What Happened in 2007

I retired from the US Postal Service after 30 years of employment. Ok, that's the big story but there is lots of back story to one of the most memorable years of my life. Everyone should have a year that is as fulfilling as this year has been. 2006 was overshadowed by the death of my mother. This year had some hard times but nothing that came anywhere near that level. There really is nothing other than my wife's continuing battle to get healthy that ranks high in the negatives column.

• I retired. I know I said that but as life moments go this one was huge. The Post Office was a great place to work for almost the entire period but got quite unbearable at the end. I went out of sick leave in Jan. and stayed out until I retired. I miss my coworkers very much but there is nothing that could drag me back.

• We traveled. Trips to Key West, Nashville, New York City, Cape Cod and Ocracoke were our agenda. I also made several short trips around the state for courses for the Duke program that I enrolled in this fall (see below). Nashville stands out as a unique experience. We went with our good friend John Harper, entertainment editor of The Coast. John has been attending the Tin Pan South Songwriters Festival for many years. This year we took in 9 show in 5 nights and had a blast. Nashville was wonderful, the Ryman Auditorium, the Country Music Hall of Fame, The Frist Musuem and driving around the beautiful countryside occupied our daytime hours. Key West was another highlight, a short trip but a great break in the winter. We also so Jersey Boys in NYC. Great show - great city.

• I took a lot of photographs. More than that I took a few good ones. Photography came to the fore in early part of the year as a way to fill my newly freed up days. I had an image accepted for a juried show in Raleigh. The first time my work has been displayed anywhere outside of a few friends walls. That same photo just appeared in the Hattiesburg Ms. paper, promoting a Christmas bird count. It has been popular. Several of my photographs appeared in Flickr's Explore list of the 500 most interesting photos on the site. My hammock photo rose into the top 10 briefly. I am still taking pictures though not at quite the pace I was this summer. Now I take fewer but hopefully better pictures. The photo blog has been a great place to share my pictures. Flickr also played big role in expanding my photographic world. I met some wonderful photographers and shared their photos while learning from them and be inspired by them. The power of the Internet is amazing.

• We lost. Early in the year I formed Protectnagshead.org with Bob Oakes. We raised and spent about $10,000 trying to convince Nags Head voters to support the town's beach nourishment plan. They didn't. We did win on the oceanfront but that turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory. The problem is still there, I hope the community can adopt a policy soon that will address beach erosion in a meaningful way. Right now we are just drifting.

• I found a couple of projects. As the summer progressed I became deeply involved with two community service efforts. In April I joined the Board of Directors of the Outer Banks Community Development Corp. In Sept. I became the chairman of that board. Its a great group of very dedicated people and it has been very rewarding to work finding ways for people to get homes. I have shared some wonderful moments with the hard working people we serve. The Eure Outer Banks Arts Center was created to keep an Outer Banks treasure running and to expand the cultural offerings in our area. I have been working to raise money and awareness for the project. Next year we will take over the gallery and exciting times lie ahead. More about both of these projects when I write about 2008.

• I went back to school. In order to build some skills and knowledge about the non-profit sector I enrolled in the Duke (sorry Kevin) Non Profit Management Certificate Program. I attended several seminars and took 2 on line classes. I learned a lot but even more I got to meet some remarkable people, people who are trying to change their worlds one step at a time. There isn't room here for all the stories but hopefully I will get share some down the road.

• This blog became more active. In fact this blog matured this year. After the referendum this blog became my focus. I met some great people through this blog, Ronnie, Paula, Bill, Monticello, Jeannie and the rest of the Village People forged a wonderful community and support network. As my projects ramped up blogging dropped off but it is still important and View from the Ridge and Images from the Ridge played major roles in my life in 2007.

• 13.1 miles. After walking nearly every day to combat type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure et al. I decided to try to walk the Outer Banks Half Marathon. One week after my retirement party I walked the entire course from Nags Head to Manteo. I had the highest score of any mail in my age group (it took me the longest) but this was not about time it was about setting and meeting goals, about discipline and about taking care of myself. Thanks to Kevin Zorc for planting the seed and to Mike Kelly for his encouraging advice.

There were some things that didn't happen in 2007 that were notable as well.

• Still X. I didn't run of elected office. This was not hard to do and certainly didn't mean I wasn't involved in politics. Still not having to deal with the day to day details that elected officials face was a relief. I enjoyed my time on the Nags Head board but I am not ready to get back into elected politics (yet??).

• 250 lbs. I didn't gain weight. Oh I have drifted up a little since my low of 238 back last January but I have kept the weight I lost off all year. My blood tests are all excellent and it appears through the intervention of Dr. John Sanchez I have become a whole lot healthier.

When you try to thank people you invariably forget someone but I am going to try anyway. This year as memorable in large part because of the friends, old and new, that shared it with me. Too all the readers of this blog and to Kevin, Paula, Bill, Ronnie, Monte (or the author previously know as some He Whose Name I can't Pronounce or TapkasHWHIcP for short). and all the others who have interacted with this site over the year, thanks. To the boards of the Eure Center and the OBCDC thanks for your dedication and support we had a good year but event better years are coming. Thanks to all my Flickr buddies for the interest and support of photog jones. Thanks to Bob Oakes, Ma and Pa Ratzenberger, Willo Kelly and all the rest of the protectnagshead group for their help with the referendum. Thanks to elected leaders everywhere for your service and leadership, thanks to the Nags Head Board for your courage. Thanks to Carolyn Morris who still takes my phone calls and brightens my day. My relationship with my sisters deepened this year as we pulled together to support each other after the lose of my parents, they even came to Nags Head in November and had a chance to meet many of the people who make this place important to me. Finally thanks to my wonderful wife Carole for her love and support, her encouragement and compassion and for helping me have such a great year. I couldn't have done it without her and I wouldn't have wanted to.
Upward and onward to 2008.
Ciao

N&O Roanoke Rapids tries to ditch Parton without paying

The News and Observer carried an update to the Parton Theater controversy I covered back in April. The Town of Roanoke Rapids, now on the hook for $`.25 million to Randy Parton are trying to lower the bill even further.

"The City Council doesn't 'want to pay a dime if you can make that happen,' Ferebee wrote in a Dec. 12 e-mail to Johnny Loper, who was hired a day before. 'This would still net the 125K or less to Randy that we said if we had to we could live with.'
In addition, Ferebee wrote, the approach could 'make us look better with the public if we can get the 'tax payers' monies paid back.'"

You have to root for the city in this battle. It seems that they got duped pretty badly, though they certainly should have done a better job of researching the project before they got involved. I recently saw a piece in the Va Pilot opining how lucky Currituck County was to escape this scandal. For a time it looked like this project would be built nearer to the Outer Banks. Lucky us.
Ciao

Christmas Lights in KDH

I had the joyous opportunity of taking a 3 year old to see the Christmas display at the Poulas family home on Ocean Acres Drive in Kill Devil Hills. My buddy Dylan was wide-eyed at the lights and especially the trains. If you haven' seen the display take the time to go see it and take a child if you can, in fact take 2 or 3. You can find directions here. It will lift your spirits and remind you of what this holiday is really about - hope, joy and rebirth. If you can't get there you can get a poor reproduction of the scene at the photo blog.

Thank you Poulas family for this wonderful gift.
Ciao

Selling stuff

Before I moved to Nags Head I worked in record and stereo stores as a salesman and later as a store manager. I didn't get much training in sales but over time I developed 3 principals of successful selling that I tried to pass on to my co-workers:

• Know your product
• Be enthusiastic
• Give the customer what they are looking for

These might seem simple, even obvious but I have found over the years that the large majority of people working in retail don't do any of these things much less all of them. What is even more fascinating is how these principals are reflected in my experience in town government and now in the non-profit arena.
It's interesting how they translate in new situations. "Know your product" translates to credibility. When you can explain honestly what products do and how they work customers learn to trust your judgment. They come back because they know they will get accurate and useful information.
"Be enthusiastic" sounds trite but it is extremely important. People respond to passion, to emotion. They may ask about how many watts an amp is but what they want to hear is that "IT ROCKS". Likewise if you can't convey passion about a cause you probably won' get people to embrace it, no matter how noble.
The last principal is probably the most universal. A long time ago a very pretentious individual challenged me to explain the difference between the philosophies of Adam Smith and Karl Marx. Rather than pontificate on dialectic materialism and the role of capital in building wealth I decided to simplify the concept. Adam Smith believed people were greedy and Karl Marx didn't. Marx says people will work for the greater good, Adam Smith says people look out for themselves. In the end that's the fundamental difference. Time, world politics, and my experience says that Smith was right. People only act in their own self interest. If you meet that self interest they will buy and come back. If you don't give them what they want they either won't buy or they won't buy again. The only way to be successful in life is to give people what they want.
This may seem like a really obvious thing but when was the last time you heard someone say "What I want you to do is..." or "I need you to do this for me" That simple statement and even simpler motivation predominates many relationships. What's sad is that with one more step people could increase their odds of success. When we approach people and explain how they will benefit from an their action we are much more likely to get their coopersation.
One place the place to see this is in local government. people tell town officials what they want the board to do and how they will benefit. "Pave my street" Let me build a day care" The board however generally make decisions that advance the specific values of the board. Some boards members value safety or the environment or low taxes. If you explain how your request fits into their values they are much more apt to grant their request. Want your street paved explain how acting now will save money in the future, want a zoning change explain how the tax base will grow or how it will help make the community safer or greener or better, anything except what it will do for you. This approach requires that you spend some time figuring out what the board values and prioritizes but thats not hard. Read the paper or go to couple of meetings or just talk them and ask what's important, then demonstrate how your request fulfills their wants. You will be successful.
This point was recently reinforced at an excellent class I attended. Dave Rendell, a professor from Mt. Olive College, spend the day helping seven seekers understand how to build support for non profit organizations. I won't try to summarize the entire 6 hours but the key element for me was to be reminded that when I talk to people about supporting The Eure Outer Banks Arts Center I need to make sure I know how they will benefit from their support. If this sounds a bit mercenary let me assure you its not. People support lots of good causes and they do it for a lot of reasons but all those reasons end with the donor feeling good. Some people give because they want to help, some people give because they get a sense of involvement and contact with others, some people give to get recognition and to demonstrate their success. Good fundraisers (and successful people in all walks of life) take time to learn what people want then they provide it and take the money or the volunteer time or both. What's more they aren't embarassed or guilty about it at all because they know that they gave as good as they got. They also know that if they did it right they will be able to go back to the supporter and do it again because people like to feel good and if you make them feel good they will come back for more.
If this all sounds unethical and manipulative it isn't. My old tips on selling, my experience as an elected official and Dave Rendell's concepts in class all are based on core elements of human behavior. Knowing the concepts and implementing them in your daily life isn't unethical its just smart. What's unethical is not being credible and leading people to do things that benefits you and not them.
The next time you want someone to do something take a minute to explain what they wil get out of it then see how they react. You might be surprised how quickly this type of analysis yeilds benefits.

Ciao

PS. Dave Rendell is a fascinating fellow. He is an expert in social enterprise which involves commercial transactions for community improvement (think fair market coffee). He also as some interesting ideas about self development. He calls it the Freak Factor:

What's your problem? I'm serious. What is your problem? What do you wish you could change about yourself? What is the complaint that you hear the most from those closest to you, your friends, co-workers, and family members? Are you too loud, too hyper, too organized, not organized enough? You get the idea.
So, what should you do? Most people think that they should find and fix their weaknesses. Unfortunately, this just leads to frustration and failure. Your weaknesses are actually the best clue to your strengths. Furthermore, building your strengths, not fixing your weaknesses, is your best strategy for success.

The Freak Factor is designed to encourage you to become more of who you are, not to turn you into someone else. It's about becoming more different, more unique, not more average and more mediocre.

Read his blog if you want more. I've gotten a lot of benefit from his teachings already. I'll be back for more.

Kafka meets the web

Read this absurd piece on the NYT tech e-newsletter. They always open with David Pogue's most recent column. Pogue is usually on target and always entertaining. This piece just points out how broken the federal system is.