Posts Tagged ‘life is good’

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.

Tip O’Neill, Beesshipping and Hallie Miller

Posted: November 24, 2010 by datechguy in blogs, business, DaTechGuy on DaRadio, employment, oddities, personal
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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.

I can’t thank you enough…

Posted: November 21, 2010 by datechguy in DaTechGuy on DaRadio
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…the reviews from listeners have been uniformly good so far, in fact I seem to be the toughest critic of the show spotting several things I would like to have done over. (I can’t believe I forgot to mention the blogs web site or the show’s e-mail) but so far even the most cynical people I’ve talked to liked the show with only minor critiques. The proof of the pudding was tonight, between the end of the show and the typing of this message a new advertiser signed on for a month of shows!

I really want to thank all of those from both sides of the aisle who have wished me luck, those good wishes and prayers are something that are priceless.

I want again thank my advertisers no matter if you are buying for one show or months of shows you are helping me pay the bills. I am very grateful.

I want to thank Stacy McCain for his very gracious post having Stacy McCain as a friend is an incredible blessing.

And I don’t know how I rate a friend such as Cynthia Yockey.

I will do my best to continue to improve the show to make it worth of the support of my advertisers, listeners and friends.

BTW I am looking for Massachusetts-based conservative bloggers to be in studio guests. I will likely set up a regular roter with people I already know but I’ll wager there are lots of great blogger in the state that I’ve never read, if you are one of them put a link to your blog in comments and I’ll check it out.

Christopher Hitchens nails it in two sentences

Posted: November 14, 2010 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news, short films/interviews
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I am really going to regret when Christopher Hitchens is gone, and I confess it will be for my own loss of a person who’s writing gives me pleasure and his almost Cryanoistic honesty to his own beliefs (even when they are horribly wrong i.e Christianity) rather than for pity as he has lived a pretty interesting life and everybody has to die eventually.

The latest interview of him in the London Observer conveys all of the joy of reading Hitchens that I have but there is one line that is so important and so true and so totally ignored that it should be screamed from the mountaintops to everyone particularly to Thomas Freedman and the left:

As an aside on Mugabe, he makes one of those observations that are so precisely to the point that you wonder why so few other commentators ever get round to coming to it emphasis mine. “Darfur, Zimbabwe, Burma, North Korea, anywhere that the concept of human rights doesn’t exist, it’s always the Chinese at backstop. And always for reasons that you could write down in three words: blood for oil.”

This is the most vital part of the piece for two reasons. the first being that he cuts to the truth of the current world situation in two sentences, but the second is due to the interviewer Andrew Anthony unintentional indictment of the entire intelligentsia of the world who have not been willing or able to speak that basic truth.

Red China (and yes I use Red deliberately) has long supplanted Russia as the main focus of human rights abuse and supporter of same around the world. The rest of the world fearing their military and coveting their potential economic power ignore this truth but the reality is there. Hitchens is willing to say it. Nobody else dares because they see no personal profit in it, much easier to make a living hitting the United States.

As I said I’ll miss Hitchens when he is gone, and so will millions who stand up for freedom of speech around the world.

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