The War on Boys and Men?

I find it quite interesting that in this past week there have been two very similar pieces written which describe a need for defense of traditional masculinity.

The first of these was written by Bill McMorris of the Federalist.  It was a reply to a sociology professor's recent article that claims that men don't have intimate relationships that women have, so woe be to men.   It is another in a long line of advice to men that claim that if they just acted less masculine, they'd be so much more happy.  Bill replies that society changes prevent men from being men, thus not only can't we be more feminine, we're now prevented from being truly masculine (and establishing relationships that spawn from those interactions).

The second was written by Camille Paglia, a staunch feminist, who opines that our society is headed for trouble due to the "softening" that is occurring.  You'd think her background would give her the opposite opinion.  However, she is also a worried mother of a boy.

Boys are in trouble.  Nearly 20% - one in five! - high-school aged boys is now diagnosed with ADHD.  Boys get worse grades than girls in school, and boys now are less likely to go to college than girls are.  

I know that women have suffered, and in the not-that-distant past as well.  Heck, my wife regales stories of the nuns that taught her growing up that ignored her and other smart girls because they weren't, and could never be, as smart as boys.  

Indeed, the pendulum has been on the other side.  But for God's sake, we weren't medicating away femininity out of a significant percentage of girls.  And we have no idea what the ultimate costs of doing this are going to be - no idea at all.

I admit, I don't have a son, so my opinions are just that.  However, I do have nephews, and do see examples in every day life of what is happening to little boys.  A great example was last year, when I was attending church with my cousin.  In the pew in front of us was a five-year-old boy that fussed and fidgeted his way through the entire mass, much to his grandmother's chagrin.  Despite her corrections, talks, and threats, the little guy just could not sit still.

After mass, grandma turned around to my cousin and me and said, "I am so sorry and so embarrassed by the behavior of my grandson.." to which my cousin (very much a man's man) immediately replied, "Embarrassed?   Why?  Mrs. X, your grandson's a BOY!"  As a scout leader for many years and a father of a boy himself, my cousin knew what of he spoke.

Hopefully, additional voices like those listed above can join the choir before it gets too late for an entire generation of boys.     

Dilbert Creator has Great Ideas on Health and Happiness

In a recent article in the Washington Post, Scott Adams, the cartoonist responsible for the highly successful Dilbert strips and associated media, offers some thoughts on happiness and health.

You can read the full article here.

His is a very common-sense perspective, and one that's easy to adopt.  I've leveraged much of it (independent of the article) as part of my recent weight loss.

It's a great read with effective, actionable information.  If you're looking for momentum on your New Year's resolutions, it is worth your time.

How to Start a Career in Ecommerce Part 6 Google AdWords

In parts 4 and 5 of this installment, we covered how one without any work experience could contact their favorite non-profit and conduct some email marketing and social marketing for them to gain experience.  The non-profit would likely need, and would very much appreciate the help, and the worker would gain real-world knowledge on a valuable skill.

Now comes the time to extend that relationship, and move it to help you learn paid search.  And for paid search, the best and easiest place to learn is via Google's tool, AdWords.

AdWords is the interface that allows users to "bid" on specific search keywords so that ads can appear when an appropriate keyword string is entered by a user.  It can be incredibly sophisticated, but absolutely does not need to be in order to be effective.  In fact, it can be very simple to use, and one can get started on rudimentary campaigns in a matter of an hour or two.   Like most things with Google, the interface is intuitive, and the avenues for help are many.

Concerned that your non-profit doesn't have the money to support a paid search budget?  No worries!  Google, through their Google Grants program.  Google Grants is a program in which Google makes available a monthly paid search budget of $10,000 for eligible non-profit organizations.  Applying for support is easy, and approval very quick.

So an account has been established via AdWords, and a budget has been established via Google Grants.  Now is time to start building some ads and driving traffic to your non-profit's website.

The first thing to do will be do design the ad itself.  Focus should be on creating a message that will be compelling enough to encourage a click.  And, again, Google makes it really easy to optimize these by allowing you to run different ads simultaneously and see which are more successful in generating clicks.  All pretty much in real time.

Once a portfolio of compelling ads has been developed, then focus will be needed on which keywords should receiving bidding, and in what format.  The most important of these components relates to match types, which is best explained in this video:



Once the keywords and match types have been set up, there is a whole host of additional focus that can be applied.  Examples include:

• Limiting your ads to being shown to users in a specific geographic location
• Changing "position" of your ad based on bid
• Having your ads turn on or off at certain hours of the day
• Using "ad extensions" to drive traffic to specific pages in your non-profit's website
• And more!

The sky is really the limit in terms of how sophisticated you want to get - the tools that Google makes available are very powerful.  But they're also intuitive, and easy to use.  Hence, get in there, start testing things, and see what you can do to drive traffic to your non-profit.  It's easy, it's effective, it's free, and it is fantastic experience for one looking to build a career in ecommerce.

Good luck!

Chris Kluwe is the Real Coward

In a recent Deadspin article, former Vikings punter Chris Kluwe claims that he was fired by "a bigot" and "two cowards" because he spoke out on gay rights issues.

I had covered this in a previous post, when Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton suggested that Kluwe was released for non-football reasons.  An extract:

Kluwe's release had nothing to do with the fact that his skills had diminished to the point of being average, yet his salary was higher than average.  It had nothing to do with the fact that the Vikings had done the EXACT same thing with Ryan Longwell (took a kicker in the draft, claimed to want "competition," had the new kicker work out at the spring rookie camp to ensure he was OK, then summarily cut the more expensive Longwell).  It had nothing to do with the Vikings looking for better performance at a significantly lower cost.  No.  According to Mark Dayton (among others - really), the Vikings instead chose to cut Kluwe under suspicious circumstances.  Yeah, that's it.  

Yet in the past six months, despite Kluwe finding one NFL job (in which he was summarily cut), and finding no others, he claims his former coaches are bigots and cowards.  But the timing of the accusations is really interesting:

• The Vikings' coaching staff is in flux, as head coach Leslie Frazier has been fired (and subsequently hired by Tampa Bay)
• Kluwe waited until absolutely nobody wanted him in the NFL, assuring him that his football career was indeed over
• Release of the article, aligned with the Duck Dynasty controversy, seems a little too coincidental 

My conclusion is that the guy is a media whore, he has lost his career, his phone stopped ringing (both for his on and off the football field activities) and he needed to rekindle the fire.

Think about it.  What else is he going to do?

But for me, the ultimate concern revolves around his use of the word "coward," which was applied to coaches that he felt fired him due to his activism.  But you know the real coward in this story?  It's Kluwe.  He sat idle and mute while "bigoted" comments were made.  Then he waited until his NFL career was clearly over before raising accusations from the comfort of a magazine article.

That's cowardice.   If Kluwe truly believed what he claims to believe, he would have confronted the "bigotry" the minute it was uttered.  Kluwe, an attention junkie, had a Rosa Parks moment all teed up for him.  And yet he did nothing at the time.  So, he either doesn't really believe what he claims to believe, the event never happened, or he's a coward. 

The definition of a coward is "a person who lacks courage to do or endure dangerous or unpleasant things;"  things like, I don't know, say confronting a "bigoted" boss in the moment, and putting your career in jeopardy.  

But that didn't happen.  And Kluwe is the true coward because of it. 

Blue Ridge Parkway

Last Christmas my family and I vacationed in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, and it was my first time in that part of the country.  I was totally taken aback by the beauty of the area.  The trees, rocks, streams, and, yes, blue hue of the mountains were really something to see.

And the best way we found to see them was to take the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The parkway is a road that runs for nearly 500 miles through Virginia and North Carolina; often very high up in the mountain range.  This height affords some fantastic views.  Here are just a couple of examples:

This shot conveys just how much altitude there is on the Parkway

Here is just one of dozens of streams that we encountered

 Another great example of the height of the Parkway

In case you wondered how the Blue Ridge Mountains got their name

This is just another example of the diversity and beauty of the United States.  If you happen to ever be in the area, I strongly recommend a quick run along the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It will be worth the trip.

Browning Sweet Sixteen, Part 1

My first gun when I was a kid was a Mossburg bolt action .410.  It fit me well, but had a very unsafe safety, and operating the bolt led to more than a few less-than-safe moments.  And the gun was effective.  I killed my first duck with that shotgun; a drake wood duck crossing right to left.  Dad was to my left, and even though I had the better angle, he shot first and missed.  I followed and almost instantly heard my Dad yell, "NICE SHOT!" with a more than noticeable amount of surprise in his voice.

The Mossburg looked cool.  It worked OK, other than the safety issues.  But to me it was a kid's shotgun.  A real shotgun had some heft in the load, kicked your shoulder, and sent a cloud of shot at your quarry and not just a pencil-sized amount.

Eventually my time would come to graduate to a man's shotgun, and the first one that I would shoot would be my Dad's Browning A-5 16 gauge.  It was a gun that was previously used by his dad, and had been in the family since the 1950's.

But it was a full-sized adult gun, despite its lighter caliber.  And since I was about 12 at the time, the gun was just too big for me - upon mounting it to my shoulder, my hand could no longer reach the trigger.  So one Thanksgiving vacation my Dad took the gun to my Grandpa, and there in my Grandpa's work shop in the basement, the stock was cut down to fit me.

Unbeknownst to us at time, this act was sacrilege.  To modify such a wonderful gun in such a way was a shame.  But to an ignorant kid looking to finally step up to a man's gun, that was not even a consideration.  And it wasn't a consideration for my Grandpa or Dad, either.

Grandpa cut the gun down expertly, I was able to take it out with me on a quail hunt that very weekend.  We did end up bagging some quail that weekend, but my luck with the A5 wasn't good - I seemed to always be in the wrong spot to be able to get off a shot.  Hence, I was a little bitter when I was told to wait at the end of a field to "post" as Dad, Grandpa, and my uncle drove into my position.  It seemed posters never got the shot - the drivers always did, and my run of bad luck looked to continue.

The adults started to the opposite side of the field, perhaps 300 yards away, and worked the 50 yard-wide cover, slowly moving toward me.  About 100 yards into their drive, a gorgeous rooster pheasant flushed in front of them, and despite multiple shots, the bird flew away from them.

And right at me!

I hunkered down in the cover - hunting the flying pheasant like he was an inbound duck.  He never saw me, and as he was about to pass me on the right I stood, ticked off the safety, swung from behind him through tail, body, head, air and then squeezed the trigger.  And in that moment I bagged my first ever pheasant.  And I had done so with my first man-sized gun. 

My prized Browning A-5 16 gauge.     

Christmas Recap in Pictures

The YDP family got together over Christmas in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina for a skiing weekend.  Mom rented a large house, and my sibs and all of their kiddos were there.  The following shows some of the highlights of the week:

Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate real well. That meant there was more indoor activity than what may have been liked, but the boys made the best of it.

It finally got cold enough to get out there and hit the slopes.  Here is my brother along with some of the kids

There was a lot of snow making going on, which led to some pretty frosty conditions for yours truly

The Blue Ridge Mountains were beautiful, and Mrs. YDP and I had a fun time documenting them

Waiting to open presents

  

Someone likes what she received

The gang on a snow tube adventure.

Despite all of the winter fun, we ended up back at my sister's place in Charleston, where we were reminded that we weren't in the mountains anymore

Happy 2014

In looking back on the year, I have a lot that I'll be happy to have behind me.  But at the same time, there is a lot of which I can be very proud.  And in my quieter moments, that's where I try to focus my energies.

Which leads me into my resolution for the New Year - and that is being a lot more objective and forthright in recognizing and acting upon opportunity.  Opportunities - for work, career, self-improvement - they abound!  However, I tend to get so mired in the day-to-day that I fail to see how much control I have for change and improvement.  

2013 was a tough year.  2014 WILL be a better year.  Especially if I can maintain an even keel and focus on the opportunities that surround me.

Cheers to you and yours in this New Year.