Daddy catalyst

I view child-rearing as my opportunity to raise some humans who are not idiots and who can contribute to counterbalancing the snowballing turd that is our society.

Hey! My Sharpie!!

Last Wednesday, Lance Armstrong came to town for the grand opening of a new 24 Hour Fitness Sport facility at Lowry – one of their marquee locations bearing his name. These particular facilities are top notch and if you ever set foot inside one, it is a veritable shrine to the man himself. Yellow is the dominant color scheme and huge images of him hang everywhere. Powerful Lance Armstrong quotes adorn the walls and inspire greatness, or at the very least one more set of squats, 5 more minutes on the spin bike, one bench press more than before.

As a member of the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s Peloton Project (the grassroots fundraising element of the LAF), I do my best to attend events whenever Lance is in town. I almost feel as if it is my duty. He doesn’t know me, and I have never met him, but still it is a great day whenever I am able to see him in person. Although I have seen him speak on several occasions, I’ve never really tried very hard to get his autograph – just some snapshots with my digital camera and a handful of cool shots with my 35mm and a zoom lens. I always thought that if I avoided the mad rush for an autograph, then maybe it would allow just one more person who was fighting cancer or who was a cancer survivor to get that much closer to the man who had helped them get through their ordeal.

But Wednesday, a golden opportunity was placed in my lap. A door opened, literally, that enabled me to obtain my personal holy grail – the autograph. After watching Lance’s question-answer session inside the facility it occurred to me that it was doubtful he’d be hanging around chatting at length with the staff. Maybe a visit to the restroom, grab a bottle of water, and off he’d go. So I went outside and spied his stealthy black vehicle at the end of a walkway which had been cordoned off with white plastic chain. As my eyes followed the train of people lined up for a brush with greatness, I saw it: the exit door. Somehow, as if the spot had been reserved for me, I stepped right up to the little square of real estate next to the door. If Lance came out and looked to his right, I would be the first person he saw.

There I stood with Lance’s second book Every Second Counts (a highly recommended read, I might add) opened to a page imprinted with a photo of him and his son. My Sharpie was uncapped, ready to go in the event this might be my lucky day. Suddenly, I looked up and some enormous humans emerged through the door – his security force. That meant Lance was next. Out he came into the blinding Colorado afternoon sun wearing some swell mirrored sunglasses that looked like they had been borrowed from Eric Estrada’s “CHiPs” wardrobe collection. He paused momentarily right in front of me, looked down at my opened book, took my Sharpie into his seven-time-Tour-de-France-winning hand, and scrawled his autograph. Then, he proceeded down the line with my Sharpie signing other items as he made his way into the getaway car. I have never been so thrilled to lose a pen.

So there it was. The autograph – sought by many, obtained by relatively few. I stood there, stunned for a moment, completely unable to react; a 40-year-old man suddenly all jittery-kneed and bubbly like a 7th grade girl who was just asked on her first date. Had I been able to speak, my voice almost certainly would have been all warbly and falsetto. I called everyone I could think of with the giddy energy of a new father because in my mind, this event placed right behind my wedding and the births of my children. This was my autographed John Elway football.

Now, some of my friends think I need help. They are searching for a 12 Step program for those who are pushing the boundaries past being a fan, leaning toward over-zealous. Ok, so maybe I was a little more excited than I should have been. Maybe it’s not “cool” for a man of 40 (I feel 28, mind you) to even have a hero. Maybe I am cheesy to shamelessly look like a “me too” member of the Lance bandwagon.

But really – is it so bad to have, as one of my inspirations, someone who has survived cancer and won the most grueling sporting event in the world seven consecutive times? The fact is, this man helps people and in my book that’s someone we should all stand behind.

Now… if I can just get a photo with him…

Hurray.

Any time I see pom-poms, I get pretty excited. It could be a lingering stigma from a crush I had on a cheerleader when I was in high school. Maybe it’s the enticing motion they create when waved enthusiastically in the air, or possibly the sensory stimulation of the SHH SHH SHH sound they make if shaken violently in a berserk frenzy of zealotry. A mere glimpse of them never fails to elicit a “Hey. Pom-poms!”

But let me tell you, never before have I been so aroused by pom-poms as on the day we had all been waiting for: the announcement of our new company logo. I will never forget that magic day as long as I live. I can only wish that I would have been fortunate enough to have been in attendance at or corporate headquarters that day. Since I dwell at one of our remote Denver area locations, I watched longingly from the solitude of my cube. How lucky the folks at headquarters were to be a part of it, to be in a room full of equally exuberant people drooling at the first official glimpse of the new moniker.

Right there on my computer monitor, it was almost as if I was there. Before my eager eyes, a split screen video emerged. Music that had no doubt been deemed “edgy” by the corporate crowd fueled my anticipation. There were dozens, maybe hundreds of people in each screen absolutely rabid for what we were about to see. Apparently, they had no concern that the unveiling would ultimately mean a sudden and untimely end to their livelihoods. Maybe they were just so pumped up that it didn’t matter. Nothing could cloud their unbridled jubilation, and the breeze created by their pom-poms proved it. Red ones and yellow ones flailed about with all the vigor of a pep rally for the Indiana state high school basketball championship.

The split screen combined into one and we see our excited host thrusting her microphone into the faces of eager audience members. This was her Oprah moment. She had always had aspirations of dabbling in TV news or talk shows, but somehow she just never got the right internship or something.

But if you’re pretending to be a reporter/talkshow host, what do you ask a prisoner in a captive audience? She points the microphone into this poor guy’s face: “And who are you?” Always a great way to begin a conversation. He answers with what I assume was his real name. “What’s your prediction?”, our host asked. What the hell kind of question is that? Prediction? Prediction for what? Do we assume she means a prediction for the new logo? Or could it be just some general prediction for small talk? His answer: “I think the Redskins are gonna beat the Chiefs!” Boy, did that get the audience riled up! It even elicited tandem thumbs-up responses from both CEOs! Nothing says “everything is going great” better than two new pals joined together by financial fate slapping each other on the back, smiling with dollar signs in their eyes, and shoving a big ruddy thumbs-up in our faces.

“Back to you in Kansas!!” our hostess bellowed. The feed jumped to an image of a vice president of something who quite obviously had other things he’d rather be doing than pretending unsuccessfully to be David Letterman. “We’re live with a rautious crowd…..”. Rautious? Did he say rautious? Either he meant obnoxious and started to say raucous, or he had a cue card that said riotous and he couldn’t read – another corporate success story of a boy who never read much, nor could he write, but somehow he stumbled into a six figure salary. His first interviewee was up. “And what do you do for the company?” he asked. “Whatever it takes to get it DONE!!” the interviewee proclaimed as if the rest of his career depended on how he answered that question. And he honest to god was completely serious about it. I swear he wasn’t being a smartass or anything. Who were these people in the audience?! What a bucket of crap! I hope he was fired.

So the pom pom shakers just went nuts with that one because they felt the spirit…..the go gettum spirit that makes this country great and the spirit that shall rocket this newly melded company into tomorrow. Hang on a sec – I gotta go vomit.

Ok, so anyway the camera slowly zooms in on the VP of Marketing. As he gives his bit about how we are better than the competition and that’s why we’re going to be #3, two disinterested, button-down, pocket protector types can be seen standing on the far left edge of the screen. If you looked closely, you could see the panic in their eyes as they realized they were on camera but had stopped jiggling their poms. As if simultaneously prodded -or threatened- they both became tremendously animated and jostled their poofy poms with so much corporate spirit and glee that I thought they might have wet their collective pants.

A full ten minutes into the video joy fest, the time had come to see what could have been simply sent to us all in an email message. A video screen appeared on the stage, and a graphic-rich, swirly vision began to take shape. And there it was. A very brief awkward silence, then applause and hooting, whistling and fist pumping. Oh wait – someone missed the cue. A few seconds late, banners and balloons fell from the sky like angels with the apocalypse. And yes, pom-poms. Lots and lots of pom-poms. My god, you couldn’t possibly shake pom-poms any harder than these people were. I was stricken with the morbid fascination that occurs when watching scenes of terrorism or an evangelical revival. Again, the two CEOs became Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin; Bing Crosby and Bob Hope; Beavis and Butthead – slapping each other on the back like two fraternity bothers about to score with the twin blondes from the dorms.

I can’t even fathom what this display must have cost our fine company. Probably at the very least, two employees’ salaries. Sorry – some of you may be confused by the term “employees”. It means the same as “headcount”.

All I needed was to see the logo so I’d know the name on my paycheck. I didn’t need a party. But the pom-poms were nice.

I wa aying at ou shou ca me on my cell

Cell phones. As far as I know there has never been a technology so broken and imperfect yet so widely used throughout the world.

Imagine if our cars only worked in some areas or stopped running unexpectedly in the middle of a trip.