Miles To Go.

RollFast WingDing: One sweet ride

I learned a few things about entrepreneurship from my buddy Dave Buckenheimer and my RollFast Wing bike — but bear with me first: this is a hell of a wipeout story. Let’s start with our Moms.  Both were from the laissez faire school of child rearing, as in… break your arm falling on the swing? Get bit by the bunny in the pet center out back? Burn yourself making a funeral pyre for some unlucky ants? All fine, just be home for dinner. It’s amazing how much we learned by simply breaking, bleeding, and wailing our way through our play-filled youth. Bike wrecks were the highest form of this adolescent art form and Gailey Boulevard, a steep switchback that ran from our house down into town, was our particular proving ground. It was also where Dave lived.  One afternoon,  I called and let Bucky know I was headed his way;  he said he’d meet me at the bottom. I hopped on my trusty Wing Ding Rollfast and hit Gailey full steam.

The Wing Ding was my go-to bike. I liked its simplicity. It had only one speed: fast. And it could brake really well, allowing me to execute perfect fishtail skids. Gailey had no traffic whatsoever, making it a relatively safe ride. The only wildcard in the equation was pig iron, a waste byproduct of the steel mills downriver in Pittsburgh. Sometime, somewhere, someone saw fit to cover Gailey with this metallic stuff, vaguely reminiscent of blown glass beads, Generally smooth to the touch, some of it was sharp as a blade if cracked. This would become meaningful very shortly.

I was halfway down Gailey by now, although the Wing Ding was nowhere near top speed, mainly because the loose pig iron made me plenty careful in the hairpin turns. Trees zipped by, I passed the last of the four homes and picked up speed after the last of the hairpins. I was running flat out when I saw Bucky near the base of the Boulevard. He had a weird look on his face: a dropping jaw and the beginnings of a slow motion scream worthy of a Bruce Lee death sequence. He was pointing at something.  My feet locked into the pedals of the Wing Ding, my hands on the padded handlebars my brother had been working on lately. Garage Note: when a gooseneck handlebar is loosened to do custom work, you still have handlebars that can make a variety of turns no problem. But if you lift the bars straight up, they slip right out. Not an issue when you are working in the garage; definitely an issue when you are flying down Gailey Boulevard.

I actually thought I had a shot at pulling out of it. The handlebars were now high in my hands, separated from the steering column by at least a foot. But the wheel hadn’t turned at all and I was coasting below top speed. If the wheel stayed straight, another 20 feet and I could bail with minimal damage. Bucky was rooting for me to pull off one of the great saves in Beaver, PA Biking History.

That fleeting hope was done in by a loose piece of pig iron redirecting my tire. That was all she wrote. The wheel lurched to a 90* angle that I was powerless to correct. I was ass-over-tea cups, still holding the handlebars, still clueless as how I got that way. My brother knew, however — he’d been working a chopper conversion for an upcoming Evil Knievel jump off the Spencer swimming pool, and neglected to mention the job was only half done.

Gailey Boulevard met me with all the hospitality one would expect of loose asphalt and scrap pig iron greeting an 8 year-old in shorts, a t-shirt and packing a lot of velocity.

According to Bucky, it was the most spectacular wipeout ever. I missed it:  my head hit next and I was out. Bucky picked me up and helped me to his house. When I came to, his sister Amy was using a tongue depressor to remove a piece of pig iron the size of a quarter from my knee. I passed out again.  We still practiced baseball that afternoon and when it got near dark, Mrs. B  gave me and the mangled Wing Ding a ride home.

Here’s what a mangled –but exhilarated — 8 year old can teach entrepreneurs:

1. Go full out on something you love.
2. Fail once in a while. It won’t kill you.
3. Get the h*ll back up and do something else, and let the scars remind you a bit.

Unlike a lot of kids today who are practically wrapped in bubble-wrap, we grew up active participants in life, with an amazing sense of adventure. That carries on today, informing my entrepreneur experience.  I only wish more kids- and entrepreneurs — would behave with the same abandon. Most of what I observe in today’s kids is an awful lot of video consumption and precious little actual contact with anything else.  If that continues unchecked, Video Thumb will become will be our main body part in 10,000 years. If anyone reading this is still around then, remember, you read it here first.

Megan... got me thinking

Not long ago, I was in the animal hospital with the last and most lively of my Rottweiler gang, Megan.

She was closing in on the happy hunting grounds and I was there to say when. Balancing dignity with a finances, even for canine care, is not easy. With each deferral of the inevitable came the bill; in this case about $1k a day for superior care and technology (I could have opted for more technology and cost, but kept it practical, at least I thought). When it was over, we spent more in the final four days of care than we did in the preceding 11 years. For virtually the same result. A wonderful experience with a great dog that gave us a ton of happiness and four days of pain.

Thats when this came across my smartphone:

The New York Times Prime Number 197: The amount, in thousands of dollars, that the typical married couple at age 65 should expect to spend on uninsured health care costs over the rest of their lives, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. This total includes insurance premiums, out-of-pocket costs and home health care costs, but it does not include nursing home care. Including the cost of nursing home care, typical lifetime health care costs shoot up to $260,000, the center estimated.

Ok, people are not dogs. And vice versa. For one thing, people have a say in their care when conscious, while dogs can only rely on the incredible messages in their eyes. But for me, it leaves a good lesson in dong what is right, responsible , and sensible.

So whats it all about? In a word, hospice. For dogs and people.

It’s the ability to realize end of life and deal with it in dignity and balance. To live lives that are not based on the number of breaths we take, but the number of times our breath is taken away. And to not selfishly chase the “miracle “of a few more days at the cost of a lifetime of savings wasted. There is a wonderful hospice movement that continues to grow in scope and service in the US. I think it is important and deserves support and fostering.

Look, I know well the incredible boil of issues that is healthcare in America today. This is just one stab at a part of the problem. But it’s a good stab I think. Love to know what others think…

Shortly after the French bit the bullet and elected Nic Sarkozy (American lover! Immigrant not-lover! Salami eater!) over Ms. Royale (Well dressed!, Well mannered! A true French mum for us all!) it seemed like a good time to check in on mes amis francais to see how they were getting along under la nouvelle salade compose’. I am pleased to report the French are going about doing what they do best: being French. In my opinion, this means getting a very quiet revenge on the entire rest of the civilized world by drinking wine, eating foie gras, and playing La Boule like that’s all there is.

In the words of the now immortal Sebou, plus que ca change, plus que c’est la meme chose.

And where is the best place to enjoy this most French of traditions of tossing steel balls in efforts to get close by a small cork one? Without a doubt, The Café outside the fortress wall of St.Paul de Vence. Uh, that’s in France, BTW.

First, a wee bit of background on St.P.de V. Situated on the hills overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, the town was a medieval fortress with commanding views (always that way, isn’t it?). The winding streets are a haven for art galleries and food lovers. Palm D’or is there. Chagall has a museum down the street (he’s gone, though). The city itself has preserved its fountains, cemeteries, cathedrales, cobblestones, public wash basins, and other key elements in drawing busloads of tourists to the place. A visit to St Paul de Vence is on many a must-see list, but many people rush from bus to shop and back, and walk right on by the best part of it all.

La Boule, played to the death!

I’ve watched this game from afar, played it up close, and observed it from every angle imaginable. (My buddy Gauthier at Quarterback actually hosts the Petanque Championships in Arles each year, but this piece isn’t about winning, it’s about living). A few rules to begin perhaps? Start with a softly undulating chipped clay surface, with just enough stray stones to knock the ball off course every once in a maddening while. A small (golf ball size) cork ball is tossed gently. Then each player takes a turn trying to lodge his boule closest to the object. (think shuffleboard, in a circular way). If your toss does not better the previous, you toss until done. Rolling gets you no-where. Pebbles disrupt everything. The prized shot is actually the sky ball, descending from the heaven, to annihilate a tightly clustered bunch of opponent’s boules, a partner’s shins, and perhaps some poor dog’s tooth who was after the chicken bone dropped nearby sometime earlier. When each team (of two) has finished, a succinct analysis is made, that being who remains closest the object ball, which has likely moved by now. Bonus scoring is achieved if all three of your boules are inside the best of your opponents. Everything is argued passionately: the boule moved! The pebble got in the way! The object was too far (left, right, away, close). The dog interfered! You cheat like Sarkozy! You cry like Segolene! Finally, peace is restored when a tape measure is introduced to settle once and for all in centimeters what the eye just can’t discern. And voila, one team declares victory for the round. Whereupon, the cork is gently tossed, the boules are wiped clean, the dog scatters for cover and we go again.

The game is sublimely simple. Maddeningly complicated. Requires no great physical prowess. And goes on forever. Which is why it is good to choose a good place to play. I knew the busloads don’t get it, but when I came upon – Café I knew I was in Yankee Stadium. It is has an amazing view of the valley and the coast, and room enough for at least 30 games of boules simultaneously. The Horse chestnut trees have halogen lights. The café is alongside to serve cold drinks, wine, and more wine. A clubhouse is nestled in the corner, with tapes, ball cloths, and extra visors. And the gravel is divine, some absolutely perfect clay that really only hangs around in that area, I am guessing.. No doubt, I am not the first to notice all this, because the crowd for boules is entirely locals, huge, and entirely mad. They play and play and play. They make the nuts in Jardin Luxembourg look like schoolboys. And they play well into the night. Like 2am into the night! The café never turns out the lights on a game. The bathrooms stay open. Wives who call the bar are told the last game is just finishing up… and the wine never runs out.

Kind of like the way it should be in more places, I think.

If you go
» St Paul de Vence
» Musee Chagall
» Gallerie Unicorn
» Quarterback