The missing piece

- is inevitably in the center of the puzzle.
- has an increased probablity of occurence with the presence of a two
year old.
- somehow decreases the accomplishment of assembling just 999 pieces.

Clear to Cease Operations

This stinks. Another victim of the credit market meltdown. 


Begin forwarded message:

From: "Clear Customer Service" <clearsupport@flyclear.com>
Date: June 23, 2009 12:20:09 AM EDT
Subject: Clear to Cease Operations

Clear to Cease Operations

At 11:00 p.m. PST today, Clear will cease operations. Clear's parent company, Verified Identity Pass, Inc. has been unable to negotiate an agreement with its senior creditor to continue operations.

After today, Clear lanes will be unavailable.


Sincerely,
Clear Customer Support


Verified Identity Pass
600 Third Avenue
10th Floor
New York, NY  10016

What was McDonald's thinking?

Fresh black rubber in the sun. Hmmm. About 150 degrees plus on a
normal summer day in South Georgia.

State Farm + H.E.R.O = Smart Ad!

Both are winners in this advertising deal. Kudos.

Be the most spiritual and win a cruise

During a recent gasoline price spike, a church made the news for giving away gas cards. Now it seems that Life Point Church in Smyrna, Georgia has upped the ante with its Biggest Looser contest:

"Family and friends will be able to nominate those who have and continue to
demonstrate a spiritually transformed life from May 10th to June 14th. The
nominating person will record a 60-second video testimony of how God has changed
their nominee’s life. The nominating person needs to provide specific
descriptions as to what ways their nominee has displayed godly characteristics
as well as how it has affected the lives around that person."

Even though the web site states that "the winners will be selected...based upon spiritual transformation, not on popularity," it goes on to say that the "prizes will be awarded to the nominee’s [sic] who received the most total votes."

It appears that the church, although perhaps with only good intentions, is using voting and judgment to assess spirituality. Scary.

(Now if the prize were a trip to Fantasy Island...)

I wish them smooth sailing.

Churches and Orchestras: Strikingly Similar

Marketing guru Seth Godin captivated my attention in this blog post which is in one of his books. It struck me that one could substitute the name of any church for the Bowling Green orchestra and worship style/content/format for "music" and the story could turn out the same.

A few of Seth's quotes to emphasize:

1. It starts by understanding worldview.
2. The challenge is now to make it easy for people to tell the story to their friends.
3. If your target audience isn't listening, it's not their fault, it's yours. If one story isn't working, change what you do, not how loudly you yell (or whine).

The orchestra's director is, according to their web site, "known for his unorthodox method of combining classical and popular music on the same program." On his blog he recently wrote about a performance called Beethoven, Barns and Brats:

"Last Saturday night was a first for me. Orchestra Kentucky performed Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in a thoroughbred horse barn. The experience made me wonder whether it was a first for that piece. On a deeper level, however, it begs the question of whether orchestras should bring music to the masses or whether they should wait for the general public to come to them."

Wow, the similarities are quite overwhelming. I could write for days.

However, back to the original article, the orchestra's director fails to address how they keep the traditionalists happy in the process.

Evidently they did.

Thoughts?

2 y.o. Bliss

Although not readily apparent, her parents are more blissful than she
during these moments of absence of terrible-two terror and world
domination.

I just minded my own business

A wake up call for us all comes out of this murder reported in yesterday's AJC.

A watermelon may have triggered the deadly shooting of a 6-year-old boy by his grandfather Sunday afternoon, according to police. ...

Neighbor Rita Whitman indicated there were signs of verbal abuse.

“It breaks my heart,” said Whitman, the mother of three teenagers. “I hate to say this because I feel like we should have said or done more, but there were times we heard him yelling at those kids. The one that he killed, he did yell at him a lot. You did see the occasional explosion of anger. He would just use terrible language, cussing so bad at that one boy.

“I only witnessed that two or three times but I just minded my own business. But I never, ever dreamed it was dysfunctional to the point that there would be violence.”

Are we all minding our own business?

Perhaps we shouldn't be.