Monday, February 22, 2010

Whew.

Man, I've been busy lately. Still am. Just a quick catch-all catch-up post full of dubious detritus:
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This here blog is just recovering from an explosion of visitors brought by a single Tweet from online cartoonist Scott Kurtz, who enjoyed my post on the Catbayashi Maru. I met the popular and successful Mr. Kurtz for the first time a week ago (might write about the occasion someday, but probably won't). What made it fun was that Scott won the Eisner Award for best webcomic the year after I did, which we shamelessly lorded over everyone else. I liked him, his wife Angie, and his Dad a lot. Anyway, one whisper from Scott was enough to peg my visitor count for two or three days. I hope he uses his power for good.
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I just came up with the best way to get a charity solicitor off the phone, and I'm amazed I didn't think of it years ago. Today when the very determined lady asked if she could count on my $25 donation, I plaintively replied, "But I just gave you a lot more than that last month! Didn't you get it?" She thanked me and hung up so fast she was almost rude.

Karen and I like giving to charities, particularly local ones for which our relatively puny contribution might make a difference. What I don't like is when the cost of the follow-up letters and phone calls begging for more exceeds the value of what we donated in the first place. That'll get you crossed off the list pretty quick.
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Every so often, when Karen and I have a free afternoon, we pick some small town only slightly less randomly than throwing a dart at a map and say, "let's go there." We did it again last weekend, visiting a hamlet just a half hour away we hadn't been to in years, and had a swell time. Anybody else do that? I recommend it.
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I've got a couple of speaking engagements coming up I'll write about when I have some time. Both related to Mom's Cancer, and I can't express how gratifying it is that my family's story endures like that. It's very, very nice. Much appreciated.
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Anyone else remember Herb Caen? Dot dot dot.

Back to work, slacker.
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5 comments:

BarryCorbett said...

Hi Brian. I recently picked up Mom's Cancer and was blown away. It's really brilliant. Now I'll have to look for "World of Tomorrow".

Brian Fies said...

Barry, thanks a lot! I really appreciate it. Fair warning, World of Tomorrow is very different. But I took a look at your Blogger profile and suspect with your interests it may be right up your alley.

ronnie said...

People underestimate Twitter. People who don't USE Twitter underestimate Twitter. I've built a small feed consisting of a local CBC reporter and a couple of other local bloggers - I know about every breaking news story in Fredericton at least 30 minutes before it ever hits local media.

Hey, we do that thing too about picking a town at random and visiting it! I highly recommend picking up a large-scale, back-roads atlas of your region for storage in the map pocket. This is the one we use, by Map Art. They're invaluable.

Sherwood Harrington said...

Diane and I did that "picking a town at random" thing in Ireland in '06. That's what I called it, anyway.

She called it, "Sherwood's got us lost again."

Sherwood Harrington said...

Oh, and yes, of course, I remember Herb Caen. Not only that, but I am proud to say that I was once mentioned in Herb Caen's column, that's how old I am.