Rebuilding Eden

I grew up in a small town just a bit south of Buffalo, New York. A tiny speck of a place called Eden. I was born there in 1964 and spent my entire childhood there in a quite farm town that could best be described as a pre-cursor to suburbia. Sure, a good portion of the townspeople were farmers, but the vast majority were simple midlle class people who wanted to raise their families outside of the city. It was largely christian, mostly white and predominately conservative though there were exceptions to all of these.

Our house sat on a side street near the outer edge of town, just a couple of blocks from the local Catholic Church. It was at the school in this church that I spent a good portion of time when I was young. It was at the school at this church where the following story takes place… Click here to read more.. »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this episode of Rebuilding Eden I will explain why our present “growing economy” is not that much of a good thing. When Bill Clinton said “It’s the economy, Stupid”, did you ever wonder what economy he was talking about? We’ll talk about the state of the banks, including a couple of recent phone calls I have received that sent chills up my spine. Then we will get into how these two things work in conjuction with each other. Todays situation has placed the interests of the banks firmly against that of the governments.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

I have decided to re-start my weekly live broadcast on Talkshoe.  Sometimes life give you time to reflect on exactly what you want out of it. This is one of those times, for me personally and for many others. In this episode I will talk about Where I have been, where I am going and what I feel is coming along next. My apologies for the audio quality here. I didn’t hear the feedback until I replayed the episode and I have found the problem. Future episodes will be much better. Thanks for listening!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

I had lunch today with an old friend and we were discussing our respective future paths. He noted that one of the best ways forward is to reflect on where you have been. This got us to talking about the past couple of years, which have been a bit rought to say the least, as well as some of the brighter spots in our lives. Reflecting on this gave me a new perspective on those things in my life that I have enjoyed and benefited from as well as those that I have not. I am hoping that this will give me a platform of sorts to build from.

Click here to read more.. »

Providing that you didn’t fail miserably on the first task that I set out for you in my previous article (See Becoming Successful: Getting Started) , you should be on your way to starting your new venture. As we discussed earlier, this venture does not necessarily have to be a business. It could be that you want to start or become more involved in a community or charitable organization, start a new hobby that you want to become great at, or possibly just learn something new. Regardless of what your venture is, when you sat down to create your first task list and approached those tasks over the last week or so you probably ran into my most common complaint, “I just don’t have enough time”. Click here to read more.. »

As I write this tonight, the stock market has taken another plunge, the government is debating a bailout of the auto makers and gloom and doom seems to be coming at us from every direction. The dire financial news of today is likely to become the dire financial news of tomorrow and quite frankly for the forseeable future. The problem is that we cannot allow it to control our lives. Too many of us have connected out financial success to happiness. My thought for today is this. Celebrate life.

November 1st marks the beginning of the Holiday Season for me, from this point out the year is focused on celebration. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, holiday sales, football games, parties and other events seem to get endlessly strung together from now thru the end of the year. While the constant taunting of “buy me, buy me” coming from the stores comes earlier each year, I will make a point this year of turning my criticism of this into celebration of it. No, I won’t shop any earlier or buy any more than I usually do, but I may have friends over for dinner this November, or have a pre-holiday party. Click here to read more.. »

“I’m going to the store, can I get anyone anything?” That’s how most Mrs. Gravocks visits to our house started when I was younger. It seems that even though we think of our youth as a “simpler time in life”, people were always on the run. The difference however was that they announced it ahead of time. Every trip that was taken, whether to the corner store or into the next town, was broadcast along our little row of neighbors before anyone even thought of leaving. Sometimes it was foretold of the day before such as “I’m running into Hamburg tomorrow morning, do you need anything?” Click here to read more.. »

Earlier today I was reflecting on the fact that over the past few years I have been approached dozens of times by people who are looking for a little bit of help getting their project, business, or idea off the ground. It just seems to happen. I’m not sure that I’m the kind of person who brings out the entrepreneur in people, maybe I just tend to have conversations that uncover peoples desires, whatever they may be. Regardless of what causes it, over the years I have been involved with an awful lot of projects and I currently act as an advisor to half a dozen or so people who are trying to better themselves in one way or another. I view these opportunities as one of lifes greatest rewards. Click here to read more.. »

I had the opportunity this weekend to travel to Washington, D.C. to return my son to school where he will be a Junior this fall. We took a similar trip just a few weeks ago to move my daughter into her first apartment. She is attending graduate school and thankfully they are only seperated by a few miles (more importantly 2 metro stops). I have never been in an area that has been gripped by the need for Change than the greater D.C. area is right now.

During this brief 2 day whirlwind tour we were approached no less than 2 dozen times for people looking for change. On the way to the metro, “Excuse me, do you have any change?”. Walking by the ballpark, “Got any change?”. People playing instruments hoping for change, people selling flowers hoping for change, people peddling local papers, hoping for change. More than anything else though, people doing nothing at all, just asking for change.

Presidents Clinton and Bush, with the help of Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke have managed to get the printing presses of this country operating at full speed. It will be the job of the next president to get the Mints up to maximum capacity however, because if Washington D.C. is at all representative of this country, we are definitely in need of some change.

Last night as I was headed into the local Wal-Mart for yet another load of groceries for my always hungry crew I grabbed a cart on the way in as I usually do. Next to me, a mother and her three kids were walking in and the eldest boy says to the mother “Mommy, should I get us a cart too?”.

Her answer left me a bit mad, but not at all surprised. “No no honey, they have people to do that” Click here to read more.. »