ABSILVER's World

I am trying to remember the last time I have been able to disconnect from work and breathe, exhale, and to take a few moments from the production of work and income, to focus on me, home, Frank and our four-legged kids.   Truth be told, I left IBM full time more than eight years ago to work for iSOA Group. The goal was to do great work and achieve greater balance between my work and personal life. That worked for a while, but it still was challenging un the scheduled 30 hours a week to not find additional time where work was not on my mind, to not think about ideas to promote the business, find new clients, or for marketing to help the business grow.   When I left iSOA Group, to become a consultant / marketing strategist for other companies, it became easier and harder to disengage.   When you are on your "own" you tend to worry about the next gig even if you have your toes in the ocean or are watching sunset at Mallory Square in Key West...

It was a week ago, the morning of Saturday February 9th, and I was on a flight at the beginning of the year. What are the odds that I am not on the way to some holiday but rather headed to a conference? If you have happened to follow my blog for more than a year, you are probably not surprised that I ended up at an IBM conference.    This year was “Think 2019” in San Francisco.   After years too many to count of conferences in Vegas, it was nice for a change of scenery even if it came with its own set of challenges.    While Vegas swallows up conventions easily, most cities don't have the abundance of hotels with thousands of rooms jammed next to one another nor the short distances between venues.   It also didn’t help the cause that the weather was rainy and cold most of the week.   San Francisco is a great city, but its ability to handle the crowd of over 26000 IBM employees, customers and fans was a challenge. Intere...

Brian's Top Ten Lessons of 2018 & 2019 New Year's Resolution I have not written often in my personal blog in 2018, as I have been busy, and writing has been more on the professional side for the agency and clients, so the creative spark was not as easy.   Here we are at the end of 2018, and I wanted to share some thoughts, and my New Year's Resolution for 2019. 2018 was a good year for us in Austin.  We settled into a new home, have good careers, and are learning to appreciate all that Austin has to offer.  There are challenges as well, but as we start the New Year and another birthday has passed, I hope you enjoy my top ten thoughts and resolutions for 2019. Brian's Top Ten Lessons Learned in 2018: 1) Cats can be sweet and loving:   As many of you know, I have not been a cat person.  I usually sneeze up a hairball around them, and truthfully am still more of a dog person.  With Daisybelle by my side, it has been even m...

So, I haven't written a blog in many months.   I have written a few pieces for the DeLaune site and helped with marketing content for clients but stepping up to my own plate and writing has been a challenge.   Not because I don't have anything to say, but more because I don't have a clear way to organize the thoughts about my life and the world around me, but it is time so here I go. To start it out, Donald Trump has turned out to be the president he promised he would be.   It may turn out that his bombastic tweets and statements were enough to scare the Korean peninsula to peace.   While at the same time it appears to be turning Syria into a war zone between Israel and Iran as compared to its own civil strife or the interference of the Russians.   He seems to believe his campaign promises were real, people elected him for them, and even if he doesn't understand why they are good or bad his job is to implement them.   I have also written in th...

Spoiler Alert: This blog is about the movie, Call Me by Your Name This is a very interesting movie on many levels.  The scenery is divine I don't know exactly where they are but the scenery, the town and just the peace of it all seem quite magical.  Makes you want to dream of sneaking away to Italy and escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life. The movie is set in the early 80's.  A time when it was still unusual or hard for some to come "out" in most of the world including the USA.  Where common, even in big cities, was to live one life at work or with family and then escape to reality on the weekends.  Or maybe, sad to say as someone who came out in the 80's, the escape was being gay and true to yourself on weekends outside of the office and away from family. I wonder how the world sees the movie as Frank and I saw it differently.  See, Frank enjoyed the scenery and the younger man, Elio, but felt Oliver, the older American was not ...

Happy new year!  Welcome to 2018, which cannot be any zanier than 2017. A year ago, I wrote in my blog about surrendering to 2017 .  I was wondering can Donald Trump really be as nutty and ignorant of the world and national politics as he seemed during the campaign?  Mystery solved!! A year ago, Frank and I were sitting in the condominium in Fort Lauderdale wondering about the year ahead,. We both enjoyed our friends and work, but found ourselves ready for a change.  We had explored over the years a number of options of places to move; Tallahassee, Savannah, Asheville, Richmond, and others. The requirement was that the place had to have a balance of closeness to family, professional opportunity, quality of life, and higher elevation.  Frank had dreamed of living in Austin. While I had been to Austin many times for work, I had never really taken the time to really explore all it has to offer.  There is plenty of tec...