It was this past Sunday morning, rainy, damp, depressing. I was driving, once more taxiing my 15-year-old twins. The exhaustion of the past week hadn’t worn off — the high speed rush through a week of pushing the business, pulling kids out of a teen haze to focus on something, anything important, and pausing to help my mother deal with cancer still felt heavy. And then I heard American Fiction on the radio.

That’s what a young vocalist named Ethan Cook calls his one-man, one-guitar band. It reminded me how beautiful the world is and why I love the world. It’s why, to the extent I can, I collect art, like this piece I just bought for the office from a local artist named Pamela Green. I can’t own beauty. But I can hear it on the radio and see it on my walls. It’s why I secretly love being in the office early in the morning to see the sun rise out my window.

It keeps me from feeling sorry about myself on rainy, damp Sunday mornings when I am once again an underpaid taxi driver.

So my gorgeous almost 15-year-old daughter and her very pretty almost 16-year-old best friend asked me what I thought about them going to beach week this year. Sorry, it’s hard for me to write this post — I can’t stop rolling around laughing.

This week’s recommended reading from your friends at Blogenberg…

• Many Americans wouldn’t mind if their local paper folded, though a Senator wants to allow newspapers to change their tax status to stay afloat.
• Violence against reporters is on the rise according to a U.N. report.
• NPR reports a record audience in large part because of election coverage last year.
• Small business podcasting is under utilized, according to Duct Tape Marketing.
• Some PR pros offer best practices on how to get re-tweeted. (what the heck is “re-tweeted”?)
• Check out this control freak’s guide to social media influence.
• This post is a great rundown of some search engine marketing tactics and thinking.
• Bullets breaking things are cool. Here are some pictures to prove it.

I got a haircut Tuesday. I look gorgeous. But the only person who noticed, the only person, is a guy on our staff. My wife has yet to notice.

Do you know how that feels? I work so hard to look good for her. I spent hours at the salon (well, technically minutes, but it felt like hours). I keep myself in shape. I know I don’t look like I did when I was twenty-two, you know, before three kids. But I’m a pretty hot 49-year-old.

But to my wife, my new haircut is invisible. I feel invisible. Oh the pain.

I just picked up my daughter from school and drove her to a friend’s house. Tonight they are going, along with my daughter’s friend’s aunt, to the Britney Spears concert in Washington, DC. On the ride in the car, my daughter was pleasant, but calm, seemingly not overly excited about her first big concert without parents. But when we pulled up at her friend’s house, and her friend came to the car to help carry the “get ready” stuff, the two 15-year-old girls began firing energy off each other like a science project.

Teenage girls’ excitement can be such pure unfettered happiness of existing, that just 30-seconds of exposure was invigorating. As tired as I am, with a dinner meeting and several hours of work ahead of me, I felt happy as I drove back to the office. I was Britney-ized — better put, I got a little bit of teen girl giggle exposure.

This weeks’ recommended reading from your friends at Blogenberg…

• Colonel Tom Kolditz discusses his new book on what business leaders can learn from the military.
• The State of the News Media 2009 was released this week.
• Spike Jones discusses the importance of your company’s culture (the key is shared culture not a culture czar).
• PR Newsers interviews Guy Kawasaki on why it’s important to work with PR agencies.
• Something to keep an eye on - changes in how data is collected about you online and via your mobile devices.
• Some important keys when selling to small business owners.

Everywhere Blogenberg goes, people stop me and exclaim, “Blogenberg, you promised in last week’s post to reveal the secret compass that keeps you heading in the right business direction in the midst of even the greatest stress! Tell us, please!”

Yesterday, thousands gathered outside my office window, many carrying placards reading, “The secret compass. Please, Blogenberg. Please!” So I leaned out my 5th floor window and yelled down to them, haughtily, “You can eat cake.” They did not laugh at my joke. (I don’t understand because I am really, really funny.) So I told them.

“Core competency,” I hollered. “The secret compass is knowing, recognizing like you would your first-born child, your business’ core competency. Never lose sight of that and you will always be heading in the right direction.”

“Staying true to your core competency won’t guarantee success,” I told the masses. “But losing sight of your core competency almost certainly guarantees failure.”

The crowd below me seemed to smile as one. They wandered off, blissfully. I heard several say, “Cool, let’s go get a smoothie at Robeks. I hear Blogenberg likes Banana-Berry with whey protein.”

When it comes to personality, God gave my 14-year-old son a double insertion. Let’s just say my boy can be, in ways that are usually charming, excitable.

His big sport is lacrosse. Several high schools recruited him. He’s been waiting all year for his first high school season to start. All fall and winter I’ve been telling him that he needs to show the coaches a degree of maturity that he doesn’t always display. I told him that being a successful athlete is more than just being athletic. One day about a month ago, he actually slowed down long enough, looked right at me and listened intently to what I was saying. He said he got it.

The season started last week. He was named a captain of the JV team. He was one of the stars of the opening victory.

He listened. Amazing what happens when dad speaks in the woods and it is confirmed that his voice made a sound.

It’s a time of crisis in our family. I’m not talking about the fact that my mother was diagnosed with cancer last week. I’m talking about the fact that Friday my teenage daughter’s cell phone was confiscated by her school for a week.

A week. A full week. The cancer we can deal with. I mean, my mom was told she’s still got years more of annoying me and my brothers. (She’s 75.) But taking a teenage girl’s cell phone away for a week. Are you kidding me? You understand what that means? No texting for a week.

Last night, I dreamt it was me who had my cell phone taken away for a week. How am I supposed to run a business dealing with this kind of stress? I’m just going to have to man up, that’s how.

But a teenage girl living a week without a cell phone. Her high school is a Catholic high school. But what kind of just, loving principal takes a teenage girl’s cell phone for a week? Please, tell me why.

This week’s recommended reading from your friends at Blogenberg…

• Seth Godin discusses the difference between publicity and PR.
• How social media can get you fired if you’re not careful.
• An interesting perspective on “doing more with less.”
• The stimulus gets its own logo.
• Mashable explains when it’s okay to break the social media rules.
• The economics of call centers are all about learning which customers to fire.