ABSILVER's World

What do you do when .. you are near the ledge.. only a symbolic one... You know your life is about to change.. maybe it has to do with something good coming your way.  You won the lottery, or maybe you found out you received a bonus at work.  The ledge doesn't have to be a bad place it is just a place where you stand knowing your life is going through some changes, and that you don't have full control of the next steps. This doesn't happen often in my life, but today ends up being one of those days.  I sit here watching the water go by, the occasional kayak go by, hear the birds chirp and know this is one of those days.  That my life after today will be different than it is today.  Sometimes it is about summoning all the power and wisdom I posses to make sure something changes or someone is helped, or help assure success of the moment. So, what do you do?  I have written many times, that I have an editor in my head.  This extra cycle or two of thought that 99% of the

I want to quit Facebook... I am not but I want to.. so I thought I would share why. I live a relatively dull life on the outside, and feel this constant sharing makes me want to prove I really do get the occasional pedicure and find some excitement.  Yes, I sit on the porch every morning. I read the paper on line.  Walk the occasional sunrise on the beach.  Go for a walk, and enjoy a good bagel with nova and cream cheese.  I am not complaining but am certain many of you go he needs some excitement in his life. (Trust me I am fine!) As much as I appreciate everyone else's status, I wonder about this constant need to post where, what and how we all do what we do every day.  I watch these older shows and wonder what were they doing at 8pm each night and how we could have survived without knowing each moment of the day what all of us are doing.  I guess when the compelling need to share soemthing people just picked up the phone.  I think about this collection of information th

I do what I need to do.  To put it simply, when I get up in the morning,  I head to the beach and I feel each morning is starting with a mystery.  You must trust me when I tell you that sunrises are as different as snow flakes.  No two are alike.  This morning there was a storm out on the horizon and then the sun sneaks up on the side of the storm that never seem to make it onto shore. Two mornings ago it was a firing red clouds giving way to that lovely sun sneaking out from the horizon. So, I do what I need to do.  I see the world, I must confess to a slightly evil grin when I see tourists reaching out to the beach with coffee in hand to watch this mystery unfold for them.  That mystery I get to witness every morning, and like a truly spoiled adult I get to sit at home and through the window of my living room watch the sun set in the evening through a screen of palm trees. In between I do what I need to do.  I do some work in these days of uncertainty for me.  I actually ra

This is an article about what I really care about. This starts out on a bad tone that is GA is losing to Missouri.  I sit here and frankly I care, but not nearly as much as anyone around me on Facebook.  I remember great times at GA football games.  The first game walking into the stadium, and the great expectations you could feel of all that were there were amazing.  Also, it accompanied my being a pledge at AEPi and all of the memories. I have to confess, that I care more about Serena William winning the US Open that if the Bulldogs won the game today.   I think her amazement as a lady, and a personal force of success seems much more exciting to me.  I want to say it is cause I played tennis in my life, but truthfully I think she is an amazing person as well as her sister Venus. Yes, this may be considered criminal as a southern man growing up in the state of Georgia and a very proud UGA alumni, but the idea of watching a football game on the TV and having to gasp at eac

Should health insurance be like car insurance? Come on... take a walk with me out of your comfort zone.  Especially if you work in corporate America, and you are staring down a 49th birthday and you wonder what is next in your life.  Maybe you have been at this, whatever, for 30 years.  You walk into Starbucks and there is a smiling face looking back at you and you wonder, you are between conference calls,  you worked the weekend toward a deadline and you wonder what does that smiling person looking back at you know that you don't know.  They may surprisingly look like you.  Similar age, and heck maybe even drive the same car, but what may just separate the two of you is a smile because if they are working more than 20 hours a week they have heath insurance. If you have auto insurance.. you know the drill.  What is the first question asked?  do you currently have auto insurance? If you say yes they merrily go on their way of asking a few questions about your history of clai

OK.. in honor of Ivan's post.. I have never written about my view of AEPi in College. Maybe some of this will come as a shock to those of that time, but I was an unusual pledge as I was a sophomore.  Actually didn't imagine wanting to be in a Fraternity and came to this in a very unusual path, and that led me to AEPi. When I was a senior in High School, I actually graduated 10th in my class, I had narrowed down my college choices to Mercer University and UGA.  I happened to be bagging groceries at Red and White and the daughter of the owner had been accepted to Mercer and kept saying how great it was.  Nice Baptist college in a very accepting Georgia town of Macon (smiles).  So, the more I heard about it and frankly a little bit of a desire to show I could go also I applied to Mercer and University of GA among others.  I remember Boston University was recruiting me, but there was no realistic way I could see being in Boston. My folks were skeptical of Mercer.  They ha

People say where were you? Where were you when JFK was shot (I was not born yet). They say where were you when you heard John Lennon was assassinated. (I was in High School ). But, where I was 12 years ago has helped to define who I am, how I see my future, and how I see my country. Twelve years ago, I was sitting in my office in Palisades, NY.  I had a team of 15 professionals, and I am sure we were on a call and somebody said did you hear..  I went rushing out to see, and as a conference center, all TV's were on CNN.  Maybe the first hit of the first tower was an accident.  No, there was a second.  Maybe the towers will withstand the hit, maybe .. then people started jumping.  The towers started to crumble and I stared at the TV and watched across the Hudson River as I saw the city that I had admired so much turn into a crisis zone.  Then the Pentagon was attacked and again hope that there are no injuries.  Maybe they weren't related, and maybe this wa