Stitched up!!

"....stitched up, outta my mind..."lyrics from a John Mayer jazz duet.  Yep, went under the knife recently for a hernia repair.  Apparent cause - heavy cocktail lifting and over exertion on tee shots, and aging as a possible abettor!  

Oh well modern health care served me well...highest costs in the civilized world, not so much.  Great wife, self appointed recovery physician, priceless.  Cut me off of cocktails and golf for a while, but insists on a quick return to heavy sexual activity as therapy! Go figure.

I'm a lucky guy in all respects.  One thinks of such things while convalescing.  Having a great wife, meaningful work, super friends, fine children (grown and responsible).  I can't ask for much more.  

I have to include on that list many amazing new friends...glad to know you!  Thanks for all of your kind wishes and caring.  Now, back to work! We have a 2013 economy to build, a planet to improve, and peace to develop, one to one and globally...not for the wimpy. Let's start by dropping the silly battles.  Nobody is going to take your pistol away.  Get over yourself, think big picture, eh?

Harmony!

The beauty of voice harmony is quite a wonder.  I'm always amazed at talent...it's essence...what it says about humanity, what it might say about transcendance...the other.  Harmony however, speaks about the equation of talent...about being equal, while distinctively different.

I was just listening to the weekly "Prairie Home Companion" radio show, and they regularly feature harmonic voice pieces...basics you know, bass, baritone, tenor, alto and soprano. It's beautifully simple, and it spoke to me...well sang to me!

Each of us is given our own key, our octave if you will.  Some are quite talented of course, and the balance are perfectly pitched for our own ears, particularly when accompanied by a fine shower orchestra. 

Paul McCartney co-founded the fab four...the Beatles, and his harmonies with John Lennon created frenzied fan behavior.  He later wrote a song, "Ebony and Ivory" and performed it along with Michael Jackson.  A tribute to harmony, a salute to the value of the individual and the beauty of the combination.  Obviously the song's image is the key board, which indeed is visually incredible...88 perfectly aligned and entwined keys, that connect to 88 beautiful tones.  

Each key has its own voice and can be combined with other keys for perfect harmony and resonance.  Moreover, American jazz pioneers proved that even atonal sounds have their own special beauty...off beat rhythms can be respected and cherished.

Millions of hues make up our color, countless views form our consciousness, and in every mix harmony can be found, art can be created.  Beauty is there...appreciation is indeed the choice of the beholder!  I choose not to criticize art (talent) that I don't fully comprehend...I know the beauty and the harmony is there, even if I can't see it.  May each of us see more harmony in 2013.

The Untangling

Remember this photo?  Yep, that little tree on the right is the one of which I was so proud of it's decoration (and my work) a few weeks ago. I bragged then that it held at my estimate ONE MILLION plus lights.

Yesterday, my son and I began to remove those million lights. You may find this hard to believe, but it was unbelievably challenging.  I would have sworn that I just utilized a ladder to reach the top...but either I rented a "cherry picker" or the tree grew a foot or two!

My dedication to the "million points of light" created a tangle that rivaled a wire haired terrier's coat in appearance! The reindeer were removed before the de-decorating began. I wanted no audience whatsoever for this wrap of the season. Even still, distant chuckles could be heard regularly.

Nonetheless, another seasonal accomplishment was finally completed.  I even sorted the crates, to move Easter's equipment to the front of our storage barn.  I'm the poster child for organization for early 2013!  Happy New Year every one...may your days ahead not be tangled, and may you shine brightly!

Did you receive one...a Miracle of the Season?  I pray that you did, because I think I received more than my share.  If you noted my earlier "blahg" about seasonal decorating, you will remember that on the eve of my season of dread, one of those spirits that perhaps visited Ebenezer came my way!

That was the beginning, that was the turning point.  It's been miraculous and inspiring ever since.  I won't bore you with the details.  Few people really want to hear how good it is going for someone else.  Just know this: every wish (humble though they be) has been granted. My primary wishes, only one with an exponent. The best Christmas and Holiday season ever for my wife!

What would that take?

• Her daughter around for two full days, helping with the cooking, playing games, watching movies, and enjoying the seasonal giving, etc.
• Great meals, great friends, and warm Christmas family love and gift exchange
• A movie, a Christmas Home Decoration tour
• Nice but not extravagant gifts and stocking stuffers
• A white Christmas

Check, check, check, check, check. Christina was awesome as a house guest. The meals were fun to make and turned out exceptionally well. The three dogs and a cat that stayed at our house, wreaked very little havoc!

The movie was quite good, and as we came out of the movie at 3 pm.  I said, "sweetheart" take a look outside.  She screamed with glee like a small child, her "little girl" released in full! As she screamed with glee, tears ran down my face...again you know not how many other things have happened to me in the past several days, and it matters not.  Just know, I believe! And know this, I have a responsibility and still time left to make this a more joyful season for others.  I'm sure going to try.

Merry Christmas everyone and a very Happy New Year.

Getting in the Spirit

Ding jingaling, jingaling, jing!  I'm in the spirit!  I dreaded this past weekend--the annual (drag out the crates and "trim" the tree, house and everything that gets in the way) decorating weekend.  More negative than usual this year...I'm also thinking about how can I afford the gifts I need to buy.  Certainly I can't afford a decorating service like so many neighbors have.

Saturday morning comes along, and the Spirit of the Season apparently crept into me as I slept.  Up I get and off I go, gleefully to our storage area...happily I start on the outside, my wife and our daughter on the interiors...I pitch-in on that too, during some outdoor attention deficit moments. Check this out...

I put 1,347,989 lights on that little tree at our entry. Well, at least that's my estimate.  I can tell you that I returned to the bargain store twice and loaded up on lights for both the inside and out.  NEIGHBORS, you missed out!  I cannot tell you how much fun I had.  You should be envious of me...professional installations aren't near as much fun.  By the way, my super duper wife, begged the reindeer off of some guy, whose house she passed and thought he had too many! Hohoho (rather than LOL) He agreed!

If you think I am kidding you're wrong.  I've even tuned my satellite music to a couple of happening Christmas stations. I have never understood things of Spirit, but I'm in the grip.

Happy Holiday Season Everyone

The Frosty for City Square

The most wonderful thing happend to me on the way to get a few friends together for golf!  Frankly it feels a bit providencial...kharmish if you will.  One day I wouldn't be surprised to find myself saying "miraculous".  

Only two weeks ago I reached out to several friends and said "hey, let's play golf, let's do it on December 10th and in the spirit of the season, let's each donate a little $$ for charity.  Fast forward two weeks, we have over twenty people signed up for what has become the Frosty Charity Golf Classic! 

We're on a roll and we have a chance to raise some nice money for CitySquare! 

Now that's the best part...that's where Providence seems to have taken the wheel. 

My firm happens to be doing some professional work for CitySquare, formerly know as Central Dallas Ministries, led by Larry James.  In short this is an incredible urban focused organization, successfully addressing the root causes of poverty!  In turn, poverty can lead to so many other problems...drug problems, gangs, and crimes of all types. Fighting poverty has an exponential effect for simply building a better world for everyone, but it is not an easy fight.

Check out http://www.citysquare.org and see what incredible things these folks are doing, particularly on the areas of hunger, housing, learning and hope!  So if your of a mind to have an unusually good time, playing golf AND would like to help a bit with the poverty fight, come join us!  We have a few spots left, so click here to sign up!

Inevitabilites

Abominable inevitabilities...I try not to use either of those words in normal speech, since my tongue seems to get tangled on either word. Ah, but I can type those words and you can hear and understand them without having to try it out loud, a win-win scenario for blog dialogue!

Here are a couple of quick thoughts on why those words are on point just now. Having a major election behind us, we can all reflect on all of the Chicken Little - The Sky is Falling...the world will come to an end, if so and so is elected. The call for pessimism runs high, during election season! GOOD NEWS -- pessimism seems to breed opportunities and opportunists see light...often in the form of silver linings!

Abominable Inevitability #1 -- "Obamacare will ruin and break our country". 

The law is actually called The Affordable Healthcare Act, its focus is three-fold: Expanded healthcare insurance for the population, less expensive healthcare for all, and higher quality delivery of healthcare.  Sound impossible? As a capitalist, I can tell you that most of us in business wake up everyday with that challenge...more customers, better quality deliverables, lower price! Those issues are at the heart of our economic engine.

Check out major healthcare publications these days and you will read story after story of hospitals, physicians, and more, who long ago saw the natural requirement to deliver better quality to more "customer-patients" at lower costs, as an inevitability, law or no law!  Guess what, it's working!

You might want to read-up on the truths about Canadien healthcare and their economic health to understand the possibilites for "light" that exists.

Abominable Inevitability #2 -- Global Warming 

(Mitigation and Reversal Opportunities, coming soon!)