The Courage to start and the wisdom to end...

This blog has been existence for over 3 years - since October 4, 2004.

It has been a terrific experience and a chance to share a variety of eclectic posts. I learned so much about blogging and also about my own writing.

I will be closing the door on this blog before the end of the month. Okay, I don't have a door here so I will be closing the windows!

I had the courage to start this and the wisdom to end this.

I am still blogging extensively at www.davidzinger.com and www.slackermanager.com.

Thank you so much for reading.

Here is the very first post I wrote to bring things full circle:

A Post Dentist Day October 4, 2004: Same old drill I don't know. Maybe I do. But then I am not sure. The geese are flying south now and everyone in Winnipeg is trying to figure out how to get warm and maybe go to Florida for 2 weeks in the winter when the hurricanes have petered out and the roof has been put back on the hotels. Perhaps this is just angst after being with the dentist and having a crown. I did not feel so royal, he told me not to eat meat...he isn't a vegetarian. He is a nice guy Dr. Helper...wonderful name for a dentist. Anyway, it is back next week for the permanent crown. Maybe then I will feel royal. I look out the window and the leaves are dropping off the trees quicker than people try to get off an airplane at the end of the flight. I hope you have a good day, not too much gloom here just thawing out as it starts to get cold.

Having just read this, maybe I should have only gone 3 months rather than 3 years so I take back my thank you to the readers of this blog and extend my apologies!

Have yourself a ZINGER of a day!

Are you ready for 4 in the morning?

Some interesting thoughts about 4 in the morning by Rives at TED:

Click here!

The Sub Zero Sweepers Will Ice Canada Soon

Yes it is a real sport!

If you love curling, and who doesn't in Canada - well I don't really love it, but so many people do - you need to realize that we are facing stiff new compeition from The Sub Zero Sweepers - A South African curling team. I feel there will be a Summit series of epic proportions that will make hockey's summit series seem like Tim Horton Tim Bit hockey.

I love the website and be sure to watch the video. What a creative and fun site. Check out the compeition NOW: www.yesitsarealsport.com Make sure you go to the downloads and watch the action packed videos - it includes cheerleaders!

Onychophagy: Nail It

Do you bite your nails? Then you have onychophagy - try saying that with your mouth full of peanuts.

Nail biting is subsumed under the category: Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviours. According to research about 600 million people are gnawing away on their cuticles as this is written.

But why? Is the world undernourished? Is it stress? Boredeom?

What should we do about this self-inflicted deformity?

I don't have a solution but I do have a request.

If you would like to help, I suggest you send me five dollars to David's SAVE THE NAIL charity. Let's all pray that someone can finger this out.

Picture Credit: moment of contemplation by http://flickr.com/photos/limowreck666/244111802/

Just plain word

Every so often I am left wondering about how we spend our time.

Les Stewart took 16 years and 19,980 pages to type out every number from one to one million, in words. This, surprise - surprise, is a world record.

I can just see it now, someone is already at work spending their 525,600 minutes each year trying to get to a billion.

It won't be me.

Even in a number countdown from 99 bottles of beer on the wall I was lucky to get to 87 bottles of beer on the wall before I should happen to fall --- out of the discipline --- and go watch the weather station on TV.

On Vacation

Summer Break

David Zinger will be taking a break from blogging until late August. I will see you in September. Sounds like a song to me.

Bull

They are back running with (or in front of) the bulls. I think I would rather walk a dog than join a large group that separates on different sides of the street because of a bunch of bull split. Oh well, United States has Al Gore and Spain has El Gore!

Photo Credit: The last photo I ever took by http://flickr.com/photos/-w/4576242/

Just a minute: Floored by Food

You drop a delectable morsel of food on the floor.

You want to eat it so you dive to the floor as your arm reaches out and your hand scoops the food and injects it in your mouth because you know that is okay to eat something if it has been on the floor for less than 5 seconds.

Don't panic anymore.

According to Professor Bernhard, who has studied this you have at least 30 seconds! After rigorous testing it was discovered that it took at least one-minute for organisms to colonize an apple slice and up to five minutes for a Skittle.

Picture Credit: What's Not For Lunch? by http://flickr.com/photos/akma/93398980/

Not Blue Man: It is Blue Moon

Tonight is the night of the blue moon.

In Winnipeg this will be our second full moon of May. So it is my chance to do whatever it is I do once in a blue moon. What do you do once in a blue moon? Enjoy tonight doing whatever it is.

By the way a blue moon usually occurs about every 2 and 1/2 years. If you need to learn more about a blue moon click here.

Just to provide some accuracy the blue moon is not blue but the Blue Man Group is blue but I think they can wash the blue off after all their drumming.

Picture Credit: “Two Moons” by http://flickr.com/photos/joka2000/139703554/

Picture Credit: Last Day and I Feel a Little Blue by http://flickr.com/photos/djdau/522708608/

Gumption on the Great Wall of China Marathon

Marathoners can hit the wall.

My friend, Pat, literally hit the wall...The Great Wall of China Marathon this past weekend. Click here to get a few general images of this marathon and an idea of what Pat faced. We monitored Pat online as he was wearing a GPS. He disappeared around mile 23! Had he hit the wall, gone over the wall, or were they taking him out by stretcher? .............................................. No.

Pat made it! He is the living Energizer Bunny who just kept going and going.

His time was 6:01:29 which some would say is equivalent to running under a 4 hour normal marathon. Well done Pat, not many marathoners can say they literally hit the wall, kept on going, and finished the event.

Picture Credit: Hitting the wall: Abstract 5/365 by http://flickr.com/photos/daviddmuir/413598799/

Familiar Strangers: Winnipeg Wallpaper

Do you remember the Sesame Street song, Who are the people in your neighbourhood?

Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood?
In your neighborhood?
In your neighborhood?
Say, who are the people in your neighborhood?
The people that you meet each day

Current research by Erick Paulos and Elizabeth Goodman suggest that familiar strangers - the people we often see but don't talk to during our daily routine contribute to an overall sense of place, comfort, and belonging. A human wallpaper for the urban environment.

I run about 3 times a week with two of my neighbours (Bruce and Debbie - who I do know and talk with). We leave at 6:10 a.m. and we pass Chuck and his dog in the park and Cathy at the bus stop. We know these people but we also encounter our familiar strangers:

• "dog walker" in St. Vital park,
• "guy in parked car" on Avalon - he has been our unofficial coach for months even though he does not know this and pretends to ignore us.
• "guy carrying coffee going South to the Bishop Grandin bus stop"
• "two women walking North out of St. Vital park"

Who are your familiar strangers? According to Paulos and Goodman, "both parties agree to mutually ignore each other, without any implications of hostility." I guess you could say we pass each other in peace.

Also, it is not uncommon for participants to personalize their "relationships" by secretly giving strangers "names and/or concocting fictitious stories and backgrounds." --- So thanks coach (guy in parked car on Avalon close to Old Navy) for all your unconscious contributions to our running! Of course, I wonder what kind of fiction people might be making about Debbie, Bruce and I as we jog merrily along our well grooved route?

Picture Credit: Faceparty by http://flickr.com/photos/richard_am/116775447/

Are you feeling any Seprudity?

Do you experience serprudity?

Don't you wish everyone did?

I find that seprudity is like slicing an onion open as your eyes begin to water.

According to The Onion, seprudity was an emotion recently uncovered by the Scientific team at Hallmark cards. Seprudity means the feeling of appreciating a co worker's dedication without fully understanding his or her job function.

I am so thankful to the writers at The Onion, even thought I don't understand what they are doing. You could say I feel seprudity for them (go ahead and say that aloud right now: David is feeling seprudity for the Onion writers). Don't you feel better for having joined in my seprudity campaign?

Okay, maybe you don't but at least keep it to yourself while I live in the illusion that I have a following and avoid the emotion of trepatiousness - one of the other emotions those Hallmark scientists uncovered.

The Onion is helping us all realize that what we know just isn't so and the proof is in the spoof.

Picture Credit: the onion by http://flickr.com/photos/roboppy/27699427/

Enlightenment?

Have you found enlightenment? Or at least, do you know where the switch is?

Can you flip the switch and turn on to work.

I love this picture taken outside of Brown Communications in Regina.

When the switch is this big, it makes you wonder "watts up" inside.

What object do you think should be installed on the building where you work? Hopefully not a snooze button.

Photo credit: Brown billboard by http://flickr.com/photos/mutually-inclusive/97232439/

A sign of aging: Sith happens

I know I am getting older.

Sometimes I think I can outrun age. Last Sunday I ran a PR in a 1/2 marathon at 1:44:15.

These lapses into youth are few and far between.

I am more likely to be asked something, forget what I was asked, and wonder why I am in the family room holding a hammer and a spatula.

I am more likely to get up at 5 in the morning than stay out all night until 5.

As a youth I thought my parents were weird, they were always talking to everyone about almost anything. Now, here I am talking to everyone about everything. Proving the power of modelling is more powerful than the power of judgement.

Let this be a warning to my three teenagers...watch out, I am your future! As your father Luke, be warned, Sith Happens!

Photo credit: Sith Happens by http://flickr.com/photos/drp/14590314/

The Elevator Speech: Going up?

Many entrepreneurial experts, career coaches, and marketing gurus suggest you should have a 30 second personal elevator speech to tell people what you are all about. I guess you can kill half a minute on an elevator if you get stuck between floors.

Here is a CBC video on how to create an entrepreneur elevator speech.

Here is a sample elevator speech:

My name is Larry and I am passionate about carrots and productivity and I want to rid the world of sticks and keep the carrots.

After voicing the speech the speaker gets a fabulous job and travels the world giving transformational speeches on carrots and really gets to stick it to those sticks.

So much for trivial, trite, and boring. Here is a real elevator moment: Watch this elevator moment with the Canadian band Arcade Fire.

Photo Credit: carrots, blurred by http://flickr.com/photos/thespeak/137012632/

Because I could not stop for death...

How good are you at telling time? Are you ready for the death clock?

My best before due date is: August 27, 2052.

I have 1 billion, 430 million, 890 thousand seconds to live. This is based on my attitude, my date of birth, my nonsmoking lifestyle, and a body mass index of under 25.

Emily Dickinson once wrote: Because I could not stop for Death — He kindly stopped for me — The Carriage held but just Ourselves — And Immortality. Now that I have a best before due date I can explain why I can't spend my limited time taking out the garbage, going furniture shopping, or weeding the garden. I only have seconds to live. What's your excuse? Go ahead and check your best before due date at the deathclock and you will have a new metric to substantiate why you can't do things other people want you to do.

Photo Credit: My melting time by http://flickr.com/photos/atportas/329630852/

57 Days before the Manitoba marathon

People climb mountains because they are there.

But why do we run?

Are we running to or running from or just running?

Often in running we end up where we started only a little more tired.

I run because it begins to blur my neurons into refresh like the blur of runners in the picture.

Jesse Owens won 4 gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. This is his running rationale:

I always loved running - it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs.

Photo credit: Run by John Baird http://flickr.com/photos/johnbaird/

BlackBerry Blues: Ode to an Outage

Fourteen hours without your screen

Feeling ready to release your scream

Thumbs in neutral for all that time

You might just miss making a dime

No great messages can be sent

Your productive time has taken a dent

How will you ever pay the rent

How will these real hours be spent

Screen comes up, you are finally connected

People in front of you are now neglected

Why would you ever be with somebody

When you can be a BlackBerry thumb buddy.

Photo Credit: BlackBerry Table by http://flickr.com/photos/niallkennedy/

How do you start your day?

Click the picture below to see me before my first cup.

Click on David
before his morning coffee

For any of you who remember the old ESSO commercials with a tiger in your tank now you can have a tiger in your face.

Now, go create your own inner animal at the site. You can choose from 20 transformations.

Have a wild day!