Yesterday I had sort of scary or startling moment: over my lunch hour I hit a deer. More accurately, she hit me (as my friend Yiloiz pointed out). I'm tooling down court avenue on the east side of Des Moines, westbound near the Judicial Branch and the State Capitol just at the crest of a hill. Out of my left blind spot comes a huge doe who tries to leap over my car, slams onto my windshield, slides across the hood and tumbles off in a somersault fashion. She instantly sprang up and bolted toward the Capital lawn. We're both fortunate that it was a low speed encounter - maybe 25 mph.

Great news, she didn't appear to be hurt, but she's probably going to be damn sore the next morning. I was unhurt as well, just a few minor scratches on my trusty Malibu Maxx. I paused for just an instant after having such a sudden stop -- the nice lady behind me was kind enough to not rear-end me. An odd tuft of deer hair stuck out from the outer edge of my headlight. Apparently the only damage was to my underwear.

Having lived in Iowa or Wisconsin my whole life it's sort of amazing I've never hit a deer before now. But you don't expect it to happen in such an urban setting. Hope I'm done with such close encounters.

Somebody's looking out for me, I guess. Clean living? That, and lucky. Life's good.

A priceless picture. Vote here:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DHR22K3

Just ran across this from @mashable - Face Match is a pretty wild. Still very much in beta, but imagine the possibilities.

The last few days a frenzy of media coverage has documented the Penn State football program story. A scandal, really. In case you've been living under a rock, legendary coach Joe Paterno has been shamed into saying he'll now retire at the end of the season. Many feel it's a travesty that he's being given this option to hang on and leave on his own terms. Update: it's now official that Penn State has indeed fired Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier.

First off, JoPa is not the criminal in this story: Jerry Sandusky (alleged rapist/monster), witness Mike McQuery and others in the administration should be deemed more guilty. Legally, Paterno fulfilled the minimal obligations and was convinced by many in his circles this matter was taken care of -- a non-issue. Morally, that's a whole different story. 

Tell us, Joe, that you tried to do the right things at the right time. That you didn't place the game of football, your coaches and players, on a higher plane of importance that trumps the physical and mental health of young boys, at-risk youth who didn't stand a chance.

While I'm not a Penn State fan, I've always admired Joe Paterno and looked to that program as one of the best examples of all that's good with college football. Let's hope that we've now seen the very worst of it and everything else they find in other colleges will pale in comparison. Lord, I'm going to leave the judgement in your hands. Please give comfort to the many victiims of these sad and tragic events. Yes, including the Paternos.

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thanks-to-uecker-i-m-a-bandwagon-brewers-fan-xzghJbAotAyqolyhAjiB.zip (129 KB)

The Brewers are my team mostly through family ties. Having lived in Milwaukee proper and then the 'burbs for about seven years, it's a town I really enjoy. Growing up in Eastern Iowa I found myself a Cubs fan, mostly due to the charm of Harry Caray.

Then later in the mid '80s I warmed up to the Brewers in college. The first big season I remember was the one where they started off the year with 15-game (I believe) winning streak. Molitor, Yount, Fingers, Cecil Cooper and big Gorman Thomas were among the stars. Again it was the broadcast personality that sealed the deal: Bob Uecker is a dude. And he had to be especially entertaining to keep so many listeners and viewers interested in some pretty bad teams over the years. He's the reason the radio in the basement or garage was tuned into Brewers games. Uecker is such an asset and it'll be a sad day when he finally retires.

Photos above courtesy of Topps (ironically Bob was a Cardinal ('64, '65) in between his two stints as a Brave ('62, '63 and '67)), Baseball Almanac.

This wacky social media world we live in is making this world a smaller place. In some ways these connections across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, G+ and whatever else you're into -- they seem to make us closer. More social. More happy.

And in other ways I'm finding it has the opposite effect -- increasing the distance between us. Not cool.

Take a Facebook encounter I had a few weeks ago. One of those, "blast from the past" moments. I get an email alert that an OLD friend of mine from back in Cedar Rapids had tracked me down and requested that we connect on Facebook. Great. Wow -- I haven't talked to that guy for so long. Roughly from the age of six or seven up until the early teens we were next-door neighbors and best friends. Adam was my age, always went to a different school (he was public schools, I was Catholic schools). For whatever set of reasons Adam and I sort of grew apart and decided to run in different crowds about sophomore or junior year in high school. I went off to college out of state, his parents both moved away... "poof" we had disappeared from each other's lives.

All of us can probably think of several (dozen) Facebook friends with whom we almost never interact. Some weirdo who was a friend of a friend from way back when... why are we "friends" again? The good news is that for every one, five or ten of those questionable friends, you'll also connect or reconnect with a very special one. Too many friends? I should cull the herd at some point.

Bottom line is I'm glad that Adam reached out and we were able to converse through a few Facebook messages back and forth. He's now living in another city within a couple hours and we've vowed to "get together sometime when I'm in town." I certainly hope that can happen, but won't be surprised if it doesn't.

Just when I think I've got life by the tail, something like this jumps up to bite me in the ass. I usually fancy myself to be a decent dad. Not this day.

At lunch on Tuesday I was with a few coworkers, my wife calls and needed a favor. "Yep, sure dear -- no problem, I'll pick her up."

My 12-year old daughter needed to be picked up by no later than 3:15 at a grade school about 15 minutes away. Normally I'd balk at the notion and have way too much going on at work to just drop everything for such a task. Luckily my job offers me the flexibility to step in at times like these. But I could tell my wife was frazzled and had some serious stuff going down at work that made this day a real exception. Could have played the card, "But honey, it's my second day at this new job..." nah, she knows these people are cool, they'd understand.

Did I mention I'm a rather absent-minded guy at times? Yep, I forgot that, too.

You got it ... 3:00 rolls around and I'm not at my desk. Should be on my way to get the kid, but I got pulled into an impromptu discussion at a meeting area across the office. Didn't have my laptop or my phone with me. I'm almost always getting text reminders to do this and that. Today was not one of those days.

I get back to my desk at oh, 3:25 and look down -- CRAP!!! I've got to get my kid.... [grabbed my keys and dashed for the door]

On my way to the school I can picture my sobbing daughter, the last one at the school. Sure enough, that's what I found sitting on the school steps when I arrived around 40 minutes late. My attempts to reach her on cell phone failed, the batteries had died that morning. I'm pretty much feeling like an unfit father, then an hour later I get a call from the angry mother...youch. My wife was just frustrated that I dropped the ball and she was counting on me. After feeling one-inch tall for the rest of the day I've pretty much grown back to my normal height.

Honestly, that's the first time I've blown it that bad. Happy Fathers Day, guys. Ever pulled a bone-head move like this?

P.S. Here's a great father's day article one of my relatives just posted on Facebook by Jeff Pearlman of SI.

Check out my recent guest post over on the Two Rivers Marketing blog.

This is the ad agency where I'm currently working as a contractor. A former employer of mine for almost six years.

Sure, we get pissed off sometimes. Never burn a bridge.

Have you heard about this film I AM by Tom Shadyac? He's the director behind Ace Ventura, Bruce Almighty and a dozen others you'd recognize. Then a serious bike accident changed his life, got him asking questions. Last night I caught a showing at the Varsity Theater on the Drake campus (the only theater in Iowa showing this). It's an important documentary for anyone to see -- anyone who cares about making this a better world someday. Anyone who's tired of keeping up with the Joneses.

I don't think you need to be a liberal or hippie, but I'll admit I saw disproportionately high percentage at this showing. Pretty sure it's the same story at all of the showings. It's a fast-moving documentary that will leaving you asking questions like, "I'm really like that, aren't I?" as we look at the mental illness of greed, acquisition and materialism. The film doesn't just expose our weaknesses, but also serves up solutions. It's not Shadyac's own words, he interviews a great list of experts across different fields to reveal these truths.

I plan to see it again. The more who do, the better off we'll all be.