Pithy Title Here

Almost without fail, when I check Twitter at night, I see one of my friends noting that they cannot sleep. I've noticed it even more since moving to the west coast since when I'm lounging on the couch, my east coast friends are already in bed. Or should be. And it's not me seeing them make updates and then interpreting it as insomnia. These folks actually discuss how they have insomnia. And I can't help but wonder... why? You have to understand that my average night involves me fading quickly into sleep once the 11 o'clock hour hits. I sleep like crazy. I sleep through just about anything. My wife stays up far later than me, but I would stay up later, too, if I had her schedule. I'm up at 6:15 every morning. She gets at least two more hours of sleep. Bottom line, though... neither of us are struggling to get our 40 winks. Many of our friends are, though. I am neither a doctor, nor a psychologist. But I don't think you need to be one to know that the inabili...

The World Cup presents an interesting sociological study of Americans. Granted, I am no sociologist, so anything after that first sentence deserves your criticism, but think about it. More Americans play soccer than any other sport. It would stand to reason that soccer should be more popular than anything here. But by traditional metrics, it's tough to make anything close to that claim. Our national soccer league barely registers with most people (except here in Seattle, where tens of thousands turn up for Sounders games). But every two years, when either the Euro or World Cup takes place, soccer is front-and-center. When most major U.S. sports Web sites are leading with soccer, we start to see that people are into this stuff. Interestingly, when the USA is playing in the CONCACAF championships - our version of the Euro with vastly lower overall talent - it doesn't get nearly the same attention. So, observation #1: Americans love good soccer, but don't pay mediocre soccer ...

You know, I'm all for being served now and then. Especially at hotels. I love picking up the phone, calling the front desk and having someone address me with a "Mr." in front of my name. I can totally understand why Matt Damon used to check into hotels under the false last name "President." After all, every room service call was answered by someone going "Yes, Mr. President?" That said, there is a line between where others must serve us and where we must roll up our shirt sleeves and make some things happen. For instance, the airport this morning: Flustered Man, running up to gate: I'm not sure where I need to go, I'm flying to Chicago. Gate agent: Well, what's your flight number? Flustered: Umm ... (gets boarding pass) I... oh no! I gave them the Chicago boarding pass when I got on my first plane this morning! How could she have missed that?! Agent: Well, what's your reservation number? Flustered: I don't know, you figure it o...

The other night, I flew to Austin, TX to visit a friend. The flight was supposed to go at 6:20. You know the deal… flying on a Friday night is asking for trouble. Sure enough, even from the first mention of delay, folks at the gate were agitated. With all the travel I do, I find myself people-watching more than ever. And when a flight is delayed, I am often amazed by what I see. More than a few people went up to the hapless gate agent demanding answers for why the plane wasn’t going anywhere. Many of these people made several trips. The gate agent knows nothing, of course, which adds to the frustration of the folks who are coming up and asking what’s going on. Then there was the group who decided, “Eh, we’ll just go sit and do what we can.” And there they were, seated across the terminal. Now and then, they would come up to a group of us who were watching a maintenance crew attempt to fix our plane and ask if we heard anything. The whole time they were like me: wishing for the...