So, my 15-year-old Saturn SC2 has finally been put out to pasture. Well, not quite. A friend is taking it off my hands (one much better at handling minor repairs) and will probably drive it another 100,000 miles. So, Kari and I took off shopping for another vehicle. Let me start by saying that, following Dave Ramsay guidance, we don't really ...

I was reading an article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal about Heather Armstrong, a blogger mom who has one of the top parenting blogs online.  Well, maybe not a parenting blog per se. A blog she writes, as a parent. I think her blog's success is more a tribute to her entertaining writing style than her sound ...

When I went to Loyalist College in Canada back in the 1980s, it was to study Print Journalism.  We learned how to be two-way journalists (print and photo) and to do layout and more ... basically everything you'd need to know to do community journalism.  After I left Loyalist I went on to receive my B.A. from Calvin College here in ...

  Happy Birthday O'zoners, and congratulations on a great first year!  I just read David Prescott's musings in Code Review and have to agree, it does seem like much longer than a year for the Opportunity Zone.  Well, for me that's especially true since I've been doing the RealQuixtarBlog since April of 2004.  I ...

Do you have a Google alert set up for your name? I do. No, it's not vanity (well, maybe a little). But if my name does appear in another blog or in a news piece, it's work-related and I want to see what others are saying about me, just like I want to know what others are saying about Quixtar or Amway. Anyway, my name popped up in a blog ...

One of the little things I thought was truly cool growing up was that my brother and I shared a birthday.  No, I'm not a twin, rather, I was born on his fifth birthday. Moreover, he was born on the exact same day as my cousin Carol, with our mom and hers going through labor together.  AND, an uncle on my dad's side also ...

I'm in Baltimore now at the Direct Selling Association's 2007 Marketing and Communications Conference. Today we heard from some excellent presenters, including Eric Yaverbaum, [corrected info] president of Ericho Communications and author of Public Relations for Dummies, among other books, plus Allen P. Adamson, author of BrandSimple. ...

I was asked to write an article on reputation recently and, while doing so, it really impressed upon me again how important a topic this is not just for companies and brands but for individuals. Certainly a company's reputation is important if it hopes to spur some sort of participation on the part of the public, whether that be as a customer ...

Today I'm wearing a pink shirt. It actually has vertical green and blue stripes as well, but for the most part it's pink. I only mention this because, when I wear it, people comment on it. Not when I wear white shirts, or green shirts, or blue shirts. But a pink shirt will make people comment. Why? What does an article of ...

For the past few weeks I've been putting myself voluntarily through torture ... aka physical therapy.  As you may know, I had ACL replacement surgery in early May, after which I have done light stretching and the like.  Early on I dropped my crutches to the side and forced myself to use my muscles whenever I could.  Despite my ...