Monthly Archives: March 2009

Best Small Business Posts from im.seeking.balance

Posted on by
1
Photo: _ES on Flickr

Photo: _ES on Flickr

I have been re-evaluating my blog as of late. Forgive me for having paid you less attention than you deserve. I have been balancing work and family as usual but I have also been giving Urban Shore some much-needed love because I really feel like my community needs a home online. Anyway, I’ve been re-thinking a little bit about what I put here… at im.seeking.balance. I have decided to do a little less writing but, hopefully, make things a little more relevant, useful or insightful.

This is my home online.

This is where I share my knowledge, my thoughts and struggles, things I’ve learned, things I most certainly haven’t learned, things that make me think and things that make me laugh. But for those of you who have come to know my blog through your business interests, I have put together a bit of an index of some of my most popular business posts, and some that are less popular but I want to share nonetheless.

I do hope you’ll find something you can use. Please let me know if you have any questions you’d like to ask; I’m happy to accept topic suggestions! Thanks for reading and for sharing with me.

Hosting Your Own WordPress Blog

Posted on by
5

I made the switch from WordPress.com to my own self-hosted WordPress site a few months ago now; I also just moved Urban Shore to its own Bluefur server over this past weekend and am about to move Grouse Park Sessions to its new home on the web. In moving both my personal blogs I saw an immediate increase in search traffic and was able to do far more with the design of my sites. Not only are there more wordpress themes available for self-hosted blogs, but you can choose to use premium WordPress themes or add any number of WordPress plugins to customize your blog.

The theme for this blog is Thematic; Urban Shore uses Fusion. The plugins I have installed here are Akismet Spam Blocker, WordPress.com Stats, ShareThis, All In One SEO, Google XML Sitemap, Smart Tube, and Comment Luv. There are plugins for translations, events calendars, image galleries, 301 redirections, polls… basically if you can think it up, someone has created a plugin for it.

Moving your blog from WordPress.com’s free service to your own server has some tremendous benefits, but doing so can be scary for anyone who isn’t very technical, like me. So here is a how-to, in very specific steps, that will outline the exact process I used to get my blog on to its own server. Forgive me if it is a big boring list of steps… that’s kind of how it works; you know… if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…

Getting Started: Domain & Server

Buy your domain
I like NamesPro.ca for domain name purchases though BlueFur, my recommended hosting provider, offers domain name hosting as well. Depending on whether your domain is .ca or .com, .biz or .info or what have you, the price will vary slightly, but it’s not a lot of money.

bluefur-mini-unixOrder the hosting
I’m going to recommend you use BlueFur Hosting’s Mini Unix Package for $6.95/mo to get started. If you use the code ‘intrinsic’ upon ordering, you’ll get 10% off – thank you, affiliate programs. Select ‘Unix’ from the options and look for the ‘Mini Unix’ option. The drop-down defaults to one full year of hosting to save you 15% (that’s before the additional 10% for using the code ‘intrinsic’); you can change that if you’d like to monthly, quarterly, half year, or two years to choose the option that works best for you.

If you followed step 1 and bought a domain name ahead of time, enter it in the field when asked. If you’d like BlueFur to sell you one, you can select the other option – I just don’t know how that process goes. Once you’ve gone through the purchase process (you can pay via credit card or PayPal), you’ll wait up to about 12-24 hours for BlueFur to set up your account. Once they have, you’ll receive an email with a bunch of information. All you really need to know is your login info, ftp info and name server info. NOTE: This is not the login info for the help forums.

LOGIN INFORMATION:
Control Panel: http://yourdomain.com/cpanel or http://xxx.xxx.xx.xxx:1234
Username: username
password: x1x2x3x4x5x6

FTP INFORMATION:
FTP: yourdomain.com or xxx.xxx.xx.xxx
Username: username
password: x1x2x3x4x5x6

NAMESERVER INFORMATION
ns1.bf-baal.com
ns2.bf-baal.com

Export your WordPress.com blog
Visit your existing WordPress.com admin area, select ‘Tools’ and ‘Export’ and then ‘Download Export File’. Remember where you put the download file; you’ll need it later to import into your new WordPress admin area.

Change your DNS
Go to your domain name service provider, select the domain name in question and choose ‘specify your own name servers’. Then enter the name server information as it appears on the email you received from BlueFur.

namespro-name-server-dns

Once you enter the name server info, you can select ‘lookup’ and it will automatically find the associated IP address and populate that field for you.

Then you wait. It can take another 12 hours or so before the DNS is switched and your domain name will be pointing to your new server. While you’re waiting for this to happen, you can install the WordPress software on your server.

Installing the WordPress Software

The reason I recommend BlueFur, is they have a simple one-click ‘Fantastico’ install process. All you basically do is log in to your cpanel and click ‘Fantastico’ and BlueFur does the rest of the work for you. So if you’re doing this before your DNS change has taken effect, go to the link on the email they sent and click on the link that looks like an IP address with ‘:1234′ at the end of it. If you’re taking this step after your DNS change has taken effect you’ll visit http://yourdomain.com/cpanel.

Once inside, don’t panic. It looks scary. Scroll down… and look for this:

bluefur-cpanel-fantastico

Then click on the ‘Fantastico De Luxe’ button. Once you’ve clicked it, you’ll see this:

bluefur-cpanel-fantastico-wordpress

Select ‘WordPress’ from the list on the left, and then the ‘New Installation’ link once it appears.

The next window you’ll see will be a form. This information will be specific to your WordPress installation, not your server. In the first drop-down, your domain name should appear. Leave the next space empty. In the ‘Admin Access Data’ area, you set any username and password you want to use to log in to WordPress in your browser. After that, the info is self-explanatory.

Set Up Your Blog

Login to WordPress
Once your DNS change takes effect and the WordPress software is installed on the server, you’ll be able to log in to your WordPress admin area by going to http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/ and entering the username and password you used during the installation process. From there, it will look pretty much like the WordPress.com admin area you’ve become accustomed to.

Add Yourself As A User (Optional)
This step is unnecessary if you like the login name you gave your WordPress account. When you import your blog file, it will ask you what user you want to attribute everything to. If you only leave the original admin login set up, all your posts will be attributed to ‘username’ as you set it up in the last step. If that is ‘Admin’ that’s who will appear as the author of all your imported posts. If you would prefer they show up with your name, go to ‘Users’ and click ‘Add New’, then add your name as you want it to appear in your posts as a new username, give yourself a password you like to use, and then give your new user (you) the administrator role.

Import Your Blog Content
Go to ‘Tools’ on the left and click ‘Import’. Then choose ‘WordPress’ at the bottom of the list. You’ll then get a file select tool that you can use to go find the export file from your WordPress.com blog and import it. If you set up a new name account, be sure to select it from the list. You can also create it from there, but when I tried it I confused myself. It’s easier to do it as a separate step.

Choose and Apply Your Theme
Find a theme you like from the WordPress Theme Directory or a premium theme from a reputable developer. Download the .zip file. Extract the files to a single folder and place that folder within in the /public_html/wp-content/themes/ directory on your server. The easiest way to do that is an FTP client – I used FileZilla (it’s free). Just login using the FTP info supplied in the original email you received from BlueFur.

Once the folder is in the right place, the chosen theme will appear in your ‘Themes’ page in the ‘Appearance’ section of your WordPress admin area. You can then select the theme you want and continue with it as you did when you first set up your free theme on WordPress.com

You will need to set up your user settings, again, like how you want your permalinks structured, preferred comment moderation etc. but there isn’t much left to do at this point other than browse various plugins and install them right in the WordPress admin area.

So that’s it… in a nutshell. Happy blogging!

Choosing your Twitter Name Wisely

Posted on by
3

twitter_logoTwitter is all the rage right now and so I wanted to get this out there before you all jump on the bandwagon and make some mistakes – the same mistakes that I did, well… sort of.

Choose your username wisely.

Your username on Twitter is your @. Mine is @seeking_balance. It’s not bad, but If I’d gotten on the wagon sooner I may have been able to secure @michelleevans or @imseekingbalance or even @seekingbalance (all of which were taken but the time I got there). I might have even thought long and hard and tried to get @isb or just simply @balance.

Here is what I want you to consider:

I think if you’re going to tweet personally, try and get your name; if you’re going to tweet for a company, use the company name. Those are ideals. Now that said, don’t use either of those options if the name is long; the shorter the better. Here’s why: When communicating via Twitter, you only have 140 characters to say what you want to say. When you tweet, your username isn’t part of that count BUT, when someone replies to you, your @username becomes part of the message. Or if you want someone to re-tweet what you tweet, they will include “RT @username” which then can make it really difficult to post your whole tweet, especially if it used up nearly the full 140 characters to begin with.

So choose wisely. Shorter is better. Your name is good. Your company name is good. ‘CandyAss427′ is NOT good. ‘QUuElz’ looks like spam and usually is. This is not the time to go with that handle you’ve been using for the last 15 years just because you use it for everything.

This is your brand online. Proceed with caution.

EDIT (Added April 14, 2009) – I just came across this really good post called Ten Things You Must Know Before Using Twitter. It’s useful… go there next.

I [heart] Fridays: Fun Finds

Posted on by
1
Photo: lovestruck on Flickr

Photo: lovestruck on Flickr

It’s been a couple of months now since I wrote one of these, but I’d like to resurrect them. I love a good laugh and so when I find little nuggets of hilarity, no matter how offensive, I will post them here.

This week’s first funny comes from an unfortunate typo story as recounted on fmylife.com, which leads me to this week’s second funny: the whole fmylife.com site. Very offensive in most cases, but very funny. Funny because so much of it is stuff most people can relate to in some way.

On to something even more disturbing. By now you’ve probably heard of the new Doritos Guru Contest to name their new chip flavour and submit a campaign around it (brilliant idea from the Doritos folks, btw – free advertising and free creative. Nicely done; my hat’s off to you!) Here’s one from a friend of a friend… his idea: Searing Cheese.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4ohF9XZi1Q

[video]

I put my ipod through the laundry. Oddly they don’t stand up to that.

Yeah, that’s not really so funny I guess… well, maybe for you, I don’t know. But at least now I have a good excuse to go get another one; I just simply cannot go for a run without one, so off I go to Future Shop.

Full Service in a Self Serve World

Posted on by
1
Photo: SPangborn on Flickr

Photo: SPangborn on Flickr

Today I want to throw a shout-out to a little place where you can still get good old fashioned service with a smile… the Edgemont Village Chevron Station in North Vancouver.

A few days ago I noticed the right front tire of my car looked a little low, but I rarely drive it – it only goes about 60km/week – so I wasn’t too worried about it. I mean, it’s not that I can’t check my own tire pressure and fill it with air, but I don’t know where the gauge is, I can never find the proper pressure where it’s written on the tire or the car or whatever, and it’s been raining every day. So I’ve been avoiding the task with every procrastinating fiber in my body.

Then my husband noticed the tire.

He suggested I stop by a full service station next time I need gas. What? I’m sorry, did you say full service?

Today I visited the Edgemont Village Chevron Station, mid-way between my home and my work – a very convenient spot right in the middle of “the village”. The station looks a little like a throw-back to the 80′s… its pumps have been upgraded, but it doesn’t have much of a store to speak of – just a shack with oil, air fresheners, batteries and probably cigarettes (they used to, anyway). It also has a garage. I know… a very unusual sight.

So I rolled up and out strolled Rob.

Rob is a man who does a really good job of providing a full service experience. He filled up my gas and checked and corrected my tire pressure as I’d asked. He asked if I wanted anything else – like a windshield cleaning or the oil checked and I declined. It was so strange but I actually felt uncomfortable letting him do these things. They somehow felt like too much.

He joked around with me and laughed while going about his work. Once finished he handed me my receipt and as I started up my car the windshield wipers came on and bounced across the window… “Oh wait!” he said. “Let me clean those off for you. They make that sound when they’re dirty.” He proceeded to wipe a bunch of scunge off my wipers. “If they keep making that sound, you probably have resin on the windshield… you know, like sap from trees and stuff. Use a little Vim cleaner and it’ll come right off.”

I thanked him and went on my way, feeling very well taken care of… and I hadn’t even accepted the oil check and window cleaning!

A recent comment from Adchick on a post from Where’s My Jetpack got me thinking about customer service and what will help companies succeed in today’s economic environment.

In this self serve world we’ve created we’ve made everything faster, more efficient, cheaper. We go through self-check-outs at the grocery store, pump our own gas and pay at the pump, drive through automated car washes, use ATM machines, bank online, talk to each other using IM and email. Luggage and snacks on the plane cost extra; even the headphones aren’t included to save us $3 on the fare. We talk to machines to resolve customer service issues and we even have machines calling our homes to sell us stuff. We want cheap and fast even at the expense of human interaction.

People are craving a little attention. Aren’t you?

Photo: Shemer on Flickr

Photo: Shemer on Flickr

So maybe instead of spending all your time and energy thinking about how you can make things faster, easier, cheaper in order to make more on your bottom line… maybe you could stop and think instead about what will make your customers leave feeling like they’ve really been taken care of. Give them something that feels like extra, even if it isn’t. Give them so much value they feel the need to decline. Honestly I think peoples’ expectations of business are at an all time low; surely it can’t be hard to exceed them.

The next time you need to gas up your car, try out the full serve and ask for the works. If you’re from my neighborhood, visit the Edgemont Village Chevron and say “Hi” to Rob for me. Then think about how good it made you feel to get truly waited on and pass it on to someone else.

You won’t regret it.

Can’t Fight the Future

Posted on by
2

I recently had a very interesting conversation with three awesome women. These three women have one thing in common that absolutely fascinates me: They’re not on Facebook.

For that matter, they’re not on Twitter, or LinkedIn, or MySpace either. They have absolutely no desire to get involved with online social networking whatsoever.

The image to the right – the Conversation Prism, created by Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas – displays the myriad ways people can connect with one another online: Blogs, Social Neworks, Life Streaming, video, music and photo sharing, are just some of the activities that tie us together in cyberspace.

The subjects:

Woman #1 – Karen
Karen is a stay at home mom to two children and a wife to a hard working businessman. In her opinion, online social networking is for creepy people from her past – old high school acquaintances and old flames – to look her up and relive the glory days or outright stalk her. She barely has enough time to keep her kids stimulated, fed and cleaned and her house organized to throw in something so mundane as wall posts or super wall giggles.

Woman #2 – Laura
Laura is an elementary school teacher with a husband an a young son. Her biggest concern about online social networking is exposing her personal life to her students and their parents. School workplace politics are rough enough without one’s student’s parents knowing what events you may be attending or what you might be growing in your Li’l Green Patch.

Woman #3 – Sarah
Sarah is a businesswoman who owns a womens’ gym and is also married with one young son (yes, we all share some commonalities, hence, the hanging out together). She has no real desire to share anything of her personal life with the world via the internet; she’s perfectly happy to rely on interpersonal communication via either email or telephone, but prefers in-person connection.

Here’s where we disagree: While they each consider online social networking to be of very little value, I consider it to be a new and better way of communicating with people around me and a source of rich information and connection. Even the BBC says Social Networks ‘are new e-mail’.

Photo: Jason Nicholls on Flickr

Photo: Jason Nicholls on Flickr

Back in the 1990′s when email was making its way into mainstream business practice, there were still naysayers who suggested they didn’t need it. If they needed something from someone they could phone them up; if they needed a document signed they could fax it or mail the original. And before there was email there was the telephone. When it first became available, while there were a few who jumped on the bandwagon like the tech crowd to twitter, there were many who were reluctant to see its value, preferring instead to walk over to someone’s office to talk or wait for their regular meeting. Failing that, they could send a letter or a telegram. Seems a bit archaic now, no?

Technology changes. Today, we can sit on a plane traveling from Vancouver to London while accessing the internet on our iPhones using WiFi at 37,000′ to update our networks with a twitpic of the guy sitting next to us. Not because he’s interesting, but just because we can. If he’s drooling on your shoulder and you don’t know his first name, all the better.

Photo: Christopher Chan on Flickr

Photo: Christopher Chan on Flickr

Times they are most certainly changing, and it’s time to embrace the power of the internet for each and every individual. What provides value to one person might not provide value to the next, but if you look in the right place, you will find an enriching experience. Online social networks are extremely valuable in today’s society and can help with everything from job search to business marketing and from connecting with a niche hobby group to finding a local mom’s group.

No matter how obscure your interests or how lofty your goals, you can use online social networking to connect to others who share your passions and can help you achieve your dreams.

Online social network examples:

To Karen:
Online social networking can help you to connect with other mothers who share your passion for a sparkly-clean house. You can find other wives of executives that can relate to the stresses you’re under trying to raise your children while maintaining peace in your home that doubles as an office. You can also save valuable time looking for the best place to get your nails done by asking the question within your network to see what they come back with. After all… the collective response is usually pretty bang on.

To Laura:
Online social networking can help you to connect with other teachers who share your expertise to provide synergies within your class preparations – the Second Grade Teacher’s Club on Ning, for instance. You can find a welcome distraction from grading papers or build a space to deliberately connect with your students’ parents. How enriching an experience for your students if they had their own social network that you used to keep your classroom connected to one another for homework help, carpooling or group assignments?

To Sarah:
Online social networking can help you connect to your gym’s members, to make them feel special, to engage them with you and with one another. It can help you to improve sales in a time and place where everyone is searching for some spare cash. It can help you to find other adoptive moms to connect with and learn from or network with other professionals from your religious community who may not be in the same city.

Photo: Graham Ballantyne on Flickr

Photo: Graham Ballantyne on Flickr

You can avoid online social networks for a time, but imagine trying to live life without a telephone? It won’t last forever. You can’t fight the future, but you can make sure you’re getting the most enriching social networking experience possible.

Join Facebook. Connect with your friends. If people send you friend requests and you don’t want to invite them in, don’t. Life is too short to have to justify yourself. I don’t usually connect on Facebook with anyone I don’t know in real life and for the most part, there’s quite a close connection.

If you’re in business (or have ever had a professional job for that matter), join LinkedIn. Connect with your co-workers, former colleagues, former bosses, business contacts… You never know how you might be able to help someone out and you never know when you may need to lean on one of these relationships during a major life change like a move or a job loss.

If you have a hobby or are interested in some really interesting or obscure activity, check out Ning and see if there isn’t already a community for it. Knitting anyone? Model cars? Paddling?

Join Twitter. Just do it. I can’t tell you how much I love the connections I’ve made there. I’ve connected with business leaders in my field and moms from other countries. I’ve connected with other Vancouverites and other Ski Industry marketing professionals. If the conversation on Twitter isn’t any good for you, you’re not following the right people.

If you have friends who are not online, please help them. In the same way you wouldn’t let your best friend sport a mullet in 2009, don’t let them miss out on some of the best relationship building tools because they think it’s all going to be about awkward highschool moments they don’t want to relive.

Self Preservation Through Sport

Posted on by
2
Photo: m_e_l_o_d_y on Flickr

Photo: m_e_l_o_d_y on Flickr

I remember a childhood filled with sport. Is it just me?

I don’t remember having to drag my butt off the couch and give myself a self-pep-talk in order to get outside and enjoy myself. Do you?

I tried gymnastics, ice skating, roller skating (and not the inline variety – yes, I’m that old!), soccer, ballet, swimming, t-ball, track & field, skiing and basketball. My brother and my friends and I used to ride our bikes everywhere we went and walk to and from school about a mile each way. Being active was just a part of childhood.

Now I’m really going to sound old, but when I was a kid the TV programming was pretty bad (made worse by watching on a black & white TV), the closest we came to viable video games was Atari and Coleco Vision and a cassette tape only held about 20 songs. We didn’t get a computer until I was about 10 and then it had a tape drive and games included Pong and Space Invaders. Just. Not. Worth. It.

Anyway, back to sports…

Photo: carf on Flickr

Photo: carf on Flickr

There are certainly times in my life when I’ve been more active than at other times. When I was in elementary school I was always involved in at least one sport at any given moment. Through high school, however, I was much less involved as music became the centre of my world. At the end of high school, I joined the Canadian Armed Forces Reserves (to be a musician, actually) and found out just how unfit I had become. Wowza. Basic Training sure served to remind me of the need for a physical existence and awakened in me something I needed to explore.

I took up kickboxing in 2000, just before I turned 25. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. There’s something about martial arts training that really helps you to feel good about yourself and what your body is capable of. From there I added running and yoga. Running seems to feed my soul somehow – it’s so primal – and it also doesn’t hurt that it burns a crapload of calories. Yoga is a great complement to running in that it helps stretch out all the muscles that tend to want to shorten when I run. Add in my love of snowboarding in the winter and even the odd day kayaking in the summers and I feel my life has been enriched tremendously by these activities.

When I don’t get to participate in sport of some kind my life feels out of balance.

It’s so easy to say, “I don’t have any time for exercise.” The truth is, you have to make time. You wouldn’t say, “I just don’t have time to shower regularly so I don’t do it.” You would be gross. But what’s happening to your insides, your cells, your organs, your skin? What’s happening inside your body when you don’t make time for exercise? It isn’t pretty.

In my opinion, sport is the way to self-preservation, and I don’t think active living needs to be as hard as people make it out.

Photo: CasaDeQueso on Flickr

Photo: CasaDeQueso on Flickr

Photo: targophoto.com on Flickr

Photo: targophoto.com on Flickr

Now, if you’re anything like me you’d rather cut off your left arm than spend an hour on a cardio machine at the gym and follow it up with a series of weightlifting sets while staring at the spandex-clad fitness model doing one-armed pushups in the mirror. Forget gyms. Go elsewhere.

Going back to that childhood thing… we played sports, we made up games, we lived actively. We didn’t sit so still during the day we had to plan in a trip to a ‘fitness facility’ at the end of it else our muscles would atrophy. I think everyone needs to make it their goal to find a sport they enjoy and participate whenever possible. I don’t think this is an option; it’s absolutely imperative.

If you don’t like it, you won’t do it. If you don’t do it, it’s like not showering. But if you search and you find, I guarantee your life will be enriched and you will likely live longer.

Here are just some ideas for non-gym sports and activities you might enjoy, even if you hate the gym:

  • Kickboxing/tae-kwon-do/karate/muay thai (hard style martial arts)
  • Tai Chi/Kung-Fu/Capoeira (softer style martial arts)
  • Yoga (so many great styles to choose)
  • Ballet/hip-hop/belly dancing/pole dancing
  • Walking/running/hiking/trail running
  • Skiing/snowboarding/telemark/cross-country skiing/snowshoeing
  • Ice skating/hockey/curling
  • Swimming/diving
  • Cycling/Cross-Country or Downhill Mountain Biking
  • Softball/Baseball
  • Soccer (indoor or outdoor)
  • Surfing/Wind Surfing/Kite Surfing
  • Rock Climbing/Ice Climbing/Mountaineering
  • Kayaking/Canoeing/Rowing/Dragon Boating
  • Scuba Diving
  • Water Skiing/Wakeboarding
  • Bowling/Lawn Bowling
  • Ultimate Frisbee
  • Football/Flag Football
  • Volleyball
  • Tennis/Badminton/Ping Pong
  • Squash/Handball/Racketball
  • Horseback Riding/Water Polo
  • Golf

There really is no need to ever set foot in a gym again if you don’t enjoy it.

I’m going to continue running and snowboarding when time permit, hitting the odd yoga class as I can fit it in and hiking the Grouse Grind once the trail opens. What do you like to do to stay active and enrich your life?

An Army of Prayer Warriors

Posted on by
2

childhood-friend-wedding-dayMy long-time childhood girlfriend got married today. She met her husband last fall. They began dating some time in December… he proposed on February 13th and they got married today – one month later.

When you know, you know.

This was one of the most unique weddings I’ve ever seen. I suppose it wasn’t unique to your average Orthodox Jew, but as a common gentile, I sure had never seen a wedding like it before.

Last night was a planned girls’ night before the wedding, but certain formalities were to be included. Both the bride and groom had to participate in ritual baths and fasting from sundown the night before, so we shoveled in some dinner together before the sun dipped below the horizon and proceeded to spend the rest of the evening engaged in some serious girl talk.

We finally called it a night around midnight because the wedding was scheduled for roughly 8am the next morning. We got up about 5am and proceeded to primp and prep and get ourselves dressed in our modest but stylish ensembles. All of us gals are married, so we had some fun deciding what hats to wear – married women are to cover their hair. And while I did have a really good time trying on every hat for sale on the North Shore, my favourite preparation was squeezing myself into panty hose for the first time in a zillion years… ack, those are awful.

An army of young men arrived with two Rabbis about 7:15am to pray over the wedding for about half an hour or more. There was something touching about that. I know it’s ritual, but there’s something special about knowing the people around you and your community are coming together in prayer to bless their marriage. Marriages should be honoured so much more than they are in our society.

happy-familyThe wedding was really quiet – but I think I did a really good job of standing still and saying nothing. That doesn’t really come naturally to me, so I did feel a hint of pride at my own accomplishment. The prayer warriors held up the chuppah – the marriage canopy – under which the groom gave the bride a ring and her silence indicated no objections. There was a signing of the marriage contract, some more blessings, some ceremonial hand washing, breaking of bread and again more prayers.

In the end someone who means a great deal to me is moving on to share her life with a wonderful man who makes her happy, loves her as she deserves and makes a great dad to her adopted two year old son. I couldn’t be more happy for her… or for him.

Today is the first day of the rest of their life together, and I wish them the very best this life has to offer – love, laughter, peace and joy and many many years of blessings to come.

Mazel Tov!

Funny How it all Melts Away

Posted on by
1
Photo: Miguel Ramirez on Flickr

Photo: Miguel Ramirez on Flickr

Guess I’m learning a valuable lesson in blogging: if you don’t write, there is no reason for people to visit.

Work has had me super busy lately. It’s the time of year when I’m focused on the biggest sales campaign of the year, plus I’m planning for the next year. Our fiscal year begins June 1st, so I have to have my plan and budget in place well in advance of that – drafted by the end of March, in fact. Add to that the fact that I’m starting to drift into launching our summer season (yes, I know we just received a foot of new snow) because it kicks off the May long weekend and we need all of our summer marketing materials in place by then.

So blogging has had to take a back seat.

I have a whole bunch of draft posts sitting waiting to be written. Concepts in my head that I want to share with all of you but somehow don’t have the time. As I sit here writing this it’s after 11pm, and I’m bagged because I got busy building a new wordpress.com site for a friend who never asked for one (though he can desperately use one). I did, however, find a new favourite free theme that offers some great customization without needing CSS – bonus! (one of those draft blogs I’d like to take the time to write properly).

This little hiatus from original thought has caused my subscriber and visitor counts to plummet… oops. Sorry.

To those of you who read regularly, please know I haven’t forgotten about you. I’m still reading your blogs though I haven’t had much opportunity to comment on the wonderful stuff I’m reading. In fact, just this morning I plowed through 200 or so outstanding items in my feed reader while cuddling my 3 year old with Elmo in the background haha… now there’s multitasking for you.

While I’m still searching for the ever-elusive work-life-balance that I believe is so important, the words of Gary Vaynerchuk and Seth Godin keep ringing in my ears: Go out and crush it! Now is the best time to go out and invest in yourself and your future. Learn all there is to learn. Build connections. Be great at what you love…

It all spurs me on. I want to build something really useful. I want to help people by sharing the knowledge that’s bottled up in my head with anyone who will listen.

In the meantime, I’ll settle for specific questions, comments or queries… is there anything you want to know that you think I can help with? I’m happy to give it my best shot.

I want to see you succeed too.

Belly Laughs

Posted on by
1

Do you ever just need a good laugh?

I do. All the time. And there are times, particulary when I’m stressed out, that I enjoy a good laugh more than others. So yesterday, I put out a question to my trusty Twitter followers, asking for them to hook me up with laugh links.

Here’s what they came up with…

The first is from Failblog, where I should always remember to go when I feel a need to take myself to the edge of peeing my pants:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYckGMNknQw

Then, my friend Karl Woll of Outdoor Vancouver sent me this Excessive Ping Pong Celebration video… which gets funnier and funnier the more you watch it, particularly when you realise the music is edited in for the video and this guy was celebrating to just the music in his own head.

This next video made me laugh so hard I felt uncomfortable but did manage to forward it to my one black colleague… I figured he’d get as much of a kick out of it as the Stuff White People Like blog he was enjoying in the office a couple of weeks ago.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWblCaFL1lc

Next up, dinosaurs, pigs, farts and stuff…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWRDjTm1wto

Then this one shows how I feel during the night with a snoring husband, only this baby is cuter than I am and doesn’t assault the snorer with a poorly disguised kick.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEUVwfp8gF8

The Piece de Resistance was this offering from @GodFodder who sent me a Whose Line Is It Anyway sketch featuring Richard Simmons… worthy of forwarding all ’round the office. Not sure my General Manager really thought it was as funny as I did, but whatev.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ_lXJTaT5g

I still maintain laughter is good for the soul.