Hope for the Next Generation?

Posted by on Apr 9, 2013 | No Comments

Several friends recently despaired about the fate of grown children raised by their “helicopter parent” friends. According to them these college educated twenty somethings, including one with a Master’s Degree from Notre Dame, had been coddled from the cradle and were now having problems making it in the real world without mommy and daddy to […]

How Did You Meet Your Mate?

Posted by on Sep 20, 2012 | No Comments

My wife and I taught a marriage preparation class where our favorite icebreaker question was, “How did you meet your future spouse?” Common answers were, “Through friends,” “In a bar,” or, “We were classmates.” But the answer from one couple, which I’ll share later, has always stood out in my mind as the story to […]

The Sixth Sense of Canines

Posted by on Aug 15, 2012 | No Comments

Dogs seem to have a sixth sense about coming disasters. Historians and researchers claim they can sense earthquakes coming. Although when one hit Seattle we had to wake my parent’s snoozing terriers so we could get out of the house. But I do know of one case where I believe a dog had a sixth […]

The Museum Piece

Posted by on Jul 25, 2012 | No Comments

The clerk at Massey’s Grocery Store looked down on my curly haired head. Like most five year old boys, I wasn’t tall enough to see anything but the front of the counter, but I could see the shiny dime he was holding out to me. I took it, and knew exactly what to do. When I […]

The Art of Selling

Posted by on Jul 17, 2012 | No Comments

The best sales people don’t rely on a smarmy pitch or underhanded tactics. They find out what people want, and then deliver.   I spent one Seattle summer working as the ice cream man, selling my wares from a three-wheeled truck. My best route included Alki Beach a sandy summer hangout on the west side of […]

The Dog on Pogo Sticks

Posted by on Jul 11, 2012 | No Comments

When we took Rascal, our long-legged, cocker terrier mix to dog obedience classes, the instructor took one look and called him, “A cocker spaniel on stilts.” More like a cocker spaniel on pogo sticks.  Soon after we adopted Rascal we learned that he not only lived up to his name, but he had a phenomenal […]

The Race

Posted by on Jun 26, 2012 | No Comments

When I was a boy our family would gather around the TV each Memorial Day weekend to watch the Indy 500. Mario Andretti, A. J. Foyt, and Al Unser were some of the super stars of the sport in those days. Inspired by the big race my two brothers and I would race our own […]

Almost English

Posted by on May 23, 2012 | No Comments

Years ago I worked on a project for ING Bank in Sydney, Australia. Due to a happy coincidence I lived in a million dollar apartment for the two month duration of the gig with a systems engineer from my company. The apartment belonged to the family of the ING program manager and he made it available […]

The Epidemic

Posted by on May 16, 2012 | No Comments

It’s reached epidemic proportions in the office. And although you’d like to say something to the person you have to be careful as the condition is sometimes mistaken for an entirely different condition. Being wrong can be embarrassing, maybe even fatal. So you wonder, want to say something, but keep your silence until they finally […]

Large Pepperoni, but Hold the Nukes

Posted by on Apr 17, 2012 | No Comments

Think about the oddest “wrong number” phone call you’ve received. I remember picking up a voice mail left by  a panicked homeowner—who was looking for a plumber. I guess the “Dennis & Laurie can’t come to the phone…,” didn’t make it clear we weren’t the local Roto Rooter. I hope they didn’t drown trying to […]

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