Head Stuffing

Keys To Success

2009-11-11T23:06:00.004-05:00

Times they are a changing.

Although I confess – I thought they changed a long time ago.

I stepped into the little kitchenette in my department this morning to grab a cup of office coffee.

No time to stop at Tim Horton's to grab my usual extra large double-double – office coffee would have to do.

A poster hung on the kitchen cupboard – above the microwave oven – the most prized advertising spot in the entire department.

You could announce anything and get a huge response by hanging your poster in this location – literally trapping every poor soul in the department to have to stand there and read it while the microwave slowly heats last night's left over supper comprised of stuff you didn't eat last night.

The poster was for a women's economic conference – to allow women to share insights as to how to be more successful.

"I want to be more successful too", I thought to myself as I read this poster.

At the bottom of the poster – disguised in a feminine fancy script so as not to be easily visible to the male eye – was written the single qualifying condition …

Exclusively for women!

"Hey …"

That can't be? We are now supposed to be equals, aren't we? Ever since Billy Jean King beat the snot out of that nerdy cross-dressing Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match back in the 70's? Ever since Margret Thatcher became Prime Minister of England, and Geraldine Feraldo ran for Vice President of the United States? Ever since Hillary Rodham Clinton ran for President only to get beaten by the first black man ever to run for office (bad timing or what?).

Ever since women's World Cup soccer?

Ever since Yoko Ono? And let's not forget Sarah Palin!

We were supposed to have transcended both race and gender prejudices by now. Right? The twenty first century and all that it brings?

That's why we now have metro-sexual men. Right?

I looked all over the cabinets in that tiny little kitchen for a second poster – the one for men – the one that held the date and time for the big Men's Only How To Be Successful seminar.

I couldn't find one.

I still had time waiting for the coffee to brew, and I stood there looking at the poster for women only to read. I hoped nobody would catch me – there might be a hint as to how to be successful in that poster somewhere.

Nope, I guess you have to go to the conference.

Then I started imagining what would happen if I showed up – with the twenty five dollar entrance fee – and tried to get in. Would they usher me out? Would they deny me access – access to these great keys of success that I am certain were to be delivered just the other side of that conference room door?

Would the cops come, and usher me away – take me down town? Call my wife?

I would likely have to dress in drag – a pant's suit – with reasonable shoes – something that would sing 'successful business woman'. And I could use my daughter's Hannah Montana blond Halloween wig.

But then I remembered I have a mustache and a beard now. I grow a beard most every November – and the mustache hides the scar on my upper lip – so I'm not shaving that off!

So much for going in drag.

What would they talk about?

It must be pretty juicy stuff if men aren't allowed in to hear it! I'll bet they are going to talk about how to get around the old-boy-business-networking that my dad and my dad's dad and his dad too worked so hard to set up for the last couple of millenniums. They will probably advise each other to start playing golf – and how to gain the edge in meetings by showing more cleavage – thus leaving the men in the department to babble and state wrong information – only to jump in with the right answers. They will talk about networking – and workshops – and sharing their feelings. All the while balancing teacups on their knees and munching delicately on little finger foods – and chocolates.

It's just not fair?

Then – only because our office coffee maker is nearly as slow as the elevator in our three story head office building – I started thinking about another angle. If there is no seminar for men only … then I should host one.

I could host the event in my garage. I could set my laptop on my workbench – and borrow one of those LCD projectors to shine a power point presentation up on the other wall – between the rakes, the hose wheel and the stack of old apartment size air conditioners we have moved several times but will likely never use again.

"Welcome to the Men's Only Workshop On How To Succeed More than Women" I will say, and I will show images of important women and motivate these men in my garage to believe these women are the enemy.

I will warn the men that now it is more important than ever to not be accused of sexual harassment in the workplace – because that will only play right into their hands! No dirty jokes – no off color humor. And I would suggest that from now on we refer to every female colleague as Miss.

"Why Miss Samantha – that is a very professional looking blouse you are wearing – but could you please button up the top two buttons – you are distracting me", I would say for an example.

And we would the share our feelings. "How did you feel about the Lions play last Sunday?" or "Didn't you think A-Rod had a great post season?".

After that, we would break, and retire down to my family room – where my family is not allowed – and we would play pool and shoot darts over a couple of beers – and see who could make the loudest noise come out of their body parts.

You have to play hardball these days. You can't just sit around doing a good job and think someone will notice and move you ahead in life. These women aren't sitting around. And apparently some of them in my office are looking to beat me out of the next promotion!

But imagine – if I followed through with this brilliant counter-strike of a plan – and I made up a poster to hang on the kitchen cupboard right next to the microwave – imagine the horrific complaints of a male only event being held that women could not attend – to help us men gain an advantage on those power-wielding ladies of the corporate world of today.

They would have me in front of the Manager of Human Resources explaining myself. And I would have to take some kind of a gender-sensitivity training course – probably on Sunday afternoons.

That's no good.

And it's not fair.

Finally the coffee maker had completed its task – and I poured myself a fresh cup mixed it with extra cream and sugar – when Madeline walked around the corner.

I mean Miss Madeline.

"How's the coffee, I just made it a few minutes ago?" asked Miss Madeline , with all the buttons on her blouse done up all the way.

"Pretty good!" I replied. I wasn't lying. It was actually a good cup of office coffee.

And I realized, I got it pretty good the way things are, and if I hung that poster I was dreaming up, I might not get coffee like that at the office ever again.

A Family Outing To Get the H1N1 Swine Flu Shot

2009-11-07T11:05:00.004-05:00

Well, all the leaves are down on the ground now.

And this is likely my last post of this year from the back patio deck. But it is really nice out here today. Just a little chilly.

The upside is that I can hear exactly where my faithful black lab Suzie is in the back yard – as she ruffles through the fallen brown and red ground cover of dried leaves.

So here I sit, in an old pair of sweatpants, my super-duper thick white wool sweater I usually reserve for February mornings with my windbreaker over top. And my slippers.

I look ridiculous.

The nice thing about being a married overweight man in my late forties is that I don't really care that much anymore about how I look when I go out in the back yard to have a smoke, drink a coffee, and try to write a headstuffing post.

It's not really that cold out. But I don't care.

I'm sick.

Well, not full blown laying in bed pleading with God to take me now sick – I just don't feel great.

Not since I had the H1N1 flu vaccination last Tuesday.

We all got it. All four of my little family members.

We had been talking about whether to get this shot or not for some time. You likely have been debating it too. My youngest daughter Ashley-Rae is quite susceptible to flues and lung infections – so we knew that no matter what the media was saying – we would be negligent to not get her vaccinated.

And who wants to be negligent?

Several weeks ago I had sent in yet another batch of lab samples off to the Good Doctor – in my now seemingly never-ending battle to watch my health. On Tuesday morning, a call was left on our answering machine from the Good Doctor asking me to please come in to the office to see him that afternoon.

Odd call.

So my lovely wife Darlene called me at the office to inform me.

"He wants to see you this afternoon!" she said.

"Why?"

"I don't know – but I am going with you" – my lovely Registered Nurse with twenty years of medical experience of a fine wife said – quite predictably I might add.

"What about the girls", I asked. "Who will look after them while you and I cart ourselves out to Amherstberg to see the Good Doctor?"

"They will have to come with."

Oh good grief.

We don't do family outings very well.

So I wrote a quick email to my boss that I had to leave early, packed up my stuff and headed home to pick up the family and head out into the county, all the time nervously wondering what the Good Doctor found so important that we all had to go out there on such short notice.

When we got to his little office building – the door was locked.

A few other want-to-be patients were mingling outside the door – waiting their turn to be let in. It turns out the place was packed with patients.

While we waited, the girls ran over to a nearby hill full of leaves and ran up the hill to roll down it through the leaves.

The want-to-be-patients waiting outside with us simply rolled their eyes at the fuss being made by my lovely wife and I sternly trying to inform my lovely daughters – now covered head-to-toe in crumbled leaf particles, mud, and grass stains to please come stand in line and be quiet and still.

It wasn't going to happen.

We don't do family outings very well.

They should make TV shows about families like mine with little girls who don't listen in public and say smart things back to their parents when they try to scold them in front of other people. Not like the TV family shows where the kids are quiet, well behaved, and share loving dialog as they wait in lines to do family things.

You should see how they act at a grocery store.

Finally the door opened up, and a heard of already-been-patients walked out. One was wearing a facemask.

"Oh my."

As we made our way into the waiting room – first applying heavy layers of sterilizing hand wash – we found the place was packed. All the chairs were taken, all the standing areas were being stood in – and so we remained in the hallway.

And the girls started dancing. They started dancing and twirling and spinning and bumping into people and talking back to us as we asked them not to do it anymore.

"What is going on here?"

The nurse behind the counter recognized my lovely wife whom she knows as a fellow a Registered Nurse with twenty years of medical experience, and she quickly ushered us into an empty patient examination room.

The girls hopped up the little examining table and started coloring with crayons on the paper that cover the cushions. Quickly they rolled out fresher paper to continue their own versions of masterpiece artwork on.

The nurse, a fine woman and friend of my lovely wife, simply rolled her eyes.

"Mr. Brill, we are happy to tell you that your tests came back negative and you are as healthy as a horse" said the nice nurse lady.

"Oh very good!" I answered. "But then why …"

The nice nurse lady smiled and turned to the desk, where she uncovered four needles. Darlene picked up one of the three vials adjacent to the needles.

"You have the H1N1 vaccine?"

"Yes", and she explained that the Good Doctor wanted us all to get the shot, especially Ashley-Rae who sat high on his list of little patients since she drew him a nice picture one day and he promised to hang it in the Art Gallery his wife was putting together. That and the fact that she kissed him on the cheek as a thank you.

"There is one here for each of you."

Let me explain. For the last two weeks in Windsor, the news has been full of stories about the long lines of people trying to get in to get the H1N1 vaccine. There was only one clinic held each day at a different location, and not enough vaccine to go around. Many turned away after long hours of waiting in line. Darlene and Ashley-Rae were actually turned away already at one of these clinics.

So there was a sense of relief.

But the girls panicked. They didn't expect to be getting a needle today. Ashley-Rae climbed behind the examining table to hide. Alannah went screaming over into a corner. Screaming so that all the want-to-be-patients still waiting outside the door could hear.

The nice nurse lady rolled up my lovely wife Darlene's sleeve and administered the shot in her bicep area. Then she made me take off my coat and shirt, and administered the next shot in my bicep.

"I didn't feel a thing", I said – half because I didn't, and half to calm down my panic stricken little girls.

"Me either", said my lovely wife Mommy, with eight years of Mommy experience and twenty years medical. "Are you sure you really gave us shots?".

Ashley-Rae climbed out from behind the examining table. I set her on the table and undid her shirt so the nice nurse lady could administer the shot in her little arm.

"I didn't feel it either", said seven years old Ashley-Rae – winking at me as she did so.

" I saw you winking at Daddy", said Alannah still cowering in the corner. "You're trying to trick me!"

I reached over and gently took Alannah's hand, and I set my little drama-queen eight year old daughter on the table – all the while screaming "No, No!" while not putting up any kind of fight. The nice nurse lady secured Alannah's arm, and gave her the shot.

"Hey, that didn't hurt at all?" surmised Alannah.

We all laughed, even the nice nurse lady, just like on one of those TV shows when the final scene is over and the screen is about to fade to black.

As we all gathered our stuff and walked out of the clinic office, we saw the Good Doctor leading want-to-be-patient into an examining room on the other side of the office, he looked over at us leaving and gave my lovely Registered Nurse of a wife with twenty years medical experience and eight years of Mommy experience a thumbs up sign. And he vanished into the other office and closed the door.

I could feel all the eyes of the large throng of still-waiting-want-to-be-patients staring at us loathingly. I looked at one elderly lady sitting there and whispered "sorry" to her. She smiled in that way of trying to be nice but not really accepting my apology.

As I drove my now-inoculated little family of four back to our little town on the edge of Windsor, I got thinking about the experience. Clearly my lovely wife had arranged this somehow with the Good Doctor. But I didn't want to know how. I looked over and said "Thank you".

She merely smiled back.

And back home we drove in the car, the girls fighting in the back seat complaining that "she was looking at me", and "give me back my stuffed monkey" all the way home.

We don't do family outings very well.

But it's good to not live in a sitcom.

And this H1N1 virus is a scary beast. I thought last year it was over blown. But people all around me this year are sick or out of the office not feeling well – much more so than in years past. And I bet next year it gets even scarier. Remember how they used to warn us that the antibiotics we were taking t fight the flu would one day create a super-bug? A real meanie that will be hard to kill!

Well I think those days might be here.

So I am very happy to have a wonderful lovely wife of a Registered Nurse with twenty years of medical experience and eight years of Mommy experience on my side.

Everybody laughs … and fade to black.

Reaching Out To .006%

2009-10-31T10:55:00.007-04:00

I was just reading Ian Aspin's blog ReallyGoodThinking – I go there a lot because Ian is a very talented fellow who makes me think.

After reading today's piece – I started thinking about who is really reading headstuffing. Who am I reaching?

Headstuffing, from the emails that I get, and the comments left, and from what my friends tell me when I see them, is read pretty much by people of all types.

That's pretty cool.

All though the younger crowd doesn't really get me.

That's pretty cool too.

But I like to try to bring everything down to one common denominator. So I spent a lot of time thinking what are the most two most common characteristics of people who enjoy my little ramblings?

After a lot of thought – too much really, because I am very busy and should be putting my amazing thinking powers to more immediate concerns right now like raking the back yard leaves or finally putting the new door knob on the garage door (there's a big hole there now and I have to move a chair in front to keep the stupid door closed), or hanging the Halloween decorations for tonight's festivities! – I finally came down to my two lowest common denominators of who reads headstuffing:

They have to be able to read the English language - or at least my impression of what I think the English language is.

And they have to be able to use the Internet to get to headstuffing.

Okay, that's three lowest common denominators.

Then it struck me. There are roughly somewhere between eight and ten billion people on the planet earth right now. Of those eight to ten billion people, how many are literate, English reading Internet users?

Being one myself, I thought I would find out like all literate English reading Internet users learn research stuff now-a-days.

I'll Google it.

I typed in this simple question to the Google search bar:

"How many internet users speak English?"

I figure if you're using the internet you most likely can read – otherwise the web browser is pretty useless … right?

The answer came up on the first selection.

464 million. That's a lot.

But out of say … 10 billion? That's only 5% of the Earth's population?

That's not very many.

Over the course of three years of writing headstuffing, my Google Analytics account tells me I have had about 250,000 unique visitors.

So that's only .006% percent of the total potential persons -people that I can reach?

That's not very good.

But it's pretty close to the percentage of people that I know that think like I do.

Headstuffing would likely touch a lot more people that think like me if I could publish it in different language. According to the chart, 251 million Internet users read in Chinese.

Hmmm. Would the Chinese get me?

I work with a lot of Chinese people at the office. We get along really well … I think – I can't really understand what they are saying when they talk amongst themselves. I doubt I ever actually come up in conversation.

So I called up one of my colleagues at home – Lo Hi. I think he was still sleeping.

"What you want Brill?"

"Hi Lo, I was wondering if you had ever read my headstuffing blog?"

"You woke me up to ask me stupid question like that?"

"I'm doing research actually, sorry I woke you", I apologized. "I'll make sure I credit you in the post with your answer."

"Yeah, I read that stupid blog one time. You not very funny Brill!", and he hung up.

So, I guess that's not the answer I was hoping for.

That makes sense though, Lo never laughs at my jokes in development meetings.

So I guess that unless I either change my sense of humor, or I learn to speak, then write in another language, I am going to be stuck with reaching only .006% of the entire English speaking Internet community.

Which is ok I guess.

If I Ever Get My Lewis Grizzard Book Back …

2009-10-21T19:05:00.006-04:00

My lovely wife Darlene was out and about shopping the other day.

One of her stops was at a used bookstore she frequents. She normally doesn't look at the hard cover section – but for some reason this day, she did.

She spotted a hard cover version of a book by my favorite writer, Lewis Grizzard. It was an autobiography he wrote called "If I Ever Get Back To Georgia, I'm Gonna Nail My Feet To The Ground".

I didn't have it.

I don't know how my lovely wife knew I didn't have it. She doesn't exactly pore over my collection of reading material on a regular basis. She likes books about fantasy, and Vampires, and medieval times, books of the Celts in Ireland, and books that have hunky looking guys on the cover with sappy titles like "The Masters Pet" or such. I don't know if there is such a book – but if there is I will bet it's the drivel of Harlequin Romance standards and has words in it like pulsating or throbbing – and a cover with a painting of a long haired blond guy with a silky white shirt open and blowing in the wind with a castle in the background.

She leaves them lying around, you know.

I like books about baseball, and golf, and the history of baseball and the history of golf. Educational material. I like stories where a hero is out to thwart evil. I like stuff that makes me think.

And I like to read anything by Lewis Grizzard.

If you don't know – and there is no shame in not knowing – Lewis Grizzard used to be a great columnist for the Atlanta Constitution. I used to read him everyday since University. When I left Georgia, I used to try to find what papers he was published in at the Library and read his columns there.

It was Lewis Grizzard that made me want to be a journalist. But truth be told – I didn't really want to be a journalist – or even a sports writer – I just wanted to write a great sideline column like his.

Then I found his books – quite by accident (the Internet wasn't available to us back then like today – where I can type "Lewis Grizzard" in a Google search window and get 2000 potential links to great articles, tributes, and videos of the man himself speaking as though he were a standup comedian.

A couple of years ago – when I started writing headstuffing – I needed a voice to speak in – and I borrowed Mr. Grizzard's – to the best of my ability anyways – and found my own voice in the process.

Although I still like Lewis Grizzard's voice better. He did a better impression of himself than I can.

When I came home from work on this particular evening – my lovely wife was looking at me with an odd smile.

"I got you something today", she said in that singing voice she will use when trying to tease me.

I expected it might be a new back massager machine – for me to use on her back when she gets all knotted up. That is how she sang to me when she got our last back massager.

"I'll bite, what?"

She handed me a plastic bag with a book in it. I opened the bag, and as I opened it, the treasure of the book was revealed.

I quickly thumbed through the pages – the type was in large print. I admit I was a little offended at that.

"I know – it's in large print", answered my lovely wife before I could audibly complain.

"Large print isn't a bad thing, my eyes are going and I can't afford new glasses now", I replied.

It was in perfect shape. Even the book jacket was perfectly intact. I flipped through pages again looking for pencil or pen marks, dog ears, or even a crease in the binding to show it had been left open face down. There was nothing wrong with it.

"There is not a mark on it, darlin'. It's like brand new!"

Then I peeled back the jacket cover. Yup, there it was. The name of the last person that owned it.

I read the name out loud.

Darlene came over quickly and looked – and she grabbed the book away from me.

"Oh my God!", she exclaimed. "Do you remember me saying that someone from my Dad's legion passed away a couple of days ago?"

"Yeah?"

"This is his book!".

Wow.

"That's what happens when you live in a small town darlin'!", I replied.

I took the new treasure of a gift and sat down promptly on the couch and started reading the introduction. It was full of the same old Grizzard wit. And I got lost in the pages while my lovely wife called her Mom and Dad to tell them of the freaky incident, and to try to draw some crazy half-baked omen out of the one-in- a-couple-thousand coincidence of circumstance.

When supper was ready, I laid the book down on the couch and went to the table to help set up the girls for dinner. Ashley-Rae – who is the sweetest little blond seven year old in the world – picked my book up and started reading – at a seven year olds pace. She caught my attention with the question …

"Daddy, is Bugs Bunny really gay?"

I looked at little Ashley-Rae, and took the book from her. Grizzard was recounting what he claimed to be all the lies he ever wrote as a newspaper columnist. One of them was that Bugs Bunny was gay.

I laughed. And I didn't answer the question.

How many times do you remember Bugs dressing up in women's clothes to fool Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam? A lot. Lipstick and all.

And he "wasn't a bad looking dame" either.

"Yes, Ashley-Rae – Bugs is a very happy bunny".

After supper, I picked the book up again. And on the cover were two price stickers. The oldest one said $3.00. The newer one overlapping it said $1.00.

What a crime. What a shame, I thought to myself. Don't these people know what gold this book contains?

Then I thought again. What a bargain.

I went into the kitchen with the book, and gave Darlene a kiss on the cheek.

"You realize of course that you could have hidden this book from me and wrapped it up as a Christmas present, and it would have been easily one of my favorite – if not my favorite – present of the year, right?"

"Crap." Said my lovely wife Darlene. "I didn't think of that!"

"For the mere cost of a measly dollar, you could have tossed away my whole Christmas wish-list and simply bought me this book." I said to rub it in.

And I haven't seen that damned book since.

An Epiphany of Destiny

2009-10-17T17:35:00.002-04:00

Sometimes we see a destiny unfold before our eyes and we do not see it as destiny.

By destiny, I mean a predisposed purpose – a plan prepared for us that we have no choice to fulfill.

This morning as I was lying in bed – in that blissful period between waking up and sleeping, it dawned on me.

I was brought down here to Windsor from London to fulfill a purpose.

The problem is that when one has a destiny, you don't know what it us until it has unfolded. Taken place.

You see, I was living quite a lonely existence before then. Living alone in an apartment, only my work to define who I was.

But now, married with two little girls (and a wife who loves bingo!), I feel much more satisfied … content.

But I didn't see it coming.

And it happened so fast.

Within the course of a year.

Suddenly I am here – nine years later – working for a company of purpose … with purpose … for a purpose.

But what in the world is that purpose?

Was I supposed to have an impact or an influence on someone else, someone that would make a difference in the future events to unfold?

Perhaps.

Perhaps it's my own little girls – who would not even exist had I not been re-routed that fateful summer of 2000?

That makes sense.

Or am I the one who will make that impact, somehow, in some way? I don't know.

Am I supposed to go look for this destiny? Or will it find me, running into me like a speeding locomotive – forcing a reaction that makes a difference.

I think it will find me, that's why I was put here in this place – to be in position when the time arrives.

Or has it already arrived?

Has it already taken place and I am just too close to see it? Or it has just not yet unfolded far enough yet for me to recognize I did it?

Or am I crazy, simply trying to rationalize a series of random events into something meaningful, when in fact this is just the way life unfolds?

Truth be told, life is pretty good right now. I have a good little family in a nice little home and a job that has some meaning – and some potential for deeper meaning.

I choose my friends very carefully – and those I call friends right now are a wonderful bunch of individuals. In fact my lovely wife Darlene and I may be the catalyst for some of our friends to be friends with each other – and maybe the difference I make simply lays there?

But patience is something that I have always known. And patience has always paid off for me in the past. I am a very patient person – for the most part anyway.

The time will come, if it has not come already. But I hope the day will come when I recognize what that purpose is – and I hope that it will be an outcome I can be proud of.

All I know now is that my coffee is growing cold in the cup on the table beside me. Fall is falling and the deck is cold on Saturday mornings. But yet I sit here and continue to write my posts.

I write my posts for you to read.

Maybe it's you?

Maybe as you read this you will have an epiphany of your destiny – a life changing thought. An inspiration to move into a direction of great impact?

Maybe.

If it is you, do me a favor an let me know.

The suspense is killing me.

The Good Stuff

2009-10-12T11:46:00.004-04:00

It's a Monday. And I am once again sitting out on the back deck beside the pool with my faithful black lab Suzy lying at my feet.

Only today it is cold out.

The pool is covered by the new black tarp we bought to replace the last one Suzy ripped when she wandered out on to the tarp to get one of her chewy toys.

I dug my brown suede winter coat out, and my cup of warm coffee turns cold quickly.

The tree behind us has changed to a brilliant crimson red. Not many leaves have fallen yet, but some lay in the rain water collected in the black tarp.

Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada. A good long weekend perfect for finishing up the yard work projects on my property.

I have spent the last two days working on the yard, pulling weeds clearing the flower beds and trying to figure out how to make my lawn look as good as it once did using only the "green" fertilizer and weed-killer products available now to us in Canada.

They outlawed the good stuff.

That's what we all call the lawn fertilizers and weed killers we used to put on our lawns to keep them pristine and lush and full. The good stuff. You just can't buy that stuff anymore. The chemicals in those products were deemed to be hazardous to the environment.

A fellow came by in the spring to roll and dethatch my front lawn. As he was making his pitch for us to use his services all year long, he proclaimed "I only use the good stuff. I have it stockpiled in my barn".

My neighbor across the street has the best lawn in the neighborhood. Even as winter approaches his lawn is a deep rich green lush and full with not a single bad patch on the lot.

You kind of want to take your shoes off and go run around on this guy's lawn.

How does he do it?

I can see a bunch of riding lawn mower fanatics gathering over beers in a garage to discuss why the one neighbor's lawn looks so good.

"I hear he's using the good stuff", one would whisper.

"Really? Wonder where he gets his?" would reply the flannel shirt wearing buddy.

"Word is he gets it from the co-op!" would say the third.

"Let's go!" they would all mutually agree – and hop into the fourth guys pick-up truck to go investigate the underground network supply of good stuff fertilizers and weed killers, only to find the co-op had no such inventory.

At least none that they would share.

We have become quite used to depending on these products to make our properties look as good as we can. Now we will have to do it the old fashioned way – pulling weeds – making up concoctions from recipes we find on the internet to keep those nasty weeds and crabgrass at bay.

These concoctions could be more deadly than the environmentalist's claim the good stuff was.

Some urban centers are dealing with "meth labs" – people manufacturing their own methamphetamine – a nasty horrible addictive drug that seemingly destroys people's lives by merely thinking about it.

But in Canada, we will now also have homemade labs for making fertilizers, weed-killers and pesticides. To replace the good stuff we all became so dependent on.

The United States has not gone so far as to regulate these yard care products as Canada has. In fact I am not sure if all the other provinces in Canada even have.

It may only be Ontario that is trying to lead the way in the regulation of domestic fertilizers and weed killers.

I can see those same bunch of guys now – disappointed by their inability to get their hands on the good stuff from the local agriculture co-op – scheming and plotting their trip across the bridge or tunnel to the American side – a small lawn and garden shop in the suburbs of Detroit – to get their stash of the good stuff and smuggle it back into Canada – back into Ontario – hiding the massive pile in the flat bed of the pickup truck under a pile of blankets.

Nervously they pull up to the customs officer's booth on the Canadian side of the Ambassador Bridge.

"Do you have anything to declare?" the officer would ask the group of four suburban home owners.

"Uh – nope" would say the driver.

"Any guns, alcohol, firearms?"

"Nope".

"Any tobacco products, meats, vegetables?"

"Nope"

The officer steps outside the comfort of his secured roost in the booth and walks around the pickup truck.

"That's a lot of blankets." He would say. As he lifted the small pile up, he would discover the stockpile of the good stuff.

The boys would be told they couldn't bring such toxic products into Ontario – and the stockpile of the good stuff would be seized – the foursome warned not to ever try that trick again – and they would be sent home.

Is it right or wrong that these fertilizers and weed killers be banned from our province? I don't know.

But it does say something about our culture in that we feel the need to keep our lawns so perfect that we are willing to contaminate our environment – our ecosystem with these chemicals that must do some kind of harm to us and the wildlife that lives in suburbia.

Truth be told, I still have two bags of the good stuff. Left over from last year. I was smart enough to stock pile away.

But I haven't used it. I thought I would give this green experiment a try. And this year my lawn was so bad I was an embarrassment to the neighbors. Yesterday I pulled three big lawn bags of weeds from my front lawn. Weeds that I have no idea where they came from. Stuff that I have never seen grow in a lawn before. Four hours of back breaking bending, yanking and pulling. Even my super-duper weed pulling device I bought this spring couldn't get some of them.

So am I tempted to go dip into my stash of the good stuff?

Damn right I am.

One night next spring – around two in the morning, I will make sure all the lights are off in my house. I will go around to all my solar powered garden lights and disassemble them so they will not give me away. And in the pitch black of night I will feed my spreader with the good stuff and apply it to my lawn.

Because I think my lawn is addicted to the stuff.

And I can't stand to watch it go through another summer next year of withdrawal.

The Mighty Caseys of Detroit

2009-10-07T08:17:00.006-04:00

What a game.

The regular season playoffs against the Twins was one of the greatest games I ever watched.

One of them.

After twelve innings of play – the Twins squeaked in a run from second on a short fly ball to right field - a gork ... a dying quail that landed gently over base path from first to second – and the throw to the plate was not even close.

A real battle.

But you can read a recap of the game on any news service. You don't need me to replay it over for you.

I just don't have the heart to relive it all right now.

Maybe in December.

But if the truth be told, the better team won.

I wish it wasn't true.

The Detroit Tigers went on a power slide of a losing streak just when they needed to win the most.

They split two with Minnesota at Comerica, and then lost two of three to the White Sox – all in their home yard – Comerica Park.

I was at the final home game against the White Sox – the one they won. My Lovely wife Darlene and I were thrilled as the Tigers handily took the White Sox in the 162^nd contest of the 2009 season.

The Tigers had to win that game, and the Twins had to lose – but watching the scoreboard in right-center field – the Twins were just pounding the Royals 7-0.

That left the Twins and the Tigers tied for first place.

The following day, the day that was supposed to be the rest up day before the start of the playoffs against the Yankees, but instead became the limbo day before the single game playoff with the Twins.

News broke that morning that the Friday night before – superstar slugger and American League candidate for MVP Miguel Cabrera had been out drinking with friends from the White Sox - the opposing team we had to beat the next day and the day after that to secure the American League pennant - until five in the morning – and had an altercation with the missus as he drunkenly returned (somehow) to his house.

In Saturdays game – unquestionably still affected by the partying and the embarrassment of police intervention that forced Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski to Pick Cabrera up at a suburban Detroit police station – during that ever critical game that if won, the Tigers would have made the playoffs, Miguel Cabrera – superstar slugger and MVP candidate for 2009 went-oh- for four at the plate and looked like a wet rag.

But the Twins kept on pounding away. Chipping away at a lead that was once seven games with a month left, and was three games up with four to play – caught the Tigers on the 161st game of the season to finally force the single game elimination – at Minnesota's Metropolitan Dome – the dome from hell.

And of course after one of the most exciting twelve inning matches I ever witnessed – the Twins of Minnesota danced around the dome joyously as the AL Central Division pennant winners .

On that night – for the first time since May 10, the Tigers were no longer in first place.

We've all heard the poem "Mighty Casey". The last stanza sums it up:

Oh! somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville -- mighty Casey has struck out.

That about sums it up.

The Detroit Tigers – Start of the Playoffs or End of the Season?

2009-10-03T15:35:00.007-04:00

I'm sitting in the parking lot of our local community center.

My little girls are inside taking their weekly gymnastics class. They close the door on these sessions, so the parents can either sit in the lobby and wait, or go off to do their weekend chores while the kids are occupied.

I chose to sit in the jeep and listen to the radio.

And write. There's just not enough time to write anymore.

The talk on the sports radio station is spread across all the current happenings.

The University of Michigan is playing Michigan State University right now. A big deal across the river as both Big Ten conference teams are bitter rivals.

The Lions are playing tomorrow against the Chicago Bears. And some think the Lions have a chance to actually win.

But the big talk today is about the Tigers. My beloved Detroit Tigers are one game up in the AL Central over the Minnesota Twins. The Tigers are playing the Chicago White Sox. The Twins are playing the Kansas City Royals. And the American League Central pennant race is coming down to the wire, with tomorrow being the end of the regular season.

My lovely wife Darlene and I will be at that game tomorrow. We thought the game would be a mere formality – meaning nothing with the division already won by the Tigers. But it looks like it will be the make or break game of the season.

I know it's silly to care so much about a baseball team.

But I do.

Four weeks the Tigers had a seven game lead. But they failed miserably down this final stretch – most notably losing so many to the Twins both in the horrid Metropolitan Dome in Minneapolis – and in their own yard at Comerica Park.

I predicted in the first week of August that this scenario was not only possible – but likely. And now that prediction seems pathetically prophetic. You could see this scenario coming like a slow train on the prairies coming up to the depot. The land is so flat you can see the train coming the night befoe.

And flat is a great way to describe these Detroit Tigers.

These Tigers are playing almost as though they are scared to win. The pitching has been mediocre when it needs to be stellar. The hitting needs to be explosive but instead it's more of a fizzled out fuse. And the decisions made by Tiger's Manager Jim Leyland have been questionable to say the least.

While they have a one game lead with two to play, you can tell the fans have already determined the Twins will win this thing.

Of course I hope that's not true.

Darlene and I have not yet been to a game yet this year. Tomorrow is the game we chose, and we splurged on premium seats. The Tigers have held first place since May 10^th. To watch it slip away on this last game of the year, sitting in the expensive chairs, and having to drive home afterwards is unacceptable.

Today the Twins face Kansas City's ace Zack Greinke. This is the Royal's best opportunity to help the Tigers stave off the on-coming-like-a-freight-train Twins.

That's encouraging.

So who are the Tigers starting tonight against the White Sox?

A rookie named Alberto Figaro. Yes, like the operatic aria.

A rookie who has only pitched two games in the big leagues. They were both good outings, but hey – this game means something.

So this 2009 season seems to be closing down like a tragedy packed opera – staring who else but Figaro to sing what could be the final act.

I only hope the fat lady doesn't sing.

But Is Golf A Sport?

2009-09-20T11:56:00.005-04:00

The other day I was having a smoke at the office in the tiny shed we have allocated for those - like myself - who are addicted to nicotine.

In came one of my co workers – a young man who is by all accounts quite a college football fan.

During the course of our conversation, the question came up "yes – but is golf really a sport?"

"Golfers are not athletes" stated my young debating partner.

"Golf involves a precise movement of skill and agility to control the distance and aim over often substantial distances", I countered. "It ain't easy!"

"I don't consider any game you play while smoking a cigarette and maybe drinking a beer or two to be a sport!", countered my young elitist friend.

I stated my opinion that he was confusing sports with athletics, and my reasons why. And we left cordially agreeing to disagree.

My position on this topic has always been that the term "sports" has always been confused with the term "athletics". To me the matter has always been "what is the true definition of the term 'sports'"?

I have always defined sports as "the competition between two or more parties".

And I defined athletics as "the demonstration of a physical feat".

So by my definition – a spelling bee is a sporting competition. A weekly game of bridge would also be a sporting event. And yes, hitting a golf ball is a demonstration of an athletic feat.

The term "good sport" thereby meant one who competed fairly and never complained about the result of the matching of skill.

I always thought the word sport to be rather vague – and if you wanted to better categorize such sporting events – you would use terms "athletics" or "chance" – like a game of black jack - to better specify the type of competition.

But for all the debates, and for all my certainty that I was right in my stance – I never looked the words up in the dictionary or in the encyclopedia.

Until today.

The main definition of the word Sport comes closest to this explanation. This definition comes directly from the Merriam-Webster's dictionary:

"to amuse oneself : frolic <lambs sporting in the meadow> b : to engage in a sport"

Okay – nothing revealing about this. According to Merriam-Webster - it simply means to have fun.

So on to the Encyclopedia Britannica … how do they discuss the topic of Sport?

"physical contests pursued for the goals and challenges they entail. Sports are part of every culture past and present, but each culture has its own definition of sports. The most useful definitions are those that clarify sport's relationship to play, games, and contests. "Play," wrote the German theorist Carl Diem, "is purposeless activity, for its own sake, the opposite of work." Humans work because they have to; they play because they want to. Play is autotelic—that is, it has its own goals. It is voluntary and uncoerced. Recalcitrant children compelled by their parents or teachers to compete in a game of football (soccer) are not really engaged in sport. Neither are professional athletes if their only motivation is their paycheck. In the real world, as a practical matter, motives are frequently mixed and often quite impossible to determine. Unambiguous definition is nonetheless a prerequisite to practical determinations about what is and is not an example of play"

Encyclopedia Britannica: Sport

Well, that helps a little more.

But according the good German theorist Carl Diem – the term Professional Sports is a paradox, a contradiction unto itself?

I jumped over to Wikipedia to find out just who this Diem fellow is and why he is the authority used by such a prestigious reference as Encyclopedia Brittanica:

"Dr. Carl Diem (born June 24, 1882, Würzburg – December 17, 1962, Cologne) was a German sports administrator, and as Secretary General of the Organizing Committee of the Berlin Olympic Games, the chief organizer of the 1936 Olympic Summer Games (sometimes referred to as the "Nazi Olympics"). He created the tradition of the Olympic torch relay, and was an influential historian of sport, particularly the Olympic games."

Wikipedia: Carl Diem

Okay – Mr. Diem was a Nazi with a bias towards amateur athletics. (My apologies to any Nazi's out there who think my terminology is insensitive).

But no place do I see the a correlation to the athletic prowess of the competitors in a sporting competition.

So I hold true to my own self concocted definitions stated earlier – that sport is merely a competition – and will add only that it is truly sport when those competing enjoy the activity.

So golf indeed is a sport.

You play golf. You might work on your game in practice – but you actually play the game when you are on the course.

How many times have you heard a professional golfer say that they would quit playing the day it wasn't fun anymore?

Why would you play if it wasn't fun.

And in any case – who is going to look me in the eye and tell me that Tiger Woods is not an athelete?

Is golf a sport?

Damn right it is.

A Final Saturday Morning

2009-09-19T10:05:00.005-04:00

The days of summer are winding down here in the northern hemisphere of our great blue marble.

As I enjoy the last summer Saturday morning out on the back deck with my faithful black lab Suzy demanding my attention, the sky is clear, the umbrella on the patio table is up, and the water churns ever so gently gurgling a calming rippling sound.

There is not a cloud in the sky – and the sky is the perfect blue.

But it's chilly.

I dug the windbreaker out of my golf bag to sit on the back deck with a warm mug of coffee and a deep sense of appreciation for the beauty of the day.

Saturday mornings are so great in the summer.

There are two large maple trees on the border of the yard – just the other side of the wooden privacy fence that defines the borders of our property, and acts as an expressway thoroughfare for the squirrels in the neighborhood. One is still completely green and lush – with only the scarce leaf turning a slight tinge of yellow.

But the other is more than halfway through the autumnal change with a fiery red wine color dominating to signal summers near end.

Obviously the trees disagree.

Next Saturday it will be fall.

Autumn.

And I will be on my way north to play in the company's annual golf tournament. A reuniting of the foursome I played with two years ago, which I wrote about in a story I called "I love golf". I look forward to it, but I have not held a club in my hand since late June.

I hope they don't have any expectations.

Ahhh, warm creamy sweet coffee.

The following Sunday my lovely wife Darlene and I head over to Detroit for the last regular season Tigers game against the White Sox. We splurged, and got the really good seats. My hope was that this game would be a mere formality to wish the Tigers well as they start post season play as the American League Central champs. But Minnesota is only three games behind them in the standings now – and they are playing each other this weekend. They play the Tigers seven times before the end of the season, and the Twinkies are tough to beat.

So I am nervous – as I knew I would be when I wrote about this series in the first weeks of August in a story called "There's a Big Storm Brewing". The storm started with last night's opener in Minnesota's dome from hell. And the boys lost three to a lousy nothing.

But today I will enjoy the deck, and the final days of the pool – even though I have no desire to go swimming. The lawns need cutting, the gardens need weeding, and the cars need a good scrubbing and a heavy coat of wax to endure the soon to come winter weather.

The coffee sure tastes good.

Twenty Years And Counting

2009-09-12T20:55:00.004-04:00

My lovely wife Darlene constantly reminds me of her twenty years of medical experience.

She does. And it drives me nuts.

For every ailment that I endure – my lovely wife is there to care for me. It's a wonderful luxury to have such a medical expert at our avail.

But there have been many times in the duration of our matrimonial bliss that I have been forced to see a doctor or go to the walk in clinic – for things that are not issues worth medical attention – after being continually reminded by my registered nurse and lovely wife that she does indeed have twenty years of medical experience.

"That needs to be looked at …" may be the start of the conversation.

"It's nothing and it is not bothering me, it will go way", I commonly respond.

"Who is the nurse here", she will start. "Who has a medical degree with letters behind their name?", she will continue. "Who in this house has …"

"… twenty years of medical experience" , I will repeat back to her.

And then off I go to the doctor's office or clinic. And a morning is lost to a visit I didn't need to bother with.

So imagine my complete joy when my lovely wife Darlene, the Registered Nurse with letters behind her name and twenty years of medical experience – so I am told – made a startling discovery.

As you may recall from a prior story I have published here earlier this summer called "house full of kitty", we became the proud owners of two little kittens. A pair of female kittens my little girls named Misty and Spice Kitty. They were six weeks old and the offspring of a neighborhood stray.

We had taken the kittens to the vet for their vaccinations and had them registered. We had the paperwork – we had the expert look at the kittens – because the good veterinarian does indeed also have twenty years of veterinary medicine experience and has letters that follow his name.

One recent evening – upon returning home from the office – I found a salesman at the door discussing the state of the shingles on our eight year old home. As I worked my way between them to put away my briefcase and my car keys, I turned to find myself face to face with this persistent door to door agent of a local home renovations firm, working hard at his task to inform me my eight year old shingles – rated good for twenty years – were shoddy looking in comparison to those of my neighbors.

"My lawn is not as good as theirs either", I argued.

"I can't help you with that, but our metal shingles for the low cost of thirty thousand dollars …."

A shriek came from the family room downstairs. I was certain that my lovely wife Darlene had also heard this amazing low discount price.

In seconds my lovely wife came hurrying up the stairs, and I thought she was coming to my aide to help usher this lunatic out of our house … but I was wrong.

Darlene - a medical professional with twenty years experience, and letters after her name – was holding the kitten named Misty. She was carrying her as if she had just peed on the floor - under her kitty armpits – her underbelly facing me.

"Well don't let her pee on me too!", I shouted stepping back.

Dar turned to the lunatic roofing salesman and shouted "Look! Look!"

So we both looked.

"He has gonads!" she screamed.

"He?", I was surprised.

"He!" she screamed again. "Look".

"Huh", said the lunatic salesman, amused by my lovely wife's concern. "So you thought you had a female?"

"Yes!" she screamed again. "But look!"

"She's a he alright" I answered.

The salesman looked at me. "How did you not realize this was a male cat?".

"I never had a reason to look", I replied. "You see my wife is a …"

"I have papers from the vet that say Misty is a female!" interrupted my professionally registered wife. She dropped Misty to the floor who landed on her … his … feet and ran into the living room. Darlene shuffled through a drawer beside the fridge and took out a piece of paper.

"There! There see! Misty is a female!" she said a bit more defensively than I expected.

"So now Mr. Brill, this DVD will explain all the details …" said the salesman, returning his focus to the matter at hand.

"So
let me ask you…", I turned to the salesman, "… how many years have you been selling metal roofing?"

"Why I am proud to tell you I have successfully satisfying people's roofing needs now for twenty years." He held out a card with his name on it, and behind his name were some letters.

"I bet you have", I smiled. "Thank you sir, I will examine this DVD with all sincere investigation. But as you can see, we have quite an urgent kitty gender confusion issue that we must deal with immediately so I thank you for your time and we will likely be In contact with you soon, I have your card right here…", and I successfully shuffled the salesman out the front door to the porch, and closed the door behind him.

"A kitty gender confusion issue?", asked my still stunned lovely registered nurse of a wife with twenty years of medical experience to her name.

"Yes, my dear".

"But the vet said …"

"Yes dear".

So for the last several weeks I have had quite a bit of fun reminding my wife of the duration of her medical experience and her apparent inability to tell a girl from a boy. I will savor this event for decades yet to come, anytime my own judgment of my own medical condition is questioned by my lovely wife Darlene.

What a glorious day.

And now we call the kitten "Mister".

Could it be? The Detroit Tigers Are Six Games Up?

2009-09-06T13:29:00.009-04:00

Could it be?

I seem to have to keep looking at my newspaper this morning.

The sports section. The Major League Baseball standings tucked in the top left corner of the second page of the sports section.

There, in black and white – with the authority of an official news organization behind – sits the standings of the American League Central.

My beloved Detroit Tigers are leading the American League Central division by six games.

Holy mackerel!

I have watched every game on television or listened to every game on the radio. So I don't know why I am in such a state of disbelief. Joyous disbelief, but disbelief all the same.

Pat Caputo is on the radio again this morning urging people to finally believe in this team. With a team leading their division by six with twenty seven left to play. The magic number now set to twenty two games – combinations of Tigers Wins – or losses of Minnesota and Chicago. Pat can't understand why Tiger fans have been hesitant to believe the Tigers will win the American League Central pennant and have a spot in the 2009 playoffs.

Well, to start with, the Tigers were supposed to be a poor team this year – chosen by the pundits of national sports to finish near the bottom of the division. But we Tiger fans knew the boys wearing the old English D were not as bad as they appeared to be last year – when they did finish in the basement after being picked by those same national media pundits to win the World Series.

We knew our starting pitching rotation would not stink this year like they did last year. We knew guys like Polanco, Inge, Guillen, and Thames would step up to fill the shoes of game-by-game heros when our superstars like Cabrera, Ordonez, Granderson, and Verlander faltered. And we knew that the Tigers farm system was deep enough to supply great temporary support by sending up newcomers like Raburn, Thomas, and Avila would step into roles and play significant parts – before we even knew their names.

But the problem was the Tigers couldn't win on the road.

Their road record was atrocious until the last two away game series. They hadn't won a road series since May, until taking the Angels in Anaheim last week and know their current series with the Tampa Bay Rays this weekend. The final game of that series about to start in a few minutes.

But while the Tigers played poorly on the road, the Minnesota Twins and Chicago White Sox played worse.

Nobody beats Tampa Bay at Tropicana field.

But the Tigers have. And came from behind to do so.

The bats that were quiet are now awake.

The players that were slumping in clutch situations are now getting key hits. The pitching – when failing – has received enough run support to surpass the opposition. The defense has been tighter – and the Tigers Catchers – Laird and Avila – have been surpising in their ability to handcuff base runners by throwing laser accurate ropes to second – to the perfect spots where the runners slide into waiting gloves of Polanco, Everette, and Santiago.

A new confidence has arisen from the Tigers when they sit in the visiting dugouts.

If they score first they taunt the opposition to catch them if they can. If they fall behind in the course of a game, they charge back with determination and conviction to take the lead in the eighth or ninth innings.

And Tigers closer Fernando Rodney gives you tingles of fear comparable to a bungee jump made at a county fair – walking men or giving up hits to allow the tying run coming to the plate – only to get the poor bastard to swing at strike three and get out of the self-imposed jam. Rodney has scared us to death with every save opportunity appearance – but the statics show that in thirty something such opportunities – he has only let one slip through his split fingers.

But I am superstitious when it comes to baseball. I believe in jinxes.

And so that is why I still hesitate to declare decisively as Pat Caputo insists – that the Tigers will win the AL Central division.

Six game leads seem like a lot. Especially in September.

But there is a very scary road trip coming up – to visit both Minnesota and Chicago – at fields they don't typically do well in … so I reserve my right to hedge my complete and utter faith in the Tigers winning the pennant. Six games can dwindle quickly – especially if Minnesota and Chicago get hot too.

So I am still nervous. That's what makes a true pennant race like this one so exciting. I am hopeful – and trying desperately to be faithful. But I don't yet know for sure where things will sit when the fat lady sings in the first week of October.

I do know this. I will be at that final regular season game in October – against the White Sox. And whether it is a game of formality to simply cheer the Tigers into the post season – or whether it comes down to that final game to win our way into the post season – I don't know.

But it will be a great day that day.

Perhaps I will venture up to the press box to track down Caputo – and shake his hand – and share with him how truly great this season has been – pretending to be a pizza delivery guy – or a writer for the Schwartzville Times – Gazette – and simply point a thumbs up at him as he keys in his thoughts on the season.

Who knows.

But it has been a terrific ride that I hope continues strong for another twenty seven game days.

And I can honestly state that I am now a true believer – with only the fear that I am jinxing my beloved Detroit Tigers.

Could it be?

Yes it could.

Finding Our Way

2009-09-06T10:35:00.006-04:00

The world is full of people that want to tell you what you can do, and what you can't.

Some are people who sit in stations in life that you might perceive to be above you. They certainly perceive their station to be above you.

Some are peers who simply can't help but give you their opinion of you as constructive advice.

Some are people that feel they must put you in your place.

Some are people that truly care about you – deeply - and want to help you avoid making the mistakes they have made.

In this list of people, I find only the latter to be worthy of consideration.

If you can weed out those people who truly care about you, then listen closely to their advice. You don't have to take it, but you certainly have to consider it.

I take their consultations seriously, for in many cases they may also have a stake in the paths I choose, and the outcomes those paths lead me to. They will be travelling these new unknown paths with me, and they will share equally in the rewards that result.

That is why it is so important to surround yourself with positive passionate people in your life – whose values closely match your own.

The people that I truly admire in this world are those that followed their dreams – undaunted by those who told their dreams could not be fulfilled.

It takes a certain discipline to move forward while others around you shout loudly how mistaken or foolish you are for choosing the path you're taking after you have committed to that direction.

In this lifetime, there is really so little time.

In the blink of an eye – opportunities we may think will exist forever evaporate like the morning dew of late summer, there until the sun moves overhead to absorb it back into the air.

We have to take these opportunities as they present themselves to you. You have to pounce on them quickly and decisively. Commit to them with the passion that brought them to your attention to begin with – for the next moment – they may be gone.

I would like to tell you that I am a rational man. Rationale with clearly thought out plans – drawn out into neatly diagramed specifications – each line clearly labeled to denote the relationships of each component of a solution to the problem at hand. In my profession this is true, but in life – my diagrams in my mind are much less detailed. But in my mind – as I think about the future moves that I will make in my life, I have only boxes to signify desires – passions – the things I would like to accomplish. And like a poorly designed system – these boxes that depict future ambitions often have no lines drawn between them to map out the avenues that I will take to move from one to another.

The future often seems to hold two possible paths.

One that is the series of clouds and black boxes that we have not yet drawn the lines between yet – let alone put a label to for clarity of the approach to reach each one.

The other is that path that looks quite clear – only because we have travelled it for some time already, and the line continues straight on to the horizon – with little changing – with few curves or forks in the road forcing decisions.

Perhaps the safest path to take moving forward is to stay on the straight line of known outcomes as long as needed until we find the opportunity to move closer to the paths with no lines yet drawn – and hope the lines will appear as the goals and objectives move closer into view. Perhaps the lines will be labeled like street signs, to give us confidence the roads we find ourselves on are the right roads to travel.

Perhaps.

To move in such a new direction takes confidence in our abilities.

But it also requires the odd leap of faith.

And as we know that each step we take forward to move towards such disparate goals and objectives – faithfully and confidently – we have to believe that we are absolutely right in our conviction – and know that self-doubt is but a passing milestone as we continue our journey – and that doubt will also evaporate as we near our destination.

Along the way the naysayer's voices will sound louder as we encounter them. Their consternation more biting as our confidence starts to waver, more convincing as our commitment comes into question.

But hopefully you, as I have been so fortunate, will have those that truly care about you cheering you forward and urging you on to make that next step. To go where the naysayers declare you have no place to be. They will drown out those chants of "you're not good enough" or "you must be crazy for thinking you can do that" with their own encouragements of "just a little further now" and "you must work harder now, you're almost there!".

I have had the experience in life to have made some of these journeys already. I have had more than several occasions where my leaps of faith have taken me to better places than I was before. They have brought me now to a place of contentment with a beautiful wife and two lovely little girls. To a beautiful home. A loving family.

But again this need to take yet another leap of faith will soon stare me in the face. And this time my family will join me – so there is more at stake than to simply follow my own heart. I must also ensure that their needs are being met, that their goals and objectives are as equally included in my decision making as my own.

Because they are my voices of confidence now. Their voices will cheer me on past the naysayers who have already come out of the woodworks to try to deflate my ambitions. And they need also to feel the reward of where I am going – even though I know not truly where that destination exactly is ... just yet.

This time we will be going there together – and when we arrive – after the long series of little steps along the way are behind us – we will look back together and realize we are there.

The destination is merely the outcome.

The journey is a road of new experience we will obtain as we approach the destination. And life is comprised of journeys – not destinations. And each step of this journey – as small as most steps will be – will each add to the legacy of experience that defines us.

We will be judged by how we travelled the journey through life – not by the destinations we reach. And I have a wonderful collection of travelling companions. Companions who - with their love and shared commitment - will drown out the shouts of the naysayers.

And I will need their support every step of the way. And they will need mine.

Because the world is full of people that want to tell you what you can do, and what you can't.

Staying Canadian

2009-09-02T08:45:00.002-04:00

Recently – through facebook of all places – I have had the wonderful experience of reconnecting with a lot of my old high school friends.

And they tell me that they have enjoyed very much my stories of being a teenager in Lawrenceville, Georgia, and my adventure of moving back to the Great White North.

But – as they are Americans – and proud to be so – they often ask me why I stayed in Canada after school.

America is the land of opportunity you know.

I returned to Canada – as I have said before – simply to go back to school yet again – to get the education – to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I knew I didn't want to slug it out doing the hard work I did in Louisiana, delivering electrical supplies to all corners of that odd and interesting state, or managing grocery stores – and especially not digging any more damned ditches.

So I returned to Canada, land where I was born but had left when I was three years old. I was a Canadian citizen – but I was not really Canadian.

The personal computer had just arrived, but had not yet made its niche on every office desk like it is today. People were just trying to figure this new version of technology out. And I found that I understood the concepts of the mainframe and mini computers – their roles – how they worked – and how they fit into the schemes of what was then called data processing.

So I studied hard for several years – occasionally slipping back into those youthful desires to have too much fun – which got me in so much trouble in my previous attempts at achieving a higher education.

But my Uncle Fred – a wonderful man who I miss dearly now – and who I can never pay high enough tribute to – had this time instilled a work ethic in me.

"Keep your eyes and ears open – and your big mouth shut!" I was told over and over again.

I still have not learned that lesson.

After the second year of school, I was fortunate enough to land what was called a Co-op" position with Revenue Canada – in their headquarters in Ottawa, right across the street from the Parliament buildings – the very seat of the federal Canadian government. The Canadian version of the American House of Representatives.

On a fairly frequent basis, as part of my duties, I would deliver documents and reports to the Minister of Finance or a Deputy Minister in charge of this and that and what-not.

One of my Mom's cousin's – therefore a cousin of mine I suppose – was a gentlemen who represented the riding of Owen Sound – Mr. Stan Darling.

Cousin Stan had held that seat for a good number of years – as conservative as conservatives can be... in Canada – and was often seen on television standing just behind then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in Parliament sessions – and as the Prime Minister would speak – cousin Stan - sitting right behind the Honourable Prime Minister - would holler things like "here here" and "that's right" – in unison with his colleagues seated on both sides – pounding their fists on the table, face red and jowls jiggling.

A true back bencher.

"You should go visit your cousin Stan", Ma would tell me from her nice warm Pensacola paradise in Florida. "Just to say hi, and to tell him I said hi too".

So I tried, but he would never see me. Later at a family reunion, Uncle Stan claimed to my Ma that he had no idea I was in Ottawa, let alone trying to stop by to say hi.

Politicians are politicians – no matter what land you live in.

Canada, as you probably should know if you don't already, is a bilingual country. The French Canadians and the English have for years struggled in cooperating with each other. The best government jobs go to those who are bilingual, so mostly the French – who had little option but to learn English – hold the best cival servant positions.

So picture if you will – a young good old boy named Fred, still talking with a thick southern drawl, still driving his favorite little Mazda 626 with Louisiana license plates – still planning on returning to the sunny south of Florida when his degree was earned – totally French illiterate to say the least - working in a French Canadian office environment where French is the predominant language.

I made very few friends.

A beautiful girl in our office named Sylvie – who spoke only French when I was around – despised me. My nickname to her was not a French name I can repeat.

I understand it is a vulgar term .

In a second work term, I actually worked across the Rideau river in Hull Quebec. My luck there was better, but still not one that made me feel … welcome.

So I returned the following Fall to London. School started up and I had a very good school year.

My grades were all A's with the odd B here an there. When that semester was over, I decided to fly down to Pensacola to visit my Mom and Dad for Christmas.

Uncle Fred drove me to the Airport in Detroit. We crossed at the Windsor bridge – and I was pulled into customs for questioning. They examined my bags – and they asked for my identification – proof of citizenship. I pulled out my little green card – the one I had been carrying since I was three.

My picture was still that of a three year old boy.

A heavy set African American lady was the customs officer inspecting me. She watched as I pulled my green card out of my wallet and handed it to her.

"What was that in your wallet?" she asked.

Caught off guard – I held my wallet open. She pointed to my old security card from Revenue Canada – Customs and Excise. She recognized the logo. I pulled it out of my wallet and handed it to her.

"That's my security card from Revenue Canada in Ottawa", I said politely and proudly. "I worked up there on a co-op job for my schooling".

She looked at me, and her face went so sad. She told me that the terms of living in Canada and retaining my American green card meant I was not supposed to work in Canada.

"But … how was I supposed to survive if I couldn't work?" I asked. "This was part of my schooling – I had to take a co-op job for this program – for this degree!"

She actually started to sob, and told me she was so sorry she had to do this – that she wished she didn't.

I simply looked at my watch and knew I had to catch my plane.

In that blink of a moment, as this very sweet lady with a downtown Detroit accent cut up my green card while crying – I made the decision that I was going to stay in Canada after school.

Canada would be my home. I would be a Canadian.

I had already been honorably discharged from the United States Coast Guard for being Canadian. And I never really had any luck making anything work in the States.

So I thanked the lady. "Please don't be upset", I said. "You helped me make a decision I had been wrestling with."

She really was a very nice lady, and she felt much more horrible about this tragedy than I did.

I took my bag and my wallet and I turned to my horrified Uncle Fred who could not believe what had just happened, and we left for the airport.

In the car, Uncle Fred turned to me and said yet again, "how many times have I told you to keep your eyes and ears open and your big mouth shut!".

This time I looked at Uncle Fred and said, "It's all for the best".

America may be the land of opportunity, but it was clear to me that day that America didn't really want me there.

So I am a Canadian. And proud to be so.

Too Soon

2009-08-29T09:31:00.003-04:00

It's a chilly summer morning in Windsor.

The sky is full of grey fluffy clouds that lead one to think rain could come at any moment. But then the sun pops through.

The coffee is extra good this morning, warm and rich – offsetting the cool breeze.

I do make good coffee, if I may say so myself.

The water in the pool is swirling turbulantly, powered by the filter pump – and I can hear the slight rippling sound amid the chirps of birds and the wind in the trees. And my faithful black lab Suzy lying on the deck at my feet – grumbling as only dogs can grumble as a bee buzzes her nose.

The large elm tree in Ernie's yard behind ours is starting to turn orange and yellow in one of it's corners.

Oh no. Say it isn't true.

Fall is coming. It can't be helped. It can't be stopped. It will slowly emerge, gradually taking over from summer. It has already begun its seasonal invasion.

My little girls have one more week of freedom before school starts. The next weekend to come is the long Labor Day weekend. Then the school busses come out of summer hibernation and begin making their weekday morning scheduled rounds.

I'm not a winter person.

And for that reason alone, I do not look forward to fall. I don't even look forward to Labor Day long weekends.

But there are things about this fall that I am looking forward to.

In the last weeks of September we will implement a pretty cool project into production. We have been working on this fine piece of digital surgery – integrating new functionality into a complex system – since early July. Some IT departments may stage something like this over the course of a year, but we are managing to accomplish it in the short course of two months. And nobody missed their vacation time in the process.

Not yet anyways.

My Detroit Tigers are in first place in the American League Central Division. They have a four-and-a-half game lead over those troublesome Minnesota Twins. The Twins have just overtaken the Chicago White Sox for second place – and they will have ample opportunity to make a run at my Tigers. The Twins always seem to be in the hunt in September.

So my Tigers are keeping me anxious.

The Turtle Club – the infamous little league organization from around the corner from our house – sits quiet now. No screams of encouragement coming from the distant diamonds of the immaculate green facilities – so pristine to me that they remind me of the baseball version of the Augusta National golf course. The green and white wooden scoreboards at the end of each diamond still populated with numbers by hand – no silly iconic Coca-Cola orange digital numbers at the Turtle Club – that would be blasphemous.

And a great season they had as well at the Turtle Club, sending teams out to win various divisions, provincial and national titles. Our boys major team missed going to the Little League World Series in Williamsport by one single game. The Turtle Club is a fantastic representation of Canadian baseball.

The company golf tournament is coming up. I have only played two rounds this summer. What a crime. I actually shot two over par on the back nine of my last round. But my clubs have sat idle – probably wondering why I don't love them anymore.

We have had very few visitors this year. No visits from my mother from Florida. No visits from our wonderful friends Ray and Shell from Ireland. Just the odd pop-over from friends – which were wonderful. Since Tina and Bill moved from Windsor to Miami, our back yard has been silent. They are enjoying the diving and underwater photography opportunities of the reefs and coastal waters around the southern tip of Florida.

No winter for them. Lucky buggers.

Today Glenn and Martina are down visiting from Collingwoord - a little hamlet of paradise sitting at the most southern point of Georgian Bay - a five hour drive on the best of days. But it's too cold to take a dip in the tropical waters of Windsor.

Where has this summer gone? And why does it seem like it just popped in for a short stay of a couple of weeks rather than the normal four solid months of years gone by?

Our beautiful back yard has been enjoyed mostly by our own little family of four. And we have it so nice back here this year. Flowers of purples and oranges and reds and pinks and whites – only for our own enjoyment it seems.

In other years we have had visitors for weeks at a time – adding the holiday flavor to the summer. But this year, we have been pretty much to ourselves. Not on purpose. It just seems to have worked out that way.

In the garage, there is a stack of small pre-cut pieces of wood. When assembled it will be an Adirondack chair meant to sit prominently in the center of the upper tier of the deck that surrounds the pool. The project was started by my lovely wife Darlene – who is intent on building this chair and painting it herself. But now the small wooden pieces will have to be dusted off before assembly. The chair did not make if for this summer.

Maybe if summer could stay just a little bit longer. Just long enough so that I could get sick of it. Just hot enough so I could look forward to the cool breezes of autumn.

But not this year.

A Lunch With Great Friends

2009-08-28T08:11:00.005-04:00

Today I am having lunch with old friends.

People I worked on a contract with for seven years.

I was the "new" guy, as the rest had worked on this contract for fourteen years total.

This lunch is occurring because one of the team members moved to British Columbia when the contract ended. He was chasing his dream of living out west. But a family matter brings him back to Windsor for a week.

I received his email last week through facebook.

The very reason I ever started using facebook was so that I could keep in touch with this fellow. For that period we worked together we became very good friends. His wife actually sold us the house we live in today.

So I created a facebook account, and so did he. We agreed to do this during a night on the town in Toronto while both there on business for different reasons. Pat created one to.

So Pat was my very first contact on facebook. But I never ever talked to him on there.

Within the course of a couple of days, my friends list on facebook grew to a huge number of people I have known in all parts of the continent that I have lived. High school friends I had thought about and tried to contact using more primitive means but failed suddenly showed up on facebook.

Poof. Instant contact.

But no Pat.

If you were to look at my friends list, you would see a long list of pictures of smiling faces. All but Pat. His was still the grey silhouette – only his name beside it, with no activity.

As time passed on, and things changed, Pat's profile remained empty. And I was talking to friends from Lawrenceville, Minneapolis, Baton Rouge, London , Toronto, and Ottawa. My list continued to expand with friends from Dublin Ireland and the U.K.

But still no Pat.

Last week – I received an email. It said that Pat had added me as a friend on facebook.

I logged into facebook later that evening. There was a picture of Pat with his lovely wife and two children.

"Who the hell was that other guy?", I wondered.

So I wrote a note to the grey faced silhouette also named Pat.

A reply came back. "Wow, I had no idea I even had this account!". Indeed it was Pat.

In the days of that contract, we had a long standing tradition Fridays to that our team would go out together for lunch. There was a little Irish pub down the road from the office called Murphy's. We would go and sit and have great conversation while having a pint. The food was pretty mediocre, but we didn't really go to Murphy's for the food.

We went for each other's company.

Today we will all meet up again for lunch. But Murphy's is only an empty shell on a street corner. Instead we will meet up at an old roadhouse tavern on the outskirts of town, similar in atmosphere to Murphy's – but not Murphy's.

Pat will be there, and so will the few of us remaining at the company after the contract. And Roseanne will be there as well – who I used to tease by showing her pickle jars – asking her if we could keep her brain full of adjudication rules in there – because we would never learn all that she knew about that process.

And Crazy Roy will be there. I call him Crazy Roy out of respect, because the man is indeed a genious in my book – but slightly past the edge of eccentricity. I learned an awful lot from Crazy Roy, who was famous for his long grey beard and hair pulled back into a pony tail. Truly one of the most unique individuals I have ever met.

It will be good to be there with them all again. To sit and listen to them chat. To hear about what they are working on.

To feel that warmth of lost camaraderie.

A lot of workplace teams have lunch together on Fridays, or they get together for drinks on a chosen night – like paystub Thursdays. These are great experiences that build stronger teams – more committed to each other – more passion developing for what they do together.

But this team was the most passionate team I have ever had the pleasure of being a part of.

Perhaps at lunch I will suggest to those of the team not on facebook to join. And I will explain to them that we could create a group in facebook , and call it Murphy's. And we could find a time when we could all meet inside there and chat – the page decorated like the old Irish pub, maybe even post a picture of the old menu.

And maybe they would come. And chat.

But it wouldn't be the same. Not like sitting there at the old round table – elbows wet from the sweat of the pint glass as we laugh and talk about what's going on.

But it would never be the same.

Social networking has its place. It has its function. But it will never replace the camaraderie of really good friends sitting at a table – having a pint and a bite and the chatter and the laughs.

So today I will cherish this lunch. Because you can never be sure that you can all be together like that again.

Inspiring Passion

2009-08-23T10:43:00.006-04:00

The new social aspects of the Internet have had me puzzled for some time.

How close can you get to maintaining friendships through facebook?

What is the real value of YouTube?

What the hell do you use Twitter for?

Do any of these tools help us strengthen relationships with the people we already know?

Do they help us make new friends – real friends – and not just new names on a screen we become familiar with?

I'm starting to figure this out.

My first conclusion was simple – "these are the new toolsets we have at our avail. They are only as effective as how we use them".

They're an extension of the tools we had already in email, instant messaging, books and magazines, and personal video recording camera and players.

We will all fashion these tools to use them to suit our needs. We will integrate these components into our lives. And perhaps we will integrate our lives into these components.

We will pick who we want to keep track of, by adding them as friends or by becoming fans of them in facebook, We can follow their updates – or tweets – on Twitter.

But that is too simple – the question is much deeper than that.

Why then are these tools having such a seemingly greater impact on society than even the tools we had before them?

I have found that I use facebook for keeping contact with people from my past and present that I care about. I use Twitter for searching out people that I can learn from. Both facebook and Twiitter will point me to blogs with more deeper richer content, like Ian Aspin's ReallyGoodThinking .

I write my headstuffing blog posts because I have a passion for writing, and I learn to be a better writer with each post – at least I hope I do.

Ian Aspin has been very interesting lately as he is delving into various impacts that these same social medias have had on our culture – both European and North American.

Yesterday, Ian inspired me with a simple tweet on Twitter – a text message to the world of no more than one hundred and forty characters long.

Yesterday, Ian sent out a Twitter tweet, simply thanking two people for inspiration for a series he is doing on the BBC's Radio 4 Sunday Morning show. Since Ian is a man I draw inspiration from, I was quite interested to see who Ian draws his inspirations from.

The first person was a former silicon valley dot.net entrepreneur from the first wave of the dot.com boom. Andrew Keen – since the dawn of this second wave of internet social tools have emerged – has written and spoken at length about the cautions and debates the world needs to hold about social media content – summing them up in a book called "The Cult of the Amateur".

The foundation of this book by Mr. Keen is that the new media – led by bloggers like me and posters of homemade video to sites like YouTube undermines our existing foundations for truly talented writers, authors, and truly talented video producers and such. He goes into great depth to defend this argument – exposing the already known truth that you cannot simply take internet content – using the known frailties of sites like Wikipedia and their unsupervised ability to allow anyone to post "facts" - and accept it as fact – and in the end, it becomes very difficult to discover talent or truth in the ocean of inane content.

Mr. Keen is a marvelous writer – and spells out his points and positions with great passion and vernacular elegance.

However his passion to dispel the new social medias rang out to be as loud as a Michael Moore pseudo-documentary – hell bent on proving his point and failing in such a loud voice that in my opinion it weakened his argument.

Now I am certain the Mr. Keen would be horrified that I compared him to Michael Moore. And rightly so should he take me to task – I would immediately apologize. His work was clearly much more thought out and not nearly as exaggerated as Moore's "Sicko" or "Bowling for Columbine".

But his passion struck me. And his conviction to what he believed moved me.

Which then led me to Ian Aspin's second receiver of tweeted appreciation. Patrick Dixon.

Patrick Dixon describes himself as a futurist. He sees trends and patterns in places some would not look. He inspires by a personality of seemingly natural leadership composed primarily of a positive passion. Mr. Dixon, like me, sees the existing tools like facebook and twitter and blogs as the current stepping stone on a long path to our social evolution.

It is what it is.

But there was that word again …

Passion.

So I found a video on YouTube – the very site stated by Mr. Keen to be so swamped with untalented drivel and amateurish efforts – of Patrick Dixon delivering an entire motivational lecture to a group of public service workers from a city in Wales. The whole lecture!

I watched that entire lecture on YouTube as though I were a member of some week long seminar in Wales – with the absolute pleasure of seeing Mr. Dixon deliver the best keynote session I had ever witnessed.

So moving that I was ready to sell my house in Ontario, move to Wales and become a public servant.

Ok, not quite – but I learned so much from his lecture on leadership, and inspiring those that you work with – simply by holding your passions deep, and taking the interest in who you work with – as well as using tools such as demographics to trend a guided path to lead your troops passionately and sincerely on a path all are convinced is for the betterment of your teams goals.

So what did I come away from this single day of looking for truth and direction?

The answer is passion. The underlying desire to make things better!

Between these three individuals – all highly educated – all well respected – all persons of conviction in their quest to help lead society to a better place – the lowest common denominator was passion.

"Hey … I have that same passion too!", I said to myself as my epiphany unveiled itself before my very eyes.

We all do.

As I sat and thought about it more, I realized that I go out of my way to surround myself with passionate people.

My lovely wife Darlene is an excellent registered nurse, driven by her passion to ensure people receive the best medical attention possible.

The best people that I work with and am friends with are those that our passionate not only about what their role in their positions – but how they can help our company excel at our prime directive of enhancing the common good.

The best friends that I have are people passionate about their personal interests such as underwater photography, sailing, or even playing golf.

My favorite Detroit sports journalist, Pat Caputo, is so good because he is so passionate about sports and the area that he serves in Detroit and his desire to enhance peoples appreciation of both.

So what is the value of these new social medias like facebook, twitter, blogs, and YouTube?

You can use these mediums to spread your passion. To help inspire a world full of people like yourself, those that you know, and those you have not yet met, looking just as hard as you are to learning more about how to satisfy their passions to make things in their world – our world - better.

In the course of a day yesterday, these social media tools allowed me to uncover the tip of the iceberg to even more fantastic people, thoughts, concepts.

Passions.

Perhaps even a better world.

Nearing The End Of The Old School Workplace

2009-08-15T11:45:00.002-04:00

Yo, word up.

My little girls don't think their Dad is very cool.

Dude.

Do I want to be seen as 'cool' in my little girls' eyes?

No. I want to be Dad the authority figure. The guy that Mom refers to when the kids are bad and she states "wait until your father comes home!"

But Dad can't be the authority figure.

Father holds the authority.

Dad is the guy who plays kick ball and throws them for flips in the pool.

But I am starting recognize that I have to be able to wear these two faces – with complete sincerity – at a moments notice.

So I am trying to bridge this new version the generation gap.

When we are playing on the Wii and they actually beat me – I have to be able to say to them "Oh no you did-n".

When do something really good, I have to respond with "BAM!".

Or sometimes "SNAP!".

So do I like talking that way? No. But it is becoming a necessity to reach inside what are becoming young girls minds – and speak their language.

I can't "dig their scene" – that was my generation, as groovy as it was. I have even caught myself holding my fingers in a V shape across my chest with my thumb up – saying "peace out" on the way out the door on my way to work.

But Father still has to speak plain clear concise instructions with no hip-hop inflections at all.

"I said put down the crayons and go to your room now young lady!"

I can't look at them and say "don't you be dis-n me!". It just doesn't work.

My older daughter Alannah – in her complete wisdom at the ripe age of eight – thinks she is pretty cool. I can hear and see the 'new west coast valley-girl' attitude already happening. She will stand there when she is mad – looking straight at me pursing her lips and her eyes in an angry glare as she struts her head from side to side like a bad Jennifer Lopez impression as she 'snaps me a Z'. In Canada – it would be a Zed –which doesn't carry the same weight at all.

I'm raising a couple of little J-Lo's. And I can't stop it – so I might as well go with the flow.

"Did you just snap a zed at me young lady?" I reply as Father. "Oh no you did-n! You can talk to the hand little girl!" I say as I accidentally slip into Dad. "You get in your room and clean that mess up!" says Father. "And don't be hate-n!".

As you can probably tell, I haven't yet perfected this skill of transition.

Now I realize this doesn't sound very masculine. But when you're the man in a house full of women – you have to acclimate. And you have to remember to lift the seat.

But I can't let Dad show up at work. I have to be Professional-Guy at the office, which is not as fun. Sometimes at the office I have too much fun. Ask anyone I work with.

But someday in the near future this might change.

Right now in my department, we are looking for a new programmer. It is a junior position. Ideally this new hire would be a young person for this role that can grow and mature with us.

But the younger people that my colleague is interviewing are of this same generation and influence as my daughters.

He'll probably be named Zeke or Mango. His pants will hang across the crack of his butt with his designer fruit of the looms exposed.

But I can imagine in ten years, as I am in my late fifties, sitting in a room full of early-twenty-somethings and holding a meeting that goes something like this:

"Yo word". I will start.

"Word", they will all reply.

"We have to make some changes to the holographic image translation service. So we are bustin' up into possies to optimize our productivity". I say pointing to the hologram chart projected over the round table floating in the air. I reach in and point at one of the team charts which makes it expand into focus.

"Mango, you'll be rolling with Ashton and Charity".

"Dude", would say Mango.

"Don't be hate-n", I will reply as I look at him over the rim of my bifocals. "Yo word to yer mother. You're a team of skilled individuals, and you will be professionals".

Charity would stand up and snap a Z at Mango.

Ashton would interrupt and say "Chill y'all".

"But that ain't how I roll", will reply Mango.

"Snap" will say Ashton.

I won't be able to discipline this new generation, as the laws of that day will require us to be much more tolerant of employee behavior. And we will require their new skill sets to achieve this holographic translator that I can't even imagine a use for now.

So I'll be stuck.

At that point, I will have lost this group – and I will have to reconsider my resource allocation in my project plan. Because the peeps in this one possy will simply not work together.

Good greif.

But at my retirement party – another ten years down the road – should I ever be lucky enough to retire – I would hope that Mango would get up and say a few nice words about me.

"Dude", he would start.

"Mr Brill is good peeps. We rode some rad narleys over the last ten years here and the man was always pretty phatt and good homie. Even though he always rolled it old school – you knew he was down with ya".

And my lovely wife Darlene will turn to me and say "ahhh … isn't that sweet".

I can see it coming.

The Thud

2009-08-12T22:12:00.002-04:00

I fell down today.

Literally.

I went downstairs to the pop and beer fridge behind the pool table to get a can of pop for my lunch, and to get my work clothes I was freshening up in the dryer; and on my way back up stairs, in my still sleepy groggy state – I tripped on the top stair in the foyer.

Foyer is a fancy word for that space by the front door.

Our foyer floor is stone ceramic. It looks very pretty. But it makes for a hard landing.

I had my hands full – so I hit the floor hard. A thud. I laid there for a moment and took inventory.

And I noticed a crack in the grout work by the front door.

Everything was ok – except the cap of my good knee where I landed. It still hurts.

As I was lying there, I realized that this is the first time I ever fell, and didn't just pop back up. Usually when I fall (oh, yeah, I fall down once in a while), I hit the ground rolling, and just pop back up.

Not this time.

Nobody heard me. I laid there and listened to the silence in the house.

The girls were still asleep in their beds – lucky summer vacationing little second and third graders.

My lovely wife Darlene was still asleep as well. She usually gets up just before I leave to share a cup of coffee and make sure I understand my domestic duties for the day. But that time had not yet arrived. It was only six o'clock.

My faithful black lab Suzy was not even up yet. She was still stretched out on the floor beside my lovely wife's side of the bed.

But the kittens were up. And along they bounded, and climbed on me like a new piece of furniture to explore. When the one we call Misty climbed on my head – I realized I should probably just get up now.

For a second, I thought maybe one day I would have one of those Clapper devices – where you clap your hands and help comes to get you. But then I realized that the Clapper was actually the device that turned lights on and off when you clap your hands.

Now that would look silly. Me lying there – so happy at my foresight for personal safety to get a Clapper – and the one time I needed it I would discover my mistake as the lights in the house turned on and off.

"What would the neighbors think" , I laughed to myself.

Would they realize I got confused and call an ambulance on my behalf? – "Oh look – that Brill fellow must have got confused and bought the Clapper when he really wanted one of those I've-fallen-and-I-can't-get-up thingies."

I'm sure it's a common mistake.

But now Misty the kitty was sitting with her bum on my head, and I think I saw her come out of the litter box when I was downstairs mere seconds ago. So the thought of a freshly pooped kitty sitting on my head spurred me to finally get up.

I picked up my now well shaken can of pop and my re-wrinkled shirt and pants, and climbed back up to my feet.

I didn't just pop back up, I wrestled my way back up.

Now I have been very fortunate with the state of my condition to this point in my life. I may look kind of old, but I have always felt young.

I can still swim the butterfly in the pool. I can still stretch out for a ground ball that is just within reach. I can still juggle a soccer ball up one side of my body and down the other. And I can still follow through a golf swing until the club shaft bounces off my back. So I am still fairly agile.

But a couple of years ago, playing in a company softball game, I found myself going back for a fly ball over my head. In my younger days, I would have simply drifted back smoothly under the ball and made the easy catch. But on that occasion, I found it hard to track the ball as my body was bouncing when running – and my eyes couldn't stay on the ball.

And I missed it.

And that was the start of my feeling old.

But I'm not complaining. I know many people who suffer from debilitating ailments that drastically constrain their physical motion, my lovely wife Darlene's degenerative spine for example. So I know I am very lucky.

But it was just that next reminder that time is passing me by, that my life is progressing with time. And my body is aging.

And this realization rang the loudest when I thought to myself, "lucky thing I didn't break my hip".

But I might just go out and by a Clapper. It might be dark next time.

Optimizing Procrastination

2009-08-09T11:22:00.003-04:00

It's a hot muggy day this Sunday morning on my back deck.

My lovely wife Darlene is sitting beside me reading another one of her fantasy books. She seems to like vampires a lot lately. I hope she's not turning goth on me.

My black lab Suzy is sitting by the door, watching the girls play with the kitty's in the living room, wanting so bad to go chase those cats away from her girls and get all the attention that the girls are pouring on the young felines.

Pat Caputo is on the radio – preaching cautious expectations to Detroit Lions fans who are starting to get excited about the hype the Lions sprew out before the first preseason game. And Pat is trying so hard to get the fans to not panic about the Tigers after losing eleven to nothing to American League Central division rivals – the Minnesota Twins.

These radio debates will continue until one o'clock – when the Tigers final game against those dastardly Twinkies begins – and all our household attention will turn to this hopefully epic battle. An epic battle that hopefully the Tigers will triumph in the end.

It rained all day yesterday. A good hard downpour – so the air is thick with the mugginess of the resulting damp covering everything on the property.

The pool is full of leaves, and needs to be vacuumed – because on a muggy day like today – we are going to want to listen to the ballgame from the comfort of the pool.

The grass grew an extra foot after that warm summer monsoon – and the weeds in the garden popped up out of nowhere. There is some yard maintenance to be dealt with.

This is my final day off – my third week of vacation for the summer coming to an end. And tomorrow I will find myself back at my desk and dealing with the projects I left behind ten days ago – and the urgen matters that may have arisen in my absence.

And I'm kind of looking forward to the return to my regular schedule.

I have been far to lethargic over this last week of vacation. My lovely wife Darlene has been quick to remind me of my accelerated advancement in the art of procrastination – and I certainly am in no position to deny here accusations.

I have been a lazy bum.

Procrastination is an art form. Truly it is best applied when you can still achieve your objectives without people realizing you have been putting them off. The masterful procrastinator will at some point finally rise to the task – exposing the timing of their activity to be the perfect moment – the moment waited for to achieve the optimum result of their efforts.

But I have not risen – and the optimum moment has now passed me by.

There are a lot of bloody leaves to haul out of that pool – although the water is indeed crystal clear.

That grass is really quite high now – bending over in the middle as though an uncared for part of farmland.

And it is muggy.

I was just about to explain to my lovely warden of my personal life that it is still too wet to cut this overgrown meadow that used to be my yard – but as I started to defend myself – the unmistakable whirr of a neighboring lawn more was heard over a distance backyard fence.

Drat that evil motivated self-proclaimed landscaper – and his mowing machine that can start on the first pull of the rip cord. Shouldn't he be at church right now?

But my lovely wife Darlene is still entrenched in her novel. She seems to still be content to let me sit and enter these words on this page.

So far – so good. And I still have an hour and forty-five minutes left before the game begins.

I can do the grass and the pool in an hour and three quarters. I can still pull off this masterful achievement of elevated procrastination. Because the right moment has arrived. And if I am to remain in any good level of respectability with the females masters of my world – I have to act now.

The time is right. The motivation is here.

But the coffee is good, and I could maybe have one more smoke and listen to Caputo debate likely hood of the Lions winning more than four games this fall.

And then I will jump right up and get this stuff done.

The moment will last.

But will my lovely wife Darlene's patience?

How To Be Successful

2009-08-08T14:28:00.011-04:00

Lately I have been looking at people who have really grown their blogs to incredibly high numbers of readers. Blogs like zen-habits and reallygoodthinking.

And why are they so successful? They offer the reader help. They offer assistance to make you a better person.

Be more productive.

Be more creative.

Be more … something.

Head stuffing's reader levels are nowhere near these two successful sites.

On head stuffing, I only offer you a laugh, and if I'm successful, I might make you think.

But I don't really offer to help you.

Here is what I have for you. Here is my list of things that I know of what it takes to be a successful person in life:

Work hard
Be sincere and honest
Have a skill that people need
Make decisions based on rational thought – not with your heart
Enjoy what you do
Enjoy the people that you do what you do with
Keep your mind sharp
Keep your body healthy
Love somebody
Love yourself

Now how many websites can you find this information on?

Could I talk more about being sincere and honest? Well, I think I talk about that a lot on head stuffing. I think I talk about all of these points a lot in my stories on head stuffing.

These principles are pretty simple to grasp, but pretty difficult to apply to your personal life. Especially if you don't have a skill that people need (I believe everybody does – they just may not realize it) – or if you don't have somebody to love (I believe everybody does, they just may not realize it).

That's the part I don't talk a lot about on head stuffing – how you can apply these aspects to your own life – or recognize that they already exist.

I guess I have given little care or consideration as to what niche I and my favorite passion – my head stuffing site – play in the bigger picture on the internet. What role does it play. What is this site's niche?

I'm not exactly a self-help guru. I can only tell you stories about events that have happened to me – and how they shaped my life.

I have been writing my stories on head stuffing for nearly three years now. And I have gotten some really great feedback from those of you who continue to return. And to those of you who do return – I would sincerely like to thank you.

I have been writing what I believe are great little stories on head stuffing. I try to put some sense of reason and meaning – perhaps a moral – or the obvious lack of a moral – in each one.

And sometimes I leave the stories behind and pretend I'm a sportswriter and write about the Detroit Tigers. Why? Because I am a big fan, and sometimes I have to get some of those thoughts out of my head as well.

I'm sure if you return to head stuffing you might be confused as to what you're expecting to find here. You might wonder why I think you, a reader from Atlanta or San Francisco or New York would even be interested in how I thought the Detroit Tigers season would play out?

I guess to this point, I have treated head stuffing like a note pad. Like a place to jot down whatever was stuffing up my brain at the moment. Because that has been my intention to date – and that is why this site is called "head stuffing".

So what can I offer you?

Do you know what your niche in this global network is? Do you use facebook to keep up with friends around the globe?

Do you use instant messaging to chat with loved ones far away? Certainly you must use email, and send pictures and videos and jokes to share them with your friends. You might even be using professional social networking sites like LinkedIn.com to track and communicate with your business contacts.

Maybe you use Twitter – although if you're like me – you're still trying to figure out what real purpose can 140 character text messages – tweets – can play in your life. Maybe you like to follow famous people like Ashton Kutcher or Ellen DeGeneres or golfer John Daly or any of the hundreds of other celebrities that think we need to know they're stopping off at shopping mall or a fast food joint.

But you're not sure what you could 'tweet' that would be of any interest to anyone else?

Maybe we can figure this out together.

I have tried using some of these sharing services to attract more readers to head stuffing, thinking that if they just came and read one good story that moved you and you enjoyed, you would come back for more. And it worked – kind of – but the numbers that do return are much lower than I expected. My statistics show that only 39% of my readers are return readers – the other 61% are brand new. But the number of visitors remains constant.

Honest – I'm not complaining. And sincerely – thank you for coming here to read head stuffing.

I post new head stuffing sites to del.icio.us, digg.com, and technorati.com. I share them on facebook.com and LinkedIn.com. I used to share them with StumbleUpon.com, until they informed me that promoting my own site on StumbleUpon.com was an offense that could get me banned from their service. In fact, most sites look down upon what they call self promotion. So how can I get the word out about head stuffing?

Now I announce new posts on Twitter.

So I am going to continue my struggle to come up with ways that I can offer you help.

And maybe together we can figure out just how do we all fit together in this new global community?

That’s The Way It Was

2009-08-06T12:25:00.003-04:00

Walter Cronkite died recently.

He was one of my heroes.

I grew up in a world where Walter Cronkite told us what the facts of the happenings of the world were. But I never wanted to grow up to be Walter Cronkite.

When I was in my first stint in University, I was trying desperately to figure out what to be. What to put the focus of my life behind.

I had always heard the common phrase "do what you love to do", but I didn't think being a professional athlete was really in the cards for me.

I was taking business classes, and the normal freshmen courses like biology and computer science, and advanced mathematics, and English literature. None of them interested me in the slightest.

Maybe computer science did a little bit. But punching all those holes in cards and running them through a card reader was really tedious. Am I dating myself here?

But that same semester, I took a political science class and a journalism class.

The year was 1980 and Ronald Reagan was running against incumbent President Jimmy Carter. The hallmark of this election was the great debate between President Carter and Governor Reagan.

What a perfect time to have been lucky enough to have taken both these courses.

The professors of both classes laid out very similar assignments.

The political science prof – a young man of liberal bent (much like most academics of the day) with longish hair and casual attire – assigned us to watch the debate and write an essay about how the debate inspired us to make some sort of conclusion.

The Journalism professor was also a younger man – but he was of a more conservative bent – or maybe I just remember it as so in comparison to the political science professor. But the common theme in his classroom was to be objective. To record and report without opinion. To lay the facts out and let the reader make his own decision. So the assignment was to write such an essay about the events of this debate.

So I found myself watching that debate with two different mindsets. The one objective was to draw a conclusion – the other to record and report without any bias.

Remember, I was eighteen years old at the time. And I fully subscribe to the theory that "if you have any conscious as a young man, you views will be liberal, but if you have any brains as you grow older, your views will be conservative".

I watched this debate in my dorm room. I watched it on the same little black and white portable TV I had bought myself as a kid. There was an illegal cable hookup running through the dormitory and I had hooked my little black and white portable into it in my dorm room. This was the first time I ever had cable TV.

The Iranian hostage crisis had plagued the Carter administration for the last eight months. Walter Cronkite would start every newscast with the number of days that Iran held those hostages. As well, the gasoline crisis had seen long line ups at gas stations and the price of gas reach what were ridiculous prices for the day. Gremlins and Pintos and small Japanese imports were quickly becoming the cars of choice as for the first time Americans started worrying about fuel efficiency – from the standpoint of their own personal budgets.

So while Jimmy Carter – a very fine man to this day – a man of the highest moral character and best sincere intentions to indeed serve his people to the best of his ability, was plagued by these two foreign and domestic crisis. His approval rating at the time of the debate was not great.

The only thing buoying Jimmy Carter at the time was the fact that during the past decade, America had just removed themselves from Vietnam. President Nixon had been caught red handed in the Watergate scandal, and his non-elected successor – Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon. Americans were not very high on themselves back then. The hippies of the sixties were starting to influence both politics and business – and the music of the day had little positive to say about American political government. As I remember it, America was scared to return control of the White House to a Republican President.

But Ronald Reagan, although staunchly conservative – was already known to the American people as a movie star. He was a successful Governor of the most liberal state in the Union – California. He was charismatic. He was older than Mr. Carter, and held a presence of distinguished righteousness. He had pulled California out of a bad financial state when the rest of the nation was in a deep recession.

As the debate unfolded, there was a very somber and gentle spoken Jimmy Carter – who I believe had his mind elsewhere – distracted by having to run the embattled nation while running in this presidential election. Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, was clear and focused. He was upbeat and positive about what America could be, and where America could go.

I watched the exchange of these two men, like boxers in a ring, with Mr. Reagan moving Mr. Carter into the ropes defending his positions as Mr. Reagan criticized Mr. Carters current policies and counterpunched with his own solutions.

The knockout punch came as Mr. Carter explained his position on – yes it's true – a move towards national healthcare reform – measures to cut the cost of services and make the services available to residents who could not afford the high cost of health care benefits. When he ended his statement that "Governor Reagan does not …", Mr. Reagan counterpunched with the fatal blow "There you go again..". He then explained how the private sector pressured by competition would manage the cost of health care much better than any government intervention could, but that some federal regulation would help to ensure a fair and balanced playing field.

"There you go again" became the sound bite of that whole campaign. And essentially Mr. Reagan won that election by a landslide.

But I guess if you're my age, you remember all that.

As a student witnessing such an overwhelming shift in momentum, and taken with Mr. Reagan myself – attending University in Mr. Carters home state of Georgia – I found it easy to answer the task of the political science professors assignment and I wrote what I thought was a great essay on the great debate.

But answering the journalism professors request was much more difficult. To be so inspired and then forced to write about it matter-of-factly, that was much more difficult. To me it was a matter of fact that Mr. Reagan dominated the debate and knocked his opponent out with a single blow.

I turned both papers in. I was certain I would get an A for the political science essay, and if I was lucky, I might get a B for the journalism essay.

A couple of days later, I received both essays back. And I was shocked at the results.

I got an A for the journalism essay. The professor had written in blue pen at the bottom that my even handed understanding of how the direction of the debate was influenced by a personality like Reagan's over the lackluster enthusiasm of the beleaguered President was both accurate and objective.

Wow.

I got a C- for the political science essay. Most of the students did. Because the professor was clearly a staunch Democrat who did not view Mr. Reagan's arguments to bear merit, and he clearly thought President Carter had finally exposed Mr. Reagan as the fraud riding on the popularity of his celebrity that this professor of academics was convinced he was.

Wow.

So I rode out the poli-sci course to the end of the semester and took my C grade believing in my heart that it was unfair, but learning quickly that … well … life is unfair.

But I got my only A in that University in Journalism.

This is it, I thought. Journalism is the path I shall take.

After writing that final Journalism final exam, I was asked to come by the professors office. When I arrived he was sitting in a chair at his desk. Walls of books in shelves sitting behind him. He was – no word of a lie – wearing a tweed jacket with leather patches and having a puff on his pipe.

"This is so cool" – I thought to myself. I had just gotten the A and I thought that he was going to help me plot out my future journalism academic objectives.

But I was wrong.

I don't remember his exact words so I will paraphrase it like this:

"You did very well in my class Fred".

"Thank you sir".

"But the world of journalism is changing right now."

"Yes sir."

"Television and radio are taking over."

"Yes sir".

"To be a journalist in this new world – in the modern age of the eighties, you will have to have more to offer than just being able to be an objective writer."

No response, I just stared.

"You will have to be able to hold a presence on television, or the radio, I don't know, perhaps both. But the days of printed journalism are clearly on their way out. There's a new cable news networking growing in Atlanta, more like it will come. People won't read newspapers anymore. They will just watch TV. "

"Really?"

"Quite so. But young man, you do not have what it takes to be authoritative on television. And your voice is far to nasal for anyone to want to listen to."

"I see".

The criticisms of this professor I respected continued about how looks and voice mattered, and how he just didn't see me pursuing a line of work in the new age of broadcast journalism. It was not in the cards for me.

I couldn't disagree. All signs at that time did point to the fact that print was primitive and television was really blossoming by way of Cable TV. I could see it in my own dorm room.

"But surely they will still need people to gather facts, and write copy, and you know … do the hard stuff", I responded.

"The juniors will do all that, I predict", replied the professor. "The juniors who will someday move up to be in front of the microphone or camera".

I took this man's criticisms and direction to heart. I respected him, and was even thankful to him for being so honest with me.

So I gave up on that short-lived dream.

And I gave up on writing as well. I didn't start writing stories like the ones on Head Stuffing until shortly after I met my lovely wife Darlene. And I discovered again, that I really do enjoy writing. And I think now, finally, I am just getting half-way decent at it.

But when Walter Cronkite died shortly back, I really started thinking about that University professor. I wondered if he was still alive. I wondered what he thought of the Internet mediums like blogs and web sites like The Smoking Gun, and Twitter. I wondered what that professor would thought of the Cable News and their biased perspectives like the right wing views of Fox News and the left wing views of MSNBC and CNN. I wondered what he would have thought about the way that wars are covered now and how the media embraced Barack Obama so completely at election time. And what would he have thought about the coverage of Micheal Jackson's death?

But then I realized the times in which that occurred, as society looked forward to the change from the turbulent 1970s into what we thought were the ultra-modern 1980s.

And I realized what Walter Cronkite probably would have said to me- had I known him - about those perceptions held then:

"That's the way it was …".

Detroit Tigers – There’s A Big Storm Brewing

2009-08-04T12:57:00.006-04:00

Hold on to your hats Tiger fans!

Or at least turn them inside out and wear them as rally caps.

There's a big storm brewing! It's already on the radar screen.

Last night the Tigers took the first game of a six game home stand with the Baltimore Orioles and Minnesota Twins by coming from five runs back and tying the game in the fifth – then winning the game with a two out two strike blast by Clete Thomas into the bushes in center field.

It was a bomb.

As well, Tiger's ace Justin Verlander did not let a five run first inning phase him. He pitched lights out ball the next seven innings getting better with each pitch he threw. It was that beautiful Verlander poise and presence coming through yet again.

But this time the Tigers offense woke up.

Leading the way was superstar Miguel Cabrera – who while he has big numbers and hitting .334 – had been very quite in clutch situations with men in scoring position – knocked in three RBIs with a big clutch double and the game tying homerun.

To recap - the Tigers came back and caught the Orioles in the fifth. And won it with a walk off homer in the ninth.

That was an exciting game – and many things that Tiger fans have been waiting to see finally appeared.

But it was a home game. In Comerica Park. The Tigers usually win at home.

I'm not trying to put a damper on last night's elation. Please hear me out. I'm just trying to be objective.

The Tigers have a chance in the next few weeks to widen the gap between them and the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins. They might expand their lead by as many as four games ahead of their Central Division rivals.

But, like I said already, there is a big storm brewing!

As I look at the Tigers long range weather forecast, I can see a tropical storm brewing over the American Midwest. And it looks like it could build into a category five hurricane. The conditions look like they could be just right for this monstrous storm to hit the Tigers right where they are weakest – weak as a West New Orleans levy of sandbags – when the Tigers play away games.

The Tigers will need a lot more sandbags to weather this storm. Let me explain:

The Tigers record at home at Comerica Park is 32 wins and 16 losses.

The Tigers record when they are away from Comerica Park is 23 wins and 33 losses.

The Tigers stink on the road.

But luckily so do most of the other teams in the American League.

So what is this storm brewing that has me so worried?

It's a ten game road trip – starting on the 18^th of September and ending on the 27^th of September. During that trip, the Tigers will play three games in Minnesota (a park where they have little luck), four games in Cleveland (who just took two out of three from Detroit in Cleveland last weekend), and then the final three against the Chicago White Sox at what should be called New Cominsky Park.

The Tigers record on the road stinks. Mainly because their offense stagnites - the air in the eye of a storm. They cannot score runs on the road.

It is possible that the Tigers could lose six to eight of those games. Such a result would possibly be enough to sink the Tigers 2009 chances. Drowned by the lack of offense they are known for on the road this season.

As I look at the remaining schedule of the Tigers, White Sox and Twins in 2009 - if current trends continue - I see the Tigers being even with Chicago by the time the first pitch of that September 25^th weekend series begins. Games in that horrible dome in Minneapolis and Cleveland's Progressive field will erode at least two games of what I expect to be a three game lead.

Two of the three sandbags will be blown off the Tigers soft away game levy, leaving a single sandbag or two to ride out the three game hurricane of games at Chicago.

Chicago is the windy city.

And some would try to say that Detroit is No-Mo-Town now. This would be the worst possible outcome if the Tigers lose eight out of ten on that road trip.

Now there are some elements that entered into the radar that may slightly change this American League Central weather patterns development over the last week.

The Tigers have picked up some pitching to make their rotation even stronger, acquiring Jarrod Washburn from Seattle in return for Lucas French and a Minor League rising star Mauricio Robles.

Washburn was having an above average year with Seattle – with an 8 win 6 loss record – throwing 79 strikeouts and 33 walks in 133 innings. How will he do as a Tiger? Tonight will be his first outing clad in the old English D. And his first start will be in Comerica – after the elation of a great win last night. So fingers are crossed that Washburn starts off strong as a Tiger.

But as well, Chicago has strengthened their pitching, picking up Jake Peavy from San Diego. Peavy is considered to around the same barometer readings with the Tigers Verlander, Anderson, and now Washburn. The white Sox already have perfect game pitcher Mark Burhle in their rotation.

Do the Tigers Verlander and Jackson combined outweigh the dominance of Mark Burhle? Are Washburn and Peavy simply going to cancel each other out? It will be very interesting and exciting to see.

But there is good news for us Tiger fans in all of this. After what promises to be the most exciting road trip of the season during that last half of September, the Tigers return home – to trusty and faithful Comerica Park. The Tigers safe harbor from the storm.

And who is coming to play those final six games of the 2009 season in the Tigers safe harbor? Who else.

The Minnesota Twins and Chicago White Sox.

This is going to be one wild storm during the last four weeks of the American League Central Pennant race my friends. And if I were you, I would get tickets to all six of the final home stand games.

Because if the Tigers can ride out the hurricane brewing for the end of September, that first week in October will be the most amazing games played yet at Comerica park.

Can the Tigers ride that fast approaching storm? Will they have stashed away enough wins to survive the expected offensive power outage they seem to experience during road trips?

But I think - like 2006 - we need as big a lead built right now to survive that final onslaught.

In 2006 we had the luxury of being in the Wildcard division. We sat in August and September and helplessly watched the water rise high enough to erode the Tigers once ten game lead.

Is the 2009 version of the Tigers stronger than the 2006 version? It's certainly different. But this year I think the Tigers pitching is actually better than in 2006.

We got the pitching to slow down the storm - but we need these bats of this potentially explosive offense to get better on the road.

2009 has the potential to be one of the most exciting finishes of Tiger baseball history.

Hang onto your hats Tiger fans, because there is a big storm heading our way.

Dealing with it

2009-08-01T12:44:00.006-04:00

I am very proud of my eldest daughter Alannah.

It's not easy being a kid these days.

Especially an eight year old little girl.

She wants to be Hannah Montana. She wants to be popular, and she wants to be a pop-star.

Not a nurse like her Mum, or a computer geek like her old man (thank God), or anything else really. She wants to be a pop star.

The problem is – right now at the age of eight – she can't sing worth a lick.

But she loves to watch Hannah Montana, and other videos by teen stars like Taylor Swift. She loves American Idol and Canadian Idol – the thought of being on a stage singing with millions of people screaming for her – well, that's what floats her boat right now.

I was hoping for a shortstop myself.

Last week, my lovely wife Darlene took Alannah to the orthodontist. It seems that Alannah's teeth – beautiful as I think they are – suffer a crossbite - and are not quite perfect enough to win auditions for toothpaste commercials.

Her newest teeth are trying to come in, but the older new teeth (still with me?) are in the way. So the orthodontist wants to spread out her upper jaw.

So the orthodontist put in an expander - or a spreader as I call it.

The spreader is a device that attaches to her upper molars and eye teeth. It has a little crank in the middle that - when turned with a key – spreads the upper jaw wider.

So the new teeth can come in.

It makes it hard to talk. Your tongue has to learn to work around the crank case in the middle of your upper pallet.

I know, I had one when I was younger. Not when I was a kid, but around the age of thirty five.

I was born with a cleft pallet. And at the age of thirty five, I found my self – single at the time – in a position where I could try to take advantage of the new technologies that didn't exist when I was a child. But before that work could start – they had to spread my mouth open wider.

I remember the weekday morning that I had mine put in. I was going to visit Dr. Lathyam – a very well respected orthodontist in London who specialized in helping mostly young children who were born with the same condition I was born with. His office was full of children with their parents. But everyone of these kids all looked great.

Since the age of 19, I have worn a mustache to hide the scar of my hair lip and cleft pallet birth defect.

It was a very big deal to me from my earliest childhood memories . I was very self conscious and shy. I thought that the first thing everyone noticed about was this bump above my lip and the crease in the middle of my lip. I thought everyone thought I was a freak. And I certainly did not feel like I was a normal person.

Now of course I wear a full mustache with goatee. Both are probably a little longer than they should be – but only to ensure the scar is well hidden.

When you're a kid, other kids can be rather cruel. They would tease and call me names. It made them look cooler to the other kids. Sometimes I would fight, other times I would just stand there and take it.

The times I fought, I lost more than I won.

The times I walked away, I was chastised as I left.

It just wasn't a situation that offered any positive outcomes.

I had always had a good sense of humor, so often I tried to joke around the situation. But it was such a morally deflating situation that I sometimes crumpled and just had to sit there and take it.

That was until my family moved to Lawrenceville, Georgia.

I was a little older then. Just about to enter high school. And I was a pretty good athlete which helped me fit in better. The guys in my neighborhood there didn't give me any of that kind of nonsense. There, it was just about being a guy. A good guy. If you could just be a good guy, you were in.

There was the odd clown who tried. One kid, who I think was a little slow – perhaps from perpetual inbreeding within his clan, would sometimes walk up to me and just punch me in the nose – and as I would hit the ground he would say "fat nose funny lip". But another guy would come over and knock his block off.

Another kid, who had been deemed to obese to remain on the wrestling team would constantly simply refer to me "hairlip". Oddly enough, this kid had friends that surrounded him and would laugh as he would say it. Often during practice, this kid would sit up in the stands and call it out as we were running drills. And his little gaggle of friends would laugh – which encouraged him more.

Coach Brown told me one day to go up in the stands and beat the … out of this kid. I looked at Coach Brown, whose respect meant more to me than anyone other than my own Dad at that time, and said "Why? That won't make him stop. He'll do it more."

Coach Brown just looked at me and walked away, his respect lost.

But other guys I really looked up to, like Mark Zirkle and Bill Huseby, and Damon Brown and Kirk Ewing would tell me that I was right to just walk away.

Since this fat kid was a wrestler, I just assumed that all the guys on the wrestling team felt that way, so I distanced myself from them. That was too bad, because there were some really good guys on that team. Guys I didn't realize were good guys until later.

There was one girl in my neighborhood who was just simply (to me anyways) the most beautiful girl in the world. She was part of our Plantation Woods gang, and would hang out with us at the pool. Usually lying in the sun to get a tan. This girl was way to pretty for me to ever tell her that I thought she was a princess. She did have a friend who was cute, and I thought she was more in my league. One day, as our group was hanging around, one of the other guys told this second girl that I liked her.

"Oh gross", said the girl, with the princess standing beside her.

I crumpled inside. I knew I was gross. But, as I remember it, I answered with something stupid like:

"I don't like you".

Pretty cool eh?

Most likely her response had nothing to do with my fat nose or funny lip. It probably had more to with the fact that I was a dork. I didn't figure that out until much later.

But I really did like the princess.

Shortly after that, I heard that the princess actually like me.

How did I handle that? Not very well, because – truth be told – I was indeed a dork. So I tried to impress her with goofy jokes and such.

So much for that.

But – even though I did screw that up so bad – it was a major turning point for me. I started to realize for the first time that it wasn't my fat nose and funny lip that mattered – but my personality. I can never thank that princess enough for teaching me that. To this day I am still very proud – that at least for the short course of a couple of days, maybe a week – this girl, the most beautiful in the world – would actually take to liking me.

As I left Berkmar High School and went to University (for the first time) on a soccer scholarship (which I basically pissed away) – I grew this mustache. And I grew my personality – based on the way my Plantation Woods friends taught me to be .. a guy.

I had a great circle of friends, and I dated some pretty good looking and fantastic girls. And that whole self-conscious part of me shriveled up and left. I had confidence. I had a personality that people liked to be around.

I changed.

As I grew up my confidence grew. It grew from playing very high levels of sports. It grew from becoming extremely good at what I finally ended up doing for a living. And it grew from some public speaking I had to do for my job – presenting to an auditorium of people that I could not only inform but entertain as well. They enjoyed my sessions at various conferences that we held.

And it was during this time that I read about some new technologies that had been advanced since my childhood. Some that would almost eradicate the one self-conscious issue that I still periodically wrestled with.

That is how I found myself in Dr. Latham's office, being fitted for this spreader. It would spread my jaw to allow further work be done. But man, that spreader was hard to get used to. I had to learn how to talk all over again. And I had to wrestle with all those self conscious demons all over again. Only now I had to maintain my professional poise as I talked with colleagues and customers – in person or on the phone – trying to form words around this stupid contraption in my mouth.

Quite often I would be in the middle of trying to pronounce a word in a sentence as I spoke – only to realize I had no chance of doing so and being understood – so I learned how to swap out words I couldn't say with words I could say – on the fly – and get the same meaning.

This is where some of my humor comes from. That self conscious side of me. The side that knows I am not perfect, but I'll be damned if I let you know that.

I certainly am not perfect.

That is why I am so proud of my little girl Alannah.

Alannah is very beautiful and has no such distinguishing marks to impact her confidence. Ashley-Rae – while born three months pre-mature and was doubtful to live, let alone to grow into the healthy beautiful girl she is now, also has no such defects.

But I teach them every chance I get to not judge people by their outsides – but by their insides.

And of course, not to be dorks like me.

So Alannah has only shown a slight frustration with this spreader in her mouth. She comes to show me frequently as she adapts to talking with it in her mouth.

"Look Dad, now I can say "precious" … see "pre-shuish", as she smiles at me.

"That's great, darlin!", I reply.

"And I can sing better too", she says with the excitement only an eight year old little girl can project. She picks up the microphone to her little Karioke machine and sings along with Hannah Montana. Only this time she doesn't sound so nasal, and she is thinking about how to make her voice sound clearer.

"Wow", I say. "You keep on working on that you just might be a great singer!"

And then I give her a great big hug.

"You're sure handling this better than your old man did."

What a little princess.

A Perfect Summer Sunday Morning

2009-07-26T11:45:00.005-04:00

Another Sunday morning, and I again find myself on the back patio by the pool with Suzy – my black lab – laying at my feet – waiting for me to do something more entertaining than pushing all these little black buttons on my laptop.

It's a beautiful morning – although threatening thunderstorm clouds drift high in the sky mixed among those big white puffy clouds. The breeze is warm with a thread of cool refreshing air weaved in like a fine piece of tapestry.

My lovely wife Darlene is asleep in the house – the girls are trying to figure out the rules to a new board game they bought with some of Ashley-Rae's birthday money, and Pat Caputo is on the radio talking about my Detroit Tigers having taken the first three games of a four game series – from the Chicago White Sox who had made up enough ground in the American League Central to tie the Tigers before this series began.

So the Tigers again have three game lead in the American League Central division.

It's just a perfect morning.

The grass that comprises my lawns is a bit long and needs some cutting. The laundry basket holds my weekly assortment of work attire – and they need laundering attention. The water in the pool is crystal clear – but the pool could use a quick vacuuming. The cars could use a good cleaning – inside and out and the gardens could use a few weeds to be pulled.

But I will get to all that later.

Right now I'm just savoring a perfect summer Sunday morning.

They won't last forever.

I want to somehow capture this day – keep it and save it somehow. Save it so I can pull it out of a box of cherished days later on – when the days don't strike my fancy quite this way. Days in January, February, or March – days when I can't sit on my back deck in this way – with the warm sun and the inviting pool – beach balls floating around in chaotic patterns . The sound of neighborhood lawnmowers whirring in the near distance. The warm coffee sitting in my Detroit Tiger coffee mug.

At some point in the next couple months, I will have to cover that pool, seed the lawn, cover the annuals in the garden, and put the storm glass window back in the front screen door. The patio furniture will get put back away – waiting for next May to reappear again. And for all that time between October and May, I will pull this day out of that box of cherished days and try to climb back into it.

Suzy couldn't wait anymore – her black fur growing to hot in the sun on the deck – she jumped into the pool, did her normal lap up the middle and back to the stairs. The girls are getting changed into their bathing suits to go swimming. And my coffee cup is now empty. Pat Caputo has now started talking more about the Lions NFL football franchise and their expectations being higher this year with their new number one draft pick competing with Dante Cullpepper for the starting quarterback spot.

So the moment has passed already.

In the fall, winter, and early spring, I will sit inside and continue to add to my collection of stories. I will try to move the laundry and my lovely wife Darlene's sewing workstation away from my pool table so that I can work on my nine-ball game. I will be told by my household supervisor (my lovely wife Darlene) what household chores I need to do like vacuuming or dusting, or rearranging the furniture and maybe some wall painting.

As as I have said many times before, I am not a winter person.

I did find a great neon light I want to buy to hang by the pool table – the Tigers old English D in the center of the face.

But today is still a perfect summer Sunday. The Tigers playing the White Sox in the fourth game of the series tonight at 8:00 pm. The lawn will be cut, laundry done and the cars cleaned up, and I will sit on the back patio with the girls swimming in the pool and my lovely wife and household supervisor Darlene will be cooking up a tasty summer dinner for us on the barbeque. And I will sit with my lovely family and friends – enjoy a beer or two – and listen to the Tigers game on the radio.

Because the Tigers are in first place and could stretch it to a four game lead in the American League Central.

And it's such a perfect summer Sunday.

Life won't be this perfect for ever.