Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Christmas Eve at Denny's



I want to share my most cherished Christmas Tradition with you.

It is Christmas Eve, and tonight I am going to Denny's.

Let me tell you a little story. 

Saturday, December 14, 2013

My UPS Christmas Story

You may not know this, but I worked for UPS from 2004 to 2012. I started as an inbound customer service agent, promoted up through the ranks, and eventually ended up helping manage the customer side of their social media. I also handled calls and letters for the CEO and management committee. 

As you can imagine, Christmas at UPS is a really busy time. On the customer service side especially, it was a very difficult time. Sometimes packages don't make it on time. Sometimes we missed Christmas. Around this time every year, after hours and hours of very angry, and sometimes cruel, people calling to explain how I personally had ruined Christmas, I would declare my faith to humanity lost. Usually it was around the 20th of December. But one year, a gentlemen called me to say thank you and completely turned my December around. Here's his story as best as I can retell it. 

The man, whose name I don't recall, had a special needs son who stayed home during the day. One of the things that brought his son joy was seeing his UPS driver bringing a package to the door. Whenever he knew a package was coming, he would watch out the window all morning for the big brown truck to pull up. When he would see the driver arrive and get out of his truck, the boy would run to the door and wait for the driver. Then, caring very little about the package itself, the boy would high-five the driver. His father, who worked from home and got a lot of packages, said that that the high five from his driver was the highlight of his son's week. 

Well, like I mentioned before, things get really busy this time of year at UPS. Depending on the route, a driver's package load can double. Everyone works overtime, and everyone pitches in, but sometimes the personal touch gets left behind. 


Very, very busy.

The boy was expecting Christmas presents from his grandmother, and had spent the entire morning looking out the window. His knew the driver usually came around eleven, and when one o' clock rolled around his nose was still poking up against the cold glass.  His dad was working on his computer in the living room, and would continually glance over at his son. After awhile he noticed that he was shuffling back and forth. 

Friday, December 13, 2013

Pocket Speakers Make Christmas Carols Portable

I am a member of the Collective Bias®  Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper amplification for Collective Bias and its advertiser. 

This awesome pocket speaker fills a whole room with Christmas cheer! #PocketBoom, #shop, #cbias


As most of you know, I get paid to try out various products from time to time This month I got the opportunity to try out the extra small, extra loud, and remarkably portable pocket speaker by Carbon Audio. It's currently available exclusively for purchase in all of the brick and mortar Apple Store and on line. It is also, and I say this without hesitation and under no influence of the fact that I get paid for this, a really nice product. 

Make a Wish and Jaxon's FROG Foundation

A few weeks ago we had a little contest on the Ask Your Dad Facebook page. I promised that if we hit 5000 likes I would share my most embarrassing childhood photo asked readers to do the same. Whoever shared the most embarrassing photo got to pick who I featured on Five Dollar Friday. Ladies and gentlemen, I present... our indisputable winner.

Our winner Jennifer! (Not creepy ET)

Through Jennifer's willingness to share her incredibly creepy ET picture with us, and her subsequent victory, I had the honor of getting to learn a little bit more about Jaxon. Jaxon is the son or Jennifer's friend. He was diagnosed with brain cancer, and passed away in November of 2012, but not before leaving an amazing footprint on the world. Here is his story, as told by his mom.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

What can a dad can teach his daughter better than a mom?



I received a reader question a little while back, and since my answer became the length of a standard blog post, I figured I would share it here. 


Dear Dad,


What do you think it is easier for a man to teach a little girl compared to a woman teaching a little girl.


- Anonymous 


Dear Anonymous,