Everything Enoch

Completing an 18 year long goal–The Royal Edition

The "Enoch" — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 06:36:25 GMT

So let me give you some history. When I was in High School in the early 90’s I played in some Wind Ensembles and other bands. However, my musical knowledge of the “Classical” genre was not very strong. I knew I liked Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, and Holst but other than that I didn’t know a lot of the style. If it wasn’t Yes, Rush or Stephen Sondheim I didn’t listen to it. I realized slowly that if I was to make it as a Music Education Major I would have to expand my knowledge. So I walked to the local Strawberry’s Records (yeah, they don’t exist so don’t bother looking them up) on a work break and looked at the Classical Section.

The problem with looking at any vast CD store is where to begin. I started at the place I knew: Stravinsky. Out of the corner of my eye I saw it. A Blue cover with a picture of Leonard Bernstein and a water painting from Sony Classical. I remember wondering what it was because the same style of CD cover was peppered throughout the classical section. I picked up the CD and flipped it over only to see a picture of Prince Charles, “His Royal Highness”. The other thing that stood out was a number on the top of the corner: No. 87 of 100. “Could this be the answer to my problem?” I asked myself. “It looks like a whole series of CDs that contains all of the great works I was interested in getting.” I looked at the price of the CD ($15.99) and thought, “If I keep working I could buy 2 CDs a week and have the whole collection in a year!” I looked at my wallet and broke out my first $20 in a long line of purchases to come and walked up to the register to pay for my new journey.

I walked back to my job and opened my CD to see what I just gotten myself into. Turns out the CD was an amazing find. Not only were the liner notes amazing histories of the works, but they also gave a little insight into the composers as well. They weren’t just filler pieces like I found in so many CD’s I owned. And there was a larger detailed picture of the water color painting on the cover with a little aside from Prince Charles:

“I began to take up watercolour painting some 20 years ago when I found photography less than satisfying. I simply experienced an urge to express what I saw through the medium of watercolour. I very quickly discovered how incredible difficult it is to paint well in such a medium, and the feeling of frustration at not being able to achieve on paper the image that you eye has presented you with is overwhelming! The great thing about painting is that it is your own individual interpretation of whatever view you have chosen. Because it obliges you to sit down and make a careful observation of the chosen subject you discover so much more than by just pointing a camera. As a result you become increasingly more aware of the quantity of light and shade, of tone and texture and of the shape of buildings. In short it has revolutionized my life and through the requirement of intense concentration, it is on of the most relaxing and therapeutic exercises I know.” – HRH The Prince of Wales

So I quickly started to do the math on my new “year” project. 100 CDs x $15.99 = $1599.00. So I knew my goal was to save and spend that much money. Then I turned the page in the book and saw two things: Some CDs were Double CDs (sigh); and they had box sets of 25 you could purchase at once (cool). So I after work I decided to put some money aside each pay check and pursue my goal of purchasing my new Classical CDs. I went to bed with the excitement of new musical/watercolour landscapes I could discover. Then I woke up! Sometimes life is simple when you have a vision. Sometimes that vision get’s cloudy by life. And like most things that I set my dreams on when I was younger, I eventually forgot about the dream and ended up with other CDs. Periodically I would look at the classical section and remember the dream of the 100 Royal Edition CDs and pick up one here and there. But it was never the full excitement that I once had.

Then I went to college. Going to school for music had a strong classical influence on me, and my new found love of music theory re-sparked the dream. It was at college that I met another kid who had the same idea. “How many do you have?” I replied, “13 CDs!” “Oh cool. I have 32.” If anything the idea of competition now made it more pertinent. I didn’t want to be the last one to collect them all. So every time I would walk into a CD store I would check to see if there was a Royal Edition I could purchase. By the time I left college I had around 31 CDs.

Then something happened. Life again got in the way. In 1996 Sony stopped producing the Royal Edition CDs. My life also took an odd turn. I was working temp jobs barely making enough to make end’s meat. So the dream was once again on the back burner. Occasionally I would look in a CD store (new and used) for the odd chance there was a Royal Edition, but It didn’t pan out that well. It was nothing more than the occasional opportunities that I would ever find these CDs so the dream was again put on the back burner. Until a couple of years ago …

It was around the time I was listening to a lot of my friend, Larry Stevenson, talk about goal setting. Sometime about this presentation made me think of my little dream. I had a number of Royal Editions that I scrounged over the years but didn’t know my exact count. I went home and tallied them up: 57. Over half … It was doable. I slowly started going to work and attempted to find the remainder of these CDs. Being long out of print the only option I had was to troll the internet. Over the past 4 years I have diligently been searching for a title and picking it up when I had the chance. First it was all of Copland, then all the Sibelius Symphonies, then onto Mahler. I would look at the numbers I had and check to see which ones I was missing. My first complete set of 10’s where the 80s: 80-89 where all mine. And slowly, ever so slowly another grouping of 10 would be completed. And after each purchase I would listen to the CD and revel in the amazement that I found another one I was missing.

Enter last week. I was looking at my collection and thought. I don’t have them all do I? It’s not possible. One last time I counted through my stash of Royal Editions. “1, 2, 3 … 22, 24. Ok. I’m missing 23. 24, 25, 26 … 56, 58. Ok. I’m missing 57. 58, 59, … 100. Is that it just those two? Am I almost done?” I jumped back on to Amazon and started rooting through used CD places to see if I could find the missing two. And suddenly there they were. Royal Edition Vol. 23: Brahms and Sibelius Violin Concertos and Royal Edition Vol. 57: Pictures at an Exhibition. I jumped at the chance to order them and patiently waited. And slowly they both came in the mail: First, Pictures then followed two days later by the Violin Concertos. I opened them, placed them in my computer and quickly burned the discs to mp3 so I could listen to them throughout my house. Then I sat back and laughed. It was done. It was over. I completed something I set out to do 18 years ago. I have them all. 121 CD’s in total. 100 watercolour paintings by Prince Charles. 1299 tracks comprising over 350+ works from the masters. It’s an amazing collection with works that are wonderful to listen to repeatedly.

No I haven’t listened to all of them, and yes I do have my favorites. There are pieces I never imagined before and pieces I imagined incorrectly all these years. There is a lot of money poured into CD stores and a lot of time poured into researching, but over it all I discovered one thing which up until now I didn’t really believe too strongly. I can accomplish something. Even if it takes me a couple of years …. I can finally accomplish something. Just see what I accomplish next!

The Royal Edition CD Covers

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Things to Learn from Modern Day Hip Replacement

The "Enoch" — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 05:23:24 GMT

So I recently traveled home to be with my parents as my father went in for Hip replacement surgery. Originally I thought the surgery had something to do with his liver. However, once I landed and discovered what the surgery was about I felt a little foolish for lugging all those onions, but that’s for another tale. This is about hip-replacement and the modern day Steve Austin my father has turned into.

So I arrived two days before the surgery. Just enough time to uproot my parents life but be here for the emotional support they needed. It’s always important to understand how far in advance to show up so you disrupt just as much as you help. I ‘m a firm believer that showing up announced to people’s places is always a disruption. The cleaning, preparation and general wanting to set a good example is something most people take pride in accomplishing. Even if their homes or places of work are spot free, the impression they want to set is important. Family, even though they know most of your weaknesses, are still prone to these thoughts. And my parents are no stranger to this behavior. So it is important to me to let then know I was coming (usually it’s a surprise) and to give them the heads up so I didn’t disrupt their lives to much with the preparations for my arrival.

The night before my Dad’s operation we were sitting around watching the tele and my Dad got a phone call. My Dad’s hearing is almost gone so his phone has a loud speaker on it that pretty much ruins the concept of privacy for everyone. It was his surgeon ( a Dr. Wiley) for his operation the next day. He wanted to call to make sure Dad was ready for surgery, if he had any questions about what was going to happen and if he knew what time he was supposed to be there. The phone call lasted about 5 minutes, but it showed care and concern in an industry that sometimes forgets how important that is.

The next day we traveled up to Concord Hospital in Concord, NH. It’s about 55 minutes from my parents house. My dad needed to be there by 7:15 AM so we left our house @ 6:00 AM. We got dad checked into his room and waited as a whole procession of doctors and nurses came in and out of the room. Around 9:45 they wheeled my Dad out of the room towards his surgery and moved my Mom and I to a “family waiting area”. At 10:10 they started the surgery and around 11:45 they were done with the surgery. At this point they told my Mom and I that we had over an hour before he would be awake so we decided to go out and get some food. We got back to the hospital around 1:15 and my Mom was rushed into the recovery room so she could see him. I was told only one person was allowed in the room at a time, so I held onto the bags, read my nook and then decided I needed to use the restroom. When I came out of the restroom my mom was sitting in my seat. She said, “He’s too loopy right now. He kept saying how disappointed he was that he couldn’t oversee the surgery. I’ll wait until his room is available.” So we waited another 30 minutes and he had his room. So we went up to his room and sat with him for an hour or so and came home.

This was the majority of what my Dad kept saying. “I’m hungry! I haven’t eaten anything since last night. I feel great! I was in this position @ 8:30, fell asleep, woke up in this same position @ 3:00. I know something happened but I’ll be damned if I could tell you what it was. I’m hungry! I don’t have any pain. I’m a little sore, but no pain!” And so on and so forth. He called a couple of people on the phone and said similar things to them. Around 4:00 Mom had enough excitement and asked if I could take her home before rush hour traffic. I said, “Of course” and we said goodbye to Dad, told him we would be up the next day and made our way through the maze like structure of the hospital to the car.

That night Mom got a number of phone calls from Dad giving her updates on what was happening. He eventually was given a menu to get food (even though he was supposed to be on fluids the nursing staff finally gave in to him), He walked around his bed a couple of times, and he thought he might be good enough to be discharged the next day. “Gentlemen, we can rebuild him … we have the technology.”

So the next day comes and I take Mom to physical therapy. Afterwards we get some lunch and head up to the hospital. We get to Dad’s room and he looks great. He is standing up and shuffling around. There are a flurry of nurses who come in to check on him. All leading up to the inevitable “It looks good. Let’s get you discharged.” And he is happy with that. Mom is a little nervous but starts to feel better knowing that Dad can start taking his Ritalin. There were a number of people who were planning on coming up and visiting him, so I jumped on my phone and started making calls to people to tell them that he’s heading home. Good health can really be an inconvenience at times. That’s one commercial Koshi won’t show you. So they finally ask Dad if he would like a wheelchair to leave the hospital and he said, “Nope. Do you want this cane back now?” almost defiantly showing the medical institution that he didn’t need no stinking cane. Or at least as defiantly as a 78 year old can thumb his nose at an institution that just gave him mobility back. And as we walked out to our car we drove away from the whole experience thinking about how great it was.

So what can we learn from this stint into the medical marvels of my Dad’s Hip-Surgery? Here is what I took away from it:

Make a phone call ahead of time: Even if it is just a simple verification about time a simple phone call ahead of time, making the extra effort to show the person you are meeting with they are important is invaluable.
The right preparation is essential to easing ones mind: My Dad and Mom had faith that the operation was not going to be too difficult. Not only because of the confidence of the operating team, but also because Dad was doing preparations before the operation. He was walking up and down staircases, exercising on his stationary bike, eating the right foods, and generally preparing for the outcomes, good or bad, of the surgery. Because of those preparations both my Mom and Dad knew whatever happened they were going to be ready. It made the day of operation not nearly as difficult.
Having someone else to lean on, even if asleep, is comforting: So I’ll admit I was the most dutiful son, because I kept falling asleep during the day of operation. No matter what I did as soon as I sat down I was out cold. However, my Mom told me that even though I wasn’t really “there” knowing that I was there to jump in and help was really important to her. Sometimes we forget how important it is to have another person “around”, even if only to jump into action when we need them.
Never underestimate the determination of someone wanting to go home: I don’t like hospitals and neither does my father. It reminds him of his Mother and her last few moments on this great planet. Also, I believe that as many good things that happen in hospitals there are just as many difficult moments that people remember. And those difficult moments generally are more hard hitting then the good moments. So Dad was determined to get home to a place where his Fluffy Dog lives and a lot of good things occur. Because of that he did everything right to speed up his recovery and recuperation. With all that in place he definitely exceeded everyone’s expectations and astonished almost everyone with his recovery.

It has been fun coming home and visiting with the folks again. These spry, wily, aging kids are fun to watch operate. Some days it’s enjoyable to just sit back and see them interact with each other. I often wonder what I’m going to be like at that age. I can only hope that I’m as youthful as they are.

On Dating Again: Part Four– The Aftermath and Beyond

The "Enoch" — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 10:14:40 GMT

So my previous post on this topic was over 2 weeks ago, and through those 384 hours a lot has happened … another two outings with Mary and a decision that feels odd for me. First, the aftermath of my faux pas.

With so many things in my life I tend to over analyze and overthink a lot. Problem with a mind that likes to process things quickly. I can run through 100 worst and best case scenarios in about 30 seconds which means that I can very easily exasperate a situation beyond reality. Many friends mentioned to me after my last posting that I wasn’t in that bad of a situation and the best thing to do would be just to contact the darn girl and stop thinking about it. So with the encouragement of friends and a forced mental stop in my mind I just contacted Mary and asked if she would like to do something the next weekend. Not that I had any plans or ideas of what to do, but I figured since I had a good time I might as well venture out again … and a second outing/date for me is kind of a big deal since I don’t do this type of thing often. Mary said it would great to do something. So we made plans to get together on Friday and headed up to a Utah Blaze (arena football) game.

I won’t go into all the details of the evening, but it was a fun time. We talked about life, likes and all those things that find their way into conversations as two people are learning about each other. It was a truly fun and enjoyable evening. At one point I felt there might have been an opportunity to even take the relationship to another level, which was a little shocking to me. And in standard “Enoch” fashion I skirted around the moment. Eventually we said Goodnight to each other and said we should see each other again.

Now the drive home … the dangerous part of the evening … is the place where I start thinking about what happened. And here my dear readers and friends is where guidance would be nice. As I started thinking about the situation with Mary a couple thoughts passed through my head:

Mary is a little younger than I am. I’m 34 (almost 35) and she is 26. Now I know “attraction” knows no age, but I’ve always had a slight concern around this area.
Mary is really the first girl that I’ve seen during this new quest of dating … Is that fair? As a romantic I’m not opposed to the idea of finding “The One”, but I’m a skeptic at heart. It feels odd to say that after two dates and some crazy emotional connections that I’m smitten.
How much of these thoughts to I tell Mary and how much do I keep to myself? Anyone who knows me understand what a nut about honesty I am. Ask me anything and I’ll tell you the truth. I may try to make it sound better than a blatant “I hate that”, but you will always get my honest sentiments. However, that seems like a lot of information during the dating process to divulge to an individual. Possibly I should handle my concerns alone and wait for another time to share my eccentricities.

And there were other thoughts that ran through my head, but those were the major ones. This got me thinking about the future weekend (last weekend) coming and what I should do about things. So I called up my friend who set me up with Mary and asked her advice. She gave me Mary’s information along with three other of her friends information. I’m not one of those people who juggles well, so I opted to call one name on the list at a time. Mary was the first, but would I hurt Mary’s feelings if I called another one of the names on the list? This really concerned me. So called my friend and asked her for some advice. My friend told me that “If I felt like I should call another name then I should make the phone call.” “Don’t worry … Mary has the same type of concerns and would still go out with another person if they asked. You’re not committed so don’t worry about it.”

Now many people may not understand why this is such a problem, but here in Utah the rules of dating are EXTREMELY different than anywhere else. The pressure for marriage is high which translates into odd implications people put on “dating”. It is possible here to find yourself in a committed relationship after spending 20 minutes with a person and engaged after three dates. Yeah … it sounds crazy, but I’ve seen those occurrences happen. So take a guy from NH who really is very infantile in personal relationships and dump him into the pressure cooker of Utah dating and you get questions. As much as I would like to be married, I don’t see myself marrying a person after 2 dates, but that doesn’t mean the other party my not have implied intentions. (Just so you are aware Mary is by no way this type of person, but when you’re playing a game you have to understand the rules and boundaries)

So I made a decision to cognitively ask someone else out for the next weekend. If the circumstance came up that I wanted to contact Mary then I would … and that natural connection would drive the relationship. So I texted two women and tried to set something up for the weekend. And that was big for me because, well, I usually only contact one person at a time. But this time I tried to stretch my boundaries. However, the following weekend I didn’t have a date so I stayed at home, watched “Deadliest Catch” with some friends and worked. I felt guilty about that since I secretly had a goal to go out each weekend and spend time with someone interesting and I failed last weekend.

So on Tuesday, to play catch up, I decided to drive up to Salt Lake and visit a friend of mine who has been going through some interesting situations as of late. She never answered her phone, but since I was in Mary’s neck of the woods I texted her and asked if she would like to grab something to eat. We ended up spending about an hour hanging out at a Barnes & Noble bookstore. She had other plans that evening, but it was fun to just spend time together.

So I don’t know what the future holds in store for anything. Mary is great, and I’m sure I will spend time with her again. This next weekend I ‘m going out with another girl. That’s exciting and a little nerve wracking because, well, I’m still getting used to this “dating” thing. What is interesting for me is to realize something that my time with Mary taught me: It’s alright to be yourself; It’s alright to make mistakes; It’s alright to think crazy thoughts and share; but most importantly It’s alright to be happy. And for that lesson, whatever the future holds, I am eternally grateful.

Thank you Mary!

On Dating Again: Part Three–The Next Day, and the Next Day, and the Next

The "Enoch" — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:47:07 GMT

My previous post mentioned that I goofed up a little on a date I recently went on with a really cool female named withheld whom I call Mary. But now it is confession time and tell about my feelings of the blind date. First the confession.

So during the date I put my phone on vibrate as to not get interrupted by phone calls, texts and other silly smart phone things. During this time my phone was in my pocket which doesn’t seem horrible but when the phone is on vibrate and you wear baggy pants like I do then you can easily miss phone calls, texts and other silly smart phone things. I mentioned how after I dropped off Mary I called a friend of mine to quickly stop by and visit. We went to our standard late night hang (IHOP) where she proceeded to grill me on the date that just happened. The interesting thing about this grilling was I didn’t make my usual excuses on what happened. I was happy, which was odd for me. My friend asked me if I was going to see Mary again and I said that I would like to but I didn’t know how I was going to since my lease was up on my car. I needed to invest in a bus pass.

So I took my friend home and gave her all the mix CD’s out of my car including my pump up CD I had for getting ready that evening. And I started to head home. All the while not remembering I put my phone on vibrate. After getting home I took my phone out of my pocket and plugged it into the charger by my bed where I usually leave it for the weekend.

The next day, Saturday, I got up from sleeping walked into my office and started working on some projects I wanted to get done. Then I jumped on the PS3 and played some Crysis 2. The whole time I started thinking about random ways I might be able to “pop” up and see Mary. it’s odd to be confessing this through a blog post, but truth be told I thought it would be fun to hang out with her again. I do have an overactive imagination and I thought possibly I’m fooling myself into thinking something more than it was. The whole day was like this. Play a game, and take your mind off of the situation. Do some work to chip away some time. Watch a movie to ignore the clock. Finally it was 5:30 and I figured if I was going to do something then I would have done it earlier because it was way too late to hang out now. It’ll just have to wait … until tomorrow. <sigh> As time rolled on I eventually went back to bed and slept until Sunday.

Yeah, Sunday came and went and even though I had great intentions of going to church … I just didn’t seem to make it. So I decided I would listen to the General Conference talks. Around 2:00 I got a crazy idea to write a Windows Phone 7 application to deliver the General Conference Talks to my device instead of having to go to the website. I opened up my computer and started working on it. I finally stopped around midnight and decided to call it a night. Why does any of this matter? Because when I woke up on Monday morning convinced enough time had passed to not appear too anxious. I picked up my phone, which was on vibrate all weekend, and noticed I had 7 text messages, missed 3 phone calls and had over 200 emails … and I didn’t hear any of it. Most importantly there was a text from Mary on Friday night saying “I had a really fun time. I hope to see you again.”

There it was … confirmation that she had a good time with a goofy kid from New Hampshire and I missed it. More importantly I missed it three days ago. Whoops. If I was a smart man I would have replied in a text, “Just saw your text. Let’s get together next weekend.” But alas … I didn’t. I’m not that smart. The whole time I was internally debating about seeing her again I could have just texted, “What are you doing now? Wanna get a pizza?” But now my mind started processing the situation and I went into evasion mode rather than crisis control mode. Yeah, I realize on a scale of 1-10 that this problem rates about a 2 in the intensity meter, but it was a mistake that I needed to fix. However, I had things I needed to accomplish that took precedent over the problem I had. I had to return my car, I had to get my Scooter Safety inspected and I needed to get my Scooter Registered. I would have to wait until the evening to fix this problem.

I could tell you about my day and how I took care of meaningless activities, but instead I’ll mention the three people whom I did nothing but talk to about Mary. People want to know about my dating life. And people are interested in what I do. Needless to say throughout the day I talked about the Friday night date and everything I have shared here repeatedly. Each time with the intention of “I need to contact Mary”, and each time failing to do so. So to Mary out there … I’m sorry for not contacting you sooner. I promise to get in touch and I do hope we can hang out again soon. It was a fun time and I would love to see what the next adventure is.

As for me and my internal thoughts … well that is a final blog post that needs to be written. All I can say is “Silly Enoch,” and hopefully not try to derail progression much further for me.

On Dating Again: Part Two–My Friday Night Faux Pas

The "Enoch" — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:04:46 GMT

In my previous post I mentioned how it is tricky for a Jekyll and Hyde person like myself to meet people. This brings up my friends who have the best intentions in mind and tell me about women I should meet. Which is how I was introduced to Mary (whose name I changed to keep her identity a little more private). More about that in a second …

After the recent LDS Conference it was mentioned that people like me (older single guys) should heavily think about getting married (that’s the nice way of saying what was said … they were a little more direct). During the conference I texted my friend and told him “President Monson just threw down the gauntlet … it’s either start dating or remove my records from the church. “ (this is a great talk for those interested parties). He sent me back a text with the number of his daughters and the number of some young women. My good LDS friends … always at the ready. Later I was told to call one of his daughters to get the name of another young lady, Mary. I don’t know what made me text/call Mary first out of the 3 names given my by his daughter, but she is who I texted.

My thoughts going into the initial conversation were these: 1) I need to get out there and start dating, 2) I need to do something with someone this Friday, and 3) If I’m doing something in Salt Lake City it needs to be before the weekend because my car’s lease is up on Monday. So with my new information from my friends daughter I vowed to myself that I would call the ladies on Wednesday. Well … Wednesday was horribly busy and I didn’t get home until after 9:30. It was a little before 10:00 PM and I thought I would text Mary and see if she was around. So I quickly texted her and apologized for the late contact. My mom always told me to never call anyone after 9:30 and that has always stuck. I asked if she had time whether she would mind if I called her to quickly chat and see if we could set something up for Friday. A couple minutes later … I had a date. Now the problem of what to do.

I’m horrible knowing what to do in Salt Lake. I live in Provo (about 45 minutes away) and don’t go to the “Big City” that often. I told Mary if she wanted to do anything than I would be game for that. She said that she was totally up for planning something which was a great burden lifted from my shoulders since I had no idea what to do. However, come Friday the weather was not that great which put a damper on the plans she made. I was back to trying to come up with something.

Before I continue I should mention … I’m trying to be a better LDS member. I’m not perfect and often fail at the simple things like going to church. I am determined to go about this dating thing with dignity and respect towards the LDS faith and the women I date. Hopefully …. by doing this I can keep the eternal goal of marriage in a positive light instead of something that freaks me out.

With that being said, my first thought of activities in Salt Lake was to head to “The Roof” restaurant on top of the Joseph Smith Building ( a place I like to eat) and then go to the Legacy Theater and see the “Joseph Smith” movie they play there. It’s dinner and a movie LDS style. On Friday I mentioned this to Larry, his daughters and his son and son’s wife that I had this idea. From all parties involved I had a resounding “Um … you don’t want to see an LDS film on a first date. You should do something else” vibe. So I thought well … if that many people I respect thought it might not be a good idea then maybe I should revisit my plans. I quickly jumped on http://CitySearch.com and looked for other things to do. After fumbling around for different ideas I jumped in my car to pick up Mary.

So this is about a 45-50 minute drive I embarked on with nothing but my schizophrenic mind to keep me company. I actually made a mix tape of “one-hit-wonders” to lighten my mood as I traveled. And I made pretty good time all the while thinking “I have no idea what I’m going to do tonight.” And finally I made it to Mary’s street passed it and pulled into the grocery store up the road. Why? I just realized I left the house without doing the Last Minute spritz and shine we’re supposed to do so I ran in for some gum, breath mints and a little bag of jelly beans so I didn’t arrive at the house empty handed. Yet another odd idea instilled in my from my youth: Always bring a small token when entering a stranger’s house. I put three mints in my mouth and two sticks of gum and I was ready.

After pulling into Mary’s house I walked up to the door, 7 minutes late, and knocked. Alas here is the ultimate moment of truth … the meeting of the blind date. On blind dates there is always that possibility of saying to your friend who set you up, “What were you thinking? Really? You really think of me that way?” However, Mary is a very attractive female who probably was wondering to her friend, “What were you thinking? Really? You really think of me that way?” but if she did she covered it extremely well.

We got into the car and started down the road towards an unknown destination. Before we got to far I said to Mary, “Ok. I’m going to tell you the lame idea I had for us to do so we could think of a better one together.” And I proceeded to tell her about my plans. After telling her the idea she looked at me and said, “Really? I had that same idea, but I didn’t want to say it because I didn’t want you to think it was lame.” Great minds, right? So we happily drove into downtown Salt Lake. Parked in the Joseph Smith building parking lot and proceeded with our idea.

The evening was really fun. We just relaxed and ate great food, watched and commented on the many Prom couples eating at “The Roof” and told stories about ourselves. It was really a fun time. The last showing at the Legacy theater was 7:30 at night so we finished our eating and went downstairs. In typical Enoch fashion we were a couple minutes late so the movie had already started. It was a new Joseph Smith movie that was released only a week before. Which was cool because neither of us had seen it yet. Once the movie was over we jumped in the car and I proceeded to drive her home.

So as I pulled into the driveway I was a little selfish and just parked the car. There we stayed talking for a while until it was around 9:30. I didn’t want to stay out too late on a first date so I walked her to the door and did a very awkward goodbye. I think there might have been a high-five or fist-bump or something in there. All I know is I’m not good at goodbyes. So I jumped in my car and started to head home, but before I did I called a friend of mine who lives in Salt Lake whom I always try to see when I head up to the Big City. But something was different about the evening and I didn’t understand what it was. it wasn’t until the next day that I understood what it was. I was happy.

This is odd for me … I don’t get happy after first dates. I have good times. I have enjoyable evenings. I don’t get happy. Maybe it’s all the work I’ve done with Janis that has helped me get a different perspective on life. Maybe it was me letting my guard down and talking about things you don’t bring up on first dates. Quite possibly it was the fact that Mary is truly an incredible female. Whatever the reason … I was happy and that worried me because I wanted to figure out a way to see her again without sounding needy or desperate. And that troubled me, because I don’t do that. I needed time to understand my mind. I needed time to relax. I needed time to strategize and plan. First) because I didn’t want to appear too much too soon and Second) I was losing my car on Monday and that was a problem if I needed to head to Salt Lake.

However, in standard Enoch fashion, it is the mental processing that is sometimes my downfall. But that is for my next post. And for what happened next … I need to apologize to Mary.

On Dating Again: Part One–The Historical Context

The "Enoch" — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 08:01:39 GMT

It’s interesting to see how often over the past 10 years I have been told by family, friends and complete strangers how much it amazes them that I am not married. I don’t live the typical single lifestyle. I’m not a womanizer nor a frequent dater. To be honest you can count the many women I’ve cared about intensely on one hand. Most of these people who talk to me about marriage think the same thing, “Enoch is really great … why isn’t he married?”

The answer is pretty simple. It goes to a deep rooted sense of insecurity I have. Whether it is because I felt jaded in past relationships or I’ve put effort into something that doesn’t pan out the idea of a “relationship” is alien to me. But … things need to change and now is a better time than any to start.

Recently I’ve been seeing Janis Johnson at Authentic Turning Points and working with her on a number of “issues” I have. Anyone who knows me knows I processes through a million thoughts in a couple seconds. Thinking about why I do the things I do is a second nature action for me. And trying to understand my sub-conscious is like trying to unravel the mysteries of M-Theory. Sure we can get close, but it just opens up a new problem when you do. But Janis has helped me process my information with less deprecation to myself which is what I need. And for that I am grateful.

The last session we had was Thursday. I mentioned that I was going out on a blind date on Friday and she said, “Why don’t we Evox your feelings on dating?” Evox is a nifty little device that listens to the tones in your voice as you speak, processes the frequencies that are stressed and then returns healing frequencies to your system through a hand console. Here is a quick little blurb about the technology: http://bioenergetictechnology.com/about/zyto-technology/evox/ .

So we did a couple sessions. The concept is a simple one: There is a circle with 12 zones. Your speech is analyzed which then color codes the zones and highlights stress points. After you talk then you “process” which is where information is sent back to the tester through a hand cradle. Each time you do record new colors and frequencies arise. The trick is to eventually get shifts in your colors and zones because the processing is helping your body understand what is needed. Normally the sessions take anywhere from 3 to 8 times. While I was there Janis mentioned that her mentor did 15 on someone … which was a lot. That to me sounded like a challenge which I was more than ready to take. We ended up doing 16 sessions on my feelings and thoughts on dating … and we probably could have done more, but it was getting late.

So why do I mention this? Because I went out on Friday night not really expecting anything and ended up having a pretty fun time. But before I say that fully let me explain something. Normally I have a great time going out. I know that I’m a charming, witty, fun guy that is attractive to people. I don’t think of myself as handsome or attractive, but what I don’t feel like I have in looks I think I make up for in personality (Please don’t read too much into that statement. I’m just being matter of fact here for the readers). I don’t like going to large groups and meeting people. I have a “Jekyll and Hyde”-ian approach to networking where Jekyll likes meeting with people 1-on-1 and my Hyde is being outgoing and meeting lots of people. Hyde wears me out, which is not a good thing for a person who thinks they should start meeting people to date. Where do Jekyll’s go to meet people?

Because of this internal duality I tend to stay at home and not put myself out there into the public. This has to change … and last Friday night it did … a little. But that little tidbit is for my next post …

Life, Death and the Value of a Good TinFoil Dinner

The "Enoch" — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 07:33:10 GMT

Recently I was sitting at my local LDS Employment Resource Center talking to Sam Baugh and Larry Stevenson. Sam mentioned he was leaving to go home, start a fire and eat smores and tinfoil dinners with the family. The whole thing sounded like a fun night and if I had tinfoil, a fire and a family I would have loved to gone back to my home and done the same thing. However, immediately my mind went to an old friend of mine who passed away several years ago: Jon Folk.

Jon and Donna (his wife) were extremely influential to me during my time as a child/young adult. Both of them attached themselves to our family through the community of Boy Scouts. I don’t remember how we first met, but I am thankful for the chance to have had these wonderful people in my life. When I graduated Tiger Cubs, Donna and Jon were there. When I was awarded my Arrow of Light, Jon and Donna were there. And when I received my Eagle Scout, Donna and Jon were there. I don’t remember a more staple among Derry, NH Scouting as Jon and Donna Folk. And they were fantastic. One of the most memorable weekend overnights I went on Jon and I sat making tinfoil dinners. We made dinners for the whole troop and at the end Jon put all the remainder of the supplies into his Dinner (he saved his for the end). It was a HUGE tinfoil dinner which I commented “That’s a Hungry-Man Dinner!” Jon laughed his raspy laugh, walked over to the fire and started cooking the meal. The rest of the meals were almost eaten when Jon was finally able to start eating his because of the amount of food. “I guess that’s the problem of being a HUNGRY Man, eh, Enoch!?!” I don’t think I’ll ever forget that laugh. Ad it wasn’t until Monday that I had thought about that laugh in a long while and the people who greatly impacted my life.

My mother called me around 2:00 in the afternoon today (Tues) and told me that Donna Folk passed away. She drowned in the ocean. When Jon passed away his ashes were spread in the Atlantic Ocean in Maine. Donna would walk out to the pier and sit and talk with Jon when she missed him. From what I understand she was on a visit, lost her balance and fell. I like to think it wasn’t a violent end, but a warm embrace knowing Jon was so near.

Now I have lost a lot of great friends in my life. People who have influenced who I am to really close confidants. Every time I hear of a passing of a truly great person I revel in the knowledge I was able to share a moment of this life with them and mourn in the understanding that others will not be able to partake of them anymore. Possibly it was fate; remembering Jon and hearing about Donna. Maybe coincidence. But I choose to believe some higher power (God, Yahweh, Allah, The Great Spirit, etc.) uses these moments to help direct our thoughts to where they need to be.

My thoughts turn to the potential of people. Donna and Jon saw something in my they wouldn’t let go. Possibly that’s why I see so much awe and wonder in others. In business sometimes it is so easy to focus on the problems that the greatness of the individual gets lost. There are so many more successes our lives contain, but we occasionally fail to look at that potential and just see the struggles. Jon and Donna pushed me forward and strived to make me know about the successes I could have. We all need those pushes. And it is easy to forget they exist without a little reminder.

So, for we the living, take a small lesson from my great friends the Folks … Remember no matter what your station in life, you impart greatness in this world by recognizing the greatness in others. Thank you my dear, dear friends: Jon and Donna. It has been too long since I’ve thought of you, but your influence has never left me. And when I see you again, as I know I will, we will revel in friendship and once again share a tinfoil dinner fit for the heavens.

The Red Cross Response on Today’s Japanese Earthquake–3/11/2011 @ 12:15PM

The "Enoch" — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 19:24:00 GMT

Some of you may know that I volunteer at the Mountain Valley Utah Chapter of the American Red Cross Board. We help in raising funds for our chapter as well as participate when possible in other Red Cross events. Today I received an email from our Chapter Community outreach specialist Liz Merrill in response to the devastation that occurred in Japan with the earthquake and tsunami. Here is the email.

At 2:46pm local time today, March 11, 2011, a massive 8.9 magnitude earthquake struck the eastern coast of Japan. The quake triggered a tsunami with 7-meter waves, causing massive destruction and 28 reported deaths. At this time, neither the Japanese Red Cross nor any other national society has issued an appeal for international assistance. The Federation is working closely with the national societies in the region to monitor the situation. Therefore, at the current moment, the American Red Cross is not collecting funds for an international response. We stand ready to respond as needed.

You can help people affected by disasters, like the Japanese earthquake, floods and tornadoes across the U.S., and countless other crises at home and around the world by making a donation to support American Red Cross Disaster Relief. Your gift enables the Red Cross to prepare for and provide shelter, food, emotional support and other assistance in response to disasters. Visit www.redcross.org or call 1-800-Red Cross. Text “RedCross” to 90999 to make a $10 donation. Contributions may also be sent to your local American Red Cross chapter or to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013.

Additionally, the American Red Cross has been in touch with its Services to Armed Force (SAF) staff in Japan. SAF staff members are located at Camp Foster, Kadena, Yokota, Iwakuni, Yokosuka, Camp Zama, Atsugi, and Misawa. All American Red Cross personnel have been accounted for. SAF Station managers are currently stationed in the military Emergency Operations Centers (EOCs) for their respective installations and assisting as needed. In Yokota, SAF staff is assisting with evacuating non-essential personnel and some passengers who were diverted to Yokota.

We will continue to update you as more information becomes available. As always, we appreciate your support of the American Red Cross and the global Red Cross network. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

________________________________
Liz Merrell
Development and Community Relations Director

American Red Cross
Mountain Valley Chapter
865 N Freedom Blvd
Provo, UT 84604
801-373-8580 (p)
801-375-8434 (f)

If you feel inclined to help out our brothers and sisters in Japan through the Red Cross please contact your local chapter or take one of the highlighted steps here. Thanks all!

American Fork & Lehi Joint Chamber and Rotary Bowling Shindig–November 2010

The "Enoch" — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 19:12:43 GMT

What do you get when you combine four of the best civic/business organizations together? Mayhem, Madness and so much more. But what happens when you include Laser Tag and Bowling? Nothing short of trouble with a Capital “T”. With a bowling high of 160 and a bowling low of 27 we certainly didn’t wow any MLB scouts, but the fun and camaraderie present certainly solidified American Fork and Lehi as the place to have fun in your business.

Jack & Jill’s Family Fun Center was the place that brought us together today. Upon entering the facility was a welcoming sign directing us sent us to a special VIP room decked out with Sofa’s and individual stands. Sporting 10 private lanes and five movie screens this room is a great place to host private events. And for the 60+ people in attendance today … it was plenty enough room for us to talk, bowl and poke fun at each other.

Situated next to our private bowling haven was a longer room with plenty of pizza, salad and dessert to feed those parties interested. And once one pizza was eaten … the excellent staff was right there on site to replenish the table. There were about 8 different pizza’s and 16 different drinks to partake which meant everyone had something they could walk away with to fill their tummy.

And those in attendance certainly eat there fill. There were familiar faces, like Josh Walker, Rod Martin, and Chris Jones from the various groups. Also there were new faces coming to get together for the first time. Was there business discussed? Of course, but in between frames it seemed less like “here are my services” and more like “If you bowl that bad …”. But with all the friendly ribbing and jesting everyone walked away smiling and having good positive thoughts as they went back to work.

Thanks Debby Lauret, Donna Milakovich, and Jennifer from Jack & Jill bowling for such a great event.

Thom Reed–American Fork Chamber Luncheon Presentation

The "Enoch" — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 19:31:00 GMT

Thom Reed presented to day at the American Fork Chamber luncheon on “How Small Business Can ‘Crush It’ with Social Media”. He is a marketing professional who works with small business owners getting their marketing materials, social and traditional, to find ultimate results. He just recently came out to Utah from the great state of Illinois. He used to work with Proctor and Gamble as the Senior Brand Manager. He is a passionate and creative marketing leader.

Thom is an extremely high energy presenter who talks about Social Media in a very exciting way to get business owners up and running to use these social media tools. He started with describing certain technologies:

freebinar.com – Free webinar software
wordpress.com – Free blogging system to get out in the public
flickr.com – Free photo sharing community
foursquare.com – Free localized community about you for your clients
LinkedIn.com – Free business profile in a professional business network
eventbrite.com – Free event organizing solution

After describing those technologies Thom gave a perspective about setting up your social networks by proposing business owners to create a schedule of activities. These schedules can be defined in different criteria. Create schedules for initiating networks. Create schedules for being found and being engaged the next week.

As he started talking about a 4 week program to help get people involved:

Week One – Be Found, Be Engaged in the Community:

Blog:

M: Post
T: Comment on other posts
W: Post
TH:
F: Announce Facebook Promo
S:

Facebook:

M: Cite Blog & Ask for feedback
T: Status/Comment
W: Cite blog & Share other’s links
H: Ask 3 Questions
F: Promo Offer
S: Congratulate on Promo

Twitter:

M: Cite Blog & Retweet others
T: Ask 3 questions
W: Cite blog & search for hashtags
TH: Comment on others
F: #FollowFriday
S: Share weekend plans

Other:

M: Email friends to follow you
T: LinkedIn – update your profile
W: YouTube – create your channel
TH: Write Video Blog Script
F: Update website with promo offer
S: Flickr – Add pictures

Week Two – Be Found, Be Engaged in the Community:

Blog:

M: Post
T: Invite comments
W: Video Post
TH: Comment on other blogs
F: Guest Blog
S:

Facebook:

M: Cite Post
T: Seed video post
W: Link to video post
H: Seed the webinar
F: Cite guest blog
S: Pictures from Flickr

Twitter:

M: Build by following
T: Seed video post
W: Cite post
TH: Solicit video feedback
F: #FollowFriday & follow others
S: Tweetphoto

Other:

M: Review Video blog post script
T: LinkedIn – Join a group and discuss
W: iTunes – create profile for podcasts
TH: Eventbrite – send invitations to webinar (Wk4 day 3)
F: Foursquare – create profile
S: Flickr – fourquare check in

Week Three – Be Engaged in the Community, Be the Expert :

Blog:

M: Post about upcoming webinar
T:
W: Audio post
TH: Customer survey (no more than 10 questions)
F:
S:

Facebook:

M: Status and comment
T: Recommend other groups and pages
W: Link to audio post & Promo for webinar
H: Ask top survey questions
F: Status and comment
S: Share an event you will be attending

Twitter:

M: #Music Monday
T: Twitter only RT promo
W: Cite Post
TH: Drive to Webinar
F: #FollowFriday
S: Retweet favorites

Other:

M: Update website with webinar info
T: LinkedIn – Add to your network
W: iTunes – Upload audio post
TH: Email – Send survey out
F: Foursquare – check in
S: YouTube – create playlist of favorite videos

Week Four – Be the Expert:

Blog:

M: Post
T:
W: Host Webinar
TH:
F: Testimonial from webinar participant
S:

Facebook:

M: Status and comment
T: Webinar promo
W: Promo Video from Webinar
H: Webinar participant promo
F: Post links to commented blogs
S: Foursquare – check in

Twitter:

M: Post top survey finding
T: webinar promo
W: Nuggets from webinar
TH: Webinar participant promo
F: Share testimonial
S: Foursquare – check in

Other:

M: Review survey results
T: Freebinar – Webinar dry run
W: Email – Webinar participant promo
TH: LinkedIn – Create a group discussion
F: Foursquare – check in
S: Flickr – Add pictures

“The trick behind social media is that it is not hard, but it does take a commitment.” With the outline that Thom describes he does show the commitment needed to increase your exposure and needs. However, if you do follow the plan you will see results that will improve your presence and standing in the social media world. It’s a fabulous plan that will take time to implement, but will deliver results because of the follow-up and participation in the spaces that makes Social Media so powerful.

It was a great presentation from Thom Reed (@TLReed97 on Twitter). Thank you Debby Lauret (@afchamberlady on Twitter) for setting up this wonderful lunch event!

Five lessons for putting on a great conference #WABCON

The "Enoch" — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:52:40 GMT

So roughly five years ago my business partner and I formed a Software Development company named Wasatch Dev. At the time we started looking into the normal Business opportunities for a startup. We ventured to many organizations to find which one would work best to help us grow. We ended on the Provo/Orem Chamber of Commerce. Unfortunately, we found out all to late what many people before us had found. It didn’t really give us an opportunity to grow as a business.

The PoCoc had one event we found rather interesting: a program called Chamber University. The idea: to give any business the opportunity to train other business owners in a technique or trick to help them grow their business. This was perfect! It was the program we were looking to help us grow. We went to a couple of the events and were greatly disappointed. These weren’t trainings, but glorified sales pitches to business owners. “I would love to teach you about simple accounting skills, but their rather complex so you should have me do your books.” What a joke.

Being that I love education, I brought up the idea to my business partner about doing a Chamber University that was pure education. Our rates were a little too high for the small business owner, but if we could get them to be more successful they would be able to afford us. So we started brainstorming through ideas that would could teach small business owners. And we came up with about 100 different ideas. We could have been doing Chamber Universities for many years. We needed another thought.

Enter WABCON. A day long business education event that trained business owners, no sales pitches. But who would come and see two relatively unknown computer geeks talk about technology all day? We needed something else. A lot of small business clients we worked with would ask us questions about marketing, finance and business management so we decided to find the greatest minds in those areas and see if they would help us present for the day. And low and behold they loved the idea and wanted to be a part.

Lesson #1: Find an idea and stick with it unapologetically

We wanted to create the ultimate business education conference focused in four key business areas: marketing, finance, technology and business management. There were often times were people came to us and asked if they could present on a new book they just wrote or about a new product they wanted to sell. We would tell them if that we do not sell anything @ WABCON. WABCON was about pure business education. We have lost a number of presenters, but we have maintained a level of integrity with our clients that is important. We make sure that our clients know when they hear WABCON that they hear education.

It is important to be passionate about your idea. Now you can get too focused on the idea that you might miss some of the picture, but that’s where getting people to help comes into the picture. The trick is to compromise where it does not alter the original focus. Back of room sales, a new program this year, does not interfere with the pure education presentation, but it can entice certain key note presenters. Altering the program around the idea does not mean that you are altering the idea. It could, but the trick is to have your vision defined so you know where the boundaries can be pushed. Enhance your idea … don’t alter it.

Lesson #2: Find key people who share your vision and ask for help

We made sure that when we partnered with companies and people that they shared the same vision as we had. I know that the business decision maker needs to know about changes in the business environment. Having those people who understand that same idea is equally as important. Not only will they drive your message to their spheres of influence, but they will also help you keep on track when you begin to wax and wane. Making sure you have people around you who support your same ideas and want to see them succeed helps grow the brand and make it more of a reality.

When we first started WABCON it was Bryce and myself, with a few others helping spread the word. The second year we started planning the conference about 8 months prior with a few other people. Now we have a phone meeting every two weeks to plan events throughout the year. And each monthly event we have is a unique experience for the business decision maker. We have a rotating volunteer staff that helps on the phone calls to create the best education events possible for our clients. We want to see them grow! Success breeds success!

Lesson #3: Broadcast the word as much as possible

Stephen Sondheim once wrote, “A vision is just a vision if it’s only in your head.” This is true of products and services just as it is with events. Our first year we were involved with the PoCoC and did a lot of information through them. Granted they had a great person working with them who ended up getting a job in Texas. Once we lost connection with the PoCoC representative we stopped attending their functions. This dried up an aspect of the business community we were drawing new clientele. When we stopped our numbers started to dwindle. Sure we had a pool of people we were pulling from who would bring in contacts, but it wasn’t enough to make our conference grow where we wanted to be.

Enter in Kristin who started helping us spread the word in local networking groups.She joined the Orem chapter of BNI (Business Networking International) and starting attending the American Fork Chamber of Commerce (a phenomenal Chamber to belong). With the help of Kristin we were able to bring our numbers higher and get more clients. The key? Broadcasting the word. Bryce and I were so busy keeping Wasatch Dev alive that trying to get to all the networking opportunities was extremely difficult. But with Kristin helping out it made it easier and more effective.

Lesson #4: Get INCREDIBILE presenters who you TRUST

I have been charged with playing favorites when it comes to the presenters and instructors we have at WABCON. And to be honest, I am guilty of this accusation. But in my defense it is because I trust these presenters with the integrity of WABCON. There have been many people who have wanted to present, but after a little time with them, hearing their presentation ideas, and learning what other people have to say about them … I decline. It is important to me that our clients learn something from the presenters they can implement in their business and see results, than to have someone just speak and present in front of an audience. And the presenters we have are amazing people who I greatly trust with my clients. I do my research and make sure that others know what they are getting into.

I have been to many conferences where a key note presentation did nothing but ramble about the latest party they attended, or just talked about the latest gadget they acquired and gave no information pertinent to the business owner. Sometimes the presenter doesn’t understand the audience and speaks too technically or sophisticated for the attendee. We make sure that each of our presenters understand a couple key points: 1) Experiential is more meaningful than Lecture; 2) Teach to the Head (intellect), the Hand (implementation) and the Heart (excitement); and 3) Make sure that the participant walks away with something they can implement immediately. When you have a pool of presenters that you trust to get that message to your clients how often do you accept a source who does not care about those ideas?

Lesson #5: The Attendees are the most important people

The people who come to WABCON are the most important people in the world. To see them get excited about our events and come prepared to get education and learn tricks that they can use in their businesses is important. I love hearing stories from people about the exciting things that happen because of our events. And knowing that we are a part of those activities is greatly rewarding.

Many people ask what we get out of the conference. “You must be making a lot of money?” The truth is we don’t. We put on WABCON to give back to the community. We do it to help business grow and succeed. We do it for the fun of putting on a conference that helps people. Some day we are going to break the 250 attendee threshold that we have set for our conference. That would be great, however, I know if we ever get to that number then it will become increasingly more difficult to sit with everyone and see how they are doing. I love working together on the goals of the attendees. I love helping them get to the next level. I love engaging in those conversations. It’s because of the attendees that I hold fast to the integrity of this conference.

If you are in the Orem UT area around October 22nd, 2009 and want to see a great conference event. Please come and visit us. You can read all about our conference @ http://www.Wabcon.com and register for the event. And if I don’t know you, please come introduce yourself. I would love to see what I can do to help your business grow. And possibly, just possibly, show you how important you truly are to us.

Open Letter #4: the time with you …

The "Enoch" — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:48:44 GMT

Accepting all I’ve done and said
I want to stand and stare again until there’s nothing left out.
Whoa it remains there in your eyes
Whatever comes and goes I will hear your silent call
And I will touch this tender wall until I know I’m home again
it’s in your eyes …
In Your Eyes – Secret World Live – Peter Gabriel

Dear … mysterious known,

There is something about your piercing blues that have entered my daydreams over the past couple of days. Possibly because I am reliving a haunt from my past. Or quite possibly I’m projecting a future envision. What ever the reason I have seen my soul opening with a glance from your way.

It frightens me to think that I have projected you in my mind. The possibilities of the future is left to the dreamers … am I, or better yet, you one of those dreamers? I see you in the laughter of people around me and I hear you in their smiles. I want to stand and stare again in your eyes. But not knowing who you are makes me wonder where am I staring and where am I standing. And possibly … you are wondering the same thoughts.

The eyes are the window to the soul. That sounds so much more deep than I wanted to be. But if we can truly understand each other then shouldn’t we be able to understand our stares … our glances … our gazes. If I can’t look at you deeply and get lost in your stare then will we have a chance? With conversation, intelligence, wisdom and grace all being important aspects of us, if we can’t comprehend without words are we together?

I would like to think that being able to sit and look happily at you would be enough to sustain me. I would like to think that the physical, emotional and spiritual can be imprinted by you to me through a passionate gaze. I would love to see within your eyes “the doorway to a thousand churches,” A thousand places of peace, a thousand places of sanctuary. And maybe that is what I am missing in my searches for you.

In my rough placement for “the one” then I am possibly not seeing the fault in myself. How can I ask of you something I cannot do? I need to give the same temperament and treatment that I am expecting from you. And can you find that from me? Am I a sanctuary of a thousand?

So I will grow and progress to be that person. If you can accept me, then grow with me. Give me a chance and I will be a rock for you to find comfort. Then, when all is attained and adored, we will have “the light, the heat” and “be complete” in each other.

It’s in your eyes …

Open Letter #3: When time is running out

The "Enoch" — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:06:18 GMT

You are the new day …
   One more day when time is running out for everyone
   Like a breath I knew would come, I reach for a new day
   Hope is my philosophy … just needs days in which to be
   Love of life is hope for me, born on a new day
You are the new day!
You are the New Day – The New Day – The King’s Singers

Dearest friend,

There is a great quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay Friendship that says:

Dear Friend: -
If I was sure of thee, sure of they capacity, sure to match my mood with thine, I should never think again of trifles, in relation to thy comings and goings. I am not very wise: my moods are quite attainable: and I respect thy genius: it is to me as yet unfathomed; yet dare I not presume in thee a perfect intelligence of me, and so thou are to me a delicious torment. Thine ever or never.

It’s the last line, “Thine ever or never”, that I find the most troublesome. Ever or Never. I’m firm in my belief this life does not remain consistent in relationships. They are either growing or receding. I have never experienced a relationship that remains constant over time. Sometimes rebuilding the connection is not difficult, but other times it is extremely gossamer. So I do not want to waste our precious time together fiddling around with trivialities. I want to understand and know the whole of you.

Time is the greatest illusion. The idea there will always be more. The thought it is fleeting and we will never experience it again. The truth is these moments that make up our experiences together are flashes of rare emotion. And if you or I leave, those moments of rare emotion will recede our connection or strengthen our desire. The choice, I’m quite afraid, is made upon the strength of our relation.

If we were sure of each other’s intentions, sure of our potential to love, sure our feelings were unified, distance would hold no boundaries for us, and we would pine for the return. But if we lack slightly in any of those areas, then surely moving beyond the capacity of our current actions would be simple. Our tenuous connection would be severed and new bonds would be created with different people. It has happened to you and has happened to me.

So time is running out on us. It always has been ever since we met. And if we want to continue then we need to focus on the connection we’ve made. The hope I have is that we create our tie that is strong to outlast the trials of tomorrow … whatever those may be. So within the last moments we have, either this week or for years to come, let me fight for our unity. Let me fight for our understanding. Let me fight for our together. That way, when we part, I know that our sinews will be unified in the strength of Love, Hope and each other. Until we meet again.

The potential of a New Day is in your smile. And that, My dear friend, is what a delicious torment you are to me.

Thine ever …

Open Letter #2: What I’d Be Without You

The "Enoch" — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:55:04 GMT

“I may not always love you, but long as there are stars above you
you’ll never need to doubt it, I’ll make you so sure about it
God only knows what I’d be without you …
If you should ever leave me, well life would still go on believe me
The world could show nothing to me, so what good would living do me?
God only knows what I’d be without you … “
God only knows – Pet Sounds – The Beach Boys

Dear “her”,

My thoughts have driven me to think about the life I could be leading and also the life that I lead. Effortlessly I drift along my own path tossing up fractured ideas about perfection. However … no, that’s the wrong phrase … With reluctance, I know that I am not the ideal, perfect man. My flaws are numerous and my weaknesses are many, but … I have no idea where I would be without your guiding light shining.

As much as I have foibles, I know that you are not perfect as well; we are equally flawed. But using your visage/countenance as a beacon I look at myself and hope for the best. I draw a path towards greatness and achievement, not because you demand it, but because you deserve it. I do this freely and without request. I do this to find a perfection in myself that is there and hopefully, one day, to be able to complete that perfection and deserve the ideal I have placed on you.

I ask only one thing in return … your understanding that I am not placing you on a pedestal to gloat or boast. I am treasuring the creature that is within, the underlying wonderment and amazement that is your potential. Please do not use this as an excuse to think you are all deserving of my affections and admirations. I am not to be used in a disposable manner. I want to have the vision and the goal to work towards. Guaranteed, if you and I ever found each other the hope that I could be placed on that same pedestal is there.

For now … I’m happy to astound from afar. It helps me become a stronger, better man that will be in demand. Possibly that triumphant, glorious angel could be you. But if not … then for a time we both had memories and moments that are happy and pleasant. In the process we hopefully grew as people too.

God truly only knows what I would be like without you,

Enoch

Open Letter #1: And You and I

The "Enoch" — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:09:45 GMT

“ … And you and I climb over the sea to the valley,
and you and I reach out for reasons to call …
I listened hard, but could not see life tempo change out and inside me …
In the end we’ll agree, we’ll accept, we’ll immortalize that the truth of the man maturing in his eyes,
all complete in the sight of seeds of life with you.
Coming quickly to terms of all expressions laid,
as a moment regained and regarded both the same,
emotion revealed as the ocean maid,
a clearer future, morning, evening, nights with you …”
And You and I – Close to the Edge – Words by Jon Anderson, Music by Yes

Dear “Muse”,

I have been doing a lot of thought about today and You and I. Mostly about I, but I can’t help but feel I should include You in the thought. Since there is no “us”, I need to find the words that might make something towards that idea possible.

I know that You are pursuing a course different than what was originally thought. Life has taken a direction that wasn’t planned, and for that You are trying to make sense of the journey that You now embark. I have watched You travel and have wanted to help, but my actions may not be reciprocated in the correct manner. You have your life to govern, while I have mine, and I do not want my care and concern to be unwanted interactions.

So I would like to propose an idea. You have found yourself in a position to make You struggle with the term “us”. You have had trials in the past with persons of selfish needs. People who look at the “us” as an end to grow the “self”. Or, even worse, People who use the “us” to limit the growth of “You” so the “I” will always be dominant. Many people have been in that situation, myself included, but I would like to propose a new venture … something that might change your mind on the idea.

I have found a newly found joy looking at joint possibilities. Collaboration with new colleagues who have given me the potential to grow. Grow in new and exciting ways. I retain my individuality while these collaborations let me see the power the group has over the self. And because of this collaboration I have been thinking about You.

I love the accomplishments and potential of what You offer. I would never want to diminish You in that way, which I know others have tried to do. I think … no … I know You are amazing and secretly hope that I can live up to the ideal placed on You. And I know if You are interested We can create amazing things the world has never seen. I would love to be a part of You to help achieve the next level … whatever that level means.

But this “We” only works if You see the same potential in what I offer as well. There can be no dominance in the joint venture. When the status quo of the collaboration shifts power then the equality of the team starts to become tenuous and strained. Of course at times You will win out over needs, but at times I need to win out as well. Together, We can build each other to a higher strength than ever imagined. But it needs to be a unified “we”, not a “We” that is unbalanced. We have both been in situations like that. We have found that it lessens our potential and ourselves, and we cannot be the people we are destined to be.

So what do You think of what I have proposed? A partnership together to create the best “us” that we can be. A partnership to never lose “You” or “I”, but together finding the best “You” and “I” imaginable by working together as “us”. Isn’t that what everyone wants? A person to boost them up when the silver lining cannot be found? A person to revel in their times of joy and happiness? A person who will celebrate the entire being of the other?

I am not trying to impose myself on You. I just want You to know that I appreciate all that You are. And I think … no I believe that You are a person that will change the world. I don’t want to miss out on that opportunity because You were never given the option. You and I … us … we can make it.

If it is something You want as well.

Sincerely,

A personal I

Open Letters to the Unknown Her

The "Enoch" — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:32:51 GMT

So I know that I have recently not been doing my share of contributing to the blogsphere. To use the terms found in torrents, I’m much more of a leecher than a seeder. To my defense … no there is no defense. I’ve been selfish with my time and not willing to contribute or share. And to those out there who are interested to what I have to say … sorry, I’ll try to be better.

The problem with writing about my “Love Life” is the fact that I really have no “love life” to speak intelligently about. There are certain people that I find intriguing, and there are people that I enjoy spending time hanging out with, but … no one really important enough to call “significant other” or even “special interest".

I know that seems a little crazy since those who know me have seen a torrid past that is up and down the roller coaster of relations, but … currently my affections lie with myself and hoping to be better to get to the next level with this mysterious someone. I’ve been out of the game for a little while. But I know if I want to attract that special someone I need to become the person with whom a special someone would be interested.

Which brings me to the “Open Letters”. I’ve decided to write some of my “dating” thoughts down so that people can interact with them and hopefully give me words of encouragement as well as tell me what I’m doing wrong. These letters will be addressed to an unknown her. I was thinking about using a name, possibly something that starts with an “A” since I’ve always had a fascination with females starting with the letter “A”, but I’ve opted to not include a name so that no one will get their feelings hurt or suspect that I am talking about them. If I use a name I’ll stick with “Muse”, the reason which you can decipher on your own. I trust you.

So that’s it. Hopefully you can follow me on my journey through the quagmire of companionship as I begin to write things down and get to the bottom of this troublesome journey. Plus … I hope you enjoy the adventure. Remember that these are just the thoughts running through my head. Like most good opinions and drives they will grow and progress over time to something that can be magnanimous. Please don’t lambast me too much in my infancy.

Happy hunting to you all!

The Budding Roses of Business Growth

The "Enoch" — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:19:00 GMT

In hopes of trying to get a little sleep in the evening I’ve been listening to a lot of different songs on my computer. I’ve almost burned my entire CD collection, which has been great to have in a portable organized fashion that doesn’t require me to scroll with my thumb. In listening to my eclectic collection I stumbled upon an old favorite of mine … the Shaw Brothers.

For those of you who don’t know the Shaw Brothers, they are a folk duo from New Hampshire that pretty much sum up the feeling of NH days in a simple musical style. The folk music is very Irish sounding and will by no means awe and inspire you if you are listening to them for the first time, but I was dragged to many a Shaw Brother concert growing up and found a closet love for them. They have a couple of songs that are traditionally sound: New Hampshire Naturally (NH’s state song), The Ballad of the Concord Coach and Seven Daffodils to name a couple.

The song that hit me pretty hard this evening though was “Take Some Time to Smell the Roses.” A simple phrase that is mentioned over in over with great platitudes from people. But this sentiment got me thinking about some of the clients that I work with in my Social Interneting strategy sessions. Most importantly about the breakthroughs that certain clients have had over the last couple of weeks.

One of the important aspects that I talk about with business owners is the importance of self reflection. We turn the mirror on each other and take a moment to answer 5 simple questions: What makes you special?; What are you Passionate about?; How do you communicate?; What are your strengths?; and finally what are your weaknesses? These appear to be simple questions that any person could take about 5 minutes to answer, but I spend a couple hours with a client to really focus on these ideas. Most people don’t analyze themselves with great depth and because of that struggle to position themselves in the world: virtual and physical.

Usually after working with a client in these arenas an idea will open up that makes the business owner smile and realize that there are areas they should be focusing. I have yet to have a client leave a strategy session where we work through these concepts leaving unsatisfied with the new direction they should be heading. The reason why the approach works is the simplicity of questions and where they can lead. The other trick behind it is taking the time to actually work through the answers. And it’s amazing what roses of realization occur when you take the time.

What are the roses? Some are ideas of who they want to become. Some are understandings of what they want to be doing. Some are just realizations of where they want to focus their lives. What we create is a simple blossom that needs to be tended and cultivated into something amazing. Most of the business owners I meet take very little “time to smell the roses” because of the busy schedule they live. When we work together we focus on themselves in a safe focused environment so that we can find the sprouting buds that have been hidden for so long.

So if I can give a little advice to business owners beginning and established. If you are finding the situations that currently exist a little challenging and burdensome, take some time to smell the roses. Look at yourself and what you are doing and ask a simple question, “Am I working smarter or just harder?” Find an exercise to focus a little attention to yourself and discover what is amazing about you. Then turn that into something that increases your business. You’ll be amazed at what an exercise like that can produce.

Oh … and if you find yourself having a little trouble … don’t hesitate to drop me a line. :)

“Take some time to smell the roses” lyrics

Take some time to smell the roses
before the summer time slips away

I was born on a farm in west Virginia
My daddy worked hard for a living all of his days
there was a whole lot of work to be done
but we always took time to have fun
And I remember what my daddy used to say

Take some time to smell the roses
As you hurry on your way
Take some time to smell the roses
before the summer time slips away

I left home one day to seek my fortune
When I think of the things I've seen and the places I've been
Oh I've been up and I've been down
but through the toughest times I've found
you can always rise and face the world again

If you just take sometime to smell the roses
as you hurry on your way
take some time to smell the roses
before the summer time slips away

Well I'm a married man with a young son of my own now
And I'm as proud of him as any daddy can be
But if I could give him some advice
That would last him all his life
I know for sure just what those words would be

I'd tell him take some time to smell the roses
As you hurry on your way
take some time to smell the roses
before the summer time slips away

The #SMCSLC February Panel of Love … and fame

The "Enoch" — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 07:00:33 GMT

So after a LOOOOONG day at work I was excited to see the alarm on my phone go off. "90 minutes to SMCSLC" was the alert. 5:00 already? That meant I only had 15 minutes to finish my coding and jump in the car. @DeanGirls was waiting for me to pick her up and ride up to Salt Lake City for the Social Media Club event and last time I was late … well …. Let's just say I can't be late again.

So we were talking about what was going to happen that evening. A Meet and Greet. Door prizes. And then a panel discussion. What were we going to discuss? Who knew? It didn't really matter because the last event was pretty cool (see Last Night at the Social Media Club …) so we were excited to see what was going to happen. I've been doing a lot of Consulting with local business owners so seeing other people's viewpoints is always exciting and educational. People grow by being willing to listen and understand various viewpoints.

So we drove and talked for the hour it took to get there. The location changed to the Neutron Interactive facilities in Downtown SLC so finding it for a non-local always takes a few more moments. So we found the place and parked. There were a bunch of people walking into the same building and heading up the elevator to the event so I hoped we didn't miss it … And you couldn't. Not just because @paco_belle and @jyl_MomIF were waiting for everyone at the door, but because IT WAS PACKED WITH PEOPLE!! This was great because a bigger crowd meant more people to meet with and connect.

But I was really hungry, so I mainlined to the drink table to get some water ignoring everyone around me. My apologies to all the people I was rude, but … I really needed something in the tummy. Afterwards I saw @ThomAllen looking at the big Twitter screen and I thought that I would say hello. @ThomAllen has been working REALLY hard on setting up the second PodCampSLC and I wanted to make sure things were going well. I also thought that I would offer help since I also put on a semi-big conference in the fall (WABCON) that Thom has presented at. Just as we were starting to converse the announcement came that the panel was about to start.

So first there were door prizes given out to a number of people. Some pretty cool ones to: Ski Passes to Park City, an eBay gift card, Tickets to Hoogle Zoo and various other items. Then the panel was introduced and given time to talk about themselves. Here are the people and a quick précis about what they said.

@apowerpoint – Anthony Power – A very diverse technological man with a degree in Psychology, Anthony talked about TRUST and what that means to the conversation in Social Media. He stayed very focused on marketing throughout the meeting and had some great insights and points. For a snippet of insight: http://apowerpoint.blogspot.com/2009/02/explaining-social-media-and-marketing.html
@todaysmama – Rachael Herrscher – A very insightful woman who spoke about mothers and how influential that demographic is becoming in the world of Social Media. She urged us to be mindful of this growing group and utilize that understanding in how we create campaigns and strategies for Social Media.
@jesse – Jesse Stay – A hugely popular Social Media connector and author who spoke about creating the "Real Connection" instead of just the virtual connection. He shared a story about a business startup that he was tweeting about that took the time to send him a thank you card and attention about his needs and desires for using their product. It showed that there are real people behind some of the these virtual personas that we sometimes fail to connect with.
@sarabanut – Sara Brueck Nichols – A strong mannered woman who spoke with great passion about not abusing the connections you have with people. She spoke about non-profits and how by providing information about what services you are provided how powerful that is in the minds of the people you are asking for donations. She also mentioned the power of twitter in the world of @Tweetsgiving and how there are other means of connecting with people who don't know who you are and what your organization is about.
@comcastcares – Frank Eliason – A surprise panel presenter who arrived a little late. Comcast Cares Frank has become a celebrity in the Tweeterverse with all that he has done for support with Comcast. He didn't have time to talk about himself, but shared some wonderful insights about being personable, connecting and dealing with people who are haters.

So the panel took about a half an hour to give their introductions which left a half an hour to ask questions.

How do you make a conservative executive take notice of Social Media?
- Get started using the technology and then show them how it's used
- Show how being connected can improve product quality and customer satisfaction
- Build excitement as people see what is happening
So is "Less is More" truly effective when it comes to getting your information out to the public?
- Yes. Engage the people who are like minded and you find successful in the future
- Don't focus on just making money, focus on the relationships
How do you differ from the "company" brand to the "personal" brand when you become a bit of a celebrity?
- It's better have advocates for the company than just the company
- Recommend looking at the "Zappos" model how to interact in Social Media
- Branding employee is also Branding himself
- Train employees to use the Social Media effectively and make the presence known
What are the psychological trends that make people want to share their lives?
- A tough question because that if it get's answered the experts would like to know
Do you fear of spoofing that might ruin your credibility/integrity?
- Having proof that you are who you say you are is important
- Link your social sites to your web-sites to prove that it's you
How does one manage the amount of people when you get above a certain number of connections?
- Twitter is about the information stream, utilizing applications will help manage the information

I wish I could remember all of the comments made during the evening. Unfortunately my memory isn't that strong but you can find out all the information by watching the UStream video that's online. It shows most of the Panel conversation so everyone can participate in what went on during the evening. On the whole … it was a great event with some very excellent insights.

But it wouldn't be a post without a couple critiques. Here we go:

Problem		Resolution
The "Meet and Greet" portion was a little unruly for first time people to feel super welcome in the group. You could tell the people who knew each other because they congregated and stayed close together. This makes new people not meet as many as they could.		Organize the "Meet and Greet" in a networking situation where people could meet others easily. Possibly a "Greeter" who could shuffle people to a "local celebrity" they could be introduced to and meet. Or possibly a "quick introduction card" that could be handed out that could gather information about Name, Twitter, Facebook, etc account.
Panel introductions and moments were TOO long.		It's great to have people talk about who they are and what they do, but without time restraints some people will start talking about things that lose relevance and pertinence. Plus it gives more time for questions that are what people were interested in hearing.
Panel answers were too long.		Same problems with the introductions above. Towards the end of the evening the moderator started putting pressure on the answers time, and great information was shared. More questions could have been answered with more insightful information if there were tighter time constraints.
Panel discussion topic was too broad		Having a panel of experts is impressive, but centralizing what the topic of the panel is about would allow the attendees to come prepared with questions and discussions. When the topic is so broad you can get some good insights, but some people will start to lose focus
The end was too noisy		You could tell that by the end of the evening people were ready to finish. The noise in the back of the room became overwhelming compared to the comments on the panel. It was distracting and undermined the "expertise" that the panel established.

But even with my insignificant critiques the evening went very well. Congratulations to SMC SLC on a wonderful evening. Keep us all updated on what's goin' on next. We're all listening.

Last Night at the Social Media Club “Out-Of-The-Box” Social

The "Enoch" — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:53:23 GMT

The dust settled across the room. Anticipation was in the air as the visage of "Chris," founder of Social Media Club, spoke from beyond the wall. The crowd anxiously waited to hear what this Orwellian person was going to say. The room was filled to capacity … twice, a pleasant surprise since no one really understood what the first meeting of the Salt Lake chapter was going to bring. @ThomAllen said it best during a Facebook chat: "not sure what to expect but I'm game for something new :)"

We were late, @deangirls and I, so we were part of the "standing room only". As I perused the crowed, straining to make my 5'6 ½" (yes the ½ inch is important) body taller to see people I recognized, it became apparent that this was the place where influential people in the Utah Social Media community were that night. Peering out of the corner of my eye I noticed the magnificent @RickGalan in his authoritative style @ replying me on his phone to glance over and say hello. I did … briefly, probably too briefly. I mean what do you say to a person that you stumble upon and follow on Twitter? Especially a person of influence? "Um … I follow you on Twitter." Was all that came from my mouth. Simple, straight and to the point. Friendly? No. But then again sometimes it's easier to be smooth talking in 140 characters than in person.

So Chris, the main SMC dude, finished up his little presentation. He was cool enough to have as a welcome/keynote, but I was anxious to find more people to follow, to get some information and actually put some of the thoughts and ideas we were to learn into action. The room dispersed and the whole motley crew moved downstairs. All of a sudden faces that I followed were alive and in person: @CarySnowden, @travelgirl521, to name just a few. And to see the herd move to the basement of "The Summit Group" was a little like watching the old R.C. Willey Memorial Day commercial: people rushing to get to the new thing. There was excitement in the air about what was next … but what was next?

After a few "Hellos" to those people we knew (the extraordinary @ThomAllen, mad shout out!). A person, I'm assuming a leader of the SMC, stood up and mentioned that we would break into 7 different groups to talk about Social Media: Newbies, Marketing, Development, HR, Non-Profit and two others that slipped my mind. I was stumped about where I was going. I could jump in Marketing, but it seemed that there were a lot of people in the marketing group. I didn't think that I would be of much help there. @DeanGirls was going to the Newbie class, so I figured I should do something different then her. I could jump into Development, but I wanted a different perspective then what I'm around every day (my company, Wasatch Development Studios, is a software consulting house). So I decided that I would jump into the Non-Profit for two (2) reasons: 1) I do a lot of work with various non-profit organizations so I thought I could help, and 2) It was all women (To be a geek in a sea of estrogen is a very powerful feeling, even if all of them were out of my league … and married).

The group's process went like this: 1) Read a scenario and 2) discuss different Social Media techniques to resolve the scenario. Our process went like this: 1) introduce ourselves and our organizations, 2) read the scenario, and 3) forget the scenario and ask what each person in the group was currently doing in the social media world. Which I think worked really well, because our scenario was pretty much, "You have a non-profit. How do you raise funds using Social Media?" It was much better our way because we could help the non-profits by giving useful ideas specific to what their needs were. And we had all sorts of entities there from Dancers, Mentors, Moms who wanted to find support organizations, and much, much more. (For those I forgot please message me and let me know!! http://www.twitter.com/dellojoio). Almost all the groups were on 'Da Book in various forms: Groups and/or Pages. So we had a brief discussion about the pros and cons of each. We then mentioned some of the applications that can benefit a page (such as My Blogs and Causes applications). I also piped in and mentioned that with the pages our organizations could create pay-per-click ads to target people during the "tax season" to remind them of the tax benefits of donating: "Need some additional tax relief? Remember the Children!!!!" – Link to your non-profit for donations.

We discussed for a short time and then came the "Okay people let's wrap up!" segment of the evening. Every group had a "spokesperson" that would deliberate the large ensemble about what the Social Media splinter cell discussed. Our moderator asked if I would be the spokesperson. I said "Sure." I wasn't really going anywhere and I like to hear myself talk … even when others don't. So the spokespeople talked about their scenarios. We all listened to see if there was anything that could impact our lives. For me, I was pretty aware of the technologies out there, but there were a lot of people who thought, "Oh …. That's a good idea. I need to remember that," which is what the whole evening was about: sharing information. Then it got to our turn.

So I need to take a quick aside. The whole evening I was tweeting (twittering? Posting? Updating? Texting the Bird?) away little things that I thought were interesting. As is the Twitter.com convention, I included the hash #smcslc in all of the tweets. While the evening wore on the group hosting the party had a TV monitor with http://search.twitter.com on and was refreshing the search so the new "Tweets" were put up on the big screen. Seeing this, and being the ego-maniac that I am, I saw my tweets and want to make sure I was always on the screen. So I continued to tweet away so that I wasn't being pushed off of the screen. The reason why I bring it up? I tweeted: "I'm gonna be the spokesperson for our group about non-profit. I hope i get refreshed on the bi g screen #smcslc". And just as I got up to speak … they refreshed the screen. I know at least one person got the joke.

So I spoke. We then concluded the meeting with a rousing version of Kum-Bye-Yah, Hugging your neighbor, and the obligatory sacrificing of a portable egg timer. Okay, so maybe we didn't do any of those things, but we did leave with a "thanks for coming" and a "mark next month" as well as "Get some pizza!" I stayed chatting for a while with this lovely woman (@mentors) from the non-profit circle, who's name I don't remember (all you white people look the same to me J ). We talked about views on social marketing and how it can help their organization. Some of her questions were very simple ideas and others where more complicated which got me to thinking about the meeting. Was it a good meeting? A worthwhile meeting? Or just a chance to meet people I only see virtually?

Here are my insights, take them for what they're worth:

Pros	Cons	Con Resolution
It's always great to see people in real life that you only know in a virtual world	Without structured time to meet everyone you never have a chance to meet as many people as you would like.	Possibly create a structured networking portion where you could meet and (more importantly) connect with those people
Seeing Chris the main SMC dude was really cool. It's great to have leadership be a part of the satellites	I got bored listening to his resume rather than his insights. A keynote speaker is great as long as they deliver "Meat" and not Fluff	If you are planning keynotes, bind their hands to a short presentation with guidelines. Enforce the information so people walk away with great insights.
Breaking into smaller focused groups to discuss is a great way to generate ideas and thoughts	There was no structure in the "group dynamic" so I didn't know if we were to introduce ourselves or start right into the discussion. I feel the introductions were important to who we were and our perspectives, but it took away from our time to be able to properly discuss the issue.	Possibly structure the group's time so that both items can be accomplished. Each person get's 20 seconds to introduce themselves, who they are and what they do. Then give the allotted time to the issue.
Tons of ideas flowing. Tons of good information. Tons of good people.	No way to capitalize on all of the discussions.	Possibly publish the list of attendees so we know who all was there. Promote Tweeting of thoughts and insights so people can garnish the information afterwards with the Hash search (#smcslc)
A great event that brought people together	I missed the focus of the group. Are we a networking group? Are we a problem solving group? Are we an information promoting group? Or are we just a bunch of people who like to get together?	If there is a focus possibly promote it better during the meeting so people can stay alert of what the reason for being there is. If there is no focus … possibly find a focus.

The whole evening was really fun. And as @DeanGirls and I drove back to Provo we talked about the evening and how it went. Both of us thought that it was a good time and that it would be something that was great to return to. In this day and age we need as much help as we can get to be better at what it is we're doing. Organizations like this allow the best of breed to come and educate the non-experts to a higher level. Let's keep it going and moving forward. Plus if I actually lose a little weight I might impress the "ladies of the non-profit." (New Years goal #1208). See you all next time!!

The Stake in the Ground … I need to take a stance!

The "Enoch" — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:25:22 GMT

For the past couple months I've been thinking about something very dear to me. This past year has been wrought with choices of change, voting for "causes" and people choosing things that are "right" over things that are "moral." Opinion has been running rampant over the web, emails and networking meetings that I have been attending. For friends who knew me in the past, you may come to find out that I have changed from when I was younger. Even during my youth I thought I was spiritual, but not very religious. It took me years of self discovery and meaningful research on what is "truth" to become the person I am now. And during those years I've learned things that I feel I need to stand up and speak out.

I've been thinking a lot about the saying:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Which has been attributed to Edmund Burke, however thanks to Wikipedia we know that it isn't his saying. Regardless, it's a saying that I have always liked and have thought about recently. Repeatedly this past year it has been impressed to me that in order for me to do what is right in this battle of "good vs. evil", I need to do something. I need to make sure that my beliefs are known and spoken about so that people can at least see where I stand. I need to put my marker in the ground and say from this day forward I will not turn my back on my beliefs.

The BELIEF I hold dear

I am a converted life-long member of "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." To a lot of people that means that I'm a crazy, non-Christian, that has "temples" where secretive services take place. This is entirely NOT true and doesn't make me anymore crazy than a person with strong convictions about anything. I'm still the same nutty person that I always have been. I'm just a little more firmly set in the belief of human potential that other people. I wish that I could go into all of my harden thoughts on religion, science, evolution and everything else that is part of religion, but this post would be huge. I will save those thoughts for another time where I can focus my energies on those concepts. I just wanted to lay a little ground work about where my beliefs are initiated.

A CONCERN that I hold dear

I know that once someone says they are a member of any religion that preconceived notions start formulating in the mind. I ask this of any person reading this entry … please do not judge me by thinking you know what I stand for, without asking me or reading about it. Please ask me about my religion. Inquire about why I believe something and let me answer these thoughts and questions. My life is an open book, good times and bad, which I'm not afraid of answering or commenting, and I want to make sure that friends and family know exactly who I am and where I stand on everything to keep my sanity.

The STANCE that I hold dear

A number of items in recent months have greatly concerned me. It feels that we are moving towards a moral decline in our nation that we are not ready or able to handle. I firmly believe that a person has the right and choice to do with themselves whatever they want to do (Free Agency), but to make decisions for one without recognizing consequences is a HUGE problem. Should a woman have an abortion? It depends on the circumstance. If there are medical reasons that might endanger her and the child's life, then the option should be weighed heavily and consultation considered. But saying that abortion is a means of birth control gives me great concern. The problem isn't in the action of the abortion as much as it is with the action of intercourse. If you're going to have sex then realize that a consequence of that action is potentially pregnancy. The act of pleasing release IS NOT the result of intercourse, but an added benefit. So the fact that a majority of the nation is "ok" with the act of pleasure without the act of consequence is problematic. It appears that we have things backwards.

But that's just one thought on a troubling problem. And I'm just one person who can't fix things without people looking deeper into their own situations and coming to terms with their own issues. My number one stance comes down to consequences. Each action we have in this world has a consequence: positive, negative or both. There is nothing that we do that doesn't have a consequence. As human creatures we want to have things that fulfill our desires, wishes and wants. Those may not be the things that we need to reach our ultimate potential. We need to change our perspectives to be aware of consequences. When that perspective change happens something interesting occurs. The realization sets in that it isn't about me, but about others that really creates a world of happiness. The rules of consequences show that thinking about others allows us to grow stronger than we could imagine.

I hope that as we embark on new times we can look to the future and let the governance of our actions be founded in the consequences we perceive. By focusing our energies in that positive manner this new year will be great.

What Happened to "The Music School": A Teacher's Perspective

The "Enoch" — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:22:00 GMT

So recently some big news in the Utah Valley Area is that The Music School has closed it's doors. It has been on the Television stations like Fox 13, Ksl Channel 5, and other media outlets.

It's interesting to see how much time they allow a news story to hit the airwaves. In a matter of 2-3 minutes the media outlets encapsulate a story and pick the pieces that are "of interest" to the viewing public. This is the norm for news stations around the world, but it's a shame to not be able to see the inner workings of what actually happened more in depth. Hence the reason for this post. I wanted to help clear my head about things at The Music School and at the same time, try to shed some light on how things worked ... from a teacher's perspective.

Some of you may know of my direct ties to The Music School. My direct tie being my brother, Caleb Chapman, was the founder and director of the institution. With that being said ... I will not touch base on things outside of an instructors insight at the school. I had some knowledge of other things that were happening that touched the realm of administration, operations and various other knick-knacks. I'll hold off on those little tid-bits of information for another post. For now ... I'm a teacher.

So I started teaching at The Music School around 2003, back when it was Crescent School of Music. I initially started teaching music theory. It was a fun gig that allowed me to let my insights with Theory shine light on subjects for a number of High School and Jr. High kids. It was a fun time. I did quizzes and tests and had grades for each student. It was part of my responsibility to record and get those grades into the office so it could go on a "record" of some sort. This forced me into thinking about curriculum instead of the "off-the-cuff" instruction that I was used to giving in trainings.

About 6 months into the instruction I was asked by my brother if I would be interested in teaching Guitar lessons. I had never taught a Guitar Lesson before. It was a nerve-wracking experience for me and I'm pretty sure that my first student wasn't that impressed. My problem with what I was doing was it lacked structure. I decided (two weeks into teaching) that I needed to structure a plan for me to teach Guitar like I did with Music Theory. I started down the road of creating a curriculum and focusing my attention to fundamentals instead of "playing songs." This approach worked really well for me and I was able to share a number of my insights into what I was doing for lessons with a couple of the other instructors.

Lessons were simple. I knew the assignments I was working on and the goals that needed to be achieved. After each lesson I took my "Teacher Binder" and wrote notes and checked off the lessons that I instructed. Each week a person from the office would pick up the binders and check things off so that we could get paid. The system had a couple flaws, but on the whole it was a very simple concept to the lessons. You want to be paid, you fill out the sheet and have the students sign it as well. Checks and Balances. It was great.

So things were going relatively well. Crescent was growing, but not fast enough. The facility we were in was pretty outdated and run-down. It wasn't the high-class establishment that Crescent needed to be. So as time went on the word was spreading about what a great opportunity this music school was for Utah's students. This is where things started getting exciting.

Enter Sentry Financial, a financial services company who wanted to invest money into Crescent and take the school national. The key here was they wanted to take the school "NATIONAL." A couple of things really interested them about Crescent that made it an appealing opportunity:

Curriculum Based Music Instruction - Much like what I had done for Guitar a lot of the teachers in other departments started to formalize a set curriculum for their instruments. This meant that each student would get the same "principled" instruction so there could be uniformity.
Ensemble Growth - More students in an ensemble would mean more potential for revenue results. If you could have an ensemble of 100 kids and only have to pay one instructor that is a lot better then having one instructor being paid for 100 ensembles of one.
Cutting Edge Music Instruction - utilizing the latest technology in music education (i.e. SmartMusic, GarageBand, Finale, etc) would mean that students would get an opportunity from lessons that they couldn't get anywhere else.
Franchising Opportunity - The reason why it was so appealing was the idea that this COULD BE REPLICATED!! If American Fork, UT could garnish a TOP institution then it would certainly fly in Salt Lake City, Denver, Boston, etc.

So Sentry came on board as an investment group and invested a lot of money. The first thing that happened ... name change: The Music School was born. Unfortunately some of the teachers didn't catch the vision of the new "re-brand." For some of us it was hard to take away the cool Crescent vibe and go with something so generic as The Music School. Second, a location change: The facility had to be changed to keep the "cutting-edge" vision of the school. Where we were just wasn't doing it. So a new facility was looked into and found. And after, what seemed like an eternity, the new facility was found and established and we could now enter and teach.

The new place was great. A renovated Gym/Spa location which meant HUGE space to have ensembles, lessons, a recording studio and a performance venue. The place was great, but from the teacher perspective it meant that it was going to take A LOT to break even ... and that could mean payroll cuts.

When I first started teaching at Crescent I had roughly 52 students a week and I was getting around 20 dollars an hour. Now at the new facility I cut my hours back because of other work commitments, I had around 25-30 students getting around 21 dollars an hour, but ... from what I understand with my students being billed out at a much higher rate then previously. I understand that the facility cost more and that meant more overhead, but there seemed like there should have been another means than not letting the instructors benefit. And, here's something that killed me, I wasn't allowed to know what I was being billed out to with my students. I got into a LONG discussion with one of the accounting guys from Sentry about that. My promotion for the Crescent was, "Come take lessons from me at Crescent. It's around $54 a month." I wasn't able to do any of that with the new facility because I didn't know what I was being billed out at (I've recently heard from some students that my last billings were around $80 a month ... and no pay raise). The argument told to me was that when you higher a consultant through an agency, the agency broker's the financial dealings and the consultant doesn't know what he's being billed out as. Being that my other job deals with Consulting quite often I had to disagree with that sentiment. All in all it became very difficult to promote and market for the school.

And speaking of Marketing... supposedly The Music School was going to market the teacher's to get them more students. I talked with the same Sentry accounting guy about what marketing was being done for me personally so I could build my studio. He said that they would mention my name on the phone when students inquired about guitar lessons. I looked at him and asked what type of marketing was that? Just because I go into a music store and ask "Where's the rap section?" and a person points in the general direction doesn't mean that "marketing" is being done.

The reporting system was new and improved as well ... kinda. The days of paper documents were over. A new system called "Jaco" was put in place and allowed teachers the ability of completing their instructions via a web-application system. Well ... I wrote a document that talked about all the problems the new system had and the bugs that were included. How it was very easy to "Dock" a teacher's salary and "Forge" false entries to get more money out of the school. I also stumbled upon some neat security holes within the application, but because the institution was becoming more "cutting-edge" there was no way to go but ... up. Hopefully. It seemed pretty funny to me that no one in the administration staff really liked "Jaco." All-in-all the User Experience was REALLY Lacking. And the investors kept throwing money at it to try to fix the mess, without really addressing what the INSTRUCTORS or ADMINISTRATION staff wanted. I had a hard time understanding why people didn't want input from their "clients" when creating a solution for them.

Mentioning the "Cutting-Edge" technologies ... each studio was outfitted with a new iMac that had a variety of applications that could be used to create a more productive music education. The problem was that most of the teachers just used the computers for surfing the web and playing with iTunes. It wasn't until later, when instruction on how to use the new cutting edge software was being held, that instructors started using the computers for something more productive. Sure there were the exceptions, but for the most part the iMacs because really modern looking paper-weights. Yet another cost that needed to be covered at some point.

So there I was teaching lessons. Every year, Caleb would get up at a company retreat and give a "State-of-the-Company" address. Each year new and exciting things would be mentioned that really didn't affect my world, but made things impressive for the investors: like "All-Star" line-ups of "Artist-In-Residence" programs (which was odd because none of the artists were actually living in the area); Free Weekly Music Theory Lessons (which was geared toward the Jr. High/HS crowd that none of my Adult or Elementary students really participated); new ensembles (that were a little out of my beginning students league) and other various items. The potential was great, and the showcase for the investors was keen, but it just didn't mean anything to my world.

So there I struggled. Trying to get Jaco to work "the best" for me, Combating with billing system rules that didn't make much sense (so if a student doesn't show up for lessons on his last day, I'm supposed to schedule a make-up lesson or else I don't get paid for the last lesson? But it's his last lesson he all ready said that he didn't want to take anymore? So if I can't reschedule what happens to that money? The school keeps it even though I was here to teach the lesson?), and most importantly trying to deal with the new politics that was being implemented everyday by over zealous management staff (When the CEO of The Music School pulls you aside and says "I need you to work on student retention" when you had a record of 85% student retention in a department that maybe had an average of 30%, it makes you wonder what you're doing wrong?) I started thinking that my days at The Music School were going to be numbered.

Now I understand that things needed to change ... heck we were going to be franchising this wonderful model. But I adhere to my main problem when it came to the investors: They didn't understand the musician's world. Now musicians are notorious for being bad in business, but artists are a certain breed unto themselves. You can't treat them like regular business people without giving some training and insight in what that means. The investors were trying to run a company full of "yes" men. But artists are creative people that don't believe in saying "Yes" all the time. And the artists/musicians weren't helping the business side either but it was mainly because they didn't understand how their role worked. Communication was lacking from all parties, but if it wasn't for the investors always pushing and taking a course of action that didn't make sense to the operational side (Instructors/Administration) how could it ever have worked.

Music Lessons are an extremely difficult service to be profitable in when dealing with LARGE SCALE MANAGEMENT. It can be very lucrative when it's just you managing you. The investors didn't understand that, nor were they able to communicate their vision so that we could understand them.

There's always next time. Don't you worry ... someday there will be a next time.

Two Hours into being Thirty-Two

The "Enoch" — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 07:49:00 GMT

So I recently read my post last year On the Eve of Thirty-One and started to chuckle a bit. Man I haven't done squat since that marvelous prediction of last year. I'm two hours into being thirty-two and realize that the only thing that really has changed is that I started to clean my room. Well ... that's not as positive a thing as you would hope. However, slowly after writing that masterpiece entry I started to go down a different path and direction. There are some key things that I think I should point out that have made this past year a successful year:

A Positive Outlook on Life. Not that I really had a negative outlook before, but everyone has their ups and downs. Sometimes my downs seemed more prominent than the ups, but I've started to look at life a little different. This is mainly because I have created stronger associations with much more positive people in my work and leisure. One such positivity mental change came with a friend Larry Stevenson when we were working together on the Wasatch Business Conference. Larry works with LDS Employment Resource Services and asked a number of volunteers to help with our conference. Each volunteer had something challenging happen to them after he asked, from heart problems to family incidents. I said to Larry, "Maybe this is a sign to not do the conference if the Church's volunteers are coming down with all these problems?" His reply changed my life. "Enoch, it's not heaven telling you to stop. The conference is such a good idea that the Devil doesn't want it to succeed." I told him I like that outlook and he replied, "Don't worry about it. We've been doing it a long time. You'll learn." That moment I did ... and since then I've been trying to have a more positive spin on things.
Take Control of the Reigns. Man there are times that I feel like I go a million miles an hour and lose control real quickly. However, this year I've been focusing (and that's a big word for me to use) on taking better control of things in my life. If something seems spiraling, which really doesn't happen too much with the "Positive Outlook" change, I look for the reasons why, take a deep breath, and try to regain composure. The nice thing about this is that I have found a number of people who are fantastic and willing to help out an oddity such as myself. And I think, surrounding yourself with powerful people allow you to "control" things in a positive way. This idea of a support system that many successful people talk about works.
Smile as Much as Possible. I got mad at my mother one day because she said to our church that I always have a smile on my face. I didn't think of that as a positive thing at the time. Don't ask me why ... I was young. But now I think that it's one of the best things a person can do to combat the viles of the world. I try to walk into rooms with a smile on my face and be as positive in my attitude as possible. Sure I have my off days, but I'll tell you a secret .... it's tough to have an off day when you have a smile on your face. Sure periodically people my think I'm going mad ... but that's half of the quirky charm I hold. Because really ... if some people think I'm mad right now, when I really do start going insane they won't be wrong.

So I may not be in a wholly different position than I was in last year. I went on a couple dates. Got shot down a number of times. Stayed at home more than I should, but that doesn't mean that I didn't progress. I find myself a more content, confident and positive person than I was last year. Sure, I still like being at home and watching TV. I still may have some weight to lose around the mid-section. And yes I may have the need to cut my hair at some point in the future, but truthfully ... I'm ready to work on those things.

So to set goals for the future (because it's always good to set S.M.A.R.T. goals): Get out more; Meet more people; Be a Positive catalyst for the Better. And for goodness sake ... start opening your eyes to the possibilities.

Thirty-Two is going to be a great year!!

Music, Business and the Importance of Letting Go

The "Enoch" — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:35:00 GMT

So recently I had an incredible day of music. First of I woke up to one of my favorite songs of all time playing on the radio: Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. A truly inspired work that has drama, tension and passion. I highly recommend to most people to get a recording of this work if possible.

Afterwords I went to a Marketing Meeting for the Provo Downtown Alliance. I know not a huge musical idea, but we talked about how to bring people to the downtown Provo, UT area and one of the ideas I mentioned was to hold a Native American Festival. We could invite Native American Flute Players, Native drumming groups, and Dancers and have a nice little festival out of it. One of my favorite Flute players is Joseph Fire Crow who went to school @ BYU. In the heat of great discussion I had to excuse myself, because I was extremely excited about the next part of my day.

I was about to have a Bass lesson with Victor Wooten. For those who don't know Victor Wooten, he is wildly considered the greatest living Bass player today. Many players aspire to be able to play his arrangements of Norwegian Wood and Amazing Grace as well as many other songs. Now I am an incredible elementary bass player, but I figured if I had the chance to have a lesson with one of the greatest anything around ... I would be an idiot to pass that up. So Vic (he said I could call him that ), asked me what I wanted to work on. I told him that I was very beginning so if he could show me some techniques then that would help me get off the ground running. I mentioned that I really liked his song Classical Thump and that seemed like a good place to start on technique. The next hour was a whirlwind of information that had me playing techniques that were new and exciting. I'm a guitar player at heart and it showed repeatedly during the lesson, which Vic was really nice about. He kept saying that I was different than most beginning students because I played lightly instead of really heavy. I chuckled and said that was because I'm strumming instead of thumping ... I'm working on it.

So the hour flew by, and at the end of it all I had a great moment where I started to feel like I could attempt Classical Thump. And afterwords I felt really good. I know that I'm not as experienced as Victor Wooten (heck I tell most of my students to not judge themselves by how I play because I've been doing it longer) and that I'm an infant in the world of bass, but I tried and that was what was important to me. I wanted to take advantage of a great instructor and garnish and learn. I did that, and now I play to keep that technique up and running. It has also given me a different approach to some of my guitar things ... which is also a great thing.

But my day was far from over. After my moment with Vic, I took my brother out for a spin in my new Volkswagen Jetta. He hadn't seen the new car so I thought that I would show off a little. During the ride we talked about how much I don't like the car stereo and how I wish it had different functions and features. I like the sound of the speakers, but the stereo is not as functional as I would like. As we sat talking in front of The Music School I put on a recent album that I've been listening to: Bruce Springsteen's and the E Street Band, Magic. There's a line in the song that really struck me at that moment:

I just want to hear some rhythm
I want a thousand guitars
I want pounding drums
I want a million different voices speaking in tongues

So after having a moment of inspiration with Vic, talking Native Music and the spirituality in that style, and speaking about sounds with my brother, all I really wanted was a thousand guitars, pounding drums, and a million different voices. So I went home in search of that sound. I dropped of my bass and went to work to see if I could work on some things for some clients ... still hoping for my ensemble of wonderment. My friend Bryan Pope Architect and Director of My Marketing Day sent me a text that asked what time the Victor Wooten clinic was and that he doesn't think that he would make it. I responded, with a million different voices in my head, you really need to go to this clinic.

Long story short, he went, as did I, and it was incredible. This is my 3rd time seeing Victor Wooten in a clinic and 4th time seeing him play ... and they are always really great. I don't know if I can summarize what he says, but if I can be permitted in short his clinic is not about technique (and it is) or really about playing (and really it is), but his clinic is about how he is music. And by virtue of that statement, if he is music YOU are music. The limitation that most people have is that they believe that they need to UNDERSTAND before they can PLAY!! But if you ARE music, then all you need to do is PLAY!!!! Music will take over the rest. A lot of what Vic talked about is in his book The Music Lesson. And this is a great read for musicians and non-musicians alike and has a lot of application to everyday life and not only music. The key is to be observant of the connections.

So after an amazing clinic and conversing with students from the Music School and my friend Bryan, I went home. The problem with my mind is that I find it wanders A LOT!!! I'll have and idea and there goes my mind focusing on that idea. The continuing thought that I had was this nagging feeling that small business owners would have gotten a lot out of that clinic. That the applications of getting out of ones way to let success enter is an area that many owners struggle. That one idea, "Music is all around us" can very easily be translated to "Success is all around us." We just need to get out the way sometimes to let it work.

Be willing to let go of an idea and let it germinate into something better.
Be willing to make the mistake and find the better solution.
Be willing to include others in the conversation to make the seedling grow instead of thinking it has to be only you.

These are all ideas that I took from Vic about playing music. But they work so nicely with business. And I've seen, and been a part of, many successful projects that integrate those ideas ... both in music and in business. I just find it refreshing to see truth in both worlds. So now I'm attempting to not worry about making the mistake. I'm going to PLAY and see where that takes me. And at some point ... because of that thought ... I know Vic is smiling.

Thanks Mr. Wooten.

The importance of presence

The "Enoch" — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:07:00 GMT

Recently my thoughts have been focused on presence. Presence of mind, presence of ideas, and presence of location to name just a couple of the ideas of presence that have raced through my head. The one idea that has been eluding me however is the idea of just presence: How am I shown and how am I known.

I've been doing a lot of things across different social networks lately. Sure some of the social networks are "Dating" sites, but then again that's another type of presence, right? During all of these networks I have tried very hard to interlink each system to another. My "Facebook" site knows about my "BoardGameGeek" site, which knows about my "GoodReads" site, which knows about my LinkedIn site and so on and so on. All in all I think that I have about 15 different sites that are out there with my information on them.

the importance of this for business

Now if you are a business looking to get a little more recognition in the world out there I think this is important. The more places that you link to one another the more chances you have to show up in searches and other lookups. With SEO being a big push out there more and more companies are looking for ways to stand out in the world of searching. Blogs and forums and things like that are good, but having only 2 locations where people can find you is not nearly as good as having multiple locations that people can find you.

Presence then becomes ... how much do I have in a world that isn't controlled by me? A couple little group notifications and other ideas can make the Internet work for you instead of you always butting your head against the wall. And since you have very little control about how frequently the Search Engines send their spiders out to search for you, this little trick might just give you a boost to being found a little easier.

the problem of this for personal

The Internet is literally riddled with information that people willingly divulge. Once you post it ... it's gone. And it is incredibly hard to stop it from being "known." So here is a problem. Don't put out information that you are not willing to have other people know about. Be careful with how, much information you share and with whom. There is nothing out there as a pure "Secure" anything. Servers are hosted by someone. Data is stored somewhere. If a site is asking you to share personal information, like a MyFamily.com, know that information is being stored somewhere and that people have access to it who aren't just you.

I want to make known here that I am a great supporter of MyFamily.com. And I really like the genealogical work that they are doing, but as a general warning to those Internet novices out there ... information has to be stored somewhere so it can be returned and displayed again.

in conclusion

I love the fact that there is a lot of information out there about me ... To an extent. I mean there are somethings that I want to keep personal, but even those are becoming more and more shared. And as long as more sites pop up that allow Closet Geeks/Nerds/Dweebs/Studs like me to join together with other like minded individuals, my "personal" will become more public. The reason why I like it is that you can Type "Enoch Chapman" into any number of search engines and most likely find me within 1 - 5 listings. This is great for when I release my Solo Album: "What I Like about Chess and other musical theater selections." or when I finally do start dating and get engaged to that special someone. Then I can tell everyone and see the world united for once. Man won't my mom be happy? I'm sure she'll blog about it somewhere ..... and I'll list it.

The New Year -- The Old Enoch

The "Enoch" — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 06:48:00 GMT

Ok. So I stated a little earlier in a post that I would try new things. Well . . .

It's not going very well for me. I think partially I've hit the Old Enoch impass: The habitual sloth. Now I know that confessing a deadly sin to the general public will probably get me a slow trip to ridicule, but if it's just between you and me, I think I will be ok. Just don't tell too many people.

My problem is that I get comfortable too quickly. Kinda ... I actually have two problems. The first ... I get too comfortable too quickly. I like my house. I like my books, computer, video games, tv, movies, etc, etc, etc. I also think that I'm a little too lazy to keep things going fantastically great. Possibly I need to start exercising and increase my activity status, but being a lazy person i think that will hurt to much. So I just relax and take my time to not do much, nor meet people.

Problem number two ... I feel old. Which is odd because I really don't feel old, but here in Utah Valley ... I FEEL OLD!!! I have a number of friends who tell me that if I was to move back to Boston area that I would be in my prime to meet people and hang out. Out here in Provo, UT ... I get the feeling that I'm expired produce. Of course that means that I don't enjoy going out as much as I should, but I'm trying.

Case in point ... I went out to a Utah Jazz game a couple of weeks ago with a nice young lady. She was very attractive, and fun to talk to. I had a good time that night, and I think that she had a good time as well. So what happened to her? Nothing. I mean I haven't asked her out again, possibly because I am waiting for something exciting to come along, but mostly because I just haven't thought about it. I come home and fall back into my old routine.

So here I am making a statement to my close friends ... I am going to try ... again. Or at least I will attempt more than I have recently. And if you find me not trying ... kick my butt in gear. As frustrated as I might seem, I think that I would be more frustrated if I didn't try. So hopefully the next post I put up will be better news than I bought a new bean bag chair and the indent fits my butt perfectly.

At least one can dream!!