"And please, please, do what you can to cure the verbal virus that seems increasingly rampant among your generation. I'm talking about the relentless, wearisome use of the words, "like," and "you know," and "awesome," and "actually."

Listen to yourselves as you speak."

–David McCullough (1933 -   )
  American author, lecturer,
  two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize

McCullough said that toward the end of his address to the graduates of Boston College this year.

I think the problem here (as with so many things) is that we're not holding each other accountable to improvement. We're avoiding the difficult conversations with each other that might help us become better (a much bigger topic to come).

I'm confident teachers and parents care.

I'm confident children and adults prefer to sound intelligent (especially those coming out of school and being interviewed for jobs).

Are we just too tired to give each other the continual support and coaching needed to improve? Do we feel like it's not our place?

We need to get this communication thing right. We need to hold one another accountable… to help each of us become aware (the first step) of our occassional (and not so occassional) use of these pathetic verbal pauses in our speech.

Please… call me on my inappropriate use of these words… every time. If you hear my children using these words inappropriately, please be comfortable reminding them to choose other words.

While our teenagers might (will) find it aggravating, our young (and old) adults will ultimately thank us for it.

(I found McCollough's address wonderfully inspiring as midlifer. I hope those BC students embrace the points earlier than I did/ will. Read it here.)

I learned where mussels start the journey to the table. Actually, I think I knew where they started. It's the second, third, and fourth steps that were interesting.

4:30 in the morning yesterday (a Sunday), a bunch of guys got onto their boats, went up to a river and dragged it for mussels. Then they pull these things on board, spin out the dirt (I assume), and bag them in what look like 50 pound bags.

Once loaded, they bring them up to a rocky shore line and throw them overboard to be picked up.

Hundreds of bags lay there until the tide goes out and then some refrigerated trucks arrive and ride down to the water's edge, load them up and haul them out.

Eventually they show up in your store and/ or on your table. It was neat to see.

Tough work.

(tgim)

I'm not sure anything smells better than garlic and butter, outside with an ocean breeze.

That's from the Bar Harbor Inn here in Maine. Incredible views. Here's a wedding set up from a couple hours before…

I think they ask the boat to go by just as they're saying "I do."

If you're looking for a wonderful family getaway spot, Hancock Point is it. It's about 4 miles by water from Bar Harbor. The temperature in August is a perfect break from our 90 degree temps in Richmond but swimming is for the enthusiastic kid only (the water's cold).

This is a quaint little hidden place where some families have been coming for years. It can be tough to get a rental (especially in August), but send me an email and I can point you in the right direction. Our friends have a place with this morning view…

Very New England. More photos.

Last Saturday, I was running on the treadmill as closing time approached (6 pm). I still had a few minutes to go and knew it would take me over the closing bell if I kept going.

I decided, as an experiment (and in an effort to finish) to see how long it would take someone to tell me I had to leave.

I watched the person clicking off TVs and lights as the exact moment approached.

On the dot… almost to the exact click of the second it seemed… 6 pm. I was thrown the rodeo roundup gesture from the gym’s staff member. How sad.

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Several weeks ago, I took this picture…

It’s a line of 4 people waiting to get into my bank at 9 am (more were in their cars). This picture was taken at about 2 minutes after 9:00.

The fact is… this line happens frequently at this particular bank. It starts with people sitting in their cars around 10 minutes before opening and then begins to form at the door at about 5 till. I’d seen it happen before and brought a camera on a separate day, confident I’d see it again and be able to use it for this post.

My suggestion…

We open our doors (actual and metaphorical) a minimum of 10 minutes before our established opening time and close them a minimum of 10 minutes later than our established closing time. Then we remind our teams to get over themselves and let our customers in and not to push our customers out.

With this… we’ll send our customers a more authentic message of our gratitude for the opportunity to serve them… so they’ll be more likely to stay with us over our competitor.

(tgit)

The other night we picked up barbeque for the house.

These were the buns…

“So good, they taste homemade.”

Was there no grown-up awake in the room at the packaging meeting?

“Guys… these don’t taste homemade. In fact, they really have no taste at all. We need to start making better stuff or change the statement to a warning label. ‘So ordinary, you know a machine made them’… much more acurate. Can we please make good buns?”

Of course the barbeque place could put an end to the low-end mediocrity too.

“Guys… we make great barbeque. Let’s put it together with something special rather than kill it with this foam we’ve been purchasing for so long. I mean it takes us a long time and a lot of love to make this stuff. Let’s finish the job right.”

Of course I could stop somewhere else on the way home and pick up something special. But I guess I’m lazy too.

So many places along the path to our house where the end product could have been improved.

A little truth… a little effort.

I know. It’s just a bun.

It’s begun. This one from my 7-year-old…

The brothers Parker…

When they hit 10, we tattoo them with 212. That’s okay isn’t it?

My 10-year-old is starting his scholarship effort.

(movement coming soon)

Aardman? Pixar?

“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection.”

Thomas Paine (1737 – 1809)
political theorist & writer

That quote is from the first in a series called The Crisis (published about six months after the signing of the Declaration of Independence).

Washington apparently found it so inspiring he had it read to the troops at Valley Forge.

Earlier that year, Paine published the popular pamphlet, Common Sense, which further fueled America's drive for independence from Britain.

Now… if we could just get something together that would (really) fuel our drive for independence from foreign oil (we are taking crazy pills on this… come on entrepreneurs!)

Happy 4th!

Today, I proclaim…

I will be kind for the next 20 years.

(I was able to talk my 14-year-old into it too so we’re all set.)

We woke up this morning and the Spaniard wished me a Happy Father’s Day.

“It’s my birthday.”

“That’s what I meant,” she said.

Needless to say, there was no moon bounce or pony in the backyard.

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The sign above was actually inside the birthday tripwire you see below (you didn’t know they made birthday tripwire, did you?).

My business partner isn’t a big fan of the birthday celebration either (we’re birthday scrooges) so some of the team at work responded perfectly for him earlier this month.