… I expect to not only get OUT during my vacation, but to write as well. And not just measly little blog posts, but real, substantive stuff. Some of which will likely be posted, some probably not, but all in all I expect to see a sharp upswing in posts here either during my week off, or within the week after my return depending on access, etc.

Last night Jean and I met up with Kerri at one of our new favourite downtown finds: Veritable Quandary. We had an outstanding dinner, as expected, and found ourselves engaged in deep conversation for the majority of the evening. It turned into a very relaxing and enjoyable three hour dinner and drinks. During this time we covered a gamut of topics, one of which speaks to my plan for next week….  writing.

I know I have at least one story to tell, but I need time and energy to focus. Time and energy I never have during the work week, and the weekends I’d rather be recovering than ‘working’ on a book/short/story/blog/whatever. I expect next week to find that energy and time and dig in deep with as much as I can to put down as many words to (virtual) paper as possible. What comes of it, is again, anyone’s guess. Which story comes out is also a bit up in the air, though I more distinct ideas about that. In any case, expect me to be fairly silent and then inundate you with posts.

As for my trip…. well, I may even enable Facebook places for the week. Who knows, stranger things have happened

… and I still don’t know what I am doing next week. Starting to feel under the gun to decide now. Realizing that being social is likely not something that I can control at this point, but rather just something that will come from getting on my bike and looking for an adventure.

I’ll be honest, the prospect of a multi-day ride scares me. My sense of safety is really challenged when thinking about riding without a partner or at least a known entity at the end of the day. Solo rides are inherently more dangerous for a multitude of reasons, but the main one being for the mere fact that you are alone. I won’t dwell on that any more than what needed to be said.

So, as of now, who knows where I’ll end up…. and who knows how I’ll get there. All I know is that over the next week I will meet more people face to face than i have over the past 3 years. I may have to leave the state to do that or I may not leave any further than day-long round trips in state. Who knows. The important part here, after all, is just to get OUT. And out, my friends, is exactly what I intend to get.

One in a possible series; The following presumes you already have an idea of what you want, and can verbalize it with some decent level of clarity. An example drawing is even better, as artists love visual aids   Rather, what I intend to impart upon you here is how to take that next step from deciding you want a tattoo, and have an idea for a design, into the space of actually seeking out someone to ink it for you…

First and foremost: talk to your friends who have tattoos you like. Ask where they got theirs, and who did them. More often than not they will have recommendations for you. And really, recommendations are worth their weight in gold. (My recommendation: Wendi Ramirez, who is now in Austin, Tx. as owner of Dovetail Tattoo… or Eli Falconette at Adorn Body Art, Beaverton, Or.)

Like anything you commit a large sum of money or any permanence to, you will want to do your research. www.bmezine.com is a great single resource for a lot of articles on (and photos of) tattoos, as well as key tips for sanitation and what to look for in a shop on their Tattoo FAQ wiki: http://wiki.bmezine.com/index.php/Tattoo_FAQ
Doing your research now will pay off in the long run and help you understand what to look for in an artist and a shop.

Failing any local friends/artists, start on the internet and do some searches for prevalent and established shops within your comfortable travel distance. Check out the online portfolios of some of the local artists and make a list of a few whose art you like. In general, I’d recommend finding someone who has some portfolio pieces of the quality you want in the style you are also looking for.  (As an aside I don’t take my own advice here, typically I look for quality of work over the actual content. I chose one of my favourite artists based on a particular piece, a blackwork leafless tree, because the skill to do that work would translate well to the piece I wanted her to do for me. I didn’t want the same content, I wanted someone who could provide the same quality, and her portfolio proved to me she had the chops, even though nothing resembled the style I wanted.) If the artist does high quality American traditional work, well, bets are that they will provide you with the same high quality work if you want that same style; asking someone to go outside their normal artistic style may not prove to be as fruitful.

Before doing anything at this point, do not expect to get a tattoo the day you walk into the shop. Expect to schedule an appointment for a later date with the artist you choose. While most shops do handle walkins, you will likely get whichever artist is available, not necessarily the one you choose. And you want to choose! Be prepared to schedule as far as a month or two out, or as quickly as later that week, or next week.

Once you have found a few shops and artists you’d like to visit, do just that: go to the shops. Literally shop around. Take a look at as many shops as you can stand, and thumb through all the portfolios each shop has on their artists. If the artist is around and available to talk, speak with them. Tell them what you are looking for, where you want it, how big, and keep an open mind if they have ideas to change the piece a bit to make it work better. While you are talking with them, tune in to how they treat you, and what questions they are asking… and be sure to ask some good questions yourself to get a sense of their craft and the shop they work in. Following are some of my initial questions I find useful:

• How long have they been tattooing
• how long have they been at this particular shop
• do they autoclave their tools
• do they wear latex gloves
• what style do they prefer (celtic, american traditional, japanese traditional, new school/oldschool, realism, portrait, custom, etc.)
• do they primarily work from flash or do they do mainly custom pieces (flash is the pre-drawn stuff you find littering the walls at most shops)
• If you don’t have a final drawn piece, are they willing to work with you to draw something up

There are really no wrong answers to the above (aside from the obvious medical safety items like autoclaving and glove usage, etc.), but rather these types of questions are intended to give you a starting point for a better idea about the artist’s skills and establish a comfort level with the artist; to stimulate the discussion, if you will, so you can feel your way around the artist and make sure you are comfortable with them. The more shops you visit and artists you talk to, the more likely you will find the artist who is right for you.

Now, while you CAN and should ask about pricing, I’d highly recommend not making that your first or main question, as when it comes to tattooing the primary focus should be in finding the right artist first, not necessarily the lowest price. After all, this will be something you carry with you the rest of your life, do you really want the task of inking it to go to the lowest bidder?
When it comes to pricing, from my experience, most artists worth anything charge around $85 to $150 / hour for their work on custom pieces. Of course some may be more, or some less costly; it is up to you to decide where the balance is in terms of quality/comfort/and cost for you. Some may quote you a set price per piece depending on the size and amount of work involved. So be prepared to deal in hourly rate or price per piece. Some pieces may take more than one sitting, so be prepared for that as well, and know how your artist will charge for multiple sittings etc. Being clear up front will help avoid misunderstandings later.

I’ll leave you with this: Taking the time to research before you commit to getting inked will help ensure your happiness after you get your first tattoo… and your second… and your third…  and so on.

It is amusing how some things can be right under your nose for so long, then the oddest little things brings them all to light.

Case in point: Ben Zander apparently shares the motto of the 3 Drunken Celts, albeit phrased a tad differently: “Don’t take yourself so goddamned seriously.” (The 3DC motto being “Never forget the funny“, I am sure you can see the similarities here.)

Of course the real funny for me in all this is the path I took to find this out: I began reading Seth Godin’s “Linchpin” as a recommendation from a colleague and collaborator in the social media spaces (my former boss, Kelly Smith). Kelly had read the book previously and found it had some key insights for us in how we may improve our collective efforts…. as well as our own individual paths.

While reading, I came to page 50 of “Linchpin” and was amused to find reference to one of my best friends employers, Ben Zander. It seems Seth is quite the fan of Ben (and Roz) Zander, as I came to find on page 59…. and even more so as I spoke to my friend about the discovery as I figured she’d be amused. And rightly so, it turns out Ben and Seth are quite good friends.

Bemused even more, I relate the story to Kelly, who of course reminds me that she is also a huge fan of Ben’s, and had even referenced him a few times in some older blog posts after he had spoken at the Rational Developer’s Conference back in 2006 (sadly two yeas before I joined Rational). During our chat, she pointed me to the following minimalist blog posting:
Remember Rule 6

And so the loop was closed for me, and the funny not forgotten.

Truly, what a small world this is; and able to deliver such a serendipitous message right when I needed it (As a tangent, perfectly in keeping with our organization’s KCS ideals of knowledge ‘just-in-time’!). Sometimes it is surprising what a struggle it can be to not take myself so “goddamned seriously”. Thank you Ben, and the 3DC for being this constant reminder!

There’s been a large amount of chatter recently surrounding the concept of ‘personal brands’. Specifically with regards to social media, it has been said that building a personal brand is an important aspect of achieving success in the industry. This is something I’ve been contemplating recently, as I’d like to further my success in this space, but at the same time I don’t wish to alienate any real life friends with tailored tweets intended to build my personal brand professionally.

The problem, it seems to me, is that a drive towards building my own personal brand would likely conflict with the authenticity of my personal voice in the social media spaces. Building a brand would mean more work centric posts, causing a reduced following (or at least less of a reach) with my present audience of real-life friends with whom I connect via social media outlets to stay in touch on a personal if not slightly passive level. So, which is greater? Authenticity or branding?

Or, perhaps, I am thinking about this all wrongly…. since I am more focused (professionally speaking) on using social media in a -support- context, maybe the centralized account I currently maintain is more appropriate than an individual account with personal branding. After all, few of my personal followers really care about support material coming out of my work space. While some of my followers -are- interested in support content, that isn’t the reason they are following -ME-. Perhaps the answer I am looking for here is to build my brand based on my own authenticity, and drive visibility to the other channels while maintaining my own voice in my own space. One account working to help the other, or more specifically, working in tandem.

I think when it comes to support contexts, personal branding is irrelevant unless you are an SME (subject matter expert) within a very particular space. In the larger scope of providing another direct channel to locate timely information, centralized accounts are going to be the best best as clearing houses of content. As my role is within Knowledge Management, my subject matter expertise runs at a higher level than what a single client may be looking for in terms of product support, therefore negating any need for a client to follow me specifically, and more of a need for that same client to follow our centralized support account to stay informed.

Hmmm. I think I just talked my way through continuing to do what I/we have been doing already

Ah, the long awaited recap on last weekend when I met my 33 year old sister, for the first time. A testament to the powers of the internet, as we found each other through Ancestry.com, and have been communicating via email and Facebook since October ’09.

I have come to realize I do not posses the vocabulary or intelligence to properly describe to others what meeting my sister was like. The best analogy I can conjure is that it was like visiting with an old close friend… but without having ever known or met that friend previously; a very odd, yet comforting sensation.

Kallasandra (Kally) arrived Thursday night at PDX around 8.45pm, though it took quite a while for her to actually make it off the plane due to being stuck behind a long line of other travellers. All the while, Jean and I were waiting just outside security wondering if we’d really recognize her when she made it out. Suffice to say our fears were unfounded, though we did have a few moments of near mistaken identity as we waited and then felt absolutely silly for thinking we may not recognize her when we finally met!

Yes, the resemblance is a bit ‘uncanny’ as a few friends have noted. Though I wouldn’t say it is uncanny, I mean after all we are genetically tied, it kind of is -expected- is it not? In either case I am indeed still marveling over the similarities we share. In fact that really was the underlying theme of the weekend: similarities and determining which were genetic, and which were environmental. Suffice to say, genetics are much more powerful than any of us may actually realize.

For fear of making a play-by-play recap, I can tell you this: We went Sake tasting at SakeOne, and wine tasting at Montinore, David Hill, and Oak Knoll,  before a fabulous meal at DeCarli in Beaverton. We ended up at Voodoo Doughnuts, Saturday Market, Powell’s, Radish Underground, and a few other stores on NW 23 before enjoying a quiet birthday dinner at 23 Hoyt. We relaxed at home, went out to Helvetia Winery, and ate a great home cooked meal of Daube Provencale made with the Helvetia Chardonnay we had just picked up. For those of you who have visited Jean and I previously, this should all feel very familiar, even if some of the location names change slightly

We all had a great time running around the city and out in wine country. Even in moments of what some may see as uncomfortable silence, we weren’t uncomfortable; truly another sign to me that we are from the same cloth. I was content to simply enjoy the company of not only my half sister, but of what I consider to also be a new found friend. Our histories tie us together as family, and there is a deeply rooted familiarity which comes from that, but beyond that familial tie there is also a good person whom I am honoured to call sister and friend:

Kally and Jason

.

I have failed to post about the most interesting news in recent past! Over the past 6 months since getting into contact with my half-sister (Kallasandra),  we’ve been emailing volumes of tomes back and forth on a weekly basis… sometimes more. We’ve both been talking about visiting each other, to meet face to face, and catch up on 30+ years! Of course winter travel between Denver and Portland means we were stuck looking for flights, and the holidays being what they were, no travel plans came to fruition.

But I am here today to tell you, plans were confirmed earlier this month! Kally is flying in to PDX in 2 weeks, and neither Jean nor I can wait. Seriously, the wait is brutal! I can’t even imagine what meeting Kally will be like, especially since we seem to share quite a few personality traits. Jean will likely be rolling her eyes at least half of the entire visit! I foresee quite a lot of laughing over the weekend. And lots of pictures. And quite possibly a blog post afterwards about the entire experience of meeting a blood sibling from the perspective of someone who has never known any blood relations. It is sure to be a roller coaster of fun and introspection to say the least! I think I have a lot to say on this all, but my mind is muddled with anticipation and can’t quite suss out what it all means yet…

So hurry up and get here, Kally!

In the mean time, we will be busy this weekend entertaining our dear friends John and Mary, who have driven up to visit for the next few days. Yes, dear readers, this means time in the city, time in the country, and time spent being gluttonous hedonists once again! It will be VERY good to see J&M again, especially since the last time we were able to visit wasn’t a happy time for Jean or I…

BUT, this time will be a whirlwind of sushi, sake, wine, really good food, and of course great conversation with two of our best friends! We need our fix! Truly the worst part of leaving SoCal was knowing that we couldn’t take everyone with us… thank gods so many friends enjoy visiting and giving us excuses to get out and do stuff! Thankfully, J&M should be getting here this afternoon and the fun can commence!

As any of you following me on Twitter or as a Facebook friend, you already know we spent the majority of the weekend working on the master bath and bedroom, in hopes of getting it to a completed state. In actuality, it really wasn’t JUST a single weekend though, as we’ve been working on the bathroom and bedroom for a total of about 7 weekends now; albeit non-consecutively.
To give you an idea of what we had to start with, this is what the master bedroom looked like before we moved in, 2.5 years ago:

From Renovations

Note the platform bed in the center, which was built -into- the floor, and fully carpeted. In order to even move into this room, we had to completely remove the carpeting and then demolish the structure of the bed. This demo required the use of a reciprocating saw, as it was a very well built platform which previously had supported a waterbed. That demo work was accomplished around January, 2008, just before we’d moved into the house. It took a few more weeks of cleaning debris and installing hardwood floors before we could even sleep in the master bedroom (we had commandeered the guest bedroom for a month or so just after we moved in).

Once the hardwoods had been installed, we moved our furniture into the master so we could at least utilize the room as it was intended. And that is how it stayed for the next two years while we worked on the downstairs living room, kitchen and bath, as well as the upstairs guest room, craft room, and office (not to mention the whole house paint and partial residing work accomplished last year). Part of that delay was simply due to the fact that neither Jean nor I had a good idea for the bathroom colour, which we really wanted to do in tandem with the master bedroom work because of the open floor plan of the two rooms.

Adding to the delay, the fact that the previous owners had (likely twice) painted over the original 1947 wallpaper, making for removal a complete impossibility. Yes, we tried every method. In the end, we opted to retexture rather than bring the room down to studs and re-drywall it all. So, we took two weekends a while back and began applying skim coats of joint compound on all the walls. I soon found that troweling a smooth coat was going to be as difficult as removing painted wallpaper, and we opted for a more venetian plaster type texturing, which mean rollering on mastic, and then another weekend of sanding down the peaks to get that final subtle texture.

Cue another few weekends passing, and we found ourselves with colour choices, and some minor motivation, briefly negated by the fact that the red-base we needed to get the bedroom wall colour was out of stock. So last weekend we were only able to tackle the master bath completely, leaving the master bed for this past weekend. So we dug in and primed both rooms from floor to ceiling, then worked our backs to the breaking point putting up navy blue in the bath… both on the walls as well as on the ceiling. You can see the difference in the pics here (note the original walls were a cream, so the only difference in the first picture is a brighter white due to the primer):

Before-ish:

From Renovations

After:

From Renovations

With the success of the bath under our belts, along with the need to finish off the trim work, we buckled down this past weekend for more hard work to hopefully get the master bedroom completed as well. Saturday was long, but saw two coats of deep red hit the walls, and final trim work done in the bathroom. Nothing ground breaking, just solid hard work through the day. Sunday was touch up work on the walls and ceilings, plus baseboards, trim, window, and door work in the bedroom to get the nice balance of cream to the dark red. Come 6:30pm Sunday evening, and we were cleaning, placing furniture back, and mounting a new shelf just under the window to act as a cat perch, so the little buggers can look out the window again without having to keep a moving box for them to sit on…. cue a load of pictures being taken coming from some pride in having -finally- completed the task that has literally bee looming over us since we moved in two and a half years ago:

Done:

From Renovations

Now, all we need to do is work on a closet organization solution for our loft area (which we use as a walk-in closet, dressing area), paint the same loft, paint the stairwell to the loft, the butler’s pantry between the kitchen and loft stairs, the laundry hallway, the upstairs hallway, and the upstairs guest bath… which may seem like a LOT to you all, but in retrospect of all the other projects we have done, we have solidly eclipsed the halfway mark and all other projects now seem minor in comparison. Who knows, we may actually get this house done in under the 5 years I expected the renovations to take!

For those of you who want even more pictures of this, and other renovations, you can check out my Picasa gallery here: http://picasaweb.google.com/acdntlpoet/Renovations#

A friend of mine tweeted earlier today about a conversation she had regarding the concept of love, and how it is being a bit twisted by the Twilight novels… specifically she’d noted that a friend intimated that “it’s really unselfish love, he’s controlling because he’s concerned for her”. This not only disturbed her, but me as well. She summed up her frustration as: “So, a guy treats girlfriend like a child, or a possession, & young girls are reading this and thinking it’s romance?!?!”

Now, tell me; how as a human being is this ever an appropriate lesson or example to be teaching to -any- person regardless of age, race, orientation, or gender? *

While I realize that my personal views may not always be 100% correct, or right for everyone, but shouldn’t we be teaching and exemplifying good and healthy relationships? When the divorce rate in the US is so high, and domestic abuse is a common theme in our judicial system (for the minority of cases which are actually reported…) HOW, I ask you, can we condone books and movies which romanticize dangerous relationships? If the lessons provided in these media shine above all else, how can we ever change the culture to nurture healthy successful relationships? How can we teach and ensure the lessons are heard: that we all deserve to be treated as humans, each one of us worthy of love, and not as possessions to be controlled and manipulated for others’ selfish desires? Does this all really just boil down to more responsible marketing? Or is there more to it?

Aside from any sort of government control (which I will state for the record I am very opposed to), are we destined to simply play Sisyphus and continue pushing this boulder up the hill, only for it to roll back down upon us time and time again? Or is it indeed possible to make headway with culture change and see some success in building solid healthy relationships?

How can we change culture when healthy living is drama free and uninteresting to society’s school of mass-media? I am hopeful that there may be some good discussion in the comments to this post soon, as I am honestly stumped as to how we can effect any change against such popular items which simply reinforce the wrong message… Of course I am also open to discussion which disagrees with me, as I crave that other point of view to help convince me or further solidify my own position.

More importantly, how to we quell that which we find truly wrong, but still allow for revolutionary ideas and change to still mete its way through the culture and effect more change to better us all? Can we really drive what we believe is right and proper and see it take hold without resorting to tactics of controlling opponents’ right to disseminate their opinions?

Alas, the most important question of all…. can I HAVE any more question marks in this post??? (apparently the answer is yes!)

*It should be noted here that I am all for any kind of relationship that is healthy, regardless of what that actually entails. So long as it involves adults who act in a consensual and informed manner, I can bear no judgment.  A relationship based on control and misinformation is not healthy, as at least one party involved is likely unaware of any other choices available.

You all know I am active in the social media world, both personally and professionally. You also know I have opinions and I am not shy about them. I’d like to take some time here to discuss a few missteps I often see in the various social networks which may cause you more harm than good if you are trying to build or maintain relationships in these spaces:

1. Don’t shout… converse! Social networks are not your personal advertising stream, they are ways to connect with others of similar interest and build relationships which you may not have otherwise had the opportunity for. This means engaging in conversations with your network; listening AND speaking. Twitter is not a bullhorn, Facebook is not a one way street. If you are looking to use these sites to their advantage, you MUST stop shouting your message and take the time to listen to your audience; begin engaging in conversations around your space, and soon you will find that perfect cadence which your audience is looking for.

What does this mean in more concrete terms?
For Twitter, it means you need to watch your follow list and absorb what is being talked about. It means putting out your opinion and ideas about other’s updates. It means taking a look at your own feed and not seeing one way posts just pushing out your message, but rather seeing @replies and discussions occurring.

For Facebook, it means replying to comments left on your updates. It means commenting on other’s updates. I am sure you can extrapolate this all for other networks as well… the key is to engage in dialog; after all, networking is a two way street.

2. Provide context to your updates! Without any context, many updates lose all their value. Imagine an update that only says “Wow, what a busy day!”, where’s the value there? Ok, I can surmise that you are having a busy day and may not have time to talk to me about something trivial. But imagine how much more value that update would have carried had some context been applied like “BUSY DAY! Working on new social media strategies”. Now I can see that you are indeed busy, but more importantly your project may be something I can help with or would be interested in seeing the results from, even reusing it if appropriate; so I may tweet back “@you Hey! I’d love to help or see what you come up with, let’s collaborate!”… and bingo, now we’ve got a conversation and possibly even lightened our collective workloads by collaborating.

Too many times have I seen Facebook status updates similar to: “worst day EVER!” or “Not sure I can handle this”, with no further context. Not surprisingly, there are often somewhere between 5 and 20 comments on that status, all effectually asking the same question back: “What’s going on?”. Rarely, however, do I see the original poster reply back with any explanation of the context surrounding the first update. This leaves all their friends in the lurch, so to speak, reaching out to try and help, but without context there is no way to know what anyone could do. Now imagine that same update as”Not sure I can handle changing my tire on the freeway”. Immediately friends can identify something tangible to assist with, and the poster may even see a comment come back like “tell us where you are and we’ll pick you up” or “I have AAA, and will call a truck for you”.

Context, my friends, is important. It can mean the difference between radio silence from your followers, and an overwhelming flow of support helping you do things you never knew you could accomplish. Really, the line between the two is so small, it may just be the difference of a single word in your update that opens the floodgates of conversation or assistance.

3. When someone asks a question; reply. I hit on this in number two, but it bears repeating and being called out on its own. If someone comments on your update or @replies to one of your tweets, do the courtesy of replying. Even if the reply is “I don’t know”, at least you will be engaging in conversation and showing that you are listening to your friends and followers. This also goes back to number one as well, where if you aren’t replying, you are in that paradigm of shouting your message and telling your followers that you’re not listening to them. By not replying, your followers will begin to think that you aren’t interested in conversation, that you’re only interested in pushing out your message. If your followers get to that point, you’ve just lost any benefit you may see from playing in the social media spaces, and even worse, will likely begin losing followers to the point where the audience for your message has dwindled to completely ineffectual levels.
The net result of this: if you ignore your followers, they’ll ignore you.