Author Archives: E.A. Wickham

Tips on how to catch typos

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Some of my most embarrassing moments have happened with typos. I’ve been writing professionally since college graduation. I won’t mention exactly how many years that is. But, it’s plenty. Plenty of time to make a few mistakes.

1. I made a typo on SwimSwam. I left out a number on my tips.

My process began with a small idea. Then I’d write a rough sloppy draft. Then I’d hone it down into something tight and simple. Along the way, I cut out one tip that didn’t seem to fit. But, the story didn’t automatically renumber itself. Making a mistake like that on a busy forum like SwimSwam was decidedly embarrassing. The readers most definitely let me know in the comments section that I had made a typo.

You can read that story here. 12 Parent Tips on How to Behave at Practice.

On the bright side, I got a RT by Natalie Coughlin. I was super excited about that, so the story still worked even if it was not perfect.

Natalie Coughlin
Natalie Coughlin

2. My second worst typo was when I worked for a PR and advertising firm. I wrote eight newsletters a month, plus three or four press releases daily. It was a busy, intense job. I was in charge of a fundraiser for abused women which was held at a local country club. In my press release that ran just about everywhere — I mistakenly put in my own phone number instead of the club’s to RSVP! There was no taking that one back. I lived through it by hooking up an answering machine.

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I felt humiliated though, when my co-workers relentlessly teased me.

3. My all-time worst typo was when I had my own PR and advertising business. I had some super-duper clients including the hospital’s cancer center and a local branch of a major Wall Street firm. When the boss at the Wall Street branch was promoted to corporate headquarters on Wall Street, he still used me for all of his work. I was SO excited! Then I made a typo on a Power Point presentation. It was on the new logo he had me create for the Western Region of the United States of America. Ugh.

He was so angry with me, because I made him look bad. I’ll never forgive myself for that one.

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The thing with typos is your brain can trick you into seeing what you want to see.

My tips to catch typos are:

1. Read the piece from the bottom, sentence by sentence.

2. Read it out loud.

3. Put it away for a few days to get a fresh view.

4. Have other people proofread for you.

5. Don’t forget to proofread the title and headers. Numbers, too.

What tips do you have to catch typos?

What’s the worst mistake you’ve made in writing?

Does pain and suffering build character?

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The Dolphin Statue at Stearns Wharf in Santa Barbara. My friend, Joseph Bottoms’ father created this statue and a sister statue for Puerto Vallarta. I took this photo during the past weekend. Seeing the statue makes me happy.

Now to the subject at hand. Does pain and suffering create resilience?

Resilience is the ability to cope with and recover from setbacks. People who remain calm in the face of disaster have resilience.1

A resilient person is someone who has strong coping skills and is able to marshall their available resources, ask for help when needed, and find ways to manage the situation they are facing. 

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-resilience-2795059

I brought this topic up because I heard a snippet of a speech to Standford students by CEO of Nvidia. I was impressed with what he said. I even mentioned it on a comment on Victoria Ponders.

From an article from March 15, 2024 on CNBC by Tom Huddleston Jr. called “Success requires ‘ample doses of pain,’ billionaire Nvidia CEO tells Stanford students: ‘I hope suffering happens to you.’

Jensen Huang has a simple message for young people who want to achieve “greatness”: No pain, no gain.

That was essentially the Nvidia CEO’s message for students at his alma mater, Stanford University, where he spoke last week at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

“Greatness is not intelligence. Greatness comes from character. And character isn’t formed out of smart people, it’s formed out of people who suffered,” Huang said at the event, in response to a question about how students can maximize their shot at being successful.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/15/nvidia-ceo-huang-at-stanford-pain-and-suffering-breeds-success.html

Nvidia is one of the world’s most valuable companies with the high demand for their chips used in AI. Huang has been CEO of the company for three decades and has experienced ups and downs and had to lay off half of his employees at one time. He believes that the pain and suffering his company has experienced and their resilience is why they are successful today.

“People with very high expectations have very low resilience”

In the article, Huang is quoted as saying he has very low expectations but believes the students at Stanford have high expectations because of their elite education.

Often “people with very high expectations have very low resilience,” he went on, because they are not accustomed to, or prepared for, failure.

“Unfortunately, resilience matters in success,” he said. “I don’t know how to teach it to you except for I hope suffering happens to you.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/15/nvidia-ceo-huang-at-stanford-pain-and-suffering-breeds-success.html

Do you agree with the statement that people with high expectations have low resilience? Why or why not?

Do you believe resilience is formed through pain and suffering, or are some people born with it?

Weekend Getaway

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Boat in Santa Barbara
I saw this boat in the parking lot of the Marina in Santa Barbara. It has my name on it!

Friday was my mom’s actual birthday. I posted my memory of spreading her ashes last year — a few days early. Mom was on my mind the past weeks. I was feeling the milestone.

Good thing I thought about how I might be feeling in advance. I had a plan. We scheduled a weekend getaway in one of my favorite places. Santa Barbara. We celebrated Mom’s birthday there. I was with friends, incredible views, a fun hotel, food, food and more food. It was a wonderful way to spend the weekend.

Here are photos from Santa Barbara:

We arrived at the Santa Barbara Airport on a sunny afternoon.

A view from our friends’ backyard.

Views from our hotel’s rooftop pool. It was breathtaking! What a surprise when we walked out on the rooftop. I had no idea it would be spectacular.

Hotel lobby. I loved how the hotel was decorated in a Spanish Colonial Revival mix with Moroccan flair.

Here we are in the mirror, with a courtyard behind us in one of the hotel’s three buildings.

Morning walk on Stearns Wharf.

Looking back at Santa Barbara from the wharf.

Where is your favorite place to go to treat yourself to a special getaway?

I’m reminded of a song by Lenny Kravitz, “Fly Away.”

Time change

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Saguaro
Saguaro during a morning hike this week.

In Arizona, we don’t change time with the rest of the nation. At first, I was thrilled with this. But in reality, if the rest of the country changes time, we aren’t standing still.

For example, my husband starts work an hour earlier. The TV doesn’t stop changing times of shows. Everything is on an hour earlier.

It is confusing. It takes a little time for me to adjust to our new schedule.

I like the idea of not changing time, but time does not stay still.

In California, they voted to end time changes in 2018:

Didn’t Californians vote on this issue? Yes, sort of, but it isn’t quite that simple. 

In November 2018, voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 7. But the measure only allowed the Legislature to change daylight saving time, either by establishing it year-round or abolishing it. 

A change still requires a two-thirds majority of both the state Assembly and Senate and the governor’s signature. Permanently keeping daylight saving time also requires congressional action — and that hasn’t happened.  

California doesn’t have to wait on Congress to use standard time, which is what Hawaii and most of Arizona do. 

So this year Republican Sen. Roger Niello of Roseville introduced legislation to do away with daylight saving time for good and establish standard time year-round. (Westminster Republican Tri Ta is carrying a twin bill in the Assembly.) 

Arguing that standard time makes “the most sense,” Niello says his bill has the backing of the California Medical Association. A large portion of the medical and sleep expert communities also agree that standard time coincides better with people’s natural clocks. 

This story originally appeared in Calmatters.
The post Why daylight saving time is starting again in California amid debates, legislative hurdles appeared first on Local News Matters.

This reminds me of a song by Simon and Garfunkel that beings with “Time, time, time, see what’s become of me.”

What are your thoughts about the time change?

Would you prefer not changing time? If so, would you like standard time or daylight savings?

Remembering Mom

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It will be a year this week when my Aunt and I traveled to Washington State to spread my mom’s ashes at our family property. It would have been Mom’s birthday. I’ve been feeling a little weepy knowing that her birthday is this week. I miss my mom.

Here’s what I wrote last year:

Private road through the woods

This is the private road through the woods to our family’s riverfront property. We ran across this obstacle on our journey.

My aunt and I made the trek to Robe Valley where our family has owned property along the Stillaguamish River since the crash of ’29. Our mission was to spread my mother’s ashes in a place of beauty that she loved.

At dinner the night before at my brother’s home, we celebrated mom’s life. I was surrounded with love from my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew, spouses, their children and of course my mom’s little sister.

I worried about the condition of our road to the river. Would it be too muddy? Would it be flooded? We were told we’d need a chainsaw this time of year to make it to the river.

“We don’t do chainsaws,” I said.

My aunt who turns 80 this year, nodded her head in agreement.

gate to private road
A new gate to our property.

Our first obstacle was a new gate. Prior to this gate, we had a chain across our road. Fortunately, I packed the key that was mailed to me by a distant relative a few months ago. Whew! It worked!

When we stopped at the fallen branches blocking the road, I was able to push and hold them back while my aunt gunned the accelerator and drove through.

Then something surprising happened. A Great Blue Heron rose from a low branch and flew up in front of us. The Great Blue Heron was my mom’s favorite bird. In the 80-plus years this property has been in the family, no one has seen one there before.

My aunt said “Mary is that you?” (Mary is my mother’s name.)

The heron kept flight directly in front of our car as we made our way down the road. Literally we were looking up and forward.

I’m reminded of a post of Vicki’s at Victoria Ponders with these words from her dear friend:

Look Up.  Look Forward.

HTTPS://VICTORIAPONDERS.COM/

It was a sight or a sign. It was other worldly. I didn’t get a photo or video, but the four-foot tall bird guiding us down the road is etched in my mind.

We reached the river without further obstacles, prayed and spread my mom’s ashes along with blue hydrangea blossoms (blue was my mother’s favorite color and she loved hydrangeas.)

We left in peace knowing Mom was put to rest in one of the most beautiful places that she loved. Her dear cousin’s ashes were spread there the previous year.

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Where we spread ashes with snow on the riverbanks and snow capped mountains in the distance.
Stilaguamish River in Washington state.
View across the river from our property.

Who do you miss most in your life? How do you celebrate their memory?

Good News!

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This is my family with our daughter-in-law’s family during a Christmas week vacation together in Santa Barbara during a prior year. We were only missing one sister, Maggie, who was at grad school at Cambridge.

I’m sharing wonderful news. My son and daughter-in-law called on their way home from the oncologist. Buff had her first scan since her six-months of chemo ended without major problems and side effects.

Buff has a clean bill of health and feels terrific!

She will receive scans every three months for the next two years, then every six months for the following three years.

It’s been a worrisome, stressful time since Buff’s initial diagnosis of Stage 3C colon cancer, surgery and chemo. I feel relief like our entire family has turned the corner — because our daughter-in-law Buff is doing so well. Hopefully, the newlyweds will have clear sailing from now on throughout their future. I wrote about the day of her surgery HERE.

I’d like to hear more good news! What good news do you have to share?

Ave Maria was played Christmas night by two of Buff’s sisters, Allie and Christy, during the vacation in the photo above. They’re both professional musicians. I’m so grateful to have enjoyed their private concerts and I hope there are many more to come!

Is crime an issue in the election?

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Underwood typewriter
My Underwood typewriter given to me by PR, my former PR boss in the 80s and 90s.

There’s an editor of a newspaper called The Deseret who follows my blog. She’s called me a few times to interview me. Her name is Jennifer Graham. She is the Ideas and Culture editor of the Deseret News.

It’s been a few years since I’ve heard from her, but she emailed me this week to ask if she could link to my blog for an article she’s working on about crime.

Here’s an excerpt from her article:

Regardless of what the numbers say, many Americans don’t feel safe, and fear — not statistics — is what they’ll take with them into the voting booth. According to Gallup, “More than three-quarters of Americans, 77%, believe there is more crime in the U.S. than a year ago, and a majority, 55%, say the same about crime in their local area.”

Significantly, the number of Americans reporting that someone in their household has been a victim of crime edged up last year. Again, per Gallup, “Overall, a combined 28% say they or someone in their household has been victimized in the past year by one of seven different crimes asked about in the survey, including vandalism, car theft, burglary, robbery, armed robbery, sexual assault and battery. The composite figure is up from 23% when the question was last asked in 2021 and from 20% — the low point in the trend — in 2020.”

Elizabeth Wickham, a blogger in Arizona, recently wrote that she knows two people who were mugged within two weeks. “If I know two people mugged in a short amount of time, this must be happening frequently,” she wrote.

https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2024/03/06/new-york-city-national-guard-subways-democrats-crime/

Graham said she thinks that it doesn’t matter what the actual statistics are, if Americans don’t feel safe, this is a problem for whatever party is in power. 

Here’s a link to an article that she wrote about parents hiring parenting coaches in 2018:

Why are parents hiring coaches — for themselves?

What are your thoughts about crime where you live?

Has it gotten worse, better or stayed the same?