Birthday Wishes

“When you lose someone you love, you die too, and you wait around for your body to catch up.” John Scalzi

Today is Bonnie’s birthday – she would have turned 58. Now approaching two years since her death it still seems inconceivable that she’s gone. So much for it getting easier. I think watching the grandkids grow makes it hard. They’re so damned cute and will forever miss out on the massive amounts of love and spoiling that would have been theirs. I know it’s tough on the kids too. Thankfully they’re all grown, responsible, and stable and have great sets of in-laws around them. But it’s still hard.

Her birthday can’t roll around without thinking of her 55th, just a little over a year before she died. She always wanted a Sheik of Arabic theme so the kids organized and built one. It was a blast and something she enjoyed immensely.

I’m hosting a fundraiser on August 1st with the proceeds going to the International Myeloma Foundation. The IMF provided incredible knowledge and support to Bonnie and me throughout the 4 years she suffered with it. I have attached a link to the International Myeloma Foundation here – IMF - who has included a flyer for the event on their website. I hope those of you that are local can attend. I know many of you are remote and will be unable to come; I would really appreciate any donation that you may be able to give so that we can help find a cure for this horrible disease. Please help me in this journey as I continue to help get the word out about Multiple Myeloma and to help raise funds for a cure.

Lisa Roberts, a friend who used to live here in Michigan and now resides in Florida, blogged about Bonnie the other day. Very sweet – you can read it here – Bonnie.

If you have a moment today or whenever you read this give Bonnie a “Happy Birthday”, she’ll enjoy it.

Finding Mark Knopfler

"You win some, you might get lucky now and then". Mark Knopfler

My buddy Brian took me to see Mark Knopfler in Ann Arbor at the Michigan Theater. It’s a great venue just off campus, nice and small with only 1,700 seats.

I have never really followed Knopfler. I knew him from Dire Straits but only their radio and MTV stuff – never owned an album.

So I go see him and POW, I realize I’ve been missing out on music of the type and style that I love. He’s a bluesy, folksy, kind of a C&W for the Celtic set with great lyrics, big voice and of course world-class guitarist.

So instead of being happy to make this discovery I’m pissed! I can’t believe I’ve been missing out for all these years. He has 8 solo albums plus all the ones with Dire Straits. Throw on to that the litany of composing for movies and it turns into a lot of catching up to do.

So now along with downloading his music to my iPod I have a Mark Knopfler station on Pandora.
It’s kind of crazy when you discover something that’s been all around you and then become a little obsessed with it.

So naturally I applied this little eye-popper to the business world. How many Knopfler moments have or do exist? Are there clients/solutions/people all around that you just haven’t discovered? This came about the other day when my Seattle-based company was looking for a particular, kind of hard to find, talent for a project and discovered one right here in the town where I live in Michigan.

It’s somewhat human nature to think all the good stuff must be somewhere else. We do it all the time whether it’s driving to other towns to eat as people in those towns drive to yours. In business we relocate newly hired people because they must be more qualified than anyone close (or god forbid inside the company). Or let’s spend zillions of dollars opening a new international market rather than increase our existing market share with people in places we already know.

Really, we all need to get better at paying attention to what's around.

We might get lucky.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I just got a note from Pandora that they’ve added a bunch of new stuff to my Knopfler station.