And it is further true amongst all those who claim leadership by virtue of divine authority we may apply this test with authority - that the man who stands for humanity, first, last and all the time, against all vested interest, religious and economic, is the man who stands as Jesus stood.
Nashville, TN The Logia of Kurt is so very proud to announce that Ms. Nicole Thieneman, who will be Niki Maddox very soon, graduated from Vanderbilt University with a Masters of Public Policy degree with an emphasis in International Economic Development from Vanderbilt's Peabody College. The ceremony was held on the beautiful grounds of Vanderbilt University in Nashville this past Friday morning. Attending in loving support of Nicole were her mother, Cathy Thieneman and her new little sister, Adrianna,&nb sp;of Lousville, KY; her Bonus Son, Warren Maddox and her soon-to-be Mother-In-Law, Charlene Maddox of Centertown, KY; her soon-to-be Aunt-In-Law, Vale Rhea Maddox, of Beaver Dam, KY and the Browns -- Kent, Cindy & Misty -- Nicole's Aunt, Uncle & Cousin -- of Louisville, KY.
Gracie and I weren't able to make the trip, but, we are sooooo proud of Nicole's tremendous accomplishment! Nicole completed her MPP program with an overall GPA of 3.85 placing her near the top of her class. Also unable to attend due to a wedding in the family were two people very dear to Nicole whose support was instrumental in are being able to attend Vanderbilt and complete what is ranked the #1 program in the world for education policy. Those two loving supportive people are Nicole's Grandma Thieneman and Uncle Kenny Thieneman of Lousiville.
Word on the street is the Niki's 80 year old grandmother cleaned her clock in a heated game of Scabble last week!
Nicole is well on her way to making the difference in the world that has always been both her dream and her destiny. More importantly, the Logia of Kurt has it on good authority that the person is most proud of Nicole is her wonderful father, Joey, who passed from this life just as Nicole entered her undergraduate years at the University of Louisville. Her dad -- a college professor, writer, philosopher, builder, loving husband and incredible father -- must be the proudest man in Heaven right now!
As for the rest of us, we know of no one better down here on Earth than the daughter whose greatness he inspired and enabled!
Congratulations Nicole! I love you and I'm the luckiest man who ever lived to be marrying you in just a few weeks!
(P.S. Gracie loves you, too, and can't wait for you to get to Aliso Viejo next week!!)
Gracie gets emails each week from parents and their kids who have an interest in becoming an actor or in becoming the best actor they can be. Some dream of one day being in TV or in a film and others just want to do a great job in a local or school play. Fortunately for Gracie, she has one of the very best acting coaches for children in all of Hollywood, Marnie Cooper. Marnie has been instrumental in helping Gracie develop her acting capabilities and, best of all, she's just a fantastic mentor and friend.
Now, I know that not everyone's parents are willing to move to Los Angeles to work with Marnie one-on-one. That's a incredibly big move with more risks and sacrifice than I can share in this post. Here's the great news -- YOU DON'T NEED TO MOVE TO HOLLYWOOD TO GET ALL OF MARNIE'S GREAT COACHING BECAUSE YOU CAN NOW HAVE "MARNIE IN A BOOK"!
That's right! Marnie has created A Complete Course called "How Do I Act?" which we simply call "Marnie in a Book"!
Just like Gracie and so many other working kid actors in Hollywood, you can hire Marnie as your own personal acting coach today! Here's how...
Congratulations go out to Nicole who completed her Masters of Public Policy program at Vanderbilt University and is spending some time with her family in Louisville before making the big drive out west.
Wagon ho!
Niki's having a blast with her mom, Cathy, and the precious little girl that has been placed permanently with Nicole's mother. The little blessings name is Adrianna and Adrianna's had our hearts for many months now and we are thrilled that she will now be such a big part of our family. She's already calling Niki her "sister", which makes Nicole very happy. I guess this means I will soon have a 3 year old sister-in-law while Warren and Gracie have a 3 year old Aunt!
Adrianna
Warren and Gracie love Adrianna to death and we can't wait to spend time with her in June when we are in Kentucky for the wedding.
We love you Adrianna and we are so happy that will be around to keep us laughing for a long, long time!
Any long-time follower of this space knows that U2 has been the Soundtrack of my life since my Senior Year of High School. U2's ode to Martin Luther King, Jr. titled "Pride in the Name of Love" was the very first U2 song I ever heard. I can still remember hearing it for that first time. I was standing in my bedroom in Beaver Dam, Kentucky getting ready for school and listening to 96 WSTO, which was broadcast from the nearest large town, Owensboro, Kentucky. The DJ was evidently a big U2 fan and the sound I heard that morning coming from the radio was unlike any other band I'd ever heard and strikingly different from the Def Leopard, Journey and REO Speedwagon that had dominated the music of my high school experience.
U2 recently covered John Lennon singing "instant karma's gonna get you" and that's exactly what happened to me that morning -- I was hooked instantly and for good! U2 has been my favorite ever since and until their Joshua Tree album, I pretty much had them all to myself there in rural Kentucky.
Well, I was visiting U2.com today and they've posted a stirring and touching rendition of "Pride" which was recorded by the incredibly talented John Legend as a stripped-down piano version for a 2 hour TV special devoted to the life of MLK. Take a listen below, enjoy and then watch the special Saturday at 4 PM EST on the History Channel:
If you can't fly, run. If you can't run, walk. If you can't walk, crawl. But by all means, keep movin! ~MLK
I discovered tBlog like a lot of folks do -- by doing a Google search for Free Blogging sites. That was over 4 years ago and "blogs" were the hottest Internet thing going at the time. Google had yet to monetize everything that clicked on the Net. MySpace was worth about as much as my first car and Facebook's founder was still looking for a date to his Junior prom. I'd recently moved back to my hometown in the hope of re-centering my life around my most deeply held values. I was living in a town of 400 people in rural Kentucky. Needless to say, my social life suffered comensurately, which was exactly my plan. So, I had a bit of time on my hands that I hadn't had in many years. I also I had some things inside of me that needed to be expressed and a few ideas that I wanted to share with someone other than the usual suspects in my life.
I checked out all the popular blogging sites of that time. It seems like Type Pad and Blogger and Blog Spot were the 3 other blogs other than tBlog that I gave a spin. Posting to all the other blogs was a bit like screaming at the top of your lungs in deep outer space because there was no one there to hear your scream. tBlog was different. tBlog was simple -- sort of like my little hometown. My tBlog was very easy to set-up and to begin posting. I spent some time lurking on tBlurt and eventually began to interact with other tBloggers. I visited their sites and left comments so that I could accumulate tBucks. Others visited my site and left their comments for me. I checked out the Hot Blogs and thought about how cool it would be to become one of the top bloggers on a blogging site.
Although I was just looking for a blog site, what I found was the most unique on-line community that I'd ever joined -- and being the Internet junkie I am -- I'd joined them all. I can still remember late nights in Compuserve forums using a 14K modem. Here at tBlog I became a very active blogger, reader of other blogs and frequent commenter to other blogs. Loving nothing more than a vigorous and spirited debate, I quickly became a bit infamous for my special brand of bloviating in the comments section of other other tBloggers. I believe I can easily claim the title of longest commenter on tBlog without risking a protest! To this very day, what I love so much about tBlog is that even after 4 years of being a member of the tBlog community, I still find tBlog just as oddly authentic... just as refreshingly anti-cool... just as REAL as tBlog was for me those first few weeks of blogging. I truly consider my tBlog friends to be real friends in every sense of the word. Those of you who have been reading my blogs over the past few years likely know more about me than the people I spend time with in the carbon based world. You've been with me through several big changes and you've watched my kids grow up. You were there when I met a very special woman almost 3 years ago to the day that will become my wife next month. You were there when my son, Warren, came to live with me. You were there when I was re-grouping in Centertown, Kentucky and you were there when I packed up the SUV to move to Orange County, California. You were there when my kids got roles in local plays and you stayed with me all the way through to Gracie's recent appearance on the hit sitcom "Two and Half Men".
You were there because tBlog provided a tool for me to share my life, my thoughts and my hopes with you and you were there because tBlog evolved to become best blogging community on the web for regular ol' folks like us all over the world. You were there because I chose to write all down on tBlog and because you were kind enough to read and leave a comment.
Who would have thought that real human community that truly enriches one's life could be achieved by such a simple equation? Here's the equation: 1) Be willing to share your thoughts by writing them down and posting them to your tBlog. 2) Read the blogs of others and be willing to leave a thoughtful comment. 3) When others leave comments, thank them for their input and return the favor.
Only Snoopy May Know What the "t" Stands For
Now, noboby knows exactly what the "t" in tBlog officially stands for -- I think it my stand for "touch", because being a member of the tBlog community has certainly touched my life. Then again, it might stand for "thought", since tBlog is a place where so many of us get to share our thoughts and have our thoughts heard.
The "t" could also stand for "Trademark& quot; because for me there's just nothing like tBlog.
Sure, I've got an outpost on Facebook and I'm a good networker on LinkedIn and Plaxo. But if you cut out my heart, you'd find it branded with that little "t" and that's why despite whatever new trends may come and go in the land of 3 W's -- it'll always be tBlog for me!
Before you start tMailing me about every technical problem or bug that tBlog's ever had, please know that I've struggled through the same membership pains that you have. In many ways, those growing pains have made this community real in the same way the Old Skin Horse in the Children's story The Velveteen Rabbit says we all become real -- by going through a shared experience together. Hey, maybe that's what the "t" in tBlog stands for -- togetherness. My final suggestion for what that little "t" might represent is "Thankfullness" because I couldn't be more thankful for tBlog or for tBlog's great members.
Here's to a bright future for tBlog! If you are new here, you'll want to stick around long enough to find out what makes tBlog so special. If you've been here in Nanna's nursery a very long time like the Old Skin Horse, then don't go anywhere because tBlog could be ready to really hit its stride and you won't want to miss the ride.
If you get a chance, let me know what you love best about tBlog and about being a member of the tBlog Global Neighborhood...
This blog is the creation of Kurt Maddox, an Internet Entrepreneur, Consul tant, Motivational Speaker and Success Coach living in Orange County, California. Kurt welcomes you to contact him anytime by sending an email to kurt@kurtmaddox.com or by phone at 1-800-274-8151!
In Memory of Mr. & Mrs. Lowry ( Pup Pup & Mum Mum) Warren & Gracie's Maternal Great-Grandparents
My son, Warren, has been living with my parents in Kentucky this semester because he decided he wanted to go back to his old school, which he'd been attending for the past year and half before I moved to California. In Kentucky, we lived right next door to my parents on a shared piece of property in a little rural town called Centertown, Kentucky. Centertown's entire population of 400 or so folks is about 1/4 the population of our apartment complex in Aliso Viejo, California! Warren enjoys a terrific relationship with my parents, whom he calls "Nanny" & "Paw Paw", so we all decided that if this was what Warren wanted that we'd give the arrangement a trial. After all, lots of boys Warren's age go off to boarding school and the like.
I'm happy to report that it appears Nanny & Paw Paw's Boarding School is a pretty solid place for 14 year old boys to make the transition from adolescent to young man. Warren continues to be extremely happy and to develop into about as fine a young man as I've known in the environment of his choosing. We haven't decided about next fall yet and right now we're just looking forward to the wedding and then a great summer with Warren hopefully spending most the summer with Nicole and I in Orange County.
Warren has earned the right to be self-directed so long as his decisions are workable and the results are positive. So far, knock on his father's wooden head, so good!
He's such a simple, loving and responsible kid and he prefers his life to be predictable, stable and of a matching simple elegance. His time with Nanny & Paw Paw in the country provides Warren with an idyllic daily existence for his tastes. In fact, I've taken to calling him "Country" after his maternal great-grandfather who went by "Country&quo t; most all his life and was the only name I knew him by before his death early into my marriage to Warren's mother.
We'll call them Big Country and Lil' Country to keep them straight!
Big Country was old-school tough and plenty awnry. He played football at Alabama for a year back when there were no pads and the helmets were just a thin layer of leather to keep your brains from falling out when you rammed your head into other players. Later, he worked in steel mills and was said to have been strong as an ox and just as bull-headed when it came to doing things Big Country's way. He married a gorgeous woman who was still as beautiful and fiesty when I met her and she was nearly 80 years of age at the time! Their beautiful daughter Madelyn is the maternal grandmother that Warren and Grace, unfortunately, were never able to meet. Madelyn was once an aspiring model and actress herself before she got into the birthing babies business and later to moved to Louisville, Kentucky when her husband got a great new job as a Corporate Attorney at General Electric's Appliance Park. GE at one time employed over 12,000 folks in Louisville's Appliance Park, but, now employs only a couple of thousand there on a sprawling campus that is eerily empty and inactive compared to its hay-day.
Warren clearly has a strong genetic connection to Mr. Lowry, including his big head! Big Country's big head was legendary. One of the funniest stories I heard him tell was that when he was a young man and wearing a hat was very much in vogue, his friends would entertain themselves in the city by taking Country into hat stores to watch the flustered attendant attempt to fit Country for a hat. Hat stores apparently didn't stock hats big enough for Big Country's substantial cranium. Country would say "Why don't I try this one" or "that one" and then would model the ill fitting lid for his friends while asking, "How does this one look?"
Each hat, of course, would look completely ridiculou s sitting atop his noggin like a thimble on a baseball!
I can't remember exactly, but, it seems to me that this may be how Big Country met his wife. I'll have to get the details straight, however, before going any further in that direction with this story.
It is really too bad that Big Country never got to meet Lil' Country because they'd have certainly taken to each other very quickly. One things for sure, you don't want to take either one of 'em hat shopping unless you're just in it for a laugh!
I got a text message from Nicole at 3 AM Pacific Time that her mom had just called to report experiencing a 5.4 scale earthquake in Louisville, Kentucky that awoke her from a dead sleep with the sensation of riding a tectonic plate a few centimeters this way and then that. I also had a series of emails from my sister, Melody, who lives in Louisville as well. I spoke with my mom a bit later in the morning and she said that it woke her up in Centerown, Kentucky as well, but, that she went back to sleep without knowing what it was that woke her from her sleep. Warren, of course, slept through the whole thing! lol!
The quake was centered just north of Evansville, Indiana about a couple of hours west of Louisville and a couple of hours north of Centertown.
The funny thing is that everyone from back home always brings up the danger of earthquakes when they learn I've moved to America's earthquake central, Southern California. I always take that opportunity to remind them that they live on one of North America's most dangerous fault lines, the New Madrid fault. The New Madrid fault's last major activity was in 1811 - 1812. Legend has it that the Mississippi River's flow went back-wards for 10 to 24 hours after the quake and that a similar quake today would be catastrophic due in the amount of damage it would likely bring to the area.
So, maybe a few more hillbillies like me might want to consider a move to the West Coast where at least we don't have tornadoes! lol!
With a great big debt of GRATITUDE to a new friend, I figured out how to make a wonderful little collection of Wallace Wattle's wisdom available from my websites. If you believe you can never learn too much about success and happiness, you'll want to click below and download this very special collection of e-books and articles that make up the "Lost Writings" collection. The "Lost Writings" includes Wattle's most popular work, "The Science of Getting Rich" along with and several very hard to find Wallace Wattle's articles.
I purchased this collection last week and the process is extremely easy and no hassle. I was reading Wally's very best works as PDF files right on my computer and could print out any pages I wanted within a couple of minutes.
The collection is an amazing 3 Books & 17 difficult to find articles on just about every subject important to the student of the good life. For you theologically minded folks, Wattle's "New Christ" and several of his faith related articles are thought provoking to say the least.
Here's the link to purchase and download "A Powerful Life: The Lost Writings of Wallace D. Wattles", which includes "The Science of Getting Rich":
I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed my own study of Wallace Wattle's work. I've been implementing many of his best ideas into my own life with some great results!
This blog post is the creation of Kurt Maddox, an Internet Entrepreneur, Consul tant, Motivational Speaker and Success Coach living in Orange County, California. Kurt welcomes you to contact him anytime by sending an email to kurt@kurtmaddox.com or by phone at 1-800-274-8151!
Nashville, TN The Logia of Kurt is so very proud to announce that Ms. Nicole Thieneman, who will be Niki Maddox very soon, graduated from Vanderbilt University with a Masters of Public Policy degree with an emphasis in International Economic Development from Vanderbilt's Peabody College. The ceremony was held on the beautiful grounds of Vanderbilt University in Nashville this past Friday morning. Attending in loving support of Nicole were her mother, Cathy Thieneman and her new little sister, Adrianna,&nb sp;of Lousville, KY; her Bonus Son, Warren Maddox and her soon-to-be Mother-In-Law, Charlene Maddox of Centertown, KY; her soon-to-be Aunt-In-Law, Vale Rhea Maddox, of Beaver Dam, KY and the Browns -- Kent, Cindy & Misty -- Nicole's Aunt, Uncle & Cousin -- of Louisville, KY.
Congratulations go out to Nicole who completed her Masters of Public Policy program at Vanderbilt University and is spending some time with her family in Louisville before making the big drive out west.
uspects in my life.
s we all become real -- by going through a shared experience together. Hey, maybe that's what the "t" in tBlog stands for -- togetherness. My final suggestion for what that little "t" might represent is "Thankfullness" because I couldn't be more thankful for tBlog or for tBlog's great members.
My son, Warren, has been living with my parents in Kentucky this semester because he decided he wanted to go back to his old school, which he'd been attending for the past year and half before I moved to California. In Kentucky, we lived right next door to my parents on a shared piece of property in a little rural town called Centertown, Kentucky. Centertown's entire population of 400 or so folks is about 1/4 the population of our apartment complex in Aliso Viejo, California! Warren enjoys a terrific relationship with my parents, whom he calls "Nanny" & "Paw Paw", so we all decided that if this was what Warren wanted that we'd give the arrangement a trial. After all, lots of boys Warren's age go off to boarding school and the like.
I got a text message from Nicole at 3 AM Pacific Time that her mom had just called to report experiencing a 5.4 scale earthquake in Louisville, Kentucky that awoke her from a dead sleep with the sensation of riding a tectonic plate a few centimeters this way and then that. I also had a series of emails from my sister, Melody, who lives in Louisville as well. I spoke with my mom a bit later in the morning and she said that it woke her up in Centerown, Kentucky as well, but, that she went back to sleep without knowing what it was that woke her from her sleep. Warren, of course, slept through the whole thing! lol!
With a great big debt of GRATITUDE to a new friend, I figured out how to make a wonderful little collection of Wallace Wattle's wisdom available from my websites. If you believe you can never learn too much about success and happiness, you'll want to click below and download this very special collection of e-books and articles that make up the "Lost Writings" collection. The "Lost Writings" includes Wattle's most popular work, "The Science of Getting Rich" along with and several very hard to find Wallace Wattle's articles.