Saturday

Sorry for not getting online yesterday, but it was a whole day on the road. C-town for a conference. Left at 0h-dark-hundred, and didn't get back until after 9 PM.

I guess it would be appropriate if I made today's entry on Travel.

Chicago remains one of my favorite destinations. There's a ton of things I like about the city. The fact that The Loop is only 200 miles from my house is a big plus, as this makes access by car a no-brainer. As I have mentioned on these pages previously, it's satisfying to know that you can go to a big city without detailed knowledge of a destination point, and know that you can "feel" your way to the location without major trauma. This was certainly the case yesterday as my conference was held at a Northwest suburban conference center that I had never before visited. I spent less than five minutes "feeling" my way to the conference facility once I exited the freeway.

That said, traffic remains a big disincentive to make that trip very often. I spent at least as much time in the car yesterday as I did at the conference and at dinner with an attorney friend in Downers Grove. Traffic on any Friday is bad, particularly in the afternoon. Construction on the freeway entering the suburbs from the West ( I-88) is undergoing major reconstruction. And "rush hour" has extended itself to the point where non-rush hour is hard to specify.

My attorney friend said that while he normally takes the train, he had driven to his downtown office yesterday, leaving the Oakbrook area around 5:30 AM. He said that the Ike was busy at that hour, but traffic was moving along briskly. Been there. Done that. 27 years ago. Couldn't do it again.

The conference was close enough to our first house in Arlington Heights that I decided to check out the old place. It took a few missed turns to get there, but it was nice to see how the owners since us have improved the home. We were young, poor and were not planning to stay there all that long. So we didn't undertake the major work needed to refurbish a decrepit garage at the rear of the house. Someone along the way tore out the old mess and put in a new two-car garage with a second story addition to the back of the home. Really nice. By the number of pumpkins on the front steps, it must now be home to a family with several kids.

The trip South from Arlington to meet my attorney friend took over an hour. Ugh! I thought I could miss some congestion by not taking the toll road, but I was sorely wrong, and I had a few missed turns to boot. Just a lousy experience.

One of my friends at coffee this morning suggested that a GPS driving device might be at least a partial answer to the missed-turns part of my trip. He's the second or third guy who has recently touted these things to me. My pal Roy has one as standard equipment in at least one of his cars. I was with a guy a few weeks ago on a trip to southern Iowa and his GPS spoke to him in the voice of Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers films. This stuff makes Mapquest outdated. And I think that competition in the market place is driving the cost down to make the technology more affordable to the masses.

A different angle to dealing with urban traffic that my attorney friend is pursuing is working in the field with more electronic support from the office. He has had mobile accessibility through cell phone, pager and the like for several years. He is now looking at additional technology for his home office that will reduce the need for his presence in his downtown office. While this 0ff-site arrangement has been popular with IT folks and data processors of different ilks for a long time, applying it to a professional service is testimony as to how far we have progressed in today's business environment.

The attorney's social perspective as his family has aged has also evolved and he now speaks of possibly moving closer to the city at some point in the future to take advantage of cultural and entertainment opportunities. This direction rather than a move further West to avoid traffic. If you want to take advantage of the City, you need to choose your lifestyle. A backyard and a lengthy commute. Or a lot more concrete and a few more cab fares.

I might work on this discussion in a future entry. There are lots of angles to debate.

Great day here. I'm out to enjoy it.

BCOT

Thursday

No blog today.

Wednesday

Craig Wilson Wednesday.

Craig voiced his problems with tattoos in today's column. Not all that inspiring. Borderline obvious. Not many 60 year-old's have envious things to say about body art on the younger generation. Body piercing has similar ratings, eh, 1?

The more pertinent topic for today is vegetable plagiarism. The papers and the media have picked up on the, dare I say, controversy?, between Jerry Seinfeld's wife's new book and that of another woman who has a similar book in print on the same subject. Letterman was, of course, after my bedtime last night, but Jerry Seinfeld was a guest, ostensibly to plug his new movie. I guess the discussion got side-tracked, or never got to the movie, and it became your classic made for the media, tempest-in-a-teapot. On mushed peas and spinach. Wow.

The non-Seinfeld book is at an obvious disadvantage. The Seinfeld name is going to sell books. That's a fact of Real World 101. From a marketer's perspective, the idea is to push books out the door. Jerry's name, and by association, Jerry's wife's name, sells. Jane Doe has an up hill battle to compete.

I compare this a little to my comments on 4000 Days about others stealing my material. Few thoughts are all that original. Creative people observe things in daily life, and those with a media portal can disseminate their thoughts to their readers. Those with no such outlets get to grouse of their plight to their limited audience.

Personally, how a Mom gets her kids to eat carrots is not all that interesting to me, regardless of the author, or the genesis of the idea to put her technique to print.

I'm probably never going to buy Cindy Crawford's furniture line, but it sells, and I'm pretty sure that her success in furniture has nothing to do with the fact that her face (and figure) graced a thousand fashion magazines over the years. Right.

Okay. That may not have exactly had a logical sequence, but the concepts do have some connectivity.

The Cabernet that we served at 1 and 1.1's wedding last Summer continues to find endorsers. We had it as one of the options at our business event at the Figge last week, and it was a big hit. I actually had a couple of attendees call me this week to get the brand (J. Lohr), and the wine store where we had purchased it. Although I am a Tuscan red aficionado, this cab goes down easily.

I have also been trying to buy an Italian wine that I found last Summer in KC, but no one has it locally. I've sent emails to other wine shops that I've found on the Internet that say that they stock this particular wine, but they must not be reading their email. It's a vintage made from Runche grapes, an obscure variety indigenous to an area in the Piedmont region. I'll keep looking. I am not a wine snob, Roy.

Got to go meet 2 to run. We'll need to avoid the goblins.

BCOT

Tuesday

Thanks to AM on her comment regarding Andre Agassi's charitable work in LV. Coming from a baseball family, I would have thought that she would have said that Greg Maddux was the most popular athlete from Vegas.

Tuesday at the Workplace.

There was a short article on Yahoo, I think earlier today, about the 5 Most Annoying Things at Work. I didn't read the whole column, but I think it mentioned things like loud talking on cell phones and messing up the kitchenette areas as popular irritations. Those things are certainly noticeable, but for me, as a boss, people arriving late and leaving early are probably at the top of my list. And, without regard to one's position in an office's chain of command, the inability of any office building, of almost any size, to regulate heating and cooling on a consistent basis is a real downer.

I'm wondering how long any organization, in any field of endeavor, can make their environment "a wonderful place to work." WPTW. Chad Knauss, crew chief of Jimmy Johnson's #48 Lowe's Chevrolet, was on the radio last night and was explaining that the success of their team and that of the #24 car was the result of the 550+ people working at Hendrick Motor Sports (HMS). The interviewer then commented that HMS was maybe not for just everyone because HMS had some conduct and uniform-type rules that not every mechanic would necessarily buy into. Knauss agreed, but said that those who stayed thought that HMS was a WPTW.

An organization that has publicly recognized success in their mission has a much better chance at being a WPTW than one who's results are less than stellar. HMS has won several championships. They are well-funded by large corporate sponsors. They know that, at this point in time, their equipment should run at the front of any race. You can't hardly see a media story that doesn't fondle over the the success and stature of HMS in their industry.

I would posit that HMS, like most success stories, is a product of the vision of a single person or a small group of key people. When that management has had the insight to make a better widget and get ahead of whatever curve might apply to their industry, there should be good times all over their horizon. How long can it last? Maybe the owner(s) make their money and decide that enough is enough. Can the "next man in" pick up the baton and not lose cadence?

Does the organization that is slightly ahead of it's creditors have the feel of a WPTW? If the owner/visionary redirects core competencies to odd-ball projects not on the regular glide-path, what happens to the WPTW? What happens when John Q. Smith the Second takes over for Dad and supplants three non-family execs in the boardroom?

What place does advancing technology play in determining how long a WPTW can stay on plane? If your business proposition is toasted by a new process, will the visionary have the ability to adjust and stay ahead of the crowd, or a least participate in the new order?

And don't underestimate the importance of a good HR Department. Knauss was right on the point of good people being the most important part of any organization. If you don't hire capable people, you don't win whatever is your race, and every battle is uphill.

My bet is that there are lots of books out there that have sliced and diced this point to fine powder. My bottom line is that if your organization is profitable, is duly recognized by peers and competitors, and has hungry visionaries who share the wealth within the enterprise, then you can maintain the WPTW title.

Thanks for reading. Have a great evening.

BCOT

Monday

Thanks to 1 for a little addition to the account yesterday afternoon. Sounds like DM was a success. The only casualty for the weekend could have been 4 who seems to have lost her voice.

Sports Monday.

There are not many years when I have been able to say that I did not see a single inning of the World Series, but that is/was the case for this year. From what I have read, Colorado had no answer for the Bosox, and the series was over before any drama developed.

An interesting observation relative to both last year's series and this year's: the team who swept their way through their League Championship Series (essentially, the semi-finals), and had to wait while the other semi-final series went to seven games, got swept in the World Series. This would validate the argument that an abnormally long lay-off hurts a team that is used to playing everyday. I think that this is an argument that is more valid in baseball than, say, basketball, but the rhythm of play in any sport is certainly a key to performance.

A NASCAR item of note: Jimmy Johnson won the race over the weekend in Atlanta, and announced afterwards that the winner's pot of about $350,000 was being donated to The American Red Cross, earmarked for relief efforts in the fire-ravaged areas of California, his home state. Team owner Rick Hendrick and Atlanta Motor Speedway owner Burton Smith were each to match the contribution, meaning that over a million dollars would be contributed.

The businessman (and tax man) in me always wonders what really happens when these sports stars take some or all of their winnings from an event and "contribute" it to charity. Does it ever hit their personal books? Or does the event sponsor pay the charity directly? Who in the organization, where there is a team involved, makes the decision to donate? And how, if at all, is "Bubba", the rear-tire changer affected?

Most of the more successful NASCAR drivers have established their own charitable foundations and go about efforts to make some kind of positive impact. The Petty's have built the Victory Junction Gang Camp for disabled kids, and numerous teams have made substantial contributions to the Camp's ambitious capital improvements plan. The tail-end teams probably can't do much because they are just trying to get in The Show each week, but NASCAR has done a decent job of picking up causes without the primary intent being the hiring of somebody's cousin or "pay- girlfriend".

I think Tiger has done a decent job at sharing his time and wealth for his foundation. As has Lance. Those yellow plastic "LiveStrong" bracelets have to be the greatest single charitable marketing ploy ever. $50 million? Wikipedia says that more than 70 million have been sold. They originally thought they would have hit a home run if they did $5 million. That was all timing. Was there ever an athlete in our time who was hotter than Lance was in that two years' time between the winning of his fifth TdF and the winning of his seventh race?

Well, the answer to that question is, "yes", with Tiger, Michael, and Ali all with probably more world-wide appeal than Lance. Pele. Others?

Did anyone know that they played an NFL game in London yesterday? Does anyone care? It's all about the globalization of business. And don't kid yourself: the NFL, the NBA, MLB, and even NASCAR are businesses at their cores, and the strategists in all of these organized North American pro sports leagues are looking at the rest of the world as additional audiences. If the Internet can allow Aunt Millie to sell her receipes on eBay, the pro games ought to be able to make a buck as well.

My pal Roy leaves on his honeymoon this Thursday. Two weeks, I think. South America. Chile. Rio. A couple of other places. No golf clubs. I'm not sure if the laptop is going along or not. His IPhone should work, but I doubt if his new bride wants him to get daily reports from the bad influences in the QC.

Gotta go. 2 and I are running tonight.

BCOT

Sunday

I think that 1 was going to be a "guest" contributor today, but I suspect that her day may get away from her with road time from DM.

FFF in IC yesterday went pretty well as scheduled. Without the preferred parking pass, Mom and I found ourselves clear down at Hancher, which was fine, but certainly not convenient. My pal Roy called to keep me up to date on the score of the game. From his location in Bettendorf. Thanks, Bud. I set up the BBQ and the post-game event was fine.

2, 3, and 4 all went to the game on student tickets. And it was a great game. In my boredom, I actually did a pass-through of the Iowa Art Museum. Let's see, that's two art museums in a three day period. That may be a personal record.

Let it be known that I did turn on the heat in my house this morning for the first time since probably early April. It may have been cool enough inside to impact some of my plants. A hard frost here overnight. Then again, it will be November this week.

I'm wondering where Halloween falls in the pecking order of retail sales for "holiday" events in America. When I finally settled down on my couch last night to catch a little TV before falling asleep, I think two out of three stations, cable or network, had some Halloween theme going with their programming. And the stores have been stuffed with costumes and candy for the last month. I don't get it.

Christmas is the obvious Number One commercial hit of any year. What's next? Here's a Top Five list off the top of my head:

1. Christmas.
2. Valentines Day.
3. Mother's Day.
4. Halloween.
5. Thanksgiving?
6. July 4th?

Maybe the reason that Halloween is so popular is that it falls in a slight "dead zone" on the calendar. There really hasn't been any National holiday or cross-population-segments event for retailers to focus on since Labor Day in early September. School has been going on for a couple of months, and the "holidays" don't start for another three weeks. Shelf space is available at Walmart. Horror movies sell well. Lots of people have a sweet tooth. Everybody from kids to middle-age adults see an opportunity for a party. (We old f**ts are just too old to get excited.) So we have a Perfect Storm and the result is Halloween.

Hallmark Cards have tried to create a greeting card event for each month. In addition to the obvious ones, they have Grandparents Day, Clergy Month, Letter Carrier Day, and Teacher's Month. You may think that these separate organizations have taken it upon themselves to create their own day, week or month, but it is a well-known fact that all of these curious celebratory times can be traced back to Hallmark.

The new marketing opportunities are on the Internet. USA Today had a story on Friday about individuals making significant money through ads/clicks on their websites. I doubt if 4000 Days has that potential. But creative types can do it. Legitimate sites can have appeal to different market segments, whether it be for the Moms of the world, or maybe different sports things for the men. Hallmark and Walmart need to employ geeks just to protect their own turf.

So I'm off for the day of stuff around the house. Have a great one.

BCOT

Saturday

Great day in IC with 2,3, and 4. Hawks win!

Details tomorrow.

BCOT

Friday

A little potpourri Friday.

Our event at the Figge Museum last night was a success. Including our staff, we had around 30 people participate. It was at least as much work as I anticipated, and when we do other similar programs in the Spring, we'll know that we can't just go through the motions and expect positive outcomes. 2 did a great job as the Figge representative to our group.

I have scheduled my second colonoscopy for mid-November. Ugh! But Uncle Phil does point out the Daddy did die of colon cancer, so I shouldn't shy away from the test. But still, ugh!

Here's another fact of technology. Those Self-Checkout stations at Walmart have a scale beneath the bag platform. If you don't put the item in the bag after you have scanned it, the screen prompts you to, "Skip Bagging and Go To Next Item". I had some big items that I was just scanning and then putting into a cart at the end of the checkout station, so I was getting this message after every item. I was a little frustrated, and then the machine called for help. The clerk then explained to me the thing about the scale. I was surprised to learn of yet another system of Big Brother watching you.

When I then put four cases of Coke on the platform to avoid the message, it went into full "Tilt" mode and the clerks had no clue. After a few minutes of trying to get the machine to re-set, they gave up and directed me elsewhere. In a perfect storm of meeting the worst result, they placed me in the next checkout station that had the long line that I had originally tried to avoid by doing it myself!

Lots of road time for us over the weekend. Keep safe.

BCOT

Thursday

This will have to be a "No Blog" day today. I'm hosting a client event down at the Figge tonight and I just don't have time to be the wordsmith today. I'll have a report tomorrow.

BCOT

Wednesday

I could do Sports today, and with the start of the World Series, Sports would be appropriate. But it is also Wednesday, and Craig Wilson's nonsense provides better inspiration for the moment.

The topics and biases that make it to the columns are rarely works of art. Some scribes, or more aptly, pundits, like a Dave Berry, are more often clever than others. And a guy like Rick Reilly can resonate with fan groups with some consistency. Wilson's observations about daily life cater to a less demanding reader who is basically willing to accept the premise of a column as worthy or not. Other more serious writers on politics or religion appeal to different audiences as well. And loose standards are generally recognized among readers as in a writer's work being consistently well-presented. Or not.

The Internet has a feature that often asks a reader to rate the article that was just read. Kind of like the "star" system used to rate movies, hotels, or restaurants. A truly bored geek could possibly design a Nielsen-like rating system on columnists that could be updated on a weekly basis for the masses. Imagine the chagrin of a Christine Brennan when she learns that she has negatives in her approval ratings rivalling only those of Hillary. Ditto for Rush.

Athletes in virtually every sport have historical statistics on their performances kept in countless data banks. What did Cal Ripken hit for the month of July in 1988? There's a definitive answer to that question. How many assists did Magic have against the Pistons in his career? There's an answer to that one too. In the games that we play, we keep score. I think that we ought to do the same for the writers.

I was going to extend the point to Leno and Letterman, but those guys do get rated by the TV system. Obviously, some nights the monologues are better than other nights, but over time, viewership will be determine advertising rates, and the show's employees will then reap the appropriate rewards.

Some of this surely already exists on the Internet. Bloggers and nutcases may be out there right now crying for subscribers to critique Cooper Anderson's crusade on global warming. I hope that they can find some venture capital to take this to a national level. I want to pick up the Monday USA Today and go to the Life Section where they report the weekend take on the movies, and last week's TV ratings, and find the statistical analysis on the columnists. Who had it together, and who just mailed it in?

So maybe I should just stick to Sports on Wednesday, eh?

BCOT

Tuesday

Tuesday may be a day for The Workplace.

1 did a little whining yesterday about lack of recognition for her comment last Thursday on vacations. Hey, I write almost everyday to feed curious minds, and on the many days when there's no comments, I feel like one of Sartre's trees crashing in the vacuum.

My Top Ten List of worst jobs or job-related events:

1. Shovelling s**t on the farm. There was a lot of it.
2. Working the graveyard shift in the USAF at Dover in the early 70's.
3. Commuting 90+ minutes one-way in C-town for four years in the late 70's.
4. Getting sued by a client in the early 90's. Solidified my view of attorneys.
5. Fighting the IRS on a preparer penalty with an agent on a mission.
6. Working for dueling partners on an account at AA&Co. They weren't talking to one another and I was the go-between.
7. Starting a business in 1982 with no clients.
8. Milking, feeding, and herding cows in January or August. Cold or hot was was never a lot of fun on the farm.
9. Almost any IRS audit with my clients.
10. Remote Korea, December 1974. Learning the meaning of 12 on/12 off.
11. Treasurer on the Parish Council at St. Paul's, Davenport. And I volunteered for the position.! (I forgot about this one and had to add it later.)

And for equal coverage, my Top Ten List of best jobs or job-related events:

1. The April 15th parties in C-town. We were never asked back to the same place for the next year's event.
2. My Motor Pool job in Dover in 1972-73. Sgt. Bilko was my model.
3. Being the tax guy for my pals Roy and Pete. It's never dull.
4. There are few things I would change about my job today. It would be nice to make a little more money, but lots of things are good.
5. Driver of the chase car on RAGBRAI. You get to party, but don't have to ride a bike the 100 miles to get there.
6. Fan at my daughters' marathons (and half marathons).
7. Dad. The best job I've ever had. (It's not a job. It's an adventure!)
8. Clerk of the Course at high school track meets. Huh?
9. Tuscan red at Biaggi's. It may be a stretch to call it work-related, but I'll call it so.
10. Author of 4000 Days.

This is a little hokey, but there is more truth than fiction with most of the listings. I would be hard-pressed to find worse or better items for either respective list.

Have a great evening.

BCOT

Monday

Thanks to 3 for a belated guest entry under the Sunday heading. 1 is officially on notice for next Sunday.

3 also added a comment to the most recent entry on 4's site. Of particular note was her reference to Sartre and existentialism. (Exactly what sound does the falling tree make in the woods when no one is there to witness the event?) She hit another winner with the reference to the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon as that game theory might relate to Chicago Marathon stories. Very clever.

Monday is a good day for Current Events, as we have not only the most recent weekend to consider, but also those things from the previous week that the Sunday editorials may have put into the spotlight. Unfortunately, most of the editorials were about Hillary or The Other Suits Who Would Be President. There will be plenty of room for politics later. I mean we only have a little over 12 months until the National elections!

The local paper today carried a story on the front page of the recent life and times of a former Davenport mayor who passed away this weekend of cancer at age 64. He was a local high school football star who went on to law school and then to work with the biggest law firm here in town. He never lacked for confidence, and his flippant side got under the skin of some people. But I think that he was genuinely committed to doing good for his hometown, and he was unafraid to try things that might help in that regard.

Among the things that give you cause to ponder at this death are: 1) His age. I mean like, he wasn't that old. 2) His education. This was a bright guy with graduate degrees. He invested in himself. 3) His youthful successes. Those headlines and accolades are transitory. 4) Professional proximity. I worked on a couple of tax engagements with the guy. 5) He was a biker. He and his wife road a tandem on some of the event-rides that I participated in over the years. 6) He had some dirty laundry. I mean, don't we all?

Without getting too morose, that's a death that gets pretty close to home.

Speaking of loss, I have a very close friend/client who lost his house today in the fires in San Diego. He is one of three brothers whose collective business interests constitute one of my top three client groups. They attempted to get some of their personal things out in front of the conflagration, but the local brother didn't think those boxes got out of the garage.

And speaking of drought, the Governor of Georgia has predictably pointed to Washington D.C. as a co-conspirator on the water shortage in the state. There are issues with the Corps of Engineers, recognizing that the Corps is a bureaucracy, but geeze, are natural disasters always Washington's fault?

The World Series is news, but I don't have a lot of excitement about it. I don't like the American League, generally, and the Bosox are even way down on that list. And it's hard to digest that the National League's representative is Colorado. Mix in the fact that FOX will probably start the games at 7:30 Eastern, there's no way that I'll see the end of the games regardless of the participants. Could we extend here a theory that the grapes were probably sour anyway?

And in entertainment news, I see where Kid Rock and some of his boys got thrown in the slammer someplace near Atlanta at 5AM for involvement in a fight outside a Waffle House restaurant. Do these celebrities just try to do this stuff? They surely can't think that they can act this way and stay below radar. This is a guy who got Cheryl Crow to do a duet with him...before Lance. (Ok, the fact that he was married multiple times to Pam Anderson may explain his dark side, but she did look good 15 years ago on Baywatch.)

Hope everyone has a good week.

BCOT

Sunday

This is a "guest" day.

An enjoyable evening last night at the movies. 2, 4 and Mom invited me to join them at the Novas for The Bourne Ultimatum, which was decent flick. We could do worse come 12/24.

2 was quoted in the QC Times today for her work in an event at the museum yesterday. Way to go!

Long days for all of our teams on the gridiron.

Have a great day.

BCOT

Saturday

This looks like a great Fall day. I need to get outside once I'm done with a couple of things here at the office. My pal Roy and I may hit some balls.

The annual intra-city football clash between PV and Bettendorf was last night. It wasn't much of a clash. Bettendorf wins 49-0. Ouch! Amazing how the culture, at least for football, can be so different in schools two miles apart who are drawing from essentially the same gene pool. In most years, this is the kind of lop-sided result in this game. The net outcomes in all other sports between the schools are not nearly that disparate. Does one coaching staff make that big of a difference?

The annual Pumpkin Run is tomorrow on Credit Island in Davenport. I think that they have added a 10K for the more serious runners. Since 4 is in town for the weekend, maybe she and I can stop down and re-create that famous photo of our participation in the event years ago.

The next medico that I see is the colonoscopy guy. My first one was 6+ years ago, and I started getting reminder cards from the doc last Winter to schedule a re-check. Of course, I ignored those cards. As a third reminder, they sent me a certified letter advising me of their recommendation to schedule the procedure. I ignored that letter as well, although I was curious if their rationale for sending it by certified mail was legal liability motivated. A surgeon friend thought it was more profit-motivated than anything.

Since I have met all my insurance deductibles from the bike accident surgery, my own economics now push me down the road to do the colonoscopy before the end of the year to minimize my out-of-pocket costs. So I called the doctor's office yesterday to initiate the process. In my repartee with the appointment clerk, she fessed-up that the certified letter was a legal-liability protection action on advice from counsel. The lawyers must be working overtime to come up with not only the possible cases that they could file, but the corresponding defenses as well.

When you think about it, it's almost Seinfeld-esque in the sense that we're almost doing a game-theory thing. If you were a good doctor, you would have had a procedure to get the recently departed Mr. Doe back to your office for a re-check of his colon to catch the colon cancer that developed some time after that colonoscopy that you did seven years ago (that showed no signs of disease). So even though Mr. Doe ignored those suggestion cards that you sent him three years ago to come back for a routine follow-up, you didn't do enough, so his death is your fault, and we think that you now owe Mrs. Doe $2 million for malpractice. (Keeping in mind, of course, that the litigator keeps at least one-third of the award.)

As convoluted as that logic may seem, if plaintiff attorneys don't think like this, why would defense attorneys come up with the certified letter concept?

So do we have a guest author tomorrow? Perhaps some wisdom from C-town?

Have a great day.

BCOT

Friday

Friday might work as a Free day. That is, a day where the topic is open for the choosing.

I did have the additional thought overnight that another usage for the word "travel" is as an adjective (?) to describe fan support on the road for an athletic team. For instance, among college football bowl sponsors, it is generally acknowledge that Iowa "travels" well.

I made another concession to convention this week by acquiring a Kohl's credit card. My shopping habits are fairly predictable, and Kohl's tends to be the first place I stop for golf shirts, sweaters and shoes. It bugs the heck out of me to have another electronic trail out there documenting my activities, but the siren of recurring discounts finally won me over. With a Gap card and now a Kohl's card, in addition to my other Amex and VISA cards, I am now among the crowd in credit card excess.

The MasterCard and VISA card issuers are the big villains in our nation of credit enablers, but these individual store chains that push customers into their own cards should share the ignominy. Their pushing their own cards is not really an effort to benefit the holders, but rather a more insidious choice to further ensnare the user and to gather more specific data on their customer base.

Another major participant in the credit card boom is the generic affinity card concept. Sports teams, colleges, business associations, and fraternal organizations, among others, often have their "own" MasterCard or VISA card. I'm guilty. I have an ND card issued by a VISA bank. And an AICPA MasterCard. The affinity organization does nothing except collect a little fee from each transaction or balance. Again, the cards are not offered because the prospective user needs that specific card. It's a way for the issuer to get another fish on the line, and it's free money to the affinity organization.

I think my first credit card was a Gulf Oil Company card that I acquired my first year out of ND. Gulf Oil stations were commonplace along the Indiana Toll Road and all the way out East, where I was stationed in the USAF, and I think that they had a deal with Holiday Inn. I remember a couple of trips back to South Bend that first year in Dover, and I could use the one card for both gas and hotel. The high life. (Wikipedia states that Gulf Oil was merged into what is now Chevron in 1984.)

Free advice to all readers: ALWAYS pay off your credit card balance each month. On time. The interest and fees that you can otherwise pay makes SB's coffee appear cheap in comparison. The credit card companies are unconscionable when it comes to these charges. That $29 (0r maybe even higher) late fee is just pure profit to them. Don't get caught. And don't be seduced by the "0" interest transfer fee. There's no free lunch.

OK. My pal Roy and I are headed out for dinner. Maybe some Tuscan red.

Have a great weekend.

BCOT

Thursday

Let's make Thursday a day for Travel.

In the Big Leagues, Thursday is often considered a travel day for teams. It is a frequent "off" day, with no game scheduled, and the team either on the road, or going on the road, will use that day as a leisurely day to get to the next city where they will be playing on the weekend. Later in the season when "make up" games are required, those games often take place on these unscheduled travel days. In that situation, the game will often be a "day" game, and the team that's on the road will leave right after the game to get to the next city. The Friday game will then usually be a night game to give the traveling team a chance to sleep in after a late-night arrival.

In basketball, "a little traveling music", is a phrase announcers use to described a traveling violation committed by the player in possession of the ball.

In business, Travel and Entertainment, is a historically abused expense deduction.

Also in business, travel is a characteristic of a job that may be considered a bit of a disadvantage in comparison to a job that has no travel involved. I know that in today's world, what with the issues of security, airplane delays, and the like, travel is not a perk. If you like to get home to the fam and your own bed each night, overnight travel is a negative for the job seeker.

As a sidebar, I would distinguish "travel" from it's subset, "commuting". Unless you work out of your home, everyone has a commute to work. It may be a five minute jaunt in a small town, or it might be that ugly hour and a half death march in the major city. Been there. Done that.

On the positive side of the ledger, travel is listed by many people, particularly retirees, as a favorite pastime.

Travel in our immediate family is most often associated with Lake Tahoe. (For those who might want to parse meanings, Lake Tahoe and Travel could be reversed in that sentence.) Next would be Chicago. Then KC. After that, we each might have our own destination of choice.

Today's young adults have been exposed to more travel than I would ever have dreamed of as a boy. Fifty years ago, there was not the facility of travel that exists today. Our family had no money. The Wapello County Fair in Eldon was a big deal! It was only when we each went to college that the world started to open.

I have had the most fun (when not with the fam) when I have been on the road with my pals Pete and Big Jake. Whether it be at a game in Ames, a small-town bar on RAGBRAI, or on the Plaza in KC, we have had some great times. DM. Phoenix. Lots of stories that get repeated forever, and the exploits become even more outrageous with each rendering. There were those Vegas days with Wally. And in recent years, the Cabo golf trips with my pal Roy have been memorable as well.

There is a saying on the Cabo trip that, "it's not about the golf". Rather, the trip is about the friendships and enjoyment that is shared by the participants. I agree. Tahoe would just be another lake (a beautiful one to be sure, but just a lake) for me without Uncle Phil and the fam. And the same goes for all the other places that I have been. Without the friends, what is there to remember?

So my first effort at Travel ends up talking about relationships. What does that mean?

Have a great evening/day.

BCOT

Wednesday

If it's Wednesday, it must be Sports Day.

The stat of the day is that the Little League World Series title game this past Summer outdrew (in TV ratings) Game Four of the National League Championship Series Sunday evening. Colorado and Arizona are not exactly megalopolises for any TV event, but does anybody remember who was in the LL World Series? Let's see. Every Little League player wants to grow up to be a Major Leaguer. And play before a smaller audience? How does that compute?

I had commented to an acquaintance earlier this week about how Rockies manager Clint Hurdle was a Sports Illustrated cover boy in the late 70's or early 80's as a "can't miss" phenom. Of course, he never made it very big. USA Today's hack columnist Jon Saraceno had a full column today on Hurdle's odyssey to championship manager. More people out there stealing my material.

The human interest side of Hurdle's story included a disabled child in his third (current) marriage. While the facts of this young child are worthy of a sympathetic ear, does our protagonist's Three-Time Loser designation reinforce the pathetically low morality bar of our athletes and entertainers? (Actually, is he really just a Two-Time Loser with a third act in process?) I do think that our society has become numb to the antics of many of these public figures. What's another kid by another woman in another town?

Uncle Phil and I have talked about how golfers display the most honor in competition. And I agree. (I actually like the Wild West, self-policing justice system that rules in NASCAR, but that's a different kettle of fish.) But the golf crowd has it's equitable share, if not more so, of lousy husbands and fathers. Maybe it's the travel. Certainly the money comes into play. And the idle time. And the Goldiggers looking for a little sugar.

Speaking of losers, anyone care to give Kelvin Sampson a primer on the rules for telephone contact with recruits? Talk about a low bar. How can Indiana not fire him?

My training for the TT is going along at a snail's pace. I've been doing the 2.2 miles along Devils Glen and it is just work.! If I break an hour on Thanksgiving, it will be a minor miracle.

One of the things that I do like about training is that it gives me "thinking time". Whether it is running or biking, the process allows the brain to work without distraction (except for the pain). I've never had the IPod or headphones. On the bike, while on the roads or streets, it's a safety thing. I know a lot of people are addicted to their music while moving along, but the "thinking time" is just as gratifying to me.

A final thought for the day: the hardest part of training is getting started.

Thanks for reading. Have a great evening/day.

BCOT

Tuesday

I had hoped to get a better handle on my re-entry into the blog, but the day after a due date tends to be hectic for all the things that were put off in the crush before the due date. Today was no exception. And the two bottles of Tuscan red last night sapped a little energy as well.

I can share that I have decided to construct the blog under a category theory with the focus of each daily entry determined by a general assignment. More or less like the sections of a newspaper or website. My categories will be:

1. Sports
2. Travel
3. Family History
4. Craig Wilson-like topics.
5. Current Events
6. The Work Place
7. Other

This is a preliminary list, and there may be additions as I get more comfortable with the format. I've left off Politics and Religion from the standard list, but I suspect that there will be entries on each as time goes by, particularly with the 2008 elections. I would like there to be a Weekly Guest's entry as well. My goal is to use these categories as a means to gather and store entry ideas on an on-going basis so that I don't find myself sitting at the computer with nothing to say.

The goal of the blog remains threefold:

1. To maintain an interactive touchstone for our family,
2. To give some insight to The Girls about who I am today, and
3. To provide an outlet for the writer inside me.

The blog's Daughter of the Day is 3. Happy Birthday. Hope you can make it to IC on the 27th. Power tailgating for sure.

So tomorrow is the real deal. Stay tuned.

BCOT

Monday

Another due date has taken it's place in the rear view mirror. What a pain to go through, but a big relief to be done.

Good to hear from AM. Her book recommendation sounds interesting. Miss Dee gave me a similar one last Spring that actually recounts some things from Ottumwa. A Prairie Lights special that she discovered while just wandering through the store.

Happy Tax Birthday to 3!

Tomorrow kicks off the born-again 4000 Days. (With all the hype I've been giving it, I'd better bring my "A" game.

Sunday

Fun evening in IC. We booked before the senior speeches.

The laggards to get done tomorrow. The first day of the rest of my life is Tuesday.

BTW...I've registered online for the Turkey Trot. I've sent the link to your email accounts.

Saturday

Dreary day. Lots of domestic stuff.

Over to IC this evening.

Enjoying the quiet.

Friday

That which needed to get out yesterday did so.

3 has been on the road and used me for a back-up, pre-dawn wake-up call this AM. I'd be up. She knew it. Does that make me more reliable than Abdul or Petrachina at the front desk?

More returns today.

Looking forward to the weekend.

Thursday

This is really the last day to get my out-of-town clients returns sent to them. It had better be a busy afternoon.

Enjoying the cool weather. Uncle Phil commented that they had some snow at Tahoe this week. And the paper today had a photo of open ski slopes at Arapaho Basin in Colorado. My bones are still able to adapt better to the cold than the heat.

For the record, less than a week now to the return of the real 4000 Days.

Wednesday

Another day in paradise.

While yesterday's comments were welcome, they remind me, when taken as a whole, of the "Woe is me" contest for the last brownie in that family dinner scene in the film, Notting Hill.

We are a sorry lot.

Tuesday

The heat wave has pretty well passed us by. Very comfortable sleeping last night.

A week until 3's b-day.

44 days to the Turkey Trot.

75 days to FFF at Chunky Cheese's.

About 3250 days to the end of 4000.

But who's counting?

Monday

Many stories today about the TC and Chicago marathons. Cousin Skip was in C-town's. He has comments in an email today.

Hope everyone has a good week.

Sunday

Long day in the Twin Cities for 1.1 in his marathon. Worse heat and humidity there today than 1 had for her race here last month. 1 can give us the details later.

I know that everyone is busy. But sharing is good.

Saturday

Hot day again.

4 came home for the weekend. I'll let her tell her story at a future date.

My pal Roy has a wingding tonight. Details at some time in a week or two.

Good luck to 1.1 tomorrow.

Friday

End of a long week here. Although I do have a full schedule tomorrow as well.

2 is on her way to the TC to serve on 1.1's support team for the marathon on Sunday. She was my navigator when we trailed 1 last year. Pasta for them tonight.

Still lots to do for my tax clients. Still looking for Powerball.

Thursday

Back home. Long day yesterday, but as scheduled. 2 earns credits for a midnight run to the airport for my ride home.

Close to 90 here today. Less comfortable than Phoenix.

I'm still not going to be able to add much here until after the 15th.

Wednesday

Travel day for me. Final conference sessions this AM. Client meeting at lunch. And then the long trek against the clock to the QC. At least tonight I get to sleep in my own bed.

Thanks to 2 for her entry.

Hope everyone has a great day.

Tuesday

Not much new here in the desert.

I did encounter another example of "it's a small world". While speaking with a salesman at a random vendor booth, another guy comes up with and I notice his unusual surname on his badge. I comment on it, that I knew a family back in the Midwest with that name. Turns out he is the son of a high school classmate from Ottumwa.

Hope 4 can find the time to give us a little glimpse of her world.

Monday

Kudos to 1 for her entry.

I'm on the blog a little early today. They have several machines here at the conference, but there's like a thousand attendees, so availability later in the day will be iffy. Plus, when I travel to things like this, I tend to stay on Central time, which makes me two hours early in Phoenix.

2 and 4 need to add entries this week. Don't be shy.

Sunday

Phoenix. Scottsdale, actually. The Valley of the Sun. Hot.

The Fairmont Princess. Home of the PGA tournament here. $250 per night. Reeks of money. I'm staying at a Days Inn miles away.

Maybe 1 could give us some observations on her recently completed marathon. Training. Course. Aftermath. Compared to other marathons that she has done.

Have a great rest of the weekend.

Saturday

I think 3 has hit a home run for her first week as our guest blogist. I'm thinking that there ought to be an agreement among the sisters to share the load in the next few days.

I'm off to Phoenix until Wednesday.

See y'all on line.

BCOT

Friday

3 has a gift!

Maybe a few comments on "helicopter parents"?

Thursday

I think Day 2 was a hit. A little Seinfeld-esque. No comment on the homeless asking for some "spare change"?

Go Cubs. Do they actually have to win another game to get in, or can the Brew Crew hand it to them by just losing?

Wednesday

3 is on a roll! Good luck with Day 2.

Tuesday

I've asked 3 to be a guest editor/blog-ist for the next couple of weeks. Others are also welcome to contribute. I'll open an entry most days, but I'll look to others to share their wit and commentary.

BCOT

Monday

It was a busy weekend. Lots of FFF.

1 broke four hours in the marathon on Sunday. You go girl!

1.1 broke two hours in the half, and had enough left in the tank to do another three with 1 in the 20-23 stretch when the heat was really coming out.

2 finished her half in good form and good spirits. Pretty suite for not having had much of a training schedule.

We had a brief period with 3 Friday night, but she had to return on Saturday AM to C-town for a work project.

4, Mom and I were the support team for the runners. We got a good workout in by just hop-scotching ahead to viewing points.

So that was pretty much the focus of the last few days. Nothing else major to report.

Entries here over the next two-three weeks will be a bit sporadic. I'm headed to Phoenix this Saturday for a three-day conference beginning next Monday. And there are at least a couple dozen tax returns due on October 15th that will take a lot of work. So the Blog will suffer. Guest entries will, of course, be welcome.

So congrats to the runners.

Hope everyone has a good week.

BCOT

Thursday

No blog today.

Wednesday

Our contracted computer consultant has been updating our network/system, and the new versions of some of our programs have been tweaked, I'm sure with the purpose to make them better. For the most part, with most things, old guys like things the way they were. Learning to accommodate those little "tweaks" requires new key strokes and sequences. Grrr.

I've also noted that Blogger's spell-check function has been upgraded to include a real-time underscore-alert for a possible misspelled word. The boys is the cubicles keep themselves busy.

In case anyone has not read a sports page in the last week or two, the bandwagon of, "ND Stinks", is a little over-crowded. The most blusterous of the passengers are the media types who criticized ND for the Willingham firing three years ago. As I have said on this blog previously, I supported the change in coaches then, and I still do. Weis is finding out that his recruiting skills need work. But when that weakness is corrected, they should win. The breast-beating over the racial issue repulses me.

Without doubt, ND football sucks right now. I can live with that. It would be nicer if they were winning, but, on the brighter side, tickets are easier to come by in the down years. Let's go to a game!

We moved here from Chicago in 1980. Since then, on every vehicle that I have owned, the set radio stations have always included three Chicago standards, 670 (previously WMAQ), 720 (WGN), and 780 (WBBM). Initially, I just liked keeping up with the old town, but then I figured out that I liked the programming (at least some of the time), so those stations stuck. Until last week.

670 (now WSCR, The Score), has been exclusively a sports station for the last 3-4 years when the parent company elected to give WMAQ's stronger signal to The Score (which had been operating in C-town on a lower wattage station). The Score prided itself on edgy, controversial talk show hosts, and nothing (or no one) was sacred. (They even reached out to flambaque Iowa and Steve Alford when the university didn't take decisive action on the initial Pierre Pierce problem. When they ambushed Alford on a live interview (after having first told him that the Pierce subject would not be questioned on the air) Alford hung up on them. Obviously, Alford was an idiot to think they were calling to just chat about "the team". Whatever. They never missed an opportunity after that to dump on everything Iowa.)

Anyway, on September 11th, last week, one of the afternoon drive time personalities segued from a brief remembrance thing on the 9/11 tragedy to a rant on the White House. Basically doing a Kieth Olbermann imitation. I have no problem with criticism of the politicians, but I can get that on the networks or cable anytime. So I have acted and now 670 The Score is gone from my radios. Take that you pea brains.

This action is somewhat similar to my shunning of the baseball pages in USA Today after the last strike by the players. It took be a year or two before I finally got back to checking out the daily stories and the box scores. But with WSCR, I can assure you that I will never return to it's audience.

Looking forward to some FFF this weekend.

BCOT

Tuesday

On cue, Al Gore made a cameo on Leno last night.

My pal Roy and I drove down to Kewanee, Illinois this AM to check out a below-radar country club that is looking for a White Knight buyer. Roy is a golf enthusiast and sees an opportunity to have a nice little course of his own that needs some work, but that has lots of potential. He's not looking to make it Trump Midwest, and the greens are really nice. Plus, even if the course were to just not work out, he can always sell the land. Compared to the follies (think, horses and jets) pursued by other wealthy clients, the downside here is not that bad. Tough life to have to figure how to use that extra cash just laying around.

The Fed made greater than anticipated cuts today in the applicable interest rates, and the markets took off this afternoon. But even street optimists recognize that the future still has more troubled waters to travel. Greenspan's successor is a hero for the day.

The horticulturalist in my house spent some time Saturday afternoon dividing a couple of the descendants of the Peace Lily from Mother's funeral, and there are now many descendants! For the taking, if anyone is so interested. Splitting the root balls was surprisingly easy. Maybe it was the composition of the dirt from the last replanting. In any event, the dirt broke cleanly away and the roots were untangled by a combing process. (Too much information on a who-cares topic?)

My biking friend who had the ambulance ride last week is in the hospital for a couple of days after they found a blood clot somewhere. Ouch. I'm going to stop in and see him tonight. I might give him a small Peace Lily.

Have a great evening.

BCOT

Monday PM

3's comment on 4's entry gave a peek at why men stay home when ever the term "shopping" is mentioned by a female.

There are two items of major news in the business press today. The first is the frenzied debate (that has been boiling for weeks) as to whether the Federal Reserve Board will raise the Fed Funds rate tomorrow, and if so, by how much. I swear, the commentators on the business channels have been micro-analyzing this thing to the nanoith-degree. I've had to "mute" the TV sound almost the entire day as very smart men (and women) espouse their theories, which, as the media commonly does, are, at any given time, exactly opposite those expressed in the immediately preceding segment of the broadcast.

The second story in the news is the book released today by former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan. Greenspan remains a highly respected financial/economics guru with an impressive curriculum vitae. But this tidal wave of media coverage in the last twenty-four hours (60 Minutes, Today, and all over CNBC) has a movie star's promotional tour taint to it. I suppose that he'll be on Leno or Letterman before the week's out. Release of the book the day before the highly anticipated Fed meeting also smacks of commercialism.

So what is the shelf-life for the importance (or relevance) of a retired government official? Interestingly, retired politicians can go away and never be missed. Until they find a new place to provide utility, a former governor, congressman or President might be a curiosity for a guest list, but their influence is thin. Think Al Gore. But a non-elected official in the government bureaucracy, like Greenspan, can potentially have longer-lasting influence in monetary and fiscal matters since the politicians neither understand nor control many things economic.

One of my favorite economics jokes relates to my first undergraduate econ course. Even back then the books were expensive, and you were always looking for a used alternative. The text for the course in question was written by another highly regarded economist, Milton Friedman. The trail of tears was pretty specific, for my year the text was a new edition and the professor was not going to use the old ones. The explanation as to why the author would need to republish a book on standard guns 'n butter Econ 101 was that while the questions at the end of the chapters had remained the same, the answers had changed. Yuk. Yuk.

Speaking of shelf-life, or lack there of, way to go OJ!

Have a great evening.

BCOT

Monday AM

Great to see 4 back at it.

My Sunday was not overly productive, and I just didn't get back here to make an entry. Actually, I tried to log on from Century Heights when I went over to feed Simba, but I couldn't clear the spam blockers on that computer.

This is a busy day here. I'll try to adds some comments later.

BCOT

Saturday

This looks like it could be the perfect early Fall day. Bright sunshine. Cool , but comfortable temperatures.

I moved my potted annuals and indoor plants (that had spent the Summer outdoors) to the garage for the night based on a frost warning in the weather forecast. It was a good move as the car windows were lightly iced-over this morning. The good news is that the front was a one-night-stand as we're supposed to be back in the 80's most of the next week. But I have some work to do get those indoor plants prepared for the return to the house.

The critics who labeled ND as racist for the firing of Ty Willingham three years ago are thumping their chests with the dismal early results of this year's Charlie Weis-led Irish football team. I said at the time that it was a results, not race, driven action by ND. I do think that the ND administration mistakenly thought at the time that they had their football savior in Urban Meyer within their grasp, and that they needed to have the head coaching position open for him to accept. Their information on that account was obviously in error, and Weis was definitely their second choice. Whatever. Willingham was never going to be the answer in South Bend.

I don't understand why Weis is so under-talented at this point in his tenure. This is his third recruiting class ( although I will give him a pass on the group that would now be juniors since he was late starting for that class). He may need to steal a coach from Iowa. Ferenz consistently constructs an offensive line that can compete with anyone. With ND not having scored an offensive TD in it's first two games, I'm venturing a guess that the O-line is looking for volunteers.

The availability of personal information on-line is getting even more wide-spread. I saw an article the other day where Facebook pages are now (or soon will be) searchable by Google and Yahoo. The theory here is economics. More hits yield more dollars for advertisers. (Apparently, there is a security election that each Facebook user can choose which will disable the general search access for his/her page.) I suppose that these pages have already been available to the accomplished hacker, but this new policy makes those not-for-public-consumption pics and comments there for the world to see. Check your archives.

Similarly, electronic surveillance of everyone's activities just keeps becoming more widespread. All of those fancy gadgets from The Italian Job and Enemy of the State are being used by private investigators, suspicious lovers, and, of course, the divorce attorneys, for leverage in whatever the dispute. A story in today's NYT mentioned a device selling for $49 that can be loaded on another's computer that will automatically send a picture every 15 seconds of what is showing on the screen of the bugged computer. Ouch! Now that's cheatn'.

Before anyone spends the time, effort or dollars on any such investigation of me and my pal Roy, let me save you the trouble. We're guilty. I have no money. And Roy's prenuptial agreement is ironclad.

Get out and enjoy the day. Good luck in Ames. To both sides.

BCOT

Friday

No blog today.

They're talking frost tonight. I need to get some plants to shelter.

Mom and 2 are on the road to Florida for the weekend. 4 to Ames for football.

More tomorrow.

BCOT

Thursday

So we have all stood in front of the gas pump at the Qwik Trip or other filling station trying to respond to the electronic inquiries from the card reader. Insert card. Remove card quickly. Debit or credit? Awaiting approval. Wash? Receipt? Lift handle to start. Push bar to start. Maybe, push button to start.

When I stop for gas at an unfamiliar station, I normally contemplate the pump's system like a new electronic gadget. I know that it requires a credit card to start things in motion, but I am immediately doubtful if I'll be able to get it right the first time through the sequence. Kind of like Gary Sinise in Apollo Thirteen when he's in the simulator late in the show trying to determine the right order for a procedure to save electricity in the re-entry vehicle.

I ran into a new one today. There were the regular queries on the screen. But above the pump on a separate small sign was a set of color-coded instructions. If to pay inside, press the yellow button. If paying by debit card, press the green button. If paying by credit card, press the blue button. Ok, but on the pump's credit card area, the yellow, green, and blue buttons said exactly the same thing. For whom were these separate sign instructions provided?

My first thought was that the color-coding was an effort to address the needs of the illiterate. But if you wanted to help out those folks, wouldn't you add little drawings to explain the colors rather than explain the colors with words?

The new HyVee in Bettendorf has made a trip to the store an adventure exercise. (I think that they hired the same traffic engineer who designed the ingress/egress patterns to the Duck Creek mall area.) It has always been a dangerous parking lot, but for now, there is no discernible main lane, and everybody is still guessing. Maybe when they get fully done with the mess it will be better outlined.

And I'm not so sure that they haven't got the store's dual "In" and "Exit" automatic doors reversed. Although I do think that either will open from either side. Talk about not knowing whether you're coming or going!

I know that somewhere, somebody, is getting paid for designing these traffic flow things. I wonder if their parents paid for their college educations? If you do a task that is so accepted by the general public as what one should expect, does it make any difference if you do it well or poorly? Is there ever any accountability?

Not that I'm complaining. Just observing.

I'm headed home to observe some Tuscan red.

BCOT

Wednesday

I'm beginning to wonder if my theory of cycling being the "safe" sport for the aging athlete is flawed. I've always said that cycling is what you can do as you get older and some of the other activities like running and team sports become harder on the body. And I have then conditioned that statement with the caveat, "if you stay up on the bike". It seems that that caveat is coming more regularly into play.

I've been in two more conversations today about severe accidents had by local Boomers in recent weeks, one a separated collar bone, and the other multiple fractures of a foot. The collar bone accident occurred in the sticks and required an ambulance. The foot has required two major surgeries. Orthopaedists rejoice!

Maybe the reality of all this is that, regardless of the route taken, the doctors win. Be sedentary and eat capriciously, and drug therapy is bound to follow. Engage in a fitness lifestyle and the injuries are sure to ensue. Either way, the doc gets paid. Maybe different docs, but John and Jane Doe still have to pay the medical bills.

Most future retirees list the availability/cost of medical insurance coverage as one of their top three concerns. It's a hugely political issue. Within the political context, the docs may actually be the good guys. It's hard to root for the other players: the insurance companies, Big Pharma, the hospitals, the lawyers, and the elected officials.

Today is my high school girlfriends' 58th birthday. Why do I remember that? Why do I remember the phone number on the farm? The laundry tag number that Mother had to sew into every item of washable clothing at ND? By contrast, I have to go through a checklist to recall what I had for lunch on Monday.

I'm off for the evening. Send some love to 3. Tough week for the fam's #1 securities analyst.

BCOT

Tuesday

Road day. Back from DM. Got to share a late afternoon SB's with 4 in IC on my way home. A good trip.

I forgot to mention yesterday that the cast is off. They gave me a removable Velcro splint/wrap to be used as needed. It's great having both hands to take a shower. Just the simple task of washing one's hands is now a bit of a treat. I have a long way to go to get to a normal mobility for the thumb, and even then, it will probably be at some reduced range of motion.

In a weekend of forgettable domestic activities, I had the carpet in my second bedroom swapped-out (for carpet and pad that I had salvaged from my front-room make-over a few years back), an effort that I had planned for at least a couple of years. I had given my number to one of the guys who was on the crew that replaced some tile and carpet here at the office last month, and out of the blue, he calls me Friday afternoon and says that he can do it Saturday morning. After about three, "Who's this's?" from me, I finally figured out who he was and gave him the green light to do the job.

It took him and his spouse/assistant less than an hour and a half to rip out the old (carpet and pad), put down the new pad, and then measure out, cut and tack down the replacement carpet. And get rid of the rest of my remnant, and vacuum the finished room. With a 10 minute smoke break in the middle. His charge? $67. (I think he mentally valued my humble abode and figured that I was not all that flush.) I gave him a hundo and told him he needed a minimum fee in his pricing structure.

4 no longer has any carpet in reserve for a possible future need in IC or elsewhere.

The "community" Taurus has a new operator for a day or so. Mom has her car down for some scheduled maintenance and is using Black Beauty. It's been a good Plan B option over the last year or so. Knock on wood.

There was a time when I would schedule months in advance to get to the Iowa-Iowa State game. Not this year. The Clones would be better off playing the "Meek" Irish.

Have a good one.

BCOT

Monday

I am headed out this afternoon for an evening event in Des Moines, and I have a morning meeting there tomorrow. So my entry here will be brief.

USA Today today had a story about a Mommy blogger who is getting 100k hits or more per day. She's got six kids, and "kids say the darnedest things", or something to that effect. Anyway, it got me thinking about who reads what on the Internet. So here's my uneducated assessment of that point:

1. Girls through age 20 or so read entertainment and gossip stuff.
2. Boys through age 20 or so read about games, sports and porn. Not necessarily in that order.
3. Young 20-Something women read about clothes, gossip, and what's "in".
4. Young 20-Something men read about games, sports, and porn. NNITO.
5. By 30, the women are reading about weddings and kids.
6. By 30, the men are reading less about games and more about sports and porn.
7. 30 - 50 year old women are reading about gossip, houses, vacations, kids, and school stuff. Sales at the on-line stores. This has got to be the biggest target market out there.
8. The 30 - 50 year old man is reading about sports, vacations and trucks or sports cars. And porn.
9. The post - 50 year old women are all over the place.
10. The post -50 year old man stays on point.

There are enthusiasts in every sub-category one can imagine: politics, religion, art, entertainment, ecology. The list goes on. Any voice can be heard if they can reach the audience that wants to hear what it is that they are saying. I am impressed that Mommy blogger gets 100K hits a day, but having sampled her entries, there's nothing on her site that appeals to me. Her readership is engaged because they have kids and husbands and can identify with her daily life. And she has the ability to express her thoughts in a reader-friendly manner.

I don't think men want to be subjected to a daily dose of ants in the pantry and variations of The Vanishing Sock story. Sorry. It's in the DNA. (For comparable reasons, I'm leaving the peloton in Europe, and NASCAR in the pits!)

BCOT

Sunday

Just a few lines today. Looks like a Top Ten day here weather-wise.

I almost made it for the second half. By the final score, which I saw on the news this morning, I didn't miss much. Long day/night in Ames and Happy Valley for the other fans. And for Junior.

Let's talk garage sales. Is this a uniquely USA phenomena? My next-door neighbor had a big sale over the standard Thursday-Friday-Saturday schedule and the traffic was amazing. It was actually for their church, and they had a lot of stuff, but it was a steady stream of visitors yesterday, late into the afternoon. The neighbor said that they took in over $1000 on Friday alone!

One of the things that is happening is that there's a bit of an underground business of re-selling garage-sale purchases on the Internet. I suppose that this is a concept related to my entry here last week about the gal who bought Venetian glass on the Internet. One person's throw-away is another's treasure. Actually, I can see where a treasure-hunter might scout these sales to find a piece or two of glassware or other collectible to finish off a set.

This could also be a left-handed example of the US economy becoming a service economy. You have people buying and re-selling goods as opposed to making stuff. At the lower end of the curve, the goods in question are not likely collectible stuff, but simply serviceable items that are of use to a discerning (or not?) Internet buyer. Further up the continuum, I'm sure that you get into the higher value items that would make the descendants of the Biblical money-changers proud.

One of the speakers at our sales conference in KC last month told the story of a 20-Something whom she had met on a plane who had parlayed his Dad's collection and his own interest in baseball cards to a million-dollar enterprise on the Internet. Buying and selling. Knowing the market. Being able to ferret out truth.

The whole business in transactions involving used property, from glassware, to cars, to art work, is that there is always the element of the deal that plays on human nature. For both the buyer and the seller. A discount from new to the buyer. A premium on the flip to the seller. I learned in the auction that we held on the farm following Daddy's death that, at such an event, people will buy anything and everything. An auction is obviously slightly different than a garage sale, but as the saying goes, "Put a few things of little or no value (to you) in a box, and someone will buy it."

There are also some social angles to be examined (not here) that evolve in different segments of this dynamic. From the church ladies or neighborhood friends that organize and operate a sale, to the legions who make garage-sales must-see activities, and to the Internet players who get to know one-another only by their cryptic user names. I'm sure that there even must be an Internet dating service organized for the garage sale network.

And speaking of network, how many cable channels are there for shopping? Even mainstream channels have many infomercials on late nights and weekends. Have I got a deal for you! Bring it on, Monte Hall and Bob Barker. There's this bridge in Brooklyn...

So anyway, looks like a great day out there. Make it happen for you!

Be careful out there.

Friday

I see where the Hawkeyes game tomorrow is scheduled for a 7PM kick-off. To accommodate TV, I'm sure. I remember when they had a similar starting time for a game with Arizona State, maybe three years ago. It was Dad's Day for Theta and I had made the trip to be with 3, at least for the pre-game Theta party. We walked to the stadium area from downtown, and I was amazed at the alcohol on display.

There were stories in today's local papers about U of I scheduling more Friday classes to combat the problem of binge drinking on campus. If the university was serious about the alcohol problem, Saturday night football games wouldn't even be considered. It's bad enough when they delay the start times to 2:30 or 3:00. Let's face it. The tailgating is going to start at 9AM (or earlier) regardless of game time.

Back when I was in college (when I had to walk 8 miles to class, in the snow, wind or rain...just joking there), we did have Saturday classes. Actually, almost all of the freshman year classes were three credit hour courses that met either M-W-F or T-T-S. It's my recollection that the Saturday classes met at 8:30, 9:30, 10:30, or 11:30. On home game days, the 11:30 class met at 7:30. Game time was always 1:30.

We knew how to tailgate. And alcohol was a problem then too. Some things don't change.

Since I have the satellite as my TV system (rather than cable), I have the broadcast of the game on my tube. It's a Big Ten Network program, and the parties have failed to agree on a deal with Mediacom, the major cable provider in most Iowa cities. So some of my friends have already suggested that I host the evening. Which I am glad to do, but they'll have to turn out the lights themselves when they go home, because, obviously with a 7PM kick-off, the second half will be well past my bedtime! (Just joking again...:))

3 is on the road to Tahoe for the weekend. Business deal, but she should get to check in on Uncle Phil. Disregarding her training in the Twin Cities, this is her first official business trip. You go girl!

Well, this was a little more than you might have expected for Friday, but consider it my pleasure to provide a little entertainment for the masses heading into the weekend. Now, I'm off for the Tuscan red.

BCOT.

Thursday

I actually saw the Craig Wilson column and thought of Daddy. I think he was much more committed to the random visitation activity than was Mother. He had a bit of a Seinfeld approach to visitations: if he didn't know the deceased directly, he could easily rationalize that he could have known the party, or that he had perhaps once met the party, or a member of the family, and therefore was obligated to attend the service. Besides, one of his routines after a visitation was to stop in at a coffee shop for a late evening cup 'o joe, and some toast and jelly.

The whole business of what is real and what is imagined is becoming a mine field in today's Internet society. Not only do you have what has become somewhat old hat in phishing, but there is an increasingly complex world of identity theft. In a newer deception, a story in today's WSJ described a situation of a young female singer who had enjoyed explosive growth on her UTube site. Turns out that her deal was actually an underground marketing effort of a major (yet unnamed) recording label.

Newspapers and magazines are always subject to ambitious reporters or contributors who choose a path of deceit or misrepresentation. Sometimes even the most determined publications get caught. The Internet is just so expansive, that anyone can dress up in a wolf's suit and proclaim anything.

The spam filters on my Yahoo and business sites have been catching in droves contacts from "a classmate" or "a family member". I think the classmate stuff has resulted from my registration this Summer on a site for my high school reunion. I wondering if the family member stuff is coming from the use of an American Greetings card site. Hackers are tireless.

The scary thing is that techno-sleuths can follow your electronic trail of "cookies", in reverse, to infect your computer and pass your data to other gatherers of this type information. Your cell phone has a GPS chip. Many of the newer cars have the same thing. Heck, the White House doesn't need an act of Congress to follow anybody. They just need an underground marketing contract with Apple/AT&T.

The NFL opens tonight. Why Thursday?

BCOT

Wednesday

How 'bout the advice, "Buy American", in reflecting on lifestyles in the US of A? Historically, labor unions have picked up this chant to discourage consumers from buying foreign-made cars and heavy manufacturing items. What does it mean today?

Most of the big Asian and European car companies have US assembly plants. Deere, Caterpillar, and other big US industrial equipment manufacturers have huge growth in their foreign market sales. Do any major electronic components for our homes get manufactured in the US?

It is an interesting study of modern-day economics. The high exchange of the Euro to the $USD gives rise to European purchases of US products, and creates pain for the US vacationer across the pond.

In a global economy, "Buying American" should be one of the least of our worries. Where do you draw the line? We need to be internationally competitive with the products from Japan, Korea and China rather than protect US companies from overseas alternatives. In the end, price and quality will prevail, and US businesses need to figure out a strategy to win.

If I want to own a Beamer or a Lexus, I shouldn't have to put up with some jerk who wants to key the side of my car because of a foreign label.

BCOT

Tuesday

Busy day here at the office. Welcome to post-Summer reality.

A very interesting article appeared in the weekend edition of the WSJ written by a surviving daughter about her deceased Mother's "secret life", of sorts. The mother died in 2005 of cancer at age 60. The mother must have had a little money, and the daughter (and her sister) had enough money to frequently travel to Tucson to assist their sick mother. The girls became aware of the mother's addiction to eBay during her illness when Mom had them access her eBay account and monitor purchasing activities.

The mother, later in her life, became a collector of Venetian glass. (I remember a James Bond movie with some scenes shot in a Venetian glass factory, but my attention was on the Bond Girls, not the glass.) Anyway, the gist of the story was that the daughter got to know a lot about her mother, after her death, by sifting through the emails, purchase histories, and other documentation associated with Mom's glass collection.

Having taken care of my own Mother in the last years of her life, I am not surprised anymore by the testimonials of an adult child who learns unexpected things about a deceased parent when sorting through the departed's possessions. There are usually stories. Not all necessarily favorable.

The Venetian glass story does bring into play modern day technology. Computer files. Passwords. The generation of Boomers has jumped onto the Internet to do their banking, make their travel plans, and correspond with their progeny. Maybe those often recommended Powers of Attorney for Health, and the DNR orders, need addenda to spell out applicable computer passwords.

When the time comes to pick over my bones, don't read too much into the stray possessions which I failed to toss. I've got letters from old girlfriends. Stories (poorly written, I'm sure) from decades ago. A few knick knacks from different times in my life. Once I'm gone, they should go too.

My pal Bill is under orders to re-format the hard drive of my computer. After everyone has printed their collector editions of 4000 Days.

1 had her first day of school today. Good luck in Year 2!

BCOT

Monday

I know that it has been pretty quiet here for a few days. But the holiday weekend has kept me otherwise occupied.

The trip to C-town yesterday with 2 was a great success. We were able to connect with 4 with little trouble, and made our way to 3's place with similar ease. We has rock-star parking immediately in front of 3's building for the day.

Some observations of the day-trip:

1. Sunday morning vehicular and pedestrian traffic in the Water Tower area was just as congested as most any other day. Maybe not evening rush-hour traffic, but certainly not low-key, nothing-goin'-on, everyone's sleeping-in stuff.

2. Iowa football fans don't know when to go home.

3. No more than half the people who head to Wrigleyville for a weekend afternoon actually have intentions of going to the game.

4. I never thought I would see the day when there would be bathroom attendants at Wrigleyville bars. At least attendants who weren't either bouncers or cops.

5. Living and working in C-town may not be that much different than it was 30 years ago except that things are more expensive.

6. Open-road tolling is a huge improvement. Don't leave home without your I-Pass. (I wonder what the payback period is on the re-built, hi-tech toll plazas? 3 may need to push around some more future value calculations.)

7. It remains a personal comfort to be able to make a relatively stress-free trip to a major city, get to various places in the city, either by car or by public transportation, and be able to accomplish the day's goals without making it a big deal. Chicago was not the fav four years of my life, but getting to know the city then has made my frequent visits to C-town in the last 27 years much more enjoyable.

8. You can still have the C-town traffic.

9. Invest in Starbucks.

10. There's always lots to do in Chicago. Even for us old folks.

I was surprised to discover that the Wrigleyville bars ID'd people at the entrance to their establishments. This threw a bit of a wrench into my plan to sit at the outdoor tables at The Sports Corner for lunch after the game started, but we made do with the limitations. We even did a switch-the-ID's to get 4 into the Cubby Bear after we had eaten our community bag of peanuts outside the bar. My guess is that the cops have put their foot down on underage drinking and checking ages at the door discourages more violators. But if you were like us, looking for Chicago-style hotdogs, limiting entry was a little heavy-handed. Which is why I participated in the Cubby Bear ruse.

I'm not sure if the eat-the-peanuts-on-the-street incident will make the same history as the broiled-chicken-at-the-airport story, but it may make the Honorable Mention category. They were good peanuts. But we were hungry.

The area around the ballpark really hasn't changed much since the '70's except that everything is more expensive. Mom and I would sit in the bleachers for $2-4 per ticket, and bring in a 1 and 1/2 gallon cooler with iced lemonade/rum, and 3-4 beers to boot. None of this $5/beer stuff for us. List price on the bleacher tickets now ranges from $17-42 depending on the date. (I just checked e-Bay and a pack of four bleacher tickets for tomorrow sold for $88.77.) There were lots of scalpers around the park, and we heard some outrageous quotes for standing-room, even after the game had started. It's a different life.

Other items of note:

1. ND stinks. If Saturday is any indication, they may not finish above .500.

2. Summer's over.

3. One more week in the cast.

Oh, and an observation on AM's comment from Friday about teachers' titles. I have a fairly old-time acquaintance in town whom I see out and about a bit irregularly, both for social and business things. I used to do some tax stuff for his business, and he played with us on a men's C-league basketball team in the '80's. My pal Roy and I ran into him and a group of his buds at a Village of East Davenport saloon one nothing-special Wednesday night last Spring. Roy and I were there to give a friendly needle to a bartenderess who also worked at SB's. When we asked this other acquaintance of mine what the occasion was for his group, he said it was their regular Wednesday night "coaches' meeting". And as to our inquiry about their sport/team, it was, "There's no team. We're just coaches." Roy and I were impressed.

Hope eveyone has a great day.

Be careful out there.

Friday

Not much of a blog today.

The last true Friday of the Summer. It would be nice if the cast was off.

BCOT

Thursday

I, of course, know nothing. Generally. But in particular, about the aged clarinet.

Yesterday I sent my first note to 1 after the wedding, and needed to consult with Mom to confirm use of the new last name on the envelope. Co-incidentally, 1 sent out an email today to remind everyone that her school address in our email books needed to be changed since she had made the name change in the school's system.

I think that the reality of a daughter assuming the name of her new husband could be a Craig Wilson topic. His direct experience may be suspect, but that never has been much of an impediment to a columnist with the germ of an idea for a story. I don't know if he and his partner have kids, or if one member of a gay couple assumes the name of the other. But that's a whole different kettle of fish that I'll leave for another day.

Anyway. Back to 1 now being Mrs. 1.1. I really hadn't thought much about the point until I began writing her name on the envelope. It was a little strange. I actually thought more intuitively about it then than I did while walking her down the aisle last month. Wisdom suggests that daughters will always be their Dad's little girls. Wisdom is probably right.

On a distant, but related point, I think we always remember women by the last name that we originally knew them. Think cousins, nieces, sister-in-laws, etc. Sue Ryan? (If relatives were not close geographically in the growing-up years, then a married name will stick since the maiden name may never truly have been in common use.) Grade school and high school classmates are the same way. Actually, I need to go to the old yearbooks to remember any name from back then, first or last.

If this concept is taken out a little further on the philosophical curve, you can discuss the reality of a promoted military officer, particularly those 2nd Louie's, still being considered at the lower rank by his/her troops if he/she has remained with the same outfit. I suppose that the same reality exists in any workplace. A line guy becomes the foreman. A teacher becomes the principal. An agent becomes the manager of many agents.

4 is back through town tonight on her way to C-town for the weekend. It's Hawkeye Day at Wrigley Field tomorrow. The Iowa AD tosses out the first pitch. I wonder if Herky will lip-sync "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" for the seventh inning stretch? 4 will be going to that game, and then to the Iowa football game at Soldier Field on Saturday where they will meet Northern Illinois in a clash of mediocrity.

2 and I will venture in to C-town Sunday morning to join with 3 and 4 for a deferred Father's Day celebration on Sunday. The plan was originally to go to the Cub's game, but I think we have all concluded that we can save the $$$'s from the tickets and just hang out at the Wrigleyville establishments and watch the game on TV.

As an equal opportunity blog, good luck to the Clones on their big game(?) with Kent tonight. I don't think that it's Clark Kent. But I've been wrong before. (I actually played a game or two at Kent State in another lifetime. Before the National Guard arrived.)

BCOT

Wednesday

No blog today. It's National Wednesday.

BCOT

Tuesday

The new cast is only marginally better than the previous one. I can at least put my thumb and index finger together. Two more weeks of "healing".

Another hot one here. 90+ with August humidity. But a front is supposed to come through this evening to get us back into cooler sleeping weather.

Today's topic is inspired by a column in this morning's USA Today Life section that went to some lengths to characterize runners as "running bores". Personally, due to the crowd that I associate with, I hear more from "golfing bores", "biking bores", and "traveling bores". Even more to the point, albeit with no athletic reference, I've bored clients about tax codes and regulations my entire professional life.

In our "grown-up" lives, we tend to participate in physical activities that are more fitness oriented than competitive. (Granted, those golf scores do incent even the worst of the hacks.) The focus is not so much about winning or losing as it is on accomplishment. But being human, there tends to be a need to receive due recognition for our accomplishments. I know that I proudly displayed my half-marathon medals in my office for months after the events. A little pride is okay, but the author of today's article accurately points out that most of these personal testimonials are of marginal interest to the listener.

For what it's worth, I am delighted to hear of these exploits by the girls, whatever the activity. I think we all make exceptions for family that we might not for even the best of friends. And as for mere acquaintances? Where's the exit?!

I do think that we all talk too much about ourselves. Our own likes and dislikes, our own schedules and travails, The World According to Me.

One of the best compliments that a person can receive is that they are a good listener. This is to be distinguished from the quiet listener, who is simply waiting for you to stop talking so that he/she can set the record straight with their own version of whatever the topic. That standard was set for me by a college roommate with whom I had many late-night debates on various subjects. As I spoke my piece, I could almost see through his eyes into a mind that was digesting my commentary, and occasionally, very occasionally, he would agree with me. I always felt like he listened, regardless of how far apart we were philosophically.

This whole business of "bores" is not new, of course. How many panels have we seen Dagwood in over the years, dying to get away from a night at the neighbors' whose entertainment for the evening was home movies of their family vacation? Or Hagar's fleeing the hut to avoid Helga's mother? I venture to guess that we all have our own examples of the classic, awful conversation. The old, "Gosh, silly me. Here I am droning on. I'm tired of talking about me. Why don't you talk about me for a while?"

I may have suggested this before, but it's worth a re-run. If you catch yourself being a "fill-in-the-blank bore", remember what it's like to hear (or read) me talk about NASCAR!!

Have a great evening.

Be careful out there.

Monday

Quite the set of comments from yesterday. Must be lots of boredom out there.

I go back in to see the doc in the AM on my thumb. I am sooo tired of this cast! I think that the scheduled protocol is to re-cast it for another three weeks. I may go off the deep end by then.

This experience has the same psychological stresses associated with a natural right-hander trying to learn to shoot lay-ups left-handed. At least with that challenge, you don't have to master miniature motor skills. This business of opposable thumbs is probably as critical as higher intellect in the progression of homo sapiens.

2 should probably lead us in a discussion on footwear. I think that I fall into that "Old Folks" category where shoes are something to shelter your feet from the elements. You have your weekday shoes, your Sunday church shoes, your gym shoes, and some knock-arounds. Maybe some Winter boots. Maybe both brown and black weekday shoes. Maybe sandals for the Summer. And in my case, biking shoes.

Fashion may not be my strong suit. But that's not much of a secret, is it?

BCOT

Sunday

Last night was a return of great sleeping weather. High 50's, low 60's, little humidity. Kind of like Tahoe, although those low temps get a little lower up there.

I know that everyone enjoyed 3's extended comment Friday about the costs/benefits/future value of SB's coffee. I find it interesting that SB's is one of the few cross/generational intersection points on our life curves. When you are talking about people with as much as 30 or more years of age differences, specific points in common are fairly scarce. Of course, the more "big picture" the point, the easier to find common ground.

People may enjoy reading, but they probably enjoy different writers. They may enjoy travel, but probably to different places. Leisure/fitness activities. Food/drink/cooking. Clothing. Etc. Etc. Etc.

But if you take a multi generational group, analyzing those intersection points is a worthy mental exercise. SB's is one of those anywhere/anytime commonalities that makes me feel a connection with the fam. On any given day, I know that it is likely that one or more of my girls, probably my sister, and certainly a couple of other close personal friends will be going through a similar line at a similar store somewhere in the country (or world, at times), for their daily dose of coffee and culture. And when they leave that store, their curve takes them off on their own path for the day.

Tahoe is a little like that for us too. Different in that we all physically get to the same location for decidedly leisure activities. But there is enough there that we can occupy ourselves a bit differently. And when we are not there, a casual conversation (among ourselves or with others) about a previous or future visit brings instant appreciation for a shared experience.

The concept here is that it's not about memories. Everyone has warm places in our hearts about the good times, with families and/or friends, like at a wedding or a reunion. There is an "interactive" element to this idea. That the connectivity item is current and/or future oriented. There is the anticipation that more good things will come because the story is not fully written. More chapters are to come.

Dare I say, 4000 Days?

Enough of the thoughtful stuff. I'm off in Margret for my monthly trip to my favorite store (not!) to stock up on consumables. 2 is over later for a cookout. Domestic chores and a workout later. It's gonna be a great day!

BCOT

Friday

I am humbled by 3's comments. She and 4 are both capable of producing such enjoyable content with seemingly little effort. It's a gift.

I think I'll let the readers be the blog for today. It's Friday anyway.

BCOT

Thursday

Another day of rain. Sounds like lots of folks in the Midwest have been hit with 100 year water.

We bit the bullet here at the office and are in the midst of a two-day project to replace the carpet in the common areas of the second floor. After nearly eighteen years of innumerable coffee spills, mud-traffic-ing, and commercial wear and tear, the original carpeting was an embarrassment. The installers are pretty efficient, but it is a bit chaotic and a little hard to ignore. The new design will be a real breath of fresh air.

As a practical matter, spending this money will have a zero positive impact on our revenue. It will be a cash outflow with no related income effect. I guess it can be best described as a quality of business life issue. I know that I spend money on mass-marketing things that have little direct effect on the development of my securities business. And I rationalize that I need to do those things to achieve broad acceptance in the local business environment. But you need to be careful on how much of that that you do, when direct marketing to specific prospective customers may yield better results.

There was an Internet piece today on the little things that individuals can do to save hundreds of dollars annually. Think SB's coffee. Think premium cable/dish channels. Think bottled water. How about the daily paper? This list could be a long one. There was another story to the other extreme, that I did not read, about a girl who didn't buy anything for a month.

How you choose in these smaller decision points can certainly impact the financial health of your business and/or personal life. Maybe not so much if you have significant assets or a substantial income. But if you have to watch your checking account to stay on the positive side of things, a few hundred dollars here and a few hundred dollars, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.

On the business side, I think that it is valid that you have to spend money to make money. But I think that I too often forget that my best clients came to me not by way of an ad in the business section, but rather by an introduction from a friend or client.

We should have 3 do a future value calculation of saving rather than spending for a daily SB's libation. My only consolation is that being so old, my long term loss will be nothing compared to the projected foregone retirement accumulation of the younger set.

I'm rambling. Suffice it to say, I again lost out on Powerball.

BCOT