Looking Back In Thankfulness

As the new year readies itself to hurl unexpected twists and turns into life, I cant help but think back over the last year with love and thankfulness to all that made an impact in my life over the last 12 months.

Pardon me while I write this stuff down for me. For my recollections some distant time in the future. Its rather personal, and I would assume completely boring for anyone else, so you can leave now.

My Father (the heavenly one), for sustaining me, providing for my family and me, and for continuing to love me despite my failures, mistakes, sin, selfishness, anger and shortcomings. It never ceases to amaze me that there is nothing I can do that would make Him love me less, or more.

My wife Michelle, for her love and thoughtfulness. For caring so amazingly well for our children, me and our home. For the overtime hours she always works in managing the household, cooking, cleaning, taxi driving, grocery shopping, errand running and a million other things. She is an amazing woman and I am completely blessed to have her.

For my four beautiful girls. They are growing in grace and loveliness, with kind hearts and thoughtful minds, smart, funny, witty, musical, artistic, athletic, and so many other adjectives that I might exhaust the English language. I love them dearly and they have added so much to my life.

My parents, for always loving me even when I’m a sarcastic irritating jerk. For helping out just in the nick of time, and for loving my family so well.

My co-laborers, Steve, Lisa, John, Bob and many others, that are patiently and kindly teaching me a new business. And especially Steve for being such a great friend and supporter. I love him dearly and pray for him and his family as often as I can focus long enough to do so.

And of course my extended family and friends, for always being there for me and my family, for good times, impromptu coffee hang sessions, and fun celebrations and gatherings. They all mean so much to me.

As the new year begins, I can think of really only one resolution that matters- that I slow down and take the time to be thankful and express it to those around me as the year progresses, and not wait until Dec. 31st of next year.

The Lost Generations

This past Friday the last of three generations of family members passed away.

I had the pleasure of getting to know and spend time with Great Grandma Clara, Great Uncle Raymond, Grandfather James and Grandmother Dorothy, Grandfather Antony and Grandmother Astrid and Great Uncle Richard.

My Great Uncle Raymond was the last of those family members, on both sides of my family, older than my parents that was still alive.

He was such an amazing link to the past. A true world traveler, merchant marine during WWII and beyond through retirement. He told stories of ports of call from the USSR to China, the Horn of Africa to Alaska, Australia to Thailand.

My parents rushed down to Florida to be with him. The hospital reported that he was only a few days away from leaving us. On Friday my sister Natalie flew down from the DC area and arrived just an hour or so after he died.

He was a good man. Kind, loving, dedicated to the family, and always there to help out in many ways.



I have such great memories of staying in his guest house as a kid in Miami, of Christmas Eve orange picking when his grove was hit by a freeze, of hanging out at his lake house in Umatilla FL and watching for the ever elusive alligator that haunted the neighborhood.


He will be, is, greatly missed, and I mourn for the lost generations of wisdom and experience from our family.

One of the things I loved most about him was his cool and calm demeanor and deadpan style. It was nearly impossible to tell when he was being dead serious, or when he was delivering the heapingest pile of BS you ever heard but were convinced it was true because of the delivery.

Even in his final years, well beyond 80, he cracked me up. Just recently he got a traffic ticket in Florida for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign.

The policeman pulled him over and asked for his license and registration then asked Uncle Raymond if he knew why he pulled him over.

Uncle Raymond: “Yes.”

The policeman: “You didn’t come to a full stop at the stop sign. Didn’t you see it?”

Uncle Raymond: “Yes.”

Policeman: “Well, why didn’t you stop?”

Uncle Raymond: “If I’d seen you, I would’ve."

12 year old Raymond Dennis at his childhood home on
Brasher Avenue in Nashville. He's holding his dearly loved "Buck the dog."
The date is September 1936, and he has his whole life ahead of him.

Fall Blues?

“SAD” is a pretty humorous acronym for seasonal affective disorder. Obviously a forced one. SAD is known by its more popular names winter depression or winter blues. It’s a mood disorder in which people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year experience depressive symptoms in the winter, repeatedly, year after year.

This morning after my normal racquetball set of 4 games against Gary, I came home to brew some coffee and start the work day. I had a few minutes with Michelle and apologized for being “poopy” the last couple of weeks.

She said she thinks I have SAD since I get like this every fall. Really?

I asked her if she was joking and she said no- that I get kind of down and cranky this time every year. I just don’t see it, but it’s true that those kinds of things are rarely recognized by the person exhibiting the behavior, so I’m taking to heart her suggestion.

I’ve spent a few minutes thinking about what this might be… what is going on in my head that might be repeating each year? What it might be I think is time. A simple yet eternally complex thing that is all around us but can never be seen, touched, captured, stopped, or changed. It’s just moving along some massive linear path pulling us along in a giant wake.

The ending of another year, and the change and death that accompanies it (trees, leaves, bright hot sunshine, grass, etc) probably triggers a deep process in my mind. A recognition that this life is fleeting.

I remember the intense joy fall would bring as a kid. It signaled Christmas break from school, coming snowstorms and free days, lack of responsibility and a freedom that children just can’t seem to understand and appreciate until it’s slipped from their fingers by the time they hit high school. Fall was Halloween, candy, Thanksgiving, friends, tackle football in the yard, bb-gun hunting in the woods trying to walk quietly over oceans of fallen leaves, and no more mowing the lawn for 5 or 6 months. Oh. Fall.

Now at forty-two fall signals different things. It still has a good side for sure… Halloween is about watching the kids enjoy it. The postponement of yard work is nice, and the relaxing days of Thanksgiving and Christmas week are certainly ahead. But there is a down side now.

Fall makes me remember my kids are getting older by another year, and they will be out of the house faster than I can imagine. It reminds me of loved ones no longer here, of the temporal nature of this life. It’s flying by so quickly.

I guess as I sit here and free-flow type out my thoughts I would beg to differ with Michelle. While I would agree that I may have seasonal affective disorder, I don’t think it’s really a disorder. I think it’s rather normal to pause, remember and reflect- and with that will always come sadness and joy. And I don’t think its depression. While my mood is certainly altered, it really is best described as somber and thoughtful. With a dash of crankiness thrown in to be honest. And it passes.

As I see life move by, it also causes me to think about the Author of this life. The one Who is always there with me as I recall life and its joyous and sad times, and Who is preparing me in ways I can see and others that I don’t yet recognize, for the life to come.

Winter Ramblings

I am sitting at my desk, looking out the double doors into my backyard. The horizon of the gentle slope of the yard always in conflict with the straight horizontal lines of the window panes.

The fullness of the trees beyond the yard are gone, and brown skeletons of 40 and 50 foot tall remain, looking eerily like the veins and capillaries of a human body. It’s almost as if they are soaking up the nutrients of the earth and feeding them up to the flesh of the world.

The drizzling rain, going for two days now, has deeply soaked the world outside, and all of the creation I can see is falling asleep- readying for the next few months of winter slumber.

This is the time my memories start to rush in. Some sort of connection to the ancient world, when winter brought an end to harvests, field work, wars, conflict, and forced the weary inhabitants of the northlands inside to spend the coldest days of the year in thought, conversation and memories.

I remember childhood, winter storms, snowball fights, igloo building, school closing, sledding, snow ramp construction for headlong death flights of fancy through the atmosphere 36 inches above the ground on a wood and steel contraption with blades that I imagined might slice off my leg.

Good and wonderful memories. I want snow. And lots of it.

Doble Digits

A couple weeks ago I trekked to my old worksite for a meeting. While there I wandered by my old office and peeked my head in to look around. It’s been exactly two years since I worked there, and the space no longer generated a familiar feeling. It was now replaced by something more foreign and distant.

It did bring back a fun memory though.

My office had a series of large windows, each about 3 feet wide and 6 feet tall. There were 5 across one side, and 3 across the other. A nice roomy place to work. On those large windows I used to write out ideas and objectives in erasable marker. The windows made perfect ‘white boards’ that allowed anyone that wanted to graphically make their points during meetings in my office. I also had one of the walls covered in sheet metal which worked just as well for an impromptu white boards as well as a cool place to use for magnets to hold posters, brochures, anything.

For my kids, the windows and the sheet metal wall were a magical and mystical thing that allowed them to do something that they couldn’t, wouldn’t, do in the real world. Write on walls and windows.

Each time Michelle brought them by the office they went straight to the markers and started to draw and doodle all over my office. There were several temporary works of art that adorned my office for days afterwards.

One particular day L, our second child, came in the office the day before her 10th birthday. She was so excited about turning double-digits (that was her big thing) that she drew a marvelous portrait of herself and a birthday cake wth a giant heading to the picture proclaiming “Tomorrow I turn DOBLE DIGITS!”

I teased her a bit about the misspelling, good naturedly, and she wanted to correct it. I didn’t let her. It was too precious. It stayed on that window for at least 6 months.

High School Football

Last night I went to my first high school football game since the fall of 1983. Nothing has changed. The stands are filled with only parents, except for the far right side where the students escape parental supervision and act like crazy people. The cooler students wander the outside edges of the field paying absolutely no attention to the game, and the two school bands duel each other across the field with musical rifts that can barely be heard.

In the fall of 1983 I quit high school football as a junior. I had played 9th and 10th grade on the varsity squad at Ft. Meade High School in Ft. Meade Maryland. Our family moved to Gaithersburg Maryland half-way through my high school career, and so started a new school in 1982.

When I tried out for the Gaithersburg football team, I figured out pretty quickly that Coach Harvill had his favorites. Boys that had played for him a few years and spent every waking minute in the gym lifting weights. I just didn’t fit in. After reaching the half-way point of the one season I was on the team, and not having a single second of playing time, I quit. When I left our record was 0-4 without a single touchdown scored. By the end of the season it was 2-8.

I guess I would have been more understanding if the team was on a rip and the starting squad that had played together 2 or 3 years prior to my arrival was allowed to rein terror on the field, but no… the “starters” were horrible. I watched missed tackle after missed tackle that I imagined I could have made. It was torturous. I walked away from the “team.”

The only other time I was on a high school football field was 2 years later on graduation day. Since then, for 23 years, I haven’t had occasion to go back on one. Until last night. The memories came- great football games (at least at Ft. Meade), playing in the marching band during half-time in my football gear, rowdy cheers and celebrations after the victories (again, only at Ft. Meade).

With K now in high school, and the Friday night ritual an apparent must to keep pace with the social activities of peers, it looks like I’m in for a few years of this.

Dog Attack

At dinner last night the family stumbled into a discussion about dogs that brought back a distant memory. I then shared that story with the family. And the kids were so kind to sit there and humor the old man by listening to my story of way back then…

I was a door-to-door salesman for CableTV Montgomery. My purpose was to get in peoples home by knocking on the door, telling them I could get them a month of free cable service, free installation, free premium channels and a free cable box. Absolutely no cost! Free! Seriously!

I then would sign them up and leave with a $72 check. We did give them a free month of cable, but they had to buy months 2-4 in advance to get it. Oh, and if you didn’t want hole through your hardwood floor it would cost $50 for the “advanced/quality installation.”

Yes, I know, might as well sold used cars.

So, anyway, I pulled up to one huge house in Chevy Chase Maryland, stepped out of the car grabbling my giant presentation book, and walked towards the house. A heard a strange noise- a pounding and rushing sound. And then I saw it. A massive dog, probably 100 pounds, running full speed with teeth bare in an amazingly quiet sneak attack. As he closed in on me the barking and growling started, and he did not appear to be bluffing me. He was going for the kill.

I didn’t panic (at least I didn’t tell my family I did) and did the only thing I could think to do. As the dog lunged at me, I brought my huge binder (about 5 inches think and probably weighed 10lbs) down on the dogs head as hard as I could. He collapsed to the ground with a whimper and laid there.
The homeowner, a nice lady in a dress far to formal for a Saturday morning, came running over to me surprisingly much more concerned about me than her dog. She apologized, asked me into the house without knowing why I was there, and handed me off to her husband as she hurried upstairs.

The man explained to me that the dog does this all the time, no worries about knocking him out cold- he’ll be fine- and that they were in a hurry to get to their daughters wedding. I told him I was sorry for intruding and would come back another time. “Nonsense”, he said, “how can I help you?”

I gave him the 30 second version of my sales pitch, just wanting to get out of there with my life. He pulled out his checkbook, wrote a check, asked me to fill out all the paperwork for him and that installation next week would be fine. He escorted me out to my car, holding the now awakened beast by the collar and I drove away.





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All Grown Up

About 8 years ago while at EMI a friend of mine in the A&R department called and asked if he could bring a young artist and her mom to my office to meet me. Of course I wanted to meet her- love to meet new young artists before they get molded and packaged. It’s a great way to see who they really are before they become too mature and practiced.

In walked a little girl- Rachael Lampa- and her mom. She was about 14 or so and we had a nice conversation full of small talk. They played a cut of her music for me and I was amazed at her voice. So powerful and full for such a little girl.

Today, 8 years later I met with her again. One of my clients has an opportunity I thought she may find interesting. Now 22, a lovely woman, and an artist searching for her next musical venture and direction, I reminded her that we had met some years ago in my office at EMI Music.

She had no earthly idea what I was talking about, but took my word that we had met.






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Psst...Hey Dude...Got Any Lamb?

“Rich- can you drive to Fly TN and meet Stacy and I there to hand off the lamb? Its about halfway between your place and ours- we could meet in the parking lot of Fly Market. We can keep it for a day and have our developer get a quote done on the project by tomorrow.”

Does that sound strange to you? Did to me too. I am working on a project with a client that involves a super-secret new product for kids. The company is ThingamaKid (very cool video and music label making fun kids…ummm…video and music).

As I stood in the parking lot of a small market in Fly TN handing off a stuffed animal to another grown man like a secret drug deal, I noticed two good ole boys sitting on the market's front porch watching us intently.

I felt just a bit weird.

I haven’t heard or thought of Fly TN since Michelle and I first started to look for land to build on back in 2003. A friend and co-worker- Joey Elwood- owned 50 acres out there. He said it was for sale, and I told him I might be interested. Its about 30min south of where we are now in lovely Leipers Fork.

I came home from work and told Michelle we would add good ole Fly TN to our regular weekend drive-around list. Each weekend we spent a few hours checking out land for sale. She refused.

“Rich, there is no way I am going to live in a town called Fly. Period. Its gross.”

Scratch that one off the list.







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Last Day Of School

Today is the last day of school for 3 out of our 4 DigitalRichCrew members. R’s pre-school graduation was yesterday, and K, L and A’s last day of 8th, 5th and 2nd grade is today.

Pre-school graduation was tough. Not on an emotional level… more on a pain endurance level. Mrs. N, the school’s director pulled out the same talking points, same music, same Erma Bombeck poem to read as she has the previous times our kids have ‘graduated.’ Par for the course for the school. Sometime in the late 1980’s they perfected the script for a full year of pre-school and like a tired Broadway play running for 10+ years, they have the same events, celebrations, speeches, music, memo’s and activities every year. This past year was our 8th year straight of having a child at the school, and our last. YAY!

As for our elementary and middle-schoolers (the school our 3 oldest attend is a combined elementary/middle school), they are preparing this morning for the regular routine as well. On the agenda for the day? Each is equipped with a disposable camera to catch memories of the last day and their friends. The annual last day of school food-fight is being planned by the trouble-makers and the word is getting out via text messaging to all the cell-phone equipped middle-schoolers. Various DVDs will be watched during classes while teachers rush to finish grading exams and finalizing grades. What a heady time.

When I think back over my years at school, or just my youth in general, I can’t think of too many things greater than the feeling in ones heart and soul that begins to bubble up around March, and then hits a roiling boiling point in late may. SCHOOL IS ALMOST OVER!!! What an amazing feeling.

It takes much to reconnect with that old feeling. As parents, the feeling is now along the lines of OH NO!!! SCHOOL IS ALMOST OVER.






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Picture and Story 1

Thought I would start something new here at DigitalRichDaily. Like most of what I write, it’s for me. If it’s interesting to you too, cool.

I see this blog as an amazing opportunity to journal stories, thoughts and events that my family will be able to reference for many years. What an amazing thing this is. How would the world be different if generations past had the same ability to document life in this way? While the prominent in society certainly did (published books, letters, etc), most did not.

The idea here is to publish a family photo and tell the back story. This first edition is a simple one. The picture is of A when she was younger, sitting in our empty living room in our old house. The home was the first we owned, and getting in the house took up about all the liquid wealth we had, leaving little for furnishings. The entire time we owned this house (1995-2003) the living room remained absolutely empty.

It was awesome.

The room became our playroom. Not the kind packed with plastic toys, dolls and assorted plastic things made in China. It was a serious playroom. An empty playroom. The kind you did somersaults in, where we stood handstands, hoolahooped, wrestled, fought tickle battles and played soccer with little plastic balls in. This room was the place we set up the Christmas tree, played indoor football, had sleepovers in. Nothing like this in our new home. I miss it.






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Pizza And Pedestrians

Last night was in impromptu pizza night. Those are usually reserved for Friday night, and afterwards we usually break out a movie and shift from pizza night into movie night.

I don’t recall exactly how our dinner table conversation moved to a story that happened 20 years ago, but it did. I told the girls about the day Poppy (their grandfather/my father) plowed into a young girl while driving his Ford Taurus, and sent her flying through the air. I should probably mention now that she was not seriously hurt, but we sure thought she was when it happened.

My father, mother and sisters Natalie and Carla and I were packed into the family car and headed to a pizza joint for dinner. We were headed south on route 355 in Gaithersburg MD, going the speed limit of course, and as we approached an intersection my father noticed that the two cars in the two lanes to his left slowed down very quickly even though the light was green. My father slowed down a bit, and then suddenly a girl- perhaps 18 years old or so, appeared in front of us. Everything went in slow motion at that point. She was carrying a grocery bag and jamming to some music pouring out of her Sony Walkman- the earphone wires clearly visible. What wasn’t visible to her apparently was the big DON’T WALK sign and the traffic bearing down on her at 40MPH.

My father let out a howl and slammed on the brakes. The impact shook the car, and she was propelled skyward in a tumbling, spinning ball, hitting the sidewalk 20 feet away. My mom and I were out of the car before it came to a complete stop and ran towards the girl. My father was paralyzed. He could barely move or speak. He was sure he killed her.

Amazingly the car in the far left lane that barely missed her was a policeman. Across the intersection moving in the opposite direction was an off-duty ambulance. We had police and medical on the scene in about 30 seconds.

As the policeman approached the girl my father emerged from the car. The policeman’s first words were ‘Don’t worry- it wasn’t your fault. I almost hit her too.’ Good words I guess, but that only seemed to matter if she survived. She did. The paramedics mentioned that the girl was so obese that there didn’t seem to be much damage. They said the fat softened the blow to her leg as well as provided a relatively soft landing when she hit the sidewalk.

After recovering from the shock of the impact, she stood up with little more than a bruise on her leg where she was hit and a slight road rash on her forehead from the sidewalk. She wanted to continue her walk home but the medics insisted she go to the hospital for observation. By the way- the bruise on her leg was in the shape of the Ford logo from the front of the Taurus. No kidding.

The policeman took our information, and we returned to our previously scheduled night out of pizza and fun. It was a rather somber dinner.

To this day my father will remark on occasion that he has never got a speeding ticket. He seems to recount this right around the time I get another one. I am forced to remind him that while I do drive a bit fast, I have never, ever, hit anyone and sent them to the hospital. That usually does the trick.






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Take Me Out To The Bawl Park

Tom Hanks may have said there was no crying in baseball in the 1992 film “A League Of Their Own,” but he, nor any other well-known source has ever said there is no crying in softball.

Today, in about 2 hours or so, I will kick off my 9th year as a softball coach for the Girls Softball Association of Franklin. I have only head-coached 3 of those seasons, the rest spent as an assistant coach with much less stress and responsibility. Practice will kick off in about 2 weeks, and with it the tears.

The prompts for those tears will be an assortment of cold weeknight practices, bad bouncing balls that collide with little faces, mounds of dirt that will provide the perfect stumbling block to a girl rounding second, and so on.

This year I will have all four of my girls playing- so four teams, 8 practices a week through mid-April, and then 8 games a week through May. A short season, but many, many hours on the field. As I look back over the previous 8 years I thought I would jot down my top 6 memories (was intended to be 5, but I couldn’t figure out which one below to cut). Hope you enjoy them.

1. Self-Inflicted Wounds. One year I coached a girl, bless her heart, that could not hit the ball if her life depended on it. She was at an age where her teammates had for the most part figured out hitting and would regularly connect with the ball, but this girl just couldn’t get it. It is almost impossible to describe her swing. I was thinking about it for awhile, and the best way I can describe it is that it was like she was chopping wood with an axe, but with some limited forward movement as she did it. Both hands on the bat, chop down as she moved the swing slightly forward, and a slight forward movement again as the bat came back up. Never a hit, never even connection. Until the last couple games of the season. The first time she clipped the ball our crowd of parents about came out of their seats with joy. The next pitch- she put the bat right on the ball. Unfortunately it was as the bat was coming up from its wood chop, and so traveled the very short distance of 6 inches to her face at a good rate of speed. The first time I have ever seen a batter hit themselves in the face with a ball. About 60 parents or so did all they could to feel bad for her injury and stifle laughter at the same time. Her next time up she did it again. And the next. Time for soccer.

2. Casey at Bat. My daughter K, two years ago when she was 11, was on a team that made it to the championship game. It was extremely tense with about 150 people watching the game- 30 or so players and coaches, a huge group of parents and family, and passersby that were pulled in by the immense crowd noise, yelling and screaming. I was an assistant coach on K’s team, and in my usual spot- 3rd base coach- as our team got up for its last at-bat. It was the 9th inning and the game was all but lost. We were behind 9 to 12 and needed 4 runs to win the game. Over the next 20 minutes we managed to get 3 girls on base, and 2 outs along the way. It was pretty much over. Then K got up to bat- it was almost too much to bear. She swung at the first two pitches, and sat out the next 3. It was right out of a movie. 2 outs, full count, 9th inning, and everyone had faces squeezed between chain link face staring at K and screaming their heads off. Michelle actually had to LEAVE because of the pressue. She walked away from the game feeling what K was feeling, right into her heart. The other team was ready to throw hats in the air and run around screaming. Then the pitch. K nailed it, and the sound was glorious. It sailed far into the air, and hit the fence a hundred and fifty feet out. It was just too far away for the outfielder to get to and throw home. K hit a grandslam, scoring 4 points and winning our championship game 13-12.

3. Finders Keepers. After a game a couple seasons ago, my daughter L was walking back from the snack stand and found a wad of cash. No one saw her find it. Without coming to us or asking anybody about it, she walked back to the stand and turned in the almost $200 stash letting them know someone lost in and where she found it. When she came back to where our family was sitting she mentioned the found money. My dad, who often comes to watch games along with my mom, automatically checked his pocket remembering he left his wallet in the car and put his cash in his pocket. He had gone to the snack stand himself minutes before. The cash wasn’t there. We were all amazed, and dad went to the snack stand to claim his money. When he came back he thanked L and gave her a reward- a $1 bill. Our whole family and a few nearby friends erupted in howls and hoots at my dad. A dollar? One lousy dollar? She just got your $200 back! C’mon man! He relented and gave her a twenty.

4. Knock out. One year I coached a young girl that struggled with hitting, but could get a good grounder in once in awhile. We worked with her repeatedly to get the stance and swing down right. She finally proved herself during a game when I was pitching to her. She nailed a line-drive, at about 30MPH or so, straight for my chest. It hit with a thud, and then I hit the ground with a thud falling back from the force and my lame attempt at dodging her best hit ever.

5. Discovery. Last year my daughter L decided she wanted to try pitching. Her first attempts were not very good at all, but she enjoyed the position. I told her that if she wanted to pitch in any games she had to practice on her own to develop control and form. She did it. We rigged a contraption using Styrofoam and a pail that allowed her to try dropping pitches right into the pail, and spend hours upon hours by herself practicing at home. By the end of the season she was one of the best pitchers in the league, and delivered strikeouts every inning she pitched.

6. Crying. In 2004 I head coached the Kid-to-Kid Kubs, a rowdy group of 7 & 8 year olds, and led them to the playoffs. The girls became very close, and loved the time they spent with each other. At our last game, eliminated one game away from the finals, we gathered outside the dugout to say goodbyes. The girls tears flowed, then the weeping began. Then the parents joined in, and finally I broke down.






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A Passing

I didn’t know her very well, but that didn’t stop her from loving on me the few times I was able to be with her. Growing up, she was always far away from where I was- like most family.

My father was in the Air Force so we were in far-flung places.

She had a mystique about her… had the poise and grace of earlier times. She reminded me of my grandfather, mostly it’s the eyes. She was my Great Aunt Lorraine.

Aunt Lorraine passed away on February 21st, 2007, in Arlington, Virginia. She was born on February 5th, 1924 in Brooklyn NY, and was the youngest daughter of Dominique and Thomas, my great-grandparents. She lived in Queensbury, New York for most of her years, was the widow of James , and was also predeceased by her sisters, Anita and Virginia, and two brothers, Tony (my grandfather) and Richard.

Before moving to Queensbury, Lorraine lived in North Carolina and also in Lake Placid, New York. Professionally, she was a talented Decorator/Consultant and also a Buyer, in both the clothing and furniture industries, and for a short time owned her own design consulting firm “A Touch of Class.” That was a very appropriate name for her.

For fun, Lorraine danced, golfed and traveled. After her passing, the family received calls from friends expressing sorrow from Italy, Switzerland, other parts of Europe, Canada and as far away as Saudi Arabia. She was a beautiful and truly elegant woman.

I wish I knew her well enough to have written all this myself. Unfortunately I didn’t, and had to pull most of Aunt Lorraine's personal information from a note from family. Shockingly I learned from this note the names of my great-grandparents. I didn’t know before I read this. My parents or grandparents had probably told me years ago, but if so, I had forgotten.

It is amazing, really, how modern life pulls us away from a family center. The educational and economic opportunities are so many, and this country is so large, that many have lost, or never had, a hometown- a place where your family is rooted, and where they stay in touch, and gather for special times, good and bad.

I hope to be building that here, where Michelle and I are now.







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Vodka, Chili, Panties & The Glory Days

A few weeks ago my former employer, actually my former-former employer, was forced to layoff a large number of people due to the continuing changes in the industry. The music business is in turmoil and going through a painful metamorphosis that is taking a toll on many, many people.

A couple days ago I called a few of the people that were affected just to say hello and encourage them as they figure out what they want to do next. On one of those calls I learned that a small group of those folks were coming to Nashville for a wrap up meeting to hand off company materials, account relationship details and other things necessary to bridge the changes with customers. He mentioned that a group of former staff were gathering Thursday night for dinner and to hang- the sad fact is that it may be the last time several of them see each other. He invited me along.

We showed up at a local sports bar/restaurant- Jonathon’s Grill, but it was too loud to talk, so we decided to head to a nearby hotel restaurant. No one ever goes to those places for a good time, so we knew it would be quiet. It was.

It was great to see the guys- a couple remaining guys still at work in the industry, a few scheduled to end their position in a month, and a few more that had left a month ago and even one that left a couple years ago. It was a blast. A decent Absolute Gimlet, a bowl of horrific hotel chili, and great conversation. Its always fun to hang with friends and talk about the glory days- there is something comforting and supportive about a group dynamic that makes reminiscing fun instead of sad or pathetic.

All was going well until one gent begged me to tell my ancient story about Chris. I refused, assuring him and all the others that they had heard it at some point over the last 16 years and I wasn’t going to bore them with it again. Several spoke up insistent that they had never heard it, and I was implored to tell. And so I did. And I will tell it once more again here, and then I’m done with it.

It’s really not that funny unless you know/knew Chris, so you might as well stop reading here. Have a nice day.

Ok, for anyone left, here we go. Chris is a big guy. Bigger than me, and what someone would call lumbering. He has a heart as big as Texas, but his brain processes everything out in the open. Where most people filter out the thinking process when they go through ideas or options privately, spot the glaring errors or problems, and then decide on a course of action, Chris plods through this by speaking out loud so everyone can peak inside his brain. While he usually ended up making a decent choice or decision, he suffers much ridicule and teasing on the way. Hope that paints a good picture of him.

Many years ago, on one of many sales conferences that brought the far-flung sales reps together for meetings, I waited in the lobby of the hotel during check-in to see who I was to room with. I was told my roommate was Chris, and so headed upstairs to unpack and then head out to dinner. The sales team gathered for dinner that night, and afterwards we all headed back to our rooms- we had an early start the next morning- 7AM meeting start.

Chris and I walked to our room, and I immediately collapsed into my bed and turned the TV on. Chris, who had arrived late from Florida, started unpacking. He then headed to the bathroom, and when he came out and walked in front of the TV I caught a glimpse of him- he was committing a no-no when rooming with a co-worker. He was completely naked except for his undies.

And that’s when I saw them. Big, droopy, silky, ruffled panties. Way too big even for Chris’s massive frame. Things were hanging out that shouldn’t have been.

“Chris, what are you wearing?” I asked incredulously.

He then informed me, with absolutely no hesitation or embarrassment that he had run out of clean underwear right before the trip, and had no choice but to wear a pair of his wife’s panties. He said they rushed to get his clothes washed and packed, and fortunately had just enought time to pack his own clean underwear for the upcoming week although they were still a bit damp.

I suggested to Chris that next time, if this ever happened again, quietly and without commentary, slip a pair of your own clean underwear out of the drawer, head into the bathroom fully dressed, then change underwear, get dressed for bed (that would include some sort of pajamas or robe so as not to freak out your roommate), and never mention that you wore your wife’s panties. Chris said “Yeah- that probably would have been better.”






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The Love Letter

We use the room on the bottom floor of our house as both my office, and a guest room when out-of-towners arrive for a stay at the DigitalRich Inn. I just pack up the notebook computer and bring it upstairs when I need to do work.

I have been on a two month journey to get the space completely organized. There’s plenty of room for guests, even with my desk, Brooke’s desk (we still call it that even though she doesn't work for me anymore), a queen size bed, treadmill and entertainment center. The room has tons of storage space too- 2 walk in closets that now store a massive amount of miscellaneous items- neatly categorized, boxed and labeled.

Michelle was with me one night when I was working on storing old pictures, letters, cards and notes. She found an old note from her sister J to a friend of hers when she was only about 15 years old. It was a status report on affairs of the heart to her friend, detailing how she was absolutely crazy about the guy they met at the mall. We gathered from the note that J and her friend had been at the mall, and they each met a different guy they liked, broke up into two groups, and spent time with each of their “finds.”

In the note she was telling her friend what an amazing kisser he was. She detailed her undying love for him, wondered if he thought she was a good kisser too, wondered when she would see him again, worried whether their love would stand the test of time and distance, and hoped this would be the guy she would always love.

I remember being a 15 year old guy. If back then guys wrote notes to each other, which under no circumstances did they ever do, no one would have mistaken the two accounts being about the same meeting or relationship. I would imagine if there had been mobile phones and text messaging at the time, the gent would have sent a message to his buddy that looked alot like this:

dude-met hote 2day @mall awsme bod-got XnYs-thats all. mayb nxt time more.hope so.she had frnd n I culd go4 eethr 1. think other 1 might have dun mor.u?

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Word Association

Walgreen’s charges 75 cents per strip of negatives to turn them into digital images, plus another $6 or so for each CD needed to hold them. After spending $600 in the last few months turning our old family Super8 video’s into DVD I decided to take a less expensive route this time and scan them all into our home network while working.

The upside is obvious- it doesn’t cost me anything. The downside? It's costing me time and attention (continually loading new photos while I am trying to get work done), and the quality is not near as good.

During this process I have had many long-forgotten memories pop into my head- sort of like the old word-association game, but using images instead. I guess more like a Rorschach Inkblot Test but with old family photos. One of the pictures I loaded yesterday was of Michelle and me standing next to our first ‘family’ car. Gone was the 1974 Midnight Blue Nova 350 small block of my single years, and in was the Chevy Geo Spectrum for the married years (it was actually Michelle’s car, but I adopted it).

The instant I looked at that car one thing popped into my head. Turtle pee.

I wouldn’t say I am an animal person, though at times I am moved by the plight of ducklings without a mother, injured birds and the like. Something about their helplessness motivates me to help out. On one day, driving to work on a hilly and winding road, I saw a baby turtle, not more than 8 inches long, slowly making his way across the road while cars whizzed overhead at 50MPH. I barely missed him, and after seeing the little thing still alive in my rearview mirror, decided to pull over and move him off the road.

I was able to safely pull to the side, and walked the distance back to where the turtle was. Fortunately the road was very wide with a nice shoulder- good for me- not for the turtle.

The area was riddled with roads, so I decided to take him to a nearby lake that I knew was full of other turtles and various wildlife, and far away from high speed roads. I walked back to my car, placed him on the passenger side floor board and headed to Lake Whetstone in Montgomery Village MD to drop him off.

As I pulled onto the road, I noticed that the turtle was making a move on where the gas and brake pedals are, instinctively looking for a dark cave like area to hide. I picked him up, turned him around so I could look at his face and belly (while driving), and out poured a surprisingly yellow stream of turtle pee right into my face.

I turned him around quickly, almost ran off the road, and watched as he sprayed out a nice even flow of pee all over my dashboard, radio, glove compartment and windshield. I was so shocked and clueless what to do, and still trying to keep my eye on the road, that I kept pointing him in different directions allowing him to paint the entire front of the car. I wouldn’t be surprised if the pattern spelled out t-u-r-t-l-e in cursive.

I pulled over, yelled at him, rolled down the window and tossed him into the bushes on the side of the road.

When Michelle and I had our first child we needed to get a mini-van, so out with the Chevy Spectrum and in with the Plymouth Voyager (Baby vomit).






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Me And Charlie Heston- Bestest Buddies Ever

Many years ago I had the pleasure, of sorts, of meeting screen legend Charlton Heston. I remembered this yesterday as I continued the process of scanning all of our old photos onto our home network.

I can’t resist the urge to have everything that possibly can be digitized, digitized. The desire to instantly access all of our personal records, photos, movies, music and correspondence is a sickness I’m sure. But someday, somebody will thank me for it. I hope.

Anyway, it was a hot summer in Atlanta, 1993, and a party was thrown to celebrate the completion of a project Mr. Heston starred in that placed him in the Holy Land reading scripture and telling dramatized Bible stories.

I was part of the sales team that would take that project out into the world to sell millions of VHS copies, and our company’s management had arranged to have each member of our team get a photo standing next to Mr. Heston.

As I waited in line, I was thinking through what I was going to say. It was going to be an honor, for sure, meeting the man that brought so many incredible characters to life on the big screen.

When it was my turn, I approached him, extended my hand, and told him how honored I was to meet him, what an incredible job he had done in The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, and so many other films, and how proud I was to represent his new project. I was beaming ear to ear.

He looked at me, expressionless, and said “Thank you. Now lets take this picture” and then turned to the camera looking like he had known me for years and was interrupted while having a long but interesting conversation with me. Snap. Next.

It didn’t cause me to think less of him- he did have to take about 100 pictures in 30 minutes, so it really didn’t bother me. It just got me thinking, at the time, and again yesterday as I looked at the picture, about how each and every person places their own value and weight to each conversation, meeting and moment that can be vastly different from those they interact with. What may be an incidental comment or gesture may leave a lasting impression, good or bad, on those around us.






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My A-ha! Moments

Life is full of moments where the light comes on. I figured I would jot a few a-ha moments of mine down for posterity.

Age 10
No matter how careful and deliberate you may try to forge a parents signature on a bad report card, it is quite impossible to make a kids handwriting look like an adults.

Age 11
Just because you get a silk shirt and leather jacket to look like Tony Manero (John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever), that alone in no way will make you cool.

Age 12
So few boys are brave enough to ask a girl to go steady, that if you do, odds are 1 in 2 you will get a yes.

Age 13
There are mean kids in the world that will seek out those who will not fight back and make their lives miserable.

Age 14
If you stand up to a bully, punch them in the head while they are trying to torment you in the boys locker room at school with a wet towel, and then drag them out into the hallway completely naked while they cry like a little girl, no one that knew you when the incident occured will bother you again. Ever.

Age 15
Learning to drive a stick-shift to prepare for a drivers test will ensure you pass, and will likely provide you with the skills to drive anything short of a semi-truck your entire life without difficulty.

Age 16
The whole 'turning sixteen is so cool' thing is a load of crap. Its just like 15, but with acne.

Age 17
The world of politics is cold and cruel and has very little substance about it. I learned this when running for class president. If your opponent is the most popular and beautiful girl in the high school, you will lose for sure. All the guys will vote for her (I did- I couldn't help myself), and so will most all the girls since they are all her friends, or aspire to be. Even if her candidacy is based on getting the school to re-paint locker doors in your choice of 5 colors and yours is about raising funds to improve the arts and sports facilities.

Age 18
It's you against the world. This is proved when the state you live in raises the drinking age from 18 to 21 seventy-eight days before your 18th birthday.

Age 19
College is so much easier than people make it out to be.

Age 20
College is very hard.

Age 21
No matter how much money you make, without discipline and focus, you will spend all of it plus some.

Age 22
Don't get a big dog if you live in an apartment and are gone 9-10 hours at a time.

Age 23
Don't throw a party in your small apartment and let people know they are free to bring friends without being very clear about how many friends they may invite, and, that the offer is non-transferable. If you aren't, the police and fire departments will show up sooner than you think.

Age 24
The government is evil. They will gleefully take more and more of your money in the form of income tax, thinking they can spend it better than you, while your friends working cash jobs pay no taxes at all.

Age 25
Despite years of writing songs, playing in bands and recording music, I'm simply not good enough at it to make a living. Thank you God for letting me see that at 25, and not when I'm 43 years old playing piano in a Holiday Inn lounge.

Age 26
Marriage is much harder than I ever thought it would be.

Age 27
Having a child is one of the most significant events a man can ever be a part of. It will make you admire your wife even more, and make you cry like a little baby. But amazingly you won't care. And, while it doesn't make marriage easier, it makes it more meaningful.

Age 28
If someone is conspiring against you, or talking down about you when you aren't around, or gossiping about you and you confront them calmly and directly- in private-they will almost always go out of their way to be nice to you and support you from then on.

Age 29
Your second child is as amazing and awe inspiring of an experience as your first.

Age 30
Being promoted beyond your peers wipes out almost every friendship you have with them. Those that remain are different and not as fulfilling.

Age 31
If you return every phone call, take notes at every meeting and follow-up each meeting in writing, and do what you say you will do, people will be amazed and think you are very smart and give you promotions and raises.

Age 32
While having your third child is amazing and awe inspiring, it really starts to make you think about paying for education and weddings (especially if you have three girls).

Age 33
Being in a position of leadership can be heartbreakingly lonely.

Age 34
There are many people in the world that want me dead just because I am an American. Also, during a time of war or national emergency, the desire to get home- especially when stuck oversees- is overwhelming almost to the point of panic.

Age 35
After having a fourth daughter, it makes you wonder if it would be a good idea to stop having kids.

Age 36
Even if you learned to drive a stick-shift as a kid, if you rent one in Ireland where everything is opposite (the side you drive on, where the gas, brake and clutch pedals are- everything) it will do hardly any good.

Age 37
If you start participating in a 401-k early, and put in the maximum allowable contribution, you can amass a startlingly large sum of money.

Age 38
I am much better at recalling the nice things I say to other people than they, while they are significantly better at recalling the hurtful things I have said to them than I.

Age 39
It's fun running your own company.

Age 40
It's not always fun running your own company.

Age 40 & 1/2
George Bush is the most powerful man in the history of the world- even more so than Bill Clinton or Kofi Annan. That is the only explanation for so many people believing he is responsible for terrorism, unemployment, Katrina, Kyoto, global warming, global cooling, anti-Americanism, inflation, recession, depression, oil prices going up, oil prices coming down, ancient middle Eastern turmoil, the decline of democracy, tsunamis, Darfur, 9-11, illegal immigration, bad French hygiene, the ozone hole, melting polar ice caps, the USS Cole bombing, The OKC bombing, Paris suburb riots, bird-flu, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan going commando, dumb kids, dumb teachers and obesity.







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You Say It's Your Birthday

I was organizing some family pictures on our home network server this morning and stumbled on some old image files I had forgotten about.

On my birthday several years ago I arrived at the office to find my staff had plastered doctored photos of me throughout the building- walls, elevators, stairway halls, even the backs of the doors in the men’s room stalls.

Anyone who knows me knows I am a Beatles Fan to the 9th power. I got hooked, long after anyone really should have got hooked, when I was 8 years old in 1974- many years after Beatlemania subsided.

The birth and the zenith of the group happened before I was born, but when I was 8, my parents bought me my own personal record player (remember those bright plastic kiddie-players with the big plastic stubby arm and “Real Diamond Needle?”).

The player came with a starter set of records and one of them was “Yellow Submarine” by some group of no-name studio musicians that made kiddie versions of big songs.

It was my favorite recording of the set, and not long after that I remember walking into a Sears store with a buck burning a hole in my pocket. I went over to the record section (yes, Sears used to sell records) and found a Beatles record cheap. I looked and sure enough “Yellow Submarine” was on the tune stack. My mother warned me I wouldn’t like it- it didn’t sound anything like the songs I listened to on my record player, but I insisted. The challenge made me determined to “like” the Beatles.

Years and countless tapes, LPs, compact discs, posters and books later, I am a true fan.

I thought I would share the images I saw this morning that reminded me of my first record, a great birthday with old friends and co-workers, and the dare that set me on the path to collecting music.

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