Leftovers

From buddy Steve Kayser:

I write this a few hours before heading to Whitewright, Texas, to Skydive Dallas for my first tandem jump appointment. Ever since I posted I would jump out of a plane if we collected $5000 worth of prizes by this blog’s 8th birthday, I’ve fretted and regretted my offer. Sometimes publicity forced a person to do stupid things and this was mine.

I blame Peter Shankman. I watched a video of his skydives and listened to him gush about his love of the daredevilish activity. But it was my own stupidity for letting that talk and desire to share prizes with the world to influence my decision. In truth, Peter put up with my rants and supported me throughout this chicken phase. He’s a busy guy with over 11,000 people following him plus he travels often — yet he makes time to push me and responds to my yadda yaddas.

I made the initial appointment on June 20. But bad weather postponed it another week. Two days before the jump, I joined my girl friends for a game of mah jongg. Big mistake.

“Jumping is a big deal!” one said.

“My sister is a daredevil and has tried everything. When she went skydiving, they had to pry her fingers off the plane’s edge and she almost peed in her pants!” said another.

“Why don’t you just go to Planet Pizza (kids’ party place with rides) and jump out of the airplane there? That way you kept your word!” said the first one. This sounds more like deception than comical and I won’t do that when it comes to something tied with my business.

To make it worse, my mother kept reminding me I have three children and should be responsible.

By the end of mah jongg night even after I won the last hand, I decided I couldn’t do this as a pit in my stomach formed and visualizing being in the plane frightened me. But how do I get out of this after telling people I would? I found a way out of this whole mess. One prize sponsor who pushed the prizes over $5000 by June 1 never responded. But it didn’t feel right, either.

Ironically, the biggest supporters come from my own family. My oldest and my husband. Both said they would do it if they could. Oldest isn’t old enough yet and husband (at 6’4″ tall) passes the weight limit. I know hubby would do it as he mentioned it years ago before I ever considered this.

Back ‘n forth. Dilly dallying. Wishy washing.

So how this skydiving mess like writing? It’s exactly how many of us feel when we started freelancing as a writer. Your mind comes up with many similar thoughts…

Can I do this?

Everyone thinks he or she is a writer. What makes me a real one?

Aw, this is crazy. Forget about it. How the heck am I going to stay busy and keep clients coming?

It’s too risky!

What if the client hates my work? Then, I’m done for.

But you have to deal with all the other stuff like marketing, bookkeeping, preparing for the dive…

What if I enjoy it?

Sometimes you just have to do it! The last time I remember freezing out of fear was on top of a mountain at a camp in Colorado when I was about 11. I was strapped and on the edge. I guess it was about 30 feet to the ground. I stood there stiff and gripping the rope not trusting it to hold me. My foot dragged a few inches backward without coming off the mountain’s edge. The other followed. By the time I reached the middle, I pushed gently and eventually glided down like an inexperienced pilot flying a plane.

I did it! I did it! I did it!

It was a breeze the first time I went indoor rock climbing thanks to this experience. Freelance writing — like all things we try for the first time — gets easier with experience. Quoting rates, doing certain types of writing (white paper, web content, case studies, etc.), bookkeeping, providing expertise.

The folks at Skydive Dallas (especially Ernie, my instructor and my glue) were wonderful. They know how to put a gal’s mind at ease. It didn’t help that we had to wait because the winds were too strong. More time to chicken out and fidget. I mostly paced and tried texting in an area where my phone service barely breathed.

It was time. I did what Ernie told me to do and paced more until it was time to head out to the plane. Unexpectedly, my heart beat at normal speed. My stomach growled (lunch time) rather than knotted. I just sat in the small plane and watch the ground grow smaller. Didn’t think about much except wonder when the heck we would reach 2.5 miles high in the sky.

Tired. More about the tale another time. This entry wasn’t meant to tell the whole story.

Remember to comment on this week’s post if you want a chance to win prizes. Seth Godin’s DVD set worth $800 is up for grabs!

• Should you sign your blog comments? Or is it redundant?
• “A Small Sheik Escaped” and other Editing Exercises to Energize Your Writing
• 7 Essential Ways to Build Trust in Your Business: I think great service goes a long way. Usually those who care about their customers also do good work.
• Blogger Relations: I don’t need a new best friend.
• Writing the Farewell Symphony: Though I took a break from blogging, I still had to manage the prizes and intros. But what would happen if this place went silent for two weeks?
• The Future of the Future: Good-bye knowledge worker… Hello, knowledge entrepreneur [Link: My sister]
• A Guide to CSS Support in Email: Still difficult to make all email clients happy.
• Newsmap: Visually captures the Google News news aggregator in a treemap.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Ordinary Online Store… Or is it…? (other than not being in English)
• Mind Bluff: Optical illusions, mind games, puzzles, brain teasers, etc.
• 10 Funniest Apple-Ad Parodies
• Office OFFline Web Comic: Funny!

-Gulp- Did I mention the thought of jumping out of a plane frightens me? We raised over $5000 in prizes for the 8th blog birthday bash and I promised to jump out of a plane if that happened. Am working on scheduling it — trying for June 22. If anyone has any fear pills for sale, let me know.

Skydive Dallas (not really in Dallas, but no one has heard of Whitehurst, TX) takes about an hour to get there. So I need to plan at least a half a day. With baseball and other kids’ activities, it can be tricky.

But this post holds me to it. I will do it. At least, I’ll have at least one interesting story for my grandkids.

Today is my wedding anniversary. So Happy Anniversary, Paul!

My mom sent me this joke (have yet to see proof this is a true story) and it’s making its way around inboxes everywhere. Regardless, it makes me laugh.

Some five-year old students are learning to read.

Yesterday one of them pointed at a picture in a zoo book and said, “Look at this! It’s a frickin’ elephant!”

The teacher took a deep breath, then asked, “What did you call it?”

“It’s a frickin’ elephant! It says so on the picture!”

And so it does…

• Add Spark to Your Writing with These 3 Simple Tweaks: I shy away from sentences where I use repeating words even though a comma separates them. This convinced me otherwise.
• So You Want to Become a Freelance Writer? Four part article with advice from the pros.
• Best Pro-Blogging Sentence in 2008: Wonderful quote from a CEO on why blogging matters in business.
• Disposable Email Addresses: Want something? Not sure if you can trust a source asking for your email?
• The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks: Love this. I’ve got friends who do this in email plus add unnecessary apostrophes. Nice to laugh instead of cringe for a change.
• Idea Seeds for Successful Articles and Posts: Creative approach to finding ideas.
• Searching for Mr. (Pardon, Mrs. and Ms., too) Good Host: A guest post of mine over at my guest blogger‘s site

And for fun… because we’re allowed…

• Speak LOL Cat [Link: Peter Shankman]
• Bored at work, but don’t want to get caught reading fiction or poetry? How about reading this stuff in PowerPoint? This takes work to figure out — but you log in as a user and click the folders. Start Here.

• Fifteen places you must put your keyword phrase and why [Link: Copywriting Maven]
• Powerful writing in 30 words or less e-book
• Why twitter matters
• Writer’s Digest Annual Best 101 Web Sites for Writers
• AngryJournalist: What not to do.
• The Street-Smart Writer: Self-Defense Against Sharks and Scams in the Writing World: Book by Jenna Glatzer available as ebook free — no strings. Just sign up with Wowio (where you download the book).

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Doodle 4 Google contest results for kids in grades K-12. The national winner is a middle schooler — wow. I didn’t know about the contest — I wish I had because I was the Arts in Education chair at a middle school and could’ve encouraged our kids to enter. [Link: My mom! Of all people... usually I'm giving her the links]
• Music video with only sounds from Windows XP and Windows 98. Remember the BSOD during a Bill Gates presentation? Classic! [Link: Zo'c]
• Junior High Sweethearts meet in math class 12 years later… complete with captions. OK, so there’s no audio. [Link: PopURLs]
• All Gaping Void cartoons in one long page.
• All my life for sale returns… Reed takes it over from Brian Thompson.

And of course, remember the celebration!

• Five Words You Can Cut: Blogged about this in the past… cut modifiers such as “really, very, much” is a good start. I use “just,” but more to add “conversation” to writing. If it’s an article or something formal, I omit it. [Link: John]
• 35 Essential Elements for a Newsworthy Release: 35 is a bit much. Useful info.
• Landing Page Tutorials and Case Studies. One resource should do the trick for your landing pages wanna knows.
• Polish Your Writing to Professionalism: Three tips to self-editing. My number one tip is to use an editor… but that’s not always possible, so these three will do.
• 5 Business Decisions You Will Be Proud Of: “Does doing all of these things guarantee anything? The answer: YES.”

And the fun stuff because you’re allowed.

• ABC book in 3D. For a moment, I wished I had this book when my kids were younger. But then I realized… they’d tear it up. This one looks too fabulous to ruin.
• Jewish Bread Toilet Seat Cover: In honor of Passover, which starts this weekend.
• 10 annoyingly brilliant office interiors: No depressing gray found here.
• The 10 Most Underrated Consoles

I knew about Twitter when it first turned hot. But I opted not to join because new applications always come out and taking them all on will become a full-time job. Plus, why would people care what we’re doing?

Since a friend Twitters, I figure it couldn’t hurt. I won’t put it on the overcrowded sidebar. Just in this little inobtrusive entry.

Update: OK, I changed it to orange. I just think of it as an RSS feed. I’ve already changed my Twitter user name, too. I’ll stop fooling with it now! Seriously…

Alvin Dean Kaplan (Meryl’s father), 76, passed away the morning of Dec. 25, 2007, from complications related to a severe stroke suffered on April 23 of this year.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., to Ethel and Max Kaplan, he played football in high school and he helped the family business by delivering milk. One summer, he was a “Good Humor Man,” selling ice cream to kids in New Hyde Park, N.Y.

Serving in the Air Force during the Korean War, he spent 2 1/2 years in Japan and Korea. After his overseas service, he was stationed at Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, where he met and married Karen Raimey. Al and his wife celebrated 50 wonderful years of marriage in November 2005.

Al was engaged in sales building a career in insurance and financial planning. He was a CLU and LUTCF, a member of the Society of Financial Service Professionals and had been president of the Fort Worth Association of Life Underwriters.

A yankee by birth, Al was a Texan by choice. He loved the Dallas/Fort Worth Spurs, the Texas Rangers and the Dallas Cowboys and still yearned for his once beloved “Brooklyn” Dodgers. When his kids were away at college, he’d take a “quick trip” just to see how they were doing, driving to Tucson, Ariz., College Station or Washington, D.C. Often these drives took longer than the actual visit with the kids.

During his life, he helped countless people through his donations and service to many local and national charitable organizations, as well as a multitude of personal acts of random kindness. He served as president of the Isadore Garsek Lodge of B’nai B’rith, of his congregation’s Men’s Club and the Fort Worth Association of Life Underwriters.

In his spare time, Al volunteered as an Ambassador at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, and for Travelers Aid, formerly Airport Assistance. He was a founder of Ambassadors; his smiling photo appeared on Ambassador posters tipping his hat to countless travelers throughout the airport.

Known affectionately as the Mayor of Stonegate, Al took his daily morning walk around Stonegate, greeting everyone he saw and handing out dog biscuits to all of his four-legged friends. To children everywhere, he was known as Donald Duck with his uncanny ability to talk “duck talk” and to actually be understood. He was an avid collector of Donald Duck memorabilia, much of it supplied by his children.

Memorials: In lieu of flowers, consideration of contributions to Jewish Family Services, Hadassah, or to a charity of one’s choice, in Al’s memory, is suggested.