Inspiring

Over the past 2 weeks I have attended two separate art fairs. Some very unique art, unique mediums, unique perspectives.

I don’t have a ton of artistic talent. I like to doodle, I used to draw floor plans of houses and rooms for fun (yes, dorky, I know), I did well in art classes in college, but those were more design-based.

One artistic area where I have always had an interest but no real tools is photography. I never had a good camera. I usually had a cheapo point and click. With a poor camera, came poor pictures.

This year I decided to buy a nice digital SLR camera, you know, the kind with a big-ol lens. I have found that I love to take pictures of architecture. Finding old buildings around town that are shuttered and ignored.

Walking these two art fairs I have become inspired. I need to make time to take more pictures. Show more from my own lens. This blog tells you what I am thinking. My music preferences say something about me. Now I need to let some photography show another part.

I will start sharing some images via picasa (Google’s photo sharing site). Take a look, comment, laugh, or just tell me that you visited the site (I don’t think I can track viewers, so I will never know).

My first Tweetup

Yes, I am on twitter.

I am trying to learn what this new medium of communication is all about. I find myself on twitter everyday. For me, so far, it has been a way for me to get a snapshot of information - what is going on in the world. I follow some friends, I follow some sports writers, I follow some alternative power companies, I follow Shaq.

The creator and co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, was speaking today at Webster University. Jack grew up in Clifton Heights so this was a homecoming of sorts. His speech was short, but to the point. Beyond his own story..."I lived here, I did this, I then did this..." he got to talking about why he thought that something like Twitter needed to exist. What void it need to fill.

He broke it down to 3 things:
IMMEDIACY
TRANSPARENCY
APPROACHABILITY

People want to know stuff now. Reading the paper tomorrow is just not fast enough any more. Tell me what is going on right this minute. Be open and transparent. The more immediate the story, the more truthful (and insightful) it will be. With these followers get to know the person/brand/whatever better and thus make them more approachable.

Very interesting stuff. The way I see it is that the first thing (immediacy) leads to the other two things in this case. I got to asking where would I benefit and my customers benefit if they had immediate information. The answer was right in front of me. There was a large projector screen running the stream of tweets about the speaker and his Q&A. The first person to ask a question was not heard well by the rest of the room. It was answered without repeating the question. What showed up next on the screen is what hundreds of people were thinking. "Can you please repeat the question so the audience can hear it?" It was addressed immediately. Later someone tweeted that the screen behind the speaker scrolling these tweets was distracting, it was temporarily blacked out. WOW! Now anyone had the power to influence change.

Neither ground breaking, but both shed a glimpse into what could be done.

I have already recommended that ENR tweet from our next earnings release meeting. Not many people will likely follow, but those that do really care, and now they can be closer to the company.

Twitter is hard to get used to. I was on it about 6 months before I found my twitter voice and cared enough to tweet. I am still not a hard core user. But I like it, I watch it, I learn from it and now I am learning how to use it to make our company better.

Don't be scared of it. Someone said today that "Twitter is to this generation what the printing press was to an earlier generation". Same things are being said, just now there is a new delivery method.

Down the Stretch They Come

Cards just pulled off a pretty nice sweep of the Brewers up in Milwaukee. Carp and Wainwright do their things on the mound and on the other game the bats battle back for a late game winner. Not bad. So how does that position the Cards for NL home field advantage as we have about 3-4 weeks of ball left? Currently the Cards have the best record in the NL by .5 games.

The Cards have 7 more 3-game series remaining. Three of those series are against teams with sub-.500 winning percentages (HOU, CIN, MIL). Two of the three of those are on the road. Other opponents include ATL (4 games over .500), FLA (8 games over), CHC (4 games over) and COL (19 games over). The combined record of our future opponents is 490-478 (.506).

Now look at the Dodgers. Their opponents have a combined record of 448-543, almost 100 games under .500 (.452 winning %). At first glance you would think that they have the easy road. But there is more to it than that. Yes, there are some easy series coming up for LA. They play PIT twice, WAS and SD. None of those teams have won 45% of their games. But the other three series are not going to be easy. A home and home against SF (76-63) and finish the season against COL (79-60). LA had better take care of business against the bottom feeders because the other teams are still fighting for some more October baseball.

On to the Phillies. Their future opponents' winning percentage is .475. There is still some competition in the NL East and they still play them all. FLA for two series, ATL for a series, and the Mets for a series. The Mets are not much on paper this year, but PHI has ruined the Mets playoff hopes a few times as of late. Will they inflict some revenge this year? PHI also plays a series against WAS, MIL and HOU.

All three of these teams should win their divisions. But with the pair of 2 series between LA/SF and PHI/FLA there is plenty of room to shake things up.

So while the Redbirds may have the toughest compiled opponents' winning percentage, they may have the easiest road to the best record. Not to mention, the Cards have less games to play (more off days remaining) than either the Phillies or the Dodgers.

Baseball Fever...Catch It!

Is this the next music revolution?

Thanks to Ryan Dannan for the inspiration to blog about this.

You don't know you are experiencing a musical revolution until it has passed. It is impossible to know what music will matter 5, 10, 30 years down the road. Did anyone watching the New Years Day video back in the early 80's think that U2 would be the biggest tour in 2009? Music has staying power. Good music defines a generation.

So, are we hearing that now? It has been awhile since there has been good music put out in mass. A good band comes up now and again, but is this the time that there is a whole new sound? A whole new feel?

Take a listen to some of these new(er) groups. They may just be the sound that will mark the late 00's.

Gaslight Anthem
Gomez
Glasvegas
Editors
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
White Lies
Friendly Fires
The Shins

Let me know if there are others you are listening to these days. I am always looking for something new to drop on my iPod.

The Airport Bar

While this story will not quite read like a glimpse of the bar in Star Wars it was an interesting motley crew none the less.

I was sitting at the East Terminal in St. Louis, waiting for a flight to Cleveland and missing a double header in softball. Things were not off to a good start. I belly up to the "Home Plate" bar because they have TVs tuned into sports and the Cards are about to face off against the Brewers.

First of all, where does one find a job at the airport? You look at the workers and they don't seem like the traveling type. I doubt they were waiting for a flight one day and said, "hey, look the airport is hiring bartenders or a cleaning crew, I should work here". I am assuming that somewhere there is a placement agency that specializes in these jobs.

Our bartender was on cruise control. "What can I get for you?", "Would you like to make that beer a tall?", "How about a shot for just $3 more?", "Can I see your I.D.?" This same sequence was uttered to every traveler who stepped forward to the bar.

So I expect to see business travelers at the bar, or maybe a lonely traveler while they wait for their delayed flight. But this night there were some others who showed up.

The first was a weathered old lady who was pushing 60. She orders a shot of tequila. Declines the "double for just $3 more". Sits down long enough to show her I.D., pay the $6.90 for the shot, and address the drink. Lick of the salt, bottoms up, stuff the lemon (yes, not a lime) into her teeth. She then grabs her purse and off she goes...

So, I was just sitting there enjoying my 20oz Bud and laughing inside about this transaction. It reminded me of the gambler who approaches a table game, drops down money on one roll/deal/spin, loses their money, and moves on...

Then up comes another. This girl much younger. Probably in her 20's. Could have been cute had she not lived such a hard life already. Leathery skin and a look of it was her against the world. She orders a Red Bull and Stoli Vodka...up...chilled. Huh?

Yes, she ordered a Red Bull martini. The bartender chills the vodka, pours it into a martini glass and then hands it to the traveler. Along side it stands the Red Bull can. Our young alcoholic takes the Red Bull and pours about 1/4 of the can over the vodka and takes a huge pull of her drink - 1/3 down. She pays, puts her wallet away, and takes another long drink - now about 80% gone. Before setting it down, one last drink to drain her martini. Grabs the Red Bull can and she was gone.

So my question is this. Who was it they were about to see that they both needed a quick drink to handle? Good stuff to see, felt like I was watching Intervention. Feel sorry for them a little. Then again, it was I who was sitting right beside them, drinking alone as well...