STRATEGY FOR THE FACEBOOK

As I alluded to, I have been dabbling in The Facebook. And now they kind of changed the look of the Facebook and I am even more lost and less interested. I can't really "chat" or talk on it, and don't really want to. I don't understand the news feed part, but now that doesn't even show up, so I'm  glad I never spent the time to figure out how to use that part. Finally, it appears to me, that most people just use The Facebook as a big, gratutious photo album and I am totally down with that... for a couple of reasons: 1. becaue I don't know how to down load pictures on the Facebook, so other than the three that are on my page, I'm pretty safe, and 2, this whole photo thing aligns nicely with my  FB strategy,

Yes, I have a strategy for the Facebook. and I call it "just looking at the pictures". Really, that's pretty much all anyone does, who are we kidding? Except for the few who down load news feeds and make sassy comments (talking about you, John Heinzman) everyone out there is "just looking at the pictures"... I did not invent this strategy  of  "just looking at the pictures". As a matter of fackt, this strategy existed way before the Facebook. I adapted this strategy from one Becky Cunningham, a consummate "garbage professional" that I've had the pleasure to know.

Allow me to explain: When we lived in Ohio, people had to pay for private garbage service. We used a nice service called "Don Haynes Rubbish". Now, Don Haynes did a good job, of picking up our mass quantities of garbage, until Christmas 2000. This was the year we adopted Posey, and because we were in China from the end of  November through the first part of December, I bought all the kids' Christmas gifts on line, before we left. Needless to say, come Christmas Day, we had tons of cardboard boxes and packaging to dispose of.  So, Dave McKeon broke down all the boxes, wrapped them up in twine and set them out with our garbage cans for pick up. Don Haynes came, took the garbage, but left the large bundles of neatly tied up cardboard. I quickly called old Don Haynes and left this message: "Hello, this is Laurie McKeon at 2720 Alta West Road. It's 7:30 in the morning, and your guys just left, but they didn't take any of the card board boxes that we had neatly tied up with the garbage. Could you please come back and get them? You are the garbage carrier, come back and carry away the garbage, please..." Surprisingly, Don Haynes's guys never came back...and old Don Hayes never called. Instead, he sent me a nice little note on "Don Haynes Garbage man Letterhead" that read: "Git (sic) someone else". No joke, I got fired by our garbage carrier.

For several months, I kept that dismissal letter taped to my kitchen cabinet, to remind myself to be a little nicer, but  i got over Don Haynes pretty darn fast as he was soon replaced by the Cunninghams.-- a small, start up family  garbage service who made up for their lack of expertise (and teeth--seriously, they would come pick up the trash, three in the front seat of their garbage truck and not a full set of teeth between them--sometimes even the grandma would be with them. I'm a sucker for a family business empire) with a gung ho attitude and a willingness to collect all things trashy. When I called the Cunningham operation, I had the pleasure of talking to Becky, the brains of the organization. (her brother Billy was the truck driver/brawn). Because regular trash collection was critical to my household, I was truly desperate to find and keep quality garbage service, I asked Becky if her company had any issue with picking up cardboard boxes, or had any other garbage restrictions. And Becky laid it all out there for me, telling me: "We don't take paint, we don't take tiiires, (for years I thought she meant "tars", but I eventually realized she meant "tires") and we don't take dead animals"....I told Becky I could live with that, (I guess I would have to dispose my dead animals elsewhere) and promptly paid her for a year's service, figuring she wouldn't fire me, as she and her brothers would have already spent their year's advance on Slim Jims and flaming hot cheetos.

I continued to pay the Cunninghams by the year,( just a little garbage insurance) When we moved from Mansfield we obviously had a garbage credit, which was no big deal, money well spent However, once that garbage credit was over, Becky Cunningham kept sending me bills. Finally, I called her and said: "Hey, Becky, we haven't lived at the Alta West address in over five months. Didn't your brother  notice the changed name on the mail box?"  And she said, with not an ounce of irony: "Oh, Laurie, he don't read,... he just look at the number" ( I LOVE this quote...I use it all the time, even when it doesn't apply....think about it, just about anything can happen and you can say; 'Oh, he don't (fill in the blank) He just look at the number) And thus, a Face book strategy was born....She don't read....she just look at the pictures... Becky Cunningham, a visionary..who knew?

So there you go, now you know how I use "The Facebook" Just keep those photos coming, because she don't read, she just look at the pictures..."

Tonight's Top Ten:

1. The Art of Feilding  a great, much hyped book by Chad Harbach, who grew up in Racine and actually went to St. Cats.
2. The assorted licorice tub from Harry and Davids--very tasty
3. The slim cargo cords for girls in the Tea Collection catalogue-great colors and just enough hipness
4. Footloose--old and new-I will not lie, I am dying to see the new Footloose
5. Happy Endings--great little sit com that just makes me laugh
6. Black watch plaid blazer from J.Crew--it's old school/new cool- plan on seeing it a lot this winter
7. Revenge--the show that comes on after Happy Endings--a total guilty pleasure featuring Amy from Everwood (another fine television drama that only I watched....)
8. Mary Chapin Carpenter--she came back into my life via Dave McKeon's ipod. Man, her first album was really, really good
9. "Go, Irish" --the phrase, not the team...well the team, too, but I am trying to make the phrase "Go, Irish" become a universal salutation or exclamation like that stupid "Roll, Tide" (ok, Roll, Tide is kind of cool, but I want "Go, Irish" to go platinum.
10. Chai Ling--Annie's boss from the summer, was a student leader in the Tiananman Square hunger strike in China, sought political asylum in the US, earned degrees from both Harvard and Princeton, started a super software company, then used that money to fund All Girls Allowed, was nominated for the Nobel Peace prize twice and just wrote a new book A Heart for Freedom. She is super impressive--go buy her book.

Well, that's it for tonight, Sorry these posts are few and far between. School is messing up my blogging time....dang it. Hope to get back at it, but I'm not making any promises....Oh, and by the way, the spell check isn't working....good luck with that.