This week’s U.S. Open led me back to an unpublished piece I wrote a little while back. With a great weekend of golf behind us, it somehow seemed appropriate.

It is said you learn more about a person in playing 18 holes of golf with them than you do over twenty years of normal interaction. You find out how that person handles adversity. Do they cheat? How do they treat people like bag boys and caddies? Their spouse? Is it all about them? Great studies in human nature.

Low handicappers as rule are slow and  somewhat self absorbed. They want to hit that perfect shot. When they do and when they don’t, they want to tell you all about it. And of course they will tell you right away what club they hit. Who really cares what club you hit? Is it on or off the green?

High scorers are different. They spend hours over the ball. Not from concentration but indecision. Let me see? Are my hands right? What about my aim? I have to remember what the pro said about taking it back. Will you just hit the friggin’ ball? Self conscious? Excuses. Excuses.  I looked up. I pulled it. I shanked it. Don’t ever say that word. It is either a pitch out or a Chinese hook.

Betting is another thing. It should be straightforward but sometimes has so many variations you could be up or down big in the space of a few shots. The most I have ever heard bet on the course was $100,000. Michael Jordan usually plays for $25,000. Me? I love a $2 or $5 Nassau but that is considered bush league by today’s standards.

There was a story going around about Gulph Mills Country Club on the Mainline in Philly. It seems several years ago three young turks were teamed up with the president of Sunoco in a Saturday morning pickup game. The hot shots wanted to play for big money and kept needling the CEO. Exasperated, the senior exec asked the biggest mouth how much money he made last year? He replied, $100,000. He said, “Fine, I’ll roll you dice for that and then we will play a two dollar Nassau.” Case closed.

I love to needle and in turn have it shot right back. Banter takes on whole levels of finesse especially as one’s opponent is about to strike the ball. I also love to cheerlead and help without becoming an authority. If you have seen my golf swing you understand why I keep instruction in big terms and not theory. KISS. Keep it simple stupid.

When he was alive, my brother belonged to quite a few golf courses. Like ten or eleven at one count. It was great when I pulled my hat down, we looked enough alike that I could come strolling into some of the finest courses in the country and have them say, “Good Morning Mr. Kenny.” Of course I  would nod and keep right on moving. I love it when a plan comes together.

The best thing he taught me was how to treat guests. He really didn’t care about how he played but rather were you having a good time. He was beyond gracious and caring to the staff and it reflected in their friendship with him. Good lessons to learn.

We had opening day at Lakewood last month. Teams of five played in a scramble where you used the best shot of the five and kept playing the hole. Great because at some point everyone contributes. I played with three great guys and one who was a pain in le derriere.

This gentleman never cracked a smile. He was a very good golfer but always complained. He would call the putts and if it didn’t break the way he thought it would, it was of course because you hit it wrong. He was aloof. He was arrogant. He took away from everyone else’s fun day.

The point is simple. He could have been so much more. I really felt sorry for the guy. It was a gorgeous day. We were on a golf course. What could really be wrong? I mentioned it to a friend and he said he had seen the act before. He stated the guy probably never had a good day in his life. How sad.

Lessons learned. Don’t take your self too seriously. Life is too short. We are on the right side of the sod. Realize how much your good or bad mood can affect others. It’s only a game. Kind of like life.

As always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

There are approximately 16,000 golf course in the US. Roughly 25% are private. 300 courses are maintained by the military.

We spend $76 billion a year on golf. That is split between 26 million golfers but not evenly. 50% reported spending over $1000 a year on equipment. 2% of golfers spend $15,000 or more on everything.

The most expensive public greens fee is Pebble Beach @$495. That’s about $125 per hour. Usually you can get on a local public course for $30.

It is estimated that 300 million golf balls are lost in the Us every year. Now if you are only allowed to look for five minutes, how much time do spend chasing those little white things down.

There are 5.75 million female golfers.

Only 22% of all golfers score better than 90 for 18 holes. The average score is 97 for men and 114 for women.

Remember: Every shot makes somebody happy.

It has been a crazy week. Kathy’s sister and brother in law are in town for the week. David is a thinker like yours truly and the conversations at 6:30 AM have gotten weighty. At 9:00 PM we are talked out and ready for some recharging. No, we don’t go out drinking like days of old but head for the sack.

I haven’t missed my daily dose of news and interviews and there were two special ones this last week with Tom Colburn, senator from Oklahoma and Jeb Bush. Neither are running for office and of course without the reelection pressures they spoke freely and made absolute sense. We have serious problems ahead. You know it. They know it and Washington knows it but they think somehow if they don‘t bring it up somehow the Lord will provide. My Georgetown Logic 101 didn’t teach me to see it that way.

My son rode his bike Sunday morning some 40-45 miles. His wife came in third in a biathlon on Saturday. My son in law is participating this week in Ride the Rockies which is an endurance battle to cover some 480 miles in 6 days going up and down a gazillion passes. And they think this is fun. We are taking to the car.

We cruised out of Denver this morning at a leisurely pace to head north. Boulder gave way to Lyons and a great backroad ride through small towns placed us at the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park at Estes Park. These are not the lights of Broadway.

It of course was a gorgeous Colorado day but the horizon quickly turned a dark and murky color. There is a huge out of control fire burning football field sized swathes through dense forests in a matter of moments. It is estimated the fire can travel at speeds of up to 30-40 miles an hour. The humidity has been in the high teens and gusty winds have fed this insatiable monster. Homes are engulfed in minutes and a life of striving somehow goes for naught. It is nature at its best and worst. Thank your stars.

As you enter the park the vastness is everywhere. We begin the climb up Trail Ridge Road which will launch us from an altitude of 8,000 feet at liftoff to 14,700 in the next 45 minutes. The park is about 450 square miles with still snow capped peaks standing sentry everywhere. If you have an ego, come here. You will get over it. The combination of size and eons of geologic history do make you feel somewhat insignificant.

You tip your hat to Teddy Roosevelt. Before and during his presidency he spent a fair amount of time in the West. It was his unrelenting pressure that produced places like this, Yellowstone and Yosemite. Congress could have cared less at the time. Funny how their short term thinking is a legacy borne out by their legislative heirs. Some things never change.

As you reach the summit above tree line, the tundra is the only surviving vegetative life in this unforgiving terrain. During the winter the wind howls up to 150MPH and the temperature does not get above freezing for five months.

It is not quite moonscape but the realities of life are ever present. And yet the sky is beyond Colorado blue and you are reminded of John Denver’s lyric in Rocky Mountain High. “They say that he got crazy once and tried to touch the sky”. Good stuff.

As you wend your way down the backside you go at an easy pace. It’s as if you want the feeling to last forever. The tranquility to be savored. Bleakness turns to aspens greening in the sun. There are campers and pup tents of all sorts. A man in waders is in a mountain stream fed by the snow. The water flowing from snowmelt will wind up in Denver or even LA through tributaries far and wide. You are constantly reminded of the magnificent quiltwork of nature that keeps us all alive. I wish I was better at getting that across.

As we drive back to Denver two things come to mind. We pass towns and homes of all description. Shacks and mansions sit on the same hill. Everyone has their own idea of heaven. All are glass houses. None should throw stones.

Secondly is the respite somewhere remote provides. Away from the hustle and bustle, I Phones, texting and tweeting. Some place where your thoughts are your own. A place to dream and imagine. “What if” doesn’t play out on an Excel spreadsheet but in your heart. I am glad I took a break. I hope you enjoyed the ride.

As always
Ted The Great

Factoids:

There are 58 National Parks in 27 states. They are administered by the National Parks Service which is part of the Department of The Interior.

They range in size from 6,000 acres to 8 million acres. Alaska and California have 8 followed by Utah with five and Colorado with four. The total area of all parks is 52 million acres.

The largest house under construction at this time is 90,000 sf in Windermere, Florida. There are several homes available to be built that range in size from 200-500 sf. I think they used to call those Airstreams. Actually, the average size of a house in the US is 2,000 sf but going down.

Ugly Americans. Sad to say as we entered the park a car in front with Texas plates no less threw a large piece of paper out of the car. Further on there were many signs saying it takes over fifty years for the tundra to recover from people stepping on it. Of course there were several groups running and standing on the frozen soil to get that one great picture. The rules don’t apply to them. Oh yeah. I forgot we are too regulated.

“Summertime and the livin is easy”….well almost. I really am betwixt and between. Part of me wants to just put my feet up and set life on automatic. The weather is just perfect and the front porch continues to beckon whether it’s coffee in the morn or a glass of red and a cigar in the afternoon. Maybe I ought to reverse that order.

More than a couple of you worried about me last week. You thought I should be put on a suicide watch. Au contraire mon amis and amies. Just because the idiots running the asylum are incompetent at best, does not call for slashed wrists. Actually it just gets my engine revving more. But for now it is a kinder gentler me.

As you read this Junior Golf is starting. I have four of the grandkids in it this year. Three assemble from far and wide and stay with Gammy and Padge Tuesday night. We pick up the fourth at 7:15 AM Wednesday and we are off in the “Padgemobile”. Actually, Aiden wants to stencil that on the side of my car and put a big PEACE symbol on the hood. The kid may have potential yet.

Speaking of golf I have gone over to the dark side or on second thought the bright side. I played golf with Kathy and two of her cute friends last week, much to the hooting and howling of the peanut gallery in the men’s grill.

Now some of you are rational I hope. We played in 3:40 with two of us walking. Would you rather see a beautiful woman over a putt or one of my slug friends? They don’t fart and belch to speak of and at the end of the round they give you a big hug and a kiss. What’s wrong with that picture?

It so happened Kathy and I played on Sunday with another gal and a young lad of 11 years young. It seems he is the reigning 10 and under champ of Colorado and sports a 10 handicap…and plays to it. On the par 3 Fifth hole he put his ball on the green quite methodically. This is now starting to get a little unnerving.

TTG grimaced over the ball but managed with my ever classic swing to put it soundly on the short green stuff with a six iron bridging the 167 some odd yards. It started rolling towards the cup and in typical Tiger fashion I bent over to pick up my tee thinking I would have good chance at a birdie two. I then hear the young’un yell “It just went in the cup.” I couldn’t see that far so I had to trust his steely vision. On arriving at the putting surface there was no ball on the green but a peek inside the cup revealed my Srixon 3. A Hole In One. How about that?

I finished the round with a respectable 83. That followed one of the ugliest rounds of my life on Saturday with a generous 93. Which was preceded by a 40 for nine holes on Friday. You wonder why I think I am going crazy? I then proceeded to buy drinks at the bar and have too many vodka and diet tonics in a pint glass and life was good. Say good night, Ted.

Why all this rambling? I really have so many ways to travel. Life and its people are a mystery to me. That’s not confounding but a real joy. I love to “Ponder the Imponderables.” A good friend called me a lefty last week. I didn’t take it personally. As a matter of fact I loved it because it shows that most of the time people don’t have a clue where I am coming from. Not sure I do either.

I just want to hit life head on. I want to speak out but with some degree of purpose. I hope you do too. There are things wrong but they are not insurmountable. Another friend is apoplectic about the future of the world. He is sure we are headed to economic ruin. Maybe we are but I would sure as hell like to try and stop it rather than sitting here waiting for it to come.

I watched an interview with Charlie Rose and Larry Fink who is CEO of the investment firm Blackstone. It was one of the best I have seen on current day problems but also with thoughts on mending them. It’s the type of conversation I wish our leaders of all stripes would have. I recommend you take 40 minutes and watch it.

And so I will keep bouncing from nirvana to neurosis. It’s good for the soul. And when Kathy says I am driving her nuts I will point out to my sweet that for her it  is a putt not a drive.

As always
Ted The Great

Factoids:
Odds of having a hole in one…about one in 12,000 for an average golfer.

Days on which most occur..Friday Least on Sunday Dunno why.

The average golf score is 100 and has been that way for decades.
It has not changed despite changes in balls, equipment and course design.

Charlierose.com 5/31/2012 Larry Fink. While you are at it 5/30/2012 Donald Rumsfeld…have a drink ready for that one.
6/1/2012 Buch Harmon

“All the world is a stage” sayeth the bard extraordinaire and “men and women are merely players.” There are so many examples of two bit players in the world today that one does not know where to start. It is almost as if we are reaching out to anyone who will give it a try.

We could work the international scene for our first casting call. Eight European leaders have been tossed in the economic turmoil with each one claiming to have the right answers. Buffoons like Berlusconi and Sarkozy prance and dance for the part of court jesters. Merkel say let them eat cake and the Greeks don’t care who it is as long as they don’t have to pay for it.

Greece leads the way with paying non jobs. They assign 8-10 people to ride the state railway with only one or two collecting tickets. They are notorious for not paying their taxes. In Athens, they take to the air to find houses with swimming pools hidden from view showing wealth tucked away quietly. Spain, Portugal and Italy are not far behind. Look out below!

President Assad of Syria mows down people with lawn mower like precision and says the devil made him do it. The UN, after lengthy discussions says he is the one who made him do it. Nothing changes. First you say you do and then you don’t Iran, says there is nothing wrong with enriched uranium. Come on in and have a look see but on second thought maybe we shouldn’t open the kimono too far..

Karzai looks at us with a straight face saying, “Get out” but don’t forget to keep the checks in the mail. Thanks for nothing. By the way whatever happened to us being paid back in oil from our close friends in Iraq? South Korea buys Iranian oil but says it doesn’t count because Seoul demands the money be spent on South Korean goods. Gets to your Soul doesn’t it. We forgot Uncle Sam. Thanks again for your support and assistance for the last 60 years. And in return they gave us Rev Sung Yung Moon.

Moving right along to the good old U S of A, we are all getting in place for our quadrennial fiasco. Mitt will tell you how he is a turnaround specialist. He’s right. I have seen him turn around with the greatest of ease. Barack  aka Barry The Crooner will tell or sing to you what you want to hear. It is always Bush’s fault. But wasn’t that four years ago? He ran on a transparency agenda. It is transparent all right and it ain‘t good..

Desperate Housewives, America’s Got Talent, The Biggest Loser, Mike and Molly, Two and A Half Men put us all right up there in the running for extras in Ben Hur, Conan the Barbarian and Planet of the Apes. Your are what you watch. This ladies and gentleman is why negative political advertising works. We don’t have to dumb down on things. We are already there.

But when we come down to the finalists I say pack your bags if you are not dressed in red. Not the Lady in Red. I am talking about the guys in the funny hats, obis and lace sleeve ornaments. That’s right, none other than the College of Cardinals. They cut their teeth on “Grumpy Old Men” and now with their talents refined are bringing down the house in Rome. Literally.

I am a Catholic but probably not for long. I really don’t want to go as I have told you often of our great parish here in Denver with marvelous singing and a fantastic young priest.  I will be drummed out for raising my voice in dissension and criticism. How dare you, TTG?  Don’t you know we speak infallibly?

Guys and Dolls,this is really the theater of the absurd. You take a deeply moral but basic principle of “Do unto others” and then have as your mission to spread that word throughout the world. Sit people down in simple surroundings and show by example that material possessions don’t really matter. Feed the hungry and help the poor. I don’t know what drives me crazier, the glitz and glitter of the Vatican Museums or the picture of the Pope being served the finest wine from crystal carafes by his butler.

Let me be clear on one thing, the message was never more pertinent than it is now. It is the messengers that have gone severely astray. Funny how that happens in religion, politics, business ethics and the like.

The problem is now that we have lost our way who can we call on to lead us back? Maybe a hidden star or starlet waiting in the wings to be discovered. My quandary in our little theater of life is whether it is a comedy or tragedy? Probably a little of both.

As always

Ted The Great.

Factoids:

Greece’s top tax scofflaws number 4,152 and owe 14.88 billion Euros. On the other hand Christine La Garde whom I consider to be a very savvy and sharp head of the IMF  who recently chastised the Greeks, pays no taxes of her own because the IMF is an international  institution.

Iraq now has the largest pool of proven oil reserves at 350 billion barrels.

South Korea upped its imports of Iranian oil by 42% in the month of April and records are not available yet for May but it may top that increase. Shanks for nothing.

The Vatican beyond priceless art treasures has billions upon billions in solid gold ingots. They are stored securely in vaults  at the Fed, England and Switzerland. Remember those starving children in Africa.

You know the old adage, the first three letters of assume are ASS. But I will assume you are all reasonably intelligent despite your current penchant for reading material. Most of you have been exposed to business in one shape or fashion so I hope the following makes sense.

The most critical aspect of our financial futures as individuals and a country is tied up in a broad subject called medicine. Some facts and figures for the uninitiated. Medicine in the early nineties was as was defense and education 5-6% of GDP. It is currently 17% and if estimates hold true that will be 25% by 2020.

I watched a segment on TV this week that spoke of the work at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). There is a doctor and small staff that studies and tries to diagnose several hundred diseases we don’t even have names for. Literally symptoms and outcomes that we don’t know where they came from. They might affect only 100-200 people.

There was an article in our local paper about a Bubble Boy who has no immune system. Another woman is now able to move her paralyzed body by literally willing it to do so. It seems they have hooked electrodes to her brain and those impulses are relayed to a computer allowing artificial limbs to move. That’s the great part.

The bad part is that in all good things, they cost money. And I stand here unabashedly telling you there is a finite amount of money in this man’s world. It has to be allocated  to where it will do the most good for the common cause. That is not morality. It is reality.

We have promised the impossible. We have shown that we can keep people alive indefinitely. We have implanted limbs and vital organs in ways we could never dream. We have instilled hope through medical breakthroughs that help people just hang on hoping for a cure. We are rocked head on by a medical community and a public fervor that says heal at any cost. As is usual we’ll put it on the tab and worry about it later.

I know I sound like Simon Legree but I would really like one of you very sharp business types to tell me how to do this and not go broke. Let’s not forget we have 50 million Baby Boomers who are going to die no matter what we develop. Just put a number of $100,000 per person on end of life medical costs. Don’t worry it is trillions over the next 30-40 years. In today’s numbers.

Man what a bummer you are TTG! Guilty as charged. Wait a minute. You are talking about rationing, you say. Call Congress. Call the AARP. Call the VFW. Call the ACLU. Lock that crazy son of a bitch up. He is a dissident. A terrorist. How dare you bring the realities of monetary policy into life and death? Again. Guilty to the core.

Now I know what you are thinking. If you are young you want those resources for you and your children. If you are old you will get on some high horse about how you have worked hard and deserve every last nickel. If you are smart you will figure out a way to deal with it.

I really believe every man woman and child is entitled to basic medical care. If you have pneumonia, break a limb, suffer a heart attack or stroke you are more than deserving of immediate medical treatment. Beyond that it gets dicey.

You know I work with the dying through my work in hospice. Maybe I have a different view but it is not maudlin. I see nature take its course. I quite frankly find it more macabre to see someone laying there with tubes and ventilators hanging from every orifice trying to wring just a  few more breaths out of a broken body. Frantic resuscitations to live another day. There is a strange thing called quality of life.

As I write these words I guess whom I am really addressing is my generation and those that caregive. As we move later and later into life we have to have directives for what is reasonable and what is not. I don’t plan on dying anytime soon. Sorry Kath. But if and when I get some bad news I hope I will be realistic. Not heroic. Just letting nature take its course. Spend the money on my grandkids.

I have given a great deal of thought to this burden thing. Not only financial but psychological. There is a wonderful couple of whom the wife is in hospice. She has end stage whatever and every night she and her husband have martini together. She is beyond understanding of her plight. It really is a beautiful thing.

So I assume that many of you will disagree. That’s fair. I assume that you will go along that there is a lot of ass in me. Point taken. But I also assume that one or all of you will be able to come up with an alternative. Not a delaying tactic. No more we’ll deal with it after the election. I assume you feel this is all more important a campaign issue than the Rev. Wright and Bain Capital. Am I assuming too much?

As always

Ted the Great

Factoids:

Medical research contends that no disease is ever eradicated.

The current Health Care Initiative(Obamacare ) is not revenue neutral. The House version adds $239 billion over 10 years. The Senate version $597 billion.

We spend more per capita on healthcare than countries with universal healthcare but we only hit a fraction of our population.

We spend 1/3 of our healthcare resources in the last year of life.

Approximately 80% of elderly patients are hospitalized in the last six months of their lives.

I was doing my usual exploring of all things cosmic and stumbled upon a PBS joint presentation of NOVA and National Geographic. Now you have to understand that I have a BA in Poli Sci from Georgetown. I haven’t had much science even though a lot of people think I am rather full of BS. But I digress.

The program was about the sun and its potential danger in the form of solar storms. The incredibly interesting part was the analysis of the makeup of the sun. It is 93 million miles away. It is the size of 1,000,000 earths. It is not really a solid or gas because the heat of it is somewhere around 27 million degrees. It is made up of four distinct parts or areas. How do they figure this stuff out?

It is basically in a form of constant nuclear fusion. Hydrogen to helium. It translates 4 million tons of mass into energy that is the equivalent of 10 million H bombs every second. And we are worried about Iran?

It takes a ray of sunlight about 8 minutes to get to our little blue marble. But it takes the original unit of power millions of years to get to the surface of the sun to be radiated. In other words the sunlight we see today started on its journey to maturity way back in the Ice Age.

Now some of you probably knew this but TTG is dumbfounded. It was almost comical as the solar physicists plotted the solar eruptions or storms. Kind of like a red hot tornado. It seems that if we had the perfect storm it could wipe out all of our electricity on earth Huh? A mini version actually hit Quebec back in 1989. And here we thought they were just whacky on their own.

The point being is that these scientists are watching the solar weather every day. They actually issue forecasts. But the thought comes to this poor little mind, “What the hell do they think they are going to do about it?” Maybe we can develop a missile to thwart it? I don’t think so. I think I would rather not know it was coming.

The thing that kept ruminating in my mind was twofold. First is that this galaxy we live in is really a balancing act. The fact that the sun is this rather amorphous blob is really a miracle. It explodes and goes nuts but somehow still keeps on generating energy just like clockwork while maintaining its cute orblike figure.

By sheer happenstance we are lucky enough to have just the right set of circumstances that create life. Certain gasses, water, soil, protoplasm and add the right amount of sunlight and voila we have fish, fauna, flora and man. The fact this all works is dare I say a miracle.

The second piece is that homo sapiens is smart enough to devise ways to study all this. But rather than living in awe, we are of course convinced that we can do better. We are now in a mad race to find the God particle. When we find that then we will know the origins of life. We will be able to replicate this in a lab and boy won’t we be smart.

Well let’s not go that far. But let’s cure all disease. Body parts? No problem. We’ll learn how to grow them. Death? We can put it off for at least a few dozen years. Pollutants? That global warming stuff is just a bunch of crap.

It seems to me we should recognize that everything we have is a gift. The sun hurts us but only because we don’t respect its power. The earth feeds us but we think of that as a right not a privilege. Resources. Fresh air. Water. We want to chew them up insatiably to fuel progress and growth.

After watching this  show I realized that we are just pieces in the puzzle. The sun has existed for 4 billion years and will last long after any of our useful lives. The planets will orbit long into the future. We tend to think of ourselves masters of the universe.  Let’s just consider ourselves lucky. God forbid we are just mere mortals. Oh yeah, I forgot about that GOD part. Is He still around?

As always

Ted The Great.

Factoids:

Gasoline is actually a product of the sun or lack thereof. When the sun was blocked, huge numbers of living creatures died and there decomposition created what are now our fossil fuels.

The sun destroys or mutates skin cells to create skin cancers. Looking directly at the sun can blind you.  Solar power is our most abundant but still untapped source of energy. The good and the bad.

The sun doesn’t rise or set even though some of us may have a different view relative to our own importance. We are just a satellite orbiting the sun. It makes up 98% of the mass of our solar system.

If you weigh 100 lbs on earth you would weigh 2707 lbs on the sun. Aaargh!

Sun spots are the result of varying degrees of temperature. They can become the size of the state of Texas.

I am sitting here thinking about a whole bunch of things but yesterday’s news of a bomb plot got me going in a direction. It has to do with the ability of one or a few people to change the world. For better or worse.

Al Queda is at most 10-15,000 whatevers. They are hell bent on creating tension via terrorism for hundreds of millions of people. They are succeeding. Look at what the free world has to do to try and thwart their every move. Now we have to go back over the security apparatus of our airports to see if they are capable of detecting the latest and greatest son of C4.

There are groups of all kinds all over the world where people are oh so willing to be led. What makes a leader? I think it is a combination of a lot of things but mainly it is being perceptive. Seeing a situation or a resentment that needs to be fixed. Showing a better way or at least an alternative. Are they fixing society’s ills or fanning the flames? Good question.

Why do we have so few leaders? Is it because there are so few people who are exceptional or just so few people even though they have the brains and talent who dare step out of the crowd. What is it that prevents someone from speaking up when they see a wrong? Even better why do we take so little time to investigate our beliefs and mindsets?

The standard today is are you a conservative or a liberal? Progressive or reactive? Spiritual or secular? What does that mean? I think in some ways we don’t want to go through the thought process that is entailed when you go deep. You question the very tenets you have held for so long. Not to throw them out but at least to make sure they are relative to your time and state.

I guess we just get comfortable. Why question when you can follow blindly? Someone criticizes me for questioning my religion, my political philosophies, my positions on marriage, or democracy. They say that we all know how we should think. Huh? How the hell do you know how I think? But Ted it is so much easier to just go along with the flow.

If you go along with the crowd you just sit there and nod approvingly. You resist every urge or recoil in your body when something rubs you the wrong way. Don’t make waves. Why not?

I think we all want to be loved or at least liked sooner or later. Acceptance is paramount. Confrontation sucks because Jeez Louise that person may not like me if I speak out. Even worse the crowd being who they are will follow each other rather than joining me. Do you walk around with that pebble in your shoe and just grin and bear it? Hmmm.

We are entering a political season when everyone will stick to their scripts. We will establish party platforms that will do their best to not piss anyone off or at least appeal to the base no matter what conglomeration that is. Political consultants will direct the chorus and we will all sing out of the same hymnal.

Joe Biden didn’t stick to the script and the world is coming to an end. Mitt Romney shoots himself in the foot for this sound byte or that which will of course be taken totally out of context. Just tell them what they want to hear until after the election. And we will suck it down hook, line and sinker.

It goes beyond politics. Right now we have got to as citizens, consumers and investors think out side of the box. We marvel at how fast the world is changing but we sit there dumbfounded and hope we can go back in time. The way things used to be. Happy Days. We are lemmings who are more than happy to be led. Just let me have my little life the way it is. Leave all the heavy lifting to activists and commentators. I’ll just sit here quietly and hope no one notices no matter how badly I feel inside.

Of course if we do that we will leave ourselves more than vulnerable to the whackos and demagogues of the world. We have well over three hundred million voices that could be deafening to the world. Think if all those minds were put in gear to thinking and solving problems instead of listening to the pablum of hate and fear and doom and gloom.

I am going to be a terrorist to complacency. 10 or 15,000 of us could rock the world. Want to join? Better yet. Want to lead?

As Always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

Lemming: small mouse like rodent who mass migrate.

Leader:One who can enlist the aid and support of  others to willingly accomplish a task.

Leaders allow people to try new things, embrace change, overcome fear and get out side their comfort zone.

Great leadership traits are communication, integrity, humility, openness, creativity, fairness, assertiveness and sense of humor.

Great leaders: Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, Gandhi, Mandela, FDR, Reagan, MLK, Churchill. How do they stack up?

We traveled a good bit recently. 5000 or so miles to be sort of exact. We met people from all areas of the country and all walks of life. How you felt definitely depended on where you lived and where you were from.

The nicest and most easy going people were from the hinterlands, so to speak. Columbia, Missouri, Hays, Kansas Paducah, Kentucky, Cape Haze Florida. I asked one and all how life was treating them? How was business? Things were just fine by them. Were they unaffected by all the goings on or were they just figuring out how to deal with it and go about their ways? I think I know that answer.

Some would say time is passing them by. Others might say time just doesn’t bother them that much. We drove the Toyota to the levee and it wasn’t dry in Paducah. Even though it was April people had already settled into summer like evenings. Just get the kids and let’s go down and watch the Ohio. Maybe fish or just listen to a little bluegrass someone was plunking on the five string. Don’t they know what they are missing?

We spent our last night on the road in Hays, Kansas. A ride downtown passed guys drinking beer on a porch overlooking the grain elevator complex. Seemed odd until someone reminded that I sit on my front porch too. A young woman who served us, spoke of going on to college. A psychology major she thought. Should be plenty of customers in the rest of the world.

Cape Haze was interesting or maybe not because everyone human being visiting there was from Ohio. They were quick with a shake of their hand and fast with a sincere hello. Minutes not hours got into great conversation. There was no sizing things up. Just straightforward camaraderie around the community grills. If you needed a refill you didn’t have to go back to the condo. It was already there. Feel free.

There was a distinct air about the Palm Beach area. Not snooty just really angry about things. They would flatten you with their cart in the supermarket. They would cut your eyes out trying to get a drink in a crowded bar. Was this New York south or just people in very bad moods? I had the feeling they had participated in a huge ride up and weren’t very happy with the abrupt stop and downward spiral.

Maybe everyday America never enjoyed the meteoric soaring and so the fall wasn’t nearly as steep or gut wrenching? Or maybe, just maybe they were accepting life and dealing with it? I am not looking for villains. I am really trying to get a handle on these multiple personalities.

I am struck once again by reality in politics. I have to repeat that in November no matter who wins, 50% of the country is going to hate him. They will then spend the next four years trying to bring whatever bastard is in there down. Is it me or is this really a weird way to live? I am not trying to spend a Kumbaya moment but just trying to make some sense.

Spring has come to Williams Street. Everything is in full bloom and the Goose has her spring finery on. If I can get electronically clever I will send some pix in future missives. I will hold court with my Denver Post and coffee and of course an occasional glass of red and a cigar in the afternoon. I will have stogie with my buddy Dick. Maybe Bill and I will enjoy a Rockies game.

If I sound a little tranquil I am. Life is good. Not great but good. I am going to join my cornhusker friends and just deal with it. I got new irons and I am positive I will break 80. Well at least 90 on a regular basis. I am still shopping for cars. One of my favorite things to do and pretty much guaranteed to drive my poor wife nuts. That’s okay one of them is for her. In the mood? You bet. And a good one to boot. If I am bipolar it’s just the mania I am dealing with right now. Hope it stays that way. Here’s to you.

As Always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

Mood: a long lasting emotional state…..a feeling at a certain time…a state of mind….they can last hours days or even longer.

They have a positive or negative valence.

They are not the result of a particular event but how you react. You alone can control them.

Accepted, accomplished, aggravated, amused, anxious, alone, ashamed, apathetic. Wow. That’s just the A’s. Nuff said.

Well the boys in Rome are at it again. I thought Catholics of every age were taught by nuns. Even cardinals and popes. You don’t mess with the good sisters. They can get back at you in strange and mysterious ways. And still the Curia says do it my way or the highway. It’s our ball and you play by our rules. No exceptions.

Fair enough. But you also seem like a bunch of old men trying to keep the status quo. I locked horns with a higher up whom I believe was a decent person. He simply stated that I could think whatever way I wanted, but in the end I had to step back in line and obey. You can probably imagine how that sat with TTG.

I was challenged last week by a good friend and reader to talk about things like women, religion and other tough subjects. Once again she hit the right buttons and Ted’s Head has been ruminating ever since. Here goes.

Status quo is so comfy. Play by the rules and don’t rock the boat. Agnosticism is not saying I don’t believe per se but that what you are professing just doesn’t make sense given reality and the current data available. To that person it is unknown or unknowable. Why does that scare us? Why do we want to rip that person to shreds in the court or dare I say church of public opinion.

It gets better as you surround yourself with believers. You all agree this or that person is a jerk. You can recite the catechism but do you really know what the Our Father is saying? You put some money in the plate but are you really charitable? This isn’t just religion but democracy, capitalism and a dozen other principles by which we lead our lives.

The gang in Rome, Washington and Wall Street all sing from the hymnal. A few are off key but you know the tune. Don’t you dare introduce something new. Even worse don’t introduce a new instrument. We know and you follow. They have this incredible ability to assume that they are right and ergo everyone else is wrong.

I have at various points in time doubted my faith. As you can probably tell I am doubting my religion right now. That to me is not a bad thing. Unless you really think about what you believe and doubt it to its core, it really is nothing more than rote.

And yet Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims fear agnostics and atheists. Liberals fear libertarians. Democrats and Republicans vote in lockstep. Gays. Straights. Whites. Blacks. Is it that we know we are right or do we really fear that we might be wrong that makes us so pigheaded? Are we coming from a position of strength or are we professing symptoms of fear.

I watched a fascinating interview between Charlie Rose and the neuroscientist, Jonah Lehrer. He has just written a book entitled “Imagine How Creativity Works.” He made a rather startling statement that K-12 does more to squelch creativity than any other period in our lives. Kids are unruly. Teach them to behave not explore. It is the only way we are going to get through this lesson plan. Gotta keep up.

As I thought more and more about life I realized it is probably a lot more than K-12. Do large corporations or our government embrace new thoughts? What about that partisan that really believes this or that law is wrong but has to vote for it? My God, why on heaven’s green earth would Augusta let women into their hallowed fairways?

Yes I crave a little chaos and change. If the dam springs a leak here and there it might get a little scary but then again it might irrigate some fallow ground. I should just ride off into the sunset. I should have all the answers. I should say the world will somehow make it. But there is this gnawing urge in my poor little brain to try and find a better way. Explore more. Challenge myself. Not exactly blowing things up but for sure spending time tinkering with the engine.

Bless me Father I have doubted you. I hold these truths to be self evident….sorta. I think instead of preaching to you I am just going to try to be a better person. Maybe something stupid like doing unto others. Maybe taking a little from Column A and Column B as opposed to being one dimensioned. You know when you have a chink in the armor and it is old, most of the time you fix it with a new and improved metal. I am no metalurgist but if  I am not mistaken that makes it stronger not weaker.

As always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

The human brain weighs approx 3lbs.It is a muscle and like all good muscles must be exercised or it atrophies.

We have 100 billion neurons in our brain or about the same number of stars in our galaxy. We have on the order of 70,000 thoughts per day. Some good. Some bad

The brain is 2% of our weight but uses 20% of the energy consumed by our bodies.

Juggling can change our brain significantly in just 7 days. Learning new things can change our brain dramatically. Imagine that.

Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Galileo, Da Vinci, Einstein et alia accomplished all they did without computers.

I spent some time this morning just thinking and jotting notes. We were about 300 miles from Denver and Kathy was doing the anchor leg. We had gotten to mile 1500 leaving Jacksonville on early Sunday. Rather than doing our usual run for home we decided to stop in beautiful Hays, Kansas. We gained an hour in time zones, so we left in the dark at 5:45 AM.

A cup of coffee and some great music had me drifting off into reverie as the sun’s first rays were caught by the newly greened plains. I love this time of the morning and it was great to just let go. I thought of our trip and friends far and wide, new and old. I thought of places and scenes and conversations that I only wish I could put into words better.

There were a few that stood out. One was a friend whose husband had died four years earlier. We had lost track over the years, so there was no way I could have known of his passing but I couldn’t help but feel a deep pang of guilt. She was gracious and welcoming and we spoke of fun times as she took us through the house and we stopped at this picture or that. A wonderful afternoon.

Another was an evening we spent with a couple we hadn’t seen in thirty years. I called their number and when my buddy answered I pretended to be an insurance salesman. He hung up. Then as I kept calling, he kept hanging up. I used to sit next to him on Wall Street  so I was having a good laugh as I knew each call would get him more and more pissed off. You see when you work on a trading desk the thing you can’t stand is a ringing phone.

When his wife finally answered I managed to blurt out my name before I was clicked into oblivion. We went out to dinner and wound up talking for three and a half hours. It was amazing that after so long we were able to melt away the years. We spoke of nothing but good times.

The most poignant meeting I had was brief but startling. I was over at the beach smoking my birthday cigar with a healthy vodka and diet tonic. I chatted briefly with a fellow who was taking a break from a long bike ride. Feeling a little self conscious about my stogie, I quickly pronounced the significance of the date and that I had run 5 miles that morning. He seemed nonplussed.

We were soon joined by a very attractive young woman. God is good sometimes to TTG. She was in beach togs and a ball cap pulled down low and had an infectious smile. She was from L.A. A graphic designer in movie land. She was staying in Ponte Vedra for a couple of months. As she was talking excitedly, she knocked her hat off. She was as bald as yours truly.

Mayo Clinic was nearby. She was undergoing chemo and radiation for breast cancer. I didn’t ask how advanced but I knew it was not a walk in the park. We spoke of my work in hospice in a very matter of fact way. She came down to the beach every day after treatment. It was her reward for getting through the day. This very cool lady had her stuff together….at least on the outside.

All of us shared something of ourselves. She finally asked me if I was a merry go round or a roller coaster. Stumped, I asked for clarification. She stated a merry go round is very happy to go in circles. The ups and downs are more than predictable and appear on cue. A roller coaster is full of wild turns casting one’s self and anyone in the car on a dizzying ride. Both fun but in different ways. You’ll never guess which one I picked?

We chatted a while longer and then I left. A short talk. A lifetime of lessons. I was definitely taken by the siren’s song. No, not the pretty woman but the life by the sea. A day filled with what time I would play golf or have cocktails on the beach does have its allure.  Don’t worry Kath. It could be in Florida or Denver. That’s not the point. For all these miles I keep going over in my mind whether both rides can fit in the same amusement park. Will I ever know? Will you?

As always

Ted The Great

Crazy Things:

People in Missouri and Kansas are separated by one river, the Missouri. But they really hate each other. I thought it was a joke until I started asking around.Florida and FSU is the same but they are in the same state

There was a flashing sign in Colby Kansas…pop 5,000. “Golf Cart Replacement Batteries are In”. What? We didn’t even see a golf course.

Signs on trucks: Jones Septic Repair and Removal “We Suck”

Ace Electric Company…”We Can’t Wait to Get Into Your Shorts”

Crop Duster at 4:00…not a bogie but the time they do their work. When the winds die down.

Going through Kansas and Colorado there were oil wells and huge wind farms. In Florida we never saw wind turbines or solar arrays….anywhere.

We went through seven states coming and going. Signs everywhere….Help Wanted ?????? Also we saw a never ending line of big ass pick up trucks. All cruising and burning high priced gas. Business must be good.