It's a hit! No, not the elections

Happened to turn on the Giants game tonight against the D-backs and there was Josh playing first base, batting sixth. His first major league start and in his third at-bat he got his first hit. Pretty cool to see it live. Of course, Talia kept telling me that since she hasn't met him he must not be a real cousin. I told her that I've only met him once but we have the same great grandparents (2nd cousins for those of you who know those things).

That was certainly a lot more fun than watching the elections stuff tonight. Hard to believe that we've seen this race denigrate so quickly into a mudfest but maybe that shouldn't be a surprise. Obama is showing himself to be somewhat tone deaf to what the center left and center right voters want to hear and you knew that McCain would lose his ability to tell the truth at some point. I guess I was just idealistically hoping that McCain would stick to the high road and Barack would avoid sounding somewhat arrogant. Apparently, I am a moron.

I would like to hear Sarah Palin answer some questions, not just the pleasant fireside chat kinds that Charlie Gibson threw her way. I admit that I don't like her and her wild contradictions, but still, it would be nice to at least let her take some questions and state her positions without so much handling. It's a little surprising that in all the discussion about her daughter's teenage pregnancy, (and I'm guessing apparent premarital sex) that no one in the media has pointed out that aside from her God-squad morality about keeping the baby, Palin has no grounds to scold her daughter since she eloped with her husband and then had a baby eight months later. Oops. Funny how the conservative view of sexually active teenagers has gone from "promiscuous" to "wholesome family values." I just wish it was November 5th and all this was done.

Giants win -- no Josh

Went to the Giants - Diamondbacks game last night. The Giants won, despite a blown save from the worst All-Star closer ever, but the real news was that my cousin didn't get to bat. Since he's 0 for 2 this season I was hoping he'd get in and I'd see his first major league hit, but the D-backs games matter to them and I don't think a rookie call-up is going to see many pitches in the 9th inning of a tie game. Maybe today will be his day.

Sleepless before a flight.... that's great

I really don't know why I'm writing this at midnight when I have a taxi picking me up at 5am tomorrow (or today) but I can't sleep and I'm hoping that maybe I'll bore myself to sleep.

It was a fun weekend with the kids. Talia took off her training wheels and is ready to ride to school in the morning. Liam has been having a ball between playing soccer with the big kids today or having a 12-year-old boy babysit last night which was like having an older brother. And Daphne won't stop talking. Michele and I got to go out last night to our friend Randy's birthday party which was fun because we didn't have to chase kids all night and we told a bunch of friends that we're going to add to our family numbers in March. And then today I played in a doubles tennis tournament which was the first competitive match I've played in 20 years which gave me a real rush.

Oh yeah, the baby thing. We'll be having #4 next year and the kids are pretty excited. So are we. Last night we ran through a bunch of names that would be unique. Jean thought it would be good to go with an 80's rock band name, like Van Halen Friedman or Framptom Alive Friedman. Someone thought a Matrix name would be good like Neo Friedman. And of course, Randy thinks naming our child after his dogs would be appropriate - Jones Peter Friedman. Of course, since Michele's parents names are Joan and Peter maybe that one isn't too far off. The problem is that now that we have kids in elementary school and all our friends have kids, the list of possible names is dwindling. It's hard to name your child the same thing as your friends and neighbors kids. And, while Talia, Liam and Daphne aren't exactly wild exotic names, they do make it hard to name the next one Bob or Sally.

But back to my lack of sleep. I have a 6 am flight to NY in 5 1/2 hours so I should probably be asleep. Instead, I'm reading stories about Sarah Palin and Josh Whitesell. You probably know the first one, since she's everyone's hot topic. Personally I think she was a knee jerk pick that's going to bit him in the ass. I read a good story that claimed to have inside sources who said McCain really wanted Lieberman or Ridge but realized the base would have revolted at the convention, even possibly rejecting their nominations because of their pro-choice stances. Still, it's hard to believe that after locking up his nomination months ago he could have found himself scrambling at the end. I have to say that I agree her daughter's pregnancy should not be part of the discussion. There are so few areas left alone in politics that I hope we never cross the "child-barrier" too dramtically.

That said, she is a governor who campaigned strongly on an abstinence-only approach for sex education, so she has to accept that her daughter's current situation doesn't really reflect well on the notion that schools should only teach abstinence but parents need to take greater responsibility. And despite the conservative line that her daughter's decision to have the baby (and Palin's decision to have her son with Down's syndrome) show her true pro-life beliefs, I think that's a bunch of crap. The idea that every pro-choice person would terminate a pregnancy if they found out their child had some genetic abnormality or that every pro-choice teenager would have an abortion is an insult of the highest order. I think a person can be anti-abortion but pro-choice. Some people just don't think the government should overimpose its will on the people. That used to be the conservative's view of the world.

Oh yeah. Josh Whitesell. The other guy I mentioned at the top next to Sarah Palin. He's my cousin. A little distant but not too distant. His mom and my dad are first or second cousins. Anyway, Josh plays baseball and this year he was the Pacific Coast League (AAA) Rookie of the Year and today he was called up to the Diamondbacks for their 40-man September roster. For those of you who don't know what that means, it's a good thing. Ask someone who knows baseball. So the D-backs are coming to SF next week and I have tickets so maybe we'll get lucky and see him get in a game. The good thing is that Arizona is leading their division so he'll get to experience a pennant chase. The bad thing is that Arizona is leading their division so they probably won't take too many risks by playing their minor leaguers unless they're up by 10 runs or down by 10 runs. Still, good for him. I saw him play in Tucson this year with my dad and he had an amazing second half of the season, batting over .400 for the past two months. Check out his stats here. And remember the name. He'll be in the Show sometime in the next couple of years.

OK. Off to bed.

Paris Hilton made me laugh. Oh my.

(UPDATED: Looks like someone finally grew a pair at the Obama campaign. This ad launched today.)

I can't say that I'm a big Paris Hilton fan. Or a little one at that. But I just saw her response to John McCain's ad and I have to admit that when it used the Golden Girls and Larry King to say McCain's old and then she tells them "I'll see you at the debates, bitches" I actually laughed out loud. I don't know if her energy plan makes any sense because our house gets all its energy needs from rotating the kids on the treadmill, but the ad looked like the kind of spot the Barack team should be doing. Or at least it was the kind of response that his uber-high powered team of creative geniuses should have thought to create on their own.

If I follow the ads properly, the message is that a lot of people seem to like Barack, and the last thing we want is a president who people like. So therefore, vote for the other guy. (Todd rubs eyes and cries into his tumbler). If Obama loses this election, it will be for the same reason that Al Gore and John Kerry: the complete inability to swiftly and completely expose your opponents' inane ramblings for what they really are: inane ramblings. George Bush ran as the "CEO president." I can't remember Gore or Kerry ever making the obvious point that he had been a really lousy CEO (and modestly criminal Board member who dabbled in insider trading). He also ran as the "return to morality" president despite a personal resume that rivaled Kennedy for partying. For the first time since Clinton and Reagan, there's finally an articulate guy running for president, and he's been shut down and outshouted by a guy calling him a celebrity. Why can't he just run an ad that says, "John, is that really what you got? My fatal flaw is that people like me? Sorry that more people don't like you Commander McCain, but haven't we just gone through 8 years with a guy that almost no one likes? I say we give it a try the other way. I'm Barack Obama and you bet your ass I approved this ad." This is like a guy bringing a knife to a gun fight but the other guy keeps pointing the gun at himself. I wasn't a Reagan fan but he had that special Schwarzenegger quality that made the masses swoon. Now we get a guy with that same quality and it's a flaw?

I'd like to see Barack turn over his advertising to Paris's guys for a couple weeks. I bet the election would be over by Labor Day.

Perhaps some context

OK. Looking at my post this evening (which admittedly is a little heavy) and then recognizing the two year gap between posts, perhaps some context to connect the two years is appropriate. (with photo guide included).

OK. After that last post in 2006, two very big events happened. First, we finished fixing our house in Burlingame, which only took 8 months, a couple extra tons of concrete and a small section of the Brazilian rain forest to overcome.

2 days after we moved back into the house, we went to the hospital and came home with this little girl.


With Daphne, we had a new house, a new baby sister, and someone to amuse Talia and Liam. Scrolling ahead, my life has been unchanged. Still working at The Blueshirt Group, which may be news for those of you who knew me at E.piphany, which may be news for those of you who knew me at Morgen-Walke, which may be even more news for those of you who knew me at Scholastic and never knew that I left NY 13 years ago. Only difference is that I'm a little older, and missing one appendix. Michele has managed to get younger in that time, although the children certainly keep us on the short side of tired.

So since that time, the kids have grown, Talia is going into 1st grade, Liam is going into preschool, and Daphne thinks everything is cool. (Don't know where she picked that up).

Here is what they look like now.


So that's it. Two years in less than 500 words.

Sorry, I got lost

So, looks like my best intentions have been nowhere to be found for the past *cough cough* two years. For someone who can neither stop talking or writing, it's hard to believe that I haven't done a single thing with this blog since 2006. The funny thing is that I noticed I had a saved draft of a post from April of 2007 right after I lost my appendix in Mills Peninsula Hospital. The post was titled "I just donated by kidney to science" and I'm sure it was hilarious but I guess we'll never know since the muse to write about it left me about sixteen months ago. I'm feeling particularly compelled to write these days. For one thing, it's shameful that I go through these pictures of my kids and see that since my last post the kids in these pictures look nothing like the kids in my house today. Oh yes, and there's one missing because our youngest is turning 2 in two weeks. Great, another reminder of how long it has been since I wrote anything.

I'm also feeling somewhat melancholy about lost connections and what I call "disconnected friends." These aren't the people in your life who you really don't know how to find. These are the people you know, you care about, you really have an interest in their well being, but you just haven't spoken to, seen, written, or generally heard about in far too long. I lost a friend last week. He was one of those disconnected friends although I had been fortunate to reconnect with him through work in the past year. He was young. He had a loving wife and two young children and he had a tragic accident doing something he loved and now he's gone. Mind you, this wasn't someone who I was especially close to, or whom I knew his wife and kids personally, or attended a wedding or bris or birthday party with. He was a guy who I met right out of college when I was working at Scholastic and he was an analyst an Robertson Stephens. I was young, naive, and doing a job for which I had no identifiable skills and he treated me with respect. When you're 22 years old and dealing with some interesting personalities on Wall Street, getting respect from someone you respect is a pretty cool thing. And so naturally I got thinking about him, and why I looked up to him. I thought about when I moved to San Francisco and he was here and he was always willing to take my call, offer advice, be a reference. And when he left the research side of the investment world, I don't remember if he said this to me or it was just my impression but I always thought he had the right attitude: If I don't love what I'm doing, then I'll find something else to do. I've tried to mimic that philosophy. Struggled to maintain some work/life balance when the reality is that I want a life balance where work doesn't interfere too much. And then I started reading what other people had to say about Keith, and it was extraordinary. Here was someone who touched so many people from different worlds and who all said the same things. And I found common connections through Keith that I didn't know existed. It motivated me to reach out to some more of those people who meant a lot to me when I was moving to California.

I realized that I haven't reached out to some of them since before I had children six years ago. I realized that I haven't spoken in person to any of my college roommates in more than a year. I have personal e-mails in my "follow-up" file that I haven't responded to for more than two years. I have no real reason to think that this time will be any different other than I'm older and I'd like to believe I have some higher understanding of the need to connect. But having the time to post and making the effort to post are two different things. I hope I'll use this blog more effectively to stay in touch with those disconnected friends and maybe inspire them to reach out to their own disconnected friends. I couldn't really care less about someone's status on Facebook (although it's always good to know that my 20 year old cousin is chillin' because that's information I can really use) but I do want to know that their kids are growing up. I want to know when their parents are sick. I want to know that they love their jobs and where they live or that they have to get out before they go crazy. And I want to stay connected. Life is not meant to be wasted or lost. I want to love what I do or find something else I can love to do.

Talia in Seaside Park 

Liam on the beach in front of Seaside Heights Pier 

Liam in Silver Creek 

Talia in Silver Creek 

With Nana and Papa in Disneyland

The whole family with Mickey

So we all headed down to Newport Beach for a week in February and took the kids to Disneyland. Talia had a ball seeing all the princesses and Liam fell in love with Minnie Mouse. I think she fell in love with him, too.

Liam and his girlfriend. Talia making sure he's ok. 

Cute boy 

Talia and Minnie Mouse

Talia at the Walk to d'feet ALS

Here's Talia next to our team sign at the Walk to d'feet ALS. More pictures here.

More of the "Official" photos

Enough for now

It's been a long day. Talia had some tests done this morning which entailed a midnight bedtime and 5 a.m. wakeup. Now it's time for dinner and a hot tub. You're invited.

Cowgirl Talia

Talia had her third birthday party in her new backyard. This is one of her presents from Michele and Todd. Here's a link to some other birthday pictures.

Liam's First Giants Game

OK, it was really just his first Giants DAY game, but he only lasted three innings at his first night game, so this is the first time he was smiling at a Giants game which is all that really matters. Of course in Talia's first Giants season, they went to the World Series, so she'll always have that going for her. More photos from the game can be found here.

"Official" 3 yr. / 5 month photos

Talia and Liam in May 2005

So we decided to go for the semi-annual ritual of shopping mall photos. Don't be mislead by the happy, shiny kids you see here. There was plenty of moping and fussing go on. But like the true professionals we are training them to be (through a steady regimen of exercise, yoga and macrobiotic diet) they turned on the charm when the cameras were rolling. 8x10's available for a nominal fee.

Cuddly kids

Bedtime,
originally uploaded by toddotodd.

Brand new pics

We had some pictures done of the kids since Talia just turned three and Liam is almost six months. Here's a bunch from the past few months.

Good intentions delayed

OK. So I haven't really posted much. Or at all. Yesterday I went to another panel of media bloggers and decided that I need to do this more often. But I know that this won't be about my job or any kind of meaningful statement about blogging. It's going to be about my kids and my wife and my friends and what's going on in our lives. I'll try to make sure it doesn't get boring.

Talia and Brand New Liam

Talia and Brand New Liam,
originally uploaded by toddotodd.

Testing out photo layouts. We'll see how this looks.

Talia (2 1/2) and Liam (2 months) 

The Start of Something, I Don't Know What

There's a lot of crap flowing through my head at all times. Seems to me that a blog would be a good place to flush it out. This came crystal clear to me yesterday when I moderated a panel about the world of blogs and how they affect companies, employees, journalists, etc. I felt like a horrible impostor since the panel was a pretty cool, talented and blog-savvy group of guys (Jeremy Zawodny from Yahoo, Mike Manuel from Media Guerrilla, and Michael Bazeley from the Merc) and I don't have one myself. Therefore, here's my toe dipping in the water.

The panel itself was a lot of fun. There have been a few people fired from their jobs for blogging and most public companies are shitting themselves trying to figure out how to respond to the fairly incredible growth of the medium. We tried to explore the issue in less than an hour by focusing on ethics, blogger responsibilities, how PR people should work with media bloggers, and how corporations should figure out a way to embrace their employees who blog rather than try to ignore the train that's coming their way. Jeremy made a great comment that I thought crystallized the problem. Responding to one of my deeply riveting and insightful questions, he said that he is essence at times an "unauthorized spokesperson" for his company. Now, he is far more in touch with his company's PR department and management than most bloggers, but I thought that comment summed up every corporate lawyer's worst fears about blogs. Companies spend millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours building their brand, developing communications policies, protecting their intellectual property... The idea of a few or even hundreds of "unauthorized spokespeople" talking about their companies is a problem they can neither fully grasp nor stand to ignore.

Anyway, I had a good time. I think the audience did as well. So that's my first post. Knowing how my brain works, I'll probably fill this up pretty quick and then ignore it for several weeks and then fill it up again. I'll also probably post an obscene number of pictures of my kids. But they're really cute, so you can live with it.