A new way to say, "Thank you"

Earlier in the summer I was hired to make a few YouTube videos for a public affairs agency here in Portland. The two videos were designed to show appreciation to Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Earl Blumenauer (who is famous for his amazingly awesome bow-ties) for their support. I was very excited about building these two videos, as it was my first time using iMovie. All video was created using the iSight on a MacBookPro 17in, all editing was performed using iMovie and Audacity:

Dear client...

Well, it has been a few days since the last time I have put something on here. Recently, I have had quite a bit of fun working with several clients freelancing marketing consulting. However, with new clients comes new experiences, and I have had a few that did not understand how billing works, or the value of what they were receiving versus what they were paying (after they paid for it, of course)...

...Regarding this, I have often mused back to a former boss, who explained the concept of billing large amounts of money for what may seem like a small result, albeit the best result possible:

A very rich man loved roosters, and sought out the the best artist in the world to draw him the perfect rooster.

"I would love to draw for you," said the artist. "It will cost you one million dollars and will take me exactly one year."

"For the best rendition of a rooster?" replied the rich man. "I will gladly pay the cost!"

The rich man waited for one year, apprehensively crossing off each day on his leather-bound desk calendar. When the final day arrived, he went to the artist and asked about the drawing.

"Ah! I am so glad you are here," said the artist, and he pulled up his easel. In 20 minutes he had completed an amazing drawing of the most beautiful and perfect rooster the rich man had ever seen.

The rich man loved the drawing, but was deeply concerned with the artist. "This is truly the greatest drawing of a rooster in the world, but - my friend - it took you only 20 minutes! Why in God's name am I paying you a million dollars for 20 minutes?"

"Follow me," replied the artist, and the rich man followed him to a giant room, the size of a gym. Every square foot of every wall was covered with different renditions of roosters in every shape, size and color.

Though the end result may seem small sometimes, the journey to get there is one of blood, sweat and tears. That, my fine clients, is what you're paying for.

...And to drive home another fantastic point that seems to be going on right now:

Yes, we can.

Even though I don't know who I will vote for yet, I am amazed at Obama's ability to mobilize millennials and others to publicize him.  Although will.i.am doesn't qualify as a millennial, he has created an incredibly moving work of art, completely independent of the Obama campaign machine.

Life Lessons at Richmond

Friday was my last day working at OHSU Richmond’s clinic. I began working with the idea that the temporary assignment would last six to eight weeks. Here I am three-and-a-half months later.

I truly enjoyed my experience there. I took it to help pay the bills and let me search for a communications/marketing job, but what I did was so intense and emotionally exhausting that I came home and had little to no creativity left. It was all used in dealing with the widest array of humans I have ever encountered while sitting in one chair.

The Richmond clinic is a federally funded, sliding-scale clinic. What this means is, while they incorporate the average families, they also have provisions to assist extremely poor and often homeless people as well. I spoke to heroine addicts, single pregnant teenagers, and high-level business professionals.

While it is not what I want to pursue as a career, I did enjoy it. I didn’t necessarily enjoy what I did, and I had quite a hard time working with some patients. There were times when I had to leave the front and calm down. Just from one “problem” patient. The thing was that for every one of these, I saw a beautiful person, struggling against life, against everything, but still beautiful. While I could fill pages and pages with examples, I want to describe two that choke me up. Even now.

The first is a duo. They are hard to describe because I don't know much about them. They were a sister team, the oldest at 24, the younger at around 8-years-old. The older sister was bound to a wheelchair, and one knew by the way she sat in it that she would be there for a very long time. Her younger sister always came in with her, always pushing the wheelchair and tending to the every need and desire of her older sister. What crushed me inside was the brilliance and love they had maintained, for each other, for those lucky enough to interact with them, and for life itself. They were always in a great mood, always caring and always reaching out and helping others where they could. I have often wondered how I would cope with losing the ability to walk, run, climb and jump. I don’t know how I would live, but if I could live with half the grace and joy that these two girls bring to this world, I would consider it a grand success.

This last example is amazing. We all hear about druggies. We all hear about people who cut their addiction, but how many of us actually get to see it happen? When I first began working at Richmond, B (omission of her name is obvious) was a brand new patient. I think I actually did her paperwork for her first appointment. She was addicted to Percocet® at a rate of 300 per month. Prescribed by a doctor. She was taking them to help her get off another addictive drug, and the addiction of the Percocet took over. One day a voice inside her told her it was ridiculous, and she went for help and was referred to the clinic. She was lucky enough to be paired up with the most hard-assed doctor at Richmond. He broke her pattern, and she came in once a week for a bloodtest and pills. It was so bad that she would come in the day before her appointment with mathematical equations showing (down to the hour) how he had shorted her meds. Her findings were obviously flawed – she was having a hard time cutting down. It got so bad that she had to come in every two days for pills because she couldn't be trusted with a week’s worth. Last Friday she came in and told me that she had just got back from seeing her brother in Chicago for two weeks, and that she kept clean the entire time. She said it was hard, and stressful, but this was the first time she felt healthy enough to travel for years. She is so much stronger now, and she loves it. She came in here and fought the fight, struggled, was knocked down and got right back up. She had a lot of help from the clinic, but she walked the dark paths by herself, and she won. I will remember her (and the hardships I watched her go through) for the rest of my life.

This is a bit lengthy, but it is so important. I hold everyone who works at that clinic in the absolute highest regard for what they do and the lives they impact on a daily basis.

Well, I am proud to say that I am now offically a podcaster. This is technically the first recording I did with the mp3 recorder loaned to me by the Pearl District Neighborhood Association. (Loaned to record a workshop for PRSA for the development of the Spotlight Awards blog).

I would also like to say that I love my sister very much, and even more so that she puts up with my brilliance.

Father/Son Bonding (Thanks Mom!)

My family has always given useful gifts – boxes of joy with everyday purpose. It has been like that my whole life (Except the three Christmases in a row when I received a flashlight. It was like giving a Cub Scout a pocketknife…I mean, come on, he already has eight!). Although the ‘rents are divorced, they came together in an extraordinary way to make my 25th birthday one fifty-seconds-and-five-minutes I will never forget.

Secrets have no longevity among my family, especially when they find their way somehow to my mother’s lips. Her “mysterious” hints had the subtly of the 800 naked bicyclists who rode past me last month here in Portland. Saturday morning, at 8:30 a.m., I was going to be hurtling back to Earth at 120 mph.

Now, the great thing about skydiving is supposed to be the thrill of the jump, and it was unbelievable! 13,000 feet straight down. The fall was definitely one my favorite parts, although it as much smoother and calmer than I thought it would be. No, I think the best was watching my 64-year-old father sit down with his feet dangling out of the plane, then see his face zip away behind the plane. That’s right! My father and I have quite a shared resume: four major mountains tackled, snow caves camped in, countries explored together, buildings remodeled, and even herding lambs just separated from their mothers (by far the most physically and mentally exerting activity on the list). We even both put up with me in middle school.

My mother funded the expedition, and my father and I now share a bond few father-son duos have: Both of us jumped head first out of an airplane flying 80 mph, fell the entire height of Mt. Hood at 120 mph and both lived to do it again.

Web Designers Look Out!

So I’m learning how to design Web sites. I made a deal with a company in that if they paid for my schooling and books to take a HTML class, I would create a site for them. So far I have had two classes, and have managed to put something online. I’m learning tons about how annoying and tedious writing HTML code is (we aren’t allowed to use GUI’s for this class). It is going to be a guide to the brewpubs and breweries of Portland. Feel free to give me input and advice as well as watch it grow. Hops, I have just found out, grow up to a foot a day in Oregon. It is my hope that my Web site will grow at a comparable rate.

Here is the link to the practice site: Beer! (free site, free practice, and yes, I will get my own domain if I choose to pursue this).

Wish me luck, give me advice, and keep drinking great brews.

NOTE: Because of client development, soccer and moving, this project has taken a temporary backseat.