More Curious Than Worried

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men Often Go Awry

But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men,
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

Excerpt from Robert Burns’ poem To A Mouse.

I find that I’m comforted most by writings that are heavily influenced by Celtic culture, because from them we get to have such impossible writings like the stories of death that make you laugh and stories of life that make you cry; the sad limerick; the fall-down-funny eulogy.

I had it all planned out! Blue Spruce Inventory was going to start business in September to coincide with National Preparedness Month. I was going to set up a booth at the Summerset Festival to educate patrons about being prepared and to advertise my business. By October I would have a small stream of customers while encouraging people to get involved in individual and community preparedness.

Unfortunately, this is not the way things have turned out. I broke my leg in 3 places during a hockey game in July. I’ll be on crutches until late October or early November. I thought I’d still be able to start my business in September, but reality has set in. There is no way I can perform an efficient and accurate home inventory until I’m off crutches.

Blue Spruce Inventory will not be selling any inventory services until November… and I’m not happy about that.

On the other hand I started this business for 2 reasons.

1. Sell inventory services to home owners, renters and small businesses
2. Educate the general public on how to be prepared for any disaster.

I can still help educate people on emergency preparedness. I encourage you to do your own inventories! Make use of the media inventory software that I offer and catalog your own collections. I also encourage you to stay in touch with Blue Spruce Inventory whether it be on Blue Spruce Inventory’s blog, through Twitter or on Facebook. I may not be able to sell any services yet, but I will still be sharing emergency preparedness news, events and tips.

My Company’s Social Media Schematic

I have officially started my business! I’m very excited! I’ve been working on setting up my social media marketing. There are may different tools that make using social media easier. A good social media marketing plan starts with the proper use of the tools you need to interact with customers, vendors and the media.

In my excitement, I’ve weaved a web of social media tools with information getting pushed, pulled and displayed in all different ways. I think I have things set up the way I want, so I thought I’d share how my web works:

Pretty, huh? Let’s see if we can make sense of it. We’re going to start in the middle with the company website.

1. The website has a blog as part of the site.
2. Whenever I publish a post for a blog, the post is automatically pushed to Twitter with Twitterfeed and pushed to my company’s Facebook Page with Wordbooker.
3. Since I spend more time playing with Twitter, I use Smart Twitter for Facebook Pages to push my native tweets to the Facebook Page as status updates.
4. The website has Twitter and Facebook widgets in the footer that display my updates.
5. I use the Yoono add-on for Firefox to monitor Twitter.
6. I have the Twitter and Facebook apps on my cool, new phone to keep up with things while I’m on the go.

What tools do you use to stay up to date with your social media?

Please check out my company online!

Blue Spruce Inventory
Home Inventory and Preparedness Services

• http://www.bluespruceinventory.com
• Like Blue Spruce Inventory on Facebook
• Follow Blue Spruce Inventory on Twitter

‘Pearls Before Swine’ Gets It Right

“I just spent 2 hours in front of my computer, but I didn’t get anything done! WHY?”
….

Now you know!

My 2 Cents on a Pair of Dimes

Sounds like some sort of weird bet, doesn’t it? I’m actually talking about paradigms; points of view; ways to see the world.

Ever have it where you’re trying to explain your view to some one and they just don’t seem to see it? When that happens to me, 3 questions keep circling through my mind:

• Is there something wrong with how I’m explaining my position? Can I explain it better?
• Is my point of view wrong? Maybe I don’t understand things as well as I think I do.
• Is the other person just unwilling to even try to see things my way? I’m not expecting them to agree with me, I’d even be happy with a “I can see how you’d see things your way, but you’re wrong because….”

Obvious misunderstandings bother me. Communication is impossible when you can’t understand the other person’s position.

Lady, You Lie Worse Than My 6 Year Old

It’s been a while since I posted a fun 9-1-1 call. Tonight I got one though that made me laugh.

A guy calls 9-1-1 from his cell phone because his girlfriend hit him and was pulling on his already broken arm. I get his address. I get the girls name, her description and generally what happened. During the call, they start to argue and shout and the phone disconnects.

About 15 seconds later, I get another 9-1-1 call from the same cell phone. This time it’s the girlfriend. The conversation goes something like this…

Me: 9-1-1. This is Scott.
Girl: This is (girlfriend) at (address). The call you just got about the domestic is a prank call.
Me: Ok. What is your boyfriend’s name?
Girl: I don’t have a boyfriend.
Me: Ok then, who is the guy with the broken arm who just called me?
Girl: I don’t know anyone…uh…I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Me: Well then, who’s phone are you using?
Girl: …… *click*

I call the number back and talk to the guy. After hanging up the phone she booked it out the door. Stupid lady.