'Tis The Season

'Tis the season to be jolly??

Yeah, right!

I have a couple of stories to share with you about the right and the wrong way to act during this or any season.

I was heading home from work this week and got on the freeway as I always do. The merge lane is rather short, like me. It doesn’t give you a lot of time to get yourself into the flow of traffic before you are forced to exit again.

So I put on my turn indicator, looked over my shoulder, checked my mirrors, and proceeded to merge into the flow.

And out of nowhere, some idiot in a pickup truck comes BARRELING up the lane, flooring the gas peddle, and SCREAMS up to me and forces me back into the other lane. I nearly missed the merge because of this disgraceful human being.

I was boiling with rage. And then I let it go. I had to or I would have had a stroke right there on the freeway.

I accepted the reality that some people are really just awful and some get pleasure in doing stuff like that. Somehow it elevates them. Makes them bigger than the rest of us. Probably the kind of guy who would shove a grandma out of the supermarket line just so he could get to his football game on time.

My second story is a more pleasant one and reassures me that there are still good, kind people out there, too.

I was at Costco this week as well and another customer and I made our way to the milk fridge at the exact same time.

Neither of us noticed that there was seemingly only ONE box of fat free milk left. I technically got there a few paces ahead of him, so by the popular definitions of life, I was “entitled” to take the milk first.

But I didn’t. I offered it to the other man.

He was astonished by my thoughtful act.

“No, really! Please. I want you to take it. It’s not that important to me,” I said.

“Thanks SO much,” he said. “Milk was the main reason I came by the store today. Thank you.”

It felt nice to do this. It filled my heart with light and warmth. I remembered the jerk from earlier in the week who had nearly driven me into a ditch and wondered how anyone could feel good as their heart filled with darkness and nastiness.

The punch line is that just a little ways back in the giant fridge was a new, uncovered pallet of more fat free milk.

So we both ended up getting our milk and we both were able to walk away with an example of the humanity we can extend our fellow citizens.

These stories also are perfect illustrations of the choice we make every day to radiate positive or negative vibrations. That speed demon on the freeway was no doubt spreading his miserable experiences that day with the world. It wanted to make everyone’s day as awful as his own.

Me? I preferred my simple, magical moment in the dairy aisle. It’s moments like these that truly remind us of the joy and good cheer we should be spreading.

This, and every season.

Half Full or Half Empty? Depends on Your Point of View!

Researchers are once again confirming what many of us have known for a very long time. And that is, the way you react to something determines the outcome of any given event or action. And the way you react to something stems from the type of personality that you have.

This is common sense.

It explains why some people react to traffic snarls with clenched teeth and white knuckles and profanity laced tirades and others sit back and learn something new from a book on tape or catch up by calling back clients during the delay.

It also explains why some people are crashing and burning on all the doom and gloom out there, especially with regards to the economy.

Some people are clearly panicking and others are keeping their heads on tightly. Why?

Because there are those who realize they are in control of their lives and those who have yet to realize this. There are people who thrive under pressure and see opportunities everywhere and those who see everything through a lens of dread and lack of opportunities.

The beauty of all of this? I have come to learn beyond ANY doubt that YOU and I are completely capable of changing this. Even though it was not the conclusion of this particular study, we all have the power to change the way we see things.

We CAN choose to see the glass as half full instead of half empty. But the key word here is CHOOSE. It’s up to us.

Is it easy? Nope. I got unfortunately grouchy this morning when three calls were coming in at the same time and then the doorbell rang and then the dog barked and the baby screamed and the checkbook was nowhere to be found. But within minutes, we can change our focus…take a deep breath…and continue on.

Life can be a constant bike ride UP hill or a nice, coasting experience downhill. Most of the time we peddle up hill unnecessarily.

Keep this in mind as you tackle this Monday!

Motivational Monday: The Next 100 Feet Ahead

There was a beautiful fog this morning that reminded me of San Francisco days. It blanketed the neighborhood with a magical mist that clung almost to the sidewalk.

As I was driving the kids to school, the trees lining the streets appeared only a couple at a time.

This reminded me of how life and all its adversities and blessings unfolds before each and every one of us.

How many of us don't spend countless hours and days of our lives worrying about what lies ahead? We often can't see results or goals because they are just around the bend.

Life really is like those tree lined streets shrouded in fog this morning.

We have to have faith that the next pair of trees and the rest of the road are actually there in front of us, even if we can't see them.

Life unfolds this way. Just remember that this is OK.

You don't need to see miles ahead necessarily. All you need to know is that the road usually won't disappear a couple of miles ahead. There won't be an ominous black hole.

The road will take you where you eventually are intended to be. Trust in that truth.

The fog is beginning to lift even as we speak. Go make the most of this precious day!

WoW: Too Much Online Adventuring Can Lead To Collapse!

I picked up my son’s reserved copy of Blizzard Entertainment’s second expansion for its online juggernaut, WORLD OF WARCRAFT (www.worldofwarcraft.com), when it launched last Thursday. THE WRATH OF THE LICH KING has been anticipated for a very long time by fans.

For those of you unfamiliar with WoW (as it is affectionately called by players), it is an online virtual world of warriors and warlocks, humans and orcs and night elves, swords and sorcery—all inspired by the Granddaddy of them all, the original EVERQUEST.

More than 10 million people worldwide play WoW, a subscription based game where players log on to quest, level their characters up, and hang out with friends to fish, fight, or freely roam the massive countryside of valleys, deserts, swamps, and tundra.

I remember buying the original WORLD OF WARCRAFT the day it launched back in November of 2004.

People are STILL playing it…subscriptions keep increasing by the millions…because it is a game that never ends. Content is literally added on a weekly basis, if not more frequently. New quests and locations are added constantly. The game day operates on a true 24 hour clock. So if you play at night, it's night in the game, etc. Talk about an immersive environment.

That’s what leads many to be addicted to it.

I know when I first started, I could barely put it down. It offered me a nightly escape from a collapsing marriage and stressful days.

My son started playing in last year and soon got sucked in as well.

Thank God for parental controls. A password protected setting allows parents to block in AND out times when younger players can play. We use this with our son. And I would have to guess many people try to use it with their spouses as well.

And you thought people only lost their partners to football on TV?? Think again. Games like WoW and Everquest have claimed many relationships, jobs, and other real world events.

But like anything else, people HAVE TO KNOW THEIR LIMITS.

I was inspired to write this because not only am I a fan of the game (I am currently a level 70 warrior—the highest you could get until this latest expansion raised the cap to 80), I am concerned that people taint a good thing through their own irresponsibility.

Case in point—a story I saw on the news this week about a 15-year-old in Sweden who COLLAPSED from playing it. He had some friends over and they played, pretty much nonstop, for 24 hours!!

Don’t you think doing ANYTHING for that long would lead you to collapse??

Try reading a book for that long or studying your algebra or brushing your teeth. The human body and mind were not meant to be pushed like this!!

But it makes it easy for people who already hate games like this to blame the industry for poisoning our children (and adults).

The boy’s father was somehow oblivious to the fact that his son and half a dozen friends were in HIS house, playing a game for 24 hours straight.

The father is to be blamed in this case.

He claims he will limit the time his son can play WoW.

GREAT idea, Dad! Too bad you waited for your son to collapse and jeopardize his health before taking a stand!

Our son plays when homework and chores are completed and for mapped out, supervised periods of time. Isn’t that just common sense??

As for me, I am no longer addicted.

But I AM anxiously awaiting my Collector’s Edition which comes in a beautiful box filled with a hardcover book on the art, a DVD on the making of the game, the soundtrack, maps and a special in-game pet that only owners of the very limited edition get.

Hey, I am just completing my set! Leave me alone! Don’t you have something better to do than snicker at me?!?! Go level your Rogue or slay a Murloc, for goodness sakes.

I would go play the game for a few but the servers are down every Tuesday for several hours. Wonder how that kid in Sweden will possibly get by and cope.

Motivational Monday: You CAN Lose Weight!

As many of you know, I had already made the commitment to lose significant weight. Specifically, 50 pounds. Realizing I was fast approaching 40, the time to seize control of my weight couldn't WAIT any longer.

I was halfway there, having lost nearly 25 pounds and was so proud of myself. I kept you updated on the web and on the air regarding my progress.

Then life reared its ugly head. Personal crises, including the sudden death of my beloved mother in July put this goal on the back burner. I tend to be a stress eater, and I packed every pound I lost back on, and then some.

I found myself heavy and sluggish again. Right back where I had been for too long.

My wife and I made the decision about a month ago to give to give a well-known, celebrity endorsed program a try. My mother-in-law lost nearly 80 pounds on the plan (NOT a diet, more of a LIFESTYLE) and the food was yummy from what we had sampled.

So off we went. We signed up, we got weighed, we got the encouragement that we needed.

And almost a month later, the pounds are falling off. I am fitting into pants I haven’t even been able to look at in months.

People are starting to notice that the bounce in my step is more pronounced and that my neck isn’t as thick. How nice. Thank you!

The beauty of this plan is in its elegant simplicity (not to mention their TO DIE FOR lemon cake…haha)—we all tend to consume far too many calories each day. I know that in my case, without specifically counting my calories any given day, I must have been packing at least 3,000 calories plus each day.

That is WAY more than anyone needs. I am now on a 1,500 calorie plan.

The first week was hard, but not as hard as I had thought it would be. And now entering the fourth week, it is all getting to be second nature to us.

I have been amazed to learn what a SINGLE SERVING actually looks like in front of you. It’s a LOT smaller than what we eat at home and, especially, in restaurants. Knowing now what a SINGLE serving of lasagna looks like (yes, I can still eat pasta), I realize that all these years I have been more likely been eating 3 or 4 servings at a pop! Same with pizza, hamburgers, sandwiches, and that side of mashed potatoes…you name it. Chances are I have overindulged my entire life.

Another plus is I can eat all the vegetables and salads I want each day. If I get hungry now, instead of going to the pantry for junkie comfort foods, I will grill myself some veggies or quickly toss myself a simple salad.

Why am I telling you all of this? To motivate you. It IS, after all, my Motivational Monday blog! ANYONE can do this…if they BELIEVE they can and APPLY themselves to it. And if you STICK with it and don’t stray (some straying is allowed, within REASON), you WILL see results.

And you will FEEL the results, too. Sometimes before you notice them in the mirror. You will feel an added boost of energy. You will start feeling better from the inside out.

In less than a month, I have even stopped craving burgers and milkshakes. And you will, too. I can actually pull into a fast food joint and order a simple salad with healthy dressing without feeling self conscious.

Whether it’s plans such as the one we are on or just changing even little things in your daily eating habits, you CAN change your LIFE.

The YOU staring at you in the mirror is the YOU that is the product of all your past ways of thinking about food, life, philosophy, etc. That means that the YOU that smiles at you in the mirror next week, next month, and 10 years from now is the YOU you are creating TODAY.

You are a MASTERPIECE of creation. Start treating yourself as the magnificent sculpture that you are. And remember always that you hold the all the tools you need in your hands right now. They have always been there for you.

Make your life what you WANT it to be, not what you think it HAS to be. OWN your life. Start NOW!

What Is The Los Angeles Times Hiding?

America will be electing a President in less than a week.

Polls are tightening by the day. McCain is feeling a second wind. Obama wants us to take a day off to help him in the 11th hour.

And the Los Angeles Times is sitting on a potentially damaging videotape of Obama and refusing to release it.
Why? Because they want to protect their source. Or so says the Times.

But why didn’t the Times have a problem reporting on an embarrassing audiotape of Governor Schwarzenegger in 2006? They ran THAT on the front page!

There is no doubt in my mind that the Times wants Obama elected next week. They recently endorsed him as their candidate (what a SHOCK!). And they don’t want to see the tightening race tip in McCain’s favor.

The tape in question includes Obama praising Rashid Khalidi, an activist with ties to the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Who else was at the 2003 farewell dinner? William Ayers.

We know that Obama has had dubious relationships with questionable figures. What has always been in question is the extent of these relationships.

This videotape could reveal what the American people deserve—the TRUTH.

The Free Press has ceased to exist when a major newspaper refuses to release a tape that could shed light on critical aspects of a candidate’s character. And all within a week of the election. How convenient.

Your grandfather’s generation would be DEMANDING that the Times release this tape before the election. Your grandfather’s generation would be MAD AS HELL that this was being kept from them for arguably partisan reasons.

Is the Los Angeles Times in the business of truthful reporting? Or electing their candidates in elections?

The fact that we even have to ask that question says all we need to know.

Motivational Monday: A Lesson In Going The Extra Mile

Motivational Monday: A Lesson In Going The Extra Mile

By Spencer Hughes


One of the surest ways to speed up and guarantee success in whatever tasks and dreams you follow is to go the extra mile.

Read that again...take your time...

GO THE EXTRA MILE.

How many people you know do that? How many people won't even fathom the thought of giving one more dime or second or inch than is absolutely necessary?

Too many of us fall into the rut of stopping where we are supposed to, instead of venturing a little--or gasp, a LOT--further than we are expected to.

But going the extra mile is exactly what true and lasting success requires of us. It's those extra dollars and minutes and inches that will make the difference between meeting our goals and giving up just shy of them.

Here are two examples of going the extra mile that I have encountered just in the last week.

I have been having cell phone problems beyond anything you can imagine. Missed calls. Phantom calls. No texts. Late texts. Texts bottle necking and coming at me all at once--up to several days worth all in one shot. Missing important calls, both business and personal.

Hours of my life have been wasted in the past month, lost to one technical support phone call after another. And one after the other, technicians were unable or unwilling to solve the problem.

Weren't they all trained to help people like me? Wasn't that their job? And yet one after the other seemed rushed and put out that I needed their assistance.

Until last week. A spoke with a technician that stood apart from the rest. She sounded interested in my problem, empathized with my frustration, and was determined to resolve the problem. And you know what?

She did. She accomplished in one phone call what an army of other technicians couldn't.

It took a lot of time, but not nearly the amount of time I have squandered fruitlessly over the past month, talking to a dozen or so of her co-workers.

She told me she would stay on the line as long as needed. And that if we ran out of time, that she would call me later in the day when it was convenient for me to continue and conclude the call.

What service! What if everyone did this? Imagine if everyone took a few extra minutes to get a job done right?

One more example for you.

I was at a home improvement store over the weekend and needed assistance before making my purchases.

One employee stood out to me. He was one of the more senior in age employees I encountered. But you wouldn’t know that from the bounce in his step and the boundless enthusiasm he demonstrated with me.

He did what employees half his age weren’t doing—actually WALKING me to a product. This is something I admire, since when I worked in retail years ago, I felt I was the only one who did this with customers. All my co-workers took the lazy approach which sounded like this: “Big screen TVs? Oh…they’re way in the back…um…aisle 12. I think. If not, they are on 13 or 14.”

Nice. I can’t tell you how many times I would cringe at my co-workers pointing an outstretched arm vaguely in some miscellaneous corner of the store, not caring if the customer was sent astray or not.

This gentleman went the extra mile…literally and figuratively, as he walked me literally from one end of the warehouse to the other…several times.

No complaints. No huffing and puffing. He did it all with a gentle smile and polite demeanor.

Why couldn’t the young kids on the staff have done that? Laziness. Pure, unadulterated laziness.

He went the extra mile. The woman at the phone company did as well.

The warehouse employee said something I thought was very telling after I apologized to him for walking him all over the place.

He said, “That’s ok. I want to. Plus I will learn where other items are as well that aren’t in my department. Chances are someone else will ask me similar questions and I want to make sure I can answer them.”

Imagine that! Not only was he an expert in HIS department, he was willing to extend beyond his comfort zone and what was expected of him and learn about OTHER departments as well.

Now THAT’S going the extra mile.

Try doing the same today. In everything you do. Give a little more than is asked of you, a little more than you think you have in you.

You will gain the respect of others. And ultimately, you will gain more respect for yourself, too.

And success will be closer than you ever imagined.

Bowing My Head for Mother's Cookies

Some things you just ASSUME will be around forever. Like death, taxes, and McDonald’s.

Right?

As chaotically as life changes around us, SOME things HAVE to stay the same.

I just read an article about the abrupt closure of Mother’s Cookies.

Never heard of them?

I am sure you have, even if you think you haven’t.

Circus Animal cookies. Taffy Sandwich cookies (don’t worry, it was vanilla icing, not taffy). And my father-in-law’s favorites—the Oatmeal cookies.

I cringe at having to tell him the bad news today. That he will have to make a run of what’s left on store shelves to help stave off the ultimate demise of his favorite snack cookies.

Mother’s Cookies began as a one-man shop in 1914 and went on to become an Oakland, California tradition for 94 years.

I remember eating these as a child and as recently as a couple of weeks ago. They are delicious cookies and the nostalgia that they were wrapped in was worth the price itself.

I even have memories of my father taking me out to Candlestick Park on Mother’s Cookies Day each season to watch the Giants play while I chomped on my sweet delights.

Hopefully someone will buy the company, and if they do, hopefully they will keep the taste and quality and memory alive for my almost 1-year-old daughter to enjoy someday.

At least a bag of Wonder Bread still smells the same as it did when I was growing up in the 1970s. But back then they used to put baseball cards in the bag. I still remember how those cards would smell so heavenly and that smell still makes me happy.

Thank God our collective memories can’t go out of business. At least not as long as we nurture them and keep them alive.

Economic Woes Are No Excuse for Mayhem

Not again.

Another story in the news about how our tough economic times have been met with desperate actions.

An unemployed father in Los Angeles, despondent over his family’s financial hardships, decided that it was better to kill his entire family and then himself than to face the adversities we all face at some point in our lives.

He shot and killed his 3 sons, ranging in age from 7 to 19, his wife, and his mother-in-law. Then he turned the gun on himself.

What a terrible, terrible waste of life.

It may sound crazy to reference a line from a children’s movie, but I LOVE the line in the Willie Wonka remake, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” in which one of the old timers tells young Charlie not to worry about money. Why worry over something that there is so much of out there? You can always get more, he said.

True. There is no shortage of money. Nor, contrary to popular belief, is there a shortage of opportunity.

Money and opportunity are abundant and have no end to them.

What there IS a shortage is faith and the nose we USED to have for opportunity.

Our parents and grandparents found opportunity in the dirtiest and most inconvenient of places. And they knew to take it when it was before them. That’s what motivated your grandfather to take a paper route at 4 in the morning when he was 8-years-old.

Granted some of us still know how to find it as well, but it seems that true opportunity seekers are becoming a dying breed. Or at least a threatened species.

This unemployed businessman could have seen that with every adversity there is an equal or greater opportunity.

But he failed to, and now he and his entire, immediate family are dead. GONE. They have ceased to exist in this world because one man failed to see the hope and opportunity right before his eyes, every day, everywhere he went.

A friend and colleague of mine took his life many years ago because of business failings.
My Godmother’s husband took his life over a failed business as well.

We all struggle at some point. Some of us outright suffer. But if you realize there IS a forest for the trees, you will always keep yourself grounded in the bigger picture.

And the bigger picture is that the sun WILL rise tomorrow, as it always has.

Wouldn’t it be a shame to not be there to see it?

What Is WRONG With People?

Just when I think I can’t be surprised and shocked by the ugly underbelly of human behavior, I am.

I just finished watching a video of an altercation at a McDonald’s in Los Angeles. Was it a political fight? Self defense?

Nope.

It was over who was in line first to get their food. Girl vs. man.

When the teenage girl decided to start swearing at him, the man decided the only way to react was to strike her repeatedly in the face.

Certainly the teenager should have shown respect and restraint. But certainly a grown man (who was there with two young children) knows better than to deal with a situation like THIS.

What is WRONG with people? What makes people treat each other like this? And all over who gets to shove JUNK FOOD into their mouths before the other! Now THAT’S life or death!

Here we have a teenager who was never taught to respect their elders, and an adult who was never taught that it’s not ok to hit someone (certainly not a young girl!).

While police try to find this man, why don’t the rest of us try to find civility.

Believe it or not, we could use civility even more than that Quarter Pounder combo.

Of Mice And Men

How did Mickey Mouse become so cute and cuddly? Don’t get me wrong, I love the guy. But come on! Some of our most well known childhood icons and characters were mice. Mickey. Minnie. Mighty. Jerry. The list goes on.

And they are all based on God forsaken creatures appropriately called VERMIN.

Our garage recently became the local hotel and spa for neighboring field mice. I’d go into the garage to get something from the freezer or to take something off the shelves and there would be a mice, more times than not, scurring across the floor.

YIKES! I would literally YELP.

I HATE mice. Oh, I don’t mind them in a tank or cage spinning on a wheel and looking adorable.

I guess it’s like snakes. I don’t mind having one as a pet, I just don’t want to run into one crossing my path…LOOSE.

So anyway, we spent the weekend eradicating as many of the buggers as we could.

Saturday morning there were so many of them that we literally saw tails and faces poking out of boxes and shelves TAUNTING us. We couldn’t go 5 minutes without seeing a mouse.

A friend of mine found a NEST in my box of old laserdiscs. And here’s the funny part to balance out the GROSS part, they had a hot wheel car and a (TRUE, I swear) installation disk for MOUSE Works for the Mac.

Now THAT’S pretty funny. We even found a miniature deck of cards nearby from my wife’s scrapbooking supplies. Poker, anyone?

By Sunday, there was little evidence of any new activity.

Except for the litter of mice. Yep. The minute I told my wife we found baby mice it was all over.

But the vet honestly told us that the most humane thing to do would be to feed them to our pet python.

Half hour later, 3 of the 5 were snake food.

The kids looked at us with those eyes that children give their parents when they want to raise mice as pets.

OUCH.

It WAS kind of cute. They even named them.

Sadly, Angelina Jumperina died a day later. My daughter gave her a dignified coffin (a jewelry gift box did the job) and everyone couldn’t help but feel a little sad.

But I started thinking. Isn’t what we did kind of like giving college tuition to the children of illegal aliens?

Think about it. The mice took over our garage. We bring their babies in and raise them.

Nah. It’s not the same thing.

It’s cute. I GUESS.

Yes, even I have a soft spot. Even though on principal, I am still not HANDLING the little critter.

I’m not THAT soft.

And now if you’ll excuse me…I have to go on my hourly Mouse Patrol to make sure Junior’s family doesn’t come by for a family reunion.

9/11 Remembered

Seven years ago this week, my son came into this world. And seven years ago today, America was attacked by dastardly forces on our home front.

I will never forget two dates this week. On the 9th of September, 2001, my son was born. It was one of the happiest days of my life. So sweet…so innocent…a miracle of God.

Two mornings after he entered this life, I was woken up by my then wife as I slept next to her and the baby in the hospital suite.

A plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York City. What the HECK?? How does a plane hit the World Trade Center? Drunken pilot? Heart attack afflicted pilot? What could result in such a tragic accident?

I was still rubbing the sand out of my eyes when we witnessed the second plane hit the second tower. It wasn’t a small plane, as I had imagined. Three things crossed my mind in rapid succession. First, how could TWO planes ACCIDENTALLY hit such monstrously tall towers? And then, this COULDN’T be an accident. Followed by, that was a HUGE commercial plane, not the small private plane that I had imagined the first plane being.

And then…it all hit me…WE WERE UNDER ATTACK.

I said it in those exact words.

I remember looking down at our sleeping son and feeling a sickness in the pit of my stomach.

Most people remember where they were when they got the phone call or watched or heard the news updates.

In my case, I was the one who did the informing. I called up the first people that came to mind…my producer…my close friends…my parents.

I remember telling them “We are under attack” and hearing the gasps of disbelief on the other end of the phone.

I remember how none of it seemed real. Like I was playing the part in some strange movie that could only be screened from the darkest recesses of my brain.

It took days to sink in. I wept. And then I wept again.

It’s hard to imagine that seven years have passed by already. On the one hand it seems like it happened much sooner than that. And on the other, it seems so long ago.

Yesterday my son who was so tiny in his hospital blanket took off down the street in his brand new bicycle that we bought him for his seventh birthday.

He still doesn’t fully understand what happened that day. Nor do I want him to, actually. His older siblings have a better idea and his younger siblings are completely in the dark.

The time will come when they WILL be fully informed. And they will be taught by us and constantly reminded of the fact that 9/11/2001 was one of the most pivotal and dark days in their nation’s history.

And they will be taught, above all else, to never, ever forget it.

Please don’t forget that horrific and historical date. Think about it, long and hard, today. Talk about it with whoever you are able to. See it. Feel it.

Pray hard.

And weep if the tears come. Weep. And feel that inner resolve and toughness that lies within all Americans.

Good WILL win over evil.
That is the ultimate reassurance if there ever was one.

Let Russell Brand Carry The Torch for Obama!

Russell Brand was the sad creature who hosted this year’s MTV Video Music Awards. You know the one with the crazy hair and outfit, parading around the stage calling President Bush a retarded cowboy and praising Barack Obama as the savior of humanity.

My anger over his immature tirade aimed at the impressionable young people of America has not subsided since I witnessed his insanity Sunday night.

But I am not going to try to shut him up, either.

In fact, as McCain continues to climb in the polls and Obama continues to scratch his head wondering why, the best the Right could hope for is for imbeciles like Brand to continue pushing for an Obama Presidency!

According to press stories and interviews in his home country, Brand is an alcoholic and former drug addict. He’s apparently been arrested ELEVEN TIMES for public indecency. His run ins with the police are many.

Is this the kind of spokesman Obama needs as he struggles in the polls?

Of course, most of the young idiots in the crowd applauded Brand’s endorsement of Obama, not knowing that with friends like Brand, no one needs enemies.

These are the young voters the Democrats are courting so desperately.

They can have them.

One final reflection…

There was a time when a foreigner parading an American stage and calling our President a “retard” would have been booed, if not dragged off the stage. Especially at a time of war. There would have been outrage in our parent’s and grandparent’s generations. Imagine that again…a foreign comedian with the audacity to insult OUR LEADER to OUR FACES on OUR SOIL. Now he gets roaring applause.

Boy how the times have changed.

Farewell Coney Island

I never did make it to Coney Island. Shame on me.

Now it is too late for me to visit an American entertainment icon. The amusement park which entertained generations has closed its gates for the last time over the weekend.

Astroland theme park is no more.

This historic closing makes me nostalgically reflect on the theme parks of my youth which are largely a thing of memories as well.

My parents would take me to Frontier Village in San Jose, California. Now it’s a housing development. But it was once a place of wonders and childhood adventures. Although the park closed when I was 9, I spent a good chunk of those first years with my parents and grandparents at this Bay Area attraction. Luckily many have worked on keeping the memory alive with the website www.frontiervillage.net.

Another staple of my childhood was Santa’s Village in Scotts Valley, California. This was an even simpler concept than Frontier Village. Santa. Mrs. Claus. The elves. Some kiddie rides. A petting zoo. That’s all a kid needed back then to be entertained at a “theme” park. You can share the memories at this heartfelt and dedicated site:
www.santasvillage.net/santas.village.scotts.valley.html.

I even have fond memories of the theme park formerly known as Marine World Africa U.S.A.—now known as Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. The original site in Redwood City was tiny in comparison to its new home in Vallejo, California. The biggest attractions then were the elephant rides and the giant ball pit. Here is a nostalgic review from a fellow fan of that theme park’s glory days: www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/parenting/detail?blogid=29&entry_id=14180

How is it that kids were entertained without multi-million dollar roller coasters and $10 souvenir cups??

It wasn’t that long ago in the whole scheme of things. But life did seem simpler then. Even as America recovered from Watergate and Vietnam and Jimmy Carter, it was fun being a kid.

Theme parks had true character then.

I can empathize with those East Coasters who are mourning the loss of Astroland.

May it rest in the peace and quiet and beauty of our memories.

Repeat DWI Offenders Should Be DOA in the System

Here is another tragic story of a repeat DWI offender. He should have been locked away long before his latest act left a newlywed couple dead after his car launched in the air and landed on top of their SUV.

The 22-year-old culprit, Uriel Perez Palacios, had already committed more crimes by his young age than most of us could in several lifetimes.

But the system kept giving him a break.

Palacios was arrested for drunk driving as recently as June but was released after paying a $500 fine.

He had four outstanding warrants and had led police on two chases.

Oh…and he was driving on a suspended license.

What was this man doing on the streets of Dallas early Monday?

Why did Erika Clouet, second grade teacher, have to die alongside her new husband, German Clouet? Neither one will ever reach their 25th birthdays. Neither one will ever know what a happy life they could have had together.

Their lives were ripped away from them, and their loves one ripped off by their untimely deaths.

The culprit is thankfully being charged with two counts of murder (it is believed to be the first time a local prosecutor has pursued murder charges in a DWI case) and three counts of intoxication assault.

Palacios SHOULD have been put away a long time ago.

Let’s hope the system doesn’t blow it again.

Lock him up. Throw away the key on this bum. And keep the streets safe for those trying to mind their business and live their lives.

It’s the least we can do for people like the Clouets. May they rest in peace and may we all keep them and their families in our prayers.

There's No Joy In Mudville

I know what you are thinking. Two blogs in a row on SPORTS?? From SPENCER HUGHES?? The anti-sports guy?

First of all, I am not anti-sports. I am just not terribly crazy about America’s fixation on them, primarily at the professional level.

But I never said that valuable lessons aren’t learned every day in the world of sports.

Like this lesson: If you are too good at what you do, that might be a problem!

HUH??

How can being too good at what you do be a problem?

This is the inspiring yet sad story of Jericho Scott, a 9-year-old Youth Baseball League player in New Haven, Connecticut.

It turns out that the youthful pitcher is SO good at throwing the ball that the League told him he couldn’t play anymore.

You see, other players were too intimidated to face him. He has even had teams forfeit the game altogether.

Can you IMAGINE this?? It’s the latest chapter in the dumbing down of America. It reminds me of the late Kurt Vonnegut’s short story classic HARRISON BURGERON. The future presented in that brilliant work includes an America where beautiful people have to wear hideous masks so that ugly people won’t feel bad and the strong have to wear huge weights around their bodies so that the slow and out of shape don’t have their self esteem hurt.

Instead of training these children to SWING better against an exemplary player, they are getting rid of the exemplary player. Instead of raising everybody up, the League is bringing everyone down.

Imagine what will happen when this coddled generation of children becomes the leadership of this nation.

Actually at the start of a long holiday weekend, maybe we shouldn’t. Let’s eat our hot dogs, go to the beach one last time, and teach our kids it’s better to be mediocre than extraordinary.

English: The Universal Language of...Golf?

The LPGA has done what many in America are too afraid to even whisper about—they have required that their member golfers learn and speak English. And if they don’t, they could have their memberships suspended.

Has the reaction been outrage and protests? Nope. The South Korean membership which the new rule is primarily aimed at is…gasp…in AGREEMENT with the rule.

Is the rule meant to be racist or xenophobic? Nope.

It’s meant to be a tool to help these golfers SUCCEED. And the players agree. Being able to communicate in English in the LPGA is a BENEFIT.

As it is in America and the world at large.

“When you win, you should give your speech in English,” said Korean golfer Se Ri Pak.

If English can become the universal language of golf, why not the official language of America and the running of its day to day business?

Maybe our politicians need to hit the golf courses more.

Good going, LPGA. Thanks for setting such a fine example of just how important unity through language truly is.

Houses, Houses, Everywhere!

Obama is showing his desperation again as he continues to fight for his life in the polls. A man who should be, by all accounts of the popular wisdom (or lack thereof), an easy double digits ahead of his rival is instead faltering left and right.

And that brings us to the latest act of desperation on Obama's part--hammering McCain for supposedly not knowing how many houses he owns.

OH NO!

Wait...he actually owns more than ONE home?? Is that legal in America today? Don't you need a special permit or something?

I LOVE the fact that he couldn't answer. Wouldn't it be nice to own so much of something that you couldn't keep track of it??

That is the American Dream!

And of course, Obama is on the wrong side of things yet again.

Obama's ad regarding this, as well as the general liberal chatter, indicates a jealousy, envy, and sour grapes mentality that is actually quite typical of the far Left. They HATE that some people own things and other do not. Especially if the "Haves" have a LOT of the given commodity.

Now we are finding out that McCain supposedly doesn't even own any of these properties in question--that they belong to his wife, Cindy.

Either way, it seems petty to say the least.

Seems more disconcerting that Obama thinks there are 57 states and that a "bomb" fell on Pearl Harbor. Or that he doesn't know the difference between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Or that his experience and political accomplishments could literally fit on a fortune cookie slip.

But the lapdog media, in utter blind lust with Obama, sees more concern that a man who married into a family worth $100 million might lose track of how many properties they own.

How many shoes do you own? How many DVDs do you own? How many cushions are on your couch? Huh?? You sit on your couch every single day and you don't know the answer??

SHAME!

Motivational Monday: The Power of Visualization

I am the first to admit that I am not a fan of the Olympics. I have nothing against them, mind you. It's just not something I have ever really followed. Even when I was younger and more into sports.

But that doesn't mean there isn't a lesson to be learned by the athletes who train hard and long to get where they are today. Athletes like American swimming sensation Michael Phelps who won 8 gold medals alone. What an amazing feet that is!

The lesson found here is the true power of visualization. Athletes will tell you, whether they are in the Olympics or not, that mental training goes hand in hand with the physical training. And they can both be equally difficult.

It isn't good enough to just train your body your whole life if your mind isn't coming along for the ride.

Ever see a baseball player having a night when they are clearly "on" and then the next day their performance is lackluster to say the least?

Chances are when the player was "on", he was in his zone--fully focused and mentally committed to the tasks at hand. He probably saw that ball going over the fence just seconds before actually sending it there.

And maybe the second day he was focusing on bills or his relationships or his kids or the weather or the election.

Everyone gets distracted. We all drift off course. We all slip in and out of our "zone" as I like to call it.

But it all comes back to visualization. Athletes in particular are very good at this. They see in their mind's eye hitting that ball...swimming those laps...catching the throw...swinging that club...thousands, if not millions, of times. Over and over and over and over again.

I remember the first time I took a failing timeslot and made it all the way to #1. I SAW my boss smiling at me and taking me to lunch. I SAW the balloons and the HEARD the applause in the studio.

And you know what? Talk about dejavu. It played out EXACTLY the way I had visualized it. I reached my goal in my imagination before I made it in the real world.

There are great stories along these lines in Jack Canfield's The Success Principles: How To Get From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be. He writes about American gold medalists who practiced their routines for YEARS and YEARS. And they eventually WON in the EXACT WAY they had daydreamed it in their imaginations.

But we can't forget why this is. THOUGHTS...ARE...THINGS. And most importantly, THOUGHTS...BECOME...THINGS.

That's why it's so important to choose wisely what we think about!

Try to remember that as you start another week. See your goal as already reached. Visualize it. Make it real in your mind and you stand a good chance of making it real in your world.

And even if you don't have an athletic bone in your body, you, too, can act like an Olympian!

Hurricane Hugo & The Radical Left

The story I saw today about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez tightening his reins of power filled me with rage.

I wonder if the American Left will share in my rage.

After all, Lefties from Congressman Dennis Kucinich to Actor Sean Penn have shared their open adoration of this socialist dictator.

Chavez's latest plans for power include 26 laws he just ushered in giving him--you guessed it--more control of the country and its people.

So why would the Left in America continue to support such a leader, while at the same time constantly castigating President Bush about everything under the sun?

Many on the Left feel that Bush is stripping Americans of rights and sending us down the slippery slope of complete government control of our lives. And yet that IS what Hugo Chavez is ACTUALLY DOING in Venezuela!

One of my biggest intellectual gripes with many on the Left has been their compassion and sometimes outright support for communist regimes that have literally sent thousands and millions to their graves. How on earth could Bush be considered a dictator when they these leaders ACTUALLY WERE??

In 2006, war protester and activist Cindy Sheehan actually said she would prefer to have Chavez leading America than Bush!

HUH??

Did she REALLY mean that?? COULD she really mean that??

Apparently so.

Few had the guts to question Chavez when he referred to our President as "the devil" himself, reeking of sulfur and all.

So as Chavez continues on his quest to get everything from endless terms as President to further state control of the FOOD of his nation, the Left will battle Bush over some things he has done, and many things they FEAR he will do. Chavez just gave himself the power to shut down businesses that don't adhere to state price controls--with the option to send them to PRISON FOR 10 YEARS if they don't follow the orders!

Ask the protesters of Venezuela who they would rather have leading THEIR country.

Cindy Sheehan and Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte would no doubt not like their answer.

Columnist James Lileks recently wrote on the death of Alexander Solzhenitsyn: "“Reading Solzhenitsyn makes it difficult to take seriously the people in this culture who insist that Dissent has been squelched. Brother, you have no idea.”

No, many on the Left HAVE NO IDEA. Or else they wouldn't describe Bush as the supreme dictator, while supporting true dictators like Castro and Chavez and others.

The real truth is Belafonte and Penn and Glover and Sheehan would have been sent to the Gulags long ago if they protested a real dictator the way they have protested Bush.

The real truth is that if they were Venezuelan citizens and spoke of Chavez in such cavalier and disrespectful ways their dissent would not even be an afterthought. It wouldn't be ALLOWED to happen.

Thank God even the Devil lets us speak our mind, huh?

Motivational Monday: Laura Day's The Circle

My goal has been to read an average of a book a week this summer and so far I have been doing pretty well. As usual, the majority of my selections have been non-fiction and usually focus on motivational thinking and personal empowerment.

I just finished reading The Circle by bestselling author Laura Day.

It is amazing in its simplicity and lyrical in its presentation.

The red circle on the cover of the small but powerful hardback represents the place where we place our wishes.

It’s the starting point…the match that sets the blaze that becomes our dreams realized.

I will not ruin the experience by outlining the entire process. But I will take a moment to discuss the first place most people go wrong.

Most of us never make goals. Most of us never make wishes.

We stop making wishes, most of us, when the candles on our cake reaches the higher double digits.

Wishing is for kids. Wishing is for dreamers.

Both statements are true. But also true is that wishes are for ALL OF US!

We ALL need to wish for something, and most of us DO, just so subconsciously we don’t realize it.

Most of us have wishes of getting rich. Who wouldn’t? But most of us follow that wish with immediate thoughts of “Oh, that’s crazy!” or “Talk about a fairy tale!” or “Getting rich is for other people, not me” or “I can never be rich because (fill in the blank)”.

A wish is only useful if we have a sincere belief that we can attain it. If you wish to lose weight, you have to be able to believe you CAN lose weight.

More importantly, you have to be able to SEE the new you. See yourself in your mind exactly how you will look at your new, ideal weight. The way your clothes will fit you. The way you will feel when you look in the mirror and see the svelte, healthier you.

With any wish, your next step after making it is to act as if you already have it. This is another thing that we forget to do once we become adults. Children have no problem at all pretending they have all their Christmas presents, even if it’s JULY!

So make a wish and act as if you already have it. Feel it! Taste it! See it! Hold it in your hands! Take it all in!

This is, of course, just the first of many steps outlined in The Circle by Laura Day. Her book is an adventure, it truly is. It’s a book that can be enjoyed in just a couple of hours. But the tools it provides in helping make your wishes come true really will change your life.

If you believe.

End Highway Deaths: Ban Highways!

Yes, the title of this blog IS ridiculous.

But the supposition is correct, is it not? If you really wanted to end ALL highway deaths, the only way you could realistically accomplish that is to get rid if highways. You COULD get rid of cars, I guess. But someone riding a bike or walking on the highway could still get hit and killed.

Why do I bring up this absurd scenario?

Because there is a story today that Scotland is boasting about cutting heart attacks by the HUNDREDS in the first year following its smoking ban.

In fact, heart attacks went down 17% in that first year!

What is the purpose of the report? To justify the ban, of course.

Same way they love doing studies showing that bars and restaurants don't really lose money following smoking bans.

The ends justify the means for these types of people.

Of course heart attacks will go down after criminalizing smoking.

Same way highway deaths will END if you close all highways.

Same way you will stop drunkeness if alcohol were to suddenly disappear.

Sometimes the little inconvenient thing called RIGHTS get in the way of such bans. A REAL inconvenient truth.

There Shouldn't Be a Minimum Wage

Did the title of my blog give you whiplash? Heart palpitations?

I said it. And I believe it. THERE SHOULDN'T BE A MINIMUM WAGE.

Certainly not one set by the government at ANY level.

The Federal minimum wage went up 70 cents to $6.55 an hour yesterday. That would be the second of three increases that went into effect after legislation was passed last year.

Why am I so cruel to the worker making a few bucks an hour? I am not cruel. I am logical. I am a free market champion.

I believe that the only two people who should be involved in payment decisions ought to be the employee and the employer. PERIOD.

If I have a job and it pays $4.00 an hour and you really WANT it, you should be able to take it. And I should be able to hire you. Simple, isn't it?

Contrary to the scare tactics of many, this will not return us to the days of slavery and indentured servitude. Nothing of the sort.

It would simply mean that an employer would pay a worker what they were worth for the job AT HAND, not what the government decided they were worth.

For instance, let's say I own an ice cream shop. I need to hire someone to dip my cones in chocolate. Is that really $6.55 an hour worth of labor?? OF COURSE NOT. I'd say it's worth maybe $3.50 an hour TOPS.

The point is, no one is being forced to dip those cones for me. Chances are it will be enticing for the crowd the minimum wage was INTENDED FOR in the first place--entry level workers and students.

Why should some faceless bureaucrat decide what MY employees are going to earn an hour??

I hate it when I hear people moan, "I can't raise a family of 4 on the minimum wage!"

Of course you CAN'T! You aren't SUPPOSED to! No one ever intended you to raise a family of ANY number on the minimum wage!

The intention was that you would START with an entry level job that paid entry level wages and that you would better yourself and your skill and circumstance and MOVE UP.

This whole wage nonsense is artificially trying to move people up.

So why not be more realistic than $6.55 an hour (some states are actually higher than the Federal benchmark)...you still can't raise a family very well making that kind of money. So why not just get all these workers out of their misery and make the minimum wage $18 an hour? Wouldn't THAT make more sense?

Instead, politicians throw bones at potential or future supporters by giving them the illusion that they have just improved their lives.

Politicians ought to have the guts to ask what I would ask--why are you 45 years old and making less than $7.00 an hour????

Ouch. That was rough. But it was honest. Maybe brutally so. But it's the only truthful question to ask.

Next thing you know our leaders (and probably a sizable number of voters) will propose and support a MAXIMUM WAGE.

Think about it. Tiger Woods shouldn't make so much money on 18 holes or for wearing a cap with a logo on it. Those dirty, rotten CEOs shouldn't be bailing with the golden parachutes they are given. Movie stars shouldn't make millions for a few months work playing "pretend" toentertain us.

So cap the MAXIMUM someone can make! Work hard, study hard, apply yourself to your darnest--and STILL only be able to make a certain dollar amount an hour! $200,000 should be all you can ever hope to make in a year. How's THAT for killing aspirations and dreams.

Hey, it's no more un-American than the minimum wage.

You just probably never thought of it that way.

Motivational Monday: The Book That Inspired "The Secret"

I just finished reading a life changing book written nearly 100 years ago. It has impacted millions of readers through the years, including Rhonda Byrne who is best known as the woman who brought us the film and book called "The Secret"--a bestseller around the world.

The book is THE SCIENCE OF GETTING RICH: FINANCIAL SUCCESS THROUGH CREATIVE THOUGHT by Wallace D. Wattles. It was written in 1910 but it is as timely as ever today in our current state of doom and gloom regarding the economy and our personal state of wealth.

Every politician should read it. Every business leader. Every teacher. Every student. Every American. I paid $6.95 for it in a beautiful Barnes & Noble edition but its value is many times that.

The lessons taught are straight forward and simple for all to understand. The principles are timeless and practical and they WILL work if you apply them and believe they will work.

The basic premise is that your thoughts are things...that they bring things into your life, both good and bad. Your mind is a magnet and it will attract whatever it is you are dwelling on.

Wattles believed, and correctly so, that you cannot dwell and put your focus on poverty and expect to reach prosperous results. You cannot dwell and put your focus on illness and expect to reach healthy results.

Your thoughts and your feelings are always a match. Try driving to work tomorrow thinking awful, earth shattering thoughts of pessimism and see how you feel. I guarantee they will not make you feel good.

Conversely, I can guarantee it will be hard if not impossible for you to feel badly if you are singing your favorite song and thinking wonderful thoughts about your future.

The book is less than 100 pages long and can change your life if you follow its principles and teachings. Go out and buy this book! You owe it to yourself.

Thoughts...are...things. And thoughts...become...things.

So make it your aim to focus less on the bills that have flooded your mailbox and more on the endless supply of abundance that is always at your feet.

It has always been at your feet. You just were too worried dwelling on lack to notice.

That is all going to change. Starting today!

The Kids Aren't OK

We already know that many American schools have banned childhood staples such as tag and dodgeball over the clear and present danger such games pose to children. After all, we are talking about physical AND self esteem injuries should junior take one in the face or always be "it".

Now a story from Britain leads us further down the road of sterilizing everything that was wonderful about being a kid.

Teachers at a primary school dropped plans for a traditional potato sack race over fears that...gasp...the kids might get hurt.

Three-legged races were also dumped, not out of fear of offending four-legged children, but out of fear that...Heavens to Murgatroyd...a little one might trip and fall and skin a knee. OH NO!

A local educational leader explained. "We had to assess which of the activities were liable to cause a risk."

How about waking up in the morning? Opening the front door? Crossing the street. Or even worse--DRIVING to the event!

My kids slip and fall ALL DAY LONG and it's never been as a result of hopping on one foot or sprinting in a potato sack.

KIDS SLIP AND FALL!

We are engineering a generation of kids who don't ever fall. They will turn into adults who have never fallen.

And one day when they do, they will come unhinged.

Stop butchering childhood! Let kids be kids!

Let the potato sack races live on!

In Loving Memory of My Mother

My mother died last Tuesday morning.

Even as I write those words, none of it seems real. It's fiction. It must have happened in a horrible nightmare or to someone else. My mother is still alive and will walk down the stairs of our home any minute now and hug and kiss and love her grandchildren.

She died in intensive care after days of dialysis and heavy life support. She was, according to the doctors and nurses, in a coma the last few days of her life and she didn't suffer, which is one of the few reassurances you can give someone as they watch a loved one die before their very eyes. Another reassurance is that they can still hear the words we whisper into their ears, even if they outwardly don't seem to be registering them.

My mother came to visit us on a Thursday. She came down with flu-like symptoms the next day. And by Saturday morning she was being shuttled by ambulance to intensive care. The following day she was on dialysis as her kidneys had shut down. Sunday night was rough and a tight rope. Monday night showed promise and a glimmer of hope. We all really started believing she was going to pull out of this sudden calamity.

But Tuesday morning at 8am my precious mother left this world. My father and I were there to hold her hand and stroke her forehead and kiss her cheeks. I have never seen my father more broken and I have never cried as intensely for anyone or anything as I did watching my mother having the monitors turned off and her vitals fading forever.

She died with my 8-month-old baby girl's security blanket (a sweet tiger that she would never generally part with) on her chest. She loved all her grandkids, but the joy she experienced with that baby girl was enough to take your breath away.

Our lives were, needless to say, sent into a spiral of confusion, denial, and anger.

How on earth could this happen?? She was FINE one day and sick the next. Then she was taken from us.

The most unnerving part, I think, is when the best medical crews and doctors scratch their own heads and offer little in terms of definite answers. Her body was attacked and ultimately destroyed by a catastrophic infection. It happens, they said. And sometimes there is nothing that our advanced medical technologies can do to stop the wheels from turning down their inevitable end.

What I found the most remarkable about those days and final moments in the hospital was the lack of the sense of urgency and chaos that we have come to know from Hollywood's version of the inside of a hospital.

Even as my beloved mother began to slip away, the doctors and crew spoke calmly and walked about her bed with soft steps.

How could you be so CALM, I remember screaming inside my head as I felt the tears and the horror and the angst coming over me. MY MOTHER IS DYING...HOW CAN YOU WALK SO LIGHTLY??

Maybe it was her age (77) or the fact that they knew ultimately they had done everything they could for her. Maybe they knew it was simply but sadly her time to go.

My mother was a great woman and I wish that you could have known her. Those of you who did know how enriched your lives were just by virtue of knowing her.

She was the most selfless person I ever knew. Nothing was about her. She was always more concerned with the comfort and happiness of others before her own. Such a person is rare, especially in today's world. In this GIMME, GIMME, GIMME world, it's getting harder and harder to find someone who will make sure you are being treated well.

She leaves behind my father, to whom she was married for almost 48 years, myself (her only son), an adoring daughter-in-law, and 6 grandchildren (there was no such thing as STEP grandchildren to her...she loved them all the same and her obituary made no distinction between them...that was how deep her love was), not to mention countless others who will miss her dearly.

I am currently being comforted by my faith and by the words of scholars and experts who continue to remind us that our loved ones never really GO somewhere far away. They are with us even now. We may not be able to hear them or see them or touch them. They are our gentle and unseen companions that never leave our sides as we continue to take our steps through this life.

Forever hoping that we never lose sight of the fact that they are never more than a whisper or a thought or a prayer away.

We bury my mother on Wednesday in a ceremony ultimately designed for the living, not the deceased. We will all look down at the grave as if she is IN it. But she is not. Her earthly body perhaps, yes. But the essence and beauty that was my mother still IS my mother and always will be.

We are better served looking next to us than below us at the ground.

I love you, my sweet mother. You were the most amazing woman I ever knew. I wish I could have had you for more time than I did, but I thank God for the years I was fortunate enough to have. You will always be with me.

Fiery California

I just tried to take some pictures of the blood red sun outside my kitchen window and none of the them are capturing the eeriness of the sight.

The sky is filled with haze, and other than the brownish tinge to it, it reminds me of the foggy days growing up in San Francisco.

Only the skies over the Sacramento area are generally bright blue. It looks like winter outside.

And it smells like a thousand ash trays were thrown into the BBQ and cooked right in front of your captive nostrils.

What experts are calling "unprecedented" lightning storms are the culprits in the more than 800 fires burning throughout the Golden State, all but a couple in the northern part of the state. Imagine--more than 5,000 lightning strikes!

The smell of the smoke on your clothes and in your car and house are minor inconveniences compared to the terrible (dangerous in some parts) toll they can take on your breathing. In some areas, people with weakened immunity and breathing conditions are advised to stay inside if possible.

Two of the biggest fires are within two hours of us but you wouldn't know it looking out the window. I can't imagine being at ground zero at any of these fires if it looks like this here.

Thousands of acres continue to burn and firefighters have been injured.

It's all an awesome and humbling and frightening reminder of the power of nature and how little we become when viewed against its immense backdrop.

Motivational Monday: S'mores Galore In Spite of Gas Prices!

No, I didn't fall off the face of the earth. Although taking a week off in radio is the equivalent of 2 months in most other occupations. It seems like I have been gone longer.

Maybe that's because we traded in the 4 bathrooms at home for a bathroom down the flashlight lit path of a campsite.

Now all you avid campers don't need to get too excited. I didn't camp in a tent or anything. I still hold an aversion to the thought of sleeping on rocks and having little critters sneaking a peak through or under some pretty thin looking material.

Yes, I still like the idea of giving a bear or a raccoon a few extra layers of wood to have to tear through to get to me.

Anyway, we packed up the kids, 2 cars, a million dollars worth of fuel, and enough Capri Suns to quench the thirst of a thousand. And we headed for the great outdoors. 5 days in a two room cabin less than a mile from the beautiful California coast (http://koa.com/where/ca/05113/).

In the first 10 minutes we were there, we almost started another California wildfire. My wife hooked up the propane tank incorrectly and when she went to light it...ZOINKS!!

I wish I hadn't been panicking so much because it would have been cool to have run and grabbed my camera for pictures. The flames were two feet high on the picnic table and the look on my face was worth the price of admission.

After a few moments of smashing the table with a box, the flames were out and the rest of the trip was all down hill from there.

We didn't exactly rough it THAT much. My wife and kids brought their Nintendo DS's and we DID order pizza one night. HAHAHA. Ordering pizza when you go camping! Now that's MY kind of camping!! Not being too far for the pizza guy to come find you in the woods!

That might actually be my prerequisite from now on. That we have to be within delivery distance of a pizza place!

Even though we packed all the food away at night, our neighbors didn't and the raccoons and skunks paid us nightly visits. I tried to scare three skunks away and they looked at me like, "Yeah. Right. We've tipped over GARBAGE CANS bigger than you, Bud."

Our adventures ranged from swimming in the pool to spending a day at the world renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium, right on John Steinbeck's Cannery Row. Check them out at http://www.mbayaq.org/. Where else can you touch a Bat Ray and pass by historical fish canning factories made famous by one of America's best authors all in the same hour?

We also visited one of the quirkiest places in America...the Mystery Spot in the redwood forests outside Santa Cruz (http://www.mysteryspot.com/). This place is WILD. Everything you know about the laws of gravity and physics will come into doubt. I saw things with my own eyes that STILL make my head hurt.

Our final big excursion was any train lover's heaven...the Roaring Camp Railroads in Felton, California (http://www.roaringcamp.com/). We rode a narrow gauge steam train through thousands of ancient redwoods. It was amazing to think that such a memorable outing could be had in less than 90 minutes.

Nights ranged from warm to freezing cold and always ended with a roaring fire and plenty of s'mores and fun times.

Why is all this a Motivational Monday blog topic? Because it would have really been easy to cancel the whole vacation and blame the mind boggling price of gas for putting a damper on our plans.

But we compromised is all. Instead of a vacation further away and perhaps involving hotels and eating out a lot, we rented a rustic cabin less than 4 hours away from home and kept the amenities to a minimum.

We WERE able to swing it. We just had to make the proper CHOICES to make it happen.

Cut here and there, make a few sacrifices, and you won't have to cancel that family vacation after all. Defy the headlines and the doom and gloom! Go for it!!

Oh and here is a funny close to today's blog. Thursday night, I accidentally left out a hot dog grill basket on top of the campsite's BBQ pit. The next morning it was gone.

I mean ALL gone. Not just the hot dogs, but the GRILL BASKET, too.

It makes me smile to think somewhere there's a raccoon nest stacked to the ceiling with the wares of careless campers.

Maybe they can sell all the camping gear and buy enough gas to leave the woods and visit the city.

I will leave you with Spencer's Camping Tips:

1) Always have at least a wood wall separating you and the wildlife. Tents are for people with death wishes.

2) Screw the propane tank on correctly or you could end up looking like Wile E. Coyote after a bad run in with the Road Runner.

3) There is no such thing as too many showers when you are in a cabin with 6 kids.

4) It's not smart to yell at a skunk when its tail is up to the sky.

5) Make sure everybody hears you when you say "Last call for the bathroom!"

6) Fun is right in front of you, if you aren't afraid to look.

Does Anyone Read Manuals Anymore?

I worked retail for several years and although I didn't work directly in the Returns Department, I know from experience the amount of products that come back because they don't work.

Or should I say, because they ALLEGEDLY don't work?

An article I read this week from Engadget.com claims that gizmos and gadgets aren't as messed up and poorly made as we might think.

According to a study done by Accenture, a whopping 95% of gadgets work despite what customers claim!

That reminds me of the customer service lore about the technician telling the computer owner to close Windows only to have the person put the phone down and close every window in the house. Even if that story is exaggerated, it may hold more truth than we'd like to admit.

People just don't read manuals anymore. We're too smart for those, right? We KNOW how that DVD player or remote controlled airplane works. The manual is for OTHER people. The dumb ones, right?

Next time that toaster doesn't work or your cell phone insists on alerting you to new texts with "Funky Town", try flipping through the manual and seeing what's up.

Chances are it's user error. And you, I am afraid, are the user. I am, too. We ALL are!

And remember this sobering statistic. Out of the nearly $14 billion worth of returned products last year, only 5% were truly broken.

And now if you'll excuse me. The microwave is blinking 12:00 and I need to figure out if that has anything to do with the fact that my popcorn comes out tasting like tri-tip. I think the manual is in the drawer next to my broken watch.

Motivational Monday: Let Nothing Stop You!

Monday is the hardest day of the week for many people. But only because so many people unfortunately are clocking into jobs that they simply tolerate or downright despise.

We all need something to pump us up, a morale booster that will set us off on the right course for the days ahead.

And that is what I hope the story of Nick Santonastasso will do for you.

Nick is 12-years-old.

But unlike us, he was born with a rare disorder that affects only 11 other people on earth.

So Nick was born with no legs and only one arm with a single finger attached at the end of it.

His parents could have fallen into a depression as many parents would have under such stark adversity.

But they didn't. They decided they would not treat their son differently. And that decision has paid off beautifully all these years later.

Nick, himself, could have fallen into a deep depression, too. Imagine facing life as difficult as it can be...and without three of your limbs.

Most of us would be tempted to curse God and the universe and collapse deep within ourselves.

But Nick was raised that "anything's possible" and he has lived that mindset. He has played football and baseball. He can do a headstand on a skateboard. He can type on a computer and even play the drums.

And he even helps in the kitchen!

How many of YOUR kids help in the kitchen?? How many of US wake up with the love for life that Nick does??

The answer is: not enough, unfortunately.

Our excuses? I'm too poor. Too overweight. I'm not pretty enough. Smart enough. That stuff happens for OTHER people, but never for me. I'll take the chance later...just not today.

Unlike us, Nick has REAL excuses if he wanted to use them. Hmmm. I can't play baseball because I HAVE NO LEGS AND ONLY ONE ARM AND ONE FINGER!!

Shouldn't we feel a little silly now when we come up with our endless excuses each day? Hasn't Nick taught us that we should get off our unmotivated behinds and DO SOMETHING!! Take action!! And do it NOW!!

Ever see severely handicapped people with GIANT smiles? Ever stop and wonder sometimes how it is that someone facing such enormous adversity could find the will to be HAPPY??

Shame on us. They are happier than we are, really, even as we run around with two healthy legs. Why? Because they believe in themselves ultimately more than we believe in ourselves. They are at peace with life, something most of us only strive for but rarely achieve on any given day.

Nick recently entered an art contest for which he drew a large tree. "The roots of a family are..." were written above the tree. And below the tree?

"Love."

The one simple word that makes everything possible. Love of family. Love of life. Love in the belief that anything's possible.

Because as young Nick has proven to all of us, it really is true.

Next time the kids or your spouse of a friend complain about something, share with them the story of Nick Santonstasso. They should stop the complaining very, very quickly.

Life is what you make of it. So make it EXTRAORDINARY!

Reflections on Harvey Korman, 1927-2008

In this age of mediocrity, comedians seem a dime a dozen. And have you noticed most of them fail at even remotely amusing us? Anyone can call themselves a comedian these days.

And now we have lost a true comedic genius. One of my favorite comedians has left us. Harvey Korman died yesterday in Los Angeles at the age of 81.

My biggest fear is that most people under 40 might not even recognize the name. That is sad.
Usually a reference to his hysterical role in the Mel Brooks classic "Blazzing Saddles" brings out the "Oh YESSS!! THAT was Harvey Korman??"

Of course, he is probably remembered for his classic role alongside Tim Conway on "The Carol Burnett Show".

He and Tim Conway toured the nation together and performed their side splitting antics and comedic genius well into their 70s.

I had the pleasure of meeting both of them a few years back at a show in Sacramento.

I begged and begged to be let backstage to meet my comedic mentors. The P.R. Department kept telling me my chances were 50-50.

The day of the show I STILL had not heard back from anyone, telling me one way or the other what they had decided.

Would I meet two of my favorite comedians in the world?

I walked up to the stage door and presented myself humbly. They remembered my name and my efforts to meet these gentlemen had impressed them it turns out.

They stepped away to ask them how they felt about a visitor and to my absolute joy, they agreed to a meet and greet.

And there they were. Two comedic giants standing before me. Two men I had grown up watching on television and in the movies. Two men who had shaped my comedic heart and soul forever and in ways they could never understand were shaking my trembling but firm hand and talking to me!

By the way, it was a classic performance and I am so glad I made the time to go see them. I would have regretted it if I hadn't.

As for all the talk about "Blazzing Saddles" being his funniest film, I disagree. Of all the Mel Brooks movies he stared in, I think his performance as the corrupt psychiatrist in "High Anxiety" was his best and most underrated role. Watch it and get ready to laugh till you hurt.

Thank you, Harvey Korman, for making me laugh. For lightening my load. For teaching me how true comedy is crafted and perfected.

And thank you, most of all, for giving me the chance to look you in the eye and thank you myself for all those years of laughter and fun.

You will be missed.

Shades of Grey

Aliens are real.

Just ask Jeff Peckman of Colorado.

He claims to have videotaped a "Grey" alien in a video that will be unveiled to officials tomorrow. The rest of us will have to wait for a while.

I believe in extraterrestrial life. We can't be the only life in this vast universe. But does it help Peckman's credibility that he is pushing for a Denver ballot initiative that would create an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission??

Doesn't that sound a little NUTTY??

But if he is convinced his discovery is real, then it would stand to reason that he believes the government should have a department in place to deal with alien life, right?

By the way, an instructor at the Colorado Film School claims the video is real. Well, of course, the VIDEO is real. But nowadays it is so easy to create or manipulate reality any way that you choose to.

Look at movies like E.T. and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. Those were YEARS ago and the creatures look pretty darned real to me. I have seen people with Photoshop and video editing skills create virtual miracles that would have stumped me.

So does this video really show a genuine space alien? Who knows. That will be up to the experts to decide.

In the meantime, I want to believe.

I really do.

And now if you'll excuse me. I need to beam back up to the mothership and finish my show prep.

One Word Not To Utter In San Francisco: Plastics

San Francisco residents are now safe from the evils of plastic grocery bags.

Or better put, Mother Earth is now safe from these dastardly demons.

Plastic bags already bowed and exited from large supermarkes when the San Francisco ban went into effect six months ago.

But now big drugstores like Rite Aid and Walgreens will be prevented from offering them. Can you imagine this??

Yes, this is one of those "Only in San Francisco" topics, although the trend has started to catch on elsewhere. Soon it will be across the country before we know it.

San Francisco is the city of my birth. I spent the first 24 years of my life there. And it makes me mad that the city chose to rid itself of plastic bags before ridding itself of dirty needles in the city parks. Before getting the drug addicts and winos off the streets. Before controlling graffiti and crime.

Recently while spending the night in our apartment in the City, we heard what sounded like AK-47s going off. But never mind that.

At least the City has gotten rid of a much more dangerous culprit. Plastic bags! Hip, hip, hooray!

Maybe they can ban the Board of Stupervisors next.

Post script: Know what I did last night? I did some MAJOR grocery shopping in a city just outside of San Francisco's Stupidity Sphere and bagged my groceries in DOUBLE LAYERED plastic bags. Even for groceries that weren't all that heavy.

I hope my Mother Earth can forgive me someday.

A Fear Confronted

Anyone who has listened to my show even casually knows I have a fear of swimming.

Probably because I never learned HOW to. It's a long and typical story but my fears were born in childhood and proved hard to shake nearly 40 years later.

That is, until yesterday.

It was 100 degrees plus over the weekend and the kids were having a field day in the pool.

My five-year-old learned to swim yesterday and I marveled at how fast he picked it up. He was literally fearless as he went all the way across to the deep end, with Mommy close by just in case.

After everyone had pretty much wrapped up the evening and gone inside, I decided to face my fears head on. I started by dipping my head under the water. Then I did it without plugging my nose.

Then I realized, before I even knew it, I was swimming.

SWIMMING.

Then I went from one end of the shallow end to the other. Back and forth. I was out there for more than an hour. I didn't want to come in.

I am already looking forward to going into the pool later and learning some more.

I did something that scared me this weekend. And I overcame a huge, life long fear.

And it felt, and still feels, awesome.

Do something today that scares you. And it will make you feel stronger than you ever thought possible.

My Masculinity At Stake AGAIN

It always happens this way.

Just as my masculinity recovers itself, there is something that happens to threaten it once more.

Now there is a list of the Top 10 Unmanliest Drinks In The World.

Great.

And you guessed it, yours truly has had more than a few on the list from time to time.

What's wrong with a wine spritzer?? It can get to be 112 in the summer where I live. Let me cool down with a wine spritzer if I want to!

Cranberry juice with vodka? Forget about it.

And if the women from "Sex In The City" drink Cosmos, that means us men should leave them alone. But they are SO GOOD! Why is it that I feel I have to steal a taste from my Better Half when no one is looking?

I can't help it. I love drinks that come with plastic swords and paper umbrellas. They are fruity and refreshing and yummy.

Oh, by the way. The survey also includes ANYTHING with Diet Coke in it. And even WATER.

So no man is safe.

Thank God no one saw me be the only male at a golf tournament fundraiser this week who was drinking Bud Light Lime. I kept the bottle carefully hidden at just the right angle. While the other men indulged in testostore favorites, I was really digging that beer. Fruity. Refreshing. Yummy.

And now if you'll excuse me, I think I will make myself a virgin Apple-tini as I continue with my show prep.

When Things Happen Out of the Blue

I got an e-mail this morning from an old colleague and friend. We haven't been in touch in literally years. We lost track of each other long ago and all of a sudden there was an e-mail from him.

But WAS it all of a sudden?

As anyone who has listened to my show in the last year or so knows, I am a recent student of the Law of Attraction. Some people call it "The Secret" but it really shouldn't be that big of a secret at all. It's the basic law of the universe. Like attracts like.

And you become what you think about most of the time.

You can even ask my producers if this isn't true--not one month ago I asked them to help me track down the above mentioned colleague from my past. At best, we were only able to pin him down to the last place he worked and the leads I followed up on proved a waste of time.

Then today it all changed. HE contacted ME.

Coincidence? I can't prove it one way or the other. All I can say is I once would have believed that. But not anymore.

It happens way too often to be a mere coincidence.

Hasn't that ever happened to you? Try it. Think of an old friend or family member you haven't talked to in a long time. Focus on them. Focus on getting connected again with them.

Then sit back and be shocked. Somewhere, sometime, and somehow, you will be reconnected with that person.

They will call you out of the blue. Or e-mail, as was the case for me this morning. Maybe someone will bring up their name in conversation. Maybe someone you don't even KNOW will be an associate or friend of that person and put you in touch with them.

Some call it 6 degrees of separation. Call it what you want. The universe doesn't make mistakes when it comes to stuff like this, I am now sure of it.

Haven't you ever hummed or whistled a tune and then found it UNAVOIDABLE all day long on the radio? It just keeps PLAYING over and over again.

That, too, I once attributed to mere chance. But I think there is more to it than that.

We emit, like all energy sources, endless vibrations. And sometimes we are vibrating out of sync with what we want. Those are the days when NOTHING goes right. NOTHING seems to fit. We are square pegs trying to fit in round holes on days like that.

Then there are days when EVERYTHING falls into place. When we are truly happy with ourselves and our place. Those are the days without bills in the mailbox and a parking space just for you everywhere you go. The kids don't fight and the traffic is light.

That's the difference, I believe, between sending out vibrations that are contrary to the hum of the day and those that are in TUNE with the hum of the day.

So start humming that song and thinking of that friend.

And maybe, just maybe, you will be amazed by these small but miraculous wonders that make life the great adventure that it is.

America, I'm Going Home

I never used to watch AMERICAN IDOL. I passed on it the first few seasons. I ended up enjoying the music of Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood (call me a metrosexual, if you INSIST), without ever having watched them from the auditions to their final, glorious moments.

But all that changed a couple of seasons ago. My Better Half finally got me to sit down and watch it. And I LOVED it. Not a love on the level of a platter of barely pan seared fresh ahi tuna, but it was a love nonetheless.

I became hooked and got upset when I missed an episode.

But now, America, I am...going home. I have officially retired from the rest of this season of the show.

Why?

Because AMERICAN IDOL fans at home have voted to keep the four most annoying and least talented (in my opinion, of course) singers they could possibly have kept.

This week saw the expulsion of my Better Half's favorite and mine, Brooke White.

She was the only elegant one of the bunch. The only one whose voice really touched us, moved us...entertained us. We were both sure she would go all the way.

But this week, she went home. And so have I.

I cannot stand the insane cuteness that people see in David "I finally stopped licking my lips three episodes ago" Archuleta, the kid who looks 7-years-old. It's hard to Google images of actor Robert Blake when he was a child star in the Bogart classic "Treasure of the Sierra Madre", but the two are DEAD RINGERS for each other.

Jason Castro--Mr. Dreadlocks--reminded me too much, no offense, of the street urchins who plagued me for money on the street corners of Berkeley during my sentence there. Some of them played a guitar, others just held their hand out for money. But he reminds me of every single one of them. Plus every song he sang sounded EXACTLY the same to me. But the chicks dug him, for whatever reason, and the voters at home as well.

Syesha Mercado was tremendously overrated from day one, in my opinion. I never found her exceptionally talented, and never dreamed she would make the top 20, let alone the final 4.

And then there is, arguably, THE most annoying IDOL contestant EVER...David "I'm trying to look like Axle Rose from Guns N' Roses" Cook. WOW. I thought I could be annoying sometimes. How about ALL the time?? From his arrogant productions to his cliched voice, David Cook reminded me of all the junk you hear on the radio. It all sounds the same after a while.

So...the final four contestants remind me of how many people must feel about the Presidential candidates. These are your choices...you don't really like any of them...but you have to support SOMEBODY, right?

Nah. You, too America, can decide to go...home.

And with finalists like this, home might not be such a bad place to be. Maybe next time will be better.

Voter ID Is a Great Idea

May I see your ID, please?

We all hear this all day long, don't we?

At the bank. At the hospital. At the car rental agency. When opening up any sort of account.

Even at the video store.

But one place where showing your picture ID has been missing in far too many places for far too long has been the voting booth!

It has always seemed strange to me, but also downright un-American, that you could be able to cast a VOTE and not have to prove you are the person the polling place thinks you are!

I have NEVER been asked to show my ID before voting. NEVER. That goes from local school board elections all the way up to Presidential races. NEVER.

Well, the practice of requiring ID will hopefully become far more common after a reasonable Supreme Court ruling this week that upheld Indiana's voter identification law.

It was refreshing to see one of the more more liberal of the Justices, John Paul Stevens, wrote the opinion of the majority in the 6-3 decision.

I say refreshing because it tends to be leftists in America who are so passionately fighting AGAINST such requirements!

They claim, falsely, that whole segments of our society--the poor, minorities, and the disabled--are being DISENFRANCHISED from voting!

What NONSENSE! NO ONE in this country is being disenfranchised. That is a fighting word that unfortunately most people cannot define accurately.

To disenfranchise someone is to take away their right to vote. NO ONE is having this done to them, except for some people in prison who LOST their right to vote through their own actions.

But no poor person, minority, or diabled person is being kept from voting because they would have to show proper ID.

Can you imagine how insulting such an insinuation is on the FACE of it?? These groups cannot afford or acquire a simple PHOTO ID??

Loudmouth liberals and partisan democrats insist it is a GOP plot to keep people from voting.

The reality is that these politicians and spokespeople ought to give the groups they represent more credit than they do.

Voting is a right that people fought for over a long period of time. Many in the world don't even have the right. They have no say.

We DO.

And isn't that worth having to show a simple ID card for?

If we are willing to show it to rent a silly movie, we should be honored to have to show it to cast a vote in the greatest nation that has ever been.

Watch Me Pull an 8-Foot Straw Out of My Hat!

I finally decided to do it. I jumped back into the wonderful world of magic.

It had been a very long hiatus. My oldest daughter (who is going to be 10 this year) was barely a toddler when I last had frequented my local magic shop.

Last night I performed some new tricks I recently purchased and the look on my children's faces told me I had made the right decision.

Kids need magic. Heck, adults need it, too.

In this fast paced world of ours, there seems to be fewer and fewer things that truly AMAZE us. Are you REALLY amazed by much out there? Mystified??

With all the technical gizmos and video games and modern day amusements that my kids have, I don't remember seeing their jaws drop quite as much as when I pulled an 8-foot beverage straw out of a fast food bag last night.

Now THAT'S magic.

And the beauty of magic performed correctly is that your mind concludes it has just witnessed something that is NOT POSSIBLE.

There is NO way that card could have appeared inside the locked box. There is NO way that the coin could have jumped from spectator to spectator. There is NO way that a woman just got sawed in half and put back together.

And there is CERTAINLY NO WAY that a radio talk show host pulled the biggest straw ever out of an 8 inch deep bag.

Yes. There IS a way.

With magic, there always is.

When Driving Goes to the Dogs

One of the most idiotic sights I will ever see in my life is a person driving with a dog on their lap.

What is the purpose of this??

One thing is to take your pal on outings to the beach or the store, but why must the beast ride ON YOUR LAP??

My family and I nearly got into an accident over the weekend because of a moron who felt it necessary to let his DOG drive with him! Not alongside him. Not in the back seat. Not in the wayback.

ON HIS LAP.

How is this allowed?

Well, in California, it might not be allowed for much longer.

Can you believe we need legislation to stop such irresponsible, dangerous, and foolish behavior?

Assembly Bill 2233 would make it illegal to carry a live animal on your lap while behind the wheel. Considering it's California, they ought to be more clear because people might try to carry a "dead" animal on their lap while behind the wheel.

Too bad the infraction would only warrant a base fine of $35. That's a flea on a Doberman. We need it to be more like $2,000 if you ask me.

There is no reason you need an animal on your lap while driving a car. It's dangerous AND ridiculous.

And if the bill becomes law--which I pray that it will--and Fido protests, tell 'em you are working hard on legislation that will allow YOU to sit on HIS lap while HE is driving the car.

That way, neither one of you will suffer from separation anxiety.

Why Sex Offenders Need To Be Locked Up

What is the best way to keep a repeat offender from breaking the law?

Make it so they can't break the law anymore!

How? By locking them up. For a long time. Maybe forever. Whatever it takes so that they don't keep preying on innocent people.

I saw a story this week that really angered me about a guy named Freddie Johnson.

This creature has been arrested 53 times, most of the infractions involving the groping of female passengers on the New York subway.

FIFTY THREE TIMES. How many times have YOU been arrested? I have NEVER been arrested.

But I would expect the system to have thrown me AND the key away long before the 53rd arrest.

It is a fact that many crimes are committed by a select group of people over and over and over again. It's the result of our revolving door justice system.

The good news is that if found guilty in this latest incident, Johnson could go to prison for LIFE.

The bad news is that this registered sex offender got himself in this hot water TWO WEEKS after being released from prison after serving 4 years for persistent sexual abuse!

The bad news is that despite recommendations from the state's attorney general's office that Johnson be confined under a recently passed sex offender law because they saw him as a risk, a judge decided electronic monitoring and strict supervision was enough. Apparently, that WASN'T enough, was it?

The bad news is, far too many people had to fall victim to this guy before the system paid attention.

Let's hope the system doesn't blow it again.

Your CLOTHES Don't Fit You Anymore??

"My clothes don't fit me anymore!"

My wild imagination conjures images of halter tops, blue jeans, and business suits conspiring against their owner in the darkness of the crowded closet.

"Psssst! What do you say we shrink a couple of sizes by morning so that when she reaches for the ensemble of the day, they fit her like Saran Wrap!!" cackles the flowery skirt to the mishievous silk blouse.

Or maybe the dress shirt shrinks to a size 14 neck just to spite the man headed to his much anticipated job interview!

Nope.

This doesn't happen. At least not outside of my warped head.

But people--and I am guilty of this at times myself--love to use the phrase "my clothes don't fit me anymore!"

The hard part to swallow here is that unless you ran your clothes through the wrong cycle or misread the care instructions, your clothes had little to do with the fact that you needed a shoe horn to fit into them this morning. And even in those examples, YOU are the one who screwed up.

You see, clothes don't stop fitting you anymore than clutter piles up on your desk. Dishes don't hold meetings on your kitchen counters and bills don't stack up on their own.

There is no mystery here.

YOU are the one doing all of this.

Yes, GASP, YOU are the one who doesn't fit YOUR clothes anymore!

While your clothes sat there waiting to be worn, YOU decided to have an extra slice of cake at the company birthday party. YOU decided that watching the ballgame was more important than the evening walk with the family. YOU decided to let yourself go.

YOU are the one who betrayed YOUR clothes! Not the other way around!

Sometimes, if you are lucky, you find that your clothes fit a little LOOSER, not tighter.

That's when you can set aside the exercise, the sensible diet, change in lifestyle, and head to the closet to thank all of your clothes for fitting you so nicely all of a sudden.

After all, THEY get all the blame when things go wrong. So why not shower them with the credit sometimes, too?

The self esteem of your sweats will never be the same again.