The Little Words Mean the Most

New Zealand Red Cross called

5 PM here in New England. 9 AM there in New Zealand, and a day later. I'm speaking in NZ at a pan-Pacific conference, just like in Strictly Ballroom only now with the Red Cross/Red Crescent societies, from Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Japan, more and more. "I feel daunted and stupid," admittedly.

We'll always have Chattanooga

One arrives. One stays; the view from my room and IN my room.

New public art is everywhere.
It claims with reason to be the philanthropic capital of Tennessee. My gracious host was M. Wade Kelley, CFRE, director of development at the Partnership for Families, Children and Adults. A Chattanooga native who'd moved away then returned 20 years later to find a city transformed, growing, modern, with good political leadership. Electric free public transportation.
A place retirees fall in love with, in the valley of the mighty and sinuous Tennessee River; the TVA has a big office here. He took me to eat dinner at the 5-star Boathouse Rotisserie and Raw Bar, on a sweeping bend of the reclaimed riverfront, where we watched the sun set and glasses were lifted to the dying day and the gorgeous dusk.


At the Hunter Museum of American Art,
Caroline von Kessler, Director of Development, gave me a personal tour. I love this part! Thank you, Caroline and Wade!

Unforgettable. Flew in and out by prop over the Great Smokies and Appalachian Mountains.

My baby gets another big fat award

The woman is unstoppable. This time, on March 25, Leadership RI gave Simone the 2010 David E. Sweet Award, the organization's highest honor, for "inspirational" so-called "service leadership." The room was thick with politicians and testosterone (the "leadership" hormone). Not at our table, though. Hi, Julie and Jessica. Sheldon Whitehouse misspelled my wife's name, the basterd.

Day two, the deluge

Looking out the big windows of my office, sheeting with driven rain, I think I'm working in a submarine. Thank you, Greggie.

I have

a new 27" LG high def screen for my Mac. I christened it this afternoon as rain fell like spilled ball bearings. It's big. Big like drive-in movie big. Big like my eyes have to sweep back and forth big, inspiring autonomic, inadvertent awe.

I'm publishing all my works for free

Call it resignation. Call it pathetic. Call it whatever you want to call it because you're just as creative as the next person. From now on, as these written pieces appear, find them at myfreenovel.com.

More for the brag board

Nancy Schwartz, one of my heroes in nonprofit marketing, had super-kind things to say on her Getting Attention Blog about my twice-monthly e-newsletter on donor communications.

Two groups, in my mind. (1) Trying. (2) Faking it. Any given moment, given topic. A pessimist? 10% of the 1st. Optimist? 51% of the 1st.

Ben, why?

Industrial design quandary: Why do I like 5 lb. kettlebell weights [photo to come], almost obsessively? Otherwise I'm a physical fitness slug [on my last public outing, I had to bring into the game my Fat Pants for the 1st time in months, so you know...], except when a saw's involved. Ben: Am it the handles? Those cute colors like school bus yellow? Clue: I now realize I'm nomadic, always up and down the stairs. But I'm counting space covered, not moments in time.

Tomorrow's Twig Oven Today!

Burn, baby twig, burn, when the snows return.