I love this photo. Reminds me of the time I did something similar, with a charging bull. I ended up swinging from a pole with a hole in my shirt and the bull rushing way too close to my butt for comfort. I take comfort in the fact his horns missed my jeans. I moved to the rail after that. But was hit by a charging bull - and was knocked off the top of an 8-foot fence and onto my face. Ouch. Got a great shot of the bull …

“The final exam was not what he expected.” Ever feel that way? Me too. Your expectations are one thing, reality is another. What do you do? Most of us spin our wheels trying to make reality or “what is,” conform to what we expected. Rather than shift our expectations, or accept what is before us and deal with that, we try to change what is to fit our expectations.
The classic case is the parent with a child with different interests and passions than the parent wanted. For the dad who …

Pandhandling homeless people have a variety of signs - many asking for money - a handout. Some plead, “Will work for food,” but then often decline the job, and never turn down money or food. At the center of the homeless debate or issue is one thing - money. If I’d had enough money I’d never have become homeless. If I managed it, saved it and used it better, I’d never have been homeless. That’s true for anyone and everyone who has become homeless. Throw enough money at something and …

In July this year I went to Oxford, England to talk about my year as a homeless woman, living in my van with my cat and my Rottweiler. I won the trip to TED in a contest sponsored by Daniel Pink around his book “Johnny Bunko.”
I’ll write more about that later, but the fact is, I got to TED, and got to speak. Today they posted the video of my talk.
Here’s the direct link to the TED talk page:
or http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/becky_blanton_the_year_i_was_homeless.html
if you can’t click through. Just copy and paste …

I just got off the phone with customer service with Virgin Mobile tonight (Tuesday). Prior to posting this I spent a very angry 20 or 30 minutes tweeting about the evilness of Virgin Mobile. I ranted and raved about how their customer service is evil, lame, sucks - you name it. Ever since I’ve owned the phone I’ve hated it, but I have suffered through bad service, including nearly two hours to simply get the phone activated last year. Then I found out the phone didn’t have an alarm function. …