Last week I was hit head-on by an incident I never saw coming. In fact, the very reason I didn’t see it coming is because I trusted my instincts—instincts that had almost never failed me in almost thirty years of adulthood. My whole life I’ve been able to read someone from the first moment I meet […]

If you’re in a hurry, the short answer is EASY: NO. You may leave now. There are a hundred “old adages” about money, business, etc. that revolve around the paraphrased: “If you know ’em, don’t do business with them. Don’t borrow money from friends. Don’t loan money to family. Don’t do business (or start a […]

The other day a great and trusted writer friend asked me about a “comment tête-à-tête” she found herself in on the good old Internet. She wanted me to read what she had said (in response to a comment on a semi-famous and controversial—i.e. “did he or did he not really say that”) pic she’d posted […]

So a writer friend of mine named Renée Pawlish (also a fellow Colorado resident), asked if I want to participate in a kind of blog chain. Now if you recall the old “chain letters” and then “chain emails”, they always had a bit of a negative connotation, primarily because they asked a large group of […]

I recently read an article about a Starbucks attorney sending a Cease-and-Desist letter to a small brewpub in Bumfish, U.S.A. It seems the brewmaster/owner splashed one stout beer (Founders Breakfast Stout) on top of the brewery’s vanilla crème ale and, voila!, some customers claimed it reminded them of a Frappuccino™. The owner then listed the beer combination […]

I remember a time when I truly believed that the television sucked brain cells from my head and spat them on the floor where they eventually dried up like only so many dust mites. And I’m not saying it wasn’t true (or that my parents were completely wrong). But it’s not the case any longer, […]

There are just some maxims the Universe or God or Providence or whatever you happen to believe in should follow. At the top of that list should be “No Child Should Die Before Its Parent.” I doubt you’d find much argument on that one. Today is the five-year anniversary of losing our son, Brody, to […]

In three words:  Quiet.  Solemn.  Unforgettable. You see I started with the Russo family of the Italian Mafia when I was twenty-one.  It wasn’t like I set out wanting to be one of them or even belong on the fringes.  There are so many young men who emulate and idolize the Mafia as if they […]