Evolution of a Book, to a Family

Can a book evolve into a family?

~This morning, a woman in Israel who I've never met before, sent me a message via Skype, inviting me to meet her when I vacation there next month.

~A few hours ago, a man invited me and a bunch of others to help him with the planning of a TED conference in Dubai. I will accept the invitation and enjoy the ride.

~A month ago, I received from a stranger sage advice on how to estimate my fiscal worth, which helped me secure a new job.

So... Can reading a book lead to having a new family? It sure feels like it.

My guess is that Seth Godin, the author of the book Tribes, never really considered whether he'd start a family, until the moment he created a social network for leaders & passion players on Ning.com - and I'd guess he probably didn't really understand the impact it might have, until today - the one year anniversary of the Triiibes.com launch.

Leading and following are what the book is about. It's what his life is about. Now, thanks to him, it's a little bit more of what my life is about.

I've been having a blast on Triiibes.com. Most recently, I started a tribe dedicated to the creation of a Triiibes Directory of Members & Resources. I want the directory to serve as a catalyst for the help and inspiration we already share on the website, and to bring the family closer together.

Yes, it's really starting to feel like a family there. So for that, thank you Seth! And of course, thanks to all my "siblings" ("triiibelings?").

And to the rest of you leaders and passion players not yet on Triiibes.com, get thee to Amazon.com and purchase it - be ready for the next time our website goes into labor!

PS
Bacon sucks.

TO READ THE PREVIOUS TRiiiBES TRIBUTE POST (RICARDO) CLICK HERE
TO READ THE FOLLOWING TRiiiBES TRIBUTE POST (MELVIN) CLICK HERE

Costco - Best place for drugs

This should go out to EVERYONE you know - just in case we know someone who has to get prescription drugs.
Bottom line: You don't need a membership to get drugs from Costco and they'll cost a tiny fracton of the price you'd pay at Wallgreens or CVS or...
Pass it along!!!

Confirmed on Snopes.com
http://www.snopes.com/medical/drugs/generic.asp

I went to the Costco site, where you can look up any drug, and get its online price. It says that the in-store prices are consistent with the online prices. I was appalled. Just to give you one example from my own experience I had to use the drug Compazine which helps prevent nausea in chemo patients.

I used the generic equivalent, which cost $54.99 for 60 pills at CVS. I checked the price at Costco , and I could have bought 100 pills for $19.89. For 145 of my pain pills, I paid $72.57. I could have got 150 at Costco for $28.08.

I would like to mention, that although Costco is a "membership" type store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy prescriptions there as it is a federally regulated substance. You just tell them at the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will l et you in.

I am asking each of you to please help me by copying this letter, and passing it into your own e-mail, and send it to everyone you know with an e-mail address.

Dolphin Stampede

WOW!!!

The New Macbook Wheel

Thanks to Beau for passing this along.
THE ONION needs to be on primetime.
When you're done watching, watch it again and pause at 1:05 and 1:47.

Drawing

This guy is truly fantastic. Notice how many times he uses his eraser.

2 Important Items

1. What the hell was the leader of the pack doing at a candy store? Is there a more uncool biker hang-out? Unless he's picking up on 16 year olds. ... Ooooooh.

2. Never EVER EVER put cream cheese on an English Muffin! What are you crazy?! You'll cover up the nooks and crannies! Butter only please.

"Life of Excellence" by Nathan Chandra

My good friend Nathan Chandra just sent me this piece he wrote!

Life of Excellence

I vow to live a life of excellence
where mediocrity is not evident,
integrity will be my stronghold
faith will guide my light.

I will exhale honesty
while dancing with the truth.
Want most to love and understand,
give to thy neighbor and take from no one.
Receive freely the gifts from above,
live beyond envy and never converse with greed.

May I discipline myself with pleasures,
by working hard first and rewarding myself second.
Forgive those and myself for past time of weakness
and create in the present who I will be in the future.

I vow to live a life of excellence
where the road of righteousness
leads to eternal life.

Nathan Chandra

Songwriting Blurb

We might say that a song is made of two things:
1. A Lyric; a novel poetic expression, which communicates a mood, emotion or idea.
2. A melody; which carries the lyric, and very often a rhythm and chord structure that supports the melody.

That's the song itself. When the song is recorded, production comes into play.

Production is the way the song is recorded - it's the instrumentation, musical arrangement, vocal and overall sound of the song.

12 TIPS FOR BETTER PHOTOS

12 TIPS & TRICKS for TAKING GREAT PHOTOS with a POINT AND SHOOT DIGITAL CAMERA

My good friend Joey asked me if I'd share some of my "secrets" for getting great photos with a point and shoot digital camera!

1 STEALTH MODE
Mute your camera. No need to alert your friend that you're trying to take a candid shot of him. Not to mention - many Kodak moments are ones where people need to be quite, like a wedding or speech.


2 BANISH FLASH, EMBRACE BLUR
Avoid flash as much as you can. The flash washes out natural color and separates the subject from her surroundings.

You will need a steady hand for sharp shots, but...

Blur gives the photo an active, living feel.









*Shoot in "manual" mode and turn off the flash or turn it on as you need it; as opposed to "automatic" mode which automatically turns BACK on the flash every time you turn the camera off and back on again.


3 CONTINUOUS MODE & TAKING MULTIPLE SHOTS
Any magazine advertisement or cover you see, is the best photo out of dozens of photos taken of that subject. Why should you capture a moment in your own life any differently?
Simply put: more photos, more chance for a great shots.

Try to get into the habit of taking at least 3 photos of the same thing, and experiment with different settings; with and without flash; different angles. Make sure you have a big memory card so you can do this without running the risk of filling up your memory card - or, to save space, as you go you can delete the photos that didn't come out well (like the ones with your friend's eyes half open).

The shot below was one of about 10 shots, and this was probably one of the last. The fresh faces were most likely the result of me saying "Aaron, your hat is ruining the shot."

4 "CHEESE" IS MOLDY.
THROW IT OUT.

Instead of asking your friends and family to say "cheese" which makes for cheesy smiles (naturally) just talk to them while you're shooting. "You're very ugly." or "You're so hot!" or anything that'll give them a laugh will produce great reactions and ultimately amazing photos. There's a reason the photographer stereotype is one where he is saying provocative things to the model.


5 STEADY CAM
IT'S hard to keep your hand steady. Use things around you to keep it still - like a pole or wall, or table.


6 CENTER VS. OFF-CENTER
Don't center everything! If you're going to center it - then really center it!












Otherwise, experiment with choosing two focal points for your composition. A subject in the foreground and one in the background. Think of your frame as having 3 lines. One in the middle and two splitting the differences on each side. Line your subjects up with one of those three lines. That's a safe bet for a good composition.









If you're looking for more of a challenge and dramatic effect, experiment with taking shots of people that are actually partly out of the frame. This seems counterintuitive - why TRY to not get the whole subject in the shot - because it adds to the tension of the image and really engages the viewer.










NOTE: Make sure you make the camera focus (by depressing the shutter button halfway) on the subject you want before you frame the shot with the subject off to one side. Otherwise it'll look to what's closest to the center and focus on that!


7 DISTRACT YOUR SUBJECT
Don't always allow your subjects to stare into the camera lens. Photos like this can feel staged and sterile. Why? Because they ARE staged, and staged - if all they're doing is waiting for the camera to go off - is definitely sterile (as in the photo below).










Instead while they're waiting for your countdown, fire off a shot. Then say "oops! Oh no. You looked really ugly in that one." While they're laughing, fire off another one. The point is, you want them to look like they're actually in a MOMENT. Not just posing for a shot. Almost nobody (who's not already famous) is good looking enough to be interesting just looking into a lense. We already know what they look like. We want to see them in a moment.

















My favorite technique for getting candid, alive moments, is to hold the camera off to one side, or lower than usual - point it at them and then talk to them. Or just shoot without engaging them at all! Ask them questions and, as they're answering you, rapid fire some shots of them. Most likely they won't be looking into the camera if you do this and that can make for a much more natural moment.

"Hey! What's that!??" also works.















8 USE MACRO MODE
Some of the most curious and amazing things in the room, or out in the world are very very small, or look interesting very very close up; A rain drop clinging to a rusty pipe is a thing of beauty - and you can introduce it to the world simply by choosing to do so. Switch your camera to macro mode (it's the little icon of a tulip) and bring the camera to within 1 or 2 inches of the subject. Depress the button half-way to make sure it's focusing on the thing you want. Compose the shot - look at the lines and placement of the subject and secondary elements - shoot! KEEP YOUR HAND STILL!






9 TWIST
Get out of the habit of shooting pictures where you frame the shot parallel to the ground! Twist the camera a bit and you'll get a really cool effect. Shoot from above, shoot from below.



























10 POST PRODUCE
Have you ever heard of a film going into post production? If you want a quality product, you need to take the raw material and tweak it. This is true for nearly every art form where it's possible to tweak the raw material. Do you think Ansel Adams took photos that were naturally this amazing? True, he had to have great raw footage - but his talent laid equally in the dark room as it did behind the lens.

You don't need photoshop. Most computers have programs that will allow you to mess with the basic settings: crop, contrast, brightness, color... Here are my favorite two:

1. crop: crop the photo to get a more interesting composition. Try cropping so your subject is to the extreme right, left top or bottom.

ii. contrast - increase it. I don't know of many shots that look good with the contrast down. Increasing contrast defines the colors more dramatically, the lights and darks and adds a richness to the image.

Macs owners (yes we're all snobby about our wonderful macs) have really great tools to work with right inside iphoto: Effects & Adjust.

You can get some amazing effects using these tools. One of my favorites is to tweak the Effects to be first Black & White, then boost color, then blur the edge!

ORIGINAL - with Mac Effects & Adjust windows open.


CROPPED - the higher the megapixel, the less grainy your cropped photos will be.
The bridge as the subject seemed to be better framed in landscape rather than portrait.


INCREASE CONTRAST (Adjust window)
INCREASE COLOR SATURATION (Adjust window)
BLUR EDGES (Effects window)
Increasing the contrast darkens the darks and lightens the lights often making the photo "pop". Increasing the color saturation makes those red flowers look their true bright red color.
Bluring the Edges can evoke soft photos of the late 70s, early 80s, but can also simply add depth.


BLACK & WHITE (Effects window)
BOOST COLOR (Effects window) - doing this after converting to black and white gives the image a chocolate brown hue.
BLUR EDGES (Effects window)


==============================================
BEFORE


AFTER




11 BLACK & WHITE
You can almost always improve the quality of the shot, by converting it to Black & White. Then increase the contrast. Images become timeless and striking when in Black & White. Pictures taken with flash especially become improved because the colors of the shot are no longer in danger of being washed out!
Darken the photo slightly and you've got something really cool.














12 FLIP
If you really want to get fancy - take portraits and, if you can, flip them so they are a mirror image of what you took. People are used to seeing their faces as they appear in a mirror. That's why 95% of the time people hate the way they look in photos even when everyone else thinks they look amazing! Because all our faces our asymmetrical, we have a very hard time seeing a face that looks so different from the one we see in the mirror 10 times a day.

DOES "COOL" EXPIRE?

Are we really as cool as we think we are?

How do the interpretations of subtle changes in body language and facial expressions change over time?

Do me a favor: Would you look at these two clowns struttin' their stuff and tell me... if they think they're cool, and we thought they were cool, and now they're... really really really not - What the hell are we gonna look like in 30 years?

Does "cool" really expire?! Only certain kinds? WHAT KINDS!? SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME THE SECRET TO ETERNAL COOL!

Headstrong

I was encouraged by my friend Jocelyn to start blogging again. I can't promise anything but I'm hoping to kick-start myself using this video post entitled simply "Dude transports 22 bricks on his head" -- And that's just what he does.

The Sailboat Metaphor

This is something I thought of last year and I don't think I've written about it yet so here goes...

A good long lasting relationship needs three things just like a sailboat:
Water, ports and wind.

Without any one of these things, you're not going to get very far or enjoy yourself very much.

WATER

Water is the personal connection - communication, compatibility and all the moment-to moment stuff that's going to support you on your journey. It's the stuff that makes the difference between a smooth enjoyable ride and sea sickness.

Most people decide to be with someone, and in some cases continue for years being with someone, because their water is so good. Their water is deep - they share history, generational similarities, ethnic and religious similarities, so that their communication has a depth to it that allows them to comfortably navigate to many of the same places. Their water is smooth - they resolve conflicts well, are open with each other emotionally, and have similar personalities which allow for effortless conversations.

For many this is enough - but problems can arise when after months, and sometimes years of sailing, couples find they don't share the desire to dock at the same places.


PORTS

Ports are the major places you want to go. They are the stations in life which are important to you, so important that you may be unwilling to compromise. Do you want to get married? Do you want children? to live in the United States? to lead a religious or secular lifestyle?

If you want to go to different ports, your trip will be miserable and possibly doomed to failure. Couples often find themselves circling in the water, unable to decide which port to go to, and ultimately jump ship after finding neither is willing to compromise. These major destinations are so important to our journey, that compromise becomes sacrifice; too much of that can ruin a trip.


WIND
Wind is the unpredictable, unknowable thing that takes you where you're going. I also call it the God factor. You have to have God's blessing. Sometimes the conditions seem great - got the water, got the ports, but it's just not happening.

In other cases, you don't have much water or ports in common but somehow it works - the wind takes you where you need to go, when you need to be there and it just works out! But this is something that one cannot plan for - you can think that the sailing conditions are good, but you ultimately can't know for certain whether or not you'll have the blessing. So if you focus on the water and ports, you're good to go.

That's the basic gist of it - it has helped me make hard decisions and enabled me to steer clear of relation"ships" I shouldn't be in!

Tree: I don't think so.

Fifa Street

WHAT
....
???

hrm

bla

Great Dancing

Fresh Derrick For Sale!

I love how Google gives me ads on the right hand side, related to key words it finds in the email or subject line.

My friend Derrick Super Poked me on Facebook. And Facebook sent me an alert about it. Google read the subject line and decided to offer me this:

Derrick

Everything to do with
Derrick items.
shopping.yahoo.com

I had no idea Yahoo sold Derrick items! I hope they have good deals. Derrick items are a premium these days.

Four Athiest Problems

Four problems for the athiest:

1 - Science Proves Existence
There was a time when certain phenomena were unprovable by scientific method. The atheist claims however that a thing only exists if it can be provable by scientific method. Therefor, for much of history, the theory of relativity, gravity, conservation of energy, atoms did not exist.

2 - Island Ethics
According to an atheist, if two athiests were stranded on a tropical island (Why must it always be desert?) and the stronger atheist attempts to strangle the weaker in order to eat him, the atheist would have no basis for resisting his fate as dinner, since the morality of the act is purely subjective and therefor not empirically right or wrong. It would be disingenuous for the weaker to say even "I do not want death to happen to me" since equally true and valuable is the statement "he wants death to happen to me".

3 - An Atheists Definition of God as "Nothing"
Since atheists generally believe that the universe came into existence from "Nothing", he is trapped by this as one definition of God. According to this atheist, absolute nothingness must have the potential of absolutely everything since it can give rise to it, AND includes the ability to be absolutely nothing. Therefor, belief in a prompting "Nothing" which gives rise to everything is the same as belief in a prompting "Everything".

4 - Every Atheist Either Believer or Agnostic
A prompting nothing, which the atheist suggests started the universe, cannot be proven by scientific means since by definition it falls outside the realm of the physical (indeed preceded the physical) rendering it untestable. In this case the atheist must believe in such a starter of the universe on faith alone. The atheist may also point out that although science cannot prove its existence "yet", it may or may not exist. In this case the atheist becomes an agnostic. In the first case he is fundamentally the same as the believer who accepts on faith that the universe was created by an unprovable thing. In the second case the atheist, unable to subscribe to a belief in its existence must define himself as an agnostic.

Crossword Genius

Randy Pausch - Last Lecture

Randy Pausch is dying of pancreatic cancer. Here is his "last lecture" - it's worth a watch.

Clockworks

A really amazing short film.

Groovy Vid

Cat And Bird

Hey Jude!

Best Prank Ever - Frozen In Time

Aghpric

I just typo-ed "graphic" as "aghpric." How the hell did I manage that?

Dumbo Rats

This is for anyone who doesn't think rats are cute. This is a Dumbo Rat which gets its name because of how its ears are low to the head.

The Perfect Nanny Song - and Olivia

First, enjoy the video below of The Perfect Nanny Song from the Academy Award Winning (5!) Mary Poppins. Then, below, meet Olivia. If there's ever any hard evidence of why we should procreate...

Mary Poppins - Feed The Birds - (Hebrew)

Commander in Chiefs

It's nice to see who's behind the facade of the politician . And sometimes it's not nice. This is an actual video of John Edwards preparing for an interview. The song was not playing during the shooting of the video, but it very well may have been playing in his head.


Another angle of our dear President Bush.

I like the angle.

The Onion: Child Bankrupts Make a Wish Foundation

Holy hilarity Batman:


Child Bankrupts Make-A-Wish Foundation With Wish For Unlimited Wishes

Found Wisdom of Marriage

I'm sitting at my desk at the Chabad Jewish Community center. On it is a piece of paper which has some cut-out strips of text on it. I read through it and was kind of blown away at the amount of wisdom contained on this tiny sheet of paper. I imagine this was made by one of the teachers for their class.

The ideas and teachings are part of the Jewish tradition and were communicated through Rabbi Menachem Mendel Shneerson, also known as the Rebbe. It's important to note that there are no students here beyond the age of 13.

MARRIAGE:
When the groom veils his bride, he is saying "I will love cherish and respect not only the 'you,' which is revealed to me, but also those elements of your personality that are hidden from me. As I am bonding with you in marriage, I am committed to creating a space within me for the totality of your being - for all of you, all the time."

***

KING AND QUEEN
"A groom is likened to a king; a bride to a queen. How long does this continue?"
a groom asked his rabbi.
"As long as you treat your wife as a queen, you are a king,"
the rabbi responded.

***

"If you are close when you should be far, you will be far when you should be close."
-- The Rebbe

"A successful marriage is dependent on inviting G-d into the relationship."
--The Rebbe

***

Nothing is greater than peace.
Even when you are %100 right,
and you know your spouse is %100 wrong,
you can still give in for the sake of peace.

***

Better a difficult peace than an easy quarrel.

***

PERFECT UNION
...Marriage is not only the beginning of a partnership
but the beginning of a union, where both parties
truly become one, united for life.
~From a letter of the Rebbe

***

TRUE UNION
The essential quality and substance of a proper marriage is "cleaving to one's wife and becoming one flesh," which is to say, that one is in a constant state of acquisition and cleaving -- rebuffing anything and everything that leads to and causes the cessation of this cleaving and unity.

***

THE GREATEST JOY
Marriage is the greatest degree of joy that human beings can find in their lives.

Vader Being A Smartass

Music Video: Feist "1234"

Serious Baby

Gays in the Military

The topic of gays in the military came up the other night. My friend... we'll call him Herman... worked on a nuclear submarine in the Navy. He was asked "Doesn't it weird you out when you're showering guys knowing one could be gay." I thought his reply was pretty amusing.

When you're in boot camp and you're taking showers together with all the other guys, it doesn't matter if anyone is gay or not ... it's still a really gay scenario.
-Herman

Joshua Klar Knows Movies!

Joshua Klar is a friend of mine. For a while I've been wanting to record him doing this. It's not exactly what I wanted, but it's close. He LOVES movies and he knows so much about them. It's not just a hobby, it's a passion and here's a little test for him. Can he name the directors of all AOL's Top 25 Best Picture Winners? I thought he could - this is part one of 3. I'll post the others soon. Smile Josh - you're on the internet!

Daily Show - Israel

Yael Naim

Thanks to the internet, I was able to remember a few lyrics from a song I heard playing in a bakery, and found the song when I got home and searched for the few words on Google. Here is the song. It's called New Soul - I've never heard of her, Yael Naim - what a find! I'm almost The second song is a cover of Toxic first recorded by Brittany spears. It's as much a testament to her ability to interpret and deliver a gorgeous performance as it is to the song's worth; so many of us would discount "Toxic" due to its original pop packaging. But good songs endure!

Yael was born in Tel Aviv to Tunisian parents - hence the French/Israeli accent and sometimes lyrics.

To learn more: www.YaelWeb.com

Onion News Network: The Ninja Parade

Ninja Parade Slips Through Town Unnoticed Once Again

Dennis Prager -- DOES POVERTY CAUSE CRIME

DOES POVERTY CAUSE CRIME

October 8, 1996 By Dennis Prager:

"During the 1960's, one neighborhood in San Francisco had the lowest income, the highest unemployment rate, the highest proportion of families with incomes under $4,000 per year, the least educational attainment, and the highest proportion of substandard housing of any area of the city. That neighborhood was called Chinatown. Yet in 1965, there were only five persons of Chinese ancestry committed to prison in the entire state of California." --

Professors James Q. Wilson and Richard Hernstein

The philosophical root of Nazism is race determines behavior. The philosophical root of Communism was that economics determines behavior. Aside from racist hate groups, no longer does anyone believe the former. Unfortunately, some liberal groups and individuals continue to believe the latter. The credo of contemporary liberalism is that "poverty causes crime". Followers of this "Lie of the Left" rely in their belief that "the lack of jobs" or "the failure to spend more on our cities" or "socioeconomic conditions" is the root cause of crime in America. Consider the following representative liberals who have publicly confirmed their belief in the Credo of Liberalism: Cleveland Mayor Michael White commented on NBC's Meet the Press that, "Many of the problems you're seeing in the cities of today evolve not from social conditions. They evolve from economic deprivation". Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell agreed in saying that "the long run answer [to solving the problems of our inner cities] is economics." The liberal credo that poverty causes crime is still widely believed despite numerous conflicting facts, including: The vast majority of poor people do not engage in criminal behavior. Crime was extremely low during the Great Depression, when a far larger percentage of Americans were unemployed and experiencing great poverty. Few robberies, let alone rapes or murders, are committed to obtain subsistence items such as food or clothing. Impoverished cities in India are safer than far more affluent American cities. If poverty causes crime, it logically follows that affluence causes honesty and morality. Finally, are we to suppose that a 70 percent-plus out-of-wedlock birth rate, the absence of fathers, and a lack of religion or other conscience-building institutions are not significant causes of crime and that "economic deprivation" is the problem, and economics "is the long-run answer"? Only when we blame criminals rather than poverty, and seek answers to society's problems through the inculcation of moral values more than through increased social spending, will we overcome this Lie of the Left. Do higher rates of imprisonment reduce crime? Is crime a result of poverty, unemployment, and the like? Are alternatives to incarceration more effective in preventing criminals from repeating their crimes?

Classic! Mana Mana

Abir - Jewish Martial Arts

Peace Action Left (I mean West)

From: Peace Action West
To: David Kopp
Sent: Tue, Nov 20 9:06 AM
Subject: Tell the Senate to Right Their Wrong on Iran

Peace Action West E-Alert!

Dear David,
President Bush and Congress have increased their bellicose rhetoric in recent weeks, passing harsh punitive measures against Iran. The Senate voted 76-22 in support of designating Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist group. While much of the most egregious language was removed from the amendment, designating a branch of a nation’s military as a terrorist organization sets up yet another roadblock to productive diplomacy.

______________________________________________________

From: David
To: Peace Action West

Dear Ms. Griffin,

Is it rhetoric, or just hard to hear?

In your letter to me you made no mention that the claims were false, only that they are not diplomatic.

Terrorists by definition do not engage in diplomacy, unless they are using it as a fast track to achieving their end - otherwise, they kill innocent people.

If the group engages or supports terrorism in any way, I can see nothing more important than recognizing it, reporting it and then acting on that fact.

Thanks for listening,
David Kopp
dav@aol.com

It's Too Late To Apologize

From: Zerbh@aol.com
To: Dav@aol.com
Sent: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 8:42 pm
Subject: (no subject)

I may have sent you a picture by error.

If so, I apologize.

Thanks



From: Dav@aol.com
To: Zerbh@aol.com
Sent: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:57 pm
Subject: (no subject)

Forgiven. Just say 3 Hail Marys and 2 Our Fathers and 1 "Don't Bring Me Down" by Electric Light Orchestra.



-----Original Message-----

Let the Chips Fall

I just dropped a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips onto the floor. Six fell on my external hard drive and by the time I realized what was going on they had already begun to melt from the heat. I had to race to get them off before it was too late. I ate them of course. I couldn't get them all but part of me is happy that I have chocolate chips in hidden places in my room.

I know someone who I see at least a couple times a week. I don't know her well, but we regularly exchange pleasantries and occasionally have substantial discussions about each other. She has Asperger's disorder, which is a mild form of autism. Basically it's a clinical term for "very socially akward". She's prone to high-decibel, akwardly timed laughter, strange questions; often she'll leave your presence at an unexpected moment during a conversation. But she's always cheerful.

Two days ago I was going about my business after morning services at Chabad, and she approached me and a few others. Standing there with her feet together, shoulders back and arms formally at her sides, she looked at each of us and said with a certain intensity "Goodbye. Have a nice day." She didn't say this to the group - she said it to each of us.

Moments later I realized I had passed up a rare opportunity to connect with another person. I was distracted in the moment and I'm sure I gave her the reciprocal of what I'm used to getting - an empty gesture meant to communicate, while spending as little energy as possible, "I acknowledge you." My response ricocheted off of her, as if it wasn't in her chemical or social make-up to accept emptiness. It hit me in the chest.

Today I saw her again and, again as she was leaving she looked at me and my friend and said "Have a nice day," staring at us with paralyzing ice blue eyes. I wouldn't again miss the opportunity.

"You know what's great about you? You say 'Have a nice day' and you mean it completely - it's not a pleasantry. You really mean it. That's refreshing - almost nobody else does."

She kept her eyes locked on us and nodded sharply in a moment of strict acknowledgment, "Thank You!"

My friend added, "It's true - you're real - you're genuine."

What happens when one confronts someone, who has a mild form of autism, with a social issue? You can never know for sure. In this case she laughed loudly and said again, "Thank you! It comes with Asperger's."

We should all be that autistic.

Body Language Video

Hilarious.

Dice Stacking