2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 150,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how WeirdGuy blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 140,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 6 days for that many people to see it.

 

In 2010, there were 8 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 761 posts. There was 1 picture uploaded, taking a total of 49kb.

The busiest day of the year was December 2nd with 596 views. The most popular post that day was Personality Types: Lion, Otter, Golden Retriever, and Beaver.

 

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were zimbio.com, facebook.com, familyfriendlymorningshow.blogspot.com, google.com, and search.conduit.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for virtual iphone, consultative leadership, dictatorial leadership, animal personality traits, and animal personality types.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Personality Types: Lion, Otter, Golden Retriever, and Beaver February 2007
79 comments and 2 Likes on WordPress.com

2

Leadership Styles: Dictatorial, Authoritative, Consultative, Participative September 2007
25 comments

3

Understanding the Animal Temperaments February 2007
3 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

4

Your Virtual iPhone March 2007
16 comments

5

How Leadership Styles Affect Productivity September 2007
16 comments

Who Are Your Favorite Holiday Musicians?

My list is a bit eclectic and in no particular order:
- Andy Williams
- Jars of Clay
- Burl Ives
- Mannheim Steamroller
- Third Day
- Kenny G
- Young Messiah
- Celine Dion
- Amy Grant
- Anna Wilson
- Bing Crosby
- Michael Smith
- Andrea Bocelli
- Destiny’s Child
- Charlotte Church
- Harry Connick Jr.
- Michael Card
- Russ Taff
- Linda McKechnie
- Sam Levine
- Northern Light Orchestra

Who do you like? Respond here

 

Could This Be You?

Saw this on a friends feed and had to post. Can you relate?

Thanks to: Comics.com | Pearls Before Swine

FoxTrot and iPad

Saw this and had to share. I can relate to the humor of Bill Amend’s FoxTrot.

Wiiwaa Video Game Will Have You Saying, Wii!

Seems I grew up too late for all the cool toys. I just missed the Big Wheel, too late for the PS2, and don’t get me started on the Nintendo DS. We had bikes, cards, and make-believe games (not saying that’s all bad) but I sure wish I could be a kid again. Now, along comes Wiiwaa for the Wii. Oh well, missed another one, but you still gotta check it out. Fun! Watch the video and then let me know what were/are some of your favorite games growing up?

Turkey Bowling Is Back For The Holidays!

Fun online Turkey Bowling game is back for the holidays. Give it a shot.

I actually did better this year than last. I got a 70! Try it and let me know what score(s) you get here on WeirdGuy blog.

Have fun!

Is A Balanced Life Really Attainable?

Note: Reposted as a good reminder

This is one of those primary yet tough life principles for me. I have learned that I need others in my life to hold me accountable to this principle. Accountable to my dreams, goals, and aspirations as a businessman, father, and husband. What is this primary life principle? It is balance.

I can still hear Mr. Miyagi yelling at Daniel LaRusso in the movie, The Karate Kid, “Balance Daniel-san, balance!” There is some truth to this in the concept of “life-balance”. We’re all torn in two directions, as illustrated below:

Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Speaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Productivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . Serving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Giving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Applying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Confidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Duty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . External Life . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Leisure Meditation Following Listening Recreation Waiting Receiving Learning Humility Solitude Freedom Sorrow Internal Life

So, how do you find balance? Is it appropriate or even possible in this day and age to find balance in life? With all the competing areas above, most people settle for focusing on one area alone.

Sacrifice For The Sake of Excellence
Excelling in one area is good, right? Where would Michael Jordan be, or Donald Trump be unless they excelled in one focused area? By no means am I suggesting we stoop to the level of mediocrity. Yet, while unbridled attention in one area may bring success, it almost always brings failures in many other areas. For example, “it is not uncommon to discover a physician who fails as a parent, an entertainer who fails as a spouse, a pastor who neglects personal health, or an executive who fails at all the other areas,” says author and educator, Dr. Richard Swenson. Stanford Physicist, Dr. Richard Bube, recommends a more balanced approach so that we do not fall into, what he calls, “negative excellence.” A person who chooses to strive for high degrees of excellence in one or two areas often fails in others. While, the person who choses to live balanced has no outstanding levels of excellence but, they do not have any areas of failure either.

There Is An Answer
You’ll be glad to know that life balance is attainable. It starts with time. You thought I was going to say priorities. Business people practice prioritizing a lot. The mistake is, prioritizing dictates that one area is more important than another. What I am saying is that all these areas are important and that to attain balance we need to start with the time we give to each.

Learn to say “no.” In today’s Western society it is easy to overload and overbook ourselves. Saying “no” puts you in control of your time demands. This leads to the next item: Get better control of your life.

Getting control means overthrowing the tyrannical rule of the urgent. Reorient your life around the important, not the urgent things of life.

Next, watch out for the circular trappings of trying to find the imbalance in your life. In doing so you run the risk of becoming even more unbalanced. George Rust warns, “We respond to our sense of imbalance by committing more time and energy to an area in which we feel deficient.” The last thing you need is to commit more time than you have.

Finally, be considerate of others trying to live a balanced life. If someone tells you “no”, learn to accept it. Just because we choose to overburden ourselves doesn’t mean we have to do the same to others.

Balance is attainable. It takes work but it can be done. You might consider sharing your desire to live a balanced-life with a close friend and then ask them to hold you accountable. Give them permission to ask you how you’re doing on a regular basis — and, be honest in your reply.

Related Links
- Living More With Less
- The Overload Syndrome
- Margin
- A Minute of Margin

Are You A Dreamer?

Do you feel misunderstood?

Do you have trouble remembering details and instructions?

Do you love positive feedback, yet not desire to conform to the cultural mold of expectations?

You are not alone.

Lately, I have been doing reading about cognitive styles. Primarily, there is plenty of information about strong-willed children/adults and High-D personalities as well as compliant children/adults. Yet, there is little information out about “Dreamers.”

Dr. Dana Spears and Dr. Ron Braund have a very interesting book on Dreamers, the passionate-creative-culture-changers of the world. Join me soon for a more in depth look at this type of individual and see if you are a mold breaker.

Humorous Word-Play To Start Your Day

Got this from my friend Chris, this morning. Enjoy the play on words.

1. The roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference .  He acquired his size from too much pi.
2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian
3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.
4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.
5. The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.
6. No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.
7. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
8. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
9. Two silk worms had a race.  They ended up in a tie.
10. Time flies like an arrow.  Fruit flies like a banana.
11. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall.  The police are looking into it.
12. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
13. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway.  One hat said to the other, “You stay here; I’ll go on a head.”
14. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger.  Then it hit me.
15. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: “Keep off the Grass.”
16. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital.  When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, “No change yet.”
17. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
18. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
19. The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
20. A backward poet writes inverse.
21. In democracy it’s your vote that counts.  In feudalism it’s your count that votes.
22. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.
23. Don’t join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects!

Why Do You Use Twitter?

You may remember when I first started writing about Twitter and then when I started using it. I have found it fun and interesting using the micro-blog format. It is certainly faster than writing a 200-250 word blog article.

So how about you? Why do you Twitter? Do you like to keep up with friends and family? Do you view it as a “game” wanting to see how many followers you can gain? Do you use it as a form of self-expression or do you think of it as a way of developing community?

Let me know here in the comment section below. Enjoy!

Related Articles
- Jeffrey Veen Taps Into eLearning Via Twitter
- Blogging Is Dead, Long Live Twitter!
- Twitter Is For The ADD Generation – Part 1
- Twitter Is For The ADD Generation – Part 2
- Twitter For The ADD Generation – Response
- Now, Some Possible Value In Using Twitter

Book Review – The Unseen

By E. Brown

I have to admit, this is the first time I have read anything by T. L. Hines. I am typically reading business and work related material. I save reading fiction for down-time when I need a little “fluff” and entertainment to take my mind away from present matters. And, isn’t that what fiction is for — an escape, a getaway, a chance to relax and vicariously “live in someone else’s world” for a while?

The main character, Lucas, in Hines’ book, The Unseen, spends most of his waking hours by living his life through the imagined worlds of others. You see, Lucas is an urban explorer. He lives in abandoned buildings, sewers and subway tunnels. He spies on people and invents elaborate worlds in his mind as a past time. That is until his world is intruded upon by another explorer. Donovan belongs to a group called the Creep Club. After befriending Lucas, Donovan invites Lucas to a Creep Club meeting. Lucas expects to find like-minded urban explorers, but he what he really finds is far more sinister.

The beginning of the book sets up some of the characters and starts to introduce various plot lines that coalesce toward the end of the book. I found that as the story progressed the action did as well. Hines surprised me a couple times when I thought the story should be winding down — he infused a new shot of adrenaline and kept me moving through the pages.

For some readers, this book might seems average and predictable — spotted with government intrigue, subtle romance, and good-guy-wins-in-the-end themes. For readers like me, that’s okay. In a sense, like the character Lucas, I read fiction to take a break from the real world in order to imagine, to recharge, and, yes, to think about bigger things than myself. So, if you have never read The Unseen, I recommend giving it a go. Find a comfy chair, sit back and enjoy.

Martial Arts, Emotional Intelligence, And Academia

This came from the Edutopia site. Having studied martial arts, I would agree with many of the ideas Jordan has in the article. I hope you find this informative as well. Have fun!

On paper, Jordan Schreiber is a martial arts teacher, but his real goal is far broader. By shaping the social and emotional lives of his students, he hopes to prepare them for successful lives outside the tae kwon do studio and in the classroom.

The academic benefits of social and emotional learning are well established by now, and they’re no less germane in a martial arts studio. Schreiber says that as his students learn to recognize and manage their emotions, care about others, make good decisions, behave ethically and responsibly, develop positive relationships, and avoid negative behaviors through tae kwon do, they also improve dramatically in the classroom.

Indeed, with the ability to self-regulate comes the ability to focus and take in new information that’s vital for academic success. For that matter, establishing a goal for the week is as important as learning a proper stance. Schreiber rewards equally academic achievements outside the studio and physical achievements within. He follows up the students’ martial arts sequences with discussions on the meaning of success.

Read more…

Virtual Turkey Bowling! Gobble Gobble!

Fun online Turkey Bowling game. Give it a shot. I stink at it. I only got 22 points.

Speed Reading And Weird Minds

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a wreid mnid too. Seped rnadieg sluohd be a bezere!

Play Is Good For You And For Business

I love creativity in all things. As I look for creative ways to educate and train I happened upon this video. Here Tim Brown, from Ideo, discusses creativity in the workplace and how it breeds innovation. Yet, what I think I like best about his entire presentation is the way Tim got the audience involved in his talk. So, set aside 20 minutes and enjoy this TED Talk by Tim Brown.

more about “Presentation Zen: Play is good for yo…“, posted with vodpod

Stout – Irish Sports Pub

By E. Brown

Tucked away in the 2nd floor corner of Buckhead’s Andrews Square Shopping Center is Stout Irish Sports Pub – a great little pub with a lot to offer.

I first learned of Stout while on Facebook. You see, I had been looking for more authentic pub-type establishments as a result of my regular work-related visits to Covington, KY. Lots of great establishments there (see Cock & Bull, The Pub, and Molly Malones) but nothing quite like it in the ATL, until now. The ad beckoned me to register for a FREE pint and lunch entrée. How could I resist? I called a business friend, told him about the offer, suggested he register too, and meet me there to talk about work opportunities.

The lunch crowd was pretty sparse on this particular day, yet that allowed me see the layout. Wooden floors, high-boy tables, and booths adorn much of Stout. The atmosphere calls, “come in, sit down, relax with some friends and have a pint!” Of course, the “sports” aspect is there as well with flat-screen monitors running the latest from ESPN and other sports channels.

Beers
The L-shaped bar has a good selection of Irish and English beers on draft, such as:

• Guinness Stout
• Beamish Irish Stout
• Bass Pale Ale
• Boddingtons Pub Ale
• Harp Lager
• Newcastle Brown Ale
• Smithwicks Ale
• Strongbow Cider

A large assortment of bottled beers will appease those with other fancies. Beers from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico and more average $3-$5 a bottle. Also, if you’re willing to write a big check, you can join the Stout Beer Club. $120 gets you a personalized mug and a free beer for the entire year.

Addition: I forgot to mention, Stout now offers Yuengling. The Lager and Black & Tan are my favorites. Straight from America’s oldest brewery.

Pub Fare
The food is about what you’d expect from a pub. Sausages, potatoes, fish, and chips are easily available. Stout also offers a few other morsels like:

• Irish Whiskey Wings
• Stout Burger
• Rueben sandwich
• Chicken Salad Sandwich

Most everything on the menu is $6. Not a bad price at all.

I had the Bangers & Mash and a pint of Smithwicks. My friend had Bangers & Mash and a Guinness. Our hostess was accommodating and friendly. Overall, we had a great time!

So, bottom line, would I recommend Stout Irish Sports Pub? By all means yes. Good service, good food, even pricing, and fun atmosphere make return trips a must. Oh, and did I mention, $1 drafts always!

My only question: Is it an Irish Sports Pub or an Irish Sports Pub?

Hope to see you there.

Star Trek Mr. Spock – Timeless Quotes

Who’d have thought a sci-fi television show could have profound thoughts and quotes? Funny how some things stick with you over the years. I can remember these quotes from when I was a kid. They seemed applicable then and they seem so now. These can apply to life, business, and politics. Enjoy!

After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.
–Spock in ‘Amok Time’

It is curious how often you humans manage to obtain that which you do not want.
–Spock in ‘Errand of Mercy’

Top 12 Poor Excuses Not To Go In To Work

I saw this collection of humorous excuses that Patrick Erwin put together on the CareerBuilder Job Blog. Do not try these at home unless you want to spend time looking for a new job at CareerBuilder :)

What are some of the most outrageous excuses (and by excuses, we mean ‘lies’) that an employee has give as a reason for their absence? Here’s the best of the best:

• Employee didn’t want to lose the parking space in front of his house.
• Employee hit a turkey while riding a bike.
• Employee said he had a heart attack early that morning, but that he was “all better now.”
• Employee donated too much blood.
• Employee’s dog was stressed out after a family reunion.
• Employee was kicked by a deer.
• Employee contracted mono after kissing a mailroom intern at the company holiday party and suggested the company post some sort of notice to warn others who may have kissed him.
• Employee swallowed too much mouthwash.
• Employee’s wife burned all his clothes and he had nothing to wear to work.
• Employee’s toe was injured when a soda can fell out of the refrigerator.
• Employee was up all night because the police were investigating the death of someone discovered behind her house.
• Employee’s psychic told her to stay home.

More Mobile Learning With iTunes U

This has been out for a time, but thought I’d share. So, load up your iPod, hit the road, and keep learning!