The Slow Fat Triathlete

One of the fun parts of this job is getting to know some of the speakers out there. Jayne Williams wrote the book 'The Slow Fat Triathlete', which actually was a big help for me in getting ready for my first triathlon. I took the point home that you really don't have to care what you look like in sports clothes. My 'Clydesdale' days are hopefully gone forever (Clydesdale is a category guys over 200 lbs can enter), but I think everyone can have those worries about their appearance. Its also great that she challenges people to do things they haven't done, or think they couldn't ever do. She's as funny on the phone as she is in her book and speaking, and is just motivating from what she's personally accomplished and overcome.

The Forgotten Birthday

So my dad calls me up a few weeks ago, and asks if the weeked of the 17th is a good time to come down. I called up my wife to check the family schedule, and she asked, 'Why would he want to come down that weekend? Brooklyn's birthday is the weekend after that.' 'Um...that weekend is my birthday,' I replied. 'Oh, yeah,' she said.

My babe, Terry Bowden

So I 'm sitting here responding to an email from a client when my phone rings. I saw it was my wife's number on caller ID, so I clicked the button on my headset and said, 'Hey, Babe.' My wife is from California, and insisted on 'babe' being our preferred term of endearment when we were dating. I really didn't want to, but she's gorgeous , so I've made it work. After uttering 'Hey, Babe', this man's voice answers back, 'Uh, I'm calling for Brian Lord. This is Terry Bowden.' I looked down in shock to see that my wife's line was still blinking as 'ringing', and that Terry must have called in just as I was clicking my headset. I gave a little laugh, explained the situation, and got a good laugh in return. Away from the phone I hear, 'A guy just called me 'babe'. Then back to me, 'I'm sitting here with my wife, I just had to tell her that.' I'm sure all those Alabama fans out there are saying I deserve to feel silly, what with working with a former Auburn Tiger head coach turned college football analyst and all. Luckily he's a nice guy, and was nice enough to get back with me on some event questions while his assistant was out sick. My wife got a good laugh when I told her, too.

Carlson's Raider and the Cheesecake Factory

Last Saturday, my wife and I were able to get one of her sisters to babysit our two girls so we could go out on a date. It wasn’t at night and there was no movie to see, but any alone time is great to have. We’d finished eating at the Cheesecake Factory, and as we were walking out, we passed a table with a very elderly gentleman in a wheelchair and his wife. I saw that he had a red US Marines hat on. This little voice inside me told me told me I needed to go and say hello to him and thank him for what he did for us. But I didn’t.

We walked out into the mall, and my wife headed out to her usual spot checking out home décor and I went to my usual spot which is the history section of the nearest bookstore. I couldn’t really enjoy myself, because I knew I should have talked to him. We met back up, went to a window shop at a couple more stores, and then walked out to the parking lot. I started to pull out, but parked back in.

“Do you remember that guy with the Marines hat in there?” I asked my wife. “I should have talked to him. I bet he’s a World War II vet. I going back to see if he’s still eating.” My wife said she thought I should, too. She’s cool like that.

Luckily we were parked just outside the restaurant, and he and his wife were still eating. I came up beside him and said, “Hello, sir, I noticed your hat, and I wanted to thank you for what you did for our country.”

“Oh,” he said with scratchy voice, “You’re welcome.”

I wasn’t sure what to say next, so I asked, “So where did you serve?”

“I fought in the Pacific against the Japanese,” he replied.

“Which island?” I asked.

“A lot of them,” he replied with his scratchy voice.

“All over the place,” his wife chimed in, sweeping her arm in a big circle to emphasize the point.

“I was part of Colonel Carlson’s Raiders,” he said with pride.

“Wow!” I replied. I had no idea who Colonel Carlson was, or what his Raiders did, but I wasn’t about to let him know. Luckily he continued.

“We were a suicide squad. We were worst than terrorists. We’d go into an island, to clear the way for the Marines. Then they’d clear the way for the Navy. Then they’d clear the way for the Army.” He paused. “127 of us left the base, but only 38 came back.”

I didn’t know quite what to say, so I stuck out my hand and said, “Thank you again sir for what you did for us.”

He grasped my hand with his own thin hand, but still he still gave a firm shake and a smile. “You’re welcome.”

I went back to the car and relayed the story to my wife. Almost at tears, she said, “I can’t believe only 38 came back. I don’t know how they could do that.”

And to me, its amazing. We drove off from in our nice car, from an upscale mall and a restaurant, knowing that we didn’t have to think about living or dying or fighting to be free that day. We could because men and women gave their lives in 1776, 1942, or even July 3, 2008, to protect our freedom.

Post script: As soon as I got home, I looked up Col. Carlson’s Raiders. Sure enough, they did exactly what he said they did. Col. Carlson even was the guy responsible for bringing the Chinese phrase for ‘work together’, gung ho, into the American vernacular. I’m hoping to find the movie ‘Gung Ho!’, starring Robert Mitchum, which was inspired by Col. Carlson and his Raiders. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evans_F._Carlson)

My Favorite Horror Movie

As I’ve gotten older and started a family, I’ve realized there is a horror film out there that has existed all along, but has just now become apparent to me, and it is the ‘Friday the 13^th’ of its kind. I’m speaking, of course, of the movie ‘Father of the Bride’. It’s a cute movie I’ve seen before, usually in 3 minute segments. You can watch a baseball game on another channel and flip to it in the commercials to see Steve Martin do something uncomfortable. The blue tuxedo scene is classic, as is his interaction with Franc, aka Martin Short. But now that I have two little girls, one approaching three, the other one and a half, that I see it in its true spectral light. It forces me to realize that someday, hopefully in the late 2040’s, that I’ll have to give these two little feisty, pudgy-cheeked little girls away. This scares me to death. I’m writing this down so I have it on record for the future, but I do get to spend a lot of time with my girls. I’ve taught Sydney to growl, and Brooklyn to count to 10 in Spanish. They both crawl all over me and beat me up on a regular basis. They both go crazy and run to the door when I come home from work (although Sydney hasn’t learned to hug yet so she either barrels into me or runs up to me then runs away.) But I’m sure when they go off to college or get married or whatever, I’ll still wonder if I didn’t spend enough time with them or read to them or just give them enough hugs. As much as this hits me now, I’m sure I’ll be an overwhelmed, quivering mass of humanity as Brooklyn and Sydney try to hold me up during the Father – Daughter dance at their weddings. I’d completely missed all this father-daughter stuff the first time I was ‘Father of the Bride’, and now its all I seem to see.

Side note: The leading song of this genre is ‘Butterfly Kisses’. It’s more effective than a stun gun in putting fathers out of commission for up to several minutes.

Going Green Early

What is less expensive than taking your one year old to Chuck E Cheese to play in the ball pit? Let her climb into the recycling bin in your kitchen pantry. Syd absolutely loves playing in the bottles. Its a huge mess, but she's so cute, we can't help but let her do it.

Premiere has gone green as well. We now have 'green' eContracts. Rather than a lot of printing, signing and faxing, you can now sign offers electronically. Add that in with thousands of contracts annually, and you save a lot of paper (not to mention time and money). Not too bad!

BRIAN SOLVES THE WORLD CUP OFFICIATING PROBLEMS

7/6/06 BRIAN SOLVES THE WORLD CUP OFFICIATING PROBLEMS

I'd never really watched much soccer before this World Cup, it's actually very entertaining. I know many of you may not have much of a background in soccer,

or 'futbol', as its called, so I thought I'd put together this brief tutorial for you. In the World Cup, each country gets together its very best, highly-talented and skilled male models to play against another country's male models. It doesn't matter the country- Portugal, Ghana, Brazil, England- they all come straight out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. David Beckham is the rule, not the exception. It's a little know fact here in the States, but the entrance to the field from the locker rooms is actually a catwalk, which the players traverse after watching Zoolander to get pumped up for the match.

It's very important to be good-looking, because the most important skill- more important even than running, kicking, or even breathing- is getting sympathy from the refs. I've not yet seen a World Cup match that wasn't in some part decided by the officials making a bad call. What happens is, a player from team A runs within 10 to 15 feet of a player from team B, trips on thin air, then writhes in pain and desperate agony on the ground with his hands covering his face. ("Oh, no, we can't see the pretty man's face!" yells the crowd.) The referee then crosses the field to where the player from team B is standing, and holds up either a yellow card or a red card, depending on how wide the grimace is of the player from team A. The player from team A was inevitably 'attacked' near his opponent's goal, so he gets a free kick from within 3 feet of the helpless goalie. It's amazing how the game works. But its not really the players' faults. They have to act this way, because if they don't, the other team will, and they'll end up getting blown out by devastatingly one-sided scores like 2-0. However, I do have a solution to this problem, and I'm going to send it on to soccer's governing body of FIFA (complete name: FI-FA-FO-FUM). Instead of just having yellow and red cards, the refs can also have a blue, water colored "cry-me-a-river" card. After a player flops, the ref can run up to him, shove the blue card in his face, and tell him in his language of choice to stop being a cry-baby. After a player receives 3 blue cards, he is forced to grow a pencil-thin mustache, which will invariably make him less good-looking (except in France), therefore limiting his ability to get endorsement deals from Adidas.

I'm actually going to wear my France shirt on Friday, just to upset another agent in our office, Taylor, who is very much against the French team. Why? He went to Auburn, and since they pretty much haven't won anything in forever, he's pretty much anti-everyone else. Maybe he thinks France is the Crimson Tide of Europe. Anyway, the World Cup Final on Sunday is pretty much a win-win for me. My wife and I went to Paris for our anniversary, and I speak a little French, so I'm happy if they win. My wife is Italian, so we're also very happy if they win. The other cool fact is they if Italy wins, there's a silver lining for the US team. The only team that has played Italy and didn't lose to them, is the US. So we got that going for us, which is nice.