Nashville

2 Comments Posted on Health, People, Uncategorized

Marketing Schemes Involving Breast Cancer Research

No one hates e-mail forwards more than I do, especially ones that tell me I’m not a good enough Christian because I don’t forward the cheesy things to everyone in my contacts list.  The forwards I despise the most are the ones that mention kittens and/or guardian angels.

Knowing this, one of my friends takes special care in finding some of the worst ones to send to me, as a joke.  I received one last week that tells the story of an old married couple living in a tall apartment building.  When they argued, the man would wave around his unloaded shotgun at his wife, for dramatic effect.  However, this particular time he pulled the trigger, it was loaded.  The bullet missed his wife but coincidently hit a man jumping off the roof who fell past the couple’s window as he committed suicide.

He died from the bullet, not from the fall.  The old man would have been convicted of murder of the jumper, but they found out that the jumper was actually the son of the couple and his name was Ronald Opus.  The son had loaded the gun, knowing that his father waved it around in times of argument, knowing that his father would pull the trigger and possibly kill his mother.  Inheritance money is what the son was after.

But after trying for months to find ways to kill his mother, Ronald Opus gave up and jumped off the building.  The irony was the police cited the incident has suicide because Ronald himself loaded the gun.

That’s all I could think.  Immediately I Googled “Ronald Opus”.  And sure enough, there was a full Wikipedia entry for the fictional urban legend of Ronald Opus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Opus

I’m no Doubting Thomas; I just pick up on red flags when stories don’t add up or seem legit.  The thing is, I’m not usually one to call a person out on their BS.  I’d rather let them believe that alligators live in the sewers of New York City.  Why should it be my role to rain on their parade?  When a person starts a sentence with “did you know?…” that typically means whatever they are about to say is urban legend or a fabricated story.

Read “Did You Know?” http://wp.me/pxqBU-g

I have to call out another BS situation too right now.

Since last week, I have been seeing this commercial for a popular fried chicken restaurant franchise advertising that they are now donating a portion of their profits from the sales of both grilled and “original recipe” (fried) buckets of chicken to breast cancer research.

For all the millions of dollars we have donated to breast cancer research, the strongest findings they have released to us is this: The more fat a person consumes on a daily basis, the more likely they are to eventually get breast cancer. This does not necessarily mean that overweight people are more prone to breast cancer.  Because some people eat a lot of fattening foods, yet stay slim.

It truly angers me to see companies try to take advantage of people with what I call The Breast Cancer Gimmick: “Want a find a cure for cancer?  Buy and eat this bucket of fried chicken and we’ll help by donating money to research.”  But really, the fried chicken only increases the chances of getting cancer and encourages a lifestyle to stay unhealthy.

Of course it’s not just fried chicken restaurants committing this insulting and greedy gimmick.  It’s pretty easy to find chocolate candy companies during the same thing.

Here in Nashville, I recently saw a car dealership’s commercial advertising that they will donate $400 to breast cancer research for every car purchased within the month.  That’s tacky, but at least it doesn’t contribute to the unhealthy lifestyle of the customer.

I very much want the cure for breast cancer to be discovered, but I refuse to fall for a marketing scheme like this.

If you want to donate money to breast cancer research, do it.  Just don’t let a fast food restaurant or a candy company be the middle man.

To read more about the actual causes of breast cancer and ways to prevent it, click the link below:

The Unholy Trinity of Food http://wp.me/pxqBU-Hk

2 Comments Posted on People, Storytelling, Uncategorized

dad from day one: How We Told the Family

Something else I’ve learned so far about being an expecting parent: People are intensely, genuinely excited when they hear the news.  Now that it’s gone viral (facebook), I have been blessed with all kinds of encouraging messages.

As well as some that crack me up:  A friend from high school said I will be a “fab dad” and that I should have a diaper bag with FAB DAD written alongside guitar-shaped flames.  And my 7th grade English teacher said, “You are like a mom… with testosterone.”

That’s brilliant.

But before the news could go public like it has this week, there was a point in time where we had to find a creative way to break the news to our family first.  It’s not something we wanted to do over the phone, if possible.

Conveniently, we had already planned to spend Easter weekend back in my hometown.  Even more convenient was that my mom’s birthday was exactly one week after Easter Sunday, so we found a way to make her birthday gift the news of the baby.

My wife found a tote bag with an insert on the front for a photograph.  With the sonogram in that slot, as well as a “grandparents’ brag book” inside the bag, we had our strategy ready.  The trickiest part was convincing my sister that she and her husband needed to be there at my parents’ house as soon as we got into town that Friday night at 9 PM.  Fortunately, she didn’t question my shady ways too much.

After the usual “settle in” conversations, I handed my mom’s gift to her, which was inside a larger gift bag.  She lifted up the bag from the bag.  It took about ten seconds.

Then her face dropped.  And the tears turned on instantly.  As to inform my dad, my sister, and her husband, my wife announced, “We havin’ a baby!”

It was everything we had hoped for during the four weeks we had to wait to tell them.  We received our “new parents hugs” in a joyous celebration.

My sister, noticing that my dad hadn’t said a word, asked him, “What do you have to say?”

He responded, “Speechless.”  And a little later: “I guess this means we’re gonna be spending a lot of gas money driving back and forth to Nashville.”  That means he’s really excited.  And again with the convenience thing, our child’s due date is on my dad’s birthday.  No way we could have planned that.

My wife had mailed a card and sonogram picture to her mom in Sacramento, with “do not open until you call me” written on the envelope.  Fortunately, it arrived just a few hours before we told my family.  So both sides of the family were able to find out the same day.

It’s not the kind of news a person can just announce to their closest family and friends through a facebook status.  It takes strategic planning.

All pictures with the “JHP” logo were taken by Joe Hendricks Photography:

Blog- www.photojoeblog.com

Website- www.joehendricks.com

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House for Sale

In the name of family planning, my wife and I are selling our town house to someone lucky and deserving. Someone who is looking for a place in Nashville, TN. We’ve done our research to know that our price is competitive to the others, yet our place comes with some cool bonuses:
Free Refrigerator and other standard kitchen appliances

TO SEE PICTURES OF THE PLACE, SIMPLY CLICK ON “BUY MY HOUSE” AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE

Here are some other advantages:

We have been the only owners. We don’t smoke. We don’t have pets. We haven’t even painted the walls since their original “egg shell white” that came standard. We have kept this place immaculate. It’s a clean slate.

When we bought our townhouse 2 years ago brand new, we chose to get the optional Venetian blinds (we paid $550 extra for these) and ceiling fans in the bed rooms which also did not come standard.

Vaulted ceilings in the bedrooms. Quiet neighbors on both sides of us.

The development, Barnes Crossing, is a great “walkable” area. I run my 3 mile trek around the neighborhood.

Great location. We are near the corner of Old Hickory and Nolensville, less than a mile from the up-and-coming cool neighborhood of Lenox Village. Which means we are from 5 minutes from the following:

A new Super Wal-Mart
Publix (the best place in the world to buy groceries)
Kroger (a good place to get cheap gas)
Starbucks
Blue Coast Burrito (an addicting burrito place)
Pie in the Sky (pizza/Italian)
Bricks (a trendy Nashville original restaurant)
South Side Grill (another one)

We are less than 15 minutes from I-65 and less than 10 minutes from I-24; easy access to downtown Nashville. About 20 minutes from downtown Nashville, so it’s close enough to be cool and far enough so that it’s still a quiet, friendly neighborhood.

1309 square feet

2 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms

Price: $132, 500

You may even be lucky enough to qualify for our government’s First Time Home Buyers Program and get up to $8,000 tax credit. The deadline for that is coming up. Here’s a link to more about that:

http://www.federalhousingtaxcredit.com/

If you have more questions or are interested in seeing the place, call me:

256-996-6689

You can also e-mail me:

nickshell1983@hotmail.com

TO SEE PICTURES OF THE PLACE, SIMPLY CLICK ON “BUY MY HOUSE” AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE

1 Comment Posted on Nostalgia, Uncategorized

Dr. Deja Vu: The Scenic Route

If I could go back in time and speak to the version of myself from ten years ago, I would give myself “good advice”. About which college to go to, what to major in, what hobbies to take up, and where to live after I graduate college. About what to say to people and what not to say. There are a lot of things I would tell myself to do differently. So that I could become the best me.

But then I would be a much different person today. In essence, I wouldn’t be me. Though I would have life figured out, it wouldn’t be my life.

From 1995 to 2006, I spent hundreds of hours writing and recording and performing music. All that time, it seems all I really did was keep myself entertained. At the surface, it led to nothing lasting.

But writing hundreds of songs made it easy for me to write for this website. It took an old hobby to make a new one.

If I went back to myself ten years ago and told myself to take up an interest in daily creative writing (instead of music) so I could eventually have a website that a small corner of the world reads, the younger version of myself probably wouldn’t have been very motivated.

Life is made up of countless bland surprises that end up shaping who we are.  The ordinary turns into the exciting.

And of course my musical past is only one minor detail in the strand of events that brings me to my present day.  But without it,  I wouldn’t have moved to Nashville to pursue a musical career and a year later met my wife.

So what’s the best advice I can give myself today? Don’t go back in time and give yourself advice. It would only mess up everything. Not help it.

As much as I try to structure and plan out my life, it has ended up being something slightly different instead. Instead of taking the interstate, by instinct I end up on the scenic route every time. Capturing my current thoughts and perspectives in my writings which become like snapshots. Scenic route snapshots.

“And when I look behind on all my younger times, I’ll have to thank the wrongs that led me to a love so strong.” – “Perfectly Lonely” by John Mayer

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The Awkward American Tradition of Tipping in Restaurants

Tipping isn’t a city in China…

There are certain events in life that I consider normal and common, incorrectly assuming everyone else participates in them with the same amount as passion as I do. In recent years I have been made aware that I am a “music buff”: I own well over 800 CD’s (not iTunes albums, but actual discs). As well as a “movie connoisseur”: I’m not a guy that can just sit down and enjoy a stupid movie like White Chicks. I will read multiple reviews on all the movies currently playing at the theatre, then choose the top 2 or 3 and see them all in one afternoon.

 

When it comes to restaurants, I’m no different in regards to my premeditated snobbery towards those eateries that are sub-par in my book. Instant disqualifiers for a restaurant: it has a drive-thru, it has an obvious theme, it’s noisy, it’s expensive for no good reason/prices aren’t listed on the menu, it’s all fried food, it’s a buffet, it’s Mexican, it’s Chinese, I have to pay to park, the actual menu is greasy, the waitress’s name is Flo, and I can see the cook smoking a cigarette as he’s cooking the food, to name a few.

If I could go back in time and influence the culture of American dining in restaurants, I would do whatever it takes in order to eliminate the social acceptance and expectance regarding food servers so that in 2009 I wouldn’t have to participate in the subconsciously awkward world of Tipping. Of all the things I don’t enjoy doing, evaluating another person’s work ability is at the top of that list. So I definitely don’t want to do it while I’m paying to eat. But even so, I pretty much just tip everyone the same percentage anyway.

 

During the summer of 2005 as I was saving up money to move to Nashville, I was a waiter at Western Sizzlin’ (the South’s version of The Sizzler) where I learned what all goes into serving a table of adults who act like bratty children. Hearing annoying quotes like, “This steak is still mooing at me…”, “I didn’t order pickles on my hamburger!”, and “You got any FRESH coffee?” were all part of my daily routine. (All spoken with Southern accents for dramatic effect.) That experience causes me to be especially appreciative of my waiter when I am out at a restaurant.

But now as the one being served, the whole experience of interacting with the waiter puts me into what I call Game Show Host Mode. I act like everything the waiter does is magic trick, like bringing the menu, then the drinks (as I usually rip off the restaurant by ordering free water), then taking my order, taking away the menu, etc. My response: raising my eyebrows, nodding my head, and smiling too much after each accomplished action. So over the top.

 

In most other situations if I acted that way, I would deserve a “Punch Me in the Face” sign more than Spencer Pratt or Dane Cook. But the environment of the restaurant and the relationship between me and the waiter excuses my overly grateful and easily amused behavior.

What if I didn’t have to feel like I’m treating my waiter like a kid, needing my exaggerated approval and acknowledgement on every little thing he does? Better yet, what if America was like most other countries in the world and just flat out didn’t associate tipping with restaurants? But ultimately, a country only has the customs that its culture allows and depends on. So when it all comes out in the wash, our society openly accepts the frivolous head game we call Tipping.