Let's Do The Right Thing!

When I got hurt more than forty years ago, my family became my built-in group of caregivers. In fact, one of my second cousins offered to come and be my private duty nurse. She was a new grad and wanted to do her part to help us. I often wondered what it would have been like if we would have taken June up on her offer?


Who better than one's own family is there to take care of a loved one after a traumatic injury? My parents were my primary caregivers, but my siblings also helped in more ways than I can count. We started them young too. Witness my little brother, Chad helping to feed me some of his first birthday cake:


Click on the picture to enlarge it:

We put him to work early! Both of my parents became my primary caregivers and all my siblings became secondary caregivers. 

Now, the Obama administration has proposed new rules that would allow service members' families to do the same by taking leave from their jobs to do the same for their injured family members. 

I think it is a wonderful idea! You can learn more about the plan by clicking here to read this Associated Press article from today's USA TODAY. It is a good, quick read. According to the article, The proposal expands eligibility under the Family and Medical Leave Act, which allows employees to take unpaid leave for certain medical or family reasons.

I believe it makes sense to expand it to our military as well.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Later,

Mike

Is PayPal On Your List?

Prepare yourself for a little rant on dealing with Big Business and sending American jobs overseas! This is going to be a little longer than average post.

As you know, I just published my first ebook, I Still Believe in Tomorrow. Whenever you purchase a book, the payment goes to my publisher, eBookit.com which is located in Sudbury, Massachusetts.

They run everything through PayPal, which lists their offices in California. However, I just found out their Customer Service Center is in the Philippines. Let me tell you a little story about the quality of workers PayPal employs there.

When I found my publisher, I did not know just how I would get paid; and I did not know anything about PayPal. Go back to when the book went online on November 28, 2011. I received my first payment for those few days in November, only after I called the publisher and found out I had to contact PayPal and have them forward my check to my bank. I was under the mistaken assumption it would just automatically be deposited in my bank account. I know, I know, I know what they say about assuming. So, I called PayPal and they deposited my check in my account and told me they would do that every month from now on, on or about the fifteenth of every month.

December fifteenth came and went and sure enough, my deposit was made on the seventeenth. Now, December starts and sales start to add up. It was fun to watch! I remember thinking, come the middle of January, I will get a nice sum made to my bank account. It never happened! It was not deposited on the twentieth, the twenty-fifth and not today.

I called my publisher and he gave me the number to reach their customer service department. By the way, PayPal has no Customer Service number on their website, at least I could not find one.

I called the number and only spent a few minutes on hold to get a representative who told me they did not have the ability to forward my money to my bank! I found that amusing since I had been told the month before, "It was no problem."

After a rather lengthy discussion with the misinformed young woman, guess what I did next? If you guessed me saying rather forcefully, "Let me talk to your supervisor," you are correct! The supervisor was very helpful, and walked me through a fairly complex process to get my monthly Royalty check deposited into my Patrick Communications bank account.

Of course it will take two or three days for my bank to deposit my PayPal check. Evidently, they do not trust PayPal any more than I do! Unfortunately, I am stuck in a situation now dealing with another corporation who has taken at least some of their operations off shore. I hate that and I told both of them my feelings! And, if you are a long time reader of this blog, you know I do not use that word lightly! Just click on the word HATE in the labels list below and you can read my feelings on the word.

There, I feel better now.

Click on the cover image to make it larger:

If you have already purchased and read the book, how did you like it? If you liked it, did you forward my website on to your friends and encourage them to purchase a copy and forward it to their friends? If you did not like it, I would like to hear your comments too.

If you have not purchased it, there is no time like the present. You can order it by clicking here.

FYI: I have already booked a couple workshops from the book and the two newspapers stories written about me recently. Hopefully, it is starting to pick up speed! I need to get in front of an audience again soon! I need my fix!

 As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Real Or Fake

A friend sent me this several months ago and I think it is very impressive. After I did a little research on it and other similar sport tricks, it got me to wondering if it was real or fake. What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=W8SK0rk5jdE&vq=medium

After the video, they show several other videos of tricks young guys do with baseballs and basketballs and in numerous places. It makes one wonder how many takes it took to get the shots they put on the videos. They reminded me of the McDonald's Larry Bird and Magic Johnson playing HORSE in a trick shot ad campaign from several years ago.

I question the validity of the attached baseball video because of some things that have happened to me in the last four months. I have been dealing with a wolf in sheep's clothing. I will go into more of that as it plays out. It makes it hard to trust people.

I guess since they are on the Internet, they must be true; because as everyone knows, if it is online, it has to be true!

Meanwhile, I look forward to your comments on the attached batting practice video.

Later,

Mike

For My Young Friends With Disabilities

I know many of my subscribers are young students with disabilities from either the Youth Leadership Forums I have done or high school students who have sent me emails after I visited their schools. This post is especially for you. For any of my adult subscribers who know a young person with a disability who is or will be soon attending college, please forward the attached article on to them.

First of all, this article was originally published in U.S. News & World Report in early December. I received it yesterday when a young Facebook friend posted it on my Wall. According to the article, there are about one point one million undergraduate students with physical disabilities in the country.

That may not be a large number of total college students, but each one of those students has their own story on what it took to get there, just like I did almost forty years ago. And guess what? Only five schools in the country offer enough services for a student with serious physical disabilities to live on campus. One of those is U.C. Berkeley! I lived on that campus in 1974 and 1975! Now, thirty-seven years later, only four more schools are offering that luxury. That is appalling!

To read the article, just click here.

I am anxious to hear what you think about it. Please feel free to comment.

Later,

Mike