Author: Chris Souther

Chris joined the Air Force out of high school. After four years of supporting communications for the Department of Defense, the White House, and stations around the world, he left the military and moved to Atlanta. For the next six years, Chris continued working in the telecom field, eventually traveling around the country teaching companies like MCI, Nortel Networks, and Cabletron, how to do what he did.

When the dot.com crash happened, upon recommendation from his wife, Chris re-enrolled in school and earned his B.S. in Communications (PR & Marketing).

Since then, he was worked in network security, healthcare, banking and finance (and FinTech), general high tech (AI/ML, Cloud, IoT), and most recently, application development fields. Now, with more than 15 years of both Marketing and Communications under his belt, he helps organizations grow their business through the proper application of marketing, communications, and content.

And he blogs on the side. It keeps him sane.

Categories
Dad Blogs DIY Family

Digging Up Other People’s Memories

We have two rather large dogs, and like all dogs, they LOVE to chase critters, of which we have a-plenty. This means that when any sort of critter is spied and takes to ground, digging ensues. However, sometimes digging ensues even without an obvious critter hole. Such was the case when I peered over my balcony and spotted a fresh hole near one of my sprinkler heads.

Also flapping around in the breeze were two old polaroid pictures and what appeared to be the corner of some kind of box jutting out of the freshly-pawed earth. My curiosity piqued, I walked down the steps and crouched over the pictures. The were of a middle-aged woman, lovingly hugging her Golden Retriever…

Uh huh, now you know what the box contained right? Yep, the apparently cremated remains of one much-loved Golden, contained within a hard plastic box wrapped up in a plastic bag with matching Polaroids.

Part of me wanted to say, “Ick!” and throw it away. After all, the thing was only buried like two inches underground, and very close, I might add, to my sprinkler pipe. The other part of me that likes dogs and understands the owner’s intent, figures I should go bury the thing again.

For now, the box remains where I pulled it out of the ground. It seems pointless to bury it. After all, the previous owners will never know. But what if I don’t, and my basement becomes haunted by the ghost of a Golden Retriever? That would be too weird.

Categories
Dad Blogs Life in these United States

Those oh-so generic Toyota Camrys

The Toyota Camry. You see them every day. They’ve been around for years, changing little more than the hood on the front and the trunk and taillights on the back. But despite their never-changing look, people continue to buy them. These people are all alike. They drive the same. They are the bane of my morning commute. Here’s what we know about the Toyota Camry:

  • Camrys continue to make the Top 10 Most Stolen Vehicle List
  • The Camry was the first non-domestic car to compete in NASCAR in recent years
  • It is THE most popular car in America

Now, here’s what I suspect about the Toyota Camry based on my own informal research study:

  • The most popular color is Gold
  • Drivers of Camrys really like their bumper stickers, vanity plates, and license plate frames
  • They all drive a two-lane stretch of road near me between the minutes of 6:48-6:54 a.m.
  • They all drive at least 5 mph less than the speed limit

There is a 4 mile stretch of 2-lane road that I travel on each morning going to work. The speed limit is 35MPH the entire way, and the middle of it includes a very steep valley, which, if you don’t build up enough speed, requires you to hit your passing gear to climb out of if you’re not going fast enough already. Each morning, despite varying my departure time by a few minutes in either direction, I inevitably get behind a Gold Toyota Camry. I have identified at least three different ones. My method of differentiation determination is as follows:

  • They appear at various stretches of the road. Two at the very beginning, on about 1/3 of the way through
  • They all have a different tag number (satisified?)

The interesting thing is, that despite their differences, they share some staggering driving similarities, mainly that of driving VERY slowly, and completely ignoring the rather large-grilled pickup truck on their tail urging them onward. And it’s not like they see me there and I upset them to the point that they obstinately refuse to speed up…they just don’t care. When I do inevitably pass them at the traffic light, they are middle-aged working women staring blankly off into space pondering Lord-knows-what–that hair appt. they need to make; what to put in the Crock-Pot tomorrow before leaving for work–I don’t know!

I’ve tried to avoid them, but I think they have hacked into the Sirius satellite orbiting the planet and have triangulated my location through my sattelite radio receiver and act accordingly in order to foil my attempts at a frustration-free drive in the morning.

Or…I could be just completely unlucky (and paranoid). YOU make the call!

Categories
Dad Blogs

Emoticons – Is that What You Really Mean?

In the age of the computer, no college “Communications” class would be complete without a lesson in e-mail etiquette. Here, youngsters learn things like:

  • Don’t type IN ALL CAPS unless you want the reader to think you are yelling
  • Be concise, because nobody wants to read your rambling comments
  • Don’t over-use the high-priority flag
  • Only Reply-to-all when it’s really relevant
  • Tone can easily be misunderstood in e-mail, so be sure and make your intentions known

The list goes on. For the most part, etiquette is followed by those that live and die by the Inbox, but there’s one area of e-mail etiquette that is less covered, despite being possibly the most pernicious.

Emoticons – Those seemingly innocent little text-to-character symbols that one can use to display a variety of emotions. Emoticons are strings of characters, usually from 2 to 5, one can use to create pictures. In fact, one popular e-mail client can interpret several emoticon characters and display an actual picture.

Some popular emoticons include:

  • the wink: 😉
  • brite-eyes *¿*
  • very sad :<
  • kissing :-*

You get the picture (pun intended). The use of 99% of emoticons is relatively innocuous; you get the actual intent of the writer. However, arguably the most popular emoticon–the smiley face–is being used more and more as a way of “softening” the blow of something someone said.

Recently, in a perfectly innocent e-mail to a counterpart in a certain frozen pseudo-United States country to the north, I made reference to another person’s job. In her reply, my original recipient rambled on and in her last sentence, left the following barb:

“Oh and by the way, it’s MY job to castrate new employees. :)”

OK, that’s not really what she said, but it’s very close and she followed with a little happy face. If I were one to jump to conclusions (and I am), I would read that to say,

“Look a**hole, don’t say that’s her job when it’s really mine! Just because we
acquired your little company doesn’t mean you get to continue running your
little show down there.”

…which of course pissed me off! Granted, there are situations where the usage of the smiley is obvious, as in:

  • that mini you have on today really makes your ankles look nice 🙂
    and
  • I got a raise 🙂

There’s no mistaking the intent here.

So I got to thinking about the inclusion of the happy face and how she used it as a way to “make nice” without really changing the underlying vitriol in her message, and I wondered what it would be like in real-life, face-to-face situations to be able to use a smiley. Upon reflection, I realized that it already happens!

  • “No sir Mr. Smith, vasectomies don’t hurt at all. In a day or two, you’ll be riding your motorcycle through the countryside” (BIG SMILE)
  • “Don’t look at this as a demotion. We’ve really just changed the focus of your responsibilities to more closely align with our business goals.” (BIG GRIN)

In summation, e-mail is just following real-life. But that doesn’t mean you don’t still want to just reach out and smack that stupid grin off their face…

Categories
Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Accept your neurosis…and just move on

Despite having more than 20 nieces and nephews, I’ll never be that “fun uncle” that we all hope to be to our brother’s and sister’s kids. I suppose that is because whenever I’m around them, there are so many of them that I get overwhelmed and revert to my usual, “quiet Uncle Chris who gets crabby if he gets pushed” self. This is what becomes of only children when forced to play with the entire class.

So anyway, we have one of my wife’s brother’s daughters here for two weeks helping us take care of our youngest son during the day. Back home, she’s one of 8 kids who are all home-schooled by mom. They have quite a machine there where the older kids help care for the younger kids, ranging from age 15 down to 3 months. I can only assume, each share in the household chores as well.

You can imagine my surprise then, when I came home yesterday to find her holding my son, still in his hot pajamas, and the house a mess. Dishes on the counter, crumbs all over the table, and the floor littered with grass clippings. Honestly, in a day, the three of us don’t make that kind of mess.

However, I’m inclined to cut the kid (she’s about to turn 15) some slack given that this is probably like some great big vacation for her and since she didn’t get to our house till late Sunday night only to have to suddenly get up and start caring for the baby the next morning.

While I’m grateful for her help, I have my reservations, such as:

  • She stayed downstairs watching TV till midnight last night, so as I got up to feed the baby at 11:30, I had to clothe my usually half-naked self in order to go downstairs
  • How long do I let it go before I say, “Look, we’re paying you more money in a week than you’ve ever held in your hand at any one time, the least you can do is clean up when the baby is asleep!”
  • Oh, and since she stayed up till midnight last night, my wife had to wake her up at 7:30 this morning so she could go to work.

Really people, I know it probably doesn’t come off as such, but I’m really a nice guy. Anal, demanding, a bit of a perfectionist, but all in all, a REALLY nice guy.
I think…