Why I Blog

Prior to his 1985 72 - 59 crushing of the Japanese national team in the Kirin World Basketball Tournament, Bobby Knight made a prolific observation: ""You know, we taught you how to play basketball and baseball, and now you're teaching us how to make steel and build cars."  That's right, Bobby Knight said that.  Looking back, I'm glad he did.  Someone had to say it, and was it going to be the Chinese or Russians?  John Wooden? John Lennon or William Shatner?  No, the General was in charge, and it was time to set the record straight.  Hey Japan, guess what, we figured you out.  Or so it seemed...

1985 was the year of "We are the World" and Reaganomics.  Israel was pulling out of Lebanon and Gorbachev took over as the General Secretary of the Soviet Union.  There was a lot of distractions.  Wham toured the world, even had some concerts in China (even though George Michael had deviously plotted his exit strategy by then).  Sure, George Michael could pull off some crazy shorts and seemed to never own a shirt, so he had that going for him.  Oh, and that's the year "Back to the Future" came out, and we all wanted a Delorean.  Most importantly, we spanked the Japanese in basketball team and they taught us how to make steal and cars.

This is then, why I blog.  I do it because my brain has a completely random order, and if I write things down I fascinate myself at how much my incoherent babble makes as little sense in writing as when my mind is churning up these completely irrelevant thoughts.   Even more importantly, I feel like people do not have enough options on how to waste their time, and I hope that a few of them decide to waste their time on reading my blog.  The good news is, you won't learn anything that will have to be unlearned, because there's nothing to learn.  There's nothing to understand.  It's just chatter.  Babble.  It almost makes sense, but not really.  It's not politically, socially, morally or financially rewarding or redeeming, it's just you and me finding a way to toss a few more moments of our precious time on this earth doing something that is nearly regrettable.  

but not completely

because we could have done something obviously regrettable with our time.

but we didn't.

Thanks for your time.  The next time you're driving a steal car, remember it's because we taught the Japanese to play baseball and basketball.  They kind of suck at it now, but they had it going for a little while.

Thanks Bob.

The Signs of a Life Well Lived

I don't want to sound like I'm bragging and sometimes I think my rambling is completely ridiculous (because it is), but I just had to share my thoughts on an experience Deb and I went through last week.  Our pet of 15 years finally reached the point where it was irresponsible to let her go on with life.  She had severe dementia, she had no idea what was going on around her, and she could not see a lick.  To be completely honest, we were not too attached to her, she was a great pet and we loved and cared for her, but we were thinking that we could do this without all of the emotion that most people go through on these occasions... until we were there and it was really happening...

We went to pieces, we were sobbing like 4 year olds...

Later when I thought about it, I realized that it wasn't just about the dog.  We did love her and she will be missed, but there was something more to it.  Sadie shared in our legacy of a life well lived, a life we shared with her and our children and the people that surrounded us through those many years of child-rearing.  Sadie sat on laps at Christmas time, she slept in our kids beds, she chewed on things she shouldn't have and made accidents that really made us upset... really bad...  but she was a part of us.  A part of a family that believed in family, that created memories of doing things well and doing the right things.  There were a lot of mistakes, but it always was about family, about responsibility, about love.  When I watched her take her last sigh and as the life slowly drained from her, I realized how good our life has been.  I realized how fortunate I have been for God to place such incredible people in my life, to make it so rich and so treasured.  I realized how incredible it has been to spend 28 years sharing in the most intimate relationship with one person that can be had on this earth with my incredible wife Debbi.  I realized that our ability to remember that our children were on loan to us from God and had immeasurable worth; worth more than we could ever afford to pay, had made us think very hard about what was important when raising them. Through most of that period, Sadie was there.  She played a part, she had a role.  She was cute, she was fun, and more than that, she was there.

At that moment I realized that Sadie was another stitch in the tapestry of my life that has not been perfect, but when held up to the light, it has been good.  I am a fortunate man.

Team Orange

I'm hoping that someone who catches a glance at this blog arrives here with an expectation that they will find something of redeeming value, some nugget of truth or wisdom that will somehow impact their lives.  I also hope that when they conclude reading this, perhaps right at this sentence, they will realize that this really was a waste of time and I really wasn't joking.

I am the co-president of Team Orange.  It's not something that I take lightly, and it's not something that just occurred on a whim or was the fancy of some "way out there" chiropractor.  Team Orange isn't some overnight, flash-in-the-pan phenomenon, we are not the "Arena Football" of the 2nd decade of the new century.  Team Orange began with something very few organizations can claim, it was founded with a complete lack of vision and with no aspirations and no dreams.  It was just Orange.  Yes, Orange is orange and there's a lot to be said for that, but the rest of it was just riding the wave.  Now the wave has gone tidal, and I am humbled by the honor of co-leading this team to nowhere and ensuring that we will accomplish nothing.  We still need to work through our 2011 goals, but needless to say we will surpass our lack of vision again this year.

So, what does it all mean?  Why is Orange having the impact that it is on society today?  Why will the membership to Team Orange likely surpass the population of Vatican City by 2030?  Why is it that Team Orange will claim more popularity than Anatoly Chubais?  Maybe because we know that the world is full of people that think they have something to say with super meaning and is life altering, but really they don't.  Maybe because we have nothing to offer but affinity to an organization that has absolutely nothing else to offer.

Team Orange will have an even greater presence in 2011.  We will own this year.  Yes, we will do cool athletic stuff, maybe even win some races.  We will hang out with whoever is interested in hanging out with us, because we are exclusive to nobody.  We will make a difference, but only because we will just be regular people doing regular stuff, but wearing orange while we do it.

America is turning orange, and it's a beautiful thing.