BACK IN THE BLOGGING SADDLE

Advice: Don’t get behind in your blogging.

It’s been several weeks since I sat down and penned a post. (If it weren’t for a couple extensive airplane trips, it probably would have been a lot longer.)

The reason why I encourage you not to fall behind – it’s borderline painful when you start again. It’s a lot like running. You can be burning up the pavement for 20 miles a week, but if you take significant time off (three or four weeks), a 3-mile run seems like cruel punishment.

The underlying question – in both instances: Where do I start?

I’ve decided that small, easily digestible nuggets of thoughts and information are the best ways to ease back into this new-found hobby (when is comes to running…a lot of walking tends to help):

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS

We continue to move forward with our start-up process. We are finalizing our web site and have already started developing partnerships within the death-care industry.

Reminder: We want to make memorial giving as easy as possible.

We attended the National Funeral Directors Association meeting in Orlando and had a VERY positive response in regards to what we’re trying to accomplish.

Besides developing partnerships, we continue product development and have started doing research on securing additional capital.

I recently had an initial sit-down with the Small Business Development Center in Tarrant County. I probably should have had that meeting months ago, but I’m still excited about working with its advisors.

MARKING THINGS OFF MY LIST

I have marked several things off my “Attacking Life” list of 101 things in 1001 days. (I’ve also tried to document each “accomplishment” with a photo.)

Here are some of the items that I have been able to cross off (to see the entire list click here):

• No. 29 (Help build Habitat
  Humanity House)
  
• No. 43 (Participate in “Yoga Flow in the Japanese Garden”)
  
• No. 49 (Vote in a Presidential Election)
  
• No. 94 (Watch a football game at the “Horseshoe”)

Here are some 

of the items that I’ve started:

• No. 27 (Accumulate 1,000 volunteer hours). I have already posted 82 hours in 96 days – that puts me just a tad behind schedule
  
• No. 45 (Participate in regular Bible Study). I’m in the middle of a men’s fellowship at my church. The course is entitled, “Winning at Work and Home.”
  
• No. 93 (Read 200 books). I have read/listened to seven books to date. I’m currently reading “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” by Thomas Friedman and starting to listen to "Art of War" by Sun Tzu. (Are audiobooks cheating?)
  

Here are some of the items that I see coming down the tracks (I’m anticipating them to be crossed off before the end of 2008):

• No. 7 (Attend a Bikram Yoga class)
  
• No. 36 (Make Christmas cookies for my neighbors)
  
• No. 74 (Start customer service blog)
  

‘CHANGE HAS COME’

I was amazed at the Facebook Wall Posts after Obama was officially projected the 44th President of the United States. What amazed me more than anything was the significant discord and anger amongst my “friends.”

Words of disgust and hate overshadowed an historic day in the United States of America.

I made only one Post: “Drew hopes this
election inspires change. One man was elected president – WE must be the change, though.”

I don’t pretend to know if Barack Obama is going to be a good president, but I will say that America is paying attention right now.

As I was sitting in the Philadelphia airport, our new President-elect was holding his first news conference since the election. I won’t say everyone in the terminal was reading the closed captions on the TV monitors, but there were a significant number of people glued to that television.

Ironically enough, as I was scanning the crowd – wondering how many people would be paying attention if George W. Bush was holding a news conference – I saw a teenage girl walk by wearing her trendy Obama T-shirt.

As I watched his election-day speech from Grant Park, I said this to my wife, “I can only pray that he is able to build on this excitement that he is generating in this country. Right now, he has tremendous momentum working in his favor.”

ARE YOU WONDERFULLY GREAT?
I was checking in at the Pittsburgh airport recently, I heard a conversation between a customer and a ticket agent that stopped me cold.

The customer was a middle-aged gentleman with a mental disability. When the gate agent asked how he was doing, he responded in the most genuine tone you can imagine. “Wonderfully great,” he said with a smile. (It was almost like he was thrilled she actually inquired.)

I couldn’t help but smile, too.

When the ticket agent was assisting me, we briefly discussed the dialogue between her and the gentleman. We both agreed that if anyone asked either one of us the rest of the day, we’d both be “wonderfully great.”

As I walked away from the ticket counter, I wondered why everyone can’t always choose to be “wonderfully great.”