I will admit I didn’t follow our financial markets too closely until around June of 2007.  Prior to that time, I would passively see how things were coming along, but being in New York, and having close ties to the credit markets, caused me to start obsessively reading about the markets every single day since.  The biggest item I’ve learned is that nobody really has a clue what tomorrow holds!

I’m been blessed to be in a great position, started a solid company, worked hard to build it up, and took some risk off the table by selling TLA in November of 2006, and received a substantial payout for it.  However, today, the market is down almost 30% from its high in November of last year, so much for taking that risk off of the table.  Its not about me though, my portfolio has plenty of time to recover.  However, it is about my generation’s parents.  My parents are closing in on the age of 60, not a great time for your retirement fund to lose 30% of its value.  It is a major problem to all Americans, and certainly not just Wall Street.

Fear is spreading like wildfire across the markets, with unheard of sell-offs this past 30 days.  I think to the normal American, there is more anger than fear, but the combination of those two can be lethal.

There is no doubt that the problems started with greed, but to me, the problem is, that is what capitalism was built upon.  Greed is not necessarily a bad thing.  When we were growing Text Link Ads, I was constantly working my tail off to increase our revenues.  In all honesty, it wasn’t so we could make more money, it was the competition of it.  I wanted to build the best, most successful company.  That’s what this country was built upon, and why they call it the American Dream.  What we are learning now, unfortunately, is that we need to have some form of regulation in place to protect us from that same greed.

The lending practice over the last 5-10 years is astinine, people buying homes that they could not even come close to affording.  Lenders didn’t see this as a big risk, because home values were appreciating so quickly, that even if these people couldn’t afford their mortgage payments, they would be able to refinance and do it all over again.  When the housing market began to deteriorate in 2005, that plan of lax lending practices wasn’t looking so good.  It all started coming to a head about 15 months ago, and now for the last three weeks, we keep hearing the comparisons to The Great Depression.  So where do we go from here, and how can we make sure that it doesn’t happen again?

1.  The constant comparisons of “Wall St.” vs. “Main St.” are becoming tiresome, as we are all to blame.  The average US salary is roughly $48,000.  That same average US citizen has over $10,000 in credit card debt.  The average downpayment on a home in 1989 was 20%.  Today, less than 20
years later, the average is 9%.  For first time home buyers, the
average downpayment is just over 2%.  We have turned into a society that requires instant gratification, and we are too quick to make purchases that are not within our means.  The same holds true to people not doing their homework before agreeing to these outrageous adjustable rate loans.

2.  The banking industry looked at itself and thought, ‘How can we make more money…provide more loans’.  Well in order to do so, they resorted to predatory tactics and attempted to confuse and manipulate a large part of the American public.  Now banks are stuck with trillions of dollars of bad loans, and we are seing large banks fail due to it.  People put so little money down on their homes that have decreased in value, that it actually might be their best option to just walk away, and that is just what people are doing.

It has gotten so bad that banks simply aren’t lending money to true eligible people and when credit markets aren’t flowing, all business will begin to suffer.  It is quickly becoming a world wide crisis.  I am hopeful that the $700B bailout package which the House passed October 3 will begin to help, but since its passing the markets have decreased by over 6%.

The simple fact of the matter is that this is going to be a long painful process.  We need to flush out all of these bad loans and get the system back in order.  Americans have always come together in tough times, and unfortunately, it appears that this one is going to be with us for awhile, so we all need to look in the mirror and do what we can to get our great country back on track!

The remnants of Hurricane Ike rolled through the MidWest Sunday afternoon, causing some serious wind damage in Cincinnati. We had wind gusts up to 75 mph, no power for 18 hours, and it looks like a war zone.  With down trees and power lines around our home without raining a drop, it was like nothing I had ever seen before.

Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of rainfall where I grew up in Northwest Indiana, and the storm tragically took the life of one of my baseball coaches at Wheeler High School, Mark Thanos. Mr. Thanos’s wife heard some screaming Sunday morning and he ran outside with his 74 year old father to find a ten year old boy stuck in an overflowed drainage ditch. Both men lost their lives trying to save the child. They both died heros and will forever be missed. His oldest son Johnny was just a toddler when I was in school, and he spent many games in our dugout. As you will see in this clip, he has grown into a solid young man, and I’m hoping by sharing some of my funny memories of Coach Thanos it can bring a smile to his face in a terrible time…

By far my personal favorite would be a trip to Indianapolis my sophomore year. We played Indianapolis Ritter and got beat handily, I believe 6-2.  We were told get the team together in a room back at the hotel. First our head coach, Rich Wendt laid into us pretty hard for how badly we played, which was deserved. All the while, Coach Thanos, better known as “T” or “T-Babe” was pacing in the background looking to get his shots in at us. After about 10 minutes of attack by Coach Wendt, T stormed out of the room. All of us gave a quick look as if to wonder where in the world he was going. Approximately five minutes later he busts through the door holding something. He puts it above his head, apparently it was a dirty diaper from his little boy, Johnny. He then yelled to us, “Boys, there is not enough shit in this diaper to hand out awards today!”. He then stormed out of the room once more with the soiled mess. The whole team, including Coach Wendt had to do everything in our power to not bust out laughing. I think I have told that story 100 times, and it just never gets old.

I don’t think anyone who ever played for T-Babe will forget his boisterous voice.  The man started every sentence with a loud “Bah…”  Such as “Bah…Come on guys get your pepper in before the game starts”.  Every single kid on our team had their own version of a Thanos impersonation.

Another favorite of mine was T’s obsession with how many outs were left in the game.  A few of the guys on the team noticed that if we had a lead, his message usually started around the 4th inning. Since we played seven inning games, T-Babe could come into the dugout and say, “Bah…Come on guys, nine out ball game here”.  We thought that made some sense, and he seemed to use that line constantly, and we got used to it. My junior year, we were playing a pretty good team and scored five or six runs in the bottom of the 1st. We were jogging out to the field, and I hear T yell, “Bah…Keep it up guys, 18 out ball game here”. In his mind the game was almost over after one inning?

During summer league games, T would let Johnny, his son, sit in the dugout with us. He was probably around three at the time of this story, but our dugout was filled with pea gravel. Johnny would sit in the gravel and play. One game we noticed that Johnny was sitting down and basically burying himself from the waist down. Someone told me to look over, and I saw some tears running down the poor kid’s face. Next thing you know, T comes in from first base, Johnny stands up, and all of dust from the gravel is sticking to Johnny. He had wet his pants, and thought that burying himself might make it go away. That’s when T’s booming voice rang out “Oh, Johnny, No, what the hell did you do?!” Needless to say, we didn’t have a first base coach the next inning, while they were cleaning that up.

I could go on and on, like the time he got so sick of listening to our CDs on a drive to Bloomington that he said, “Turn that Guns & Roses crap off!! From now on, its either the Doors, Pink Floyd, or nothing!!” So, The Wall was on in the van for the last hour of the drive to Bloomington and the entire 3.5 hours on the way home.  Even when he got mad at us, we all thought it was funny, because there really wasn’t a mean bone in the man’s body, he was just a kid at heart.

One last story, lacking the comedy, took place my freshman year. I was lucky enough to start on the varsity team as a freshman, and I’m sure many of the juniors and seniors were not too happy about that. In the finals of the conference tournament, I was playing right field, and the bases were loaded. T-Babe waved at me to play more shallow. The next pitch was a high fly ball hit over my head. I turned my back to the ball and ran toward the fence, when I turned around I made a half dive for the ball and it hit off the heel of my glove and I blew it, and we ended up losing. Make no mistake about it, I should have caught it, it was my fault. However, for no other reason than to protect me, Coach Thanos took the blame for it. He said in front of the team that it was his fault for moving me in, and it would have been an easy play if he hadn’t moved me. He said the same thing privately to me numerous times. There was no need for him to say that, I was the only person who even knew he moved me in, and I should have made the play. That being said, it is something I will never forget. I also think it perfectly sums up the man’s life. He is the epitome of a man who cared for others more than himself. I knew it back 18 years ago with that small event, and it was confirmed this weekend when the man made the ultimate sacrifice losing his life trying to help others.

He touched more lives than he will ever know, I just wish we could have taken the time to tell him while he was still here with us.

Rest in Peace T-Babe, you led a great life, and are an inspiration to us all.

Over the last week, the vast majority of the United States was introduced to Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, and John McCain’s pick for his running mate for the 2008 presidential election. What has ensued in that week is indicative of two things:

1. The power of the internet
2. Our country’s passion for gossip/celebrity news

I’m sure the McCain crew spent a good amount of time vetting this decision, but bloggers have had an absolute field day, digging up anything and everything from Palin’s past they can get their hands on. I fell into the same trap and wasted five minutes of my life watching a video of her doing the sports on her local news in 1988. First of all, how in the world does a random newscast on a local Alaska television station surface 20 years later? Secondly, would her delivery of NCAA basketball scores factor in to which way I went with my vote?

The talk of her 17 year old pregnant daughter has been dominating the news, now it is coming out that she might have had an affair with her husband’s business partner…do you think Teddy Roosevelt and Howard Taft had to deal with these types of issues when the battled it out in the early 1900s?

Whether you vote Republican or Democrat, it really would be beneficial to this country if we stuck to the real issues relevant to this country, but it obvious that sensationalism is what sells papers, or in this millenium, gets eyeballs to websites.

I think the best solution for this would be to follow in the footsteps of say golf and tennis protegies. Some parents are spending well over $100K per year to send their kids to golf or tennis academies with the hopes of creating the next Tiger or Williams sisters. The kids spend day and night in gated areas perfecting their craft to maybe make it big some day.

Why not take the same road for aspiring politicians? If your child reaches the age of two and you feel has the make up to serve in a public office, why not send them off to an acadamy where they could hone their skills? They could demand reform in the cafeteria, pick the dodge ball teams. They would be living in a bubble, so it would be impossible to develop skeletons in the closet. They would have arranged marriages, to other robots people who go through such a program, it would work out great. The girl shown here, might actually be too old and too much of a past to be accepted in the proposed academy?

Bottom line, yes our country is going through a tough time, and we need to be put back on the righ track. That being said, the word on the street is that Palin might have actually already been pregnant when she married her husband over 20 years ago. If that turns out to be true, even though they are still happily married and have had four more children together, that would make it impossible for her to assist in leading this country…

To the tens of readers who follow this blog, I need to apologize for the neglect.

As a family, we have had a great summer traveling, visiting friends, and getting used to being back in Cincinnati. Since its after Labor Day, you can’t wear white, and I will get back to writing in the blog. Hope everyone is doing well, and had a great summer.

-BF

Coming off of the 15 inning all star game that dragged on until around 2:00 am, I felt it was about time to look at the reality of what baseball has become.

I grew up watching/playing baseball probably from just about the moment I was born. I sat on my dad’s lap and watched the Chicago White Sox game every single night each summer. it must have been quite often, as I sang the Star Spangled Banner at my preschool talent show only because I knew it from singing it with my old man before every Sox game.

My uncle took me to a bunch of Cubs games where we sat in the bleachers and showed up two hours before the game to watch batting practice. The seats were a whopping $3 back in the mid 1980s, they are now $45 for weekend games, which a bit more accelerated that our supposed current 5% inflation rate. When the Cubs lost to the Padres in the 1984 NLCS, it was as if a member of my family died. I can still name the entire starting line up of that team.

Sadly, it seems that baseball is now taking a back seat to the NFL in this country. I attribute it to many things, but mainly it is due to the short attention span that we have developed as a society. I’ll be the first to admit, that I can’t sit still for 15 minutes without looking at a Blackberry. We now have hundreds upon hundreds of television channels available to choose from, not to mention the internet as another diversion. To be a true fan and attempt to at least somewhat follow a 162 game season is a daunting task. The NFL is 16 weeks, the games are mostly at the same time, and it can be planned as an event each week.

In the past, you could expect a game to be two to two and a half hours. In 1945, the average baseball game lasted one hour and 58 minutes. The 2007 playoffs averaged three hours and 52 minutes per game, almost doubling in duration! To be honest, in the last ten years, I can’t remember the last baseball game I attended in person and stayed until the last out. Two main items could be blamed for the current snail’s pace of the game.

The game of baseball has changed over the last 30 years. There are now middle relievers, set up men, closers, etc. An average game has six pitching changes between the two teams, which probably takes on average ten minutes per change. This does not even include random mound visits by managers or pitching coaches. It is now customary to step out of the batter’s box after ever single pitch. The guys adjust their gloves, take 12 practice swings, David Ortiz has to spit on his batting gloves between each pitch, it takes forever!

Advertising also plays a major role. The commercial breaks become longer and longer each season. Commercials were on average three minutes and 15 seconds last year. If you have a commercial every half inning (18), then six pitching changes, you are up to 24 commercials, multiplied by 3:15, you come to 78 minutes of commercials in the average baseball game. Not to mention the times that games come on. Of course advertisers pay a premium for the prime-time slots, and the 2007 world series started at 9:00 pm est each night. The games would be on until 1:00 am, therefore minimal school aged children are even watching the most important games of the year.

I love the game of baseball, always have, and always will. However, with the fan base shrinking, MLB needs to think long and hard of a solution to make their product something other than the equivalent of taking an Ambien.

The sky rocketing fuel prices have been rough on the entire world here in 2008, but for web businesses I think you could argue a positive spin. With the increased cost of traveling anywhere, it appears that people would be prone to spending EVEN MORE time in front of their computers. Yes, disposable incomes will be decreased, but more and more people will opt to purchase items online instead of driving all the way to the mall, etc. Someone like Amazon should see an increase in business as cost conscious shoppers elect to find companies with free shipping options for essential items.

You could also attempt to say the same thing about the virtual workplace. I am in a great situation with having a commute of one flight of stairs to an office in my house, but it would appear that more and more people will align themselves to attempt to work remotely, even taking a paycut to do so. With the communication avenues of email, instant message, and that archaic phone, working out of the home has never been easier.

If people do spend less time in their cars, it should add to additional time eyeballs will be looking at the computer, so if you are a web merchant, try marking up your goods 10% and offering free shipping. People are are really looking for deals these days!

When we moved out of Manhattan at the end of last year, I was ready. The city wore on me, and I was desperate for a change of pace. However. now that I am around seven months removed, I think I can really look back fairly at the experience of living in the big city for a year. Going into it, I really had no idea what to expect, and what resulted was a crazy, exuberant, enlightening and exhausting 12 months of our lives.

We found a great loft apartment in Tribeca, which is in lower Manhattan, within walking distance to the MediaWhiz offices in the financial district. When we moved in it was very cold, and I figured I should be a true New Yorker and take the subway to work. I of course had no real idea what I was doing, but did a little research, and thought I had it figured out. I walked a few blocks, read some signs when down some stairs and was standing on the platform, waiting for what appeared to be the correct train going in the right direction. The doors open, people get out, the train was rather crowded, but there was a standing spot available, so I squeezed in. I looked up at the map, confirmed my guesses were correct, and I was on the right train. I then noticed a lot of people were huddled together, but nobody was really bumping into me. I didn’t pay much attention to it until a man in a suit said, ‘hey buddy’ to me and pointed down. On my inaugural subway ride I was standing in a nice puddle of vomit. Welcome to New York!

My wife said to me that she thought it was a bigger adjustment moving to New York than it would be moving to another country. Everything is done differently in the big city. Transportation, shopping, restaurants, and just about everything are entirely unlike that of anywhere else. I went from driving places my entire life, to no longer having a car. We started ordering our groceries online, or we would walk to the store, and the groceries would be delivered. Nicole accidentally ordered 15 half gallons of milk once online, not a mistake you would make by physically going to the grocery store. We would be setting up dinner reservations at 10:30 pm, I was normally sleeping by that time.

After a few months, I started to get the hang of the city to a certain extent. I loved going out to strange places, bizarre bars & restaurants that you wouldn’t see anywhere else in the world. As suburban America turns into Applebees, TGI Fridays and Olive Garden, New York holds on tight to the non-chain restaurants that serve great food. You could eat at a different oustanding restaurant every night for years. Some of the places were so original, it made me constantly say or think in my head, “Only in New York City”. One comical bar was called Burp Castle. It is supposed to be a shrine for beer made by monks. They have strict rules, that you must whisper. If your conversation gets loud, the bartender and patrons will quickly “shhhhhhhhhhhh” you. There are too many crazy eclectic places to name, but going out in the Big Apple was an adventure every night.

We saw some amazing concerts at Radio City Music Hall and Madison Square Garden, not to mention a Yankee/Mets game at Yankee Staduim for Sunday Night Baseball. The passion and language that New Yorkers have at baseball games is admirable. It was truly intense, but probably not a great environment for kids. When you see a concert or a sporting even in NYC, it feels like you are seeing the best of the best, and you probably are.

Having a two year old in the city is also an interesting proposition. Going to the park in NYC is more of a job than it is relaxing. There are so many children that you have to keep constant focus on yours to be sure they are still around. Charlie was able to partake in many interesting classes that probably are not available anywhere else. I knew the kid was turning into a true New Yorker when we were walking down the street to get some food one night last fall, and he looked at me and said, “Dad, I don’t want to walk anymore, lets get in a taxi.”

People call the United States a melting pot, but Manhattan is the ultimate for diverse cultures. When walking down the street, you could hear five or six different languages. it was the dream of immigrants 100-200 years ago to arrive through Ellis Island and see the Statue of Liberty, and many parts of the world still feel that same way. People always asked me how it was dealing with rude New Yorkers, and that is a large misconception. First of all, most people in Manhattan, didn’t grow up there, and secondly, just about everyone is friendly. Nobody makes eye contact with anyone else, but you could stop anybody on the street and ask directions, and they would stop and go out of their way to help you. People take great pride in the city, and they want to share that with others.

Each day when I would talk to or from work, I would see well over 100 pictures being taken by tourists. Lower Manhattan played such an integral role in the development of our country that it is hard not to be moved by walking by the New York Stock Exchange and Federal Hall every day. When walking home from work, I would go right past these two places and head up Church Street past the six blocks of the hole of what was the World Trade Center. It is a breathtaking site to see the enormity of the area which was destroyed September 11, 2001. I had no clue of the sheer size of the area until seeing it with my own eyes. Our apartment was about five blocks north of the site, and we could see the cranes plain as day out of our bathroom windows. Many times, I wondered what it would have been like if we were there that horrible day that the world changed. Out of all of our experiences in NYC, the whole situation of the World Trade Center touched me more than anything else. To walk by there and see people protesting nearly every day, reminded me of the gift we have of free speech, regardless of what is being protested. There would also be family members placing flowers, and pictures and saying prayers while thousands of people were walking by to their trains, buses, jobs, etc. It is mind blowing that nearly 2,800 people lost their lives that day for no reason. New Yorkers are resilient, and they will never forget, but they know that the city must push on.

The story that sticks with me the most came from one of my co-workers, whose golf buddy was killed in the attacks. The man worked in Wall St. and not even at the Trade Center, but didn’t come home that day. It wasn’t until weeks later after going through receipts to know that he walked down the street to a Starbucks then an ATM near the towers, and must have ran over to help his fellow New Yorkers, and lost his life in doing so. On September 11 of last year, the anniversary was commemorated with two giant flood lights shining into the night sky where the towers once stood, and it could be seen from almost anywhere in the city, and Nicole took this picture from Soho.

I do feel like I am home now that my family has settled back in Cincinnati, but there will always be a place in my heart for New York. It was an amazing experience, and awesome item to add to my ‘Life Resume’. There is no other place in the world quite like it, and I know I am a better person after going through it.

If there is one thing that I missed more than anything while in New York, it was the ability to get out and play golf with friends. It took me awhile, but I’ve learned that you need something in your life to take a break from the rest of it. There are millions of variations out there. Many people jog, some watch mindless television, others read books, but for me it is golf. To me, there is absolutely nothing better than getting up before the sun comes up on a Saturday, meeting up with buddies and spending four and a half hours on green grass without a cell phone, wife or kids.

I started playing golf around the age of 9 or 10, but it always took a back seat to the team sports I was playing. I think in high school, some of us realized how fun it was to get out and play a sport where a coach wasn’t breathing down your neck. Many kids get into “extreme sports” these days for the exact same reason, something they can do for fun with their friends without parents or coaches. We were a few years before that craze, and I’m glad as it probably limited the amount of broken bones I have suffered. At 16, we would get in the car and play at a $5 course, and I vividly remember my knees buckling over a three foot putt for the big $1 he had on the line. The best part is I still get out on the course with the guys that I played golf with nearly 20 years ago. I may not stay in touch with many of the guys that I played baseball or basketball with, but for some reason, I think the golf bonded us. We make an annual trip to Myrtle Beach or somewhere to play some rounds and catch up. The worst part is that we are really not that much better golfers than we were in high school.

In the summer during college, we would try to get back together, still playing at the garbage courses. There was one time, at the scenic course of Indian Ridge in Hobart, Indiana where a cart came into our fairway to hit their ball. I looked over at the guy, he was wearing cut-off jean shorts, no shirt, mullet, smoking a joint, and had a ‘boom box’ in the back of his golf cart blaring some hair band music. That was the moment that we decided that we might need to step it up and go to some nicer courses.

In the summer of 1997, we tried out a new course by my house in Valparaiso called Aberdeen. It was probably our second trip there when I ran into a friend of my little brother who worked there. He asked if I saw the girl who was working behind the counter, he said I should ask her on a date. The next time I went back, I took notice and tried to gather the courage to talk to her. I figured how great would it be to have a girlfriend that could get me free golf. While losing about a gallon of sweat due to nervousness, I asked her out right there in the pro-shop. I never did get that free golf, but instead found a wife.

The idea of being outside with great scenery and playing against the course as always been fun for me. After playing competitive sports since the time I was four years old, then after graduating college and finishing up baseball, there a void for me that needed to be filled. Golf does the job getting the adrenaline flowing for me. There is nothing better as hitting a good drive or sinking a long putt. I love the idea of trying to improve on a sport that you can literally play your whole life. I shared many rounds with my old man, which are memories that are cherished forever, and I hope to share the same memories with my children. Charlie got his first set up clubs for Christmas last year, so he is getting ready. I also get a chance to play with my father-in-law anytime he is in town. He has struggled with the game over the last few years, but always goes out to play with me, which has meant a lot. This picture does a good job of summarizing his game.

Another aspect about golf I love is a bit difficult to explain, and I want to be sure it does not sound derogatory. ESPN’s Bill Simmons sums it up perfectly in his 2002 article.

Sometimes, guys just enjoy hanging out with other guys. Unfortunately, we aren’t as creative and ingenious as women. The only male bonding vehicles we ever came up with? Sports, beer, golfing, Vegas, fantasy drafts, video games, strip joints, poker, Golden Tee and NFL Sundays. Guys can’t interact for extended periods of time unless there’s some sort of attention-consuming buffer. We can’t just say “let’s go to dinner,” gab about our lives for two hours, glance through some photos, get bombed on two glasses of Chardonnay and call it a successful night. And we can’t interact quite as happily and naturally with a woman in the room, mainly because we’re always afraid of what we might say or do.

Golf is just about the last bridge to my youth. A time when none of us had jobs, bills or families to be responsible for. We tend to focus on what is most important to us, making fun of each other and retelling story after story about our glory days.  Every once in a while, boys just have to be around boys, it is just in our make up.

Also the process of going out to play a game that is insanely difficult results in some of the most vile language that can be produced by a human. I hope that 40 years from now, I am out with the same group of guys hearing newly invented curse words after missed putts, the tap-in eagle Ty made in 1998, or Steve’s lazy eye girlfriend from 8th grade, or Bryan’s bloodhound capability of finding any lost ball.

Whatever you do outside of work and family, whether it is knitting or mountain biking, make it a priority. I never realized how much I valued golfing until I wasn’t able to for over a year. We are not on this earth forever, so make the most of the time we have.

The online world has had all kinds of controversy over advertisements within content. The Kontera product has been mentioned a lot, as well as other products even closer to home. It is an interesting debate, and I can see both sides of the argument. Publishers want to do everything they can to monetize their site, while at the same time, the user wants a clean experience, and be able to discern the difference between actual content and advertisements. I feel that sometimes people within online advertising become a bit pigeonholed and it sometimes helps to take a step back and look at other types of advertising.

That being said, the true growth of in content advertising has been on television. it has gotten to the point where it makes me laugh when as an example, you sit down to watch a sporting event. Much of the NBA playoffs were on TNT, and I am guessing the have a show called Tyler Perry’s House of Pain. I had never heard of the show, as I don’t watch much television, but I felt like I was life long friends with the characters on this show after the one hundred commercials and in game promos the showed over the course of each NBA playoff game. I thought to myself that TNT might be better served showing commercials for their other shows, but I guess they felt that pounding this show into the heads of NBA viewers, was the best choice of that valuable air time. I can appreciate that to an extent, but what they did next, really blurred the lines of content and advertisements. During the Western Conference Finals, TNT decided to show the celebrities in the crowd at the Staples Center coming to watch the Lakers and Spurs. They show Jack Nicholson, David Beckham, Eva Longoria, then “Tyler Perry, from TNT’s Tyler Perry’s House of Pain”. I couldn’t help an out loud laugh when they did that. I’m sorry, but it was an egregious use of self promotion. I think Fox started this fake placement of their own network stars back at the World Series a few years back when the entire cast of “House” was scattered at different parts of the ball park so the cameras could pick up on them and plug the show.

The other new fad is the endless amount of logos on the screen while a show is being televised. All of my examples go back to the NBA because it has really all I have been watching on television, but during game four of the NBA Finals, I was watching it on ABC HD. I happened to look up at the screen and noticed that there were three separate translucent logos on the screen at once. What makes it even worse is that the logos are not even in the corners of the screens. I did a little research and it is because many people don’t know how to properly use high definition and put the TV in 16:9 mode, and if the image is put out in 4:3 mode, the logos would get cropped off. My television was then covered with the upper somewhat right being the ABC HD logo, bottom right side being the Cincinnati Channel 9 logo, and the topper was on bottom left where it read “Save Money on Gas, News 9 after the game”. It is hard for me to believe that ABC allows the local affiliates to do such a thing, but it was rather comical. Pretty soon our television screens are going to look like the side of a Nascar.

Endless advertising within all mediums is here to stay, so we better get used to it. If it wasn’t for the insatiable need for companies to be advertising their products, I wouldn’t be where I am at today. The world is forever evolving, what will be the next big advertising vehicle?

Going into the Father’s Day weekend, I thought it would be a good time to write about what an amazing experience it is to be a dad. I am lucky enough to have a son who turned three years old last week and another one on the way. As Charlie grows it is an eye opening journey every day to see how a child looks at the world. From simple things like going to the bathroom, to hilarious comments. After swimming yesterday, he had some water in his ear, and proceeded to tell me, “Dad, I think the water hurt my feelings.”

The things that we find monotonous with day to day life, are suddenly an adventure. I’ve heard a million people say it, but there is no question that having a child is a great balance to all of the stresses of life. After a day of work, lets face it, your children aren’t focused on how the S&P 500 performed today, or $4 gas, they just want to see their dad. This weekend is supposed to be a day for dads but I also like to look at it as a day to be appreciative to the little ones who make it so rewarding to be a dad.