Happiness

To me, achieving and living in happiness is winning.  Winning arguments does not bring me true happiness.  #Tryharder to seek happiness.

Band of Brothers

It’s been a minute since I’ve written about dead people. That may be of some relief to a few of my regular blog readers, but others pull some interesting takeaway from these types of chapters.   When we published my first book, Pull the Trigger, I gained an unexpected audience that propelled the book to become an Amazon Best Seller.  I wrote much of that book right after my brother Michael had passed away, so my feelings were pretty raw and I cried my eyes out while writing it. I was dealing with the grieving process and sharing my words became cathartic. Had I not put my feelings into words on paper (or in this case digital form), I probably […]

Personalized copy of #Tryharder

Many people have asked if I would sign their book, but they live too far away or it’s just difficult to make it happen.  For a $50 donation to the Phoebe Fund, I will send a personalized copy of #Tryharder to you or whomever you like.  As you know, I don’t make a dollar off of the books I write, as every cent goes into a college/future fund for my niece (the daughter of my brother, who passed away a few years ago). Just click the button and I will personally process your request!   Who is this book for?

I get by with a little help from my friends…

A few months ago I was going though a rough patch. Nothing like a midlife crisis or anything, but more like a drain of emotions and energy. A bump in the road, more or less. (Perhaps it might be the male equivalent to “my time of the month”, because I just read online that this was a “thing”). I didn’t really know it at the time, but I was in need of some guidance. Someone to connect the dots a bit and get me from point A (the slump I was in) to point B (the other side).   The words that I needed to hear came in the form of a 90 minute phone call from a very good […]

This One Time, At Band camp…

I showed up for college more than a week before the rest of the school was required to check in. Not because I wanted to get a good head start on my college education, but because I was in the marching band.  Now before you start making all the band geek jokes or tease me about “this one time, at band camp”, I would like to point out that I passed on two opportunities to play Junior College baseball in order to go to a four year school closer to home. Playing the trombone was something that I was good enough at, that it allowed me an opportunity to pay a little less to go to school. That, and yes, […]

It Builds Character

Anything and everything that “built character” my siblings and I convinced ourselves that it was something we needed to do. My parents would use this phrase often to get us to do chores or tasks that were not always the most fun. Adding the phrase “it builds character” to tasks is the equivalent to saying “do this and you’ll get a surprise” or in our case “do this and mom and dad won’t beat you”.  Let me be clear. We thought it was all bullshit, but we still did it. We just needed to feel like we were getting something out of the chore. Kind of like when the car dealership gives you free oil changes for 2 years. “You […]

In my first 40 years

40. I have been dreading this number for years. No real reason why, just the thought of the number makes me wince a bit. When I was young, this was a number that you associated with the people you would consider to be old. This was the age that people started to become “out of touch”. This was the number that you would tether to the phrase “midlife crisis”.  This is the age my brother was when he died.  With age comes wisdom or at least a perception of some sort of earned knowledge. At this age you should have at least leaned something that you could pass along to the next generation. This is the age you start to […]

One punch. Just one punch.

Sometimes all you have to do is be remarkable one time. Buster Douglass knocked out Mike Tyson in February of 1990. He became the first person to ever do this and it changed the world’s perception of “Iron” Mike Tyson.  Tyson’s previously untarnished 37-0 record came to an end. He became mortal in the eyes of the public and it really was a turning point in his fighting career. Buster, on the other hand, is merely a Jeopardy question these days as he never went on to becoming a great champion. He was remarkable once. He had an amazing punch, once. Songwriters and musicians are often remarkable once. You write or sing one hit record and you can live off […]

Tall Tales from a College Dorm Room

I had a roommate in college that could tell one hell of a story. He had this unique ability where he could tell you the same story three times, change the ending each time and you believed (or at least wanted to believe) that each version was true. It truly was a remarkable talent. We sat through the bullshit of the story just to see where he was going to take us in the end; knowing we had just heard this same story 3 days ago. You wanted to believe it because he did such a great job of providing the visuals for the storyline.  He spoke in a matter of fact way, his punchlines were tight and the endings […]

My Wonder Years.

Today I was driving in South Austin and I stopped at a light. Suddenly, as I looked around, I realized that my surroundings were very familiar. The names of the businesses and the color of the buildings had changed, but the memories came rushing at me like a locomotive. I was in my old neighborhood. The light turned green and instead of listening to Siri, telling me to turn left, I turned right. Although I had never driven the streets, I knew them well. The Safeway that is now a Sprouts.  The BBQ place that was now a Mexican restaurant. The neighborhood that was huge in the eyes of an 8 year old kid was now just a couple of […]