Successful Blog

Graduation . . . The Signs Were All There

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Nerd Family on TV

This post is purely for weekend entertainment. I point you to it at my writing blog to give a peek into the guy who graduates today. This is an excerpt from what I call “The Milk Story.” It’s part of the reason I think of the three of us as Nerd Family on TV.

One thing about three-year-olds is that today they’ll eat any thing. Tomorrow you can offer the very same thing, and they won’t go anywhere near it. Our son had a signal for when he was in the latter mood. He would fill up on milk and ignore his food. That’s exactly what he did to his dad’s highly-prepared meal. The young man of three, drank his milk. Looked at his plate. Looked at his father and with angelic politeness said,

“May I have more milk, please?”

“I think you need to eat first,” his father replied.

Our son politely shifted his position, turning his back to his father his face to me, ignoring his food and his father too. He said, “Mom how do you spell refrigerator? . . . chandelier? . . . calculator? . . . spoon?

If we were talking about my son, it’s often the first story I tell about him. It defines our family perfectly. To read the whole story, click the title below.

Today that three-year-old boy graduates from college. He doesn’t remember that day. His parents won’t forget it.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

What’€™s Your Personal DNA?

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I’m A Benevolent Creator. What’re You?

So I took this silly test, because I needed to play.

Playing is good for the soul, not to mention the brain and the personality. It took — what? — a few minutes and it delivered a colorful reminder that I might have a thing or two going for me.

For no reason than for sheer irresponsibility, go on over, and have a go at it.

Great Find: Personal DNA, Your True Self Revealed
Permalink: http://www.personaldna.com/tests.php
Target Audience: Anyone
Content: The test is free and confidential. It takes about 30 minutes. To go to the test, click the link below. (I only got one follow-up email.)

It’s just fun little thing to do.

And the bar is colorful.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
A Silly Left Right Brain Test
The Road: A Simple 4-Part Psychological Survey of Attitudes

About that Road . . .

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The Roads Not Traveled

It started with William Tully’s post, New meme? (likely not), in which he considers the “5 Goals He Never Took Seriously.” William gently tapped Robert Hruzek on the shoulder, asking what his answer to the same question would be. Robert wrote a post called The Roads Not Traveled in which he describes goals that “didn’t make the cut.” At the end of his post, Robert passes the question to David Armano, Matthew Stibbe, and me. It appears those two are like the boys in the neighborhood where I grew up — they’re waiting for me to go first. So here I go.

A Road Through a Mountain Forest

As soon as I saw Robert’s post I was reminded of a silly psychological test that asks for four descriptions. (You might want to read that test, to find out about your road and my road, before you read on. Go ahead, I’ll wait here.)

I bring up that test and my road, because my road has been such good one. It has wound and turned and let me try to so many things. It has been a windy road indeed. I’ve been a teacher since I was 10, a wholesale shirt sales rep, a writer, editor, and publisher, and a corporate strategist.

Yeah, my road is a windy one. My friend, Peg says she’s never seen me walk in a straight line. So thinking up goals that I never followed is nigh on to impossible. I’ve been thinking for days about Robert’s challenge and here’s what I found.

Five Goals I Never, Ever Wanted to Pursue

It seems as if I tried most things that I thought I might want to be part of my life. But there were some side roads that I was happy to walk right by. Those roads might be just as worthy an answer, at least I hope so, because here they are.

  1. I never, ever wanted to be a doctor, nurse, dentist, or any other sort of healthcare professional. Even when I was short and still in grade school, I didn’t want to give people injections or have to make them hurt to help them get better.
  2. I never, ever wanted to be a skydiver, a moutain climber, bungee jumper, or a wingwalker. Falling from high places wasn’t my idea of a good time.
  3. I never, ever wanted to be a astronaut, live on a spaceship, or be an astronomer. I like to keep my relationship with the universe on a romantic and magical plane of wonder.
  4. I never, ever wanted to be a roadie, a groupie, or a raging fan. I’m not good a racing after, lugging stuff, or in general being part of groups that follow blindly. I get bored too easily.
  5. I never, ever wanted to be a clueless, dorky, invisible teenager, but I managed to be one anyway. Go figure.

Life has so much to offer and I’ve always found that each new step is one that perfectly followed the step that was before it. I never spent too much time thinking about where I had to get, I always knew I’d be getting somewhere outstanding, if I followed what I do well and what I love.

There was the day I realized that I was too old to be a major league baseball player . . . but that was so long ago I can’t remember how that felt.

They say turnabout is fair play. I’m not sure this is what they meant. What are the things on your list of never, ever wanted to do?

–ME “Lia” Strauss

Related
The Road: A Simple 4 Part Psycholocial Survey of Attitudes

The Road: A Simple 4-Part Psychological Survey of Attitudes

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You’re on a Road

When I was 26, I went out to dinner with a highly respected psychologist. Over a glass of wine, while waiting for our table, we discussed conversations people have, when they get to know each other.

He asked my permission to share a “psychological survey,” saying that he would explain what it meant after I gave four descriptions. Being of an age and in my “take any challenge phase,” I agreed. Here are the four “questions” my PhD friend asked.

  1. You’re walking on a road. It’s your road. Tell me about it.
  2. As you walk, you pass a body of water, describe it.
  3. Directly in your path is an empty bottle. What’s your response to it?
  4. You continue until you find yourself facing a wall that crosses your road perpendicularly. What do you do?

NOTE: If you want to answer for yourself, now is the time. My answers and the interpretation come next.

Roger, Ann, Wendy, Robert, Lisa, and Valeria, if we were out dinner I ask you to play along by describing your road to me. You’ve just been virtually tagged with, what has been, a real-life meme.

[Read more…]

The Value of Life: According to Douglas Adams and Jeremy Wright

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Do the Math

I’ve been meaning to share this, because it explained a whole lot to in a single blog post.

You might be familiar with Douglas Adams’ book, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, or the radio show, television series or film that was made from it. You might also know about the ultimate question regarding life, the universe, and everything to which the answer is revealed to be 42.

A conversation started on the b5media forum about the value of life. Jeremy Wright answered the question with the number 42 from Adams’ book. Another blogger pointed out that Jeremy had not considered the universe and everything in his response. At that point, professor Wright got serious and did the math. You can find his calculations and proofs in a post called What’s the Value of Life?

It is one exquisite, brilliant explanation of why the value of life is actually just more than 10, which higher than the value of the universe, but less than half of the value of everything.

Go on. I don’t call just anything brilliant.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

A one-time announcement of new-happeningly anxious curios

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Now Appearing . . .

Strangely unusual? Or Synchronicity? Not to be taken seriously.

Now that I think of it? Where did this post come from?

This look like the work of a Grate man to me.

–ME “Liz” Strauss