You have to laugh at life. But sometimes, life laughs at you.

Several weeks ago, I was driving Jackson to school, trying to convince him to eat the bagel with cream cheese before we reached our final destination, where he’d get a more substantial breakfast. This had become such a routine, it struck me.

“Are you tired of bagels and cream cheese, buddy?” I asked.

Not wanting to offend me (or his mother who graciously makes the bagels and leaves them for us every morning), he said, “Sorta.”

“Tell you what,” I said. “It’s going to mean you have to get up earlier, but I’ll make you breakfast at home in the mornings, how does that sound?. We can try that next week.”

Well, the first couple of days went off without a hitch. I can cook eggs and frozen waffles just as good as the next guy.

On the third day, it was a sausage, egg and cheese croissant, courtesy of Jimmy Dean.

On my way to the kitchen, I had stopped in to wake Jackson up. That would give him time to rally out of bed. I had even seen it work the first two mornings. But on this morning, the food was on the table, but I had not heard a whisper from upstairs.

“C’mon, Jackson.” I called up the stairs. “Get down here for breakfast before the dogs get it. I have to get ready for work.”

With that I headed to my room to get dressed, assuming all would go as planned.

Life, however, had a different plan.

Buckling my belt, I realized I hadn’t heard anything from Jackson. I headed toward his room and a view of the kitchen, calling “Eating your breakfast, buddy?”

Someone was eating his breakfast alright.

Jake, our 7 month-old puppy.

With his paws on Jackson’s chair at the table and his neck stretched as far as he could stretch, he had managed to scarf down every last crumb.

Jackson was still in bed.

I’m not prone to moments of rage, but I can be bent by the perfect storm. And on this day, at this particular moment, the pieces all came together. And I guess I fell apart.

“JACKSON!” I yelled. “Your dog just ate your breakfast. I TOLD YOU to get down there before the dogs got it. Now, get out of bed. And YOU are going to make your own breakfast.

Then a terrible thought crossed my mind, “What exactly would a Jimmy Dean Sausage, Egg and Cheese Croissant do to the inner workings of a 7-month old puppy?”

It couldn’t be good. I had to get the dog into his crate. Now.

But puppies can sense emotion, especially when you are chasing them into a corner with fists clenched and the veins on your temples and forehead pulsing.

And they’re fast. So a lap around the downstairs, up the stairs and into the master bedroom. I closed the door. He cowered in the corner.

I scooped him up as he squirmed a bit, held him tight and walked him down the hallway and down the stairs to his crate.

By this time, Jackson was up, dressed and making his breakfast. What did he choose to make, you ask?

A bagel with cream cheese.

It was at this moment that the humor of the morning’s events hit me. I struggled to hold back a chuckle. I forced myself to keep the angry dad look on my face, but inside me the rage had melted.  All of this started with a bagel. And it had come right back to a bagel. The perfect circle of it all brought me an unexpected feeling of peace.

“Take your bagel and get in the car,” I said. “I left my watch upstairs.” As Jackson headed to the door, I stayed back, took a deep breath, smiled and walked over to the dog in the crate. I reached through the wire frame, pet him and said, “How was that breakfast?”

I went upstairs to get my watch. I was laughing at life, and now it was time for life to laugh at me.

As I turned the corner at the top of the stairs, I took a step and slipped, steadied myself with the banister and looked down. Evidently, I had squeezed Jake a little too hard on his way to the crate. He had dropped a couple of land mines on his way. 

Hello, Karma.

I cleaned up the mess, picked up my watch off my bedside table, and headed to the car. Much, much wiser.

“How’s that bagel, Jackson? Some morning, huh?”

Over the last 15 months, I’ve traveled a lot. Not just short trips, either. I’ve been traveling across the country from my North Carolina home – to places like Los Angeles and San Francisco. And it usually means leaving on Sunday night and coming back on Friday morning.

I’m not really built for that kind of travel. It’s too far away for far too long. And yet, for too many weeks over the last 15 months, I’ve done it.

But a couple of Sundays ago was Easter Sunday, and the idea of hopping on a plane (excuse the pun) didn’t sit too well. So, I put off my departure until Monday morning. It seemed unimportant and somewhat uninspired at the time. I mean, how many Sunday nights have I missed in the last year. Who would miss me? What difference would it make?

Well, on Easter Sunday, we went to early mass. We had my mother over for a wonderful Easter lunch that was more bountiful than a Thanksgiving dinner. We talked, we laughed, and my mom left right around the time I would have normally left for the airport. But on this Sunday, there would be no airport. 

So, on a whim, Jackson and I stepped outside to throw the baseball around. But this was far more than just a catch.

Jackson threw the ball to me. Or rather, he pushed it through the air toward me.

“Bring that arm back,” I said, and exaggerated the motion in my own throw back to him.

He held out his glove like a basket and bobbled it into the web.

“Hold your glove up,” I said, “like this.” I waved my gloved hand like a parade marshall to the crowd.

He threw it back, slinging it sidearm past me, across the street and into the neighbors lawn.

“What was that?” I asked over my shoulder as I jogged to pick it up.

We went on and on like this. I corrected 3 out of every 4 throws and catches. I pushed him and pushed him to improve his form. I chased countless balls into the neighbor’s yard. And after more than an hour, something happened.

His glove rose up to catch the ball. His throw back hit me right in the glove. Not once, but repeatedly. We were having a catch. I wasn’t holding back. I was throwing without hesitation. He reached across his body to snag it out of the air.

Was he getting better, or was I just getting tired?

When we walked into the kitchen, I realized we had spent almost 90 minutes throwing the ball. And to tell you the truth, I thought maybe I had been a little too hard on him.

“Great job, buddy,” I said.

“Thanks, dad. That was fun. I’m glad you don’t have to leave for the airport now.”

And then it hit me. All the magical moments I have missed over the last 15 months suddenly became tangible. And the weight seemed overwhelming.

It occurred to me that the little things that we all take for granted – a simple catch between a dad and a son – can mean so much more than we could ever imagine.

I started writing this blog entry 6 weeks ago and never wrapped it up. Since then, I’ve seen Jackson make some great catches in Center field. In fact, I even got to witness his team swarm him and pile on as if they had just won the world series, when he made the game-winning catch in the bottom of the 6th inning. 

Yep, that Easter afternoon catch has made all the difference. More than I could have ever imagined all those Sundays when I left for the airport. When Jackson would ride his bike on the sidewalk next to my car as I drove out of the neighborhood. If I could do it all over again, I would turn the car around. I would change the itinerary. I would steal another moment. Who knows what magic I would have found?

I’ll be honest. Despite my Journalism degree, most days I skim the headlines. And most days, it’s just one bad news story after another. I can only take so much. I don’t usually connect any of the dots or analyze any of it too deeply. Maybe it’s my age. Maybe it’s my circumstance. Maybe it’s the economy. I can’t tell you what it is, but more and more, I’ve begun to read beyond those headlines and think about some of the implications for me, for my family, for the world.

Here’s one you probably saw today, “Spies Hacked Into US Electricity Grid.” Excellent. That’s great news. Really? And how many grids has the US hacked into? Am I supposed to believe we haven’t? Is this the real future of warfare? Can I stop worrying about North Korea launching a nuclear missile into my living room and start worrying about when the intermittent blackouts are going to start? 

It made me think. Are there really people in this world who have decided to spend their lives dreaming up ways to annihilate civilization – one way or another? What must it be like to wake up in the morning and begin the work of destroying your fellow Earthlings – whether it be through mass destruction or simply by undermining the technological underpinnings of society and creating entropic chaos. Why? What is the point? What is the reward if you succeed? 

Then I read another headline “Sims and Spore Creator Leaves EA.” I don’t know if you ever played Sim City. I did. If you haven’t, you should. It makes you feel like part city planner, part god. But that’s not what I saw in the headline. This obviously talented mind, Will Wright, isn’t leaving his job to simply disappear into retirement. He is leaving to start up a new kind of think tank. A think tank that will develop new intellectual properties that will drive new games, television shows, toys and online fodder.

The think tank’s name? Stupid Fun Club.

So, as much as I struggled to understand a world where people rise each day fixated on bringing all of us to the brink of disaster, I was encouraged to see that even in that world, people strive to create. To create something new. To create ideas that will spawn even greater ideas. A world where people follow their dreams. And even do it with a hint of self-deprecating humor. Stupid Fun Club.

For me, for my family, for the world, I hope those dedicated to creation, not destruction, win the battle we all face each morning when we wake. Because whether we realize it or not, we all make that choice every day. Maybe neither you nor I do anything as dramatic as building bombs or hacking into electrical grids. And maybe neither of us will ever start a think tank of our own. But each of us makes the choice – perhaps countless times a day at work or at home – to tear someone down or build someone up. We make and break entire worlds each day.

Each of us.

Not just those who make the headlines.

Last Thursday, my wife’s grandmother passed away. I flew home from California on the red eye, slept a few hours in my own bed, filled the car with our family of three and headed to Minster, Ohio.

The visitation was Sunday, and the funeral was Monday. At the visitation, I picked up a Mass card. I fully expected to see a typical bible verse or Psalm.

This one, though, was different. It read:

Poem for the Living

When I am dead
Cry for me a little.
Think of me sometimes
But not too much.
It is not good for you
Or for your wife or your husband
Or your children
To allow your thoughts to dwell
Too long on the Dead.
Think of me now and again
As I was in life
At some moment
it is pleasant to recall.
But not for long.
Leave me in peace
As I shall leave
you, too, in peace.
While you live
Let your thoughts be with
the Living.

—Theodora Kroeber

I met Sylvia Moorman Sommer just a couple of times. The first time I met her, we sat in the kitchen of her farmhouse and fell into one of the most comfortable conversations of my life. She told me stories of Patti as a little girl, stories about Patti’s dad and his multitude of brothers and sisters…and about the barn cats, one of whom had lost a paw in a fight with some piece of farm machinery. She told me she called him ”Stumpy” and I almost fell out of my chair onto the kitchen floor in laughter.  

I found myself naturally falling into stories about my childhood. Stories about the 7 dogs I had grown up with. Stories about how my family would take all seven of those dogs AND the 6 children, stuff them into an RV and travel up and down the East Coast. Stories about how I spent my earliest summers in Long Island with my family and grandparents, mostly fishing off the end of our dock. Stories about how Patti and I met and how we thought our future was going to go. We talked for a long time.

And then, without missing a beat, Sylvia asked me a question I had never heard before in my life and have never heard since. She asked, “Do you want to know what I think about you?”

And while in any other circumstance, I think that question would have shocked me, in this case it did not. I did want to know what she thought about me.

She went on to tell me that she thought I was most deserving of her granddaughter. That she thought I was a genuinely kind person. I was a pleasure to talk to. I listened. I was respectful. I was “a joy.” She hoped we would get to have many more conversations like this first one we had just shared.

“Thank you,” I said. “I feel the same way about you, and I’m glad to be part of your family.”

I should have made more time for conversations with Sylvia. Instead, I only managed a couple more when we took Jackson up to visit as a baby. Patti was much better at keeping in touch than I was. But I never forgot my time with Sylvia. And I don’t think I ever will.

The Mass card made a request of all of those attending the funeral. And Sylvia’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren respected her wishes. Obviously, we all mourned the loss, but more importantly, we all celebrated her life. The Aunts and Uncles and cousins and great grandchildren gathered and sang and shared meals and told stories and joked and laughed – sometimes to the point of tears. The beer flowed. I saw several of her grandchildren hoist a few Stroh’s skyward – Sylvia’s favorite beer – with a cheerful “To grandma.”

The time together passed too quickly. And the goodbyes were long, filled with promises of seeing each other again soon. And I know they were not empty promises. I know Sylvia will have a hand in making sure those promises are fulfilled.

Sylvia touched so many lives. So many lives that have now touched mine. And as we sat in the car at the cemetary, Jackson asked me why he didn’t get to see his great grandmother more than once. “We could have come to Ohio a couple of more times…instead of Disney World all those times,” he said. And you know what? He’s a smart 8-year-old. No, I take that back. He is wise.

One of the Mass cards now sits on my bedside table, completely contrary to Sylvia’s request. I have not stopped thinking about her since the weekend. But I will, I suppose. Eventually. I will tuck the card into the drawer at some point. Maybe next week. And I will think of her sometimes. Just as she requested. And instead, I will spend my time and thoughts focused on the living, the lives she has touched, those who represent where my life intersects with hers. For that is where I know I will always find her.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. Just you, though. Don’t tell anyone just stumbling around the Internet.

When I decided I wanted to write the occasional essay of sorts, I thought about just picking up another journal, like the one I started keeping one fateful summer between 7th and 8th grade. I filled notebook after notebook of all shapes and sizes through 8th grade, high school and college. Most of which are packed away in some box somewhere in the attic. I don’t know what I wrote about back then. But I doubt I’d ever consider posting them to the Internet.

When I opted to post my pointless thoughts to the ether instead of committing them to the gravity and permanence of ink and paper, I promised myself that I would never, never, NEVER talk politics. Well, one should never say never.

So, here goes. Are you ready?

Al Gore is right. There. I said it.

If you decided to take a vacation from newspapers or your news.com of choice this week (I’m often tempted to do the same myself), you may have missed that Al Gore “challenged America to make a ‘man on the moon’ effort to produce all of the country’s electricity from renewable resources within 10 years.”

The guy is right. And I’m not saying he’s right because I love the trees or I’m afraid of rising temperatures and suffocating greenhouse gases. I’m not sure the proof is truly conclusive on all of that stuff. Even after watching “An Inconvenient Truth”. Twice.

I’m not even saying he’s right because I’m tired of the gas station siphoning my wallet.

No, none of that is why I think Al Gore is right.

He’s right because America needs another race to the moon. America needs another impossible dream.

When Kennedy made his “man on the moon” speech, a lot of Americans considered it a PR move to recover from the Bay of Pigs. Or worse, he was a simple lunatic.

Yet, it happened. He placed a dream before America, and America transformed it into reality. Not because Kennedy believed in some crazy idea, but because America believed in itself.

And now, here we are. Oil prices have soared beyond the moon. Finding a way out is impossible. The infrastructure just isn’t there. Our cars are built for gasoline. Every intersection is peppered with gas stations. Do we really expect oil companies to walk away from $12 Billion per quarter in profits? That would be crazy, right?

Almost as crazy as launching a human into an uncharted void of a vacuum in a cramped tin can tube atop a huge fireball aimed at a lifeless rock. Almost.

When I think about it that way, I guess I’d have to say that what Al Gore is asking for can never happen. Never.

Oh, wait a second. What was it I was saying earlier. No, I learned my lesson. One should never say never. 

Yes, that’s right. Never say never. The America I know never would. Never has.

Why start now?

I once heard an interview where Don Henley was asked where the line “…saw a deadhead sticker on a Cadillac” in the song “Boys of Summer” came from. He said that he was driving down the road, and he actually saw a deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.

I never believed him. Well, not until yesterday.

Yesterday, I pulled in to a gas station in the tiny, gateway community of Weddington, elated to be paying only $3.93 for a gallon of precious fuel. And that’s when it happened. In the refueling lane next to me, a Lamborghini pulled up. Not a car you see everyday. And definitely not one you anticipate seeing in Weddington. But there it was.

Now, I would never even contemplate attaching a sticker to such a perfectly sculpted, not to mention insanely priced, work-of-art vehicle. But this man thought differently. There it was. In the middle of the rear bumper. A single, solitary sticker. It was about 3 inches high and 6 inches across.

And if I were to tell you that this middle-aged man, who was so obviously struggling to grasp whatever elusive part of his youth he thought remained, had a deadhead sticker on the back of his Lamborghini, you’d probably shrug.

But this was no deadhead sticker.

There I stood, squinting to make out the youth soccer league logo. The dot on the “i” was, of course, a soccer ball. The incompatibility overwhelmed me. I couldn’t help but contemplate exactly what statement the driver was trying to make.

“I may drive this car, but I’m still a family guy.”

“I made enough money franchising kids soccer leagues to buy this car.”

“My wife didn’t want me to buy this car, so she slapped my son’s soccer league sticker on the back.”

Whatever he was trying to say, I wasn’t getting it. But in those moments where I tried to make sense out of it all, it occurred to me that this sort of thing happens every day. Every day, someone passes you saying one thing and doing another. Every day, you struggle to make sense of the things around you. And every day the guy who seems to make the least sense drives off in a Lamborghini.

That’s the world we live in. And I’m ok with that. Because if this world never challenged you to think, if it never let you come face to face with those who are so diametrically different than yourself, then it would surely be a much less beautiful and wondrous world.

So, Mr. Lamborghini and I both topped our tanks off and exchanged glances as we put the nozzle back into the pump. And we drove off. In opposite directions.

But I swear I could hear Don Henley coming from his high-fidelity, highly priced speakers.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to forcibly contort five people (and their luggage) into the significantly constrained space of a Pontiac Vibe, one must ask himself whether or not writing of such an event is truly appropriate.

It’s one thing to associate yourself with a Pontiac Vibe. But to share (in a somewhat public forum) that 4 of your colleagues willingly climbed aboard for the ride to LAX actually borders on slander and libel. In hopes of avoiding any legal action, I will not reveal any names in this post.

Actually, the ride wasn’t all that bad.

Sure, I had to endure countless witty, yet biting remarks about my lack of taste in rental cars and my inability to confront Avis for doing this to me week after week.  And sure it was embarrassing to be passed by every rattletrap on the road, including a husky man on a Vespa. (Yes, I really was.) Obviously, those are scars I’ll carry with me for many, many months to come. But in the end, they will all fade. The mind, after all, has a way of smoothing over – or completely burying – life’s most traumatic events, doesn’t it?

Please say it does.

No, in the end, I think what will stick with me more than anything else I experienced that evening will be the fact that the bartender at the Gordon Biersch in LAX greeted me as if I had just walked into my friendly, neighborhood watering hole. The bartender’s name is Moe. And Moe knew exactly what I wanted before I ordered. He gave our group the type of priority service reserved for regulars. Moe did everything he could to make me feel right at home.

But you know what? No one ever wants to feel that much at home in an airport. Even if it is LAX. And even if it is a bar.

It was at that point in the evening that I realized that the travel and long hours had taken their toll. I might be going a little bit crazy. Or maybe a lot crazy. Regardless of which it truly was, it was the kind of crazy that manages to impair your judgment. To the point where you may just be willing to try the impossible.

Something never before imagined.

Something like squeezing five seemingly professional people into a Pontiac Vibe and cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway. If that doesn’t scream CRAZY, I’m really not sure exactly what does.

The only comfort in all of this is that I was not alone. There were at least four others who were at least as crazy as I was.

Let’s hope my sanity loss is only temporary.

And to the rest of you (and you know who you are), best of luck with your own mental state.

When you travel a lot, you get to rent a lot of cars. It’s like a week-long test drive with absolutely no obligation to buy and no pushy salesman breathing down your neck. It sounds great.

I’m a “Preferred” customer with Avis. That sounds great, too. But trust me, there’s nothing great about any of it.

Every week, when the Avis shuttle pulls onto the lot and makes that fateful first stop, the driver calls my name along with some cryptic letter-number combination – B24 or C18 or any one of a thousand permutations. The first week, it was like hearing the Bingo caller say exactly the combination you needed to fill out your card.

At this point, though, it reminds me more of that sinking feeling I had playing battleship as a kid. I don’t think I ever won a game of battleship against my brother. And I know I’ve never won against the Avis Shuttle Driver.

This week, in fact, the team at Avis sunk my battleship.

A Pontiac Vibe.

Can you picture me in a Pontiac Vibe? Of course not. No one has ever actually seen a Pontiac Vibe on the road. Nobody has a friend who drives a Pontiac Vibe. And I’m pretty sure there are not many movies or television shows featuring a hero (or villain or village idiot) who drives (or even crashes into) a Pontiac Vibe.

I’m sure there is something redeeming about this car, but I haven’t exactly found what that might be.

Maybe the upside of the Vibe is the office humor it has inspired. The string of laughable vehicles I’ve received over the weeks has generated a lot of good-natured heckling from my co-workers. It’s sort of a running joke. And the Vibe is simply the purest embodiment of a running joke on the road today.

Tomorrow, my week-long, no-obligation test drive comes to an end. I’ll pull up at Avis, clean out all of my personal belongings and walk away completely unencumbered. And just thinking of that moment gives me a really good vibe.

 Although this won’t be posted until I am nestled in the so-called comfort of the Westlake Hyatt, I am writing as I fly at some unknown altitude across a country I would much rather experience at a much more leisurely pace.   

Despite taking an earlier flight back on Thursday last week, the weekend went fast. I watched a lot of basketball. As a Carolina Alum, I was ecstatic to watch the Tarheels steal a game from Virginia Tech with a last-second jumper and, thankfully, fend off an extremely determined Clemson team to win a second straight ACC Tournament Championship for my alma mater. It may have been luck. It may have been the “never-say-die” determination they’ve had in so many come-from-behind wins this year. It may have been both. Regardless, they pulled out the wins when they needed them. Congrats to the Tarheels. 

Amid the many requisite hours of basketball watching, I did manage a trip to the book store.  

I just finished the most recent Seth Godin book, “Meatball Sundae.” If you are a marketer and haven’t read it, do yourself a favor and pick it up. You won’t regret the time you spend reading it, nor the $20 you’ll spend to acquire a copy of your own. Godin’s writing style and never-ending supply of real-word examples bring the principles of “new marketing” to life.

In the end, the book is inspiring. It forces you to think. The clarity with which Godin presents his thoughts makes me jealous beyond belief. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve danced around the same basic thoughts he discusses. I’ve talked about the same themes with co-workers, bosses, friends. They’ve agreed. They’ve added insightful points of their own to my half-baked ideas. But we’ve all failed to put such a fine point on it. The idea of simply adding the next “tasty treat” to your marketing until you have nothing but a disgusting mess – the meatball sundae with whipped cream and sprinkles on top. Brilliant. 

The book is rich with trends for businesses and marketers to exploit in today’s new consumer-driven marketplace. One of the final chapters very effectively summarizes Godin’s principles and trends by focusing on how they apply to Disney today. And if you know anything about me, you know that that chapter made me think the book had been written specifically with me and my Disney-maniacal ways in mind. 

Don’t miss a chance to read it for yourself. I’d offer to give you my copy, but I have a feeling I’ll be reading and re-reading it for reminders and inspiration quite a bit over the next few months. Sorry, you’ll have to get your own. 

So, the next week of working in California begins as I make my way through the air. I know that in two hours or so, I will be landing in Los Angeles, but I can’t tell you exactly where the journey will end this week. It should be a busy week. It should be fun. Quite a few meetings planned. Quite a few deliverables to produce. Quite a few answers to uncover, document and interpret. Wish me luck. Or maybe just determination. Or maybe both. Let’s see what I managed to learn from the Tarheels. And Mr. Godin. 

The work week began with a bang.

Before I knew it, I found myself in front of my team telling them I had been selected for another assignment. One that would have me on a plane in just a few short hours crossing the country into the unknown – personally and professionally.

You see, I’m an East Coast guy. I like movies, but I don’t care for Hollywood. I like Seafood, but I prefer it cooked. I like the ocean, but I don’t surf.

My world quaked with change and opportunity, excitement and anxiety, clarity and confusion. I headed out on my new adventure with all kinds of questions and very few answers. But isn’t that the definition of adventure?

At this point, Monday night and Tuesday morning seem so long ago. I’ve crossed the country twice in less than 4 days. I’ve seen the ugliness of LA freeway traffic – freeways that make you feel anything BUT free – contrasted with the indescribable feeling of winding down a picturesque mountain road that places you so impossibly at the water’s edge. I entered an office building of faceless, nameless corporate drones and left a place filled with talented colleagues, supportive business partners and burgeoning friendships.

It’s a lot to take in. There’s a lot yet to happen. But as I flew on the red eye back to Charlotte, squeezed into the center seat next to a rather robust gentleman who had annexed my portion of the armrest and the surrounding area, I decided that this trip may have been stingy on sleep, but it gave me all I could ask for in the way of motivation, opportunity and a new perspective on things.

All that said, I hope next week is a bit more predictable.