Month: July 2019

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Poster Mania

I started listening to the Dave Matthews Band during college about the time I was learning to play the guitar. One of the main draws was the acoustic guitar playing such a heavy role in the band. I also love the horn section and the role the violin has played in the band. I started attending shows in 2002. We recently have attended shows 31 and 32 in West Palm Beach, FL. These shows are always unique and while looking at previous sets may give you a clue as to what is going to be played you just never know what is going to be played. When you go to two shows back to back in the same venue, you are going to get two completely different shows and may not even hear one repeat song performance.

One of the other fun things about attending these shows are the posters. When they first started doing posters they would often repeat the design during the tour but for a while now, they have unique posters at each show. There is a community which has developed around this where people collect different posters. For the most part, we just collect posters for shows we’ve been to (and like) but on occasion we pick up a poster that is not a show we’ve been to because we like it.

We have over twenty posters at this point. Not all them are hanging up, but we do have some of them hanging around the house. Here are some of our favorite posters from the shows we’ve seen:

These posters are the earliest posters I have. I have been going to shows since 2002, but I didn’t really get into collecting the posters until later. In fact, I only recently got these posters because I loved these shows and I love how they work together for one scene.

This was the poster from Virginia Beach in 2013 when we attended. This poster is by Chuck Sperry and is a pretty in demand poster.

This poster is by Miles Tsang. This is one of the posters from a show we did not actually attend. This is from a show that took place in Tampa just about the time we moved back to Florida. Because of all of the Florida references, we felt like it needed to be in our collection, so this is one of the few posters we have from a show we did not actually attend.

Finally this poster is by M.I.D. Goods. We got this during our trip to Nashville in 2017 to see Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds and was such a great representation of the city and our trip to Nashville that we just adore this poster.

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2019 Books (so far)….

I need a word so I can say what I’m feeling today 
I need a word so I can say how I feel 
I need a word that’ll say what I’m meaning to say 
and tell you the way that I’m feeling 

Dave Matthews “I Need a Word”

I love books. I suppose it should come as no surprise as someone who named their blog “Words Matter.” I mentioned in my last blog that I met Florida State Representative Chris Sprowls recently. It’s funny that by the time we finished talking I gave him a book suggestion and he gave me a book suggestion.

Last year I read over 50 books. I purposely set my sights lower this year so I could read longer books if I wanted to. My goal is 24 books this year and as of July 11th, I had read 11 and almost completed number 12. Here is the list so far with a few comments.

  1. Joyful. Ingrid Fetell Lee
    • I doubt I would have stumbled upon this book on my own. I decided to change book clubs this year to The Next Big Idea Club. This is curated by Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink and they send 2 books a quarter. This book was a fascinating look at what brings people joy and the science behind it. You will never look at confetti quite the same.
  2. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. J.K. Rowling
    • I read this book to my 5 year old earlier this year. We got the illustrated version and it was so fun to read it again with all of the illustrations. We started the second book but he said there were too many characters to keep up with so we have it in reserve for when he wants to return to it.
  3. This is Marketing. Seth Godin
    • I decided to read this after becoming fascinated with Seth Godin’s Akimbo podcast.
  4. The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. David Wallace-Wells
    • Fascinating book about the science behind climate change.
  5. Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions that Matter Most. Steven Johnson.
    • This is another Big Idea Club book that takes a look at how we make decisions.
  6. Zero Harm: How to Achieve Patient and Workforce Safety in Healthcare. Craig Clapper, James Merlino, Carole Stockmeier
    • Dr. Merlino came to speak to us and so I wanted to read the source material. I was about halfway through it when he came to speak. I recognized a lot of the book as a lot of the work took place at Sentara Healthcare where I worked prior to moving to BayCare in Florida.
  7. Free to Focus. Michael Hyatt
    • Practical book on how to make the most efficient use of time.
  8. No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work. Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy.
    • This is a hilarious book about how we interact with each other at work. It is very well written and because it is so funny it is very engaging.
  9. Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas that Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries. Safi Bahcall
    • The last of the Next Big Idea Club book for this list. This book looks at how often unconventional methods can lead to some of the best ideas.
  10. Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win. Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.
    • I got this book during the American College of Surgeons Leadership and Advocacy Summit. One of the other Navy Seals who now works with them signed my book during the meeting. It’s an interesting concept and each chapter talks about the military application but then shows what the business application is as well.
  11. Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination. Brian Jay Jones
    • This was such an interesting look at Dr. Seuss. If you don’t know we used a lot of Dr. Seuss to decorate our first son’s room. We certainly have heard of some of the controversy over some of his illustrations over time and this book was helpful for me to understand the story.

As far as what book suggestions Representative Sprowls and I shared…you will have to wait until my next book update when I have had the chance to read them both.

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Stay, stay, stay, for a while

Wasting time

Let the hours roll by

Doing nothing for the fun

A little taste of the good life

Whether right or wrong makes us want to stay, stay, stay, for awhile.

Dave Matthews Band “Stay”

Months ago we decided to take the week after the 4th of July off for vacation. Originally, there was no plan, but through the course of several months there were several ideas floated about what we could do including a trip out west or to Waco, Texas by means of family in Mississippi. Ultimately, for numerous reasons we decided for a “Staycation.” It worked out for many reasons, not the least of which was we have all been recovering from a nasty upper respiratory infection and none of us were in the mood to travel. However, the “staycation” has been fabulous for a number of reasons.

Here are my reasons to try out a “staycation:”

  1. You get to stay in your own bed! As far as I’m concerned, this benefit cannot be overstated. Staying on somewhat of a routine is great for the entire family. I sleep best in my bed, and I know my son sleeps best in his bed and staying on routine is great for him. As I said, we have all been recovering from a URI (except my son who somehow coughed a few times and was over it) so this has been huge for all of us to get to feeling better.
  2. You can do some errands without disrupting your entire vacation. I was able to see the doctor and meet with Representative Chris Sprowls in district without feeling like it disrupted our entire vacation. I even made one conference call (there were several I declined due to vacation). We put some IKEA furniture together and organized our playroom/office, so we really felt like we accomplished something. Not only that but because we were home the usual things like trash and laundry have not stacked up like they would have if we had left and traveled on vacation!
  3. You can save some money. There is no doubt we spent less on this vacation than if we had driven somewhere and had to stay in a hotel and eat out for so many meals. Now in full disclosure, we spent some money at IKEA as noted above–but let’s be real–those purchases were happening wether we went on vacation or not.
  4. You can get some well deserved rest. So many times we go on vacation and feel like we have to constantly be going to take advantage of wherever we are and not miss out on anything before our vacation is over, but being home we were able to take a more leisurely and flexible pace. The results is I feel more rested headed back to work than if we had been in constant motion the entire time.
  5. You can explore where you live. I got to run on the Dunedin Causeway at Midnight for the 4th of July, see the Florida Aquarium on a Wednesday, and go to Altitude Trampoline park with my son during the day. These are adventures that I do not normally get to go on so they were great fun for us all! Our area has so much to see and do it was worth staying here and having fun. We had planned to go to Weekie Watchie and explore that area but it has rained every day and since we live close we decided to save that particular adventure for the future. I think of my friends in places like Chicago, New York, San Francisco, etc, and realize it is easy to take where you live for granted so this is a great way to explore where you live.

Thank you for those who have reached out wondering about where my blog had gone. As what my wife refers to as ‘the plague’ has gone through our house recently, it has taken quite a while to feel back to normal and get back to writing. I really appreciate the fact that people look forward to what I write.