Taking flight
There was a nice article titled "AA helps many souls take flight" (you can use 'nobody@coldmail.com' with password 'mugsgame' to log in) in the Toronto Star last Tuesday about this coming weekend's AA International Convention there:
Aerodynamically speaking, bumblebees are said to be incapable of flight. By any reasonable standard, the world conference being held in Toronto on Canada Day weekend should be equally impossible.

Alcoholics. About 50,000 of them. Folks who couldn't be trusted to bring home the pay packet running a multi-million-dollar undertaking. Folks who could scarcely get themselves to work organizing one of the biggest conferences in this town's history. Folks who once thought only of themselves volunteering to get things ready for visitors from all over the world. And doing it all without dues or fees or fundraising campaigns or leaders or much of an organization at all.

Who could be blamed for saying that, in a logical world, it should never get off the ground?

Yet there will be alcoholics enough in Toronto to fill the Rogers Centre until it runneth over (three times, in fact). And, touch wood, there won't be a lampshade, impaired charge or bouncer-issued black eye to be seen. For they will be (or most of them anyway) as sober as the judges who used to lock them up. As sober, in fact, as the judges who will certainly be in their number. Along with butchers, bakers, candlestick makers — and people in any other line of work you care to name.

The conference, to mark the 70th anniversary of Alcoholics Anonymous, will more or less be a rolling series of AA meetings. In that sense, it might be one of the larger storytelling festivals Toronto's ever had. For what an AA meeting is, at its core, is the telling of tales....

uhhhhhhhh,ha ha
That is about how I feel this morning, I worked all day yesterday pulling security at the local Bazaar and I am beat this morning. Sucks tho because I did not get to do any shopping myself.

Anyway, I came in early this morning to get some work done and of course it didn't happen. Insted, I log on to my computer only to see that the wife of a friend of mine is logged on so I say hi. Now her and her husband have been real close friends of mine for some time now and she began to tell me about some of the issues she is having. Now her husband, my friend, is in Iraq right now. The adjustment has been a littel difficult for her, the kids, and him as well. I know that I have been very fortunate with the capability to get online when I want and call home most every day and my friend is not able to do it. It is tearing his wife up. The kids are accting up, the oldest almost got kicked out of school, there are issues within the family they are having to deal with, and just a whole slew of new emotions and situations to deal with that are not easy. How does one do this, I find great strength in no only my own wife but in all military spouses, it takes a lot out of a person to deal with this lifesyle. I can't even begin to put it into words so I am going to post this poem. It is something that was sent to me last year and I have held on to it since. Please enjoy the read. It is amazing.

Core a post
To go, as long as I am there, as I have two minutes, I send this post to you.
I have just read it on a mailing list. Found bô too much. With you to judge...:

A young lady, having received of a young man a letter which contained a declaration of love, sent to him for any answer a very white paper sheet. The young man returned to the young lady the worms suivans:

I received it this so flattering ticket,
This soft ticket of which impure ink
Whiteness did not profane,
And of which the invisible writing,
Escaping in my eyes, is made read in my heart,
Nothing more eloquent often than silence,
Twenty times your glances one say to me;
Thus, of this ticket where you did not write anything,
I know what it is necessary that I think.
It was never a happier means!
That it serves your delicacy well!
And that I find tenderness
In this ticket which does not say anything!
I see there all transport of a heart which épanche;
Decency does not come there to force your consents;
And without reddening, by this happy turning,
With my love you give WHITE CHART.

Horrible...
What I'm Reading

Lots and Lots of manuscripts ( as always )

Been very busy with work lately -- Good thing, of course.
I'm just pretty much blown away with how much has to get done in relation to how much time i have to get things done in. Who ever first said that there just weren't enough hours in the day certainly knew what he was talking about.

... I still haven't finished my Quickbooks.
Which means I've been putting off sending out my Invoices. Which means - well, let's just say "DUH!" I'm getting all my work done, I'm just not getting paid. Smart....

Ok, Back to work - and I'll go do that quickbook setup....

Death To Quickbooks
What I'm Reading

...shoot, I just finished a Romance, can't even remember the name. Ouch.
Yours Until Dawn - (Medeiros)
Bunch o' manuscripts & queries... as usual!


Yesterday I went to my accountant's office with my back-up copy of Quickbooks in hand. Oh, that was just a plain ol' disaster. Even thinking about quickbooks gave me this enormous stress head ache, so there I was - with my cranium pounding as if someone inside it kicking a large metal pot with steel toe boots.

So as I did my best not to blank out entirely -- (I think I even learned a little!) -- I really thought to myself, "It would be So easier to hire someone to take care of all of this." I think I uttered something around those lines and the woman helping me screamed, "Oh no!!! You can do this all on your own." I wish I had kept my big fat mouth shut. Now, it's a matter of pride!

So -- I got a tutorial and the book out. This weekend will be a QuickBooks weekend...

::sigh::

In the HOTEL
We are for a few days in a hotel some share in France. Our portable computer accompanies us in order to always be able to reach our blog.
During two nights, of the 5 to the 6 and the 6 to March 7, we will voluntarily leave the key of our room, the 203, on the lock of the door external side, like if we had forgotten it...
If you find the hotel in question, you will be able to thus return when you want and being the passive or… active witness, if affinities, of our various plays...
Of course, you have as much chance to fall on this famous key than to gain in Euromillion but do not forget that almost each time there is at least one gaining!
If nothing occurs concretely, which remains most probable, the phantasm will be, him, always present, for you as for us. Then, that you soyiez a man alone, a woman alone or a couple
tell us how you would see this intrusion in reality... A prose with dominant poetic does not prohibit the evocation of nude images, we leave you completely free provided that through this epistolary exercise you can take as much pleasure
that with us to give... A of it your feathers... excites us...

Familial Company
What I'm ReadingI'm not - I'm all read out. I started working with an agent in NYC twice a week - I take home four to eight manuscripts each day, and read almost the entire time I'm there. I'm pooped. I'm cutting back on the recreational reading - which is good. Will free up more time at home, and save my savings.So, I spent half the day doing research and making phone calls to different companies to discuss the purchasing of copy equipment. We're thinking of opening up a copy center downstairs and I'm trying to run the numbers and see how it goes.Otherwise, I finally got a chance to speak with the designer that I hired about the promotional material ... she offered to break the contract, and I took it. She also offered to simply rush the work, and do it all in a day... which was nice, I suppose. But, I gotta a little worried that she didn't think anything of rushing a whole months work (according to the bill I'm paying) into a single day. So, I bailed. In hindsight, I'm not sure if it was the right decision - but it feels right, and that's really all I have to go by.I have a phone meeting (oh... ah...) tomorrow morning with the agent I'm working with. I'll see what she wants to talk about, I'm not really sure what she had in mind. But, I have a few questions that would be better via "real" conversation and not email. So that works for me.Nothing more to report, really.I'm kinda fried.I need to relax this weekend - so I can really get back to work on Monday!

Shameless Self-Promotion
What I'm Reading
The new Stephanie Bond book - which I believe is coming out next month with Avon (good stuff)
Take Out the Trash by Dixie Cash (real name? I think not)
Lehigh Valley Style Magazine (I'm pitching them a client, and am getting myself familiar)


I set up shop at the Lehigh Valley Connections trade show yesterday - To be perfectly honest, I hadn't heard too much about it before hand, so I was worried no one would show up. There were a nice group of people - and I spent a few hours talking and shmoozing and meeting new people. I actually had a great time!

I made a few appointments for next week and have a nice list of follow up work that I have to do. It was actually a lot of fun - and I'd love to be able to concentrate on that sort of thing - you know, hire some really great PR people to create a self-sufficient team and then be able to go out and network, get more business, work on proposals and brainstorm...

Anyway, there are a lot of great businesses in the Lehigh Valley - I'm looking forward to utilizing some of the locals. I'm a big believer in working with the small businesses in my area - I guess, being a small business in my area, if I have to purchase goods or services it makes sense to use people like myself. You know? The unfortunate thing is that they are usually a bit more expensive than their national, larger corporate counterparts. Hard to compete.

So, what did I do today? I talked to a few people about sponsoring the Swain School auction this upcoming spring - Did I mention that I'm chairing the Dinner & Auction this year? I am. If you'd like to be a sponsor or advertise in this year's catalogue --- shoot me an email. It's going to be a great year, we're looking to raise about $150,000 to finish paying for the elevator to make the entire school handicap accessible to students and disabled visitors. Not to mention that part of that money goes to the scholarship fund to allow students who would otherwise be unable to afford the tuition - to come to Swain. It's a great school. I like it a lot and love talking it up - so soliciting companies and the media on their behalf is easy.

I think that's why I'll never get to be a very big agency. I would rather choose to stay small and work with companies that I like, that I can be eager and passionate about ... and the world is just not full of such companies. Then again, I'm sure it is easy to get passionate about three meals a day and a roof over your head, so if push came to shove, I'm sure that I'd take a client on that if I had the resources, wouldn't otherwise. Thank goodness I'm not at that point right now. I hope I never am. I want to make enough money for my family to be comfortable. To help send my kids to college (although, I expect them to save their own money for the same purpose), and to retire at a descent age if I choose to. The rest? I don't need a second and third house (no matter what my lawyer suggests... he's a hoot) - but, I'd like to higher other people. I like the idea of spreading the wealth.

Then again, perhaps I'm just naive. I don't know. We'll see, I guess.

Where was I going with all of this? The trade show! Yes, so, it was great. I had a chance to meet a lot of great people. Make new contacts. Talk, chat, pass around my newly designed business cards (thank you Tony!!!).

I'm going to run - I still have some work I'd like to do before packing it all in for the night.
:) Next time I write, I'll tell you about the lease negotiations that I'm going to go through this week - and the three pages of notes my lawyer (Buddy) gave me on the two page lease (practically). Fun stuff. I also have a meeting with my insurance agent and my accountant next week. I am CHOCK full of professional service providers this week. :) Oh, where does the cash go?