When your world seems like it’s crashing down
And deep inside your soul is weeping
When tears of despair reign from your crown
While thoughts of failure keep on creeping
Know that most of it’s your mind
Those frequent worries of decline
Choose to change what you perceive
To what you wish, what you believe
The power that lies behind the eyes
Contains the strangest secret of all
With faith aligned as it’s ally
The three of you will never fall
DPoetry
Mamma Mia! No not the show down the street but the epitome Italian cuisine found right inside the famous Roman themed resort on the Vegas strip – Rao’s in Ceasar’s Palace.
A random text from a professional in the Las Vegas service industry raving about the food at Rao’s peaked my curiosity. The thought marinated overnight and after looking it up and downloading their menu my heart was tender for a taste.
Enough said. My mind was made up so we made our way to Rao’s. When we approached the hostess at her podium inside the entrance to the restaurant I realized I should have made a reservation. We arrived at around 5:15 in the evening and she told us no tables would be available until around 7:30 PM but we were welcome to sit at the bar and dine.
Either way I still wanted a taste so we made out way to the bar; in the back of my mind I was hoping I would run into someone I knew who might work at there and whaaalaaa! An old high school football teammate called out my name, “Danny Phee, how have you been?” My buddy Sean O’neill was a captain at the joint and went to double check on table availability for me.
When Sean came back he looked at us and said, “Right this way.” I was already starting to like this place. We sat down at the table and right away ordered a bottle of Vueve.
Shante’, of course, knew what she wanted before we left the house after glancing at the menu over my shoulder when I’d pulled it up online earlier. The Fritto Misto di Mare which is deep fried calamari, shrimp, cod fish and julienne zucchini with remoulade and marinara sauce, was amazing.
The sommelier arrived with two champagne glasses and presented the so familiar yellow labeled bottle. We toasted to our recent and future success and both took a sip of the bubbly as the calamari arrived. Sean came and checked up on us to see how everything tasted and proceeded to sell our entrees. He was very descriptive and suggested we order half dishes from the al a carte menu allowing us to sample more selections.
Uncle Vincent’s famous lemon chicken with a side of meatballs and penneta ala vodka. Of all the Italian dinner’s I’ve had throughout my life this ranked right there at the top. Sean paired the entrees nicely with a chianti based blend that finished with a little fizz; a nice touch. Thanks Sean!
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Filed under Las Vegas Dining, Travel
D. Phee
Filed under friendship, Lyrics, poetry, Relationships
The one who showed me how to win
Beating me unless I beat him
Though I was young – let me fit in
That’s why he – is my best friend
He showed me how to set a trend
Saying be yourself and don’t pretend
Right or wrong he had my back
But behind the scenes kept me on track
Taught me the game and how to play
Warned of rats and what they’d say
Molded my mind like it was clay
Which made me who I am today
- D. Phee
My Big Brother
Filed under Family, friendship, poetry, Relationships
Follow the dollar that frisky old doG
Master it with a collar, don’t indulge don’t hog
Put on it a leash, or be deceived like the fog
Keep track of it’s growth like tree rings…log
Desire’s the key – self control is the lock
Action! Take 3…it’s so cold but it talks
It hears your mentation from far far away
Attracted by the wise, its thought of all day
It protects and feeds, shelters and deeds
Corrupts and kills, begs and pleads
Depending on WHO is listening in
Determines what it will make of them
It does not alter, rather amplifies Him
The mighty mighty dollar, so real yet so pretend
D. Phee
Now You Can Be In More Than Two Places @ Once
Ahhhhh…the refreshing start of a new age is beginning to settle and seep in to the minds of mainstream America: The information age that is. For the last few decades, most people have been mentally adapting to the internet and the world of possibilities it provides. In 1988, I remember being around 4 years old when I first used a computer, it was a Macintosh and I used it to play Oregon Trail. By the time ’94 came around I entered my first online chat experience using a different kind of computer software called America Online (AOL). The birth of a new kind of personal identity was created when I registered for a user name on AOL; my virtual identity. By the time 2004 rolled around I had multiple virtual identities on many different sites like Yahoo, Google, and AOL. That’s around the time modern social networking sites were introduced into my life.
“Who you are and what you represent as an individual is what makes you unique and provides the most value to those who are exposed to your profile for the fact that it is REAL.” – D. Phee
I registered for my first social networking (Myspace and Facebook) accounts attending college at UNLV around ’04 or ’05. These social networking sites allowed me to create and update a profile which could be used to represent who I was as an individual. Once my profile was created I was able to automatically search my email contacts from Yahoo and g mail to see who else I already knew using Facebook or Myspace; at that time it wasn’t many people – mainly college buddies. These sites left me awestruck because now, I could type in the name of anyone from my past and if they had a profile, I could connect with them! These connections allowed me to see what my old friends and acquaintances were looking like, their current situation, and their interests among other things.
Social networking platforms have allowed individuals to control how they portray themselves to each other.
What I didn’t realize when I started using social networking sites as a party-hard college student was that I was branding myself to whoever was exposed to my profile. When this realization finally dawned on me I was a bit frantic because by that time I was out of college and searching for employment (’07-’08).
Luckily, social networking wasn’t as popular back then as it is today. I’m pretty sure if my potential employers were savvy to the technology at that time they would have been turned off by the thought of hiring me; especially if they screened me using Myspace or Facebook. Not that I was doing anything out of the ordinary when it comes to college students, but first impressions mean a lot. What would you do as an employer looking to fill an open position if you saw an image of a potential hire doing a keg stand by a bonfire in the middle of the desert? Exactly…
Controlling what people see and what they don’t see on your profile is very important.
That doesn’t mean one’s virtual identity should be a facade of who they really are. Although its wise, in my opinion, to either filter the people who have complete access to your profile or hold back from posting information (status updates) that can be considered a taboo: I believe your virtual identity should represent “YOU” first and foremost. Who you are and what you represent as an individual is what makes you unique and provides the most value to those who are exposed to your profile for the fact that it is REAL. Keep this in mind while creating or updating your profile.
By creating and updating our profiles, we are simultaneously branding ourselves and how we are perceived by others.
Why does this matter? Most people care about what others think of them. Yes, even you renegades out there who are nonchalant and tell yourselves that you don’t care what others think of you – YOU DO! Creating and updating your social networking profiles will represent who you are to everyone who has access to it.
“Self branding happens through your online identities whether you like it or not.” – D. Phee
Hypothetically, lets say you just wrote a book on 5 powerful techniques to quit smoking cigarettes. You have all of your credentials and experience in this field posted on your profile giving you credibility. But in one of the pictures that you uploaded 3 years ago, it shows you smoking a cigarette with a Marlboro T-shirt on. Even though you quit smoking cigarettes shortly thereafter, and the spawning of your idea to write that book came from the techniques you used to personally quit – It’s not a good look to have that picture on your profile when you’re promoting a book that’s supposed to help others quit smoking. That one picture lowers your credibility by a landslide and brands you and your book in a negative light to those exposed to that picture and considered buying your book. Self branding happens through your online identities whether you like it or not.
Lastly, creating and maintaining your social networking identity allows you to leverage yourself to others.
You may not know it but if you currently have a publicly shared profile on one or more social networking sites you could, in theory, be meeting multiple people around the world at the same time. Have you ever heard the saying, “I wish I could be in two places at once?” Well now you can! And you never know who you’re going to meet next through your virtual identity. That’s why it’s so important for your online identity to be representing “YOU” in the best light possible while still staying true to who you are at all times.
Filed under Internet Marketing, Law of Attraction, Secret, strategy
It would be out of character for me to visit the Florida Keys without writing about my experience there. Partly because I usually write about anything that stands out in my life if I remember too and also because so many marvelous writers called the Florida Keys their home – Ernest Hemingway and Harry Truman to name a couple.
We left for Florida full of anticipation. Our intentions: Deep sea fishing, jet skiing, soaking up sunrises and sunsets, enjoying the sea food we’d heard so much about, para-sailing, and having a great time together! (We succeeded)
The Florida Keys is such a tranquil place with breathtaking sites that can leave one awestruck. There’s nothing like waking up early in the morning just before dawn and walking out your front door to a dock where your fishing boat is waiting to assist you with the morning’s catch while taking in the Florida sunrise. A cooler full of Corona’s, some sandwich meat and bread, a nice cigar, fishing poles with proper bait, along with a full tank of gas is similar to how most of our mornings started during our stay at the Gulf View Resort in Marathon (Mile 58). After crossing over from the gulf side to the Atlantic it was off to the races, of fish that is. Who could catch the biggest one, what bait will they go after, where will they most likely be, what’s the best fishing method for these waters? All questions running through our heads as we loaded up the boat before heading out to sea for a relaxing day of fishing.
Once we were a few miles out and at between 300 and 600 ft depth I just started looking for birds. As a city kid, being raised by an outdoors man has been quite helpful for me at times and this was one of them. Being born and raised in a desert (Las Vegas) I had few opportunities to be out on a boat in the middle of the ocean but for some reason I didn’t feel out of my element. I was the first to spot a flock of seagulls diving into the water and circling above a few hundred yards from where we were trolling. I yelled out while pointing, “That’s where the fish are everyone.” The boat’s bow turned hard to port shortly thereafter and we were off to see what all of the commotion was about. Sure enough, as we approached the area where the birds were circling above we looked down and saw a school of Mahi-Mahi swimming below feeding on a smaller school of fish; the circle of life was turning right before my eyes.
We had the lines out already and before long 2 of our polls had tension….(2:36 in the video below)
Filed under Deep Sea Fishing, Family, Florida, Travel
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