It's a Buckeye Thing

I was on the way home, having stopped at my watering hole in J-town, when I decided to stop and harrass the local Little Caesar's Pizza. Going on 3 years now, they have advertised their pizza is "Hot and Ready."

Guess what? They are full of shit. 

Eleven times out of twelve, not that I keep a spreadsheet, I have stopped and asked them if they understand the definition of what "Hot and Ready" means when I walk in and ask for one of these mythical pizzas. I even use air quotes as I ask and then stand there waiting for a response. 

I think I have a better chance of being struck by lightning than actually getting a pizza that is "Hot and Ready" from these brazen liars. 

So I walk back to my car empty handed and head to the next exit and decided to stop at Wendy's. 

I have a terrible history with Wendy's as well. They do not know how to take an order. I ask for a hamburger without mayonnaise and lettuce and inevitably, I get lettuce and/or mayonnaise. It's like they are pushing a lettuce and mayonnaise agenda.   I went nine times in a row during 2012 and they messed it up seven times, not that I keep a spreadsheet. 

I walked around to my table and I notice at another table by the door is a table of three large sized African-American men. I am guessing they are my age. One of them has a sweet, black leather coat with Ohio State across the back.  

It's not uncommon to come across a Buckeye fan down here, but this was a worn jacket and it was clear he had been a long time fan.  I am wearing my scarlet Ohio State jacket as well, but his back is towards me, so there's no plan initially of shouting "O-H" and waiting for an "I-O" response. 

I sat quietly, eating my meal.

The shift manager walked out as I was finishing up. He walked over to clean tables and asked the three men if everything was OK. They responded it was great. 

He walked over to me and saw I also wore my Buckeyes proudly. 

"Hey," he said, "You're both Buckeye fans!" 

Without hesitation, as the three of them then glanced over to me, I said, "What are you saying? That all Buckeye fans know each other?" 

I never heard three people laugh so hard in my life. 

The Wendy's manager seemed uncomfortable. 

I finished my meal and went to the garbage can and threw the trash away. 

"Go Bucks," I said smiling to my friend I never met. 

He looked up smiling and said, "O-H!" 

I responded, "I-O!" and left into the night. 

It's a Buckeye thing.

Driving a Stolen Car in Minnesota

I spent last weekend end catching two Springsteen shows in Minnesota.  It is REALLY cold in Minnesota. It's so cold that polar bears won't live here. I know this because I did not see one.

My trip began with my trip to Matt's for a Jucy Lucy as soon as I left the airport.

I was also invited to write the review for the first night for Springsteen's website and thanks to great editing, it came out quite readable.

I even got to meet Joseph again.  I first met him on the Tom Joad tour back in 1996 and had not seen him for 16 years.

The second night of the show was quite amazing.  It started with meeting up with Joseph and hanging out with him for a couple hours while we waited for the wristbands to be given out.  The first wristband entered us in a drawing for the pit.  If we were successful in winning the lottery, we would receive a second wristband and enjoy the show within 70 feet of the stage.

While waiting in line, he had pulled out two songs names on cardboard signs he had been chasing for a long time; "Streets of Fire" and "From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come.)"  As someone else once said, Springsteen fans look at set lists of shows they don't attend and it's similar to being a baseball card collector.  We say "Got it, got it, got it, NEED IT!" as they go down the list.  "Streets of Fire" is the last song off "Darkness on the Edge of Town" that Joseph needs to complete the album.

We were off to the side having secured our pit entrance and he was trying to decide what song to put on the back of the two signs.  I asked him if he had Sharpie's on him to create the sign and he pulled a seven pack out of his pocket.  Springsteen fans are prepared for many roadside emergencies.

"You know what was on the setlist last night that he didn't play?" I asked.

"What?"

"Stolen Car."

Joseph was on his knees already when I shared this and he fell forward with his hands on the floor, head on the floor, fully devastated he did not get to see that song.  Bruce, for some reason, decided he did not want to play it last night and audibled something else.  The devastation was clear.  I felt bad for revealing that to him.

Then it struck me.

"Put 'Stolen Car' on the sign," I suggested.  "It was on there last night.  He might decided to play it as they soundchecked it."

He was slow and deliberate making the sign, even including a car as a graphic in the bottom left corner.  Of the three songs, I thought this would have the best chance being played.

Then I had an even grander idea.  

I would take one sign and be at the back of the pit, Joseph would be at the front of the pit.  During the night, Bruce would come out to the middle stage at the back of the pit four times and hopefully see the sign.  Having the signs separated seemed like it would increase the chances rather than two people next to each other.

I had the sign with "From Small Things" and "Stolen Car" written on either side and got on the wall against the middle stage upon entering the pit.  There were two ladies were to my right and as luck would have it, one of them was from Columbus.  We struck up a conversation as I was wearing my Ohio State sweatshirt and had seventeen years of living there to share stories about the area.

Her friend was quite attractive and it struck me that if I notice her friend, Bruce Springsteen is also much more likely to notice her than he is to notice me.  I needed to get her to hold the sign up for me.  I was trying to figure someway to arrange this without sounding creepy and then the opportunity presented itself.  They asked me if I could help hold their spot while they went to get a drink; they even offered to by me a drink if I held their spot.  I said I would, but rather than a drink, when Bruce is at the middle stage, could you hold the sign up for me?

She agreed.

Mission accomplished, I went and sat in some seats because I had a long night of standing ahead of me.  A little later I met a couple from Minneapolis who sat down in their actual seats next to me.  They had not been to a concert in years, but they were there to see Bruce.  The husband had a great story about them actually sitting next to Bruce a couple years ago at orientation at Boston College.  The wife laughed about how hard it was to "be cool" and not embarrass themselves or Bruce and Patti.

When the lights went down, Bruce came out with a surprise opener of  "I'm a Rocker," and then launched into "Hungry Heart."  As expected, during "Hungry Heart," he was out at the middle stage and I think he saw the sign, because once he got back to the stage, he ran through several audibles including what I believe is only the second live performance of this song with the E Street Band since 1985.

It was magnificent.




Joseph missed out again on "Streets of Fire," getting "Something in the Night" from the same album instead, but I really think "Stolen Car" made up for it.

It turned out Bruce had tossed out most of the opening songs on the original set list and five of the first seven songs were audibles.  I love that randomness and looseness they can have.

I don't know if this is considered a proper sign request that was played or not amongst those in my group, but I am counting it as the plan worked even if he did not pull the sign up.  The end result was the same.  :)

Pelotonia - In Memory of Our Friend Doug

My friend Erin is participating in fund raiser for Pelotonia in memory of our friend Doug. 100% of the proceeds go to the James Cancer Hospital at The Ohio State University.

I wrote the note below about Doug after I heard the news, remembering him. Perhaps next year I will come up and ride in it rather than supporting someone else.

***

From January 25th, 2009

Doug and I were friend in college in Dayton. I met him when I was 18. We spent a lot of time together during a four year period. I last spoke with him around 10 years ago.

Mary sent me pictures of him last night taken 20 years ago. Doug was always one for a picture, with a smile on his face for every single photo; goofing with Ted and Mike, partying with Erin, Tracy and Cindy or just hanging with friends.

He loved music. He listened to everything, but what I will always remember was how big of a Def Leppard fan he was and this was when Hysteria came out sophmore year of college. Every party at his Kettering Dorm room had half of Hysteria played at some point in the music mix. That was a great album and it's what I may always associate with Doug more than anything else.

Doug always had the best parties at Kettering Dorms and at the house on Wyoming. He was the one that got all the cute girls that we worked with in the dining hall to show up at the parties. We went to several concerts together over the years: The Rolling Stones, Boston, Farm Aid, The Grateful Dead, The Who, Henri Lee Summer and a few others I am probably forgetting.

That 1989 Rolling Stones show was a highlight for him. Mike and I waited in line for 38 hours to get those seats as the number 2 and number 3 people in line at UD Arena for our group on a hot summer day and night and day. I think Doug even brought us beer at one point while we were waiting now that I think about it.

Leading up to the show, we told him we were in the 300 level in Riverfront Stadium and didn't actually give him his ticket until we walked to the field level and he asked why we were going onto the field if we were supposed to be up in the nose bleeds.

He about shit himself when we finally got through security to our 8th row, dead center seats. We were so close that the inflatable doll during "Honky Tonk Women" was above AND behind our heads. When the flames shot up during the opening, we felt the heat from the flames!!! Mick and Keith are really ugly up close.

Doug was a huge fan of Living Color and they opened the show for the Stones that night. He was the one standing and singing along with every one of their songs during their opening set.

And when the Stones came out, he went apeshit when they played "Bitch" as the second song of the set. It was his favorite Stones song and the one song he really hoped they would play.

He was a fairly funny guy and on rare occasions he had a very hilarious and raw sense of humor. That was surprising because he would sometimes (often) be very offended by comments that we (mostly I) would make.

One night, junior or senior year, at one of Doug's parties at that house on Wyoming, Erin (and maybe Tracy) were standing, facing Doug, Chris and myself sitting on the couch in the front room at Doug's house. As was typical, there was a lot of alcohol consumed at the party by this time.

Erin was PISSED off about something and reading Doug and Chris the riot act for something they said or did. Doug reached down on the couch and casually grabbed the remote. He hit play on the VCR remote as he made like he was moving the remote out of the way and apparently there was a porno in the VCR. I think the magic elves must have left it as I'm sure good practicing Catholic boys at a Catholic university would never have one of those in their house.

It was quite a graphic movie as the next thing I saw on the TV behind Erin while she was yelling was a humongous erection and I say that NOT because it was a 19 inch TV.

The three of us sat there trying desperately not to crack up as Erin went on and on about whatever she was talking about for the longest two minutes I'll ever remember. I remember looking at Doug and Chris and back at Erin a couple times as they sat there with suspicious grins growing on their faces (and I did not have a poker face either) and Erin is not registering at all what is going on the TV screen behind her.

Finally something clued her in to the fact that all three of us were stiffling laughter (we were bursting at the seams as giggles were escaping by this point) and she turned around and was so disgusted with what was on TV and upset that we were sitting there laughing our asses off seconds later that she stormed out of the room. I think Doug finally collected himself and went after her to calm her down.

The rudeness was completely out of character for Doug yet it was perhaps the funniest thing I ever saw him do.

When I drove by that house last month on my way to a local Dayton bar, just before a UD basketball game, I couldn't even pick Doug's house out of the eight or nine houses on the right despite my spending many, many nights drinking with friends there 20 years ago. Chris had to point it out when we passed it after the game. I even roomed with him for a short period at that house one summer as he and I worked in the dish room handling inventory counts and repairs to the furniture in the UD dining hall. I almost roomed with him and his roommates midway through sophmore year when a roommate moved out of Kettering, but one of his roommates didn't know me so he vetoed Doug's suggestion.

I watched game 7 of the 1992 NL Championship series at his apartment on Irving near Kramer's bar while I did laundry that night. His apartment building had a coin laundry in the building. It was the Braves versus the Pirates. Francisco Cabrera had a hit and Sid Bream, half hobbled from injury, slid across home plate just beating the tag in the 9th inning. It was thrilling to watch the series that year and that was an unbelievable finish to the NLCS that year. Even though we were both Reds fans, we both cheered over the excitement of the play as we literally leapt off the couch.

I watched a few Bengals and Reds games with him at the house. He grew up in Cincinnati and moved back there after I left Dayton in 1993.

The SNLs we watched during the 1988 presidential election were good times. Remember Jon Lovitz's Dukakis imitation ("I can't believe I'm losing to this guy!") opposite Dana Carvey's Bush imitation?

He came to Columbus for the Octoberfest on a surprise trip with Chris, Matt, Ted and Mike to see me and we experienced our infamous dunking booth incident in 1993. I was glad security did not escort us out of the festival. The phrase "Please do not throw the ball at the girl" (said twice over the loud speakers) is a memory from that night that none of us will ever forget.

I can't imagine all the conversations he and I had over the years working in the dish room at Kettering, working banquets, all the parties he threw that I attended. Just every day conversations, long forgotten, not very profound or important.

He was the most decent one of our circle of friends. It's not a coincidence that all my memories and stories of Doug are good memories.

Erin and Mary both contacted me on Friday and let me know he was moved to the Hospice in Hamilton, OH. I only learned in December he had been battling cancer.

And now he is gone at the age of 39. I've spent the past two days thinking of him and sharing some of these stories with friends. I thought it was the best way I could celebrate him and remember him.

Halloween 2007

I found a story regarding Halloween night in 2007. This year I will be at Lyle and Chandra's handing candy out as I did last year. I wish I had the other Halloween stories I have posted over the years (2005, 2006, 2008,) but they have been lost somewhere along the way.

***

A Couplet of Halloween Haiku by Bryon Jordan

Not all kids are cute
Ugly kids need candy, too.
Your face stopped my watch.

I was very bad
I gave all these kids candy.
I am a stranger

***

For my third consecutive year, I handed out candy to the dozens and dozens of princesses, butterflies, frogs, ladybugs, knights (there were several this year,) and other creatures of the night in my little section of the neighborhood. My first year I had about 275 kids; last year it was chilly and I had 225 to 245.

I kept an accurate tally this year; 232 kids. I am not kidding. That is not an exaggeration or misprint. I really wanted to take pictures of some of the costumes to forward to folks with this email, but I also don't want to end up on a government website.

My suspicion is they continue to be shipped in from other parts of Union County directly to my neighborhood. Some of the kids were missing teeth and I don't think it is solely from candy rotting them.

The first semi-decent costumes were of a dad with his three kids dressed as the Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs. Also in the first 40 minutes I saw a little boy dressed as Donald Duck, an older boy dressed as a baseball player that had a baseball lodged in his cheek and blood on his face (a Tony Conigliaro outfit if I ever saw one,) one boy dressed like Gilligan and there was an Elvis who collected his loot in a guitar case.

The worst costume of the first 40 minute segment was a boy dressed as a girl. I told him he was going to spend years in therapy.

I also saw the Asshole of the year. He was across the street walking with his son who was taking forever (the boy was three or so) and he actually raised his voice at the child to move it or they were going home. He probably would've been better off not trying to also walk his dog at the same time, but guys do like to kill two birds with one stone. I felt bad for the little boy. His dad should have pulled him in a wagon instead.

The second 40 minutes was lively.

My neighbors across the street had a set up of Scooby and the gang. There were holes in the setup for the kids to stick their faces through and parents were all snapping the photos of their kids over there.

The highlight of the night was a cute little girl as a lady bug. Her mom was so hot. Not model hot, just regular hot mom. Wow. If only she were in a Bat-Girl costume (inside joke.)

There was a little boy dressed as a monkey that also comes to mind. It was a great costume. I threw poo at him.

The "I-ain't-buying-it" costume of the night was a 11 or 12 year old boy dressed as a cowboy and he was using a pottery barn bag to collect the candy. Poor kid can't figure it out himself and I didn't want to out him in front of his friends.

At this point I called my mom. They had 12 kids total at the Florida house. My dad, who I called next, spent $40.00 in candy and had 1 kid at this point in Kentucky. I was up to 160 by this point. I may need to hire help next year. (My help from last year and I are no longer seeing each other.)

The last 30 minutes (I stopped at 7:50) was a blur as it got cold. A little boy in a stroller made for a cute tiger. A little girl was a frog. The frog tried to pick my daylily. I took my candy back from her. It was a pretty daylily after all.

The worst costume of the night came after the kids were off the street. A 14 year old boy (or thereabouts) dressed as a ballerina in something that would be too short and disturbing for porn. He had me howling with laughter though as he was walking away from his friends, offered them their "last chance to see it" and then flashed a nipple at them. A joke regarding sausage and pepperoni followed. I can't help it. It was funny and I am a guy. The costume though will haunt me forever. I think I need therapy after seeing it.

Considering the volume of kids I get every year, next year I will outsource Halloween to India.

Fireworks and Paranoia

Welcome to MBA 820

I recently graduated with an MBA from "The" Ohio State University. It was a very rewarding journey that started two years earlier and it was a very smooth journey until the last two weeks of school.

Part of the core curriculum for all MBA students is the MBA 820 class which is a Global Macroeconomic class that covers the political, economic, social and technological aspects of a global economy.

Professor Kistruck was an engaging presenter and he had an interesting project for us. He walked through a local Target and selected items off the shelf that anyone could buy nationwide and our project was to determine why the product was made in its country of origin. Some items selected included baby food, a rubber ducky, a scented candle and sparklers. (And if you have never heard a heavy Russian accent say the word "Rubber Ducky," find a Russian woman and ask her to say it.)

Sparklers sounded intriguing and I was sitting next to Neelima whom I worked with on a project the previous quarter for our Marketing class. She and I joined six other members of the team that selected the sparklers which carried a label "Made in Thailand."

So put your ear close to the phone - Part I

I contacted the manufacturer a couple of times and was unable to get ahold of anyone. We were doing our best to gather information from third party sources, but we had only come up with one item that we identified as why the sparklers could be made in Thailand and that was a duty imposed on sparklers, specifically Chinese sparklers, to prevent their dumping of the product in the US market.

During the summer course, the professor was gone for 4 weeks while other professors taught the class and it was while he was gone, I was successful in contacting the company. Other teams also had a lot of difficulty getting any information from the manufacturer as we did.

On July 24th I called and introduced myself to the operator that answered. The call lasted only 4 minutes according to my phone bill and I bet my cell phone company rounds up.

"Hi. My name is Bryon Jordan. I am a grad student at Ohio State and I am taking a class on Global Macroeconomics this quarter. We are doing a project assigned to us by our professor and our project is on your sparklers. Is there someone I can talk with regarding the manufacturing of your sparklers?"

The receptionist told me to hold on one moment and the phone started ringing again.

"Hello, this is Regina," answered a voice on the other end. (I changed her name in this story.)

"Hi Regina. My name is Bryon Jordan. I am a grad student at Ohio State and I am taking a class on Global Macroeconomics this quarter. We are doing a project assigned to us by our professor and our project is on your sparklers. Is there someone I can talk with regarding the manufacturing of your sparklers?"

I probably repeated word for word my same introduction that I used with the receptionist.

"Where are you from?" she asked.

"Ohio State."

"Where?"

"I am a graduate student in the MBA program at Ohio State."

"Where?"

"Fisher College at Ohio State. It's in Columbus, Ohio," I answered.

"Where?"

Seriously. She asked like six times and I started wondering if she was so far in BFE that she had perhaps never heard of the largest university in the nation. I again reiterated why I was calling explaining I was hoping to talk to someone about their product for a class project.

Finally I received a clue as to perhaps why she was stalling for time.

"I find it awfully suspicious that you are calling me from the state of Ohio and our largest competitor is also in Ohio."

"Really?" I responded. I had no idea. I also had never been accused of corporate espionage, but she was implying that this is what I was doing!!!

If I were trying to obtain corporate secrets regarding their company, wouldn't I pick the one state where their largest competitor did not operate? Seriously! How idiotic is this thought process by her?

I tried to think of how to prove to her I was a student, but I was realizing that she was not open to logic and thinking.

So I skipped telling her a 7th time where I was calling from and asked if there was someone I could talk to about their manufacture of sparklers.

She was clear in telling me that their supply chain consisted of proprietary information and I would not get any information regarding it.

I asked her if I could ask one more question and she did not say, "No," so I asked:

"We came across information that mentioned an anti-dumping duty for Chinese sparklers to prevent them from flooding the US market. Is this why you are getting their sparklers from Thailand?"

She shot back, "I don't like what you are implying!"

I'm sitting on my couch thinking, what am I implying? That you are smart business people to find a way to lower your cost because of a government imposed duty against one country.

I started to press again and realized it was futile, so I thanked her for her time and hung up.

Keep in mind, at any time, all this lady had to do was hang up the phone if she did not want to talk to me. I don't know why she didn't do that.

So put your ear close to the phone - Part II

I jumped online and looked up Ohio fireworks and came across Phantom Fireworks in Youngstown, Ohio. I gave them a call and the receptionist forwarded me to a voicemail of someone in Marketing. I knew this was not the number I wanted to talk to, but I left a message anyhow, hoping luck would come my way.

A little before 3:00 p.m., my phone rang. I answered it and it was a gentleman named William Weimer. He introduced himself as a VP and general counsel for the B.J. Alan Company who own Phantom Fireworks. I know I did not leave the message with him, so I could only assume they contacted the corporate attorney with a message asking about sparklers.

I introduced myself and explained I was a student at Ohio State and I had this project regarding sparklers.

"Why are you calling me?" he asked.

"I wanted to learn about sparklers from someone in the industry," I explained.

"We are finding stuff online, but I really was hoping to talk to an industry expert. I'll be honest, the product our professor gave us was not even your product. It was [competitor's name withheld]. When I called them, well, they thought I was working for you and trying to commit corpoate espionage."

He laughed.

"I know. I couldn't believe it either," I said.

After he had his chuckle he was wonderful in talking with me for almost 30 minutes about the industry and giving us a lot of direction for us to research. His explaining the political, economic and social changes in China and in the industry enabled us to draw our own conclusions and write our paper without ever talking about their competitor.

I thanked him for his help and emailed him a couple times during the quarter to update him as we wrote our paper.

The pretty lies that they tell

Professor Kistruck returned on August 10th to class. On August 13th, I received an email from him telling me he received a troubling email from the company we were given and he and I needed to have a meeting on Monday, August 17th, at 5:00 p.m.

I replied I would be there, but I asked what the email was about, but I figured it was regarding my four minute call. I explained to him in my email reply that I was very polite and professional when I called as I introduced myself as a student [and defacto representative] of Ohio State.

He did not answer what it was regarding.

I walked in on Monday with Amarendra, one of my teammates and we were later joined by Rakesh and Jay.

Regina wrote a complaint to Ohio State saying I was rude and hostile in communicating with her. I asked to read the letter and handed it back to the professor telling him, "She is full of shit."

I brought my phone bill with me to show the entire exchange was four minutes, I retold the story of what happened and how she reacted.

To the professor's credit, he believed me, but he wanted the whole thing to "go away."

"I'd like you to write an email apologizing ..."

"Not going to happen," I said cutting him off. "No way. I did nothing wrong. I do not owe her an apology."

This discussion went on for ten minutes.

"Let's get a recording of the call. She's an attorney." I thought it was a great idea on my part.

"How do you know that?" he asked.

"Because the attorney at Phantom Fireworks told me! She's being a bully and abusive with her power. I don't tolerate bullies! I won't put up with it!"

"But that escalates it and we want it to go away."

"But it vindicates me!" I argued. "If you hear it, you'll know I was not rude or hostile and her email is full of lies."

"But that escalates it and we want it to go away."

Eventually, we found a compromise where I would write an email explaining that there clearly was a misunderstanding and that it would reassure them that I did not have any proprietary information or intellectual property.

The professor felt Regina's biggest concern was that we obtained proprietary information or intellectual properties, which we did not. I also think the professor's ass might have been on the line because we did this under his direction.

According to the professor, in 82 previous projects, they had never had any company react this way.

"I think maybe next year you should not do sparklers," suggested Amarendra.

"Actually, I think you should," I countered. "See how the next group of students reacts to this."

That said, I don't think sparklers are going to be on the list next year of projects.

"Maybe we can send them a copy of our report so they know we don't have any intellectual properties," offered Rakesh.

Amarendra spoke up, "No. This is an MBA project. If they want our analysis, they can pay for it. There's 8 of us, so $40,000 sounds like a good sum."

Not only did this make all four of us MBA students snicker, but it made me realize how shrewd Amarendra was as well as being a great researcher and teammate.

There were several other students that talked me down during this event including a Colonel in the US army who was a classmate, a lawyer (also a classmate) suggesting the best I can do is write that state's Supreme Court, and my teammates who saw me as angry as I have ever been after the stunt the lawyer pulled with that email full of lies.

I wanted a pound of flesh from this woman. At one point, one of the teammates suggested we include photos of our sources and I was going to have the six year old across the street draw a picture of a witch holding a sparkler with a caption stating "Artist's rendition - photo not available." Yong talked me out of it.

And you realize you wanna let go

I was in the lab that Sunday with Shawn, a former teammate in another class, and Rick, a current teammate in a different class. Rick and I were both working on our individual projects for the Stock Market class. They were both aware of the story and Shawn had a few moments to kill as he jumped online behind me.

Suddenly Shawn speaks up. "Is her name Regina Thompson?"

"Yes, I said."

"General Counsel?"

"Yes," I said feeling nervous.

"Is her grandmother named Mabel?"

"Dude! You're gonna get me in trouble!"

We had a brief 20 minute presentation in class two weeks later where I briefly mentioned my being accused of corporate espionage. Before we presented, the professor mentioned he had not heard anything regarding the email I had to write, so it was closed. I finally calmed down by then.

Everything turned out OK and I graduated on 8/30.

I also plan on only buying fireworks from Phantom Fireworks going forward because they were so helpful in understanding the industry.

Hello World

Way back in August, I had a cookout in my backyard with family and friends the day before I graduated from The Ohio State University with my MBA. I have no idea why it is called "The" Ohio State University. That must have been covered in the orientation I missed.

It had been about four years since my last cookout and Linda raised the point that she thought I should be a writer because of the many, many emails I had sent over the years telling stories about nieces and nephews, Springsteen tour experiences and generally weird stories that I seem to encounter.

It echoed what a former friend of mine (Kelli) had once said to me numerous times as well.

I honestly have never felt I was very creative with my writing and it is a labor for me to sit down and type things out sometimes. I have always felt I was a much better as an oral story teller than a story writer.

Having recently graduated, I am looking for a job in the worst economy since the Great Depression, selling a house, moving out of state and have a little more time on my hands than I thought I would, so I made the time to create a blog and write.

My sole goal is that this not become a narcissistic piece of crap and allow me an outlet to tell my stories outside of emails. Hopefully, I'll have enough stories that I can post at least once a week otherwise I may dig into some of the old emails I have to retell some stories as filler.