Archive for the ‘personal’ Category

A reason to give thanks

Posted: November 25, 2010 by datechguy in personal
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There are a lot of reasons to give thanks on Thanksgiving day. I want to mention one that recently came up.

As you know with the Radio Show I’m just flat-out. The mornings consist of reading news and getting a few blog posts up and scheduled (in between getting the youngest to school) I’m usually out every day schlepping ads during the day When I get home I’m calling corporate offices or e-mailing my pitch and then working on scripts for people who either have bought or are potential buyers..

That being the case It’s easy to miss an e-mail. As I was setting up my Quickbooks I went to paypal to get the info on some ad payments when I noticed a $100 gift from a person I met in February.

You have to remember three years ago $100 represented 5 hours at my old job. Four weeks ago $100 represented one day of unemployment. Today $100 represents hours of knocking on doors and making my pitch to business after business in the hopes of selling ad space for the Radio Show and 1/12th of my monthly mortgage.

I e-mailed my thanks to the gentleman and reminded him that since I have a radio show now I could apply the money toward an ad for his business if he wanted.

His answer: This is a gift that is my pleasure to give.

How can you not be thankful for something like that?

To all of you out there, readers, listeners, commentators, and to those who I have had the pleasure to meet a Happy Thanksgiving and many more.

As you know I love the book Man of the House In it Tip O’Neill tells the story of Mrs. O’Brien during his 1935 race for the Cambridge City Council. The only race he ever lost. When she says to him that she will vote for him even though he didn’t ask.

When O’Neill protested that he had known her since he was a child, had shoveled her walk and cut her grass, and didn’t think he had to ask for her vote, she replied, “Tom, let me tell you something. People like to be asked.”

Yesterday after my dentist appointment I was going door to door to business in Leominster promoting the show and trying to sell ads. I was having no luck selling when I noticed a small insignificant looking African variety store with a Ghanian flag on the door.

Logic said pass it by after all at best I could hope to sell a $20 ad for a single week, so why bother when Wyman’s Liquor Mart Inc was across the street and Leominster Credit Union was there. But you know I was there and it never hurts to ask. Turned out the man there owns an international shipping company that ships to the gold coast of Africa: Ghana, Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria and when I told him the range of my 50,000 watt radio signal he asked me to come back on Tuesday with Ad samples.

If I had ignored that little story I would have lost my best lead of the day.

Which brings us to the blog htotherdizzle and Hallie Miller.

Last night I found a comment pending for my Good News runneth over post it said the following:

Hi! My name is Hallie and I have entered a Savvy Magazine photo shoot contest. I know you don’t know me but the winners are chosen by the public and if the public doesn’t know they need to vote…well, you guessed it, no one votes! Could you take a moment and look at my photos and decide if you would vote for me or not? Thanks! Here’s the link, could you pass it along?

It had all the classic signs of spam, an icon of a beautiful woman, a link different from the e-mail but I also noticed it was a wordpress blog, and my spam filter didn’t grab it. Intrigued I searched for the name, and did a search for the link and sure enough it goes to a modeling site that is having a contest.

I thought of Tip O’Neill’s story and I thought of all the doors I have knocked on in the last few days and realized she is doing the exact same thing I am. She is chasing her dream unafraid to ask a total stranger to help.

So Hallie Miller this is my gift to you, I am not only approving your comment, and voting for you but I am linking to your post on the contest and putting up this blog post to let everybody know about it.

I hope my readers go to the Explore modeling Site to vote for you.

Happy Thanksgiving Hallie!

Update: I didn’t include a picture of Hallie Miller because I didn’t have her permission, but I did tell the story to Stacy McCain who is a lot less shy.

Oh BTW you can vote once per day. Works for me.

Smitty is deploying today

Posted: November 20, 2010 by datechguy in personal
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He just tweeted his goodbyes.

As you might guess I have a lot on my mind today but this puts things in perspective.

Next to Smitty’s situation the success or failure of a radio show is totally insignificant.

God keep you safe Smitty

Smitty may God bless you

Posted: November 11, 2010 by datechguy in blogs, personal, special events
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There were a lot of touching Veterans day posts today but the most touching was Smitty’s announcement of his last post for the duration of his deployment.

I’ve been aware of his impending deployment for a while, things being how they are in Afghanistan REMF or no there is not guarantee of safety anywhere in the nation.

I would hope that even those who have disagreed with Smitty over the years will respect the service he will be doing on behalf of all of us. On a personal note. Smitty has hosted me in his house. We have shared our troubles with each other and laughed together.

I look forward to the day that he comes home and we can laugh together again.