The true story of Darth Vader on a motorcycle...

This is a true story. I always wanted a birthday party. Since I was a little kid I wanted a bunch of kids to come over and celebrate my birthday. However, my parents were young and didn't have a lot of friends with kids my age. So the first birthday party ever thrown in our house was for my brother, for his sixth birthday. We lived in a two bedroom house in Portland, near Mt. Tabor. It had a basement that my brother and I were scared to death of, and a cool backyard with several fruit trees (and a sinkhole!).

When the kids started showing up, my brother and I were really excited. Most of the kids there were from our church, but there was probably 10 kids or so. My brother got to open a few of his presents, including the coolest green big wheel I have ever seen. I was seriously jealous. Now all of this time my brother and I are really excited, running around and playing with other kids. There are a few parents there, but neither of us had really noticed that my dad was nowhere to be found.

My dad worked construction. He was pretty smart, but young and from what I hear, fairly wild. He would get off work at around 3pm or so, hit the bar and have a few suds with his work buddies, then come home. Now I'm not sure that he stuck to his routine on this day, but based on the way that things turned out, it wouldn't surprise me if he did.

My family was really into Star Wars. It was the only movie I had ever seen on a movie screen. We went to see it in the drive in three times (my dad liked the drive in so he could smoke). As a result, my brother and I were always playing Star Wars. We were always using the force to fight our nemesis Darth Vader. So when Darth Vader walked into my brother's birthday party, it started a six-year old panic the likes of which had never been seen. We were crawling over each other trying to escape, and Darth Vader was calling for my brother, who was frantic at this point. About 15 more seconds elapsed before my dad was forced to take off the mask to calm the rest of the kids at the party. Kev and I were lucky they were there, if it had been just us, we would have been tormented much longer.

Once we figured it out, it was fun and the kids took turns wearing the mask until my mom served ice cream and cake for the party. Afterwards (and maybe a few more beers later), my dad put the mask back on and hopped onto his Husqvarna dirt bike. My dad used to race dirt bikes among many other racing related hobbies. He sped off out of our driveway and down the street, Darth Vader on a motorcycle.

My mom started to get worried when he didn't come back. At first she thought he was just screwing around, but when it got dark she knew something was wrong. Eventually my dad came through the door, still wearing the Darth Vader outfit, except the suit was torn, and the cape was ripped to shreds. As it turns out, the scene in the Incredibles where the lady talks about capes is dead on. His cape got caught in his chain about a mile down the road. It yanked him back and he blew through someones fence and into their yard. He crashed into their garden and the bike sat there and spat blue smoke as my dad tried to undo the cape wrapped around his neck. The way my dad tells it, the guy was laughing so hard that he could barely talk, and by the time my dad got the helmet off to apologize with a normal voice, the guy had already grabbed his wife and she was laughing too.

This is what is was like growing up in my house. Maybe sometime I'll tell you the story of the time I crashed a motorcycle in the dining room of our house...no worries now though. For some reason, my wife won't let me have a bike.

Be Excellent to each other!!!

Moving again...change is good.

As I prepare for yet another move the tedious task of painting over the walls in our current place has given me some time to think about my path in life. As a side note, I'm painting over a very overwhelming and potentially psychologically damaging pink that my daughter had to have when we moved in. I am working very hard to keep her from choosing the same color for her new room (I'll most likely lose this one).

Since I left Vancouver in 2002, my family has moved 5 times, this will be move #6. The amount we have moved around has always caused some tension, mostly as it relates to our kids. As a parent, guilt is part of the job. No matter how hard you try, you can't be perfect all the time and when you snap, get angry, or just can't take it, it always comes back to an image of the guy in the bell tower "my parents did this to me!!!!". So I have always been concerned that the frequency of our moving would leave my daughter socially challenged or insecure (for the record, she seems to adapt quite nicely, which I think is testament to the strength of kids).

When I moved to Huntington Beach to join a rock band (a blog for another time), needless to say there was a lot of uncertainty as to how things were going to play out here. The band had real connections and interest from record labels (which scared the hell out of my wife) so we didn't want to commit to anything financially (including housing). The one thing we really did want to do was to get a solid foundation for our kids. After three years and one dead band later, I found that foundation in my work here and within the community (not to mention the legendary poker parties I have been throwing for the past two years). Our new place has plenty of room and amenities, and is in a great neighborhood near my kids school. Its been clear to me that our choice is a good one as my kids have been freaking out with excitement every since we signed the lease.

Speaking of the lease, its not cheap.. While the economy here in Orange County is still strong, and my job is a good one, the cost of living here is a real fight. When I was in Vancouver, we had a nice house we owned, and a nothing mortgage. If I still owned it today, it would be worth double what I bought it for. However, as soon as my pay increased, I was transferred to Seattle which was more expensive. By the time my pay caught up with the lifestyle I had in Portland, I moved from Seattle to Orange County. On paper, things look good, but as far as my lifestyle is concerned, I'm still in the place I was 6 years ago. The average 4 bedroom home in my neighborhood runs between $800K and $1 million, and I'm not even close to being in the expensive part of town. Guess who's renting????

Moral of the story above is that the short term economic impacts of my moving has resulted in setbacks in lifestyle and finances that I would not have encountered in Vancouver. I left my family, friends, my band (which I really loved), and coworkers in an area that I called home for most of my life to set out to build a career with two goals. Create opportunities for my wife and I to travel and see the world later in life and to provide my kids the best education possible to ensure that they have the ability to make good decisions when they grow up. To that regard, the moving has been positive. The amount of moving we have done has really forced us to be a family. We all look inward to each other when there is a problem, and I feel blessed that the relationship my wife and I have with our kids is open and fair (even if it is a complete dictatorship). The kids consider HB their home and are turning into real Californians (i.e. people who have no idea what real rain is).

With regards to the financial rewards of the moving, they are what we call in the accounting business "intrinsic". Which means that while the value is there, it has yet to be realized. My moving has helped me in ways I didn't contemplate as I went through it. Mostly, networking and working with different styles of successful people. The path I took without the benefit of my friends, family or social network forced me to learn to develop strong relationships quickly, to learn what my weaknesses are and to build safeguards around me to ensure I'm not my worst enemy (still my biggest challenge). But most of all, its taught me that its good to push the envelope of comfort, and to not get too settled in. The uncertainty of change can be disconcerting, but in life, the only thing certain is change. So...the more you get used to that, the better prepared you will be to look on the bright side of change and not dwell on the challenges and frustrations that any change brings. To that regard, we should all train ourselves to prepare for and deal with change. I believe that our ability to handle change is one of the hallmarks that over time will shape who we are and how others see us.

On a side note, I am renting a U-haul next week, and I haven't had great luck with them. My civic still bears the scars on the back left rear fender when I creamed it with the last U-haul I rented. I backed into it without even knowing I did it. My brother was watching and was yelling at me, he still brings that up. My current rental also has some peculiar orange scars above the garage door where a U-Haul may have ran into the house...I guess I was never meant to drive big rigs.

Be excellent to each other!!!!

Attitude is everything...

Yo! Attitude is everything. EVERYTHING!!!! Your approach to life, to relationships, to any task you want, to making goals, making decisions, and most of all dealing with life's BS.



I had a job interview once coming out of college and the interviewer asked me to describe the last time I failed at something and how I reacted to it. After pondering the question for a moment, I replied, "I have never failed at anything in my life." Point Blank. I was serious in my response and meant what I said. I didn't get the job, and though I did end up getting an offer from the same Company (a different office) a few weeks later, I thought a lot about the interview and ultimately concluded that my answer to his question probably had a lot to do with his decision to not hire me.



So...after realizing that my comment probably seemed arrogant and unrealistic to my interviewer, I have spent a lot of time over the years trying to think of how I would respond now that I have more seasoning and have spent years on the other side of the table interviewing candidates. In the end, I love my answer, I think it defines who I am, and it all comes down to attitude. You see, I define failure as not learning from my mistakes. I define failure as a conscious decision to continue down a path that has been shown to be ineffective.



I believe that greatness only comes with the willingness to be aggressive and make mistakes. Not only that, its the mistakes that make you better. The key is, you only make the same mistake once- that is greatness, learning before you get killed by the same mistake again. If you look at the greatest people of our time (maybe outside of Jesus Christ), all of them have a past of mistakes and screw ups that ultimately began to define who they were. If you read about Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, the great Roman leaders, the renaissance greats like Michelangelo, DaVinci, all of them had times in their lives where the path they were destined to take was shaped by a dedication to being great. The greatness came not only from talent (which we all have at some level), but from reacting to setbacks as learning experiences, as opposed to treating them as failures. Bankruptcy, poor family relations, troubles with women, plagued these great people.



After working in the world of big finance, big money and working with the largest companies on deals that bring money, and as a result, huge pressure to the table, in the end, the best brains and talent set themselves apart from the rest of the pack in their attitude. No obstacle is insurmountable, no challenge too great. No problem is so difficult that they can't overcome it. In the end it comes down to attitude.



As a leader, your attitude and tone sets the stage. Period. If your leader is a stressball, the team is stressed. If your leader is lackadaisical, your team will follow. If your leader is thoughtful, dedicated and competent, your team will work hard to be the same. Being a leader is just as much about emotional intelligence as it is about educational intelligence. You may be smart, you may think your good at what you do, but if you don't inspire those below you to strive for better, you are a failure. That being said, if you care about those you lead, you will never fall into that trap. In the end, I think emotional intelligence is as if not more important than physical intelligence.



However, all of it comes back to attitude. I have read about past leaders and one in particular caught my eye when I was in eighth grade. I remember this as clear as I remember filling my second cup of coffee this morning. This man's legacy has inspired me to not dwell on setbacks and mistakes, but to instead learn from them so that I do not fail and make the same mistakes again. In fact, I just opened the same book I read in eighth grade and there is a bookmark from my high school days on the exact page. Here is what is says about him.


This man was defeated in just about everything he did.

He failed in business in 1831

He was defeated for the legislature in 1832

He failed in business again in 1833

He won a seat in the legislature in 1834

His sweetheart died in 1835

He had a nervous breakdown in 1836

He was defeated for speaker in 1838

He was defeated for land officer in 1843

He was defeated for Congress in 1843

He was elected to Congress in 1846

He was defeated for reelection in 1848

He was defeated for Senate in 1855

He was defeated for Vice President in 1856

He was defeated for Senate in 1858

He was elected President in 1860

His name was Abe Lincoln. And he defined failure the same way I do.



BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER!!!

Wanna Ride?

I didn't buy a house when I moved to Orange County three years ago. With all the mortgage products out there at the time, I could have bought something crazy- no interest! no down payment! Get your dream home! Instant equity! Can't Lose! No worries!

I don't want to sound like I could see the crisis our economy is in today back then, but I didn't feel comfortable committing myself to huge cash payments for a house that I might not be able to afford if things went south. As the market started to slip, the amount of debt the average consumer has taken on began to appear, and its been staggering to see.

At one point I was considering getting into the market and a friend with expertise in structured finance sent me the following video. If you watch it, what is happening in the markets today makes a lot of sense. Sometimes a visual is all you need to help understand a problem. Now...imagine that everyone on the coaster bought a house, and most of them bought on the way up the track here towards the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUldGc06S3U

As an FYI, I do plan to buy a place in a year or two, I just keep waiting for the coaster to hit the bottom...and it isn't even close yet. Regardless, you can't let money get you down, its just money and it comes and goes. Your life, health and family are what is important. If you keep that in perspective, the worst of money situations are just that, just money situations. Good thing we live in the US, in the old days they tossed you in prison for not paying your bills. Today, they toss the idiot that loaned you the money in prison...gotta love our government!

Be excellent to each other!

Start your engines...or at least your plan

I have a bucket list. I figured it would be good to have a list so I could try to plan trips, etc. to accomplish my list (most of which relates to travel). With today's technology its going to be more and more fun documenting these exploits. I took the above picture in Boston, its in a place near the Revere Mall. I like the picture so I figured I would post it.

At some point I'll post my entire bucket list and maybe even my plan to tackle it. For now, here are some things I have done that I would put on my list of interesting stuff.


85.Run in the world’s longest relay race (Mt. Hood to Seaside)
86.Play a rock show in Hollywood (the Key Club!)
87.Run the lights at the Viper room in Hollywood
88.Attend a Hollywood party with celebrities (Paris Hilton et al.)
89.Become an ordained minister and officiate a wedding
90.Play trumpet with Doc Severinsen
91.Raft the Deschutes
92.Attend the US Open and watched Tiger Woods fist pump during a victory
93.Hit the blues bars in Chicago
94.See a baseball game at Wrigley field
95.Go deep sea fishing and catch a big one!
96.Operate a nuclear reactor
97.See a baseball game in Dodgers Stadium right behind the dugout
98.Write and produce a rock album
99.Lead 78,000 people in a cheer (go Huskies!!!!)
100.Marry the love of my life

What is on your bucket list? Think about it for a while...

BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER!!!