Marc's Musings

Lately, communication doesn’t seem to be as easy as it could be. Simple directions (simple to me) are getting royally complicated by others.

So I’ve been thinking about the scene of a king in Monty Python’s Holy Grail, giving the two guards a simple direction. And how badly they mess it up.

At least it helps me laugh. After I’ve gotten over being ticked off.

I just love this mash up of the Monty Python’s King Arthur meeting the Black Knight with Darth Vader lines.

Very funny.

And I just found this one of the scene with Batman lines. Fun too.

O’Darn Irish Ale is my latest brew. This summer I brewed F.M.A., a really good Irish Red Ale.

Over the course of the summer, I developed a real liking for hops. So I decided to add some more hops to the next batch I brewed.

Oops.

It’s still a good ale, it has a great finish. But it’s a bit tart at the start.

Won’t be doing that to this great Irish red again!

But I have a bit to work through before I have to worry about that.

And thanks to Larry Hehn for the name idea!

Years ago, I blogged about M. Scott Peck’s four stage development theory. In that post, I mentioned I’d heard it first from Dave Schmelzer.

Today I found a video clip of Dave talking about them himself. So, straight from the horse’s mouth…so to speak…here’s Dave!

May your life grow to be an adventure full of wonder and questions!

I love watching Facing the Giants. Tonight, my son laughed, “We’re not even 35 minutes into it and dad’s already bawling!”

Tonight, the part that really hit me was an exchange between the football coach and Mr. Bridges, a guy that had been praying for the school for years.

Mr. Bridges felt God gave him a word for Coach Taylor. It was a good word.

Then there was this exchange:

Mr. Bridges: 2 farmers who desperately needed rain. And both of them prayed for rain but only one of them went out and prepared his fields to receive it. Which one do you think trusted God to send the rain?

Coach Taylor: Well the one who prepared his fields for it.

Mr. Bridges: Which one are you? God will send the rain when He is ready. It’s your job to prepare your field to receive it.

How about you?

What have you been praying for? For a really long time? Some situation where you really need to see God move in your life?

Are you preparing the field?

It’s time for yet another membership drive for our local public radio station.

Even as a fundraising professional that knows the need to raise money, these drives irritate the crap out of me. As far back as 2005, I posted a rant on entitlement in public radio fundraising.

I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid. MPBN charges my credit card every month. I don’t need to be sold on the importance of membership. I’d prefer to listen to NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered in peace. But during these membership drives I can’t, so I choose to flip the dial.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, most listeners don’t give. They probably do need to be sold on the importance of being a member. But if I’m flipping the dial during these drives, how much more will they?

In direct mail fundraising and major gift fundraising, we can be selective. We can communicate with the individuals or groups that we want to. That doesn’t happen in radio or TV. Everyone gets the same broadcast, whether they give or not.

At least with TV you can DVR it and skip over the drives. I wish there were a Tivo-like option for radio!

There has to be a better way for public radio stations to fundraise incessantly badgering their core supporters. So what would you suggest stations do rather than this awful interruption marketing?

My brother-in-law, Paul Bruce, introduced me to Microsoft’s Photosynth. It’s a cool tool that will synthesize your images, putting them together and, if possible, making a 3-D composite.

Well, I didn’t have the zoom to make too much of a 3-D composite, but I dumped the 138 photos I took from my phone while at Fenway last night into PhotoSynth and got this:

It’s pretty fun! (First hit the “Click to view synth” button. Then hit the “play” button for the easiest way to see the pix.)

P.S. The Red Sox beat the Orioles 7-2. Big Papi even hit a home run in the first inning!

I got spammed on LinkedIn.

There wasn’t anyway to report the message. So I replied telling the sender that it was an inappropriate. My exact response was:

This type of spam is incredibly inappropriate for LinkedIn.

Please don’t ever mail me this kind of message again.

His heated response, basically telling me he was offended that I was so ungrateful for the incredible opportunity he’d offered. Check out his last paragraph:

If you’re so self-righteous that you can “do business” then feel free to remove me from your contact list. Don’t be such a priss. If you’re not interested then just archive the message, don’t snivel about it.

My email may have been out of line. I might have been better saying something like “I’m am confused by this use of LinkedIn. Please don’t include me on this list.”

But the way to win over me if I screw up is not by calling me names. (I’m not even sure what he means by “do business.”)

Have any of you received blind, spam-like email on LinkedIn?

A colleague recommended a particular book this morning, so I went to Amazon to check it out.

Here’s what I saw on the home page:

Take a look at this close up:

Do you see the book on the right? It used to cost $10 but now Amazon buyers can get it for only $14.04?

I wonder if Amazon’s experimenting with a new pricing structure. Pretty bold in a down economy.

The moment not so many of you have been waiting for…only one person I can think of, really…

But, drum roll please.

Announcing the name of my latest beer: F.M.A.!! [the crowd goes wild]

Give the weirdness of the last few brews, my wife asked me to brew one that she would drink. So I named this Irish Red Ale “Förlåt Mig Ale”, which in English is “Forgive Me Ale.” (Cool how the acronym works in both languages, huh? [crowd chuckles in appreciation])

I was going to call it “Atonement Ale” but that sounded too pretentious. And I liked Larry Hehn’s suggestion of calling it “O’Darn” given it’s Irish nature. But I’ve settled on F.M.A.

It’s sort of an apology for the last few. And a celebration of second chances (an third and fourth and fifth chances)! With the last few beers, I felt obligated to explain the history as in the origin of a bock, or the spices used, or why the beer really tastes like an iced coffee.

Not so with this one. It’s just a good beer. Very drinkable, not high in alcohol content, and best of all, I don’t have to explain anything. I can just say, “Would you like a beer I brewed?”

So, bottoms up and I hope you have fun celebrating the Fourth of July in your own way!