Chad Ochocinco Surprises Grieving Widow With Twitter Invitation To His Wedding

English: Photograph of Chad Ocho Cinco during warm-ups before the opening game versus the Ravens on 9/10/07. Taken by myself from the stands. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Chad Ochocinco Surprises Grieving Widow With Twitter Invitation To His Wedding:

NFL star and Twitter celebrity Chad Ochocinco has been up to his old tricks on the micro-blogging site. And by ‘his old tricks’, I mean reaching out to complete strangers and trying to help them in some way.

The Miami Dolphins wide receiver (previously of the New England Patriots) has over 3.5 million followers, and has a history of being very good with his fans and helping where he can. For example in January this year he flew a fan out to watch one of his games after he discovered that this follower had been tweeting him for two years without received any form of response.

But this most recent story has a much sadder point of origin. Cheryl Minton from Franklin, Ohio, tweeted @Ochocinco about losing her husband of 30 years. This is what followed on Twitter:

So there you have it. A grieving woman reached out to a sports star with probably no expectations of even a response, let alone an all expenses covered invitation to his wedding. This is not to say by any stretch that his actions will magically cure Cheryl Minton’s grief, but it will surely have helped lift her spirits at a time when she must be feeling unimaginably low.

As I said in my January blog about Ochocinco flying Victor Gonzalez out to watch his game, it is so refreshing to see those in privileged positions using their wares to help others – even if it is a temporary or token gesture. Prior to inviting Cheryl Minton to his wedding on July 4th, Chad Ochocinco treated 200 of his Twitter followers to dinner at a New York City restaurant.

With acts of kindness such as these, it’s easy to see why he has millions of people following him.

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Well, for me reading this article was like a breath of fresh air.  Wow, there really are caring people out there providing an unexpected gift at an unexpected time, just out of the goodness of their hearts.

Chad, had just #ReafirmedMyFaithInManKind !!  Maybe I'll even watch a game or two ...just for kicks.. probably not though, just not a sports watching fan. put a ball and bat in my hands though and I'm really to go!! Happy Sunday All!!
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the true cost of handmade

the true cost of handmade:


I recently did my first craft fair. And at that craft fair, one woman picked up every one of my hats, tried them on, and made a sort of a noise in the back of her throat indicating disgust. Then she muttered, “I don’t really like these hats” before looking at the price tag for one of them and looking at me over her glasses: “Do you really charge this much?”

Ok, I managed a retail store for many years, so I’m used to this type of customer. I’ve met hundreds of them, and I know it’s less about whatever she is looking at and more about what is going on in her own crazy brain. Some people just have this need to be nasty. But this was a little different. What she was cruelly and callously saying to me was that what I created had no value. My art has no value. It is worthless and ugly. And I won’t lie — it stung a little.

But back to her question about the cost. The particular hat she picked up was $150 and it was this one:

The offending freeform crochet hat: Lettuce Go to the Mothership. $150.

You can’t see from the photos, but it is made of thousands of tiny little stitches, all folding in on themselves and creating a pretty elaborate underwater sea creature type effect. It’s made of hundreds of yards of very nice wool in colors that I carefully selected and put together in a way I thought would be pleasing. I spent probably 18 to 20 hours making this hat.

So let’s do the math.

Without accounting for the cost of materials, at $150, I would be paying myself about $7.50 per hour for this hat. This hat that I created. This hat that is my art. This hat that is one-of-a-kind, that evolved from a tiny little round of crocheted stitches into its own Thing. This hat that I made with my own hands, that I kept working on until my hands began to hurt. $7.50 per hour. That is less than minimum wage.

Let’s add in the cost of materials, which were probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 for this hat. I used a combination of a handspun wool and some other more commercially available wool. That drops my wage per hour to about $5.50.

Now let’s consider all the other costs: sales tax, for one, which I don’t charge to customers (too messy), but I must pay on every item I sell. Sales tax in most places near where I live & work hovers right around 8.75%. So on that $150 hat, I will pay $13.13 worth of sales tax. My hourly wage is now $4.84. Is the customer paying with a credit card? That’s another 3%, or $4.50 I don’t get to keep from the sale of that hat.


How about the cost of the tags I make and print out at home? The tissue paper I wrap the hat in? The bag I put it in? My business cards?

I could make two of these hats per week, assuming they are all this intricate. Even that is pushing it; 40 hours per week of crocheting would be pretty hard on my hands and wrists. But let’s assume I make two such hats per week, priced at $150. My income? $193.6 per week, or just over $10,000 per year. And that’s before all those pesky other business expenses, like licensing fees, the cost of office equipment, gas, my craft fair booth display, and self-employment tax.

Can YOU live on $10,000 per year? If anything, I set my prices too low. And I acknowledge that. I do it because this is my art. I love it, and I will continue to do it, even if no one ever buys one of my hats ever again. I’ll just be that crazy lady who compulsively crochets a bunch of weird stuff. My future grandchildren can inherit all those bizarre things that crazy Nana Somer made back in the olden days.


If you are still reading this, I ask you: please. Next time you are at a craft fair, or on Etsy or another handmade site, think about how much work, love and time went into handcrafting that item you are thinking of buying. If the price seems high, I assure you, it is not.

Related articles

• OOAK Beadwoven Necklace w/ 200 carats of faceted Amethyst, beaded in with Peacock Pearls (etsy.com)
• The art of craft: the rise of the designer-maker (guardian.co.uk)
• Exalted - Will Into Wonder, Wyld Shaping Technique, and The Primal Forge. (ruscumag.wordpress.com)
• What's it like to own a vintage boutique? (abeautifulmess.typepad.com)
• How to Make a Living on a Crafting Hobby: 3 Etsy Entrepreneurs Tell All (mint.com)

The Kids Camping on Wall Street Are The Capitalists, Not the People in the Buildings » New Deal 2.0

                                Image via WikipediaThe Kids Camping on Wall Street Are The Capitalists, Not the People in the Buildings » New Deal 

Which group is still abiding by the important capitalist principles of accountability, competitiveness, and equal justice?

Today, some of the leading capitalists in the nation are located on Wall Street. Sadly, it is the protesters outside who are literally on the street who embody the ideal rewards and responsibilities of capitalism, not the financiers who occupy the buildings.

This is the first in a short series of articles that explores the nature of a well-functioning capitalist system and how this system is now applied to the occupants of ....Read More...