<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I Am a Lucky Guy<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Life is full of surprises and twists and turns \u2013 and I have concluded that life is not fair. So what? I just roll with the punches. Life is not easy and anyone young enough to believe that life is fair will find out quickly that it is certainly not.<\/span><\/p>\n Most of us who\u2019ve lived more than a few decades come to grips with the truth \u2013 the real \u201cfacts of life\u201d \u2013 you just have to learn to take each day as it comes and always try to do your best. Some days will float away into the neverlands, others will gnaw and nag at you for weeks, months or years, and others will be beautiful if fleeting, memories, just tiny pieces of joy and happiness, love and understanding that filled moments of days now in the past, but still and always living inside the heart.<\/span><\/p>\n And sometimes, I guess, we\u2019re all a little bit underappreciative of the good things we have in our lives. Although I\u2019m pretty sure that most of us who are still working would not count our jobs among the best things in our lives. But I\u2019m here to tell you how thankful I am that I am able to do what I do and have such a wonderful and meaningful time doing it.<\/span><\/p>\n OK. So what is it I do that I think is so great? It\u2019s nothing extraordinary. I\u2019m not a surgeon saving lives, or an officer of the law preventing a robbery, or a minister or priest saving souls. No, I\u2019m afraid I don\u2019t do anything so grand as those people do.<\/span><\/p>\n But what I do is what I like and what I enjoy. I get to work with someone (Darcy) who is kind and understanding and honest \u2013 and who is not afraid to coil my gears should I get out of line. And I say\u2026 good for her!<\/span><\/p>\n Twenty-one years ago, Darcy and I started out sharing graphics on an obscure web site called Thundercloud & Eightball’s Holiday Graphics<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n I can remember coming home from the job I had at that time and Darcy would message me and say \u2026\u201dWe had 5 visitors today!\u201d .It was exciting. Then toward Christmas, one day we had 50 visitors. I thought for sure we are on the way to becoming Internet moguls. It\u2019s funny now, but I can remember being so excited, I\u2019d be up at 4:00 AM and on the computer and I\u2019d still be on the computer at midnight. I was on the computer until my eyes wouldn’t stay open another minute. Talk about a labor of love.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m not going to get into a long history here, suffice it to say we went on to create Cloudeight Stationery and become the most successful email stationery site on the web. We had over a quarter-million mail list subscribers and we were doing well. Then along came Windows 7 and that was the death knell for our stationery. We had to completely reinvent ourselves \u2014 or quit.<\/span><\/p>\n So we loped along for a while and then in 2011, we started Cloudeight Direct Computer Care. We started helping people with their computers, and instead of charging what other people were charging, we charged as little as possible. And as we got better and faster at what we were doing, we decreased the price. This is probably the opposite of what a good money-wise company would do, but we thought it was the right thing to do.<\/span><\/p>\n And we\u2019ve kept our prices low because we are trying to help people and not trying to become wealthy or earn millions of dollars \u2013 we\u2019re long past having those kinds of dreams.<\/span><\/p>\n But you\u2019re probably reading this and wondering what all this has to do with me being a lucky guy. I\u2019m going to tell you.<\/span><\/p>\n Just about every weekday I get a chance to help people with their computers. And that\u2019s a great part of my job, but just as great is the chance to be able to \u201ctalk\u201d to people \u2013 albeit most of the time though a chatbox \u2013 and, if not get to know them, at least learn a little bit about them.<\/span><\/p>\n And you know what I\u2019ve discovered? Everyone is different in this crazy old world, but most people are very nice \u2013 and we all share the same planet, and we can all understand each other\u2019s trials. And being patient and kind with people makes a difference.<\/span><\/p>\n I was not the most patient person, but Darcy kind of prodded me into remembering that we didn\u2019t always understand computers. Heck! I can remember when zip files scared me to death. And when I\u2019d breathe a sigh of relief when a program came with an installer rather than one of those confounded zip files that you had to click around inside looking for whatever it was that ran the program.<\/span><\/p>\n Now, you\u2019re going to laugh \u2013 but I remember when I couldn\u2019t even copy and paste. I pretended I knew how, but I didn\u2019t. I finally had to break down and admit I was a computer dummy who didn\u2019t even know how to copy and paste \u2013 probably one of the most basic and useful computer skills. Darcy taught me.<\/span><\/p>\n So, I found my patience with people by remembering my early days with computers. And now I enjoy working with and helping people \u2013 and enjoy getting to know them.<\/span><\/p>\n I know that we consider our newsletter subscribers, members, and our boosters friends. And I know it\u2019s important that we continue to be the best we can be and help as many people as we can.<\/span><\/p>\n And it\u2019s not because we\u2019re ever going to get rich. It\u2019s not because we make money doing it. It\u2019s because we enjoy doing what we do \u2013 very much. While we still need to make a living, we don\u2019t need to be wealthy. So, we help as many people as we can every day. And we try to keep the prices on the products and services we do sell as low as we can\u2026 while keeping the quality as high as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, it\u2019s the knowing we\u2019re helping people and making friends that makes me feel I\u2019m so lucky. I know that I speak for Darcy as well in saying we\u2019re going to keep on helping as many people as we can for as long as we can \u2013 and we hope to keep on making friends along the way.<\/span><\/p>\n Now you see \u2013 or at least I hope you can see \u2013 why I\u2019m such a lucky guy.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I Am a Lucky Guy Life is full of surprises and twists and turns \u2013 and I have concluded that life is not fair. So what? I just roll with the punches. Life is not easy and anyone young enough to believe that life is fair will find out quickly that it is certainly not. Most\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228],"tags":[1720,3409],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17426"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17426"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17428,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17426\/revisions\/17428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}