by Richard Timothy | Dec 15, 2010 | I Think There's a Point, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
Have you ever been to a function… conference, congressional hearing, family reunion, any gathering really where copious amounts of people meet up and the only way to tell who’s who is by the little “Hello, my name is…” sticker that everyone has been assigned to wear. The convention I was at in DC was one such event.
Now when it comes to name badges there are a number of different styles, and even though I’d love you educate you on all the ways to get out of wearing these different badges, my current experience is really only in one specific genre… the condom name badge. Ok so maybe that’s not the official name for it, but the principle is the same. You have a clear plastic protective shell, which is an envelope-like container that opens at the top and allows you to place your printed name tag inside. Usually there is a clip attached to it so you can clip it to your outfit, or you can clip it to a string and use it as a necklace.
As I learned in DC, there is one way to properly dispose of these contraptions of protective name badge bling, and it’s called “daily hygiene.” It happened on the last day at the conference. I was in my room, dressed and ready to go, wearing my name tag around my neck, and the only thing keeping me from leaving my room was my morning purification ritual of brushing my teeth. It was during the “gargle, spit, get another mouthful of water’ repeat cycle that it happened. I had finished my first mouth rinsing and was swishing around the water in my mouth for one last spit into the sink before heading out the door.
It was the bending down to spit motion that was the badge’s undoing. As I bent down to expel the toothpaste enriched water into the sink, my name badge followed the natural gravity of this movement. The problem is that it was on a string, so when I stopped the badge kept swinging on its line and right into the line of fire… well, spit. Sure I could have just wiped it off, but because the opening was at the top of badge, I ended up catching a lot more of the toothpaste water that I expected. When I looked down my lovely printed name was smeared, warped, and wading in half an inch of liquid. There was no bringing that tag back. So I bid my name farewell and went commando the rest of the event… without a name badge I mean. The only difference from the day before was that if people wanted to know my name I had to remind them what it was. I was quite impressed that more people than not actually remembered who I was, and I don’t just mean the name, “Angela’s husband.”
There is another bathroom related oops that there is no recovering from. It’s when you are using the clip-on functionality and you accidentally knock off your name badge by putting on your coat, or straightening your tie, or for women, simply putting your purse strap over your shoulder. The next thing you know, you’ve flushed away your name, or at least you will, because I know I’m not fishing that thing out.
As for the other name badge types out there, I know the sticky ones can be disposed of pretty easily, all it takes is a little OCD moment where you keep putting it on and pulling it off over and over again in an attempt to get it perfectly lined up. Soon a sudden step to your left, shaking someone’s hand, or even a sneeze from across a room will cause enough friction for the name badge to peel away all by itself and gently fall to the ground where it will inevitably find a new home on the bottom of someone’s shoe.
Those are the only ones I’ve had experience with so far, but I’ll keep my eyes open and if I run into any new and fancy name badges I’ll be sure to let you know the best ways to accidentally dispose of them in a well researched and documented manner. For now though, if you are conferencing somewhere and are a little motivational about losing the name badge, the tooth paste bit works pretty well, and if anyone asks, you can always tell them you took your name out to have it spit shined before it’s time to go home.
Have any of you encountered clever little “oops, there goes my name badge” experiences of your own? I’m always willing to learn from others.
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: conference, man brushing teeth, and wet name badge.
by Richard Timothy | Dec 9, 2010 | I Do Suggest, I Think There's a Point, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, Reviewed and Recommended
So, I just finished day one of a four day conference I’m attending in DC. The event is called Seven THE Event: Four Days. One Decision. Seven Figures. In short, it’s four sponge filled days where my sweetie-baby-cutie-pie-wifey-pooh and I, and 200 other attendees try to soak up as much brilliantly usable and applicable business information as we can, which is presented by four different entrepreneurs that all make a yearly seven figure income, letting us know that we can too.
Now, I’m not sure what the protocol is for meeting millionaires, especially at these conference thingies where you’ll essentially be hanging out with them for the day, but when I got up this morning to get ready I did have a thought. Is there a dress code for conferencing with millionaires? It seems like there might me, depending on the situation. I think a lot of the time people dress accordingly based on the culture and/or context in which they will be spending time with that culture. I mean you wouldn’t show up in a tux when going to drink beer and hunt woodland creatures with residents of a trailer park, unless you lost a bet or something. Likewise, it only seems right that you wouldn’t show up for a millionaire (x 4) hosted conference in a hula skirt and coconut bra over your “With a shirt like this who needs pants?” tee shirt, you know, unless you lost a bet.
So as I was getting ready for day one, my first thought was, “Damn, I wish I hadn’t lost that bet.” Ok, not really, but I was still a little curious on what to wear. I opted to go with the philosophy, when in doubt just dress yourself… with pants on. Wait, I mean “be” yourself… with pants on, and I need to say the overall effect was quite, well, devoid of having people stare at me in an uncomfortable expression.
I did take a few precautions though. First, I wore a belt so I would not be pulling up my pants every time I got up and/or walked around… it was almost a belt… it served as a belt like tool sustaining a solid pants to waist ratio support system… ok fine, it was the pull string from my pajama bottoms, but it worked just fine damn it. And I don’t think anyone apart from Angela noticed. At least she’s the only one that said anything to me about, and since she’s the one that is most likely going to forgive me for what I’m wearing, I really don’t mind with she shakes her head in disbelief and what I occasionally attempt to pass off as fashion for the sake of functionality.
Second, as I was putting on my least wrinkly dress shirt over my tee shirt before leaving to the conference, it turned out that, unbeknownst to me, the shirt was missing a button. From top to bottom it went button, button, no button, button, button, button, but thanks to one of the props I had received from the event I was able to have my very own MacGyver moment. I noticed that if I put my name badge on a string and wore it around my neck. It perfectly covered my missing button and had enough weight to keep my shirt from popping open to giving those around me a little flash of my completely nondescript single colored undershirt with absolutely no dirty words anywhere on it. The best part, Angela didn’t even notice the missing button until I pointed it out to her after the day’s festivities had ended and we were enjoying dinner together.
As for the conference itself, there is something incredibly refreshing and satisfying about going to an event where, when something is sharing with the entire audience a profound breakthrough they experienced that one of the presenters encourage the breakthrough by telling the audience to, “Clap that shit up.”
Here are a few of my “ah ha” moments from day one:
- You have a business to make money, the more money you make the more you can help others and the more good you can do. If you goal is not to make money you have a hobby, not a business.
- Indecision is a form of self abuse.
- The sure way to get clear about what it is you do is to make a decision. Only 20% of your message about what it is your business does is a result of your discoveries, the other 80% is because you made a decision.
It’s been a brilliant first day overall, the information has been grand, the presenters are personable and solid presenters, and the people attending are really quite lovely and friendly. Oh yeah, I even have business cards now! I’ve even handed out a couple. My tag line: Richard Timothy… writer, blogger, smirker. I know! I thought it rather fitting as well.
Definitely looking forward to tomorrow and I’m pretty sure my wardrobe will be a little more to code tomorrow as well, unless I decide to wear my intentionally ugly Christmas sweater. Tis the season you know.
Any thoughts about today’s Smirk?
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: man with suitcase, with a shirt like this, missing button, and shirt missing button.
by Richard Timothy | Dec 7, 2010 | I Think There's a Point, Lightbulbs and Soapboxes, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, Working Observations
I’ve have a friend and office mate, same person actually, who is exceptionally susceptible to anything supernatural, and is easily swayed in support of their ghostly existence. Left to his own devices he would be convinced that every image he came across on Google Images under the key words “ghost pictures,” would stand as irrevocable proof that the whole Earth is hunted. And even though it’s not on my list of job requirements, when he gets a little overly sensitive about the issue I’ll spend some time Googling these “images of proof” in hopes that his haunt-expecting persona will be able to let it go long enough to get back to what makes him, him… namely going off on obscure tangents that results in at least two people in the room reminding him to use his “inside voice”.
Of course he’s also terrified of midgets, or little people, as they prefer to be called… I’m not sure what that has to do with any of this, but it does give you a little back ground into his personality. I suppose if there was one thing on the planet that could put this guy into a fear coma it would be some sort of proof (fake or fact), such as a photo, Youtube video, Destination Truth episode, a blog post… anything really, which revealed that there was, in fact, a little person ghost out there maliciously haunting people. I wonder if it would overload his fear capacitor and he would become the next Evel Kinevel?
On more than one occasion it’s taken me about half a day to convince him that his house is not haunted and that he can go home again. To be fair these are the exceptions and not the rule. I’ve talked him though a code red on two separate occasions. He arrived at work determined that he would not set foot in his home ever again. By the end of the day his resiliency was worn down to the point that maybe he’d be willing to take a nap in the house just to make sure nothing was going on… but if something else happened, I had to promise to help him move. So far, he’s deferred hiring any moving vans.
I’d say that at least once a week we have a “ghostly” discussion. Here are a few actual conversations I’ve had with him:
- All old houses are probably haunted, which is why he’ll only move into newly built houses, apartments, etc. He even had his realtor research to make sure his current home was not build on or near any old relocated cemeteries.
- He wanted to know if I could help him find a Buddhist exorcist to get the spirit out of his house, which was making his dog freak out and bark at nothing. There were two spate occasions where a “ghost” had played hide and seek with his ring and then another time his watch… these were the code reds.
- For a few weeks this year he sulked everyday because his friend had just moved into an old house, which He was sure was haunted, you know, because of how the house looked from the outside. Eventually, over time, he started to go over and visit, but he refused to be alone in house. If there were two people in a room, and he was one of them, and the other person got up to leave, he’d follow them out of that room.
- If Ghost Hunters didn’t find anything and deemed a location as a “ghost free” zone, he was pretty sure they just didn’t try hard enough. And let’s not forget to mention the play-by-play of what happened on the Ghost Hunters episode he watched the night before.
- He is certain most ghosts enjoy Christmas, and are traditionally in a better mood, which explains why there is always an abundance of positive energy surrounding the holiday season.
- He wanted to know if I wanted to start a ghost hunting club. He’d been researching what type of equipment to buy and thought we could make some money catching ghosts. Eventually he admitted to drinking a lot and watching Ghostbusters the night before and that it seemed like a really good idea at the time. By the end of our conversation, he apologized.
I must admit that there has been a time or two… probably more… okay, definitely more, that I have taken part as the instigator. Telling him stories that people have told me, or sharing blog posts I have read, like a recent one about a child ghost playing with some little kid’s toys, which a friend of mine wrote about just this past week on his blog Atypical Read. It’s a pretty good story and worth checking it out… though please note, the author does have an affinity for using abrupt language that most people would consider “not safe for work”, unless you work at sea that is.
I’m not sure why I instigate it. Perhaps it’s my fascination with my seeing my friend light up and get so passionate about something so frightening to him… it so, well, brilliantly human. It’s oddly inspiring really… embracing what scares us, instead fleeing and hiding from the unknown. So, I’ve decided to start doing just that. At least once a week I will get my brain out its lazy boy and do something a little uncomfortable, scary even. I think my “ghost days” will be a good reminder of that. Today, I’ll be submitting a story to someone that may want to share it with others, or that may want to print it off and use it to start a fire that their children will use to make a batch of s’mores for a community bake sale to help earn some money to buy new pots and pans for a local soup kitchen… which is still pretty cool. Either way I’ll have done something that is a little scary for me sometimes. Still, it looks like it’s going to be a pretty good day.
What would your first “ghost day” action be?
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: ghosts, haunted house, and poke a badger with a spoon.
by Richard Timothy | Dec 4, 2010 | I Think There's a Point, Life Characters, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
Today’s Smirk was inspired by a conversation I had with a friend of mine, who, muck like 50% of the people in the US who have signed up for a life of legal partnerships, has walked away from the experience with a permanent “ex” attached to his life. And even though his ex no longer share’s his last name, she has an interactive role in his life due to the three children they had together.
Well, a few weeks ago my friend, Carlton, gets a call from his ex-wife’s current husband Fred. Yes, the ex, Becky, did manage to remarry. Fred was calling to let Carlton know about a little hiccup Fred and Becky had gotten into.
Turns out Fred was in the process of trying to get full custody of his own kids from his previous marriage. Apparently Fred’s ex was a bit crazy and quite unfit, according to Fred, to be raising his kids half the time. Because he used words like “mentally unfit” and “psychologically unbalanced” Fred’s ex was required by the state to take a psychological test to see if she was mentally equipped enough to be raising any children.
This also meant is that Fred and Becky were required by the state to take the same test to show that they were mentally fit to care for Fred’s kids full time. I like that the state requires this. It only seems fair that you should have to prove that you are not the loony one when you are trying to get your kids away from someone who you claim is. Fred went on to explain that the reason for the call was because Carlton’s ex, Becky, had scored a little low on the test.
Turns out “a little low” translated into Carlton’s ex-wife achieving the all-time lowest score on the test in the history of the state. It was so low, in fact, that the state was sure it was an error, something must have gone wrong with the scoring… grading… anything… it was impossible that she scored as low as she did, so they were going to let her take it again. Fred’s call was a courtesy call mostly because, if she failed the test again, there was a very good possibility Carlton would be getting his own kids full time.
When I asked Carlton what he thought about the whole thing, he replied, “I have mixed feelings. On one hand, taking the kids full time will definitely be a change to my schedule, which will take some getting used to. On the other hand, I’ve been saying for years ‘that bitch is crazy’ and now it looks like the state might finally be legally agreeing with me, so that feels pretty good.”
I told him he must have been a very good boy this year because it appeared he was getting his Christmas gift a little early. Talk about the perfect unintentional gift from your ex, and it didn’t cost him a thing… well, except for maybe a crazy ex-wife, but I think he’s willing to live with that, mainly because he doesn’t live with her.
Poor Fred though. It’s got to suck not being able to get your kids away from your crazy ex-wife because your current wife turns out to be even crazier… huh?… it would appear Fred certainly has a type.
Coincidence or karma? I can’t say I care, but I do know this, from now on, until the day he dies, every time Carlton says, “… my crazy ex-wife,” he is going to have a genuine smile on his face, even if it took ten years to get there.
To those of you with an ex, what would be the perfect gift from them?
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: ex-wife, and smiling man.
by Richard Timothy | Dec 1, 2010 | Borrowed Smirk, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
I was reading a blog the other day by a British lady living in Italy with her dog Pooch. The piece I was reading was about her affinity for profanity, which I can relate to with much gusto and curseology… curseitude… some damn word relating to cursing. Now perhaps it’s the adorability of remembering when little kids swear that is keeping me on this profane topic for two Smirks in a row. Also, it may seem a bit odd that someone who has such an appreciation for profanity uses it so little in his blog, and the reason is… beats the hell out of me, it’s just how I’ve chosen to write my Smirks.
The point is this blog post reminded me of a story from years past that happened to my brother while he was working at a scout camp one summer, and I think my UK friends/readers might appreciate this.
My brother Dave spent the summer at a huge Boy Scout summer camp ground where scouts from all over the US would come to spend a week camping and pumping out merit badges like Disney pumps out direct to DVD sequels to their box office feature length originals. To help with the monotony of doing the same thing day after day, the older boys working at the camp got to work at multiple merit badge booths. As it turned out there was a sort of exchange student there for about six weeks helping out. He was from the UK. So there was a certain amount of fascination about him due to his exotic sounding accent.
Well, one day, at the archery booth on kid pulled back the string of his bow with a bit of excitable fervor just as another boy was walking behind him. The boy behind him received a swift elbow to the nose, which resulted in a few screams and a waterfall of blood pouring from the boy’s nose.
As one of the supervisors rushed over to help the boy, they were quickly surrounded by a horde of little scouts, all of which were yelling, “He’s got a bloody nose! He’s got a bloody nose!” Dave was there trying to get the other scouts to calm down and to give the boy some breathing room. As all of this was happening the boy from Britain came walking by and heard the fevered exclamations from all the little scouts about the boy with the bloody nose.
The British boy’s face distorted with confusion when he heard this chant. There was something incredibly wrong about what he was hearing and had to get close enough to see what was going on. As he got closer to the huddled scouts, he carefully looked over them to see the scene that everyone was yelling about. When he saw the boy’s face an expression of relief swept across his own face. Then he announced to everyone within ear shot, in a tone that was a touch chastising for making him worry, “It’s not a bloody nose, it’s a bleeding nose.”
Dave started laughing, which caused the other kids to start laughing as well. Not because they got it, but because they didn’t want anyone to know they didn’t get it. Eventually everyone calmed down as the bleeding nose stopped and soon everyone was back to shooting arrows for their Archery merit badge.
Ah, the diversity of the same language separated by the Atlantic Ocean. To this day, thanks to my brother’s shared account of that experience anytime I hear someone cry out “(He/She) has a bloody nose.” I start smiling, and make sure I inform at least one person it’s technically a bleeding one.
Sometimes it’s the unintentional lessons of others that stick with you the rest of your life… and for me, (pardon the borrowed Izzardism) “That’s just pretty damn cool man.”
So, any foreign word that isn’t really a foreign word story of your own that you’d care to share?
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: bad words, archery merit badge, and confused look.
by Richard Timothy | Nov 30, 2010 | Holiday Banter, I Think There's a Point, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
With the holidays officially afoot I figure what better time than now to give the gift of a child’s curse. I’m not sure why it is, but in its purest and most innocent form a child’s curse is something a always brings a smile to my face. So what exactly is a child’s curse? Here is a prime example of one that I witnessed last Christmas while I was a my parents house with the whole family, including my five year old niece.
After indulging in excessive amounts of food, like you do, it was time to huddle around the television and watch my families holiday tradition of watching some kid in glasses shoot his eye out with an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle. My niece, was of the disposition that if the television was on, but not playing something Disney princess or Scooby-Doo related then it was not worth watching. This meant that while everyone else was down stairs watching the film, I was sitting on the floor next to the tree, upstairs, while Natalie played house with Barbie’s and Scooby-Doo action figures.
After Shaggy had turned down a marriage proposal from his third Barbie suitor… suitorette, I did my best to encourage her to play something else. Like maybe one of the Barbies could help Shag and Scoob with the Mystery of the solitary blinking Christmas tree light. It worked rather well… until…
Natalie ventured over to the tree with one of her Barbies to check out the light, then she noticed something under the tree. She put down her doll and picked up a hot pad and oven mitt set that was a gift to my mom. The set was covered in a holiday theme with reign deer and candy canes on them. The oven mitt looked a little like a puppet though. The thumb piece section of the mitt was made to be the bottom piece of the deer’s mouth. That way when you pulled a pan out of the oven it would look like it was in the reign deer’s mouth. If falls into the same realm as ugly holiday sweaters and was probably the same designer.
As Natalie is looking at it, she is filled with honest and genuine confusion. She walks up to me with the set in her hands, her brow lightly furrowed. Then, as she gently hands it to me, she asks in the most sincere and inquisitive voice I’ve yet to hear from a five year old, “What the hell is this?”
The problem with laughing at a five year old who is sincere and intent on getting an answer to the question they just asked is the have a tendency to think you are laughing at them. Her dirty looks only fueled my inability to gain my composure. Once she started crying, well, it stopped being as funny. Eventually I was forgiven, but it took one cookie and an ice cream cone, and Shaggy agreeing to marry the Barbie of her choice.
Of course I told everyone, promptly after I got her to stop crying. I just had to make sure she was not in the room when I told everyone… little people (kids) can be so sensitive. Still, there is something innocently smirk inspiring about a little kid cursing when they have no idea its considered a no no. It’s just a word to them. Something they picked up, probably from their parents… or me, but more than likely from their parents. I have a few more that I’m sure I’ll share at time goes on, but I figured this would be a good one to get you all started for the holiday season. Cheers.
So, do you have any kid curse stories of your own? I’d love to hear it.
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: what the hell, and cursing kid.
There is another bathroom related oops that there is no recovering from. It’s when you are using the clip-on functionality and you accidentally knock off your name badge by putting on your coat, or straightening your tie, or for women, simply putting your purse strap over your shoulder. The next thing you know, you’ve flushed away your name, or at least you will, because I know I’m not fishing that thing out. 
