You TOO Can See My Keynote Speech

Oh, yes, I know you're dying to see me in action, up on the stage, hundreds of adoring fans hanging onto every word that comes out of my mouth...haha.

Take a look if you like, but be kind with your comments!

Click here to see it.

More Friends in Orlando!

Here I am with Patti and Jeff. Patti and I have been friends for years and Jeff and I have been friends since he married Patti! They treated me to a really nice Italian restaurant in an area of Orlando called Portofino, patterned after the real Portofino in Italy.

Below you see a couple of shots of Portofino and a picture of me with the accordion player in the restaurant.

The last photo shows Jeff and I copping a feel from a young lady. She was a bit stonelike, but no matter!

In the restaurant, a trio sang and played for us. I had them sing Happy Birthday in Italian for my wife, who was stuck back in cold Virginia, poor thing!

Listen to them sing in the videos.

My New Friends

This lovely couple are Luana, originally from Brazil, and her husband Giovanny, originally from Columbia. Don't they make a lovely couple? We met at the conference at which I spoke last week in Orlando and we have become fast friends...fast!

As Seen In Orlando...

A black horse and a white unicorn. Are they dancing? Are they about to fight? Are they using sign language to communicate? What do you think?

Who Drives This?

I saw this parked at the hotel where I stayed in Orlando last week. With the sun shining on this beauty, I could see it a mile away!

What a lovely shade of...purple?

Kill, Kill, Kill!

This was my last night in Orlando before going home (yea!!), at least for two weeks, after which I'm back here for another conference!

So I wanted to get at least seven hours sleep before leaving for the airport. Instead, at 3 am I woke up to a loud argument happening in the room next to mine. There is an adjoining door between our rooms and their argument was so loud I thought they were in my room!

The argument finally stopped (sort of) after they turned on the TV full blast. They were watching My Cousin Vinny, one of my favorite movies, only I wasn't quite in the mood to watch it right then. Then, while the movie was playing, the couple in the room started screaming at each other again. It seemed a little alcohol-fueled considering the slurring I was hearing.

I debated with myself:

1) banging on the adjoining door and risk having them break down mine and politely challenging me to a duel in my sleepy state

2) calling the front desk, but at this hotel they NEVER answer the phone and besides the couple next door would be able to hear me and then proceed to option 1 above

3) calling them directly but again they'd hear me through the door (stereo effect), which would lead to option 1

4) going out into the hall and banging on their front door, but that's kind of like option 1, which would lead to the results of option 1.

So which did I choose? That's right, I turned on the air conditioning in the room, setting it to the current temperature so that it wouldn't actually turn on, but then set the fan to high, which made a lovely loud white noise sound, almost completely muffling the next door neighbors.

Ah, to sleep, perchance to dream. I fell back asleep.

I had set the alarm for seven a.m., but instead woke up at 6 a.m. and the usual thing happened - my brain started racing around thinking of all the things I had to do. Yep, I couldn't sleep. I got up, finished packing, and turned on my TV. Not real loud, mind you, just enough. The couple next door no longer has their TV on, but I can still hear them arguing.

Couples on vacation, so relaxing!

Funny Pics Galore

A Man Who Really Wants to Get into the World Cup

Best T-Shirt Design


What Will You Be When You Grow Up?


Don't Worry, It's a Refrigerator Magnet

A Valentine's Day Incident

This month, February, is a costly one for me. Not only is it Valentine's Day, but the next few day are also my wife's birthday and our wedding anniversary. Then our second child decided to be born on our sixth anniversary so I have his birthday too. I went to the card store and there were all the men buying Valentine's Day cards. I picked up four cards, one for each of the above events. A man saw me holding four cards and with eyebrows raised said, "Just how many girlfriends do you have?" I just smiled and walked away!

Getting Older...Still!

I've noticed another disturbing trend as I get older...many of the famous people are younger than I am. I've gotten used to seeing new actors and actresses come onto the scene who are years younger than I, but...

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND...

The president of the United States is younger than I am! He was born a year after I was!

This trend is truly disturbing! If it continues, I see a time when everyone on Earth will be younger than I. What will happen then? Will I win some kind of contest?

Time to Get Serious, Part 2 - Lying for God

I receive so many forwarded messages from several well-meaning individuals, most of which were written by the original poster taking umbrage at some incident that proves that America is moving away from God. The only problem is that most of the time those incidents never happened! The most recent exclaims that the words "so help us God" were left out of a quote from Franklin Delano Roosevelt that is engraved on the World War II Memorial here in Washington, D.C. The problem here is that the quote from a speech that FDR gave never says those words in that part of the speech. Many of the emails are even more obvious in their fallacies. Another one I just got recently states that Budweiser has stopped delivery to a store in California after Sept. 11, 2001, because the beer delivery man saw the Muslims inside celebrating. Again, this has been disproved, including by Budweiser itself.

Oh, there are so many other stories that are like these. They are almost universally sent by those who have a far-right or a religious agenda and usually fall into one of these categories:

1. Someone or some organization is trying to delete God from our country.
2. An inspiring story from 9/11.
3. During the months leading up to the election, something proving that Obama was a fundamentalist Muslim, or a God-hater, or an atheist, or...well, almost anything else that is negative and not true.

When I receive one of these stories, I like to check for myself whether they are true, because sometimes, though rarely, they are. Luckily, there are impartial research organizations that check these all the time. One of the best ones is www.snopes.com. There is a search window there and you can just type in a keywords, such as "World War II Memorial", and you'll see any stories that relate to that subject. Right at the top it will say whether the story is True or False and then give a very good explanation as to why. I highly recommend it to anyone.

A little skepticism can help us to avoid falling for so many lies. That leads me to the question...why do people lie to promote the idea of God? When the original writer of an email writes about something that is made out of whole cloth (for my foreign readers, that's an expression in English that means something is not true), even if the email promotes giving yourself over to Jesus Christ as your Savior, do they believe that Jesus approves of their lies? Do they think Jesus thinks it's OK to lie on His behalf? If so, how much further down the road do they have to go before they think it's OK to steal or kill on His behalf?

Time to Get Serious, Part 1 - Tolerance

Not only do I believe in tolerance, I believe in acceptance. I believe we should accept each other no matter our beliefs or backgrounds. The only thing that makes me want to distance myself from someone is an individual's actions, not beliefs, fears, kinky ideas or anything else. I don't promise to respect your beliefs if they are different from mine, but I will not mock you or try to convince you to abandon your beliefs. If you ask me about mine, I will share freely. If you ask me about yours, I'll tell you what I think without being condescending (I hope). If you try to belittle me for what I believe, don't expect me to be happy about it.

No, nothing has happened today to make me write this. It's just an overall conclusion I've reached after a lifetime of experience.

Cool Demo from Adobe!

Adobe has a new cool demo for its latest version of Adobe Creative Suite. Click here to see it for yourself.

Be sure to move the red bar at the bottom all the way to the right to see the whole animation. Be sure also to have your speakers on.

The Spirit Leaves the Body...

I was using Skype Video to talk with our friend Gina, who is in Preston, England, for a few months. At a certain moment, I saw her spirit leave her body and took a picture of it, which you see here. I promise you I did not retouch this photo in any way!

I believe this is the first time in history that anyone has actually taken a picture of the moment that the spirit leaves the body.

Oh, please don't tell me that this is due to slow connection and slow screen refresh! No, no, there are no technical reasons behind this. The fact that Gina is alive and well has nothing to do with anything! She was just temporarily separated from herself. The fact that she felt nothing different during this process means nothing! Now give me a million dollars! :-)

These Guys Really Mean It

Can you "hear" the message any louder than when a chain is attached to the pen? Don't Steal Our Pen!

I took this picture at a local restaurant!