How Profound

Today, instead of writing something new about internet marketing or my crazy life, I’m going to share a great message that I just re-stumbled across.  It was written by George Carlin shortly after his wife passed away, and if it doesn’t make you think at least a little bit you should definitely re-evaluate your life.

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much , and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things.

We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait . We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete…

Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a cent.

Remember, to say, “I love you” to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

Happy Belated New Year!

I never did get to wish everyone a happy new year on here, so if you’re reading this two weeks into 2013, HAPPY NEW YEAR!  Better late than never, right?

I rang in the New Year in several great ways.  With friends, we had a really fun house party with lots of good food and drinks.  It was nice to be with a smaller, more intimate group of friends rather than a bunch of drunk strangers at a club or bar.  We also didn’t need to spend a ton of money or worry about parking and traffic.  It was definitely win-win.

At work, my bosses nominated some of us for awards, which the staff then voted on.  I was voted the Best New Employee, which felt especially nice because it came from my peers.

All in all, 2012 was a pretty great year.  I graduated with my Master’s degree, got my first job in the real world, quit bartending, and traveled to New York City, Seattle, Portland, Willamette Valley, the Bahamas and Key West.  I can’t wait to see what 2013 has in store for me!

The Newest iPod Nano is Sweet!

My mother is pretty much the last person at the gym, aside from a few 80 year olds who go there to use the pool, who doesn’t listen to music while she works out. My brothers and I decided to buy her her first iPod (ever) for Christmas this year.  I went to the Apple store and bought her a Nano in her favorite color, purple, and then realized that my mom will have no clue how to set it up herself.

So I took it out of its package and hooked it up to my iTunes so that I can load it up with music, playlists and photos.  I haven’t felt the need to have an iPod Nano since the iPhone came out, so it’s been a few years since I’ve held one.  As I played with it, I couldn’t get over how different and cool the new ones are.

This seventh-generation Nano is the thinnest ever and roughly the size of a credit card, but its display screen is almost twice the size of the previous model.  Even though the screen is small, the photos that I loaded on it still look good. And, thanks to the accelerometer, photos auto-rotate as you go from portrait to landscape, which was nice.

The new Nano has a touch screen and is the first model to have a tiny home button, just like some of its bigger siblings. It has five buttons in all- a slender power button on the top and a three-way volume rocker that allows you to adjust the volume and, by pressing it in the middle, play/pause music or skip tracks.

Because my mom will be using the device while working out quite often, I will advise her to use the Nike+ function, which has been made better by having everything built-in.  Her Nano can track her walks and runs, and she can even connect a Bluetooth heart monitor wirelessly.

Overall, I was pretty impressed with the new design of the Nano.  I think it’s the best yet, bringing lots of functionality in a tiny package.  I look at it as $149 well spent, and I’m excited to give it to my mom and watch her fall in love with her first Apple product.

9 People You Become When You’re Drunk

You may not be all of these every time you drink, and you may be some more often than others, but you are guaranteed to be all of these at least once.

1. The Talker

You have so much to talk about, it’s crazy. There are just so many people you want to become best friends with by harassing them with your voice. That random person next to you at the bar — why not tell them all about that crush you have that you’re secretly hoping to sleep with later tonight while you wait for your drinks? Oh, and you know all those humiliating, supposed-to-be-private things you wouldn’t ever dream of letting another human being know? TIME TO TALK ABOUT THEM AT TOP VOLUME. Is there any reason you shouldn’t be talking about these things? No! You’ve got some serious self-loathing and remorse to agonize over in the morning while you replay every conversation in your mind over your bowl of cereal. Why would you deny yourself that privilege?

2. Tears McGee

There is just so much emotion in the world right now and it’s all being crammed, like some metaphysical funnel, through your tear ducts. Your friend is so pretty it makes you want to cry. This music is so good and is cutting through your heart like an infomercial knife through a series of vegetables — time to weep silently as you rock back and forth with your eyes closed. Someone said something innocuous that you misinterpreted as an insult? Why not sob in their general direction in between outbursts of “Why do you hate me though!?!” It’ll be great.

3. Dancing Machine

No matter what comes on next — anything from “Thriller” to “The Beautiful People” to “The Cupid Shuffle” — is going to cause you to yell like a dog that’s just been stepped on about how OH MY GOD THIS IS MY SONG!!! Is this really your song? Come on, no it’s not. It’s just your song right now because you’re ready to hold your glass up above your head and wave it around as it occasionally sloshes over the side, wiggling your body back and forth to the music. You wanna make up steps. You wanna do the Electric Slide to songs that are not “The Electric Slide.” It’s just time to move to the point that your face hurts, until you feel like you’re in the middle of some kind of Pentecostal revival tent, dancing with Jesus himself.

4. The Fighter

“What the fuck did you just say, bitch?” It’s time to misconstrue everything you see/hear as a personal attack until you’re essentially trying to slap everyone within a 15-foot radius in the face for looking at you with bitch eyes. It doesn’t matter what they actually said. It doesn’t matter if it’s not worth arguing over. It doesn’t matter if they could clearly take you in a fair fight. What matters is that someone insulted your honor, or the honor of your ancestors, and you have to defend it. You slap them with your drunk-ass glove, and you demand satisfaction.

5. Sex Wizard

Have you ever noticed how amazing strangers feel? Drunk You has! Drunk You’s favorite hobby is deciding suddenly that they are in the mood to rub up on people and doing just that. You want to kiss your friends — look at how kissable their faces are! You want to make out with that hottie on the dance floor, what’s stopping you? The Sex Wizard has but one mission in life, and it’s to make very special friends with everyone. God forbid someone actually has to go home and have messy Sex Wizard sex with you — try not to break any appendages while you flop incoherently all over each other while making noises Sober You would find nauseating.

6. The Disappearing Act

Get ready to lose things you didn’t previously consider possible to lose, including yourself. Your phone, your wallet, your keys, your jacket, your purse, your pants — everything is fair game. One minute you’re having an awesome time dancing the night away to brostep, the next you’re yelling at people to “get the hell out of the way” while you scour the floor for a credit card that just magically popped out of your back pocket. Hell hath no fury like a drunk person looking for something they lost. On one hand, they have limited coherence as to how they’re actually going to search various areas — on the other, they will essentially tip over a car in their frenzy to get to it. The Disappearing Act is a force to be reckoned with.

7. “Feed Me, Seymour”

At a certain point, everything in the entire world will magically melt away and be reduced to its essential components: your mouth and a box of chicken nuggets. Or pizza. Or a gyro. Essentially anything that Paula Deen would consider an appropriate before-dinner snack is on your menu — all things deep-fried and cheese-smothered is your new best friend. There will even come a moment where you start to run through the increasingly absurd list of things you would do to get to a Taco Bell. “All we have to do is take a 45-minute cab to the 24-hour drive-thru one city over, and we’re golden.” Pro tip: Drunk You would definitely take that cab, and would weep tears of joy whilst inhaling burritos and sipping T. Bell-exclusive Baja Blast Mountain Dew.

8. Mr. Moneybags

Who wants another shot? It’s on you! Someone need help with their down payment on a new car? Mr. Moneybags has you covered! There is nothing that Generous Mr. Moneybags wouldn’t do for friends, for acquaintances, for friends of friends, or for random strangers at the bar. We shouldn’t let something as insignificant as “a budget” come between you and a good time. In fact, how about a round for the whole group? You have the cash! Spoiler alert: You do not have the cash.

9. The Mess

It’s the end of the night. You might not know it yet, but it’s definitely the end. You’re wobbling around and combining every negative quality of the Drunk Characters you could possibly be. You lost your sweater, you have no money left, you’re hungry, you’re crying, you’re yelling at strangers — it’s time for you to pack it up and go home. It doesn’t matter how many times you insist that you’re perfectly fine, we all know you’re not even close to being okay. We all have moments like this, accept that it’s your turn and go curl up in your bed with your shoes and coat still on, like an adult.

I didn’t write this, but I wish I did because it’s well said and pretty true.  It was actually written by Chelsea Fagan, and you can check out her page here: http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/9-people-you-become-when-youre-drunk/#6OMvDDgxp316fmCA.99

Who do you become after a few cocktails?  Let us know in a comment!

 

Well-Placed Banners!

I wonder whether it was a man or woman who thought to do this.  Either way, I’m not complaining.

London 2012 Olympics: What Was With All Those Empty Seats?

Despite tickets being sold out and nearly impossible to get (and really expensive for those who did manage to score some), I noticed so many empty seats during the first few days of the Olympics.

“What’s up with that?” I wondered while watching swimming, volleyball and gymnastics.  Not only were whole blocks of seats empty, but they were the good, lower-level ones.  It bothered me instantly, before I even knew or understood why it was that way.

Given that they were the hottest seats with the best views, I figured that they belonged to the corporate sponsors who never seem to give a shit about the event.  I’ve been to countless Heat games where I’ve watched the corporate big-shots show up halfway through the second quarter and sit in their courtside seats for about 40 minutes before leaving in the third quarter.  I love these people when it allows me to upgrade my seat and move closer after they leave, but mostly they just annoy me.

I felt bad for the athletes who didn’t have the full house that they deserve to cheer them on and create hype during the biggest performances of their lives.  I felt awful for their friends, spouses and family members who should’ve been filling these seats, but couldn’t get tickets.  Lastly, I felt bad for anyone else in London who was unable to get tickets through the complicated lottery process but would’ve loved to be there.  Give those tickets away to local kids, college students, charities, soldiers, anyone.  It would’ve made their year.  The organizers in London may not have anticipated this problem while planning, but since they had all those empty seats, why not upgrade those in the nosebleed sections to make the venue at least appear to be full?

It turns out I wasn’t the only one who noticed and was annoyed.  Commentators noted the unfilled seats—12,000 in all– and many people, including several Olympic athletes, turned to social media websites like Twitter to express their anger.

Indian tennis player, Mahesh Bhupathi, tweeted: “Been trying for 6 hours now to buy my wife a ticket to watch me play tomorrow. Still no luck, and the grounds here feel empty. Absurd!!!”

Irish swimmer Barry Murphy tweeted: “Hundreds of empty seats again in the Aquatic Centre. My parents would’ve given an arm and leg to get in.”

Since this outrage an investigation has been launched by Locog, the organizer of the London Games.  It comes after they have faced a lot of criticism for the number of seats given to—you guessed it—corporate sponsors as well as Olympic officials and “VIP guests.”

A spokesperson for Locog said: “We are aware that some venues had empty seats. We believe the empty seats are in accredited seating areas, and we are in the process of finding out who should have been in the seats and why they weren’t there.”

There are many theories and ideas as to why so many seats were left unfilled during the Olympic events, including the following:

• Long queues and transport problems left many ticket holders unable to get to their seats in times to watch the main events.
• Some seats were reserved for dignitaries that did not turn up.
• Some premium tickets were held back by foreign ticket agencies hoping to make a killing by selling them at grossly inflated prices at the last minute.  Yuck.

The London Olympic Organizers did end up giving British troops and schoolchildren free tickets, but a lot of damage has already been done.  While I find it easy to blame most of the issue on Locog giving too many tickets to corporate sponsors, some major sponsors including Coca Cola, Visa and McDonalds have issued statements denying that they have failed to use their allocated tickets.  The fiasco has turned out to be a huge embarrassment for Locog and the city of London, and I cannot wait to hear what the investigation turns up.

What They Don’t Tell You At Graduation

I would have loved it if my commencement speaker had given out tips like this at my graduation.  These were adapted from “10½ Things No Commencement Speaker Has Ever Said,” by Charles Wheelan and I thought they were worth sharing.

1. Your time in fraternity basements was well spent. The same goes for the time you spent playing intramural sports, working on the school newspaper or just hanging with friends. Research tells us that one of the most important causal factors associated with happiness and well-being is your meaningful connections with other human beings. Look around today. Certainly one benchmark of your postgraduation success should be how many of these people are still your close friends in 10 or 20 years.

2. Some of your worst days lie ahead. Graduation is a happy day. But my job is to tell you that if you are going to do anything worthwhile, you will face periods of grinding self-doubt and failure. Be prepared to work through them. I’ll spare you my personal details, other than to say that one year after college graduation I had no job, less than $500 in assets, and I was living with an elderly retired couple. The only difference between when I graduated and today is that now no one can afford to retire.

3. Don’t make the world worse. I know that I’m supposed to tell you to aspire to great things. But I’m going to lower the bar here: Just don’t use your prodigious talents to mess things up. Too many smart people are doing that already. And if you really want to cause social mayhem, it helps to have an Ivy League degree. You are smart and motivated and creative. Everyone will tell you that you can change the world. They are right, but remember that “changing the world” also can include things like skirting financial regulations and selling unhealthy foods to increasingly obese children. I am not asking you to cure cancer. I am just asking you not to spread it.

4. Marry someone smarter than you are. When I was getting a Ph.D., my wife Leah had a steady income. When she wanted to start a software company, I had a job with health benefits. (To clarify, having a “spouse with benefits” is different from having a “friend with benefits.”) You will do better in life if you have a second economic oar in the water. I also want to alert you to the fact that commencement is like shooting smart fish in a barrel. The Phi Beta Kappa members will have pink-and-blue ribbons on their gowns. The summa cum laude graduates have their names printed in the program. Seize the opportunity!

5. Help stop the Little League arms race. Kids’ sports are becoming ridiculously structured and competitive. What happened to playing baseball because it’s fun? We are systematically creating races out of things that ought to be a journey. We know that success isn’t about simply running faster than everyone else in some predetermined direction. Yet the message we are sending from birth is that if you don’t make the traveling soccer team or get into the “right” school, then you will somehow finish life with fewer points than everyone else. That’s not right. You’ll never read the following obituary: “Bob Smith died yesterday at the age of 74. He finished life in 186th place.”

6. Read obituaries. They are just like biographies, only shorter. They remind us that interesting, successful people rarely lead orderly, linear lives.

7. Your parents don’t want what is best for you. They want what is good for you, which isn’t always the same thing. There is a natural instinct to protect our children from risk and discomfort, and therefore to urge safe choices. Theodore Roosevelt—soldier, explorer, president—once remarked, “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” Great quote, but I am willing to bet that Teddy’s mother wanted him to be a doctor or a lawyer.

8. Don’t model your life after a circus animal. Performing animals do tricks because their trainers throw them peanuts or small fish for doing so. You should aspire to do better. You will be a friend, a parent, a coach, an employee—and so on. But only in your job will you be explicitly evaluated and rewarded for your performance. Don’t let your life decisions be distorted by the fact that your boss is the only one tossing you peanuts. If you leave a work task undone in order to meet a friend for dinner, then you are “shirking” your work. But it’s also true that if you cancel dinner to finish your work, then you are shirking your friendship. That’s just not how we usually think of it.

9. It’s all borrowed time. You shouldn’t take anything for granted, not even tomorrow. I offer you the “hit by a bus” rule. Would I regret spending my life this way if I were to get hit by a bus next week or next year? And the important corollary: Does this path lead to a life I will be happy with and proud of in 10 or 20 years if I don’t get hit by a bus.

10. Don’t try to be great. Being great involves luck and other circumstances beyond your control. The less you think about being great, the more likely it is to happen. And if it doesn’t, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being solid.

Good luck and congratulations.

Here is the link if you prefer to read the full article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304811304577366332400453796.html?fb_ref=wsj_share_FB&fb_source=timeline

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

Last week this summer’s “On the Ave” event kicked off with a circus theme, so Jeremy and I walked down the street to check it out. There were circus performers spread out throughout the streets, walking on stilts, dancing with fire, making balloon hats and bending their bodies in ways that just look painful. I haven’t been to the circus in years (and I don’t support them because I don’t believe in the animal cruelty that takes place at them). Luckily I saw no poor animals and I was having a blast. I felt like a little kid and wanted Jeremy, who is not quite as giddy and immature as me, to feel the same way. I decided that he should get his face painted. Being the great, easygoing boyfriend that he is, he agreed after I promised to do it too. And he could pick what was going to be painted on my face.  Sure, why not? I love being outrageous as much as possible.

Fifteen minutes later we were painted like little black cats and continued down the Ave. I had read that there was going to be a trapeze that you could pay and sign up to try. We came across it and I got a little knot in my stomach. I’ve always wanted to swing on one but I’m aeroacrophobic, or absolutely terrified of heights. This is something that definitely began in my adult life.  As a child I’d climb to the top of trees or jump off the roof into the pool with no fear.  Now I don’t even like climbing on the kitchen counter to reach something on the top shelf, so was I really going to climb this crazy ladder onto a little platform with no rails and then jump?

I guess I love trying new things and taking up on opportunities a little more than I’m afraid of heights. How many times is there going to be a trapeze in front of me that I can swing from for only $20? YOLO.

“What am I afraid of?  Getting hurt?  Dying?” I asked myself.  “What are the odds? You’ll regret not doing it.”  I’ve told myself this many times, before I zip-lined and jumped off cliffs in Jamaica and before I did the bungee free-fall at Six Flags.  I have accepted that while I may never overcome my fear of heights, I can at least make myself stronger than it for a few minutes.  Experience something new.  Say I did it.  Get the adrenaline pumping.  There’s a sense of accomplishment that comes after completing something that scares you.  I love it.

I signed my life away, strapped on the belt, told Jeremy to take lots of pictures and climbed the ladder without looking back (or down).  The worst part was the few seconds where I had to bend my knees and lean over the edge of the platform.  But once I was flying, I let go of all fear and made it the best experience possible.  I figured that I was already painted like a cat and flying on a trapeze, so why not hang from my knees and do a flip as well?  I’m glad to say that I can cross that one off my bucket list.

“On the Ave” events take place throughout the summer on selected Thursdays from 6-10 p.m. Atlantic Avenue in downtown Delray Beach is blocked off to traffic and replaced with live music, open house specials, gallery exhibitions and other fun little things to take in.

Here I Am

I am Casey Kurlander.

Search marketer, bartender, yogi, lover, humanitarian, blogger for 10 years and now a professional blogger.

It occurred to me just yesterday that I have been blogging since high school and can now call myself a professional.  I’ve been writing articles for my boss, a search marketing expert, the last few weeks and he posted one on the company’s blog yesterday.  I am now a professional blogger. After finishing this post I will add that to the resume.

I have been blogging since I was 17 years old and I didn’t even know it.  I joined LiveJournal back in 11th grade because not enough of my friends had caught on to the MySpace craze to have any fun with it and I lacked the college email address that was required at the time to join Facebook.  I turned to writing my thoughts in an online journal, and I have always thought of it as just that, an online journal. A place to write about my thoughts, ideas and experiences whenever I felt like it.   I’ve read hundreds of other blogs over the last decade, but never once thought of mine as one.  Probably because I never wrote with the intention of other people reading it.  Blogs are meant to have followers, likers and commenters, right?  My online journal is extremely personal, and I have given out the link less times than Elizabeth Taylor has been married.  I update it every few months, and yesterday I decided to give it a little face lift.  I changed the template and when I saw the results I realized something: it looks like a blog.

Wait, I have a blog?  I’m a blogger?  Was the term “blogger” even around when I started this LiveJournal back in 2002, because I’m pretty sure I had never heard it then.

So here I am, 10 years later, officially joining the 156 million+ bloggers out there.  Even though I could have considered myself one years ago, I feel like I’ve just begun a new journey.  I’m leaving my LiveJournal entries- unedited, personal, and sometimes embarassing- private for now and starting fresh.  Deep breath.  Here we go.