I don’t know about you, but I just don’t see the resemblance.

I have a pair of Old Navy socks. They are brown with yellow writing.
That writing does not say Old Navy, in fact, the writing is of a directional nature.
A picture will help.

What makes me a rebel? The “left” sock is on my right foot, and the “right” sock is on my left foot.

Take that.

What a difference an L makes.

It can turn a bet into a belt, or a mat into a malt. It can bog down your blog or put a clog in your cog. Rea Pearlman isn’t her Real name, and while you might like Ike, no one would watch a show called Famiy Guy.

But the real L that I want to discuss is the L in my name. It’s the L that turns Heath into Health and Health into Heath. Most spell checks will correct someone typing in Heath, and try to make it Health. They just insist on shoving that L in there where it doesn’t belong. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t know that many people who like getting an L shoved in them. Well, I do know some people like that - Ike likes it.

I have several alerts that…alert me when someone searches on “heath” or “heath buckmaster”. I also have alerts on “digital heath” since that’s the domain that hosts this blog. It’s amazing some of the hits I get for people who are really trying to refer to digital HEALTH, but have mistakenly left out the L.

MSNBC did this not that long ago, and here’s what it looked like on the front page of the website:

If you look closely (and follow the big red/yellow arrow I drew), you will see that MSNBC had a very important article right there on the front page. And I have to say, I totally agree with their message. “Few Americans follow heath advice.” I couldn’t agree more. More people need to listen to me. I say important things people!

What a difference an L makes, huh? And I was lucky enough to get a screen shot of it before someone ran a spell check and realized that in this one particular case, an L needed a good shoving.

To finally hammer home my point of the importance of knowing when to, and when not to shove an L up in there, I present to you this very famous passage:

Mr. land Mrs. Dursey, of number flour, Privet Drivel, were proud to slay that they were perfecty norma, thank you very mulch. They were the ast peope you’d expect to be invoved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hod with such nonsense.

I’ll spare you the rest…it gets a lot worse. Don’t forget your L’s!!!

More than a year ago I put together a silly little FAQ about myself. I called it the Heath Buckmaster not-so-FAQ. It was based on some meme that was going around at the time. I’ve also shared information about my personality type before, but I’ve never really put together something a bit more definitive so that people who don’t know me already can get a little insight into my personality.

So here I present something more comprehensive. A Heath Buckmaster FAQ based on an interesting assessment we recently did at work. Enjoy the peek into my mind…

General Characteristics of Heath:

• Heath becomes frustrated in situations that are nothing more than rambling discussion
• Precision and accuracy are important to Heath
• Heath doesn’t like dirty or messy environments / prefers orderly environments (read: OCD)
• Heath likes facts and data and is an intuitive thinker (read: INTJ)
• Likes challenges / likes to study and analyze problems
• Skilled at observing
• Heath has a low level of trust with strangers
• Heath tends to ask specific and very blunt questions
• Heath prefers events that start and finish on time and gets upset with people who do not adhere to rules

When interacting with Heath it is important to:

• Have your facts together and provide solid, tangible evidence for your position
• Listen to him
• Be accurate, realistic, and respect his quiet demeanor
• Avoid buzz words or jargon
• Don’t waste his time or dillydally around the subject
• Don’t touch his body while talking to him
• Be specific, not vague

Ideally Heath prefers:

• Privacy, Peace, Harmony
• Non-political environments
• Close relationships with a small number of people
• Using logic vs. emotion to solve a problem

You might perceive Heath to be: Pessimistic, Picky, Fussy, Hard-to-Please, Defensive, Perfectionist.

Heath would say he is: precise, thorough, analytical, diplomatic, knowledgeable.

Adjectives describing Heath might include: determined, aggressive, competitive, decisive, inquisitive, responsible, factual, skeptical, logical, undemonstrative, suspicious, matter-of-fact, pessimistic, moody, predictable, consistent, stable, cautious, neat, accurate, open-minded, balanced.

If there are any faults in Heath, they may include:

• Being critical of actions that can not be backed up with logic or fact
• Choosing to be around people who are like himself
• Being overly suspicious of people’s motives
• Prefers things to people - in order to avoid emotional reactions
• Often appears aloof or pretentious

Many years ago I got my first tattoo. It took me almost six months before deciding that I was going to do it - I wavered, I vacillated, I see-saw’d. I went back and forth on whether I wanted some type of permanent decoration on my body.

It’s not like a piercing which can easily be removed. My left ear is pierced in two places: the normal spot, and in the cartilage at the top of the ear. The normal spot no longer has anything in it, and unless you’re close up, you can’t tell it’s even pierced.

The one at the top still has a hoop in it, and probably will for a long time. If I remove that one it will be much more noticeable since that one punched a hole through the ear. But still, relatively easy to remove with a simple twist.

Tats, not so much. Unless you want to go through laser surgery, you’re pretty much with them for life. If you are of the Christian persuasion, you’ve probably heard “the body is a temple” - and while that’s interesting, take a look at the multitude of cultures in the world who decorate their bodies. They are defiling them, they are celebrating them. So now that I had decided it was perfectly acceptable to my personal morals to get tat’d, I was still deciding what to get.

I’ve long been interested in Egyptian culture. I find affinity with such an ancient civilization, especially given that many of their beliefs and societal values were the framework for cultures of today (and yet somehow we think we are unique). So when it came to choice, the natural one was that I wanted to have tats that were Egyptian in nature, yet had meaning for me.

I finally decided on the design/characters, and Rachelle and I went to the tat shop (she was getting some work done at the same time).

It was pretty intense…I actually went into mild shock and went into a cold sweat, blood sugar dropped, all that good stuff until they gave me some M&M’s and all was well. Within an hour or so I had my first two tats just under my neckline.

The symbol represents the god Ra (done in Hieratic) - which is the god of creation / sun. You could think of this as the positive force. Well I couldn’t stop at that. If you’re going to decorate your temple, you can’t just put up one curtain, you’ve got to put them up on all the windows.

But I didn’t want to go nuts. So about 6 months later I got my next set of tats, this time on my right calf, and instead of representing the creation force they represent the destructive force. This one represents Set - chaos and destruction. You could think of this as the yang to the yin creating a balance on my body.

I haven’t decided what my next tat will be, but it’s going to happen soon - I can feel it. I’m waiting for the inspiration to hit.

Do you have any tats?

Saturday was the first day of fitness bootcamp, which I mentioned before. I was already concerned that I would be the only guy there, surrounded by soccer moms, and I wasn’t disappointed.

When I arrived at the local gym where they start from, I noticed that one by one lots of women were showing up, but no guys. Oh well, this was about me getting in better shape, and I can interact with females just as well as with males.

After everyone arrived (and I changed in the required group tshirt), we set off on a run to a local park. That was where it started going downhill - right at the beginning. I am not a runner. I don’t run. If I have to go somewhere I walk or drive. I was exhausted after the first two blocks, and so I moved back to the “slow group” and entered a jog instead of a run. We paused to do a quick set of deep leg bends, and when I stood up to set off on the jog, both of my legs gave out of me. I nearly hit the ground. Talk about not being in shape.

I certainly don’t think of myself as completely sedentary, but this really pointed out how little I use my body on a daily basis - especially sitting at a desk most of the day. So once again I went with the slow group as we continued the jog to the park, whereupon we began push ups, lunges, jumping jacks, relay races, and any number of things that worked my body to the point of exhaustion.

I was breathing harder than I’ve ever breathed in my life (and I’m still coughing from it); my arms were aching; my legs were screaming at me; I was by far the slowest person in the entire group. I don’t feel bad about this, however, because everyone else that was there had done this before. I was the new guy, so to speak. So I watched as 14 girls ran circles around me, literally.

The instructors were motivational, but firm. There was a lot of “Come on Buckmaster!” but there was also a lot of “Good job Heath! Keep going!”.

By the end of the hour I was kaputt. I walked the mile back to the fitness center, and by then, everyone else in the class was long gone. I splashed some water on my face, got in my car and went home. Whereupon I slept for about 3 hours after taking a shower that gave my body chills. I was barely able to eat two strawberries, and downed about half a glass of water before I thought that would be enough. It pretty much demolished the entire rest of my day.

I couldn’t walk around the house without being in a lot of physical pain; my headache throbbed despite taking a lot of ibuprofin; it was overall a complete body attack. I pushed myself way too hard on the first day, having not worked out in years.

But, I’m paid up for 5 sessions of this, so I’m assuming I have to keep going, atleast four more times. I’m sure it will get easier, and the “burn is good”, according to other people who I have talked to…but I tell ya…I totally got my butt kicked in that first workout. Even today I am barely able to walk around the house, and forget about picking up laundry…that takes 10 minutes just to get myself near the floor so I can scoop it up.

Anyway - that’s how day one of fitness bootcamp went….hopefully I’ll survive another 4 weeks.

On Monday of this week I got stuck in an elevator…the same elevator I was stuck in about 5-6 years ago. That’s right, the exact same elevator, twice. One might even think there was a conspiracy going on.

When I come into work in the morning I always go to the cafe first. I fix myself a fruit/yogurt/granola parfait, get a decaf coffee, then make my way toward my building.

Since I work on the second floor and the cafe is on the first floor I’ve either got to take the elevator or the stairs. Being the safety role model that I am I always take the elevator if I am carrying things, because you can’t hold onto a safety rail if your hands are full.

Monday was no different. I pushed the call button, stepped into the elevator and hit “2″. The elevator rose, got to the second floor and stopped. The doors didn’t open. Having been in this situation before I reacted calmly. I set down my breakfast, looked around the ceiling to see if anyone was watching me on the security camera that is likely hidden behind one of the burned out light bulbs, laughed at myself for looking for a camera that isn’t there, then sat down on the floor and hit the button to call security.

They answered promptly after the voice lady reminded me that my call might be monitored for quality assurance (and who doesn’t want to hear a panicked person screaming at them on tape), and I informed them I was once again stuck in the elevator. I’m not sure they understood the “once again” part since it was only my first call to them, but somehow it made me feel better to make the point.

They said someone would be with me soon and hung up. So much for providing supportive reassurance that all would be well in the world.

I pulled out my phone and updated my Facebook status to “Heath is stuck in an elevator…” (because updating my status on a regular basis is an important part of social networking, and a crisis situation is no excuse for silence), at which point the elevator decided to return to the ground floor, but again, not to open the doors. I stood up, and with my brute strength pulled the doors apart to find a group of employees standing there staring at me wondering what was going on. I kindly advised them to take the stairs.

This wouldn’t be so strange except that it’s not the first time it has happened in that same elevator. Several years ago I was stuck in there for about 30-45 minutes while they attempted to get the doors open. That time I didn’t have any breakfast with me, so I sat on the floor and cleaned out my wallet.

Important Learnings: always use the restroom BEFORE taking an elevator; have at least one game on your mobile phone that can occupy your time; make sure your contact list is updated so you can call some friends you haven’t talked to in a while; deep cleansing breaths.