So do me a solid. Help my friend with a donation. You’ll get some good reading in return – a collection of short works donated by his friends for this cause. Many of the contributors have been published, so it’s not like you’re getting fluff written by some hack like me.

Why him? As some of you may know I was in the hospital myself in 2007, fighting off complications from chemotherapy to treat leukemia. At the time I only knew Richard from a handful of comments exchanged on a blog. Yet I traded as many encouraging words with him as anyone during those weeks in the hospital. Some of them are in the archives of this blog.

There are many others with similar stories. That’s the kind of guy he is.

Think about it for me, will you? No amount is too small, even for a guy with a heart so big. You know what they say… “it’s the thought that counts.” Just knowing you cared enough to give will probably mean more to him than the money he gets – no matter how much he may need it.

That’s the kind of guy he is.

I asked him yesterday on our evening skate: “Why do you have to go so fast Adam? You’re not afraid of me are you?” He didn’t answer. He didn’t have enough air in his lungs for speech.

I think it’s his way of competing and I hate to admit – winning. Is this what I get for not letting him win? I’ve always tried to be a good sport. Do I deserve this very public, very physical humiliation?

Picture me: six-one, a hair on the wrong side of 200#, sweating like an ice cold bottle of water on a hot summer afternoon (that’s sprung a leak). I’ve barely got the O2 reserves myself for language, Adam’s half a block ahead of me, and a neighbor is standing in his driveway taking in the scene.

The neighbor chuckles as I pass with a mocking grin. “He’s a quick little guy, isn’t he?”

I briefly consider a comment about his fitness level but restraint wins out. I’m having too much fun.

Instead I make my strides longer… wider… my center lower. Weight lingers a little longer on each leg, giving my push-off skate a little more bite.

Game on little guy!

Put it this way: I know road rash when I see it.

Memo to self: you are not a quick learner. Keep that in mind the next time something hurts.

The lesson is this: sometimes it’s better to pick your fall than have a fall pick you. Maybe you learned this lesson yourself. Maybe you didn’t have to learn it – some things just come naturally to you like self-preservation. I’m just here to fill in the gaps.

Falls are terrible pickers. They don’t care what lands first, it’s orientation to your velocity, or the textures of the various surfaces on which you may land/slide. I may not know you, so for all I know you may be a terrible picker too. But if I was a betting man, I’d still put my money on you (site unseen).

Today I learned a new lesson as I was applying an old one.

I’m not ready for downhill skating. When the whir of the wheels approaches the pitch of a whistle, I’m going WAY too fast – especially when I’ve just skated up the same hill and my legs have the rigidity of two narrow columns of memory foam.
I was not proud of my error in judgement. However, I’m happy to report my quick thinking assessed the situation and computed a relatively safe landing. I’d reached totally-mental velocity too quickly for standard breaking measures. I had just enough control to stay upright and stay on the street. As I was racing past folks’ front lawns I noticed one with a high sand to grass ratio and decided to ditch. Ditching in Florida grass can be almost as painfull as asphalt. Imagine a nice soft lawn and a roudy bunch of aloe vera plants decided to mate. You’d get a Florida lawn – without the soothing gel.

I’m a firm believer in the feet first fall. Protecting the rest of your body with your face is almost never a good strategy. For sand, I prefer a slide like a baserunner stealing second – not landing on my ass, but not directly on my hip bone either – somewhere in between. I bend the inside (lower) leg a bit to absorb some of the impact, trying to keep my feet up to avoid getting the skates stuck – an important point. If you inadvertently plant one of those skates, stopping your foot suddenly as the rest of you keeps moving, it can get really ugly really fast.

When it was all over I looked up to see if anyone was watching my triumph over disaster.

The neighborhood was very quiet.

I got back up on my skates and kept going. That there is an honest to goodness life lesson. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off (in my case literally), hold your head high, and keep on keeping on.

There won’t be any more hills for a while though.

Those of you who know about my skating probably thought this post was going to be different. In order to satisfy your blood-lust, I’ll tell you: the thumb still hurts.

There! Are you happy now?!?

No, the true purpose is to announce a friend’s new book, now available at Amazon. You already know from my hobbies that my judgement is gold, so go pick up a copy or three. AND, if you haven’t read his first book… well, do I even have to say it?

It’s nice to know there are a few quirky places in Florida (like my home town)… that it’s not just beaches, strip-malls, swamps, and theme parks.

Note Casa Tina at about 1:30 in – one of our favorite places to eat (on those rare occasions we eat out :-)

I’d forgotten how attached I was to my right thumb. You’d think it would be hard to forget, dangling from your index finger like Ringo on the Beatles’ coat-tails.

Who am I to pick on Ringo? What do I know about the Beatles? The first time I listened to them was on a CD. Somewhere a vinyl purist is suffering a burst blood vessel.

In case you haven’t heard, my thumb was the tragic victim of a fall from inline skates. I was having a nice morning skate at the rink up the street. (Can a big patch of concrete for roller-hockey, sans ice, still be called a rink?) I was playing around, trying different moves, when I tried to do a quick stop like you might on ice. I did stop – in the sense that my velocity changed suddenly, but I’m grasping at straws of dignity. The trouble was I didn’t stop moving. I leaned back, turned my skate approximately 90 degrees relative to my heading, and expected my skates to loose a bit of traction, skidding to a stop. I don’t know if my angles were wrong, I didn’t have enough speed/energy to force the wheels into a skid, or if I was just plain stupid, but the wheels held pretty good. Instead of moving down the rink at a generous clip and coming to a skidding stop, I went into a spectacular spin. I bet it would have been really impressive if my posture even hinted I was doing it on purpose.

Flailing rarely comes across dignified.

I ended the maneuver (having thankfully bled off most of my speed) falling face first towards the “rink,” my body stopping short of the surface due to the heroic efforts of ten spread fingertips. I didn’t need to see the orientation of the proximal phalanx on my right thumb (the second bone from the tip), or how it made my palm look like it was pregnant with a ping-pong ball, to know something was wrong. The sound was enough.

I don’t remember if it hurt immediately or if there was a delay. I’m sure lesser men would have passed out. (Caveat: I’m also sure most aren’t lesser men.) Oh, but it hurt. I ran through the Urban Dictionary like an R rated spelling bee on amphetamines.

Of course I went home and played the tough guy.

“John, do I need to take you to see a doctor.”

Oh no, I’m fine.

“Ummm, John? I have some idea what fine looks like and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t involve a fetal position, break-dancing, or cradling your hand like a newborn baby.”

So I went to see a doctor.

At least, I thought I was going to see a doctor. It turned out the urgent care facility only had a PA on duty. (I have nothing against PAs unless I’m hoping for pain medication with a little kick.) She did an x-ray and pronounced it unbroken (my thumb, not the x-ray machine), which made me feel better until I heard my nephew just had a similar problem, and a radiologist reversed the initial ruling – finding a hairline fracture in his thumb.

I’m not too worried though. It doesn’t feel like a break to me, and I know my breaks! All those years playing basketball were good for something.

I am a little worried about work though. Just the swelling and pain would have my thumb out of business, even if I wasn’t wearing a split you can find pictured in the dictionary under “overkill,” but my typing rhythm is seriously off having to reach for the spacebar with my left thumb.

SERIOUSLY!

Typing this post has been a test, and it hasn’t been pretty. But my left thumb is getting a chance to play with my other fingers, so someone is having a good time.

However, I think it’s time for a rest. All this activity is going to catch up with my left thumb soon, not being used to carrying the load, so I better save it for the office.

I want to say one last thing though.

WARNING: If you’re a pregnant woman, suffer from chronic neck or back pain, or become disoriented from sudden motion or changes of direction, you should stop reading now.

After moving to another web host a couple years ago, I’m finally transferring my domain. I’ve felt a little dirty dealing with my current registrar so it’ll be a relief to finally move.

The down side is I’m not sure the switch will be seamless. They may not finish the transfer for a few days and then I don’t know if I’ll need to re-configure all of my domain settings (with possibly another day or two for those to spread to your corner of the internets).

So, if the site disappears for a few days don’t fret none. I’ll be back.

I’m telling my friends at work I’m coming down with a Canadian Cold. Knowing my travel habits (I have none), this invites a simple request: “explain yourself kind sir.”

As you may know, we spent the weekend at the modern melting pot known as Disney World. We were camping at Fort Wilderness – something like a Fisher-Price “My First Camping Trip.” We capped off the experience with a horse drawn wagon ride with thirty of our closest friends.

The wagon was packed like it was the last of only two rides for the day. (Funny thing, that.) Late arrivals were divided up based on available space, so Adam and Beth were sitting next to a young Canadian girl, whose mother was on the other side of the wagon.

This young Canadian girl, from the lands between Toronto and Ottawa, was picking on Adam!

I know! Our sweet, innocent Adam!

O.K., he wasn’t quite so innocent, but the young lass was clearly in the wrong. Way, WAY in the wrong. Canada Girl was running a fever and expelling germ ridden sputum like a rotating sprinkler head. It was so wrong. It was so disgusting.

It was SO not cool!

You may be asking me (futilely, from miles away in front of your computer screen) what about Canada Momma? I say to you, AMEN brothers and sisters! Who brings their kid on a packed wagon ride at Disney World when he or she is running a fever and sputum factory?

That’s SO not cool!

I understand crossing the continent for a moment with the mouse is pretty exciting, especially if it was planned months in advance. But it’s time to employ a little Vulcan logic here.

Say it together with me (imagine Spock dying in front of the captain, while good ‘ole James T is cursing Khan):

“The needs of the many out-weigh the needs of the few – or the one.”

Where are you Spock? You’re our only hope! Please don’t take it out on everyone else if I’ve misquoted you.

Given the nature of the typical Disney visitor, you could start a pandemic. Visitors come from around the world – and ultimately return to their homes across the globe. In fact, if I were a paranoid person,

Who are you kidding?

I thought I told you to stay in your box.

I might think this was a Canadian Terrorist plot to give the world a cold. Think about it, just passing the kid in a crowd would be like walking through those mist machines at Disney to keep people cool. Only in this case, it would be a cloud of germs, with the intent to keep people cold with feverish chills.

But what would Canada possibly stand to gain from the world catching a cold? How about WORLD DOMINATION of the O.T.C. cold medicine market? Do you have any idea how many cold medicines are made in Canada? Neither do I, so I let my Google do the looking. Have you ever heard of Buckley’s? Neither did I, but Wikipedia says it’s “…a cough syrup invented in 1919 in Sydney, Nova Scotia…. Noted for its strongly unpleasant taste….”

1919?!?

Strongly unpleasant taste?!?

Sounds like ‘ole Buckley could use all the help he can get, eh?

For some, this is obvious. For others suffering denial, this is a sign of a severe character flaw. For a blessed few who’s beatification awaits them at their death, who’s names will be remembered in song and psalm for all time, this is an inconceivable truth.

God did us this one favor – he made these people rare. This is not to say parenting is without its rewards. If it was, Homo sapiens sapiens would have died out long ago (no mater how much fun getting there was/is).

This little post is for all of you out there who live in the real world.

Fortunately, there are times that force the hard parts to the rest of life’s background noise, and this weekend was filled with those times.

We took the kids on their first camping trip this weekend. On Friday I worked half a day, Cheryl picked up the kids early from school, and we drove to Orlando for a weekend of camping, Disney style.

Admittedly, Disney, realism, and roughing-it don’t really belong in the same post. But this weekend did involve tents, sleeping outside, camp-side cooking, and relaxed standards of personal hygiene.

Being Disney, it also involved buses, pools, water-slides, campfires with Disney characters and shops stocked with grossly overpriced marshmallows.

We brought our own marshmallows.

While the kids enjoyed the Disney aspects of camping, they also enjoyed its traditional appeal: running around dark campsites with friends exhibiting all the signs of a marshmallow sugar high, setting foods dense in simple sugars on fire, and eating lots of grilled meat.

It warmed my heart just seeing them having fun, soaking up all the new experiences and never growing saturated.

One simple moment almost moved me to tears.

Adam and I were settling down for the night and I knew he was afraid of the dark, preferring to sleep with one or twelve of his stuffed, furry friends for safety. I asked him if he was o.k.

“Well, I wish Halo was here,” (his stuffed dog), “but I’m o.k. because you’re here with me.”

But I didn’t get very far.

Instead of gliding down the driveway, leaning into an exhilarating tight turn onto the sidewalk, and powering down the hill towards Adam and Cheryl, I did none of the above. My skates stopped beneath me just moments after I got started.

Do you know anything about momentum, and if so is there a cure?

There’s usually a lot of small debris in our driveway, especially this time of year, so I wasn’t surprised – as much as I might have been. However, I was surprised when my skates refused to roll with my next few steps. That’s when I noticed the new debris on the driveway: little pieces of my wheels.

Thoughts:

1. Damn, that’s peculiar.
2. Damn, that sucks.
3. Damn, I haven’t gained that much weight, have I?
4. I guess polywhatsitcalled doesn’t last forever after all – not in it’s originally molded shape anyway.

Actually, the weight’s trending down these days. I felt it was important you know that.

Obviously, the catastrophic failure of my wheels ended our joint skate real quick. My enthusiasm for the day crumbled faster. I’m like a little kid that way. I was looking forward to one thing and nothing else measured up. Plus, there was my poor boy Adam to think about.
Was he going to grow up skating alone?
Was he going to blame me?
Would he carry this disappointment – this abandonment – through the rest of his life?
Would he have trust issues that would end relationships prematurely, leading to a lifetime of self-imposed isolation and loneliness?

So you know what I HAD to do. I got a new pair of skates, which itself is an unusually long story.

Unusually long, you ask? Don’t you dare laugh.

Fast forward to this weekend. Adam and I have had a marvelous time skating around the neighborhood the last couple weeks, and all of my fears for Adam’s future have subsided. But I was getting a little too comfortable – a little too confident in my skillz. After an abbreviated yet marvelous skate on Monday, I was waiting outside while Adam went in the house to replace a newly shredded pair of warm-up pants for shorts. I was barely moving. I was on the sidewalk. I was right outside my house in peaceful Dunedin.

Now that I think about it, all the signs of disaster were right there. If only I could have seen them.

First a wheel got momentarily stuck in the gap between our cement driveway and the cement sidewalk. (Damn you cement and your cursed expansion joints!) One moment I was waiting patiently for my son… the next I was doing the “loosing my footing on skates dance.” It’s not a catchy name, but we’ve all been there, right?If you haven’t, you’re probably lying. But if not, then picture a guy with a tall furry hat dancing at an eastern European wedding. Time slowed down as I saw all my dignity flash before my eyes. Then time sped back up, I fell heels over head backwards, and threw my hands backwards to break my fall – hoping there was no irony in that last thought before gravity finished with me.

We know that God does have some sense of humor because children always catch us in these (hopefully) rare moments of excellence.

“Dad! Are you ok? That was GREAT!”

Adam, as your parent I feel obliged to tell you sixty-seven percent is not a passing grade in school when you get older.

I didn’t break anything but skin, but it really hurt. I did learn something though. You may never forget how to ride a bike, but you can forget how to fall off a pair of skates. That, or falling hurts more than it used to.

But fear not my friends! Adam came down to meet me (sprawled on the sidewalk), and we eventually finished our skate. With one exception, it was a great skate.

How long has it been since my last post with substance? By any measure it’s been a while, so I thought I’d bring you up to speed on my life (a melodramatic adventure sure to keep you reclined in your seat).

If you want to skip the whining, I don’t blame you. Skip down to where it says: “The Good Stuff.”

Relative to my life, there’s a lot of change going on these days. They’re the kind of changes you see coming months down the road, so there isn’t any shock involved. I don’t consider myself afraid of change, but I am saddened by some of them.

Seeing it comimg, I’ve spent the last several months feeling a little melancholy.

Nothing is changing as much as work. Just about everything is changing except the person signing my checks. No, work isn’t my whole life, but I do spend a lot of my life at work. I’ve worked with my team for almost seventeen years.

Dear Lord, seventeen years. In many ways I don’t feel far removed from being seventeen. Working for a single employer this long seems unheard of, let alone within the same organizational unit. Maybe change is overdue.

We’ve changed some in that time. No organization goes completely unchanged for that long. I’ve been promoted, we’ve changed locations, and our team’s responsibilities have evolved. But this week we’re essentially blowing the whole thing up and starting over. (Looking at the big picture, this will be a good thing for the people we serve). Me and most of my coworkers (some for the entire 17 years) will scatter to the winds.

These folks have been my friends, counselors, mentors – my family – for a long time. I’ll miss them all terribly.

Speaking of work, our health insurance is changing, though not to the extend things are at the office. This is (hopefully) a tweak to our coverage – another move by state leaders to balance the budget on the backs of those with little political pull. It appears nothing of consequence is changing, but healthcare is one place I DO fear change.

Speaking of insurance, we were dropped by our homeowner’s insurance provider – like many of our fellow Floridians. We’ve never made a claim, our property has never been damaged by storms (from the time our house was built), we’re not in a flood zone, and we’re at a relatively high elevation for living on the world’s largest populated sandbar. (Note: I don’t know if that’s in any way true.) Gosh darn it, we’re good people too!

Like many Floridians, this leaves us at the mercy of the insurer of last resort: a semi-public organization that until recently was forbidden by state law to charge less than the private competition. (I think there are still some restrictions, but until now I’ve had little reason to pay close attention.) Heaven forbid! That’s right: even if all the private insurance companies in Florida didn’t want our business, the state is forbidden to do it cheaper – even if it could.

It gets better. State leaders, under the guise of “doing something about rising insurance rates,” did what good Republicans do best: they made it easier for big business to fuck us. Insurance companies are no longer required to provide sink hole coverage as part of a standard homeowner’s policy. Of course they can write separate policies for sink hole coverage at rates dictated by “The Free Market (R).” The best part of this is we’ll be paying twenty-five percent more for coverage without the sink hole coverage.

Three cheers for the Florida Legislature!

Some of you may be wondering, “why should folks be forced to buy sink hole coverage?” Some of you may wonder why we’re required to carry auto insurance if we drive. Some of you may wonder why it “only takes one time” to have a child.

OK, that wasn’t fair. Even many Floridians don’t know why we have sink holes in Florida. Google “karst topography” and/or the Florida Aquifer. You’ll find a much better explanation than I could give. For now, just take it on faith – we get a lot of sink holes in Florida. Not having sink hole coverage is like not having collision insurance for the left side of your car.

Actually, that’s probably not fair to auto insurance. Claims involving sink holes are the most common among all claims on homeowner’s policies in Florida. (In the interest of full disclosure I’m not sure that’s true.) I’ll bet cars are stolen or rear-ended way more often than they take a driver’s side T-Bone.

Yeah, WAY!

Anyway, that’s all I have in the way of self-pity for now. That wasn’t too bad was it?

The good news is the depression has been mostly under control for a while now. I’ve had little tastes here and there, but it’s been short term stuff – not the weeks/months of hopelessness that have consumed me in the past. I don’t like drugs, but I like depression a LOT less.

The leukemia remains in the shadows. It’s not in remission, but it hasn’t been for two years now. We’re still waiting for the symptoms to be worse than the cure, and we’re still not close.

Now THAT’S chronic baby!

Beth is continuing her tear through high school. She brought home yet another semester of straight A’s this month. It’s getting to the point I can’t remember when she last got something other than an A. In fact, she was exempted from mid-terms for her efforts, so she got extra time tacked onto Christmas Break.

This is where Cheryl tells you I can’t remember this morning, so don’t be too impressed.

If Beth is on a tear, Adam’s using a wrecking ball. I think I’ve signed (maybe) two tests where he missed one question since he started first grade in August. Part of me worries it’s too easy – that what he’s primarily learning is he doesn’t have to try.

Leave it to me to worry after only a few months of first grade – because his grades are TOO good.

Cheryl and I started doing things without the kids again, thanks to slave labor Beth’s increasing maturity and responsibility. It’s been a long time since we did things together on a regular basis – too long. We’re fixing that now.

It’s my favorite time of year in Florida. We can go outside without a gallon of fresh water for every hour we’re out. It’s not as cool as I’d like, but it is still Florida. We’ve been skating, hiking, walking, and generally enjoying outdoor life.

Where ever you are, I hope you’re getting plenty of chances to enjoy life too.