Thursday

The Girls in Europe made it to Pisa and Rome. 3 had a long day ahead of her with her final destination being London.

Another great day here. The forecast of "possible rain showers" never developed. Busy here in the office, and my ride this evening will be shorter and later than originally planned.

Congrats to Trisha and John in the Great Northwest. Twin girls!

Dan Patrick has announced his departure from ESPN. I think that he has figured out that he has options, and he's going to take his time to decide where he can best meet his personal and professional goals. To an extent, he comes across to me as a guy who thinks he knows more stuff than his audience, and that he matters. He's been a long-time bosom buddy of Kieth Obermann, and Obermann has taken his shstick into the mainstream news area. I'm not saying that Patrick is jealous of Obermann, but I think he sees a friend who has taken his act a little further afield in a successful manner. Why not himself?

I was tempted to call in a contribution yesterday to the Jimmy V Foundation. ESPN Radio was broadcasting information all day on an auction that was being held in conjunction with The Espy Awards which were handed out last night (the show was taped for showing this coming Sunday). I elected not to do so, mostly because I was in my car and I didn't like the idea of giving my credit card number out over a cell phone. I checked the ESPN and Jimmy V Foundation websites today, and have still not made a contribution, although I may do so in the future.

My philosophical concern is on how much of the charity's income goes to it's donative intent. It's the same question that I have for the Lance Armstrong Foundation and NASCAR's Victory Junction Camp. The whole problem is that when an organization gets to a bigger size, to keep growing, they need to spend money on their own bureaucracy, which means some dollars never make it directly to fighting cancer. My guess is that anything above 80% is pretty good.

There were another couple of examples in recent news of the predatory nature of our media. A Louisiana Senator got busted for being on the list of a Washington madam, and he immediately became the opening joke on late-night TV. A more edgy item involved a Chicago TV reporter (who is an Iowa grad and did time at a CR station) who was caught on video, in a bikini top, and with her kids, at the home of the "person of interest" husband in a high profile wife disappearance case that she was investigating for her station. The bikini top sold the story and it has been an inferno in Chicago.

My pal Bill is headed down to the Lake of the Ozarks for a long weekend. I could use a long weekend myself.

My pal Roy and I had dinner last night at Exotic Thai. He was on his own for the evening and needed company. We then dropped by Crow Valley to chat up a couple of business friends. We're working a deal to sell one of his companies and the buyers are trying to renegotiate the price. Not nice. One of the bartenderess's was a cute girl whom I overheard mentioning that she went to Creighton. I asked her about that, and it turns out she had recognized me as 2 and 3's Dad. She knew 3's friend Kristen, and I then put one and one together to conclude that I was talking to the former gal pal of one Michael K.

Hope The Travelers are all ok.

Be careful out there.