Sunday

The full court press is on by all of the retailers to snatch their share of holiday sales. The latest example is at The Home Depot where I stopped today for a can of bug spray to de-bug my plants. Those types of products were no where to be seen, replaced by a fine selection of artificial Christmas trees and inflatable seasonal yard displays. I left for Lowes where their holiday stuff had been set up mostly in an area that has garden supplies during the Summer months.

The Sunday paper this time of year is another sign of the times. You need to sort through all of the ad inserts to find the news sections. And that's only a minor exaggeration.

My Yahoo email account has been deluged by assorted retail offers, not only from Kohl's and Gap where I have cards, but also dozens of online sites that must have bought my email address from one of the bricks-and-mortar places. I may set up a Gmail account when I get my new laptop to try to avoid the spam.

Another traditional item for sale seen in many of the grocery/home improvement/Walmart stores in the Norfolk Island pine tree. This is a very pretty tree that is sold in many sizes, and fetches a good price. I really like the tree, but I have never been able to keep one alive. While I have a lot of plants in my house, most of them are ones I have learned can survive a certain level of benign neglect.

The ceremony at The Arsenal today was very understated. Maybe the smallest crowd that I have ever seen there for Veteran's Day. No helicopter flower drop. No band. One Congressman. Since the day is actually being observed tomorrow (closed Post Office and other Federal facilities), it's possible that people were not geared to taking time off for a weekend day.

I see where Hollywood and Broadway stars have all embraced the strike by the Writer's Guild. Does this mean that the studios (or whomever are the big decision makers in this dispute) are part of the Big Business Establishment that usually gets a bad label on the talk shows? When the media talks about the Democratic/Clinton Hollywood connections, are they talking about the writers and the actors, or the studios?

How evident is it with the SF accident that ships at sea will forever hit things? And where do they put the oil that they "clean up"?

Hope everyone is getting prepared to have a great week.

BCOT

Saturday

Checking in on a Saturday evening.

Glad to see 3 give a little report on our evening. The idea of FFF in Chicago is all well and good, but we'll need the Lottery to come home before we take the whole fam to a trendy place on the Magnificent Mile.

3's office is located on the 24th floor of a very nice building close to the Sear's Tower. The two-or-three story street-level atrium is ringed with bamboo trees that must be 30-40 feet tall. I looked for koala's, but didn't see any. Security required check-in and authentication. Airport-style metal detector's and x-ray screening of brief cases or the like. 3 did say that you could get a gun through if it was wrapped in a taco shell.

2 and I did a nice run this AM. I checked my 2006 calendar and we were usually running that route last year less than a minute faster than today's pace. Which is a good sign for the TT. Then this afternoon I did our regular route, just a hair slower than on the days when I/we run only the one time. Another good sign. But T-Day is rushing to us, so I'll probably have only 6-7 more days of training.

4 was a star in some "crowd" shots on last night's Big Ten Network broadcast of the Iowa basketball game. 2 said that she and her new friend were at Buffalo WW's for dinner when she looked up to the screen and there was 4! In the front row.

One of my accomplishments while in C-town was the 98% completion of Thursday's Sun Times' diagram-less crossword. That's the kind where they don't give you any of the blacked-out boxes, and you have to figure out the length of solution words in order to blacken the appropriate boxes. It adds a little complexity to the puzzle. Obviously, if you can't get the solution to 1 Across, you might want to just go to the Comics section.

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day. I'll be going to Arsenal Island for the ceremony after lunch. I wonder if they made arrangements for a band? Salute a vet tomorrow.

I stopped in at the new SB's at 53rd and Elmore this AM. I'll go back. I know several of the staff who transferred to that location, and they treat me pretty well.

BTW... Wednesday is the two year anniversary of 4000 Days.

All for today.

BCOT

Friday AM

C-town. Day 2.

3 was supposed to add some commentary about our dinner last night. Good time.

Back to The Quackers after lunch. Looking forward to the traffic.

More later.

BCOT

Wednesday

I have a story of a business friend who has managed to complicate his life because of a cycling accident last weekend that makes, by comparison, my lament from my own accident a mere whimper in the breeze.

My lawyer friend Steve, a year or two older than me, was out Sunday afternoon on his Harley Hog tooling along on one of the country roads that I use for bicycling, when a kid bombs out of a side road without any consideration to passing traffic. Steve's choices are limited, and he elects to lay his bike down rather than hit the vehicle. I don't know all the details at this point, but the bottom line is that he broke most of the major bones in his right ankle, and had surgery Sunday night to insert a metal plate and nine screws. He'll be in a non-weight bearing cast for 6-8 weeks.

We Boomers have some issues. I don't think that it's a Middle-Age-Crazy thing. We did that 15-20 years ago when we tried to fool ourselves into thinking that we were still 25. It may have taken a weekend 10K with one of the kids, or one too many late nights with younger business associates who actually could hit it hard at night and get to the office in the morning. Whichever. We did eventually, albeit reluctantly, conclude that we were past whatever prime we once enjoyed.

But as Toby Kieth might say, the Boomer mantra might be, "I'm not as good as I once was, but I am as good once as I ever was". Disregarding the double entendre, we Boomers still have the idea that, while we can't do it all anymore, we still can do some things. In many cases, financial means allow successful Boomers to enjoy the luxury of a toy car (me?), preferred parking at the game (my Pal Roy?), or gratuitous boys' trips for golf, fishing or wine-snobbing.

Motorcycling is one of these Boomer things that I have just never quite "got". Neither the bug to do it myself, nor the understanding as to why others choose to participate in such a dangerous activity. And I know of many local Boomers who have spent lots of money on very nice Harley's or comparable equipment. "Donor cycles." Steve moves to Example One on my list of why I think these guys are nuts.

The Harley Davidson manufacturing company has enjoyed some financial success as a result of this Boomer resurgence. The stock price is now off it's highs of a year ago and I really don't follow it. Travolta starred in a movie last year, Wild Hogs, that took a comical look at four over-the-hiller's who tried to re-live some of their youth on a motorcycle trip. I didn't see it. Probably because the concept of "Old Guys on Bikes" just didn't resonate for me.

I may have mentioned here before that I owned a motorcycle when I was an Air Force lieutenant in Korea. The bike was one of those things that was sold from one airman to another as they rotated to and from that base. Since I had to get back and forth between several locations for my job, my logic was that the motorcycle was a great solution. I had it for about a week before I mistakenly "popped" the clutch as I was leaving one of the repair shops that I was in charge of, and proceeded to lay it down in the middle of the street. I was luckily uninjured, and I sold the bike the next day. And I haven't been on one since.

Anyway, my friend Steve is now going to have to have his new bride (second marriage for both, last Summer) truck him around for the next two months. Daily living for me with the thumb issue was inconvenient. Steve's life will be work. Sell the bike.

I'm off to C-town for two days. Din-din with 3 tomorrow night. Does that qualify as FFF?

BCOT.

Tuesday

Really enjoyed the evening over in DeKalb. No, really. My pal Pete and I picked up a couple of common clients at the Dixon exit, and eventually found our way to the NIU field house. The facility was an almost new, very modern arena that would seat around 9,500 for basketball. There may have been 1,500 or so at the game. Aguie played poorly for the first 15 minutes (down by 26 at one point) and then actually outscored NIU over the rest of the game, losing by 15 or so.

The biggest downside for me was the return time of 11:45 PM which is way past my bedtime.

Any of our English scholars out there want to take a stab at the proper use distinction between past and passed? I know that a dead guy passed away. And that a crude oaf with indigestion issues passed gas. And that that last sentence was expressed in past tense. But what's the rule?

Election Day. Which I will use to reminisce on a little Family History.

Daddy loved his job as a Supervisor. I think he loved meeting and greeting people. I'm not so sure that he loved politics. Certainly, the late elections took a toll on him and Mother as the media became more obsessed with possible "dirt" that they could throw at the candidates. I have theorized that the local paper, The Ottumwa Courier, had employees in the mid-70's who had learned their trade in the Watergate era, which meant that they took it as their professional responsibility to vet anyone in the public domain.

AM may be able to fill in some of the details from the first elections in the mid 50's. I know that my Grandpa H was a Wapello County Supervisor at some time. I suppose that that is where Daddy got the bug. In any event, I believe that Daddy ran, and lost, in his first attempt at public office. Then, again I think, in the period before the next election, he was appointed to fill an unexpired term of a Supervisor who either died or resigned. He then ran for election at the end of that term, was elected, and remained on the Board over the course of another 5-6 elections.

He was a moderate Democrat in what was at the time one of the few Democratic counties in the state. Wapello County was a "union" county with a big John Deere plant on the Southside of town, and a major John Morrell meat packing plant on the Northeast side. The unions were pretty strong and Daddy was able to get their vote. As a farmer, he also must have faired well at the polls in the rural areas of the county.

He was a Catholic, and at the time, there was a recognized anti-Catholic element in elections. Obviously, the election of John Kennedy as President diffused a lot of that prejudice. But I remember Mother and Daddy always talking cautiously of their concern about a possible religious backlash. To my knowledge, their fears on this matter never became reality.

"Running" for office meant a lot of meetings at night and "politicking" during the day. He always had "chatskey" (my term) items for give-aways. Combs, match-books, pens. I would guess that every telephone pole in Wapello County had one of his 18" x 24" picture-posters tacked to it at one time or another in the course of his time in office. On Election Day, I was always positioned just outside one of the voting sites, handing out his small picture-cards to each person headed in to vote. (That would most-assuredly be against the law today.)

Mother was in charge of "absentee" ballots. I think she worked the nursing homes, hospitals, and shut-ins for pre-Election Day votes. She had a Notary seal, and I'm certain that it was for the purpose of absentee ballots. In Daddy's last campaign in the late 70's, The Courier ran a story on the Monday before the election that there may have been some "irregularities" on Daddy's absentee ballot program. Mother and Daddy were devastated. Obviously, he won the election the next day. And the paper later printed some sort of retraction/clarification.

I had a heavy-equipment salesman from Cedar Rapids (whom I interviewed for an MBA project at Iowa in the mid-70's) tell me that Daddy was the best he had seen in a Board of Supervisor's office. He said that Daddy had a way about himself at controlling a meeting and getting people to feel like he was listening to them.

In the pre-Watergate era, Daddy would receive various Christmas gifts from salesmen that called on the county for contracts of goods and/or services. A ham here. A fifth of whiskey there. Never a lot. But it was the practice of business back then. After the press got turned on to Watergate-like shenanigans, Daddy rarely kept any of these gifts. (Since Daddy didn't drink, or drink much, that whiskey usually found it's way down the throat of a sick calf in need of something to warm it's innards! True story!)

One by-product of his position as an elected official was that he was eligible to travel, with expense account, to the annual national convention of county officers. I can't remember when the first trip was, but he and Mother made numerous trips over the years to this annual gathering. Always by car. New Orleans. Las Vegas. Miami. I don't know if their grown kids living in California factored into these trips or not, but by the mid-60's it became routine for them to jump in the car for a 10 day or two week journey. Which meant I was home on the farm milking cows and bailing hay.

I gotta go run with 2. Maybe I'll get back to this topic another time. For those readers expecting creative commentary on more interesting and timely issues, come back another day.

Have a great evening.

BCOT

Monday

Technology for a Monday.

I'm looking at getting a laptop and a wireless card through my phone provider which will then make me web-accessible at home and beyond. My buddy who wrote the book while sitting at SB's gave me the idea. I thought he was subscribing to the SB's "hot spot" wireless service, but he told me today that he had gone to the phone-based technology. It's not as fast as DSL or cable, but it gives you access where ever you have a phone signal.

The financial side works for me as I have put 3 on notice that her phone service through good old Dad is history. Her loss is my gain. Sorry, kiddo. It's a cruel world out there.

My suspicion is that this particular type of wireless service, which is not widespread, will be rendered obsolete in the next year or two as the technology evolves. Wireless services may become less valuable as ad revenue and other income streams affect the business models of the various players. The existing paradigm of obtaining monthly subscribers will perhaps give way to other concepts that will live off the traffic on the Internet.

Anyway, my rationale for looking at something now is to be able to access 4000 Days with less dependency on my office-based computer. And a little flexibility with some of my business pages at home becomes an added, and tax-deductible, bonus.

Those of you concerned about the writers' strike and it's effects on 4000 Days can rest easy. Even if those LA liberals set up a picket line here in the QCA, I'm crossing. New material will always be here. No re-runs.

My pal Roy's iPhone did not work in Chile. Steve Jobs had better get back to the drawing board.

On the other hand, the I-Pass is the only way to travel Illinois' toll road systems. Breeze through those toll plazas at warp speed and save 50% off the cash price. The only losers are the toll booth operators. Another job ended by the geeks.

So I gotta go. My pal Pete and I are headed over to DeKalb tonight for Augie's season opener at Northern Illinois. This is one of those D-1 - D-III match-ups that doesn't count on the D-1 school's record. It's a lay-up. Just ask Michigan State. Grand Valley State?

Have a great evening.

BCOT

Sunday

Time change. I think I like the "Fall back" move better than the Spring move forward. My body rhythms seem to more easily adapt.

The weather is about to change too. High in the 40's tomorrow. Low in the 20's. I have to move several plants that I want to save indoors now to maintain them across the Winter. The bigger ones will lose leaves, and a few just won't make it. Those that I brought here to my office will need to be misted somewhat regularly because the office is very dry.

Current events.

Tuesday is Election Day across the country. By happenstance, I have already voted. When I stopped by the local library yesterday afternoon to check my email, there was a table of precinct workers set up in the lobby. I thought it a bit curious, and on my way out, I asked what their deal was. And the response was simply that they were set up to accept early voting. So I completed a few forms, filled out my ballot, and wallah, my vote for Tuesday has already been cast.

For the record, I practiced a philosophy from my past: I voted against the incumbents.

The Naval Academy beat ND yesterday for the first time in over 40 years. Three overtimes. ND's fifth loss at home this year. Unprecedented. It's been a year of nightmares. It's shocking to me at how bad the Irish are this year. How does that happen?

My pal Roy reached out to me today from South America. He may be on vacation, but he's always afraid that he may be missing out on some info from home.

The local fishwrap has selected Froma Harrop as a national columnist to replace the deceased Molly Ivins. I think. I don't think that she is as over-the-top liberal as Ms. Ivins, but her tendencies are in support of most liberal causes. I've only recently begun reading some of her work. Since I rarely agree with her points, I suspect that our politics will clash. Stay tuned.

Here's a bit of history that is of note. You may have seen a story in the news this past week on the death of the pilot whose plane dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan that helped bring an end to World War II. The name of the plane, the Enola Gay, is a frequent answer in crossword puzzles. What I didn't know is that the pilot, Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr., called Des Moines home in his early childhood, and actually lived in Davenport for a couple of years. And the real interesting point, his mother, a native of Glidden, Iowa, was named Enola Gay Haggard. You can look it up.

All for today. Enjoy the last of the warm weather.

BCOT

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