Got your ears on?

Here we go. Its Wednesday, November 23, 2011, I'm preparing for turkey, and this is the The Side. Yep, Thanksgiving is tomorrow. Its one of my favorite holidays. I will be in town for it still year. As much as I'd like to be heading up to see my dad in West Virginia, that's a pretty expensive trip. Hopefully next year.

As for what I'm thankful for, I've still got a roof over my head. Been a tough year at the Nozz Compound, but we're still hanging in there.

LISTEN UP!

Its been an interesting week so far as there's been a bunch of cases of people listening. This shouldn't seem like such a big deal, but often it seems like everyone is so wrapped up in their own stuff that hearing someone else, and actually doing something seems kind of weird, but very cool.

I think the most high profile case was this past weekend when Mila Kunis went to the Marine Corps Ball with a Marine who asked her. I almost types 'had the guts to ask her', but that would be redundant, because he's a Marine. Of course he has guts. That's one of the really cool things about social media in that growing up when there was a big star, like Kunis, it seemed impossible for a regular person to contact them and get a real response. Sure, you could send fan letters and the like, but you always had that feeling that your letter was just one in a huge pile and might not even get read.

But now, I person can make a video, or send a tweet, and if the celebrity can see it and respond. In the case of the marine, the video went viral and word about it got to Kunis. She agreed to go and was good on her word. There were a couple of pictures taken, but she didn't turn it into some big publicity stunt. She looked very classy. I was going to hunt down a sexy picture of her from some photo shoot to put on there, but it seemed lame to do that when talking about a lady doing something classy. That and the fact all she has to do is smile to look sexy.

What's even cooler is when an institution listens to you. I got a dose of this when I went to the bank this week. The credit union I belong to has been expanding and opening new branches, which they've been really needing to do. They have one right up the road from the church I teach at now. Very convenient, however you couldn't see the tellers. They had these little booth things with a video screen and phone and the transaction was handled via a vacuum tube. One my first visit I asked about this, and was told it was for security reasons. I understood that. This set up made it very difficult to rob the place. Still, I didn't like this set up at all. If I'm giving someone my paycheck, I want to be able to see them. That and the area is a very low crime area, so the extra security precautions seemed a little silly. I still went to that branch, because of the location, and time and gas are precious things.

On Monday I went in right behind an old fella. We got to where we were to line up and the little booths were gone. Over the weekend, they had remodeled and there were three tellers behind the counter. The old fella and I were looking at each other and we were just stunned. What finery was this? I was kinda operating under the suspicion that they were really using the other set up because tellers didn't like to wear pants. To the side of the line was a veggie platter and other assorted snacks and goodies under a banner that read: "You spoke. We listened."

It absolutely made my day.

Cool things can happen when you speak clearly and reasonably. No need for protests and stupid stuff like that Occupy tomfoolery. You don't need a giant rabble around you.

Sometimes you just need a good point and the guts to express it.

MUSIC!

Decent band. here's a song of there's that doesn't get played nearly enough.



Alright, gang. I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving. If you're traveling, stay safe. We'll see y'all back here Friday.