View from the Mountain

Frosty morning thoughts

It is not often that we see government change as fast as the weather.  This morning I read the NY Times article, "On Day One, Obama Sets a New Tone."  It is hard to disagree with freezing the salaries of aides, setting new limits on lobbyists, and demanding less secrecy in government.

It is a good start to the needed changes. To get things moving again good things must happen.  The economy is still challenged.  With Microsoft announcing large layoffs and Sony losing billions, there are few bright spots in the economy.

Even Apple which is one of the bright spots is undergoing some challenges.  I just read about the "Cook Doctrine" at Apple.

This phrase caught my attention.

...we have the self-honesty to admit when we’re wrong and the courage to change.

That must be a new Apple.  Over the years I reported to a number of vice presidents who reported to Tim Cook who made the statement.  The rule when I was at Apple was that being an Apple vice president meant not having to say sorry for any mistakes.  I saw some amazing blunders, but I never in my twenty years at Apple heard a vice president take the blame for a mistake.  I saw lots of field employees laid off as a result of vice presidential incompetence and mistakes, but I can only remember one vice president being removed.

Most just wandered off into the sunset with bags full of cash and options.

I actually believe there is far better chance of our government changing than there is of Apple finding new stripes.  A lot of people just got replaced in our government.  A new tone has been set, my expectation is that we will see some change.  Maybe it will not be as much as we had hoped, but at least we will be off the disastrous road that we have followed for the last few years.

Apple on the other hand lost Steve Jobs.  Management is intact and no one that I know at Apple has indicated a shift in values in the company.  I expect secrecy still rules, and mistakes are still not made by anyone with a title of vice president.

On the other hand, the temperature here on the coast is already at forty three degrees and headed over fifty today and sixty tomorrow.

Our snow is pretty well gone which is fine by me.

Four years and still writing

Sometimes I briefly lose track of some of my blogs.  I have a secret spot on one of my homepages that takes me to my personal cheat sheet which has links to just about everything that I do on the Internet.

It has been over four years since I first started writing on the Internet.  My first post entitled, My Welcome to Windows, was written on November 23, 2004.

I have easily written a couple of thousand posts since then.  Yet I still enjoy writing. 

In the last few days I have written about things as diverse as the Canadian Parliament being prorogued, using a $199 HD video camera with my Mac, spam causing email censorship, seasonal peace on the beach, the Silver line in Reston, Va. and winter color saving the day.

In addition to regular posting on those blogs, I do a bi-weekly update on my Crystal Coast homepage, and now I a write a blog, Crystal Coast Living, for pay.  I also write articles as the spirit moves me.

I have a real estate blog and contribute to the new Crystal Coast Electronic Village.  I post regularly to the forums at City-Data.

I have tried just about every blog platform that has been a serious contender. I even have a blog using Apple's infamous iWeb. Some of the platforms that I have used have disappeared.

It has been a very interesting four years of writing.  I have certainly learned a lot, met a tremendous number of people, and responded to some very strange requests.

I am pleased that some of my articles and posts have turned out to be hits.  I wrote an article for the Guardian in London.  That was a lot of work, but the traffic it generated was in the tens of thousands.

Some of things that I have written have touched people.  I have received a lot of wonderful notes that keep me writing.  Over the years there have been a few nasty grams but not enough to deter me from enjoying what I am doing.

I am pleased that my travel guides to Swansboro, Emerald Isle, and Beaufort have become very popular.

I have done lots of photo sites also including the waterfront subdivision Cannonsgate, Tryon Palace, fall leaves in Roanoke and a number of other photo sites like  Emerald Isle this summer and Mackerel Morning which is just one of my fishing exploits here on the coast.

I have found that I can only write about things that I have actually experienced. My writing production is therefore limited. There has to be a real connection at some point in my life before I can write about something.

I also need pictures to inspire me.  More often than not I can be found chasing sunsets or other great scenery before I start writing.  Other times we enjoy life and the seasons here on the Crystal Coast, and the stories just come naturally.

I have expanded from photos of sunrises and sunsets into video which is just another way of telling a story.

So far I have had no trouble coming up with topics.

I plan to keep writing.  Perhaps now after four years of lots of online experience, I just might devote more time to my book project which has been on the back burner for a couple of years.

It will be interesting to see what my next year's worth of writing will produce.

Shoes to fit a changing life style

I have done more than one posts on shoes.  It does seem that shoes have defined my life.

In one post, It's the footwear that defines you, that I wrote in the summer of 2005, I talked about the boots I wore hiking reminding me of days on the farm in Tay Creek.

Those days on the farm we just another step in forming the person that I am.  The shoes and boots were different than the ones I had at Harvard and at McCallie, the Presbyterian military school, that was my high school.

Since we are living on the coast my shoe choice has evolved once again.

In 2006 my feet got introduced to Crocs.  As you can see from the picture, I have taken to them like a duck to water.  I now have three pairs and have already worn out one pair of dress Crocs.

Sneakers and Birkenstocks have been constants in my life.  I didn't wear them much on the farm since there was always something trying to smash your toes, but I had some and probably wore them to town.

In the twenty years that we lived in Roanoke, I wore out a couple of pairs of hiking boots, several pairs of Birkenstocks, and lots of sneakers.  A few casual shoes got used up, but I still have some of my best dress shoes, and my favorite suit.

I wonder if I should get rid of the dress shoes and suit.  I would rather be dressed for eternity in LL Bean's cargo shorts than a suit with a tie.

On the coast my dress shores are a pair of Sperry Topsiders.  I would wear the dress Crocs to church, but my wife objects.  I like to take the position that being 59 years old makes me invisible except to people who are about my age.  Most of them care more about being comfortable than about fashion dictates.

I have taken to wearing nice polo shirts to church instead of a sports coat.  One of the members was joking with me about that the other Sunday, and I told him that I hoped church got out on time since I wanted to go home and get more casual for work.  He did a double take.

I explained to him that male Realtors® in our office consider shorts to be our summer uniform and sometimes our winter uniform if the temperatures cooperate.  This week he had on a short sleeved dress shirt.  I think he is getting with the program.

My white Crocs are my boating shoes.  They don't mark the boat, and they are great in the water.  My orange Crocs are my around the house shoes.  I even do some gardening in them.  Sometimes I ride my bike with them, but usually I take time to put on my sneakers.

My sneakers are my walking and shopping shoes.  Of course the Birkenstocks are my beach shoes.  I keep them in the back of the car for impromptu beach walks.

I actually have a pair of white rubber boots in the garage that I use once in a while when working in the mud behind the dock.  There is also an old pair of sneakers that I use to mow the yard.  I have given up on my requirement to wear steel toed boots while mowing.  There are no hills to slip on down here, and it is hot enough in sneakers.

While I wear all those shoes, my favorite footwear is nothing.  I love to go barefooted, and I do around the house and even outside.  It was part of growing up in North Carolina.  Whether in Lewisville or Mount Airy, I spent time running around barefooted.

Much of the summer we shunned shoes.  Certainly there is no better way to enjoy a beach or a nice green yard.

I am personally glad to have left the wingtips behind. They actually remind me far too much of those spit-shined black shoes in military school.  My Sperry Topsiders remind me of the soft loafers that I wore in college.  I was also glad to leave the farm boots behind when we moved to the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia from our farm in Tay Creek, New Brunswick.  Somehow I don't even miss hiking boots these days.

It will be interesting to see if my shoes continue to evolve or if I have finally gotten to a set that will do me for a while.

I'm not planning on changing careers or moving so maybe that will be the case.

When blue sky is all you have

We all go through some challenges in life.  I have alway been fond of telling my kids that it builds character.

In 2004, the year that I left Apple, the challenges just kept coming.  Lots of very personal tragedies hit us.

Even then I remained an optimist, choosing to believe that even in the toughest times, you have to count on yourself more than anyone or anything.

As a new Realtor® I felt that the strong close that I had to 2007 meant that I was on my way to a new career.

The recent turmoil in Q1 2008 has proved that my optimism was a little ahead of the game.

Pretty well everyone in real estate is struggling now.  Most buyers are very nervous, and few people are moving if they do not have to.  Unless things turn around in the next couple of months, this might be a very long summer for sellers and Reators®.

When you face a situation like that, you can focus on the gloom or lift your eyes up and look at the blue skies.  I am happy to have blue skies in tough times.  They help keep me motivated.

I can look back at other tough times and know that I survived them.  You dig a little deeper, work a little harder, and try to be smarter.

Someone told me the other day, that we were having trouble providing people from the interior of North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland with a good sense of what our coastal rivers are like.

I mounted a camera on the windshield of my skiff and drove it out to river and brought it back.  I was able to drive with one hand and take pictures with the other. The slide show provides a good perspective for someone who has never been on the White Oak River.

I continue to believe that by working hard to reach new people and provide them with high quality information, that I will eventually be very successful in my career.

While it might seem to make little sense for me to post travel guides of local towns like Beaufort, Swansboro, and Emerald Isle, it gets my name out as a local expert.

By the time the real estate market turns around, if someone is looking for property here on the Southern Outer Banks, I hope they will not have any trouble figuring out who will provide them with the most accurate information.

After all where else can you go for slide shows of Beaufort, Emerald Isle, Swansboro, a boat trip to Shackleford Banks, Hammocks Beach, up the White Oak River, or a car trip Down East?  If you want to know what the area looks like before visiting, I am your source of information, and my digital cameras are always searching for more great pictures.

When you figure out how special the Carteret County area is and want someone who knows the area to find a special spot, I hope I will be the one you turn to since I have the blue sky and emerald waters covered.

Resisting the red cape

I should know better.  I have been doing blogs for three and one half years.

Long ago I learned that there are some people who make comments that you should just leave alone.

You certainly should not respond to their comments.

Actually you should not even publish their comments, because they can lead to a battle that you will never win.

Having said that, everyone makes mistakes.  Sometimes you wake up and read something, and it hits you the wrong way.

You almost have to respond to get it off your chest.

However, I have decided to start using the same yardstick that I used to suggest for my employees.  If you have a "hot" email or one that gets under your skin, sleep on it.  Read it again after you have had time to let better judgment prevail.

When I first started blogging I would try to engage in an off line discussion with people whose comments might start a battle.  The success ratio in that was fairly marginal so I gave it up.

I do not mind being told that I have made a mistake.  I just got told that yesterday and changed a post because of it.  I get a lot of people who will catch an error and send me a private note.  I always appreciate that since I am the only eyes available to proof something before publishing.

Some of these folks who get under your skin can be very persistent. 

There was one recently who seemed to be sure that I would chase him down to his blog and make nasty comments.

He had already made four or five comments, and I had mistakenly responded to a couple of them.  His comments were enough to guarantee that the only way that I would ever find his blog is if I stumbled upon it by accident.

The most amazing thing is that at least two or three of these folks have had the same signature final comment, "Have a nice life."

It is as if they cannot imagine anyone having a good life without their input.

My thought is that I was having a good life before these folks wandered into my life, and it will be fine once they are gone.

I have commented on a whole lot of blogs, but I always try to remember that I am a guest, and if I don't have something worthwhile to say, I try not to stir up trouble.

The Internet is a wonderful place, full of lots of information, but that does not mean that everyone out there is reasonable.  There is room for everyone and their opinions, even the unreasonable ones.  They just don't have to be on my blog where if necessary, I will have the last word.

I have only had a couple of comments that I have had to pull from View from the Mountain over the years, and maybe a couple of dozen from Applepeels where you do run into people who think Apple can do no wrong.  Some of the Apple fans are a little different.

Considering how many thousands of comments I have had that is not bad.  I hope I do not run into anymore like this last guy, they take the fun out of blogging.

I would much rather enjoy the blue sky we had this morning and these early spring daffodils.  Actually I would rather stand out in the rain we are going to have tonight than fight over opinions on computers.

Life is too short for that.