1. Start a call with someone
2. Navigate to your iPod app and start it up
3. Choose a song or podcast
4. Enjoy!

The other person will not be able to hear it, and you should still be able to hear them over the music!

All I could think was that one of two things had to be going on:

1. Some calendar software I am using had a “funny” developer
2. Someone was messing with me

I disregarded the first couple events, but here it is February and this stuff is still showing up on my calendar.  Now, this would not be too much of a worry except that it was showing up on my work calendar and my boss started asking questions.  There was an event that was nothing but the word “Fuck”, I quickly deleted it upon my boss discovering it.

Then my brain-switch kicked on (must have been the coffee) and I realized that not only have these crazy events been showing up in my calendar, but I have not been getting the SMS event reminders I should be getting. Ding! I went and checked my SMS settings on the Google Calendar and my old phone number was in there.

So, for 3 months some poor guy who got my old phone number has been getting the equivalent of a collections-agency-annoyance from his new number.  Unfortunately, I had that number for 13 years, so he is probably also getting random phone calls from people looking for me.  I tried to remember to switch everything over but there are some things you just forget.

Here’s to the guy who got my old number, and here’s to hopefully solving the problem so I don’t get some random dude showing up ready to kill me. If you know him, tell him I’m sorry and buy him a beer.

“… You are a scholar and a gentleman, and there are damn few of us left.”

I often hear this saying from a friend who uses it to say thank you in a kitschy way.  I believe that he is trying to let me know that he truly means thank you, but to me it seems like overkill and drastically demeans the value of these words. Let me explain.

Normally, when people say things, I ignore the fact that they are just using a phrase because they “heard it once” and think its cool to say.  This happens every day, and in a commercial advertising driven society, things get brought into common parlance where all meaning and value is completely drained out of them.

For example, the song “Sweet Home Alabama” was a charged reaction song written by Lynyrd Skynyrd to make a point about politics and the racism and slavery Alabama.  When KFC decided to make it their theme song, it completely ruined the value of the song, and made me think “I’m hungry for chicken” every time I hear the intro of the song. I honestly believe that the guys of Skynyrd did not originally intend to sell chicken for a franchised food factory when they wrote and performed this song.

The first time I heard “scholar and a gentleman”, I had spent the entire day with a very close friend’s father hiking Long’s Peak.  As we walked, we talked about many things and learned quite a bit about each other.  During the day, we had other friends with us, but they had decided to go on ahead as we were moving a little slower down through the trees.  At the end o the day, and what felt like a marathon, we headed back to the cabin for dinner. At dinner, he looked me in the eyes and shook my hand.  As he held my hand he gave me the speech, and it touched me because no one had ever said something so kind to me, and all for doing something as simple as hiking down a mountain and holding a conversation.

So, when I hear this quote on a daily or weekly basis, it kind of perturbs me because it takes away the value of what the words mean and the situations in which someone would or should use these words.  I will not let it drain the value out of what happened that day after Long’s Peak.

It all makes me think that we should think about the words that are coming out of our mouths, so that we use the correct words in the correct circumstances.  Especially, when a simple “Thank You” would hold much more value and meaning.

Through my work as a programmer I have learned that having a defined set of goals, guidelines, or even a specification gives me the target so that all I have to do is break down the steps to reach that goal.  Things change, targets start moving, but the steps will still get me close to achieving my goals.

The following are a list of the goals that I will accomplish this year.

Books

I have been finding great guidance in some of the books I have read this past year.  They have been informative, teaching, and helped me to make decisions which have improved my work ethic and my ability to accomplish my goals.  I know this sounds sappy, but its the truth.

Recently, I purchased the following books, which I hope to read.  I will be finding and reading other books as well, just figured I would add these to the list since reading does take quite a bit of time.

The 4-Hour Workweek

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

Rich Dad Poor Dad

Personal

Melissa and I renewed our current lease until November 2010.  When our lease is up, we will move into a house.  We have been saving and will continue to save anything extra past our bills (we have a well-defined budget) towards the down payment of a house.

As well as purchasing a house and making our mortgage payments without fail, we will also work hard to get rid of our student loans.

I am already started on my goal to lose 15 pounds. I have been lowering my food intake and eating smarter, this is hard for me to do as I really like food.  I would prefer to eat something different at every meal and not repeat more than once a week.

Reinforce Media

My company is called Reinforce Media, LLC. Since I registered my company with the State of Colorado it has been in the red.  My goal is to get Reinforce Media into the black.  I will do this by finishing builds on my projects, posting on my blogs, and generally working my ass off.

FocusOfTheWeek.com – My goal is to have at least 5 active blogs including TwitterUserOfTheWeek, Tony On Business

MKBernier.com/ReinforceMedia.com – I will post to these sites more often, sharing quality information and how-tos.  I already have a list of articles to write.

OddEmail.com – My goal is to achieve over 150 hits per post, currently this site averages 83.  This site is just for fun, but it would be nice to see it get more popular.

ProbableFollow.com – I will continue to improve the current functionality, speed up the features, and add new features which will help draw more people to the site.

SendThemAShirt.com – My goal for this site is to sell an average of 3 boxes per month throughout the year.  This site is all due to a joke that I heard in college, but people seem genuinely interested in what we are doing.  At the very least it will be fun to work on and create some great blog posts on this domain.

SpammerOrNot.com – I will get a 1.0 version of this site up and running.  The idea of this site is to help identify true spammers and remove them from Twitter as soon and as effectively as possible.

Twindicate.com – I will take Twindicate live and begin charging a monthly subscription fee for users of the site.

TwitterUserOfTheWeek.com – I will continue to write articles once a week about top-notch Twitter Users who deserve to have their name and story shared.  My goal for this site is to improve the traffic of the site from an average of 470 hits per article to 1000.

Twitter

My goal is to continue to use Twitter to discover new friends, improve the relationships I currently have, to help unique twitter users discover each other, to provide information and help wherever possible, to share the ideas and projects that my friends and followers are working on, and to promote my current projects.  If that isn’t enough, I will also do my best to discuss the merits of Cherry Coke as much as possible.

The one I got was all white, which is alright but I wanted something unique.  So, I hollered at my good buddy Nemo who does some awesome art.  He said that he could do some Koi fish on there and this is the result:

Likelihood to Offend  = 93%

Basically, the whole story boils down to little kids getting the string wrapped around their necks and dieing. This in itself is horrible, I never want to hear about another accidental child death again.

The thing that bothers me about the fact that a recall was put into effect is that ALL of these deaths could have been avoided if the parents would have been paying attention.  Why are child services organizations around the country not going after these parents whose children died?

Parents are constantly buying the baby-proofing hardware for their houses.  Things like plug guards, cabinet locks, etc.  They constantly are on guard to make sure that the child’s food is cut up small enough so that they will not choke.  Parents are always looking out for their kids safety.  So, WHY IN THE HELL did these parents put a Roman style shade next to their baby’s crib or even within reach of their child?

This is not Target’s, IKEA’s, or Home Depot’s fault that you shoved a crib up against a window that had a 6 foot rope hanging from it.  This is purely the fault of the parents.  It is not Target’s job to go into your home and look at every single product YOU CHOOSE to buy and put in your home for the potential health risks that they pose to anyone who walks in the door.  This is ridiculous.  If this was the case then stores would stop selling marbles, knives, and anything made of a hard plastic over 15 ounces that could be used to break glass and commit suicide.

With the same logic, they could say it is your fault your baby died because you taught it the skills necessary to grab onto an object and play with it, resulting in them wrapping it around their own necks.  OR they could say that it is your parental responsibility to be aware and responsive to everything your baby does.  Oh wait, you ARE supposed to be aware and responsive to everything your baby does. My bad for expecting you to do your job as a parent. Obviously, it is the big box store’s job to raise your children…or was that Cartoon Network’s job? I can never remember.

Come on people.  Take responsibility for your own actions, your choices, and your children.  It is not the tree’s fault for growing in the same spot for over 100 years when you run your car into it.  You can’t sue God for inventing trees.

It is not the store’s fault if you walk in and stub your toe on the wall, it is your own damn fault for putting your foot too close to a wall.  It is 100% not McDonald’s fault for making coffee the way it is supposed to be made.  If is your fault for getting into a moving vehicle with a cup of the stuff between your legs and you spill it on yourself.  You knew when your ordered the coffee that it was going to be hot, that’s probably WHY you ordered it.  It is also not McDonald’s fault for your fat ass, you chose to go there and spend your money, you chose to eat three Big Macs a large fry and a liter of Coke. They did not sneak into your house and reverse lipo a whole hogs ass into your belly area, you put it in there one french fry at a time. Deal with it, take responsibility for it.

I am tired of people trying to get rich on their own stupidity.  There are too many people in this world who are working way too hard just to scrape by and who are getting screwed out of their job because someone wasn’t being responsible for their own self.  Pay attention to yourself, pay attention to your surroundings, use your god damned brain once in a while.

—

I know that this is a rant, I even told you that at the top of this post.  I am freaking pissed at people who are too damn sue happy and refuse to get off their own ass and do something for themselves.  If you agree or disagree, please tell me in the comments as I would love to discuss what you think about this.

Thank you to all the people who came to the party, who brought donations both monetary and for the raffle, who helped me keep things running smoothly, and who had a great time.

As I get more pictures and information I will post them both here on my blog and through Twitter so that everyone can get a glimpse of the great fun we had. If you know who all won prizes at the event, I would really appreciate you sharing this information with me so I can share with our sponsors.

Pictures & Articles

@yosoykia took some awesome pictures and posted them on Ossumniss.

Terry Cabeen (@tcabeen) posted an article about Movember.

CBS4 News covered our event!

A roll of raffle tickets and only a small number of the prize envelopes

The movember style guide

@brandonblaine choosing his style

@keithives getting a shave from Brian Poskin

@tekee preparing to get his beard cleaned up into a pretty nice chin strap

@joeburnham pre-shave, getting his shave inspected, and then rocking some awesome handlebars

@markwmann pre-shave, getting his massive beard trimmed down to some amazing mutton chops

@mbernier talking on stage, Mo picture from the day after

@gpelz rocking an awesome Mo-sista ’stache

@kyleindenver pre-shave, starting the shave, getting shaved, being interviewed during his shave

Special Thanks

I wanted to give special thanks to a couple people who may or may not have gotten that thanks the night of the party:

Thank you to @cerippe and @rackhousepub for giving us this location to have this party, helping set everything up, having amazing food, great beer & whiskey, and for being awesome!

Jason Janell (@meatflag) and Kendal Ruth (@iamkendal) Thank you tremendously for manning the door all night and helping us sell so many raffle tickets

Ashley Kingsley of ASHER SOLUTIONS (@ashleykingsley), Miss Movember herself, thank you so much for helping to gather up so many awesome prizes and for introducing me to the really great people you got the prizes from.

Thank you to @markwmann for helping to organize the event and for bringing Troy Negley (TNegley at archstonemail dot com) our great DJ!

Thank you to @kyleindenver for helping to set everything up and introducing all of us to Brian Poskin

Thank you to Brian Poskin of Ollies for sculpting some amazing Mustaches out of the horrible facial hair most of us called beards.

Thank you to @mistymontano & @CBS4Denver for sending out a camera man and interviewing @kylindenver about our event!

Thank you to @NealStewart & Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Co for sponsoring our event by donating $5.00 for every person in the door and for sampling your great new Hard Cider drink.  I can safely say that people loved the new drink!

Thank you to @RedHeadWriting for introducing me to both Chris Rippe & Neal Stewart!

Thank you to all of the people, businesses and everyone who provided great prizes for the event.

Prize Winners

@snowkitten won the St. Supery Winery Tour

@keithives won The LoHi Steakbar $50 gift certificate

@gabelee won one of the St. Supery Magnums

@DKMayer won the Signed Joe Sakic Jersey Silent Auction

Did you win something? Tell me and I will post your name and prize here!

I guess we will have to try to go bigger and more awesome next year. Since we know we want to do it before Nov 1st, we can be better prepared for an even bigger party!

P.S. If I left anyone out above or you have pics to share just drop me a comment and I will add you ASAP!

The Metal Mustaches are a group of guys and women who have banded together to grow and support the growth of beards and awesome metal mustaches in the name of raising money to fight Men’s Cancers.

RSVP NOW!!

The Rackhouse Pub

Dec 4th, 2009

7:00 – 9:00pm

200 S. Kalamath Street

$10 donation at the door

Gets you 2 raffle tickets. (Maybe more if we can swing it)

$50 at the door

Gets you 15 raffle tickets and a Movie Poster

We have an awesome sponsor!

They will be donating $5 for every person who walks in the door for the event

AND

They will be bringing samples of their new Spiced Apple seasonal drink.

• 2 Large Format St. Supery Cabernet Sauvignon bottles
• 1 Tour of the St. Supery Winery for 4
• Large Men’s Colorado Rockies Jacket ($120 value) (picture here)
• $50 Gift Certificate to the LoHi SteakBar
• $78 value First Class Gift Certificate to SkyVenture Indoor Skydiving
  
• A gift box of Gourmet Spices Savory Spice Shop
  
• Gourmet (and super fancy!) Chocolates donated by Wen Chocolates
  • In order to keep them fresh for Dec 4th, they will be donated the week before
• Joe Sakic signed NORDICS Jersey (pictures here)
  
• John Elway signed mini helmet (pictures here)
• Bass Ale Mega Cooler (pictures here)
• Thriftonista: $100 worth of personal styling and vintage clothing from Thriftonista. This will include a 1 hour personal style consultation (worth $50) and $50 in expertly sourced vintage clothing.  This prize IS transferable so that the winner can give it as a gift to any friend of family member
• PlumSage Flowers: $75 Gift Certificate
• LaXWorld Colorado: One new Lacrosse Stick, Ball and a Shirt
• Laser Hair Company: 1 gift Certificate for $250.00 and 1 for ½ of 1 Package Deal.
• $25 gift card to Indulge Wine Bar
• FettMarketing will be providing:
  • 3 – $500 SEO Website Reviews
  • 1 – $3500 SEO Website Analysis and Game Plan
• 1 Men’s t-shirt from SnowTees
• 1 Women’s t-shirt from SnowTees
  • Movie Posters provided by AMC Theaters
    
  • Pirate Radio
    
  • Men Who Stare at Goats
    
  • The Box
    
  • Xmas Carol
  • Surrogates
  • Where the Wild Things Are
  • Law Abiding Citizen
  • Final Destination
  • Fourth Kind
  • Aliens In The Attic
  • The Goods
  • Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Got a Beard?

We will have barbers on site to give you an awesome Metal Mustache

Important Links:

• Cancer is serious about you. Return the favor. - T-shirts and stickers, profits are being donated.
• Join the Metal Mustache Team!
  

Joshua Duplechian will be photographing the event www.joshuaduplechian.com

Reinforce Media, LLC

ASHER SOLUTIONS

@AshleyKingsley

@Amanda5280

@KyleInDenver

@DKMayer

@mbernier

Joshua Duplechian for photographing at the event

——

RSVP NOW!!

We need your name on the RSVP list if you are coming.  This will help us to know how many people are coming and whether I am letting down our sponsors (Mike’s Hard Lemonade Co and The Rackhouse Pub).  I personally promised a ton of people and I need your help in making that happen. SO PLEASE RSVP NOW!!

Movember Links:

• RSVP for the Party on Dec 4th at The Rackhouse Pub

• Join the Metal Mustache Team
• Donate money to the Metal Mustache Team to benefit The Lance Armstrong Foundation
• Cancer is serious about you. Return the favor. T-shirts and stickers.  The profits are being donated.
• Metal Mustache Movember Team Press Release