Book update:  I’ve about two thirds through in writing the chapter on benefits.  It’s really fascinating, the history of paid medical and the environment surrounding paid time off.

It’s not just how those benefits are changing in the workplace, but how we as a society are changing, which is requiring those benefits to evolve, all of which is under the ever present pressure for ever growing productivity and profitability.  

On the whole when you think about it, this is kind of foolish

It’s now the new year and it’s time that I start the blog enhancements… I’ve got one friend who’s going to help me get moving on that.  He’s involved with an awesome site.. you should check it out here.

I’ve also made my first tentative steps to get an idea if it’s better to self publish or to try and shop the manuscript around to publishers.  I have to admit that I like the idea of being in bookstores even if it’s less potential income.  

Ok, here is a little inside baseball.. a bit into my history and psyche: the thing I would absolutely love the most, the thing that would make all of this worthwhile, even if I never sold a single book, is to walk into a Cracker Barrel and see my work as an CD audiobook on one of those rental spindles they have next to the registers.  

On the whole when you think about it, this is kind of foolish.  The biggest thing that would make me happiest is to see all of my work on a dead format, in a location that doesn’t have heavy traffic of business and lifestyle book customers?  (I know this because 98% of the audio books on the Cracker Barrel rental spindle seem to be written by Nora Roberts and Danielle Steel).  So why would that have bucket list level success?  Well, when I was in traveling sales I would spend thousands of hours in the car every year, and one of my favorite things to do was to go to the Cracker Barrel and rent audiobooks to listen to on my drives.  I became a very well ‘read’ individual during that time.  I would listen to every different genre they had, and it was a challenge to find something not by the two aforementioned authors.  So that’s why the Cracker Barrel rental book spindle has a very special place in my heart.

The good part of this post is that we are continuing to move along.  I don’t know if what I’m doing is going to be successful, or if Cracker Barrel will still even rent books on CD when i’m done, but at least I do know that this blog is forcing me to consider my progress and my dreams.   

This book and blog may never earn enough to purchase medical, or help with my retirement, but the idea that there is a million and a half chance that I’ll achieve a bucket list level dream is a huge benefit in and of itself.