14Apr 2014 by CJ

The streets are not your personal garbage can, so STOP littering!

Life & Living
This weekend the sun was brightly shining and the temperatures rose to the upper 70’s. Therefore the last place I wanted to be was cooped up inside – especially after the brutal winter the north east was forced to battle this year. The weekend was a mix of leisurely enjoyment and household chores – hiking through the mountains on Saturday, and doing yard clean-up outside on Sunday. Regardless of the activity, just being outside was enjoyment enough. While in the front of my house, picking a few weeds between the cracks of the sidewalk, a car came racing down the block – loud music blasting from four open windows, though not loud enough to mask the sound of its obnoxious muffler. I sound like an old man now, don’t I?…
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02Apr 2014 by CJ

The worst kind of marketing is bad customer service

Life & Living
“Your customer doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” ~ Damon Richards We all hope the products and services we purchase, after great consideration, will not be met with disappointment or costly repairs. But few things in life are perfect and you’d be naïve to think that problems will not arise at one point or another. For me such problems decided to pay a visit in threes – an airline, a car company and a promotions warehouse. I wish I could say that my dealings have been noteworthy – a model for true customer service in the marketplace. But it hasn’t. As Donald Porter once said, “Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.”…
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31Mar 2014 by CJ

Everything involves risk – but you’ll never know what will happen unless you take one

Life & Living
“You can’t outwit fate by standing on the sidelines placing little side bets about the outcome of life. Either you wade in and risk everything you have to play the game or you don’t play at all. And if you don’t play you can’t win.” Judith McNaught We all possess hopes and dreams for our day to day existence. We all conjure up ideas of how they might play out and what they might actually look like. Having been raised to avoid risk taking in life, as much of society has, I’m no stranger to keeping dreams buried deep in the chambers of my mind – leaving them there to go unfulfilled. But the older you get, the more you realize that our time her on planet Earth is far…
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25Mar 2014 by CJ

Moving on with life takes more courage than you might think

Life & Living
“It happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you've known forever don't see things the way you do. So you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on.” ― Nicholas Sparks It’s been many years since I’ve spoken to my family – a reality that was not easily accepted at first. After all, we always assume that our family will always be there for us – good and bad – providing us the unconditional support and affection we all deserve. But life isn’t a Hallmark movie. And ideals can often dilute reality – as was the case in my family situation. It boils down to dealing with an unhealthy dynamic, or valuing yourself…
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19Mar 2014 by CJ

Losing Methodist parishioners is due to not practicing what they preach

Information & Education, Life & Living, Love & Relationships
Many years ago, I used to consider myself a practicing Catholic – regularly attending services and abiding by the rules and restrictions drilled into my head since I was young. But then I became a free-thinking adult. And after watching the poor handling of the sex abuse scandal and their bias towards the homosexual community, I concluded that the Catholic faith was NOT a religion I wanted to be a part of. My wife on the other hand is a loyal and faithful Methodist. She still attends the same church she was christened in almost 40 years ago, the same church her family has attended for generations. Looking for a little spiritual guidance, I began going with her and was surprised how different this religion truly was. Honesty, humility and…
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