How do you go from where you are to where you wanna be? And I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life. You have to have a dream, a goal. And you have to be willing to work for it. –
Jim Valvano, ex-coach NC State and founder of the V Foundation 

Before I begin with today’s post, please indulge me for a second.  In a continuation of yesterday’s post I was hit, by one of the new employees at my company with the question of “Where do you get your dry cleaning done?”  I told her that we lived far apart and that my dry cleaner, despite the “secret Chinese discount” she offers me would not be worth the 5 mile drive for $1 per shirt.  She looked at me stunned and told me she pays $6 per shirt for her “Green Cleaners”  $6 per shirt!!!  Are you kidding?!!  The only thing green about that is the money laundering they are doing there!!!  I’d rather throw out the shirt and buy a new one!

Has this world gone mad?  I promise not to go on an AIG tirade. It serves no purpose.

Of course this time of year is when American sports fans go crazy with their college basketball brackets.  I’m no different ever since my high school chemistry teacher got us hooked.  It became more of an addiction when my wife went to business school at Duke University which along with UNC combine to make March Madness an annual tradition.

The pageantry and the emotional ups and downs of each year though pale in comparison to the lifelong lessons that have come out of this Men’s basketball Tournament.  While Duke, UNC, Kansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisville and UCLA have combined to win 37 of the 70 championships, to me nothing has defined March Madness and the popularity of the tournament as the stories about those underdogs and especially those underdogs who showed us what heart and emotion can bring to any situation.

The quote for today’s blog comes from Jim Valvano, the coach of the 1983 Championship which many will claim was one of the two greatest upsets in NCAA Championship game history (the Villanova perfect game against Georgetown being the other).  More memorable than the dramatic last second victory was Jim Valvano’s crazy celebration and then 10 year’s later his speech at the ESPY awards as he battled cancer.  The quote above was once of his many quotes from that evening and in his speeches that he made up until his death.

To me. equally inspirational was the story of Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble, two young men from Philadelphia who transferred to Loyola-Marymount in Los Angeles and made them into a one-time wonder.  In 1990, Hank Gathers died from an abnormal heart condition during the teams last game of the season.  The team was still given a birth in the tournament and with a heavy heart Bo Kimble led his team to the regional finals with the spirit of fans everywhere behind them.  Bo shot free throws left handed in honor of his childhood friend who was left handed and made upset after upset victory until they were eventually eliminated by the eventual champion, UNLV.

So while many may look at this tournament as just another result of sports crazy hysteria in the US.  I look at it for stories of the human spirit.  I don’t know if I will find anything new, but you never know.  The stories of everlasting friendship and courage in the face of death would be hard to beat.

Some may say that I am over-extending the meaning of what this tournament represents, but it is what it is for me. 

Today we met some new friends (they are actually old friends that we met online) and what might have looked like a casual meeting was really more than that.  We met another couple we befriended through an online breast cancer forum.  They have gone through much of what we have gone through with the same physicians but about 15 months ahead of my wife.  After meeting for lunch I had a brief chat with my wife.  She remarked at how happy they looked and I agreed.  While we didn’t discuss it I could see that my wife was making a mental note.  She asked me again how far ahead of her surgery they were in terms of time and noted that timeline would put us somewhere around August 2010.  Her mind was racing there.  For her it wasn’t the mental model but the physical model and goal of where she will be heading.

For me, this is the most wonderful time of the year.  March Madness, the Masters, and baseball is beginning.  Yes, my spirit sure is being lifted.  March Madness means different things to every one of us, but as long as it means something, that’s good!  Just have a dream and a goal.

When you find out you will die, thats when you decide to live. – tagline from the upcoming movie, Veronika Decides to Die

Happy St. Patty’s Day, and if it still is wherever you are, you can take off that silly green shirt or even those horrific plaid green pants!  Yes I do own a pair of lime green ones for special golf occasions.  I do think that the Irish probably get together and laugh at all of us for wearing all these shades of green.  I mean, look at me!  Asian guy, who needs to work on his tan and wearing this pale green oxford shirt.  Not a pretty look!  You’d definitely need to down a few beers to look at me in this shirt. 

Speaking of “Green”, it sure is getting expensive to be “green”  In fact, it sure is costing more. In San Francisco where we pay for the highest gas prices in the continental US, we are thinking of adding another tax to drive more people to alternative fuel usage and to drive less.  Gas prices incidentally are already high due to taxes to pay for roads and better fuel emission standards.  We already pay more for our Green compost boxes which in our household seems to be getting more full and stinkier than the regular trash bin and the “recycling” bin which seems to get no love anymore.  Part of that is because we no longer use paper bags at the grocery store and we have seriously cut back on our use of the printed media.  Speaker of the House (and my former neighbor when I was a kid), Nancy Pelosi, is trying to save our local newspaper from bankruptcy.  I hate to break Mrs. Pelosi’s heart (yeah, that’s what I called her growing up) but we have to let go.  The online newspapers are here and in much the same way that “television killed the radio star”, newspapers are being overcome by the internet where we cannot wait for the printed word as by the time it reaches us, it is old news.  Hey it won’t hurt to save a few trees either.

I think government is learning a hard lesson these days.  In fact, I think the economy is teaching us all a big lesson.  I have always been a big believer in business and trusting the efficient markets and the bright people who run corporate America.  Well obviously that has changed eith the way senior management have run some of our largest institutions into the ground.  Now on the other side, here is government saying that they can help save these organizations and regulate them yet we are now overrun by the outrageous scandal of the AIG and its executives who have taken the money we provided to them from taxpayer money and are rewarding their executives.  Obviously governmentis not prepared to regulate the behavior of our corporations even when they own 80% of them.  Human nature just can’t be controlled to that extreme and the power of the people is too powerful.  It requires leadership of incredible proportions.    For those who know the “Myth of Sisyphus”  who was condemned to push the same rock up a hill over and over again I can only imagine an avalanche chasing Barack Obama and Timothy Geithner down a hill.

Business is just too tough for the government to try and regulate.  I look  at one of my current businesses where the government were unable to regulate (and I’m not sure they could have stopped it) the free downloading of music.  What did this do?  It ruined the royalty income of many great performers who wanted to sit back and earn their royalties from every sale of their albums and CDs.  They say that an artist would earn a dollar from every album sold but yet today they get maybe $.10 when someone legally downloads a song but nothing when they share it with their 10 friends for free.  So what this has done is it has forced many performers to keep touring instead of retiring.  Concerts used to be less than 15% of an artist’s income while album royalties made up over 75%.  Now it is just the reverse.  The only thing is that I don’t know if I still want to see Styx or Air Supply anymore.  To put it to comparison, Michael Jackson was the greatest of his time in the ’80s and when you compare to U2 the numbers are staggering.  In his day, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” alone sold over 110 million copies (not to mnetion his other 11 other studio albums) while U2, undoubtedly the greatest rock band of today, has sold 145 million in total (12 albums). 

So now that these artists want to go out and sell tickets on tour, governments are now listening to the consumers who feel cheated by the high price of tickets.  These are the same consumers who are getting this music for free because the governments failed to regulate their illegal downloading and copying. 

Yes, tis a vicious cycle and what is scary in times like this is that everyone is forced to think about themselves first and others second.  Everybody holds on to what they have and supports issue that help them get back to where they feel most comfortable.  it is definitely all abot the “green” money.

So how do we get out of this?  I don’t have any great solution.  Yes I went to a great business school and even had 2 Nobel Laureates in Economics as professors, but this recession is bigger than any one of us.  We do all have to suck it up and work together. 

Yesterday I heard the head of the Fed say that the recession would be over later this year!  I just can’t see it.  Until we all regain our money lost in our pensions and 401Ks, we all feel more comfortable about our jobs if we still have them, and our faith and trust in our financial system is restored, there will not be a recovery.  What are these people thinking?

My best solution?  Well I’d recommend a universal 4% interest rate.  It would put homes in range of those who can afford it.  Those people who have money and equity in their homes can take on some debt and throw that back out into the economy as well. I think the current solution to the mortgage problem is not a big enough move and only helps those in trouble today and it may not help them for good.  It just postpones the inevitable.  Those who lost their jobs and are having problems paying their current mortgage will still have a problem tomorrow without a job.    The problem with my solution?  Well the banks will lose some income as their margins are reduced on their profitable mortgages.  They’ll likely start charging more for other services and other debt such as credit cards. …….ah yes, “the greening of America” .  I think Kermit the Frog must be rolling around wondering what is going on here!

Which leads to probably the last line of this rambling blog entry….What the heck is he thinking about that quote at the beginning?  Well I’ve been writing recently about how my wife has had some great motivation.  It just made sense to me although it really had nothing to do with this post.  The tagline by the way came from a movie that is coming out.  Last year before my wife was diagnosed with cancer we happened to be out for our anniversary at a cool hotel in New York called The Hotel on Rivington (Thor).  We happened to be there the same night of a closing party for the filming of a the movie, Veronika Decides to Die.  The hotel was closed only to guests and the party.  Somehow I got caught in the elevator with the cast and swept into the party.   I did write a review of the hotel.  Well today, I just saw my first preview advertisement for the movie, so I thought I’d research it and found the tagline for the movie.

If you always raise your head and look straight ahead, you will avoid stepping in dog poop – James Hom, my dad

I don’t know what it is, but tonight’s run was my fastest in the past two months.  My body ached, my legs are tired and yet I had a very strong run.  As always, lots of thoughts ran through my head tonight including the quote above which is something I randomly remember my dad telling me as a kid after I came home with dog poop on my shoe.  All kinds of things still run through my head after a run and I always scramble to get them down on paper.  It is when my thinking is the clearest and least conflicted.  What else ran through my head?  My cousin, Jenkin ,who died 15 years ago at the age of 45 from a heart attack was on my mind (probably because I need my physical next month) , Chad Moutray and his daughter (as he wrote me today on Facebook), and of course the economic crisis that our country is dealing with (yikes taxes are due and so is my real estate ptoperty tax next month).  Everytime I run and these thoughts flood my head, I feel compelled to write them down before I go to sleep and forget them. 

Why do I write this?  My dad was a pretty private person. I don’t remember thinking that my dad was such an open book.  There was always some mystery to me about who my dad was.  I for one remember following my dad one night to see where he went (he went back to his office to put together some models for someone’s teeth).  I mean I did know him, but not his inner thoughts.  In Chad Moutray’s book he does a great job of sharing his wife’s feelings and hope with us through her notes and his interpretations.  I feel like I know what she is like even though I never met her.  I want my spouse to be able to read these thoughts and know what I was really thinking.  Sometimes we are running around so much that we never sit down and actually communicate. 

The quote at the top was quite appropriate yesterday as I drove to work.  The sign in the Niketown window read: “Hope Rides Again” in reference to Lance Armstrong riding in the Tour de California bike race.  The sign had been up for a couple weeks but I finally had my head up and was watching. It was like a  big message for me the last couple days.  Kind of like in “Field of Dreams”….”Ease his Pain” and “If you Build it, he will come”.

Maybe my mind was cluttered by my concern for my wife.  They found some swollen nodes at her last pre-operative check-up last week.  We were wondering if the cancer had come back.  They took a biopsy and fortunately we got the results today that it was all clear.  Whew!  My wife had told me not to worry, but what was I to do!?  You try and distract yourself and forget, but you can’t!

At least her visit with the Plastic Surgeon went well. She really likes him so that is what is best.  It will be a little longer than the original hour projected so they will have to put her under again more than just local sedation.

(I’m going to finish this tomorrow as I need sleep)

Ah Friday.  I’ve been terribly efficient today and need to be given that this weekend will be spent as a chauffeur between Little League and Basketball playoffs.   A good excuse to get outside I guess. 

Not sure why Ididn’t just end this post last night as I fell asleep watching “Survivor” on Tivo so I will end it now

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar  – U2, Magnificent

Can you tell I love the new U2 album?  The song, Magnificent, not only has that classic ambient guitar reverb that makes their music so identifiable, but the lyrics this time are so mature and reflect the new angle that this band has taken.  I don’t like all the songs on the album, but there are some new classics which will be part of their legacy.

The song has been added to my running music and really helps drive me up and down the San Francisco hills and reminds me of all my wife’s struggles and scars from her struggles over the past year.  Ironically as my wife gets ready for her (hopefully) final surgery to reduce the scarring and any kind of residual malformations, we are not at all worried and our love for each other grows more and more each day.  Communication and understanding are by far better than ever (she still is the world’s worst back seat driver, LOL) and when we miscommunicate the issues just dissipate more quickly than ever.

For those who are wondering, and without going into great detail, plastic surgery (why plastic anyway?) is a bit of an art form. The most significant factor is the technical skill and artistic sense of the surgeon. Without excellent technical skill and the eye of an artist, results can range from failure to an aesthetically displeasing outcome.  My wife is just having some scar revisions done so that they heal correctly.  Additionally there is some asymmetry going on that is probably more of an issue for me visually.  While I don’t really mind, my wife can see it on my face and thus wants me to be real in all my emotions for her.  “No secrets and no sympathy” she tells me.  I’m trying.  The Lord knows I’m trying.  Yes, that means when I don’t like her cooking I must tell her rather than to hold my nose and swallow.  What can I say, I’m not a good poker player when it comes to my wife.  She knows I’m an open book.

It is TRULY magnificent how she has now out-done me in dreaming big and enjoying life and being honest in one’s feelings.  It is always something I felt like I had to pull teeth with but now she’s pulling me along.  Now I’m feeling like I can’t keep up.  I actually decided I needed to go get a check up soon.  Although I’m scared to find out if I have anything wrong other than high cholesterol, hardened arteries, etc, I just would like to have our family have a year of normalcy and fear having to drag my own family into another inconsistent year of health.  I do finally want to get some biopsies done on something that my doctors have said for years “is nothing”.  I just want that peace of mind.

Peace of mind is a hard thing to get these days.  Economic reports of 11.4MM Americans unemployed and that doesn’t even include those who are underemployed.  That is crazy when you think that the state of Ohio is only 11.6MM people.  Basically the whole state of Ohio would be unemployed. 

SO what should we do?  What’s not working?  I personally think the government should institute a national home mortgage interest rate of 4%. Anyone can negotiate a 30 year fixed mortgage at that rate as long as they qualify.  This should be done without closing costs or prepayment penalties if you are re0financing.  We need to stop bailing out the banks and start bailing out the people who have money with the banks.  This will prevent more de-valued housing from falling onto bank books.  It will also stimulate the economy for those who still have some excess income so that they can throw it into the economy.  Those who own their homes outright can take a secured loan and use that money to make improvements on their homes or spend it.  The current recovery plan just bails out more people who don’t have jobs to afford their mortgages in the first place.  It isn’t helping.

Here’s where we gotta be
Love and community
Laughter is eternity
If joy is real

– U2 , Get on Your Boots

I just thought I’d have to use the name of the U2 album which came out this week as the title of one of my posts.  Life has been crazy with 5 consecutive weeks of travel, many sleepless nights (some due to my own pursuit of pleasure), and much going on in every aspect of my life.  If I stayed true to my metaphor of “the road of life”, I’d be driving a VW Bus filled with all my life’s belongings listening to the Doobie Brothers and going on a road trip to nowhere.  Yes, truly, no line on that horizon for sure.  Just going where the wind takes me.  Oh and for those who really know me and say that I can fall asleep anywhere, it is true.  I think I’m probably the only person around who sleeps from takeoff to landing on flights.  In fact, this morning I slept my whole way down to LA.

Sitting down with my thoughts or even going for a run on my own has been a bit of  a chore these days.  Even as I write this I find myself sitting on a cramped stool at a Samsung Mobile station at Los Angelese International Airport (LAX). 

The cab ride here through Los Angeles rush hour traffic actually gave me time to take a snooze and think about things for once.  My wife was back home getting her monthly shot and is preparing for her revision surgery.  I asked her if it was getting “old hat” and she said, “hardly”.  Silly me.  At least it was the easy technician who knew what he was doing she said.  Did I ever mention I hate needles?  It is hard asking her “how did your day go” without wincing.  I never hear really terrible things come out of her mouth, but I still worry something will.  She’s such a trooper and makes my life much easier than it really should be.  In some ways I feel guilty for not letting her put more on me.

Someone asked me about my recent post about my father and asked me why I don’t talk about my mother.  Funny, but they are right and I have been thinking about her a lot.  I was very close to my dad and many say that I am most like him.  We shared many close memories and I guess I talk about him more because I miss him.  My mother is turning 70-something this weekend and I feel like she is going on 60.  She’s been through a lot and now 3 years after my dad passed I look at her and see a woman who is fiercely independent, very strong, and extremely happy.  I still see her missing my dad, but nothing has changed for her and I’ve found my mom’s attitude to be one that my wife should follow. 

5 years removed from breast cancer, my mother doesn’t even think of breast cancer.  When she walked back into the clinics this past year with my wife, she said the smell and feel of the hospital made her sick.  She had put those years behind her and was fighting even before her hair grew back.  I can’t recall them all but since she had her surgery she’s been to China, South Africa, Morocco, several trips to New York and Vegas, Hawaii, Japan, Tibet, The Amazon, Costa Rica, Egypt and Russia.  “Where’s Mom now?” seems to be the cry amongst my siblings these days.  I told her that although she was an unstoppable ball of energy before her cancer that she seemed to be crazier than ever (I always tell people about how my mom is your proto-typical California mom who asks you “What’s your sign” before she asks your name).  My wife will never forget the first time they met.  My wife had this big painted wooden fish around her neck that she got somewhere in Mexico.  “Just call me Sue.  I’m a Pisces” were the words that rung out.  My future wife just giggled and looked at me.  I’m not that into astrology but I think Pisces and Sagittarius signs must get along very well.  Amyway, my mother said that cancer only made her more hungry to do more and make sure she left no stone unturned.  Every obstacle to her is now an opportunity and it shows.  She just never stops seeing the good in things.  I love it.

Today as I flew down to Los Angeles I called her just to say hi and how I look forward to seeing her this weekend.  I only got her voicemail (it’s all I get these days).  I could see her rolling her eyes wondering why I wanted to bother her.  I still hear her telling me to get outside and do things instead of sitting in front of the television.

I guess that is why travelling for work is not that bad for me.  Los Angeles is great people watching (at least better than sitting at my desk).  Today I went to lunch with a few colleagues.  They asked where I wanted to go eat and I always tell them that as long as there is good people watching, I’ll go anywhere.  We went to Le Petit Four on trendy W. Sunset in Hollywood.  Lots of blondes with too much cleavage sitting with old men with George Hamilton tans, but it was good although spendy.  I did spot Neil Sedaka though and he was the biggest star quality I could notice. Please tell me if you are reading this that you know who he is.  My two colleagues were too young to know.  Boy am I getting old.  Anyway, Neil was very flattered that this star-gazer spotted him and gave me a knowing smile.  

Well unfortunately there is a line on my horizon tonight as I have to board my plane!