A Special Dedication In Memoriam to Derry Newbury

Hey Babe, I know your looking down on all of us from Heaven so I thought I would post this one just for you.

If there is one thing I know for certain babe, Cancer broke your body but it didn't break your spirit

This video is for you!

Missing you always,

Caleb

Derry Newbury -- 1988 - 2009 R.I.P

This is the last entry into this blog. I want it to be the final memorial page for Derry.

If you dont know, Derry passed away 2 days ago after a return fight with his brain cancer. He fought really really hard but he could not beat it this time.

I miss him so much and its killin me that hes not here no more. I dont really know what to say here so I am just gonna leave it to you guys to put up whatever comments you want and I am gonna share some stuff in the comments part as well bout the stuff we did and the fun stuff and the good times and the bad times and all that stuff.

I know Derry always used music to share things and talk bout stuff using songs and stuff to get his message out so I think this part is right. Near the end Derry played a song for me that he said was like the most important thing he wanted to tell me and everyone else so yeah, here you go. I am puttin up the words and I am postin the video here too. For real people, this song makes me cry so much every time I hear it cuz its so true and it meant so much to him.

If you wanna share somethin go ahead in the comments cuz this is now the Derry Newbury Memorial Page

If Today Was Your Last Day -- Nickelback

My best friend gave me the best advice
He said each day's a gift and not a given right
Leave no stone unturned, leave your fears behind
And try to take the path less traveled by
That first step you take is the longest stride

If today was your last day and tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?
Would you live each moment like your last
Leave old pictures in the past?
Donate every dime you had, if today was your last day?
What if, what if, if today was your last day?

Against the grain should be a way of life
What's worth the price is always worth the fight
Every second counts 'cause there's no second try
So live like you're never living twice
Don't take the free ride in your own life

If today was your last day and tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?
Would you live each moment like your last?
Leave old pictures in the past?
Donate every dime you had?

And would you call those friends you never see?
Reminisce old memories?
Would you forgive your enemies?
And would you find that one you're dreaming of?
Swear up and down to God above
That you'd finally fall in love if today was your last day?

If today was your last day
Would you make your mark by mending a broken heart?
You know it's never too late to shoot for the stars
Regardless of who you are

So do whatever it takes
'Cause you can't rewind a moment in this life
Let nothing stand in your way
'Cause the hands of time are never on your side

If today was your last day and tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?
Would you live each moment like your last?
Leave old pictures in the past?
Donate every dime you had?

And would you call those friends you never see?
Reminisce old memories?
Would you forgive your enemies?
And would you find that one you're dreaming of
Swear up and down to God above
That you'd finally fall in love if today was your last day?

A Special Message From My Hero...Lance Armstrong!

Three days: 10,000 signatures

Dear Friends,

Three days to add 10,000 signatures, will you add your name?

Sign the Declaration

Last month when I started the Tour de France, I asked you to join me in signing the World Cancer Declaration. The response has been staggering —more than 100,000 of us have added our names to this urgent global push to fight cancer.

In three days, the LIVESTRONG Global Cancer Summit here in Dublin will come to a close. It’s an incredibly rare opportunity to urge some of the most powerful people in the world to commit the time, energy and resources needed to make a world without cancer a reality. And we can do just that if we add 10,000 more signatures to the Declaration before the Summit ends on Wednesday.

Will you sign the Declaration and then ask your friends and family to help us add 10,000 commitments by Wednesday night? It only takes a moment and every name counts:

Sign Up Here

Cancer affects all of us. By 2010, cancer is projected to become the leading cause of death worldwide, yet the fight against cancer lacks urgency and focus. That is why we must take matters into our own hands and force cancer onto the global agenda.

The LIVESTRONG Global Cancer Summit in Dublin will do just that by bringing governments, communities and survivors from all over the world together pushing for new commitments to stem the growing impact of cancer around the globe. Closing this commitment gap is a critical step towards a world without cancer.

We have just three more days to make the World Cancer Declaration as powerful as possible. Every additional name we add will lend weight to our cause; every single new voice adds urgency to our fight. I know we can reach our goal if each and every one of us signs the Declaration and asks someone close to us to add their name too.

Will you sign the Declaration and also ask a friend or family member to join us before Wednesday night? It only takes a moment and will make a big difference:

Sign Here

LIVESTRONG,

Lance and the LIVESTRONG Action Team

Trick or Tweet

I dont Tweet, and I barely facebook and for that I am considered a social outcast.

I just dont see the need for me to broadcast what I am doing every minute of the day...I also don't see the need to do it on Facebook. Now, I do use facebook from time to time but I dont use it to the same extent that some people do. I guess I dont see or feel the need to comment on how I am feeling, what I am doing, what I am thinking, every couple of hours. Now, that being said, I DO blog, obviously. For me though, the difference is, blogging is something I do every couple of days and I usually pick a topic and expand on it. I dont blog every hour or so just to tell you that I am at a club in Toronto having a beer and hanging out with Caleb. Seriously, do you really need that sort of detail from me? would it really matter? is it going to somehow change your plans? No, I didn't think so.

Okay so I am off my soapbox and given that there are so many people out there who Tweet, I thought I would search out an article or two on the nuances of the Tweet. In all my searching, and yes, I dare you to type "Tweet" or "Twitter" into a google search box and see how many hits YOU get. So seeing as I likely have more time on my hands than the average person, and that may be a stretch given the number of Tweets and Facebooker comments that stream through, here are some interesting facts about Tweeting.

First off, to no surprise, a study has shown that approximately 40% of all tweets that get sent, are actually nothing more than useless babble. Does that really surprise? Not me, even though I am sure I need to know which dress Amy from San Jose chose to wear this morning LOL

A paltry 3.6% of all tweets were actually news, and that study eliminated any Tweets about Michael Jackson so as not to taint the study. 3.6%...are you serious? So as we can see, 96.4% of the time, the tweets being sent are really not all that useful to the majority of the public.

5.85% of all tweets were self promotion. Again, does that surprise anyone? I am more surprised that this number was not higher. Self promotion is all the rage with sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. Its not that self promotion is bad...far from it, but again, I think it has a limited audience.

Lastly, 37.5% of all tweets were just conversational...meaning they had no news value or any self promotion. They were simply a conversational point and could either be taken or left as is. Conversational as in what I do in this blog, as in just making a statement about something or responding to some other tweet.

Now, for all you professional tweeters out there, allow me to share with you some useful information from the study...when I say useful I mean, here is what you need to do to help your tweet get noticed or re-tweeted.

The best time to tweet is on a Monday or at 11:30 AM Central time. Mondays are the start of the week and most people are reading and preparing for the week. You have a strong likelihood of having your tweet re-tweeted if you post at that time or on Monday.

If you are looking for News Tweets, you might want to post on Tuesday or around 2PM. It is on that day and time that most news related tweets hit the interwave

If you are posting a conversational tweet, do so on Tuesday or between 2-4PM. By this day and/or time, most people are caught up on work or whatever they had planned and now find themselves in a position to get involved in conversational tweeting etc.

So there you have it, the ins and outs of twitter...I still dont do it, and I dont see that changing, but for those of you who do...I hope this blog helped you out a little.

For the time being, I am going to stick to good old fashioned blogging...it may seem and feel like I am traveling in the slow lane, but from this vantage point, I can be a casual observer, and I like that role a whole lot more!

LiveSTRONG!

This Weeks Sign The Apocalypse Is Upon Us (1)

So I have decided that with this blog, I am going to run a weekly feature. It will be something fun and entertaining so you all have something to look forward too. As you can tell by the title, this will be an ongoing weekly event. With this feature, I will seek out the wildest and most unusual things I can off the internet or the world at large to share with all of you.

So on that note, lets start with this weeks feature!

Today I bring to your attention the brew ha ha that is being made over the Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 broom. Oh yes, it appears that poor old Harry is not just wagging his best parts in front of the general public and causing a stir, now the toy broom based on the one in the movie has been flying off the shelves, but for all the wrong reasons. Let me explain...

It appears that the Nimbus 2000 broom toy not only looks realistic, it also, ahem, vibrates. Yes boys and girls and more girls, the lovely Nimbus 2000 is a hit with the young female segment. It appears that younger girls are lining up to buy this toy, not because it makes them feel like Harry Potter, but more because it makes them squeal like banshees when they fire it up and ride it like Harry Potter would. Apparently the manufacturer had no idea that this was going to happen....yeah right! Give a pre-teen, teen hormonal girl a long stick that vibrates and ENCOURAGE them to place it between their legs and oh yeah, there was no chance that there was going to be an issue.

Parents began writing in that their girls were locking themselves up in their rooms with other girls to the sounds of squeals of excitement...little did the parents know that it was not boyfriends and gossip, but instead the Naughty Nimbus 2000 as I now affectionately call it.

Oh yes, why go out and buy an expensive vibrator when you can not only have the fun of acting like Harry Potter, but you can squeal and squirm like a dog in heat whilst doing it.

So what has happened...the manufcaturer has recalled the offending toy and has appoligized for its mistake. Meanwhile, many of the brooms are still in the marketplace but perhaps are now locked up tighter than the chastity belt that the users were wearing.

The Naughty Nimbus 2000 Vibrating broom is this weeks sign that the appocalypse is upon us

LiveSTRONG!

I Am Who I Am

The right to be who I am is something I feel is very important. I have spent the entirety of my relatively short life being true to myself and what I believe in at any cost. It never ceases to amaze me, how people morph themselves into people they really aren't in an effort to become viewed as more popular, interesting, or socially acceptable. I don't get it. At the end of the day, when the curtain drops, the lights go down and you move on to whatever afterlife, if any, you subscribe to, you will be remembered for what and who you are. Would you rather be remembered as someone you really weren't or would you prefer that people remember you as the person who was true to themselves. Let me expand on this a bit.

Over the course of my years on this planet, I have been seen as mute, and then as a speaking person. I have been seen as both very physically ill and vibrant. I have been seen as both a lover of women and heterosexual and a lover of men and homosexual. I have been seen as both weak and strong, smart and dumb, simple and complicated. I have been seen as many things, but which of these is me? Which of them is you? How do you decide or how do you know which is the real you? What a conflicting existence we all live in.

Through everything that has happened, I have always held on to certain core values...things that at the deepest levels of who I am, remain unchanged. If you have spent any time talking to me then you have come to know some of those things. Those of you who really know me either personally or through my cyberconnection to you, know I am honest to a fault...I call it like it is even if it might pain you to hear it. You know I have a very unusual sense of humour and that I often laugh at things that many people could not see the humour in. You would know that I am brutally open about who I am even when it means that you could pull me apart for being honest about myself. You would also know that I have a deep and unbending need to help other people and be seen as useful.

I could go on and on and you would likely learn a little more about me but the simple fact is, I do all of the above without compromise, shame or remorse. There are many things I will never understand in life, many mysteries in the world I will never ever understand or comprehend, but who I am is not one of them. People sometimes ask me how I can be so open with perfect strangers and the truth is, I don't have the answer. I only know how to be who I am. I don't have to think about it, I just do it. Some people ask me how I can open myself up to criticism with the sometimes ridiculous things that come out of my mouth or get typed by these fingers, and again, I simply don't know because its all I know.

If you have been following this blog then you know already that I am a pretty open person and I don't make any excuses about that. Now, the question I ask you is, are YOU true to YOURSELF? do you know who and what you are at the most basic level? do you be yourself with other people or do you work on being someone else?

Take it from me people, this life can be short, and the unexpected lurks around every corner. Do you want to waste all your time and energy working on being someone else? Or would you rather spend that same time and energy being who you are with all the energy and zest you can muster?

Actors get paid big money to be someone they are not...so if your not being paid to be someone else, why not just be yourself!

On that note I will leave you to it...go out and be you...whatever that YOU is!

LiveSTRONG!

Those Songs That Make You....

Stop in your tracks or in the middle of whatever thought was going through your head. You know the songs I am talking about. Your wedding song, the song on the radio when you first made out with your partner in the car, the song that played when you first had sex...or the song that was in your head anyway HAHA.

We all have those songs that mean something. Maybe you think about a certain someone when you hear it on the radio. Maybe you stop and think that song is speaking to you, to your life, to your very soul and you can't help but stop and catch your breath. Until I was able to hear, I never truly understood how powerful a song could be. I want to take this a step further though. Is it the song or the singer? Is it the lyrics or the manner in which they are delivered? does it matter? For me personally, its the lyrics and then the manner in which they are delivered. For example, I have heard three different versions of Elton John's, "Levon". I have heard Taylor Hicks sing it, Bon Jovi Sing it, and Elton sing it. For me, Elton delivers it the best. Is it because it is the original? maybe but not quite. I think there is a little something extra that you feel in Elton's voice. This is just one example though. I guess it begs the question, can a cover be as good or better than the original? More on that in a minute.

Throughout my blog, I have spoken many times about the power of music. I have shared songs that mean something to me or to my relationship with Caleb. For me, it was more the lyrics than the singer, but truth be told, there are some songs that simply sound better when they are sung by a certain person. Now, is that because the artist themselves are better or is it that they made better use of artistic impression. An example of this would be "Praying For Time" by George Michael. In my humble and limited opinion, his Unplugged version is FAR AND AWAY better than the original...and yet its the same artist. Carrie Underwood covered the song using the same slowed down, ballady approach and I think she is almost as good as the original. Maybe not quite better than, but definitely near as good as. Interestingly, had I never heard the George Michael unplugged version, I would have said that Carrie was far and away the better version. So again, is it the song, the singer or the way the singer delivers that makes the difference?

All good questions and ones I wont be able to answer in one entry, if I can answer them at all. What I will do though is leave it to you to tell me what you think. Is it the song? the singer? or the artistic impression that makes you stop and make a song special for you? what songs are close to your heart? share them with me in the comments section...its how I find new music to listen to and enjoy.

On that note, I will leave you with a song that really hit me. It made me think of Caleb and his experiences when I heard it. Its definitely an emotional song if you make the connection. Even if you don't, its still very powerful in its own right. Interestingly, it is a cover of the original and yet I personally feel the cover is better. Don't get me wrong, the original is good but the cover is more contemporary and it feels as if the dust was blown off the song and it was given a new lease on life.

Okay, enough talking, I give you, Kris Allen of American Idol fame and the cover of "Falling Slowly"

LiveSTRONG!