Happy Birthday, Marine Corps – 2009

It’s 10 November, and today marks the 234th birthday of my Corps! My, does the time fly. For your reading pleasure, the Commandant’s message is below. Happy birthday, Devil Dogs… 

UNCLASSIFIED//
ALMAR 033/09
MSGID/GENADMIN/CMC WASHINGTON DC DMCS//
SUBJ/UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS BIRTHDAY MESSAGE – 10 NOVEMBER 2009//

GENTEXT/REMARKS/

1.  UNITED STATES MARINES REPRESENT THE BEST YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN OUR NATION HAS TO OFFER.  TO BE A MARINE IS TO BE A MEMBER OF AMERICA’S WARRIOR CLASS – TO BE ONE OF THE FEW WHO STEPS FORWARD WITH THE COURAGE AND CONVICTION TO FACE WHATEVER DANGERS AWAIT.  OUR NATION EXPECTS HER MARINES TO BE READY WHEN THE NATION CALLS; TO LEAVE FAMILY AND THE COMFORTS OF HOME BEHIND; TO MARCH INTO BATTLE AND THRIVE UNDER AUSTERITY; AND TO COME HOME UNDER A VICTORY PENNANT.

2.  FROM AL ANBAR IN THE WEST OF IRAQ, TO HELMAND PROVINCE IN THE SOUTH OF AFGHANISTAN, OUR CORPS OF MARINES CAN ALWAYS EXPECT TO BE FOUND WHERE THE FIGHT IS TOUGHEST.  SUCH IS OUR HISTORY.  TODAY, AS WE WRITE THE FINAL CHAPTER ON OUR VICTORY IN IRAQ, WE WILL INCREASINGLY TAKE THE FIGHT TO THE ENEMY IN AFGHANISTAN AND ADD NEW PAGES TO OUR LEGACY IN PLACES CALLED DELARAM, NOW ZAD, AND GARMSIR. ONE DAY, WE WILL RETURN TO OUR NAVAL HERITAGE AND PATROL THE HIGH SEAS WITH OUR NAVY BROTHERS.  SUCH IS OUR FUTURE.

3.  AS WE CELEBRATE OUR CORPS’ 234TH BIRTHDAY, WE FIRST PAUSE TO REFLECT AND PAY TRIBUTE TO THOSE MARINES WHO HAVE GIVEN THE LAST FULL MEASURE IN DEFENSE OF FREEDOM.  WE EXTEND OUR DEEPEST GRATITUDE TO OUR MARINE CORPS FAMILIES – THE UNSUNG HEROES WHO ENDURE HARDSHIP AND SACRIFICE SO THAT WE ARE ABLE TO GO FORWARD AND ACCOMPLISH ANY MISSION.  WE EXTEND OUR APPRECIATION TO OUR COUNTRYMEN WHO HAVE ANSWERED OUR EVERY NEED.  AND WE CELEBRATE THE MAGNIFICENT MEN AND WOMEN WHO WILLINGLY AND SELFLESSLY CONTINUE TO GO INTO HARM’S WAY TO PROTECT THIS GREAT NATION.

4.  TO ALL WHO HAVE GONE BEFORE, TO THOSE WHO WEAR THE UNIFORM TODAY, AND TO THE FAMILIES THAT GIVE US THE STRENGTH TO FORGE AHEAD – I WISH YOU ALL A HEARTFELT HAPPY 234TH BIRTHDAY!

5.  SEMPER FIDELIS!  JAMES T. CONWAY, GENERAL, U.S. MARINE CORPS, COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS//

Take a closer look

Not long ago my buddy Tim did something interesting. Basically, he asked his readers to think about an image – specifically the tasty little automotive morsel you see above – and offer suggestions on how he could use it in a post. It was a good idea. Not only did it give him the opportunity to shake things up a bit and have fun, it also provided a fairly cool way to interact with his readers. 

I offered my two cents with the following ideas::

• Classic vs new approaches (in sales, marketing, relationships, whatever) and how sometimes tried-and-true is better (or not)
• Implications of perception
• What can be conveyed with a single image
• What new icons are being established right now

A couple of good ideas in there, right? More the fool, me. In his maniacal consistent effort to get me writing on this blog with a bit more frequency, Tim pulled a fast one: “Why don’t you write a post about it?”

Balls.

Over the last week I’ve had multiple false-starts; writing about how we recognize or define beauty to dialing it back and examining fond memories of my first set of wheels. But each time I kept getting pulled back to the image of the car.

But not the Jaguar.

Me, I keep thinking about the beat-up POS peeking out from behind the corner and wondering what the story is there. And as I didn’t even see that humble little auto the first dozen or so times I looked at the picture, I started thinking about just how often that happens.

Meaning, given the massive amount of information we see or hear or read every day, culling that stream into bits or chunks we can deal with absolutely makes sense. And the structure of online data only reinforces that scan/discard process.

I’m not railing against technology here – a clearer example of tilting at windmills I couldn’t imagine - but I do have to wonder: what are we missing?

Photo by PedroSimoes7 

My first speaking gig

Last week went by about (snap) that fast. Sure, it was busy at work – when is it not – but Tuesday afternoon I slipped out of my day-to-day and boogied my way (via United Airways and damn them times ten for now charging for checked bags) to do something I’d been both excited about and dreading for more than a month.

My first speaking gig.

A little back-story: one of the things I do at work is manage our Online events. That’s just a dressed-up way of saying webinars, but it’s a gig that takes more than a bit of thinking and one that I genuinely get quite a bit of pleasure from doing. At any rate, our technology provider (the guys that handle the back-end of our events) invited me to join them on a panel at the Marketing Profs Digital Mixer in Chicago and talk about how we use webinars to capture high-quality leads and promote the actual events using social media. 

In a word, awesome.

I was on a panel with two other people, so there was very little stress once things got rolling. It helped that I made the audience laugh about 10 seconds in, but as this was my first time getting up in front of a group of people and speaking there was a little apprehension going in.

I could produce quite a few paragraphs about the experience, but I’ll sum it up briefly. I met absolutely great people (see here and here), the panel went swimmingly (see the review and comments here) and I’m, to use the technical terms, totally stoked to do this again.

Cheers.

We’ll resume our standard programming momentarily

Until then, here’s something you should watch. Some people are so freakin’ talented it simply blows me away; and their pleasure at playing well and playing together is so clear and sweet you just can’t help but smile. Enjoy.

Thank you, Patrick Rothfuss, for posting.

So pretty, so graceful. Right up until they tear a hole through your chest.

I, like many in my generation, am a child of divorced parents.  They split for good the summer before my 5th grade, so I guess I was somewhere around 9 or 10 when they finally called it quits. My sister, Sarah Shay, was the ripe old age of 1. And out of that entire nasty business, one real, unexpected tragedy was that because I lived with our dad and Sarah lived with our mom, for many years ours was a relationship far closer to cousins than brother and sister.

That changed when she moved to Austin (awesome) but the the point is this: there weren’t a lot of fairies, ballet slippers, or tea parties growing up. Nor were there unicorns.

If you check the links to the right you’ll see, near the bottom, one titled Whatever. It’s a blog written by a gent named John Scalzi, and in addition to being just a great read, his blog also provides a platform for writers to introduce and talk about their books. Very cool. It’s called The Big Idea and you can find that particular section’s main page here.

Not long ago the featured book was about, you guessed it, unicorns. I’ve included the first paragraph of author Diana Peterfreund’s introduction below and after reading her big idea I’m definitely going to pick up a copy. You might want to do the same.

I feel sorry for unicorns. No other mythical monster has suffered such brand degradation. Nowadays, unicorns are synonymous with weak, childlike, unrealistic naivety. You don’t see folks dissing dragons the way they do unicorns. No one ever equates griffins with rainbows, glitter, and six year olds. The sphinx isn’t cheesy. But the unicorn? The symbol of kings, the darling of artists, the keeper of a magical horn whose rumored mystical properties once made it worth more than its weight in gold and almost drove a real species (the narwhal) to extinction? The unicorn has become laughable.

Photo by Snappa2006

 

No kidding

Found the image below while working on another post but it’s just too funny to wait until then. Enjoy.

 

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

Why U2 is the shizzle

Eight years ago today the unthinkable happened.

I remember most of that day very clearly - the phone call from the lovely woman who would one day become my wife, standing in front of the television and watching one horror after another, or later trying to interact with guests when I pulled a double behind the bar.

That was a long, long twelve hours, I might add. Right up until I wiped off the last tap and handed in my drawer, each of my guests had sat quietly, watching one of the televisions that hung suspended from the ceiling, nursed their drinks, and spoke almost not at all. And for me, things seemed to stay like that for almost a month and a half.

And then U2 came to town.

The concert was , in a word, awesome. They did their new stuff, which was great, but about an hour in to the show the red Joshua Tree backdrop lit up across the back of the stage and Bono and the rest of the crew  started pouring through the music most of us there had fallen in love with in the first place; from albums going all the way back to Boy. We were dancing, singing, laughing, and really letting go.  

The weight that had settled onto my chest and into my spirit, the one that I hadn’t even realized was there until the moment it lessened, seemed to slowly shrink and fade, and without warning I found I could suddenly breath again. All of us could.

But they weren’t done.  

Near the end of the concert the band went silent and two large screens slowly descended from above.  Most of us were still smiling and swaying a bit from the previous tune and we looked at the screens and then at each other? What’s this? No idea, but it’s going to be cool. And to be certain, we were right, but not in any way we imagined. 

As we stood, growing more still and silent, names began streaming down each screen, one after another after another, and Bono finally stepped up to the mic, paused a moment, and said, “For all of those lost in September.”  And as the first quiet notes from Edge’s guitar reached us we realized that we were seeing a list of everyone who had died on 9/11.  And it seemed to go on forever.

But during those moments a wonderful thing happened. We stood there, quietly watching and listening, lighters or cell phones winking in and out, and people began to truly let go. There were sighs and coughs. Then there were sniffles. And finally sobs. People held one another tightly, and all around me there were tears and grief and strangers again connected by what had happened. But when the lists finally came to an end there were actually smiles and hugs, and as the last notes faded away we realized that a first essential and powerful step to healing had just happened, and man, we went absolutely fucking crazy. Cheers, claps, shouts, even roars. Joyous, lovely roars as Larry started pounding away at his drum kit.

Thank you, U2.

Readers – what’s your story?

Image by Sister72

The perfect Pina Colada

This might not be the most inspired post you’ll read today, but for reasons I absolutely cannot explain, the subject has come up twice in the last week. So just in case the universe is trying to tell me something, I offer the following for all of you Pina Colada lovers out there: 

Spend any amount of time in your local Specs, HEB, or liquor store and you’ll find dozens of mixes on the shelves, but the truth is you really only need a few items and a blender for a mixer that’s not only a breeze to make, it’ll absolutely knock your socks off. 

Start with 2 cans of Coco Lopez and one can of crushed pineapple. Pour all three into a blender and let it do its thing for about fifteen seconds. Once blended, pour the contents into a container and set it aside because you now have a righteous Pina Colada mix. See? That easy. 

For a single drink, pour about 1.5 to 2 inches of mix into the blender (depending on the size of your blending cup), a couple ounces of rum (more if you’re feeling daring), and your ice. FYI, a good rule of thumb is to fill whatever glass you’re going to be using with ice and dump that amount into the blender. Next, and this is the real secret, add a splash of half-n-half. This is going to make your drink wicked-smooth and creamy. 

Blend well and enjoy. Pineapple slices and cherries are optional.