How tweet it will be

I finally have reached the point in my life at which I not only need to have a Twitter account, I need to know how to use it. Here’s the assignment: coordinate a statewide story that identifies the most interesting business tweeters in Ohio.

The problem is, I have never needed Twitter until now. I have an account (@genemonteith), but I opened it only because I thought I should. I’ve never had a business reason to tap its potential, so I am a novice when it comes to finding people I should follow and getting them to follow me. In other words, I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to Twitter.

But there are plenty of people around me who do. And so I called my colleague Feoshia, who is an avid Twitterer and who gets a lot of her freelance story ideas from tweets. She said two simple words that sound almost gospel-like in their simplicity, but which I will live by for the next two weeks: “Follow me.”

So, I am following Feoshia, as well as my friend Kim, an emerging expert in social media (and the brains behind To Know Better). Kim and Feoshia, be warned I will be watching your every move. I will learn and try not to get outrun by my staff. In the end, I know, we will get a great story.

In the Navy?

My son, Colin, says he wants to join the Navy. Several years ago, I would have thought this was a bad idea. Now, I only hope it’s right for him.

I came of age during the Vietnam War and was among the last group of young men who were required to register for the draft. Somewhere along the line I lost my draft card, but the point is, and was at the time, moot. By the time I turned 18, in 1974, they weren’t knocking on doors anymore.

The fact is, I didn’t know anyone within my group of friends who were drafted or even volunteered. We could see no reason to die for a cause we didn’t understand or for a government that had lied to us about the virtues of  that war.

But there is a reason our country has stood the test of time, and one of them is the willingness of its people to go into harm’s way. There’s still a need, though the causes to which we often send our young people are as much a mystery to me now as they were then.

My nephew joined the Navy two years ago. He’d spent a couple of years in college and decided to take another route. He really wanted to be a corpsman, aiding the injured and sick. He will be deployed overseas soon; we don’t know where. But he seems to be at peace with the decision he made.

We’ll see what my son decides to do. Maybe he will take another path. Maybe he will, indeed, become a sailor.

It’s not a decision I would make for myself. But he’s his own man, not his mother’s or mine. In the end, whatever he decides, we’ll support him. And pray to God that wherever he goes, that the cause is just.

Having a ball

Got a second issue of hiVelocity under my belt, and guess what? I’m having fun.

I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into, actually. I had a lot of time on my hands, was recommended by a friend for the job, and one thing led to the next. Voila, I’m editing a webzine.

I should let it be known that my position as managing editor of the magazine is technically a part-time job. I say technically, because I’m not smart enough to make it work spending only 20 hours a week. Maybe that will come.

But right now, I don’t care. Our reporters are outstanding, my employers have treated me with nothing but respect and kind words, and our readers say they want more.

It’s a far cry from the job I once had.

That job paid more money than I ever thought I’d see — more than four times what I’m making now — but there’s something to be said for waking up in the morning without a stomach ache.

I have not burned any bridges and I won’t. But there are situations where personalities and chemistry simmer like a pot that somebody keeps pouring more cabbage into. Sooner or later you’ve got a mess.  For the last three years, I felt as if I was scraping burned dinner off a rough surface with a sponge.

No more.

I may be making part-time wages, but it’s full time work. I’m determined to do it well. And right now, I’m having a ball.

Craigslist: what you CAN’T advertise

A long time ago when we were living in Mississippi, a news item — might have been in the Starkville Daily News but more probably appeared in the Clarion-Ledger — revealed that a woman had sued a dish soap manufacturer because she didn’t realize until too late that you couldn’t ingest the “juice of one whole lemon” if it was contained in detergent.

Thus a new warning label, and I paraphrase: “not lemonade: do not drink.”

This incident made me realize for the first time that there is a dumbass to go with every dumb warning label.

So it must be with Craigslist, which I found this afternoon to include a number of warnings — or, rather, prohibitions.

Most did not surprise me. Even I had heard that earlier this year Craigslist became the subject of a federal lawsuit when Cook County, Ill., Sheriff Thomas Dart accused the (mostly) free classified ad site of promoting prostitution by accepting the ads of all comers without proper vetting.

Ahem.

Well, Craigslist cracked down on those kinds of ads and now is being very selective about the services it allows on its site. For example, a “discrete, deep tissue massage for a generous gentleman” probably is not going to make it onto Craigslist anymore.

Do you know where Lassie's right paw is?

But did you ever take a look at what else you can’t advertise on Craigslist?

I just did a little while ago. And it reminded me that — as with warning labels —  each prohibition probably matches up with a dumbass.

There are all the things you might expect can’t be advertised — obscene material, child pornography, weapons and related items “including but not limited to firearms, disguised, undetectable or switchblade knives, martial arts weapons, scopes, silencers, ammunition, ammunition magazines, BB guns, tear gas or stun guns.” Counterfeit money, burglary tools, fake I.D.s, etc.

But how about this?

• Blood, bodily fluids or body parts.
• Pet animal parts, blood, or fluids – including but not limited to stud/breeding service.

Body parts? PET body parts?

The whole thing set my mind down a long and winding journey into the realm of “what the hell happened?”

Did a desperate John Wayne Bobbit try to advertise on Craigslist before the surgeon stepped in?

Is Lassie’s right front paw still intact, or did some grave-robbing Craigslist advertiser sell it to a dog-parts collector in Saskatoon?

Do you really know where Tabby’s spleen is? Do you?

There is a story behind everything. And there must be hundreds behind the Craigslist list of what you can’t advertise.

As someone who’s almost always up for a good story, part of me wants to learn how the warnings against selling body parts — human or otherwise –made the list.

The other part of me — the stronger part — says, “let it go; you don’t really want to know.”

Although, I do have one more question.  Since the Craigslist warnings specify PET parts . . . do you think I’d run any risk if I were to sell an animal part that’s not from a pet?

Just asking.

hiVelocity goes live

When I started this blog, I intended to post every day. Like many others, I learned that to keep it up daily requires either unlimited time or unlimited devotion.

Seldom have I gone more than a week without posting, but looking back at my last post, I realize it’s been 10 days.

That’s too long. I will try to do better.

But there is an explanation. We launched an online magazine last week. It’s a brand new experience for me. I was a journalism/English major at Indiana University, and spent 10 years in newspapers before leaving for greener pastures.

Now, I’m managing editor of hiVelocity, with a staff and a growing (we hope) readership. I’m back in the fold. But it’s not your father’s journalism.

hiVelocity walks a fine line between what my old colleagues would call “real” journalism and advocacy journalism.

Our goal is to highlight the many innovations that are occuring in Ohio’s economy, including growing New Economy segments like advanced and alternative energy, advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, venture capital, etc.

We want to let people know where progress is occurring and who is driving Ohio forward. Is that news with an agenda? It certainly is. But here’s the thing: nobody else is telling the story, at least not all in one place.

And the stories we have to tell are important and, we think, interesting ones. How a backpacker turns hip blisters into a battery pack for your iPhone; how a middle-class Joe from Dayton lost his job building fuel assemblies for GM trucks and ended up working in the aerospace industry; why northwest Ohio has become a hotspot for solar power.

It’s not your father’s newspaper — then again, your father’s newspaper has probably laid off most of its staff.

God willing, we’ll be around at least as long as there are stories to tell — and it doesn’t look like we’re going to run out of stories very soon.

Bear Country

OK. I did it. I submitted a short story for publication.

I’ve been a writer since the third grade, when Mrs. Houser, my teacher, suggested I send my first big journalistic scoop to the local Bristol (Ind.) Banner.

It was all about how the planets go around the sun. I got the scoop. And it was there in black and white, on green newsprint. It was a rush I never forgot. Putting words to paper.

In junior high school I wrote a story about a contemporary of Christopher Columbus, who sailed around the world only to find that the world was actually flat. The whole crew fell off the edge.

With that heady success, I decided to be a writer.  I signed up for the high school newspaper for experience, knowing even then that a person can’t just write; he or she has to find a way to live — in other words, you’ve got to find a way to make it pay.

And, thus, I entered Indiana University as a journalism student. There, I learned that there were real world things to write about — for example, Legionnare’s Disease, which sickened a number of  guests at the largest college union one year in the 1970s. There, I learned that writing, and the English language, can be used to inform and persuade. Not just to dump one’s thoughts into an empty space.

And it’s been onward from there. Two newspapers. An insurance company. A public relations firm. Now an electronic magazine.

I’ve written all my life, learned to use words and ideas  to make my living — even sometimes putting my own words into other people’s heads to achieve an end I alone envisioned.

But somewhere along the line, I forgot about the pure joy of making something up. And so, I wrote “Bear Country,” a suspense tale about a lone hiker in the Cranberry Wilderness who follows a mother and child through the woods to find out why they have raided his bear bag.

My daughter Erin — an outstanding writer in her own write (that’s a play on spelling) – has a good eye for these things, and was my best editor. My parents like it. My wife likes it. But that’s just what they say.

I have submitted a short story. I have no idea how good it is. But the Indiana Review will tell me soon.

Gettysburg

It’s impossible to imagine the horror that occurred there. But after three days in Gettysburg, I think I have a better understanding of why the battle that took place on July 1, 2 and 3, 1863, is forever engraved in the psyche of our nation.

My wife and I went there for two reasons: first, to visit with her sister Barb and our brother-in-law Mike, who — having recently retired — now have the chance to travel from their Texas home to see America’s sights by camper; second, to better understand why the Battle of Gettysburg is such an important event.

I had been there once before on a quick trip with Sherri and our son Colin. We spent one day visiting the museum and driving around the battlefield. That visit, though brief, was deeply moving. It’s impossible to grasp the size of the battlefield without seeing it, since it is not one, but many battlefields that encompass 25 square miles and envelope the small town of Gettysburg in its center.

On that first trip, as we stood by the Peace Monument and its eternal flame, a terrible smell like dog feces permeated the cold afternoon air. I wasn’t the only one who noticed it; a nearby couple, the only other visitors to that area, commented too. Only after Sherri did a little research did we learn that those smells — the rotting flesh of horses and men who perished in the fields below — can sometimes resurface even today.

Nobody seems to have an accurate count of how many men died. But we know there were at least 51,000 casualties, and more than 3,000 men are buried in the National Cemetery. Between 4,000 and 7,000 horses and mules also were killed — and presumably lay longer before burial than their human riders.

If you read anything at all about the Battle of Gettysburg, you’ll quickly learn that it was not one battle but many, in which soldiers from 18 Union states and 12 Confederate states — 165,000 soldiers in all — fought for what they believed to be freedom.

The battlefield at night

According to “Gettysburg by the Numbers,” a little white book of statistics compiled by park ranger Chuck Teague, the average age of the soldiers was 19 and their average weight 145 pounds. And they died like flies. Nearly a third of the soldiers from Connecticut were either injured, missing or killed. One in four Michiganders was injured, missing or killed. For Minnesota, Florida and Tennessee, the number was 60 percent. When the fighting ended, at least 25,000 muskets were recovered from the field and 85 percent were loaded. Forty percent of those loaded guns had multiple loads, meaning that the soldiers in the heat of battle had forgotten they had already tamped down charge, ball and paper, and did it again — and again. 

Today, people are still digging bullets and bones out of the ground in a place where both fell thickly 146 years ago. And when you walk in the still, open fields,  deliberately kept as they were nearly 150 years ago, you feel as though you are walking on souls.

It’s no wonder that ghost stories abound. I am a skeptic when it comes to these things; I believe that human souls live on after the body dies, but where they go is a mystery. Is there a heaven? I like to think so. Is there a hell? If so, it may be at Gettysburg. Is it possible for a soul to remain tied to its past, unable to escape? Maybe.

As we sat at breakfast yesterday morning with other guests at our bed and breakfast — the only B&B that sits right in the middle of the battlefield — a young woman said that in the night she heard something in her ear and then felt a brush across her cheek. The owner said he has had many such reports within the house and at nearby homes. For example, a recent recording of a normal conversation at a house across the street, when played back, was punctuated by the unexplained screams of a young man. In the parking lot, as we were getting ready to leave, I encountered another guest, wearing a Harley Davidson jacket and a mustache, who volunteered reluctantly that in the night someone had tucked his feet in at the bottom of his bed.

As for me, the skeptic? On Sunday night, out at the observation tower on Oak Ridge, a quarter mile from our B&B, Sherri and I stood to see what the place was like at midnight. There was a strong wind coming from my right. And that’s why it was so strange that a white mist moved in front of me going in the opposite direction.

Back on the bike

I’ve got a new gig. Actually, the gig is about a month old now, and I’m feeling like a frog that’s been gigged. There’s a lot to do in a very short amount of time.

Let’s cut to the chase: I’m back in journalism again.

I left that world in 1989, putting up my reporter’s notebook, bad pay, a disfunctional newsroom and uncertain work schedule for the suit-and-tie world of the insurance industry.  I loved that job at Lincoln National Corp.

That’s where I learned about the business world and that high-powered executives could be good people, too. It’s where I got my first taste of media relations, which I didn’t particularly like — after all, when you’ve been avoiding flaks all your life, how can you become one?

It’s where I learned to write speeches, and when I walked away from that job to follow my wife to a new opportunity in Ohio, I felt I could walk into any CEO’s office in the country and make my words his or her own. I still do.

Now, after having left journalism for good 20 years ago, I’m back on the bike. I’m managing editor of a new online magazine that begins publication in about two weeks. We’ll be looking at business innovation, job creation and investment in Ohio’s new economy.

And I’m swamped. There’s a lot to do, and the stories aren’t the half of it. There are industry descriptions, city descriptions, building a staff, Facebook and Youtube pages to create.  Keeping my editorial board happy. Making sure my managing photographer has what he needs. And making sure everybody gets paid.

It’s exciting, nervewracking and fulfilling all at once.

I’m back on the bike. I’m wearing a helmet. I’ll keep you posted should I hit a car on my way across what promises to be a very busy intersection.

Tonight

It’s lonely here tonight.

Colin was here with me last week before heading to school tomorrow. It was a good week; he cooked and we didn’t fight. Erin and Sherri were on vacation in Florida while I worked and Colin cooked. All three are headed to Indy tonight to stay with Sherri’s brother, Don, before Colin and Erin move back into the dorm in Bloomington tomorrow.

So now they’re all gone and I’m soon off to bed.

I loaded up the rental van today, all the worldly possessions of two 20-somethings for another year with the books. Sometimes they seem like friends, sometimes strangers, but always my children. I wanted to see them off, but we launch a new online mag in about three weeks, and I’m feeling some pressure to get everything done. I stayed back, while they went to move.

The dog came over a little while ago and gave me a hug. He can’t do it with his arms, cause he has none. Instead he buried his head under my own arm a few times while I petted him. I continued watching The Universe on PBS, and wondered what it would be like to get stretched through a black hole.

Cash for Clunkers

The Cash for Clunkers program, which ends Monday, has been a resounding success. Turn in a gas hog, get a credit, and drive away in a fuel-efficient machine that makes our environment cleaner. The U.S. Department of Transportation reports that auto dealers have made 489,269 sales under the $3 billion rebate program with the total value of the rebates claimed by dealers at $2 billion.

It’s a good idea, but why stop there? What I’d like to see is a Cash for Clunkers program that takes all my old crap and replaces it with new, more efficient models.

I have a refrigerator that hasn’t worked right since I got it. Get the settings off just a little, and everything on the top shelf freezes. Get the settings a little off in the other direction, and everything in the freezer thaws. Put too much into the door, and the shelving falls out, salad dressing and jars of pepper sauce spilling all over the kitchen floor.

Wouldn’t it be great if I could haul my clunker of a frig down to Sears and get a brand spanking new one at a huge discount? I would like it, and my home environment would benefit.

He's a clunker, too

While I’m at it, I’d take my Lawnboy to Sears, too. The blade isn’t too sharp, though it’s better than it was. The place nearby that resharpened blades of all kinds — saws, axes, machetes — seems to have gone out of business. So I bought one of those little grindstones that hooks up to your power drill. I sharpened the blade myself, but it’s still not exactly right. And the fuel efficiency? The lawnmower sputters every time I start it, so I know it’s eating gas like a Tundra. Cash for that clunker is exactly what the doctor is ordering.

My TV is older than dirt. Yeah, it works. But it doesn’t have a wide screen or high def or any of the features that a modern man like me requires to watch football and the Discovery Channel. It’s a clunker.

Then there’s my dog. Higgins has an enlarged heart, a bad shoulder, skin allergies and perpetual ear infections. I really need a more efficient pup, but — well, I’ll pass on that trade. We love him just the same.

But that brings up an interesting thought. I’m kind of a clunker, too. Though I try to stay in shape by running and biking, there’s no doubt that at age 52 I’ve slowed down a bit. My muscle tone is lacking, my injuries just don’t heal as fast, my endurance has suffered, and there’s no way I’ll ever run another 5K in 19:11 the way I did in my early 40s. I’m not a junker, just a clunker. I’d trade this body in on a new one in a heartbeat.

My car probably doesn’t qualify for the Cash for Clunker’s program, but there are so many other things we could turn in to help ordinary Joes like me, who work hard, try to do the right thing and struggle to realize the American Dream. So, while we’re spending $3 billion on new cars, President Obama, how about it? Is there anything in that bag for me?