Author Archive
Baby Rock-Star Drummer!
Name: Howard Wong
Age at time of recording: 3
Howard Wong is Chinese. Or at least that’s the language his parents were speaking when he was about a year and a half old, sat down at a drum set, started accompanying his parents on tunes like “Old MacDonald Had A Farm” and was knocking out rock and roll standards like Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself For Loving You” soon after that.
We’re told that in the video below, Howard is performing at the Sunway Carnival Mall in Penang, Malaysia, as Wong’s father plays lead guitar for the band. The family will probably post new video of Howard Wong when they’ve adjusted to and prepared for the potential of this overnight sensation.
We’ll update this SpotLight as soon as we get new news about Howard Wong.
- David Kaestner To The Rescue
David Kaestner is more than an excellent mechanic. He is thorough, reliable, and extremely busy. He did not give up on my old car until he fixed it. He solved an enormous ongoing problem for me. And I could afford what he charged! Highly recommended.
David Kaestner In A Flash
Background: Worked as a mobile mechanic in the San Diego area before enlisting in the U.S. Army, where he worked as a mechanic on army vehicles. Has a lot of experience in construction and carpentry. Works as a volunteer firefighter on weekends. Grew up in the San Diego area.
Current: Highly recommended mobile mechanic services in San Diego, and sometimes beyond.
Contact: (858)213-7528
David can provide references from a long list of loyal customers. (Add your comments to this SpotLight!)
Vince: Volvo, Head Gasket
Brian: Sentra, Brakes
Jeff: Golf, Brakes/ Bumper Repair
Ayza: Camry Odyssey, Brakes
Lona: Civic, Brakes, Fuel Pump
Lorin: Civic, Brakes
Greg: Extera, Safety Inspection
Kathryn: Mitsubishi Diamante, Brakes
Yaakov: Astro Van, Brakes and Body Repair
Jeremy: Sonata, Brakes
John: Eclipse, Brakes
Nicole: Jetta, Brakes
Roy: Lexus, Brakes/Lines
Dan: Audi, Radiator
Kelly: Civic, Head Gasket Replacement
Dan: Honda, Element Brakes/F- Oil Pan Gasket
Meric: Honda, S Brakes, Trany Flush, Oil Change, spark plugs, fluid change, check engine light
Chris: Scooter Idle Ajustment
Andrea: Saturn, Brakes, Check Engine Light Diagnostic and Repair, Oil Change
Joy riding! Bernie Baird-Browning drives the golf-cart for a video shoot at her Malibu cottage.
You step into another world at Small Wonders, the amazing educational toy store on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Rolling Hills, California. The place is a work of art that’s a world of toys, as unique and spirit-lifting as its owner and creator, Bernice Baird-Browning, who discovers fun treasures from merchants all over the world.
Bernie married a doctor before the age of 20, and raised two brilliant kids who’ve launched successful careers of their own. So she’s also a grandmother-made-in-heaven! Can you imagine the thrill of dashing over the meadow and through the woods to such an enchanting place?
And just as in a fairy-tale, Bernie met—or rather re-met—her current husband Ralph Browning at a high-school reunion in the late 1990s, and they’re living, traveling, and prospering happily ever after!
The source of Bernie’s passion for joy and fun and letting kids learn as they play might come from having started school in first grade. She longed for kindergarten ever since, so maybe skipping it was the twist of fate that led to the blessing Small Wonders is to the world. There, where everything has been so carefully searched, selected, and displayed by a mother, grandmother, businesswoman, and grownup kindergartener, you’ll find yourself warmly embraced in quality, charm, and just plain fun.
Fun, in fact, sums up Bernie Baird-Browning in a word.
AN EXCERPT FROM ROB’S BOOK, Pronoia Is The Antidote To Paranoia: HOW THE UNIVERSE IS CONSPIRING TO SHOWER YOU WITH BLESSINGS
Have you ever been loved? I bet you have been loved so much and so deeply that you have become jaded about the enormity of the grace it confers. So let me remind you: To be loved is a privilege and prize equivalent to being born. If you’re smart, you pause regularly to bask in the astonishing knowledge that there are many people out there who care for you and want you to thrive and hold you in their thoughts with fondness.
Animals, too: You have been the recipient of their boundless affection. The spirits of allies who’ve left this world continue to send their tender regards, as well. Do you “believe” in angels and other divine beings? Whether or not you do, I can assure you that there are hordes of them beaming their uncanny consecrations your way. You are awash in torrents of love.
As tremendous a gift it is to get love, giving love is an equal boon. Many scientific studies demonstrate that whenever you bestow blessings on other people, you bless yourself. Expressing practical compassion not only strengthens your immune system and bolsters your health, but also promotes self-esteem, enhances longevity, and stimulates tranquility and even euphoria. As the scientists say, we humans are hardwired to benefit from altruism.
What’s your position on making love? Do you regard it as one of the nicer fringe benefits of being alive? Or are you more inclined to see it as a central proof of the primal magnanimity of the universe? I’m more aligned with the latter view.
Imagine yourself in the fluidic blaze of that intimate spectacle right now. Savor the fantasy of entwining bodies and hearts and minds with an appealing partner who has the power to enchant you. What better way do you know of to dwell in sacred space while immersed in your body’s delight? To commune with the Divine Wow while having fun? To tap into your own deeper knowing while at the same time gazing into the mysterious light of a fellow creature?
A lot of us are lucky enough to get hit with occasional strokes of genius. Not too many of us follow through and put a brilliant idea into form. And almost nobody:
- ceaselessly sees truths that habit and culture make most of us wholly blind to,
- leads revolutions in thought and lifestyle that (if we’re lucky) actually have the credible potential to transform us all into a species of happy beings,
- magnetizes an entire community of like-minded truth- (and beauty-) (and joy-) seekers who, like little lost lambs from a scattered herd, have been wandering, nameless and leaderless, for years,
- commands superior talent not just in literature but also in music,
- and prolifically — every single day — churns out art and philosophy of the highest quality.
But Rob Brezsny does.
Rob Brezsny Sees
It’s true, too, that genuinely unique beams of original light have been known to be overlooked by most of their contemporaries, praised by some, and scorned by others (maybe people who have either never attempted to do anything difficult, or have tried, given up, and, whining all the way, settled for the mediocrity Brezsny’s genius inspires us all to free ourselves from).
Rob Brezsny is one of the most talented, far-sighted, creative people of our day, and we wouldn’t be surprised if what he hasn’t done yet proves him to be one of the most creative, admirable, joy-inspiring people ever.
Amen!
Om!
Hallelujah!
Shalom!
Namaste!
More power to you!
The clear, bright sound of brass penetrates the rooftops, windows, and walls of every house 
in a tropical neighborhood just north of San Juan. It’s Soñando Con Puerto Rico, a song many of the island’s inhabitants have been singing by heart since childhood. It radiates from the home of Humberto Ramirez, the prolific trumpet and flugelhorn player who’s headlined with such jazz greats as Herbie Hancock, Tito Puente, Freddie Hubbard, and Paquito D’Rivera.
“I can blow my horn like a crazy man,” he says, “and my neighbors don’t mind.”
Ramirez is somebody who performs nights and records days for weeks on end. A while back, the day after the final mix of his Portrait of a Stranger CD, his calendar was booked solid. He flew from San Juan to L.A. to squeeze a performance into a 17-hour stay, then was off to Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Cleveland, sometimes also magnetizing impromptu appearances by other pros in town.
Four years of arranging and trumpeting with Willie Rosario’s Orchestra in Puerto Rico led to a 1986 Grammy nomination for the work he did on Rosario’s album, Nueva Cosecha. It also led to steady business with tropical jazz musicians, including Cheo Feliciano, Roberto Rohena, and Luis Enrique, and Latin pop artists such as Danny Rivera, Lucecita Benitez and Jose Feliciano, among many others.
Awards include Gold and Platinum Records, Apex Golden Reel, and a 3M Visionary for producing. Back in 1992, he went to Sony Music with his own, independently produced Jazz Project—the title of the CD and the name of the band he still works with—and was the first artist signed to their then-new label, Tropi-Jazz, followed by Tito Puente, Giovanni Hidalgo, and others.
A composer, Ramirez was, so to speak, born with a brass trumpet in his ear. That is, his father’s house guests and colleagues were the likes of Chino Gonzalez and Tito Rodriguez. Musical Director of the San Juan Orchestra, Humberto’s dad dashed his son’s dreams of reaching stardom in the NBA by taking the boy, who would one day grow to a towering 5’8″, with him to work. On his twelfth birthday, Humberto went to his father and asked for the flugelhorn that had been promised to him whenever he was ready. At age 14, Humberto performed professionally for the first time with some of the members of his old man’s orchestra. “What I am today,” he says, “what I know, what I have accomplished, is because of my father.”
Portrait of a Stranger, strangely enough, features some very familiar Caribbean pieces: Felipe Rosario-Goyco’s Madrigal and Bobby Capo’s Sonando Con Puerto Rico, Ramirez’s original jazz arrangements of traditional Puerto Rican folk songs.
He makes no secret about who the “stranger” in the portrait is. “Inside of every human being is someone strange,” he admits, not excluding himself. “There will always be things you can’t know about yourself.”
Portrait of a Stranger was the first time Ramirez included vocals. One was by Latin pop star, Lunna, the other a duet by Gilberto Santa Rosa and Tony Vega. Ramirez also orchestrated for big band, which he loves, with a tribute “To The King,” Tito Puente, and an arrangement of the American standard, My Funny Valentine.
Guests on Portrait of a Stranger include Dave Valentin, Russell Ferrante of the Yellowjackets, Mario Rivera, Ignacio Berroa, Oscar Cartaya, and Willie Rosario. The remaining performers are “Jazz Project,” the musicians who played on both of Ramirez’s previous CD’s, so they’re no strangers to Ramirez’s style, including the almost pioneering effect of combining strings with standard Afro/Latin/Caribbean sound. The strings on another one of Ramirez’s CDs, Aspects, are so lovely, they get you thinking he might be tapping into the time he spent studying film scoring at the Dick Grove School of Music.
If you can get out to the big city any time soon, chances are you’ll be able to hear what Humberto Ramirez is working on live. If not, you just might hop over to the island instead and catch a sound that couldn’t be more at home than the clear, bright soul of a native son’s trumpet. The neighbors “don’t mind.”
Fans of Humberto know this is an old review and that “Portrait of a Stranger” is not a recent release. So if you can update us on Humberto’s latest, please leave some comments, or log in and post.
See that photo? It’s a picture of success. Your success. Because you might say your success is Lorna Riley’s business.
The world discovered Lorna’s sales talent when she was in the middle of a career in education and raising a family. She was put to work – first on a sales team, and then, when she broke all records in closing deals, in managing that sales team.
So, a trained teacher, Lorna did it “by the books.” That is, taught the way she’d been taught to teach. Break it down into elements, spool it out in rational order, start with the fundamentals, prepare thoroughly, speak clearly, and keep it interesting.
What resulted was a massive collection of original training material, and Lorna flying around the country delivering fun, funny, intensive, and effective week-long courses in sales, customer service, and management.
She designed coordinated systems on those topics, with extensive (over a hundred or more) sets of modularized lessons on each, and used them in:
- in-person training (which earned her a CSP, the most prestigious certification in the country for professional speakers),
- published audio recordings (about such topics as time and memory management, and the three most important skills for creating success), and
- a series of books (like 76 Ways to Build a Straight Referral Business, ASAP!, Quest For Your Best, and Off the Chart Results for Organizational Development).
And that was just the beginning!
Lorna has now turned the whole spectrum of that knowledge, experience, and educational material into an online training system, enhancing it with all the added benefits of the internet.
Lorna wanted to provide people on sales, customer service, and leadership teams not just with a way to learn the training skills they need to succeed, but also with a systematic plan that enables you to take responsibility for that success. Your own, and the entire company’s. (Clear proof of her management experience, isn’t it?) So hundreds of Lorna’s carefully crafted lessons are structured into what’s called a Managed Accountability Plan. They can be watched, tracked, assessed, and reviewed on line.
“Chart Learning Solutions delivers high-impact performance results that train & retain sales, customer service, and leadership talent. Through our unique blended solution, we build a culture of continuous improvement, common language, guarantee accountability, and foster meaningful dialogues between employees and managers to ensure skills and behaviors meet business objectives. Chart’s Sales Cycle “Managed Accountability Plans” (MAPs™) saved GMCR over $3.5M and are required for all their “AFH” sales people. With our on-demand on-line courses, we create continuous learning accountability, enhanced employee/manager relationships, build a common language, integrate a unified sales, service, and leadership process among a geographically dispersed workforce, reduce costs, and produce measureable results. This is achieved with Chart’s blended eLearning multimedia tutorials, online quizzes, Application Activities, Accountability Application Meetings, Goal Action Planners, on-line reporting, coaching guides and live Coaching.”
Any description of Lorna Riley would be completely unfinished if it didn’t include a bit about one of her one-of-a-kind works of art: The Movie Lover’s Cookbook aka Reel Meals. It’s a coffee-table cookbook with page after page of photographs of unforgettable eating scenes from world-favorite movies — next to the recipe for what they’re eating in each “reel meal”! (What comestibles did the Marx Brothers clobber each other with in Duck Soup? What hors d’oeuvres did Audrey Hepburn dine on in Breakfast at Tiffany’s?)
Lorna wrote and produced this gem pre-internet, when specific photos from specific scenes in movies were really hard to get your hands on, and even harder to get legal rights to use. Tragically for lovers of cool things, it’s a classic that’s out of print now. Just had to mention it because it might be the best example, beyond her success as a success guru, of the brilliant creativity Lorna cannot keep a lid on.
After a very successful career as a veterinarian with charisma and intuition his four-legged clients couldn’t resist, Herb Tanzer was tapped by major TV networks in New York to host a show about animal care. Instead, he became a life coach. Herb wants, and actually creates, a world that works for everybody. Now he lives for doing whatever he can to let you, help you, and show you how to be the cause of a life your unique brilliance deserves. Like no other coach, Herb Tanzer brings a broad understanding of spirtuality to the mundane task of everyday success strategy. Herb’s web site.
Herb dares you to dream: