Sunday, September 28, 2008

The Hideous Yellow Shirt that Summarizes my Life


When you're an Ohio University alum who spent four years living in picturesque Athens, Ohio, and you do media relations by day and live on a hog farm, there really is nothing more perfect than this shirt.



But there's one more thing that makes this shirt special. My roommate, bridesmaid, and friend to this day gave it to me--her winnings from a a Friends lookalike contest (hey, it was the 90s).


So, Phoebe, thanks for all the great memories. Thanks for introducing me to the Rocky Horror Picture Show; thanks for letting me raid your closet for cool clothes; and thanks for never making fun of my pigs or my farmer.

And thanks for hating yellow so much that you let me have this shirt.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Answer: Silo Blower


I know the suspense has been killing you. The answer to the latest What in the the World is that Farm Thing? is: silo blower.

To me, the most fascinating thing about farm machinery is its relative simplicity--at the least the vintage of farm equipment we have around here. The blower works by using the tractor to operate a powerful fan that then blows the chopped up corn up, up, up into the silo.

The corn is then fed to the cows, who twice a day produce 100 pounds of manure a piece. They also give milk.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

It's a Jungle out There



If they ever make the mistake of using us a Nielsen family, rankings for the Hallmark Channel are going to suddenly skyrocket and Diagnosis Murder, Columbo, and Murder, She Wrote will suddenly be top programs (again?).

My husband is building a massive DVR library of these shows. (Isn't there something very ironic about a guy in his thirties using digital television to record shows where the modem is introduced in season five as emerging technology.)

The point here is that my husband LOVES to watch people with keen powers of observation solve crime. I mean, the guy schedules his life around Monk.

Soooooo. Today my husband came face to face with crime when my in-laws were burglarized in the middle of the day. Arriving first on the scene, he channeled his inner Monk, he summoned his best Dick Van Dyke powers of observation, and then like J.B. Fletcher on deadline he doggedly pursued all leads however far-fetched....

No, actually, he ran in the house to borrow a loaf of bread, noticed that the door was open but didn't think another thing of it. Based on the timeline the police have compiled and the time my father-in-law left for an errand, my husband probably arrived moments after the robbery and DIDN'T NOTICE A THING. He didn't even notice that the TV in the kitchen was stolen.

The important thing is that no one was injured and no major damage was done in the house. But as our good friend John pointed out, Dick Van Dyke would be so disappointed.


Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Joys of Coastal Living

It's inconceivable that I have just put my kids to bed by candlelight for the third night in a row (OK, their Dad uses a flashlight) because our Ohio home is in its 59th hour without electricity--DUE TO A HURRICANE.

Update: We ended up going a FULL WEEK without power, about 175 hours!

Apparently, we now have all the problems of coastal living: wind gusts, power outages, downed trees, without actually getting to live near the ocean. There was even a surge today when 3,000 food stamp users stormed downtown Dayton for applications to help make up for their fridges of spoiled food.

I never thought I would say this, but THANK GOD our family milks cows 50 feet from my back door. We have been able to tap into the tractor-powered generator that the farm owns to ensure that the milking equipment will run. And there's nothing so soothing as falling asleep to the gentle flicker of candlelight and the sound of a tractor-powered generator outside the bedroom window.

Anyone who has ever lived in an old house can tell you, though, that there is never an easy way to "tap" into anything when you are dealing with electrical and plumbing systems developed shortly after such things were invented. So we have ONE ROOM with full electric and cords stretched through our house that were previously used to power heat lamps in the sow pen.

We had an epiphany today when we realized that by moving the microwave to the other end of the counter, we could have HOT FOOD. Other breakthroughs include moving the toaster to the living room and buying paper plates so we don't have to wash dishes by hand with cold water (no, the water heater and dishwasher didn't make the electrical cut).

While camping out in our own home is a pain, things could have been a lot worse. We were lucky that the tree that fell at the end of our lane didn't hurt anything, especially after our kids' favorite neighbor "Horn" hauled it out of the way.



The tree was so rotten that two halves fell away, leaving a gaping hole in the middle.

My husband's saintly Grandmother also lost part of a big tree and had her little shed upended. Fortunately, her stash of ancient pushmowers was undisturbed.

So far this year, we have survived a blizzard and now a hurricane. This may be the very best time to take up real estate. Apparently, we can offer both skiing and coastal living right here in Ohio.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

What in the World is That Farm Thing?


It's that time again for another installment of What in the World is That Farm Thing?

Today's item is not nearly as disgusting as last time's but probably harder to identify. In fact, I had no idea myself what it was until I asked my seven year-old nephew.




I've posted two angles here. Here are a few hints: The toilet plunger looking thingy in front attaches to the tractor to make it "go." The box in back is for "input."



One more hint, this piece of equipment does NOT deal directly with pigs, their manure, nor their feed. It's a cow thing.

Ok, John, I know you're there. Forget the rules this time and enlighten us all by leaving a comment.


Tuesday, September 9, 2008

PR Idea of the Week


Back in 1998 I was working for a Fortune 500 Corporation in corporate communications under a PR Vice President who said to our repeated requests for funding and support for the corporate Web site and Intranet: I guess this Internet thing is not going away.

Fast forward a decade and I feel like I'm having the exact same conversations about blogging. I recently worked with a client who wanted all the press releases he could get about his new product. When we asked him about blogs or online forums and working to develop a pitch to them, he responded: We're not ready to engage them yet.

Huh? I was never able to convey to the client that once you sent out a press release, you were fair game to all the bloggers. And it would be better to approach them individually with offers for exclusive demo copies then let them come across a reprint of our press release. Or more likely, have them ignore us completely because we weren't catering to their style.

A new article in the Bad Pitch Blog brings home some facts that have been hovering around out there and now will be in my repertoire for making the case AGAINST press releases and FOR target pitches and dialog with bloggers: the MSM are dying.

According to the guys at Bad Pitch Blog, the New York Times just laid off another 500. Now frantic journalists who didn't have time for off-base pitches will be doing 5 times the work and have no time for even decent pitches.

One argument is that the media will need us PR people more than ever. Now that they have limited staffers to learn and cover beats. This is true but is it really worth your time to pitch the New York Times, when the blog that covers your industry and is read by all the top influencers gets twice the circulation/traffic?

I've worked my whole career in B2B public relations and I've had to cringe my way through umpteen plans that detail how we're going to break into the business media, i.e. WSJ, NYT, BusinessWeek. Why?

Are busy executives in your industry really reading these publications for business information? Maybe they get the WSJ for marketing and financial news. Maybe they read BusinessWeek to keep up with the latest on Google.

As I look at the behaviors of the executives I've worked with, it seems safe to say that more and more potential customers are getting their industry news--the news they base business decisions on--from reputable industry blogs, podcasts, and online versions of industry publications.

It used to be that the main challenge of public relations was getting past the "media gatekeepers."
Now the main task is getting by our own internal gatekeepers who, like the VP from 1998 just keep thinking (hoping) this whole blog thing will go away.

Monday, September 8, 2008

The Long Road to Marriage


Against our better judgement as parents, as a happily married couple, as wedding goers, as people who will be within a 100 mile radius of Shady Hollow Country Club, my husband and I agreed to let our little angel serve as a flower girl in my sister's wedding. Actually, I agreed. He has perfected the art of NEVER making a decision, so that later he can say: This was all your idea.

Not only did we need to maintain the delicate balance of rest, hydration, nutrition, and baby dolls that keep a two year-old girl in equilibrium, we needed to do it from a hotel room, four hours away.

Right now my island-dwelling sister-in-law who traveled in two airplanes and still commuted an hour to the wedding with an 8 month-old baby and a flower girl is yelling at the screen: STOP YOUR WHINING

But we did have our challenges. About 3 1/2 hours into the trip, we heard our four year-old from the back seat say I have to poooo... blahhhhhhhhhhhh. I was driving, so as I flung wipes into the back and looked for a exit, my mother heroically flipped around in her middle bucket seat and began trying to stem the tide.

We finally made it to an exit. The exit from hell. There was construction EVERYWHERE, so when we finally pulled into the abandoned lot of a natural gas distributor, we jumped out like some crazed multi-generational Chinese fire drill.

When we finally made it to the hotel, I learned that their washer was broken and laundry service wasn't available until Monday (thanks for the top-notch service Courtyard Marriott Canton!). This left me with an hour to bathe a slightly rancid child and a VERY rancid car seat and shorts one after another in the bathtub.

Our poor little Justin remained touch and go the rest of the weekend, but he managed to keep it together for the major events.

Back to the flower girl. Morgan loved her little white dress so much that we didn't have any trouble getting her ready for the big event. In the moments before walking down the aisle, I promised her a necklace just like her cousin's and (sticker) earrings like the flower girl from the other side of the family.

Morgan kept spilling her rose petals prior to the ceremony and the other flower girls were happy to help pick them up--and add them to their own baskets.
When they got to the end of the aisle, the two cousins had run out of petals, so they began picking them back up. But they soon found their seats and the ceremony proceded without incident.

Congratulations to Susan & Mike on breaking the family wedding weather curse. We wish them all the happiness in the world and all the best in blending two families.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Dork MOMs Unite!


The transformation creeps up on you slowly. One day you're getting married to the man of your dreams, and you are part of a "young couple." Then comes the baby. Eventually, you just "have kids" and become a MOM.

MOMs are dorky but useful creatures who carry large purses full of tissues, chapstick, expired coupons, and the occasional ancient hard candy. They wear practical clothing and buy the same gym shoe each year, so as to have four generations of the same shoe for occasions of varying degrees of potential dirt.

MOMs are in charge of filling up the back of the mini-van with groceries every two weeks, procuring birthday presents for classmates, remembering to feed the rabbit, and laundry, good gracious, the laundry.

By far, the most important MOM function is documenting every cute saying, special event, tooth growth and loss, and "first" experienced by their children.

Unfortunately, MOMs are oblivious to the fact the that their offspring have no intention of cooperating with the plans to document their lives.

Here, in full MOM mode, I attempt to capture Ryan's exit from the bus on his first day of school.


Let's just zoom in on that look of disgust. That look that makes MOM a multi-syllable word.

If I do my MOM job right, I should be seeing that look a lot more in the coming years. Just wait until I show his prom date the digital scrapbook montage, set to music, that I am creating to document his naked baby photos.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Domestic Ambitions

Every summer the women of small town America get something in the mail that fires up their inner Martha Stewarts. A publication so compelling that soon they are flipping through their recipes and rummaging in the back of their craft closets (women in small town America always have craft supplies on hand). Oh, yes, the County Fair Book is full of possibilities to us women of small town America.

Why yes, we think, wouldn't it be adorable if I found a yam that looks like Elvis. And, I know that with a little extra fertilizer I can beat Mrs. Johnson's stronghold on tallest sunflower.

And so it goes through the sections on best gift basket, photographs, snicker doodles, canned green beans, you name it. Before we know it, we have signed up to bring something in every department.

Many times I am able to put the fair book down before committing to anything any more perishable than a few photos and a scarecrow. But this year, I went all out and entered some things I've been meaning to tackle.

And I am happy to report that the torch has been passed. Like my mother before me, I am the maker of the best chocolate cake in the county. You understand, that means, from scratch. I had to measure flour.


I wasn't as fortunate with my "famous inventor" scarecrow: Ben Franklin, complete with kite and to-do list (visit France, invent stove, play with electricity, etc.)


He was beat by my sister-in-law's very clever Yellow Pages inventor. While Franklin did invent the stove that allowed modern cooking, it wasn't until L.M. Berry's invention that small children could actually sit at the table and reach their food. You gotta give him credit for that.

Justin's first fair entry that didn't snort, was, appropriately, pig decorated cupcakes. He was very happy with second place.


Morgan's cupcakes got the much prettier multi-colored Honorable Mention ribbon, much to her delight. Those are supposed to be butterflies.


My decorated Christmas package probably wasn't festive enough, however, it was the only one that featured one-inch mirrors. The "wrapping paper" is a printout of a sheet of photos I made, complete with mini-photo book of same photos decorating the top. I should have bought Mom a sweater to put inside. Now I'll have to break in to add her gift.


I'm almost ashamed to share my fifth place "ugly cake." The winners in this category are determined by a vote of fair goers. And since my husband was sweetly stuffing the ballot box at every chance, I can only imagine what it took to get this placing, negative votes?

The first place cake featured a green background with two hoof prints, a pile of black goo in the corner and the lettering: Happy Birthday You Old Poop. It's a good thing my mother-in-law let us know of her great dislike for this cake; we had to cancel our order.

Mine is supposed to be two cheeks sticking out of a hospital gown (love my chocolate crack?). The cheesy grocery store letters say, "Good Luck on Your Colon Exam" because it's amazing how many letters Happy Birthday and Colonoscopy do NOT share.

It's not too early to start thinking about the next fair, so if you think you've got what it takes to challenge the women (and some men) of small town America, then come on over and I'll let you borrow my Fair Book. I'll save you a piece of ugly cake.

Appointment Pooping

  NOTE: If you do not want to read about my healthy bowel movement, well too late you just did. I recently became you-better-get-a-colonosco...