The event kicks off this year's Shift Your Shopping campaign, which aims to get you to think about shopping local for your holiday gifts. Buy Local week begins on Black Friday and continues throughout the following week at participating locally owned retailers.

Tickets for the event are $20, and include wine and beer from vendors, as well as some food.

It's a great party.

And here's how you can pay $15 for your tickets instead of $20.

- Like Benjamin's on Franklin's Facebook page.
- Mention the Buy Local Bash on the wall.

Pretty easy, huh? It'd be pretty cool if you'd like Syracuse First, too, since they are the organization putting on the event.

See you Monday!

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Hi Josh

Im starting new business managing estate sales. Where can I get a business cards?
Thanks

Here are the things that bother me about this message.

Don't make an inquiry by text message unless you know it's the right way to ask. First, don't assume, unless we regularly text back and forth, that I know who you are. At least tell me who it is asking. Also note that texting is the least professional way to go, so unless we've explicitly had a conversation that included the phrase, "Text me if you ever need something business-related."

Be professional in your asking. The grammar in this text message is terrible. If you know me, you probably know I'm a grammar guy. And if you don't know that, assume it anyway. You're representing your business poorly, and I'm less likely to want to help you if I think you're going to half-ass things (because you've definitely initiated the conversation in a half-assed manner).

Don't assume I'm going to give you free advice. I give away a lot of good information that I have in my head. I do it willingly, and happily, and I think it's important. I assume your business model is not managing estate sales for free. So why assume I'm willing to give you free advice? An initial consultation with me will cost you $150, and if you hire me, that will be put toward your project cost, but I don't go around giving away good ideas for nothing.

Ask yourself if you really need to ask the question. If you were asking specifically about where I got my business cards, or if I knew any locally owned design-and-print shops I would recommend, that would be one thing. But where to get business cards in general? How lazy can you be? Use Google. Or the phone book. Why would I do your leg work for the simple stuff?

Where to get business cards

You want free advice on business cards? Here are some options. And now, whoever you are, you'll need to share my advice with everybody.

Locally owned. I would start by searching the Syracuse First business directory. Not only are all the businesses in the directory locally owned, they have specifically said, "I want to be recognized as a local business, and I support local businesses."

Also, check out Dock 2 Letterpress. They're a Rochester-area design firm with an honest-to-goodness moveable type press in their warehouse. They do some awesome stuff.

Free. Go to VistaPrint. They have a whole bunch of free templates. You pay shipping, and they put their advertising on the back (you can pay to get the advertising taken off).

Cool. Moo. (No, really, that's all I have to say.)

Cookie cutter. Walk into your local Staples, Office Max, Kinko's or any other print shop. They'll walk you through putting together a business card and they'll print them for you.

Business card tips

A couple of things you should do.

• Proof your cards before they go to press. I've seen some really bad proofs, and I've had cards handed to me without phone numbers, with spelling mistakes, and without names, among other things. Big no-no.
• Make your business card stand out. Make it an unusual shape (but still make it easy to carry). Add a QR code, or a fun photo. Or print something funny on it so that I'll keep it in mind.
• Make it clear what you do. I have two primary business cards. One says "Community Manager, Gold's Gym." It lets you know I'm employed by a gym, and I'm their community manager. I have another that says "Internet Marketing Consultant." It lets you know that I consult with people and businesses on marketing, particularly in the online realm. It does not say "free advice for lazy business owners."

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Here's how they were introduced.

Flashy and exciting, sure. There hadn't been a starting three like that since...well, since any team ever, I guess.

But it started with James – a lifelong Cleveland resident, who signed with the Cleveland team out of high school and bought a modest home in Cleveland, saying this: "I'm taking my talents to South Beach."

That's an actual quote.

Remember back in 1980s when parents slammed Charles Barkley for his I am not a role model ad? You know, because kids looked – and still look – up to sports stars as role models.

While I still find myself drawn to sport – I love watching a good contest in almost any sport – I've had a real hard time with the culture lately.

Also: Get off my lawn.

Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.

But how can you like a guy with an attitude like James had (I understand why he signed elsewhere – he definitely had a raw deal in Cleveland, where he was expected to be a one-man team)? He held a prime-time press conference to announce his decision. That's when coaches found out, too. And the way he said it? Argh.

And the way the Heat introduced Wade, James and Bosh, as though they were guaranteeing a championship? In a few years, a lot of us are going to forget it was the Dallas Mavericks who won the 2011 NBA title. We'll just know it wasn't Miami.

Last night in baseball, there were four games played to determine the final two playoff spots. Three of those games ended in dramatic fashion. That's why I still love baseball, and why I still love sport.

You know what else happened in baseball yesterday? Jose Reyes came into what might have been his final game in a Mets uniform. He's been much-loved by fans, and I'm sure some of them came out to watch him compete for the National League batting title, which he was leading by three points coming into the game.

In the first inning, Reyes bunted for a single and promptly took himself out of the game, so as not to risk losing points off his batting average.

He won the batting crown, but probably disappointed a fair number of people by not playing the full game.

70 years ago, Ted Williams went into the final day of the season – one on which the Red Sox were scheduled to play two games – with a batting average of exactly .400, which is, to be sure, a milestone.

He could have sat out and finished the season secure in the knowledge that he hit .400, without risking his average. But if he was going to have a .400 average, he said he was going to have it for the whole season.

He had six hits in eight at-bats during the double-header, finishing the season with an average of .406 – the last time anyone finished a complete season with an average of .400 or higher.

One of those two is a role model, the other is squeaking by on minimal effort. (Not to take anything away from Reyes' talent, just his character.)

Early in the NFL season, we're talking about teams faking injuries to slow down a fast-moving offensive strategy. Want to know how to better defend against a fast offense? Get fitter.

Maybe it's the money, I don't know. But the culture of sports has changed a lot.

Get. Off. My. Lawn.

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When I first started on the college newspaper as opinion editor (1999ish), I wrote a piece about the recently arrested-and-jailed Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. You might remember he made a 20-year habit of mailing pipe bombs from a cabin in the woods of Lincoln, Montana, where he had moved in the early 1970s to live as a recluse.

By 25 years old, Kaczynski had a PhD in mathematics and an assistant professorship.

He was finally caught when he wrote a piece titled Industrial Society and Its Future (also called the Unabomber Manifesto), and his brother said, "Hmm, that sounds like Ted. Better go check on him."

The piece I wrote for The Westerner said something to the effect of, "We're in this new age; households are starting to get the Internet, and here's this astoundingly smart guy rotting in prison. Let's put him to work. He could be highly supervised and still confined, but let's not waste that brain."

Watch Misha Glenny's video. He makes a few points about hackers that are about the same.

– There was a hacker marketplace called Carderplanet, where, among other things, people would sell stolen credit card numbers. How do you trust sellers and buyers, especially when each knows the other is a criminal? Glenny asks. [Aside: Well, at least you know the other is a criminal, unlike in the "legit" business world.] But they figured out a system.

– Many of the world's best hackers who have been arrested (so they can be observed) have some things in common. An aptitude for math and science; social skills online but not in person (possibly, and in some cases definitely, reflective of Asperger's); and a development of computer programing skills in their early or mid teens, while their moral compass was still developing.

– Many of them would operate as successfully in the legitimate business world as they did in hackerspaces, if governments and corporations (a) understood how to bring them on board (like China does, by the way, and they're doing it even with known criminals now working for the government) and (b) simply went on faith that a hacker was going to leave a way for him or herself to get back in, so they just had to deal with it.

Break the mold. Change what you deem acceptable. If you're not in a place to reward others for boldness, get bold. Disobey.

What are you doing today that's awesome?

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Revolutions happen overnight; apathy takes time.

We're approaching the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings. This was a one-morning, shock-and-awe event. We all knew, while our parents' generation had the assassination of John F. Kennedy to say, "I remember where I was when I found out...," this would be that event for Americans of our generation.

» Amy Toyen Remembrances

We're all talking about it this week. I have the New York Times from Sept. 12, 2001. I have the special memorial issue of Time magazine. I have memories.

And I have disgust. What I learned in the pursuant days and years is that as individuals, we are amazing. As systems, we just don't get it.

That Tuesday and the rest of that week would have been a great time to go on a crime binge – almost all the news, from CNN to NPR to FOX to the Wall Street Journal to local newspapers across the country, was about the hijackings. No one would have known if anything else was going on. When the markets re-opened and lost something in the area of 700 points on the following Monday, everybody ran for the hills without noticing that the markets had been in steady decline and were probably going to lose that cumulatively over the previous week if they'd been open.

Airline security got crazy; flying became a really difficult form of transportation because nobody, until very recently, looked at the more successful models (I'm thinking about El Al's method, which, in addition to being really effective, feels really non-intrusive).

I learned a sense of frustration and cynicism from the media and airline industries.

Maybe.

Ten years prior, in late September of 1991, a trio from Seattle called Nirvana released their second album, Nevermind. The lead single was a loud tune with unremarkable lyrics that were difficult to understand. The title was "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and the cacophonous arrangement was the antithesis of the deodorant ad the song riffed on.

There had already been punk, and rock 'n' roll, and heavy metal, and hip-hop, but middle class, east coast high school students surrounded by gangs, punks, AIDS, dropouts and teen pregnancy had something new in the flannel-clad un-hip grunge movement, which was bringing back Converse All-Stars and giving parents a new reason to slam doors while shouting, "Turn that crap down!"

Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Mudhoney and a bunch of others – many also hailing from the Seattle area – soon followed into the mainstream.

I had already become aware of personal-political revolutions. Now I was experiencing a creative revolution for the first time.

As the 1990s crawled on, Eastern Europe was in constant turmoil, the U.S. experienced domestic terrorism in Oklahoma City, and popular music began a slide into boy bands and Brittney Spears.

The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks woke up a country that had more or less fallen asleep through the end of the Clinton administration and the dot-com bubble. The creative revolutions that followed were primarily in technology and business, and now the U.S. is drifting off to sleep again.

We've given up a lot in the way of privacy. Our airline security procedures make it worth driving a trip up to 8 hours or more, because flying won't save us any time these days. Gas costs nearly 4 times what it did 15 years ago, even though minimum wage hasn't even doubled in that time. We're in a couple of wars that have been going on nearly 10 years with no resolution – or clearly defined goal – in sight.

But the rest of the world is back in the midst of revolution. We want in on a lot of that (see Syria, Egypt, Lybia). What's next for the U.S.? For my generation? For the next? You'd have to be tuned in if you were going to stay tuned. So, guess it's time to start. And...go!

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This will be the last post on JoshShear.com until the weather turns. I'm not going to pretend I'm shutting down the blog (I've tried that several times to no avail – I just keep coming back), and I'll still be blogging on the Get Fit blog and at Gold's Gym Syracuse, and I'll still be checking in (though noticeably less for the next little while) in online social spaces (don't worry, boss, just my personal accounts).

But conversations with people around me and some reading I've done lately remind me that I have more important shit to do.

» SEO rock star Susan Esparza on leaving the industry

Last week, I read blog posts by both Raj Ganpath and Alwyn Cosgrove about identifying your goals, and identifying the obstacles that stand in your way.

Take two: Identifying my goals. Identifying my obstacles.

One of my obstacles is perceived expectations in online social networking. I say perceived, because I don’t know actually know what the heck people want, or require, or whatever. I mean, nobody calls me to tell me what I should be doing.

And it took me a little while to come to I just don’t care that much. I mean, I do like having all you people around, but I don’t need you for validation. I’d rather see you than tweet you, and if we’re going to tweet a conversation, I’d rather have it while I’m looking at a computer anyway (say, at work), rather than holding up household projects that are more important to me. After all, I really am the only one who really cares if they get done.

» Zach Even-Esh: "Better to Live Your Dreams Than to Dream Your Life"

I tend to hunker down for the late autumn, long winter and early spring, so there will be plenty of computer screen time then. Hopefully we’ll connect in real life sometime soon.

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Watch this talk by Caroline Casey. She was born legally blind, but didn't learn that fact until her 17th birthday. She never had the opportunity to use blindness as an excuse. For anything.

You might remember that video I posted a couple of weeks ago about a graffiti artist paralyzed by ALS who is now drawing with his eyes, and showing in galleries.

People all over the world are doing things because they want to, despite limitations many people would use as excuses not to. So it's up to you. Do you ignore limitations, whether personal or societal, or do you continue with "I can't because..."?

Get out there and change. You, the world, it doesn't matter. Make it happen.

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Don't expect a blog post every day; more likely it will be 2-3 times a week, despite the pre-population run-up I did (I'm not launching with one post, so if you go there now, there will be plenty to read).

My goal with the blog is to open source my experience. I figure if I can do it, so can you. So get reading, contribute in comments (comments are open), and I'd love to make it a conversation. Check it out here.

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Go ahead, hit play. This text will be here in eight minutes when you're done.

This project led to the creation of the Not Impossible Foundation.

The Eyewriter let a graffiti artist who is paralyzed from head to toe draw with his eyes. And that's not even the coolest part. The coolest part is that you can make one, too (PDF). Because they open sourced their project, giving you the code and hardware instructions.

Two lessons:

If a paralyzed artist can draw with his eyes, a pair of cheap sunglasses and a hacked webcam, what are you convincing yourself you can't do?

What's on your list that you're saying, "I really want to do that, but I never could" about? Think of the reasons why you couldn't. Now, what are the ways that you could make it work?

Open source it!

Did you invent something because you wanted to help people or because you wanted to make some cash? Because if you wanted to help people, try open sourcing your project – you'll be amazed at what people wind up doing with it and how they modify your design.

Whether you're holding off on starting something or you're a kick-ass mod-design hacker, get started today. Now.

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I think the difference really is in the language each uses. When someone talks about thinking seven generations, or 20 generations, or 100 generations into the future with our decisions about energy consumption and food consumption, that person is a hippie, and therefore crazy. When someone talks about running out of food and oil in 300 years, and describes what the world will look like if we don't start doing x, y, and z, that person is a futurist, and therefore a visionary.

Let's talk permaculture for a moment. If you ran that through spell-check, you got squiggly red lines. Outstanding. So the word is an invented one, which means we're still on the hippie or futurist path. Let's look at one definition:

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and perennial agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in the natural ecologies. It was first developed by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren and their associates during the 1970s in a series of publications. The word permaculture is a portmanteau of permanent agriculture, as well as permanent culture.

OK, so now you know I'm heading in the "let's think 7 generations into the future" direction.

Now let me tell you about my Saturday afternoon.

I joined some of the Alchemical Nursery folks in one of those $1 undeveloped houses on the Near West Side of Syracuse to build a permacultured spiral herb garden, with an urbanite construction.

Right, OK, so what the heck does that mean?

Basically, we made a multi-level garden out of broken-up sidewalk that had been discarded at a construction site. It will become semi-permanent (it can always be moved or removed) structure in the owner's back yard that he'll be able to plant things in every year, and with a vertical construction, it allows for more things to be planted.

And from a gardening standpoint, he can plant things that need more moisture on the bottom, since water will drain downward, and he can plant things that need more sunlight on the south side of the structure (the sun's east-west path is in the southern sky, so there will be more shade on the north side of the garden).

How we did it:

We started by laying flattened cardboard boxes on the ground, so that grass wouldn't grow into the garden. We then laid broken sidewalk in the first level of the spiral on the ground.

We mixed sticks and compost on the bottom layer, then began spiraling the concrete up the mounded compost. We added more compost, and continued the spiral upward.

With eight of us there to help out and learn from the experience, from introductions to planting some starters (oregano, chives), it took less than two hours.

Hopefully our host will post some photos soon and I'll be able to share. But basically he has a decorative concrete garden base in his back yard, and he'll be growing some of his own food – nothing weird about that, right? But it's permaculture, so let's learn to embrace it, cool?

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