This week has been exciting, aside from the lame mid-summer head cold I’m suffering, because of a few positive reviews of the book I wrote with Chris Hammond. The reviews have been right in line with the goals we had for the book – simple, focused, “Get Your Websites Up and Running.”

Joe Brinkman reviewed the book and reiterated our goals with one of the first topic sentences of his review. “This book is very clear in that it is targeted specifically at DotNetNuke Administrators and it does a very good job of staying focused on the topic.”

One of the common tests Chris and I used as we wrote our book was, “would your mom understand this?” Put aside all “your momma” jokes and don’t take it as an attack on moms or women. The biggest eye opener I had in working with DNN, and prompted me to want to write this book, was when I worked to overhaul my mom’s website – imagethreads.com. As I worked through her site, I realized how three-letter abbreviations, jargon, and technology I take for granted on a daily basis, can be significant barriers to doing something easy like maintaining a blog.

Will Strohl also gave our book some lip service this week and is putting our work to the test by encouraging his girlfriend to read DotNetNuke 5: A User’s Guide. I’m anxious to hear the outcome because if someone new to DNN can follow the book, I’ll consider it a success (just need sales to fall into line).

I don’t want to turn this blog post into preaching about what makes good customer service, but I do want to make a “shout out” to Josephotography. Joe, shot our wedding photos almost two years ago, but just yesterday we received a CD in the mail with a movie he put together with our photos. Sure, I may have laid down a guilt-trip when we saw him two weeks ago at our friend’s wedding, but his follow through still deserves recognition for great customer service. He didn’t owe us anything. We were already very happy and he had our vote of approval (and recommendations), but he still took the time to do something thoughtful for us.

This movie is a case study in modern-day archiving. A month ago I was in Minnesota sorting through my Grandma’s house as she prepares to move from her house. There was a treasure of sentimental items. Most of her artifacts are wrapped in tissue paper or bubble wrap. But what do you do with a flash movie of your wedding pictures? In the age of digital everything, we need to come up with new ways to store/archive sentimental items. I guess my bubble wrap and tissue paper is a blog which is primarily read by me.

[FLASH MOVIE TO BE INCORPORATED SOON]

I purchased a Flip Ultra last week and received it in the mail yesterday. I thought I'd give it a test spin by video taping something that wasn't camera shy - Sunny.

Really, I wanted to see just how easy it is to get the videos off the camera, on to the web, and into my blog or an email to a friend.

The verdict is... easy.

I had to create a YouTube account to post videos, but since I didn't want to be a full exhibitionist, I was able to keep the video Private and share it with up to 25 people. I was easily have to embed the code into my blog post, and now Sunny is a star.

If you know of better video sharing/hosting services, I'd be open to other options. Let me know if you have a recommendation.

UPDATE: It turns out that I needed to make the video Public on Youtube to allow for it to be viewed through my blog post. I guess that's okay, but I guess I'd like to find something that isn't quite as exposed if I post videos. Something that allows me to post, store, share, and embed, but not necessarily full exposure to the wider world web.

I laughed, I cried, I seriously doubted myself. I'm still holding out against Twitter and seriously reconsidering Facebook.

I fell in love with the coffee I have been drinking this week. Its Trader Joe's Peaberry blend coffee. My coffee palate has either been refined by the vast quantities of coffee I have been drinking recently or by an adverse reaction to the dishwater we've been brewing at work recently. My body may be telling me to pay attention to the coffee I pour down my throat as a result of the rancid brew we make at work (think Orson Well's description in 1984).

Anyways, I got curious about what made my coffee so good. Here's what I learned about peaberry coffee. Peaberry coffee is the result of a coffee bean only producing a single bean. The single bean is smaller and rounder than the typical bean. There are mixed reviews in the coffee world on peaberry grades of coffee. Some think the single bean received all the love and attention a normally double bean would receive. Others think the peaberry is a runt. I don't care either way. The coffee brewed today from the peaberry blend of beans was delicious.

One more reason for me to like the peaberry coffee blend. There is a mythology that goes along with the bean. It is referred to as the bachelor bean and has insinuations of being a virile coffee.

I want to say the peaberry blend we bought was Ethiopian, but I can't say for certain.

I would contribute the control freak in me to a strong ego. I'm neither ashamed nor proud of this connection. My ego has motivated me to do work in which I'm proud, but wouldn't it be nice to think I did these things purely altruistically? Wouldn't it be nice to think I take an interest in things because I'm genuinely interested and not interested in having my way?

The answer is yes, but I'd be fooling myself to think my drive, direction, and motivation on a day-to-day basis is driven by some innate sense of enlightenment. There are glimmers of passion mixed in, but at its core is most likely control.

So back to the title of this entry - React, Respond, Initiate. There is a post by Seth which I find myself thinking about a bit frequently. The thesis revolves around the thought,

When you react to a medication, that's a bad thing. When you respond to treatment, that's a plus.

Responding is better than reacting, but above both is initiating. Yesterday, Dang launched Engage's new look website. I love the initiative he took to consolidate our two sites, merge the business units (our services and our products), and totally consolidate the site structure. The design is beautiful and the execution is fantastic.

As I look at the site, I'm tempted to react and try to put in my two cents. Sure, there are things that can be improved, but this is the gear that keeps business moving. It would be easy to immediate use these as a way to inject input. But by doing this and trying to control things I would lose the real feat in front of me. Why would I dwell on these issues at all when I should be rejoicing in Dang's initiative?

His initiative took vision, courage, and execution. My reaction took nothing. That's my take away. On a daily basis, find more opportunities to take pause before I react and let the controller in me lead. Acknowledge the feats of others before I look for my way into the mix.

"A Christmas Story" was just on television yesterday for 24 straight hours. I have seen this movie in entirety countless times and watched snippets more times than I'd like to admit. Yesterday, as I waited to go to my in-laws, I caught a scene in which Ralphie and his friends are bullied by Scut Farkus.

Scut Farkus! What a rotten name! There he stood, between us and the alley. Scut Farkus staring out at us with his yellow eyes. He had yellow eyes! So, help me, God! Yellow eyes!

Ralphie's friend, Flick, gets trapped by Scut and his bully friends. They grab Flick and make him scream uncle. The scene made me think about the times in life when you just have to "say uncle."

Being stubborn, proud, and often self-important (none of my best traits) makes me prone to never saying uncle. Not in the sense of being a push over, rather I mean knowing when it is better to be liked than to be right.

The lure of "told you so" is so tempting to me that I rarely like to let the moment pass. Also, when I'm thinking logically its hard to empathize with someone when they are being emotional or just want to rant, bitch, or vent.

I'm writing this post because learning to say uncle is something I need to remind myself of the importance of regularly. My initial reaction is to speak my mind, voice my opinion, give my two cents, and put someone back into place; but as I list these reactions out it is apparent to me how unflattering these reactions can be in lasting, meaningful relationships - love, family, work.

I don't like making New Year's resolutions, because by mold in which resolutions are cast seems to be faulty. Regardless, in 2009 I'm going to work on saying uncle, giving in, and turning the other cheek.

After my grandfather passed away, my dad and I each took a few of my grandpa's suits and had them tailored for ourselves. I have three suits of his. Each has a very subtle essence of the era in which he bought them (probably 1970s or 1980s). This essence might give it away as an outdated suit, but for me that same essence distinctly reminds me of my grandpa. And the suit is a perfect symbol for what my grandpa represented in my life - intellect, honor, pride and Clubman Aftershave.

On October 29th, Lauren's grandpa, Bill Ginger, passed away. Yesterday, I went to Lauren's grandfather's memorial mass. I went to the memorial dressed in my grandfather's suit. Each time I put on my grandfather's suit, I feel cloaked in the great men I have, or have had, in my life.

I'm sure I'll reflect on this more later, but I'm intrigued by the changing definition of masculinity or manliness. The chauvinist definitions in which I think we (men) feel compelled to live up to (wearing the pants in the family, being a the bread winner) are changing. The lines between what is male and what is female are blurred. We can either cling to those things which are the simple (again the LCD commentary) or we can gravitate toward those characteristics I am appreciating more and more from the men I have had to priviledge to have in my life - humility, honor, intellect, reason, and selflessness.

I had my grandpa's suit tailor to fit, but hopefully someday I will fill his suit in more ways than just fit.

I've finally caved in. The creap of technology  into my life has been gradually winning out for years, but there were specific things I feel I was winning over. I successfully resisted "the next best thing" for a while  - blackberries, iPhones, twittering, blogs, bluetooth headsets, Second Life, MySpace.

I try to keep things simple and it's too easy to be overloaded by information on a daily basis. Why would I want to keep up a blog, when I already find myself beseiged with facebook status updates, LinkedIn profile changes, other people's blogs, personal email, work email, text messages, news tickers? All of these seem to makes things more complicated. 

When my colleagues (primarily Chris and Dang) realized my name was available as a domain name, they pleaded for me to snatch it up. I caved then, but instead of using it as a personal site, I defiantly used it as the home of my summer softball team, the Random Hookups.

The softball season has ended, my infatuation with technology has mounted, and eventually I caved completely and converted my site to a personal blog. For some reason I feel ashamed.

I was in limbo. Attracted to shiny new gadgets, intrigued by new technology, magnetically lured by Facebook, but at the same time, I cursed these things. It feels to me that the moral fiber of society was being torn apart.  Will the love letters my grandpa sent my grandma while they were dating be replaced by an archive of gmail messages for grandchildren to snicker at once I've passed? 

Anyways to make a long story longer, patrickrenner.com will now serve as my personal blog. As this post suggests, my blog will focus primarily on being a mental vomit of my thoughts. Some posts may be rants, some may be enlightening, some will be a way for me to document my thoughts and ideas. All of my posts will be 100% me. I'll try not to filter myself too much by the threat of others' skepticism (more on this thought from Dustin Staiger)

 I was driving up to Des Moines to play golf in the FARRT (First Annual Renner Road Trip) via Kansas CIty. I stayed the night with Elizabeth and Phil on Friday night and made my way up to Des Moines on Saturday morning.

On Friday night, Elizabeth, Phil, and I went out to a new entertainment block in downtown KC for a night of drinks and bowling. As we cruised by the block searching for a parking spot we spotted an opening directly in front of the bar. At the next intersection, I pulled a U-turn and made my way back to the spot. I passed up the spot, put my blinker on, and put the car in reverse. As I turn to look back, some red-neck hick in a beat-up Oldsmobile, coming from the other direction pulls a U-Turn in the middle of the street and scoots the nose of his car into the spot. He has the nose of his car in the spot but is blocking the rest of the street.

I look back and give him the "what gives" shoulder shug, Phil, in the back seat, gives him a buzz off hand wave and the guy retorts with shining a flashlight in our faces. I don't know if he was trying to blind us or trying to assess who he was messing with. Turns out, he was messing with the RIGHT guys. I sat in the stale-mate for about 30 seconds longer, fuming mad and trying to decide whether or not I wanted to make a scene, and then put the car in drive and drove forward to the $2 parking lot around the corner.

Phil, Elizabeth, and I continued to determine the right course of retaliation for the next 30 minutes until we forgot about it and later in the night decided the course of action we took was the "high road" also known as the "preppy-white guys and pregnant lady not doing anything about it road."

 I found this interesting article that really mirrors a lot of my feelings and confirms that I got doobed.