Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam discusses his largely sedentary life and the fulfillment he gets on the rare occasions he can see the results of his work. ----- Most weeks, my work mainly involves pushing electrons around. I sit at a computer and do stuff. Recently it’s been requests for short training videos for clients to use with their teams. I write scripts, edit scripts and record videos. Other weeks I prepare presentations. Lots of PowerPoint editing, lots of rehearsing content. Lots of time online. Lots of buying tickets. It’s all sedentary stuff. Me plus a keyboard plus a...
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On this week’s Keepin’ It Real, Cam has a message for parents whose children are playing high school sports as his youngest children enter their final year of high school. Every high school sport is suffering from a shortage of officials and referees. Zip it, he says, please just zip it. ----- The second contact on a volleyball can be a double contact so long as it’s one attempt and doesn’t go over the net. That’s a new volleyball rule set to begin this season. For years parents in the stands would holler “double” whenever they saw what they thought was a double touch...
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On this week’s Keepin It Real, there are some arrogant folks showing up in Cam’s life these days. They don't’ commiserate with Cam’s struggles. Instead, they gloat... ----- This is a commentary about a specific kind of quiet arrogance. It’s in the background. But you know it when you hear it. These people are “just reporting the truth,” as they may say. It’s not truth. It’s haughty arrogance. And I’ll tell you where I’ve run up against it recently. The first is citrus arrogance. I planted a satsuma tree in my yard many years ago and it has never produced one satsuma. I...
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On this week’s Keepin It Real, Cam and his family grieve the loss of their family pet. It was sudden. Their dog, Lucy, was with them for nine and a half years and they buried her late at night in the back yard. ----- The saying is that our dogs will greet us when we get to heaven. I sure hope so. We lost Lucy, our family pet of nine and a half years last night in what was one of the most tragic and heartbreaking nights I’ve ever been a part of. What was diagnosed as kennel cough turned into something different. At 9:30 I was preparing for bed. At 11:30 I was shoveling dirt on top...
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This week on Keepin It Real Cam Marston has noticed a trend amongst his empty nester friends and what their hobbies become once the kids are gone. The predictability of it gives him comfort. ----- In my part of the world, the female empty nester is an interior designer or painter who has been caged by her responsibilities as a mother and once the kids are gone, they finally step into their lifelong artistic fulfillment. It’s a distinct pattern around here. The number of friends my wife and I have who start throwing paint on a canvas or buying furniture at market after the kids are gone is...
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On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston got some blowback from a social media post this week. He asks us, "How do you deal with haters?" ----- One year ago, I set a goal to paddle board across Mobile Bay. I completed that goal in May. The second part of the goal was to write about the challenge and be paid to have it printed. That was completed last week when the story was carried in Mobile Bay Magazine. I will get a small payment in a week or so. A year’s planning, researching, note-taking, exercising, preparing and lots of paddling later, the goal was entirely met. Pretty cool....
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On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam and a client discuss employee retention issues and he shares and idea that may get you through any business turmoil that may lie ahead. ----- On a call with an upcoming client this week I was discussing one of their challenges. They’re having a hard time recruiting and retaining young talent. “But here’s something we did recently,” my client said, “that may have some sort of impact. We added a snack pantry to the office kitchen and it’s been a huge hit.” "Tell me more," I said. “Well,” she said. “Our young employees know they should...
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On today's Keepin It Real, Cam wishes us a happy Independence Day and reminds us that on July 4th, 1776, nearly thirty percent of the population didn't want it. ----- Happy Fourth of July. Our nation’s independence. It’s a big deal. I don’t think we feel it today like generations did in the past. The significance of it is likely lost on many of us. Those that fought in wars have a different type of appreciation for the Fourth of July but there are so many fewer of them today than there were. In 1980, about twenty percent of our population had served in the military. Today that number is...
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A beach conversation earlier this week caught Cam's attention. And he asks if we've ever had so many known solutions to a common problem and ignored them? ----- At a family event earlier this week I asked eight members of my extended family who liked their work. Six people did not their work. Some hated their jobs. Some were just ready for something new. And some were actively looking for new jobs but only something they’d enjoy and were struggling to find anything that they thought they’d enjoy. One had weeks to go before retiring at age sixty. Rather than go to sixty-five, he decided to...
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On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston seems to think writers are a good bit like Labrador retrievers - they can't not chase the stick. And writer can't not tell a story. ----- I stepped into the Mobile Literary Festival back in April not knowing what to expect. What I found surprised me and, ultimately, inspired me. Here’s what happened. But first - I used to own labrador retrievers. I learned they could never not chase the stick. Or the socks. Or the pinecone. Whenever I tossed something, they had to go after it. They couldn’t control themselves. It was who they were. It was in their...
info_outlineOn this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam is board so he's thinking about paddling across the Pacific. Or planting a few ferns.
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I’m bored. And that’s a problem. Somethings been nagging at me for a few weeks and I now know what it is – I’m bored. There’s little adventure in my world right now. Very little discovery. And when boredom sets in get panicky and a bit rash. Too often, I over compensate.
This morning I spent way too much time on the Molokai to Oahu web page. It’s a 32 mile stand up paddleboard race from the Hawaiian island of Molokai to the island of Oahu and it takes most paddleboard participants about seven hours to complete. The participants in the videos were all much much younger than me and loaded with muscles. I saw no participants that were middle aged plus men with beer bellies. Some participants spoke of the unbelievable color of the water in the center of the Ka’iwi channel which is crossed between Molokai and Oahu. I’m guessing that’s because the water in the channel is 2300 feet deep.
I think I want to do it. It’s a sure way to cure my boredom. The problem is that I don’t own a standup paddleboard and the few times I tried one I spent more time climbing back on than I did stand up paddling. I also have thalassophobia which is a deep fear of deep bodies of water. Whenever I’m in the ocean where I can’t see the bottom, I envision a giant toothy creature surging from the depths with its mouth open, headed my way. Man loses his edge when swimming in the ocean – it becomes an equal playing field between man and beast. However, training to paddle from one Hawaiian island to another would certainly resolve my boredom however crazy it sounds.
A more realistic and, frankly, a sad alternative to my boredom is yardwork. I hate it that I even mention that. What else says overweight, middle aged, thinning brown haired white guy than deciding working in the yard is a cure for boredom. My wife, my son, and I planted forty autumn ferns a few weekends ago in areas where no grass has grown for the past fifteen years. I didn’t much like planting them. My mood is generally sour when working in the yard, but I’ve slowly walked by and admired our planted ferns a dozen times or more sense then. I don’t like doing yard work. I like having done yard work. Another forty ferns would solve my boredom problem but that’s so dang sad.
So, I’m bored. And the ideas I’ve come up with for solving my boredom problem are either fanciful or pitiful. When I told my wife that I had figured out the cause of my melancholy and that it was boredom, she gave me an uneasy look. I’ve been here before and I usually do something stupid in times like this. And she’s right. And I’m sure I will.
Will it be to paddleboard across the ocean? Or gobs of ferns? Good lord. What’s wrong with me?
I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to Keep it Real.