Before you read further, watch this Binder and Binder commercial (it’s only 25 seconds long):

Maybe you’ve seen these commercials and have wondered the same thing…there is no way I can be the only one that feels a little bit turned off by the cowboy hat. Did he just get back from the ranch? So… what’s the deal with Charles Binder’s cowboy hat dude?

I have the answers… props to my mother who e-mailed Binder and Binder asking these questions. And ‘hats off’ (har har) to the folks at Binder and Binder and their communications department for responding to the request.

Hi Barbara,

I’m the guy responsible for the Binder and Binder commercials. I understand how you feel about Charles’ semi-disreputable hat. The reason he’s wearing it is simple. It was chilly on the day the commercial was recorded. It’s his hat, and he always wears his hat on a chilly day.

His line? We’ll deal with the government, you have enough to worry about,’ was the result of a question I asked him. I said, ‘If I were a client, what would you tell me was the most important thing that Binder and Binder would do for me.’

That line came from the heart. It wasn’t written for him. I think that comes through on the commercial. So we kept both the line, and the hat.

Some people say they don’t want to be represented by a guy who wears a hat. I think it’s what’s under the hat that counts. Nobody wins as many Social Security Disability cases as Binder and Binder. Nobody.

I think that leaves people with a choice: Hire the guy who wears a dorky hat, but gives you the best chance of winning your case, or go with a guy who doesn’t have that kind of track record but doesn’t wear a hat on a chilly day.

I appreciate the time and effort you took to let me know how you feel about our commercials, and I’d like to send you one of our nifty Binder sport shirts as a ‘thank you’ gift. So could you please just return this note with your shirt size and an address so I can send it to you.

Thanks.

Dick Summer
Communications Director

This is such an epic response. To break it down, he is wearing the hat because it was cold. I guess they were filming this outside… after all the Empire State building is in the background. It is Charles Binder’s hat, and he always wears it on a cold day. Don’t ask him to take it off because chances are he won’t (especially on a cold day).

The line that Charles says is “We’ll deal with the government, you have enough to worry about’. Fair enough… I probably would choose to say something else, but this isn’t bad. And if you couldn’t tell, that line came from his heart. There’s no doubt that he completely meant that. You can tell by his tone, his expression, and his hat.

It is true, some people don’t want to be represented by a man in a hat. Does this mean Charles Binder wears his hat to his meetings with the government? Is it common etiquette to take your hat off in a government building? Maybe when he deals with the government, they do it in a neutral location. Or maybe on his ranch. Regardless, it’s definitely what’s under the hat that counts. Are you kidding me? Seems like a fourth grader response (I feel obligated to mention that Charles Binder is bald).

Before being offered a ‘nifty’ Binder shirt, we are given an ultimatum: chose the guy with the hat, or chose the guy who doesn’t wear a hat on a chilly day. I’ll have to think about this one for a bit.

So what’s the deal with this?

I don’t know who is to blame for a botched commercial and a crappy PR response to a question. Should we point and laugh at Binder and Binder or our good friend Dick Summer who appears to be the communications director for Charles Binder and his cowboy hat. Maybe a bit of both.

Google ‘Binder and Binder’. As you type in the search query, look at the suggested queries that Google recommends:

What this means is in general, when people search for Binder and Binder online, folks are trying to find information about scams and complaints based around Binder and Binder, as well as the commercials with his hat. It looks like the commercial is creating quite the stir… about Charles Binder’s hat.

Watch the commercial again. Remember the guy that went all the way to Alaska? Well, it turns out that the picture of the advocate who went to Alaska is a picture of our very own Dick Summer, Communications Director. It wasn’t very hard to find the image on the internet that they used in the commercial. Seriously?

Looking at Binder and Binder’s and Dick Summer’s website, it doesn’t seem like they’re too web savvy (in case you can’t read, there is an audio introduction to each of Dick Summer’s pages on his site). And judging by what we’ve found, it doesn’t seem like they’re great at producing commercials, either. I guess their target market consists of people who watch the ‘Price is Right’ or late night re-runs of your favorite 70s sitcoms, and people who don’t know what the internet is… it’s easy to find the warning signs of Binder and Binder by several web searches.

How can anyone take this company seriously? No wonder folks are getting scammed by them. I got nothin’ else. I really hope that we get some ‘nifty’ shirts out of this, though! Charles Binder, give me a MacBook and a few hours of your time, and I’ll be happy to create your next commercials. Only next time, we’ll have you wear a cape… after all, we all enjoy lawyers wearing capes. Both Dick Summer and Charles Binder are just a few french fries short of a happy meal.

And don’t forget to join the Charles Binder’s Hat facebook group!

Ok – so if you haven’t noticed, my blog has gotten a nice makeover. The makeover includes an updated theme from Cordobo along with a few additional tweaks, several links to my other social sites (twitter, facebook, etc.), as well as a commitment to update the blog on a regular basis.

The blog is going to take a more professional direction, which means I’ll discuss internet marketing more so than I have in the past. I’ll still post about my whereabouts, my travels, and my recreational activities, so no fear! I plan on having fun with this.

I’ve been testing various wordpress themes like crazy over the last 24 hours. I think I’ve finally settled on one, but hang tight a little longer while I work out the bugs.

On that note, check out a blog I set up for my sister, Michele Goodson. I bought the domain and set up the blog yesterday… let’s see how long it takes for here to rank first in Google for her name. Stuff like this excites me!

Yeah… I haven’t posted here in a while. I am watching the Syracuse vs. Arizona St. game right now (March Madness is great) and I thought I’d type up a few words during a timeout.

Anyways, last time I posted looks like it was back in October. Since then, I’ve done a few cool things. I ran the Ouray Mtn. Trail Run in Colorado in mid October to cap off the running season. Since then, I’ve probably run a total of 7 different times… just been taking it easy and enjoying the snow rolling into Utah. I’ve been doing a lot of downhill skiing up until late January, when the great skier that I am, ran into a tree fracturing my collarbone. It’s healed by now, and I have been skiing a little more (just staying out of the trees!)

Some warm weather rolled in a few weeks ago and has been melting the snow quite a bit. It got up to 70 degrees yesterday, which warranted a hike/run to the top of Grandeur Peak. Despite not running a whole lot in the last 3 months, endurance doesn’t go anywhere. I am signed up to run thet Squaw Peak 50 in early June, so I got to get my run on eventually! We’re looking at close to a foot of snow this afternoon to tomorrow, and snow showers for this upcoming week. Guess the warm weather will have to wait.

I also got a road bike a few weeks ago – a Cannondale Six13. It’s pretty sweet… looking forward to getting some nice rides on it over the summer. Also been playing a lot of guitar with some other pickers here in Park City… I plan on hitting up some bluegrass festivals this summer.

That’s my last 4 months in a nutshell. Not very exciting, but as the warm weather rolls around and running/hiking season gets into full gear, I’ll be updating a little bit more. Chow!

I guess what the title says – that’s kinda what I have been doing since Logan Peak…

Actually, a lot has been going on. Definitely in the good way. First off, I was correct in saying that Logan Peak didn’t slow down my training, if anything it helped. It was a great wake up call like I stated, but I was back on the trails 2 days after the race, picking up where I left off. The July 4th weekend gave me the opportunity to put in plenty of training, and plenty of climb. I enjoyed a nice “speed hike” on the 4th, exploring the web of trails in my backyard. Saturday and Sunday brought 3+ hour long runs. Over those 3 days I put in about 14.5k of elevation gain.

It’s a good deal I got going on -The Canyons ski resort being in my backyard and all. Reasons being that it is free to take the gondola down the mountain, which is open every weekend through September. There are some great trails and forest roads that lead up to the gondola, and each trip up there is about 1,800 feet elevation gain. Good training. With that being said, I have been working on my “uphill power hike form”. If I want to do well, or at least finish, this thing called Speedgoat 50K in 10 days (damn, 10 day already?), I gotta accept the fact that I will be walking a lot.

This past weekend I put in a 5 hour run on Saturday that included running from my apartment up to the Wasatch Crest trail, lollygagging around 10K feet for a few hours, and coming back down. Felt great. The scenery definitely distracted me from the tired legs. Sunday was followed by a hard two hour run, which included a 2,700 ft. climb on the north side of The Canyons, ended by a sprint on the Mid-Mountain trail towards the gondola.

A few hours ago I completed a good 90 minute run that included an 1,800 ft climb, followed by a decent on the Holly’s Downhill trail (the gondola is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays). For those of you who have run down Holly’s Downhill trail, you know its 30 minutes of pure bliss.

This weekend is the last weekend before the Speedgoat 50K – as a “taper” I’ll be enjoying a 4 day backpacking trip in the High Uinta Wilderness, camping and hiking between 10K and 12K feet elevation (maybe it will help with elevation sickness I had at Logan Peak?)

Yeah… I love vacations

I am also going to be visiting family in August, as we have a family reunion beach get-together every year. I am looking forward to that very much so!

Finally, I am very excited to say that I will be taking a week off in early September to help crew for Karl Meltzer during his Appalachian Trail speed attempt. If you haven’t noticed by now, I am not a big fan of talking about my job on my blog (even though its a kick ass job!). Not that I am that dumb to post stuff in a negative light about my job in which people from my company can see, I just prefer to completely leave it off my blog.

However I’d like to make an exception in this case as Backcountry.com (who is sponsoring Karl Meltzer to attack the AT from Maine to Georgia starting August 5th) is sponsoring some employees to assist, crew, and work behind the scenes. I happened to fall on that list after much waited anticipation! I am very, very excited to be a part of history, and part of a company that can give an amazing athlete like Karl an opportunity as such.

The world will be able to follow Karl’s progress online at WheresKarl.com, which will be updated daily with pictures, videos, news, gear reviews, thoughts, updates, and so much more. It’s going to be awesome – I am very excited! I am unfortunately missing the weekend when the Mid-Mountain Marathon and the Wasatch 100 are being run, but most definitely worth it!

That’s all I got – definitely a lot of great things to look forward to! And oh yeah, I started up guitar lessons again, watch out flatpickers of America – I’m gonna be dangerous!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a video with 60 fps that is 10 seconds long worth? This video was taken the morning of June 11th from my apartment window. Give me a break!

It has been a while since I have updated. I apologize! What has it been… over 2 weeks? 3 weeks? Anyways…

Not a whole heck of a lot to report, despite keeping busy all the time. My focus right now and the last 3 weeks has been on my running and training. I feel like I have been putting in some good miles the last 3 weeks. I’ve been putting in a lot of days where I run in the morning and then again in the afternoon. I feel like it is more manageable for me. This past weekend I actually ran 4 times, which is something I have never done in a weekend. I ran 9 miles on the Wasatch 100 trail around 8K feet elevation on Saturday morning close to the Mountain Dell resevoir and a quick 6 around my apartment at night. Sunday morning I climbed up the Canyons as far as I could from my apartment before the snow covering the trails turned me around at 9100 feet elevation and tapped off the weekend with another 7 on some great trails in The Canyons.

The weekend before I ran a good 19 miler on the Wasatch 100 mile course, again close to the Mountain Dell Rec. Area. I started around noon (hey, I like to sleep in from time to time, so sue me!) and ended the run around 4:00pm. It was to be a simple out and back from a small Jeremy Ranch parking lot. Carrying about 55 ounces of water, off I went up the Moose Hollow trail on what was supposed to be a 15 mile run. 15 miles may sound a lot, but I have but up endurance to where a 15 mile run on the soft trails sprinkled around the Park City area is a very manageable run as long as I keep my eye on fuel and hydration. I had intended to finish the run in about 3 hours (which would include breaks to catch numerous glimpses of the Wasatch Range to the south from time to time), putting me at just above a 10 minute pace.

I headed up and away on Moose Hollow trail. The sun was beating down on the exposed single track, which made me regret not putting on any sunscreen. It got up to about 75 degrees, which isn’t too hot in comparison to Atlanta, but because it was the first “warm” day of the year, it made me a little weary. I got to the halfway point, Bald Mountain at about 7900 feet, around 1:40pm. Because my car was parked at 6200 feet, I expected the return trip to be much quicker. Boy I was wrong!

Everything was going quite well until about 3 miles from my car parked down in Jeremy Ranch. I had my 3rd moose encounter, and this one was a good one (well, good depending on how you look at it). Maybe I should say it was eventful. I was rockin’ the downhill as I love to do, probably turning in 7:30 to 8:00 minute miles at this point, and concentrating on my footing, trying not to trip over the rocks and roots that littler this particualr portion of the trail. I picked up my head to visualize my next few steps, and my eye caught a glimse of a few large brown blobs in the trail. My heart stopped, followed by my feet.

About 30 – 40 yards in front of me were several moose. Both keeping me within their sites, both still as a rock. Yikes!

I stood on the trail and kept them in my sight but tried not to make eye contact. After I realized I had sunglasses on, I realized that they probably thought I was looknig right at them. Whatever the case may be, clapping my hands together did not seem to bother the moose. In fact, they seemed interested. They took several steps towards me. Now, let me tell you, I have probably had at least 8-10 bear encounters in the last year or so, all of which came from running in the Appalachian foothills when I lived in Atlanta. The black bears I would run into were generally skiddish. I know how to react to a black bear and a grizzly bear if the situation may arise, but moose? I know they can attack, and I know they are bigger than me.

After the moose seemed interested in me, I calmly walked backwards until I was out of their view. Once about 75 yards away and out of their view, I turned around, and found a dirt road down towards the interstate. Once there it was another 4 miles around I-80 back to my car, adding on an additional hour and 4 miles to my run. I guess that’s why I always pack an extra GU

I know the moose, mooses, and meeses in Utah aren’t as large as moose elsewhere, but check out the video below. It’s the reason why I am a tad spooked of running into moose. I’d honestly rather run into bears… seriously.

I cashed my bonus check today – woohoo!

I took that money and spent a good majority of it on buying domain names. My list has been updated on the domain name page. If you want a better reason of why exactly I have been doing this, feel free to check out a cool page I found regarding domain name sales today – www.namebio.com

I hope that this is an investment that I will be thanking myself when I am 30 years old

Finally, this is another reason why running is a beautiful thing. I love it, it’s a great hobby from a health perspective, and its free! Anyways, back to eating Raman I suppose