The town I live in is home to a number of interesting and notable people in American history: James Michener, Pulitzer winner and author of “Tales of the South Pacific;” Oscar Hammerstein, lyricist and playwright behind such classics as “Oklahoma!” and “The Sound of Music;” the famed anthropologist, Margaret Meade, who, coincidentally, is the source of one of my favorite quotes: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”; and Henry Mercer, the American archeologist, artifact collector and tile-maker.
Every holiday season, the local high school symphonic bands perform inside Mercer’s museum of 40,000 pre-Industrial Revolution tools. The students are strewn throughout the poured concrete structure, some on the main floor with the conductor, trombones on the second floor, a lone trumpeter in a third floor alcove, French horns tucked behind a wheelbarrow from the early 1800s. It’s a high testament to the young musicians to play as well as they did without being able to see the conductor.
As travelers and storytellers, we often dream of shooting in far off lands. But, as my friend Joan reminds us, don’t forget to get out and visit the sites in your own backyard.
It’s taken me longer than I expected to write this post. It’s been a decade since Eric and Kim Norlin sent out the first registration link for a small Denver-based conference called Defrag. 10 years for a tech conference is a helluva run.
Defrag had a long run because Eric and Kim made it something special. Attendees never knew what to expect from the agenda other than it would be mind-expanding and changing until about two weeks out. Unlike many conferences, the talks weren’t chosen by committee. They were chosen by whatever Eric saw coming down the pipe that the community might need to get in front of. From connections between housing starts and ladders falling off of trucks at one exit in Los Angeles to tales of dinner table conversations with computing greats and cosmonauts in training…Defrag never disappointed.
Luckily, much of what made Defrag great will carry on at Eric and Kim’s other long-running conference: Gluecon. Different time of the year (May instead of November), but same Bat channel. If you’ve never attended, I encourage you to register and come prepared to learn from some of the smartest people in the business.
And, if you’re like me and have been to more Defrag’s and Glue’s than you can count, I’ll see you, my friends, in May at the Omni.
We all have them. Moments from our childhood that stick with us. Of course, some stick with us more than others. They are part of the narrative documenting our journey through life; the stories that create the adults we become.
Growing up, my brother and I spent a lot of time with two of my cousins. We were all two years apart. Brian and I occupied the middle, bookended by Larry at the older end and my younger brother, Greg, at the other. Their mom, my aunt Kathy, was a prominent character in my narrative.
Aunt Kathy is the reason I never took up smoking. “You think it looks cool? Try it.” We were sitting around the wooden table in her kitchen. That was the first and last time I put mouth to cigarette. A teaching moment in my personal narrative.
I don’t think I ever saw her not smiling or laughing. Except for the afternoon Brian and I didn’t tell her we were going for a walk and her car pulled up behind us on Asbury Road a few miles from the house. That was definitely a moment.
Even as Alzheimer’s took over her life at a way too early age, she found a way to smile. I saw it in the photos my parents took visiting her over the years she lived with this horrible disease. I saw it in the photos my cousins posted to Facebook (where the images from this post came from). My aunt Kathy passed away on July 2, 2014. She was 68 years old.
Her role in my narrative is why I jumped at the chance a little over a month ago to help the Dementia Society of America build and promote a program to raise awareness around dementia and brain health.
More than 6,000,000 people in the U.S. live with a form of dementia. 1 in 9 people age 65 and older live with a form of dementia. 1 in 3 U.S. seniors will die with dementia. Dementia is the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S. Alzheimer’s and CTE are two of 10 types of dementia
On May 7th, we’re kicking off a grassroots challenge called Step2Raise. People from across the nation will register their FitBits and other health trackers to walk a combined 6 million steps — enough to virtually walk across America — over the 44 day period between Mother’s Day weekend and Father’s Day.
What makes this challenge different than others is that it’s not a fundraiser. There is no financial or fundraising commitment asked of participants. You just need to register and walk.
Walk a mile, walk 10,000 steps. Every step counts.
The all-volunteer, non-profit Dementia Society of America is underwritten through the generosity of individual donations and corporate supporters. 100% of any donations that come into the organization during Step2Raise will go directly into a program called Ginny Gives Grants. The program was created to enhance the quality of life for those living with dementia, their caregivers, and the public at-large, by underwriting events and activities in places like nursing homes and continuing care residential communities. It accomplishes this by providing small grants to musicians, artists, therapists and performers. This year alone, Ginny Gives Grants recipients delivered life-enriching art, music, movement and touch programs to more than 600 people living with dementia.
The Ginny Gives program was created to honor the life of Dementia Society of America founder Kevin Jameson’s wife, Ginny, who died shortly after my aunt Kathy after a valiant struggle with dementia. I recently interviewed Kevin to learn more about Ginny and her namesake program. You can here her story in his own words below.
Like my aunt Kathy, Kevin and Ginny have become part of my own narrative. If you have a fitness tracker, I encourage you to register and support this valuable program to help those living with dementia (and share it with your family and friends on Facebook).
Sure, one could say ManeyDigital is located way out in the sticks. But one would be wrong.
Especially when there’s an experimental rocket engine startup right in our backyard (the same backyard, mind you, that is home to the centrifuge every Apollo astronaut trained in…and my oldest daughter summer camped at).
Since man landed on the moon nearly half a century ago, minimal advances in space-propulsion technology have limited the development of modern space applications. That is about to change. The Cannae Drive is a revolutionary space drive that breaks the stalemate between current technology and our imaginations.
Oh yeah. The rocket engine (experimental thruster) company’s head of media? Some local guy named Joel Hodgson, MST3K (must be some newfangled doctorate title).
So here’s the deal: Last year, Matt Helmke and I undertook an epic multi-state beer run from Philadelphia to Portland to attend Monktoberfest. Along the way, we made like Zane Lamprey and Pleepleus by stopping at a number of craft breweries. At each stop, we interviewed the head brewer and put a case or two of their tasty beer into the back of my Tahoe. We arrived in Portland with close to 13 cases of Dogfish Head, River Horse, Old Burnside and Harpoon to share with attendees (on top of all of the ridiculously crazy good beer provided by Steve and the Redmonk crew).
This year, we’re making the same Philadelphia-to-Portland run…with a twist.
Come to find out, there’s a site that let’s you plug in your origin and destination and it spits out a map showing the breweries along your route. Which got me thinking: Why not let the Monktoberfest participants decide which breweries to visit on our annual pilgrimage?
So, take a look at the map. Study it. Then tweet out your top five choices (copying me @the_spinmd). Voting closes at the end of happy hour (ET) on Friday, 9/13. I’ll then tally the responses, gas up the truck and make like The Bandit.
For the past year or so, I’ve used Fridays as an opportunity to post inspirational, feel good stories to Facebook. It was my way of offsetting some of the more negative posts that a lot of us tend to inundate our feeds with throughout the week. I am as, if not more, guilty in this…though I like to think of mine as discussion starters :)The title of the posts grew out of a line from the movie “Dave.” For those of you not familiar, it’s a flick about an actor (Kevin Kline…who I met on the set of Saturday Night Live years ago…tall man) who impersonates a corrupt president who had a stroke. Dave (Kline’s character) has a day job as a temp agency owner who believes that anyone who wants to work should be able to work.
Dave: If you’ve ever seen the look on somebody’s face the day they finally get a job, I’ve had some experience with this, they look like they could fly. And its not about the paycheck, it’s about respect, it’s about looking in the mirror and knowing that you’ve done something valuable with your day. And if one person could start to feel this way, and then another person, and then another person, soon all these other problems may not seem so impossible. You don’t really know how much you can do until you, stand up and decide to try.
For some reason, that quote got stuck in my head (along with a ton of other useless information that serves no apparent purpose). But this one did end up serving a purpose. It makes me want to be a better person. It makes me want to highlight people who go above and beyond what is expected of them in today’s society. And I hope it makes others want to do the same thing.That’s what inspired “Because On Fridays We Inspire.” Until now, it’s been a single, weekly post by one person. But I think it could be bigger.
We can find meaning and reward by serving some higher purpose than ourselves, a shining purpose, the illumination of a Thousand Points of Light…We all have something to give. – President George H. W. Bush, 1989 Inaugural Address
So, here’s what I’d like to do — and it involves each of you: Every Friday, use your first Facebook status update to highlight a story of inspiration you’ve heard or read about. Headline it like I do with an all-caps BECAUSE ON FRIDAYS WE INSPIRE. Encourage your Facebook friends to do the same (or, at the very least, share your first Friday post).President Bush pushed for a thousand points of light. I think we can highlight millions of them.
Redmonk founder Stephen O’Grady posted a great recap of Monktoberfest 2012 (complete with the list of amazing, impossible-to-find beers they served). I’m slightly partial to this paragraph:
Mike Maney, a longtime Friend of RedMonk, arranged and shot the video for the conference on his own. He and his colleague Matt Helmke turned their travel to the Monktoberfest into an epic 7 state roadtrip, featuring stops at craft breweries all the way from Delaware to Maine. From Riverhorse to Olde Burnside to Harpoon, they went from brewery to brewery, collecting stories and – thanks to some very gracious donations – beer.
Crazy un-marketing ideas like this — the kind where you do what is right for the communities you do business in — aren’t possible without the support of forward-thinking executives like Laura Merling and the sure-what-the-hell-why-not participation of great pros like Matt Helmke and Justin Tormey.
