Tonight I drank the last of my father’s St. Remy brandy. He won’t care one way or the other as he died from mesothelioma, cancer of the pleura, almost 13 years ago. As I sipped the last two ounces, all that was left, I thought about some of my memories of my father.

I don’t remember him drinking much. And I never saw him drunk, not even once. When I was a teenager, I would tend bar at my parent’s parties. They had a few parties a year and the same people came every time. It was an eye-opening experience for a young man that hadn’t really experienced the outside world of parties, drinking, and other various ways of getting intoxicated my generation experimented with.

Anyway, back to the brandy. I never drank brandy or cognac with my father. I regret that now. It’s a pleasure that I enjoy a great deal these days. It’s not something I really spent much time thinking about when my father was alive.

I acquired his brandy last weekend. My sister, her husband, and I spent Saturday and Sunday going through some of the cupboards and closets at my mother’s house in an attempt to clean it up. Unfortunately, we had to put my mother, with her consent of course, in an assisted living facility a few months ago. She could no longer live by herself and 24-hour onsite care would deplete her funds in short order.

My sister and her husband didn’t want any of the liquor. I gladly took it, if for no other reason than to think of my father while I drink it or share it with others.

So now I have a full cabinet of liquor left over from the days when my parents had parties. Some bottles almost empty, like the St. Remy. Some completely full, like the Courvoisier still in the box. My father’s friends knew he like brandy and cognac so when his birthday or Christmas came around several more bottles showed up. I doubt he had to ever buy it actually.

My mom didn’t drink much after my father died. Except for the margaritas she had with my oldest niece once in a great while. She would tell my niece “Don’t tell your Mom”, meaning my sister. She would of course tell her mom afterwards. She was old enough to drink anyway, and it was no big deal. We’re just glad they could spend some time together and enjoy each other’s company.

So tonight, I decided to start working my way through the leftover liquor. After all, it’s Friday night, I worked all week, my wife was still at work, and it was a nice warm evening on the back patio.

So I sipped the last of the St. Remy Napoleon brandy (Napoleon means it was aged at least 4 years in oak casks) and thought about my father. I realized a few things that I hadn’t been conscious of.

First, I still miss him. I don’t cry anymore, although I did get a few tears in my eyes, a year ago when I talked with my mom about him on his birthday. I miss him the most when I am feeling the need of some advice. He always gave such good advice, no matter the subject. He helped me raise my own kids, although he may not have realized it.

He helped guide my conservative political leanings without calling them that. He never really approved of my gun purchases, nor my hunting, when I was younger. At the same time he allowed me the freedom to find my own way without judging me. I thank him for that. I’ve tried very hard to do that with my own kids, both in their 20s now.

To make a long story short, I found the St. Remy Napoleon Brandy to be very good. It was incredibly smooth and I enjoyed every sip.

Thanks Dad.

The Go-Giver

A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea

By Bob Burg and John David Mann

If you’ve been searching for the “secret” to increased success, you’re about to learn the five principles many of the most successful people in the world use to create their own success.

You may be surprised to find out just how simple the “Five Laws of Stratospheric Success” are. The power behind these laws destroys so many commonly held misconceptions about success and how to go about achieving it.

The Law of Value

The first law says:

“Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment”.

As a long time service provider I realized I’d done this without realizing it for many years. Unfortunately, the company I work for now has rejected this notion and it’s market share in the US is shrinking rapidly. I’ll be recommending this book to the management team. We’ll see if it changes any minds.

I’ll be applying these laws in my own business and life outside of my day job. And as much as I’m allowed I’ll implement them in my day-to-day activities in my day job as well.

The Law of Compensation

The second law says:

“Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.”

Absolutely. It doesn’t matter how good you are at what you do, if you can only serve a small group, it’s unlikely you’ll make a large income.

For example, my father was a CPA (Certified Public Accountant). Through the years, he became known as the most honest CPA in town. Unfortunately, his income didn’t reflect the high regard in which he was held until he took on some junior partners and expanded to 3 offices. Once he could serve a larger clientele his income grew proportionally.

The Law of Influence

The third law says:

“Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.”

Here’s where our upbringing can actually be a huge detriment to our success. We’ve always been taught it’s a “win-win” situation. It makes a good sound byte, but in reality what you’ve really got is nothing more than a hidden way of keeping score. And keeping score won’t get you into the “top of mind” region of the other influential people in your life.

The truly influential people don’t want to keep score. They simply go about their lives doing what they do and giving “top of mind” referrals to the people they feel have not only their but everyones best interest at heart. If you want more high quality referrals coming your way, you need to give away high quality referrals. But not so you can keep score, but so you can help the people that need it.

The Law of Authenticity

The fourth law says:

“The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.”

This law has been at work in my life for many years. I just didn’t recognize it. I’ve also seen it work seeming miracles in the lives of others. My friend Tina is a high-level freelance copywriter. Her success comes directly from all five “Laws of Stratospheric Success”. But the most powerful law she uses is this one. She appears authentic, she is authentic, she actually exudes authenticity out her very pores. In fact, she gave me my copy of this book. It’s a gift I gladly receive and will pass on to others as well.

Beyond that, her product literally screams authenticity. And that makes her clients a ton of money every time she writes sales copy for them and every time she helps them structure their marketing plan. Because her clients are so happy with the results, they give her referrals to their friends and business associates resulting in even more work for Tina.

Which leads us to the “fifth law of Stratospheric Success.”

The Law of Receptivity

The fifth law says:

“The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.”

If you aren’t open to receiving gifts gratefully and thankfully, how can you expect to ever receive any? Keep your mind open to receive and you will receive. You’ll receive a whole lot more if you make sure to practice the “Five Laws of Stratospheric Success”.

This isn’t something you can do one day out of the week though. You need to apply these laws in your life daily. By learning to give, you’ll end up receiving so much more.

I read this book twice in one sitting and I read it again the next morning. This book spoke to me on so many levels and I wanted to make sure I really understood it’s message.

By the time I’d read this book three times, I came to not only believe in the truth espoused, but sat down to think about how I can fully implement these laws in my business, my work, and my personal life.

I highly recommend buying a copy of this book and reading it. You’ll be happy you did.

The Quest (3 stars out of 5)

By Wilbur Smith

Having read many novels written by Wilbur Smith, I was once again driven deep into the story. I could scarcely put it down.

“Best Historical Novelist: I say Wilbur Smith” - Stephen King

I agree. I didn’t like this book quite as much as many other’s he’s written, however, over all it was a captivating story. It contains a little too much unbelievable mythology mixed in for my taste. Overall, an very enjoyable read.

Wilbur Smith remains one of my favorite authors.

Set in ancient Egypt, an ancient Warlock Taita is sent on a desperate quest to save Egypt’s people from a calamity caused when the Nile dries to a trickle. Not only has the Nile slowed to a trickle, it’s turned to blood filled with poisonous giant toads.

Taita and his companion Colonel Meren Cambyses have just returned from a multi-year quest culminating with the opening of Taita’s inner eye in the Far East. A procedure not for the squeamish by the way. Taita’s ability to “see” with his inner eye becomes one of his most useful skills as he does battle with the evil causing Egypt’s slow spiral towards death.

Taita soon learns his foe is named Eos, an ageless evil witch, with powers far superior to any other known being.

The Pharaoh Nefer Seti sends the two of them with a small military escort up the Nile to find the problem with the flow of the Nile. A journey fraught with danger, the force becomes reduced by conflict with unfriendly tribes, disease, and natural perils.

Using a mixture of bows, arrows, swords, and magic the small band must beat back and kill the forces of evil or Egypt won’t survive much longer.

Although not as good as River God or Warlock it’s still worth reading.

Sylvester Stallone outdid himself this time. I really liked this movie and yet came away slightly disillusioned at the same time. An aging John Rambo is still just as surly as ever. It appears he’s learned to live with himself after so many years.

Living in Northern Thailand, he supports himself by hunting snakes used in the tourist shows and by running a boat up the river. He allows himself to be talked into taking some missionaries and their supplies into Burma (Myanmar) upriver. He refuses at first and then relents when a female missionary named Sarah convinces him they are going to get there one way or the other.

After killing some river pirates to save Sarah, he delivers the missionaries to a local guide inside Burma. They indicate they’ll return overland and won’t need him to pick them back up. In typical fashion, the missionaries get captured by the military inside Burma and don’t show up when expected.

Once again, Rambo is enlisted to go upriver. This time, it’s to deliver some mercenaries being paid to extract the captured missionaries back to safety. Rambo takes them upriver to the same spot he dropped off the missionaries. As he readies himself to go along and help, the leader of the mercenaries tells him he’s not welcome to tag along. In his usual fashion, he tags along without their knowledge.

They find the Karen village the military obliterated in the attack during which they captured the missionaries. With the carnage still evident, the Burmese military shows up again. This time to torture and kill some more Karen tribes people. Watching this proves too much for Rambo. He shoots several of the soldiers with his bow and the mercenaries end up involved as well. One of the mercenaries remarks “Who is that guy?”. Indeed.

Now it’s a race against time to find and save the missionaries. The scenes from here on out get more bloody and more gruesome. In fact, as hardened as I am to the usual blood and guts in most movies of this type, I almost had to turn away. This movie is not for the faint of heart. My wife covered her eyes and turned away several times.

In the end, Rambo wins saving a couple missionaries along with a couple mercenaries.

The interesting twist right at the end leaves me wondering if another movie will be forthcoming or if John Rambo really has come home and will find peace at last.

I give this movie 4 stars. I can’t recommend this one to kids under the age of 16 nor should you go to this movie if you have a weak stomach. It’s graphic and bloody. Then again, so is this area of Burma.

The sad part is, the Burmese military government does indeed persecute and kill the Karen tribe among others. If nothing else, this movie hopefully will help raise awareness among people previously unaware. The Burmese military government has banned this movie.

“Content is King” has become the overriding theme you hear about no matter the source. If your content stinks, your readers won’t come back. They won’t “digg” you nor will they trackback to your blog. I’m no expert, so I spend a little time each week educating myself on what’s working and what isn’t.

I came across a couple blog posts containing some of the most important aspects of driving traffic to your blog. It wasn’t by accident though. It was because a friend of mine, Ryan Healy, mentions one of them on Friday. His article can be found here.

When someone claims to have written the Ultimate Guide to anything, I immediately become skeptical. In Andy Hagans’ case though it’s true. He’s written a succinct no-fluff article on how to get backlinks and SEO exposure.

The most common thing I hear about link baiting is that it’s hard. “How the heck can I link bait on my industrial water pump site?”

Stop. Complaining. Start. Thinking. Anything can be link baited. Sell a special kind of Dacron pillow? Maybe you need to write “101 Secrets to Sleeping Revealed.” Or maybe your site is a thin affiliate page that simply generates mortgage leads? How about “How to: Flip Houses in a Hot Real Estate Market.”

The point is that your topic has a link bait piece (or a dozen of them) waiting to be written.

I couldn’t agree more. A little creativity and you’re on your way.

Andy’s best piece of advice relates to the title of your post. Again, I agree with him totally. It’s not always easy to come up with a good title though. He links to another site specific to writing a good title.

Brian Clark does a great job of giving us some good starter headlines for blog posts. He admits these headlines won’t work so well if you are writing to the Internet Marketing crowd but they should work well to other audiences.

I highly recommend you subscibe to the RSS feeds on three of these blogs.

Ryan Healy: http://www.ryanhealy.com/

Brian Clark’s CopyBlogger: http://www.copyblogger.com/

Andy Hagans’ Tropical SEO: http://tropicalseo.com/

Keep in mind this really only touches the surface of SEO. However, by doing these things on your blog, you’ll be far ahead of anyone who doesn’t do anything. I’ll be getting back to this subject because I think it’s such an important one. Not only that, it’s a vast topic that simply can’t be covered in one short article.

Apparently, there are plenty of voters that think she’s ready. The delegate count is leaning in her favor at the moment. We’ll likely know who will be the nominee for both the Republicans and the Democrats in the first week in February. It won’t be official of course until the conventions. But that won’t stop the pundits, the media, and the candidates themselves from declaring victory.

In my opinion, Hillary Clinton was elected to the Senate by riding on the coattails of her husband’s popular presidency. I’m also pretty sure she got a big sympathy vote just because so many people think she got the raw end of the deal while Monica Lewinsky was playing hide the sausage with Bill Clinton in the Oval Office bathroom. It doesn’t make her any more qualified for office, but it certainly helps bring out the women voters. She’s gotten a big boost to her campaign for that very reason.

Hillary Clinton’s fiery temper makes her a poor candidate for any political office. She displayed a small snippet of that in the latest debate in South Carolina. Barack Obama essentially claimed Hillary and her husband were going around lying about what he said some time ago regarding Ronald Reagan and his economic policies. Hillary immediately got angry and laid into him regarding his supposedly tainted campaign contributions coming from a previous law client and the clients Chicago slumlord real estate business.

I wonder how many people caught how upset she got. I don’t think an explosive temper goes along with being president.

Too bad Obama didn’t come back about all the tainted money Hillary had to return when it was made known. I give kudos to the media for exposing that by the way. Although they seem to favor her and still have a love affair with Bill Clinton, when the dirt got exposed, they wrote about it.

In order for Hillary Clinton to win the Presidency, she’ll need to overcome several steep obstacles. The first obstacle facing her is the Democratic nomination. If ever a political party in the US was ready to nominate a woman, the Democrats are looking like they might be willing.

Getting the nomination won’t be a cake walk. She cried her way to victory in New Hampshire. I saw an interview of a woman voter a couple weeks ago. She said it made her change her mind and she voted for Hillary. Why? Because when she saw Mrs. Clinton crying it made her seem more human and real than the other candidates. Hillary Clinton already won her Oscar this year.

It doesn’t matter which Republican ultimately runs against her, she’ll still have an uphill battle. I think when it comes right down to the actual act of voting inside the booth, there will still be a good number of Democrats that won’t be able to vote for her. It’s not that they don’t like her. I just think the fact that she’s a woman will hold enough folks back that she’ll have a very close race and maybe even lose.

I could be wrong. I’ve been known to be wrong a few times in my life. We’ll find out soon enough. This campaign is heating up and I’ll be watching with interest.

Let me know what you think. I’m hoping someone else will contradict me and give me some good reasons to believe the US is ready for a woman president. I guess I should ask my wife.

Just to be clear, I think Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney are the most qualified candidates for the job. Neither of them are really conservative enough for me but I’ll take either of them over any of the Democrats.

Too bad Joe Lieberman isn’t running. He’s probably the only Democrat I’d vote for. Not so much because I totally agree with his policies, but because he’s an honest and upright guy. He’s totally believable and that comes through loud and clean when you hear him interviewed. And he won’t scrimp on national security.

And none of them can hold a candle to Ron Paul when it comes down to the long term viability of the US economy. Ron Paul gets the economy. It’s just he’s not electable, at least not yet.

The Bucket List

☆☆1/2 stars

From the desk of Thomas Burton

Bucket List: A wish-list of things to do before you die or “kick the bucket”.

My wife and I just got back from watching “The Bucket List”. We both came out of the theater wiping the tears from our eyes. We both liked this movie.

Before I wrote my review I figured I better check out a few reviews written by professional critics. I should have known better. I almost never agree with them.

After reading 4 reviews, I actually started to wonder if we saw the same movie they did. For the most part they trashed the movie, criticizing everything but the interaction between Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) and Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman) even going so far as to say they directed the film themselves by the virtue of their performance.

I have to agree this Rob Reiner film doesn’t really do justice to the incredible locations the main characters purportedly visit during their quest to cross all the items off their “bucket list”. The digital scenery looks a little too perfect, hence actually comes off as fake. I doubt many people but the critics will care.

One thing we both noticed was the age of the crowd in the theatre. Now this isn’t something I usually even think about when I go see a movie. A large majority of the people in the theater were older than we are, or around our age. I’m 52 and my wife won’t let me reveal her age (she’s two years younger than I am). We just found it to be a little unusual.

The dialogue and interaction between Nicholson and Freeman felt real most of the time. This movie touched us both at a personal level. That’s where most of the critics miss the boat I think.

My wife’s sister lost a 4 year battle with cancer at the age of 51 a few months ago. And my father passed away from cancer almost 12 years ago. And neither of them took the time during their last months alive on earth to step back and do even one thing on their own bucket list. In fact, I don’t think either of them had a bucket list.

My wife tried to talk her sister into letting her take her to Hawaii for a week. She actually got mad about it, saying it might affect her treatments. Unfortunately, her treatments didn’t save her anyway. Maybe a trip to Hawaii would have made her last year a little brighter. We’ll never know.

What’s the point?

That’s exactly where this movie touches people, in their heart. And that’s the exact place most critics never look when they point out just how lousy the directing is and how the scenery looks fake and how it was a trite little film that is only any good at all due to the acting of two superstars.

At one point in the film, Edward tells his assistant the three rules an old man should live by:

Never skip a bathroom

Never waste a hard-on

Never trust a fart

My wife lives by the first rule whenever we’re in Disneyland. I’ve told her for years she should live by the second rule. And if nothing else, you should be able to use your imagination why everyone probably ought to keep the third rule in mind.

Pretty silly really. However it illustrates how we can and should laugh at ourselves and probably take ourselves a little less seriously. After all, most of us over the age of 50 can relate to these rules in a personal way. I know I can anyway.

I can tell we laughed and cried during this movie. Was it a really great movie? No. But it did touch us inside and made us reflect on our own mortality. I say it did it’s job admirably.

We were entertained and we came out of the theater feeling like we got our money’s worth. I gave it 2 and 1/2 stars.

In this politically correct world we live in, there are so many new and exciting developments to keep track of. For instance, I learned today that it’s now fashionable, or shall we say expedient, to measure greenhouse gases in CO₂ equivalent.

Because we humans like to think in the simplest terms possible, the way we quantify greenhouse gas emissions has been distilled down to CO₂ equivalent. This is quickly becoming the preferred terminology when discussing greenhouse gas emissions.

What is CO₂ equivalent anyway?

Using methane as an example, when one pound of methane gets emitted into the atmosphere, it’s equal to releasing 21 pounds of CO₂. Or it can be written as 21 pounds of CO₂e.

Just for a little clarity, lets see what it takes to emit one ton (2000 pounds) of CO₂ into our atmosphere.

• drive 1,350 miles in a large gas guzzling SUV
• drive 1,900 miles in a mid-size sedan
• drive 6,000 miles in a small hybrid vehicle

There are plenty of other ways we send CO₂into the atmosphere. But what’s that really mean? And how does it affect us?

These days we equate greenhouse gas emissions with global warming. The more CO₂we produce, the more global warming increases.

At least that’s the conventional wisdom espoused by our esteemed former Vice President Al Gore. I’m not totally convinced but I think it prudent to take measures now rather than wait until things get totally out of hand.

So when you help send CO₂or methane gas into the air, you are directly responsible for global warming. Or at least a very tiny portion of it. So quit eating starchy foods you know will ferment and give you smelly problems later.

Dang, where’d that bean burrito I was eating earlier go.

For instance, by drinking milk did you know you indirectly contribute to global warming. Each politically incorrect milk-producing cow in your local dairy burps and flatulates (that’s a nice way to say farts for you folks from Rio Linda - a little Rush Limbaugh humor there) roughly 200 grams of methane up into the atmosphere every day.

That doesn’t seem so bad, you think.

However…

Way back in 1989 New Scientist magazine cites a study done by a German scientist named Dieter Ehhalt. He calculated at that time there were approximately 1300 million, (yes, you read right, 1,300,000,000 or 1.3 billion cows) on the planet.

That was roughly one head of cattle for every four humans on the planet in 1989.Based on the number of 1,000 to 2,000 cow dairies around where I live there are lots more cows now. I’d be guessing though.

Apparently, the bacteria contained in the stomach of a cow breaks down the cellulose it eats into usable energy the cow needs. Unfortunately, in the process, 3 to 10 percent of the food a cow ingests turns into methane in the process. (It’s pretty hard to get an exact measurement of cow burps and farts apparently.)

Then there’s the methane produced by the piles of rotting manure every dairy contains, along with the pond. According to one of the local dairymen where I live (it pays to go to the barbershop once in a while) if the pond is managed properly most of the methane stays suspended in the water.

That’s not the worst part though. Methane is 25 times better at trapping the sun’s heat in the atmosphere than CO₂.

Now, I’m not telling you it’s OK to keep driving your gas-guzzling SUV, God forbid.

However, I do plan on keeping my own Ford F250 Diesel. Sheesh, I just paid the dang thing off. I need it to pull my 28′ fifth wheel trailer when we go camping. But, we try not to drive it unless we need it. It does get quite a bit better mileage in town, than the Ford Expedition we traded in on it a few years ago, got on the highway.

I’m a big fan of diesel at this point.

You’d probably have a greater impact on global warming if you got rid of your milk-guzzling kids. My 24 year old (thankfully he’s on his own now) can drink a half gallon of milk a day or more. Then we wouldn’t need as many cows burping and you-know-what-ing.

Here’s some more food for thought.

According to one unnamed source (to protect the idiotic although it’s an apparently otherwise reputable company), in order to remove 1,000 tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere we need to do one of the following…

1. Have 145 SUV drivers move into small hybrids for an entire year. (I doubt they took into account how much energy–hence greenhouse gas emissions–it takes to build a hybrid–let alone the cost of recycling the batteries–and don’t forget how much it will cost the first time a hybrid gets crushed by a semi and spews battery residue across 4 lanes of your favorite interstate.)
2. Replace 2,000 refrigerators with highest efficiency models you can buy (Again I doubt they factored in the energy/greenhouse gas component of building the new refrigerator)
3. Plant an acre of Douglas fir trees (I’m sure they thought of how long it takes a tree to get big)

I don’t know about you, but I highly doubt the act of planting one acre of Douglas fir trees is going to remove 1,000 tons of CO₂ from the air. However, in the long run, I do believe that would be one of the most effective things to do for our children. Unfortunately, once an acre of Douglas fir gains maturity the next overwhelming desire is to cut them down and sell the logs.

My guess as to what they are really saying is that one acre of mature (left standing - not logged off) Doug fir would pull 1,000 tons of CO₂out of the atmosphere each year. Digging a little deeper doing some research, I find I’m correct and we’re both wrong all at the same time.

It’s been estimated an acre of mature Douglass fir trees store 1.4 metric tons of carbon each year. Without going into the fuzzy math, that equates to roughly 11,300 pounds of CO₂every year. Not even close to 1,000 tons (2,000,000 pounds or 2 million pounds)

I think you’ll agree with me the over-simplified version my hitherto unnamed source didn’t look too deeply into the issue. But they were on the right track.

That said, I still think we should all plant as many trees as we can. They look great and do help. It’s something we can all do, at least if we have a yard to plant one or two in.

In conclusion, I think we all have do our part. My sister says she’s never drinking another glass of milk in her life. This is the last straw for her. Actually, she’s always hated milk anyway.

We really do need to take individual responsibility for our impact on the environment.But the most prudent thing to do isn’t always the most obvious.

I’ll get back to this subject soon because I barely scratched the surface of global warming and greenhouse gas emissions in this article.

Best,

Thomas Burton

P.S. Please add your comments if you have anything to add or dispute. I’d love to hear it.

For the New Scientist article that cited the German Scientist, Dieter Ehhalt, go here http://tinyurl.com/3498q7

It’s been said opinions are like belly buttons. Everyone’s got one. I’m no different. I have plenty of opinions but only one belly button. (thankfully)

I certainly don’t claim to hold the only valid opinion on any given subject. That’s why I would like to encourage participation by everyone.

Be forewarned, I’ll delete any post that violates human decency or uses excessive profanity. I’m not interested in hosting flame wars between people that don’t have any sense of decency. However, I’d be happy to let you express your considered and considerate opinion.

It’s OK if you call me or my opinion stupid. Don’t be so foolish as calling another commenter names. If you do, your comment will be deleted. If you do it repeatedly, you’ll be blacklisted.

Use a little common sense and we’ll get along fine.

If you’re so inclined you may contact me through this blog, and I’ll also consider posting thoughtful articles you’ve written.

Welcome to Thomas Burton’s World.

In case you’re curious, I took the picture used as the header from the beach in Morro Bay California while on an early morning walk with my wife and dogs in April 2007.