This past Monday, I was nominated – along with three others in my local business community – for the 2009 Mentor of the Year Award.
After dispatching the Looney Police and slamming my blinds shut, I contacted the Lake Houston Chamber of Commerce to make sure there wasn’t another “Jeff Timpanaro” or “Oberata Consulting” listed in the 2009 business directory. Nope. This had to be me.
With this reality closing in on me like Hillary running for office again, I was forced to reflect on 2009. What did I do?
2009 saw both success and the Fail Whale for Oberata. From January through April, I had done seminars, established an online identity through social media, made inroads in the blog-o-sphere by writing lots of articles, and increased sales more than 20% from the previous year. This semi-equates to “helping lots of folks.”
Yet, in the process of doing all the work, I’d ground myself to a halt. In August, I was forced to take a sabbatical (which continues today) for health reasons, exhaustion, and curiosity about other pursuits.
Five months later, an award nomination lands <thud> in my Inbox. Congrats Jeff!
a copy of a letter I just sent to a Quizno’s franchise in Kingwood, TX, and to its franchisor
Dear Quiznos,
What an unholy failure it was to get an order at your restaurant on Monday evening (1/25/10).
At about 6:15 p.m., my 6 year old son and I pulled up into the parking spot right in front of your store. I looked to my right and I saw the two white pillars with the white bench-like structure. You know the one. Upon it were perched two unkempt looking teenage girls smoking cigarettes. Feet up.
“Not unusual,” I think. “This is Kingwood; it’s full of teens.”
These two don’t even look at me and my son as we approach the door to go in. We enter a completely empty store and walk back to the order counter. We wait. 60 seconds. Nothing. Then I hear the front door of the store open. One of the smoking girls comes in, removes her jacket, and proceeds to put on her latex gloves (SKIPPING WHAT IMPORTANT STEP, CLASS?) Ah yes. The hand-washing! I understand that the gloves do an adequate job protecting from germs, but this is just disgusting, not to mention against the freaking health code.
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NEYTIRI SEES YOU
If you clicked through to read this, it might be because you:
- are in some meaningful relationships you care about
- Googled “Avatar” and are on the 847th search page
- are looking for points of disagreement with the guy arrogant enough to include ‘Relationships 901′ in the title (hell, that’s what I’d do)
Whatever the reason, I’m glad you made it to the third paragraph. (I win.) But you must know: I don’t care what you know conceptually about relationships. I want to know if you are seeing people. And I want to know if they see you.
Granted, Avatar stole some of my thunder here; more on that in a moment. But this post was fueled by a revelation I had to share. Because we’re so laser-focused on Twitter lists, making and keeping friends, networking, and social media that we’ve forgotten what to do once we are actually in a relationship: See each other both literally (being in the same physical place) and figuratively (understanding the context of the person, situation, and relationship).
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With all due respect to John Fogerty, the Old Man isn’t Down The Road. He’s actually right here, roasting weenies in my living room.
No. That’s way too cute. Indulge me a writer’s do-over, because I hate this son-of-a-bitch.
"I know this hurts, Jeffrey."
It’s more like Terminator 2 – remember? – when that slick, non-Arnold, non-kid-friendly T-1000 unit showed up. He would just inhabit your entire body in an instant, take you around, steal your motorcycle, puncture your brainstem through your eyeball with a melty steel fingerblade. You know. That guy.
Except my guy’s not leaving. He’s been here since way before my 40th birthday this past October. If you thought Sarah Connor had it bad, think about good old Robert Patrick here setting up shop in your immune system for seven years. Kicking the tires. Ripping out entire systems. Taking his freaking holiday in my skin. Stealing my spirit, joy, and the prime years of my life.
Behold, the T-1000 Squatter Series.
No wonder I’m just now looking around and asking when that whole “40 is the new 25″ thing is going to kick in.
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In 1998, I did my first performance of live electronic music in San Francisco, CA. We were “openers for the openers” for a remotely popular industrial band called Attrition; but being in SF there was a considerable crowd gathering. I was nervous.
YOURS TRULY, PERFORMING IN SAN FRANCISCO, 1998
To make matters worse, the guy who was leading the band at the time decided we should NOT rehearse in the days leading up to the show. ”Let’s watch TV and redo our hair” was the decision instead.
Since I was appearing as a guest keyboardist, I didn’t have much say in the matter, so I just went with it. Our set was to be about 30 minutes, and my role was as undefined as it could possibly be: add cool stuff at certain moments.
Despite the lack of a game plan, rehearsal, or clue, my good friend and musician savant Mark Townsend was there and pep-talked me right before the show began.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“No,” I said, drinking my 5th beer in as many minutes.
“Just go have fun with it.”
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