Today I'm Official!

I now own the web address BuildKindness.com! At any point in the future if someone types this address into a web browser, they will be automatically forwarded to this blog. The question is, why would someone think to type this address into a web browser? I'm one step ahead of you. I ordered business cards! I got them for free at VistaPrint.com and they came in today.

The idea is that when I do an act of kindness, I hand out one of these cards. Hopefully, the recipient of the kind act will come to the blog and read the post about my experience helping them. Maybe they'll even spread the word and others will come to the blog. The more visitors we get, the more comments will be made, the more a unique community of people inspired to do kind things will form.

The objective is to BUILD KINDNESS. Get it?! I am so excited!

New Headlight

I've been having my wife's sister, Jana, help with some painting at a house I'm remodeling. To understand Jana's panting technique just picture in your mind what would happen if you dropped a cherry bomb in a can of paint. The result is what Jana looks like when she paints. It's like she dips her hands into the paint and proceeds to get into a fight with the walls. The hard part is figuring out who won.

Anyways, Jana drives a ruby red Nissan Cube. Monday, she showed up to work in her roommate's car. My first thought was that Jana wrecked her car again. My second thought was that she opted not to drive the Cube because she was respecting my jobsite, and knows how embarrassed I get when I'm around her car.

Wrong x2.

Jana was in Kelsey's car because it had a headlight out. She said she was going to take it by an auto repair shop after work, but Kelsey could have done that without involving Jana, so I kinda figured that they had hoped I would to do it for them. Being the handy person that I am (and needing an act to build kindness for the day) I followed Jana to an O'Reilly Auto Parts and changed the light in the parking lot. I don't know how much the repair shop would have charged for the service, but you gotta figure it would have been more than the $10 a new headlight costs.

Club 45

Jennifer is all about some babies right now. It's disgusting; she turns into this mushy, baby wanting blob every time an infant does something cute.

Like clock work... I know the baby conversation is soon to follow every baby encounter. I feel like a broken record. The script is always the same, "we have a plan and we ARE getting closer to NBC day." She knows this, yet for some reason she still brings it up like its the first time we're discussing it. I dunno, maybe babies generate some electromagnetic pulse that affect the portions of a woman's brain that control memory (and logic).

It's funny... before Mylo, Jennifer had never even had a puppy. When we got him, a week hadn't passed before she wanted to get rid of him because the stress of house training him was too much. It took Mylo a couple weeks to develop the anal aptitude to control his bowel movements. It's going to take a baby YEARS. When she brings up how awesome babies are, I try to remind her of things like this.

Well, we have these two engaged friends, Christopher and Anna, who do a Sunday school thing at church for 4th and 5th graders. It's called Club 45. C and A were both scheduled to be in NYC over the weekend, so they needed us to sub for Club 45. I'm not a huge fan of groups of kids in that age range, but it was a win-win. I got to help someone as part of my building kindness, AND more importantly, Jennifer was submerged in a situation that should make any sane person less excited about children.

While in NYC, C and A came across this sign and thought of us.

Meeting New People

Friday I played golf. Saturday I played golf. Life is hard for the kind.

Every year the Capital City Golf Association hosts a pro tournament in Nashville. The tournament is open to amateurs too, therefore it's a huge golf community event annually. This was the first tournament that Kenny Perry won when he turned pro. He credits it for giving him the confidence to believe that he can go out and win on the PGA Tour. My dad and uncle have been playing as amateurs in this tournament for a few years and last year I decided that I want to try it out too.

The deal is that if you are a member of the CCGA (which cost $60 to join) it will only cost you an additional $60 to play in this tournament. If you are not a member, then the entry fee for amateurs is $150 for this one event. So, it's a no-brainer... last year I joined the CCGA just for this one event.

This year I thought I would join earlier and play in more events. It's kind of a networking thing, but also I want to try and get more competitive with my golfing. The deal Saturday was the first event of the year hosted by the CCGA. It was a new member scramble were they take all the newbies and pair them up with older members. Of the three other golfers on my team, I only knew 1. Actually, of the 40 other golfers playing in the scramble... I only knew 2 (and one was Scheibe). It was good though.

Anyways, I wanted to make a good impression with these guys, so for my act to build kindness I bought them some Snicker's at the turn. One guy, Chris, was really excited about it. He said that the CCGA needs more new, young members like me. Even though my team didn't win, it was a fun event, and I look forward to meeting more people at other things in the year to come.

Golf Pricks

Thursday night my dad mentioned that he was playing golf Friday afternoon with some of his friends (their group is lovingly known as the Golf Pricks- they have a website and everything). He said that they might need an extra person to even out the teams. I have a little bit of extra time built into my schedule for emergencies like this, so I said that I could be there to fill in if they needed me.

Friday arrives and my dad calls to says that he still doesn't know what their numbers are, and that if I didn't mind showing up at the golf course just to see, that would help the whole group. I did not want to do this. Kinda like the mooching thing in my last post, I knew that if I did show up, and was not needed, they would have felt obligated, because I was there, to place me into the game anyways.

The solution I came up with was to drive out there and hide in my truck. I've played with them several times before, so I was able to watch and count as everyone arrived. My dad was the only one who knew I might be coming (and he was getting there late), so I figured that if they didn't need me... I'd just leave. Well my dad told me the wrong tee time (he often does this on purpose so I show up to things early instead of on time- hypocrite) and I ended up sitting in my truck for half an hour.

Finally, when I knew what the count was I drove my truck down to the driving range and announced that I was there just in case they needed me to even out the teams. Nonetheless, this made them happy for a couple reason. One, they were about to start scrambling to find an extra person. And two, they all think they're better at golf than me and that I'm easy money. Little did they know, showing up was my act to build kindness for the day... not donating from my wallet. I played okay for my first time out (shot 83), but I ended up making two birdies on the back nine and because of their elaborate scat game... I won $28. Man, it's nice to see an immediate return on kindness.

Oh how do I mooch thee?

Have you ever heard that poem by Elizabeth Browning called "How do I love thee?" Even if you haven't ever read the entire thing, you'd probably recognize the first two sentences: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." Below I've created a spoof of this poem for your reading pleasure:

How do I MOOCH thee? Let me count the ways.

I mooch thee to the bank for hard cash and dough
My hand can reach, when funds are on low
For the entertainment, drama and play.
I mooch thee to the movies on opening day
Most quiet plead, for food and good time,
I mooch thee freely, for every last dime.

I mooch thee often, and on other's behalf.
I mooch thee with a passion turned into craft
In my old briefs, and with my ragged shoes,
I mooch thee with a calming rhythm and blues.
Smiles and tears, the heart strings I tug --- I mooch thee with all my power,
This mooching is a able drug --- I shall but mooch thee best this hour.

Where am I going with this? Well, as a young adult I have mooched a lot in my life. Last Thursday Jen and I went to dinner with Scheibe and his dad. In meals past I would have gladly accepted the "adult" at the table's offer the pick up the check. This time however, even though Scheibe's dad was going to treat us, I wouldn't let him. Instead I paid for everyone's dinner. I told him thanks for the offer and thanks for all the previous times we had dinner on his dime. He said, "Awe heck! We should do this more often." Good times building kindness.

Spring Cleaning

It's about that time of year: College Basketball's March Madness! Unfortunately, that means it's also time for some spring cleaning (if there is one good thing that comes from Puxatony Phil seeing his shadow... it's the delay of spring cleaning). Boo cleaning. Yay basketball.

Anyways, for some reason I was really motivated to clean when I got home last Tuesday. Maybe the possibility that a news crew might be around shortly looking for the Penny Killer had me motivated to make the place presentable... who knows. All I know for sure it that it had been a smooth 6 months since I cleaned out my closet and things were out of control.


All and all it took me just a little over an hour to get my closet and office in order. Usually, I'm ready to crash after a cleaning endeavor of such magnitude, but because I had expected it to take longer I was still raring to go. So, I figured why not go clean out Jen's closet too? I started pulling out clothes that I hadn't seen in years and laying them on the bed. I figured that I'd do all the heavy lifting and she could just separate things into keep and don't keep piles. Ha. Bad idea... Jen was not in the mood to sort through anything, and the fact that I had everything on the one bed in the house meant she didn't have a choice if we were going to get sleep tonight.

Together, we finished the task fairly quickly (not as fast as my closet of course), and when all the cleaning was said and done, I had two bags of trash and two bags of old clothes. I took the trash to the dumpster area and the clothes to my truck. Hence forth, my act to build kindness for Wednesday was donating all of our un/little used clothing to Goodwill. Good deal.

Here Kids, Go Play in the Street

Before I went to help Jana pick up her TV Sunday I cleaned out the cab of my truck a bit. One of the specific things I did was take the money from my coin tray and separate out the pennies from the "real money." All together I had probably 50 pennies. Just enough to get in the way. My first thought was to take the pennies to a gas station and dump them in a change jar, but that was very similar to what I did at Subway the week before, so I wanted to save that as a last resort if I couldn't come up with anything better.

Well Tuesday rolled around and I hadn't done anything with the pennies yet. It was about 5pm and I was pulling into my condo complex when an idea quickly hit me. There are two little girls that live near the front of the complex. The oldest is probably 7 and the other is... I'd guess closer to 5. They are always riding their little razor scooters around the parking lot and every time they see us walking our dogs they run up to play with them. They appear to be happy, nice kids.

I was thinking about how much fun it used to be finding a penny on the ground when I was their age. Not only was it cash money that I could buy candy with, there is the saying that finding a penny on heads is good luck. So in one fluid motion I hit the window down button, reached over for my can of pennies and dumped all of them out the driver side of my truck into the street directly in front of the girls' door. We're talking it wasn't more that 100ft between the time I came up with the idea and when I dumped the pennies.

It wasn't more than another 100ft that I thought that probably was a bad idea. I just gave these little girls a reason to play in the street. I didn't turn around and I haven't seen any ambulances since then, so we're probably good. Of course, I haven't seen the girls since then either, so I post this hesitantly (I can always delete it if need be). Really though, my mom is the only ones who reads this thing anyways, and I think she's got my back. You do... don't you mom??

Shopping for Dents?

Don't you hate it when people leave shopping carts in the parking lot because they are too lazy, inconsiderate or in too big of hurry to return them to the cart corrals?! Once when I was in college, I went to Wal-Mart with my friend Ryan and witnessed a lady not just leave her cart, but unintentionally push it into the car parked beside her. I was so blown away that I immediately ran over there and confronted her. I told her that I would take her cart for her this time, but that I was very disappointed in the lack of character she displayed by discarding the cart so inappropriately. Ryan thought it was hilarious, but I was dead serious and I'm glad that's all I said to the lady.

Last Monday, Jennifer, my wife was sick, so I went to Kroger to pick up the typical supplies: chicken noodle soup, Gatorade, NyQuil, DayQuil, toilet paper (ha), etc. When I got there I noticed an inordinate number of shopping carts poised to wreak havoc on the cars in the lot. It was cold and windy, so I assume people were trying to get out of the elements ASAP and that's why so many were left unattended. Also, it would make sense that whoever Kroger pays to round up the carts was slacking for the same reasons.

The kindness task was obvious. On my way into the store, I collected the two carts along my path and parked them inside. Yay for me and yay for building kindness! While I was busy patting myself on the back I thought about how and what I would say on my blog about the carts... and then it hit me. Each day I'm trying to go out of my way to do something kind, and collecting two carts from directly in front of me didn't require extra effort. That's something I probably would have done w/o this new found mission.

From what I saw when I pulled in, there were probably another 10 carts out there that needed moving. So, I bought my stuff and headed back out to get the rest of the carts. I ended up moving 12 more before I left for home.

For those of you from the South: a shopping cart is the same thing as a buggy. Sorry for the confusion. ;D

Possession is 9/10ths... and its in My Truck

Who here is familiar with craigslist.org? Yes, that question was rhetorical. Apparently everyone knows about craigslist. I just researched it, and CL gets 20 billion page views per month (about 20 billion more than this blog), and ranks 11th among web sites in the United States for unique monthly visitors. CL is not popular because it is a cool website. It's is beloved by all because it is a FREE place to unload your junk and buy other peoples!

Case in point- Jana, my wife's sister found a post for a TV on CL last week. It was listed as a 52" Sony HDTV for $100. When she told me about it I was like, "HA. YEAH RIGHT!" Then she asked if I would take her to pick it up in my truck, and I swear to you... if I had not just started this whole build kindness thing... I would have said no! I am not interested in chasing rainbows (meaning I was very skeptical that the deal was on the up and up).

Sunday came along and I begrudgingly made my way out to her place. I picked her up and we drove out to the house where the TV was located. I was so convinced that I was wasting my time that I didn't even get out of my truck when Jana went in to see the TV. A few minutes passed and I figured that I should go inside to make sure she wasn't being murdered. When I walked in and saw the TV (they had a basketball game on) my jaw dropped. The thing was perfect. I clicked into hurry-up mode thinking that we needed to get the TV in my truck quickly before the guy changed his mind!

We loaded the TV and headed on our way laughing about the deal. Jana knows about my blog, so she commented that I should write how I helped her pick up the TV as my building kindness for the day. I was like, "That sounds good and all, but you've heard the saying that possession is 9/10ths of the law? Okay good. Because I'm not counting picking up the TV as my act for the day. Instead, I have to consider the fact that I'll be unloading it at your house as my act."

Honestly, picking it up was easy... dropping it off was hard. I wanted to keep it so bad!