Roman Clarkson

I wanted to share with everyone that I created a new online magazine using BlogEngine.Net. I made use of all the existing features of of Blogengine along with a few new widgets and extensions.  I even created a new theme to go along with it.  I don’t know if I will share it at this time because it is specific to my site.  But the odds are it will show you some new ways to use the software.

Take a look at it and let me know what you think.

I will get into the specifics of the site in a later post.  

Just an update for everyone.  You can now visit the site at http://www.ichoosetofeel.net.  Please take a look and review it.  It's ad free and we don’t ask for money.

.Net, BlogEngine.Net, Book, Essays, General, Looking Back, Music, Peace, Religious Science, Reviews online magazine, contributors, editor, new, theme, blogengine

I have been giving SmugMug a try now for several days now.  I have been looking to do online backups of my photos for several years now.  There have been several road blocks that I saw each time I thought about making the transition.  The primary dissuasion has been the cost to space ratio.  The second issue that I always came across was the mechanism for uploading the photos. 

I looked at a lot of vendors, Flickr, Google, Microsoft’s SkyDrive, PhotoBucket, and more.  I  found SmugMug to be the best deal for the money going.

I can give you the details but I’m not the marketing department for SmugMug.  You can go to the site to find out. 

It costs $40.  You can save some money by using the referral code ( AGD0hvUIDki26 ) and you will get $5 off.

Reviews

Some of you may know, I am preparing for a leadership retreat this weekend. You can find out more by reading here in an earlier post.  I have been reading the Gallup book called “Strengths based Leadership”.  So far, it is a really good sequel to the book “How Full is Your Bucket?”  These books have an online questionnaire that you complete to access what your strengths are.  There are about 150 questions and it takes about 30 minutes to complete it.  At the end of the questionnaire you get your results.  The results consist of your top five (5) strengths, a Strength-Based Leadership Guide (with action strategies), and a Strength-Based Leadership Report (with your personalized Strengths Insights).  With the reports and guide you get some valuable information that will make the material in the book more relevant.

I too the questionnaire several years ago and I admit that I did not take the the first results all that serious.  However, after taking the second test I am surprised at how close my second score was to the first.  Three Strategic Thinking attributes remained the same, I added one to a new leadership domain, and switched a Strategic Thinking attribute for another. According to the “Strengths Based Leadership” there are four domains of leadership strengths; Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building and Strategic Thinking.  If you read the book you will know, my leadership strength is in the domain of Strategic Thinking, 4 out of 5 attributes are in this domain.

The result?

What I am learning is that as the CORE President and with my leadership domain I need to change the way I do things.  I have always thought of myself as having a leadership strength similar to Executing.  What I found is that I execute extremely well in areas that I thrive in.  If I veer too far from my passions I tend to not execute anything.  That is were this book comes in.  It has taught me some immediate skills and tools that I can use to foster my teams to flourish and succeed at their goals.  As interesting as all this is, I still need to finish reading the book.  When I get that finished I will post an addendum.

General, Reviews book review, self improvement

Here’s the deal.  I clicked on the link to install the Google Toolbar while reading my email in Chrome.  It redirected me to the install page then said I needed to have the latest FireFox 2.x installed to install the toolbar.  Well, for starters I want it for Chrome not FireFox, secondly I have FireFox 3.0.1.  Shouldn’t Gmail know that Chrome is a browser that doesn’t support toolbars?  Come on. 

Chrome has a lot of issues from what I can tell.  There are still issues with FaceBook that haven’t been resolved and JavaScript functions on other sites are causing problems as well. 

Also, Gmail is still in Beta.  Don’t they have a road map for release?  How many years is it going to take?  I am starting to have serious doubts about Google’s ability to release reliable software that we can bank on.  Perhaps they should get a product out of beta before releasing a bunch of other Beta software, please.  Good thing everyone gave them their money up front in share purchases.

Reviews

I saw a YouTube video yesterday titled “Meet your Meat”.  I have to say it makes me want to remove meat from my diet.  Recently, thanks to my wife, we have been moving back into a veggie rich diet over the past few months.  I suggest you check it out.  It really makes you wonder about the ecology and ethics involved in our food system.  I wonder if everyone had to clean at least one animal in their life time if this type of stuff would go one.

Reviews

Here you can see my grandma being interviewed.  I called in the tip last night when I found out that the Army Corps. of Engineers decided that they had to release so much water from Mark Twain Dam that it would create a man made flooding of homes and farm land.  The dam was built, in part, to keep floods from happening.  Maybe, they should have moved a little faster and sooner.

General, Reviews

I looked this up to see what it has available.  What’s nice is that it consolidates some core essential software into one location.  Highly recommend it.

http://pack.google.com/intl/en/pack_installer.html?hl=en&gl=us&utm_source=en_US-et-more&utm_medium=et&utm_campaign=en_US

Reviews

My wife and I had a great time at Bonnaroo.  I have to tell you it was nothing like what I expected.  There must have been over a hundred bands playing non stop for four days.  I say Charlie Tuna, from Jurassic 5, at 2am to 4am and he tore up the stage.  He rocked hip hop like no other.  Totally enjoyed it.

We stayed in VIP so the showers, restrooms and food service was awesome.  Parking was a breeze.  I drove straight to our camp site with NO wait.  If you go to Bonnaroo you must get VIP.  Its the only way to go.

The highlight of the festival for me was Pearl Jam.  I am a die hard fan.  We got into the pit through a special entrance on the side.  They let in a few hundred people from what I can tell.  Only those people go to go to the front of the stage.  We got to be on the fence just off center on stage right.  Ed walked over there several time.  We were so close that if Mike had been on that side I could have got a pick.  Since he is always stage left that did not happen.  Ed talked a little bit about the war and the fact that we have the right to change what we do not like.  He sung a song about a friend of his that was wounded in the war and lapsed into a coma recently.  It was the pretty emotional and was a wake up call for me.  As a veteran I am always reminded about the struggles soldiers, sailors, and their families deal with on a daily basis. 

Ed announced that Matt was going to be playing at the Something Else Tent on Sunday.  We went over there and listened to his trio sound off with a 45 minute jazz set.  We were hoping for a surprise guest but none came.  At the end of the set I tried to ask the guy taking down the drums to get me the set list.  Instead he gave me an autographed drum stick from Matt Cameron.  Pretty freakin' awesome.  That makes two members I have met, with three to go.  Four if you count Boomer.

By the way, if you ever get to try Silent Disco, DO IT!!!!  It was a kick but experience.  There is a tent were people are dancing and there is absolutely no music playing.  It looks like a bunch of people grooving to an imaginary song.  The reality is you get wireless head phones that are playing what the DJ is spinning.  It rocks.

We saw Charlie Tuna because Kayne West was suppose to play at 2:15 am at the What Tent.  He did not start playing until like 4am.  We went over there and checked it out.  It wasn't until I saw his act that I realized I hate the music and the performance.  If you like one man theatrical acts with music playing from a recording you may like it.  I prefer the band thing.  Come on, his act was that he was "stranded" by a computer in a far off world and he is trying to get home?  I am guessing he never found his way.  I give him props for trying, it just fell on my deaf ears.

I am going to put together a little video of the pictures and video that I recorded.  Its not much but you may like it.

If you need food, deals, and people trying to sell there ware you have to go to Shakedown Alley.  We bought some clothes and food down there.  The prices were reasonable and people were friendly.

To everyone we met, thanks for making it a great trip.  We wish you the best.

To that asshole who thought slapping a girl on the ass while driving by in a cart.  It was everything in my power not to launch my water bottle at you.  I hope you never come back and find some one to teach you some manners.  He was the only ass I saw the hole time.  It is amazing what a grown man will do when he has no manners or respect for others.

Lastly, we made our way to the Guest Camp.  Don't ask me how.  We got to hang out with new friends, got some free shirts, played Guitar Hero, free beer, and a private DJ.  This is my next destination.

Peace and Love

Reviews

I have been fly fishing for a little while and I have to say that I have gone through a lot of paradigm shifts.  At first it was all about catching a fish, then how many can I catch, how many can I eat, how many can I catch and release, how many, how many....

I finally got over that on my last fishing trip.  Probably because I caught so many I could not keep track of them all.  The real magic did not have to do with the numbers at all.  Rather it was the experience of fishing my own tied flies and an original fly by a buddy of mine.  I never caught a trout on a dry before and it was unbelievable.  Yeah there were a lot of them pooling together and it was kind of like shooting fish in a barrel but who cares?  Not me.  A close friend and I got to go to our fishing hole and just have fun all day playing "where's the trout" and winning.

This article by Tom Chandler touches on some of my thoughts about the "fishing game".  I would have to say that he poses some good questions about why fishing is the way it is and lets you come up with the answers. http://www.troutunderground.com/bodycounters.htm

Fly Fishing, Reviews

It is amazing how things come full circle. When I was in college, I initially went in to study psychology. During my psychology studies, I was presented with the idea that death was faced in stages, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. At the time, it was not known to me that this study of the stages was only thirty two years old. Nor did I recall who came up with this concept of stages. Well now I do.

I have not had much direct experience with death and dying. I always have considered myself a novice in terms of knowing how to deal with the subject; and I was surprised that after so many years of studying these stages of dying that I am coming back to study them again. This time, however, I have had time to rethink the subject and experience a little more of life. These experiences and lessons have reshaped the way I now think of death and dying.

The impact of this book on me has little to do with the idea of “stages of dying”; rather, it was the idea of a new dialogue around the subject of death and those who are dying. The dying is in fact all of us. We are born to die. Every human in history has died in every imaginable way and then some. So I asked myself, why is the dialogue so important.

If I were to embrace her book as empirical truth then I would have been reading the book as a learned scholar trying to enhance his skills. Instead, I embraced her book as a new way to deal with death in terms of medicine and dialogue. I took her words to heart when she wrote of the impersonalization of the health care industry. I could not have agreed with her more that health care needs to constantly be vigilant in its practice of knowing that individuals are humans and not specimens. Her idea that doctors should be working with the patient is, or as more, important than the treatment itself.

Finally, like so many other good books, Elisabeth introduces a new way of speaking about a subject. The very fact that she is having this dialogue with the world is important. She really raises the consciousness about death and dying. The subject has been treated with fear and contempt for what seems an eternity. Her words help me, and you, explore this very real fact that a physical death is certain for all of us. We all need new methods and words to use so we can further our exploration on the subject.

Religious Science, Reviews, Science of Mind center for spiritual living, religous, spirit, religion, science of mind