Eric Tapley

It’s the time for new year’s resolutions: be more productive, lose some weight, make more money, and, of course, blog more often.

To be successful with these and almost any resolution you need to spend the one truly limited resource: time. Want to lose weight? Exercise and manage your diet. That’ll take about an hour of your time each day. Want to make some more money, perhaps by freelancing? Plan to spend more time working. Do you want to be successful with social networking and blogging? Give it an hour a day and you’ll see tremendous results.

Too often we pick too many goals and aren’t able to spend enough time with each. There are only so many hours in the day. So pick two and stick to them. I’m doing the same.

Good luck!

It’s more important to be honest than to be rich. Period.

This autumn I’m fortunate to be involved with three great events working for the greater good. I’d like your support if any of these are aligned with causes you believe in either by donating time, money, becoming a corporate sponsor, or just spreading the word.

• · Colitis Walk for a Cure (Oct 14)
• · Art beCAUSE Art + Wine Gala (Oct 24)
• · American Red Cross: Salute to Our Community Heroes (Mar 20)

Please don’t feel obligated by this request - I realize we each work to make a difference in our own ways - but if you want to help I’d appreciate your support of these causes and know it would make a tremendous difference.

GUTS + GLORY | Walk For a Cure for Colitis

I’ve suffered from Colitis since 2002. Thanks to the support of my wife Kate, family, friends, amazing doctors, and three surgeries I’m mostly well and my future remains bright. This isn’t the case for millions of others.

On October 14th Kate will be walking with hundreds of others (and our baby!) to help find a cure for Colitis. As a thank you she’s going to mail out signed photos of Baby Sam to all who make a donation, so this is both an opportunity to support a great cause and obtain some baby cuteness.

Kate has raised $300 toward her goal of $750. You can help by pledging online at: https://www.kintera.org/

ART BECAUSE | Art + Wine Gala

Art beCAUSE is committed to funding research dedicated to eradicating the environmental causes of breast cancer (another c-word I’m really not fond of). I’m a new Board member and am proud that 3000k was able to donate our design talent to the save the date cards, invitations, and other event materials.

On October 24th we’re hosting our 5th annual gala to honor pioneering scientists and announce this year’s Seed the Scientist grants. We’ll provide the art show, dinner, and wine - but we need you to bring the good time!

More info and gala registration: http://www.artbecause.org/artbecause/abweb/wineabout.asp

AMERICAN RED CROSS | Saluting Our Community Heroes

Our local Red Cross chapter has recognized and honored local heroes who’ve risen to uncommon challenges for years (among the many other incredible things our chapter does). Once again this March we’re celebrating people who make Central Massachusetts such a great place to live.

We’re looking for hero nominations, corporate sponsors, donations, and starting in January will be selling tickets to the event.

Nominate a hero: http://www.redcrossworcester.org/hero-application.php

Become a corporate or event sponsor: http://www.redcrossworcester.org/corp_partners/

Donate online: https://www.redcrossworcester.org/donate/online.html

Become a volunteer (lend your flair to make this a great event!): http://www.redcrossworcester.org/volunteer/apply.html

Thanks for your consideration of the Colitis Walk, Art + Wine Gala, and Heroes Salute. Please lend your support, join us at one of the events, learn more about these organizations, and pass the word along (this is a good chance to blog about a local event, hint, hint).

Or continue doing good in your own fashion, and have a better day knowing more about the great things ordinary people are doing for one another and our community!

I recently upgraded to the new version of Apple’s iLife (which I love) and am especially happy with the updates to iPhoto. One addition is a .Mac “web gallery” feature for photo publishing. This has made editing and publishing photos much easier for me, especially when I just want to share some great Sam shots with friends and family, and means I’ll be able to post more photos more often.

That said, you can now regularly see updated photos of the baby and our little family events at http://gallery.mac.com/erictapley. Enjoy!

I think this would be a savvy political move and the right place for an announcement. Hillary Clinton is a major force in politics right now and has more experience than Obama, her key strength. Barack Obama, however, has captured the sense of inspiration and hope that so many of us desperately want after the last seven years.

By announcing on The Daily Show Al Gore could lead with inspiration and hope, backed by decades of experience. I’m no speechwriter but something along the lines of:

“I’m announcing my candidacy on The Daily Show because this is where the youth are. I’m running to restore hope and make changes for the future, for those youth, and to make this a better world for them and their children. I’ve spent decades of my life fighting for climate change for this very reason.”

I think Gore could effectively hold out against Obama on inspiration if he focused on his climate change agenda and could easily match Clinton on experience.

So - is he going to run?

Yes, so I suck. My apologies.

I’ve been very busy with baby Sam and at work. I’m evaluating what I legitimately can do in terms of writing / blogging (we have a 3000k blog that’s neglected, a new one for 3SidedBox that will need attention to help promote our products, this personal blog, Sam’s baby blog, etc.).

Maybe I’ll just keep this around for health news, baby information and other notes to my mom.

Ha!

I’m back from a long vacation - ok, long for me. It was only for one week, but I haven’t been away for that long since Kate and I went on our honeymoon in 2001. I know, that’s five years, and I was well overdue for some time off.

I didn’t check email or browse the web while I was gone. I didn’t even try to find anyplace with a ‘net connection to do so. When my cell phone rang I let it go to voice mail and only checked if the number was one I recognized as important. That’s when I had the cell on - about half of the time it was off.

We returned home today and I feel fantastic.

There’s an important connection here, and it’s a lesson I’m working hard to learn. Vacation is a great thing.

Most of the time our actions move us forward forward by inches, if that. Each week is an incremental advance over the previous week, and that’s good, because it’s steady progress that grows most individuals and organizations. But there are diminishing returns when you push beyond a certain point, and I had gone too long without recharging my batteries. I was getting over my rash a little bit, day by day, but it was slow progress. I was getting work done at the office, but only by putting in longer and longer hours to get the same number of tasks complete (or to complete *just one more task*).

This vacation was eye-opening for me. It was a game changer. I didn’t move forward by inches but by yards, both in terms of health and attitude. I feel so much better now: I’m more relaxed, more focused, more energetic, and best of all my rash is gone.

It’s not often we have a chance to move forward by leaps instead of lurches.

We all need to take more vacations.