Suburban Assault

"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it." George Bernard Shaw

Thanks to Brian for this interesting segue from my last post with a Shaw quote.......

Apart from thinking, one of my favorite things is a segue. For a start, I love the word "segue." I like the fact that it is spelled nothing like it sounds. I love the fact that most people don't know how to spell it, but that I do. I'm amused and a little disturbed that the inventor of the "Segway" felt the need to take the phonetic spelling of this word and turn it into a brand name. Said inventor, Dean Kamen, believes that his two-wheeled electric transportation thingy will someday be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy.

I don't know which year on the calendar he's expecting that to happen. But, in my neck of the woods, folks are having some trouble giving up their trucks masquerading as SUVs, despite $4 gasoline. Between my house and a one-mile run to the grocery store, my little red Rabbit is almost consumed by fire-breathing Cadillac Escalades, Lincoln Navigators, Chevy Suburbans et al -- each cranking eight cylinders and hundreds of horses. Of the Escalade in particular, I must rhetorically ask whether a more ostentatious/vile/ugly vehicle has ever been created. Oh, yes -- that would be the Hummers. I almost forgot the Hummers. They appear to be reproducing in this neighborhood, and I don't consider it a progressive move in the history of mankind.

Before the red Rabbit, which is being "used" before it is bequeathed to Meredith (our younger daughter) to drive, I had a CUV. Crossover utility vehicle. I took it on a one-year lease to try it. I have never wanted to drive a van or a truck, and had successfully avoided it during the intense soccer travel years with Audi wagons. The Soccermobiles. They were terrific, and I was driving "real" cars. As newborns, both of our girls were transported home from the hospital in Audi 5000 sedans. Five years apart, different model years.

But, being in the land of gigantic, road-commanding, high-sitting truck-like things here in Colorado, I thought I should try it to see if I liked it. The CUV didn't get very good gas mileage, even back in the $3 days; it sat high, and I liked that. But, there was no disguising the fact that it really rode like a truck, despite the leather seats, rear-view camera, computerized data controller (talk about Too Much Information!), etc. It was a very expensive "luxury" vehicle by a Japanese maker that shall remain nameless here. Early into the one-year trial period, I dubbed it "The Beast." I'm not sure it scared anyone on the road except me. It was no match for the bloated Escalades. But, I was holding my own on the highway. A little bit.

Normally, I don't behave like a bleeding heart about excess. I figure, it's between every man and his God what he does with his money and how he impacts his world. I'm not opposed to larger vehicles when family size or occupational work requirements call for it. But, I must admit that I'm really becoming impatient with the all-too-frequent sightings of these big vehicles running around Highlands Ranch when they are occupied by the little mother and no one else. Especially when she is texting while she drives. Or, applying that critical, extra coat of mascara at 55 mph. Or, both at the same time. In front of me on E-470. In my little six-speed, five-cylinder German go car.

Do I take on these paragons of virtue?? Not on your life. Or, mine. It is a Kobayashi Maru - no-win scenario - of incalculable proportion to believe that I can get down on the ground with them and slug it out for highway position. No. Besides the fact that "they" are all so much bigger than me, it is often apparent that these large vehicles are serving as compensation for some other deficiencies of life quality known only to the drivers. And, perhaps their Significant Others. As much as I like to have my rightful place on the road, I'm not going to take on their arrogance AND their therapy issues.

Judging a book by its cover works both ways, as they likely surmise that I am driving this small car because I cannot afford the big one they are driving. That is, if they are thinking at all. It IS probably amusing to see me, my six-foot-four-inch husband, and our almost six-foot daughter emerge from the Rabbit. All at the same time. In the year since we relinquished The Beast and made this car switch, the oil situation has become increasingly unstable. A woman in my hair salon commented last week that we had been "scary smart" for doing it when we did. Well, it had more to do with fitting the vehicle to the need. The residual benefit of saving so much money on gasoline has been a happy coincidence. And, the same for appearing to be disgustingly responsible.

I guess the pig analogy in this post isn't lost on anyone who agrees with me. But, George Bernard Shaw has nothing on my husband -- the brilliant and incomparable attorney-turned-businessman (who probably missed his calling as a college history professor).

He loves to mark the occasion of a mighty fall with this poignant observation: "Little piggies eat. Hogs get slaughtered."

Let's Call the Whole Thing "Off"

"Either that wallpaper goes, or I do." Oscar Wilde

My BFF, Michele from England, introduced herself to me by observing that what George Bernard Shaw once said is still true today -- we're 'two countries separated by a common language.' Wilde, the British wallpaper fan, also wrote in The Canterville Ghost (1887): ".....we have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language."

So, I was thinking about wallpaper. Then, I thought about Oscar Wilde and his famous dying words. (As you know, I'm big on thinking :) Then, a new Facebook friend commented that she laughed out loud when she read the wallpaper quote. Then, I went through a former model home for sale across the street from us this weekend -- twice. Then, I thought about wallpaper again. Well, more precisely, I thought about the absence of wallpaper.

Then, I put "wallpaper" into Google. And, what did I get? If you know, then you are probably young enough to be my child. And, we're likely two generations separated by a common language. Say "wallpaper" in a blog, and watch everyone click My Computer -- Control Panel -- Display to review their setting. I still have the AP photo of "The Shot:" Miracle Mario Chalmers hitting the tying three-pointer vs. Memphis to send the NCAA basketball championship final into overtime and the Kansas Jayhawks to the trophy.

Where have all the wallpapers gone? (Girls have picked them every one. When will they ever learn.)

The former model home has not a stitch of wallpaper. Thinking back on the other two former models next door, I can't recall any wallpaper in those either. They were constructed in 2001. So, the marketing weenies at this builder had already given up on wallpaper seven years ago.

I worked on about 60 model homes and two Denver HBA Parade of Homes one-of-a-kind custom homes between 2002 and 2006, and we actually used a little bit of wallpaper here and there. But, we were quite deliberate about it. The walls without wallpaper weren't ignored. They just didn't get paper.

Poor wallpaper. The kind you put on walls. Feels like it got a bad rap. Like most other interior design elements, both good and bad wallpaper examples are sitting out there. Right??

The only critical thing I have to say about my mother-in-law involves wallpaper. She spent a lot of money on it during her almost 78 years of life. Some of it was OK; some of it belonged in the "Why I Hate Wallpaper" how-to about avoiding mind-boggling and life-ending choices. She brought any interest I ever had in wallpaper to a screeching halt with her penchant for finding ways to use every companion border and fabric in the book -- the same color way as well as the reverse color way design. I'm thinking, in particular, of the guest suite. Everything that didn't move on its own in the room was covered in a form of it - bed linens, chairs, sofas, pillows, seat cushions, curtains and valances. You get the idea. It was an enormous and luxuriously appointed room. And, fodder for nightmares of dancing patterns, angles, and rhymes.

Since she's not here to defend herself, I have no other side to that story. But, let's just say that if I had worn a garment made from any of the companion fabric options, all six feet/two inches of me could have pulled a disappearing act of epic proportions.

I'm wondering if EWT -- Early Wallpaper Trauma -- is the root cause of so many broken relationships. Or, once identified, perhaps it could now be channeled for good. "To have and to hold, from this day forward, for richer or poorer, in good wallpaper and in bad...."

If a person with a gift for putting words together really went outta here uttering something about the wallpaper in the room, you gotta believe that was some ugly stuff.

Seems like moving into 21st Century wallpaper could save some marriages. I can click and stick to this one, and nobody ever has to know about it: http://camtech2000.net/Pages/FlyingPigs.html

lat 39.5270, long -104.9510

"If you don't know where you're going, any road will lead there." Fred S. Goldberg (with apologies to Lewis Carroll)

I needed a year -- only 12 scant months -- to jump into the blogosphere. I needed time to think. As you know, I'm big on thinking. But, I've never been a big fan of analysis paralysis.

Makes me wonder now if this protracted process revealed something about my progressing age. No mistake about it, I'm an unapologetic proponent of strategic planning. Big on getting up-front facts to improve and inform decision-making. And, I've been paid a pile of money to behave that way in bizness.

Equivocation has never been my favorite flavor. As a career marketer, I've generally always known what to make, who to make it for, and how to tell them about it. And, fairly quickly. Good 'ol blend of "gut says" and "brain says." But....(and it's a "big" but), I don't really know what I'm doing here. I don't know where I'm going. I'm only more confused by more advice.

Sounds like I need a plan.

I'm constrained because I'm not yet convinced that I care that much about knowing what I don't know. Blissful ignorance never felt so welcome. Obviously, all that time thinking about it didn't shine any light of clarity on the situation. I have read my share of rambling, stumbling, bumbling blogs; so, perhaps it's just the nature of the Beast. It feels like diary, journal, one-way therapy, legal experimentation, and composition practice in a single, virtually-packaged box.

If that's what it is, then it can only be disciplined to the extent that the rest of my consciousness can be corralled on a daily basis. And, these days, that's not much.

I'm a prototypical Baby Boomer in America -- with the quasi-empty-nest syndrome, career reinvention, new family business start-up, and too many unread books to read. Too many fish to fry. Too many pigs to fly.

So, I may not know where I'm going. But, I know where I am. And, compared to the alternative, that ain't bad.

Riddle Me This

"They did not want any publicity and the last thing they wanted to do was wreck his premiere evening." Mike Sullivan, Crime Editor -- http://www.thesun.co.uk/

Somewhere, Bob Kane - a.k.a. Robert Kahn - is rolling in his grave. If he were still alive, he might be considered no more than "Old School," after a long career of now-obsolete pencilling and writing. His original vision for Batman was as superhero-vigilante. He credited his partner, Bill Finger, with advancing the character to something more like a "scientific detective." It was OK for him to be violent, since he was just using his angst while performing a public service -- to remove thugs and criminal masterminds from the streets of Gotham and make it safe again for children. And, women.

For a certainty, Batman always has been and, presumably, always will be cast as a murky character. To do otherwise, would be to cast against type. A parade of actors has played him on the serious screen, each trying to out-dark the previous hero through the eye holes.

But, to be sure, no one has taken the part quite so seriously as Christian Bale.

Who else has brought such illuminating, new meaning to the perennial favorites "Pow," "Zap," and "Bffffff."

I will never know the real story.

But, you slapped around some female relatives. Or, you didn't.

You want the publicity. Or, you don't.

You should get your cuticles trimmed for the big premiere shebangie.

OR, you should be arrested immediately for breaking the law.

"Who." "What." "Where." "How."

Why?

Civil War in the Heart of It All

"Put that thing back where it came from or so help me -- so HELP me...." Mike Wazowski a.k.a. Billy Crystal -- Monsters, Inc.

Question: Just being in Ohio you gotta watch what you say with the old Ohio State-USC battle coming up, or do you just not give a (darn) and you're going to say what you feel like saying?

Palmer: I don’t watch what I say. I cannot stand the Buckeyes and having to live in Ohio and hear those people talk about their team, it drives me absolutely nuts. We got Keith Rivers out there and we got Frostee Rucker, we finally got a couple other ‘SC guys. It’s amazing to hear what those guys think about that university and what they think about that football program and Tressel and all the crap I got to put up with being back there. I just can’t wait for two years from now when ‘SC comes to the ‘Shoe and I get to, hopefully have a home game that weekend and I can go out there and watch us pound on them on their own turf and kind of put all the talk to rest, because I’m really getting sick of it. I just can’t wait for this game to get here so they can come to the Coliseum and experience L.A. and get an old fashioned, Pac 10 butt-whooping and go back to the Big Ten.

Question: So you’re a little excited about it?

Palmer: I can’t wait.

So much to say about The Buckeye State. "Birthplace of Aviation." Thank you, Wright Brothers. The unofficial Flying Pig Capital of the World. A state with many slogans, including "The Heart of It All." Hard-working Americans and Captains of Industry. Birthplace of consumer packaged goods marketing, the root of my career. Birthplace of me, the root of.....well, just roots. Home to many championship sports programs....

Sometimes, roots go down only so far. I was plucked out of Ohio at age two and transported to central Florida for the beginning of a coast-to-coast childhood experience that left me without a regional accent. Poor thing. I landed (alit?) on the left edge of America, on that sliver of crust watched intently by the rest of the nation with fervent hope for signs of slippage toward the Pacific Ocean. That would be, of course, "The City of Angels." "Los Angeles." Most of the Spanish I know.

As a product of University Park and a Trojan for life, I cringe in the corner when one of my brethern steps into the instantaneous 21st-century media/internet transport pod and tells me how they really feel. I'm not saying I disagree with anything that Carson Palmer said this week. But, no good end can come to it. I guess it was bound to burst out some time. After a while, you just can't contain yourself if you're living in enemy territory.

I don't hang on rival college football forums, where an abundance of overweight, beer-guzzling bandwagoners butcher the English language and incite the alums to riot. Where they claim their team is nothing short of a weapon of mass destruction. Maybe someone in Columbus sent Carson a link to "Buckeye Planet" or Buckeyegrove.com last week, and he was mad as you-know-what and couldn't take it anymore. Maybe someone called him a lily-livered liberal; and, being a good Republican from Orange County, he decided to cut loose.

Or, maybe, he was just being interviewed on a Los Angeles sports radio program and wanted to be sure that the Faithful knew where he stood. Sometimes, roots run deep.

Making his millions in the Buckeye State hasn't exactly been a fate worse than death. That the Bengels management hasn't been able to keep about a third of the team out of jail while he's been trying to win something there has nothing to do with the good people of Ohio. It has nothing to do with tOSU, coaches in frowns and Sweater Vests, Kirk Herbstreit picking tOSU every Saturday on College Gameday to beat Youngstown State (or whichever Youngstown State facsimile is on the tOSU schedule that day), or anything related to Shoes, Horseshoes, the House Harley built, or any other Harley for that matter.

But, I'm interested to learn that the half of the state that supports the Bengels doesn't seem to like tOSU and vice versa. Nothing new for him -- Carson has defenders and detractors right inside Buckeye State lines. It's a small land mass with a lot of people that generally, ultimately, decides Presidential elections. I thought that they would probably agree about the UberWorldness of tOSU this year. Apparently, they will only agree When Pigs Fly.

Stitch That on a Pillow

"I felt like I had a big hairball in my throat." Tobin Heath; 2008 U.S. Women's Olympic Soccer Team, 20-year-old Junior at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. (The word "dry" cannot be spelled in Chapel Hill at this time of year.)

I'm not sure when it happened, but I really can't sleep anymore without my pillow. I mean, MY pillow. The one that is on my bed at home, that I sleep on every night. If I go to a different part of the house to sleep, I take my pillow with me. Because, I won't be able to sleep without it. Not because it isn't my bed. Not because the temperature and sounds in the room might be different. No, it would be useless to go there without my pillow.


Pillows are in the news now. By news, of course I'm referring only to ESPN. The source of the only news that matters. Where sufficient human drama exists to keep me from wondering what other awful things could be happening around the world that I can't control anyway. I would like to think that I, too am ".....as cool as the other side of the pillow."


Especially since the calendar says July.


When the U.S. Soccer Women's National Team came to play against Brazil on July 13 in Commerce City (a suburb of Denver) at an expensive, dedicated soccer park, the ESPN announcers could not get off the idea that the place was inexplicably hot. Like, really hot. Like, about 110 degrees down on the field. Because it was probably -- at LEAST -- 98 or 99 in the stands in the middle of the afternoon on a cloudless, full-Mile High-sun type of day. In the middle of July.


And, dry! Just not to be believed, this hot dryness here in Commerce City. In July. At the height of the hot part of summer. Near Denver. Which, everybody on Earth knows, is only ever really cold with four feet of snow on the ground because it can't be Denver unless you are stranded at Denver International Airport. For at least three days. Long enough for the food concessions to run out of Whoppers and bottled water, and for the Red Cross to set up cots without pillows. Where you finally get on TV for the first time in your entire life, because someone from CNN wants to interview you. You're not sure how someone from CNN got to the airport, since all the roads are closed. But, you suspend disbelief while you're telling the terrible story about how you were supposed to be in Missoula, Montana yesterday -- supposed to be the Maid of Honor at your sister's wedding. And, now you've missed it. Turns out the wedding wasn't actually about you, but -- somehow -- they had it without you. And, NOW, you're got a terrible dress that's never been worn and will NEVER be worn. And, things couldn't get much worse. And, if you just had your pillow, everything might start looking up.


Oh, the humanity! Global warming must be to blame for this unbearable hotness of being -- too hot to even think about blankets or pillows. Maybe too hot for sheets.


And, can I mention dry again?! Oh, yes. Dry. So very dry. Take two 24-pack cases of Dasani with you wherever you go, and call me in the morning.


And, altitude?? Well, forget it. About 24 hours into your stay in snow-packed Denver, your nose started to bleed. I guess your body didn't have room for all that extra red blood cell production going on in your unbearable hotness of being; some of it tried to escape. OK, that's just gross. But, your nose really did start to bleed.


Note to self: If you're only stranded at DIA for three days, then your nose stops bleeding just about the time you're beginning to like the altitude. About the time when you must now leave and go back down the mountain to your loved ones.


So, every human with a heart can imagine how confused you have been about all this hot dryness ever since you landed at DIA, because you were expecting to be snowed-in. You sorta planned on it. And, you're pretty sure (based on the landscape), that your pilot actually dropped you somewhere in western Kansas. Where are the Rockies?? No, not them -- the mountains!!!

And, why is everything so FLAT? The canvas cover atop the terminal LOOKS like snow-capped peaks. But, you are stranded, without your pillow, in this vast stretch of brown nothingness.

Didn't John Denver sing about Rocky Mountain High? Why are you so low? Where is the chill of fresh, crisp alpine air for your smog-filled lungs? You were hoping to recover here...


Well, I have news for you. If you're on any U.S. Olympic team of any kind and are headed to Beijing, you better git yer popcorn ready. About ten minutes in that "air" will have you wailing in your pillow about how much you'd rather be in Commerce City. Coughing up hair balls, trying to fly.

Flying Pigs(kin)

So, I only needed two posts to seamlessly seque from Flying Pigs to College Football. Clever, huh?!

The USC v. Virginia countdown on weareSC.com says we have 40 days and a couple of hours to go. 40 days and 40 nights, or maybe 39 nights. I don't know. Feels more like an eternity. My sister and her family in Virginia snagged tickets -- Fight ON!! -- and will probably be the only four people in the VA section wearing cardinal and gold. They're up for it. They outlasted the VA Tech abuse at Fed Ex Stadium at the beginning of a championship season a few years ago. Maybe they are the good-luck factor we need this year.

We'll take it. Last season's barrage of injuries to just about everybody playing on the offensive side of the Pig resulted in one of the most disgusting losses I've witnessed in 36 years of following the Trojans. Of course, I'm referring to the one-point difference AT HOME between SC and the 42-pt. underdog Stanford Indians, er Trees, er Cardinal, -- well, whoever they are (now I'm really showing my age) -- that knocked them out of any consideration for the BCS title game. Not because their record was any worse than the LSWho Tigers with two losses (those winners lost the last game of their season). Not because everyone west AND east of the Mississippi (except for the states of Ohio and Louisiana) wanted to see SC vs. Georgia.

No, it had more to do with the "how COULD you??!!" factor that we'll hear about every year until the end of college football for all time. It's likely the most publicity for Stanford football in history (OK, except for that one year with Jim Plunkett), and it will have more media traction going forward after Pete said it was his fault for leaving JD in the game with a broken finger. Duh. Separately, Fight ON! Minnesota Vikings. If JD breaks his finger under their watch, I'm guessing he'll go to the bench. That would just be my recommendation....

In December, I tried to console myself with the thought that, well -- at least we didn't lose to a service academy. Not that there's anything wrong in principal with a service academy. It's just that when your coach slobbers from a podium in South Bend about how you'll have a schematic advantage every time you take the field because his weight is complicated by those three Super Bowl rings, ya might think you could do better (at home) vs. Navy.

Can't wait to cheer for Navy again this season. A big "Semper Fi" to Mark C. Schickner, missing somewhere over Atlanta. (Is Katie married yet???????) We won't argue about Georgia and SC this year, will we, since the all-knowing college football pundits think that tOSU has already won next season's national championship game here in July.....Yeah, I see it -- based on their two blow-out losses in two consecutive BCS title games, there is every reason to think they are nothing less than ALL WORLD at every position NOW. Right, since all of those same guys who belched up two trophies are coming back and will definitely figure it out the third time. That's RIGHT -- SC doesn't have any chance at the sold-out Coliseum, with their seven guys on defense projected for the NFL first round next spring. Right.

But back to Indiana -- I can't ever think of anything nice to say about the Irish, so I should stop now. Oh, I forgot --"pretty campus." My husband's mother's family was Irish, our oldest daughter has red hair and is named Shannon. She and her sister seem to kiss a Blarney Stone just about every day. But, I have a button that says "I'rish I was a Trojan." And, last year, they fer sure iRished they was something else. Which makes it all the more amusing that one of the bRUINs highly touted recruits just decommitted in favor of Notre Dame. Really makes ya wonder, huh??! Or, just laugh out loud. Either way, good stuff.

Speaking of good stuff, their *other* MORE highly touted recruit took about 10 seconds after the most recent Nike Rising Star Camp at SC to tell Pete that he was also decommitting from UCLA. To go to SC. For school. To play football. Slick Rick N. is losing recruits faster than (former Notre Dame coach) Ty Willingham at Washington. Oh wait -- Ty doesn't have ANY commitments yet. Luck of the Irish. Not.

I know that Mark Sanchez can make the Pig fly. The only question is who wants to catch the Pig. Please -- somebody catch the Pig. In a cardinal and gold jersey. I don't care if it's short yardage, Da Bomb, wheel route, reverse quarterback throw-back. Just, somebody, please catch the Pig. It would make the playcalling so much more effective. Or, so help me.....

....something might fly through the flat screen here in Highlands Ranch. And, it won't be a Pig.

"I've a right to think," said Alice sharply....

"Just about as much right," said the Duchess, "as pigs have to fly." Lewis Carroll

Thinking is underrated, I think. Remembering isn't much rewarded anymore, either, since we have the Internet to answer our every question. A dude named Michael Quinion has a website called "World Wide Words." Write "when pigs fly" into a Google search, and his website is a hit. So, I guess he added world wide phrases somewhere down the line.

But, no need to think about it at all.

In what might be considered a wee bit of irony, the city of my birth -- Cincinnati, Ohio -- considers itself the very seat of flying pigdom. Arrive at CVG (Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport), and you, too could be greeted by their porcine monument (picture above). I guess it isn't hard to get a pig to fly when you attach a plane to it. Never thought of that....

Another Google hit -- first-page, no less -- revealed "Omniglot," a website described as "writing systems and languages of the world." Turns out that the flying pig is an "unofficial" symbol of Cincinnati, having something to do with the pig trade in the 19th century. Who knew? Never even thought about it....but, perhaps flying pig stuff was in the water there in 1956; and, you might guess the rest.

Omniglot offers similar sentiment in such languages as Tagalog and Esperanto, for those of you playing at home. The Bosnian equivalent is said to translate to "when grapes ripen on the willow." Catalan changes species entirely with "when cows fly." I dunno -- just doesn't have the same ring to it.

The Chinese are more deliberate about expressing the truly impossible -- "Unless the sun would rise from the West." No need to suspend disbelief there, since we all know THAT will never happen.

I've been told that too much thinkin' and not enough doin' is the root of all evil, at least in bizness. I've observed that too much doin' without enough thought is the root of all business failure.

The correct answer should be that both thinkin' and doin' need to be workin' together toward the goal. The doers need to know what to do before they start doin.' Then, they really need to get down to doin.' If they don't do the doin,' they shouldn't think the thinkers did the wrong thinkin.'

At least, that's what I think.

I recently lived through a cycle where thinkers were lambasted by doers, then the doers couldn't git 'er dun. It would be funny, except it dismantled a very promising business. And, about 180 people lost their jobs. All of my prognostications (and reasons for them) have proved correct. But, no consolation comes from being right when the pig lifts off and crashes midway through the flight plan.

If I had it to do over again, would I do anything different?

"Quand les poules auront des dents."

Only "when chicken have teeth!"

Speak. WOOF!!

"You make a pig fly when you suspend disbelief and hoist an unimaginable load." CRD 7-17-08

You, hereby, bear witness to the birth of yet another blog -- likely as insufferable as any on record. More than a couple of people have routinely suggested it over the years.

I finally concluded that a blog is as good a place as any to store my historical repertoire of mixed metaphors, malapropisms, and (frankly) down-right funny sayings. My colleagues and employees over the years will recognize most of them. They endured these verbal asides while actually doing real work and turning around broken businesses with me. All while pretending to be highly amused about the process.

When you begin your college career as a Journalism major, you think you're going to write all your life. After you run across the quad to the Business School, your writing eventually takes a turn to business propositions, yearly dissertations about how you're going to make another impossible-to-make annual plan, and editing the work of a bipolar ad agency copywriter. You wonder what you might have been missing.

So, I'm going to speak. (WOOF!!) I'm going to ramble about stuff that probably matters only to me. Or, maybe I'll get a burst of insight and deliver a chapter about something that other people actually want to read, too.

OR, writing a little post every day might lead to an unbelievable, incomprehensible idea. Like.............a BOOK!

Sure, When Pigs Fly!