Being Sick & Needing Whiskey

Roughly 20 years ago (okay, almost exactly 20 years ago), I studied in Ireland for a semester. While I was there, I caught exactly one cold. I was getting sick and was supposed to go to the Abbey for a show and I was worried I would miss it. My host mother took motherly concern and told me to go to closest pub to the Abbey and get an Irish coffee or hot toddy. So I did and it magically worked and I saw the play and managed to make it through the rest of the semester with no consumption, tuberculosis or bronchitis.

What is curious is this. 20 years went by. And I never thought to try it again. Until Monday night when I thought there simply must be some way to fix this incoming cold. I was taking Airborne. WHY? When I could be drinking hot whiskey? I should have been seeking the booze, not seeking some fake way to heal.

Like whiskey on a zit, it can't fail, right? But it did fail. It was tasty but it didn't kill off the cold.

In other news, I just need to say that I once had pertussis. ChowderDad seems to have entirely blanked this out. But I did. I had it when we lived in Tucson. CubicleGirl and I thought it was teh consumption but it was just teh pertussis.

I get sick a lot. Like, more than regular people, I think. Or maybe I succumb to the woe that comes with sickness. Or maybe I am just more vocal and annoyingly dramatic about my near-death experiences with coughs and colds. It's possible anyway.

I Like It On The...

Truth be told, I like it if it is impactful and raises money. Wait. That came out wrong.

I have a problem. And I know it isn't going to be popular since I know it is easily misinterpreted and I know my rants can sound attacking of specific people. It's not intended to be. But my problem isn't with individuals. It is with the entire construct.

1. The bra meme of February 2010 was about our breasts. This one? Not so much the "I Like It" campaign, except in as much as our breasts are sexualized. But this coy tee-hee thing seems to dilute the seriousness of cancers (breast and otherwise).
2. It does not connect to ACTION. Not "TEXT HAITI TO WYCLEF TO HELP" and not "I did a self-exam today, you should too". So awareness. Great. Now what? 
3. Breast cancer as being the domain of women is particularly irksome to me. When a man gets prostate cancer, it impacts the women in his life. Likewise breast cancer. So why hide it from men?
4. It doesn't spread awareness of broader issues about women's health or even about little known issues with breast cancer and health.

It's important to focus on women's health and on breast cancer. Absolutely. But if "they" want to raise awareness, why not raise ACTION alongside?

Now. Go get your mammograms. Or ask your wife if she's made hers.

Randy Moss & (my) ADHD

I really like logical thinking. I need decisions to be overt. It really helps me with my own process. If someone is honest and things seem logical and straightforward, my brain doesn't have to go into 20 directions trying to figure out WTF was happening.

In the case of personal relationships, I hate having to guess at what is happening. If you have a problem with me, tell me. I can apologize or not, make it up to you or not, or whatever. But the sort of background drama of "she should figure out why I am mad at her" is just stuff I don't do well. And as I age, I don't do it at all.

At work, I struggle with the seemingly ridiculous. Which made corporate America a challenge because you don't get to know why everything is happening. Why did they just cut the sports marketing budget and increase the WWE? I don't actually need to know that to do my job - but when I don't get something like that, I get curious. I want to know why. I think there must be a reason. Is it financial? Do we have predictions that WWE will be a larger profit center? Is the NBA package going to increase in price and we assume it will drop subscriptions? Is it inside information that the NHL will go on strike and essentially ruin the league? Who knows? But I often struggled with these things because I just could not let it go. It would play out in my head over and over.

It's just part of who I am - and some of it I have realized has to do with knowing that thinking in theory will take up huge amounts of time and become a distraction. I used to LOVE it  - in college, when I had a 4 year bubble, it was great to spend 4 hours thinking about whether or not Grant Holly's fascination with Freud and sexuality made his analysis of my dreams totally irrelevant - or fascinating. But now I don't really have time for it.

So you can imagine the shitstorm Bill Belichick caused in my brain today. Because it doesn't even start to make sense.

You've got Randy Moss:

“Just everyday work. I don’t know. I really don’t have anything to say. It was just making a play.”

And you trade him for a third-round draft choice.

"I’m just saying that I’ve seen him do that a number of times where he’s running full stride and the ball is out in front of him and he reaches out with one hand and grabs it, The first time it happened, it was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ Then you see it again. I’m not saying it’s a routine play, I don’t mean it that way. I’m just talking about those of us who are in practice and watch Randy. I’ve seen him make that play a number of times.“

For the potential for a great player...

"Honestly, I'm not entirely sure what the fuck I was thinking either."
- Imaginary Belichick quote

I have come up with the only logical explanation. Belichick knows something we don't know. Something the Vikings don't know. Something even Randy Moss doesn't know. Like that Dr. Gill secretly implanted a small device in Moss' knee that is set to go off in a few months.

OR, maybe Belichick has some secret spy play up his sleeve. Maybe he's become Facebook friends with Jeff Gillooly and they've got it all under control.

But it is all illogical. So I seek answers - and until I get some semi-logical thing happening, I'll spend the next few days spinning over this nonsensical decision.

I've got a call in to Bill. I except he will get back to me by EOD.

Sports Authority Launched

Whew! Well, that was fun!

I've been away a bit lately - this week has been a big struggle with work-life and trying to do the right thing. I do believe I came out victorious but it wasn't easy.

We launched a competition this morning called "Move It Challenge" and it's an all new platform for us. So from a sheer technical perspective, it was a big project. And I kind of spaced out on the whole "beta testing" and "pre-launch freakout" phases of production. And managed to schedule soccer, Brownies, and a paella class for the 36 hours pre-launch.

But it all worked out. ChowderDad is changing jobs so he felt free to leave his office on Wednesday and take the boy to soccer so I could stay at work and pull everyone off the ledges. And thankfully, there was some wind and possible rain in town so the schools let the kids out early. Not much of a blessing but it did mean we couldn't do Brownies. So the kids went next door and I was able to do more beta testing.

So we launched. And I was able to get the Brownie registrations in and the kids ate meals and aren't totally filthy and all of that great stuff.

I would strongly encourage my friends to get their kids to enter. The top 15 fly to Denver for presenting their ideas to Sports Authority. Then the top 5 of those fly back to a live winner announcement at a big sports venue TBD (but let's just be clear, it is in the spring, in Denver). And the grand prize winner gets $10,000.

Sports Authority Move It Challenge is running through January 3 and the site has activities for kids and families and educators.