Either way, I’ve been helping Carolynn Duncan, creator of the Hundred Dollar Business experiment, with her latest venture: a book titled “The Entrepreneur Story.”  The book chronicles her own experiences starting her first Hundred Dollar Business (a mall kiosk) and the more conventional experiences of over 100 other entrepreneurs.

The book is being written and published using the principles of the HDB, namely $100 and 30 days to complete.  I think she’s halfway through her timeline and almost has enough entrepreneurs who have volunteered to share their story.

But I haven’t sent her my story yet!  Argh!!! I’ve got to get motivated.

Either way, I’ll have a copy of the book sometime before the end of March, as she’s planning to use Lulu.com, the print-on-demand publisher, to create the final product.

Specifically, it was the voice of God.

I stood still, taking in the message.  He spoke for a surprisingly long time.

When he finished, I pondered the meaning of his words.  Was there some significance to the phrase, “Home electronics, you have a call holding on line five.  Home electronics, line five” ?

I finally decided that it might not have been the voice of God, but rather then voice of the Wal-Mart phone operator, who only sounded like God.

This guy has a GREAT voice.  It’s booming, but sweet.  It’s got that pleasant rumble, with just a small lilt at the end that pierces you.  In a word:  enchanting.

Now, I’ve never seen the guy, but I’d say he’s in his late 50′s, early 60′s.  He sounds grandfatherly. 

I wandered some more, hoping to hear him again.  While I wandered, I tried to figure out who he is or where he works.

Surely a voice so nice couldn’t be reserved for just this one store.  Maybe Wal-Mart has decided to send all their calls to a central hub, where Grandpa God pushes buttons or pulls and sets cords into jacks like an old-fashioned operator.

I called the supercenter a few days later, expecting to get a recording.  But Grandpa God answered.  At first, I couldn’t speak.

GRANDPA GOD:  “Thank you for calling the Mt. Dora Wal-Mart Supercenter.  How may I direct your call?”

ME:  silence

GRANDPA GOD:  “This is the Mt. Dora Wal-Mart, can I help you?”

ME:  “Umm… I’m… I need… I can’t remember why I called…”

I quickly hung up the phone.

After calming down, I called back.  I asked him where he was located.  He assured me that he was actually at the Mt. Dora location.

Weird, huh?

Now I imagine who he USED to be.  Was he a famous voice actor from the 40′s, blacklisted during the McCarthy hearings because he once narrated a cartoon about socialism.

Or maybe he was a Canadian sports announcer, broadcasting spirited games of curling until a gambling scandal cost him his job and his reputation.

He could have been a freakshow announcer who fell in love with the bearded lady, only to lose her in a tragic Epilady accident.

I’d like to ask him about his life.  But I’m so nervous everytime I talk to him that I just cave, and say, “home electronics, please.”

There’s a “fad” going around the blogosphere that asks bloggers (like me) to post five things about themselves in a bunch of different categories.  Things like 5 favorite movies, 5 favorite restaurants, etc.

Now, I’m not going to list a whole bunch of pointless junk here just so you’ll know that green is one of my five favorite colors or that my favorite episode of CHiPs was the one where Erik Estrada chased that guy on the bike and them took off his helmet to reveal a perfectly groomed head of hair (although that was a great episode.  Or it was most of the episodes of that show).

But I will tell you about my favorite books.  Mostly because I strongly believe in books and the power of reading. But mostly because good books get under your skin and create an itch that only the sharing of their powerful stories can scratch.

1.  Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.  This one is a classic.  The story is better than the actual writing.  Ms. Rand was an immigrant to this country and learned English as a second language.  Her characters speak in stilted dialogue, but it works, because this is a philosophy book, not a ripping yarn.  The ideas behind the book should strike a chord with most entrepenuers.  Of course, at 1200 pages or so, it’s got a lot to take in.

2.  Beloved by Toni Morrison.  Exactly the opposite of Atlas Shrugged.  This book is about the language of the story, not the story itself, which veered toward unbelievable in the latter chapters.  But Ms. Morrison (who won a Pulitzer for this work and a Nobel Prize for Literature for another book) writes some of the most difficulty beautiful sentences in American literature.  You might remember that Oprah tried to translate this book to the movie screen a few years ago.  I begged her (in an ignored letter) to leave one of my favorite books alone, but she still made a BAD movie out of it.  Still, the book is lush.

3.  The Stand by Stephen King.  I’m not a big fan of mystical, horror or fantasy writing.  Which may be why I avoided most Stephen King books until just a few years ago.  His believable book, Dolores Claiborne, led me to start reading several others.  They were donated to the library bookstore unfinished.  But a bargain table version of The Stand sucked me into a terrifying and fascinating world.  Mr. King is a genius of pacing and dramatic dialogue.  He too often gets pegged as a horror writer, but I would suggest that his special skill is suspense.  The Stand is such a HUGE story, with dozens of fully-formed characters spinning around the vortex of a dangerous whirlpool of explosive events.  It starts with a deadly, deadly biological plague and runs hundreds of pages through awful, hopeful and harrowing events.  Be warned:  this book is long (uncut edition has 1400+ pages) and will take over your mind for quite a while.

4.  A Skeleton in God’s Closet by Paul L. Maier.  This is another of those books where the story is better than the storyteller.  Dr. Maier is a professor, not a born dialogue-writer, so his characters sometimes say stereotypical things.  The story, however, chugs along nicely after a controversial archeological find in the Holy Land.  If you’ve had any thoughts about religion or questions about what would happen if current religion were turned on it’s head, you might find the philosophical and practical questions of this book exciting and slightly disturbing. 

5.  The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.  This was written before Atlas Shrugged.  Running over 700 pages, the book was referred to by Rand as a “preamble to Atlus Shrugged.”  Sounds like someone needed a vigorous editor.  However, the story, concerning a revolutionary architect and the woman he loves, is well told.  Supposedly based on the life of Frank Lloyd Wright (he was the reason I studied architecture in college) the tale is part bizarre love story and part morality lesson.  The characters, like those in Atlas Shrugged, speak using the words of Objectivism, the philosophy that Rand championed.

Happy Reading!