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.
"What's wrong the car?" Nicole asked as our little Ford Escape hopped up and down at a stop light along Aliso Creek Road in Aliso Viejo, California just about an hour ago. "I don't know!", I said while throwing the car into neutral thinking my engine was about the rock itself off the engine blocks. "It feels like we're on a bridge that's moving, but, we're NOT on a bridge." Fast forward 5 minutes as we walk in the apartment door to Gracie jumping up and down and saying, "We had an earthquate! We had an earthquake! Did you feel it?" Oh, now it all makes sense! lol! Orange County had just experienced a 5.6 earthquake centered in Chino Hills just east of Los Angeles and just north of Orange County. Although I didn't know what it was at the time, the earth literally was just bouncing up and down and up and down for about 20 seconds. I understand those in high-rise building were given quite an exciting ride! There isn't much widespread damage although I'm sure there's going to be more reports of minor damage and major damage closer to the epicenter of the quake. This is my 3rd earthquake of my lifetime and my 2nd since moving out to California. Each one feels different and they all give you a bit of a feeling of vulnerability as well as a renewed appreciation for the fragility to life on planet earth.
I just found this video of Warren "slam dancing" that he has posted on his MySpace page. It's pretty funny so I thought I'd share it here as well. You can barely make out Warren due to the dark lighting, but, that almost adds something to the video. The videographer is Warren's cousin, Madelyn, who is named after Warren's maternal grandmother and was the first of the grandchildren born on his mom's side of the family. I remember very well when "Maddie" was born and then babysitting her regularly when I was in my 20's. I can hardly accept that Maddy is 18 now, geesh! Anyhoo, here's the video... enjoy!
I was pretty jazzed to check out the new search engine from former Google engineers called "Cuil" (pronounced like cool) promising to "index the Internet and not the people who use it". "Yeah," I thought. "That would be cool!"
Alas, when I went to check it out just now, the servers are down from too much success. I'm sure the Goggleers are all laughing in their offices or did they maybe have something to do with generating some sort of traffic tsunami to clog the arteries of their new rival? After all, after capitulating to the Chinese Dictatorship, does anyone really believe Google's old "Don't Be Evil" slogan? (Anyone heard Google promoting that slogan lately?)
No worries, Google, I ain't mad atcha, but, I will give Cuil a go once they've added enough capacity to serve the rush away from the Google/Microsoft/Yahoo privacy invasion machines.
Google has been the great story of "Creative Destruction" and "dis-intermediation& quot; for the past decade. Google, however, is now the giant they were invented to slay. Something tells me that although the magic at Google is probably a long way from over, the day has likely come for tomorrow's Google to start the cycle of fear and loathing at Google that Microsoft has felt since Sergey and Larry figured out their proverbial Achilles heel.
Can Cuil threaten Google's current Internet hegemony? Or maybe Twitter or Facebook? I don't know who it will be, but, one thing's for sure -- somewhere there's a couple of overconfident, hyper-educated, well-funded post-teens figuring something out that no one else has been able to figure out and the world's next Internet Billionaires will be born.
Anyhoo, I'm still pumped to check out Cuil just to see if they're as Cuil as they think they are!
Update: Cuil was back up and running when I published this post and it was, in fact, pretty cool!
Update 2: Oops! The page is back up but still couldn't do a search due to "server load". I'm trying so hard to be Cuil!
"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."
~Leo Buscaglia
Whatever it is that you believe you need to do today to touch those in your world in some special way, don't put it off -- just do it, today!
After all, you might just make the difference...
Please watch this very short video clip (under 2 minutes) from Leo Buscaglia about making a difference in our human relationships:
You have probably already seen this video that's a huge YouTube hit about the lion cub raised by a couple of Australians living in London in the early-to-mid 1970's, but, if you haven't, it is one of the most touching stories I've ever seen. The story is that these two guys were living in London after finishing University in Australia where they found a lion cub for sale at Harrod's Department Store. After raising the cub for over a year, they were able to make arrangements to have their lion re-introduced to the wild in Africa. Their lion, which they gave the name "Christian", quickly adapted and developed his own successful pride of lions. Most thought it would now be impossible for the lion to recognize his human "parents", but, these chaps refused to accept that answer and set out to find Christian a year later. The video is of their remarkable reunion. Enjoy, but, keep a tissue handy!
The Maddox Family Leadership Council (MaFaLeCo) today decreed that beginning immediately, each individual Maddox has been placed on a 90 Day Plan for Improved Fitness & Wellness. The vote of the council broke down along what has become a pattern vote with 3 votes in favor (Niki, Warren & Gracie) and 1 against (Kurt a.k.a. "SPOD" or "Sorry Piece of Dad").
The MLP Leader during happier times
So, the Maddox Orange County Compound (The MOC Pound) is being converted to a Fat-Free/Taste-Free/Fun-F ree zone as you read this post. Daily exercise is now mandatory to become eligible for participation in the Maddox Daily Meal Plan (Mad Meals). Daily Chores have also been assigned and a strict program of accountability put in place to manage any non-compliant Maddox.
In an emergency measure of draconian proportions, the former leader of the MLP (Maddox Liberation Party), Kurt Maddox, has been placed under house arrest where his Internet access has been restricted to work-related activities only.
Donations to the Liberate Kurt Fund are being accepted at www.kurtmaddox.com !
My son, Warren, turns 15 tomorrow so "Happy Birthday" little buddy! Warren's having fun with his mom in Kentucky this week and I'm sure will have a great day. As a double bonus, Warren also gets his braces off tomorrow! As you can imagine, he's VERY excited about the transition to a brace-less lifestyle.
Warren & Gracie goofing off at "Aunt Bette's" in Cox's Creek, Kentucky
My blog continues to be accessed multiple times each day by people all over America who loved Penrod, our dear friend whom we all miss so very much. My spiritual practice for this beautiful Sunday morning in Southern California was to create a Memorial Blog/Web Badge to share with anyone who would like to have it.
Click here to read my original tribute to Penrod that I posted right after his death.
Penrod's jersey number at Central City High School was the #40. I've found some comfort in my grieving from a couple of other "40s" that have long held a great deal of meaning for me. My favorite band has long been U2 and they have a simple song which sets the Bible verse Psalms 40 to music with Bono putting his always stirring vocals to work to channel the original Psalmist. The eponymous song is likewise titled "40". You can download or listen to U2's "40" from most any of your favorite music download sites.
Here are the words to the song, which are the approximate words to the Psalm:
I waited patiently for the Lord, He inclined and heard my cry He lifted me up out of the mud Out of the miry clay
I will sing Sing a new song I will sing Sing a new song How long to sing this song?
The theme of Psalm 40 is the hope the Psalmist finds in the merciful nature of the Lord tempered by the angst of the suffering we all experience in our lives. Meditating on these things comforts my sorrow and helps me celebrate something associated with Penrod -- the #40.
If you'd like me to email the graphic to you, send me an email at kurtmaddox@gmail.com and I'll send it to you to use for your own purposes. Here's the live version of U2 performing 40 at Red Rocks:
After putting my vanity domain in mothballs for awhile, I've resurrected www.kurtmaddox.com complete with new templates from GoDaddy.com 's SaaS tool called WebSite Tonight. Pretty easy tool to use and I've used it for all my little hobby sites for a few years now.
~Ayna Grace Maddox (13), said with devilish grin, upon being instructed, in jest, to go somewhere and do something to annoy someone else at about 11 PM July 17, 2008 :-)
I admire Apple. Apple consistently delivers great products and the right price points under the guidance of one of the world's great business leaders, Steve Jobs. I love Apple computers, but, I still use Windows PCs at home and at work. I love the I-Pod. My family recently became a 4 I-Pod family including the little clip style I-Pod that I washed twice in the laundry because it is so small and light that forget to take it off my shirts before washing them. The I-Phone is uber-cool, too. If I were purchasing a phone for entertainment and personal use, I'd have to give the I-Phone a serious look.
I'm a full-on Enterprise 2.0 Entrepreneur, however, and there's no way I'm giving up what my Blackberry Curve provides anytime this product cycle. My trusty RIM device provides stable operation, high-quality construction, easy-to-use interface and exactly the right set of personal productivity software & services to help me navigate busy days jumping from plane, to car, to office, to Starbuck's, to client sites, to evening meetings, to breakfast meeting with colleagues, to lunch with prospects, to dinner with clients, to Hollywood with Gracie, to the skate park with Warren and then to maybe, once a week or so, to the hot tub to catch up with my new bride and relax long enough to remember why we bother with all the rest!
The Blackberry WORKS! Sure, I can do plenty of playing around with the Blackberry -- and I waste my share of time on ESPN and Google News -- but, it's extraordinary value to me is the Blackberry's near perfect balance of design, stability and common sense utility. I call my Blackberry my "CPDA" for Canadian Personal Digital Assistance. The Canadians themselves represent a less-nonsense way of life and my Blackberry moors me to a sensicalness that is way easy to lose living and working in Orange County with Disneyland 30 minutes away and the fantasies of Hollywood just an hour down the road. The I-Phone may be Angelina Jolie of Smart Phones, but, the Blackberry Curve evokes the more serious beauty, Scarlett Johanssen. No matter how good Angelina looks or how many good works she does to save us from ourselves, somehow, I just feel more comfortable knowing Scarlett's going to be there for me when I need to send a critical text message to valued new client that I'm going to be 5 minutes late to a meeting because OJ's got traffic backed up for 15 miles on I-5.
If I'm already Bradd Pitt, then maybe the I-Phone's the way to go? Although he and I are both members of the Sigma Chi Fraternity (In Hoc, Brother Pitt!), the last time the paparazzi followed me is because they thought I was an incognito Michael Madsen coming out of Warner Brothers studios with Gracie. (Reminder: Rent "Reservior Dogs" this weekend!)
So, enjoy the I-Phone all you jet-setters out there, but, us working stiffs will stick with our loyal friend the Blackberry! Oh, and Brad -- don't even think about asking me to borrow my Blackberry to call Mrs. Mother Theresa Pitt when your I-Phone browser hangs and you can't make a call because I'm busy texting a serious message to Ms. No Non-sense Johanssen. I can type an entire synopis of your beloved "Atlas Shrugged" in the time it'll take you to find the backspace icon on your fancy little touch screen.
Apple, your a treat for some, no doubt, but, you've still a got a ways to go before you're as sweet as my Scarlett... er, Blackberry!
"There is no value judgment more important to man-no factor more decisive in his psychological development and motivation-than the estimate he passes on himself."
~Nathaniel Branden
"Money is congealed energy, and releasing it releases life’s possibilities."
~Joseph Campbell
"Money represents a relationship we have with our world. At the personal level, our relationship with money tells us a story about ourselves. At the social level, money tells us a story about each other. At the spiritual level, money tells us a story about possibility."
ANNANDALE, Va. (MarketWatch) -- Here is today's investment pop quiz: Does the stock market perform better during Democratic or Republican presidencies?
The answers provided by almost everyone of whom I ask this question are almost unanimous: The stock market does better under Republican presidents.
They're wrong.
Consider the data compiled by Ned Davis Research, an institutional research firm. In a communication to his clients Thursday morning, Davis reported that the Dow Jones Industrial Average produced an annualized return of 7.21% during Democratic presidents, in contrast to an average of 3.6% during Republican presidents -- or almost precisely half as much, in other words.
Back in the day, one of my favorite songs from the rock band KISS was called "Great Expectations". Now that my call for the DJIA to move below 11,000, as it did briefly today, before the end of year has proved correct, I'm wondering along with everyone else who follows America's daily economic soap opera where the market is headed for the rest of the year. Unlike George Castanza in that episode of Seinfeld where he learns to leave on a high note, I'm going to belly right back up to the bar and order another round of reduced expectations by calling for the DJIA to continue to trend lower for the rest of the year with no relief in sight until Phil Gramm's whiner's recession finds its footing. The market mechanics are there for the classic round of markets rising on the back of bad economic news, but, the bad news rally in expectation of lower fed rates can't take hold with inflation fears running rampant and energy costs gouging consumers into a protracted spending funk. Of course, if Fannie Mae and/or Freddie Mac go the way of IndyMac, all bets are off and I'll be packing the truck to head back to Centertown to learn how to live off the land.
Never fear, however, because by next fall, I predict all the Republican fear-mongering about a possible Obama Presidency will prove as ill-advised as a typical Bush Administration policy because the Obama Rally will be in full swing as we leave the whiner's recession and we enter the winner's redemption rally behind broad sector strength reflecting the euphoric mood of all the Americans that Wall Street sometimes forgets really form the base of our economy. You simply can't grow an economy when a majority of working class members of an economy move backward economically and effectively keep earning less and less each year.
Keynes wasn't right about everything, but, he wasn't wrong about everything either and those calling for a massive infusion of government spending inside our own economy -- instead of inside Iraq and Afghanistan's economies -- will be the right medicine for both a return to real economic growth in the U.S.A. and to bottom-up fueled increases in the value of public companies traded on the global markets.
Unfortunately, I believe things could still get much worse before they get better. In fairness, a McCain Presidency would enjoy some of the same dynamics and I believe we'd still see a cyclical return to growth and increasing stock values -- albeit on an order of magnitude smaller scale. President McCain just won't motivate the mass of our middle class to tone down all their fear and loathing of America's financial class long enough to put some of that energy to work signing the loan papers on a new pick-up at Ford, a new set of tools at Sears or to build a new garage out back. Ironically, this time a big tax break for the middle class paid for in part by a marginal tax increase on higher income American's could just be the medicine needed to keep more American's in those higher tax brackets.
I'm all for America implementing truly free market solutions to our most vexing economic problems, there just aren't any candidates or political parties with a shot at running the country who have any interest in the truly free market. So, I'll back Barack Keynes over Woodrow McCain this time around so we can work on getting well once our collective Bubba feels a little better about things :-)
July is birthday month for the Maddox clan. Here's the breakdown:
Gracie - July 11th (13) Warren - July 23rd (15) Charlene (Mom) - July 27th (62)
Warren, Dad & Gracie 6/20/08
Happy Birthday to each of you and know that I'll be celebrating with you in my heart if not in person!
My 42nd birthday follows closely behind on August 2nd :-)
Happy Birthday to each of you and know that I'll be celebrating with you in my heart if not in person!My 42nd birthday follows closely behind on August 2nd -- cash and money orders accepted ;-)
Also, a big congrats to Warren for his 1st Place showing at last weekend's Wakeboarding Tournament in Kentucky! Way to go, Country!
I admire Apple. Apple consistently delivers great products and the right price points under the guidance of one of the world's great business leaders, Steve Jobs. I love Apple computers, but, I still use Windows PCs at home and at work. I love the I-Pod. My family recently became a 4 I-Pod family including the little clip style I-Pod that I washed twice in the laundry because it is so small and light that forget to take it off my shirts before washing them. The I-Phone is uber-cool, too. If I were purchasing a phone for entertainment and personal use, I'd have to give the I-Phone a serious look.
The Blackberry WORKS! Sure, I can do plenty of playing around with the Blackberry -- and I waste my share of time on ESPN and Google News -- but, it's extraordinary value to me is the Blackberry's near perfect balance of design, stability and common sense utility. I call my Blackberry my "CPDA" for Canadian Personal Digital Assistance. The Canadians themselves represent a less-nonsense way of life and my Blackberry moors me to a sensicalness that is way easy to lose living and working in Orange County with Disneyland 30 minutes away and the fantasies of Hollywood just an hour down the road. The I-Phone may be Angelina Jolie of Smart Phones, but, the Blackberry Curve evokes the more serious beauty, Scarlett Johanssen. No matter how good Angelina looks or how many good works she does to save us from ourselves, somehow, I just feel more comfortable knowing Scarlett's going to be there for me when I need to send a critical text message to valued new client that I'm going to be 5 minutes late to a meeting because OJ's got traffic backed up for 15 miles on I-5.
If I'm already Bradd Pitt, then maybe the I-Phone's the way to go? Although he and I are both members of the Sigma Chi Fraternity (In Hoc, Brother Pitt!), the last time the paparazzi followed me is because they thought I was an incognito Michael Madsen coming out of Warner Brothers studios with Gracie. (Reminder: Rent "Reservior Dogs" this weekend!)
