The funny box graphic below is like a secret code. Once something is embedded in the maze of white and black squares, the final image is used for billboards, advertisements, business cards and in dozens of other ways. The App market calls it a QR (Quick Response) code. It’s cool looking – but how do you decode what’s inside?

Today, my old decoder ring has been replaced with a camera smart phone (iPhone, Android) with a QR Decoder app installed. All you do is click on the app button to take a picture of the QR and it’s automatically decoded. Voila! Message revealed!

Go ahead. Download and install a QR Decoder app and decode this QR to reveal my message to you. Have fun!

The Lorenti List

A 10-year old and his mom pre-pick this year’s top 10 Super Bowl Ads.

RYAN’S 5

• Hyundai: All for One - “Catchy tune.”
• Kia: A Dream Car. For Real Life “Motley Crue! Awesome!”
• Chevrolet: 2012 - “We shoulda got a Chevy, Mom.”
• Coca Cola: Penguin Thief - “I LOVE Coke!”
• Chevrolet: Aliens - “Weird, but funny.”

AMY’S 5

Ads that didn’t make The List for strictly subjective reasons:

See the full list of 2012′s Super Bowl Ads (as of today, anyway) on NowPublic.com. 

Times were very different then. No one sat a kid down after supper to work on a “My Chores” poster. I seriously doubt there was a single home in all of Westchester County with a multi-colored chart taped on the fridge sporting tiny foil stars next to each day’s completed tasks. Neither I, my sisters, cousins or friends heard a “thank you, sweetheart” or “good job, honey.” I remember asking “Can’t this be a way for me to earn some money?” and my dad responding, “In your dreams, little girl.” One thing I can say, however – unlike today – when you got “hired” by Home Incorporated, the pay might be non-existent and the benefits few, but you were guaranteed job security. When I was about 9, my mother said, “Let me teach you how to iron a shirt.” It turns out I was so good at it I kept that job for 11 years. Now, a mountain of wrinkled clothes resides in my closet and I iron what I need on the day I want to wear it. Wonder why that is?

Anyway, after washing dishes by hand and scrubbing pots with Brillo under scalding hot water, there was no rest until I made the family’s nightly contribution to the sacred compost pile in the back yard. “Scrape the dinner dishes into a pan, get the shovel and go bury the scraps…and bury them deep! We don’t want animals digging them up.”

“Do I have to?” I whined.

“Just do it!”

We kept the compost pile because each year my parents put in a vegetable garden. It was a really good garden. Somehow, my city-raised parents coaxed corn, cucumbers, beef-steak tomatoes, hot peppers, parsley and pumpkins out of 200 square feet of rocky soil. The secret, my Italian grandmother told me, was to keep a robust compost pile regularly fed. My father added that it didn’t hurt to toss in manure from a neighbor’s barn, either. Each spring I was drafted to be Dad’s more-than-reluctant assistant. He would place a heavy canvas tarp in the trunk of the old Dodge my grandparents had given him and we’d head off to a stable a few miles away. The owner was happy to get rid of a certain bi-product his horses produced so we’d pop the trunk, shovel in the sh–ush, and head back home. Not surprisingly, Dad drove with the Dodge’s windows down most of the year.

One face-freezing night in early February – I must have been 12 or 13 – I pulled on my boots, bundled up and carried the pan of scraps outside, but forgot the flashlight. The light from the kitchen window allowed me to see somewhat, so I figured I didn’t need to go back and get it. Just as I reached the mound under which weeks of table scraps rested in various stages of decomposition, someone turned out the light in the kitchen. My first thought was “this is what they mean by pitch black” – my second was “WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?”

Two pinpoint lights glowed from back in the woods and had been joined by a second set. “Oh my god, don’t let them be the Ellsworth’s dogs.” The lights were moving closer. Slowly the layers of spaghetti, salad, coffee grinds and the long-past-their-sell-by-date raw eggs slid out of the pan and onto the ground. With my eyes locked on the eyes in the woods, I attempted to kick loose dirt and leaves over what was sure to be an all-you-can-eat buffet for whatever creatures belonged to those yellow orbs.

Never taking my eyes off them and still clutching the shovel and scrap pan, I backed away towards the porch. As I turned to my right, something moved and it entered my  mind that perhaps there were more than two of the things. Then came an angry high-pitched squeal right by my left foot. My body must have levitated, then entered warp speed before my boots gained traction at the top of the stairs. I sprinted into the house and slammed the kitchen door behind me. Peering out the window, I could just make out three or four small shapes. Not the dogs after all.

With a click, everything went bright white. “What are you doing, Amelia?” my mother asked as she came into the room and picked up The National Enquirer off the side counter.

“Nothing! I just took the scraps out to the compost pile!” I blinked a few times to get rid of the spots before my eyes.

“Did you make sure we won’t have garbage all over the yard in the morning?”

A quick glance outside revealed a family of raccoons nosing around the spot I had been standing but a minute before. They seemed very interested in something on the ground. Shrugging off my coat, I turned back to her and replied,

“I did.”

Marketing campaigns require planning, creativity and money. However – without spending a great deal of time, effort or profit margin – there are still things you can do to market your business between networking events, trade shows and sales campaigns by reaching out to contacts, customers and possible prospects as little as once or twice a week. Here’s five that will help keep you in front of your customers and clients.

1. LinkedIn: Write a quick tip, successful project update or special offer and post it with an invitation to learn more by visiting your website or contacting you.
2. Facebook Business Page: Share a special offer or tip in a casual and conversational way and a request to LIKE your page.
3. Twitter: Same as Facebook (casual) but in a 140 characters or less tweet – with a link back to your website or .
4. The Phone: Call 3 clients or customers that you’ve been meaning to follow up with. Now’s the time.
5. Your Expertise: Comment on at least one blog or website that relates to your business* with information that helps readers who could be your customers.

*Sell luscious chocolates and home-made fudge? Comment on sites that sell high-end gifts or fresh flowers.

Secret Endings 

The determined beetle paddled around small twigs and bits of grass. Big, brown and apparently hungry it stopped mid-stroke to munch on a broken dandelion rising from the water. Until the beavers arrived, a small brook had flowed a few hundred yards away. Their new dam now redirected water downhill and across the forest floor over pine needles, dead leaves and saplings where it emptied into a hollow beneath a tired hemlock that lost its battle with the insect world a long time ago.

A healthy stone’s throw away, behind a solid wood fence, a dog barked then began to whine. A mockingbird’s ode to the end of another night stopped abruptly as a cardinal flushed from the old tree. “It’s just a bird, Scratch. It’s okay.”

Scratch sniffed the air and barked again, running to the fence. “Scratch! Stop!” the man whispered fiercely, “You want another visit from Animal Control? Come on. We’re going back to the house. I need some coffee.”

Scratch looked at his owner but turned back to the fence and didn’t move. “Okay, okay – let’s look.” The unlocked gate installed by the developers was meant only to keep the area’s numerous deer from dining on the pricey landscaping. It was also there to remind hunters to point their bows in the other direction.

Scratch squeezed through the opening and tore into the woods. “What’s got him so worked up?” The man followed for a few minutes then realized his slippers were getting wet. Squinting in the pre-dawn light, he could just make out Scratch where the soggy ground became a small pond. At the last homeowner’s meeting, beavers made the agenda. The man figured the pond was the result of their handiwork. Moving closer he tried to see what might have spooked the dog. He was too far away to see much. The hazy light camouflaged the body lying half-submerged in shallow water. “Like I said, there’s nothing here. Time to go, boy.”

Gripping Scratch’s collar, the man and dog made their way back to the fence. The sound of crackling leaves and whining canine faded from where the mockingbird waited. After a while, the only sounds were from the creatures that made these woods their home.

The beetle swam on all through the early morning’s commotion. It climbed carefully up from the water and pushed its way through the tangled hair where it found the soft wet flesh and began to eat.

Please leave an encouraging comment for Ryan here. Thanks.

“NO!”

“You don’t get to tell me ‘no”, Ryan. I’m your mother, I make the rules. Now get going.”

“NO YOU’RE NOT!”

“Not what?”

“You’re not my real mother. My bacterial mother lives in Ukraine and she wouldn’t make me go to bed when I don’t want to. She loves me.”

Oh, really?

CLICK. PLUCK.

“Hey! Turn the TV on and GIVE ME BACK MY IPOD!”

“I may not be your biological or “bacterial” mother, kiddo, but I am definitely, positively, 100% your ready-to-flip-out-if-you-don’t-get-moving MOM!”

“I DON’T CARE. I WANT MY IPOD TOUCH!”

Deep breath, non-bacterial mom. I walk over to him, look deep into those green eyes and whisper…

“Let’s start over, honey. It’s bedtime. You can watch TV and play with the iPod in the morning. Now. Go. Brush. Your. Teeth.”

He blinks, then mumbles, “This is stupid! You’re not my bilingual mom! You can’t make me do anything!”

Bilingual? I can’t help but take one last shot, even though he is slowly moving towards the stairs.

“Насправді хлопчик курча?”*

He runs.

—

*Really, boy chick?

”

January 1 - Make resolutions.

January 2 – What do you think? Am I a bad mother because I FREAKIN’ CAN’T WAIT until school starts back up tomorrow?

January 3 – Primary? What primary?

January 4 – Time to scoop up those amazing red shoes Santa forgot to bring me – and at 70% off.

January 5 – Just left the CVS. Apparently it’s that character-building time of year when we begin “meeting our deductibles.”

January 6 – Today is the feast of the Epiphany when the Three Wise Men arrived in Bethlehem with gifts for the Baby Jesus. Always liked those guys.

January 7 – The absolutely greatest thing about having an artificial tree is that you can drag the thing – still assembled – into a corner of the garage and forget about it for another 12 months.

January 8 – My son has faith development Sunday mornings and flag football Sunday afternoons. Faith and football? Maybe I’m raising the next Tim Tebow.

January 9- Kate Middleton turns 30. That’s it. That’s all I got.

January 10 – Resolved: No more resolutions.

• Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
  Buddha

• Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.
  Mark Twain 

• America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
  Abraham Lincoln

• Friendship… is not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.
  Muhammad Ali

• Love begins by taking care of the closest ones – the ones at home.
  Mother Teresa 

• Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.
  Albert Einstein

• My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.
  Steve Jobs 

• Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.
  Benjamin Franklin

• It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.
  William Shakespeare

– and my personal favorite –

• Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them.
  P. J. O’Rourke

Amy