Since nobody is really reading these

I've been posting on MySpace more often, because people actually read those posts. I've been working hard at my new business and am really grateful to be ahead of my business plan. There's a part of me that just wants to be a success already, and there's another part of me that knows that that doesn't really mean anything. It's complicated and simple, and I've got a case of the blahs. I can't even type about it. I hear Law and Order re-runs playing in the living room. I'll indulge.

They call them brown outs

The power was off here for over ten hours. This is common in the Philippines. Here, they are called brown outs instead of black outs.

From what I can tell the main difference between a black out and a brown out is that a brown out happens more often (like every Sunday) and lasts a hell of a lot longer.

Is there an Emoticon for sweaty?

The Skinniest Cows I've Ever Seen

My Mom likes to have coffee on the porch. Sometimes when I get tired of holing up in my room, I join her. She told me how she built this house--how she designed it and made sure they built it right. I never knew she knew so much about building a house.

She even made sure of all the little details--down to how many inches apart certain joints are supposed to be to make the roof strong and not crack. It all makes sense as she tells me about it.

In the neighborhood, there's an empty lot across the street from us. A lady drops off two cows and a baby calf there every morning. The cows graze in the incredibly limited amount of grass all day until she comes and gets them.

The cows munch the little bits of grass. They are so skinny; I can see their hipbones.

On the corner, the workers build a two-story apartment building. The rooms are incredibly small.

The builders don't have hard hats. Some of them are wearing flip flops.

Mom can point out the structural errors in the building from here.

I don't even think that cow lady lives in this neighborhood.

I'm grateful for Splenda

Splenda is amazing even if it is a million dollars an ounce. But I, and the tumor I'm working on, am so worth it.

The city I currently live in Dumaguete, (slogan: home of the gentle people) does not have a Starbucks. That's right. And the island serves mostly INSTANT coffee. Many hipsters now go to places with "brewed coffee" but the lattes really aren't lattes.

For those of you still in the U.S., enjoy the luxury of snagging a few million dollar packets of Splenda from Starbucks. I have to actually buy what I have from the Super Lee. It's a mall and a grocery store.

"When you are grateful fear disappears and abundance appears"--Anthony Robbins

check out my website already. Alexa ranks it 4,855,496,626,184 . Todays actual ranking. And I'm totally psyched about it. See what the hubub is all about yourself: www.my-thank-you-site.com

Thank you for reading this.

I'm told my blogs are too long

I'm in the Philippines visiting my Mom. I enjoy my family. I enjoy other people, but I enjoy my family most. I kick it old school like that.

My Mom's assistant Darwin eats dinner with us tonight. We had French bread with dinner. Last time Darwin had French bread at our house, he told his Mom and she said Darwin is really becoming like an American.

I spent the evening impressing Darwin with my amazing ability to define the difference between the word "anytime" and the phrase "all of the time."

Mom is high from finding more winning lotto tickets in her purse. She wins so often she is forgetting to cash in the tickets. She keeps counting the money and laughing.

It reminds me of our Viva Las Christmas when she won over $400 on the nickel slots. Her hands are covered in nickel dust. Her purse strains under the weight. We're waiting in line for a cheap buffet and she whispers to me giggling, "Kid, it's like I just can't lose."

What am I grateful for today? French bread, my amazing grasp of English, and I'll say it--my mom.

Check out my website. Even people in Seychelles and New Zealand are doing it:
www.my-thank-you-site.com

You Are Enough

Hello there,
My Mom and I went to Cebu last week to buy a digital camera, see a movie, and most importantly cash in her lottery ticket. My Mom has a lotto system that few people including myself understand. Essentially she sees patterns with the numbers. As a Mother's Day gift my brother and I gave her money to play the lottery. Like $100. It seems excessive to play $100 in the lottery, but my Mom really wanted to play, because it was a really big pot and she has a system.

Flashback to the Florida lottery over twenty years ago when my Mom really wanted to play. My Dad at the last second cheaped out and bought $20 less in lottery tickets. We won five number out of six and bought a new van for my Dad's floor-care business. In the stack of tickets on the television set that we didn't buy--YES the winning number. No joke. My Dad was devastated as were the rest of us. My Mom was psyched! All she cared about was that she knew her system worked.

We didn't win the big one this time, but she did win more than we played. She usually does, and I learned a valuable lesson. I'll never be a naysayer again. That's not true entirely. I have naysayed. I did learn the lesson to always give my Mom money to play lotto when she really wants to play.

BTW, I'm still feel kind of crappy from our trip to Cebu, because our cab got in a really bad accident. I slept for a few days and still feel a little weird. I've been the passenger in a number of car accidents and am still healing from one a few years ago, so they kind of hit me hard. What am I grateful for? That I'm feeling better already. That I can sit up and walk and all that other good stuff that I formerly would have taken for granted.

Why did I call this blog, You Are Enough? Simply, because despite all the thoughts to the contrary, it is true. You are enough. It doesn't depend on how much money you have, how thin you are, how powerful or successful you are or how many things you checked off on a to do list. You are enough, because you are. A guy I hold in high regard said to me, "The first lie is that you are not enough. The second is that you can do something about it." It's because if you embark upon doing something to be enough, you've already accepted the first lie. And I've spent my whole trying to do something. I wonder if that's why I'm writing this blog?

Oh well. You're ARE enough whether you know it or not. Maybe for a few seconds at a time, I can feel that today. And since time is an illusion, I'll know it is always so.

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~Thornton Wilder

Check out my website: www.my-thank-you-site.com

Thank You!

Hello Blogger Friend,
I am writing you from Dumaguete City, a college town on the island of Negros Oriental in the Philippines. I've been spending time with my Mom in the house that she not only designed, but was her own CONTRACTOR. Taking a break from the hectic life in Los Angeles, has been great. I must say I miss a lot of things about living in Los Angeles--mostly my friends and the convenience of living in the States.

I've been here for awhile, and I'm learning how to put up a website. It's dedicated to saying thank you. As I get older, I'm realizing how important it is to show appreciation. There are a million occasions in life where I had the opportunity to show my gratitude and missed out. And in turn, there were many times in life, when everything I did was to try and be valued by somebody else. The correlation is obvious now. The concept is so simple that I would have formerly dismissed it. But as I practice it more and more, the reality is really astounding. I have been amazed at how many people have visited the site in the less than two months it has been up and running.

I'm not advocating being an oblvious twit, who just pretends like everything is great while his soul is dying in a pool of affirmations. Saying thank you really works. It's real and tangible. I don't have to deny when things aren't going my way, but even on a day when it seems like everything really blows, if I stop and think about something as simple as, "They have diet coke and air conditioning here now" and take a moment to say thank you to somebody for any little reason whatsoever, I feel a little better. Some days I feel joyous. Other days, life just hurts less.

So if you have a need to be appreciated, you can visit www.my-thank-you-site.com and send a note to somebody to kick-start your karma or your law of attraction, or just feel a little better for second.

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude --Friedrich Nietzsche

It's a grateful world, and that much more so because you're in it. Thanks again or as they say here in Dumaguete, Salamat Po!