Musings from the ORD

Oh wow - I'm in a hotel room again, big shock. This time a plush Comfort Inn within range of approaching 747s just outside of O'Hare airport, or ORD as we travellers like to say. Annie and I take unusual pride in our knowledge of 3-letter airport codes and use them frequently to refer to cities, even when the airport has no bearing. LIH baby! It's like text message codes for grownups, LOL.

Work doesn't provide me a laptop yet, so I decided to take Annie's home laptop for this trip to get some work done, and it was the best decision ever. Not only can I get work done, but I can download recent episodes of Rescue Me, write this, and watch Monday Night Football all from the relative Comfort of my Inn. I'm always late to embrace the convenience of certain technologies, but I always really appreciate them once I do.

It seems like I write about sports in just about every blog...well, it ain't changing here. The kids are on a parks & rec soccer team, and I've been able to see several of their games. They're in that 6-8 age group so they either follow the ball around in a confusing mob, or stand in one place because someone told them to play a 'position'. It's fun. I can't sit still during these games. I want to coach them up with my limited knowledge of soccer (2 yrs in H.S., woo-hoo!) but they're not ready for skill-specific coaching yet. I want to encourage them to 'compete' and 'win', but they don't really care yet. And I want to yell at the team parent-coach sometimes because the assigned parent-coach doesn't do any coaching. Parent-coach's strength is in choosing who brings snacks each game. I don't have much of a point to this paragraph yet, so... I should probably coach one of the kids' sports someday.

I miss home and especially my core group of guy friends a lot lately. Fall is the best in Michigan, and I always looked forward to busting out the hoodies and jeans and sweaters, going to tailgates at GVSU and watching the Wolverines every Saturday. I can do most of that stuff here (hoodies are outlawed), but not with the same friends. Fall is the time where we always find more excuses to get together with friends, I think because from childhood through college we're accustomed to a new school year starting and it feels like a sort of reunion. I haven't gone to school in 6 years, but I still get that feeling. Anyway, friends: A shout-out to you, and you know who you are. My inner circle of testosterone-laden, bad joke making, mini-muffin tossing, horrible poker playing buds. The Dudes. You're all fatter, balder, and uglier than last time I saw you, but I still love ya just the same.

I finished reading High Fidelity, and I'll give it 2.5 out of 4. I never could separate the characters from their Hollywood film counterparts. Imagine a quasi-British John Cusack, drifting in and out of accent with sometimes moppy black hair and other times spiky blonde hair and ruddy complexion. It doesn't quite work. I'm reading non-fiction again, Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer. Where religion goes wrong, and how! It's actually not funny, and rather disturbing. Speaking of, I was reminded of the power of religious emotion and selfish extremism when my company was accused of "banning" Christmas by a powerful political action group. Not caring that their claim was false, many of my colleagues and I received hateful emails and voice mails from people around the country claiming to be Christians and patriotic Americans. I don't want to tell the story here, but call or email me and I'll fill you in and send some entertaining links. I also received some understanding and thoughtful emails from others whom I personally know to be Christians - we're not all nutty, arrogant judgers - whew! Either way, it reminded me that as humans, we all fail miserably and frequently, but I have a lot of respect for people who maintain religious faith and do so with class and perception and grace.

How did I get on that topic? Anyway, I'm tired and this laptop is burning my legs through my dungarees. Good night now!

I should write more, too

It's been a while, and so much has changed. I've been to Orlando (via Denver), Salt Lake City (via Memphis, then Denver), Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Denver and Salt Lake City in the past two weeks (...I've been ev-ery-where man, I've been ev-ery-where...). Travelling by plane is the best time to catch up on a growing favorite activity of mine: Reading. Nerd Alert! Joking. All the cool people I know read, and they read more than me, and probably better books than me. In the past few months I've read, and recommend based on x out of 4 stars, the following books: Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (4 stars) - I can't believe this part of American history is not more well known; Skeleton Coast by Clive Cussler with Jack DuBrul (3 stars) - Cussler weaves another tale of shipwrecks, political unrest, unbelievably diabolical plots to cause harm, and the heroes who prevent it; The Meaning of Sports by Michael Mandelbaum (2.5 stars) - recommended by a brilliant sports/political journalist, Gregg Easterbrook (Tuesday Morning QB), this book compares the defining traits of the 3 major American sports - Baseball, Football, and Basketball - to 3 distinct social eras in our history: Agrarian, Industrial Revolution, and post-Industrial Revolution. I gave it 2.5 because I knew a lot of the factoids already, but LOVED the section about baseball's history - that alone makes it worth the read for any baseball fan - and found the comparisons interesting. I'm currently reading High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (incomplete) - easy, fun read but difficult to separate the book's British setting and characters from the Cusack/Hjejle/Black cast of the US movie.

I was travelling for work, doing a marketing presentation to groups of franchisees as part of day-long regional meetings. As small as 4 in our own Salt Lake market, to a group of 50+ in L.A. My portion was about an hour and a half of presenting, discussion, and answering questions. Tiring, frustrating at times, but rewarding. I probably learned more from them than they from me. (Charon - was that an acceptable sentence structure? Sounded weird.) I also ate a lot of cookies and catered lunches, which is one of two reasons my dress pants have been, well, not exactly 'fitting' lately.

Annie and I find it difficult to be separated when we travel for business, which is ironic considering we 'dated' from a distance greater than the entire Central time zone for a couple years. I'm home now for a week, then I leave for a Chicago-St. Paul leg of the same meetings. 3 weeks from now, I'll be in Hawaii for my first time! A much needed vacation that Annie has been diligently planning in my absence thanks to The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook (TBD stars). Time to stop donating money to the local 24-Hour Fitness (the other reason for the tight pants) and start getting in beach shape.

Let's see, what else... Oh - since I last wrote, Michigan got Duck-waxed by Oregon, then rebounded for 4 straight wins. Speaking of 4 straight, I'm the only 4-0 team in my Fantasy Football League. Double Nerd Alert!! Hey guys - remember how I won the league last year and how much of a fluke it was? Check yourselves before you wriggedy-wreck yourselves. Tommy Brady just hit for another TD pass...it's going to be a great Sunday.

And the big news? (drum roll please...)

We bought a new car! Gotcha, suckers. We leased it, actually. I say 'we' only in the sense that I was present for some signatures. Annie did all the work, since it is her need for new, shiny things with satellite radio and 3rd row seating that led to this decision. Nissan Pathfinder - gray, leather, loaded. Bu-bye to the Jetta, hello to extra space for soccer gear and trips to Costco (48-pack of TP? No problem.) Babe - we've finally made it! New TV, furniture, the car, and nearly unmanageable debt. We're so 21st century.