Just Sayin

Phone Envy

Ok I'm going to say it. I hate my phone. My company pays for my phone so I don't have a separate bill but it really stinks. It's constantly dropping calls and I have never had issues with a Verizon phone before and it's just enormous. My friend Anthony jokes that I'm carrying around an ATM in my wallet.

I want an iPhone.

Mary, Mary you're on my mind

My friend and co-worker Mary Rich lost her partner Laurel of over 15 years on Monday. Laurel also worked in the ad community and was a friend to many at the Agency. I unfortunately never met her but apparently she was in a car accident last week and suffered complications from which she never fully recovered.

Mary and I are working on a project for my Client Progressive and given that it hasn't broken yet I can't really discuss the details about it. But I can say that it talks about couples. The irony that in the midst of working on this project that Mary would lose someone so important to her is not lost on me and my heart hurts for her right now.

My first thought when I heard the news was Giuseppe and how sad I would be if something happened to him. We've only been together a little over a year so I can't even imagine what Mary is feeling like right now. It's not easy to find someone you really click with in this world so to have that taken away from you at such a young age is just tragic beyond words.

I'm sending your strength Mary because it's all I know what to write right now.

Worst Man

Tests

I remember when I was in high school there was this one bastard of a teacher I had who was very tough and very smug. There was one day where one of my classmates was trying to explain why he had received a low grade on a test by claiming "I don't test well" and the teacher laughed in his face. "I don't test well??" "Well then" he said "you're not going to be very good at life then are you?...because life is all abotu passing tests." I remember thinking that he was right but also an asshole. Here are some great examples (thanks for these Ron) of people's creative solutions to questions on tests where they didn't have either the time or ability to figure out. Expand and James Bond are my favorites.

   

 

 

 

 

 

Dog in another life

 

Beyond my absolute love of dogs, I actually think sometimes I may have been a dog in another life because of my love for skiing. My rationale is that 1) Dogs love snow 2) They love the wind in their hair and 3) They love to run fast outdoors. All three of these are what makes me love skiing. There is arguably nothing better than the feeling of flying down a trail that keeps you going but is not so steep that you need worry about hurting yourself.

Don't get me wrong I love a good challenging face of bumps every now and then but for me it doens't compare to that feeling of flying on a steady incline with a vast display of moutains in front of you. I think sometimes when I'm doing this my grin may go outside the lines of my face.

Growing up I was never particularly good at sports. My brother was the athlete in my family who played varsity football and lacross as a freshman ultimately becoming team captain of both. Skiing was my thing though. While we were both very good I took to it like a fish in water ultimately becoming an instructor during my late teenage years. 

I was suppossed to go this weekend but the circumstances srurrounding my grandfather require that I be in Boston. But I want to go up there so badly that I'm hoping I can go soon (READ: Next Weekend) 

Into the West - Rest in Peace Samuel Aquino

I found out this morning that my grandfather passed away last night. He was 95 years old. The last 6 or so years of his life had been spent in a nursing home called Christopher House in Worcester where everyday that he was lucid he asked if he could leave and go home.

My best memory of my grandfather happened several years ago one thanksgiving. The extended family had come to visit my parent’s house in Scituate and I found my grandfather downstairs looking out a window over the salt marsh that was our backyard. We stood for a quiet moment and then he asked me how my job was going. I told him it was going well but didn’t get into a lot of description because I knew he wouldn’t really understand the world of an advertising agency. “Good” he said. “Don’t let them see you not working….if you have nothing to do then you pick up a broom.” I remember at first thinking “I don’t work in factory…he doesn’t really get what I do at all.” The more I thought about I realized he wasn’t talking about my job in terms of specifics at all. He was talking about work ethic and the way you take pride in doing a good job and being part of a team.

It really stuck with me because the more I thought about it I realized that there is nothing that’s worth anything in this world that isn’t worth working hard for. Whether you’re talking about your job, your relationship, your family anything. Life is work and we all make decisions about the things that matter to us. But there are no free rides because anything that’s given away for free isn’t worth anything.

I think the hardest thing about my grandfather’s passing is what it will do to my grandmother. For the past 30 years she’s devoted every day to whatever he needs. For the past 6 years she’s been at the nursing home every day. I worry that with my mother and my uncle both having passed away 3.5 years ago and now my grandfather, that she will lose the will to live. Having watched what my mother’s passing did to my father I can certainly understand why at 91 she might just mentally start to shut down.

Admittedly I do worry about this on occasion. I no longer worry about dying. It’s not that I want to and certainly I do enjoy my life. But the actual notion of dying isn’t what scares me. It’s outliving those that I care about that terrifies me. Having to wait to die alone is far worse in my opinion.

I will do my best to remember by grandfather from years back vs. the person he morphed into within the lobotomizing walls of the nursing home. I will try to remember a man who was silently strong, skilled with his hands at fixing thing, and filled with humility. A few years ago my grandmother gave me this picture. It’s from the St. Patty’s day parade in 1972. I was only 13 months old. My grandfather is feeding me an icey and clearly I just can’t get enough.

Ever since I saw the movie Lord of the Rings, I think of funerals differently. I always am reminded of the end when instead of dying, the characters of Gandalf and Frodo join the elves to sail west and join the Eldar. In the movie Gandalf tells Pippin that death is just another journey and that as you approach the distant shores you see that everything turns into silver glass and then you see the white shores. It’s a more comforting version of the journey we’ll all take. Here are the lyrics:

INTO THE WEST:

Lay down your sweet and weary head,
Night is falling, you have come to journey’s end.
Sleep now, and dream of the ones who came before,
They are calling from across a distant shore.
Why do you weep? What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see, all of your fears will pass away.
Sail for miles, you're only sleeping.

What can you see on the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea a pale moon rises,
The ships have come to carry you home.
And all will turn to silver glass,
A light on the water, all souls pass.

Hope fades into the world of night,
Through shadows falling out of memory and time.
Don’t say, “We have come now to the end.”
White shores are calling, you and I will meet again
And you’ll be here in my arms, just sleeping.

What can you see on the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea a pale moon rises,
The ships have come to carry you home.
And all will turn to silver glass
A light on the water, Grey Ships pass into the west.

 

Safe journey Grampy

Insights

So I'm here in Denver about to go into our last week of focus groups on a work project. Focus groups are kind of a mixed bag for me. I think they can be extremely useful in certain regards and not at all in others. On the account I work on right now we use them in both the good way and the bad way. The good way in my opinion is to listen to consumers talk about their lives and the role that the brand plays in them. It helps inform the way you ultimately should talk to your target. These are what we refer to as insights. The bad way is to put your finished work in front of them (after using their insights) and ask if we got it right. I disagree with this kind of research because more often than not consumers are like sheep who need to be led not consulted. But more often than not people need to feel like they did due diligence so we do it anyway. But here's the $100,000 question. Knowing that these groups take place often in the middle of the day and that the attendees are fully aware that they are being paid to be there, are these the opinions you really want to listen to? It's like when telemarketers do questionaries over the phone and then try to sell those results. Are the people who actually stay on the line the people whose opinions you want to listen to? Just sayin.

Clearly Dying

So lately I've been experiencing the strangest symptoms. I feel sometimes (like 4-5 times a day for the past few weeks) as if a wave of light-headedness comes over me. It typically is when I am walking somewhere but has also happenned when I'm looking at a computer screen and there is motion.

My boyfriend thought it might have to do with irregular blood pressure so I went and got it checked out. No issues there. They took some blood to see if I have now blood sugar because my family on my dad's side has a history of diabetes. I should find out later this week. But in the conversation with my Doctor the only thing he could sem to come up with was "Stop using Q tips" which seemed a pretty lame diagnosis. It's not like I'm using Qtips to an extreme or jamming them in my ear with reckless abandon.

There were two good pieces of news from yesterday though. One was that I was able to schedule my annual esophogeal endoscopy. I suffer from the same condition (Barett's esophogus) that ultimately turned into cancer for my mom and so I need to get it checked annually and I was able to schedule that when I visited. The second was that I was surprised by the fact that my weight was only 200lbs. 200 is not all that bad for a guy who is 6'1. Having not had a great year at the gym I was worried that it was going to be like 225. My goal is 185 so being able to lose 15 lbs by Summer is far more acheivable than losing 40lbs. 

Thank god things are not as bad as I had feared re: my weight which actually made me happy despite the fact that my other symptoms are clear indications of immanent death.