my favorite foods/things - part 1

So one of my friends asked me yesterday what I loved to eat - i responded food - i love most everything, but here are some of my favorites, and why - let the debate begin

Pizza - first off let me say I love Chicago Style pizza - not stuffed, true deep dish pizza. My favorite used to be Pizzeria Uno/Due downtown, before they sold out and became a chain that puts out bad stuff. Now I'm all about Lou Malnati's - the perfect blend of meat and cheese and it's so damn good. If i want thin crust pizza, i'll go up to the north side and get Pat's or out to the far south side and get Vito and Nick's, party cut, please (no wedges , squares)

Italian Beef - for those of you reading this from outside of Chicago and have no idea what an Italian Beef sandwich is, it's like a Philly cheesesteak, but different; it's like a french dip, but better and it's so food that i'll drive all over hither and yon to get a good one. For me the best, without question, is at Al's on Taylor Street. Great spice in the meat and the gravy and the hot peppers are so tasty. Get it dipped with hot and an order of fries and you're in heaven. the only thing that could make it better is to geta combo (they add a piece of Italian Sausage in the middle

Italian Ice - while Maro's is the best and always will be, there are others that I like a lot as well. Tom and Wendee's, Carm's, Icebox in Lakeview, but nothing's like Mario's. the crowds speak for themselves.

more foods coming - please feel free to comment

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My social experiment

So, I'm going through a lot of stuff right now - the search for a new job, stresses at home; fighting a myriad of factors that are causing havoc in my life, and I wanted to stop and take stock of what's going on. I thought a good place would be to determine how the world sees me. Try and take an objective look at me through the eyes of my friends (and my enemies, and my frenimies) using the most viable social platform out there - Facebook.

I asked the question:

I would like you to tell me what about me made you decide to say, "I like him." It could be something funny; it could be something deep, or something in between. If you could do this for me, I'd be very grateful. (If the answer is nothing, or, I hate that SOB, well, that's fine, too as it will help me with my project)

and the responses I got were interesting - people talked about how genuine I was (and still try to be); people talked about how welcoming I am; my love and dedication for my fraternity; how good I strive to be for my friends, the fact that I'm easy to talk to and that I always have an ear for people.
Some people talked about my character and my concern for otehrs and I even got some people to talk about my politics and how I force others to look at both sides. Some talked bout the first time they met me and how I looked (my penchant for bow-ties, ect)

The best comment I got, though, was probably from the person who responded who knows me the least - I've only met him face to face 1 time for 2 days while he was interviewing me for a job. He said,

"There's a passionate and sincere tone in your voice when you talk about the things you love ... your family, fraternity, friends... I appreciate that you live your life with a servant's heart. You're a gentleman"

That quote alone really made me take stock in who I am, and who I had become lately. It's my hope moving forward that I live up to that quote, because if we all do, we'll live in a much better place. What it really made me do was become dedicated to getting off of my ass and really getting to work. If people see me as that person then I have to be that person and live up to the ideals that are there.

that's all for now - see ya soon

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Something that might help you this year

NOTE - if you don't care at all about fraternities, or think they are stupid, today's post isn't for you - we'll be back with something else for you in the next couple of days.

So, one of the blogs i read often is from my friends at Phired Up Productions. They ae in the fraternity and sorority recruitment business and generally great people. This is their blog from today and I thought that it really struck a cord with me about how our undergrads act sometimes and how we can help them get past being that awkward turtle
they are located at www.phiredup.com

Do youhave members who flail about socially like awkward turtles? Of course you do. You might even be one of them. One of the greatest gifts you can give one of these AT’s is the gift of social confidence and energy.

One of the reasons I’m so proud of what Phired Up does is because college students have limited opportunities in their formal education to learn good communication and sales skills. These are arguably the most vital skills to master if one wants to be successful in relationships, work, organizations, etc. after college — yet our institutions of higher education, in general, do a poor job of building positive communication habits in their students.

We can talk about recruitment strategies until we’re blue in the face, but if you’re an absolute social dud, if you’re awkward to the point of making others uncomfortable, if you can’t summon confidence and energy in yourself in social situations… well, we need you to improve yourself before we can improve your recruitment.

I recently did a powerful workshop with a group of fraternity men in which I demonstrated the power of bringing CONFIDENCE and ENERGY to a social situation. As we push the collegiate student organization world toward social excellence, a great place to start is by building their CONFIDENCE and ENERGY. What are you doing to build the CONFIDENCE and social ENERGY of your members?

Social Energy

I would argue that the energy you bring to a social situation is your own choice. After you read this post you’ll no doubt engage in some social situation… what energy will you bring to that. Will you be aloof, tired, bored, average, nice? Or will you be powerful, engaging, interested, fun, warm, inviting? It is your choice, I think…

The Myth of Cool

I learned long ago the power of taking off your “Cool Cap.” Cool Caps get in the way of social excellence. It has become commonly accepted that people who are good socially are the traditional “cool” people. I strongly argue that. I think socially excellent people are often not obviously”cool.” They don’t try to impress other people — other people are naturally impressed by how confident they are in themselves and the positive energy they bring with them to every social interaction. If you don’t think you’re cool, that’s o.k. It has nothing to do with being socially excellent. In fact, most “cool” people I know think they can lean on their coolness in social situations… they often miss out on experiencing social excellence.

Social Confidence

CONFIDENCE comes from practice. Plain and simple. To become confident socially, check out the lessons in these great non-Phired Up resources. Most of these are blog posts, and there are two big downloads that can be really helpful.

Share the lessons from these resources with your members — THEN PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!

The Positivity Blog: 8 Tips from the last 2500 years

The Positivity Blog: 5 Awesome and 5 Awful Conversation Topics

AskMen.com: How to Improve Your Social Skills

Penelope’s Trunk: Three Specific Ways to Improve Your Social Skills

Dale Carnegie: Communication Principles Free Download

The 7 Challenges Workbook: Free 100 Page Book Download

3 Steps to Making Socially Excellent Awkward Turtles

Here are three important stepsforyou to use to turn the Awkward Turtles in your organization into socially excellent members (who can recruit!):

STEP 1 - CHOOSE EXCELLENCE and ENERGY: The first step is to challenge your members on the choices they make in every social situation. What do they choose to be? Shy or Proud? Inward or Outward? Cool or Curious?Ask them todefine with a single word whatenergythey’d like to exude in that social situation. Ask themhow theywant the other people there to describe them after the social situation.

STEP 2 - PRACTICE IN REALITY: Many peopleget excited about the idea of role-playing social situations so that people can practicebeing sociallyexcellent.This is a fine way to start to build confidence, butnothing replaces reality as the ultimate testing ground. The truly best way to practice good social skills is to do it in real situations. Start by taking your awkward turtles somewhere that they’ll know nobody and nobody will know them. This offers a low-risk opportunity to experiment with new social techniques. Next, try it with some other organizations you’re friendly with and who might benefit from helping their awkward turtles as well. Finally, jump right into a real life social situation (or recruitment situation) and be there with your little turtles the whole time, correcting their behavior, encouraging them, and helping them build their confidence.

STEP 3 - KEEP IMPROVING: Social excellence is not mastered in the course of a day, a week or a year. Social excellence is a commitment to continual improvement and always pushing your own comfort zone. As an organization, make it one of your main accomplishments each year to push your members to higher levels of social excellence.

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My political bent

<b>My Political Views</b><br>I am a center-left social moderate<br>Left: 1.21, Libertarian: 0.37<br>http://www.gotoquiz.com/politics/political-spectrum-quiz.html">Political Spectrum Quiz</a><br>

It's right where I thought I would be - center left; socially/culturally liberal, financialy centrist and hawk on nat. security - Just where I like it

More tomorrow about my facebook social experiment

See ya soon - MASD

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Race, changes of life, and Phi Psi - RIP Carlos

As most of my readers know, I'm a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. I'm one of the Founding fathers of my Chapter, and i'm the Chapter Advisor to 2 chapters in the area. I'm but one of a handful of "minority" members, both of my own Chapter, and of the fraternity at large. Of the over 200 initiates of my chapter we have less than 15% minority participation. Until I ran for National office at our last convention, no minority had ever run for a national alumni office before. i was the Obama of Phi Psi (even though to anyone with an ear for history i would tell I'm more Barbara Jordan than Obama). I lost that election, but it was close. What I really did was fling the door open for people behind me, and me too, to go and try and win. I thought about that in the wake of 2 things that have happened over the last 2 weeks - the whole Obama/Gates/Cambridge cop thing, and the death of one of those minority members of my Chapter, Carlos Navarro.

I'm really sad about Carlos. He was a good man and I was proud to call him my Brother. He wasn't the first Hispanic member of the Chapter (that distinction goes to my buddy Jaime, another Founder), but he was probab;y the first hispanic member who had a choice. He could have joined one of the 2 latino organizations that were on campus at the time, but he chose to walk with us. Once when he was a pledge, he sought me out. He was taking flak from "his people" and didn't know what to do. he was thinking about quitting. He was also just nervous. We went and had a gatorade together in the cafeteria and i talked to him. I tried to tell him that Phi Psi would be good for him; that the bond that you forge here will help him for the rest of his life. That his Brothers didn't care what color his skin was, just that he lived up to the principles of our Order - loyalty, Brotherhood, and Service. I told him my story: how when starting the chapter, members of the Black fraternities and soroities questioned my blackness, and those who didn't do that overtly simply shunned me, unitl I showed them that I was doing something bigger than the pettiness they were bringing.

Carlos left that meting and decided to really strive to make Phi Psi the best chapter on campus. He dove head first into our Ritual and was always the first to sign up for community service. Watching him made me proud to call him my Brother.  He understood that he could be his own man with us, and we'd always love him.

How does this deal with race, and what's the tie into the beer summit today? Simply put, while race is something that we deal with all of the time, and something that pervades our culture and influences a lot of how people act, or walk, or talk or think, Its really about individual choice and how YOU deal with race and racist behavoir that makes you the person that you are. Dr. Gates got angry - on that day he decided that he wasn't going to take it anymore; President Obama made a mountain out of a molehill; and when race enters Phi Psi - unless its some moron calling me N----r, I tend to let it wash off of my back. Carlos was the same way. i watched him get called everything but a child of God by his Brothers, much like I had some 15 years ago, and I watched him smile through it all. i watched as other Latinos/Latinas, got angry for/with Carlos for not striking back, and he calmly explainging how the people were his Brothers, and they would never say any thing with malice. But I also saw him angry when it wasn't meant to be funny, and he handled it with grace and the honor expected of him.

Carlos, you will surely be missed. My parents tell me that you'll like it where you're going, and when you get there, make sure you thank Letterman, Moore and Tom Campbell for all that they've given us.

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I want google voice and (pic) the reason I get up in the morning

So Google has come out with this new app called voice that lets you put everything voice (vm, calls, etc) in one place. It's going to allow me to forward everything to the same spot and i'm super excited, but ATT just threw it off of the iPhone which is soooo bogus. More to come on this developing news

In other news, Simba (my 11 month old- not his real name of course) actually walked this morning so I'm pretty stoked about that - here's a picture.

I hope my week gets better - it started off pretty crappy

see ya soon

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Posterous | Re: My First Blog Post

Today's Question:
Should prostitution be legal in the majority of America? If yes, why? If No, why not?

It's my opinion that, assuming the prostitute in question is there of their own free will, and not via coercion, that it should be legal. It should be taxed and monitored, and the providers should be tested regularly and there you go. Looking forward to people's answers.

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