That afternoon, a good friend sent me an Instant Message inviting me to a concert.  I typed my reply, “I really wish I could, but I’ve got some work I absolutely have to get done tonight.” I was about to press the Enter key to send it when I had a thought, In five years will I remember that I worked late tonight?

I have no idea what inspired that question to pop into my mind, but in an instant I realized that in five years I would have absolutely no recollection of working that night or what I had accomplished. However, if I went to the concert, I would probably still remember it five years later; my friend would probably remember it too. Sure, there were some benefits to working late too.

I held down the backspace key and began typing again, “I would love to! Thanks for thinking of me!” We had a great time at the concert and just hanging out together. I’m so glad I went.

And the fallout from the work I didn’t have done wasn’t nearly as bad as I had originally imagined  in my mind. I still had time to do some of it, even though it wasn’t as polished as I originally wanted.

So, what opportunities do you have today? Which ones will you remember in five years? Which ones will you choose?

Sindy knows a lot about professional etiquette, and I admire her work greatly, but I have to disagree with her on this one. Her comment encouraged me to finally write this. Thanks, Sindy!

Backing into parking spaces is safer, easier, and more efficient than pulling in directly. Although it may give others the impression that you are in a hurry to leave, I feel it gives the impression that you are safe and conscientious–which I think are both an important part of presenting yourself in a professional manner.

Backing in is SAFER. When I tell people this, they initially think I’m crazy, but let me explain myself. You have to put your car in reverse either as you enter the parking space or as you leave. So, you are backing your car at some point in the parking process. Since you have to put your car in reverse at some time, you should do it at the safest time.

There are probably people driving and walking in the parking lot. Each of these could result in an dangerous collision. When you are backing your car, you have the least amount of visibility because you can only look over one shoulder at a time, there are additional blind spots created by the body of the car (usually between the rear window and rear side windows), and if you use mirrors you like have a blind-spot in each of them too. So, the best way to be safe is to either limit the area in which potential collisions can happen and to be better aware of the activity around you–backing-in provides both of these.

When you pull into a parking lot aisle you can see all the other cars and pedestrians that are currently in motion; you have excellent awareness of what is going on around you. You find a spot you want to back in, pull up a few feet ahead of it, and then begin backing into the spot. Once your car begins to enter the spot, it is extremely unlikely that there will be any pedestrians or other cars within that spot with which you might collide. Although you do have to pay attention to how close you are to the cars beside and behind you, they are not likely in motion. As for any other pedestrians or cars in the open aisle, you are in the part of the car that is closest to the aisle and you have an unobstructed view of the aisle. When you are ready to leave the space, you will likewise have the same open view of the aisle into which you will be pulling. You’ll be able to easily see pedestrians, other cars in the aisle, and other cars that are pulling into the aisle. How often have you and a person behind you been backing out at the same time and you’ve either almost collided or both waited a long time for one of you to back out first?

If you pull-in to the parking space, then you have a generally unobstructed view of the space into which you are parking and don’t need to be greatly concerned about what is going on behind your car. The problem comes when you are ready to back out. As you walked to your car, you made a mental note about the other cars and people walking in the aisle. However, by the time you get into the car, fasten your seat belt, start the car, and put it in reverse, the aisle has changed considerably; now you don’t know what is behind you at this point. You likely have cars (or maybe large SUVs or vans) on each side of you that is also obstructing your view. Your perspective is also limited by the fact that you are in the space in the car that is furthest from the opening, you have blindspots, you can only look over one shoulder at a time, and even your mirrors have blind spots. Even if you back out very slowly, you are depending on others to watch out for you more than you are watching out for them–because you can’t see them!

Backing in is EASIER. You may have a hard time believing this one. I’ve had passengers express their surprise when I back into a parking space because they find it difficult. However, as I said earlier, you either have to back into the space or back out of it. You are using the same skill either way–driving in reverse. I find backing easier because when I back in, the wheels that turn the vehicle are at the furthest point in the turn–this gives me more control over the position of the vehicle. Have you ever noticed that when you pull-in to a parking space you often have to back out and then pull back in to either straighten your vehicle or to get it more to one side of the space? When the steering wheels are on the outside of the turn (instead of the inside of the turn) you have much more flexibility and control of the vehicle and you can position it much more accurately.

If you’re nervous about backing in, you probably just need a little more experience. I recommend that you find a parking lot that isn’t busy, find a couple cars that have an empty parking space between them and spend some time practicing backing in. Maybe go with a couple friends and take turns backing between your own vehicles. I think that most people only really need to successfully do this a few times to feel that they’ve got it. It really is easy, you just need to overcome the initial fear.

Backing in is MORE EFFICIENT. When I park, I am usually thinking about the egress–I’m thinking, “How easily and quickly can I leave when it is time to leave?” That doesn’t mean that I’m in a hurry to leave, only that I want to be able to leave in the most efficient manner as possible. For example, when I travel and park at the airport I look for parking spaces that provide both easy access to the exit as well as to the terminal; I’ve likely arrived early and have plenty of time to park, but I want to get back home to my wonderful wife as quickly as possible. I can pull forward out of a space faster than I can back out (I have to back out slowly because it’s unsafe, remember?).

Other thoughts on parking and parking lots. I don’t always back-in to parking spaces, but I probably back-in more often than I pull-in. Of course, in angled parking I always pull-in because angled parking is designed to make backing out easier and safer–traffic flows in one direction and by being angled you have a less obstructed view of the aisle. Please don’t drive the wrong way down an angled parking aisle and NEVER pull through in angled parking or else you’ll have to pull out the wrong way which is very unsafe.

Don’t spend time driving around looking for a good parking space. I’ll usually park in the first space I see that is relatively convenient, regardless of how far away from the building it is. I always laugh when I’m walking down the parking lot aisle and the person who was driving in front of me in the aisle is waiting for someone close to the store to back out while I walk past them. Although they start out ahead of me, I still end up in the store long before they do. I would just rather not waste my time sitting in my car in a parking lot (unless there is something really good on the radio ).

Handicap parking spaces are for those people who really need them. A lot of people who have the stickers to park there don’t seem to really need to park there. I don’t think these parking spaces were created just so people with physical handicaps can be close to the building to shorten the distance, but rather to decrease the time and effort it takes physically handicapped people to get into the building. People with wheelchairs and walkers need to spend as little time in the elements (heat, cold, rain, and snow) as possible. These people often need extra space around their vehicle for their wheelchairs and walkers. I get so angry when I see people in wheelchairs (or with walkers) slowly making their way across a parking lot because all the handicap spots were taken up by people who were able to walk into the store with apparent little trouble (and then walk 1/4-mile around inside the store with little apparent trouble too). Just because you own the sticker and have the legal right to park there doesn’t mean you always should–try to think of other people. There is a reason the handicap symbol shows a person in a wheelchair.

When you empty your shopping cart, return it to the store or the nearest cart corral. In my opinion, nothing epitomizes laziness more than seeing someone leave a shopping cart in a parking space. You walked 1/4-mile around inside the store doing your shopping, is it really that much more effort to push the cart 50- to 100-feet to where it belongs? It keeps the parking lot looking nicer for the rest of us. If I happen to see that you have left one in the parking lot, I’ll gladly return it for you since I’m walking that way anyway. In fact, if I see you pushing one back I’ll probably ask to take it the rest of the way for you since it will save me some time once I get to the store. Besides, I don’t want to accidentally hit your shopping cart while I’m backing into my parking space.

The original rules of Scrabble Slam! are pretty simple:
- Begin by using 4 of the cards to create a 4-letter word, such as PARK.
- Deal the remaining cards between the players equally. Note that there are 55 cards total.
- When the game begins, players change the word by changing one letter at a time. For example, PARK may be changed to MARK, then MARE, the CARE, then CORE, the BORE, etc…
– Each player plays as fast as they can, announcing each word as they make it.
- The winner is the first player to play all their cards.

We played one game by these rules and realized we didn’t like it. It was just too fast for us. It may have been more fun with 3 or 4 players, but we didn’t care for it with just the two of us. So, we were stuck with these 55 Scrabble Slam! cards. I thought about how we might be able to play a game with them that was slower paced and allowed the players to add some strategy to their play of the game. I was able to come up with a variation that has worked fairly well for us.

Here are the rules we play by now:
- Play begins by choosing a 4-letter word for a base and spelling that word with cards from the deck. This can be a mutually agreeable word, or you can take turns selecting the word. In this example, we’ll assume we begin with the word PARK again.
- The remaining cards are dealt and divided equally amongst the players. So, if there are 2 players playing, they each get 25 cards and the last card to be dealt is set to the side and will not be in play. If there are 3 players, they each get 17 cards. If there are 4 players, they each get 12 cards and the last three cards to be dealt are set to the side and will not be in play.
- The first player must change the first letter of the word to form another word. In our example, we’ll assume the player changes it the word to MARK.
- The second player must form a new word by changing the second letter of the word. If he can’t form a word by changing the second letter, then he loses his turn and the next player gets to try forming a word by changing the second letter. Let’s assume the next player forms the word MIRK. Yes, Mirk is a valid Scrabble word!
–  The next player has to form a word by changing the third letter. We’ll assume he changes it to MILK.
- The play continues with each player having to change the next letter of the word. Any player that can’t form a word with the cards in their hand by changing the next letter loses their turn. If all the players should be unable to play on a particular letter, then play will continue to the next letter. For example, if no player could change the K in MILK, then play would continue to the next letter, which also automatically rotates back to the beginning of the word.
- The first player to get rid of all his cards is the winner!
- A couple of important notes: Word can not be repeated. For example, you couldn’t play an S on the S in SILK to make SILK again. However, after SILK had been changed to  FILK, it could be changed to SILK again later. Also, the regular rules apply regarding acceptable words as in Scrabble. Words may be challenged. If a word is found to not be legitimate, then the last card played is removed and the player loses his turn. If it is found to be legitimate, then the player who challenged it will lose his next turn.

So, it’s still a pretty simple game, but it slowed it down enough to make it more enjoyable and to make us think a little more. It also allows you to use some strategy as you think about what words your opponents may, and may not, be able to play on.

If you have a deck of Scrabble Slam! cards laying around, give this variation a try and let me know what you think in the comments!

Flight Path – I fly quite a bit and I always try to get a window seat because I love looking out the window and admiring God’s magnificent creation. However, I’m always wondering which lake, river, mountain, city, or other landmark I’m looking at. I would love to see an app that would use the built-in GPS (which is allowed to be used on many flights) to display a map of prominent landmarks that are visible from the current altitude. I realize that until Internet is available in the air on all flights that maps will need to be stored on the device. It would also be nice if notes could be made so I could look up information about a landmark later, or even at the moment if I had in-flght WiFi.

Jigsaw Puzzle Helper – Have you ever been working on a jigsaw puzzle and wondered exactly where a piece goes. I think it would be cool if a user could take a picture of the completed puzzle on the box top and then take a picture of particular puzzle piece and the app would then show where in the picture that particular piece would go.

Radio Now – I have very eclectic tastes in music. I would love to see an app that showed me a list of stations that should be available in my current area (using the GPS and station tower location and power). The app should also display the format of each station and what song and artist is currently playing. Some of this data could potentially come from station Twitter feeds.

Airport Guide – Since I fly often, it would be nice to have guides to all the major airports in my phone. Show a map of each airport along with gate locations and the locations of stores and restaurants. It could use the built-in GPS to show me my location in the airport and the fastest way to get to a certain gate.

Email Voice Reader – I have the windshield mount for my Droid, which really helps when using the built-in GPS Navigation tools. One feature that I would like to see added is that when the Droid is in this dock, and an email arrives, I would love to see in really large letters the subject of the email and who it is from along with two buttons to ‘Read’ or ‘Ignore’. If I clicked on the ‘Read’ button then the phone would use text-to-speech to read the email to me. This would allow me to keep up with incoming messages without taking my eyes off the road.

Location-Based Alarms – I love the Locale app that allows me to make my phone behave in different ways depending on my location (for example, when I’m at church or the library it automatically switches to silent vibrate mode). I would love to be able to get alarms and notifications when I’m in certain locations though. For example, if I needed to pick up something at a particular store, as soon as I was near the store I would get an alarm reminding me to do whatever I needed to do in that location.

USB Direct – I would love it if the USB port could talk to other USB devices. For example, if there was an adapter I could plug a USB thumb drive into to move data between it and the phone.

It’s possible that some of these apps already exist for the iPhone (I wouldn’t know since I don’t own one) or even for Android and I just haven’t discovered them yet. If you know that apps like this exist, please let us know in the comments.

I’m an idea generator. I generate lots of ideas–constantly. Many of these are ideas for new products, enhancements to products, and sometimes even full business ideas.

I keep lists of many of my ideas. I’m sure that I miss the opportunity to document many of them, but I do make notes about any ideas I think I may want to begin executing at a later time. I also make notes of ideas that I may want to share with other people.

As I reviewed many of my idea lists while setting my goals for 2010, I realized that it’s time to start sharing some of those ideas with others. After all, each one of them is only worth less than $.01 as long as no one is executing it. It’s rather stingy of me to hang on to all these pennies when there are people in the world who are just looking for the perfect penny–a penny only they can invest and turn it into much more.

So, I’m going to begin sharing a lot of those ideas here on my blog in a new category named, Ideas. I hope that some of my readers will take these ideas and run with them. Feel free to comment on the ideas and add to them.

I can’t guarantee that non of these ideas have been done before but only that it’s an idea that occurred to me that I wanted to share with you. Good luck!

It occurred to me this morning that calendars repeat themselves. 2010 began on a Friday and it’s not a leap year. Every other non-leap-year year that began on a Friday had the same calendar dates that we will have this year. The dates in 2010 are the same as they were in 1999 and 1993. This also means that 2021 and 2027 will have the same arrangement of days we have this year.

It seems that people are always interested in things from their past–you can call it nostalgia, antiques, or retro; and people are willing to pay good money for things from their past, or that remind them of their past.

Although many of us have made the switch to electronic calendars, we still often keep a wall or desk calendar nearby for quick and easy access. I don’t see this trend totally going away. In fact, printed calendars still seem to be a very big business. Companies that don’t sell all their 2010 calendars within the next couple weeks will probably discard them entirely.

Since calendars can be very cheap over the next few weeks, my idea is to purchase a number of popular calendars (with themes like movies, television shows, popular people, etc..–you know, those things that really define our time) and then store them in mint condition until 2021 or 2027. Calendars can probably be purchased for a dollar or less each since the year has already began.

In 2021 or 2027, these calendars will have an appeal again. It’s an interesting conversation piece to have a calendar on your wall that is 11 or 17 years old, yet still accurate. It can help people connect with their younger years as well. And people are willing to pay a premium to have this type of item in their home or office. So, that calendar that originally sold for $15 or $20 that you picked up for $1 or $.50 can now be sold for $40 to $50. I know that 11 or 17 years seems like a long time to wait on this kind of investment, but I think it can have a good return for someone that willings to try it and execute the business of marketing and selling them at the right time.

What do you think?