Monthly Archives: May 2013

Conventioneering, HR-style (day 1)

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In past years, I wrote long, detail-rich posts from HR central, which for the purposes of the Maine HR Convention, is always the Samoset, in Rockport. This year, I’m opting for shorter posts (at least by my standard for brevity) for a couple of reasons;

1)      Last night, I slept like crap for the second night in a row. As a result, I’m up early this AM, rewriting my notes from last night, and recapping my Day #1.

2)      I decided to spend time last night reading, not blogging, as I have a great book downloaded on my NOOK. Sometimes, I just like to read and enjoy some time off the interwebs.

I rolled into Dodge (aka, the Samoset) Tuesday, around 2:00 pm. That was  good for me, given that I had some Maine BLN duties to attend to prior to motoring down Route 1, and en route. Continue reading →

Getting the Most Out of Your Convention Experience

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MEHRC logoEvery May for the past four years, I’ve been attending the Maine HR Convention at the Samoset Resort, in Rockport. The reason this has become a must-attend event for me is that year after year, this week-long HR-centric convention continues to deliver value. I’m not sure why I wasn’t attending before then.

While I’m not able to spend the entire week in Rockport, I always try to pick the best two days for me and stay over, and then hit a third day’s workshops and events before making the drive back home.  Continue reading →

Time Marches On

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One year ago, to the weekend, I was feted as the “author in residence” at Kennebec Fruit Company in Lisbon Falls. Members of Moxie Nation know it simply as “The Moxie Store.” That book signing for Moxie: Maine In A Bottle, took place on May 5, 2012; it doesn’t seem like it was one year ago, but it was.

Yesterday, my sister and I pulled off a surprise 80th birthday party for our father, Herman the German. The location was another Lisbon Falls landmark, The Slovak Social Club, on Avery Street.

My sister and I with our parents, Helen and Herman.

My sister and I with our parents, Helen and Herman.

There’s a saying that “time waits for no man,” and it doesn’t play gender favorites, either. The seconds, minutes, and hours of life continue ticking away and then, the clock ticks no more. Continue reading →

I Don’t Have a PhD

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I lost a training bid to teach technical writing to someone with a PhD.

I learned to write by writing. I’ve written something almost everyday for the past 10 years, have three books in print (and a fourth on the way), blog regularly, etc. My competition has a blog that hasn’t been updated in almost a year and has a total of six blog posts over the past two. As far as I know, their total book output is 0. Their online presence is pretty lame. Continue reading →

Balancing Work and Life

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Finding balance in this life isn’t easy. Work, family, hobbies; all of these clamor for our time. The first one, work, is happy to eat up all our waking hours. Work is who we are; at least that’s what we’ve been conditioned to believe. Is it possible to break free of that conditioning and find a life of greater substance?

There’s another side to that question. If work fails to deliver meaning, or at least a path towards something greater than ourselves, it’s easy to become disillusioned, cynical, or worse, tuned out. Continue reading →