Be the Adult

...it may just take some massive realignment by the industry. When I was in first or second grade, I saw an ad similar to the title photo and it changed my life. I don't think I knew a single person who owned a motorcycle, let alone a 'Kawaski' (the Polish pronunciation), but I knew I wanted one. That same summer, my next door neighbors (you know the ones- Alice Cooper turned up to 11, beads in their doorway, a KISS mirror on the wall, incense going all the time- it was the 70s, after all) had a friend stay with them for a few days who owned a Honda 400. I sat on the curb in front of their house every day that bike was there. Memorized the tire tread. Burned myself on the hot pipes. Studied the levers and cables and tried to understand how it all worked. As I grew up, the memory didn't turn to passion, but it didn't fade, either. Fast forward about 30 years... Like many people with kids, I started having motorcycle dreams. I'd wake up with the exhilarat...

Killer life or couch-ridden exhaustion? Your call. As I wind down one of the toughest projects of my career, I find myself thinking of two things: I work entirely too many hours, and I miraculously have a pretty decent quality of life. I put my kids to bed at night, go running with friends, take the motorcycle or bicycle out on weekends, and generally keep the momentum up. Here's the breakdown: Early morning: Get up early as hell to go running and get kids out the door Morning, Afternoon, Early Evening: Work, work, work Evening: Dinner, hang out with kids for an hour, walk the dog 10:00 PM: Freedom! Quiet! Work panic notwithstanding, here's the free time. Weekends are better, but I only assume 10 hours per day of 'free' activity, since there are planes to catch, bills to pay, and dance recitals, softball/baseball games, and birthday parties. So... many... birthdays... I'm at Target almost every weekend buying some Journey Girl thing or Lego set to celebra...

I'm here to tell you, just like Barack Obama before him, Donald Trump is an absolute genius. He talked up a storm about draining the swamp, making America great again, and getting rid of thugs and rapists. I think it's all going to happen, but not nearly in the way he or his base expect. The bonus is, he still gets to take the credit when the smoke clears. As it was said in This is Spinal Tap, It's such a fine line between stupid and clever. Which side he's on doesn't matter, but I'll vote subversive and clever, because I'm a glass half-full kind of guy. Drain the Swamp: His timing is impeccable. The face of America is changing, and it's becoming beige. Most of the good-ole boys in the House and Senate are on their way out due to age or incompetence, and we have an awakened electorate that realizes there is no way in hell it can just phone in their votes for some ho-hum candidate. Even in areas which are fairly centrist, the incumbent needs to bri...

I hear these ads on the radio and we get these doom and gloom flyers in the mail for extended warranties on our cars and house. An engine failure could be $5,000.00! What are you going to do when the big one hits? Your furnace. It’s determined to freeze you out on the coldest day of winter. We prevent this. Our home warranty gives you peace of mind. You’re protected from the epic home or car fail. And it’s coming. It’s going to be bad. It’s going to be scary. It only happens on Christmas day, the Fourth of July, or 10 minutes before the guests show up for your kid’s birthday party. In truth, these things can and do happen, but is ‘peace of mind’ worth thousands of dollars that you could keep in your bank account for these inevitable events? What if you put your peace of mind in the wrong place? You have a $2,000 dollar extended warranty on your Toyota (which if you change the oil once every five years will last you twenty), but you didn’t cover your furnace? Your ins...

After a hellacious week at work, I decided I absolutely had to run, humidity be damned. I was pondering my running career over the last year-and-change since I broke my talus, taking walk breaks every half mile or so, and just mulling over my current state of affairs. As a former distance runner for whom the first half-marathon was a gateway to an entirely new lifestyle, this recovery time has been life changing. Swapping cockiness and chasing (and barely missing) the dream of running Boston for these little run-walks has been very humbling. I’ve gotten the ancient inline skates out, I bought a road bike, and took up swimming, but running (particularly trail running) is my first love. Even though the cadence is slower and sometimes the sound of the footfalls don’t always feel like my own, the clear head, the sweat, and the hundred calories per mile make it worthwhile. …and then I turned the corner. I was greeted by the Big Dipper in all of its humongous summer sky glory, which...