Semper Ubi Sub Ubi

Paul and John

2011-09-08T12:14:00.000-07:00

Abraham

2010-02-14T21:39:00.000-08:00

4,800 squares later and Abraham is finished just in time for President's Day.

Either write things worth reading...

2009-06-06T19:31:00.000-07:00

or do things worth the writing.

Hopefully I am doing the latter since I haven't written anything in a while. I'll be back when it's worth your while.

Baseball Dreams

2008-09-29T11:04:00.000-07:00

I was going to write about what it means to be a Cub fan, but I don't think I can fully capture in in words. And if I came close I think the only people who would get it would be other Cub fans.

I'm going to the first two games of the series against the Dodgers this week. On Wednesday I'm driving up to Wilmette to stay with my folks. Maggie is coming along for the ride as her schedule is much harder for Mary to coordinate around than it is for the other girls who are in school all day. My parents are graciously going to play with their youngest granddaughter while I play at Wrigley. I'm looking forward to the car ride with Mag. She's a hoot and we'll have fun on our nine hour tour to Chicagoland.

I won an online auction to get one seat in the right field bleachers for Wednesday. On Thursday I'm going with brother Brian and sitting in seats my sister is letting us have. Over these two days I know I'll be reminiscing about my past experiences at Wrigley with friends and family.

There are so many memories to share since we had season tickets since I can recall. What follows next is something I cannot control. It's a ramble of thoughts that jump into my mind when I think of the Cubs and Wrigley Field. It's the best I can do to convey what it means to me to be a fan. If you get it, you get it. If you don't, well I'm sorry. Here it goes:

The first set of seats my folks had were somewhere around the 8-10th row behind home plate. They were such choice seats that you could call the pitch before the ump hollered out. And these were in the days before they changed the net and a ball fouled directly back would roll up and down over your head on the much worn net to the sound of someone playing a slide whistle.

There was the hassling of opposing players "Hey! Your a hot dog Montenez! Montenez, you're a hot dog!"

And the players and coaches I knew and loved (and sometimes hated) who made those teams mine:

Bill Madlock, Mike Kelleher, Steve Ontiveros, Manny Trillo, Herman Franks Larry Bittner, Rick and Steve Reuschel, Steve Stone, Mike Krukow, Bill Buckner, Bobby Murcer, Ivan DeJesus, Bruce Sutter, Dave Kingman, Ron Cey, Dick Tidrow, Leon Durham, Bobby Dernier, Rick Sutcliffe, Keith Moreland, Jody Davis, Ryne Sandberg, Shawn Dunston, Mark Grace, Andre Dawson, Sammy Sosa and every other player who ever wore the blue pinstripes.

The time my dirty yellow hat was picked out of the crowd by Arnie Harris. Thanks Arnie for my fifteen!

The first time I went to a game on my own with my best friend John Stutz. I think we were in third grade and had to convince both sets of parents that we could do it. I knew the "L" stops by heart. On at Wilmette, switch at Howard, off at Addison. And make sure to save money for the trip home.

The time when the Cubs made the playoffs in '84 and my mother wrote a note for me to be absent from school because "Dan's grandmother is being buried at Wrigley Field today." Then going to the game and watch Ernie do a trick "throw" to home plate for the opening toss (he held on to the throw and flipped it over his back to home plate), listen to Jimmy Buffet sing the National Anthem and then watch Rick Sutcliffe hit a run home run as he pitched the Cubs to a 13-0 victory in game one over the Padres.

Or the time when John was grounded and we sneaked out to a game, only to be on tv during game highlights on the news that night.

Or sitting with my mom and having the men around us ask her how she scored a play on her scorecard. She taught me well.

Or sitting with my sister in the stands and realizing that title of biggest Cubs fan in the family might just need to go to her.

Being old enough to have an Old Style at the game. And then getting a better beer the next time.

Remembering when all hotdogs came with mustard already in the bun. And then learning the secret of how to roll the dog in the bun to spread the mustard around.

Sitting in Stutz's basement singing along to "Hey! Hey! Holy Mackerel! No doubt about it!" on his record player.

Learning to eat peanuts in the shell.

Jack Brickhouse.

Clark, Addison, Sheffield and Waveland.

Harry Caray.

Sitting in the right field bleachers shouting "left field sucks!"

Sitting in the left field bleachers shouting "right field sucks!"

Sitting in centerfield bleachers shouting "you both suck!"

Collecting paper cups and "popping" them on the ground.

The summer I was fifteen and was an Andy Frain usher at Wrigley. My uniform was so big it made me look like David Byrne. But I didn't care because I had a job at Wrigley.

When I sing "Take me out to the ballgame" I cannot help but sing "if the Cubs don't win it's a shame" no matter what ballpark I am at be it National League, American League or Minor League.

Being able to completely understand how Steve Goodman could write both "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request" and "Go Cubs Go!".

And getting close to tears the first time I heard Ralph Covert sing "Baseball Dreams".

Not being able to root for the Mets or Cardinals to win even if it helps the Cubs playoff chances. Ever.

---

When Mary asked me why I couldn't just watch the games on television I didn't try to explain it all. I still don't think I could. And when she asked me what I would do if they made it to the World Series and I couldn't get a ticket? I said it doesn't matter. I don't need one to be able to feel like I am there. I know that place inside and out and know a part of me will be there in spirit to cheer on my Cubs.

But I just may need to make a trip to Clark and Addison to be outside while the games are going on. Just in case I might find that miracle ticket.

All The Way

2008-09-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

This song gives me chills. I love it.

Note: somehow these videos keep disappearing. Not sure why, but there are plenty of versions of this song on youtube to watch.

The Sta Puft Marshmallow Man Has A Dirty Bum

2008-08-28T08:37:00.001-07:00

Mary and I had an argument last night. It's not important what it was about, but let's just say that it involved a piece of dark chocolate and the kids not talking to her.

What is important is that we had an argument. It's been a while since we've had a good one and this week we've had two. I think they are related. In fact I think they are both really about the same thing: toilet paper.

Wait a minute you say. How is a piece of dark chocolate related to toilet paper? That just sounds like you are being gross. Okay, now that I think about it... it does sound like I'm being gross. But I'm not. It's just that I think Mary got upset about the dark chocolate thing because she was really mad that I bought the wrong kind of toilet paper. Not that I did though. I bought the right kind for everyone else in the world who likes to feel clean. Which, apparently, is not for her.

See, Mary likes Charmin Ultra. I don't. I think it's too soft. It's like wiping with a marshmallow. I never feel clean. I prefer something different. Anything different really. So I've been buying different brands to see if we can meet in the middle somewhere. And since Mary thinks the Scott toilet paper I brought home this past Monday feels like sandpaper to her tushy, that would mean we'd need to find common toilet paper ground that is somewhere between Sta Puft Marshmallows and 40 grit sandpaper.

I already opened the pack of Scott's so we can't return it. Mary, being frugal enough to not want to waste already purchased product, has said I can keep a roll of Scott's in our bathroom while she puts Charmin on all the other rolls in the house. I tried to trick her buy replacing the Charmin rolls with Scott's but it didn't work. I could hear her down the hall yelling at me when she found out. She's rather finicky, no?

I shared with her my marshmallow analogy and she didn't seem to like it. "You're a marshmallow" was all she could seem to muster in reply.

Well if I am a marshmallow, then I would want to wipe with Scott's. At least that way I'd be clean.

Twitter For Grumpy People

2008-08-16T08:54:00.000-07:00

Okay. With school starting back up next week for the girls, I'm feeling like I'm ready to come back from summer break with a whole new attitude about blogging. I've been storing up ideas for posts and I'll start sharing again.

For the past few months I've tried to unplug from web 2.0 world and get as analog as I could. I felt like I needed to in order to focus my first full summer as a stay at home dad. I read somewhere that there are like 150,000 of us in the United States. A small number, but growing each year it seems. Anywho... I deleted a whole slew of online accounts such as my lens on Squidoo, my profile on LinkedIn and more. Scott and a few others noticed, but he was the one to get me back in the swing of things. He turned me on to Twitter.com and encouraged me to test it out. Sure I heard of it, but I couldn't fathom who would care to read little snippets of info without a full story attached to it. After signing up and playing around a bit I think I like it. It's micro-blogging. That's not blogging in 2.5 pt type, it's blogging in 140 words or less. I'm still in week one with it, but I'm thinking I'll keep up with it and work out how best to use it for my needs. You don't need to follow me on Twitter if you don't want to. You can catch me latest tweets over there on the right hand side of this page. Pretty nice eh? I think that will keep me from posting little tidbits here and instead I'll post my longer thoughts in full blog post form here on this site. Sounds like a good plan to me.

Now for some fun:

Sometimes I get bored. When I do I get to thinking about ways to cure the boredom. Since Twitter was so new to me and I was having fun with it. I thought... hmmm, if I were in charge of Twitter I'd like to know how could we expand our product offering. Twitter is nice and all, but could we target different niches with it? After about thirty seconds or so of brainstorming and about an hour trying to remember how to use Photoshop, I present to you the first Twitter line extension: Bitter.com

I'm busy...

2008-06-22T09:09:00.001-07:00

building inertia. I'm really enjoying it.

Back again soon.

My Parahippocampal Gyrus

2008-06-20T09:03:00.000-07:00

Is, apparently, working just fine. Whew! That is a huge relief.

I'm Busy...

2008-05-21T19:27:00.000-07:00

Making memories with the family. Back again sometime.

Thanks for stopping by the blog.

Let The Tooth Be Polled

2008-04-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

In my quest to find out how many crazy parents are giving an exorbitant amount of cashola to their kiddos for a lost tooth I came across this poll on Buzzdash.com. I know there are caveats galore with this type of polling, but I thought it worthwhile to check out and see how people with online access, that know of Buzzdash.com and have found this poll on the site through a specific search (I entered "tooth" in the site search box) answered the question of how much the tooth fairy leaves their kids. The responses here, so far, indicate that most are giving a dollar or less. Therefore I must conclude that the people who are giving twenty dollars, such as our favorite top dad, must not have internet access and/or have thought to seek out and answer a poll like this. Either that or everyone who has answered is lying through their twenty dollar teeth.

The Golden Tooth

2008-04-18T07:21:00.000-07:00

I am so very thankful that the writers strike is over. Soon shows like Heroes will be back on the air and we will not have to sit through more last minute reality show ideas like My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad. Did you see that one? I think it ran its course in about a week. I'm perfectly fine if that one never comes back.

I almost hate to admit that I watched an entire episode of My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad, except for the fact that I learned something from it. That's right. I learned something from watching My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad. I learned that:

Writers are incredibly talented individuals who provide us with entertainment leaps and bounds above anything presented in a reality tv show.

and

Some parents are idiots.

Why do I say this? Well, because if you've seen a reality show in the past few months you know that we are better off with the strike over. Life without writers is painful. And to the lesson learned about parents as idiots? Let's just say that being the "Top Dad" on My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad only applied to not being the worst at various feats of skill and trivia on the show. It did not apply to basic, common sense approach to parenting.

I know this because during the final portion of the show, one dad had to guess things about his kid to earn points. He had to answer questions like "what does Bobby want to be when he grows up?" and "what is Bobby's favorite subject in school?" Softball questions to be sure for most parents. You'd expect the answer to be "a firefighter" and "math", but the clincher was "how much money did the tooth fairy leave under Bobby's pillow for the last tooth that he lost?" This one question told me much more about this dad than any feat of skill he may have performed earlier on in the show (like dodging tennis balls is that tough, c'mon!). I expected this dad to say the tooth fairy left anything from a quarter to maybe two dollars (if it was the kids last tooth that would be worth more after all, right?). But no. The dad did not say a quarter. He did not say fifty cents. He didn't even say two dollars. What did he say? He said TWENTY DOLLARS!!!!

Good gravy, people! Who gives their kid twenty dollars.... for a tooth!?!?!? I was so shocked that my mouth really did hit the floor. I had to get down and search for it on the floor of our bedroom. After finding that it had bounced off the cat and landed in a pile of laundry we've been planning on washing for the past week, we wiped off the cat fur and had Mary pull out her home suture kit to put it back on my face. TWENTY DOLLARS for a tooth?!?!? Absolutely ridiculous.

Now I know there will be some people reading this who want to know how much the tooth fairy brings our kids. I'm happy to share that with you. Our kids get twenty-five cents per tooth. That's it. Hannah has not gone through all her baby teeth yet, so we'll have to wait and see if maybe she gets a bump in pay for the last one. But I can tell you right here and now that it will not be twenty dollars. Maybe two. Maybe.

I did some informal polling with friends and learned that we might be on the low end of things. Most reports I got back were anywhere from twenty-five cents (we are not alone there) to fifty cents to a dollar to two dollars. One even mentioned giving five dollars, and as much as I wanted to turn them into some governing body overseeing tooth fairy budgeting I have decided to pass in order to save the friendship (though I will never look at them the same way again).

But twenty dollars? Everyone I spoke with agreed that this is insane. What kind of message are these parents sending to their kids? That they should expect to get a huge reward for doing nothing? If this type of parenting continues I fear the day when their kid starts bringing home report cards with anything less than an A+. I mean, he should get the top grades just for showing up, right? That teacher will get an ear full won't they? And what about getting a job? He's being groomed to expect an out of control CEO salary which is way out of line with the hourly wage the blue collar line workers that work for him take home at the end of the week, right?

Okay. Maybe I don't have all the information. Maybe the kid had a cavity in that tooth. And maybe that cavity was filled with gold. With the price of gold these days the tooth fairy might have actually been ripping the kid off. Maybe we should start an investigation and get the kid the additional $490 the tooth fairy owes him.

$20 for a tooth? What were you thinking???

Posts Not Posted

2008-04-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about what to write about today and it occurred to me that I should take a look at some posts that I had saved in draft form. Maybe I'd fine inspiration in a draft. Most of these, it turns out, were nothing more than titles for posts. I can pretty much figure out what it was I was thinking about for most of them, but for some of them I have no clue. They intrigue me. What was I thinking with these titles? What was I going to write about? Here's a few sample posts with title, but no content yet:

Kids, Bodily Functions and the Choices We Make
Why Rock-n-Roll Rocks!
You Can't Fake Cool
Gaston Is Not Nice!
Grass Stains On Knees
Color Your World Seersucker

That's all I got today. Like riding a bike, I need to get back on this writing thing and get the wheels spinning again. It's the only way to keep it going.

What The Girls Got

2008-04-02T07:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterdays post was incomplete. I told you what they wanted, but left out what they got.

Hannah got my vote when she runs for President.
Grace got a conversation about our vacation to the Bahamas with an agreement to go back some day.
Maggie got her grape tomatoes.
Mary got her wine.

It was a good day.

What The Girls Want

2008-04-01T16:14:00.000-07:00

Hannah came home from school today letting me know that when she is elected President of the United States of America she will pass a law that all drinking fountains will serve lemonade.

Grace came home with a paper kite and a note in the shape of a puffy white cloud that said "I will fly my kite in the Bahamas."

Maggie wanted more grape tomatoes.

Mary wanted a class of wine.

I just took note.

Where To?

2008-03-10T22:15:00.000-07:00

I had this thought in my head all day today. I couldn't shake it. It was a good thought. There was a kernal of an idea lingering in my head, and I thought that if I could find the right words I would sit down and create a post with those words. And though it was a good thought, and I was sure it was mine, I kept thinking that I had heard these words before; the idea was not new to me. Sure enough it was not new to me. I had written the words down almost one year ago.

I've reread them and I still like them in the order I put them in last March. You can read them here. I wonder if the trip to Vegas I'm taking this weekend is the trip I have been seeking.

Guess What?

2008-03-06T14:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I shared with Mary a story about Maggie and how much she understands. She's not quite eighteen months old and doesn't say a word yet, but she can understand complex directions.

It happened when I was in Maggie's room and had just finished changing her diaper. I looked around for her socks and realized that she had taken them off earlier when we were downstairs in the playroom. I told her that I needed her to go get her socks and a pair of shoes so that we could put them on her and then go for a car ride to pick her sister up from school. With that she ran off and returned a minute later with both socks and a pair of her shoes. She dropped them in front of me and then turned and headed to the closet to get her coat. I thought that was pretty impressive and told Mary as much.

Upon hearing this Mary made a quip about how smart all our kids were and that she had heard about a recent study that explained that kids get their intelligence from their mother. I don't think she really believes this. I think it's more along the lines of saying to your spouse that "your son/daughter/dog/cat did something gross/not smart/not to my liking" when they've done something gross/not smart or not to their liking. The flipside is that this same spouse is also likely to claim that "my son/daughter/dog/cat/fish did something brilliant or fantastic" when they've done something they want to brag about. That she used a "recent study" to back up her claim doesn't really convince me. I'm more convinced that they do get their intelligence from her when I pick up the girls from school and hear their conversations with each other from my spot in the front seat. To wit, here's the car ride conversation Mary's daughters held yesterday:

"Daddy?"
"Yes Grace?"
"Guess what?"
"I don't know Grace. What?"
"Chicken butt!"

"Hey daddy!"
"Yes, Hannah?"
"Guess what?"
"What?"
"Chicken butt!"

"Hey Hannah, guess what?"
"What?"
"Chicken butt!"

"Hey Grace, guess what?"
"What?"
"Chicken butt!"

And on and on this went until they started changing it little by little:

"Hey Daddy, guess why?"
"I don't know. Why?" I said playing along.
"Chicken thigh!"

"Hey Daddy, guess what?"
"What?" I asked hoping it was a different answer than the previous times.
"Chicken butt!"

"Okay." I said. This is funny. I get it. But..."
"You just said butt!" They said in unison.
"I didn't mean your gluteus maximus." I said.
"Did you mean my gluteus minimus?' asked Hannah giggling.

And then the conversation, if you could call it that, degraded even further:

"Hey Daddy, guess what?" asked Grace.
"I give up. What?" I replied.
"I have a chicken in my butt!"

I have a feeling that when she reads this Mary is going to say "You need to teach your children not to say 'butt' in public."

Ignorance is to Bliss as Marriage is to...?

2008-02-28T06:03:00.000-08:00

"You know what, Mary?"
"What's that?"
"You're pretty smart."
"Thank you."
"You've got a high IQ, don't you?"
"Yeah. I could have joined Mensa when I was younger. I think it was either my PSAT or my ACT score that qualified me to join."
"I'd like to know my IQ. Maybe I should take a test to see if I would qualify."
"Um, honey... why would you want to do that?"
"What are you saying? You don't think I would qualify for Mensa?"
"I'm just saying I don't think you need a test to prove you're smart."
"Okay. I get it. What you are really saying is 'why take the test and know for sure that Mary has a higher IQ?', right? That's what this is about right? You think I'm better off not knowing than taking the test and proving I'm not as smart as you, eh?"
"Something like that."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence."
"No problem."

She's Got It Going On!

2008-02-24T19:01:00.000-08:00

Today Grace said to me "You know what Dad? Mom is righty tighty, lefty loosy... all morning, noon and night!"

Now what that means exactly I do not know. But there is no doubt that from the way she said it that this five year old thinks her mom is one righteous chick.

TCBY/OBGYN

2008-02-21T20:19:00.000-08:00

On December 20th, 2007 we loaded up the minivan and moved to Springfield, Missouri; Ozark country. Since then each weekend has been filled up either with entertaining friends and family coming to see us in our new digs or our adventures taking the girls on field trips to explore our new community.

This past weekend we expanded our exploration of our new area when the family took a road trip to Branson, Missouri; an easy thirty minute drive from Springfield due south on I-65. For those unfamiliar with Branson, just think of Las Vegas... now make it family friendly and about 1/16th the size... now picture it located it in Southern Missouri... in the Ozarks. Did I mention we moved to the Ozarks? Sprinkle in a few family acts like the Haygoods (could you have a more family friendly sounding act?) the Oakridge Boys, Andy Williams, Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede, Shoji Tabuchi (whose lobby bathrooms are apparently "fabulous" and "not to be missed" attractions in and of themselves), Yakov Smirnoff and you've got Branson, Missouri.

Our main goal this day was really to get the girls out of the house for a few hours and maybe, just maybe tire them out enough so that they'd go to bed early. Maggie and I had been sick all week and Mary was now starting to catch what we had.

After spotting a billboard earlier in the week the girls asked if we could go to The Titanic Museum. And that's what we did.

It was a surprisingly fun museum. The girls loved getting to meet "Rose" as she strolled through the "ship" and seeing the vintage clothing and rescued items. After dipping our hands in the pool of 28 degree water we all agreed we'd be goners if we were cast into the sea on that fateful voyage. The museum guides handed out cards at the beginning of the tour with names and brief bios of actual passengers on the trip. At the end of the tour you find out if your person made it or not. All three girls and Mary had people who survived. Mine, a third class passenger, was not so fortunate. If you are in Branson and have the time I'd give a thumb's up to checking out the Titanic.

As we were leaving Mary promised the girls that if they were able to get buckled quickly we'd find some place to get a quick treat to eat. They did and off we went. As we drove down Main Street we decided to spend a few extra minutes to tour the town. This being my first visit to Branson, I was driving slowly so we could look around.

We passed the Hollywood Wax Museum, Celebration City, the Baldknobbers Theatre and Andy Williams place. Mary wanted to find some outlet stores so we took a detour off the main road.

As we drove down a side street Gracie commented from the back.

"Did we just pass OB/GYN?"

"What was that sweetie?" asked Mary from the front passenger seat.

"OB/GYN. Did we go past it."

"Um. What do you mean honey?"

Mary and I exchanged confused looks with one another. Neither of us had any idea where this comment came from or what it was related to. Why was our five year old asking about an OB/GYN?

Then Hannah piped up from the back, very matter-of-factly "She means TCBY."

Mary and I did our best not to burst out laughing. I'm fairly certain I have never heard anyone confuse TCBY with OB/GYN. Mary says I'm to stop here and not make any more comments. I think she fears that I might say something in bad taste.

:)

Attack of the Prunes

2008-02-18T18:28:00.000-08:00

Last weekend our friends Scott and Lisa came down from KC for a visit. They have three girls too. Their oldest, Sydney, is just about a month or so younger than Hannah. The girls have known each other since they were in diapers... and potty training. Which Scott was able to prove to them by pulling out the laptop and showing them this video.

Cracks me up each time I watch it.

In case you didn't catch it, the dialogue goes like this:

Hannah: "A picture!"

Scott: "What are you guys doing?"

Hannah: "Poopin'."

Sydney: "Poopin'."

Scott: "Okay! Anything coming out?"

Hannah: "Hmmm. Their stuck."

Scott: "Their stuck?"

Hannah: "My poo poos are stuck."

Scott: "Uh oh."

Hannah: "(unintelligible)..them out right now."

Scott: "Okay. Keep going okay?"

Sydney: "I have poops! They're stuck."

Scott: "Okay. Good luck. Good luck."

Coming Back Soon

2008-02-18T07:52:00.000-08:00

The move is over. The boxes are unpacked and we have the kids in somewhat of a regular routine. The material is there. Just need to start writing again. Which will be happening soon. Promise!

Thanks.

Dd

She Is Complete

2007-12-10T10:39:00.001-08:00

Suffering from Definition #2

2007-08-29T20:13:00.000-07:00

Drought
–noun
1. a period of dry weather, esp. a long one that is injurious to crops.
2. an extended shortage: a drought of good writing.
3. Archaic. thirst.

Quick Poll!

2007-08-02T14:25:00.001-07:00

Why I Prefer To Take The Train

2007-07-11T19:23:00.000-07:00

The Carnage Continues

2007-06-25T19:44:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while. Aside from all that goes with moving to a new agency I've been spending my free time keeping the back porch clean. It's a battleground and the cats are still winning.

Here's the latest tally:

As Hannah would say... "That's a lot of dead mickey's Dad!"

Murder By Numbers 1, 2...66

2007-05-22T12:44:00.000-07:00

How much do the cats love us for rescuing them from the shelter? We have been counting the ways:

For the record, from February 1, 2007 - May 22, 2007, we have received the following gifts:

55 dead mice
5 dead bunnies
5 dead birds, and
1 dead chipmunk (haven't come up with an Alvin drawing yet)

Hard to believe it from looking at him, but this guy is on of the killers:

The Hidden Link

2007-05-18T08:58:00.000-07:00

Some days I wonder if spending a year driving a Wienermobile somehow caused permanent brain damage. Perhaps the lack of A/C during the summer months caused a few brain cells to boil. Maybe it was the lack of heat during the winter months that froze a few too. Maybe, just maybe it was listening to 27 versions of the wiener jingle over the PA at all those store calls.

Sometimes I catch a glimpse of Hot Dog Red (the name of the paint color on the hot dog portion of the Wienermobile - though it looks more orange than red) out of the corner of my eye and think I see the dog. It usually happens when I'm driving. I've seen the color enough to know instantly if it really is the dog or if it's just something close in color. It usually happens when I'm not expecting it. Like it did today.

A few minutes ago I clicked on one of the links over there to the right as my jumping off point on a virtual trip through the web. What I like to do is to start with one of those blogs and then click on a link that that blogger recommends. I do this for a few blogs to see where it takes me. It's like a choose your own adventure book. You can always go back a blog and choose again if you do not like where you've ended up. Sometimes you can end up in the most unlikely places.

Here is the trail I followed today: I started by clicking on Interactive Architecture, which lead me to gravestmor.

Now, normally I would keep clicking on recommended links to get some distance between me and my own blog. I usually get about five or six links in before I start browsing around. Today, however, I started browsing right away at gravestmor. It only took me one post before I found myself clicking on the link it suggested to follow. That link took me to a post on Youtube where I found myself watching what a fellow reader of gravestmor described this way:

“I saw this a few weeks ago and thought it was one of the coolest all time animation presentations ever…

I mean, you’re taken on an emotional roller coaster…at first your like…jeez, who do these guys think they are, showing off their office like that…so pompous…and then you’re like…wtf…where did those bars come from…and then all of a sudden there’s an f@#$#@ing building growing, and the cameras all shaky and shit…and then boom….wireframe, and out of nowhere comes a frigging city where did that shit come from all of a sudden…and just when you think it can’t get any better…

THEY TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL…amazing…you’re in the building…you’re looking at it while driving down the street….you’re all over town…and when you think you can’t take anymore, it fades to black.and you’re like…thank god, i can’t take anymore…only to come back with a friggin 360 panorama…like…let me off…think i’m going to puke…feel bad for the people in the three cars behind me….i mean, what a RIDE!!!!

love it….love it.”

And what did I see in the video that caught my attention? I will tell you this... it wasn't Hot Dog Red, but the shape was unmistakable. Pay close attention and you'll see it.

Here is the clip:

I wonder how many other folks caught this? Kudos to the animators for injecting a little extra fun into their piece.

Ellen, It's Almost Finished!

2007-05-14T20:43:00.000-07:00

I have an unfinished painting that I started a few years ago. At this point I'm not sure if it was three or four years ago. I only know that we had already moved into the new house and we only had two kids at the time.

I showed it to my sister once when she was in town for a family reunion... wait, that might let me know how long ago it was... hang on... checking iPhoto for dates and times of the reunion... which was in July of '03. Dang. At least three years ago. At the time of the reunion I had been working on it for a few months already - at a minimum.

I have worked on it sporadically, most often late at night after everyone is asleep and I have had too much caffeine still in my system. And that may just explain the delay in completing it since I gave up caffeine for about a year or so in there. Silly.

So, while the idea for the painting came in a flash, the actual painting has taken a long time to complete. It's not that I didn't do other things in the interim. I did. In fact, I've completed several other paintings since I started this one. It's just been on the back burner for a while because painting this one makes my hand hurt after about twenty minutes or so working the canvas.

When I showed it to Ellen she indicated she liked the painting and said something like "hey, let me know when you finish this. I like it (hint hint)." Little did she know (which if you've seen Stranger Than Fiction you know is a set up to something big... something big that she did not know) that as of May 2007 that painting would still be sitting up on the easel in my studio. Unfinished.

This past week I got some creative juices going again and spent a few ours attacking the canvas making huge strides in getting closer to a completed work of art. It's so close now. So close. I just need a night or two of Mary not being on call, the girls going to bed right on time and the babe sleeping through the night, no last minute runs needed to the grocery store for milk, diapers or cat litter, shut off the email and cell phone and I can get 'er done.

I feel so confident that I can do that this week, that I'm going to post a sneak peak. I'm sharing this for two reasons. First, so that Ellen can see that I am making progress and second as a personal motivation for finishing it now that I've made a public statement about it.

So here's a bit of the painting:

And here's another bit:

I'll share more as I get closer to finishing it up. Stay tuned.

Please Read This & Pass It On

2007-05-07T10:36:00.000-07:00

Two days after learning of her son's suicide my sister-in-law put the following thoughts to paper. It was her wish that this be shared with as many people as possible.

John Kleine 3/5/1986 – 4/30/2007

Most people who knew John never knew that he had struggled with depression since his adolescence. Professionals told us that the hormonal imbalances of adolescence had probably triggered the chemical imbalances in his brain, and as he grew up it should get better. Fortunately, there have been great strides made in developing medications that can battle the depression with very few side effects. And so John had some very good years through the use of antidepressants.

John showed only his good side to the world. He loved to entertain people with his quick wit, impressions, and jokes. He loved to hang out with friends. And John especially loved sports. He played them, he watched them on TV, and he read about them in Sports Illustrated. He organized a CYO basketball team at Bishop Miege, and they played all four years. John worked really hard at playing high school football, and was extremely proud of being a starter his senior year. His varsity letter jacket still hangs in his closet.

But John also hated the idea of having a weakness that required the use of medication. And so after his freshman year at KU his doctor took him off the medication, and he did pretty well for a while. But ultimately, the depression returned, and his strong will was not enough to battle it. He refused to stay on medication, and in his despair he ended his life.

John is with God now, and is at peace. And we try to find some small comfort in knowing that. We will always miss him. It is our fervent prayer that the stigma that society attaches to mental illness will someday disappear, being replaced by compassion and understanding. Science and medicine will continue to study the workings of the brain, and will continue to develop new and better treatments. And when mental illness is considered to be a medical condition like any other disease, those who suffer from it will be able to receive treatment and help without shame.

We truly thank all of you for the overwhelming outpouring of love, prayers and support that we have received.
Bill & Maggie Kleine

Thought of the Day

2007-04-28T20:24:00.000-07:00

A parent cannot be invisible.

Breaking News From The Snack Cake Aisle

2007-04-26T14:19:00.000-07:00

As the former Marketing Manager for Dolly Madison I am saddened by this shelf talker I spotted at Price Chopper. As a kid who grew up a fan of the Vanilla Zinger and learned later that it is not Vanilla or Chocolate, but the Raspberry Zinger which is purchased most often, I am saddened.

Another brand bites the dust. More thoughts on this to come.

A Request

2007-04-18T14:17:00.000-07:00

I didn't think I had anything to say about what happened this week at Virginia Tech. I was wrong. I really don't want to add to the din of reports and comments about what happened and why. Rather I'm writing this to make a request from everyone. Reporters, politicians, civilians. All of us.

I first heard about the incident while listening to Jim Rome while in the car. He, very carefully, relayed that there was a report of a shooting at the campus of Virginia Tech. He relayed the initial report that there were over twenty dead. It was clear that he was shaken by this information coming across the news wires and he very politely spoke for a few moments about how this report had rattled him and that he was not ready to do his job of being a sports commentator and radio show host. He took a break and went to commercial to gather himself. I did not get to hear the rest of his show as I had reached my destination, but I commend him on how he handled himself.

I heard a few more "breaking news" reports later on in the day. I purposefully did not seek out any information but heard about it nonetheless. It was all over the television. So I turned it off. It was all over the radio, so I turned it off too. It came via email. It came via rss feeds. So I turned them all off. I unplugged.

Why?

Because I know what the air feels like on a day like that. I know what silence sounds like on a day like that. I know because almost twenty years ago I was locked into my high school and ushered into the cafeteria as my classmates and I learned of a shooting at a neighboring elementary school.

I was there as people asked questions. I was there when people frantically called home to check in with loved ones. I was there when they said a woman walked into the elementary school, announced she was giving a lesson about hand guns and proceeded to shoot six kids. I was there when we learned she shot the brother of a classmate. I was there when we learned she killed herself in that classmates house. I was there when we learned she was an alum of our high school.

And though the high school was not supposed to let students go home without a ride as an effort to ensure everyone would get home safe, I walked home alone one and a half miles to my house. I have never experienced quiet like I did on that walk. No one was out. I did not see a single car driving down the street on the way home. No neighbors in the yard. No one. Just silence. And sunshine. It made an impression.

And I know what it was like when summer camp opened a month later and several classmates of the young boy who died in that elementary school classroom had to attempt a return to normalcy. And I was a new camp counselor.

I suppose unplugging was my way of giving the grieving families space. I did not need to hear this information before they did. I did not need to know where the shooter bought his guns prior to the next of kin being contacted. This was not my tragedy. Nor, I should say, was the event of nearly twenty years ago my tragedy. No one I knew was hurt or killed. I just happened to be there. I was not involved. As for the events of this week I know that in time all the information about what happened will come out. I can wait. Something I wish our media outlets would do as well. Alas, that has not been the case.

Instead we see Matt Lauer (whom I like on most days) reporting live from the campus the very next day. Within minutes there were numerous television and newspaper reporters on site interviewing students, faculty, paramedics, police officers, friends of the injured, friends of the deceased, people who were in the classroom next door, a custodian, the guy who owned the shop were the guns were bought and former classmates of the shooter. All this at a time when the interviewees were asking more questions than giving answers. And it all seems wrong to me.

Why must our national media organizations swarm around a tragedy, jockeying for the best position and interview? Why must they interview students the same day the event occured? Why, instead of conducting an interview with a student still in shock, don't they help them find a counselor to speak with first? And while the questions asked may be legitimate questions to ask (though not all were), and though many if not all of the reporters relayed well wishes and condolences and the conclusion of each report it just felt insincere.

I'm sure any one of those reporters who might read that would take issue and defend themselves as being most sincere, but come on. Isn't there anyone with a sense of what is needed here? Give them space. Make your self accessible, but do not pursue this. It is not worth the scoop.

I have no professional training in grief counseling. What I know is that I recieved advice on how I could help the kids at camp if and when needed. The advice I recieved then is my request now for the people closest to this tragic event.

Give them the time that they need to absorb what has happened. Give them time to grieve. Give them space. Be there for them. If they want to talk they will. When they ask questions, answer them. They have suffered through a traumatic event. They will all handle it differently and you need to watch out for their best interests. Not yours.

Message In A Bloggle

2007-04-12T11:22:00.000-07:00

Once when our family was vacationing in Cape Cod I put a message in a bottle and tossed it in the Atlantic. It was a lark. Just for fun. Not littering, just the pre-pre-precursor to spam (sending a note to no one in particular and hoping against all hope that someone would find it, open it, read it and choose to respond). I remember thinking it would be so cool if someone found my bottle someday and wrote back as requested in the note. I was probably seven or eight at the time. And in Massachusetts. That would have made it wicked cool.

A few months later I receive a letter in the mail. Someone had found my bottle, opened it up and read my note. As requested they sent a letter to me letting me know where and when the bottle had been found. I remember getting the letter but not where the bottle was found. I have a foggy recollection that it was in the Carolina's somewhere.

Last June I posted a copy of a letter that I had saved from my Wienermobile days. It was left under the wiper blade while Jeanne and I were out eating dinner. You can read the letter here. It was left by a young girl named Lindsey.

I didn't really expect to get a response to the question in the title of the post. But yesterday Lindsey Mulligan posted a reply on this blog. She's alive and well, and by the looks of traffic reports to the site, she has lots of friends around the country who have now read the original post with her letter.

Lindsey's mom and Aunt have even posted replies. Her Aunt thinks she should get a ride in the Wienermobile, since her mom made her go to bed early all those years ago. Unfortunately I am not sure I can help with that request. I do not work for Oscar Mayer any more and I couldn't even get it to make an appearance at our wedding ten years ago. I'll send a note to the folks in Madison anyway making a plea for you to get that ride.

That would be wicked cool.

Saturday Morning Light Show

2007-04-09T06:49:00.000-07:00

As the mid morning sun came through the beveled edge of the lead glass windows leading upstairs it cast a prism of color on the door to the hall closet. I ran to grab the camera and captured these images. I would have sat in front of the door to watch the light show all morning if we weren't running late for dance class.

DIY Target TV Spot

2007-04-08T18:46:00.000-07:00

We got a coupon book in the mail from Target this week. It had about 35 or so coupons in it. They used the back of the coupons to create a flip book. I showed it to the girls and they thought it was neat. So, taking it a step further, I scanned in the images, added some music and a few goofy iMovie FX and... voila! A TV spot for Target using the flip book images.

Okay... it's not the greatest, but seriously folks, this only took about an hour to do. Gotta cut me some slack.

What do you think? I see a whole lot more DIY tv spots coming down the road from fans of big brands like Target. And yes, we do shop there.

Bevare Ze Milky Pirate

2007-04-02T07:57:00.000-07:00

Mary read the last post and said to me "Um, Dan? That was pretty deep. Should I be worried about you?"

The answer? No worries. Here's something she'd expect me to post. Enjoy.

To

2007-03-29T21:05:00.000-07:00

A mind wanders seeking purchase.

Eventually, taking pause, it admits to no one but itself that it cannot complete the task it has set for itself.

For the mind knows the paradox that exists in needing to take a journey into the unknown to reveal what is needed.

And yet it desperately chooses, again and again, to leap from the safety of past knowledge, fully exposed, into the unknowable emptiness of new experience to find that which it does not know.

And then, upon emerging different, changed and new the mind sets about again to wander. To seek purchase of that which was not there before; knowing all along that which is sought is cannot be found. It can only be created melding new with old to create new.

It is the only way to grow. To learn. To create. To be.

Happy Birthday Bro!

2007-03-21T08:57:00.000-07:00

Here's hoping this year delivers more high quality photos! Happy Birthday Kev.

Submit Your Own Caption

2007-03-16T06:49:00.000-07:00

One of the girls put these two figures together on top of their Fischer Price Ocean Club playhouse. I wonder what conversation they imagined them having. Looks like a confrontation to me. What do you think they might be talking about or saying to each other?

Le Grand Content

2007-03-11T21:17:00.000-07:00

Just watch. You will enjoy.

I Human. These Robots.

2007-03-07T07:10:00.000-08:00

When I watch the clip I don't see a machine. I see something that looks like it is moving on its own... making decisions. Scary.

Quick Logo Design Project

2007-03-05T12:15:00.000-08:00

Rod emailed me last Thursday asking if I could put together a logo for his son/my nephew/my godson's Chess Club. How could I refuse? The school mascot is a viking, though the club is not officially sponsored by the school - which allowed for a little creative freedom to play around with some viking related ideas.

Here's the logo I did over the weekend. Had to dig out an old copy of Illustrator and load it up on an old G4 tower in classic mode to use it. It was my first logo design since college. And yes, I used pencil and paper first. I may have a computer, but I never start a design/painting/illustration on the computer. I'm old school, baby. I think it turned out okay.

Why Advertisers Still Don't Get It

2007-02-27T07:46:00.000-08:00

It's time to remember that advertising needs brands more than the brands need advertising. A good product creates its own relationships

So says Marc Gobe, Chairman and CEO of Desgrippes Gobé New York, a brand design firm. He is the author of Emotional Branding and has just published his latest book, Brandjam. Barkley invited Mr. Gobe to speak a few years ago at the Creativity Symposium the agency holds each year. I still have my notes from his talk. A very sharp man.

Here's the Business Week article written by Mr. Gobe.

Using YouTube Users For Your Viewing Pleasure

2007-02-20T07:53:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentines Day

2007-02-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

Artists: (clockwise starting top left) Grace, Dan, Hannah and Mary. Maggie supervised.

Another Think Coming

2007-02-13T10:36:00.000-08:00

My previous post reminded me of this video which came out in November of 2004 by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson.

As Bob said "The times they are a-changin'".

Web 2.0 My Gosh

2007-02-10T07:54:00.000-08:00

What I love about working in the field of advertising and marketing is that I often come across some very cool information. Cool to me at least. Often the information is in the form of presentations. Some I find while doing my own research. Others come to me from friends or colleagues. Today my sister sent me this one.

I live approximately 123 miles from K-State. My sister lives approximately 629 miles away. She found this video before I did. That got me thinking - a dangerous pastime... I know.

When I was a kid I made one of those can and string contraptions to talk to my neighbor Charlie from my bedroom window to his bedroom window in the house next door. It worked, but barely. To get it to work the best you had to pull the cans and string tight. If it was loose it wouldn't work. We had to be directly connected to each other to talk. To exchange information. To say things like "pretty cool, huh?" and "definitely awesome!". We were kids of the seventies and having your own can and string phone was pretty dang cool. It was right up there with Stretch Armstrong; red, white and blue wristbands and hand pumped, water propelled space rockets.

The can and string phone allowed us to make a direct connection. I'm sure we were limited by how far away we could get before it wouldn't work, but we never tested it out. Distance didn't hinder our communications. Finding enough string and two old cans was all we needed. We wanted to find a way to communicate and we did the best with what we had available to us.

Flash forward to 1991 and me sitting in my dorm room at Syracuse University. I had a 2,400 baud Cardinal modem and subscription to this new service from a company called Prodigy. I can recall waiting for my brother Brian to call me back to let me know that he got my message via the Prodigy service that we both had. He could call me back faster than a reply message could travel through cyberspace. When I got him on the line he'd say something like "pretty cool, huh?" and I'd reply "definitely awesome!"

Flash forward again to this week when my sister sent me an email with a link to this presentation. She could connect with me just as fast, if not faster via an email message than she could via a quick phone call. A few keystrokes, control- v to paste the link and hit "send". That's it. What she was really doing was wanting to communicate with me. She found a way she felt was the best and made a connection.

And so in some round about way, thinking about tin cans and string, my 2,400 baud modem and watching this presentation got me thinking about distance as a factor in accessing information. It's not a factor any more. Actually, check that, maybe distance is a factor, but not in terms of feet, yards or miles. Distance in terms of number of connections from the original source is a factor. But not much. Information travels so quickly that we all can get the exact same information in a matter of milliseconds. That is, as long as someone decides that they have some information they want others to know about.

Pretty cool, huh? Definitely awesome.

A Great Presentation

2007-02-08T10:14:00.000-08:00

Hans Rosling, Professor of International Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden presented this talk last year at the TED Conference in Monterrey, CA. I was not familiar with Hans Rosling prior to watching this video, but I can tell you that his presentation is one I will remember.

From time to time I have had opportunities to listen to some very talented presenters and though I was not in attendance for the original presentation I would add watching this video of Hans Rosling to that list.

He combines statistics and graphics in a way that tells a story unlike most presentations you have ever seen. He is fully engaged, excited and ready to tell a story to make a point. Several points actually. I will not reveal the topic, but will bet that you will find it fascinating nonetheless. Pay attention to his presentation style. He takes what some might call a dry topic and gives it depth and interest with bits of humor throughout to keep the audience engaged and eager to learn what he will say next.

Walmart Goof

2007-02-06T14:38:00.000-08:00

I heard that Wal-Mart launched their new video site so I checked it out. This is what I saw:

Apparently the site does not work if you are using Firefox as your browser. Oops, I guess they forgot to think of that.

Bummer

2007-02-04T19:02:00.000-08:00

I was hoping to post about the Bears winning. Didn't happen. Congrats to the Colts. Now I've got to go put away the cheese dip.

Go Bears!!!

2007-02-04T09:02:00.000-08:00

Lottery Laughs

2007-02-01T08:01:00.000-08:00

I bought a Powerball lottery ticket. I don't do it often, but I thought "what the hey" and got one while I was at the grocery store yesterday.

I missed the live drawing on TV last night. I know they do it in the evening sometime and on ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC, but I have never paid that close attention. I figured I could check to see if I had a winning ticket by going online to check my numbers. And that's what I did today. Turns out I got the Powerball and one other number. Four bucks coming my way. Not bad for a two dollar investment.

While I was on www.powerball.com checking out my winning numbers I came across this link to the FAQ section explaining how they calculate the odds of winning. Always curious to learn more I clicked the link and got a whole lot more than an education on odds of winning various prize amounts.

You might expect www.powerball.com to have a FAQ section. Most heavily trafficked sites have a similar section. But what you likely would not expect find on www.powerball.com is a statement in the FAQ section like this:

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO GET MY MONEY?

It takes two weeks to collect the cash from the stores around the nation. If you go to the lottery to claim your prize after that two weeks, then you can generally have the jackpot money (all cash or the first of the annual payments) hit your bank account the next day - maybe the following day if you come to the lottery office very late in the day. That said, you will have no trouble getting a little credit if you wish to buy something big before the two weeks time. Just mention my name - and that you are the Powerball winner.

This sarcastic wit continues throughout the FAQ section, but to really get the full dose you need to read the Real Letters. Here's a sample:

FROM STEWART N: What do you think about the number 19?

I like it. An odd mix of the smallest number and the largest - together in one package. It speaks to the extremes of the Universe and yet shows how they can be inexorably tied.

It is also unique in that both numbers are formed by a single constant line (using standard type). One line straight; the other curving before coming down to the base line - not so distant cousins - and neither one having a family relation with any other number. The "4" has mutliple stops and abrupt changes in directions with its multiple line formation and the "2", "3", "5", and "7" have their sudden starts and stops.

Although a mere number, as humans, we can't but help to tie it to other numbers by which we judge ourselves. As an age number it is greatly important; the first step from being a "teenager" to becoming a "young adult". In fact, the shapes of the numbers suggest a relationship between youth and age - the straight erect youth next to the bent and wizened old-timer standing together - as if sharing the secrets of life (though "1" will certainly not listen).

I would have to put "19" up there as a major number; a number among numbers. Yes, I definitely like "19".

And then there's this one:

FROM CAROLINA B: Hi, I understand that if you win, and you've bought a powerplay, then your winnings will be multiplied by the powerplay number. BUT, this is what I do not understand. Suppose that I buy a powerplay of 5, but the powerplay number for the week is only 2. Would I still get up to 2 x my normal winnings OR would my powerplay number have to match the powerplay number exactly to win the multiples. Please respond like you're talking to a little child, because in this instance, I need for you to place the info on the lower shelf so I will understand. Many thanks for your time.
Ok, here goes.
Imagine that you are walking through the woods on a nice bright sunny day. The birds are singing and you are chasing a flutterby (that’s really what they used to be called and I like it better than the new name – butterfly) and, all of sudden, you find yourself standing in front a dark cave.
The cave is as dark as your scary closet was when you were a child and you can see nothing at all – even though you squint really hard. You move a litle closer until you can feel the cool air coming the cave and you are suddenly filled with fear. You think that there is a dragon in the cave. Your fear takes over and you run home, as fast as you can, looking behind you every few steps to see if there is a dragon getting closer.
For years, you think about the dragon in the cave. Finally, as you get older and a little braver, you get up enough courage to go into the cave, and you find . . .
Nothing.
There is no dragon. Nothing. It was just an idea that you had somehow. No one else believed there was a dragon. No one else told you there was a dragon. You just thought it up and that thing you just thought up kept you from going into the forest. Sometimes, people think of things that stop them from going somewhere or even from understanding someting. They invent a brick wall that they cannot get by. To move forward or to understand, they must first forget what they "know".
Just like you worrying about picking the correct PowerPlay number. There is no dragon, there is no PowerPlay number that you need to pick. There is nothing to worry about.
You only buy the option and then your ticket says something like “PowerPlay Option: YES”. Just before the Powerball drawing, we draw the multiplier number. There is an equal chance to draw 2X, 3X, 4X, or 5X (and sometimes a 10X). You don’t have to match the PowerPlay number at all. You just multiply your prizes by whatever number we draw.
And everyone lived happily ever after.

I love it. If you ask a silly question, sometimes you deserve a silly answer. It certainly makes you feel better about losing a two dollar investment on a silly lottery ticket.

Da Bears Defense

2007-01-30T15:05:00.000-08:00

It's Like A Google Mashup Gone Terribly, Terribly Wrong

2007-01-24T07:41:00.000-08:00

Okay... this is wrong for so many reasons, but you have to check it out.

I can't believe I'm actually going to end up using "Celine Dion" and "AC/DC" as tags together. Wow.

Da Bears Prayer

2007-01-24T07:32:00.000-08:00

My brother sent me this via email from a fellow Bears fan in Wisconsin... Yes Virginia, they really do exist (up there).

Our papa
Who art a BEAR
Hallowed be thy fame,
Thy championship come
Thy play be run
At home as it is away.
Give us this day our Sunday win,
And forgive us our turnovers,
Though we pounce on those who turnover against us.
And lead us not to fourth and long,
But deliver us from Krenzel.
As it was in ’85, so shall it be in ’07,
Reign without end, Da-Men!!!!!!!

Subliminal Advertising?

2007-01-24T07:22:00.000-08:00

So, this guy was watching the Iron Chef and suddenly had a craving for McDonald's fries. Not really, but he did notice a red image on screen for a split second. Because he was recording the show he was able to rewind, slow it down and see the following:

What do you think? Was this intentional mind games at work or did someone in the control room accidentally hit the wrong button for a second?

I'm not sure myself, but nevertheless I'm craving those delicious fries.

Oooh... Shiny Object On The Road!

2007-01-18T11:07:00.000-08:00

I've often thought that business's, like people, can have psychological disorders.

I've worked with a number of organizations that if described as individuals could be said to suffer from anxiety and panic attacks, are bipolar in their decision making processes, depressed, have any one of a number of phobias, exhibit self destructive or even schizophrenic behavior. There are company's out there that are sick. No doubt about it. Chances are good that you've worked at one.

So when I came across an commentary today on The HUB titled Customer Attention Deficit Disorder I was intrigued. A company with A.D.D.?

Here's a quick refresher on A.D.D from Wikipedia:

Attention-Deficit Disorder (sometimes referred to as A.D.D.) “is thought to be a neurological disorder, always present from childhood, which manifests itself with symptoms such as hyperactivity, forgetfulness, poor impulse control, and distractibility."

The author, Robert Forrester, references Interstate Bakeries as one of several company's that he claims suffers from A.D.D. I worked at IBC a few years back, so naturally I was interested to read what he had to say.

The quick version of the article is this: Companies that get distracted away from the core reasons they've been successful in the past, by new hurdles, attacks, whims or shiny objects will likely end up in trouble. They lose connection with their core customers. They jump from audience to audience trying to get a new group of customers on board with new products or new services that the existing customers have not requested. Instead Forrester suggests sticking to what works. Dance with the one that brung ya. Don't forget your core customer. Talk to them. Cater to them. Do not leave them behind.

Forrester further explains:

We're not picking on these companies (Ford, Walmart, IBC) in particular. They are just current, prominent examples of what happens when companies become remote from, stop listening to - and consequently lose - their connection to their customers. They develop customer A.D.D.

Would simply staying with what works in the past solve these problems? Is listening to your core customers going to solve all problems and keep these companies on the right, profitable path? I agree that these companies appear to have lost touch with their core. But only listening to the ones that know you now is not enough to keep a business as a going concern. We live in an ever changing, evolving world. Organizations operate in a world of naturally occurring and human influenced events. Laws change, relationships change, technology changes, natural disasters happen. Fads come and go, trends linger and sometimes change happens before anyone realizes it.

Merely listening to your core customers is not enough. In the words of Jim Morrison I'd suggest that companies "keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel". Yes, listen to your to your core customers, but also be aware of what is going on around you. These are not mutually exclusive needs. They must work together.

Forrester, to be fair, did allude to there being other issues with some of these companies, particularly IBC. He concedes that there were "other serious management failures" leading to the company's current bankruptcy status. It just seemed to me that he focused too much on the importance of talking to your core over everything else. He is right that it is important. But if you do that successfully, if you get them on the bus and make sure they get what they need on the bus, but fail to watch out for obstacles in the path of the bus or drastic changes to the road, you may drive that nice bus off a cliff... with all your customers aboard.

Something Witty Goes Here

2007-01-15T20:30:00.000-08:00

It's Monday night. Today was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

I should write more than that.

It's been a while since I've written a decent post and I'm sure some of you regulars have been wondering what's up. The simple answer could be that I've been busy. That's true, but sounds like a lame excuse. Truth is I have been busy, but distracted too. I've had lot's of post ideas running in my head, but haven't taken the time to write any of them down. There's some good ones in there too. Like the one where I compare really good marketing ideas to Swiss Army knifes, the difference between toe jam and toe cheese, why the big orange head joke is funny or the philosophical marketing approach I call "Moon Shot Marketing" - that ones a doozy. It's got references to Bob Dylan, NASA and Jello. I'm going to do that one once I figure out how to say it so it makes sense to more people than just me. I mean I like it, but still... I'm only an audience of one, right?

Then there are the stories from the girls. Christmas gave us a bunch of memories that I could share. And this past weekend little Maggie was baptized. No more heathen baby. Gram said her family always called little babies heathens before they were baptized. Da's family called them pagan's. Either way, the deal is done and we now have a new soldier right to fight the good battle.

I could write about Costco. Scott wrote about it recently and we had another cake this weekend at the party. Scott was incredibly helpful taking photos for us. I think he cranked out close to two hundred. Almost all of them are print worthy.

I could write about how it was eleven years ago today that I moved to Kansas City. Covering the story behind that one would take several posts.

And I could write about Jenne and what her words have meant to me. I've been reading her blog everyday to get updates on her chemo treatments. She has written some of the most compelling words I have read. Ever. Fearless, fearful, human, all of the above and more. If you want to know what it's like to read raw emotion, read her posts. They put mine to shame.

So, I've been reading other blogs, doing some family stuff and really just taking a mental winter break for a few weeks to recharge some batteries. Working out every other day has gotten the year off to a great start (though I've been doing that since before the new year) and I'm ready to get back to business here on the blog.

Stay tuned. More to come.

They Can't Fire You If You Don't Work There Any More

2007-01-11T13:54:00.000-08:00

Can they?

Okay, I just check traffic to the site after being away from the blog for a week or so (okay, longer, but I'll get back into it soon I promise) and apparently I've been getting tons of traffic to this post I wrote about Jon Stewart driving the Wienermobile through the Lincoln Tunnel. Seems Jon and Stephen Colbert made a vague reference to the original incident on the Daily Show show earlier in the week. Here's the clip with Stephen Colbert talking about his "dreams".

Silly. Just plain silly. And a bit funny too.

Thought of the Day

2006-12-29T18:27:00.000-08:00

If you can't laugh at yourself... might as well laugh at someone else.

Take Time To Enjoy The Finer Things... Like Lunch

2006-12-23T11:20:00.000-08:00

"My, you are a slow eater" Said Grandma.

"I'm not slow" said Hannah "I just like to savor each bite."

Thought of the Day

2006-12-18T20:58:00.000-08:00

If you want to be cremated, you are bound to make an ash of yourself.

Baby, That Ain't Your Concern

2006-12-07T20:32:00.000-08:00

Take it for what it's worth... $240 worth of pudding.

Proud To Be Orange

2006-12-06T18:33:00.000-08:00

Every once and a while you read about a professional athlete making the news for something other than what they do on the field of play. Too often those news stories are about athletes who have used poor judgment and got into trouble with the law. Today when I read my monthly Orangebytes Newsletter from Syracuse University I learned about something Carmelo Anthony has done "off the court". Carmelo, as you may or may not recall, helped lead the Orange to the NCAA Basketball National Championship in 2003. He had some impressive stats that year. I pulled these from the SU Athletics web site:

He led Syracuse to a 30-5 overall record and the National Championship.
He was named second team All-America by the Associated Press and was a consensus pick for National Freshman of the Year.
He was a unanimous selection for BIG EAST Conference Freshman of the Year and was first-team all-league as well.
He was BIG EAST Conference Rookie of the Week a record 10 times during the course of the campaign.
He averaged 22.2 points (16th in NCAA Division I, 4th in Big East) and 10.0 rebounds (19th in NCAA Division I, 3rd in Big East).
He posted 22 double-doubles and led the Orange in scoring in 24 of 35 games.
He led the team in scoring, rebounding, minutes played (36.4 mpg), field goals made and attempted and free throws made and attempted.
Anthony was second on the club to fellow freshman Gerry McNamara in assists (2.2 apg) and steals (1.57 spg) and in three-pointers made and attempted.

But the stats that I now think are the most impressive are these:

He only played on year of college basketball at Syracuse, and
He has committed to donating $3 million back to the school

He's giving $3 million dollars to the school. He was only there for his freshman year before being drafted into the NBA by the Denver Nuggets. One year. One National Championship. $3 Million back to say thanks. $3 million to help the school that helped him out. I'm sure other athletes have given money to their schools, but I don't ever remember hearing someone give this much back. It is impressive to me.

I am used to hearing about business owners who have achieved financial success giving huge donations and having buildings named after them, but cannot remember a donation of this size from someone who made their success as an athlete.

I cannot say enough about my years at Syracuse. It was an invaluable experience for me. I am proud to say I have my BFA in Advertising Design from the College of Visual & Performing Arts at SU. And I am thrilled to be able to share this news about a Syracuse University athlete giving back.

Keep up the good work Carmelo and Go Orange!

Do As I Say, Not As I Karate Kick

2006-12-03T20:49:00.001-08:00

Hannah and I had a little father to daughter chat today about manners. I decided we needed to discuss the polite way to ask for something after she shouted at me "Dad, get that and give it to me". There were two issues to discuss. First, she shouted at me. I don't like to be shouted at. Second, she forgot to say please.

I stopped what I was doing and paused to think for a second about how to handle this situation. Instead of scolding her, I decided that this would be a good chance to calmly remind her to use polite manners. I thought that if I shared with her that I sometimes forget to say please that we might bond over our omission of manners and the point would sink in. I told her "Hannah, aside from yelling at me, you also forgot to say 'please'. If you want some help, all you have to do is say please and I'm sure I'd be happy to help you with whatever it is you need."

And then I added "You know, sometimes even I forget to say please. I'll make a deal with you. If you will work on trying to say please, I will too. We can work on improving our manners together. Sound good?"

But instead of answering "Yes Daddy. I will work on my manners", she switched topics. The next thing she said was "You know Dad, Gracie and I wouldn't fight so much, but we see you and Mommy fighting all the time, so we learn from you."

What? Where did that come from? I started to chuckle as I thought about this. Hannah, based on our conversation about manners, grasped that I suggested that kids learn from watching their parents. I admitted as much when I told her that I don't always say "please" and told her that we should work on it together. As part of an effort to bond with her I intoned that maybe her forgetting to say "please" was due to my lack of manners. I was only trying to bond after all. But the fighting? I thought she went a little to far with that one. I told her so.

"Hannah, you and Gracie don't fight because you see me and Mommy fighting. Mommy and I don't fight, and we certainly don't bite each other or give each other karate kicks like you gave Gracie this morning, do we?"

That stumped her. "Okay Daddy, but you and your sister and brothers must have had fights when you were a kid."

And that caused me to think. Did I have lots of fights with my siblings growing up? Maybe we did, but I couldn't really recall any. My sister was in high school when I was born and I know we never duked it out. Brother Brian is about ten years older than me and if we had fought he would have had a seriously unfair advantage, so I don't think that happened. Rod is five years older and I know we used to wrestle in the living room, but that was more for me to show off and prove that I could pin him to the floor (a fact that he denies to this day) and my brother Kevin who is three years older was one of my best friends to play with.

Mary has remarked about me and my siblings being odd. To clarify she's said it's odd that we get along so well. She asked if there was any sibling rivalries growing up. I couldn't remember any. Maybe that's due to being the youngest, but we all seemed to get along fairly well. That would be odd. Five kids and no rivalries? I may need to give Ma a call and get the scoop. We're all over thirty now, so I should be able to get the scoop from her without her feeling like she would be hurting anyone's feelings.

And the talk with Hannah? I got her to admit that Mommy and I don't pull each others hair or steal barbies from one another.

Writers Block of Cheese

2006-11-29T19:52:00.000-08:00

I wanted to write a post tonight, but could not think of a thing to say. But then I got an IM from Scott. He asked if I had read his latest post. I had. It was a good one. I told him so and that he ought to write more often. From that point our IM exchange went like this:

scottmonkeyboy77 9:46 pm: i have bdd

danthemanimal 9:48 pm: bdd?

scottmonkeyboy77 9:48 pm: blogger deficit disorder. find it hard to write stuff everyday.

danthemanimal 9:48 pm: agree

scottmonkeyboy77 9:49 pm: you come up with killer posts all the time.

danthemanimal 9:49 pm: nah. but thanks
danthemanimal9:49 pm: I've hit a bit of a block lately

scottmonkeyboy77 9:49 pm: guess you can always write about cheese

danthemanimal 9:50 pm: good idea. it's a challenge. Tonight I write about cheese.

scottmonkeyboy77 9:51 pm: block of cheese. turning writers block into gourmet cheese
scottmonkeyboy77 9:51 pm: and the style is cheesy of course

danthemanimal9:51 pm: writers block of cheese

scottmonkeyboy77 9:51 pm: sounds tasty

And then as usual our conversation flipped to a totally different subject. Absolutely no segue. It is important to note however, that we are both "fathers of daughters" with three girls each.

scottmonkeyboy77 9:53 pm: you gonna try again for a son

danthemanimal 9:55: that would require lots of debate... I think we're done... for now

scottmonkeyboy77 9:56 pm: yup.

danthemanimal 9:56 pm: you going for boy?

scottmonkeyboy77 9:57 pm: i don't think so.

danthemanimal 9:58 pm: get a dog

scottmonkeyboy77 9:58 pm: or a penguin
scottmonkeyboy77 9:59 pm: go write the cheese report

So there you go. A post about an IM chat between to guys talking about cheese, babies and penguins... The Cheese Report. Was it any gouda?

******
In fairness to Scott I have changed his IM name here to keep him from getting unsolicited IM's. I'll let you guess if mine is real or not.

What The Fleck???

2006-11-27T23:11:00.000-08:00

I found this site while surfing around from link to link today on a couple of sites I frequent to get my geek fix in. I've played around with it a little bit and think this could possibly be a very cool tool to help share thoughts on web sites without having to take screen grabs, dump them into a Powerpoint deck and then make notes and arrows to point out what you want to talk about or share. There are a few bugs still to be worked out, like being able to make notes within a flash component of a site, lock the notes in place to a site like a blog (they stay in same location on the screen, but if new content is added and the notes refer to specific content they will be out of place). Overall, though I like the idea and think its pretty neat.

Here's what they builders of Fleck have to say about what they've created:

Fleck.com wants to add a new layer of interactivity to the web. Fleck is inspired on a story written in 1945 by Vannevar Bush and an article titled 'We Are The Web' by Kevin Kelly.
Vannevar Bush predicted a machine called the Memex that would allow people to surf from one information page to another. Some people say that Hypertext and the World Wide Web are based on or at least inspired by the Memex.

One thing that the Memex had and the web doesn't is the ability to add new content to every page it contained. After reading the Wired article by Kevin Kelly we decided to try to add a new level to the web by adding new tools that would allow its users to add information rather than just consuming it.

Fleck allows you to interact with pages on the web just as if it were pages in a magazine. You can save your annotated page for yourself, send it to friends or colleagues or use it in your blog.

I gave it a try here. I made a few notes on this blog layout, look and feel, etc... to show how it works. You need to view the link via Firefox or you will not be able to see my notes. There is not a version for other browsers yet, though the site indicates they are working on one for IE.

Try it out. Fleck my page and send me your thoughts on the layout of this blog. I'm looking to revamp the look and feel and welcome comments.

Wikipedia Brown

2006-11-27T20:52:00.000-08:00

We just finished reading an Encyclopedia Brown book with Hannah a week ago. It was a kick to read it with her as I had read the entire series when I was a kid. The series was published sometime around the late sixties/early seventies.

When we visited my sister she gave us a few more Encyclopedia Brown books that her boys, now in high school, were willing to part with. These were two of the books I had in my collection that now made their way back to our home. Books are meant to be shared, so it was fun to now have them back to share with the newest reader in the family.

So with Encyclopedia Brown as the book series du jour at our house, it was only fitting that I should come across this modern day take on Encyclopedia Brown.

Way to go Encyclopedia... I mean Wikipedia... I mean Colt Brown!

Thanksgiving

2006-11-27T08:07:00.000-08:00

We have returned from a successful trip to Chicago for Thanksgiving with my side of the family. The girls had a wonderful time seeing their Gram and Da, hanging out with Aunts, Uncles and of course the people they most wanted to see, their cousins.

A few things that I confirmed I should be thankful for from the trip:

Putting new tires on the car less than a month ago
Getting new brakes the day before leaving for our trip.
Stopping to wash out my left contact lense when we were only two minutes north of downtown KC.
Continuing a family tradition of always saying a Hail Mary prayer as we left the driveway at the beginning of our trip.
Working seatbelts.
Not hitting the 8 point buck as it darted out across the highway while I was driving 70 MPH, in the dark, with the kids and Mary asleep in the back.
Safe travel to and from our home this past week to see loved ones.

Fall

2006-11-19T21:01:00.000-08:00

Leaves crunch under feet.
My breath becomes visible.
Earth takes time to rest.

I'm Weird... Not Boring.

2006-11-16T19:01:00.000-08:00

I read my post again from last night. Those things weren't really weird. I think I failed to deliver. Here are some weird things about me to make up for the boring/slightly odd stuff I shared. I mean two diplomas? That's not weird. Just trivia. Not anything like what Andy shared. Not even close. So here we go...

1. I am right handed. When I was in high school I taught myself how to throw a baseball left handed. Now, that's not really weird, but I did it just in case I somehow got in a nasty accident, maybe on the farm with a combine involved or something and lost my right arm. Apparently during my high school years there was a rash of incidents like this going on. I figured I should do this so that I could one day play catch with a son if I had one. And though I didn't grow up on or anywhere near a farm and don't have a son, I continue to work on my delivery just in case. I've also rationalized that if one of our girls turns out to be lefty that I'll be able to teach them to throw in a way that's natural to them... as a lefty.

2. When I was little my mom used to buy Hershey's syrup in a can. From time to time I would sneak into the kitchen when no one was around, crab the can opener and punctured two holes in the top so that one could let air in while I drank the syrup from the other. One time I drained a whole can. And I'd probably do it again today if I could find one of those cans. Do they still make them?

How's that for a make good? Oh, here's another one...

3. When realize I did something half baked it drives me nuts and I go back again and again and again to fix it until I am 100% satisfied and then realize that it is something that no one really gives a hoot about. And that bugs me.

I'm Weird - A Meme...

2006-11-15T19:30:00.000-08:00

Okay, so Jenne got tagged by Wendy and now I got tagged by Jenne. This is totally seventh grade girl stuff, but since team player I've decided to go with it. I didn't send any dish towels to Jenne, but I'm thinking of sending her some puffy stickers.

Here are the rules: List 5 weird things about yourself or your pets. Tag 5 friends and list them. Then, those people need to write on their blogs about 5 weird things, and state the rules, and tag 5 more people. Don't forget to let the people you tag know by posting a comment on their blog!

1. I've broken my collarbones six times. Yup, six. First one was as a toddler falling down a flight of stairs, second was as a toddler a short time after getting the brace off for the first break - a different set of stairs this time. Third break was in third grade playing a vicious game of "Smear The Queer" - totally politically incorrect game, and just so we're clear I was the tackler, not the "Queer". Fourth time was a flip over the handle bars of my ten speed as I was racing home with two friends after a trip to Old Orchard Theatre to see Back to the Future. Fifth was playing hockey. And the sixth occured on my twenty first birthday. Let's just say that a particular Hosipital in the Bronx named "Our Lady Of Mercy" - wasn't.

2. I will not finish a painting until I have started another one.

3. My right arm hangs an inch and a quarter lower than my left arm. See #1 for the reason. It prevents me from buying off the rack. That is a pain.

4. If I am ever feeling down or stressed all I need to do is look in the mirror for the main reason. I need a haircut.

5. I have two high school diplomas.

There you go! Now I'm off to tag Geoff, Aaron, Mariah, Rod and Scott.

Beck: Musician & Artist

2006-11-13T21:56:00.000-08:00

Give It A Sling!

2006-11-13T21:38:00.000-08:00

This game is mindless and yet so addicting. I guess the two kind of go together, don't they? Check it out at http://www.miniclip.com/games/sling/en/

Quote Of The Day

2006-11-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

"You know the thing about baby's breath? When it's not barfy it's smells really sweet."

Arresting Politics?

2006-11-07T19:51:00.000-08:00

A few posts back I took suggestions for titles that I would then write a story to fit. Jenne suggested "My First Arrest". Since I wrote that post I've recalled a few incidents with various police departments during my stint as a Hotdogger that, while not ending in actual arrests, came close a few times. One of those incidents took place in Boston, Massachusetts on Tuesday November 8, 1994. It was Election Day and we were out for media coverage.

We had not planned out how to get coverage for the Wienermobile prior to that day, but being the adventurous types we decided to skip putting a real plan in place and instead headed into the heart of Beantown to see what we could do to get some good press. We almost got a doozy of a story. Almost.

Now, for those who have been to Boston on Election Day and have driven a commercial vehicle shaped like a hot dog there are a few things you surely know:

1. If you drive on Storrow Drive be sure to let some air out of the tires, and
2. Police who work the streets near Faneuil Hall on election day don't have a sense of humor, nor do they care to debate what actually constitutes a commercial vs. non commercial vehicle.

Right. So, what happened was this... Jeanne and I had a few hours to kill before we needed to hit the road and head to an event in Detroit. We decided to take a quick jaunt into downtown Boston to see if we could get interviewed or at least get a photo of the big dog in the paper. Boston media outlets have large circulations, so we'd rack up the impressions if we got a mention somewhere.

We drove around town for a while looking for crowds gathering or camera crews out on the street filming. We finally found some near Faneuil Hall. As we got close we scouted for a location to pull over and park, a nearly impossible task for a hot dog car in Boston. We saw a street right next to Faneuil Hall that looked perfect.

It was a two block stretch of road on the South side of Faneuil Hall. It was a one way street which happened to have a sign that said "Commercial Vehicles Only". We didn't have commercial tags and we really wanted to go down this street since there were tons of folks marching around, holding signs and shouting out for their candidate. Surely there would be some cameras around. And since we lived by the creed "better to ask for forgiveness than permission" we decided commercial tags or not that we'd take a quick spin down the street. It was only two blocks long after all.

As soon as we pulled on to the street, we ran into an issue. Ahead of us was an ambulance stopped in the middle of the street. We hadn't seen that. With nowhere to go I put the car in park until we had space to move. Taking advantage of our lack of movement, Jeanne grabbed a bunch of wiener whistles and hopped out of the dog to hand them out.

Since I was the driver on this day I stayed behind the wheel, ready to roll at a moments notice. People on the street began flocking to the driver's side window and asking me for whistles. After just a few minutes we had a huge crowd around us. I looked outside the passenger side window and saw Jeanne asking someone if she could carry their candidate sign for a photo op. Things were looking promising. But when I looked back to the driver's side window I saw a cop.

And he was angry.
He told me to move it.

The conversation went like this:

COP: "Move this vehicle now."

DD: "Okay, I'll just exit to the left down that side street then."

COP: "No. Pull over to the right."

Before I could do that the ambulance began to back up. I couldn't move while the ambulance was moving, there was a van behind me and no where to go. So I just sat there waiting for room to move. Apparently oblivious to the fact that I had zero options to move right then, the police officer got angry again. He must have thought I was not moving just to bug him. You could see the blood pressure building.

COP: "I said move."

DD" "Officer, I cannot move. There's no place..."

COP: "That's enough! Pull over!"

DD" "I understand, but the ambulance is right in front of me. I cannot move."

COP: "Drive around it and park on the left." he said through clenched teeth.

At that time Jeanne had seen what was happening and opened the Wienermobile's gull wing door to get in. (The gull wing door is one of the unique features of the big dog, much like the door on a Delorean, or even more so like the wing of a seagull, the door opens up and down vs. out and to the side like a normal car - a distinction which will be important to know in a bit).

COP: "I told you to move!"

DD: "I will, I will. My partner just opened the door and..." he didn't let me finish.

COP: "MOVE NOW!"

DD: "But I can't. The door is still open and she's not in yet!"

COP: "I've had it. MOVE NOW!"

Jeanne had just closed the door and quickly took a seat.

Jeanne: "Dude! What's going on?"

DD: "Hang on, gotta move. This guy is having a bad day and taking it out on me right now."

I should mention that all this time a crowd has been gathering and watching this go down. Some of the crowd ignored the cop and shouted at us through the passenger window to toss out some wiener whistles. Jeanne obliged as we slowly pulled around the ambulance and pulled over to where the police officer pointed.

COP: "Show me your license and registration!"

DD: "Am I getting a ticket?"

No answer.
I handed over the requested info.
People were still asking for whistles. Apparently the police officer did not want this so he slid my window shut. (The front windows on the '88's slid open to the side.)

I did not like him shutting the window on me so I slid it back open. Before he could turn back to his car to look up my info he came back to the driver's side window and told me I needed a permit. Jeanne piped up from the front passenger seat.

Jeanne: "Excuse me sir. What type of permit do we need, and for what? Who do we need to speak with to get one?" She said it very sweetly.

This time he did not respond. He simply shut my window again on both of us this time.

When he returned he had a citation for me.

COP: "I need your signature here."

DD: "Can you explain this to me before I sign it?"

He ignored my question which in turn caused me to start to get really irritated with him. I was slightly irritated before, but now I was really irritated.

DD: "Well then can I at least get your supervisor's name?"

No answer, just a glare.

DD: "Can I get your name and badge number please?"

COP: "It's on the citation!"

DD: "And your Supervisor name is?"

And that seemed to finally push him over the edge.

COP: "I'M GONNA ARREST YOU! GET OUT!"

DD to Jeanne: "Jeanne! Grab the Bacon's guide and start calling the media. I'm getting arrested!" This was going to be great. Who could arrest a Wienermobile driver? We'd get tons of sympathy coverage!

I hopped out of the front seat and made my way to the door. As I opened the door and looked around I saw the huge crowd gathered around. The cop was there. He stepped toward me. Steam was coming out of his ears.

So I extended my wrists to him for him to slap the cuffs on me. A few laughs came from the crowd. He was silent and then, through clenched teeth sputtered out "leave now". I wasn't going to be arrested after all. He was letting me go. "Oh well", I thought, "That probably wouldn't have gone over too well with Russ anyway".

So as the cop gave up on arresting me I too gave up on the idea that getting arrested in a Wienermobile would be a good media story. I turned away from the cop and the crowd and reached back with one hand to grab the handle of the door and pull it down shut. And then I heard two sounds:

"Thunk!" and "Ooooooh!"

Something had prevented the door from closing.

The "Thunk!" came from the door slamming down on the cop's head. For some reason he had not moved out of the way of the door as I pulled it shut. The "ooooh!" was from the crowd. Turning slowly I met the cop face to face and his was as red as a beet. Veins were bulging from his neck. He did not say a word. He merely pointed at me to get back into the vehicle and drive away.

And I did.

I did not get arrested. We did not get any media coverage. That was the good news. The bad news was that we were now behind schedule for leaving for Detroit, and that meant taking a shortcut through Canada. As it turns out that was another bad decision... one that Russ would hear about.

The Leaning Tower of Boston

2006-11-06T20:55:00.000-08:00

I was doing a little searching on Google Maps this evening and zoomed in on dowtown Boston. Check out the image I found of a part of downtown near Faneuil Hall. Doesn't it look like one of the buildings is falling over? I cannot figure this out. Why does this look so odd? It looks like a photo of one building was taken at a different angle and then plopped into this image. Anyone have an explanation?

If The Shoe Fits...

2006-11-05T23:23:00.000-08:00

I work at an advertising agency. Now, for those who don't know, advertising agencies, in general, are much more lax about dress codes than, say, a bank. Some agencies require pants while other are okay with shorts from time to time. As a standard rule agency representatives dress up when meeting with clients. We generally strive to wear the appropriate level of attire to match what the client wears. Ties are tough to get any agency folk to wear, especially creatives. There has to be some wiggle room right? Banks on the other hand are notoriously tight on what is acceptable dress code

Earlier this week I had a meeting with a client. I skipped the jeans and wore slacks and dress shirt to match their corporate casual dress code. All was good. I was at their attire level and clothing differences were negated.

One the way back to the agency I noticed that my socks did not match. I had on one dark blue sock and one black sock. They were of the same pattern and because they both were very dark I was likely the only one to notice my error. I hope.

My mother once made an error like that, except it was with her shoes. The difference between what I did and what she did was that it was quite obvious that she was wearing two different colored shoes. While one was dark blue and one was black, you could easily tell that they were different colors. The other difference between what she did with her shoes and what I did with my socks was that while mine was accidental, hers was not.

It's not that she did it on purpose. Actually, she didn't do it all all. I did.

One day while home from college for the summer I noticed a pair of my mother's dress shoes on the stairs going up to her bedroom. I also noticed that inside each shoe was a circular dayglo yellow sticker. When I asked her what that was all about she told me that because it's so dark in the morning when she gets dressed that she decided to put stickers in her shoes to tell them apart from another pair that looked very similar, but was a different color. She had two pairs of shoes that were the same style and pattern. One was dark blue and one was black. She put the stickers in the blue pair.

Now, this seemed to be to be a very logical thing to do. After all, when you are getting dressed in the dark it can be hard to tell the difference between dark blue and black. You wouldn't want to make that mistake. Not with shoes. That would be dreadfully embarrassing. So naturally my first thought was that it would be hysterically funny to take one of the stickers out of the marked blue shoes and put it in the corresponding black shoe. So I did. I then set them together in her closet.

The next day she got dressed and went into work. I don't remember if she called home that afternoon from the office or if it was when she got home after work, but I sure did get an earful. I think what she said to me went something like "oooh! urrrgh! You! I, I, I'm gonna get you for this! Oooh! watch out mister! Paybacks! Oooh!" or something like that. In between the sounds of fury coming out of my mom were giggles and laughter. She seemed to alternate between laughing and thinking about ringing my neck. Mission accomplished.

Now, mom, if you are reading this, just know that I meant it all in good fun. And if you do try to get paybacks like you said you would at the time, just remember that if you leave this world before me I can always have the funeral home dress you in one blue shoe and one black one! There, that ought to make you think twice about paybacks!

The Karmamobile

2006-10-30T19:08:00.000-08:00

Jenne posted tonight on Karma. Her post was about changes. It was about life, learning and menopause. When she was a teenager and her mom was going through it, she didn't get it. She didn't think it was THAT big a deal. She couldn't sympathize. Not really. Not then. Now that she's going through it early - thanks to chemo, she's feelin' the karma. She now knows what it's like. Sorry Jenne!

Well, the karma train stopped at our house tonight. But not really a train. No, upon reflecting for thirty minutes since I wrote that (I had to get the baby ready for bed and make some finger puppets for the girls to take to school tomorrow) a train seems too big. More like... a karma scooter.

While Mary and I sat in bed watching TV and making finger puppets, the babe alerted us that she needed changing. It was my turn to do it.

So, undoing the diaper I got the all clear sign. No poops. Ha! This was my luck. Mary's at home all day, running errands, picking up the girls from school and changing diapers all the time, most of them poopy. What do I get for the one diaper change I've had today? Nothin. Nada. Zip. Zero. Nothin' but a wet diaper...and that's a good thing.

And then...

"Mary! Help! Quick! I need help!"

I think I even said "stat"! It's always good to throw in "stat" to emphasize the need for immediate help. Mary used to watch ER and now watches Grey's Anatomy. Heck, she's doc herself, so you think "stat" would have some meaning to her. Nope. She just sat there making finger puppets. I shot her an incredulous glare.

"Mary! What are you doing? I said I need help. She's pooping and it's getting all over everything. It's coming out like a water through a fire hose! I cannot control this!"

While my left hand held the baby's legs up in the air, much like you might hold a chicken while on the way home from the market (and didn't have any bag to carry it in and if you lived a long time ago when you could buy chickens from the store with their feet still on and you just did this because somehow I have in my head that that is how people carried chickens way back when, though I grew up in the suburbs and my only time on the farm was on school trips, but somehow I still have this idea that this is how you would carry a chicken), my right hand was occupied keeping stuff off my side of the bed. I didn't have a third hand to grab more wipes. And yes, I know, I should have thought twice about changing the baby on the bed. I know. Bad move to begin with.

And Mary just sat there.

"Why aren't you helping me? It's now all over my hand and it feels gross!" I was a big baby.

She answered "It's not that big a deal. I change diapers all day long and it get on my hand too sometimes. When it does I deal with it. You can too."

"Yeah, but it's on MY hand right now! And it's going to get on MY side of the bed!"

And that's when it hit me. She changes diapers all day, gets spit up on far more often than I do and really deserves a break. The karma scooter delivered a little something to me today to remind me that I shouldn't complain.

But still... I think I said "stat"!

Infatuated?

2006-10-27T18:54:00.000-07:00

Earlier today Aaron accused me of being infatuated with bathrooms. Seriously? How could he think such a thing? I've only posted about bathrooms and related issues a few times here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Okay and here too.

Hmmmmm... Maybe he's on to something here. Maybe.

I did a little research and I think I know where this might be coming from and why. If you have a copy check out Uncle John's Bathroom Reader #8, page 64.

Sign, Sign, Everywhere A Sign

2006-10-24T20:13:00.000-07:00

This morning as I was walking from the bedroom to the kitchen I passed by the hall bathroom and saw this sign:

I heard Hannah in the kitchen and called for her to come join me over by the bathroom door. She complied quickly.

"What's up?" She said.

"Not much. What's this sign all about?" I inquired.

"That? That's for Gracie. It's a sign I made."

"Can you tell me what it says?"

"Sure. Well, first of all that is a potty. I put the letter 'P' on it so you could tell. And those are hair clippies and bows. At the top is an arrow pointing down toward the potty. And that is a red line going diagonally across everything. That means no putting hair clippies or bows in the toilet. And that is meant for Grace."

"Right. Got it. No clippies or bows in the toilet. That's a good sign. I'll make sure that one stays up. Now scoot on back to the kitchen table and finish your breakfast."

What cracked me up most about that exchange is that "The Crumpler" made the sign about not clogging the toilet. I guess you could always dissolve toilet paper with some industrial strength Drano. Clippies and bows might be a bit trickier.

Go Belt Someone Today

2006-10-22T21:07:00.000-07:00

As I was driving home Friday afternoon and stopped at a red light, glanced over to my right and saw two women sitting in their car. What I noticed first about these women was that both of them were smoking. What I noticed next was that neither one was wearing a seat belt. I guess if you don't care about what smoking can do to you the flipside of that is that you likely wouldn't care what a seat belt can do for you either.

I took a quick look around. I checked the cars in my rear view mirror, looked to my left and looked up ahead. Two other people were driving without their seat belts on. I was a bit surprised to see four people not wearing their seat belts. That was weird. I was just about a mile from the house and decided to play a counting game to see how many people would I find were driving without their seat belts on. I anticipated that I would see one, maybe two other people maximum driving without seat belts. I was only about a mile from home after all.

The rules were simple. If could not see a belt drawn over the driver's left shoulder I would count that as one. I did not count passengers nor did I count when it was questionable. It had to be clear that the driver was not wearing a seat belt. Thankfully (?) those not wearing a seat belt were frequently hunched over the steering wheel while driving, thus making it easier to spot. I didn't count the passenger of the first car I saw, so the game began with three.

So how many did I count within a mile of the house? Twelve. I counted twelve people who were clearly not wearing seat belts. I would guess there were more, but I had to pay attention to my own driving and could only count when I was at a stop.

I've often heard that most accidents happen within a mile of home. I've also heard terrible accounts of lives lost that all have a simple connection... no seat belt. My roommate at prep school had been in a coma for several months due to an accident he was in. He wasn't wearing a seat belt and survived. He was lucky. His passenger, also not wearing a seat belt, was not as fortunate.

Here are some statistics I dug up from James Madison University:

one out of every five drivers will be involved in a traffic crash this year.
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among people age 44 and younger and the number one cause of head and spinal cord injury.
Approximately 35,000 people die in motor vehicle crashes each year. About 50 percent (17,000) of these people could be saved if they wore their safety belts.
More than 90 percent of all motorists believe safety belts are good idea, but less than 14 percent actually use them.
For every one percent increase in safety belt use, 172 lives and close to $100 million in annual injury and death costs could be saved.
Safety belts when used properly reduce the number of serious traffic injuries by 50 percent and fatalities by 60-70 percent.

Go here if you want to read some more surprising stats.

I guess my point to this post is that you can educate people all you want, but they'll still do whatever they want even if they know it might cause harm to themselves. Here's a thought for preventing people from making a wrong choice for themselves when they get behind the wheel... why not make it impossible for a car to start without having the seat belt engaged? On second thought that would cause an uproar that the government is taking away freedom of choice and I'm sure someone would figure out a way around it anyway.

And the title? Back in the seventies there were some PSA's encouraging everyone to start wearing their seat belts. It had a very memorable, sing songy jingle "go belt someone today!" at the end of the spot as a friendly reminder that you can help each other remember to buckle up. I remember Kevin and Rod using it as an excuse to punch me in the arm. Two for flinching.

I never leave the driveway without my seat belt buckled. It may be annoying but I make sure my passengers do the same. If you don't wear a seat belt now, it's not too late to get into the habit. Go belt someone today.

Bathroom Tip Of the Day #5

2006-10-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

Always bring a writing utensil with you to the bathroom. The bathroom is where some of the greatest ideas are born. You're kidding yourself if you think you can remember those great ideas without writing them down. Heck, that's how I remembered the idea I had for BTOTD!

Bathroom Tip Of The Day #4

2006-10-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

If you do not see matches or a candle in the bathroom you MUST courtesy flush. Your family, friends, guests... next person in line, will thank you.

Bathroom Tip Of The Day #3

2006-10-18T20:56:00.000-07:00

If you want privacy you must lock the door. Telling a toddler you want privacy is like asking them to grow three feet taller in one day. It ain't gonna happen.

Bathroom Tip Of The Day #2 (tee hee)

2006-10-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

If you have a choice of stalls and one has the seat flipped up...pick that one.

Bathroom Tip Of The Day

2006-10-18T19:31:00.000-07:00

The toilets in our house have been clogged three times in the past week and this last one was a doozy. I arrive home this evening after picking up Hannah from school only to walk into the house, make a made dash to the nearest bathroom to hear Mary call out "No, no, no! Don't use that one. It's clogged!" Aarrrgh!

Now, since we've had three clogged toilets recently and I know who clogged the other two, out of pure curiosity I asked Mary who the responsible party was this time. She did not know, or at least feigned a lack of knowledge. I think she's protecting the guilty party. They are only six, four and three weeks old after all. What a good mom.

It really didn't matter who did it. I was the one who had to unclog it. And while doing so I began pondering bathroom etiquette. Bathrooms are really a great place for thinking and brainstorming you know. And what I came up with was this: If Anu Garg could build a huge following with A Word A Day otherwise referred to as AWAD, then why not do something similar with bathroom tips? And thus "Bathroom Tip Of The Day" was born.

Here's how it works, or at least how it will be tested out here. I will be posting a BTOTD (Bathroom Tip Of The Day) here each day until I run out of them or you tell me to stop. If it gains momentum we'll create an entry for it on Wikipedia, build a website for it to live, sit back and watch while millions start posting their own bathroom tips to share with everyone and then within a year sell it to Google for 1.4 billion. Sound good?

Here's the first BTOTD based on our recent clogging experiences:

BTOTD #1: "Crumplers clog while folders flow".

Learn it. Live it. Love it!

Life Happens

2006-10-16T22:07:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy life for us since baby #3 joined the family. I've been lax in updating the blog. So here's a brief recap of a few things that happened the past two weeks:

Ran out of wipes tonight (this should never happen!)
Ate asparagus four times
Girls to dance class and library on Saturdays (Mary and I take turns taking them)
Painted baby's room (lovely shade of pink)
Gram came to visit (thank you, thank you, thank you!)
Cat escaped the house multiple times
Dinner with friends who joined us on the trip to France
KU Med Annual Dinner
Attended one six year old birthday party
New carpeting installed
Marveled at the belly button falling off
Cleaned litter boxes every other day
Changed x number of diapers (I have no idea how many - just that Mary changed more)
Three trips to Costco
Attended one parent/teacher conference
Cleaned the house
Got the house dirty
Installed bunk beds, dresser and side table in girls room
Woke up each morning with the three girls in our bed and me in the middle getting kicked, scraped and pushed around. Mary says not to complain, but I am not a morning person.
Took 247 photos of our new daughter with her sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends, coworkers and the doctor who gave Mary the epidural.

I'm sure I've left a few things out, but even so that's nothing compared to what Mary has been doing!

KC's New Slogan...

2006-10-13T04:38:00.000-07:00

"Kansas City - We Make It Easy For You To Get The #&!! Out Of Town!"

Read all about it here.

Boris The Spider!

2006-10-09T19:01:00.001-07:00

Look, he's crawling up my wall
Black and hairy, very small
Now he's up above my head
Hanging by a little thread

Boris the spider
Boris the spider

Now he's dropped on to the floor
Heading for the bedroom door
Maybe he's as scared as me
Where's he gone now, I can't see

Boris the spider
Boris the spider

Creepy, crawly
Creepy, crawly
Creepy, creepy, crawly, crawly
Creepy, creepy, crawly, crawly
Creepy, creepy, crawly, crawly
Creepy, creepy, crawly, crawly

There he is wrapped in a ball
Doesn't seem to move at all
Perhaps he's dead, I'll just make sure
Pick this book up off the floor

Boris the spider
Boris the spider

Creepy, crawly
Creepy, crawly
Creepy, creepy, crawly, crawly
Creepy, creepy, crawly, crawly
Creepy, creepy, crawly, crawly
Creepy, creepy, crawly, crawly

He's come to a sticky end
Don't think he will ever mend
Never more will he crawl 'round
He's embedded in the ground

Boris the spider
Boris the spider
-The Who

Found this guy in the laundry room. Scared the $#!+ out of me to see him there! Alas, after quickly running around to get a plastic cup and piece of paper to trap him I soon learned the that he was no more. Something else must have scared him to death...like one of the cats maybe, because he was dead.

Still...I don't know what kind of spider it is, but it makes me chuckle to think how such little creatures can make us big folk jump and run.

Noodle.Google.com

2006-10-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

Here's an idea for the next evolution of search engines.

Name: Noodle.Google.com

Concept: A search engine that serves up content based on your personality type... based on your noodle (had to find something to rhyme with google).

I was reading a book on Carl Jung when I came up with this one. Jung's typing of personalities into four primary modes of experiencing the world: two rational functions (thinking and feeling), and two perceptive functions (sensation and intuition) is the foundation from which Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers developed their Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) during WW II. The types the MBTI sorts for, known as dichotomies, are extroversion/introversion, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling and judging/perceiving. Participants are given one of 16 four-letter acronyms, such as ESTJ or INFP, indicating what their preferences are. I have not heard this for certain, but it's my best guess that this is why there are 16 people on Survivor. I'm not sure they're still sticking with this approach, however I think the first Survivor may have been comprised of one of each type.

The point of MBTI and other personality typing instruments is that there are distinct personality traits that influence how people interact, think and approach life. It follows logic and experience to say that not everyone goes about solving problems the same way. Why not build a search engine that serves up results based on how your personality type thinks? An ESTJ (Extrovert, Sensor, Thinker Judger) and an INFP (Introvert, iNtuitive, Feeler and Perceiver) will, no doubt, go about solving a problem different ways.

So how would it work? If you know which one of the 16 types you are, all you'd have to do is to click your type and start searching. If you didn't know your type you could take a brief type survey and then have at it. Of course there might need to be a little bit of time spent building some kind of algorithm to actually be able to do this, and it would have to learn how the types search to be able to serve up relevant results. I'll leave it to a team at Yahoo! or Google or someplace else to figure out those details.

Squidoo Lens Rising!

2006-10-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

Good news! Lot's of folks are visiting my Squidoo Lens on the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, which means I'm getting closer to my goal of being in the top 100 lenses on Squidoo. Currently my Wienermobile Lens is ranked #847 out of 43,937 total lenses. Soon I'll be up there with Rachael Ray and Elmo TMX.

We'll have a cookout at our place when it gets into the top 100! All I can say is... franks a lot!

Actually you all know I can say a lot more hot dog puns, but frankly I think you'd find them hard to stomach. Find that hard to swallow? Chew on this for a bit... I haven't even told you my wurst puns yet. See how I link them together... that's a sign of a good punster. And you know what they say about great puns when they are told? It's a rare medium done well. Okay, well that's enough for now. Ketchup with ya later.

Getting Cheeky With Amtrak

2006-10-06T20:55:00.000-07:00

Got plans yet for July 14, 2007?

If not, and you are looking for a little silliness you might want to plan a trip to Laguna Niguel, (Orange County) California. On July 14th of next year a few silly people will be participating in the 28th Annual Mooning of passing Amtrak trains.

How did this come to be? The official web site of the event www.moonamtrak.org shares this background:

"To best answer the story of the birth of the Mooning tradition, refer to the Sunday July 11, 1999 edition of The Orange County (California) Register newspaper, and the article headlined as, "Full moon over Amtrak keeps Laguna Niguel tradition alive", as follows: Twenty years ago (1979), at The Mugs Away Saloon, a K.T.Smith told his buddies he'd buy a drink for all who would run outside to the rail road tracks and "moon" the next train, which many did. The mooning tradition has prevailed, but there is no longer a volunteer to buy free drinks for thousands of "Mooners". "

I'm thinking about suggesting a trip out to California to Mary as a way to celebrate our 10th Anniversary next year. Gotta keep a little romance going right?

Door Dings

2006-10-04T20:52:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't it be nice if all automobile manufacturers agreed on how to build car doors so that they all hit other cars at the same height? That way every car would have that little rubber strip in just the right place and we'd have no more door dings.

There should be an international standard set. Just a thought.

Gadzooks! It's The MIT Massive Vortex Generator!

2006-10-03T20:40:00.000-07:00

Have you seen an Airzooka? The manufacture describes it as "a fun gun that launches harmless rings of air up to 40 feet. You will be amazed when you are able to mess up a persons hair or knock down targets from over 40 feet away. Requiring no batteries, and shoots air, you will never run out of ammo. Because it shoots air, it is safe at any distance." The technical name for an Airzooka is actually a vortex generator. I got a bit geeked out learning that.

I'm thinking someone should build a huge Airzooka and takes it out at half time of college football games. It could be rolled up and down the sidelines blasting massive rings of air into the stands. Add a little theatrical smoke and you could have some giant smoke rings from it too. Tired of the half time band? Just turn the Massive Airzooka on em! The only band members left standing would be the tuba players.

I'm actually quite surprised that a school with an engineering program hasn't done this yet. The question should be which school will be the first? MIT, RPI, Purdue, Stanford, U of Illinois, UC Berkley?

You Get What You Pay For

2006-10-02T21:27:00.000-07:00

Hindsight vs. Insight.

For a client and an agency it's like going to the moon. Which would you rather do - be one hundred thousand miles off track and then look at what happened and figure out how to right the course - or get the right trajectory in place and launch in the right direction.

Hindsight vs. Insight? I'd go with insight.

Question of the Day:

2006-09-30T11:33:00.000-07:00

Is it possible to be passionate about something and have balance in your life?

Post #101

2006-09-30T11:29:00.000-07:00

I just realized I hit the 100 post mark without saying anything about it. There's something special about making 100 posts. A lot of people make a note of it. Sam, just hit his last week (and he started blogging after me!).

I think my 100th post is a pretty good one as it is. I'll make plans to celebrate #200.