Facebook

“Dropped 40 pounds in a year, Jeff? How did you do it?”

Gallery

UPDATE: -47 pounds and counting | The world is my treadmill…

Me: November 2011 Me: November 2011

In the months leading up to my Grissom High School Reunion in July 2012, I knew I wanted to do something to get in shape. When our younger daughter Heather returned home from college for the summer, she suggested juicing: blending fruits and vegetables in a specially-made juicing machine, and drinking the juice as a meal replacement. So we did that juicing “cleanse” for a month before the Reunion.

Two dear lifetime friends were, in my eyes anyway, the hit of the Reunion: Karen Cass Gill and Carol Baldwin Butterworth. Karen is in amazing shape, and you know those long distance runners from Kenya who compete in the summer Olympics? Well, Carol was in better shape than anyone I’ve ever seen other than, pretty much, those runners from Kenya.* Carol is Association Director Of Youth Teen and Families for a network of YMCAs in Virginia, and here’s what she said about it: “If I’m telling everyone to get in shape, how can I be anything less?” Everyone at Reunion marveled at her. A few days later, done marveling (at least for the moment), I asked her what she does to stay in such, um, marvel-ous shape. She told me several things, but the most important one was this: “I try to always get my 10,000 steps a day.”

I’ve worked in my home office for years, and at that point I figured I was probably getting, oh, 400 steps some days. I also knew that…

Continue reading

The Relay of Your Life

Gallery
The TRUPERS at Relay For Life, Oceanside, CA, USA, 04/20/2013

The TRUPERS at Relay For Life, Oceanside, CA, USA, 04/20/2013

Everyone has their causes and things they support, and whatever you do that is positive, you’re making the world a better place. So I’m not here to preach or sell. What I will say is that if you’re looking for a fun, positive, low-pressure event that helps to save lives, I highly recommend the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life. I’ve written about it here, here, and here, so I won’t reinvent the wheel in this post, but it is one of the most worthwhile things I’ve ever done. Continue reading

Sweet Home Alabama, and other thoughts

Gallery

Since around March 1 I’ve been working remotely from my personal favorite venue among the places I’ve lived and worked thus far in my lifetime: Huntsville, AL, USA. (You may find that quite a statement from someone whose current home base is Oceanside, CA, USA, just north of “perfect weather central,” San Diego.) The Rocket City, designated as such due to the omnipresence of NASA and other aerospace organizations and facilities in the metropolitan area, is home to my high school alma mater, Virgil I. Grissom High School, named after one of the three astronauts who lost their lives in the fiery Apollo 1 disaster.

Stratecast on Twitter

By contrast with the final mission of those three brave souls, my stay here has been a wild and wonderful ride that is not over yet. My current job as a global program director at Stratecast enables me to work remotely from anywhere with an Internet connection and an airport. So I’ve been working throughout the trip on my syndicated research reports, and growth consulting projects for great clients such as HP, based on the Big Data, analytics, and business intelligence market. I’ve even handed out my first technology innovation award for the year, which seems appropriate in a world-renowned hotbed of technology innovation such as Huntsville.

Big Spring Park in Huntsville, AL, USAMy mission on this trip has been personal as well as professional. Being in town from Wednesday through Sunday last July for my Grissom High School Reunion gave me just enough of a taste of the town to drive me crazy waiting for a return engagement. So my non-working hours have been chock-full of fun with friends, both lifetime and new, at Drake’s, Watercress, Connors, Ding How II, The Mellow Mushroom, Humphrey’s, Grill 29, and beyond.

2013-03-04 17.59.46I’ve walked Monte Sano and Green Mountain, as well as Big Spring Park, where I did battle with a duck I am certain was the size of at least one model in the Kia fleet of vehicles.

I walked in the Huntsville St. Patrick’s Day Parade and rocked out that night at The Sports Page to great bands including power-rockers Black Label, who were so good I found myself virtually stage-jumping to the raw sonic fury. Along the way I’ve unleashed MarketPOWER+ social sizzle to help bring #SoMeT13US to Huntsville, and to thank The Rocket/95.1FM for tearing the roof off the Rocket City.

A Jeff's iPhone-eye view of walking in St. Patrick's Day Parade in Huntsville, AL, USAIt’s been a trip filled with work and play and discovery. Time to get back to it…

“The Run For Your Life”: American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life

Standard
[below: “Infinite Love,” living art created by Michelle & Heather Cotrupe in honor of their grandmother, Ramona Cotrupe, on the beach in Oceanside, CA, on a recent 4th of July]

My previous blog entry was about my Mother, Ramona Ann Cotrupe, who joined relatives and friends in Heaven just before Thanksgiving 2011 after a brave 12-year battle with colon cancer. Pretty much whatever I chose to follow it with would be so comparatively trivial as to border on ludicrous.

Except this: an invitation to join me at the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life (RFL), 21-22 April 2012, Mira Costa College, Oceanside, CA, USA. This is not a cause we recently adopted after Mom passed away. RFL, which I have joyously referred to as “The Run For Your Life” around those I know best, has been a labor of love for my family since the early 2000s. Continue reading

Ramona Ann Cotrupe, 1935-2011: greatest person I have ever known

Standard

   
It is hard to put into words what most of us feel when we lose a parent. My Mother was the sweetest, kindest, bravest, most caring, considerate, unselfish and pound-for-pound strongest person I have ever known. Life dealt her vastly more than her share of challenges…starting right in her own household with Dad, my brother, and me, and continuing when cancer snuck in like a cowardly thief in the night 12 years ago. Yet from her perpetually smiling face and sunny demeanor you would never know it.

So much of what passes for “conduct” in today’s world is people behaving like idiots. Ready to stomp their fellow human beings if it means being first in line at Starbucks. Braying like burros if one inconveniences their Supreme Highness for a second. My Mom was always about quiet strength, not making a loud spectacle of yourself, putting others first. Over the course of her life, and especially as she waged a 12-year battle with cancer, she endured things a thousand times worse than the complainers will ever see, yet through it all radiated class, grace, and patience they could not begin to comprehend. However, she would always chastise me–and I can feel her giving me her “I disapprove but I still love you” face right now–at the thought of me speaking ill of anyone. She did not throw “Jesus” and “religion” in your face, but she was devoutly religious and more importantly, the way she lived her life was the textbook example of what I believe our Creator put us all on this earth to do. She simply loved everyone. The one thing she would not tolerate? Someone hurting one of us. Do so and you had a small but lethal tornado heading rapidly in your direction.

There has never been anyone quite like my Mother, nor will anyone quite like her ever pass this way again. If you did not know her, you missed a great one…but hopefully through words such as these in venues such as this you can know her at least enough for the warmth of her heart and the power of her love to wash over you and comfort you. That is what she lived for.

I’ve said to family and friends that when I pass from this earth, if I am given serious consideration for Heaven it will only be because Mom pulled a favor with God to get me in. That and, if for reasons unknown (and indefensible) in the cosmos my Mom were not in the company of God in Heaven, then I don’t want to go. I want to be wherever she is. 

 

My pilgrimage to the musical motherland: U2

Standard

…and other dispatches from Dublin during Management World 2011

Aye and Begorrah. The week I traveled to Ireland, President Obama did as well. Honestly not sure why he did not consult with me to sync up schedules…at any rate, the big news of the week for me professionally was attending an event-within-an-event, featuring the team I lead at Stratecast, at the world’s largest IT show for the communications industry. The Innovation Spotlight at Management World 2011 was built around the Rat Pack/10 to Watch report our team publishes each year identifying and analyzing the market’s hottest emerging companies. Check out some great videos from the event here.

Management World (MW) was chock-full of meetings each day plus working breakfasts and dinners, but in a few brief free moments I was able to snap a decent pictorial’s worth of pertinent pix. Continue reading

Is Facebook the new email?

Standard


We’ve certainly discussed the pros, cons and security angles around Facebook here and here, and as promised we’ve been adding useful links to one of these, our Facebook Privacy page. Worth mentioning in passing but today I’m thinking more of another entry, Is Social Media Really Bankable, that cited examples of how some of the largest companies in the world—and maybe yours—are starting to leverage social media to build their businesses.

Bloggers normally look outward for suitable subject matter, but in this case my own tendencies have caused me to question whether we’re part of a larger trend. Continue reading