Reflections on a half-life...

A half-life is many things.  It’s a video game.  It’s a scientific term (t1/2) for the time an isotope loses half of its original radioactivity.  It’s a mile marker.  It’s a wake up call.  It’s a question.

I’ve been alive and active on planet Earth for 15,877 days.  There are 15,535 days until my 86th birthday.  I will gladly take more than 86 years, but at this point with the average lifespan of the American male at around 78 years, I would take that.  Seems like a good goal at least for now.  So taking 86 as the goal, I suppose I am at my midway marker, my half-life.  I would like to consider my life half full, not half empty by the way,  I think I have myself set up for that to be the case.

Sitting in the radiology wing of the local hospital waiting for the technetium to make its way through your circulatory system is a good place to ponder such things.  It isn’t an unpleasant thing in and of itself, waiting.  The IV part was less so, but the young woman who started it was good at her craft and we chatted about schools and kids as she sheepishly commented that I am younger than most of the men she sees.  I made her less uncomfortable (I hope) by commenting that her gerontophilia secret is safe with me.  There was at least a giggle that let me know that she understood what I meant.

Thinking about why I am here this morning undergoing a stress test is far less interesting to think about than what happens next.  What type of mile marker might this be?  What kind of questions might this experience pose?  What do I do with the insight gained from the results of the test, positive or negative?

I am not really worried about the test per-say, or even about the results.  Maybe a little concerned that I will fall off of the treadmill as it speeds me toward temporary exercise overload at an unnatural incline.  I am really not concerned at the moment about the stressors that likely caused the chest pains, fatigue and other ailments that triggered the appointment that resulted in the test being scheduled in the first place.  My thoughts keep circling back to this idea of today being a midway marker.

I have had a very robust life thus far.  A wonderful childhood with loving and supportive parents, two younger brothers who fulfilled the roles of both playmate and adversary well.  No complaints and no regrets.  I had a great school experience with some memorable teachers and friends.  I had great athletic experiences, with wonderful memories of my Dad as my coach and my Mom and brothers cheering me on.  All in all I was blessed then by a loving community, and am blessed now by the memories.  Childhood portion of life – 14 years – CHECK

My teenage years were spent with some great friends, girlfriends and sports experiences.  Mostly positive, all educational.  I learned that I love music, I need time to myself occasionally to recharge my batteries, I love writing and creating, and that I have a strong desire to make things better.  Great memories came from dances, church camp, first experiences, and some of the best popular culture the world has ever known.  Sports injuries, insecurity, and the feeling of being “out of place” in my community were all valuable challenges.  Teenage portion of life - 5 years – CHECK

College was wildly educational.  My hometown had a population in total of less than 2000 people.  Bowling Green had a student population of well over 20,000.  Big fish from a small pond dropped instantly into the ocean.  Learning to swim in the ocean currents and changing tides were exciting lessons to learn.  SO many new experiences, deeper friendships and lessons learned.  A few regrets and a few mistakes, but all in all I am blessed by the memories.  My education came in the way of great freedoms, great friends and decent professors.  College portion of life – 5 years – CHECK

My wife and I started dating in my senior year of college.  It was a clearly defined turning point from the chaos of college life to actually starting to think like an adult.  It was a rough transition for both of us, and there were certainly some bumps along the way.  For the most part we broke one another down to fit into the marriage mold by the time we stood before family, friends and God in 1999 and committed ourselves to the ever after.  The first couple of years we spent discovering our differences and pushing the envelope.  Learning to love someone, we came to find, was different than being in love with someone.  Newlywed portion of life – 3 years – CHECK

We purchased our first home in 2001 and spent a few wonderful years remodeling and building sweat equity, and our careers.  I regret not traveling while we could, just the two of us.  I don’t regret waiting until we were ready to start a family.  Settling in to adulthood portion of life – 3 years – CHECK

Our first son was born happy and healthy in 2003.  He changed our lives forever and solidified any shaky ground we had in our commitment to making this whole marriage thing work.  It became real, and we realized we were pretty well equipped to do this new parenting thing we obligated ourselves to.  We made such an impressive tiny human the first time that we produced the follow up version 2 years later.  Our second son taught us more valuable lessons, patience and teamwork being among them.  I took on several leadership roles during these first years of parenthood.  Banking, retail, credit unions…leading teams and creating value became a passion, second only to the commitment and love I felt for my awesome little crew of humans.  We became increasingly involved in our church community and in our small group and discovered that life was between when it was shared.
Young parent portion of life – 5 years - CHECK

A move to our second home and the birth of our third son came along in my 35th year.  I was the CEO of a credit union I dearly loved, I was the father of three sons, I was husband to a beautifully strong woman.  Life was good and it flew by as we made new friendships and plugged in fully to our community.  God blessed the years in Orrville with some great opportunities and great relationships.  We learned the value of sidewalks for connecting people and walking out issues.  We learned what you miss when you lose a good church community.  I learned the risks you take when you let work take priority over family and avoided (thankfully) most of the consequences.  When an opportunity to test the ocean waters came again with a larger credit union I cautiously stepped in and we made a move to Ashland.  We traded our century home on a city lot to a country home with a park attached.  Sidewalks were traded for wooded trails and tricycles for ATVs.  My wife decided that she can do without Ohio, but that if the boys and I are here that she can tolerate it, probably.  Soccer, football, music lessons and some family vacations moved the years along at an increasingly rapid pace.  Taking time to smell the roses is a rare thing in this season.  But I know that I am blessed by the fullness of life.  Family fun portion of life – 5 years – CHECK

This all brings me to present day.  Now in as CEO role with a wonderfully different kind of company.  Three active and healthy young men, one undeniably in his teen years now.  Navigating the “quieter side of love” season of marriage where weekend getaways are replaced by rushed date nights fit between kids activities and work obligations and where snuggling on the couch with a sitcom replaces whatever used to happen once the kids finally went to bed, whatever that was.  Career is still full of leading teams and building value, but now has a more spiritual aspect of redeeming broken systems for God’s Kingdom.  Feels good and satisfies my soul, but also carries with it an inherent stress to push for more value and better results.  Kids are getting into the ages that a parent suddenly realizes that they only have a few years left to instill the life lessons and wisdom that they will need to survive this ever changing world in which we’re living.  Stress of fitting 3 weeks worth of activity into each and every 168 hour period is maddening.  Anxiety of juggling the puppies and chainsaws of the good stuff and the necessary stuff while singing a happy song is enough some days to make anyone grab their chest and in their best Fred Sanford impression exclaim that this is the “big one.”

Which brings me to today…I am about three years, 1100 days or so, into this period of life, whatever you want to call it.  Middle age, circus time, wonder years…

I am forced to take a time out today, to wait.  To wonder what dreams may come and what adventures await the second half.  Good books and good movies always thrill you in the second half.  Good stories have endings that make you wish they were a little longer.  Good wines have a memorable finish.  I have no reason to believe as I wait here this morning that the second half of my story should be any less wonderful than the first.  I know there will be painful moments.  I know there will be disappointments.  And I know that through it all God will continue to refine me and teach me.  I know that love will surround me because I will continue to pour it out.  I will work a little harder on making sure that the stresses of this full life don’t take away from the enjoyment of it.  I will work harder to make sure that I do a better job of balancing work and play, and find joy in both.  I will get my steps in and my cardio goals accomplished along with my weight down and such.  I do anticipate that there may be, in my later years a nice young radiologist with a thing for old men, but I will resist the temptation to flirt with her. I pray that my wife will be by my side to be embarrassed if I do.  I’m guessing that I will be just as in love with her as I am now (my wife, not the radiologist).

I will work to keep the story moving toward a fantastic finish, one that will make those around me wish that my life, no matter how many days, was just a little longer.

Now, it’s almost time to go see if I can stay on the treadmill and if I gain any superpowers from the radiation.  A guy can dream…

A cluttered mind and clean desk...or a cluttered desk?

I've heard it said that you can tell a lot about a person by his or her desk.  The size, shape, clutter...this scares the hell out of me.

                 this was Albert Einstein's desk.......really.

Apparently at the office I am a hand-me-down ugly metal throwback from the 1970s, complete with a drawer positioned perfectly to leave a constant bruise on your thigh and just enough storage for 3 items, give or take, you choose what they consist of. For me they are cell phone, keys and a random freebie from a conference long since forgotten.  Anyway, not my optimal work environment to say the least, but, it sure looks better than it did when I got here.

At home I'm an over-sized some assembly required fake wood big box store special with 6 months worth of paid bills, receipts and junkmail cluttered into piles... and on top...pre-school and kindergarten artwork (not mine, I'm not that much of a packrat).  My intention with the home office was to have it act as the central 'mother brain" of the household.  The place where photos get downloaded and organized and where the perfect playlists are compiled and uploaded to Ipods.  It has not really come to fruition at this point....a year after it was created.  I am still hopeful though.  Others in the house, not as much.

At any rate, it scares me more than a bit that my work areas are so seemingly haphazard and discombobulated.  But you know what, somehow, it all seems to work out just fine.  I have a photographic memory.  Somehow my brain seems to catalog the mess and unless it is moved and "organized" by someone other than myself, I can almost always find what I am looking for.  Granted it is a stressful place to sit and work, but that pushes me to grab the laptop and get out.  Which I am fairly sure is why laptops were created.  People realized that an office may be a great place to collect things you think you need to keep but don't care enough about to put in a place you frequent...but it is really no place to get any work done.


I started this post a few months ago...in my office.  I am finishing it on the laptop, outside.  Where the sun is shining and the only thing on the table other than the computer is a cold beer.

The list

As I drove around town last week, listening to NPR as usual, I stumbled onto an interview of Rosanne Cash. The interview was focused on a list that her famous father had given her when she was 18 years old. The list contained the 100 country songs that her father considered to be the most influential and crucial songs in country music and implored his daughter to get to know the songs intimately as they were the backbone of his musical heritage and hers. She admitted that at first she was unimpressed but gracious at the gesture. As the daughter of Johnny Cash she was swimming in a sea of country music and musicians and this seemed merely another drop in the ocean.



As she grew into her own musical identity she said that the list began to make more sense to her, along with the giving of the list, especially coming from her father. As she revisited the list several times over the following decades she realized that what her father shared with her was a part of his musical soul, his country DNA, a legacy that she shared with him both as a daughter and a musician herself. For years she resisted the urge to record any songs from the list in fear of being accused of “trading on her father’s name.”


In 2007 she revisited the list. Her father was now passed and she felt a need to feel the connection to him that the songs represented. In the years following she began to seek out and become intimate with the songs that made up the list and eventually began the work of recording a few of the songs herself. Not covers of the songs. Not her father’s renditions. She recorded the songs as her own and felt ownership of them, after all her father gave her the list, it was her property and recording the songs was her birthright. The CD was released yesterday, October 6th, 2009. Here’s what she said about it:


It is perhaps the only record I could have made at this point in my life, and it is deeply thrilling and very emotional for me to claim this legacy in this way, and, after a lifetime as a songwriter, to showcase some essential and truly great songs as a singer, an archivist, and as a daughter. And mother. This list now goes to my children.


I must admit, I am not a huge country music fan, though I am a fan of many of Johnny Cash’s classics. I’m not at all familiar with the music of Rosanne Cash. I simply find the story behind the list touching. As a parent it makes me think a lot about what “lists” I want to leave for my children. Would I leave them all the same lists? Would I cater the lists individually for each? What type of list would make up my musical DNA?


As I sit and think about it, the task seems like one that would have to be dealt with very circumspectly. I wouldn’t want to have it misinterpreted. I would want to have it represent who I am.  Would it be books?  Music?  Movies?  Places I've been? I have no idea...but I am going to start thinking about it.

If you were to make a list what would you include? Who would you give it too that could possibly decode it. Break it down. Use it as a means to know more about who you are and what’s inside your soul.

For some reason it makes me want to watch the movie High Fidelity. 

It seems there's a John Cusack movie for every occasion. 

Interesting stuff.

Waiting for the other shoe is a waste of time...

A week prior to our wedding in June of 1999 my wife Tanya and I were invited to go to camping with the maid of honor and her boyfriend near his home town of Inthemiddleofnowhereville. We were excited to get away from the wedding planning craziness and looking forward to the pending engagement of the couple as it was to take place that night around the campfire. We met up with some friends and loaded our gear in the back of the boyfriend's brother's pickup and headed off toward the campground only to veer off the side of the road, down a ravine and into a very stout tree going around 50 miles per hour. Tanya and I weren't wearing seatbelts, as the truck we were passengers in had none. We were thrown first into the windshield and then out of the passenger side door and onto the forest floor. Specifically into a huge patch of poison ivy, poison oak and thorns. Tanya had torn ligaments and cartilage in her knee and had broken her arm just above the elbow. I had a severe concussion and glass in my head.

The driver spilled his beer.

Tanya ended up in the emergency room of one hospital, I ended up getting a helicopter ride to another and once I woke up the next afternoon, we were 130 miles apart. We wouldn't see each other again until the rehearsal dinner. The wedding still went on and was beautiful. Tanya had a sling that matched her dress and I itched from head to toe thanks to the poison ivy. We were alive and we were married.

The honeymoon is when reality hit. Tanya was on serious pain meds to deal with the broken arm that still hadn't started to heal and the knee that still required surgery. (that would make for a wonderful first Christmas together as husband and wife) The Carnival Destiny as large as it was, still managed to roll with the motion of the ocean and that, along with the pain meds, made for a very irritated and nauseated bride. The constant itching and the nauseated, irritated wife made for a great time for me as a new husband. I spent hours on our balcony watching the water and wishing this was just a bad dream, realizing that I had just vowed to love Tanya in sickness and in health, but not really expecting the sickness part to start quite so soon. To put it bluntly, it sucked.

To be completely honest the first year of our marriage stunk. Tanya had several surgeries and months of rehab and I was stuck somewhere between home health aid and therapist as we tried to figure all of this out. I was angry, she was angry. Not the best of times.

BUT...we worked through it and learned to love each other at our weakest and worst.

The medical bills piled up and the "settlement" that we were promised by a crack attorney fizzled out to amount to around a third of what we owed. Another great lesson we had the privilege of learning right out of the gates. Finances are a hard thing to deal with as newlyweds, try adding $40,000 of medical debt to that lesson. It sucked.

BUT...we worked hard and paid it off after 6 long years and in the meantime learned to budget and live on less.

Less than 2 months after we were officially free of the debt from our car accident Tanya started having sharp pains in her side. She went in to the ER and they found several large stones in her gall bladder. No big deal, arthroscopic surgery is a piece of cake and she would be back on her feet chasing our 3 year old and 1 year old around the house in a couple of days. No such luck.

The surgeon who performed her operation sliced open her intestine and closed her up without repairing it. She spent a night in the hospital (where she was an RN) in excruciating pain and agony only to be told by the nurse that she was being too dramatic and that most people don't have this much pain, she must just not be strong enough to handle it. Right.

They discharged her, I brought her home and by that evening she was literally half dead. I drove her to the ER of another hospital only to find that she was in the process of going septic and her organs were starting to shut down. That night was the longest of my life as she groaned and shook in the ICU. They were to perform emergency surgery first thing in the morning to open her up and see what was going on. I thought again about loving my wife in sickness and in health.

The surgery was a success, but the recovery was hell. She was suffering from massive infections and an incision that spanned the length of her abdomen. We were on the critical care floor for a month. I say we because I rarely left her side for more than a few hours. I will never forget the way it felt to be trapped in the hospital. I would try to make the best of it, making the slow strolls down the hall carrying two IV poles as romantic as possible. Bringing movies in to watch together for "date night". It sucked.

BUT...we became a team during those long weeks. I surrendered myself and served her in whatever capacity she needed. She surrendered her pride and relied on me for even the most mundane of tasks. Our marriage not only survived, but thrived. My faith was strengthened as I began to feel God's hand in my life and in Tanya's healing. Our boys were at my parent's house and I tried to see them daily, they made frequent trips to the hospital to visit once Tanya was moved out of ICU and her vitals stabilized but it is a painful thing to see a mother separated from her children for 2 weeks and an even more painful thing to see a 1 and 3 year old try to process why Mommy is crying and why they can't hug her and why she doesn't come home to be with them. The recovery in the hospital was physical; the one at home over the next six months was emotional.

BUT...we learned that we can survive. That life is not fair or just. We were both off work for a total of 2+ months during this time.


Again, we found ourselves buried in a mountain of medical bills. This time we couldn't even find a lawyer who would take our case. Because Tanya lived through it we just didn't have a strong enough case. We were told, to our faces, that had she died they would have been happy to take the case. Thanks, you heartless wretches.

Anyway, Tanya recovered, she was able to deliver a beautiful baby boy last spring and all is well. Crazy with a house full of boys, but it is well. What we have found though, and the reason for my writing about this at all in this forum, is that it has created a habit in our way of thinking. A filter that all of the good things get pushed through. A feeling that at any moment, especially when things are going very well in our house, that the other shoe is going to drop. I have no idea where that phrase originated and frankly I don't care. I have realized over the past few months that living with that feeling of impending doom is a waste of time. A waste of energy. A waste of the gift of life that we have been given. It sucks.

There may very well be other tragedies that hit us. Life isn't fair or just. But to focus on that and not on the great times that daily brighten our lives defeats us before we ever step out onto the field. My kids will hopefully never remember the time that Tanya spent in the hospital or the tough months afterwards. At times I wish I could forget too. As I write out the checks to pay the bills now over 3 years old that are still hanging over us from that ordeal I find it hard to forget.

BUT...that doesn't mean we are doomed to repeat this cycle. Life happens...and right now I write the checks with a certain bit of pride in knowing that we have been through it before and we can do it again. We won. We were a team, and a damn good one at that. We will need every bit of that teamwork over the next 20 years to raise our boys into good, strong, Godly men. I am tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I think instead I'll look for opportunities to run around barefoot and crazy. With sand between my toes.

I will however be driving us to the beach myself...with my seatbelt on.

Halfway to 70

Me, 34 1/2 years ago

It was bound to happen eventually. Being the oldest cousin, oldest sibling and one the of the oldest in my class all through school, eventually I knew I would reach a point in my life when I would actually feel old. Now I am certainly not saying that 35 is in any way old. (I have seen first hand proof that old is a state of mind more than a state of being) I said that I would get to a point in my life when I would FEEL old. And boy do I ever feel old. In the words of Indiana Jones, "It's not the years Honey, it's the mileage."

It's been an eventful 35 years. I can only imagine that if the next 35 years are as eventful, by the time I reach 70 I will indeed BE old, not that 70 is old, it just happens to be twice my current age. It started off slow enough, elementary school and the brief moment of freedom that is childhood, but then comes middle school and then sports and high school and then dating and then college and then everything that college brings and then it begins to snowball into marriage and family and career and poof...you're 35.

A decade of marriage, 3 kids, a few houses and about twice as many cars and a couple of pets later and here I am at a halfway-point of sorts. Part-way to old, again, not that 70 is OLD. I hear 70 is the new 50...and I look farward to every day along the way to get there.

Anyway, my career is going well, family is growing and wonderful, life is full. Very full. Post Thanksgiving unbutton your pants full. So full in fact is life that my birthday blog is being written on the 8th. Thus is life when you are living in a house where the adults are outnumbered by the kids and the calendar is too full to find the time in it to schedule a meal with your wife or even to sleep more than a few hours. I truly feel lucky at the moment to simply remember what my name is and where I parked the car.

After 35 years I would expect to be able to pass along at least a few nuggets of wisdom...sorry, but this is all I have to pass along at this point:

Life is Good. Thank you Bert & John Jacobs for Jake and Rocket and their simple but profound truths.

Less really is more. After spending my entire birthday cleaning and organizing my garage (my choice) I have come to realize that "STUFF" clutters your life and that quality really does trump quantity. Anything that hasn't been used in 12 months is most likely NOT a necessary item. And also...one man does not need 27 screwdrivers.

You can't choose your family, so be very careful when choosing your friends. The people you spend time with have a huge impact on your life and on your perception of "how it is"...so when you can choose, choose wisely! I try to fill my life with people who challenge me to be better and who see the glass as half full!

Take a chance, make a decision. I tell my team this all the time, and it's almost always true. You are better to make a decision, even if it ends up being the wrong one, than to do nothing or put off a decision until later because you're scared of being wrong. I've taken a lot of risks in my life and my decisions haven't always turned out to be the best ones, but I have always regretted a decision NOT made more than one that in retrospect might not have been right.

There is very little upside to worry. I have seen worry destroy lives. It is unproductive, unattractive, unhealthy and self- destructive. When you feel overwhelmed with worry you can't see the solution, you can't see the light. What will happen will happen, we can't control everything, we CAN control our reactions, and worry is about as useless a reaction as you can find.

Look forward to tomorrow! Although none of us are guaranteed another breath, odds are if you go to sleep tonight you WILL wake up in the morning. If that IS the case than DO SOMETHING GREAT with tomorrow when it comes! I try to end each day, as exhausting as it may have been, with excitement for the next day. Right now my youngest son is 6 months old and his bright-eyed smile is the best wake up call in the world. He is happy not because of anything specific that today brings, but just because today is here. After 35 years I just wish I had the simple optimism of an infant!

Mother Mother Ocean

What is it about the water that washes away worries?

The very second the boat starts away from the dock, in that split second between when my sandal leaves the weathered wood until it finds its footing on the deck of the boat all of the weight of the world just floats away. Granted, I usually find it shortly after returning to dry land, but for those golden hours afloat I am living one wonderful moment at a time.

It’s been a few years now since I last had the chance to get out in my boat, kids tend to get in the way of selfish endeavors, but there was one summer in particular that I truly found my sea legs and my pirate soul. The previous year I had resurrected a 40 year old Starcraft runabout powered by an equally classic or as most people would say, old, 1958 Evinrude outboard. The boat was, and still is, a mighty fine piece of work.

The summer I really fell in love with the water was in most respects a pretty tumultuous one. The company I was running was bought by a larger one, which in turn was bought by an even larger one which was unsure what they wanted to do with my little slice of the pie. I spent most days reading memos written more at me than to me and doing my best to read between the lines to try to figure out what would become of us. I was paraded around to several mysterious suitors who one after another decided my company was either too small, too large or just not the right fit, all the while being yanked back and forth from meeting to meeting listening to people who as far as I can figure were in charge of quantifying the human value of treating people with respect vs. the collateral damage of giving mass quantities of good people the proverbial axe. I would later find out that when it comes to large “National” companies, the axe always tips the scale. But that’s a story for another night. Tonight I’m longing for the lake.

My saving grace that summer came in the form of solitary voyages on a nice quiet local lake. I would get to the point that the rubber band in my head would start to twist a bit too tight, and if the sun was shining, I’d head out for an emergency appointment with a “client” grumbling on the way out of the office about "last minute" this or that...The fact that I generally had accumulated 45 hours by Wednesday let me do this without much guilt. I would head home, get out of my suit and into my shorts and T-shirt and grab a cooler and my sidekick Eli the super-mutt. We would leave a quick note for my wife hook up the boat and take off.

By the time the trailer tires were on the street Jimmy Buffet would be telling us stories of life and laughs on the water and Eli, with his head out the window would remind me that this was not a trip to be taken lightly, this was serious escapism and it was what he lived for, this and the Frisbee.

Once we got to the boat ramp we were both in the zone. We were like a well practiced pit crew. We both knew our roles and communicated with few words. I would pull off to the prep lane, go through the mental checklist…drain plug in, cooler in, battery hooked up, fuel tank full and primed and cell phone out of my pocket (just in case). I would then back into position and ease down the ramp like a seasoned pro, Eli looking back at the boat as if he were my spotter, ready to bark if the trailer started to go astray. When the boat was in far enough I would pull the emergency break and the two of us would head out and jump on the dock. Eli would wait until the boat was loose from the trailer and tied off and then would jump in and assume his position as first mate, keeping a weathered eye on the horizon. I would pull the rig up to the parking lot and head back down to the dock, a pocket full of milkbones for my fellow sailor. We would shove off and leave all the stress of corporate mergers and acquisitions on dry land. We never brought a fishing pole and rarely swam, intentionally at least. We just put the old motor at a nice smooth idle and would cruise the lake. I always had a Buffet CD in the player I had installed on the old vessel and had a supply of Captain Black’s Cherry Cavendish at the ready under the dash with my pipe. Eli would pace around on the deck for the first 30 minutes or so, checking the boat out for seaworthiness and making sure I had remembered everything, mainly treats and tennis balls and would then find a comfy spot in the sun beside me. Damn I miss my friend Eli. We didn’t have enough of these voyages before the kids came along and the boat just became something to move when I mowed. The memories of these trips are so vivid though that if I close my eyes tonight I can still smell the exhaust of the old outboard and feel the soft fur on Eli’s head as I reach over and pat him between the ears and tell him “good day on the water eh boy?.”

Eli is gone now. The boat is covered and parked behind the garage with expired tags and flat trailer tires. My boys will enjoy her. She’ll sail again. Same old captain, eager new crew. Same old destination. We’ll step off dry land and into a world where worries are nowhere on the agenda. The big decisions will be where to sail to next and who gets to drive the boat. Jimmy will be telling us stories about island life and we just might have to fly the pirate flag now and then. If I’m lucky my crew will settle into comfy spots in the sun after walking around the deck for awhile and feel the water move beneath them. If I’m lucky they too will fall in love with the water and find their sea legs. I’m looking forward to shoving off.

Headin to a Weddin...

What is it about a wedding, even a wedding involving total and complete strangers, that gets the romantic juices flowing? These two people about to get hitched could very well be the worst matched pair since Woody and Mia, I would still get teary when they timidly kiss for the first time as husband and wife. The stats show that as Americans we marry too often. Compared to our neighbors across the pond we marry, divorce and then remarry with amazing efficiency, thus increasing both the number of wedding dresses produced only to end up at the garage sale down the street and the number of butter mints that end up in land fills. Divorce attorneys are the real winner in this bitter cycle of lust/love/loss. Tragic, but still...we marry too often? What in the world are we supposed to do with a statistic like that. Does it mean we are an impatient lot who can't wait to jump back into matrimony so we won't have to eat alone? Does it mean we are gluttons for punishment and get back in the white sequined saddle as quickly as possible..."thank you...may I have another?!?" I prefer to think that it is because we are a bunch of sappy, half-wit and hopeless romantics. We have all watched The Wedding Planner and the Wedding Singer and the like enough times to think that if we try hard enough and really believe in love, magic will deliver us the perfect mate and life will be strawberries and champagne, at least until we get into the Cheaper by the Dozen years of our lives.

I don't know... I guess that be it too many Cuzack movies, not wanting to grow old alone, or perhaps because I did magically find my perfect mate, I dig marriage. I dig being a husband. I love my wife and all her bells and whistles. I don't wish to see the new models, fuel efficient or not. My marriage is the skeleton that holds this flabby life together and I hope that is what this marriage tonight will bring to this nervous, naive couple. Being married to the right person for the right reason is a timeless classic that will always be in style.

So break out the good shoes and the tiny bottles of bubbles...wedding bells are ringing~!

Pointlessly Productive

I am a busy man. I’m the CEO of a growing mid-sized credit union, the father of 3 young boys, husband of a beautiful and motivated woman and am active in my church and community. Not that I’m any different than the rest of society. The sandwich artist that begrudgingly toasted my sub this afternoon was too busy to make small talk. The driver in the car ahead of me on my way home was too busy to wait for the green light to turn right, despite the “no turn on red” sign hanging just north of her SUV. We are a busy people. Too busy. It feels most nights like I just started on my to-do list when my head hits the pillow. So how do I reconcile my mind with my appointment book?

I spend some time doing something completely unconstructive. Poignantly pointless. Unabashedly unproductive. I anchor the boat, wade into the water and find flat rocks to stack on the beach. No, literally, that's what I do. I pile driftwood into a worthless work of art. I unplug my brain, at least the left side, and plug into my senses. How does the water feel on my legs, how does the beach feel on my feet, how does the driftwood feel in my hands. I expect no applause for my efforts. I am not fulfilling an item anywhere on an agenda and I won’t be getting a congratulatory email from a board member for my attempt. That is precisely why it works.

When my mind gets too full and my batteries are dead it is time to clear the calendar and pull out the paints and a nice clean canvas and make a masterpiece that will never hang in the Louvre. I get completely caught up in the color.



The smell of the oil paint and the feeling of the brush between my fingers force me to do what even a really good pub burger and cold beer can’t do. It makes me focus on the moment, and only the moment. It gives my brain permission to recharge and reset itself. Those few valuable hours “wasted” on these trivial efforts are what keeps me sane. They don’t happen often enough right now, but when they do…oh how sweet it is. If you feel the pressure of your planner. If you feel crushed under the weight of your calendar, if your Blackberry has you ready to blackout, you may be long overdue for some wasted time. It is unbelievable how valuable it can be to do something worthless.