We Don't Walk Slow

About Tom Stortz

Enjoying my last few responsibility free years left.

What Makes a Good Email Address?

Each part of an email address is more important than people think. An email address needs to identify with you and make it easy to remember for other people. Working in a job where every person who orders gives an email address, I’ve seen plenty. I’ve created a list of do’s and don’t for an email address.

Email Do’s

The shorter the better. The best email addresses are the ones that makes sense and hard to forget.
Having your name or at least first initial in the beginning is ideal. Why you ask? When I use Outlook to write an email, I type the person’s name and see if it comes up saved. If it’s not a first name, I’ll try a last name but this is always a second thought and I prefer not to waste time. If I don’t find it quickly, I use the search feature through my inbox.
Using your company after the @ is way better than gmail or another player. Reason being that if I don’t know your email address but I know the format your company follows, first initial.last name@yourcompany.com, I can come up with how to send you an email without calling.

Email Don’ts

Starting your email address with something other than your name is not recommended. How could I guess it unless I ask you?
Last name first is not easily remembered. It’s your last name because it come up last.
Having old ISP’s ending your name like AOL or Juno shows you are out of touch.
Hyphens and underscores within the address are tough to remember.

By Tom Stortz|2014-05-01T09:03:19-04:00May 1st, 2014|My Life|3 Comments

Fresh Jams 4/30/14

This Coldplay / Avicii collaboration will get a lot of play. When you hear these songs played a month from now, you’ll know where you heard them first.

Coldplay feat Avicii – A Sky Full of Stars

Here’s a newish (Mar 11th) Fun song since I know you don’t follow my Spotify playlist.

Fun – Sight of the Sun

And a fantastic song from the Neighbourhood that will blow up soon.

Neighbourhood – Honest

By Tom Stortz|2014-04-30T22:08:27-04:00April 30th, 2014|Music|0 Comments

These TV Shows and Movies Shouldn’t Have Been Made

Good series and movies should be forced to end once they have decreased in quality and start to bring down the name. It’s commonplace for execs to try to squeeze every last penny out of an idea because it is so difficult to have something become a mega hit. Fans are much more realistic at pinpointing when enough is enough. The Wire and Breaking Bad are good examples of TV series called off at the right time. Soprano’s and Dexter are examples of series running too long. Lord of the Rings and Star Wars are great examples of high quality trilogy’s that should have stayed as trilogy’s. Hangover and Austin Powers are good examples of movies that just kept getting worse. Here are a few upcoming bad ideas.

24 – Live Another Day

Jack is back. 24 is an incredible idea for a show. Have one super character play out an hour per episode of one action packed day. I was hooked the first time I started to watch the show. Jack saving the city from nuclear weapons and from viruses was compelling because it had never been done like that before. As the seasons dragged on, there were 8, the reasons Jack was saving the world got weaker and weaker.

Character development also took a hit. I always found it odd when Jack would have romantic relationships with characters in the show because there is no way a human being like him could carry a relationship. Plus who could forget Nina and Tony Almeida. I never liked how CTU seemed to always have a mole roaming around which got incredibly old after while.

The idea of creating a new Jack is bad. He’s already a Chuck Norris like figure, just let him fade off into the sunset. No one likes Chloe and the whole series is already watered down at this point. Lay it to rest. Fox just picks a new location and will let Jack run loose killing bad guys with outrageous weapons. I’ll probably watch it anyway and make fun it the entire time. This show jumped the shark when Kim got attacked by the mountain lion.

22 Jump Street

Huh? The first movie wasn’t that great, why make a sequel? The first half of the movie was entertaining and the next hour completely sucked. Very similar to This is the End which I can only hope a This is the End 2 doesn’t come along. I’m not sure how movies like this get made. I’m even more surprised that they pick up 4 stars on the Comcast review.

Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum aren’t bad but the movie is guaranteed to have no plot. It’s a straight up comedy that is going to suck and try way too hard. Trying too hard is the worst type of comedy. I’m sure there fun to make and people will pay money to see it because of the name, but the movie is going to be worse than the first one and that’s saying a lot. Think Anchorman 2.

Star Wars: Episode VII

Why is this being created after the disasters that were 1-3? Disney brings back the original cast, who are all wearing depends at this point, and decides to make an episode 7 to follow up the originals. Nothing good can come out of this. JJ Abrams has to be the biggest moron on the planet to undertake this challenge. Now obviously he is getting paid handsomely but there is no way the Star Wars geeks are going to gravitate to an updated Star Wars. People don’t like change. They like the idea of Star Wars and what it meant to them 30 years ago. New is bad in this case. I’m flabbergasted that the original cast wants to undertake this project. I hope the project gets annihilated by the Deathstar. This atrocity is set to open on December 18th, 2015.

New Star Wars Cast

By Tom Stortz|2014-04-30T21:07:19-04:00April 30th, 2014|Movies, Tv|0 Comments

Perfect Philly Photo

Sometimes I’m walking around and see something that I think would be a cool picture. Then I think to myself that there are so many better pictures out there and mine will never bring anything new to the table. This is accurate. Here’s a great pic of Philly from the Camden side.

To add a little more to this post.

By Tom Stortz|2014-04-29T20:20:01-04:00April 29th, 2014|Photoshop|1 Comment

American Odyssey Relay 2014

American Odyssey Pre-Relay Thoughts

I’m an American Odyssey Relay veteran. 2014 is my 3rd consecutive year running this relay and each year keeps improving. For new readers, AOR is a 200 mile relay from Gettysburg to Washington, DC that is completed by 12 runners. Being a vet, there are no worries whatsoever going into it. I don’t worry whether I’ll be able to finish the legs, get lost on the course, meet up at transition points, or wonder what it’s like being in a van for 30 hours. With all of this behind me, the goal becomes to have fun.

This year we had the same van as last year except that my brother replaced Bob. There’s a comfort level to knowing the people in your van which is both good and bad. In one sense you know what you are getting which takes away the fun of meeting new people. However, because you know each other so well, you can completely be yourself and that leads to a different atmosphere. Either way, you spend almost 2 full days together so it’s important to make sure you get along.

To the Starting Line

Our team had a 10:15am start time. We woke up early to watch Nikkii decorate the van because she is the only one with any type of artistic ability. I tried to help in the creation of what to write and some how steered us in a direction towards cows instead of bulls and that lead to confusion. Technically we are the Ambler Stampede and even horses can stampede as Nathan accurately pointed out. Either way, the van got decorated and we killed some time before heading to the starting line.

Breakfast at Perkins

Before we got to the start, we stopped in Walmart to buy an AUX cord so we could listen to some tunes. Can we get this cord subsidized 24 ways? Once ready to jam we saw Maureen off and our set of legs were set to begin. We had some hours to kill and had our traditional Perkins breakfast. Discussion at the table is always humorous.

Our plan was to drive the set of legs that Van 1 was running to get a feel for the course. I abruptly decided that I needed to charge my phone and plugged in a monster converter that blew the fuse. This send a shiver of panic over our van because without power to charge the phones, we had no GPS. We backtracked to where we started and picked up a conveniently 24 packed set of 20 amp fuses. Once replaced, we were back on track.

Our First Legs

Old Friends.

We knew the weather called for rain but didn’t know when. Wouldn’t you know that as soon as we got the the transition point, it started pouring. The weather was warm though so we had that going for us. Lisa started off leg 7 for us and we were off. At this point, Nikkii had been demoted from driver after telling us she “had it up to here (pointing to about the van ceiling)” about us pointing out the nuances of her driving and comments to passing runners. Let’s not forget the almost Corvette incident 20 hours earlier.

Lisa completed her run as she always does and David got a taste of what CK4 had to experience last year, a long incline followed by a serpentine of downhill that extends miles. David finished and passed off to Sam who popped his AOR cherry. By this time the weather stopped raining but it was starting to get cold. Sam handed to Nikkii who went on a delightful run through the woods. She emerged somewhere and finished her run handing off to me.

TC and Nathan at the Mason Dixon line border.

Because this is my blog, you get to read about what goes through my mind while I run. I was feeling pretty good along my 7+ mile leg to start. I caught up to Nathan and took my favorite picture of the relay. The environment along the Mason-Dixon line is incredible. It’s a panorama of farm land. I always keep my eyes out for slate roofs and there were two awesome structures along my path which I wish I had a camera to take a picture of. At about my 5 mile mark I was caught by another runner which has never happened before. This guy was moving pretty good and I wasn’t necessarily taking it easy but I had some gas left in the tank. I went with him as he passed me and stayed with him for a long period of time. With about a half mile left, I made a move to the finish line only to be denied and then owned by about 15 meters. Fun nonetheless.

I gave the baton to CK4 and he completed our first set of legs. Since the vans were at different points, we decided to get some food on our own. We couldn’t remember if we ate in Boonsboro last year and decided on a different course. We found a beer store and an Cracker Barrel for some food. At this point we all had a few bullets and were having some fun messing around. We arrived at Boonsboro at around 10pm and had a bit of time to kill. I brushed my teeth which was a revitalizing factor. Nikkii also saw the stick of my deoderant head fall on the street as I nonchalantly put it back in and used it. The life of a runner.

2nd Set of Legs

Team 2 during CK4’s night run.

I started this set of legs taking the Browns to the Super Bowl in a lonesome porta-a-potty. It was completely dark inside and I crossed my fingers it was less used because it was in such a remote area. Everything went fine and David started this next set. The second set of legs is a bit shorter and David went out a touch to hard which was evident by his minute slow down from 1st to 3rd mile. He handed off to Lisa who took down the hardest leg on the course BY FAR. This leg was crushing runners left and right and it was no surprise that it manhandled CK4 last year only to sideline him for his last leg. Some sarcasm is being use here but Lisa completed the leg efficiently. During this transition, some drama occurred.

While I was driving, I jokingly said that I saw some little child on the side of the road. This FREAKED Nikkii out. Discussion lead to a chupacabra and Nikkii was breaking down about doing her night run. Sam’s quick moving light through the night sky handed the bracelet off to Nikkii and she was set out in the abyss. We met up with her half way and running had overcome the fears of the devil. She finished her run and I had a short 3+ mile run.

My run started through the Gettysburg battlefields and after a few moments I was completely by myself. My headlamp was weak and I had to look down to see straight every time. It was pitch black and after our ghost comments, I had that going on in my head that I was completely vulnerable to any 2am attacker in the battlefields. At one point these lights flashed across the road and my heart skipped a beat. I was certain I was getting abducted by aliens but it turned out to only be the lights of a van behind me. I finished my leg and handed off to CK4. CK4 also successfully finished his night run and we were on to the 3rd set of legs. We passed on the $7 dollar boy scout buffet and headed off to John Poole High School.

3rd Set of Legs

Bundled up.

Most of van 2’s 3rd set of legs runs along the Potomac which is quite the scenery. The start begins at a middle school in Poolesville, MD. It’s a bit over an hour drive from Sheppardsville, WV to Poolsville and David manhandled the driving with me sitting shotgun and giving uncertain directions. We listened to some Pink Floyd and other classic rock artists while making the trek at 4am. We got there at 5, parked the van, and tried to get some shut eye. I bundled up in a sleeping bag outside because the van gets a bit crowded and lord knows how much oxygen is trapped in that van with 5 other people breathing.

I woke at 6:15 after about an hour of sleep to see they had opened the school. I bought a bagel and the kid told me there was cream cheese and a cutter over on the other table. I wasn’t familiar with a cutter and used a knife to split it. The woman there looked at me like I was special and told me that I could have used the bagel cutter and that she couldn’t give me any advice on how to use the toaster. After I punched her in the face, I went outside and slept an hour more.

Hanging out at the John Poole Middle School

I’ll bypass the running along the Potomac but each leg is beautiful with little hills and the weather was perfect. The only episode occurred when I handed off the stick to CK4 and his phone was dimmed. He stamped his foot down and wasn’t moving which isn’t a good look during a relay where running is encouraged. After a minute, he took off and I was put in charge of directions to the finish line. My GPS wasn’t working right and I was using Nikki’s. This was a mistake because I veered from the AOR directions and used a device that I wasn’t familiar with. We missed a turn and it sent us into touristville DC and we crawled along. We arrived in time to see Chad finish and our running journey came to an end.

AOR Finish Line

AOR team at the finish line.

We finished the run in a bit over 29 hours which was good for 50th place out of 200. This relay isn’t about winning and a good time was had by all. The after party held in the wharf was not a great experience. The beer being poured was atrocious and a line was building because pouring wasn’t handled properly. The food was average but free is free. A short episode about bedbugs in the hotel sent everyone packing. We had a nice team meal in College Park, MD and then headed home. I was running on 2 hours of sleep and pretty tired. Lisa, Nikkii, and I chatted it up along the ride back but it seemed to drag on. We arrived safely and I was dropped off before I had to deal with van issues which was nice for me. My drive back can be read about here but once my head hit the pillow, it was lights out.

The overall experience was positive. You hang out with different people and spend time running which is both healthy and fun. We made sure to crush some bullets along the way try to stink as little as possible. Knowing how to prepare for a relay like this is half the battle to success. Major thanks to Nathan Relles for organizing everything because without him we would be all over the place. Another thanks to everyone who participated because there is no AOR without a team. If you’ve read this far in this post, you enjoy running too much. Until next time.

By Tom Stortz|2014-04-29T13:43:21-04:00April 29th, 2014|Running, Sports|1 Comment

A New Way of Music Success

Who can forget getting to the end of a download and having it stall.

2014 – Burying the CD

My music knowledge is above average. I know a little about a lot and have a decent finger on the pulse of today’s music. I’m by no means an expert but I do know that the internet has changed the way music is delivered to the public’s ear. Applications and software like Spotify, Pandora, Youtube, and Itunes have decimated album sales and a new way of identifying popularity should be put in place. Views and listens should dominate instead of album sales.

A declining trend

The top selling album in 2013 was Justin Timberlakes “20/20 Experience” which sold 2.43 million copies. This was the lowest total in the 22 years since Soundscan has been tracking sales. When I first read this number I wondered what was the breakdown of what is considered an album sale. The answer is that vinyl is 2% of album sales in the U.S; digital albums comprise 40.6% and the CD is 57.2%. Digital sales dropped for the first time EVER in 2013. More info on the music industry of 2013 can be found in this Billboard year end review. This isn’t surprising considering the aforementioned apps are delivering music on a subscription basis and eliminating album sales. Why would you buy an album for 10 dollars when you can get a month of Spotify and listen to a million times more music for a month?

Just Got Paid

Let’s time travel back to the year 2000. Can you guess the #1 selling album and how many units it sold? N’ Sync was the hottest boy band and said Bye Bye Bye to the 9 million CD’s sold mark. This was the tip of the iceberg when it came to CD sales for a single year. The best selling album of all-time is Michael Jackson’s Thriller and it has moved 51-65 million copies. These numbers are staggering when compared to the pathetic 2.4 million copies the best selling album of 2013 sold. With these current numbers being so out of touch with reality, the system must be changed to downloads and listens.

2014 – All Hail Spotify and Youtube

Spotify and YouTube are the best ways to listen to music currently. Spotify’s catalog is insanely big and they have new music updated quicker then you can run to the store and get it. YouTube is still the premier place to display new music in video format. Everything else should be considered secondary. I’ll add a quick footnote that ITunes tracks downloads and I assume this is an OK measure but it isn’t free so why you’d pay for a single or album download, I have no idea. The smartest music listeners pay a monthly subscription to Spotify to listen to their music. You can listen to any song, any time, any device.

Cd’s are going the way of listeners like this.

Therefore, Spotify listens and Youtube views should be a new music standard. The songs should have a cumulative number and that should be the new ranking. Fuck album sales. No one gives a shit that the Frozen Soundtrack has moved 2.3 million units when compared to the astronomical number of listens and views. What is far more interesting is that Katy Perry’s Dark Horse has 270 million YouTube views and 113 million Spotify listens. The problem is that I can’t find who is tracking this information on a week by week basis. I can see total views, but let’s get a count of this on a week by week to really understand what music is being listened to. Someone needs to do this! Rolling Stone, read this post and start finding a way to track these two networks and publish this info. Far and away better than album sales.

You may also have interest in this article I wrote last year about the most popular artists at the end of 2013.

By Tom Stortz|2014-04-29T20:20:24-04:00April 28th, 2014|Music|0 Comments

The Best Rest of Your Life – AOR edition

I’ll have a full American Odyssey Relay post within the next few days. I want to have all the pictures and make a solid effort of putting it together before I post about it. For those of you who don’t know about AOR, it’s a 200 mile running relay from Gettysburg to Washington, DC. Teams consist of 12 people or less and each runner runs between 12-20 miles broken down in 3 different runs. It’s a unique experience that is not for people who dislike leaving their comfort zone to hang with sweaty and disgusting runners.

Without going in full detail of the relay, I will say that you get very little sleep throughout the process. We started at 10:15 on Friday and finished at around 3:30 in the afternoon Saturday. That’s just the running portion. All in all from start to finish, I was up at 7:30am on Friday and wouldn’t call the odyssey complete until I hit my bed in Philly at midnight on Saturday. That’s about 40 hours of alive time. During those 40 hours, actual sleep I got was less than 2 hours. I was full sleep though for that period of time which was nice compared to half rest. This isn’t a feeling that I usually get to experience.

I felt pretty good throughout the journey. My running legs were all something I could handle and I didn’t feel broken at any point. This isn’t to say I wasn’t tired but I know that being awake and hanging out is what makes the relay more fun. At around 8:30pm we left College Park to go back to Philly. Lisa drove which was awesome and I sat in the front seat and provided some company. I knew I was starting to fade but I hung tough until she dropped me off at 11 pm. I drove home, completely sober mind you, and had one of the craziest drives of my life.

Total time from Warrington to Philly was 42 minutes with no traffic. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have driven. In my mind I just kept telling myself to break the drive down in little chunks. Just make it to the Blue Route. Hit 76. Get to the Green Lane exit. Left curve to 676. I was so tired that this was incredibly challenging and when I parked my car I couldn’t believe or remember how I even did it. When I think back to the drive, it was just like being blacked out. I’m not one who gets many opportunities to stay awake for 40 hours but I have to write a post about the risks of doing so. Fortunately I got back safe and after night’s sleep, I feel like a million bucks even though a million bucks is not what it used to be. I slept for just under 10 hours and it was incredible sleep. I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow and woke up near 10am without a moment interruption. This gives me all day today and I have quite the agenda. I’ll try to get an AOR update at the start of the week. Stay tuned.

By Tom Stortz|2014-04-27T11:25:33-04:00April 27th, 2014|My Life|0 Comments

Extremes Get Eyeballs

Top bloggers (not me) recognize that what they write needs to draw attention. This can be done by exaggerating a situation and thus making it funny. Nobody cares if you have a bad day. Someone may care if you have a day worse than Alexander’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. This concept doesn’t come without some drawback though because you start to turn into the Boy Who Cried Wolf and what you say starts to lose its punch. Either way, The Pres from Barstool has mastered this art.

I’ve actually stopped reading Barstool as much as I did because it has gotten so convoluted with material. I’ve basically narrowed my reading to what Mo and Smitty say from Philly and the Pres. There is no doubt that the Pres is the finest blogger that Barstool has and it’s not surprising he is the creator. The Pres has learned how to exaggerate commonplace thoughts into Earth shattering stories. He refers to himself as a Mogul which should give you an idea of how highly he thinks of himself. With that quick back drop on the Pres, here are some tweets to help understand his mantra behind catching eyeballs.

Some Pres Tweets

Here is an example of the Pres taking a popular, polarizing figure and finding something so absurd and turning into a power move.

Drake using a lint roller on his pants courtside is such a preposterous move that now I have to start doing it http://t.co/bHN5A5XPku

— David Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) April 23, 2014

Every at bat? Hitting balls to the moon?

I don’t know how the Sox aren’t winning because every AB I see they are sending one to the moon

— David Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) April 23, 2014

Of all time?

Jacoby Blahsbury with the most anti climatic crowd reaction of all time.

— David Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) April 22, 2014

The Pres has developed this persona that he has to be bigger than life. I personally think it’s great as long as you know it’s a schtick. Guys like this can come off as douche bags if you aren’t understanding that they are making normal things interesting with text.

By Tom Stortz|2014-04-24T08:47:45-04:00April 24th, 2014|My Life, Sports|0 Comments

What Do You Do?

“What do you do” is a common question that takes place among adults during social interactions. I used to use this when I would start a conversation with a girl but once they started speaking, I stopped listening. Most people answer “what they do” in regard to what they do for a living, as in their boring job. Isn’t that sad?

Shouldn’t what you do be what you like doing? If I were asked this question I’d respond with:

I enjoy not working.
I exercise regularly so I don’t get fat.
I drink to excess because this tends to make stories that I never forget (and never remember).
I think everyone is stupider than me until proven otherwise (and I’m not that smart which makes this exercise quite the battle).
I watch television shows and then compare them to the Wire. Name one show that is better than the Wire? You can’t.
I read many books (self improvement, classics, fantasy, business…) when nothing good is on TV or my DVR runs out.
I maintain this blog which produces 0 dollars and took 1,000’s of hours to create which is probably considered my best work.

These are the types of answers people should be answering when you ask them what they do? Jobs suck. Oddly enough, I feel guilty when I’m not working. Human beings should not feel like this. Life should come first and a job second. It’s a common misconception among people with no money that they need a job. That’s a lie. Money is a high priority in life and a job provides this. My first job is a good example of what you never want to be doing.

My First Job

I signed up as an assistant to the maintenance crew at Upper Dublin High School. I wanted to be part of the paint crew because I had some friends and they said it was cake. This maintenance job paid $5.75 an hour and I was completely by myself. I walked into an atmosphere with 5 workers – a boss, the boss’s sidekick, an electrician, a plumber, and an all around maintenance guy. Work started at 7 but no one left the office until they had finished reading the paper and had coffee at 8:30. What did I care, I had already made 8 bucks.

That summer was perhaps the most boring time of my life. We worked 8 hour days but I probably only did 1 hour of actual work. I used to love driving around in the van because I was getting paid to travel. Some of my duties were to pick up breakfast and fetch tools from the truck. It sounds simple but pride gets in the way because you don’t want to sound stupid when you don’t know what wire strippers are. They’d ask me to get something, I’d run to the truck, spend a few minutes looking, realize I didn’t know what I was looking for and come back and ask them to be more specific. The inefficiency definitely put some bills in my pocket. I was pretty much useless. I did learn how to wrap an electrical cord and change a light ballast that summer so it wasn’t a complete loss.

This is what would have happened if I were Oddjob. Which actually was an odd job for me to be doing,

I did this for the next year when they bumped my pay to $6.25. I’d get more responsibilities each year but I was still a nitwit. One time they left me alone to tile an entire floor and I installed every tile upside down. I suppose I was fairly paid for what little money I made compared to my output. Then I was promised another .50 cent raise the next summer which wasn’t evident on my first paycheck. I brought this to payroll’s attention but they didn’t seem to care that much and I was too young to make a stink about it. My term came to an end when I was helping the electrician and I wasn’t taking the job very seriously. We were messing with live wires and he didn’t take my lack of interest too kindly and yelled at me for being a retard. This hurt my feelings and I quit the next day. As I think back to it, I was pretty big pussy for quitting. In hindsight, I should have quit the day I started.

This story should convey the shittiness of your job. The common phrase you work to live and not live to work should be followed on a regular basis. Next time someone asks you what you do, be prepared.

By Tom Stortz|2014-04-23T17:22:21-04:00April 23rd, 2014|My Life|3 Comments

Katy Perry Crowd Surfing

Found this gem on Reddit. This is what happens when you are top heavy. I would have loved to be underneath her and allowed to put my hands all over that body. Actually this was the best comment on Reddit.

She panicked and forgot basic crowd-surfing technique.

You can see the moment when she realizes she’s crowd surfing in a dress and she tucks up her legs to protect her modesty. Instantly all her weight is now resting on half as many people as it should be; without proper weight distribution she plunges through the crowd.

Lesson learned: keep your body spread out to maximize support, and go with the flow. Expect gropings because they’re unavoidable.

My hands go where?

By Tom Stortz|2016-10-28T15:26:31-04:00April 22nd, 2014|Music|0 Comments