinking, “Hey, St. Louis, here I come!” Bright lights, big city, right? Fast living and good-ol’ St. Louis style pizza right? Blues and a trip to the Arch, you know? There is an airplane flight that will be involved… and I hate flying… but I’m excited! This is going to be a great time. St. Louis, HERE I COME!!!

Enjoying Birthdays

It’s my youngest son’s 7th birthday today. He usually sleeps in at least a little bit during the summer, but he was up bright and early this morning. And I’m heading out the door for another day of incessantly ringing phones and dealing with the dreaded “people”. It’s funny how the older I get, the less I like dealing with people. Other people, whether they mean to or not, directly or indirectly cause over 99% of the stress in my life. I used to be able to deal with people and empathize with their problems and concerns. These days, I have enough of my own problems, whether real or imagined, that I really don’t want to listen to yours. So, another stress-filled day awaits me, while my boy is going to be enjoying his birthday.

“Happy birthday, buddy,” I tell him as I’m heading out the door, to which he gives me a big hug.

Man, I can remember being excited about birthdays like that. Almost. I do not, however, exactly remember when I realized that each passing year is not something to be celebrated; each passing year represents another year closer to death and another year where all of those goals I set for myself in youth go unrealized. And it’s a spiral, this death/unrealized-goals thing. The closer you get to death, the less time you have to realize your goals, and the faster time seems to pass with each passing birthday. Summers, which used to be a long season of leisure in my youth… a season where time actually seemed to slow down and a time filled with fun and frolic and development of the imagination and dreams of the future… summer, now, is the short season between all of the time-consuming activities that the kids have to be shuttled to and from (school, scouts, soccer, t-ball, youth group, AWANA… and this year the oldest starts confirmation and an after school program at the public library and the youngest wants to do Tae-kwon-doe). All of these activities are right around the corner, which the wife and I could probably be prepared for if we, too, had our entire summers off, which we didn’t. So time just goes faster and faster and those goals become more and more unrealistic and death looms closer and closer… and the spiral accelerates.

One of the main things I wish for my kids is the joy of birthdays. I hope that my sons never reach a point where they see the tornado of life as an out-of-control, stress-filled monstrosity. I hope my sons always find joy in their birthdays because their goals are being met and other people don’t tend to piss them off just by existing. This is a lot to hope for, I know, but it is my hope.

Tonight, my family will go out to eat in celebration of the youngest’s 7th birthday. We will eat Chinese, because sesame chicken is his favorite. We will then go home, light candles on the birthday cupcakes, sing “Happy Birthday”, watch him make a wish and blow out the candles. We will hope he wished for something important, something grand, and we will hope his wish comes true. We will watch him open his presents with certain giddiness. He will enjoy his birthday, and so will we.

Enjoy your birthdays, while you can. If you already can’t… well… you are not alone. I guess we can always try to enjoy the birthdays of someone else 🙂

40 :(

It had to happen. It’s approach led to this started-with-good-intentions-but seldom-written-in blog. It has been the Moby Dick to my Ahab. It has been a black cloud on the horizon of my life for the past 10 years. “It” is 40, and it finally overtook me last Saturday.

Turning 30 sucked. Turning 30 meant the end of innocence. No longer a naive 20-something, I felt like my 30s were meant to be my true entry into adulthood. It was during my 30s that I felt I was meant to create my career-life. 30s are meant to be a career building decade and if you play your cards right, you will be well on your way to building wealth and flowing into your “prime income earning years” (40s and 50s) with ease.

Of course, turning 30 sucked. Did I mention that already? As I approached 30, I panicked. “What are you doing with your life?” I asked myself. I was in my late 20s and realized that I was not in a good position to enter anything that involved a long-term career plan. I panicked. I talked my wife into researching franchises so we could open our own business and start down the road to financial independence. We chose a business, we moved to Craphole… er… Scottsbluff, NE, and we tried to make a go of it. All of this panic was caused by the turn to 30.

A few things went wrong.

1st: The franchise we opened did not do bad… we made a small profit in our first year. The franchise did not, however, make enough profit to support my wife and I and our young son. The franchise did not live up to our calculated expectations. We ended up selling it.

2nd: We personally financed the person we sold the business to… and within a couple of months she declared bankruptcy. Guess there was a reason the banks weren’t lending to her…

3rd: After getting shafted by the person that we sold the business to, we could have probably declared bankruptcy as well. But NO… we decided to take the high, moral road and pay back all of our debt. So, instead of taking a lump to the old credit almost 7 years ago (which would have resulted in much less scrimping over the last 7 years and a better quality of life for my family over the last 7 years… and the lump would be healed by now), we have reached a point where we are only a few months away from finally getting rid of all that debt. I know I’m supposed to feel good about this, you know, for having repaid my debts… but I’d really much rather avioded the past 7 years worth of stress and that money, invested, would mean that I would have had a chance to retire some day. Oh well, retirement is overrated, right? Who doesn’t want to work until they die. At least I owned-up to my responsibilities… again, that just isn’t doing anything for me. Retirement would have meant more than making sure the stupid credit card companies got their money. Who’d a thunk that doing the right thing would suck so much?

4th: The wonderful panhandle of Nebraska is not a good place to attempt to open a specialty retail business. Not only is there little disposable income here, if you can’t make a living with the new business, your job opportunities in the Craphole are, well, quite limited. Let’s just say that bright futures aren’t created here. The Craphole is a retirement community… the Craphole is an agricultural community… people either come here to grow corn or people come here to die. People shouldn’t move here to open a little business (in an effort to avoid the stress of turning 30)… because the odds are that you will fail.

Turning 30 may not be a walk in the park, but turning 40 after getting yourself stuck in stinking Nebraska… I don’t know much about growing corn, so I guess I’m part of the retirement community in the Craphole just waiting to die. At 40, it’s really kind of too late to start all over again. Guess I’ve kind of just given up on having the kind of career making the kind of money I went to college to make. At least I have a loving wife and two great kids… if only I could provide for them the way I always imagined I’d be able to. And it’s not that we’re doing bad… it’s just that I always thought I would be financially successful… not fighting to remain middle-class.

I usually try to make these gripe-sessions at least a little funny. You know, cynically tongue -in-cheek. I just really can’t find anything too amusing about the entire situation… not this time.

Canadian Wisdom; An Oximoron?

There is a famous quote from Canadian hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky that is often thrown out there to try to motivate people to action:

“You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”

Wayne Gretsky is perhaps one of the greatest hockey players of all time. He was known not for his presence on the ice or his unbelievable skills; he was known for being a very intelligent player who had a knack for knowing where the puck was going to be before it got there. Wayne’s quote can be a powerful motivator… unless you really think about what it means. How can you miss a shot you do not take? You can’t! Apparently the Canadian educational system let Mr. Gretzky down. His statement is incorrect. You will never miss a shot you do not take. Your odds of making a goal are significantly impaired if you never take a shot, but you will never “miss” a shot you do not take.

Ok… I know… I’m just being kind of nit-picky. We all know what Wayne means, and we can all agree with the premise of what he was trying to say. Still, his statement is fundamentally flawed.

Which of the following courses of action do you usually follow:

* Risking the shot and potentially making the goal (risk = potential reward)

* Not taking the shot to avoid the consequences of missing (risk = potential penalty)

I know this may seem like the old glass half-full/half-empty debate (it’s half empty… duh!) This dilemma is a little different, however. I have a feeling that most successful people see risking the shot as the only way to succeed, and they would, for the most part, probably be correct. Each shot you make is a potential goal. Each scored goal gets you one step closer to winning the game. Successful people are willing to keep chucking away at the goal, pucks flying wide left and right. However, every time they miss, they learn; every time they score, they learn. They work toward perfecting their game and learn when to take a shot and when to pass the puck. Non-successful people (or, the vast majority of us) don’t even take the shots. If we miss, the crowd may boo. If we miss, we may lose our position on the team. We are happy (not satisfied, but happy) just being on the team. We will never be the star player. We will never have our name in lights. We will never make the huge salary. We will never be embarrased. We will never be booed off the ice. We happily skate around the ice and pass the puck to the star players in hopes of helping them win the game… and, deep inside, we are miserable. We want to be a star but the fear of the penalties of a missed shot are too much for us.

The puck-passing, non-goal-attempting players are important to a team but are easily replaceable. The stars are hard to replace. If we could find a way to care less about a booing crowd and more about perfecting our game, our chances of becoming a star are greatly improved (but not guaranteed… stinking unfair life). Too bad we can’t all be Wayne Gretzky… but then, who really wants to grow up in Canada?!?