101.4
No that’s not a radio station. That’s my present temperature as I shiver under four blankets and feel what feels like water in my lungs as I breathe.
Doctor’s appointment in the morning.
Miserable
I think the first year you have kids you are destined to stay sick. Having just gotten over the bad stuff, I have a head cold that feels like any moment it will shove my eyes out of socket. The sinus pressure is unbelievable. Yuck.
I was fine yesterday. No problems. Today is a whole different story.
Ad Rates
A good friend of mine is trying to get started in political consulting. He called today to see if I had any current ad rate cards for the local tv and radio stations, which I do not. But, his issue is well taken.
For those of you getting into political consulting, you need to make your calls in the mornings. The ad guys are usually in the field in the afternoon making calls. And they very rarely promptly return phone calls.
Luckily, however, a lot will email you rate cards if you have an email address that you can easily leave on voicemail. Just be persistent.
Sad News
Don Knotts has died at age 81. He was a comedic giant.
Wow.
Scientology Is A Scam
I was bored so I read the wikipedia entry on Scientology. While not as fun as watching the South Park episode, I have to say that these people are nuts.
For those of you who find it so hard to accept that Jesus was crucified, died, was buried, descended into hell, and on the third day rose again from the death, I invite you to consider the story of Xenu, which these people were so apparently ashamed of, they spent years suing anyone who dared mention the alien being.
Oh, an unlike Christianity which has a whole host of archeological data to go along with it, and the writings of eye witnesses, we have nothing but Ron Hubbard’s word that 75 million years ago there was a massive theater in the Canary Islands where some souls got brainwashed and took over cavemen’s bodies.
But, if you are willing to shell out big bucks, they’ll gladly brainwash you.
By the way
While I’ll eventually write about all the stuff I’ve been researching on blogging, it is only fair that my office has dibs — it’s being done for them. I will say this: blogging is different from what it was five minutes ago. Putting up posts and hoping people read them is yesterday’s methodology. Likewise, businesses have to be careful in how they approach blogging because blog readers are extremely activist oriented and distinguish easily between the honest broker of information and spinner who is just trying to sell a product or position.
It is really fascinating stuff. I’m still trying to flesh it out and will be working through the weekend to get stuff in presentable fashion for my boss. I think he’ll be as impressed as I am with a lot of the data and thoughts on methodology I’ve come across.
Self-Censored Blogging
[Bloggers] are viewed as the church gossip — unable to maintain either decorum or discretion, let alone able to get facts right.
I’ve been working for about a week doing a lot of research on blogging trends. Now that I’m a paid blogger, I feel like I should be doing much more keeping up — in effect CLE credits, but for blogging.
There is a lot of interesting stuff out there, starting with Pew’s latest report and Gallup’s. Then there is some other research a good friend sent my way and few books out by credible A-listers. I’m actually waiting for a book to arrive from Amazon tomorrow with more information that should be quite useful.
I was exchanging thoughts and ideas with a fellow blogger about all of this and the issue of self-censorship came up. In the beginning of blogging, it was really cool to give free expression to your thoughts. To some degree it still is. But, more and more people are finding that they have to self-censor themselves. I’m in the same boat, as is my friend. Read more
The CLE Cometh
So tomorrow I’m giving a CLE presentation on Election Law in Georgia. It’s been on the calendar for almost a year. It was going to be on the 10th, but was moved to tomorrow.
The problem has been my written materials. When I left the law firm, I thought I had everything, but didn’t. So I’ve been slowly and steadily recreating the wheel until my hard drive or MS Word and Keynote threw me a curve ball and both the slideshow and the written documents were corrupted somehow. Frustrating. And yes, I realize it would be easier to just get the stuff emailed to me, but they could not be found.
I’ve crammed and crammed to get everything back into the slide show. Luckily I was able to get my old slide show from Sell & Melton, but didn’t have the written materials. I got the slideshow done and converted it into an outline. That should have been it. But then the director of CLE programs at Mercer reminded me that ICLE really hates it when your written component is just an outline.
So, I called some friends to get old materials back from them. Then I buckled down, begged and begged and was able to get old stuff retreived, and I have steadily spent last night and part of the morning recreating, updating, and revising my stuff. Now I have 55 pages of solid stuff.
A frustrating lesson though is that you should always keep a solid archive of your materials and you should always make sure your work is current. Had I done both of those for starters there would have been no last minute problems — because there are always last minute problems.
Lucky for me, the Apple Geniuses at the Millenia Mall in Orlando were very, very helpful and some of the damage was mitigated. It also turned out to be a software problem and not a hardware problem.
Heaven for the Traveling Blogger
Has got to be Orlando International Airport. In addition to an Outback Steakhouse, Orlando also offers free WiFi. You can’t ask for much more than that!