Posted by Grant on August 16, 2008 – 9:22 pm
I was watching my daily dose of “The Michael Phelps Show” (aka ‘The Olympics’) this evening, and I began to ponder some questions:
- If I was racing Michael Phelps in the 100m freestyle, would I stand a chance against him if I had a 50m lead? (Probably not)
- Will anybody watch the Olympics now that Phelps’ part of the show is over? (I bet ratings drop)
- Is Michael Phelps good at Marco Polo? (I would be a “fish-out-of-water” the entire time)
- In six months, will you watch a swim meet on a Saturday night on NBC? (Me neither)
- I wonder if Michael Phelps’ mom is a good cook? (I bet she is)
- Which is faster: a US men’s relay team or me on a jet ski? (They’re not that good…or are they? Hmm…)
- Do you think Michael Phelps would be good at synchronized swimming or diving? (Stick to swimming)
- As a dude, is it wrong to have a purely heterosexual man crush on Michael Phelps? (I think I do)
- If Phelps was running for President, would you vote for him? (Depends where he stands on the issues but I’d consider it)
- Do you think Michael Phelps ever pees in the water while swimming? (As long as he saves enough for the post-victory test sample)
Posted by Grant on July 15, 2008 – 1:37 pm
If you’ve never used Craigslist before, you’re missing out. Craigslist is the classified section of the Internet.
And the best part…it’s free to buy and sell.
I’ve bought and sold several items on Craigslist and am always amazed at just how quick things sell. For example, I listed an old laptop this morning. By early afternoon, I had a call from a guy who wanted it. We met 45 minutes later, and I walked away with the full price in cash. Amazing.
So if you’re looking for a deal on something…anything…be sure to check it out.
And if you’re really bored or just looking for something amusing to do, check out the “Missed Connections” section of the site. It is sad, hilarious, and creepy all at the same time. Look it up and you’ll see what I mean…
Posted by Grant on July 12, 2008 – 2:08 pm
Filed under Family, Random
As I was driving home from the hospital last night, I realized that our new little daughter, Emilee, will have two interesting facts about her birthday:
- Same birthday as the new 3G iPhone (pretty cool)
- Same date of a trashy convenience store chain, 7-11 (not so cool)
I guess it all balances out on the “cool” scale…
Posted by Grant on June 23, 2008 – 9:45 am
Filed under Random, Travels
I’m in West Lafayette, IN today on the Purdue campus and am speaking at an event later this afternoon. So earlier I leave the hotel to go grab something for lunch. I pull into this parking lot in my oversized SUV (oddly enough, my only rental option available at 2.30am). I park and then try to reposition the car and in doing so, I end up clipping the side mirror of the truck next to me.
Oh crap.
And even better, the guy whose car it was saw the whole thing and came out to greet me. Thankfully he was pretty cool about it and we were able to get it fixed pretty easily. It certainly could have been a lot worse.
Another element of the glamour of travel…
Posted by Grant on June 13, 2008 – 9:39 pm
I send out a monthly e-newsletter that has some updates of where I’m at, what I’m working on, and an article that hopefully is a little thought provoking! If you are interested in subscribing to that e-newsletter, you can do so by just entering your email address in the box at the top toolbar on this page.
I’ll be sending out a new e-newsletter early next week. Just a little FYI in case you’re interested…
Posted by Grant on June 11, 2008 – 10:26 am
Filed under Funny, Random
A few days a month I do some seminars for business professionals on time management and organization. But before I get too deep into the day I always enjoy going around the room and having people share a little bit about themselves and what they do. And I’ve heard of some interesting jobs, but this one today took the cake…
This guy worked with a local university in the medical school and his job was to order cadavers and specific body parts for students to work on! He works with various companies who sell this stuff and his job is to sort through pictures to determine which bodies and body parts they need.
Wow…
And you thought you had a strange job…
Posted by Grant on June 10, 2008 – 6:08 am
Filed under Random, Travels
I’m in McAllen, TX today and tomorrow speaking at a seminar. But one thing that I’m really excited about is that I’m staying at a Holiday Inn Express. Do you remember the infamous Holiday Inn Express video?
But this morning whenever I received my wakeup call, something happened that I wasn’t used to. Normally hotels have some type of recorded message wishing you a “cheerful and magnificent” day…or something like that.
But this morning, my wakeup call came from an actual live person.
It caught me off guard and thankfully I didn’t say anything stupid expecting it to be a recording. But it got me thinking…I would kind of like to go down to the front desk and interview that person because I bet they could tell some great stories of how people answer their phone. Naturally, people aren’t at their best when the wakeup call comes in so I’m sure they would have some pretty humorous stories to tell.
Posted by Grant on June 8, 2008 – 10:00 am
As a youth speaker, I regularly utilize the social networking tools, Facebook and MySpace as resources for staying connected with teenagers. When I originally started using these tools, I noticed that MySpace was the more popular of the two but it seems like lately that Facebook is taking a more commanding lead in popularity. Although I’m on both sites, here is why I prefer Facebook to MySpace:
- Less Clicks – Facebook seems much more user friendly to me than MySpace does. On Facebook, if you want to write on someone’s wall (equivalent of MySpace’s leaving a comment), it takes one click whereas it takes 3 clicks on MySpace. The same is true if you want to add a friend. You have to jump through a ridiculous number of hoops on MySpace that leaves you asking, “Do I really want to be friends with this person that bad?”
- Easier to Find People – A huge challenge with finding people on MySpace is that so many people use some type of screen name instead of their real name. On Facebook, you almost have to use your real name so if I’m trying to find you, it’s a little easier to find “Bob Smith” than “Sweet Sassy Big Daddy.”
- Integration with Other Tools – I like the fact that I can incorporate my Blog and my Twitter feed right into my Facebook page. So every time I update something on Twitter, it changes my status update on Facebook. I like that.
- Standardized – I know a lot of students like the ability to customize their MySpace pages but with most students, the more you customize, the tougher it is to find what I’m looking for on your page. You can still customize some stuff on Facebook but it is not an insane amount of stuff.
What’s your preference between MySpace and Facebook?
Posted by Grant on May 28, 2008 – 11:03 am
I mentioned yesterday that I’ve been spending a lot more time over at my mom’s house during the day while I’m finishing up my book. And I end up watching kids from the elementary school play at recess.
But apparently today is yearbook day because as the students came pouring out of the school for recess a few minutes ago, they were all carrying their yearbooks, scanning for pictures of themselves and getting their friends’ autographs.
Yearbook Day was always one of the best days of the school year. I always enjoyed having other people write in my yearbook and then seeing what they put. Some people write the traditional Yearbook lines…
“Math was dumb. So are you. Have a great summer. BFF.”
But then there were those who put a little more thought into what they wrote. Those were the ones you really wanted to get because they actually meant something.
Maybe just for fun, go back through some of your old yearbooks and see what people wrote to you. And while you’re there, ask yourself: “what was I thinking wearing that outfit and doing my hair like that for picture day?”
Posted by Grant on May 23, 2008 – 6:30 am
On my website, www.grantbaldwin.com, I use Google Analytics, which is a tracking tool to help me keep an eye on the traffic to the website. I’m always amazed at the various locations that people visit the site from. I just checked the year-to-date traffic and we have had visitors from 44 different countries around the world and all 50 states! Crazy!
So if you live in some exotic, incredible country and you need a speaker for something…anything…please let me know! And I’m sure my wife would be happy to accompany me as long as there is a beach nearby…
