Superman has Leukemia

I just recently found out that my father has Leukemia.  What is Leukemia?  For him it has to do with a low white cell count and how there is not enough white cells to combat red cells etc.  Bottom line he has cancer and has less than a year to live.  How is that possible? My dad is superman; he is the model I use to determine how I conduct myself in my daily life.

He has survived going to internment camp during WWII, a 5 artery bypass at the age of 52, 36 years of smoking "Kent" cigarettes, a Stent put in about 9 years ago and a heart value replacement surgery last July.  So why am I surprised that he has less than a year to live?   I guess because I am not finished learning from him.

I flew into town Friday morning and was dropped off at the hospital by my sister to see my dad.  My mom and sisters were making various arrangements for post hospital care and/or working so it was just my father and myself.  Our relationship has never been one where we sit around and talk about everything under the sun.  He is a man of few words, you just have to make sure you pickup the meanings.  I remember when we had the "talk" about the facts of life.  It was short and I remember being uncomfortable and he says to me "are we good".  I said yes being relieved that then I could go learn the street version from kids who have no idea what they are talking about.  Truth be told we didn't have to get into much detail on that topic.  My parents raised me a particular way and I think if done right then generally better judgements are made.  You can't go instructing your kids on every situation anyway.

So it was just my dad and me for 3 hours.  Generally it's a fair amount of silence, then some conversation about baseball (he's a Yankee fan and I am a Dodger fan) and then he makes sure that I have a job (because he doesn't me to be a drag on society).

This time it was different.  And this is how we both realize that the end is near.  The conversation ranged from how I almost got kicked out of grammer school, to how I was able to break two windows of the house on consecutive days to how the country is going to hell.

At times he was hard to understand.  Time has taken a toll on him.  He was a solid 190 lbs when he was younger.  Now he is 145 lbs with sores all over.  He asked me at one point..."So how do you keep getting jobs when there are so many people out of work?".  He then said "well you must be leaving a good footprint".  That phrase was probably the best compliment I have ever received.  That could have meant dozens of things.  I believe it meant that I lived my life the way he always taught me.

The things that I do just like my father:

Composure - I never lose my composure.  That's been interpreted as "unemotional".  It's just how I was taught as the leader of the family to be the one who's strong in a time of crisis.

Being Humble - I am always to first to deflect credit and allows others to take credit.  I just don't need the accolades.  Its not important to me.  How do others view you, that's how people will remember you, not how much you talk about yourself.

The difficult part of this entire situation is my mother.  My sisters and I have talked in the past how if my mom died first that my dad would go right away.  She is my dad's only friend that's just the way it worked out.  We always figured my mom could live for years after my dad's passing.  I think that solutions sounds all too easy until I had a conversation with my mom that went like this on the phone before I arrived.

"mom, how was dad feeling?"
"Hi Danny oh he's struggling it seems like something comes up every day"
"how are you doing?"
"you know what it's so quiet in the house you live with someone for 60 years and you don't realize what it would be like without them..."

The only time in a movie it seemed ok to cry

I haven't cried since I was young.  Part of the composure is my dad saying to me that "men don't cry" many times as a youngster.  So I learned to keep it in.  This includes funerals for relatives etc.  It's not that I don't care it's just that I am programmed to keep my head.  It's always been my responsibility I guess.  Hearing my mom say that one phrase broke through all that.  Letting my emotion out uncontrolled has always felt like a weakness to me.

My parents have been married over 60 years and when I am visiting it seems that they don't say alot.  The TV is on and one of them seems to always be napping.  But regardless if my mom goes to the other room to watch Fox News because my dad is sleeping watching the Yankees they are still together.

So now we are at this point in early 2013.  All parties have pretty much reconciled that this will be his last year on this earth.  The doctors say 3 months without any treatment.  With low level Chemotherapy the chances are he lives 8 months +.  They say there is a 50/50 chance of remission but I am sure many of those in the 50% positive category are much younger without my fathers medical past.

We are proceeding with the Chemotherapy (but only once my dad was assured that medicare and the supplement would cover it).  My dad then said to me:

"you know Danny it's been good I am ready for whatever happens now"
"Well see how the Chemo goes dad, you might be feeling a lot better"
"My job is complete here.  All 4 of you (my sisters and I) are working and none of you ever got in trouble"
"It's the only thing we know dad"....

Awkward Situations and Random Conversations

These are a series of random conversations that I have had with people over time. As my tag line says "Only the Truth is Funny" it is clear that you can't make up certain things or conversations that are really funny they just happen randomly.






GOING DUTCH:

Friend: Hey I met this woman online and we get along great.


Dan: Did you find out much about her? What is she like?

Friend: She manages a retail clothing store...didn't say which one. We talked about meeting and she said she was willing to go "Dutch" so I said sure. I don't know what that means though?

Dan: It means she's into all that dutch stuff like chocolates and more important you need to wear some wooden shoes.

Friend: Damn where do I find those?

Dan: Google it.


SEX AT LUNCH:

It was about 11:30 AM and as is the custom in many offices coworkers will ask each other what they plan to do for lunch. Normally this is a pretty mundane exercise until one day...

Dan: (said to female coworker) What are you doing for lunch today?

Coworker: I am going to get some Sex

Knowing that this is a young coworker in her 20's and that the times are much different I figured ok it's not what we did when I was younger but who am I to judge.
Dan: So where do you go for this? (said with a puzzled look on my face)

Coworker: It's a place on 3rd and Thomas, it's really good you should try it.

Dan: So how does that work do you have to call ahead or do you just show up?

Coworker: I usually call ahead so it's ready for me when I get there.

At this point I was a little concerned about what the world had come to and what the future was going to hold for our children.

Coworker: Do you want me to bring something back for you? Coworker #2 is going also.

Ok coworker #2 is probably over 55 so now I know the generation before me and the generation after me are all onboard with this seemingly Low Carb alternative to the traditional lunch time fare.

And exactly how would you "bring something back" for me. At this point the coworker wondered why I had this strange look on my face. It was at that point she realized that what she was describing needed a more definitive pronunciation. A minute of awkward silence and laughter ensued as we each retreated to our work spaces with red faces.

Coworker: No we are going to SACKS the sandwich place.









"Going out to get some 40's"

One day years ago a coworker and I were leaving the office we decided to stop in our bosses office. We were checking in and sort of summarizing what we were working on and the status of our current projects. Here is the exchange that occurred...

Boss: Hey what are you guys doing after work...are you going to go out and get some 44 ouncers?

Coworker: No I am probably going home to see my kids.

At this point both us gave a look to each other trying to figure out what a 44 ouncer was.


We know what a "40 ouncer" is. We thought maybe we didn't watch the movie "Friday" closely enough and missed some new pop culture terminology.


It was at that point that we realized that our boss had confused a 40 ouncer (a malt liquor primarily consumed in the inner cities) with a "44" ouncer which technically would be a big gulp from 7-11. We believe our boss was thinking of a 44 Magnum.







It took all the inner strength in both of us not to break out in hysterical laughter...

Online Dating, The Geneva Convention, Unconditional Love & The Silent Treatment

Online dating. Like everything else on the internet it is amazing and confounding at the same time. Let me tell you about the woman that I met from an online dating site. She emailed me one day and said she reviewed my profile and wanted to meet. So I figured ok I could do that. She then proceeded to use the internet equivalent of the water board torture in questioning me about everything. Despite informing her of the Geneva Convention rules which were enacted in 1949 regarding ethical treatment of prisoners of war which 194 countries agreed to she continued to torture me with point blank questions about religion, family, hobbies, who invented liquid paper and why etc.



At one point I cut her off and said "hey maybe we can just visit and get to know each other...and can you please take that spotlight out of my face...". After my grilling she then lightened up and said "We should do this again!" She apparently had a biological clock that was attached to a nuclear bomb and she was looking for someone to pull a McGyver and grab a tooth pick, duct tape and a safety pin to come to the rescue.


Obviously this woman was not the answer. So the question remains how does one find the person they are destined to spend their life with? How will you know when you do find them?


An obvious point of reference would be my parents who have been married for 58 years. Were they the perfect match including all 29 dimensions of their personality as Neil Clarke Warren of EHarmony would have you believe has to be the case? Clearly the answer is no and yet their marriage has never been stronger. On a side note have you ever noticed that the only people that use all 3 names as their moniker are generally famous murderers (John Wayne Gacy, John Wilkes Booth, Lee Havey Oswald)? Just sayin' that Neil Clarke Warren gives me the willies...




So what is the answer and how does my dad an introvert who grew up on a farm, and my mother an extrovert who grew up in a city (San Jose) stay together so long?
.
<----- The Happy Couple

My father is an introvert with very few friends to call his own. He does know many people but he does not let anyone into the inner circle. My mother is in the inner circle and that's it. Yes as kids my sisters (3 of them) and I love our father very much but my mom is the core of his life. With my father communication consisted of talking about baseball and then relating that to life. Because baseball is just like life. You have many people on the same team as you (work) that you don't necessarily like or would associate with but you need to learn to work with them for the good of the team (company).


<---Japanese symbol for Honor

With my father the only thing that matters is honor. Written agreements mean nothing all that does is to allow you an escape from your commitments. For instance my parents are holding on to a piece of farmland (the rest of the farm has been sold) solely because of a promise that was made to my fathers ranch foreman years ago. That promise was that he could live in the house on the land we owned until he died. I asked my dad did you write that down? He said "I don't have to write it down I told him he could stay..."

My mother is a social butterfly who has a memory that is unbelievable. An example of this was when my father had a stint put in a few years ago. As visitor after visitor came to see my dad my mother would rattle off facts about each person that came to visit. This person has 2 daughters and they moved to Parlier etc. The ultimate was a lady that showed up and my mom saying to her "you made my wedding dress for me". The astonished lady could barely remember having a job in a seamstress shop much less who she made a dress for.



My mother was the 2nd oldest of six children in a family (post depression) that was about as poor as you can possibly get. Clothes were a luxury during the post depression era. In the picture on the left is 4 of my mom's siblings (my mother is 2nd from the left). If you notice the shirts that the girls are wearing were the dresses from the prior year. What you did is cut off the dresses from the prior year to become this years shirt to wear with your overalls. Does money make you happy? I don't know they look pretty happy and they are plenty poor...

The family was so poor that when my mother became a junior in high school she got a job as a live in maid with a family in Fresno (her folks lived in Parlier). Money was tight there were 8 mouths to feed and something needed to be done. So every Sunday night my mother would be driven out to live with the Cottmans and would come home on Friday. Mom would cry every Sunday (although she will never admit it) because she wanted to be with her brothers and sisters at home. Living out in town also required her to go to a different high school from her siblings. For two years my mother ate her dinner in the kitchen. Choosing to eat over the sink or in the kitchen is one thing...being required to is another altogether. The money she would earn would go to the family.

Has my parents marriage been a fairy tale? Far from it. There were many years of poverty when the kids were young as farming is often a feast or famine existence. There was no such thing as medical insurance; if you got sick you either had to pay for it or you didn't go see the doctor. There were the years when inopportune rain storms would ruin an entire year of work on the raisin farm. At that time there was no such thing as "crop insurance" in case you lost your entire livelihood to a rain. There was the trip to Japan where my father made an unfortunate (for him) joke about my mother and their marriage in front of the ancestors during dinner.

The one thing that stuck out for me was the fact that I never heard my parents say "I love you" to each other. As a matter of fact they never really told us as kids that they loved us. I would hear other people say those words all the time. Once I walked up to my mother and told her "I love you". My mother was clearly uncomfortable at that moment and gave me what I now call the "silent treatment". She did not just say "I love you to son". For the next 10-15 minutes my mother explained to me (as a 15 year old) that love is not telling someone you love them constantly. Love is about taking care of your family. Love is about making sure your family is safe. Love is knowing that your friends will come and go but your family is forever. She explained to me that there are husbands who beat their wives and parents who beat their children who say they love their spouses and their kids all the time. The axiom "Actions speak louder than words" was her message. I knew my parents loved my sisters and I but for our family it was an unspoken truth.

From that point on I was happy to receive the "silent treatment" from my parents. Because that meant that they would always support whatever decisions I made...yes love me unconditionally and always be there for me.

As the years passed into adulthood the word "Love" did creep into my vocabulary but it is neither trivial to me or used carelessly. It is something I will reserve for those closest to me, including my daughter and the woman that I want to spend the next 58 years with.

So the next time I am at my parents home and I see them both sitting silently I will know inside that my dad is giving my mom the "silent treatment" and that they will make it to wedding anniversary 59...

The Evils of Fast Food

First off this is not a diatribe about how bad fast food is for you. The empty calories, the additives & the trans fats; we all know this when going in so it's our choice to eat at those establishments. That angle has been beaten to death.

No this is an essay about the the annoying things that accompany ordering and receiving food in the drive thru window and the questionable level of intelligence of some of those who work in the drive thru window.

1) You know how you go to convenience stores and they have the give a penny take a penny dish. It's a great concept for everyone involved. They need such a system at fast food drive thru windows.

One day at McDonalds I had driven up to the window and the total was $4.89. I did everything I could to fish out $.89 cents (it took probably 30 seconds). Unfortunately as fate would have it I only had $.88 cents and a $5 bill. The clerk was looking at me and I said in disappointment "I only have $.88".


At that exact moment we shared what I thought was the glance of understanding between teammates. The same glance that Craig Hodges would give Michael Jordan just before a lob for a dunk. The look that Joe Montana would give Jerry Rice at the line of scrimmage when he could see the cornerback was taking away the inside route where they both knew to run the "go route". It confirmed to me that we were on the same page when he said "oh it's good" and I handed him the $5 and the $.88 cents. It was at the moment that the clerk got into the register and was fishing around for coins. I was puzzled because I had already committed to running the go route and left the cornerback in the dust. The clerk then proceeded to give me $.99 cents in change after putting $.88 cents in change in the register.


2) Calculators are the death of American's youth. As a young person I could do most math in my head. I didn't automatically go to a calculator to do the math. Young people now do not seem to have that ability. For instance at another McDonalds back when I worked for Pacific Bell in Pleasanton here is what happened:



Clerk: The total is $4.89
Me: OK (I go up to the window with $5.14 so I can get a quarter back)

Ok was that unfair to do that to a 18 year old at a suck job who just wants to get through the day so he can stay up all night and play wii...and text his friends, maybe.





Apparently by doing this it was the equivalent of having him explain the concept of the center of gravity. He looked at me with a blank stare took the money didn't know what to do and then proceeded to hand me back the $5 bill as change. I then told him just give me a quarter back. He then said ok and reached in and gave me another quarter. So now I have given him $5.14 and he just handed me back $5.25.



So now I have made $.11 on this transaction. I finally said "here take the $5". To this day I am not sure if he thought I was giving him a tip or not...

The Injustice League

There are many, many perceived injustices in the world today. The BP oil spill, Banks being bailed out by the government, People today are feeling like they are getting the short end of the stick.

But larger scale issues are not the ones that hit home the most. It’s the issues that are personal in nature and affect a group of hard working American’s. That issue is the lack of 31” length work pants in retail stores. Maybe it’s because as a group us “31’s” have not produced any presidents or world leaders our most famous 31 is this company:

They have more than 50 Flavors so this doesn't even really count.

Is this a devious Corporate America plan to deny those individuals their right to quality business casual wear? Check out the selection of pants from pictures taken from a hidden camera by our crew:

The problem is that there are hundred of pants with lengths of 30 and 32 inches. This I can understand. It was explained to me by the store that it doesn’t make sense to make pants in 1 inch increments. The problem is that about half of the pants I saw were 29L’s.

So after looking through virtually every pair of pants (about 500 I am estimating). Here is what my options ended up being.

The perfect length (31L) but a waist size W38 that would require me to gain 30lbs or be forced to wear the dreaded belt AND suspenders.

The perfect waist size but a length (L30) that only Urkle could pull off….

I was now down to option 3….and the L32’s which are too long.








At this point you are asking yourself, “Why don’t you just buy pants with the longer length and have them hemmed?” That is what I typically do but in this world of cheap labor I am thinking to myself “Why am I the only one that can’t take advantage of incredibly cheap Indonesian slave labor just because I am an L31?”



So where does one go when one wants answers….it’s obvious you google it.



Unfortunately Google was not able to help in this endeavor. It was at that point that a saying my father always used to say came to my mind “Don’t try and reinvent the wheel”. While I clearly think it’s ok to reinvent the wheel as long as you beat the guy that really invented the wheel to the patent office; it now became clear where to go to solve this issue. Let’s go back to the basics:

Of course the yellow pages and Qwest Dex. As soon as I looked over and saw the trusty old book I knew the answer was at my finger tips.

I now am sporting a fine pair of 34W x 32L work pants thanks to “Dex”….

All that glitter is litter

Some time ago I was asked to sign a card for a coworker. Unbeknownst to me as I opened the card a pile of glitter fell out of the card and onto my body. Now anyone that has come in contact with glitter knows that once it hits you it's virtually impossible to get it off of you. Trying to wipe it off, showering, dermabrasian..none of it works. The only sure fire solution is a good 3rd Degree burn in the Glittered area.


Then it hit me...Glitter is the Herpes of Arts and Crafts...once it touches you, you can never get rid of it.

Like Herpes, Glitter has many horrible side effects the most obvious one is the incredibly bad album by Mariah Carey "Glitter"

Unfortunately the United States has not addressed this issue but luckily our neighbors to the north, Canada has an agency that handles this. It's called the "Centers for Glitter Control" or the CGC.



The CGC has put out guidelines for Safe Glitter use. They are as follows:

1) Labeling - All packages containing glitter now have the following symbol on them so you are aware of what you are purchasing.









2) Glitter Outbreaks - Avoid contact with other humans during a "Glitter outbreak"


When Will the Symptoms of glitter Appear? Once you have been exposed to the glitter through direct glitter-to-skin contact, it can take anywhere from two to 20 days before your first episode of symptoms of glitteritis will occur. While the first outbreak of glitter is usually the worst one you will experience, as much as 60% of those infected with the virus will fail to notice any symptoms because the outbreak is so mild. Even if you do not have any symptoms, though, you can still pass on the virus to your Arts and Crafts partners.


3) Wash hands frequently. Glitter will often show up in your nails and your hair etc.















4) Just say no to Glitter when passing around Cards to be signed by Coworkers.

Interviewing Porn Guy

One time I was interviewing candidates for an accounting position at a plant I was managing in San Diego. When we had asked one person what he did in his previous job he replied "well I took the pink copy and signed it and blah blah" I tried to explain that I meant in general what he did not step by step. He looked at me paused and continued "then I took the white copy"....

So at that moment I was already laughing. So the next guy comes in and he has a silk shirt on with a big "I am going to lock my bicycle up later" chain around his neck a hairy chest and his shirt buttons open almost halfway down.



He then proceeds to tell me he wants to be a film maker. The other interviewer and I looked at each other and thought the same thing "those are movie's I will never admit to seeing". As I am talking to the candidate my partner is writing down notes and I am thinking "this guy is a joke why are you writing notes". As I look over my female interview partner is writing things like "kill me now", "I want him" etc.


At that point I laughed so hard I fell out of my chair and actually left the room and never came back. Very unprofessional but necessary at that moment. I had never laughed to the point of actually tearing up until that moment. I could have used one of those Sham wow's it was so bad.

I guess that is what I mean when I say that I live for moments of uncontrolled laughter. P.S. We did not hire him...Can you imagine what a guy like that would wear on "Casual Friday"


Why we have policies covering "Casual Friday's" in Corporate America.