Centennial Celebration

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This here post is my 100th since moving the site to Blogger.com, barely 14 months ago, and we've come a long way, baby! A lot has changed, in front of the scenes and behind them. To celebrate this, and our next 100, and because I've gotten several questions about this lately, I'm going to tell you a little about the story behind the story.

In 1995, I joined the Navy. It was great for a while, but things slowly got out of hand, and it was starting to get hard to maintain a sense of humor about everything. Finally in 2000, the powers that be finally had enough sense to put me in the computer repair department, which was where I was supposed to have been put in the first place. By then, though, I was pretty sick of everything - I wasn't nearly the positive person back then as I am now and didn't fully appreciate all the good stuff I had going for me - and needed to blow off a little steam. What better idea than to register a really cool domain name?

So I cranked up the internet, which was still pretty new back then, and found register.com. There was only one name I wanted to register. It was a name that was cool, that I'd been using for some time on the internet elsewhere. So I tried to register theds.com.

Unfortunately, it was already taken.

You are What you Consume

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Over on Arstechica, where I used to hang out quite a bit, they have an article about how the California Supreme Court was hearing  Oral arguments in violent game case focus on nature of violence. (Okay, yucky English skills; I blame them for making the headline so poorly.) The thing is, states keep trying to single out video games as the root of all evil and that they must be legislated against. This is California's laughable attempt. Why laughable?

The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother

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I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of all the crap involved in flying somewhere, and I don't even fly! The long waits, the unnecessarily invasive body searches and scans (which are getting leaked), the reliance on shaky technologies and people who don't follow procedures... it's enough to keep my feet on the ground.

Enter Israel.

Israel is a tiny country that you'd think would take about 5 minutes to drive through, much less invade. Surrounded by enemies who cravenly and hypocritically send their followers to suicide, you'd think it would be impossible for Israel's airports to do business at all. And yet, they're the very model of efficiency, with an extremely effective, non-invasive security.

Read this to find out why. Then push your lame-ass Congresscritter to put aside his bribes from the people who are co-opting him or her into ruining this country and SERVE his constituents for a few minutes. Saving the airline industry by using common sense security procedures is a much more effective and much cheaper way to create new jobs.

Can't Hardly Stop

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Man, I've just been so freakin' busy lately! I'm now in about 15 different groups on a regular basis (at least once a month), ranging from being a better writer to starting up your own business to improving your love life to regular exercise and healthiness to social outing groups. I spend a lot of time studying up on these topics, and I've been working on a book or two about them, plus writing out instructionals to help others pursuing these areas, and I've started a new public speaking career, with several events under my belt already and several more on the way.

And I update this site once in a while with interesting stories, particularly the Expose Yourself series. And I spend a lot of time thinking up new ideas to promote the site and myself and the people I want to see succeed. And I visit other websites to leave links back to me. It's all a full-time job now, and the pay is pretty lousy, but in time it will get better. Meanwhile, it's a lot of fun!

Thanks for your support! Without you guys out there checking me out and telling your friends about me, it wouldn't be nearly so rewarding. Please, keep spreading the word, and I'll keep being so gosh-darn helpful and entertaining!

Now I'm off to do my semi-daily five mile walk.

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Other articles you'll find interesting or helpful:

Breaking personal records is fun!

Profiling: Is It Good or Bad?

To Your Health - Part 1

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How to Make More Money

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Yesterday evening I spoke to the Port Orange Scribes about self-promotion and blogging. I've also got other speaking engagements and training sessions lined up with groups that aren't writers, and last Sunday I led a discussion for a group I started about modern relationships. It was pretty exciting to do!

Though my speech last night dealt mostly with how to get your writing career jumpstarted through blogging, the precepts apply to any creative endeavor, be it singing, acting, painting, interpretive dancing, and so on. In fact, many of the precepts translate well into ANY kind of business.

As an interesting aside, I made the news! Here is a link to a bunch of Port Orange news stories, and they've got one about me! (It will probably only be there for another few days, so look quick!) When I found it this morning, it was most of the way down the page. Just search for my name and you'll see it (if it's still there.)

This is what I said to the Scribes:

Breaking personal records is fun!

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It's fun to break personal records. It's downright awesome to SHATTER them!

Last week, when the temperatures came tumbling down, I took a run around the block in the evening. A few months ago, I was able to run about 3/4 of a mile. Then last month, I made it to a mile and a quarter, which was a pretty darn impressive improvement. But last week, I shattered my record again and made it to 2.1 miles!

Upon reflection, I recall that this isn't actually the best I've EVER done, if you don't count that one time about 12 years ago at Keebler Elf Force Base (aka, Keesler Air Force Base) when I was just "in the zone" and I did about 2.5 miles. (And no one believed it, since my previous best wasn't even a mile.) So if I get to three miles, I'd definitely beat it. Which I will, possibly by the end of the year at the rate I'm going.

Then today, I got to the gym again. I've been slacking on that score because I've been so busy, but today I went and made some serious gains from the last time I went, which was two months ago. I didn't break my personal lifting records today, but I did a lot better than last time, which had a delay of about three months since the last time I went.

Speak, Jaycee, speak!

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Jim Thompson, leader of the Port Orange Scribes writer's group, has asked your favorite Jaycee Adams (as opposed to all the others out there using my name) to speak to his group about something I've been learning a lot about lately: blogging and self-promotion.

No matter what kind of artistic business you're engaging in - writing, singing, acting, painting, TV or movie making, miming - you need to get the attention of LOTS of people if you plan to live off it. There are lots of ways of doing this: blogging, social networking sites, getting into the news (paper, TV, radio, internet, telepathy), and being interviewed through the various media, to name just a few, and the more you use, the more people you reach, which means the more chance you have to make it big. I'll be going over these briefly, and then focus on blogging for three simple reasons: writers write, blogging is good writing practice, and you get to say anything you want to.

Dear Mel Gibson

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Dear Mel Gibson,

I know recently you've had some troubles, and people like Jay Leno making fun of you just makes it worse, but I'm here to tell you that it's not as bad as it seems.

Yesterday I saw something that, if true, looks like you were having a nervous breakdown, caused by something that none of us would ever have thought someone like you could suffer from. We here in the real world see people like you having a bad day and some of us think you deserve it, while others can't comprehend the pressures you're under, and still others wonder what could possibly be so bad that you'd feel unable to face another day.

I am not (yet) a household name like you are, so I won't claim I know exactly what you're gong through, but I am here to tell you that, if I'm right, you have a very common affliction, and it is curable. It's very easy to cure, in fact.

Profiling: Is It Good or Bad?

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For some people, "profiling" is a dirty word. For others, it seems like the solution to all our problems. Which is it?

On the one hand, there's well over a billion people half way around the world who have declared, not just war on us, but HOLY war on us. It seems perfectly sensible to distrust anyone who professes to believe in a deity who supposedly wants us dead, especially when nearly all of them propounding this war are of the same race and are happy to die for their belief. (Why an all-powerful being can't take care of that himself is never satisfactorily explained.)

On the other hand, there are plenty of insane people who aren't Arabic, and choosing to distrust ONLY Arabic people seems a wee bit on the short-sighted side of things. The Oklahoma City bombing, the Waco siege, pretty much anything to do with the KKK... these are all terrorist actions that weren't hatched by Arabs or Muslims either one.

Nicholas Marks - 2010

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Back in 1999, while I was in the Navy, my boat, the Bataan, was doing its Med Cruise and one of the places we pulled in to was Tarragona, Spain. While there, a couple busloads of us had the chance to ride up to Madrid to the Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament.(Apparently it's closed, because I can't find a link to it.)

It was a great experience, much better than the one that's here in Orlando (which itself is pretty good), not just because of the cosmopolitan audience which came from all over Europe, but because after the main show, we were then moved to a ball room where we were treated to an outstanding display of Spanish culture, including music and Flamenco dancing. I really liked the music then, but I never really thought about it that much until 11 years later. This past Saturday, while at the Downtown Disney Halloween party, my friend and I came across a guy who really made his guitar sing and dance.

Did you vote?

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Because, you know, it's that day. If you haven't cast a vote, you've voted for the winner, whoever it is. Way to go.

I probably should've started my political campaign sooner than right now, but it only occurred to me that if you don't like your candidates, you could use me as a write-in vote. I'm pretty sure I can't be accidentally elected since I haven't registered to run for any office, but I do make for a good protest vote, and if I did get elected, I bet I could do a better job than most people we've got in office. I'm certainly qualified to be President, or at least I am since the last election.