Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 353
March 10, 2015
Why do I blog? Because it’s nearly led to national television, and it still might. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
I’ve been blogging for over ten years now.
Every single day for more than a decade, I have sat down and written something for a blog. Before this blog, there was another, and before that one, there was my first, born in a blogging class at Trinity College.
I am often asked why I continue to write a blog. Is it worth the time? Doesn’t it ever become a burden? Wouldn’t the time spent writing it be better spent working on my books?
I’m often asked if I generate income from my blog, and while there was once a time when I did – and maybe someday I will profit from my blog posts again – I don’t do it for the money.
There are many reasons why I write a blog. Too many to list in just one blog post. But this past week was a clear indication of just one of the reasons:
Back in 2011, I wrote a post proposing that brides and grooms hire me as their professional best man. While I was serious about my skill set and the need for this position, I never thought that anyone would actually take me up on it. Last Saturday – with an hour of each other – two prospective clients (one bride and one groom) contacted me via email, inquiring about my professional best man services, and it looks like I will actually be hired by at least one of them for their wedding. They aren’t the first to reach out to me. In the past two years, six other potential clients have contacted me, and in all instances, geography and scheduling were barriers to employment.
Still, just to be contacted was amazing.
In addition, three different reality show producers and a documentarian from the UK have contacted me over the past two years, asking if I would like to be a part of a potential television show about a professional best man.
Six months ago, actor and comedian Kevin Hart also contacted me to give me credit fro coming up with the professional best man idea before he did for his most recent film.
All because of a simple blog post.
On Sunday, I spent about an hour on the phone talking to a booker at Fox & Friends about appearing on their national morning show to discuss a post I wrote in 2014 about my failed attempt at becoming a member of the social network BeautifulPeople.com. This past week, Beautiful People kicked off about 3,000 members for no longer being beautiful enough, and for a moment, I was going to appear on their show to discuss my experiences. Ultimately, they found someone who had been actually kicked off the site and went with her instead, but none of it would’ve ever happened had I not written that blog post.
And although this opportunity didn’t work out, the booker liked me and plans to use me on their weekend parenting panels, so I may still have my shot at national television.
There are many, many reasons why I have been writing a blog post every day for more than a decade, but one of them is this:
The unexpected, unpredictable, unbelievable doors that blogging sometimes opens.
March 9, 2015
12 Things Teachers Wish They Could Say to Parents
Parent-teacher conferences begin for me this week. I will sit down with parents and students and discuss academic progress, effort, behavior, and the students’ prospective futures in middle school and beyond.
I like parent-teacher conferences. I have excellent relationships with the vast majority of my parents over the years, and in some ways, the parents of my former students once saved my career.
Nevertheless, if I could, this is what I wish I could say to parents during my upcoming parent-teacher conferences. While these 12 things pertain specifically to me, I strongly suspect that they will also pertain to most teachers as well.
_____________________________
1. I love your child just a notch below my own children. Truly. And oddly, that love kicks in almost immediately, just like it did with my kids.
2. I will miss your child for the rest of my life. Even if your child was incredibly difficult and made my days long and exhausting at times.
3. My primary goal as a teacher is to make my students and the parents of my students happy with my performance. Students and parents are both my customers and my bosses (though I’d never let my students know this). If you are happy, then my administrators will also be satisfied with my job performance. If they are not, something is wrong with my administrators, and their opinions will matter very little to me.
4. You are so very wrong if you view our relationship as adversarial in any way.
5. When I ask you to call me by my first name, it’s because I want to have the kind of relationship with you that requires first names. There is no need for artificial barriers in our relationship. We are two adults who both love your child. Why would we not be on a first name basis?
6. Some of my closest friends (and the godparents of my children) are the parents of former students. These relationships developed because we treated each other as equal partners in their child’s education. If you and I are doing our jobs well, we should be friendly, if not actual friends, by the end of the school year.
7. There is nothing wrong with questioning my decision. I only ask that you don’t question my intent. Know that I am always trying to do my best on behalf of your child, and that despite my best intentions, mistakes will be made.
8. If I have done something that disappoints or upsets you, always come to me first. You can’t imagine how hurt I am when I hear about your feelings secondhand, either from an administrator or (even worse) through the parent, teacher, or student rumor mill.
9. The single greatest lesson that I have learned in my 16 years of teaching is the importance of follow through. Always do what you say you will do, and never make a threat or a promise that you cannot make happen. This is given me a hard earned reputation with students and has allowed me to be as successful as I have been. It’s a lesson I have brought into parenting, and it also serves me (an my children) well. It’s the one parenting piece of advice that I pass onto you.
10. Please know that both legally and ethically, there are times when I want to say something or agree with you but cannot for a multitude of reasons, usually pertaining to the privacy of another student. It’s frustrating for me, and I’m sure it is for you, but it’s also my professional responsibility.
11. A lower-than-desired grade on a report card is only my honest assessment of your child’s performance and not an indictment of your parenting or your child’s potential. It’s probably just an indicator that there is room for improvement.
12. I will wonder (and worry) about your child’s future for the rest of my life.
March 8, 2015
50 Healthiest Foods of All Time: A large percentage are a mystery to me.
TIME lists the “50 Healthiest Foods of All Time.”
I have never eaten 14 of them.
I don’t actually know what nine of them are, but then again, do you know what kamut or farro or kefir are?
The bad news is that I don’t like 31 of the foods on the list (presuming I don’t like the nine that I can’t identify).
The good news is that eggs, poultry, bananas, whole wheat bread, and cinnamon made the list.
Cheeseburgers, hot dogs, and ice cream cake did not, but perhaps they would’ve been items 51, 52, and 53.
March 7, 2015
19 things I heart right now
Listening to my kindergarten daughter read to me
Overcast (podcasting app)
Chipotle burritos
The Memory Palace (podcast)
1776 by David McCullough
Tickling my children
The Lyle Lovett Pandora station
My wife in a tee shirt and underwear
Cold water from a metallic water bottle
Bruce Willis action films while on the treadmill
Holding my dog in my lap after work
Carhartt socks in place of slippers
Moth StorySLAMs
UNU battery pack (for my iPhone)
Jeff (my friend)
Squarespace
Egg McMuffins
Any day over 35 degrees
Things I heart right now
Listening to my kindergarten daughter read to me
Overcast (podcasting app)
Chipotle burritos
The Memory Palace (podcast)
1776 by David McCullough
Tickling my children
The Lyle Lovett Pandora station
My wife in a tee shirt and underwear
Cold water from a metallic water bottle
Bruce Willis action films while on the treadmill
Holding my dog in my lap after work
Carhartt socks in place of slippers
Moth StorySLAMs
UNU battery pack (for my iPhone)
Jeff (my friend)
Squarespace
Egg McMuffins
Any day over 35 degrees
March 6, 2015
A replica guillotine in the middle of a children’s museum?
The local children’s museum, Kid City, recently opened a new medieval room. It’s a fantastic exhibit that includes castle walls, towers, a crossbow range, a tavern, a brick factory, and what I can only assume is a bladeless guillotine:
I am not opposed to the replica guillotine – in fact I kind of love it – but I can’t imagine that there aren’t a hoard of namby-pamby parents and guardians who take one look at this thing and shield their child’s innocent eyes and flee.
How does Kid City get away with this?
By the way, I love Google’s definition of namby-pamby:
“lacking energy, strength, or courage; feeble in behavior or expression.”
It’s sort of perfect. Don’t you think?
March 5, 2015
COVER REVEAL: The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs
It’s already popped up on Amazon, IndieBound, Goodreads, and the usual bookish places, so let’s make it official.
Here it is – the cover of my next novel. It hits bookstores on September 8, 2015. I hope you’re as thrilled with the cover as I am.
March 4, 2015
Curt Shilling is wrong about evolution, but his response to Internet trolls was commendable and enough to make this Yankees fan cheer.
As a New York Yankees fan – as well as someone who supports science and knows that evolution is real – I’ve never been a fan of Curt Shilling.
But when Shilling took to Twitter last week to congratulate his daughter on her invitation to pitch for the Salve Regina University baseball team, Internet trolls emerged from under their bridges in numbers that Shilling never expected.
“I expected the trolls. The one kid kind of came at me and said, ‘I can’t wait to take your daughter out.’ Kind of borderline stuff, which again, I expected. I’ve been on the Internet since, I started playing on computers in 1980, so I understand how it works and I knew there would be stuff. The stuff that they did, that is not bad or vile, it’s illegal. It’s against the law.”
“When that started — again, I thought it might be a one-off, but then it started to steamroll. And then [my daughter] started to get private correspondence and then I said ‘OK, this needs to get fixed.’ This generation of kids doesn’t understand, and adults too, doesn’t understand that the Internet is not even remotely anonymous.”
Shilling went on the offensive, attacking the trolls on his blog and identifying a handful of the offenders.
One of the offenders – a part-time ticket-seller for the Yankees – has been fired, the team’s director of communications confirmed to NJ.com. Another, a student at a community college in New Jersey, was reportedly suspended from school.
As the victim of an large scale, anonymous attack on my professional credibility several years ago, I understand the power that a person has when they hide behind the curtain of anonymity and hurl false accusations and libelous statements at people who are unable to confront their accusers. I also understand how anonymity can embolden a person to say terrible things that they would never dare say in public.
Shilling refers to his not-so-anonymous offenders as “garbage” on his blog. I have often called them cowards, but I like garbage a lot, too.
Unlike Shilling, I was never able to positively identify the persons responsible in my case, mostly because the cowards (or pieces of garbage) used old fashioned paper and ink, thereby eliminating any digital trail (though the search for their identities remains active). As a staunch advocate of free speech, I believe in the power of using that freedom to publicly identify people who make threats and spout hatred and vulgarity online.
It’s time to pull back that curtain of electrons and force people to own their words.
Shilling may be wrong when it comes to evolution, and that stupid bloody sock may have been completely overblown, but when it comes to his response to Internet trolls, Shilling has my full support.
The sooner we let these cretins know that they cannot hide behind their computer screens, the sooner they will crawl back under their bridges and leave the rest of us alone.
