Chris Ramstedt

Mom- thinking about you… 

So this week is not exactly firing on all cylinders.

I’m on a 2100 calorie diet that I blew out Monday with 3200 calories. Then, today I could not get anything accomplished with the business (I guess that’s relative). Capped off with a visit from the ex that involved talking about the older boy’s grades (again). That is getting really old. And that was just 3 I can think of off the top of my head.

So if you came here to listen to me bitch about the same old crap, move along. Nothing more for you here.

This probably does not apply to you:

Your attitude has been bleeding on me for a while and I have grown tired of it. That’s why you don’t hear from me too much anymore. I tried to overlook it, but I did a lot of thinking about my own attitude and I’m not happy with it. I want to be a more positive person and I want people to enjoy being around me. I have bored myself listening to my dribble about how hard life is when someone asks how I’m doing. I want you to change and have a better attitude also, but I can’t help you right now.

I need to work on me and making my world a better place. I need to focus on why I’m a Scouter, how I relate to my family (or former family), what I want from others in the world, being a better businessman, and most importantly, being a good example of the man I want my boys to grow up to be.

Choosing to focus on these things has made me lonely, but mostly lonely by choice. That is changing also, albeit very slowly. One day I’ll make it a bigger priority; just not today.
So because of this break, I’m actually happier day-to-day. However, when it’s quiet; after the boys are in bed and I’m thinking about my day and who I have touched, sometimes I still miss you.

And to “you” – I still miss and think about you.

So it looks like I got the cron job working to allow me to post by e-mail. I think there is something messed up within my blog software, but I’m just not feeling the love lately to fix it. Content it WAY more important at this point.

I met with some old business associates today for lunch. It seems like I’m constantly reminded that I’m outclassed within the advertising community; I couldn’t even remember how to use chopsticks! But it was good to touch base with others within the business. Made me feel pretty good about how our business is progressing and gave me some energy to keep moving forward; actually, it makes me want to be even more aggressive in the business. We’re flying pretty good, but I want more. Being successful in the face of a bad economy is just kind of a “fuck you” to the rest of the business world who say it can’t be done. And I like it. Plus, it’s not hard to sell a talent like my partner has. I can’t convince someone that I’m a good guy to date, but I can look someone in the eye and tell them they should give us five figures for design work and mean it. Go figure.

Tonight broke weird. The kids were gon, throwing off my built-in “need to take care of someone” programming. Add on the fact that I got home late due to a late afternoon meeting and I was thrown pretty bad. Dinner was late, no TV, just sitting in front of the computer until midnight.

I did get #43 of the Leader’s Campfire mixed and uploaded. I’ll get it posted on the site tomorrow. I’m just too uninterested right now to deal with it.

My brother called and we spoke for over an hour. I’m really starting to enjoy talking to him again. I hope that will turn into me trying to reconnect to the rest of my family that I make no effort to speak to. I did call my grandmother yesterday for her birthday, but I’m pissed off that I had to force myself to call her. She’s really cool and the fact that she had a stroke should not change that. Lame.

Also went and attacked some online dating action. Responded to 3 or 4 e-mails from some perfectly nice ladies. Although there are 3 or 4 ladies I’m interested in taking to, one in particular has got my attention. I hope she contacts me.

Oh, and I’ve also started a slight Starbucks habit. I wish I could go to someplace local to the area, but the one local coffee shop is in the process of closing or getting sold or some crap like that. That’s why I went into advertising in the first place; to keep places and people I believe in business. Not everyone in advertising is smarmy. As a matter of fact, most of us are perfectly nice people.

The wine is wearing off, so I will move on to the “closed-eyes” part of the performance for tonight.

Oh, and one more thing – I miss you. Maybe that will make me call you tomorrow.

Just out of the shower. Here’s what was on my mind in there:

“I don’t have enough hair to ‘repeat’”
“What am I going to do with all of those left over soap pieces?”

Oh, wait… that’s not what I meant.

I was thinking about all of the different online communication tools I use. For my podcasts, I have 3 websites, a forum, 2 e-mail accounts, and, of course, the podcasts themselves. As a business owner, I’ve got another website, a LinkedIn account and another e-mail account. As a Scout Leader, I have another website. And then there’s this site and my other 5 IM accounts and 2 e-mail accounts. Oh, and my Twitter account…

Now, I’ve gone to great MENTAL strains to keep most of these away from each other, which basically means I don’t tell one group in my life about the other groups. But a very simple search online gets you all of the others. Heck, if you know the address for THIS page, you can find all of the others. I make no ACTUAL effort to hide them from each other.

So the question is why? Who am I hiding from? What is the point? It’s not like I’m much different between Scouts, business and personal (except swearing like a sailor – I’ve gotta work on that…) and when my Scout associates have become business clients it’s been a great experience. The podcast people and Scout people should already be together, even though they’re not.
Also, I’m very proud of everything I do that is online. I’ve made great friends and business associates who I would NEVER have known otherwise. It just makes no sense to keep all of my roles so opaque to each other online.

I think I’m going to make this a higher priority to figure out. Time to get out “the book” and write another few pages. I hate “the book”…

OK, so let’s take a look over the evening:

• Combined the latest Leader’s Campfire to get it ready for editing
• Ran through my Inbox. It’s gone from about 50 messages down to 9
• Created a new logo for my Scout District (link coming soon)
• Activated blog by mail on this account (still need to add a cron job)
• Listened to 3 hours of podcasts, including MacBreak Weekly and TWiT
• Signed another potential advertiser to PTC Media
• Sent off an e-mail to someone I really think is cool (vague but true; maybe more on this some other time)

So I think that’s a pretty full evening.Now that I can e-mail the blog, I’m going to do more babbling about my life; at least the part that I’m publicly speaking about.I am a father, podcaster, business owner and Scouter. I will be talking about all of these things and more.