Purpose
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Cam’s been studying retirement trends for his work lately. One thing’s for sure, he’s not ready! ----- More often than not, when I ask someone who has retired in the past two years, their answer is nearly exactly the same. They say, “Well, retirement’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” Why? They worked so hard for it, now they have it. So, what’s missing? My work has steered me into retirement studies. Most people think about money when they think about retirement planning, but I’m learning money is not the only thing you need to plan for. There’s more. And it’s something...
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Carnival Cruise Ship Crashed Into the Dominican Republic
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week’s Keepin’ It Real, Cam has been away lately but just got back from Spring Break with his kids. Imagine a cruise ship wrecked on a beach and they turned it into a hotel…. ----- Imagine a Carnival Cruise ship out at sea and loaded with passengers headed full speed, for the coast of the Dominican Republic and crashing ashore not far from Punta Cana. Then, rather than clean up the mess, they turn wreckage into a hotel, add a bunch more swimming pools and put loud Bose speakers everywhere, and call it the Hard Rock All-Inclusive Sodom and Gomorrah Resort and Hotel Punta Cana....
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Ant Farm
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week’s Keepin It Real, Cam has learned that there are moments in time where a simple guttural sound really really matters. And they can’t accumulate because they expire quickly. All this relates back to an incomplete Christmas present. ----- I got an ant farm for Christmas. My kids laughed and they told their friends and they laughed but my family came through and on Christmas morning I opened an ant farm. It has a main chamber and two auxiliary chambers. I set it up just like the pictures showed. A few weeks ago, in March, I got the ants for my birthday. Apparently, the farm...
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AI Me?
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam has been pitched by a software company to duplicate himself. Who would want another of him? Even he questions his own worth from time to time. ----- I’ve just come from my accountant’s office where I handed all my tax information to the lady at the front desk. The manilla envelope was much lighter this year than in years past. Last week I had a long talk with an AI guy out of Houston. He said he loved to find people like me – content experts with books and videos and training programs and blogs and podcasts and such. He wants to take all content...
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Lenten Commitment
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam realizes that he really had no choice over what he gave up for Lent - it was given to him and he's not happy about it. ----- Our new puppy continues to rule the house and my life. She was trained by the breeder to urinate on a pee pad which is exactly what it sounds like – an absorbent mat for dogs to urinate on indoors. At our house, that means the carpet. She’ll trot off the hardwood floors, pass the open back door to find the Persian rug and squat and look at me with an expression of “look how good I am!” Meanwhile the whole yard in available...
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Another Tree
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week’s Keepin It Real, Cam wonders what the life span of a titanium knee is and whether his father might need one or two more with the way he’s going. ----- My eighty-nine-year-old father is scheduled to get a knee replacement next week. Let me say that again - he’s eighty-nine and getting a new knee and is eager to return to his very active life when the pain subsides. He’s done this once before and wants the same results. People stop me nearly every day to ask about my father. They comment on how healthy he is and how he never slows down. This is true, though I can...
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In On the Joke
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
In a few coastal cities in the deep south, in the weeks before Lent begins, a strange behavior begins to appear. Honorable and respectable people step into a different personalities for a short time. They do it together, and it's a heck of a good time. ----- Grown people acting like fools for a few days might very well be good for the soul. I’m not sure how large groups, primarily of men, agreeing to behave silly is therapeutic, but it is. I’ll leave it to some psychologist try to explain it. As a participant, though, I assure you, it’s good stuff. Over the top costumes, over the...
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He Claims to Know
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week’s Keepin It Real, Cam Marston admits that from time to time when he’s on his knees at church on Sunday he asks himself what in the world he’s doing. Has he, maybe, lost his mind. ----- The Mayan god of rain was called Cha ac. When drought hit the jungles of Central America fifteen hundred years ago, Cha ac was called upon to send rain. So, the Mayans, led by their shaman, offered a child – children, actually. The archeologists who studied Bartlett Cave in Belize say they found the bones of eighteen children in one area alone, and there were many areas. None of the children...
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It's the Ritual I Crave
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam is coming to the end of a month of no alcohol - Dry January. February begins soon, though. And Cam's wondering whether he'll continue on or not. ----- My dry January has just a couple days left. This is the third consecutive year I’ve participated in Dry January and I’ve remembered again how much I like it. Thirty nights of good sleep. I feel like I’ve lost ten or twelve pounds. My head is clear each day. The benefits are amazing. And, just like the last two years, I wonder why I don’t do this more regularly. When my wife moved to Mobile with...
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We Got a Puppy
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam's family got a new puppy. It's been nearly ten years since they got their last dog and much of his memory of having a puppy is gone. The memories are coming back fast. ----- We got a puppy. Her name is Rosie. She’s a doodle of some sort. And while I say “we” got a puppy, truth be told, my wife got herself a puppy and the family will share it with her. My wife stalked Rosie down when the litter was one week old. It was in Hudson, Indiana and she found it through an online search using something called puppyfinder.com. Rosie came from a litter that...
info_outlineSometimes when escaping the rat race you find yourself becoming a rat.
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Air travel brings out something in people that, in normal life, stays hidden. It’s the combination of the expense, non-negotiable departure times, lots of uncertainty, and lots and lots of people packed into tight confines. Then add travel disruptions, crying babies, potentially rude airline staff and it escalates the tension. During air travel you see who people really are. And you may learn some unpleasant things about yourself.
Years ago, I watched a father change his baby’s diaper while laying his baby across two tray tables during a flight. That scene has never left my mind.
Yesterday, I listened as an older man complained loudly about his wife who, he said, was constantly late. “She’ll be late for her own funeral,” he repeated over and over to the gate agent for us all to hear. His wife was shopping and when she arrived, he blasted her. She blasted back saying she was not late, they had plenty time and we heard their fight go all the way down the jetway and onto the plane.
There’s gamesmanship over arm rests. No words, no looks, but an aggressive passive aggressive competition over a two-inch wide piece of elbow space.
Larger people raising the arm rests saying they’re painful and dig into their sides. Passengers pushing the arm rest back down saying, “Sorry. I bought this whole seat and don’t want you spilling into it.” Loud snorers having their seats violently shaken to wake them up. People missing flights and having meltdowns so loud that security has to come take them away.
Once in Atlanta, a passenger from my flight confronted me in the terminal, screaming at me inches from my face. I’d never seen this person before, and people were forming a circle to watch. I kept asking who he was and why was he so angry. He kept hollering and finally walked off. I was terrified. Turns out I was upgraded to a first-class seat, and he thought I had sabotaged his upgrade. He started drinking and got off the plane looking for a fight.
Now this sounds so self-righteous but I’m no saint. I’ve flown nearly three and a half million miles and, at one time, I felt the airlines owed me. I made demands, I raised my voice and I’m embarrassed by who I was back then. Today I try to stay quiet and grateful. However, I still fail. A few weeks ago, fifteen minutes from landing in Mobile, the flight turned around and flew back to Dallas due to a mid-flight mechanical issue. I got off the plane and asked a few questions and their answers, I felt, were unsatisfactory and my body language showed it. Imagine a person miming disgust. That was me. We went through three planes that day, all with mechanical issues, until we found one that finally got us home seven hours late.
I love being in new, far-away, places which makes air travel necessary. But getting there can be awful. It’s unfortunate that sometimes in the process of escaping the rat race you find yourself becoming a rat.
I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to Keep It Real.