Championable | Love, parenting, politics.

Whose puppy learned to swim?

Love to all. Even you, the lady who lets her dog off-lead even though it “gets protective.”

In case you don’t scan Fark, I really don’t want you to miss this article on Dick Cheney. In order to circumvent the law, Cheney claimed that his office wasn’t part of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government.

So that make it… Judicial, Legislative, Executive, and Arrogant, Lying Dickhead.

Who knew? I’m so glad there are a lot of Republicans who are coming around to the idea that maybe you don’t have to stand behind lying sack of shit, all because they claim to belong to the same party as you. Republicans need to take back their party. Fiscal Conservatism. Smaller government. Where did these concepts go? I want to argue with people I disagree with who make a POINT. Bush is a lying murderer. Cheney has clearly gone to logical Outer Space. Where are the Doles of the 00’s?

Love to all. Even you, leaky.

I went out to dinner tonight with 8 of my friends from my AA home group. One of them is moving to Boston tomorrow, and we were seeing him off.

I haven’t mentioned most of my AA friends on this blog, but I have mentioned one.

He was there, too. 11 days sober. I don’t want to go into what happened to him during his period of drinking and drugging, but I do want to say that he made it back, and that he’s struggling hard, and that damn, alcoholism is one powerful force of destruction.

Dinner tonight was a raucous affair. There were a lot of big personalities, meshing well.

Sometimes I can’t believe I quit drinking again. I’m so fucking LUCKY. The people I’ve met in AA are teaching me all kinds of things about trust, love, friendship, admitting when I’ve fucked up and sticking to my guns when I haven’t. Some of them drive me nuts, but tonight I got to sit with the people in whom I revel.

So, as I’ve said before: Thanks there, God. You rock.

Love to all. Even you, englishwoman who could have helped me, but didn’t.

Last week, for the first time, my new company trickled over $20,000 in weekly sales (not including one-time fees). It’s a peak that will come down a bit before it goes up again, but it’s a milestone we needed to reach. It puts as at an annualized run-rate of a little over $1,000,000 in sales. That’s about half-way to where we need to be.

It’s weird to think that my first company consistently did 40-60k in sales/week for four years straight.
Sometimes it feels like I put in four times the effort for one-third the sales. Alas. But you know, it’s still a very exciting time.

Go team, go.

Love to all. Even you, the guy who very, very clearly does not want to be compared to anyone else, anywhere, at any time.

If you want to get on my bad side really, really quickly, be one of those people who has a job with just a teeny bit of power, and excercise that power to the fullest. Here’s the quick story.

• A billion dollar fashion and fragrance company owed my firm some money.
• We had been trying to collect for a couple of months, to no avail.
• The person we had been talking to told me not to talk to anyone else in the company except for her, and that she would let me know if and when she found anything out from A/P.
• This same person picked up her phone when I called, and said: “Oh. Um. I don’t normally answer my phone.” And hung up.
• The same person said I was not allowed to talk to A/P.
• Two months after we proactively sent this person of invoices and supporting data, and followed up weekly, she asked for the same info. Again.
• I eventually decided not to work with this firm again, regardless of eventual payment.
• I told this person that I had respected her wishes to be the point of contact, but that I could no longer respect that if she didn’t get back to me. I gave her one business day.
• She didn’t get back to me.
• Using smtp querying tools, I divined the non-standard email addresses of the CEO and CFO.
• I contacted the CFO and CEO, opening with the line:

First of all, I’m sorry this is the way my firm is being introduced to you. Collections work is my second-to-least favorite aspect of my position here at [my company]. (…) In spite of the fact that we are small (but growing!) we absolutely cannot allow ourselves to ignored, nor taken advantage of by any company, regardless of size. With that said, the intent of this email is to speedily get paid what we’re owed, and move on to happier things (like getting excellent jobs for our wonderful talent).”

• I then detailed the problems at hand, quoting the emails from the people who had given us the runaround.
• I followed up the next morning, asking the CFO to let me know the scoop, so happiness can prevail.
• The CFO of the billion dollar company wrote me a nice email saying he’s checking with A/P.
• While that’s happening, I get a call from my original contact, who, after ignoring their committments and his own promises, called to lecture me on “process.” It was a fascinating thing, listening to this person who had lied to me try and tell me that it was my fault, and that even though he and his group never responded to me, it was I who clearly didn’t understand how much work his colleague did to try and get us paid.. Eventually, I said: “I appreciate you’re providing all of this detail, but why didn’t you bother telling me any of this for two months? Because no matter what you are saying now, I had to contact your CFO in order to get you to call me.
• The colleague referenced in the last point (the one he said worked so hard to get us paid) writes to give me an A/P contact and tell me that she is submitting our invoices to A/P for the first time. Oops. So much for everything the guy said in the last point.
• Someone else from A/P calls me. Unbelievably nice person. Said the CFO called and asked her to fix our problem. We fix it. Check is processed and being mailed.
• I write the CFO and say thank you.
• I write the original contact to tell him the CFO fixed everything. I close with:

I’m writing to say that it appears we’re all set. I’m sorry I had to contact Steve in order to get things accomplished, but it’s my responsibility to the firm to make sure that we’re treated with the same level respect that we treat our clients, vendors, and employees.

Big, small, international, or NYC-only, everyone should be treated kindly.

Thanks for the business, and I wish you the best of luck.

• The CFO write me back to say “You’re welcome!”  Exclamation point included.

The moral of this story is simple. All because you have a little bit of power, that doesn’t mean you have to use it to prop yourself up.

Also, little dogs can bite, too.

Love to all. Even you, George and Dani.

I learned that if you take the same approach to a ball stuck five feet behind the famed Black Rock of the North Hempstead Country Club that you learned to holes back when you’re stuck in a sand trap, you just might be able to impress the living shit out of your father-in-law.

Love to all. Even you, the litterbug eating twizzlers.

In an attempt to better my mood and be less of an irritable dickhead, when Maggie and the kids wake up tomorrow, they’ll have this waiting for them on the kitchen table.  Click the pic to enlarge, of course.  The golf stuff is for Maggie, the jump rope for my daughter, the gum for everyone, the game for my youngest.  I got my oldest something, too, but it’s not in the pic.  If you can’t read the note, it says: Happy Father’s Day, because if not for you guys, I wouldn’t be a father.”

Love to all. Even you, the idiot guy who told my friend that his daughter wasn’t all that good at soccer, so maybe she shouldn’t play.

Father’s day weekend and I’m feeling overwhelmed.

Maggie is working at her gig tomorow, starting at noon. I’m coaching a 9am soccer game, hosting an 11am sundaes n’ trophies party, going to a softball game at 4:30, then to a birthday party at my neighbors for their cute-as-can-be boy, then a 5:30 baseball game, then possibly an 8pm baseball game.

For Father’s Day, we’re going to Church at 10:30am, then at 2pm we’re leaving for my Father-in-Law’s house, where I’m supposed to go play golf for 9-holes. Keep in mind that I completely SUCK AT GOLF. I’ve only played twice. So this is not what I would think would be a fun outing. Then, a six PM dinner at my Father-in-Law’s golf club, which means we don’t leave for home until 8:30 or 9, which means we get back at 10 or 10:30, which means exhaustion.

Last year, I said that for Father’s Day, I just wanted to stay home.

Maggie just asked me if I was coming to bed. I’m not. She didn’t understand my reasoning.

I felt like, since I got home from work at 7:30, to my daughter crying, my wife annoyed, my youngest having pooped in his pants again (a renewed habit), nothing for dinner (although there was a cold-ish burger from the deli), and having spent the evening listening to everyone bicker, that I didn’t want to just go to sleep, so I could wake up to an unbelievably frenetic day.

I hate to say this, but right now I’m just dreading the weekend. It starts off okay, but as the day goes on tomorrow it just gets more and more insane, and… although I love my family, I just really, really, really REALLY don’t want to travel to Long Island to play a game I don’t know how to play, and to stay out late, so I can get home tired.

I just want to be home. Ugh. I’ll feel better later, I’m sure.

Love to all. Even you, the lady who sent me her resume 9 times and doesn’t understand the concept of “tax burden.”

I ran for the first time in TEN DAYS tonight. 6.7 miles. Then I did a quick round of weights. I MUST get back on the stick. I mean, I’m glad I can toss off a 10k like that, but I’m still going in the wrong direction. It’s not that I’m not motivated, it’s that I don’t have the TIME.

Must. Get. Patterned.

Love to all. Even you, the teenager who was loudly planning the parties he’d go to if his parent weren’t home.

Don’t mess with my employees, man. Or you might get a big note in the database about you that says something like this.

Just to be clear… this is an exceptionally rare thing. In fact, there’s only one record like this in the database, but the person who has this note made my salesperson nearly cry.

Love to all. Even you, the lady who hung up on the nicest woman in our building.