South Bayly Boutique, 107 S. Bayle Ave.  Louisville, Ky

On my recent visit to Louisville, Kentucky for Thanksgiving, I found the neatest gift shop, South Bayly Boutique. It was by chance actually.

I was sitting drinking coffee at Heine Bros and searching for a gift shop that sold Louisville Stoneware. I was using Google maps and Yelp to find locales closest to my location. The Crescent Hills area on Frankfort Avenue came up. And while walking around there, I found this eclectic, cool little shop, South Bayly Boutique.

I was immediately greeted by the owner, Tammy, who apologized as she was on the phone. The store is a collection of original work from a variety of Southern artists. Everything is an original designed gift and handmade here in the USA, as Tammy proudly declared.

I told her I was looking for Louisville Stoneware and she advised it would be best to just visit the factory gift shop downtown. When I asked for directions, she told me she would give me the route she would go. Her directions took me through scenic Louisville neighborhoods, and I found a great gift at the factory.

I returned later that afternoon as I wanted to pick up a couple of gifts I found earlier that morning in her store and support the local small business.

These Christmas tree ornaments were one of the first things that caught my attention. They were cut from holiday gift cards and crafted into festive shapes. Trees, santas, bells and the like.  The bottles hanging in the background had candles in them. I bought one of each of these to give as gifts this season. Tammy made sure each was individually wrapped for my trip back as well.

Tammy, who semi-retired from a successful corparate career, welcomes everyone with Southern charm. Her enthusiasm for the artists and their craft is apparent as you talk to her. I enjoyed some of her stories as to how she found some of her treasures.

Before I left, she and a customer thought they could guess where I was from. And to my surprise, they correctly guessed Arizona on the second try! It had to be MY accent.

I normally write about some of the best finds in Phoenix. The South Bayly Boutique is one of the best finds for unique gifts in Louisville, Kentucky. If you are in that area, drive over to Frankfort Avenue and enjoy this little community of businesses. Be sure to drop in and see what the Boutique has available. And tell Tammy as she greets you that you heard about her shop from that guy with the Western accent from Arizona. Just don’t make a wager with them on guessing where you are from.

Each year as Halloween approaches my co-workers begin to get all excited about what costumes we should wear. There is a team theme developed and everyone is expected to participate by wearing a costume for Halloween. Everyone except me.

I really don’t get into it … and they know it. So as this year’s holiday approached, we all sat around and talked about what we could wear and as the costume ideas were brainstormed, I just ignored them and said nope. Nada. No thanks. And it was at that last nope that Jessica gave me a look and said something like fine, we’ll just dress like YOU!

And so they did. With great enthusiasm.

It was pretty simple. Here’s the getup of the Phil Halloween Costume!

• hair
• polo or Hawaiian shirt
• jeans or khakis
• cowboy boots
• black glasses

Jessica found the hair that afternoon. Jamie ordered each member a wig. Cost $5 EACH.

Here’s the group.

The group had no idea the amount of work it takes to look like me. We had to start the Friday before Halloween preparing the hair.

Emily and Victoria are excited as they said they had always wanted hair like this!

Chrystyna, who is my friend that has completed both Valley Walks with me, carefully measured the locks being very careful to get the exact layer effect I keep.

Jamie, my manager, put the total package together the best, right down to the black boots!

She’s a Pittsburgh Steeler fan … I told her that the beverage of choice was to be COFFEE, not beer in that cup!

I really appreciated the teams’ attention to detail. Here, they modeled my technique for checking my Droid for messages and Facebook updates.

Also note Jessica, who wore THE OHIO STATE University t-shirt in my honor. I was born in Ohio and the Bucks had just taken care of the Wisconsin rodents two days before. Tony, far left, wore the look in Scottsdale that weekend and said it was a huge hit. He called it the Aging Hipster. I think the Cougars digged it.

All in all, I really appreciated the honor of my co-workers desire to be like Phil for just a day. I think they have a new appreciation and maybe some envy for what it’s like to go through a day looking like me.

A facebook friend, Cindy, probably voiced it best. In seeing the pictures, she commented, “One Phil is more than enough!”  And to that, I think all would agree.

Here’s a great shot of Victoria and me. When told she really looked just like me … when I was 30 years younger, she said, “I guess I have a lot to look forward to!”

Thanks for a great team effort and making my Halloween participation the easiest ever. I’m thinking of marketing the look next year as Tony’s Aging Hipster. I’ll keep ya posted.

The difference Smile for a Lifetime makes with a kid is only matched by the pain and humiliation felt by those kids. The embarrassment people often feel about their teeth is painful, especially for kids.

My friend Steve Garufi has chosen Smile for a Lifetime as the charity he is hoping to raise awareness for as he bikes across America this spring. At this time, he is still trying to put the funds together. I can vouch for him as I’ve known him for almost 10 years. If you can make even a small donation to either his efforts or the Smile for a Lifetime Foundation, I encourage you to join me and do so.

Steve has put up a site about his trip and the charity. Check out his 6 Ways to Help Smile for a Lifetime!

I also connected to the foundation on their Twitter feed … and look forward to meeting the founder, Aimee Spencer, on her next visit to Phoenix!

And there are a lot of awards being awarded. Here’s a list of some of the prestigious honors:

• Blue Ribbon School of Excellence Award
• Carnegie Mellon Awards of Excellence
• Magnet School of Excellence Award
• President’s Education Award Program
• National School of Excellence Award
• A+ Schools for Excellence

… and many more. These are all good. It’s great to honor teachers, students, and administrators for going above and beyond.

Here’s the deal … all too often these awards are honoring a level of excellence that was already there. The accomplishments are somewhat pre-determined. When you have the highest performing kids in an area, it follows pretty close that excellence awards are found there too. Nothing wrong with that. It was my experience, while teaching at a recognized, award winning, national middle school of excellence, this was the case.

I would like to see another type of excellence award. And this one would award the often forgotten student, teacher, or administrator. I should not use the word forgotten as these schools are noted publically every year for under performing. Teachers’ classroom grade level results are published and administrators’ schools are humiliated in the press, being labeled as failures.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Why? Because in every one of these schools, in every year, there are kids that are being motivated to stay with it, given hope that it will be worth it, and cared for by teachers and administrators giving heroic efforts of time, energy, and money.

Standards are great and worthy to strive for. It’s just that the playing fields are far from level in education. Worse, labeling as failures those with the deck stacked against them by requiring placement of round objects in square holes to succeed is just wrong.

I have been in both scenarios. Excellence awards in the first are primarily judged by the aggregate of an exam score. Excellence in the other are results of qualitative measures.

The kid who had no desire to finish school, graduates; who couldn’t read, begin to read; who constantly disrupted the classroom, behave appropriately, a trouble-maker turned peace-maker; who had no goals, begin to plan for the future; who had no hope, see a better tomorrow.

Evidence those kids when they start turning in assignments because teachers who care tell them what they like about it versus what is wrong. Watch the joy and excitement in the classroom when they begin to engage. Or the smiles exhibited on the faces of the families during the graduation from these “failures.” That’s excellent.

If we can keep kids in the game, give them hope, and instill a desire to be a LIFE-long learner, they can succeed. They will continue to advance, far past graduation.

Imagine the signs that could be posted outside those buildings. Imagine the kids that could become … something better.

A recent headline regarding the passing of Michael Jackson caught my attention. Its topic covered what he had done on what became his last day. That made me think. We have no idea, usually, that our last day is here. So the question is, if this was our last day, how would you hope it would be spent? The answers provide a window of understanding to what is true, important.

In thinking about what I would hope could be written about my last day, I came up with the following 10 things I would hope the writer would discover I had done.

1. Acknowledged HIM, Jesus the savior, seeking His wisdom.
2. Recognized those in need around me and acted to help.
3. Enjoyed something in the natural surroundings: Was impressed by that day’s sunrise or sunset, weather, scenery.
4. Performed an act of kindness.
5. Laughed heartily!
6. Talked with or enjoyed the kids/family.
7. Spoke to those close that I loved them.
8. Made a real friend.
9. Made a great cup of coffee.
10. Generously expressed gratitude.

I don’t have any Bucket List items on it. And I sincerely think that the day’s satisfaction is more about spending it in relationship with others rather than personal goals or interests. Not that there is anything wrong with those, and in fact, truer to an actual day, there would be things that I would be doing relative to my interests. Keeping perspective of those things on the list makes me think is key to being happy with my days.

That would be a nice article. Better, it would be a great day.

I blatantly picked the wrong answers. The really bad ones. And the result was hilarious! It said, “Damn, you are dumb! You have the I.Q. of a monkey!”

I thought maybe that explained why I like bananas. A couple of responses tried to encourage me, not believing or knowing I purposely failed it.

Well, I have actually taken a couple of others, and the reason is that I find them to be activities that actually share or add to knowing each other. Tonight I took the What Punctuation Mark are You? I mean, I did major in English. The result was The Dash and the summary was:

You are a dash. Casual and freewheeling, you would rather be wearing flip flops and jeans. You are playful and full of surprises, but no one should make the mistake of underestimating you–you just might be the smartest person in the room.

Those who know me would agree probably with most of that …. and read that last line again! Banana anyone?

Yesterday I took the How Well do you Know Me? quiz on my son and only scored 50 percent! He has yet to take mine. C’mon! Greg, step it up.

You choose the questions and the answers to your quiz. Thus far, no one has scored more than 50 percent on my quiz, and those that did know me the least or have known me the shortest length of time.

A Contest

Since most of them do not read the blog …. I am going to share the questions AND the answers here! I will make it a contest as well. For the winner at my Facebook quiz, I will send a $5 Starbucks’ gift card. (I apologize to my real friends at Dutch Bros as I do not have access to gift cards from them. I will save them for a future contest.) To be fair to the readers of the blog only, if you leave a comment about my quiz, I will enter you in a drawing for one as well.

Here are the questions I posted in the How Well Do You Know Me? quiz:

What city was I born in? (Colorado Springs, Colorado; Lima, Ohio; Ajo, AZ; Atlanta, GA; Bozeman, MT)

What is my middle name? (Hubert, Jackson, Jeffrey, Austin, Ladelphia)

What song did I choose to sing at a karaoke bar? (Hint: First time) (Just Beat It – Michael Jackson, Peace of Mind – Hootie and the Blowfish, Mmmmmm – Crash Test Dummies, Hound Dog – Elvis Presley, Wonderful Tonight – Eric Clapton)

How many times have I traveled out of the country? (0, 1, 2, 3, 4)

Fave Morning Coffee Stop (Starbucks, Dutch Bros, 7-11)

All were pets except: (Maxie, Ranger, Trooper, Lucy, Mr. No)

What subject did I teach? (Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies, PE, Science)

8th grade girl friend’s name (Cathy, Kelley, Denise, Tammi, Gerri)

Phil the Lurk was nickname given by whom? (Steve, Littlehands, Denise, Tom, Scott)

Favorite vehicle (owned the longest) (72 Camero, 55 Chevy Pickup, 68 Chevelle, 81 CJ5, 83 GLC POS)

The questions and answers are all legit. I will share the answers and a bit of the stories behind them on the next post — which will be Saturday. Qualifying comments include those for this post and the Saturday answers post. You do not have to answer the questions to qualify for the drawing. Just leave a comment. Thanks for reading. Just have some fun.

I started a Masters program, began exploring the Twitter application, moved from MySpace to Facebook, increasingly became disillusioned (again) with all the hype on the Internet ….

I placed the blog on a low priority, which I think was a mistake. While the pace of change with online modalities is moving at unprecedented speed, the question has recently been proposed that blogging is dead or dying. People want things now and in increments of 140 characters or less, Twitter like.

I hold out that blogs are still relevant and will continue to provide value in a multitude of ways.

I’m coming back. I find the blogging process one that helps slow and lessen the pace and noise found so prevalent in “new” social media. (Odd to hint that blogging is thought of having become passe.)

Twitter and Facebook and maybe Linkedin will still be part of my social marketing, media, and relationship activities. But I’m going to try and hold on to things that allow for reflection and sharing in ways that require more depth.

There’s way too much pretense and shallowness out there.

The coming months are bringing a couple more visits to see friends, passage of the halfway point in my Masters program, structuring of two exciting and challenging business plans, a re-design for the blog, and keeping grounded in the things that matter most.