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Before moving to Baltimore, I had had little experience riding most types of mass transportation. Back at home in Louisville, I occasionally took the bus places, but most of my other experiences were infrequent. I can count on one hand the number of cities (Chicago, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco) where I had ridden some form of public transit.
During the weekend, I had a chance to finally attend the Baltimore Writers' Conference. There had been times in the past when I was thinking about going to one, but I could never fit it into my schedule. Luckily, I think I picked a pretty decent one to attend. First, it happened to be at Towson University, where I attend grad school. Second, there was a pretty good crowd of people there, all of whom seemed like qualified members of the writing profession.
The day after the election, I had a chance to check out all of the front pages from around the world. It was remarkable how many international newspapers had Obama as the top story, and as expected, a number of U.S. papers devoted their entire front pages to election coverage. I created an Obama collage of the papers as a tribute to our next president. Feel free to use as a screensaver or desktop image!
You may have noticed that I recently changed the name of my new book to "Corporate Ties." I haven't had a chance to change all of my marketing material yet because, well, there's only so much time in the day, right? After thinking about it and discussing with others, "Polos to Ties" worked great for the local audience, but from a book sales standpoint, a random person might not notice the fashion connection.
According to the Detroit Free Press, there are giant sunflowers scattered all over the Ford Motor Company grounds. A panoramic view of the sunflowers is available on the Free Press website. This is the coolest thing I've seen in awhile!
The Good Advice Committee's first task was to determine whether or not it was appropriate to download songs for free from the Internet. Good arguments were made on both sides, but in the end, the committee voted no, 4-1.
NATE: NO
I find nothing wrong with downloading music off the internet. Most of the songs that are being downloaded are from artists who already have more money than they know what to do with. The last time I watched "Cribs" on MTV, it doesn't look like Jay-Z was losing out from everybody downloading his songs for free.
Because I receive a decent number of questions about a multitude of things, ranging from writing and publishing to computers and programming, I wanted to make myself a little more available to those of you who can't get in touch with me.
Starting today, I will be available on both AOL's Instant Messenger and Google Talk around the clock. So if you have a question or comment, just send it along, and I'll get back to you. It might not be immediate, but I'll try to within a day or so.
AOL screenname: WoodsBenA
GoogleTalk screenname: bwoods43
While it's doubtful Richard Simmons has already finished reading my book, "The Developers," it is worth noting that he already has good things to say about it.
Simmons, who is constantly referenced in the book as a lookalike of one of the characters, Rex Burns, recently responded to the book copy I sent him at his Burbank location.
"Thank you for your kind words and sense of humor," Simmons wrote on an autographed photo. "You are a gifted man!"
A large portion of people, including me, have tossed away a home land line in favor of just using a cell phone. Of course, that can be problematic on occasion, especially if your cell phone service is bad.
There might a remedy available, even without going through on of your local telecom companies. Gizmo (not to be confused with the little guy on "Gremlins" touts itself as a free phone for your computer.
Although grammar, spelling and punctuation appears to be optional these days, particularly on the web, it definitely doesn't hurt to at least know the rules of the English language. At best, it might help you find a better job. At worst, you can always hold the grammar card in your back pocket, in life-threatening situations (yeah, he might have a new truck, but does he know the difference between your and you're?).