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Archive for September, 2008

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“The Hurry’der I go…..

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

The Behinder I Get….”  Isn’t that the old saying?  Boy, that’s my theme song this week.  Sorry I’ve been so silent this week.  Actually, I think I’m just tired tonight and making excuses because this week has been a little bit laid back in between flurries.

Sunday afternoon, September 28, 2008, was my Book Launch Party at my friend, Fawn’s house.  She’s been my mentor throughout the whole writing and publishing process (www.fawngermer.com) and she hosted a do, so that I could introduce my beauty (the book, of course, not me) to our friends.  It was good fun and lots of books went home with the guests.

So, now the big responsibility of getting my publicity out while the whole thing is HOT.  In spite of the fact that the economy may be having a meltdown and all news eyes will be firmly fixed upon that and not upon people’s new books, I, optimistically sent out 36 press releases to the local media offering my interesting self for interviews.  Next, the big packets containing complementary books for the shows like Oprah’s, must be prepared.

Just as I was in our little Dunedin, Florida, post office boxcar (Yep, a tiny post office is housed in a large green train boxcar set up permanently beside the Pinellas Country trail, which runs right by my house a mile or so away)…just as I was mailing all these press releases, I met such an interesting team of two guys from England and Australia, who were a BBC wildlife show’s photographers.  We had a great talk.  They had been filming some nearby alligators!!!  I never see those creatures, but they had found some in a lake.  I also got filmed holding one of them (the guy..not the alligators) around the waist while we posed for the cameraman, holding up my new book.  They said they’d email it to me.  If they do, I’ll post it here.

This book makes friends easily.  Remember, I told you about attending Obama’s rally last week?  I had gone wearing my big old backpack containing a few of the books, just in case someone wanted one after I offered them my business card….yessss, I was crassly going to take advantage of a gathering crowd….and I was told by one of the rally workers that all backpacks were not to be allowed into the stadium…so, I thought I should explain to her why I had the silly thing on in the first place.  Wow!  She loved the sound of the book as she is a natural traveler too, so I gave her my card and went off to store the pack in the library.

From just that slim introduction, she emailed me the other day to see if I could come to downtown Clearwater and sell her a book while she treated me to a Starbucks.  Well, sure!  So, we met at noon yesterday, had a great visit, and she set off to read my book.  She’s a quick study and by early today, she had emailed me a most astounding review, saying some of the nicest things that I think anyone in the universe has ever had said in a book review.  In fact, she even emailed that review to Oprah, recommending that she have me on her show.  Oh yeah!!!….I had that in mind too.  But, this is better, if a fan has the great idea.

Now, if I hadn’t come up with the really dumb idea to wear this heavily-laden pack to the rally, I would never have had occasion to talk to Angie, would I?  See how things work?  Plus, I didn’t tell you when I wrote that last post about the Obama rally, that the reason I fell off my bike in the first place was because I had tried to ride it with this enormous backpack sticking way down below my butt.  You can see a picture of it doing just that – but you have to buy the book as it’s on the back cover.  Try swinging yourself up on a bike seat like that.  The whole shebang swung me right down to the ground and my knee is still quite damaged.  It didn’t help that I walked under that pack all the way to the stadium and then for miles in the line to get in, after I shed the encumbrance. 

But, hey, I wouldn’t have made a new friend and the book wouldn’t have earned a stellar review…which I may just quote here next time.  Stay tuned.

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Obama Came To My Town Today

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

Time is short for blogging these days because there is activity on all fronts.  Today, Barak Obama came to the Knology Stadium just three (long) blocks from my house.  I set out early to ride my bike down the Pinellas County Trail which runs right beside my yard but my bicycle flipped in soft sand and I twisted my knee.  So, I walked.  It was hot.  Very, very, very hot.  

But, it was such a great occasion and I’m so glad I was able to take part in that rousing rally which filled every seat in the ballpark with the most varied conglomeration of Americans one can imagine.  We were a happy, quiet lot in spite of the long walk and the long wait to get in…as if we do this every single day.  The most natural thing in the world to walk miles to the end of the line and then walk those miles back again to enter the stadium.  Cheerful and laid back is the best way to describe it.  Kind of like Obama, himself. 

Well, if he can have that kind of affect on the masses of us, then just maybe he can pull this rabbit out of the hat and make a stew that will nourish everyone.   Somebody’s got to!  The rally started right on time (and amazingly, we had all made it inside by then) and it ended at a decent time, and yet everyone felt as if they got what they came for.  I think we all felt that somebody was steering the ship here, and we could put up with the difficulties because there was to be no escaping them, anyway. 

Just like my bum knee, now elevated, and thoroughly thanked for keeping up with me today.  Just like the people I saw being taken by stretcher, having suffered from heat stroke.   Just like the old folks and the babies and the people in motorized wheelchairs…everybody taking things in stride.  It’s not easy, but somebody’s got to do it!

We were all so laid back in such a self-assured way even though the hurricane of financial insecurity was whistling through Wall Street and making perturbations in the Halls of Congress.  I think that mood is known as Quiet Determination.

Posted in The Store Will Be Minded | No Comments »

Does This Make Me Look Old? Or Fat? Or Phat?

Saturday, September 20th, 2008

Opinion poll time!  My good friend Fawn, (www.fawngermer.com) says I have to change my portrait on my blogsite because it makes me look too old and too corporate.  She likes me in the attached JibJab better…(www.heyboomers.com)  on the the Hangin’ Out page.  Fawn is the brown-haired one.  Julie is the blond.  And, I am the phat one. 

(Opps, my technical inexpertise is showing now.  I don’t know enough yet to do simple things like linking this blog to my site because when I just checked what I’ve written, that heyboomers prompt doesn’t go anywhere.  Just until I can find out what no-brainer thing I should have done, do me a favor.  Either get there through the link to it in the column to your right, or type the url into the search bar. I’ll ask Fawn what to do but she is right now out on a 15-mile dawn walk and this can wait.  Sorry for the inconvenience, as you always hear in such circumstances.  It means that we know we have screwed up but we don’t know how to correct it.)

Guess I’ll have to find another cool shot of me on another camel or a donkey or an elephant to satisfy this advisor/mentor of mine.  Her problem is just the opposite.  She would rather have pictures of herself in her kayak on her big blog site, but she is a very busy corporate speaker, so she has to represent herself in business suits. 

Ahhhh me.  How we all deny our real selves. 

Posted in Break-dancin' granny | No Comments »

The Cotton Ball Qualities of Your Brain

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

Well, I’m trusting that my brain will become a very dependable cotton ball.  It’s worked sometimes before…and sometimes, woefully, not… but this time, it must.  Remember, I mentioned signing onto some blog technique training.  Ooooeeee!  I sure did.  It was a very effective offer with many freebies, which of course, lines one up for an optional training course, no, many optional training courses. The time to sign up was then and only then, so I did.  Monday, when the offer closed, I was confirmed and then had to go in and claim each valuable freebie (and they are good) from the separate blogmasters offering them. 

That takes a long time because each of them gives you a lot of introductory material, in either written form or video, and there you sit until 1:00 a.m. in the morning, lining yourself up to receive all of this training.  Hours and hours of it.  Whoosh!  I have decided to become a hermit for a few days and let all of this just wash over me and into my dear little, receptive cotton ball that I carry around in my head.

When it’s all over, I will emerge smart, savvy, and initiated into the New Millennium.  Yes, I will, so watch out world!  I am figuring out too, that I shall experiment on this book introduction to the public by using their methods instead of the old dinasaur publishing ways of running around the country to conduct bookstore signings or speeches, or whatever.   I might consent to appear on TV, of course.  But, otherwise, me and my brain are becoming lab rats.  Cotton ball lab rats to see how much of this can execute itself onto the computer page…even though I was as sleepy as heck when I heard it.  Keep ‘ya posted.

Posted in Can you retain matter? Does it matter? | No Comments »

Teasers & Excerpts – Inside a Bulgarian Ladies’ Room

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008

How to sell my book to you?  I now learn that it will be mid-to-late October before Hey Boomers, Dust Off Your Backpacks is up for sale on Amazon.com, as it takes four to six weeks after I send in my proof approval.  However, you can order your copy from my blogsite, heyboomers.com (see link on right), if you simply can’t wait.  In the meantime, I plan to use you guys as research guinea pigs by testing little snippets from my pages to see which has the most effect.

Twitter, twitter, does the prospect of hearing about the inner secrets of a restroom make you push that curiosity button?  Yes, it obviously does, if you are here reading now.  So, go ahead and admit it; the marketing people have known this for years.  And, since this is about as racy as my book gets, I thought I’d throw it out first to capture those who haven’t made it out of elementary school yet.  Besides, it’s pretty funny……I think, anyway. 

I had just had a challenging morning in trying to get to the Sofia, Bulgaria, bus station in time to catch my bus to Varna, but once I missed that bus, I had plenty of time to enjoy the brand new international glass and chrome bus station.  This story has the virtue of being short enough to include in a blog so here is a little cut from page forty:

“Inside the new and beautiful ladies’ room, we were stuffed like clams waiting for one of the five cubicle doors to open.  All stayed shut a long, long time.  Then, I heard a woman’s voice ring out and recognized the pattern of speech, if not the words, of someone talking on the phone.  I scanned the ears of those waiting their turn with me, but no one had a cell phone in action.  Incredibly, this conversation was coming from inside one of the booths, and it must have been a business call judging from the speech pattern.

A momentary trance passed over me as I visualized each stall with a desk pulled up to the toilet and busy female functionaries, hard at their morning’s work.  No wonder the doors weren’t opening.  How would she finesse it when the time came to flush?  ‘Excuse me, Sir, let me put you on hold for a moment.’ ” 

Most of the stories that I choose to tell illustrate the point that we humans are actually quite alike in our actions and attitudes.  As I’ve roamed the world, I have been struck by the growing ubiquitousness of cell phones.  Everybody, nowadays, has one to their ear.  I always wonder what they can find to say during those hours of talking on the phone… and then I remember that mothers and teenage daughters have always had this conversation . 

But, I think this little true story pushes the envelope to new phone-addiction lows. 

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A Corner Is About To Be Turned – Here Comes A New Economy

Saturday, September 13th, 2008

Into my busy life I am about to add one more hugely time-consuming equation, but it should pay off as handsomely as the book publishing learning curve did.  Those of you who have been reading this column since June have suffered many of the exercises and agonies connected with that.  Okay, all of us are into blogging, right?  After all, we wouldn’t be here facing each other on this page if that were not true.

But, this is casual blogging.  This is kiddie car blogging in which all we must do is to sit in the car that someone else has handed us and turn the steering wheel to the right and to the left.  This is not partaking of the True Blogging that is beginning to embryonically form the new world’s economy.  I kid you not.  If you want to know what the foundation of marketing and money will be in the next decade, dip your toe in this pond and find out.

There is something seminal occurring.  There is a market forming which is very generous and democratic and which is in training mode right now.  No one knows how to use it until they become trained and the early pioneers in this field are holding out their hands at this point in history and offering to teach us.  How long will this stage last?  Forever, I hope.  But, don’t take a chance.  Get on the bullet train while it is still giving away free tickets.

Go to BlogMastermind.com and let Yaro Starak take you by the hand.  You’ll never look back. 

Posted in kiddie car vs bullet train blogging | No Comments »

It’s The First Day of The Rest of My Life – As a Published Author

Thursday, September 11th, 2008

“Houston, we have a launch!”  I am in print.  The proof of my new book, Hey Boomers, Dust Off Your Backpacks, arrived two days ago and I have read through and approved it, notified the printers that it is good to go, and ordered my first one hundred volumes.  Not only are they preparing my copies, but they are submitting my information to the book world and setting me up on Amazon.com for sales there.  I have heard that it could take a few weeks to show up on that site, but the day will soon come.  Meanwhile, my heyboomers.com blog site is ready and waiting to take your orders.  OR, if you just wish to have a look, the picture of the book’s front cover is there also.

You will forgive my enthusiasm if I tell you that it is actually the most attractive book in the whole wide world.  But, it is.  The whole cover is filled with a picture of my own backpack and a pair of hiking boots, photographed on my patio.  Here are a few secrets of that cover shoot: 

1.)  The tawny red tone of the wooden bench was achieved by wetting the wood with my garden hose and I had to keep spraying it down because the day was so hot that the water soon evaporated.

2.)  My own actual hiking shoes were a washed-out grey color and didn’t stand out so artistically, so I ran to the Sheriff’s Boy’s Ranch Thrift Shop and for the only time, before or since, they had this fantastic pair of practically-new brown boots with red laces and red ankle linings.  $3 for these great props.  They don’t fit me, but they are perfect for Kumpah, my good friend from Thailand, so he was happy to have them after their photographic duties.

3.)  I was moving my plants around; ferns, palms, and peace lillies, to make the greenery in the background.  I got into the role of photographer’s assistant (assisting myself) and I think it really paid off.

4.)  Your rational mind might not realize this fact, but your subliminal mind will, and you’ll attribute great authority to my book because of the border and the title font.  The cover is reminiscent of both Time Magazine and The National Geographic Magazine but not obviously so.  No one realizes until I tell them and then they can see the connection immediately.  It is as green as the Geographic is yellow and that sets them apart.

And that’s just the outside, folks…  Buy the book.  You’ll love the inside.

P.S.  The back cover has a picture of me wearing that backpack in Mysore, India.  I have a red dot on the center of my forehead just given to me in the farewell ceremony that the Green Hotel gives all of their departing guests.  The little-known fact is that the red paint is mighty easy to smear in the sweaty heat and ten minutes after application most Westerners  look as if someone has kissed them, wearing lots of lipstick.  I have no idea how Indian women manage to keep their red forehead dot so neat.  But, this picture was taken pre-moosh.  So, quick, check it out before it starts to run.  And, no….that shot is not featured on my blogsite.  Sorry.  There’s only one way that you can eyeball that one.

Posted in My red third eye | No Comments »

I Have Elected to Go to Washington, DC

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

Yep, no one elected me, but I have elected myself.  I leave very early in the morning for an AARP Convention in Washington, DC, and will be away for five days.  The AARP is The American Association of Retired Persons and this is the 50th Anniversary Blowout Birthday Bash at the massive Walter E. Washington Convention Center.  Famous people like Regis Philbin, Maya Angelou, Quincy Jones, Alfre Woodard, Shirley MacLaine, Judy Collins, Cal Ripkin, Jr., Jean Chatzky, Laura Berman, Martina Navratilova and Gene Simmons will be speaking.  We’ll have concerts by Chicago, Paul Simon, Ramsey Lewis, Natalie Cole and Chaka Khan, plus a mixer nightclub evening with the Harway Connection, Kris Diaz & The Latin Sound Band, and The Fresh Air Band. 

Plus, I plan to visit the White House and government buildings, take a Segway Tour around the Capital and maybe squeeze in the Smithsonian Museum.

Though I am packing in my backpack (which is a lot looser in the waist strap because I have lost 14 pounds since my rtw…so it’s hard to make it sit right on my hips)…I ain’t staying in no hostel!  Not me, for this fancy-dancy affair.  It’s the Marriott for the likes of me and some neato clothes.

All of this is in the name of publicity for my new book.  I have 5000 business cards about the book, though I am not planning to carry all of them there on my back…only 2500… to give away to everyone with whom I can network.  I shall be making connections and finding publicity outlets because these are the people who make up my prime market.  They are the retired and the soon-to-be retired but still young-at-heart.  Just the folks I want to sell my book to and to infect with the love of free-form travel now that they are put out to pasture.

My book, meanwhile, is coming through the pipeline at Lightning Source and the proof might be waiting for me when I return next week.  My blogsite, heyboomers.com, is almost complete, with just the book ordering buttons to install now.  Later, I will be adding photos and videos to it.  My world record claim idea is also in the pipeline and I can’t say any more until they tell me if I have a chance of being accepted.  The old fingers are crossed.

Some of the hurricane bowling balls which hurtle now towards Florida, have passed on by, and some others are out in the ocean looking this way.  It’s an active season but peaceful here, so far.   I’ve put in lots of beach time, walking many miles to stay in shape.  This morning I took an eight mile hike with two friends down the trail that runs by my house.  All of this exercise keeps me in shape for the long-distance rtw backpacking. 

When I come home, the second phase will be launched.  No more production and formative stuff.  That’s done.  Now, I must get into the selling and promotional stuff.  Let’s see how good I turn out to be on all that.

But first, I have elected to send myself to our Nation’s Capital to have a really good time and, hopefully, make some progress in the Economic Sector.

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