Category: Personal Essays
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Setting the Cruise Control
Angie is my favorite person in the whole world. She and I do a lot together. And I mean a whole lot! We get coffee. Manicures. Pedicures. Facials. We’ve been known to get massages simultaneously but with different masseuses. Huh. That would be kinda hard. Two massages at the same time? I wonder if Sven…
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Creativity
I’m not sure I’m smart enough to understand how it works or what it is. I’m no scientist. I’m not a researcher. But I do know what creative thinking looks like. I know how my brain works, creating a solution from nothing. But can I paint like Michaelangelo? Not even if I wanted to! Can…
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Exhausted
I’m exhausted. I am so tired of listening to leaders who do nothing more than talk about change. It needs to happen, they say. We need to do better. We need better communication. Let’s hire better people. We will make time for our teams. We promise a salary increase is coming. Then, after six interviews…
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Leading Others
Knowledge, skills, and abilities. Human resource professionals look for these three attributes in potential candidates for positions within their company or organization. You can teach the right person knowledge. Giving them more than adequate information to finish a task will be enough. Skills are practiced behaviors, like knowledge, learned over time. Both of these attributes…
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Invest In People
Working in customer service, retail, and sales gives you a unique perspective, seeing how working-class people interact with the general public and the public interacts with the staff. The hard part is figuring out what will motivate your staff to stick it out and stay with you and not simply go to work, get their…
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What Do You Do?
When confronted with this question, how do you respond? Do you say I’m a custodian? Or are you an industrial arts technician? Or do you work at Popeye’s, McDonald’s, or Wendy’s? Maybe you are an assembly line worker punching a time clock. Perhaps you work as a roofer, but you dream of being a published…
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Duran Duran, aka Brent Alexander’s Vega: Part II
So, the following Saturday, Brent came over and took me back to his house in Livermore in the Vega. It was a twenty-minute drive, give or take, so we had time to talk about music and listen to Duran Duran and David Bowie. He played two songs from Bowie, and we talked about both tunes,…
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Introduction to Duran Duran, aka Brent Alexand’s Vega
Storytelling takes account of the shoddy memories of the teller. My memories and the gaping holes in them make the tale more interesting, sometimes taking it off the rails into the depths of what can only be considered borderline lying. Those details often make it palatable, so I hope my recollection will be relatively accurate…
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Choices
The author reflects on the choices and behaviors of drivers and the impact of selfishness and impatience on road safety.
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Silver Reclamation
A hodgepodge of memories built from various adventures, starting from the patriarch of invention and creativity, my Dad. In his mid to late thirties, he started several businesses, including one that began in our garage. “Would you like to make some money?” That was a question James, Jon, and I heard often. Sometimes, we would…
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Write What You Know
I heard that sentence thirty years ago or more. Write what you know. Show us, don’t tell us. Incorporate personal experiences into your fiction writing. And so many more tips, tricks, and advice, all designed to make me a better writer. And you know what I discovered? I see a lot more than I think…
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Grieving
Thirteen years old. You aren’t old enough to drive a car. But this is the age where the seeds of freedom are being planted. You aren’t old enough to understand abstract thinking but are slowly moving there. Everything is black and white – kind of. Emotions are high, all over the map. Everything in your…
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Generosity
Thanksgiving. Christmas. Our thoughts turn to presents, good food, and company, all of which you’ve worked so diligently throughout the year. And, like it or not, Western culture typically thinks of generosity as giving from your wallet, in terms of cold, hard cash, or a lucrative donation. The simplest definition of the word generous is…
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Change
We’re doing it my way. My opinion matters more because I am more educated than you. I’m more important than you. I have more wealth than you. I get to go first just because I am not you. Talk to your employer like that for a minute and see if you don’t immediately get…
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Creativity
I’m not sure I’m smart enough to understand how it works or what it is. I’m no scientist. I’m not a researcher. But I do know what creative thinking looks like. I know how my brain works, creating a solution from nothing. But can I paint like Michaelangelo? Not even if I wanted to! Can…
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Field Trip to Monterey
Good idea. Bad idea. I think the first time I heard that was in the early 90s with the creation of Tiny Toons, Steven Spielberg’s animated cartoon. It was an animated bit that didn’t include any iconic Warner Brothers characters, like Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck. That’s what made it unique. It featured a skull…
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The Excitement of Star Wars
“I have to tell you something.” The excitement in his voice told me I needed to pay attention to what he was about to say. “My son, who’s seven years old, watched Star Wars for the first time this past weekend!” I smiled. He continued his story, “I remember seeing it for the first time.…
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Dino Bones
We don’t stop and think a lot about what happened to us as kids. Well, most people don’t. Then there are those of us, like me, that do. My thoughts turn to those events pivotal in my childhood, particularly when those moments are connected to blockbuster movies. Growing up in San Ramon, California, I…
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But I’m Not Lying!
Grow up around any creative industry, and chances are you won’t see it like everyone else. For example, if your Dad is a football coach for an NFL team, the chances of you not meeting a famous player are very low. If your Mom works as a CPA for an accounting firm that only deals…
