Last year my grandfather lost his battle with cancer.  He fought it for all he was worth, but for anyone who knew him that should not come as a shock.  He was, as some people may call it, stubborn, but I saw him as determined.  He wasn’t my biological grandfather, my mom’s dad passed away when she was a little girl and my grandmother re-married later in life.  But he loved my sister and me like we were his own kids.

He was a carpenter by trade, an exceptional carpenter.  He made my daughter a cradle for her dolls one Christmas that is amazing.  He made picture frames, shelves for all kinds of things.  I remember one time he and I made these little men that saw logs when the wind blows.  I was a kid, but he worked out the mechanism for making them move and he cut out the pieces.  Then he gave them to me to paint the farmers.  I painted the face, beard, hat, overalls, and a spotted bandana hanging from their back pocket.  We made dozens of those.  I remember we made one for my great-grandparents and they had it on their porch until they had to move.

My grandfather always tried to get me to be an architect because I could draw.  He had these drafting tools and a small drafting table that I thought was the greatest.  Over the years as I got older, he gave me that table and I used it as a desk.  But the top had become worn, the wood was coming apart and you couldn’t do drafting on it, it had become rough and had bad places.  And besides, everyone uses CAD now.  I’ve always had this desire to make that into a computer desk, not that it would make a particularly great computer desk, but it does mean a lot to me.

This weekend I found myself visiting an IKEA store, and ended up looking at some of their desks thinking maybe it was time for a new one.  But I found out that they have tops you can buy separately to make your own desk.  So I picked one out, brought it home, and converted my old drafting table into a nice computer desk.

I did keep the old top by the way, someday I will find a good use for it.  I think my grandfather would be pleased.  Happy that not only am I making good use of something he gave me, but that I thought outside of the box and created what I wanted.  Now when I sit at that desk I am reminded of a man who helped shape me and support me in just about everything I did growing up.  And I still strive to put the demanding quality he taught me into everything I do.

I believe that is a legacy he can be proud of.

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy Memorial Day and take a minute to thank all the men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice so that I can have the freedom to sit here at my computer and blog on whatever I feel like.  So that yesterday I got to attend the church of my choice, and that a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to the polls and vote in a primary election without the fear of retribution.

Thank you, to all the members of our armed services, active and retired, those still with us and those who aren’t.  We salute you.

I posted some things over at www.chadhembree.com on the page he provided me to put links pertinent to our TechTalk podcast.  You can check it out here.

Today I read Chris Brogan telling about how he was locked out of his Google account and how that affected so many functions he relies on. It was maybe 10 minutes later that our data management system for our cad drawing and model files went down, effectively shutting us out of probably 80% of the tools we need to do our job.

I got to thinking about how important connectivity has become to our lives. Like Chris, my email, phone, calendar, RSS feeds, and other tools come from Google. The company I work for, while we have engineers located at facilities all over the world, we have a central data system for our cad files. When our cell carriers experience problems or our cell battery dies we become panicked. We are disconnected.

I learned a couple of years ago not to take a sick day on a Tuesday, that is the day each week that Blizzard takes down the World of Warcraft servers for maintenance and upgrades. And what better way is there to take advantage of being sick than whipping up on Alliance in a battleground? It does make you feel better hurling fireballs at Gnomes. After all, it isn’t like it is wasting time growing fake asparagus or harvesting digital rutabagas in Farmville.

So in the meantime we do what we can, fill in the gaps with a little internet surfing here, a little blog post writing there, and a little Twitter everywhere. A victim of technological advancements, a global work force, and time zone differences.

At least our internet connection is still up, along with our level of frustration!

This week I picked up a couple more web clients.  Some exciting stuff and people are really turning to online advertising.  Recently Jeff Johnson on LinkedIn put up a post to the Marketing 2.0 Technology group entitled How Facebook Can Help Your Business.  In the post Joe Bettinger of waffil.com cited the following statistics provided by Facebook:

• More than 400 million active users
• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day

These are not numbers to sneeze at.  I am now working with some small businesses on their web presence, the first thing I am urging them to do is make a Facebook page.  It is a way to start building your brand easily and quickly.

Read the discussion posted by Jeff here.

What are some of the strategies you are using to build your brand online?   Share them with us.

This is not really a blog post, but I couldn’t let this go by without commenting.

Here is a quick atta boy to James C. Smith.  Last night on the news I heard about Mr. Smith, a crossing guard at Lansdowne Elementary school, who pushed a child out of the way of a vehicle and was himself hit by the passenger side mirror of the vehicle.

According to the news report the driver of the vehicle had their vision impaired by ice build-up on the windshield.

Thank you James C. Smith for your quick thinking and your selfless act of service.  And to the driver, buy a $1.50 scraper!

Last week was a stressful week for me.  My political career started and ended in a span of 6 hours (see last week’s post), I had problem after problem to solve, and then on Saturday I found myself immersed in php code for about 6 hours without looking up.  By the end of that time I was seeing double.  Part of the problem is that I’m not a programmer and I’m really not very good at php at all.  Actually, php noob is an aspiration for me.  But I did manage to accomplish what I wanted to do and it worked, so I’m happy.  I think a lot of the problem was that I didn’t know exactly what I was doing and was stressing out over things that should not have been a big deal.

So on Sunday I decided to unplug.  I didn’t even turn my computer on except to check some emails, and I purposefully left my BlackBerry and my Droid in on my computer desk turned off.  I actually watched some television (ok, technically that is not unplugged, but for me it is a change of pace).  I also read some and took a nap.

Last night I did feel a little guilty about it all, but today I am reaping the benefits.  I must say I feel great.  I think I’m going to start scheduling in one day a month to purposefully unplug.

Leave me some comments and let me know what you do to “reboot” and get rejuvenated.

This year is a mid-term election year for congress.  The media is working full force already covering the political climate, researching candidates, trying to get leaks from the parties on their candidates, devouring statistics from every poll that comes out.  And the local and state races in my area are no different.  Yesterday was the last day to file paperwork to run for most positions.  I must admit, I had my paperwork complete and notarized and ready to file, but decided not to because someone else who is very qualified filed to run for that position as a Republican before I did and there is already a plethora of Democrats fighting it out.  And I did not want to waste money and effort in a primary.  Besides, I prefer to work behind the scenes consulting and helping out.

I get asked a lot of questions about why I am such a political junky.  I really can’t answer that.  But I can remember that at 12 years old I would go to my parent’s room, sitting on the foot of the bed, and watching the Watergate hearings for hours on end on a small black and white TV they had in there.  I was fascinated by it all.  From then on I was hooked!

Today, I watch politics, read about politics, and study strategies and trends of different races.  Not because this in any way has anything to do with my job, but because it is more of a personal interest or hobby of mine.  So while a lot of people are dreading all the ads and talk about politics this year, I am looking forward to it.  For me it is the reason I watch college basketball, or play chess on my computer.  It is the strategy I like.

Given the way this year is already shaping up, it is going to be a year of political strategizing.  I can’t wait to see who executes their strategy the best claims check mate in November.

Last night the League of Women Voters sponsored an event where our Mayor gave the State of the City address.  I attended and would like to say it was riveting, but in actuality it wasn’t.  If you read the paper or local blogs you would have known most of what he told us.

Although, I did learn that in 2010 our council is going to take up the long awaited issue of the “chicken ordinance”.  It seems this issue has not been looked at for over a 100 years!  How can this be?  I am glad to know that in these times when states are failing and municipalities are facing bankruptcy because so many people are laid off and not contributing their fair share to the payroll taxes, our council will finally take up addressing the fact that people can have chickens in their back yard.

I’m not 100% sure how many chickens I’m allowed to keep, but given the economy and the fact my company has not given me back the 10% of my salary they took last year or the other lost benefits, I’m thinking a few eggs a week would be pretty good.

Perhaps after they correct this massive oversight, they can address trying to bring some jobs to the area!  But this is an election year and the way things are shaping I suspect the new council that takes over next year will have to do that.

Oh, I need to run, the egg timer just went off.  Bon Appetit!

This Wednesday evening, January 13, 2010, I’ll be recording TechTalk with Chad Hembree live at the Smokehouse in Berea, Ky.  We’ll be talking about some cool gadgets and announcements from CES this year.  Jason Hartnell and some others will be there, Chad has arranged some give aways and some dinner specials, so come on out and join us.  Check out Chad’s newly designed web site at http://www.chadhembree.com/ for more info.  Hope to see you there.