Fugitive Moments

Mt. Massive

2011-08-22T19:27:00.002-06:00

Mt Massive

I summited my 17th 14er yesterday. Mt Massive is the second tallest peak in Colorado at 14,321 feet above sea level. Most of the peaks in Colorado are named to honor someone or something, Lincoln , Elbert, Harvard, etc. Mt. Massive is my favorite name because it is very accurately massive. There are 2 ways up to the top. One is 4 miles to the top and one is 6 miles to the top. No brainer, right? You go with the shorter route. But what you have to realize is that they both have the same elevation gain. So you have to decide…would you rather climb 4500 feet in 4 miles (steep) or 6 miles (less steep)? I chose steep.

Me and Noah and Jonah drove up to the trailhead Saturday night. It was a narrow, bumpy dirt road for 7 miles and a 4-wheel drive only road for the last half a mile. Since every step is precious to me, I forged ahead in the mini van to the very end. We were proudly the only 2wd vehicle at the top. Way to go Odyssey!! I am willing to take a car with 250,000 miles on it to many more places than I am a new car.

We had intended to back pack for a mile or so to get a head start in the morning but when we got there we saw that we were in a wilderness area with no camping allowed. So we set up camp at the trailhead which was just as well since it was getting too dark to hike anyway. We had a nice little camp with a fire, two tents and a hammock.

We woke at 6 and were on the trail by 7. It was straight up. After an hour and a half I had a tough decision to make. Jonah was having no problem and was struggling to slow down, but Noah was struggling to keep up. This surprised me because 2 years ago Noah was a climbing stud. In 2009, we climbed the tallest peak in Colorado and he was unstoppable. He beat me and Jonah to the top by an hour. But today he was struggling. He was sweating and resting too often and was starting to stumble. At the 2 mile mark I told Jonah to go ahead without me and meet me at the top and I would stay with Noah. Ten minutes after Jonah left, I finally had to stop Noah and tell him to go back. Every year a dozen people die on Colorado 14ers. Nine have died so far this year. Lightening, heart attacks and falls are the most common reasons. Noah was sweaty and his legs were shaking. I kept asking him if he wanted to go on and he said yes. Finally when I saw him stumble on a fairly easy climb, I had to make a decision. I told Noah I was sending him back. I was torn about whether or not to go back with him or send him back by himself. I was worried about him finding his way back (he has very poor vision) and I was worried about Jonah being on top and not knowing where we were. I finally gave Noah very specific instructions about finding his way back and what to do if he was lost and I left him. Tough decision because it would be 5 hours before I got back to the trailhead to find out if he'd made it or not. It might not sound like a big deal but we are still missing a hiker in a similar situation on a 14er from last October. The trails aren't always obvious. I chose to go on because Jonah was on the more dangerous part of the mountain. Like I said...tough decision.

It took me two hours to catch Jonah at the top, take a quick picture and head back down. Believe it or not, down is harder than up on a pair of old knees. As soon as we headed down we caught a brief snow flurry, (yes...on August 21st). We got back to the van at 1:30 and was relieved to find Noah was there taking a nice long nap. So alls well that ends well and another peak to add to my list. I'm not sure how many more I'll do. Ten years ago, my goal was to do 5 per year until I'm climbed all 54, but now I'm not so sure. I don't get the joy out of them that I once did. The views are still spectacular and I do appreciate that I can see scenes that most people can't, but seriously...these climbs are hard! It takes me days to recover! I think that main reason I'll keep doing at least one every year is just to see if I still can. It's a test to see if I am still able I suppose. I'll confess that everytime I climb one, I swear it's my last, but today I found myself on the internet exploring which one to do next so we'll see.

Happy climbing!

Make Room!

2011-07-14T16:22:00.002-06:00

My camping and backpacking trips have typically been blessed with good fortune. I usually experience pretty decent weather and conditions so I suppose I've been a little spoiled. The odds caught up with me this past weekend on our 2nd Annual Family Backpacking Extravaganza.

Seventeen of us (Stouts, Barneys and Crockers) went to the Grand Mesa area in western Colorado. We ranged in age from 7 to 49 so we tried to pick a hike that accommodated all. We ended up at Bull Reservoir. The map showed it was just 2 relatively flat miles from the trail head but it didn't show that there was 100 yards of ankle deep swamp we had to hike through. That was the first hardship and we had to deal with damp shoes and socks for the rest of the weekend. The kids insisted on cooking their shoes around the fire but I just let mine dry out on my feet.

The 2nd hardship was a biblical plague of mosquitoes. I may be getting forgetful but I don't recall ever being in that kind of swarm before. As soon as we got to camp we built 2 very smokey fires which helped a little bit. We intentionally put green wood on the fire to keep the smoke up. Mosquitoes tend not to like my blood so I suffered less than most. I counted 3 bites when I got home and I saw one pair of legs that had to have 50 bites per leg. One participant who shall remain nameless counted 7 bites on her rump from just one squat in the bushes. (camping is one of the times I'm most grateful to be a guy!)

Finally there was the rain. We were luck to only get a few quick showers during the day but a monsoon visited us on Saturday night. Fifteen of us had the proper equipment and stayed warm and dry but because of my previous good luck with the weather I under prepared. I was in a cheap Walmart one man tent and Jonah was on a hammock with a plastic sheet over him. At 1am, the winds were so strong that Jonah fell out of his hammock. At 1:50 the rain started coming down hard. At 1:55, the hammock had turned into a bathtub and I heard Jonah shouting "MAKE ROOOOM!" just before he came barrelling into my one man tent. I made room but we were both against the tent walls and couldn't straighten our legs. At 2:15, my cheap tent became so saturated that it started raining on the inside. By then I was checking the time every 10 minutes and thinking "12 more hours and I'll be home", "11 hours and 45 minutes and I'll be taking a hot shower", etc.

So those were the bad things. The fun memories include lots of laughing, a badminton tournament (congratulations Jen and Sam), BEAUTIFUL scenery, bacon on a stick, campfire games, knot lessons, an appreciation for warm beds and indoor plumbing, and just being with old friends and telling old stories again. The good far out weighed the bad. Next year will find us in Escalante, Utah. Let me know if you'd like to come!

Paint Job

2011-07-07T11:26:00.002-06:00

Samantha is home for the summer! I'm completely enjoying her company and she makes a mean sandwich. However, the original plan was for her to live rent free while she worked and saved some money. Unfortunately, her promised job fell through so she's only accomplishing the rent free part of the plan.

The long Keystone winters have taken a toll on the exterior of my house and the paint is peeling in several areas. This is not a good look when your home is on the market. (Five bedrooms of mountain paradise if you are interested!)

Obviously, these two problems needed to be introduced. Unemployed daughter meet unpainted house. It's a big job. The walls need to be powerwashed. The peeling areas need to be sanded. Colors need to be chosen. Primer needs to be applied. Ladders need to be climbed and brushes need to be washed. She does a little a day and she's doing a good job. I'm doing the really high spots for her because if a broken neck is part of this project, I'd rather it be on me instead of her.

It feels like I'm living in a new house and she has new skills for her resume'. It's called a "win/win".

First Aid Lesson

2011-05-30T08:13:00.003-06:00

I finally got to get out on my bike yesterday for the first time since October. Blue skies and temps in the 60's made for perfect biking weather. Well, actually any day that isn't snowing lately is good enough biking weather. My friend and I were 17 miles into a 20 mile loop when I nearly ran over a bike...and a teenage boy...and a lot of blood.

The kid had crashed less than a minute before I arrived and was just starting to raise his head from the puddle of blood on the asphalt and before I could ask if he was alright, he said, "I lost my tooth." I looked where his face had been laying on the asphalt and there was a perfectly intact tooth, roots and all.

Some basic first aid was clearly required, but what? Take a minute and think about it. What steps were necessary in this situation?

The first step should have happened before I got on the bike. I should have had a basic first aid kit. I had a tool kit for bike repairs but I had nothing for people repairs. Wrong decision. I'm going to remedy that today.

He obviously had a head injury, so I did know that I should be concerned about a concussion. By this time he was sitting up and talking and coherent so I didn't put him through any drills about what day of the week it was, etc. I asked if he'd lost consciousness and he didn't think so. Other bikers arrived and now there were four of us wondering what to do. For some reason I decided it was important to keep the tooth moist and clean so I took some gauze from someone who did have a first aid kit and we poured water on the tooth and wrapped it up. Wrong decision. Believe it or not the next person to come upon was...an oral surgeon. I'm serious! We are on a Summit County bike path on a Sunday afternoon with a tooth emergency and up rides an oral surgeon. He corrected my tooth decision and said the tooth needed to be reinserted back into the mouth as soon as possible. If the tooth is out of the mouth for more than an hour then it probably can't be saved. So we unwrapped the tooth and the kid (Ben) slid it right back in.

Ben had called his mother who was on her way, so we did not call 911. Wrong decision. Ben was a minor and none of us were sure about what to do. If the surgeon hadn't come by with his expert advice, then there probably would have been no chance to save the tooth. A paramedic or even a cop would have known what to do. Ben's mother was 20 minutes away so we walked him about 50 yards to the road to wait for her. While we were waiting, a cop saw us and pulled over. She saw that it was a head injury with a lot of blood and she immediately called for a paramedic. Ben started to protest that his mom couldn't afford an ambulance but the police officer assured him that there would be no charge.

Hopefully Ben saved his tooth and had no concussion. No harm was done by my not being prepared because a first aid kit, an oral surgeon, and a cop all appeared when they were needed, but I'm kicking myself anyway because I like to be prepared for these things.

Here are the lessons I learned.
1. Pack a small first aid kit.
2. Know basic first aid.
3. THE TOOTH GOES BACK IN THE MOUTH!
4. When in doubt, call 911.

The last point I'll make is about helmets. Ben wasn't wearing one. This could have turned out much worse. I even think a helmet could have protected his teeth because it extends beyond the forehead and might have hit the pavement before his mouth did.

5. WEAR YOUR HELMET!

No End in Sight

2011-05-23T11:49:00.001-06:00

Last year before I even knew that May 21st was the end of the world, I blogged about doomsdayers and their irrefutable evidence. (reposted below) I don't know why this topic interests me but I've always been fascinated by stories throughout history of people who have sold all possessions to wait for their ticket to heaven that they didn't have to die for. That kind of faith, however misguided it might be, is almost noble and inspiring. But one common thread in the stories always bothered me. It was the JOY they all felt about the extinction of humanity.

This latest group is disappointed that 200 million true believers weren't lifted up to heaven on Saturday while everyone else suffered and eventually died as a series of earthquakes and famine destroyed the Earth. "You can imagine we're pretty disappointed, but the word of God is still true" says one believer. Another man, his voice quavering, said he was still holding out hope that they were one day off. Another said exactly what all others have said the day after they didn't get raptured. She asserted that their prayers worked: God delayed judgment so that more people could be saved, but the end is still 'imminent'.

One television preacher from the midwest sounded perfectly reasonable as he pointed out the errors and delusions of these latest doomsdayers, but then seemed to join them when he said, "We have no doubt that the end is near and we continue to pray that it comes quickly."

Why are these people soooo eager for the end??? I think I got a clue this morning when I read this quote from one of Harold Campings tearful followers. "With maxed-out credit cards and a growing mountain of bills, he said, the rapture would have been a relief," Ahhhhh....Ok. That explains a lot. I think I get it now!

Here's what I wrote last year.

THE END IS NEAR

Doomsdayers have shouted this prediction for thousands of years and the only end has been their own. The recent "irrefutable evidence" has come from this years series of earthquakes. I've always assumed that the mountains and canyons and volcanos and sink holes and tsunamis and hurricanes that are all over the globe were evidence that we live on an evolving, living planet. Not so! I just read an article about the latest quake in Turkey but that's not where the real information was. The good stuff was below the article in the comments section. That is the best part of getting your news online. You get to see read people's opinions of the news. And since all comments are anonymous you get see the crazy stuff that these people really think about.

There were nearly 2000 comments on this article so naturally I didn't read them all, but I did browse a couple hundred and here is a breakdown of earthquake theories.

60% say the reason is biblical. Jesus is returning and the earthquakes are no surprise because it's all predicted in scripture. (Matthew 24:7 and Revelations 16:18-20). Biblical predictions have been around for 2000 years so this is nothing new. I have to be careful here because some of these beliefs are sincere but what stood out and bothered me about these posts was the apparent delight at the prospect of the end of the world. Sinners (humans who don't believe what you believe) were finally going to get what was coming to them. Seriously! These people have the same joyful confidence of the suicide bomber before he squeezes the trigger. Just no doubt in their minds about what comes next and joy in the knowledge that people were going to be hurt.

10% say government conspiracy. Included in this number are the handful who say it's Obama's fault. Apparently the United States has developed an earthquake machine and we are in the process of testing it around poor countries. Other more sensible conspiracy theorists say don't be silly. There is no earthquake machine. The US is conducting undersea nuclear tests. Both sides have lots of compelling evidence which I won't go into here.

10% say it's all about the 2012 Mayan prophecies. For more information...see the movie.

10% have actually made the case that earthquakes are caused by global warming. You see, because both poles are melting, the weight of the earth is getting redistributed and geologic shifts are occurring. The quakes are going to continue until the earth finds balances its new weight. One woman (who had quotes from Fox News) combines this theory with the conspiracy theories and says Al Gore is running the earthquake machine to fool us into believing him so he can take over the world.

5% believe mother earth is a living breathing organism and human kind is a parasite or bacteria on its surface. Because of our bad habits, she is finally taking action to get rid of us.

3% say oil drilling and coal mining are too blame. It's obvious that if you remove the interior of any object then the exterior is going to start collapsing. Also, the oil acts as a natural lubricant on the plates and now its missing so there is more friction that causes earth quakes. Ok, I have to confess that I almost started to believe this one. It made sense to me and the people explaining it were using really big, scientificky words that impressed me.

Only 2% of the people believed that there is nothing new or unusual going on. Here is a quote I lifted that summarizes my own views. "All you fatalists and conspiracy idiots are just that, idiots. Earthquakes have been happening around the world for thousands of years and every time idiots perceive it as a harbinger of Armageddon. Today's day and age with easily accessible information through the internet and growing number of people in areas that are able to report it so quickly, it may seem like there is an unusual amount of catastrophic natural disasters, but the fact is is that you are more readily informed of these events than the past. They've always been occurring, all over the world so get a grip and move on".

At first it frightened me that 98% of the population believe something dark and unusual is going on. But then with relief, I realized that it is just 98% of anonymous public forum commentors dying for attention. Tell me that's right. There aren't really only 2 out of 100 people that think this is all perfectly normal, right? Right?

So I wrote a book...

2011-04-15T15:46:00.002-06:00

...actually, WE wrote a book....my brother and I. We spent a few years and several hundred hours writing it. We wrote, we edited, we wrote, we argued, we criticized, we joined writers clubs, we wrote, we researched, we threw things, we quit, we accepted advice, we met with agents and publishers, we won an award, we laughed about lame love scenes, we wrote and we were ulimately rejected for publication.

But NOW! But now anybody can publish anything online. I can upload the phone book to Amazon and slap a $2.99 price tag on it and you can download it to your e-reader. So although we were rejected by publishers across the globe, YOU can can restore my self esteem and talk me down from this bridge by purchasing my book. You can restore your friend's self confidence for only $2.99. This is less than a penny a page for the greatest novel of our generation! Let's see...if I have to give Amazon 30% of the proceeds, that leaves $2.09 for the authors. And I can keep it all for myself if I can keep it from Rick that I've published this thing after we gave up 5 years ago. (shhhhh.....don't tell him) And if I can convince just ten of you to buy it, I can eat breakfast at Village Inn and still be able to leave a generous tip! That means I will have earned about 40 cents a month for the time I spent writng it. Of course, all of these calculations get cut in half if Rick finds out what I'm doing. Shhhhhh.....

Here is the link http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004WKQO0O/ref=cm_cr_thx_view

If you are still unconvinced, please read the testimonials below.

"This is a book" Todd Barney

"Please stop calling me" Steven King

"I have a dream" Martin Luther King

"I'm the more talented brother." Mike Crocker

"I'm callling the police if you don't get off my porch." John Grisham

"I've seen worse." Thomas Monson

"You'll pay me how much to say what?" Samantha Crocker

So there you go...what's stopping you? What's it about? It's a mystery that spans 135 years of a prominant Colorado family. There's war, poverty, love, betrayal, murder and redemption. There are no sex scenes because writing them made us giggle.

THANK-YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!!

Memory Keeper

2011-03-20T08:08:00.004-06:00

"Do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and your children's children."
Deuteronomy 4:9

In a complex, mobile society like ours, the stories of our lives get overshadowed and replaced by stories from Hollywood and CNN. Our histories are fragile, scattered and replaced. Our need to examine and to share our stories is vital--for our own mental health, for our relationships and our cohesiveness in community, and for the good of a future that can learn from our past. for these reasons every family needs a Memory Keeper.

My mother is our families memory keeper and she turns 80 years old today. Happy Birthday, Mom! She believed at a very young age that everyone has a rich history and a story to tell - a story that should be passed on and her efforts at preserving her families legacy have been priceless.

Mom bought a camera at a young age many of us still enjoy the photos from over 60 years ago. My earliest memories are of getting my picture taken and she carried her camera as we all carry cell phones today. We all learned early that she wasn't going to give up until she got the picture she wanted and we knew that a quick pose and a smile was the quickest way to get her to put the camera down. Her home has an entire wall of shelves filled with photo albums and at a recent family reunion she gave away hundreds of pictures to aunts, uncles, neices, nephews, children and grandchildren. Our lives were very well documented and the memories we all share will remain alive - for generations to come! These are the moments and memories that make us human and that connect us to our heritage.

"We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies." ~Shirley Abbott

Mom always appreciated the importance of family and felt the need to preserve her families history. In the mid 1970's, Roots was shown on TV and it created a million new genealogists in America. Mom and I were among them. It was an interest that I could share with my mother even at 15. 35 years later we both still have genealogy charts on our walls and can immediately tell you where Great Great Grandfather was married in 1880 or which village in Sweden our family comes from. Everytime I discover a new ancestor - someone who lived and loved and died and who's DNA flows through my own veins, I imagine that they are grateful to be discovered and remembered. It makes me feel connected to something bigger than myself and I love that I can share this hobby with my mother.

"I promise that if you will keep your journals and records, they will indeed be a source of great inspiration to your families, to your children, your grandchildren, and others, on through the generations. Each of us is important to those who are near and dear to us and as our posterity reads of our life's experiences, they, too, will come to know and love us." Spencer W. Kimball

One of the reasons I keep a blog is because I believe that it is a 21st century version of a journal. Perhaps this is something else I picked up from Mom. The family histories she has written are a treasure to me and I believe they also will be to my great grand children. The records she kept of my childhood allowed me to compare what I weighed at 18 months to what my own children weighed at the same age. Every year she recorded what I wanted to be when I grew up. (mostly Batman or an astronaut) Because of her example I've tried to do the same for my kids and I hope they'll appreciate it as much as I have.

So Mom, for your 80th birthday I want to let you know how much I appreciate the stories you have given me and the memories you have recorded. Your life is a legacy and a gift that only you could have given. Thank-you for sharing it with me. I Love You.

He Skis

2011-02-25T14:02:00.002-07:00

If their parents skied, then skiing was for old people. That was the opinion of my children anyway. So when we moved to the mountains and introduced them to snow with gravity, they all decided to be snowboarders because snowboarding was way cooler. They all picked up basic skills, but never really excelled. They didn't dislike the sport but they didn't love it either and I always had to twist arms to get them to go with me. Samantha and Noah eventually gave it up altogether.

If I had tried to talk Jonah into skiing he probably would have resisted. But a couple of his friends were skiers and last year he borrowed some skis and gave it try. He picked it up immediately and by his 3rd day he was a better skier than he ever was a snowboarder. By the end of the season he was as good as me. This year I bought him skis for Christmas and he has far surpassed me. He skis fast and fearless. He skis every weekend and after school and at night and everyday of winter vacation. I'm glad he loves it so much but I still have to twist his arm to get him to ski with me.

Now I'm too slow for him.

Top 50 Books

2011-02-04T11:40:00.003-07:00

Earlier, I compiled a list of my 50 top movies (which I've already revised a few times!) I was recently challenged to compile a similar list of books, which actually has proven to be more of a challenge. I've been adding and subtracting for a couple of weeks and I'm sure I'll do more of it in the future but I'm pretty comfortable with the following list. You may notice that I've cheated a few times and have included a title that actually represents all of the works of authors I like. Here's the list in alphabetical order.

3 Cups of Tea (incredible difference one man can make)
7 Habits of Highly Effective People (I followed it for a few years anyway!)
A Prayer for Owen Meany (representing all of John Irvings books)
All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (I love all Fulgham books)
And Then There Were None (just using this title to represent Christie books)
Angela's Ashes (humor, compassion, and poverty)
Animal Farm (high school requirement. first example of the power of allegory)
Atlas Shrugged (I have problems with Rand but recognize the importance of her work)
Big Rock Candy Mountain (Stegner is a great writer)
Call of the Wild (perfect book for a teen boy)
Charlotte's Web (tears for a spider)
Cold Mountain (civil war love story)
Crime and Punishment (stream of consciousness look into the mind)
Dancing at the Rascal Fair (Ivan Doig should be more famous)
Dandelion Wine (Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite authors. He's not just sci fi)
Everything is Illuminated (3 expertly written interconnected stories)
Freakonomics (I look at trends and statistics a different way after reading this)
Great Gatsby (classic that I've reread a few times)
Green Eggs and Ham (Thank-you, Thank-you, Sam I am)
Hardy Boys Mysteries (same plot told 50 different times. But I read them all)
Harry Potter series (popular for a reason)
Hawaii (all of Micheners books) (Centennial, Chesapeake, Texas, The Source, Alaska)
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (the human condition)
How to Win Friends and Influence People (all improvement books are versions of this)
Into Thin Air (excellent research)
In Cold Blood (thought Capote was just famous for being famous until I read this.)
Jonathon Livingston Seagull (Don't want to reread, but it was inspirational at 15)
Last Lecture (Inspiring)
Life of Pi (most unusual plot)
Lonesome Dove (very best western ever)
Lord of the Rings (The Trilogy plus The Hobbit)
Louis LaMour (same plot over and over but I read them all as a teen)
Mans Search For Meaning (life changing)
My Friend Flicka (my first novel)
Ode to Billy Joe (my first love story)
Oh The Places You'll Go (for every graduate)
Of Mice and Men (Steinbecks best...according to me!)
Oliver Twist (Dickens best...according to me!)
Poisonwood Bible (just a very talented writer)
Power of Now (light bulb went off over my head)
Princess Bride (great movie, better book)
Roots (gave me a life long hobby)
Stumbling on Happiness (how come we don't know what will make us happy?)
The Road (dark, disturbing, but ultimately a love story)
The Stand (favorite Stephen King)
The Things They Carried (Veitnam, but really a summary of all wars)
To Kill a Mockingbird (how can it not be on everyones list?)
Walden (One of the few books I own)
Water For Elephants (at some point we'd all like to join the circus)
Your Money or Your Life (If I had a do-over, I would live this way)

So what do you think? What am I missing?

The Shadow

2011-01-13T10:29:00.002-07:00

I've realized that whenever I am in a writing slump, I can use my blog as a refrigerator door and post brilliant things my kids have done. I was cleaning up some old files last night and I found this poem that Noah wrote when he was 13. Like I've already said...I think it's brilliant!

The Shadow

As I slept in dark last night
A shadow approached my cot
And though I awoke upon a fright
The shadow hurt me not
I asked the shadow, “How do you do?”
The shadow thought for a while
And he replied, “I am you, I do how you do.”
Though the words he spoke were true, I was in denial
“If I am me, then you must lie.”
He chuckled as if he had just commit a crime
“You see…each man is like a die,
He has many faces, but only one shows at a time.”
And then my shadow disappeared and I became like lumber
And once again I returned to my silenced slumber

Noah Crocker

Greensleeves

2010-12-29T12:00:00.002-07:00

I've always wished I'd been more musical, but the talent was just never introduced into my DNA. When I had kids, I did what many parents do and tried to encourage them to take music lessons with the hope that something would stick. It would be a shame for the world to lose out on the next Mozart because his parents never put him in front of a piano.

So when Samantha was 8 or 9 we decided to give her piano lessons. She was mildly enthusiastic about it at first but lost interest after awhile and it was difficult to force her to practice. Finally I told her she could quit as soon as she learned to play Greensleeves for me. The song has always moved me ever since I was a child and heard it in a movie. She said she'd do it, but eventually the lessons stopped without her fulfilling her end of the bargain.

This year she warned us all that she had no money and her Christmas gifts would be extremely inexpensive which I thought was a good idea. On Christmas morning after all of the gifts were exchanged she went out to her car and brought in a guitar and sat beside me on the sofa and played Greensleeves for me. I had tears in my eyes as I hugged her for the beautiful gift.

Thank-you honey, I love it!

Really Very Stupid Things

2010-12-18T17:56:00.003-07:00

The following incidents may or may not have happened but I will not admit to doing any of them.

tubing with no life jacket in a flood swollen river, contest to see who could hold a lit firecracker the longest, playing chicken head-on on bikes to see who would swerve first, tying brother backwards to a tricycle and pushing him down a hill, poking jailed drunks with a sharp stick, rolling bowling balls down the highway at 60 miles an hour, walking across steel beams 8 stories high, tubing down hill with barbed wire fence at the bottom, tying brother upside down in a tree, waking up at 70 miles an hour and 70 feet off the freeway, trying to knock each other off speeding snowmobiles, teach brother to yell "jack ass" at the mean neighbor lady, cementing the neighbors doors and windows shut, spending two hours at the top of a tree while the girl that someone called a cow tries to knock you down with rocks, folding my brother into a sleeper sofa, launching bottle rockets from the car, streaking, contest to see who could hold onto electric fence the longest, throwing knives at brothers feet, reasoning that the lakes thin ice will hold if you just drive snowmobile fast enough, getting into a car with drunk hillbillies, bb gun wars, jumping bikes over friends laying lengthwise, jousting from bikes, riding on the hood of a car, riding on the highway on the top of a tall stack of hay bails in the back of a truck, training to be a stuntman by jumping out of a moving car, laughing while drill sergeant screams in your face, breaking into vacant apartments to sleep and shower, slowing down but not stopping the car when dropping brother off, contest to see who can pass the most motorhomes on bike going down mountain switchbacks, pushing fully clothed bully into swimming pool, stopping fan blade with tongue, rock fights, running through pitch black mile long tunnel with just a stick to guide you, competing in triathlons without learning to swim, car races, sleeping in cemetary, blindfolded boxing, shooting arrow straight up and dodging its return, trying to outrun a cop, blowing things up in a variety of ways, sleeping under a hedge in downtown Los Angeles, making drill sergeant remember your name by pissing him off on the 1st day of boot camp, hitchhiking at 14, wandering through a bronx ghetto at midnight, getting a ride to California with crazy man who claims to be a hit man on assignment, sleeping under freeway over passes, misreading arrival time as departure time for family trip, packing remote control instead of camera for birth of child, publishing list of really very stupid things that I may or may not have done.

You are on Welfare

2010-12-10T16:34:00.002-07:00

You are Angry.

You saw the woman in front of you buying junk food with food stamps and now you are on a rant about the welfare parasites ruining your country. You claim the solution to all of our deficit problems is to just stop the welfare.

Now please...take a breath and the mood altering pill of your choice (legally prescribed by your doctor of course) and take a look in the mirror.

Can we all agree that the definition of welfare is receiving financial assistance that you haven't earned? Are you 100% certain that you pay your own way without help from a socialist goverment? Let's take a look. I'm going to pick on Utah for one example because I know the state well, have many friends there and believe that you have one of the more fiscally prudent states in the country. But even as efficient as you are it still costs about $7,500 per pupil per year to educate your kids. So 2 kids for 13 years means that taxpayers (including you ) have spent about $180,000 to educate those two kids. Double that for four kids and triple it for six. So before I believe that the government isn't taking from others to redistribute to you, I'll need you to show me proof that you will ever pay that back in your life time. If you aren't going to pay that back then you have received financial assistance from others to educate your kids.

Your house is the same value as your neighbors, but you are paying a mortgage to a bank and your neighbor is paying rent to a landlord. You get a big interest deduction worth a couple thousand that he doesn't get. You may not consider it welfare but your neighbor probably does.

You live in a state that gets more money back from the federal government than you pay. My friends in Utah get back $1.07 for every dollar they pay. If they feel bad that in Colorado we only get $0.83 back for every dollar collected, I'll let you send me a check for the difference.

If you are 60 something, you are likely collecting some sort of welfare.

If the fire department ever responded to a fire on your property, then you have probably collected more from safer taxpayers than you will ever pay back. Your church provides you with a social safety net and they use roads and infrastructure but they don't have to pay taxes for them. If you have a college degree from a state college then you were subsidized by the taxes of the hard working masses who didn't go to school.

If you have a mortgage, if you have children, if you collect social security, unemployment, belong to a church, have gone to college, work for the government (including schools) then you are benefiting from some sort of redistribution of wealth.

So please stop whining that the single mother in the check out line in front of you bought cheetos and coke with "your money"!

Tasty Severance

2010-10-08T16:31:00.002-06:00

I believe I've already blogged about the stress of firing people. No matter how much it's deserved it's never pleasant. There was one time that was almost fun though. I'd forgotten all about it until my friend Donna reminded me of it last week. She was a witness and said she still laughs about it.

Jodi was the receptionist at Twin Peaks Mall. She'd only been there a few months, but I already knew I'd made a mistake in hiring her. Her skills were fine but she was a whiner and whiners are my least favorite species. She loved being a victim and her feelings were always getting hurt and she was always pouting. The only thing I ever remember her talking about was how unfairly her husband, kids, mother, coworkers, neighbors, weatherman, and God was treating her.

Every year we would let the Girl Scouts sell cookies in the mall. Every year they would thank us with about 2 dozen boxes of cookies that I would divide up among the staff. This year Jodi handled the arrangements and was the only one in the office when the girls brought in the cookies. As the rest of the staff arrived, they reacted with excitement that it was cookie time!

Should have been a happy time for all, right? Not exactly.

I got an emergency call from my bookkeeper that morning. "Jim! She's keeping the cookies and not sharing!" Apparently Jodi had all of the cookies under her desk and was insisting that the girl scouts had given them to her and she was going to take them all home to her family. Keep in mind that this an office staff, not a 3rd grade classroom. I canceled my plans and came into the office and explained to the Cookie Monster that this was an annual tradition and the gift was for the whole staff and not just her and demanded that she turn over the thin mints. Instead of handing them over and apologizing for the misunderstanding, she stomped out of the office in tears. All terribly awkward and embarrassing but she did leave the cookies behind so we decided to console ourselves with a cookie party and I sent a security guard to the store for some milk.

Two hours went by and we were getting excited with the prospect that she might never come back when the door flew open. She was back and she brought an angry, loud, little man with her. I thought he might be some sort of hired cookie enforcer but he turned out to just be her husband. He was yelling about theft and about taking food out of the mouths of his children. I'm serious... I remember that because for a few years afterwards, whenever anyone on the staff had a disagreement with me they would joke that I was taking food out of the mouths of their children.

I demanded that he get out of my office and I had a "full of cookies and milk" security guard escort him out. I told Jodi to take the rest of the day off and be in my office at 8:00 the next morning. When she came in she started to apologize when she noticed about 20 boxes of girl scout cookies in bags that I'd bought the night before. She asked "what are they for?"

I said, "It's your severance pay. Don't come back." Some firings are easier than others!

"New" Car

2010-09-15T11:00:00.003-06:00

I just got a new car. OK...I just got a used car. I typically will run a car into the ground before I get a new one and after 7 years and 235,000 miles I almost did that with my Honda mini-van. Good car. Good, good car. I'm a sensible guy and it was a sensible vehicle. I know you only get a mini-van if you have a family but I loved my red Odyssey. I could haul bikes and skis and furniture and 6 passengers in it. I drove it through the very worst conditions and beat the crap out of it but it never let me down.

But it was time.

The catalyst was when Jonah turned 16 and I decided that it would be the perfect vehicle for him. Believe it or not, he's pretty excited about driving a mini van. Lots of room for his friends I suppose.

So now I drive a 2008 Prius. I'm a little bit of a tree hugger but mostly it was a financial decision. I commute 500 miles a week and the Prius will save me about $150/mo in gas. All of the really cool technology is just a bonus. It's got a microphone in the mirror and I can get all of my calls through the speakers. It is keyless and unlocks when I walk up to it. It tells me when it needs an oil change or when the tires are low. I know that a Prius has that tree hugger reputation but it actually makes me feel a little like James Bond. (didn't he drive a Prius?)

I'll see if I can get another 200,000 miles out of it!

You Have To Fight Back

2010-08-28T16:23:00.002-06:00

I had a conversation with an old friend recently and she reminded of the time I punched a guy in the face who had attempted to grope her. It was over 30 years ago and I had nearly forgotten about it but it stuck with her because it was the only time someone had ever used violence to defend her. I typically think of myself as more of a "live and let live" pacifist who sees the wisdom in walking away from a fight, but I have to admit that there is something gratifying in being remembered as a sort of Clint Eastwood defender of women!

That got me remembering even further back when fist fights were a normal part of my life when I was 12 years old. We lived on the Ft. Hall Indian Reservation in Idaho at that time. I don't know if fights were a normal part of the culture or if the Indian kids always beat up the white kids or if I was just there during a bad year but I was getting my butt kicked at least weekly. The first time it happens to you is shocking and terrifying. I didn't know what I had done to piss this guy off and when I realized that an adult wasn't going to step in and save me, I basically just tried to cover my face and begged him to stop as I got pummeled. I also wasn't aware of the playground code of no tattling and went straight to a teacher with my story. The bully was punished but the next day on the playground, so was I. I still didn't fight back and the best strategy I could come up with was to stay in the classroom during recess, but this just meant they waited for me after school. I started faking sick to avoid school and my parents got involved and we had a meeting with the principal.

Mr. Broadhead heard my story and he sympathized but at some point he looked at me and said, "You have to fight back, Jim. They'll stop coming after you if they know you can hurt them." I can't imagine an elementary school principal telling a student that today but this was 1972 and it was some of the best advice I ever received. I started taking a few swings and would connect once in awhile, but it was a month or so before I got an official "win". Robert Blackfoot punched me right in the nose and I was losing blood through both nostrils. I managed to take the fight to the ground and get on top of him but I had to hang on with both arms so I couldn't really hit him. I did manage to get in a few head butts that didn't do any real damage but the whole time I had him down, I was bleeding all over him. A lot. His face and shirt were covered in blood...my blood. When a teacher finally pulled us both up by our collars, the crowd saw a little bit of blood under my nose, but Robert was a red gooey mess! I heard the impressed gasps from everyone as we were hauled into Mr. Broadhead's office. He chewed us both out but then held me back and smiled and congratualted me. He predicted that they would start leaving me alone now.

That wasn't entirely true, but the rumor did circulate that I had nearly killed Robby Blackfoot and I did get picked on a lot less. I still had to fight occasionally and I learned that if you were fighting fair then you weren't trying very hard. My specialties were the throat punch, the eye gouge, and using my elbows as weapons. Not exactly heroic type of fighting but the object was to hurt him as quickly as possible to stop the fight before getting hurt yourself.

Fortunately, my new skills were seldom used in the past 37 years and I hope I never find myself in a situation again where a head butt is necessary. But I hope I always remember Mr. Broadhead's very good advice. Sometimes "You have to fight back."

Beyond the Canyon Walls

2010-08-12T15:08:00.007-06:00

At 21 I decided I was going to hitch hike around the country, and as you can imagine, this was not a popular decision with my parents. They pointed out the dangers and made me feel guilty about how much my mother would worry.

I did it anyway.

My mother said many, many prayers for me and perhaps that's why I came back safe with many stories (mostly true) about my grand adventure. But when I came back she said something that most parents say to their children that has turned out to be a curse. She said, "One day I hope your son does the same thing so that you will know how it feels."

Tomorrow, I will know what she felt but the child to fulfill this prophesy is my daughter. My Baby Girl. My Tom Boy Princess. My Little Wildflower. My 20 year old "Not a child, not quite an adult" beautiful, good hearted, hippie child.
Tomorrow she will put on a backpack and head out to explore the American West with her best friend Katie. I don't know if they'll exactly be dancing with wolves but they plan on living pretty primitively to accomodate their nearly empty budget.

Threats, logic, bribery, and promises have not dissuaded her. So as she's awed by the grandeur of the Tetons, I will be vistited by my Mother's worry from 27 years ago. As she is inspired by the beauty of Yellowstone, I'll make sure my cell phone is always charged and my gas tank is full in case she is in need of rescuing. As she is trying to stay dry and warm in her tent in Oregon, I'll be watching the weather channel at 2am. As she explores the Redwood's, San Francisco, Yosemite, Zion, Bryce, and the SoCal beaches, she'll be wearing my old Army dogtags as a talisman. But if that's not enough to protect her, I'll be relying on the kindness of strangers if my little girl needs help.

Which brings me to my next point... if any of my friends who live near any of those places have a spot on the couch and can pick up a couple of cold, hungry girls if they need it...drop me a line and let me know if I can give them your phone number. I'll owe you!

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome,dangerous, leading to the most awesome view.May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and
castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest
where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient
unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled
cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches,
where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the
high crags, where something strange and more beautiful
and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams wait
for you - beyond the next turning of the canyon walls.
- Edward Abbey

My Best Father's Day Gift

2010-08-03T20:17:00.004-06:00

Father's Day presents come and go and I don't really remember most of the gifts that I have received over the years. There is one in particular though that the kids gave me (Jonah claims it was him) that stands out because it has had a lot of use.

They gave me a Leki collapsible walking stick about 10 years ago and I've used it for several hundred miles and I climbed 16 peaks of over 14,000 feet and several smaller ones. It's saved a lot of wear on my bad knee and last month it may have saved my life.

During our recent backpacking trip, we ended up hiking in two groups with the faster hikers in front. I was visiting with the back group and left them to catch up to my kids in the front so I was temporarily hiking alone. The two foot wide trail had risen to about 70 feet above the river when I just stepped off. I didn't stumble or trip and the trail didn't collapse. My left foot just stepped completely off the ledge. I threw myself to the right and my trusty Leki walking pole held my weight (and 30 pounds of pack) for about 2 seconds before it snapped in two and my face hit the trail. But those 2 seconds bought me enough time to stabalize most of my weight on level ground as my legs hung down. I had a banged up face and a broken pole but was otherwise OK.

Best gift ever, kids...but, uh...can I please get another?

Backpacking

2010-07-26T19:49:00.003-06:00

"Our way is not soft grass, it's a mountain path with lots of rocks. But it goes upward, forward, toward the sun."
- Ruth Westheimer

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like falling leaves."
- John Muir

I used to backpack all of the time. I lived in one of the most beautiful places on earth and I explored quite a bit of it. Most of the time I went with friends, but when they weren't available I went by myself. It's hard to describe what the appeal is in putting everything you need to survive and be comfortable on your back and hike into the wilderness. But it's not comfortable. You sleep on the ground, you eat on a log, you squat in the bushes, and you are too cold or too hot. But....still...there is something about it that recharges the batteries. You get multiple doses of appreciation. You appreciate that you live in a place where wild things still exist. You appreciate that you have the health to hike and explore. You appreciate what our ancestors went through every day just to live. You appreciate the simplicity to just concentrate on staying warm and fed. And the when you get home...you appreciate modern society. A warm bed, a flushing toilet, a microwave, a chair with a back! I can rejoice in a hot shower for months after a good backpacking trip!

I just got back from a few days in the Manti-LaSal National Forest in Utah. I went with old friends (the best kind) and some of our kids. Me, Todd, Troy, Samantha, Katie, Jonah, Chelsea, Jake, Peter, Seth and Bogie hiked a few miles up a beautiful stream and found a campsite created just for us. We set up 6 tents and a hammock, a kitchen, a firepit, a hacky sack arena, a sink, and a bathroom and forced our children to listen to stories they've already heard a dozen times. They were very patient and laughed at all of the right parts and promised not to tell their mothers.

I think we are going to make this an annual tradition. Back to nature for 3 days and a renewed appreciation for civilization for the other 362!

You are invited.

50 Movies

2010-07-06T12:34:00.008-06:00

Humans tell stories. We love stories. Cave paintings prove that we've always loved stories. Children crave stories and my own kids would make them up themselves if I wasn't around to tell them one.

I recently wrote about how our celebrations and cermonies create societal and cultural bonding. Perhaps this is even more true of our stories. We can describe somone's Achilles heal and everyone who knows the story of Achilles will know that this person has a hidden weakness. We can compare someone to Han Solo and we all know that he is a rogue with a good heart. If I describe someone as a Good Samaritan, you know that I mean she is kind and willing to help. Our stories bring us together.

Todays stories are told at the movies. At many points in our lives we are asked about favorite movies. People may be genuinely interested in the answer or we may just be looking for a good conversation starter. My problem is that although I do have favorites, I usually draw a blank when I'm asked. I've already made a list of some of my favorite quotes and now I've compiled a list of my favorite movies. You may or may not care, but as my memory starts to falter, I'm actually making the list for myself.

Some of these movies were critically praised, some might be critically condemned. Here they are in alphabetical order.

3:10 To Yuma (classic western with the good guy doing the right thing)
A Christmas Story (still makes me laugh)
Alien (my first really scary movie)
Anchorman (so funny!)
Armeggedon (silly world saving fun with a great sound track)
Band of Brothers (really a mini-series but the best war story I've seen)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (childhood memories of play acting the movie for weeks after I saw it)
Cast Away (triumph of human spirit...my favorite theme)
Cool Hand Luke (Paul Newman was the coolest)
Dead Poets Society (Seize the Day!)
Family Man (rediscovering what's important)
Field of Dreams (maybe it's a guy thing)
Forest Gump (who doesn't like Forest Gump?)
Fried Green Tomatos (this one's a chick flick...shhhhh....)
Gladiator (warrior saves the Roman Empire)
Glory (I know, I know, war = bad, but war movies = good)
Office Space (For everyone who's ever worked in an office)
Groundhog Day (great movie that I hear references to constantly)
Hoosiers (guys love a good underdog sports movie)
How the West Was Won (for some reason it made a big impression on me when I was a kid)
Independence Day (Humanity unites!)
It's a Wonderful Life (do I even have to explain?)
Lars and the Real Girl (the premise is too weird to explain and why I like it is too long to explain)
Leaving Las Vegas (we're all a little broken)
Life is Beautiful (a fathers love for his son)
Little Miss Sunshine (flawed family pulls together for the little girl)
Lion King (Disneys best)
Lord of the Rings (great adaptation of a favorite book)
Matrix (would you take the blue pill or the red pill?)
Million Dollar Baby (sports movie with a female lead)
Off the Map (you've definitely never heard of it but check it out)
Oh Brother Where Art Thou (funny, funny with awesome soundtrack)
Planes Trains and Automobiles (totally stupid and I can still laugh just thinking about it)
Planet of The Apes (I LOVED these movies as a kid)
The Postman (I amy be the only person that liked this movie)
Princess Bride (a much better book but a great movie anyway)
Rocky (just a few seconds of the song still inspires me)
Roots (another mini-series but it started me on a life long hobby)
Animal House (again...it's a guy thing)
Saving Private Ryan (second best war story ever)
Schindlers List (This awful story was told so well, I felt physically ill)
Spanglish (I can't explain it but it struck a chord in me)
Shawshank Redemption (on a lot of favorite lists and near the top of mine)
Star Wars (come on! This has got to be on everyones list!)
That Thing You Do
Tropic Thunder (funny, funny, funny, funny, funny)
Truman Show (I like Jim Carreys and Adam Sandlers serious stuff better than I like their comedies)
Unforgiven (much more than just a western, it shows that the lines are blurred between the good guys and bad guys)
Up and Wall E (combined my favorite Pixar films)
Wizard of Oz (I may have seen at least parts of it 50 times)

So there they are. I've limited the list to 50 so I'll probably come back to it and kick some off as I add new candidates. Some of these movies are similar and some are nothing alike but they are all on the list because they told a story I liked. Am I missing anything that I should reconsider?

Remember Me?

2010-06-18T14:01:00.003-06:00

I write this stuff not just to give some stories to my kids that they may enjoy one day, but so that I can write my history the way I see it. These are my stories and I can portray myself with any heroic or humorous details that may or may not have actually happened. My thanks go to Todd and Troy who witnessed the following events and recently reminded me of them.

The Hurricane High track team was participating in the Manti Invitational in May of 1979. A couple dozen small schools from around the state were there and between events me and some friends were hanging out on the pole vault mats with some kids from other schools. Boyd Prince was the long distance star of our squad and even as a sophomore that year he was setting school records that stood for a couple decades. At some point Boyd started rough housing with this bigger kid from Nephi named Kim J.(I'm not including his last name because I don't want him reading this) I don't remember exactly how it started but I'm certain it was instigated by Boyd. As friendly as he was, he was also the kind of guy who would laugh at a speech impediment or mock someone's limp. Whatever had happened, Kim was pissed and was getting the better of Boyd with some sort of wrestling torture move.

If you can picture a pole vault mat, it's about the size of a three foot tall king mattress. There were two of these mats pushed together so that a deep crevasse formed between them. I don't know if any action on my part was really necessary. Boyd wasn't enjoying himself, but he wasn't injured and he wasn't asking for help. He may not have needed saving. Several of us were watching and saying, "That's enough, get off him." But I saw this superior, mocking grin on Kim's face and surprised myself by jumping on him without thinking it through. In a stroke of remarkable luck, I knocked him off of Boyd and onto his back - right on top of the crevasse. Our combined weight wedged him in and I saw a wonderful opportunity to avoid getting pummeled so I kept pushing him down until he disappeared. Keep in mind that these mats are strapped together and it was an extremely tight fit to stuff a body in there.

For the next two minutes, I played a very slow motion game of "whack-a-mole" as he tried to get out. He would manage to get an arm out and I would stuff it back in. A leg would pop up and again I would push it back down. His head was the scariest thing to escape because then I could hear the words he was screaming about what his plans were for me. It was not my intention to torture the guy but I didn't have a next move planned out. He was bigger and stronger and madder than me and I was starting to realize that this was not going to end well. A crowd started to gather and laugh which increased his humiliation and his fury. There was only one option. I pushed him down as far as I could...and I ran. I had about a 20 second lead and I ran to my coach and stood by him. Kim stood nearby and glared at me for about half an hour before he had to go compete. I surrounded myself with friends and coaches for the rest of the day and my life was spared.

Funny story, right? We laughed about it for a few months and then moved on. If nothing else had happened we probably would have forgotten the incident entirely. But that wasn't the end of the story....

Two years later (2 YEARS!) I left college for a weekend to travel to Delta to watch my brother Rick wrestle in the state tournament. Troy and Todd and I borrowed Rick's 1964 Mercury Comet and drove up to cheer him on. Between matches we decided to leave the gym and go look for somewhere to eat. We were in the car and I had just started the engine when Troy saw this bearded giant sprinting across the lawn towards us. "Do you know him?" Troy asked. Todd (who had been with me at the track meet) and I both recognized Kim J. even though he was 50 pounds and 6 inches bigger than he was two years ago. It was as if he'd been eating a bowl of steroids every morning and throwing knives at a target of my picture for two years. He was as mad as if he'd just now crawled from between those mats.

If I had been by myself I would have just floored the gas and peeled out of there. But I had friends with me who would probably repeat the story to my kids 30 years later so I had to act cool. Not brave...just cool. Self preservation came first so I realized that I should lock my door. So I casually slapped at where a door lock should be and found nothing. Rick's car had doors that looked like airplane wings when opened. They were long and the lock was waaaaay behind my shoulder.

The giant got closer.
I slapped for the lock.
"Who is he?" (Troy)
"Oh Crap" (Todd)

As his huge paw reached for the door handle, I stopped acting cool and lunged for my door lock just in time. Now that I was safe inside a few thousand pounds of steel I could pretend to be cool again. He was shaking the car and screaming curses at me and spit was literally hitting my window as he cursed. I had to say something to either:
a) apologize
b) calm him down
c) make my friends laugh

So I cracked the window open half an inch and said, "Remember me?"

This did not calm him. I realize that it was not a terribly witty thing to say. I'm typically much funnier than that but my mouth was dry and I was a little stunned at the situation and that is all I could come up with. Troy and Todd did laugh and this encouraged me to repeat it a couple more times.

I put the car in gear and slowly started coasting away as he kept his face at my window. "Do you remember those pole vault mats, Kim?" For some reason everytime I asked him this it seemed to make him angrier. Todd and Troy continued to giggle so I considered raising the stakes by pointing out to him that Kim was a girls name but I worried he would have turned the car over and crushed our skulls betweeen his fingers. I slowly (and cooly) drove off and kept asking him if he remembered me.

I am grateful to say that I have never seen him since. Not wanting to take any chances of running into the guy, I'm not planning on moving back to Utah until I read his obituary. You can't be too careful when someone considers you their mortal enemy!

Do you still remember me, Kim?

10,000 Days

2010-06-07T16:10:00.002-06:00

The best evidence that I should have majored in history instead of finance comes from the fact that I can't remember anything that I learned from my finance classes. I was usually daydreaming or counting my imaginary money. (I still spend way too much time counting imaginary money)

During one particularly boring financial theory class I came up with an entire new way to celebrate lifes milestones. I came up with a brand new ritual that would be celebrated around the globe. I've long since lost the notes I made on my idea, but it involved celebrations, gift giving, Hallmark cards, speeches, family gatherings...the works. I was trying to figure out how I could profit from the idea so I ran it by my dull minded friends (you know who you are). Sadly I was discouraged with theirs yawns and shrugs, so another brilliant idea withered and died from the lack of effort.

The rituals of our lives may seem unnecessary but they are a feature of almost all known human societies, past or present. A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. They may be performed on special occasions by a single individual, by a group, or by the entire community. Alongside the personal dimensions of rituals, they also have the important function of reinforcing the shared values and beliefs of a society. We use them to create social bonds. They include not only the various worship rites of organized religions, but also the rites of passsage in our lives such as marriages, graduations, funerals and even birthday parties.

While the actual passages of life may follow in consequential order, birth, adolescence, graduation, marriage, retirement, death...the actual lives we live are seldom so orderly. A ceremony that marks a life passage gives us a chance to pause, to reflect on the past and dream of the future. It gives us a chance to pay attention to our lives and to note our existence. By paying attention to our existence we sanctify it. We ask "Who am I? What am I doing here?" We connect ourselves to previous generations and to the generations that follow.

OK, so here's the basic premise of my 25 year old great idea. Our lives are divided into many stages but I condensed them into three sections of 10,000 days called Life Days. 10,000 is a big, impressive, round number that carries the weight of importance and rarity(10,000 days is about 27 and a half years). These 10,000 day milestones would be so globally important that everyone would know the three dates that celebrate their life. A baby would leave the hospital with a name, a birthday, and his three life days. The celebrations marking your life day are much bigger than birthdays or even graduations. They are as important as weddings and involve invitations and speeches and gifts and toasts and dancing.

The first third of your life is called "Becoming". This is obviously the period when you become who you are and by your 10,000th day you are pretty much the person you are going to be. You develop your skills and talents and your fears and phobias. You become educated and choose career paths. You often choose a mate and become a parent. You dream and hope and know that you have your whole life ahead of you.

The second phase, I called "Achieving". This is the responsible, productive, middle of your life. You work, produce, provide, and accomplish the goals you established in your younger stage. The younger and older generations both count on you.

The last 10,000 days start when you are about 55 and is called "Reflecting". You still have a lot of work ahead of you but the kids have moved out and the promotions at work seem less important and you are starting to coast. You are exploring your spirituality and hopefully enjoying the life you've built.

At 82, there is a major celebration of your life. You've reached 30,000 days! There is a major celebration of a life well lived. People make the speeches that they were saving for your funeral but should be told while you could hear and appreciate them. You live the remainder of your "bonus days" as a respected elder and enjoy the years you have left.

What do you think? Do we need another reason to celebrate? Will it catch on? Is it stupid? If I send my idea to Hallmark will I get a cut of the card sales?

Here are my Life Days:

I was 10,000 days on January 18, 1989
I will be 20,000 days on June 5th, 2016
I will be 30,000 days on October 22, 2043

Go to www.daysalive.com to figure out your own milestones. And make sure I get an invitation to your celebration!!

A Blue collar Monday

2010-05-26T16:10:00.007-06:00

On June 8th 2002, Terry Barton (a forest service officer) started the largest fire in Colorado history. She claims she was just burning letters from her ex-husband but later plead guilty to arson and served six years in prison. The fire consumed over 138,000 acres and crossed through 4 counties. A forest fire on this scale is devastating for all of the obvious reasons but much of the damage continues years after the fire is out.

Without the vegetation to keep the soil in place, it looks as if the mountains are melting. Even 8 years later, the roads in the area are frequently impassable after a rain storm because of mud slides. All of the soil starts coming down.

This year Vail Resorts pledged 1,500 volunteer hours to the restoration project. On Monday I contributed 6 hours to that total. Instead of a pen, a phone, and a keyboard, my tools were gloves, a hard hat, a polaski, and a sledge hammer.

My group started out on erosion control. Our job was to fill in a gully, install logs across the slope (erosion bars) to divert the run off and plant grass seed over the finished product. To keep the logs in place, we hammered rebar on the downhill side of the log and that is where the sledge hammer came in. I got to be John Henry for a little while but as far as I know, no songs were written about me....

We were making good progress until the winds came. Really big winds. Earlier that day we received a safety briefing and they warned us about the danger of falling trees after a forest fire. I didn't take it too seriously and figured they were being overly cautious. They weren't. First we heard trees falling and we would jump and look around and hope to catch one in action. Then we saw one fall and thought that was pretty cool. Then we saw three fall and thought that would be a good story. Then we saw a dozen fall and our forest ranger supervisor said "that's it, we're out of here". Before we could pack up and leave we saw trees flying through the air with the bottom of the trunk landing 50 feet away from the stump. I told myself that when I retold the story, I'd say we were running and dodging and lost a few good men but the truth is I never really felt I was in danger.

We relocated outside of the burn area and switched to planting trees. I was on a six man auger crew (a very manly tool!!!) With the auger and six people we could drill a three foot hole, pop in a willow tree, cover it, and water it in about a minute and a half.

By the end of the day I was dirty and out of breath. My back hurt and my grip was gone...but I felt great! I'm grateful for my desk job that doesn't involve daily punishment to my body, but for one day it felt really good to be exhausted and be able to point to something and say "I did that".

I wouldn't mind if I did the same thing every Monday...except for winters...or windy days I guess...or if I didn't feel good, like, you know, a stomache ache or something...but every other Monday for sure!!

Greener Grass

2010-05-12T15:15:00.003-06:00

I wish I could feel compelled to right more often just because. Just because I was grateful for any one of the ten thousand reasons that I should be (and am) grateful. But for some reason I only feel my burst of writing energy when something gets under my skin.

So the theme of what's under my skin today is a topic that I've written about a few times already. Why aren't people happier? I often wonder "what if". We all do. What if I had taken that path, studied that subject, accepted that job or married that woman. How would my life be different? Would I be happier? Would the grass be greener? I get it...but reaching middle age and “suddenly” discovering your life has not turned out exactly how you planned it in the 10th grade is about as unenlightening a revelation as realizing rocks fall when you drop them.

We all have regrets, but if I hear one more whiny spouse of either gender announcing that they got a divorce because they were “not happy” or they needed to "follow their bliss", I would like to put them in a crate and ship them to Afghanistan or Haiti so they can learn the true meaning of “not happy.” I'll admit that I'm not a neutral observer on the topic of divorce and my opinions are definitely biased, but I'm sick and tired of the whole “grass is greener” nonsense, particularly when knowing that just about every heifer that ever had its head stuck in a barbed wire fence quickly learns it's the same grass no matter which side you're on. They need to stop wasting their lives in these silly, extended, self-directed, over-produced dramas searching for nirvana, especially when chances are it's been right in front of them the entire time all along. I'm convinced that the pursuit of happiness is the chief cause of unhappiness. Being happy is so much more than merely not being unhappy. It can't be purchased, sold, elected or voted for, but can be found by simply looking at what one has as opposed to what one thinks they are missing.

Happiness is not having what you want, it is wanting what you have. It is not something you have to pursue, it's just something you decide. It can be as simple as a cool breeze or a warm bed. The younger we are, the simpler the equation. To a 5-year-old it can be a piece of candy from grandpa, and when I was 11 I remember being dizzy from happiness with a nice smile from a cute girl. (ok...I'll admit that is still pretty effective at 48)

And before anybody thinks they're being singled out by these words, trust me, this is about no one in particular yet a great many in general. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidence!

It Keeps Getting Better

2010-03-21T15:48:00.002-06:00

Why does every generation believe that humanity is in its worst state ever? It seems to me that everyone thinks that The Golden Age was whatever period of time covered your youth. Movies were better (unless you were a black actor), music was better (unless you were a gay singer), politics were better (unless you were a woman running for office), schools were better (unless you had dyslexia), and kids had more respect (and knew they deserved that beating). And today's world is in the toilet which is proof that Jesus is coming and the end is near. Whatever.

Are things really worse? If you really think things are worse, then they are, and there is never a lack of evidence to prove your point. You see aids, terrorism, pollution, and watch Fox News and you have no doubt that civilization is decaying.

But I prefer to look at life through a different lens, and case by case, most things seem a lot better today when compared with conditions just a generation ago, let alone a millenium ago.

Here are a few examples that come to mind. They range from trivial to awesome. And I'm not even going to discuss comparisons from 1000 years ago when we worried about our villages getting plundered, our children getting kidnapped, and rats bringing the plague.

Would the people who complain that there's no leg room on the airplane rather pull their hand cart to Utah? Would you still live in Phoenix if there was no air conditioning? How wonderful is it that instead of an outhouse and the Sears catalog, we have indoor plumbing and really soft toilet paper?(my favorite reason I wasn't born a hundred years earlier) What about cell phones, ATM's, velcro, online banking, online trading and those really funny stock trading baby commercials?

But it's your choice. You can look at UPC symbols and GPS as an example of Big Brother looking over your shoulder or you can look look at them as just a faster way to get out of the store and never getting lost. You can complain about the cost of health care or you can thank God for the miracles of penicillin, epidurals, and flouride.

Cars are safer, water is safer, paint is safer, cribs are safer, food is safer, and you can eat in a restaurant without the stink of cigarettes. Hmmmm.....I wonder if our incompetent, intrusive government and their regulations had anything to with that?

YOU LIVE IN PARADISE!!!!!

Do you really yearn for the "good old days"? Do you really want to worry about polio? Do you really want to have to get up to change the channel? Do you you want to know that when your child moves 200 miles away, you'll likely never see them again? Do you want your daughter to have 10% of the opportunities that she had 100 years ago? Do you really think that humanity is so corrupt that there is no saving it?

The world...this paradise we live in...keeps getting better. You can give the credit to God, or you can give the credit to man, but every year, the world is better than it was the year before. I usually believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but if you disagree with me...you are WRONG.

With so many blessings out there, why is it so hard to feel blessed?

The End is Near!

2010-03-09T18:48:00.000-07:00

Doomsdayers have shouted this prediction for thousands of years and the only end has been their own. The recent "irrefutable evidence" has come from this years series of earthquakes. I've always assumed that the mountains and canyons and volcanos and sink holes and tsunamis and hurricanes that are all over the globe were evidence that we live on an evolving, living planet. Not so! I just read an article about the latest quake in Turkey but that's not where the real information was. The good stuff was below the article in the comments section. That is the best part of getting your news online. You get to see read people's opinions of the news. And since all comments are anonymous you get see the crazy stuff that these people really think about.

There were nearly 2000 comments on this article so naturally I didn't read them all, but I did browse a couple hundred and here is a breakdown of earthquake theories.

60% say the reason is biblical. Jesus is returning and the earthquakes are no surprise because it's all predicted in scripture. (Matthew 24:7 and Revelations 16:18-20). Biblical predictions have been around for 2000 years so this is nothing new. I have to be careful here because some of these beliefs are sincere but what stood out and bothered me about these posts was the apparent delight at the prospect of the end of the world. Sinners (humans who don't believe what you believe) were finally going to get what was coming to them. Seriously! These people have the same joyful confidence of the suicide bomber before he squeezes the trigger. Just no doubt in their minds about what comes next and joy in the knowledge that people were going to be hurt.

10% say government conspiracy. Included in this number are the handful who say it's Obama's fault. Apparently the United States has developed an earthquake machine and we are in the process of testing it around poor countries. Other more sensible conspiracy theorists say don't be silly. There is no earthquake machine. The US is conducting undersea nuclear tests. Both sides have lots of compelling evidence which I won't go into here.

10% say it's all about the 2012 Mayan prophecies. For more information...see the movie.

10% have actually made the case that earthquakes are caused by global warming. You see, because both poles are melting, the weight of the earth is getting redistributed and geologic shifts are occurring. The quakes are going to continue until the earth finds balances its new weight. One woman (who had quotes from Fox News) combines this theory with the conspiracy theories and says Al Gore is running the earthquake machine to fool us into believing him so he can take over the world.

5% believe mother earth is a living breathing organism and human kind is a parasite or bacteria on its surface. Because of our bad habits, she is finally taking action to get rid of us.

3% say oil drilling and coal mining are too blame. It's obvious that if you remove the interior of any object then the exterior is going to start collapsing. Also, the oil acts as a natural lubricant on the plates and now its missing so there is more friction that causes earth quakes. Ok, I have to confess that I almost started to believe this one. It made sense to me and the people explaining it were using really big, scientificky words that impressed me.

Only 2% of the people believed that there is nothing new or unusual going on. Here is a quote I lifted that summarizes my own views. "All you fatalists and conspiracy idiots are just that, idiots. Earthquakes have been happening around the world for thousands of years and every time idiots perceive it as a harbinger of Armageddon. Today's day and age with easily accessible information through the internet and growing number of people in areas that are able to report it so quickly, it may seem like there is an unusual amount of catastrophic natural disasters, but the fact is is that you are more readily informed of these events than the past. They've always been occurring, all over the world so get a grip and move on".

At first it frightened me that 98% of the population believe something dark and unusual is going on. But then with relief, I realized that it is just 98% of anonymous public forum commentors dying for attention. Tell me that's right. There aren't really only 2 out of 100 people that think this is all perfectly normal, right? Right?

If you want to see a cool website that will show you every earthquake in the world go to:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php

Testosterone

2010-03-04T09:54:00.003-07:00

I needed a change.

I interact with women all day. My boss is a woman, most of my co-workers are women, my best friends locally are women, I ski with women, and I date women. I drive a mini-van. I own a bichon frise. I'm polite, empathetic, politically correct, and refrain from loud belching. I recycle, keep a clean house, and watch American Idol.

A couple of weeks ago, I looked in the mirror and wondered if I should be moisturizing when I realized that an immediate trip to Utah was necessary to keep me from adding "Dancing With the Stars" to my list of must see TV.

I didn't head to Utah because I thought it was a particularly virile state. I went to visit my friends, who despite being active in their church and local government and appearing to be responsible family men, will still giggle when they fart.

It was just what I needed.

We talked of zoning laws, death penalties, proper sidewalk construction, neutering sex offenders, basketball, dogs, 401Ks, and guns. We worried and bragged about our kids, and towed a Ford out of the mud. We went to a sports bar and watched Olympics and basketball. We insulted each other and nobody cried. We even went to Cabelas, the mansion of manliness, and shopped for sleeping bags, water filters, camp stoves, and guns. I held rifles, pistols and shot guns and was having a nice time until Todd told them I was a Democrat and they asked me to leave.

And we shot guns...

I believe in sensible gun control laws and I believe that some people have crossed the line of sanity on the subject, but I have to admit that it feels good to watch clay targets explode when you shoot them. BOOM! It feels...well it feels...manly! BOOM! with every shot, I could picture myself protecting my family from the zombie hordes trying to get into my house. BOOM! Everytime I pulled the trigger I felt a little dose of testosterone enter my body. It feels good...

I think I can hold off Dancing With the Stars for another season.

Thanks Todd and Troy!

Bad Blogger...

2010-02-14T14:24:00.002-07:00

...bad, bad, blogger! You've let 2 months go by without writing a word! Now sit your butt down at the keyboard and write something! It doesn't have to be profound. It doesn't have to be funny. But you started this blog because you like to write...so WRITE!

Ok,Ok, I'm writing! Get off my back! I was lazy, I admit it. There were thoughts in my head and things to write about but I'd sit down and thing "Bleehhh" maybe later. To tell you the truth, one of the obstacles holding me up is my audience. If your mother, daughter, ex-wife, neighbor, boss, cousin, best friends, and girl friends can all peak into your head it definitely limits the topics you can talk about. And the people that are in your life tend to be characters in the stories of your life, so you have to be careful not to upset anyone who thought that certain story would remain anonymous. See the problem?? There are stories I share with my friends that I sure don't want my kids to know about and there are incidents at work that I'd just as soon keep from my boss. If I praise a former relationship, that might not be appreciated by a future relationship. But if I stick with happy stories that are suitable for everyone, then I end up with forgettable Hallmark cards.

I'll work on it. Any advice would be appreciated.

Olympics

2009-12-12T09:33:00.004-07:00

I just saw my first commercial for the upcoming Olympics. Intellectually, I realize that there is a ridiculous amount of time and attention and money and politics spent on these games, but I love them anyway. The commercials always make me cry. did I say cry?? I meant tear up (just a little bit). The advertisers for Nike and Gatorade are very manipulative when it comes to my emotions.

There are so many inspiring Olympic moments and I've made a list of my top five. Interestingly the top two have nothing to do with victory.

5...1980 USA Hockey. Completely unoriginal because it's on everybodies list but it's there for a reason.

4...Phelps domination in 2008 swimming. But he needed two "come from behind" victories to do it.

3...Kerry Strug sticks the landing with a broken ankle. Wow!

2...Eddie the Eagle does what we all want to do. With no talent he competes anyway.

1...No contest. This scene still brings tears to my eyes just by thinking of it. In 1992, Dereck Redmond tears his hamstring and can't finish his 400 meter race. He's sobbing and struggling to finish and his father comes out of the stands to carry him across the finish. The scene represnted so much. Striving, failing, and finishing anyway and a fathers love. Here...watch it for yourself while I get a tissue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO8b-zIKixM

Or if you prefer...here is the story from ESPN.

The day of the race arrives. Father and son reminisce about what it took for Derek to get to this point. They talk about ignoring past heartbreaks, past failures. They agree that if anything bad happens, no matter what it is, Derek has to finish the race, period.

The top four finishers in each of the two semifinal heats qualify for the Olympic final. As race time approaches for the semifinal 400 heat, Jim heads up to his seat at the top of Olympic Stadium, not far from where the Olympic torch was lit just a few days earlier. He is wearing a T-shirt that reads, "Have you hugged your foot today?"

Derek Redmond
With the help of his father, an injured Derek Redmond completed his race in the 1992 Olympics.

The stadium is packed with 65,000 fans, bracing themselves for one of sport's greatest and most exciting spectacles. The race begins and Redmond breaks from the pack and quickly seizes the lead. "Keep it up, keep it up," Jim says to himself.

Down the backstretch, only 175 meters away from finishing, Redmond is a shoo-in to make the finals. Suddenly, he hears a pop. In his right hamstring. He pulls up lame, as if he had been shot.

"Oh, no," Jim says to himself. His face pales. His leg quivering, Redmond begins hopping on one leg, then slows down and falls to the track. As he lays on the track, clutching his right hamstring, a medical personnel unit runs toward him. At the same time, Jim Redmond, seeing his son in trouble, races down from the top row of the stands, sidestepping people, bumping into others. He has no credential to be on the track, but all he thinks about is getting to his son, to help him up. "I wasn't going to be stopped by anyone," he later tells the media.

On the track, Redmond realizes his dream of an Olympic medal is gone. Tears run down his face. "All I could think was, 'I'm out of the Olympics -- again,'" he would say.

As the medical crew arrives with a stretcher, Redmond tells them, "No, there's no way I'm getting on that stretcher. I'm going to finish my race."

Then, in a moment that will live forever in the minds of millions, Redmond lifts himself to his feet, ever so slowly, and starts hobbling down the track. The other runners have finished the race, with Steve Lewis of the U.S. winning the contest in 44.50. Suddenly, everyone realizes that Redmond isn't dropping out of the race by hobbling off to the side of the track. No, he is actually continuing on one leg. He's going to attempt to hobble his way to the finish line. All by himself. All in the name of pride and heart.

Slowly, the crowd, in total disbelief, rises and begins to roar. The roar gets louder and louder. Through the searing pain, Redmond hears the cheers, but "I wasn't doing it for the crowd," he would later say. "I was doing it for me. Whether people thought I was an idiot or a hero, I wanted to finish the race. I'm the one who has to live with it."

One painful step at a time, each one a little slower and more painful than the one before, his face twisted with pain and tears, Redmond limps onward, and the crowd, many in tears, cheer him on.

Suddenly, Jim Redmond finally gets to the bottom of the stands, leaps over the railing, avoids a security guard, and runs out to his son, with two security people chasing after him. "That's my son out there," he yells back to security, "and I'm going to help him."

Finally, with Derek refusing to surrender and painfully limping along the track, Jim reaches his son at the final curve, about 120 meters from the finish, and wraps his arm around his waist.

"I'm here, son," Jim says softly, hugging his boy. "We'll finish together." Derek puts his arms around his father's shoulders and sobs.

Together, arm in arm, father and son, with 65,000 people cheering, clapping and crying, finish the race, just as they vowed they would. A couple steps from the finish line, and with the crowd in an absolute frenzy, Jim releases the grip he has on his son, so Derek could cross the finish line by himself. Then he throws his arms around Derek again, both crying, along with everyone in the stands and on TV.

"I'm the proudest father alive," he tells the press afterwards, tears in his eyes. "I'm prouder of him than I would have been if he had won the gold medal. It took a lot of guts for him to do what he did."

The Captain and Tennille

2009-11-15T20:25:00.004-07:00

What was the first album you ever purchased?

In the course of a conversation on music with old (or new) friends the question will eventually come up. Most music questions are subjective and the answers can be debated or changed. Who was the best 70"s band? What was your favorite 80's group? Who are the top 10 singers in your lifetime? There are many possible answers and you can change your mind after listening to someone else's passionate reasoning.

But you only bought your first album one time and there's only one answer. Either you bought it or you didn't. I grew up in the 70's and there were so many good bands that I could have chosen to spend $10 on. I wish I had bought Pink Floyd. That'd be a cool answer. Lynnard Skinnard, The Allman Brothers, CCR, or Queen....all would be proud answers to the question. I didn't really care for KISS or AC/DC but I'd be in good company if one them was my first. I loved REO, Fleetwood Mac, and Styx so it's a mystery why they weren't my first. If I wanted mellow, why didn't I go with Billy Joel or Simon and Garfunkel. There wouldn't even be any shame in the very 70's Abba or BeeGees.

But my first album was The Captain and Tennille. I know, I know. I can't explain it either. I remember I bought in K-Mart at the same time my brother bought Olivia Newton John. I swear...we are both heterosexual males.

Fortunately I fare much better when I am asked about my first concert. Because in 1980 I saw those macho bad boys from down under ----

--- Air Supply!

Oh Yeah!! Manhood restored!!

They Come and They Go

2009-11-02T15:58:00.002-07:00

People move in and out of your life. In fact, I'd say that in ten years you will have forgotten most of the people you spent time with this week. They were co-workers, classmates, neighbors or even friends. But unless there is a "blood tie" it is hard to keep all of these people in your life as your life changes. At least most of the time you have some say about who you choose to keep in your life, but thats not always the case.

A relationship between two people involves a lot more than two people doesn't it? Divorce is a good example because you typically aren't just divorcing your partner, you also divorce their entire families. All of the in-laws become people that you used to be related to. I've been through that and there are nieces and nephews that I miss but I was one of the two main characters in that break-up so I knew what was coming.

But now I'm a fringe player in another loss because my daughter just broke up with her boyfriend of two years. We all loved this kid! He stayed at the house, he played board games with the family and we even traveled with him. Then "Poof" he's gone. At least when you are the main character in the break-up, you get to know the reasons and mentally prepare and say your good-byes. Samantha actually didn't tell us for a couple of weeks because she worried about our reaction. The reasons for the break-up were mature enough and naturally my reaction was to support her, but still... it was hard not to say, "What the Hell?!" "Why?" "What about checking with me first??"

I know that this is just a natural part of modern courtship and in the end I just want them to both be happy. Of course we form attachments to the people our kids date for a long period of time. It's hard not to love someone who loves your kid! But from now on I'm going to maintain a bit of distance and not get too attached. We parents have to remember, it is THEIR relationship - not ours. I trust her judgement and I'm guessing that usually our own great kids will be drawn to other great kids. In fact she's already seeing a guy who seems like another nice kid.

But I'm not getting attached this time. And I'm going to start a movement to bring back arranged marriages. It probably wouldn't have worked before but I believe that my generation really does know best!

Driving on Ice

2009-10-01T15:26:00.004-06:00

Jonah's had his learners permit for a month now and I have to admit that he has been an excellent driver from the very first day. He seems completely natural behind the wheel and is eager to learn more.

Just like city kids learn to drive in traffic, mountain kids learn to drive by cliffs on ice. This morning was his first opportunity to do that. While we were still sitting in the driveway I told him that he just needed to know two things. Drive much slower and leave a lot of room between you and the car in front.

"Ya, Dad, I know."

At the first stop sign I told him he approached it too fast for driving on ice.
He said that he didn't see any ice so I told him about black ice and that you can't always see it.

"Ya Dad, I know."

Swan Mountain is between my house and the high school. It's curvy, steep, narrow, and often icy. (even in June) The top speed limit is 35mph. Jonah was doing about 30mph on a downhill curve when he started fish tailing on black ice.

Into oncoming traffic.

For a few seconds our van pivoted back and forth and couldn't decide if it was going to go left into the Jeep or right off the embankment. (I was hoping for the embankment)

To my credit, I didn't scream, yell instructions, or grab the wheel. To his credit he didn't scream, over correct, or slam on the brakes. I'm not sure if there was screaming in the Jeep or not. Although Jonah got us into the mess he very expertly got us out of it as the oncoming cars went wide around us.

I smiled at him. "That was scary."

"Yes it was." he calmly admitted.

When we got to the high school I told him that other than almost getting us killed he did a very nice job. I asked him if he knew now why he needs to go slow on ice.

"Ya, Dad."

Now I know he knows.

A Fall Drive

2009-09-29T08:28:00.005-06:00

I should have been a trucker.

Forget the fact that I can't even back a trailer out of a driveway. I just like driving. It relaxes me. Putting miles behind me feels like progress even if I'm not going anywhere.

This Sunday, with a lot on my mind and no plans I just got in the car and started driving Colorado's back roads. I didn't plan on a 300 mile, 8 hour trip but thats what happened.

As you can see from the pictures below, I picked an excellent weekend to do it. I've said this before but I'll say it again. I live in a BEAUTIFUL part of this planet.

For Noah on his 18th Birthday

2009-09-08T15:48:00.004-06:00

Noah,

There is so much I want to tell you on your 18th birthday. The law says that legally you are a man now and honestly...that sends me into a panic because I feel like there is so much that I've neglected to say or teach you. Life is sooo fast. I swear you were just born last Sunday. On Tuesday you were climbing on to the roof when we weren't looking. And just yesterday it seems you were asking me to help you build a jet pack in the garage. It happened too fast and I'm not ready for you to be 18! I think that most advice a parent gives an 18 year old is swiftly forgotten. But maybe if I write it down, you can keep it and read it again occasionally and one day you might find some wisdom in it.

Noah, you have so much potential. Please don't settle for average. Please don't settle for what is easy or safe. The world can be scary. Life isn't fair. But I'm going to tell you a secret. We are all pretending. It's true. We are all scared. We are just guessing at the answers and nobody is as cool or confident as you think they are. We all wear masks when we go out in the world, Noah.

Smile. You don't do it often enough but you light up the room when you do. One day a girl is going to fall in love with you because of that smile.

Remember...Look people in the eye and give a firm handshake. I can't explain it but trust me. (it's a guy thing)

Make friends with all types of people and keep your eyes and mind open to everyone. Sometimes, the coolest friends are hiding in the oddest people.

Don't be afraid of strong women. If you find one that falls in love with your smile...make sure she is your equal and marry her.

Dance. I don't dance but I regret it. You'll always be popular with the ladies if you aren't afraid to dance. You don't even have to be good! Just don't be afraid!

Be proud of who you are. You are part of me - you are part of Mom. You are part of your grandparents. You are part of a thousand people who were born and lived and loved and died and passed a part of themselves on to create something incredible...you. Remember that and pass it on.

Trash talking is over rated. Be humble, be gracious.

You are the only person on this planet who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at school, or work, or the life in your mind. You are in charge of the life of your heart...your soul. I know that you tend to dismiss anything that can't be proven with science Noah, but it's your soul that truly defines who you are. It's your soul that will give you comfort when you're sad, or scared, or lonely. There really is something in the universe that is bigger than we are. Please be receptive and open to it when it comes to you.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. You will not understand this until years from now - but try. Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Love it. Take care of it. It's the best thing you'll ever own.

Care about people. Really work at it if you have to. Don't dismiss their interests, music, religion, games or friends. It's a small world when you only put your happiness at the top.

Remember the compliments. Forget the insults.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Hug your father. Men should never be ashamed to show love. Hug your mother. She's the first woman that ever loved you. Understand that they are human and try to forgive their mistakes. Be nice to your brother and sister (even when it's hard!). Visit them and talk about the times when you were kids. They're your best link to the past and the people that will most likely stick with you in the future.

Do what makes you happy. Be yourself. It's OK to follow the beat of a different drummer as long as you remain a part of the world. Don't give up too easily, Noah. Be willing to invest the time to achieve your goals. Be honest. Talk is cheap. If you say you are going to do something - do it. Living your life with integrity and honesty is the only way to live. People will respect you for it but more importantly, you'll respect yourself. Always do your best.

I believe in you , Noah. Believe in yourself.

I love you,
Dad

Healthcare

2009-08-06T16:55:00.005-06:00

I stopped blogging about political issues once the election was over and my guy won. I thought "we're in good hands now and the president doesn't need my help." But since everyone of us has a stake in the healthcare debates now raging across the country I'm feeling the urge to step in with my undervalued opinion. I recently started worrying about it more than I have in the past because of some deep layoffs in my company and the realization that could lose my job and my health benefits. I also have an adult daughter now who will come off my policy as soon as she stops attending college. The thought of myself being uninsured worries me, the thought of my kid being uninsured sends me into a panic!

I'm in awe - a sickening sort of awe - as I watch protestors across the nation screaming against socialized health care. Does anybody see the irony of senior citizens on medicaid yelling at congressmen that they are against socialized medicine? Did you see the sign held up by the woman that said "Keep Your Government Hands Off My Medicare"? Does anybody shake their head in disbelief as Republican Senators with their gold plated government healthcare condemn any plans to give that same care to the rest of us?

That's right. Our politicians enjoy taxpayer-funded healthcare. All of the senators and representatives in Washington enjoy health benefits that are fully paid by you and me. I don’t see any of America’s politicians opting out of their taxpayer-funded plans in favor of the supposedly superior private health plans, do you? They have the luxury of coverage at taxpayer expense, while we taxpayers have to worry about where or whether we will even get coverage, much less coverage that we can afford.

A main argument from the right is that they don't want government bureaucrats making healthcare decisons for them. But our current private system has insurance company bureaucrats deciding which medical procedures they will cover and which they will not. They also decide whether or not they will cover you at all and how much you must pay them for your coverage. Insurance companies dictate to doctors what care you are allowed, compromising what would otherwise be the best medical practices in the world. The biggest difference between the government and the insurance bureaucrats is that insurance companies actually have an incentive to give you less care because they will make more money by denying claims and treatments.

Many claim that America has the best healthcare system in the world. Sadly, that is just not true. We only have the most expensive system in the world. Are we getting our money’s worth?

Choose any type of health measurement and compare America against any other industrialized nation. The comparison is not good. Life expectancy in the U.S. ranks 24th in the world. Life expectancy in the U.S. ties with Slovenia. We rank 29th in the world for infant mortality. Even Cuba ranks ahead of us. We fare poorly in several other rankings as well, including overall cost, access, and health outcomes. It turns out that America has, at best, the 24th best healthcare system in the world. Want to know what the top 23 countries are doing? They all have universal healthcare.

A generation ago, working for only one company over the course of your career was the norm. Today, the average worker will work for six different companies. Additionally, more workers than ever before are self-employed or run small businesses. Employer-sponsored healthcare no longer makes any sense. Many of my conservative friends and relatives have the traditional family where mom stays home with the kids and dad goes to work and gets the employer based health policy. Well if dad leaves or dies, mom cannot continue to stay at home and care for the children as before. She must, in a time of crisis, look for a (full-time) job with healthcare benefits. Countless Americans remain in their jobs when they would rather stay home to care for their children, simply because they have to in order to continue their medical insurance coverage. That is not exactly “family values.”

Forty-seven million Americans are now uninsured and that number is growing as job losses continue. Uninsured people still get sick. They still visit the doctor or, worse, the emergency room, which is 10 times the cost. Who pays? Those of us with insurance. I went to the podiatrist last month for some foot pain. The total bill for an xray, 20 minutes of the doctors time and some shoe inserts cost $850. It doesn't take a genius to see that there is a lot more rolled into that bill than the care I received. You and I are ALREADY paying for the uninsured every time we pay a premium; we pay again every time our premiums go up. And our premiums will continue to go up. The price of insurance premiums is rising much faster than wages, and there is no end in sight.

In America, we believe that we all deserve equal protection from crime and fire. The police and the firemen should respond to you just as fast as they respond to Donald Trump, right? We believe that the poor have the same right to clean water and safe roads as the rich. We even pass laws guaranteeing that everyone have affordable access to cable TV! But in this the greatest nation on earth, a country as well off, as caring, as Christian, as the United States of America, it is unacceptable that our politicians would say that we can have equal rights in so many things but if I want the same coverage as them, then I'm a socialist.

There! I got that off my chest. Let me know if anything I said changed your opinion on the subject!

New York

2009-07-21T10:17:00.001-06:00

Me and Samantha spent 3 days in NYC last week. We crammed as much as we could into the time we were there and the highlight of the trip was spending quality time with my 19 year old daughter. Here are some other the highlights.

...had a cabbie that rolled down his window to yell at people...saw Paul McCartney sing on top of the Ed Sullivan theater...Ellis Island...Apollo Theater...bought a hot dog from a street vendor...saw homeless building forts in doorways at night...Museum of Natural History...Times Square...Stautue of Liberty...Ground Zero...Century 21...followed the crowd through intersections against the light...Wicked...top of the Empire State Building...subways...patio cafe's...Chinatown...Dakota...Central Park...Mama Mia...Brooklyn Bridge..bought a purse from a street vendor...Metropolitan Museum of Art...Grants Tomb...Columbia University...Carnegie Hall...United Nations...Wall Street...

New York is incredible. We enjoyed it all and would like to go back. When you travel you can't help but compare where you are to where you are from. You compare the people, the prices, the weather, the culture, the entertainment, etc.

We both received an additional bonus from this trip by realizing that Colorado is an INCREDIBLE place to live. It's good to be home. (but we can't wait to go again!)

Trudging to the Top

2009-07-12T07:59:00.003-06:00

I climbed another of Colorado's 14ers yesterday. My 15th. Only 39 left! Actually "climbed" sounds too athletic. Hiked and walked don't quite fit either. Cantered or pranced? Too ambitious. Ambled, strolled, or meandered? Too casual. Lumbered or marched? Too confident. Wandered and roamed are too aimless. Plodded or slogged? Close. Trudged? Trudged...that's it.

Yesterday I trudged up another mountain. Missouri Mountain this time. Since Missouri doesn't have it's own mountains I don't mind naming one of ours in their honor.

I drove to the trail head Friday night and slept in the van for an early start. I was up by 4:30 and on the trail by 5:15 and was gasping for air with my hands on my knees at 5:20. But aside from my physical conditioning, it was a beautiful day and watching the sun hit the peaks was truly spectacular. If I just took it easy, I might be on top by 9:00. That was if I stayed on the trail. I didn't stay on the trail.

A scree field is a field of loose rock that you have to pick your way through very carefully and it's easy to lose the trail.
Really. Anybody can lose the trail. Really. The smart thing to do when you lose the trail is to back track until you pick it up again. The dumb thing is to keep going forward confident that the trail will have learned its lesson and come back to you. I saw the mountain peak ahead of me and chose to do the dumb thing.

And I climbed the wrong peak. (but I made really good time!)

I sat down on Wrong Peak and took a picture of Missouri Mountain...across the valley and an hour away.
So now I had a dilemma. To get to Missouri I would have to descend 500 feet, traverse a ridge for about half a mile and climb back up a thousand feet to the top. I seriously considered returning home and just crossing Missouri off my list anyway. No one would know and I could tell myself that I was close enough. I started down and didn't completely decide until I reached the point where I could continue down or turn back up.

An hour later I was on top of the right mountain.

Happy Fathers Day

2009-06-20T17:39:00.003-06:00

There are many ways to measure success, not the least of which is the way your children describe you when talking to a friend. - Author Unknown

This week like every other 3rd week of June that I remember, fathers are in the news. Celebrities and presidents are speaking of memories of their dads or the importance of being a good father. I pay attention. I'm not saying that I don't also pay attention to Mother's Day. Mothers get plenty of attention and rightfully so. Seems like there are many more good mothers (including my own) than there are good fathers so in addition to a day set aside to appreciate us, we also get reminders and lectures on the importance of being a good one.

I had a good one.

I want to make sure he knows because now that I am a father of three teens, I'm constantly asking the question of myself. Am I doing a good job? Will they recover from my mistakes? Am I a good role model? Always questions! So although I don't yet have the answers on how I am doing as a father, I wanted to provide some answers to him.

He showed me that just simply "being there" for your kids was important. He made it to all teachers meetings, plays, concerts, sporting events, and even put in the required coaching duties

I know that racism is wrong because of my dad. He came from the segregated south and when I was 8 we were visiting his home town and we went to the public pool for a swim on a hot sticky summer afternoon. The pool was surrounded by chain link and as all of us white children were enjoying the cool water, dozens of sweaty black children hung on the fence and stared at us. I asked my dad why they weren't swimming and he explained that they weren't allowed and that the law was wrong and people were stupid and we left.

I know how to work because of my dad. After a few decades of white collar work, he took an early retirement to move to Minnesota to be by my mom's parents. The idea was to get another job suited to his talents and management skills for the last ten years of his career. The December after they moved I went out to visit and watched him pump gas in the minus 20 degree wind chill. Jobs he was looking for were slow in coming so instead sitting and waiting and whining he worked at the local gas station until an administrative position opened up at the local college.

I want to contribute to make the world better because of my dad. After he finally retired he volunteered to work with kids in the school system. Most of the grandparent volunteers wanted to work with the younger elementary children, but dad volunteered in the middle school for over ten years. He received a Volunteer of the Year award and today hundreds and hundreds of kids(and now adults) call him grandpa in addition to his own 7 grand kids.

So Dad...just in case you didn't already know this...you are a good dad and I'm proud to be your son. I hope I live up to your example. Love, Jim

Paradise with a Price

2009-06-14T10:47:00.006-06:00

For 3 months a year, I live in paradise. It's easy to forget that when it is still snowing in mid-June.

I went for a walk this morning while most were still sleeping (always the best time of the day) and even after 6 years here I am still amazed by the beauty around me. Every direction could be a post card. From now until mid September the temperatures will seldom get above 80. Humidity and bugs are practically non-existent. When storms roll through they are dramatic and exciting (thunder in stereo) and are quickly followed by blue skies and fresh mornings. The air is invisible as it should be. Water is plentiful and pure.

And there's the people! Summit County is the fittest county in Colorado. Colorado is the fittest state in the nation. And there are no age limits. I've climbed mountains and found 7 year old girls with their 70 year old grandfathers already at the top when I arrived. Sharing the ski slopes with 80 year olds is common. In my experience, healthy people are happy people and happy people are great neighbors.

Recreation? Most cars are equipped with racks that carry bikes, skis, canoes, snowboards, and kayaks. If their toys are too big they have a trailer to pull the snow mobiles, 4 wheelers, sailboats and rafts. If that's too much activity for your weekend, then choose among several festivals that are held every single weekend in the summer. What interests you? Jazz? Film? Wine? Art? BarBQ? There's a festival you can walk to that people come to from all over the country.

I live in paradise...for 3 months a year.

Quotes to live by

2009-05-25T15:16:00.003-06:00

I've been doing some deep cleaning in the house. Very deep cleaning. Every photo and every knicknac is studied and either organized, given away or tossed out. Yesterday I found a handful of 3 by 5 cards with various quotes written on them. I started writing down quotes in 1978 and it looks like I wrote the last one in 1995. I remember writing down quotes that supported my own philosophy...quotes that made an impression. I wrote them down and even had many of them memorized (back when I could remember anything)

Very often when you get a chance to revisit the past and you are introduced to who you used to be, you don't always recognize that person. People change, ideas evolve, truths expand. And although I have changed and hopefully grown over the past 30 years, I discovered that I like these sayings and recognize their truth as much as I originally did. I don't think I intended to collect quotes that were so similar to each other but now I can see that there is a definite theme running through them. Perhaps among them is my own philosophy of life that these wise men and women have expressed much better than I ever could. Here they are.

The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience. - Eleanor Roosevelt

There is only one success... to be able to spend your life in your own way.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler. - Henry David Thoreau

Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Henry David Thoreau

That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. Henry David Thoreau

The determined man finds a way, the other finds an excuse.

Everything can be taken from man but one thing, the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances - to choose ones own way. Dr. Victor Frankl

Success is a journey, not a destination. We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.

I finally figured out that the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it. - Rita Mae Brown

Change occurs when we take responsibility for our own thoughts, decisions and actions. - C. Palladino

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness. - Eric Hoffer

There is more to lfe than increasing its speed. - Mahatma Gandhi

Death is not the enemy; living in constant fear of it is. - Norman Cousins

A man may fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he blames someone else.

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to ones courage. - Anais Nin

People do not lack strength, they lack will. - Victor Hugo

Action is eloquence - Shakespere

It is only those who do nothing that make no mistakes. - Joseph Conrad

It is not only what we do but what we do not do for which we are accountable. - Moliere

Go as far as you can see, and when you get there you will see farther. - Orison Sweet Marden

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down. - Mary Pickford

And finally here is the quote that started it all. I actually memorized this in high school. It's still my favorite.

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiently, who errs and comes up short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. - Theodore Roosevelt

You Must Pay The Rent!

2009-05-13T12:22:00.002-06:00

"You Must Pay The Rent!"

Imagine me saying that line with a top hat, a cape, and a skinny waxed mustache. That's how I picture myself everytime I have to collect delinquent rent from my tenants. I don't enjoy it. I put it off as long as possible hoping the check will be in the next days mail. But in nearly 20 years of doing it, I must admit it has gotten easier. And that's a good thing because there is a whole lot of rent that's not getting paid these days.

One of my first (and worst) situations was trying to get money from a Chester Fried Chicken franchisee in one my food courts. The guy was retired after a career in the Army where he ran NCO clubs. He thought he had the skills to manage a small fast food franchise and he sunk his entire life savings ...against his wifes vehement protests...into this venture. He was already circling the drain before I got to the mall and became his landlord and nothing I could do was going to save him. He was going out of business and my orders from corporate were to get as much money as possible from him to settle his debt. He and I and our attorneys met in a conference room and the guy was literally in tears. He said he lost everything and his wife wasn't even speaking to him. And although I personally would have let him off the hook, I had to ask him for more money. He would make an offer and I'd step out of the room to call my boss and come back in and have to say "not good enough". At the end I only ended up with about twenty percent of what he owed but it took most of what he had left and we even made him sell his van to give us another couple thousand. When he left I could tell that facing me was nothing compared to what he was going to face when he got home.

It was an ugly experience but I definitely learned something from it. It's easier to collect rent if people think you are a son of a bitch. Word got around the mall that the new mall manager took a guys van and made him cry. For three years in a row after that I received the annual award for having the lowest collection balances in the company.

When I switched jobs, rent collection was still an important part of the job description. We had a Christmas store that was always struggling with rent, but I knew that the guy lived in a nice home, drove a nice car, and was frequently in the society pages, so I didn't feel that bad for him. I ended up suing him and he showed up in court with a cashiers check for the entire $30,000 that he owed. It was strange since he had been claiming poverty just the day before but I had my money and didn't question it ...until the police questioned me 6 weeks later.

Turns out that Mr. Christmas was also the president of the local charter school and he had embezzled from them to pay me. We returned the money to the school and evicted Mr. Christmas, who is still in jail as I write this. The story made the paper of course, which was fine with me. Because now my tenants know that there was a guy who would rather go to jail than owe me money. You don't have to be a son of a bitch but sometimes it doesn't hurt if people think you are!

He Could Have Been an Idol

2009-04-18T19:58:00.004-06:00

Seems I've been making several apologies lately for decades old wrongs I've committed. Now my old friend Troy wants one too.

We were discussing American Idol last week and he insisted that he could have been a singing star if I hadn't crushed his dream in 1981. I won't say that he has an inflated opinion of his talents because that would just be being cruel to him all over again. And besides, I'm no singing judge. Maybe Simon would have loved him.

Anyway here's my confession...

I lived with Troy in an awful single wide trailer just off campus. I don't remember the details but apparently there was a college sponsored talent contest coming up and Troy had entered it to sing. He was in the trailer alone and I was coming home with a date. As soon as we were within 50 feet of the trailer we heard the verses of "Endless Love" and they weren't coming from the stereo.

We started laughing until I put a finger to my lips and we tip toed up the steps and looked through the window. Troy was laying on the couch. He had his eyes closed and one finger in his ear (I don't know why) and he was singing his heart out. He was singing from the bottom of his diaphragm.

Two hearts,
Two hearts that beat as one,
Our lives have just begun.

We watched for about half a minute until we couldn't take it anymore and threw the door open and started singing with him. He jumped up and started stammering an explanation but I couldn't hear it because I was literally on the floor laughing. Now understand...there was nothing wrong with his singing. He wasn't bad, but the situation begged for some teasing. Sure...it sounds mean now but we were college roommates and that's what guys do. If he wanted emotional support he should have joined a sorority.

So I ribbed him for a couple of days and he didn't enter the contest. This week he finally pointed out that I probably wrecked his singing career by mocking him. So here you go Troy....I am sorry. When my daughter gets married, I want you to sing Endless Love at her wedding.

There...anyone else need an apology?

Troy Stout could have been the 1st Clay Aiken if I hadn't interfered.

The Torch is Passed

2009-04-15T14:20:00.003-06:00

I'm pretty sure that physical competiton is mostly a father/son thing. I don't see many mother/daughter pairings wrestling on the floor. But men wrestle with their sons from a young age. For many years its just play. You keep it close and make it look like your son is getting the better of you before you turn him over and tickle him. Later when they are 12 or 13, you can still beat them but you have to put a lot more effort into it than you used to. For a couple of years I've had to fight dirty to beat Noah, but my 17 year domination ended this Sunday.

He had just beat me (easily) in 2 straight games of chess. To get my mojo back, I started rough housing with him. Right away I could tell that this time was different. I'm not sure if he is stronger or I am weaker, but it's probably a combination of both. The struggle wasn't going my way and I actually worried about getting hurt so I surrendered and crowned the new champion. I'm not going to wrestle him again...the rivalry is over.

He can wear the crown for about thirty years...then my grandson is going to kick his butt!

Man

2009-04-12T12:36:00.002-06:00

Since I seem to be in a bit of a writing slump, I decided to post an article I like about what defines a man. Not saying I have all of these qualities but it's something to strive for!

By Tom Chiarella

A man carries cash.
A man looks out for those around him -- woman, friend, stranger.
A man can cook eggs.
A man can always find something good to watch on television.
A man makes things -- a rock wall, a table, the tuition money.
Or he rebuilds -- engines, watches, fortunes.
He passes along expertise, one man to the next.
A man fantasizes that kung fu lives deep inside him somewhere.
A man is good at his job. Not his work, not his avocation, not his hobby. Not his career. His job. It doesn't matter what his job is, because if a man doesn't like his job, he gets a new one.
A man can speak to dogs.
A man listens, and that's how he argues. He crafts opinions. He can pound the table, take the floor. It's not that he must. It's that he can.
A man can look you up and down and figure some things out. Before you say a word, he makes you. From your suitcase, from your watch, from your posture. A man infers.

A man owns up. That's why Mark McGwire is not a man. A man grasps his mistakes. He lays claim to who he is, and what he was, whether he likes them or not.
Some mistakes, though, he lets pass if no one notices. Like dropping the steak in the dirt.

A man can tell you he was wrong. That he did wrong. That he planned to. He can tell you when he is lost. He can apologize, even if sometimes it's just to put an end to the bickering.

A man does not wither at the thought of dancing. But it is generally to be avoided.

A man loves the human body, the revelation of nakedness. He loves the sight of the pale bosom, the physics of the human skeleton, the alternating current of the flesh. He is thrilled by the wrist and the sight of a bare shoulder. He likes the crease of a bent knee.

Maybe he never has, and maybe he never will, but a man figures he can knock someone, somewhere, on his bottom.

A man doesn't point out that he did the dishes.
A man knows how to ridicule.
A man gets the door. Without thinking.
A man knows how to lose an afternoon. Playing video games, driving aimlessly, shooting pool.
He knows how to lose a month, also.
A man welcomes the coming of age. It frees him. It allows him to assume the upper hand and teaches him when to step aside.
He understands the basic mechanics of the planet. Or he can close one eye, look up at the sun, and tell you what time of day it is. Or where north is. He can tell you where you might find something to eat or where the fish run. He understands electricity or the internal-combustion engine, the mechanics of flight or how to figure a pitcher's ERA.
A man does not know everything. He doesn't try. He likes what other men know.
A man knows his tools and how to use them -- just the ones he needs. Knows which saw is for what, how to find the stud, when to use galvanized nails.
A miter saw, incidentally, is the kind that sits on a table, has a circular blade, and is used for cutting at precise angles. Very satisfying saw.

He does not rely on rationalizations or explanations. He doesn't winnow, winnow, winnow until truths can be humbly categorized, or intellectualized, until behavior can be written off with an explanation. He doesn't see himself lost in some great maw of humanity, some grand sweep. That's the liberal thread; it's why men won't line up as liberals.

A man resists formulations, questions belief, embraces ambiguity without making a fetish out of it. A man revisits his beliefs. Continually. That's why men won't line up with conservatives, either.

A man is comfortable being alone. Loves being alone, actually. He sleeps.
Or he stands watch. He interrupts trouble. This is the state policeman. This is the poet. Men, both of them.
A man loves driving alone most of all.
A man watches. Sometimes he goes and sits at an auction knowing he won't spend a dime, witnessing the temptation and the maneuvering of others. Sometimes he stands on the street corner watching stuff. This is not about quietude so much as collection. It is not about meditation so much as considering. A man refracts his vision and gains acuity. This serves him in every way. No one taught him this -- to be quiet, to cipher, to watch. In this way, in these moments, the man is like a zoo animal: both captive and free. You cannot take your eyes off a man when he is like that. You shouldn't. Who knows what he is thinking, who he is, or what he will do next.

Cheapest Hotel

2009-03-17T19:42:00.003-06:00

The most expensive part of travel is usually the over night accommodations. We'd all like to stay at the 5 star resorts, but the budget won't allow it. To travel less expensively, you stay at Super 8 or Motel 6. Is money really tight? Then you'll be rolling into the KOA's.

But what if you've decided to see the whole country in 2 months for $150?

The first night of our hitchhiking adventure, Chuck and I slept under a juniper tree outside of Flagstaff, AZ. It was far enough away from the road to not be seen by traffic, and since we had no tent, the tree offered a little protection from the elements. We wanted to travel as light as possible and being 21 we figured we were tough enough to make do with just sleeping bags. By the next night we had only made it as far as Winslow, AZ and splurged on a box of granola bars before camping under a picnic table at a rest stop. Trust me, an April night in Arizona is not warm and we awoke feeling a little cranky about our adventure thus far.

But as our 3rd day warmed up our fortunes improved and we hit the jackpot when a quiet cowboy in a silver truck took us all the way to Oklahoma City. He was tired but couldn't stop for sleep so he picked us up to help him drive. It was dawn when Cowboy let us out and that's when we discovered the accommodations that we used for the rest of our time on the road. We were at a major interchange with several overpasses and men were emerging from the concrete. We couldn't see where they were coming from...it looked like they were just sinking through the road above. They were walking and sliding down to the road below. When the last of them left we climbed up and found this...

...about three feet of warm, safe, privacy. An they were located every few miles all over the country. No reservations required. Sure, there were drawbacks. Concrete is hard. Freeways are noisy. Trucks were rolling just inches over my face. But we loved the fact that they were everywhere and we would be completely hidden while up there. Even if drivers looked for us we couldn't be seen.

We questioned the safety of our shelter just once in Nashville when I was awakened by Chucks scream. I opened my eyes in time to watch him rolling down to the road below as he fought to stop his descent with a single arm coming out of the breathing hole of his mummy sleeping bag. I probably should have been more concerned but I was laughing so hard I couldn't even find my own bags zipper so I could go down and help him. He was bruised and scraped and sore for days but the memory of it still makes both of us laugh.

So there you go. If you are on an extreme budget, I've just tipped you off to the cheapest hotel I know of. 26 years have passed and I still look under the over passes nearly everyday to see who knows the secret.

Pay Cut? No Problem!

2009-03-14T11:43:00.003-06:00

As unemployment in our country rises above 8%, my own employer continues to make tough decisions. We had another round of lay-offs this week and each cut seems to get harder and harder on everybody. Three months ago, my division of the company had about 100 employees. Today we are less than 70.

This time we all knew what was going on and we knew the risks of being called to the bosses office. My meeting was as at 8:00 and I was told that my salary was getting cut by 5%. I said, “Thank-you, very much.”

All morning people gathered in huddles quietly discussing events. No one could show too much relief because no one had any idea who survived and who didn’t. When making eye contact with someone in the copy room, one person would just lift a wondering eyebrow and the other would respond with a nod. Then you knew you were safe to talk about it and show relief that you weren't going home.

It wasn't completely surprising to anybody. We're in an industry that represents good times and economic health. People are going to cut their ski vacation from the budget before they stop buying socks, milk, or cable TV. It’s actually remarkable and a testament to good management that we haven’t had deeper cuts. During the good times of the past few years we were actually paying down debt instead of acquiring more. I heard one ski resort closed last month…right at peak season. Rumor has it that other companies are obtaining last minute financing to keep from going under.

We could be in much worse shape, but that doesn’t make it any easier to see your friends lose their jobs. Friends with families and mortgages just like me. People with talent and skills and loyalty. After the cuts were final we had a “survivors meeting” and the VP that had to deliver the news to the victims could barely get through it with out choking up. He made the points that the economy was terrible and we had to reduce cost while trying to preserve as many jobs as we could and there were no guarantees that the layoffs were over. In order to preserve as many jobs as possible, everyone had their wages cut and the CEO would take no salary at all this year. I hope its enough to get through until the economy turns around.

Actually I hope it's enough to get through another 3 years until my youngest leaves home. Then I don't need a job or a mortgage. I just haven't decided yet if I'm moving into Todd's basement or Troy's boat. (they think I'm kidding)

Mowing the Lawn

2009-03-10T14:41:00.003-06:00

I like to read good writing. Whether it's an entire book or just a bumper sticker, I love when the words are perfectly chosen and arranged to the point where I'm not just reading information...I'm reading art. And I wish I could do that.

So aside from this blog just being a way to keep in touch with friends and family, writng is something I enjoy. And it's a way to practice the art and to try to come close to some of the writers I admire. Sometimes I'll find that among a thousand words, I've strung ten together that are really good and its worth the time I put into it.

I still enjoy it but sometimes it feels like it's becoming a chore. It's like watching the grass in your yard get longer and longer and knowing that you should cut it. It just kind of nags at your brain and you imagine that the neighbors are shaking their heads and blaming you for their sinking property values until you can't take the pressure and you shuffle out and mow your lawn. When you're done, you don't feel pride at a job well done. Just relief that the chore isn't nagging at you anymore.

Any of you other bloggers feel that way? Natalie? Kelly? Brooke? Do you suspect that after a week of nothing new, your readers are saying "Bad blogger, bad blogger! Go to your room!"?

Sorry. I like writing, but I hate mowing the lawn.

Ski Day

2009-02-28T11:32:00.003-07:00

A day on the mountain is always better than a day at work. But yesterday I nearly questioned that expression. It was our company ski day and the offices closed for a day of skiing. Or as we say in the ski business, "testing the product".

It was cold, windy, and sunless when I awoke and I hoped it would clear up later but it never did. I picked up my friend Shunnie, drove to Vail and met the rest of our co-workers at the top.

You probably realize that when you ski with co-workers who work for Vail Resorts, you are skiing with excellent skiers. I am not in that category. I can't even fake it anymore because 2 years ago I got hauled off the mountain in a toboggan and straight onto an ambulance. It was hard to keep that quiet when it ruined at the office ski day that year. People remember. I can tell they still keep their eyes on me and ski easier trails when I'm around. I protest that I haven't fallen since then but it's too late. My reputation is established.

Yesterdays conditions were bad. Icy crust and the wind was just about blowing us back up the hill. Icicles formed from our chins as we rode the chairlifts. Nobody wanted to be there but nobody wanted to admit it because we were certain that a day on the mountain was better than a day at work. Lunch at the Game Creek private club was a definite high point and it was the only place I could take a picture. I posted it below.

After lunch, a few of us were standing around (in a freaking blizzard) wondering where to ski next. I knew no one wanted to ski and no one wanted to admit it. So since it was already established that I was the weak link of ski days, I took one for the team and said I didn't want to ski anymore.

"No?" my boss asked.

"Hell No" I confirmed.

Then they readily agreed that if Jim was done they might as well quit too. I bravely sacrificed my reputation (what reputation I have left after my pedicure anyway) to save my friends from freezing.

That's the way I'm going to look at it anyway.

Sweet Feet

2009-02-13T18:20:00.003-07:00

I did something yesterday for the first time in my life. I got a pedicure. It wasn't on my list of things to do before I die...I just sort of stumbled into it. I sit on a home owners board and for Christmas they sent me a spa gift card worth $100. I was excited and was looking forward to a nice massage. At least I was looking forward to it until I checked the prices at this very exclusive spa and saw that massages started at $200. So I started looking down the list of services.

I could get my hair high lighted for $125...no
I could get my eyebrows designed with a perfect arch for just $75...pass
The Perfect Eyes treatment was $95 came with the eyebrow arching plus eye shadow recommendations...tempting.
The Gentlemans Manicure was only $50 but if I wasn't getting nail polish then it just seemed like paying a pretty girl to hold my hand....I decided against it.
Then I saw the Signature Pedicure. I thought it was just having someone clip my toenails. But no. It is a cuticle trim, nail shape, exfoliation & polish. It is a complete pedicure using their signature Ginger Peach line. Sounded too tempting and I scheduled it.

I told my boss that I was leaving work for a pedicure. Becka felt that this was an occasion that should be witnessed so she scheduled one with me. His and Her pedicures with my boss. We arrived and I informed my (pedicurist? nail girl? foot artist?) that I was a first timer and asked her to be gentle with me. I'm not sure what all of the steps were in my pedicure because I was laying back in my massage chair with my eyes closed. I do know that it involved hot bubbly water, clippers, some sort of mineral salts, a big old file that looked like it belonged in my garage, and some sort of moisturizer from their signature ginger peach line. Since I have apparently been neglecting my feet for many decades, that big old garage file got a pretty good work out on the bottom of my feet.

Did any of you guys know that you were supposed to be filing the bottoms of your feet?

I skipped the nail polish but when I saw how good Becka's nails looked with a Hot Bubble Gum shade, I regretted my conservatism. But on the other hand, I could put my shoes on when we were done and she had to walk in flip flops with cottonballs between her toes into a mountain winter day.

Over all, it was a nice experience as long as I didn't have to pay for it. And my feet felt so nice last night that I kept myself awake by rubbing them on my legs.

I may have to bring my file out of the garage and keep it in the shower from now on.

You're Fired

2009-02-09T16:16:00.002-07:00

With all of the lay-offs in the news, I’ve been wondering how the word is actually given to the victims. When Panasonic says the are laying off 15,000 people, how do they actually go about it? Email? Bulletin board? Does each person get pulled into an office for a private chat? Or do pink slips really exist that people just find in an envelope with their last paycheck?

I’ve had to fire people. It was always hard, but I’ll admit it did get easier. I can’t remember the name of the first guy I had to fire but I remember everything else about it. I was in my first supervisory position just a couple years out of college. He was the worlds worst parking lot attendant. He wouldn’t shower, he glared at customers, he was seldom on time, he couldn’t count money accurately, and his co-workers hated him. There were complaints everyday. He deserved to be fired but I couldn’t do it. I’d like to say it’s because I was such a nice guy who could see the good in everyone, but that’s not true. I was just afraid to fire someone. I got a four year business degree from a good university and it just never came up in any class.

So I counseled him about cash counting, and gave him warnings about being late, but how do you tell an adult he smells bad and needs to take a shower? He didn’t improve and the other employees were losing respect for me so I had to do it. I lost sleep for 3 nights while I worried about. I worked on various scripts in my head. I had answers for anything he’d say. I had a nice version and a stern version. On the chosen day, I met him at the end of his shift and said,

“It isn’t working out. We’ll have to let you go.”

He shrugged and walked away. It was that easy.

Over the next 20 years I fired a bunch of people. Some were for budget reasons, some were for performance issues. On one bad day, I even fired 6 at once. It was never easy but it was never as hard as that first time.

It's true that you learn more from life than you do from school, but I still think every business degree should offer Firing 101.

Worth It

2009-02-01T08:04:00.004-07:00

I don't need to see the odds against winning. I don't need to hear that it's money down the toilet and don't tell me it's foolish.

I'm still going to buy a couple lottery tickets every week.

For two dollars a week I get a 10 minute fantasy. I'm rich. I quit my job, give money to my family, and live in luxury. I buy a couple homes and I travel around the world. I decide I'll need a bodyguard. Maybe a cook or an assistant. A personal trainer definitely. Maybe I'll find one person to do all of those jobs. I wonder if I should hire a private accountant or go with a big firm to manage my money. I figure out how much I'll pay in taxes and get annoyed at the amount. I worry about spoiling my children. I'm concerned about everyone that will be looking for handouts. Where should I live? Could I trust new friends?

So much to think about. I enjoy it. Carrying around a pocket full of possibilities is worth much more to me than the coffee or the slurpee I could have had for the same price.

So shut up! It's worth it!

Pulling Teeth

2009-01-29T11:32:00.001-07:00

Its wisdom teeth time at my house. With the threat of lay offs everywhere, I decided it would be prudent to get any possible medical issues taken care of while I still had insurance. It was Noah’s turn yesterday.

I took the day off, loaded up on soft food and took him into the oral surgeon at 11:00. At 12:15 a nurse brought him out in a wheelchair and said everything went fine. I looked at Noah and raised and eyebrow. He was drooling and babbling incoherently. So I told her, “This isn’t the same boy I turned over to you.”

She laughed and assured me that the reaction to the anesthesia was normal and he just needed to sleep it off. We managed to get his coat on and wheeled him outside to the mini-van. He kept talking nonsense while I swung by the pharmacy for the Vicodin and mouth rinse and took him home and tucked him in bed. His last word was “dog” as Mario nuzzled him and he went to sleep. He woke at about 4:00 and had no memory of anything after he walked back to the operation room until he woke up at home.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to sleep through every unpleasant event in your life? Just wake up and say, “well that’s over with!” I think anesthesia should be administered a lot more liberally.

Samantha’s turn tomorrow. Hopefully it goes just as easy.

I'm Faster

2009-01-14T19:57:00.003-07:00

I was watching some old home videos the other night. Really old. From 1981, I think. This particular clip was just about 40 seconds long and it captured the end of a road race that me and my brother were competing in. I spent the last few days trying to find a way to put this movie clip into my blog but I can't figure it out so I'll have to describe it. I'll try to post the film later.

The video starts with a police car coming towards the camera with its sirens going. About 100 feet behind the car are two skinny guys in really tight, short, polyester, yellow shorts and identical blue tanktops. I'm not sure why we usually dressed the same when we ran, but it's cute...trust me.

This race is important because although we ran several races every year and we usually did well in them, neither of us had ever actually won one. We had never run directly behind the police sirens. Never had been in the very front.

Anyway, in the video me and Rick are running stride for stride behind the sirens and one of us is going to finally win this race. The film is grainy and doesn't offer any proof that I struck a bargain with Rick, but I will testify and admit that I suggested we finish together. We were both exhausted and nobody was close to catching us and we were dressed the same and we were brothers and it would have been just very special to have us both cross together. So with about 500 hundred feet to go, I offered a tie and Rick accepted. We were just going to coast together to the finish line.

The video skips a section and the next scene shows both of us in a mad sprint to the finish...but we aren't together...I'm about 2 feet ahead of him. I finish first and Rick comes in second. The camera stays on us and Rick looks angry and he won't look at me. That's it. End of film. That's the incident that has been held over my head for 28 years. He's even paid me back and we should be even. The very next year in army basic training there was a contest called King of the Ring. Two hundred men stand in a large circle and the last man in the circle is the winner. No other rules. When there were about 30 of us left, I offered Rick another tie. And he agreed. But when we were down to the last 4, he threw his man out while I was still grappling with mine on the edge of the ring. Rick ran over and and pushed us both out. He was king. I say that should make us even.

But the race story kept getting repeated to friends and family (and it was on film), so I'm the one that can't be trusted in the heat of battle. So here's the point I hope you remember from this story. It's not that I used to be young and fast. It's not that athletic shorts used to be tight and polyester. I'm not even trying to make the point that your word is your bond or that a damaged reputation is hard to recover from.

The main point I'm trying to make and that I want you to remember is that...I won that race. Rick came in second.

A Bad Dog Marriage

2008-12-26T19:45:00.008-07:00

Kiana was a beautiful black labrador puppy. She was the biggest and smartest and prettiest of her litter. Her father told her she could be anything she wanted, but her mother told her that the key to happiness was to marry wisely and settle down with the right sire and breed future champions.

Kobuck was very good looking (for a yellow lab)but it was his sense of humor that attracted her to him. He did the silliest things and she would laugh and laugh. And he was quite an athlete. She would spend hours watching him in the park as he outran all of the other dogs to catch and fetch what ever was thrown. Despite her mothers warning to only date someone of her own color, she fell in love and soon they were married. She was certain that with her guidance, she could give this silly boy the heart of a warrior.

The problems started right away. She wanted to take life seriously and he just wanted a good time. The sense of humor that attracted her to him was just kind of goofy now. She never laughed and started telling him to grow up. It got too awkwaard for his friends and they stopped coming over. She wanted him to do something she could be proud of like hunting or guarding but his one passion in life was to fetch tennis balls. He believed he could work Wimbledon one day and could never let go of the athletic glory days of his youth.

By the time I spent a week with this couple she was bitter and domineering and had sucked the joy from both of their lives. He had let himself go and was just a ball fetching, floor pooping clown. Sure...he could have been a better husband. Yes...his goofy puppy act could get old. But he says, "Hey! I didn't change. This is who I always was. Now throw me the ball!"

Her anger towards him is visible in every interaction between them. His indifference towards her is evident every time he runs into her without apologizing as he chases that stupid slobbery ball. They probably can both share some of the blame. But now they have developed some patterns that are clearly not healthy. I've seen her shove his tennis balls under the bed where he can't reach them. I've seen him fart on her food bowl when she's not looking.

Kobuck still tries to find a little bit of joy in his life with his passion for tennis balls. Kiana, on the other hand, has given up on "following her bliss" and her only purpose is to put Kobuck in his place...to humiliate him and make him admit that she rules and he's just a stupid jerk that ruined her life. It wouldn't be so bad if she would administer her punishments behind closed doors and let Kobuck keep his dignity in public and in front of his friends. But no. The smallest infraction will set her off and she lets him have it. Sometimes the only thing he does wrong is to let someone pet him before they pet her. And right there in front of everyone she makes him assume the position.

SHE climbs up on HIM and humps him! And if she is seriously pissed off she bites his neck while she's humping him. And she says, "You ruined my life. I'll teach you how to be a man." And he looks around a little embarrassed but just shrugs and says "What can I do?"

The first time I saw it, I yelled at her to stop. But after several more times, I started yelling at him instead. "Kobuck! Get some pride, man! Bite her! Run away! Put your butt up against the wall! Don't just take it!" But he just patiently accepts his punishment and brings me the tennis ball when she is done. (but it takes him several minutes before he can look me in the eye)

I'm not sure what the future holds for this marriage. I'm trying to talk them into some counseling. I've suggested they spend some time apart. I told her that she should develop her own interests. I'm just glad there are no puppies around to witness this sad situation.

Still Dog Sitting

2008-12-24T16:40:00.002-07:00

The dogs haven't torn up the house again and have managed to leave their poop outdoors. But pooping outdoors brings up another subject. I'm supposed to pick it up! These are very large dogs with very large poops. My little bichon frise has very little bichon poops that stay in our yard and my kids pick it up with a shovel after it is hard and cold.

But there is no fenced yard here, so 3 times a day I have to leash them up and walk them long enough until their bowels loosen up and they can do their business in public. And in a civilized society you are expected to pick it up(still warm and steamy) with a very thin plastic bag. You can feel the temperature and the texture of the brown deposit. Once you have something like that in your hand, you want to get rid of it as soon as possible, right? But you can't. You have to carry it back 100 yards for proper deposit in your garbage can. But it's difficult with a leash in each hand and I don't want to stick it in my pocket. The other morning the dogs tried to jump on an old lady getting her newspaper. I had to sit on the ground with a bag of warm poop twirling around my wrist to keep from getting drug across the snow. I could feel the stuff in the bag squishing between the leash and my wrist while the old woman screamed. I'm still traumatized. She might be too.

Here's my confession. I still take the dogs for a walk with a plastic bag in my pocket. After they poop, I assume neighbors might be watching, so I make a big production of taking out my bag and shaking it out and bending over the poop. But instead of picking it up, I push snow over the top of it and hide it.

We've had over a hundred inches of snow already. My treachery won't be discovered until April!

Dog Sitting

2008-12-22T17:41:00.002-07:00

I'm dog sitting for friends this week. Two lonely, needy labradors and one indifferent cat. When asked I said, "Sure!" How hard could it be? I didn't have the kids this week and I was doing them a favor and the $300 they offered, sealed the deal.

Tonight I think I've been ripped off.

They are treating me like the substitute teacher. I just arrived at the house and the place is trashed. They've turned the cat's litter box over and scattered it all over. All of the garbage cans have been tossed about and there is a pile of very smelly poop. I think I can actually see the stink.

I cleaned, yelled, scrubbed, and cursed. I found the cat on top of the washing machine and she shook her head like she couldn't believe what I let those dogs get away with.

Right now it's 15 degrees outside and I've got all of the windows open so I can breathe without my shirt pulled over my nose.

I'll scrub the carpets tomorrow after I get control of my gag reflex. 5 more days.

Curmudgeon

2008-12-20T21:38:00.002-07:00

I'm feeling curmudgeonly. And that's totally inappropriate for the holiday season. Maybe spending 13 Decembers in the shopping mall industry did it to me. Seeing the dark side of Christmas up close for so long can't be healthy.

But, I'm not really going to complain about Christmas. I'm going to complain about something much bigger and just get it out of my system. Because being a curmudgeon makes me feel old. Once you reach that point you are just a few years away from sitting on park benches and yelling at birds. So with a little help from Frank Schaeffer, a columnist I like, here goes...

There is a basic human moral code. The human race has a sense of right and wrong. Civilization created rules and laws around that sense of right and wrong. If everybody "followed their bliss" or "just do what feels good", there would be anarchy and society would collapse. It's a matter of the survival of the tribe. We need rules.

- What has led to the massive levels of fraud on Wall Street?
- Why are educational values sliding?
- Why are divorce rates so high across all demographics?
- Why are the majority of African-American children being raised by single parents?
- Why are the white, educated jerks who ran our economy into the mud taking bonuses?
- Why are rural kids killing themselves with methamphetamine addiction?
- Why did it become "okay" to torture prisoners?
- Why have the banks betrayed us?
- Why are there idiots collecting assault weapons?
- Why are we an obese nation who may well have shorter life spans than our parents?
- Why have we run up personal and national debt to the point that our currency is plunging?
- Why are we putting children on prescription drugs for disciplinary or behavioral problems?
- Why can't we keep our credit cards in our wallets and our zippers up?

Look for an answer and you'll see the left pointing right and the right pointing left. The left followed their bliss diminished the importance of morals. Drugs and sex were private matters that didn't hurt anybody and staying married for the sake of raising stable families was an old fashioned notion. On the right, and especially in the evangelical/fundamentalist community, people pick and choose among "God's Laws". The bible says that both pork and homosexuality are abominations...but bacon tastes so good we're going to let that one slide.

The left scream "Censorship" until anything is allowed on TV.
The right declared that the market is supreme and freedom equals consumerism.
On the left, the cry went up, it's my body I'll do what I want!
The right responded this is my stuff I'll do what I want!

When personal and public responsibility and taboos crumble the situation becomes toxic. Everyone is into what works for "me" but not what works for "us." Very few are willing to sacrifice. No one is allowed to judge anyone else's behavior. The result is a culture that drives whatever vehicles suits it and global warming be damned. The result is a culture in which divorce is easy and common despite unequivocal proof that the children of divorce bear lifelong scars.The result is raping the earth in the name of market oriented "freedom." The result is irresponsible men who father children they never see and irresponsible women who walk away from families.

The real problem is that we all lie to ourselves and pretend that our individual choices don't matter. We've pretend that society is exempt from the need for order, structure and moral taboos.Why are we ignoring the vast amounts paid the executive thieves running the hedge fund companies and banks. We are winking at the idiots in the entertainment industry who have sold us on the idea that following your lust is always a fine idea. People can't stop eating, won't save money and run up debts. These are not "private" choices. They are what ruin schools, make health care unaffordable , destroy the economy and create kids who barely can function.

We all pay. And we're all guilty if of nothing else, then just because we are silent. We've put at risk the most powerful country on earth and perhaps destroyed our future.

I hope for leaders that can call us back to our senses, coerce us into better behavior, preach, cajole, convince and -- if need be -- force us to look at what we've done to ourselves.

There. I feel better.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Office Christmas Party

2008-12-13T13:43:00.004-07:00

I've heard that it is a bad year for the office holiday party. One source said that 65% of them had been cut nationwide. Aside from just cutting expenses, many companies feel that holiday parties are a little awkward when everyone is worried about lay-offs.

I wouldn't have minded if ours had been canceled, but we went ahead with it anyway. Only one person who had been cut last week actually showed up, so the awkwardness was kept to a minimum. But because I've never really developed the "mingling skill". Not knowing how to mingle is bad when you are in the business world since there a lot of functions (often attended by many important people) where mingling is expected. Golf and mingling should have been taught in business school. Small talk bores me anyway and I can’t see how I can just insert myself into a conversation already in flight without looking rude or looking like a stunned dork while I stand around waiting for an ‘in’ on the conversation.

But it's the greetings that really confuse me. I see my co-workers who barely nod greetings to each other everyday, all of a sudden hugging and kissing at the Christmas party. I'm all for hugging and kissing but I just can't bring myself to do it at the party. Should it be a lip kiss? Cheek kiss? Air kiss? Too confusing.

A couple of drinks may have helped the situation, but I was the designated driver for a group of five of us from Summit county. Another disadvantage to being the guy with the mini-van I suppose.

Over all it wasn't a bad evening. The food was good and it was nice to see everyone dressed up. I just need to learn to kiss my co-workers, I guess.

Lay-Offs

2008-12-05T08:36:00.005-07:00

Lay-Offs are sweeping the country. Today's unemployment report says that the U.S. lost 540,000 jobs in November. I understand economics and I know why lay-offs happen. I even believe that it can be healthy for a company to go through it sometimes. No companies are immune...including my own. I knew it was a possibility but when it started, I was clueless.

On Wednesday, I talked to Joe in his office at 8:30. I had a follow up question at 10:30 and his office was dark. Jan was at the copier at 10:00 but had disappeared by noon. I saw Mike leaving work early at 1:15 and waved to him. I was like the clueless character in the summer camp horror movie who doesn't know that the campers are disappearing around him. I thought that the dark offices just meant that they were saving energy.

The CEO's email came at 4:00 and the SR.VP called a mandatory meeting at 4:30. We were all in the conference room scanning faces and trying to figure out who was missing. Joe, Jan, Mike, Rick, Simi, Anita, Brad, Kara. My division of 90 lost 18.

For some reason, 18 with names and faces seems like a much larger number than the 540,000 in the news. Why is that?

Pre-Obese?

2008-11-13T10:39:00.000-07:00

That's what my recent company health screening said I was. The Body Mass Index (BMI) scale says that below 20 is under-weight. 20 to 25 is normal. 25 to 30 is pre-obese. And over 30 is obese. I was 25.2. They couldn't say "higher than normal" or "over-weight". Maybe they use the term pre-obese for the shock effect. If so, it's working.

Although I stay relatively active, I will admit that I currently weigh more than I ever have before. The scale this week says I am 193 pounds. I was 17 when I reached my current height of 5'10". At the time I was wrestling at 132lbs. A few years later I was running marathons at 153lbs. I got married at 160lbs. At 25, I started lifting weights and put on a little muscle and felt good at about 170lbs. That's where I should have stopped. But I've averaged about a pound a year ever since.

Pre-obese? Seriously?

I've decided I'm going to get back to about 175. I've made those goals before and I can drop 10 pounds relatively easy. I was 10 pounds lighter than this for my triathlon just 4 months ago. But keeping it off is always the hard part. Maybe writing it down publicly will help.

So here it is. I will weigh 175 pounds by May 30, 2009. That's just a loss 3 pounds a month. Should be a piece of cake...er...make that rice cake.

Weekend 10K

2008-11-10T13:33:00.002-07:00

I ran a 10K on Saturday.

Although I used to run a lot of them, it's not something I do on my own anymore. Someone's got to make me do it now. This time it was Shunnie. She had never run one and decided she wanted to and recruited me and Christine to run with her. It's easy to commit when the race is 8 weeks away. I figured I'd run a couple of times the week before and muddle through on race day.

But Shunnie was as bad as my old coach and made us actually train for the race. After work I'd rather go home and eat icecream, but instead found myself running on mountain trails through the fall colors (and some snow). I trained better for this race than I did for my triathlon this summer. And I'll admit...it felt good.

But now the race is over (1:00:53 was my time) and winter is here. Will I keep it up and stay in shape???

Where's the icecream?

Brains Are Back

2008-11-07T21:19:00.003-07:00

I've been trying to figure out the best way to describe why I'm so thrilled with the outcome or the election. So many reasons besides just the fact that my side won. Instead of writing my own thoughts on the subject, I found someone who perfectly captured what I'm feeling.

Here's an edited version of a Newsweek article by Michael Hirsh

Brains Are Back

For two days now, Americans have celebrated the idea that we may have finally atoned for our nation's original sin, slavery, along with its long legacy of racism. We can rejoice in the world's accolades over the election of a multicultural African-American to the presidency after nearly eight years of cringing in shame as the Bush administration methodically curdled our Constitutional values and sullied our global reputation as a beacon of hope. Every once in a while, it seems, we Americans do manage to live up to our ideals rather than betray them. Hooray!

I am just as happy as everyone else over all this global good feeling. But there's something else that I'm even happier about—positively giddy, in fact. And the effects of this change are likely to last a lot longer than the brief honeymoon Barack Obama will enjoy as a symbol of realized ideals. What Obama's election means, above all, is that brains are back. Sense and pragmatism and the idea of considering-all-the-options are back. Studying one's enemies and thinking through strategic problems are back. Cultural understanding is back. Yahooism and jingoism and junk science about global warming and shabby legal reasoning about torture are out. The national culture of flag-pin shallowness that guided our foreign policy is gone with the wind.

I'm under no illusion that Barack Obama will turn out to be perfect. He'll probably screw up some things, especially at first. The problems he faces–from the economic crisis to Iran's nuclear program–are just too hard. But, after eight years of a president who could barely form a coherent sentence, much less a strategic thought, we can finally go back to respecting logic and reason and studiousness under a president who doesn't seem to care much about what is "left," "right" or ideologically pure.

Or what he thinks God is saying to him. A guy who keeps religion in its proper place—in the pew. The politics represented by George W. Bush—the politics of ideological rigidity, religious zealotry and anti-intellectualism—"has for the moment played itself out," says presidential historian Robert Dallek.

From the very start of his campaign, Obama has given notice that whatever you might think about his policies, they will be well thought out and soberly considered, and that as president he will not be a slave to passion or impulse.How very presidential. And how very unusual.

One tragedy of the Bush administration is the amount of American brainpower and talent that went unused, the options that went unconsidered, because they were seen to lack ideological purity. That era is over as we confront a desperate landscape—a serious recession and two prolonged wars.

"I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face," Obama said in his acceptance speech in Chicago Tuesday night. If he holds to that pledge and nothing else, we'll be OK.

So anything seems possible now, even when it comes to the toughest issues. Victors, it is said, write the history. Obama is now about to write America's new history. Unless I mistake my man, its theme will be that reason and sense and that cardinal American virtue—pragmatism—are going to rule once again.

And that's really something to celebrate.

The Man On Your Right

2008-10-31T17:52:00.005-06:00

BOLO: Military term used as a mishap(BOLO) during an initial action requiring an individual to retry or perform that action again to pass a required criteria.

"BOLO'S! Fall out and report to Staff Sergeant Zelinski for re-education! The rest of the company is dismissed!"

I looked at the sky and sighed. I couldn't believe I was a bolo. I was a squad leader, I ran faster than anyone (except my brother) and did more push ups and sit ups than most. I could take apart and reassemble my M-16 in less than 45 seconds. I passed all skills and tests. Land mines, hand grenades, tear gas, machine guns...no problem. But after 8 weeks of Army basic training, me and 8 other guys were called bolo's and threatened with repeating the 8 weeks until we got it right.

My problems were on the rifle range. You see, I could shoot fast and I could shoot straight...I just couldn't do both at the same time. I scored high enough on the circular targets where I could take my time to find the center and shoot. But I failed miserably on the range with the silhouettes that popped up for five seconds from 30 feet to 200 feet away. By the time I saw the target, moved my rifle, aimed, and pulled the trigger, the target would drop back down again. It was even more frustrating knowing that 231 other men (and 4 women) in Charlie Company were able to pass without a problem. I knew for a fact that many of those guys couldn't even hit the urinal half the time.

"CROCKER! I can't believe I'm looking at your sorry ass back on my firing range! What is your problem, boy! I thought you were supposed to be some sort of leader!"

Although screaming at me never helped my aim, I did know the psychology behind it. It was part of the bonding process. One way to mold us into a cohesive unit was to give us all a common enemy to hate. The Utah Mormons, Tennessee rednecks, Minnesota farmers, and New York Jews in the company all hated the drill sergeants. The African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Asians, Caucasians, Mexicans, and Native Americans all had that in common. It brought us together. When one of us screwed up we were all punished. One untied shoe meant we all did push ups. One un-made bed meant we all slept on the floor that night. One unfair enemy (in our minds)made us bond pretty quickly. We had each other covered. We corrected and tutored and trained the slower soldiers because they were a part of the whole that we all belonged to. One Unit.

As we bolo's waited for the truck to take us to our last chance on the firing range, Staff Sergeant Zelinski said, "Since you girls don't seem to appreciate my most excellent instructions on how to shoot an enemy, I've brought in some special education help for you all." He pointed to nine of our friends walking up to join us. Nine friends who were also the highest scoring marksmen in Charlie Company. "These gentlemen are giving up an afternoon of rest and relaxation to re-train you bolo's."

Responsibility for my "re-education" was assigned to Richard. I haven't seen him in 25 years but I recently heard that he was a Colonel serving in Iraq. Richard went through the steps with me for about 10 minutes and offered a couple of pointers. I thanked him but said I didn't see how this was going to make a difference.

"I've got a feeling you're going to pass this time, Jim."

The firing range consisted of a row of about 20 fox holes with firing "lanes" in front of them. We all test at once, firing at the targets in our own lanes. When it was time to test, Zelinski ordered our tutors to get into every other fox hole so that they could better observe what we were doing wrong. Richard climbed in to my right.

The test started and gunfire erupted. My silhouette popped up and I fired and the silhouette went down. Hit. Again...pop, fire, hit. pop, fire, hit. I was doing good. Half way through the test I clearly undershot a mid range target and saw the dirt kick up in front of it...but it went down anyway. Puzzled, I was way too slow with the next shot but watched my target go down before I even pulled the trigger. I continued to shoot and targets continued to fall. I'm not sure if I hit any of them.

When the test was over there were no bolo's left in Charlie Company. Richard smiled at me, "I had a feeling you'd pass." Richard had my back. Turns out even the "unfair" Zelinski had my back.

I remembered this story because I was watching an interview on the Today show this week. The reporter asked a soldier in Afghanistan what motivated him? What kept him going? He said, "I'm fighting for the man on my right and I'm fighting for the man on my left. I believe they are fighting for the same reasons."

In Iraq, I hope Richard has men just like that on both sides of him.

Jim Endorses Obama

2008-10-29T12:05:00.003-06:00

I'm sure everyone has been waiting for my official endorsement before making up their own minds about the presidential election. So here it is. My conservative family in Minnesota and friends in Utah can tear up their McCain/Palin bumper stickers and follow my lead on November 4th!

I understand that everyone has their own (mostly) valid beliefs in who and what is best for the country. But I worry that too many people I know vote on the mistaken belief that God is a Republican. Church and religious interference in government really concerns me. I can't see that it's worked out so well in Iran or Afghanistan.

My reasons for supporting Barack Obama are plentiful but I can't say it any better than the huge majority of newspapers in this country that are endorsing him. Here are some quotes from the Chicago and Salt Lake Tribunes. Keep in mind that the Salt Lake Tribune comes from the most republican state in the nation and the Chicago Tribune has never endorsed a Democrat in it's 150 year history.

Chicago Tribune
Many Americans say they're uneasy about Obama. He's pretty new to them. We can provide some assurance.

We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready. We think Obama would govern as much more of a pragmatic centrist than many people expect. We know first-hand that Obama seeks out and listens carefully and respectfully to people who disagree with him. He builds consensus.

We might have counted on John McCain to correct his party's course. We like McCain. It is, though, hard to figure John McCain these days. He argued that President Bush's tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, but he now supports them. He promises a balanced budget by the end of his first term, but his tax cut plan would add an estimated $4.2 trillion in debt over 10 years. He has responded to the economic crisis with an angry, populist message. McCain failed in his most important executive decision. Give him credit for choosing a female running mate--but he passed up any number of supremely qualified Republican women who could have served. Having called Obama not ready to lead, McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. His campaign has tried to stage-manage Palin's exposure to the public. But it's clear she is not prepared to step in at a moment's notice and serve as president. McCain put his campaign before his country.

Obama chose a more experienced and more thoughtful running mate--he put governing before politicking. Sen. Joe Biden doesn't bring many votes to Obama, but he would help him from day one to lead the country.

Obama is deeply grounded in the best aspirations of this country, and we need to return to those aspirations. He has had the character and the will to achieve great things despite the obstacles that he faced as an unprivileged black man in the U.S.

He has risen with his honor, grace and civility intact. He has the intelligence to understand the grave economic and national security risks that face us, to listen to good advice and make careful decisions.

When Obama said at the 2004 Democratic Convention that we weren't a nation of red states and blue states, he spoke of union the way Abraham Lincoln did.

The nation needs Barack Obama in the White House

Salt Lake Tribune
The next U.S. president will lead a nation that remains embroiled in two wars and is beset by an economic meltdown more severe than any since the Great Depression. By necessity, the country's next commander in chief must also be its mender in chief, capable of inspiring his angry and divided constituents to join together in a recovery project to restore the peace, prosperity, and self-confidence we once knew.

The Salt Lake Tribune believes that Barack Obama can deliver it.

Obama mounted an extraordinary grass-roots campaign, raised gobs of cash, and showed great fortitude and equanimity in the face of the Clinton juggernaut. He endured, and once the nomination was his, he set about uniting his divided party with an impressive display of magnanimity and diplomacy.

John McCain, meanwhile, crushed Mitt Romney to gain his party's nomination, but then blundered badly by not bringing the business-savvy Romney onto the ticket. Romney would have shored up McCain's poor grasp of economic policy.

Then, out of nowhere, and without proper vetting, the impetuous McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. She quickly proved grievously underequipped to step into the presidency should McCain, at 72 and with a history of health problems, die in office. More than any single factor, McCain's bad judgment in choosing the inarticulate, insular and ethically challenged Palin disqualifies him for the presidency.

Still, we have compelling reasons for endorsing Obama on his merits alone. Under the most intense scrutiny and attacks from both parties, Obama has shown the temperament, judgment, intellect and political acumen that are essential in a president that would lead the United States out of the crises created by President Bush, a complicit Congress and our own apathy.

McCain's foreign policy objectives virtually replicate Bush's disastrous course. His disdain for diplomacy is troubling, and his faith in eventual U.S. "victory" in Iraq is ill-defined. We simply cannot afford perpetual war. Obama knows this. And his nuanced approach would help America recover it's global prestige.

Indeed, we see too many of Bush's failed policies in McCain's recipe for recovery. The country desperately needs a new and well-defined road map for the 21st century and leadership that can unite the country behind it.

We believe that Barack Obama can give us both.

If those reasons aren't enough go to http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/cc65ed650d/ron-howards-call-to-action-from-ron-howard-and-henry-winkler (cut and paste it into your address block) It's a fun video from a couple of old friends.

OBAMA/BIDEN 08

The Last Lecture

2008-10-14T15:29:00.003-06:00

You've probably heard of Randy Pausch and The Last Lecture. If you haven't I've included the link here...

http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/

I watched his lecture on You Tube earlier this year and was moved by his story and his attitude. The link to that lecture is in the above web page. I just finished reading his book and I agree so much with his philosphy on life that I wanted to write down some of the bullet points.

Give yourself permission to dream.
Earnest is better than hip.
Life is short so sometimes surrendering is the right thing to do.
Stop complaining. Either do something about it or shut up.
Treat the disease, not the symptom.
Don't obsess over what other people think.
Look for the best in everybody.
Show gratitude.
Apologize
No job is beneath you.
Tell the truth.

I could expound on all of those topics but Randy Pausch does it much better.

Do yourself a favor. Watch the Lecture. Read the book.

The Exorcist

2008-10-10T16:37:00.004-06:00

Not the movie...the hitchhiker.

I was driving from Breckenridge today and I pulled over for a hitchhiker in a coat and tie. I know..I know...picking up people on the side of the road could be dangerous, but I figure it's good karma for when one day I find myself without a car. Besides, I still have a lot of rides to pay back from my youth. But the main reason I'll pick someone up is because they will usually reward me with a story.

Peter gratefully slid into the van and introduced himself. He was about my age and said he was from Africa. He'd been in the states for about two years and wasn't going back because his family was dead and that the blacks had taken all of his family's land away from him. (Peter was white)

"So you've just been traveling for 2 years, Peter?"
"Yes. I go wherever the lord sends me."
"How do you make a living?"
"Well, I do some construction, but mostly I'm an exorcist."
"Sorry. What did you say?"
"Exorcist. I cast demons out of people."

Soooo cooool! I picked up an exorcist!! I was excited because he was my first exorcist and I knew he'd have a good story.

"Wow. How long have you been doing that? Did you have any formal training"
"No Jim. I just do what the lord tells me. I've been doing it about 20 years.I've always been a man of spirit."
"How exactly do you go about it?" Is there a ritual or something?"
"Every case and every demon is different. Mostly it's just fasting and a lot of prayer. People don't realize they can do it themselves if they are strong enough. You just have to fast for 48 hours...have nothing but water...and the demon literally starves and weakens and is more susceptible to your prayers. There's directions in the book of Matthew, you know."

He covered quite a bit in the 20 minute drive to the freeway. He told me more about demons (apparently they are pretty tricky) and about Africa and a 4,000 foot waterfall by his home, and the unfairness of losing his home and the good works he's been doing in America. After he finishes helping with the spiritual matters of some Mexican families in the area, he is heading to Galveston to help the Hurricane victims. He's also heading down to the gulf because there is another major hurricane headed there this year. (God told him)

When I arrived at his on-ramp he asked if he could pray for me. I accepted and bowed my head and heard a fairly standard prayer of gratitude and forgiveness, but then I heard him ask God to triple my "guard of angels". I was pleased for a couple of reasons. I'd heard that I might have a guardian angel but not a whole guard of them. (that sounds like several, right?) Well what ever the number was before, it is tripled now!

As his hand was on the door handle, he paused and asked if I could spare a few dollars. I gave him a five and he told me to expect a miracle in the next few days.

What a bargain. $5 for a miracle and triple the angels I had before. Thanks Peter!

Teeth Are Not Tools

2008-10-03T22:16:00.002-06:00

Ever had an Otter Pop? They are the frozen kool-aid stuff in the plastic sleeves. The very difficult to open plastic sleeves. The ones you should use scissors on but usually just rip open with your teeth.

Noah and I were watching a dvd tonight and I grabbed us a couple of otter pops. I tried tearing it open with my fingers with no luck before sticking it in my mouth to rip open with my teeth. Dogs don't seem to have a problem with this method. But instead of ripping open some blue raspberry sweetness I ripped my front tooth out of my head.

It's Friday night and I probably can't get to a dentist until Monday. I look like a homeless boxer. The good news is that since my "sh", "th", and "s" all sound the same, Noah is having big laughs giving me tongue twisters and asking me to smile.

Teeth Are Not Tools.

High School Reunion

2008-09-28T12:38:00.004-06:00

My 30th is coming up next year and I'm trying to get the wheels in motion to get something organized. So as I do google searches, send emails and make phone calls, I have to answer the question "Why would anyone want to go?"

That's the question, isn't it? Why go? For me, I have more good memories than bad but for many, High School was traumatic. And it was for as many reasons as there are people.

I came from a small school and there were only about 60 of us collected together, 5 days/week, 8 hours/day. Most of us didn't choose each other. We were thrown together based on where our parents lived. Teens seldom have much of an idea of who they are or how to relate to people. We ran on a mix of instinct and hormones while being put under pressure to learn Math and English and History. There were pressures of sports and pressures of dating and pressures at home and the biggest pressure of just trying to "fit in." That's quite a mix. It's going to be difficult. Can you hold somebody accountable for that? Blame them for it?

We all made our share of poor decisions that were in hindsight clearly "mistakes". We'd love to have a "do-over." Many of those mistakes were the sort you can't see. Some of those poor decisions hurt somebody. I doubt anyone makes it through school without getting hurt or hurting someone else.

So why would we want to revisit any of that?

Because the most incredible thing happened to us in those four years. We all hatched together. We got wrenched from childhood into a fairly hostile adolescence and then spit out towards as the adults we are today. The only people on this planet who were witnesses are your fellow classmates. The kids we went to school with were there when it was all happening. They were there when we were trying to figure out how to be a person in the world.

And every one of your classmates has a story. Aren't you curious about how those stories go? Haven't you seen the movies that wraps up the characters lives during the credits and wish you could get a wrap up of the characters in your life? It's so rare that we get a chance to find out what happened in real life and a reunion is a chance to get a bit of that perspective.

I'm not interested in judging anybody. Whether you were a missionary, a junkie, a soldier, a teacher, a mother, or a bum, or whether you have 10 kids or 3 marriages, I'm just curious about how you got there. If you are homeless or hopeless, I want to hear what happened. If you are a billionaire with a yacht and an island, I want to know your story. (and be your best friend!)

After 30 years, with sore knees, gray hair, fading eyesight, noisy joints, high cholestral, and surrounded by kids and co-workers who don't know us any other way, its good to be with people who remember when we were young. Who remember when we were walking, breathing sacks of dreams and potential.

And our memories, our past, is something worth keeping, in any form it takes, if for nothing else to help us to see who we are now.

Poker

2008-09-21T21:55:00.004-06:00

It was too wet too hike today. No snow to ski on. Not my weekend with the kids. So with nothing to do I drove down to Blackhawk to play some poker. There was a tournament starting at noon so I paid $80 and took my seat.

I Love Poker.

I knew the general rules but never really played until about 3 years ago when a change in my marital status left me with more free time than I was used to. I started playing on the internet and immediately loved it. I'm not talking about the love of an addicted gambler looking to get rich. And I don't love it so much that I fantasize about quitting my job and turning pro. (I'm lying...I fantasize about it all of the time.) I just loved that it was so simple that anyone could learn it but so complex that you could never stop learning. I loved that online I was playing with people in Germany and Russia and Argentina and Australia. I loved that when I play live, I'm playing with a commodities trader from Chicago and a farmer from South Dakota and a Mary Kay rep from Florida, and a retired golf pro from Texas and a businessman from Korea.

And I didn't just enjoy it...I started to get...I don't want to say good at it, but I became competent at it. After a few months of playing, I turned and $11 entry fee into a $12,500 package at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. After playing against the real pros from all over the world in Vegas, you'll understand why I won't say I'm good at it....yet.

Today I started out between a truck driver with a pony tail to his waist and a cute little Asian girl who had to show her ID to prove she was old enough to play. I was trying out a new "lucky piece". A small white stone that I brought down from the top of Mt. Bedford this month. Most poker players have little luck tokens that they place on top of their cards. I've seen dinosaurs, rubber ducks, silver dollars, pictures of kids, etc. The truck driver had a little rubber brain with his name on it. I always start slow. Betting very conservative. Watching people. I spent the first hour winning a little and losing a little. Staying even.

I love the language of poker. Bad beats, pocket rockets, runner runner, trips, suck out, rivered a flush, put em in the air, flop a monster, donkey, maniac, ducks, sucker straight, drawing dead, open end, gut shot, the nuts, rags, big slick, big blind, check the turn. You can say, "I woke up to big slick on the button but foolishly limped. The flop gave me top pair and top kicker so I pushed but the donkey in the big blind called with a gut shot and and sucked out on the river." Fun, huh!? Say that to any poker player in the world and they'll know exactly what happened. It's like talking in code for a secret society.

After two hours at the tables today I loosened up and started chatting and joking a little more. I got away with a couple of bluffs and and built my stack from 8000 to 14,000. The girl and truck driver were both busted out.

I love the life lessons from poker. Be patient. Wait for your spot and act boldly. Act confident when you are weak. Bad beats happen. Don't dwell on them and move on. You can be dealt a great hand and play it stupidly and lose. You can be dealt rotten cards but play them brilliantly and win. Luck is a factor in life and poker. (both kinds) Every day you wake up, you get two new cards to play. Have the sense to fold when you are beat and save what you can to make a comeback on the next hand. Pay attention to signs and signals and learn to read what they are telling you.

After three hours I nearly busted out. I checked from the big blind with a 4 5 to a couple of limpers. The flop came J 5 5. I checked and the first bettor bet 2,000. The next bettor (the truck drivers wife) reraised to 6,000. I figured one of them had the jack and would call if I went all in so I pushed in 30,000. The first guy folded but the woman called and turned over A 5. I was screwed and started gathering my stuff to leave. A king came on the turn and then BOOM! 4 on the river to give me the boat. I was saved and just doubled up to become chip leader. But I felt too guilty to act happy and mumbled a sorry in her direction as I stacked my chips.

Chip leader is a great position to play from because you can start building your stack by bullying people. (another instance of poker imitating life I suppose) You can play with questionable cards and push people off their hands just by betting large. Your opponent has to go all in just to call your bet that is just 20% of your own stack. So I started making big bets and stealing blinds and busting people out. I got lucky a few times when my KQ hit against AJ or when I was dealt KK and a guy pushed with 88, and by 5:00 there were only 3 of us left. We were tired and roughly equal in chips so instead of playing to the end we decided to chop the pot and split the $2,400 remaining in the prize pool.

$80 to $800 in 5 hours. To celebrate, I drove down to Denver and took Samantha and her boyfriend out to dinner. (and slipped her $100) It wasn't a free meal for them though.

I made them listen to my poker stories!

Adventures...

2008-09-14T14:46:00.003-06:00

... are fun and exciting and worth pursuing. But I've got a feeling they are even more fun and exciting when you are looking back on them.

I hitchhiked across the country in the 1983. 25 states, 2 months, 95 rides, $150. It was an adventure and I love remembering it and telling people I did it. It was exciting not knowing where I would sleep or what I would eat. My adreniline pumped everytime a car pulled over for me. Who would I meet? What was their story? Where were we going? I certainly don't regret doing it but I'm fully aware that the memories get better as the years pass.

What I usually leave out of my hitchhiking stories is the cold and the rain and the hunger and the fear and the wishing I was warm at home and that the adventure was just in my head. The same is true with the 14er's I climb. I recall the beauty and the accomplishment much easier than the sore knees and difficult breathing.

I suppose it's that selective memory that allows mankind to progress and discover. (or have more than one child!)

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes on the subject.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. Life is either a grand adventure or nothing ....
Helen Keller

Remember the high board at the swimming pool? After days of looking up at it you finally climbed the wet steps to the platform. From there, it was higher than ever. There were only two ways down: the steps to defeat of the dive to victory. You stood on the edge, shivering in the hot sun, deathly afraid. At last you leaned too far forward, it was too late for retreat, and you dived. The high board was conquered, and you spent the rest of the day diving. Climbing a thousand high boards, we demolish fear, and turn into human beings.
Richard Bach A Gift of Wings

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain

Sail On!

Picture Time

2008-09-12T11:31:00.007-06:00

Last month I hosted a family reunion. The good thing about volunteering to host is not having to travel and getting to sleep in your own bed. The down side is that there are lots of people in your home and there are certain pressures that come with it. Where will everyone sleep? What will they eat? How will I entertain them?

Fortunately, I come from a pretty low maintenance family and everyone seems to get along. No feuds that I'm aware of. So keeping everyone happy wasn't difficult. There was an early season snowfall (August 15!!) that canceled a hike but otherwise it was snafu-free. It had been several years since we had all been together so hiring a photographer for a group shot was a priority. The gathering has to be immortalized. Here are some shots from that afternoon.

I'm the good looking one.

14er's

2008-09-08T14:53:00.003-06:00

There are 54 peaks in Colorado that are over 14,000 feet in elevation. I can't remember why I decided I was going to "collect" all of them. It's a very difficult hobby and every year they seem to get steeper. Geologists really need to look into why this is happening.

So far I've done 14 of them. Longs, Evans, Bierstadt, Grays, Torreys, Democrat, Linclon, Quandary, Sherman, Cameron, Bross, Elbert, Belford, and Oxford. I did the last two yesterday.

hiking boots, retractable hiking pole, long underwear, sunglasses, emergency poncho, knife, protein bars, jerky, camel pack, cell phone, camera, hiking socks, t-shirt, thermal cap, ball cap, hoody, water resistant jacket, gatorade, head lamp, running pants, water bottle, tissues, aspirin, bananas, gps, gum, energy gels, fruit leather, ipod, gloves, chap stick, sun block, whistle, air mattress, map, sleeping bag, matches, pillow, first aid kit.

That's not the stuff I brought. It's the stuff I was supposed to bring. I didn't plan on going until a few hours before I went so I was grateful I ended up with two thirds of it. Today I'm kinda wishing chapstick had been included in the inventory.

I slept at the trailhead in the mini van so I could get an early start and was on the trail by 6:00am. 11 miles, 6000 feet total elevation gain, 9 hours. This wasn't the hardest 14er I've done. That honor still goes to the 14 hours for Longs Peak. But this one was a psychological poke in the eye. Picture a capital M. You climb 4000 feet up to Belford, then descend 1000 feet and climb up another 1000 to Oxford. Mission accomplished, right? It should all be down hill from there. But there is only one way off these mountains and that is the exact same way you got there. I had to retrace my steps and go back to the top of Belford and down the original side. I will admit though, that I sat in the valley of the M for about 10 minutes and considered "bushwacking" my own trail straight down. I even headed down for a couple hundred feet (past 2 beautiful mountain goats!) before common sense over ruled my exhaustion. I could imagine myself trapped on a cliff face with no one knowing which way I'd gone.

So I went back up Belford slower than I'd ever climbed before. 30 steps, rest...20 steps, rest, curse...10 steps, rest, sit, curse...10 steps, rest, sit, curse, throw rock at stupid goats...8 steps, hug boulder during 40mph gust, curse...and so on.

I'm painting a grim picture of what was actually a beautiful day. Aside from the worst wind I've ever hiked in, the skies were clear and the the views spectacular. There is usually plenty of company on the 14er's on a weekend, but on Oxford I had the whole mountain to myself. I didn't plant a flag or anything, but for 20 minutes I laid on my back and considered it to be my mountain.

I posted the one picture of my old exhausted face on Oxford but if you really want to see what the views were, go to www.14ers.com and you will learn everything you never wanted to know about these stoney bad boys.

Forty more to go.

One More

2008-09-03T20:14:00.003-06:00

OK, just one more post about Samantha and her shark phobia and I'll stop writing about her.

It really is a phobia. She's got enough courage that she'll still go into a fresh water lake, but while she's in the lake, she's resigned to the fact that a rogue shark has found it's way into America's interior and is hungrily swimming beneath her. She really does pull her feet up when a shark is on TV and she scans the pool before she jumps in.

So let me tell you what her dad made her do. We were in Puerto Vallarta for spring break and I convinced her to go snorkeling with me. I told her about the shark statisics and the rarity of attacks and that it's more likely she'd be struck by lightning. She said it wasn't just about the sharks but the fact that ocean was filled with all sorts of spooky creatures.

But she did it anyway. She put on the fins and the mask and went into the water with me and her brothers. The whole time she knew that monstrous creatures were beneath her wishing to do her harm. So although she'd go into the ocean she wasn't going to put her face in the water and watch them come after her. I convinced her that she was missing the whole point of snorkeling and that it was a beautiful world beneath the water. "Just one quick peak", I said. So she gathered a little more courage and lowered her face into the ocean.

Right into a jelly fish.

That stung her in the forehead.

Two years later, I still apologize.

Correction

2008-09-01T17:47:00.003-06:00

Just like in the newspapers, if I need to correct any misinformation presented in a previous blog, I will do so. So consider this a correction... I was with Samantha this weekend and she corrected my story about my Gilligan's Island song. Not only was she not embarrassed that I sang to the crowd, she was actually proud that her Dad knew the words to the song. (children are easy to impress, apparently)The quality of my singing was another matter but she assures me that she was NOT mortified.

In fact her memories of my public singing debut were overshadowed by her own trauma from that day. After I brought attention to my family with my song, my adorable daughter was selected to participate in the show. The dolphin trainer selected her to jump on a dolphin as it swam by. The joke was that the trainer would never actually let the selected kid jump. Samantha remembers standing on the platform in front of the huge crowd. She remembers thinking that dolphins weren't the only creatures in the water because we had just seen the killer whale show. She remembers thinking that if killer whales were in the water, then there were probably sharks too.

She didn't jump.

But she still pulls her feet up on the couch whenever there is a shark on TV.

"Just sit right back and you'll a tale..."

2008-08-24T16:14:00.006-06:00

I was sharing my bucket list with my kids the other day. They thought some were cool and some were ridiculous. But when I got to my goal to sing in public, Samantha shared a memory that had been irreparably burned into her psyche. She was only 7 at the time but 11 years later, her mortification was still visible.

We were in the audience for the Shamu show at Sea World and the warm-up guy was entertaining the crowd while we waited for the star to show up.

"Who knows the theme song to Gilligans Island?" he asked the crowd. Without considering the repercussions of my actions, I proudly raised my hand. I dropped my arm quickly when I saw the microphone headed my way, but it was too late. I shook my head and pushed the mic away, but the crowd would have none of my stage fright and there was no backing out.

Knowing that I was going to look like an idiot whether I whispered, ran, or belted it out, I chose the latter and let er rip.

I'm not sure if Samantha was more embarrassed that I sang so horribly or if it was that I actually knew the words. Whatever...it counts and I'm crossing it off the list!

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from this tropic port
Aboard this tiny ship.

The mate was a mighty sailing man,
The skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day
For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.

The weather started getting rough,
The tiny ship was tossed,
If not for the courage of the fearless crew
The minnow would be lost, the minnow would be lost.

The ship set ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle
With Gilligan
The Skipper too,
The millionaire and his wife,
The movie star
The professor and Mary Ann,
Here on Gilligans Isle.

Swallowed up

2008-08-22T13:49:00.001-06:00

Eventually...

...life will break you.

If you are forty-something and you haven't been touched by divorce, death, financial catastrophe or serious illness, then count yourself very fortunate...and prepare.

Solitude is the best preparation. You can lessen your odds that you'll feel pain by avoiding relationships. You can keep tragedy to a taste instead of a meal.

I do like people...really I do. But maybe it's just the abstract concept of people. I like books and movies and songs about love, pain, hope, heartache, and triumph. But in reality those things are messy. And some of them hurt. A lot. So, if you never marry, you'll never divorce. If you never have children, then you'll never suffer through their pain and won't have to realize how truly vulnerable we all are. If you keep your friends at arms length, you can still sympathize but won't have to suffer through their cancer. It's an easier way to live. But eventually...

...solitude will break you.

It will break you with it's yearning. You can strive to protect yourself from life and you may mostly succeed. But that is not the reason you are here. You have to feel. You have to love. You...we...are here to risk our heart. We are here to experience, to taste life and be swallowed up by it.

And when it happens that we fail - when we grieve for a child - when we are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, we will remind ourselves that we are human and this is part of the human experience. At the end, we should know that we tasted as much as we could.

Have You Looked In Your Sock?

2008-08-16T18:22:00.003-06:00

Family legends are usually not planned. If you are the main character in a family story that gets passed down through the years, you hope that you are cast in a favorable light. You want the story to tell about how heroic, brave, intelligent or honest you were. But in reality, you've got little choice in the matter. The story unfolds just like life does. Usually at random. You just hope that the more embarrassing moments are forgotten.

Four years ago the whole family went to a movie. On the way out of the theater I noticed my wallet was missing. I ran back to my seat to look. Couldn't find it. My wife and kids came to help. Couldn't find it. The theater employees couldn't find it. After half an hour I was finally convinced that my wallet had been stolen so I canceled my credit cards, mourned the loss of about a hundred bucks and got ready for bed. I bent over to pull my socks off and as I touched my wallet, I remembered. I was uncomfortable sitting on the wallet and my front pockets were full so I stuck it in my sock during the movie.

I joyfully held the wallet over my head as I walked out of the bedroom. Rather than sharing the joy, my family looked at me like I was the village idiot. To be honest, I saw their point.

The worst part of the story is that it was never forgotten. Four years later, if I ever misplace my keys, remote control, wallet, even my car... my kids ask, "Have you looked in your sock?"

Sigh....

Bucket List

2008-08-10T22:42:00.002-06:00

Let's clear this up first.

I had a bucket list before the movie came out. I've had a bucket list for decades because I took the following quote to heart when I was just a teenager.

"As you grow older, you'll find the only things you regret are the things you didn't do." There are many versions of that quote and I've believed all of them. I knew it was true...like gravity... and ever since I wanted to experience stuff. Lots of stuff. I want to know what it looks like, feels like, sounds like, tastes like.

The list is an organic, evolving thing. I add things. I subtract things. I'll read something I wrote down a year ago and I'll wonder why I ever thought it was important. Then I'll think about something else and wonder why that wasn't always on my list.

This next paragraph is a summary of what's been completed. (I cheated on a couple and only added them to the list so I could cross them off after I did them!)

I have sky dived, rounded up cattle on the back of a horse, fired a machine gun, been tear gassed, hang glided, earned a college degree, run marathons, survived a triathlon, raised 3 children, hitch hiked across the country, climbed mountains and rappeled down them, rafted rapids, skied on snow and water, loved deeply, written a novel, played poker in the world series, and have given a eulogy.

Here's what I still need. Some are easy. Some are not likely to happen.

Visit all 50 states (I'm just short Louisiana and Hawaii)
Paraglide
Fast for 3 days
Hike the Appalachian Trail (this requires 5 months)
Canoe the Mississippi from headwaters to Gulf (3 months)
Spend a month in a monastery
Scuba dive
Play a musical instrument
Visit a nude beach...nude (with lots of sunblock)
Live outside the US for awhile
Learn to sail
Attend Olympics
Expertly cook one meal
Volunteer at a Hospice
Sing in public (I won't even sing in church)
Perform in community theater
No human contact for a week
Outdoor survival course
Expert at digital photos
Dance at grandkids wedding
Make a movie or music video
Get a pedicure
Hole in one
Learn a martial art
See a NASCAR race (not a fan, just want to see what all the fuss is about)
Holy Land
Great Wall of China
Northern Lights
Total eclipse of the sun
Pyramids
Write a poem (a good one)
Host a huge party for no reason (not so easy...I hate huge parties)
Be a film extra
Dance lessons
Gun lessons (this is the west after all!)
Raft Grand Canyon
Ask a stranger for a date (read "Cowardice at the Concert")
Hot air balloon ride
Donate enough money to put my name on something
Draw or Paint lessons
Change strangers life (for the better hopefully)

Wow!! That's a lot. What am I doing just sitting here?

Any suggestions or advice are welcome!

Confessions

2008-08-07T20:59:00.004-06:00

My brother, Rick, had a seizure last year. He never had one before but he's had another since. The brain is a mysterious organ. It's studied and studied but basically we still don't know how the brain works. It's magic! The doctors don't know why he had seizures but they took away his drivers license and put him on drugs. Sorry Rick, that sucks. They also asked him a series of questions about the health history of his head. This is where my confession is relevant.

I was an older brother. It was my birthright to tease, taunt and torture. I'm sorry.

When Rick was 3 years old and I was 5, Grandpa was taking us, along with our cousins for a walk on his farm. I was 5, but I remember this very clearly. Rick (Ricky then) was riding on grandpa's shoulders while the rest of us walked. Ricky was cute. He called himself Ricky Rocker and he made people laugh. I was jealous. I wanted to be on Grandpa's shoulders. I wanted to make him laugh. Grandpa put Rick down after awhile and I called him over to look at a bug on the ground.

"Look closer:. I said.

Then I picked up the biggest rock I could lift and I dropped it on his head.

Ricky was hurt and he cried. I got in trouble. I loved him and I couldn't explain why I dropped a rock on my brother's head. 40 years later, I still remember the rock, the place, the emotions and the guilt. Sorry Rick.

34 years ago we were at family day for Rick's boy scout troop. Rick and his friends were down in a ravine while me and some older kids were up above. I don't remember the details or who started the rock throwing but we ended up throwing rocks at our siblings down below. We couldn't really see them but we knew roughly where they were and thought their screams were hilarious. Rick was hit with a rock and knocked out. Not sure if the rock came from my hand or not. I do remember lieing my ass off and telling our parents that we had no idea that people were down there. We were just throwing rocks in a ravine, we said. Sorry Rick.

I'll also apologize for the knife wound in his foot but I'm sure that didn't have anything to do with his seizures. Right? There...I feel better now. How about you, Rick?

Farts on a Plane

2008-08-05T11:41:00.004-06:00

I know, I know...teenage potty humor. But it's got to be addressed. I'm not going to pretend that observations on this subject are original. Seinfeld or Carlin or some other comedian probably had a routine about farts on a plane. But it's not funny. If this very serious issue has been dealt with before, I haven't seen it and I certainly haven't received any useful advice on how to deal with the situation.

After my recent triathlon (Have you heard I'm a triathlete?) I was flying home on a full Frontier flight in my usual window seat. The flight was full and my seatmates were an 8 year old boy and his father. At takeoff, the unknown assailant released the first gas bomb. The smell was seriously putrid and the windows would not roll down. I didn't want to mortify someone who had accidentally let one slip but I was curious about what could produce that odor outside of a zoo and I felt the need to assign blame, so I looked for the culprit. You're thinking what I was thinking, right? It's gotta be the kid! So, as I rubbed my watery eyes, I snuck a look to my right.

The kid obviously smells it but he has no intentions about hiding his disgust. He's actually holding his nose with his eyes squeezed shut as he leans into his dad....and away from me! He's trying to get as far away from me as possible!! Then he opens his eyes and looks at me like I'm covered in snot.

IT WASN'T ME!

But this little brat is supplying the only evidence to the passengers around us that I am the perpetrator of this crime. The smell hovers over several rows and I can tell that the women across the aisle can smell it and I see that they see this kid acting like I'm abusing him. I watch a flight attendant's smile disappear and her eyes go into a squint as she walks by.

Now if I had actually done the deed, I could see the humor in the situation and I would just pretend to be asleep as I chuckled at the suffering around me. BUT IT WASN'T ME! I didn't want to let this injustice stand but I was clueless about a remedy and I was paralyzed from embarrasment until the odor mercifully faded.

Somewhere over the Utah/Colorado border it happened again. I couldn't comprehend how the smell could be worse, but it was. I knew there was only one thing to do and I sprang into action. I had to act more disgusted than the kid. After making sure the dad wasn't looking at me but the kid was...I glared at him at pulled the collar of my t-shirt up over my nose. His eyes widened and I knew exactly what he was thinking..."IT WASN'T ME!" I left my modified gas mask on for a full minute until the smell dissipated and I was sure that anyone looking for the culprit would see that I was just as pained by the situation as they were. I knew the kid was innocent but I had no problems throwing him under the bus to defend myself so I faked a cough and left one finger pointing at him while I covered my mouth. Who were people going to believe? Obviously, this young man could not control his bowels.

It happened for the last time after we had taxied to the gate and were standing in the aisle waiting for the doors to open. The stink was again released from it's home in hell and a dozen heads swiveled for someone to blame. This time I spotted him immediately.

He was in the seat in front of mine.

He was the guy pretending to be asleep with a smile on his face as he chuckled at the suffering that surrounded him.

Jim the Triathlete

2008-08-03T15:33:00.004-06:00

The triathlon is a display of human endurance, mettle and triumph. With serious and proper training you will be able to achieve your personal best and become one of the truly elite in the sports world.

One of the elite of the sports world. Ahhhh...yes. That is quite a title and is why "completing a triathlon" ended up on my bucket list 20 years ago. But I can't swim. Drop me in a lake and I can probably stay alive for 30 minutes but I would never make it to shore. So as far triathlons go, I always figured it'd be something I left unchecked in the end.

But last year, Todd Barney completed a triathlon. Todd Barney Can't Swim. That is a fact. In 1985 I watched him nearly drown in 4 feet of water while I cruelly withheld the information that he could stand up if he put his feet down. And now he was one of the sporting elite??? I couldn't let this go unchallenged and that was enough motivation for me to commit to completing one in 2008.

You see, Todd didn't actually swim...he floated. The Spudman Triathlon in Burley Idaho, starts in the Snake River with a 3mph current. If you can just keep your head above water for 30 minutes, you'll eventually finish the mile in the water. I can do that!

As a gift to future first time triathletes, I have decided to share my complete training regimine.

January

Register for the race. Not as simple as it sounds. The race is popular and fills up within minutes. But with determination, superior internet skills and lightening quick reflexes, I grabbed a spot. Decided to take the rest of the month off.

February

Work on a training schedule, research gym memberships, browse triathlon websites.

March

Buy new running shoes. Promise self to start running...soon.

April

Look through want ads for used wet suits. Solicit advice from fellow elite athletes. Plan trip to Utah to train with friends. Trash talk and taunt those friends. Run 2 miles three times. Promise self to run more.

May

Plan frequent running dates with new neighbor. Actually follow through on one of those dates. Run 6 other days on my own for a total of 13 miles. Spend 30 minutes on a life cycle 5 times. I drive all the way to Utah for a 12 mile ride followed within 3 minutes by a 3 mile run. I cannot complete the run. Tell friends that that was just the motivation I needed to get serious about my training.

June

Book flight to Utah for race. Promise to get serious about training. Tell many people that I am doing a triathlon this summer.

July

Rent wetsuit. Run twice. Bike twice. Convice myself that the race is more mental than physical. Convince myself that "muscle memory" from thousands of miles of training in my youth will kick in and save me. Practice putting on and taking off wetsuit. Tell lots more people that I am doing a triathlon. I decide to take it easy the week before the race. I don't want to wear myself out.

August

Tell lots of people that I did a triathlon. Add "triathlete" to business cards. Change my will to make sure that my elite athlete status is reflected on my headstone.

Now I'm not saying that this is the way that most elite athletes train. It is just a simple training diary that you may or may not want to follow.

Henry

2008-07-13T11:42:00.002-06:00

I met Henry in 1990 when we were assigned to be roommates at a company conference. I got to the room first and my unpacking involved putting my suitcase next to my bed. He arrived and we performed polite introductions and small talk while I watched him arrange his socks in one drawer and fold his tshirts into another. He didn't finish until he had ironed his wrinkle-free shirts and lined up his grooming supplies beside the sink.

"Oh great", I thought. "I get to spend the next four days with the most anal guy in the company." Four days later, we had formed a friendship that lasted 17 years. I'm still not sure why. He was 10 years older than me. He was serious about his job and had the company's mission statement memorized. He was a Vietnam vet and a former Nascar driver. He was a life long bachelor with an eye for pretty women.

And me? I was...well, I was none of those things. I think I forgot to pack socks on that trip.

He sounds like a serious guy but he was also a complete optimist. Kind of a "the sun will come up tomorrow" personality. He survived cancer. I watched him take a battery of pills and lather lotions on his body to help with the chemo or radiation. But he never complained and he always pointed out that he was blessed and that he was so much better off than most of the people on the planet.

Later, I switched companies and talked him into coming along. It was a good move for him and his talent and work ethic were recognized and he moved up the ladder into some high profile positions. I was thanked for bringing him into the company. A few years later, I made another career move and we started to lose touch. There was an occasional phone call but then 2 years went by while we forgot to talk at all.

If this is starting to sound like a eulogy, well, I suppose it is. It's been a year now since he left work early, wrote a note to his new wife and shot himself in the bathtub. I wanted to put some time between the news of his suicide and writing this. First, I wanted to understand it. I wanted to wrap my head around what happened and why. I wanted to find the answer to this problem.

But I've changed my mind.

I don't want to understand it. I don't want to know that he was always in pain and I never recognized it. I don't want to know what was in the note he left. I don't want to grasp how he could battle cancer so bravely and with out self pity and then take his own life after the battle was won. I don't want to find out that Henry could hate his new wife so much that he would make her carry the lifetime burden of what she saw in that bathroom. I don't want to think that I might have made a difference if I'd kept in touch. This is the second story I've written dealing with suicide and I don't want to realize that everybody is capable of it. I don't want to wrap my head around that kind of darkness.

I can accept that some things just are. Sometimes there are no answers.

I don't need to understand.

Cowardice at the Concert

2008-07-09T11:54:00.002-06:00

A blizzard and a fifty car accident had me stuck 50 miles from home again. I was wondering who's sofa I'd end up on when my boss said she'd let me expense a room at Beaver Creek.

Cool! My frozen lemons just became lemonade! Deciding to take advantage of the spontaneous evening that God was handing me I splurged on a nice dinner and overheard people talking about the concert they were going to right by my hotel...Bob Marley and the Wailers.(Bob Marley couldn't make it). I'm not a big concert goer, but a "why not" urge had me handing over $40 for 2 hours of island sounds in a snow storm.

I don't go to many concerts because I'm never sure how to act at them and going byself was even more disconcerting. I might have been happy just closing my eyes and listening to the music, but if I was going to do that I might as well just be in my room listening to my ipod. So I tried to get into it and as the audience stood, I stood with them. I clapped and whooped with them. I didn't feel terribly alone because I saw a dozen other self concious men looking around for guidance on how to behave. But it was watching the women that was really worth the price of admission.

She caught my eye when I first sat down two seats away. We smiled and nodded at each other and looked back to the stage. When people rose and started dancing she removed her jacket and manuevered next to me, looking great in her tank and surprisingly tan for March.

I don't do bars or night clubs because I never mastered "the approach". Whatever physical signals women are sending out are a mystery to me. Apparently there are books, blogs, and videos on the subject but I'm sure I still couldn't figure it out. But she was definitely interested. She didn't need to dance on my lap to make her point. Her signals were strong and she might as well have handed me a card saying "Talk to me".

You can pull a muscle if you just jump into the game without warming up, so I started to internally practice a few good opening lines.

"Hi"
"Great concert"
"I'm Jim"
"Bob Marley's dead, you know"
"Having a good time?"
"You smell like pot."
"Why are you looking at me?"
"I've got a room next door"
"You look fantastic"
"Here, pull my finger!"

You've already seen the title of this story, so you know how it ends. I didn't end up using any of these lines, but if there are any good ones I'd hate to see them go to waste so please feel free to use them if you'd like. Instead, I spent a couple of songs screwing up my courage (and screwing up an opportunity) until the band took a break. She looked me in the eye on the way to the lobby and even touched my arm to get past. She may have rolled her eyes and shook her head but that could be my imagination punishing me.

Sighhhh...

20 minutes later I was in my room watching the Discovery channel in my underwear.

That's the end of my story. But as you know, I like to wrap up with some sort of moral...some sort of point I'm trying to make. Aesop, Jesus, and me....we all dig the parables and I can't let those two down so here's what I've got.....

Reach for the stars - He who hesitates is lost - Fortune befriends the bold - A faint heart never won a fair maiden - Men who try to do something and fail are better off than those who try nothing and succeed - All BULLSHIT!

The only point I'm trying to make is that they call it a "comfort zone" for a reason....It's comfortable.

....ok that's weak... but she was probably some sort of serial killer that targets bold men anyway.

On Blogging

2008-06-05T10:52:00.000-06:00

These keystokes represent my first tentative steps into recording my relevant and profound (OK...maybe dull) musings onto the web for world wide consumption (isn't a world wide following every blogger's fantasy??). Blogging has been around for several years and I remember laughing the first time I heard about it. What kind of ego's believe that the world cares about the cuteness of their cat or their crazy sister? I laughed... but I really was curious. Who blogs? Why do they do it? Isn't it just another chore to do between the laundry and the lawn? Where's the motivation?

I asked myself those questions back when blogs numbered in the thousands. Last week I heard that the world wide number of blogs now exceeds 100 million! It's growing exponentially.

But why...????

I'm not the first person to ask. It's actually been studied. One very good paper I've read is titled "I'm Blogging This" A Closer Look at Why People Blog. (I'm not techno-savvy enough to provide a link so you'll have to google it if you want to read it)This paper submits five reasons for the need to blog. 1)documenting one's life, 2)providing commentary and opinions, 3) working out emotional issues, 4) thinking by writing, 5) promoting conversation and community. All legitimate reasons. The paper is very well researched, written, foot noted and the conclusions make sense, but I think the data can be boiled down further and summarized into something much simpler and deeper to the human psyche.

A few years ago (was it even 10??) I watched an hour of a television drama that may have been canceled after a few episodes. I don't remember the name and I don't remember the actors but there was one scene that stayed with me. I recognized it as a very basic truth. An exhausted salesman woke up in his hotel room having slept on top of the covers and in his clothes. He was in a hurry and grabbed his bag and stood at the door looking back at his room. The bed was still made, the towels unused, the soap unopened, etc. He couldn't leave the room until he went back and pulled the covers down, threw a couple towels on the floor and ran some water in the tub. It was too sad for him to know that he was in that room for several hours but left no sign that he had ever been there. He needed to leave proof of his existence.

He needed to Matter.

Isn't that a basic primal instinct of our species? Isn't that a reason behind cave drawings in France, carved initials in the forest, and grafitti in Los Angeles? The kid in L.A. is using his spray paint for the same reason I am using my keyboard.

WE ARE AFFIRMING THAT WE EXIST. On some level we believe that what goes out onto the internet is archived and can be googled and discovered even in the next millenium. To me it feels more permanent than the initials I carved in the birch tree decades ago. If I turn my thoughts and musings into electrons and toss them into the world wide wind ... I'm just saying...

Jim was here.....

"I Have the Right to Pose Naked"

2008-06-05T10:49:00.000-06:00

She told me that and I agreed with her. Which made it that much harder to fire her the same week I hired her.

I've hired hundreds of applicants in my career and I take pride in finding good, talented people. And Debbie was a can't-miss-slam-dunk. She wasn't just going to be the head of marketing...she was going to be the face and voice of the companies local office. She stood out from the other applicants. Debbie had a great personality. She was "perky", which was exactly what we were looking for. Afterwards, I had to defend myself that I hired her for her looks. Certainly she was pretty. But not sexy pretty. Not model pretty. A better description might be 'adorable'. She was the neighbor girl you hired to watch your kids. She was an activities director in a nursing home for God's sake. Her husband was the weekend anchor at the local network. Can't-miss-slam-dunk.

Debbie started on Monday...the same day the local paper did the standard puff peice on our new Marketing Director. On Tuesday a "concerned citizen" dropped off a magazine at our office. Maxim...no problem. Playboy...we might have lived with. Penthouse... would have presented some difficulties. But this was...Hustler. And it wasn't a youthful error. It was the current issue! And she was in the middle in all of her "adorable" spread legged perkiness.

Within hours (maybe it was minutes) it was big news at the corporate office and a couple of clerks were dispatched to gather evidence from the local porn shops so the company officers could see for themselves who Jim hired. They needed to see the evidence for themselves before they made any decisons.

On Thursday I fired her. I had to do it with the corporate attorney listening in on the speaker phone. She cried and I felt awful. She talked about her rights and I countered with our rights. She finally left peacefully and with 2 weeks pay.

I still believe she had the right to pose naked. Anyone does. And you have the right to pierce your toungue and tattoo your neck and have a swastika bumper sticker and drink yourself into a stupor. I even believe you should have the right to get high. But as you exercise your rights and "stick it to the man", you gotta realize that "the man" has got rights too.

Good luck Debbie. I wish you the best.

Finally Something to Admire

2008-06-05T10:48:00.000-06:00

Aaron was an ass. He was cruel, racist, lazy, sexist, and he was my boss. Those who worked closest to him never lasted long. After a long line of his female assistants quit after a few months with him, we hired a man who lasted 11 months before resigning after being reduced to tears in front of the rest of the staff.

He boasted that he had friends in high places and couldn't be fired and after so many outrageous incidents that resulted in nothing more than a friendly warning, we came to believe it. I once tried to think up with even one small thing to admire about him. I couldn't do it. Came up empty...

...until I heard the details of how he killed himself.

Aaron's reign came to an end through the most unlikely hero. Betty was a timid, nervous woman who never really made eye contact during the interview. But Aaron's reputation was well known and she was the only applicant. That was a good enough qualification and she was hired. Her resume told us where she worked before and where she went to school but it never showed us her back bone. Solid Titanium. Sure, she cried. But she fought back and we rallied around her and based on all of our testimony, Aaron was finally fired.

But I'm not writing about Betty. Admiring her was easy. I still do. This story is about how Aaron killed himself.

On January 2nd, the local paper, the sheriffs office, and various relatives were informed in writing of Aaron's death...by Aaron himself. When the sheriff arrived at the address, he found a home that was spotless and devoid of furniture. An envelope filled with instructions was on a kitchen counter. Aaron and his wife (and the cat) were in the front seat of Buick in the still fume filled garage. They had written their own obituaries and sent them to the paper with a check, prepaid for a simple cremation, sold all the furniture, taken their clothes to the thrift store, discontinued utility services and paid the final bills, cleaned the house, applied for the life insurance benefits, and left instructions for the disbursement of any remaining assets. They had taken care of every conceivable detail. It was so clean. So efficient. Why?? It went completely against how he lived. It took a dumpster to clean out his office but just an envelope to clean up his life? Was it one last act of control? Was he trying to make amends for a messy life?

Whatever his reasons were, I was fascinated. I still believe suicide is the ultimate act of cowardice...but...(and I apologize everytime I tell this story)...but ...I gotta admit...I was impressed. This was something about Aaron I could admire.

Rest in Peace Aaron.

Silver Linings and Bipolar Bonuses

2008-06-05T10:45:00.000-06:00

The picture in the paper was taken at 1:00am and showed me with my hands on my head looking in disbelief at the mangled entry doors to the mall.

Thanksgiving was 4 days away and the timing was horrible. The only witness was the guy in the parking lot sweeper who said, "I thought the headlights were my own reflection until the doors exploded and this little gray car drove out of the mall."

The story in the paper went on to explain that shortly after midnight a car crashed through the automatic doors of the east entrance drove the length of the mall, running into holiday displays, vendors carts, food court tables, before exiting through the west entrance and escaping into the night. The only evidence was a gray driver's mirror at center court.

It had already been a tough year. Traffic and revenue were down because of a new mall in the area. My year end bonus was tied to annual revenue. It was an "all or nothing" bonus system. If I fell even five dollars short of budget, I received nothing. By the end of November I was looking at a forty thousand dollar short fall.

And now this...
We spent the night getting the mall ready for the next days shoppers and the following afternoon we had a visit from our insurance claims adjuster. Damages were estimated at about $40,000. And the "silver lining light bulb" was lit over my head.

In a few weeks, the insurance check was collected, repairs were made, and the bills were paid. Who would notice or even care if the check was deposited on December 28th and the bills weren't paid until January 8th?

I made my bonus with $850 to spare.

They later caught Adam, a 19 year old kid who was off his medication for a bi-polar disorder. During a manic episode he felt compelled to take a driving tour of our mall and never could explain why.

Sometimes you have to get creative but there are opportunities or silver linings in every crisis. Thanks Adam!

Two Summers - One Lesson

2008-06-05T10:43:00.000-06:00

If you're lucky some of the important life lessons can be learned early. I didn't realize it at the time but this lesson I learned in elementary school stuck with me for the rest of my life.

A few days before the end of the 3rd grade, Mrs. McWhinnie (loved that name!) announced that the school and the local libraries were sponsoring a summer reading contest. Whoever read the most books before the start of the next school year would win a wonderful prize. All of the libraries would have contest entry forms and the librarian would record how many books you checked out over the summer.

This announcement came just a month after bikes were awarded to the winners of the fund raising contest that I had only half heartedly participated in. I quickly deduced that if bikes were awarded for 3 weeks worth of selling magazines and wrapping paper...then the prize for 3 months of reading during your summer break...must be like 10 times better than a bike! ( I was a reader, not a mathematician)

I was going to go for it. I liked to read anyway and I knew that my only serious competition was Julie Beudreau. Julie read during recess which clearly was a sign of a compulsive disorder. She might be a problem.

That summer I read. I read in bed, I read in the bathroom, I read in the car, I read at the barbers, I read at dinner, I read at the rodeo, I read while camping, I just read. Occasionally my friends would peal me away for a bike ride but I couldn't enjoy it because I just KNEW Julie was reading. I pictured that compulsive little suck up setting her alarm for 4am so she could get to more books. I couldn't let up if I was going to beat her.

It did occur to me to cheat but imagined that with such a fabulous prize at stake there was probably going to be some sort of test on the books...maybe even fingerprinting of the pages...so I read every word.

By summer's end I had logged 48 books with the librarian and was certain that I had fallen at least a dozen books short. On the first day of 4th Grade the principal came into our classroom to personally award the Summer Reading Prize.

I looked at Julie and tried to imitate her apparent non-chalance. If she was going to pretend not to care - so was I.

"Good morning class. I'm so proud...blah, blah, blah...everyone's a winner...blah, blah blah...and the winner for the whole school comes from this very class room."

My heart was beating in my head.

"With an amazing 48 books read, the prize goes to Jimmy Crocker. Jimmy, could you come up here please?"

I walked (maybe I swaggered) to the front of the class and received my 1st place certificate and my...

...Bookmark. That's it. A bookmark.

A certificate, a bookmark, my name displayed in the school trophy case for the entire school year, teasing for being a bookworm, and accusations of cheating (because no one is stupid enough to spend their summer actually reading 48 books). The only person who seemed actually impressed with my acheivement was - Julie Beudreau (19 books). While she congratulated me and we discussed the books we had read, I noticed that besides reading, she'd spent the summer getting kinda hot. I decided it wouldn't be such a sacrifice to give up a little recess tetherball for the occasional book discussion with Julie.

By the end of 4th grade, I was just Jim...no more Jimmy. The summer reading contest was announced again but I was having none of it. I'd climbed that ladder and I knew what was at the top.

That summer (maybe the funnest 3 months of my life) was spent riding bikes and horses. We fished until it got hot, then we threw down our poles and the fishing hole turned into a swimming hole. We had a 30 foot rope tied to a cottonwood and we timed ourselves to the top everyday. I danced at the reservation Pow Wow and went on a cattle drive at my friends ranch. I stacked hay on the farm and learned to water ski. I slept in a tent nearly as often as I slept in my bed. And to completely destroy my book worm rep I even got arrested. (but that's another story) I can't remember for sure but I must have read a couple of books because I still needed something to talk to Julie about in the fall.

I don't think there was a conscious realization that I'd learned a life lesson that summer but I'm sure it's something I must have internalized on some level. I'd discovered that the "fabulous prize" wasn't something I had to work for or something that could be awarded by someone else. The prize was being able to live on the Wind River in Wyoming and seeing the mountains from my bedroom window. It was having good friends and a healthy body and to have the freedom to enjoy both. It was having great parents and a brother who was my best friend.

And I was given that prize every single morning.

Ever since then I've been careful. I don't want to spend years climbing a ladder just to discover it's been leaning against the wrong wall. Why wait for a vague promise that there is a land of milk and honey in your future. Look around. You are surrounded by milk and honey already.

Just taste it.

The Secret of Happiness...

2008-06-05T10:41:00.000-06:00

...is lowered expectations.

I'm not being cynical, and I'm not the first to think this, but I really believe I'm on to something.

How many experiences in life teach us that the end result never lives up to the expectation? Of course there are exceptions but don't we often find that the event is no where near as thrilling as the anticipation of it? Does the fantasy of going to DisneyWorld outweigh the reality of long lines in the heat?

What is your favorite part of Christmas? Sure...you're grateful for the gifts, but are you nearly as excited by owning them as you were by looking at that pile of pretty, wrapped boxes of possibilities? That wonderful stack of mysterious. Anything could be in them. Anything at all. And you get to savor that anticipation for weeks.

And what about dating? As we check ourselves in the mirror before heading out the door, isn't there a little bit of anticipation that this might be the one! Isn't that what keeps us slogging through the dating fatigue and the disappointment of realizing over dessert, "Nope, not this one."

Although it looks like I'm building a case for the joys of anticipation, I'm actually saying that our addiction to that unrealistic anticipation is what's screwing up our reality. Why are there peasants in Guatemala and tribes in Nairobi that are just as happy as wealthy Americans? It's because they wake up and see that the sun is shining and the corn is growing and they smile at their good fortune. The American is pissed because his Guatemalan gardener didn't trim the hedges after he mowed the lawn and now he has to wait in line 3 minutes at Starbucks.

Yeah, I think the key to happiness is lowered expectations. At 20 I was looking forward to adventure, love and wealth, at 40 I was happy when my wife and kids were happy, but one day when my life finally revolves around nothing but a good nights sleep and regular bowel movements, I'll be a truly happy man.

I slept well last night and the sun is shining.

Life is good.

Don't let her see you dance...

2008-06-05T10:36:00.001-06:00

That was the only advice Troy gave me for my upcoming date. I went to high school with him and he knows he's talking about. It's not like I go into spastic contortions (see Elaine Bennis - Seinfeld) or attempt any corny disco moves...it's just that I do what all self conscious white guys do on the dance floor. I sway from foot to foot and when I'm really feeling the rhythm I'll throw in a couple of head bobs. This style was so prevalent at Hurricane High School that we've called it the Hurricane Shuffle for the past 30 years. It falls well short of embarrassing but it screams to the world "I've got no rhythm! Please stop the music and let me sit down!"

The advice was not just useful, it was going to be easy to follow. I always avoided dancing would continue to do so. Although we were on her turf and we had pretty fluid plans, none of those plans involved shuffling my feet to the beat. We were going to a Bar-b-que so there would be nothing to worry about...right? Upon arrival I see that it wasn't just a Bar-B-que...it was Tucson's version of Mardis Gras and there were bands everywhere...Doh! In short order we were sitting on hay bales and tapping our feet as the Fabulous Shitheads (I'm serious) pulled off a decent Bruce Springsteen. My efforts towards a shouted conversation were failing. I pretended not to notice that her feet were tapping and her shoulders were swaying. A bass guitar finally pulled her and a girlfriend onto the dance floor as I pretended to be fascinated by my drink.I love watching women dance. Do they feel as natural as they look? Why are they so good at it? The sensual movement of the hips, the confident pucker of the lips, the half closed eyes, the arms that know exactly where to go...the knowledge that men are watching and approving. Do they practice? Do they study video and and spend hours in front of the mirror working on technique? Are they as lost in the music as they look or are they aware of every movement? See? There's my problem. I think and analyze too much.If I still entertained any hope of not joining Holly on the dance floor, it disappeared when she added a new move to her repertoire. Without breaking rhythm she caught my eye, pointed a finger at me and curled it twice back towards her and the band. Forget Troy's advice. With an invitation like that I would have risen from a wheelchair and crawled towards her.
So I'm dancing. And I'm telling myself "let go, feel natural". But it's not working so I take a sterner approach with the repressed 17 year old inside me. "FEEL NATURAL, NOW, DAMMIT!" But it's still not working, so I switch to plan B...copy other male dancers. The guy in the cowboy hat is doing some sort of pivot/wiggle thing so I do the same. The Asian kid has got his arms completely over his head. This seems rash to me but I compromise and raise my hands from chest high to ear high. So in addition to my own patented head bob, I've got the pivot/wiggle, raised hands thing going on. I'm making occasional eye contact with my date and I'm hoping my smile is saying "This is freaking wonderful!" instead of "I'd rather be scrubbing port-a-potties!" But wait! That black guy is dancing behind his date with his hands on her hips. That's perfect! Close contact and she can't see me! So before Springsteen can finish telling me that ...baby he was born to run...I've manuevered myself behind Holly and very casually..almost accidently...put my hands on her hips...and oh my...I think she approves! Her hips start doing this rapid belly dancer kinda thing which is fantastic and my hands are very pleased to be a part of it...but then I realize that I've stopped moving. I'm too close to her to do the cowboys pivot/wiggle and it's going to take a fire hose to get my hands off her hips, so I fell back on the moves that have been proven for 30 years. The Hurricane Shuffle. Foot movement is limited to the heels only and random head bobs are encouraged.

The next song sped up but Holly was as gracious as she was sexy and she mercifully limited my "bear on a unicycle swatting flies" imitation to just about eight more minutes. Dancing was followed up with a nice dinner and some extremely witty (if I do say so myself) conversation. But alas, the damage had been done and my "thanks, I had a great time" email was followed with her "me too, but let's just be friends" response.

Sigh...next time I'm raising my hands all the way over my head.