One secret to my success is failure

I get asked from time to time how I manage to juggle a myriad of professional responsibilities and personal hobbies -- and some activities that are a meld of the two.

When I throw it all into a bowl -- blogging, cooking, cycling, golfing, working, commuting, networking, parenting, coaching, reading, minor home repairs, plus some social media indulgence via Twitter and Facebook -- it is a small wonder that I find time for half of those things.

When asked how I do it, I usually borrow the line from a former colleague that I'll sleep when I'm dead. While true, that answer is just a deflection. I have no earthly idea how I accomplish all of that. My belief has always been that I just do it.

Today, though, the real secret revealed itself to me in a cloud of dust. I have time to do all of those other things in part because I neglect my lawn.

I was mowing the front yard today, and I noticed the only things growing are weeds. All of the grass is dead or dying.

I have excuses. There's been very little rain the last few weeks, and it has been hotter than normal. I've run the sprinkler, but not enough. But let's be honest. I don't fertilize. I don't spread weed killer. I don't mow with any regularity. I barely rake in the fall.

I've tried justifying it to myself by playing the natural card. I'm not harming the environment with any chemicals. It's hard to grow grass in Cape Cod's sandy soil, and I should just let nature dictate the course of my lawn. I see the bees visiting our clover, because there is relatively little elsewhere in the neighborhood, and I think this is a good thing for our vegetable garden in the long run.

But then I look around the neighborhood, and realize our lawn is an outcast. It has no friends. It eats lunch by itself in the corner of the cafeteria, wishing it could be more popular, if only its parents would dress it in cooler clothes.

Never mind my personal demons. My lawn has lawn envy.

On most mornings that I am home, I walk the dog. The usual routine is to head to the park down the hill from our house, and if Ruby can't find a suitable spot, we walk over to a neighborhood of empty, languishing, waiting to be developed lots. To get there, we walk past a bunch of yards with lush, green, weed-free carpets that I have to steer Ruby away from. Even our dog has lawn envy.

I see how the other half lives, with their sprinkler systems and proper grass selection. I see them spreading Scotts Turfbuilder in the spring, and taking care of business in the fall by raking frequently, thatching or aerating, and spreading seed to fill any bare patches.

And so I realized today that I accomplish all that I do across a variety of disciplines because I am undisciplined with my landscaping.

So anyone who is thinking that I have it all and am immensely successful in all areas of life should come drive by Commuter Daddy Central. There's always a skeleton in the closet. Mine is my lawn.

Dear, Chrysler: Give me gadgets with my Man Van. Hold the stitching.

You would think that with a self-appointed brand like Commuter Daddy, I'd be a car guy. I'm afraid you'd be disappointed.

Don't get me wrong. I appreciate fine automobiles. During my last round of car shopping, I was in the market for Mini Coopers and Audi A4s before settling into my more practical Volkswagen Passat.

I also have a long-held wish to head to Santa Cruz for Woodies on the Wharf. Earlier this year I took our youngest two boys and a one of their friends to check out a Tesla Roadster that was visiting The Brown Jug. We also attend at least a couple of classic car shows per year at Heritage Museum and Gardens and at Upper Cape Tech.

I don't pay much attention to the actual mechanics of our vehicles, though. Yes, I buy new tires every 50,000 miles and I get an oil change every 3 months or so, but that's the extent of my acknowledgment of a car's needs. I changed the oil myself once. Have you tried to crawl under a car on a shell driveway? I'm sure there's a few ways to properly and comfortably do it. My better way is to take the car to Sandwich Service Center up the street and walk home while I let the neighbors handle it.

Some deeper insight into my automotive naivete via word association. When you say torque, I think of the French chef's hat. When you say gear ratio, I think I should shift up while cycling on a descent or with the wind at my back. When you say high octane gas, I think about our boys after dinner.

Nevertheless, when I read last week that Chrysler was ready to unleash a man van upon us, I was intrigued. It reportedly has a sportier look, inside and out, but the details were otherwise relatively thin.

Fancy stitching? No, thanks. Leather seat belts? Kinky, if you're into that sort of thing.

Sure, extra horsepower and some fancy cosmetic features are nice, but what I really want is the ultimate road warrior vehicle. I need gadgets, and I'm not just talking some Bluetooth connectivity -- although there is no doubt that should be a standard feature.

Here's what should be included in my Man Van:

• Wood panels. See my desire expressed earlier regarding Woodies on the Wharf? Men always want to be sporting some wood.
• Shock absorbing coolers in the armrest. As I can personally attest, no man wants to arrive at his destination with a giant wet spot on his trousers.
• In-car wi-fi. When I first read about some in-car wi-fi devices that were coming out, I wondered how useful they would be. Never mind issues with texting and driving. Can you imagine the mayhem on the roadways if businesspeople could fire up their laptops while on their commute? Then, I started traveling a couple of times a month, while working from the home office much of the rest of the time. I suddenly appreciated the value of having an alternate wi-fi source. The picture at the top of this post shows a recent example when in-car wi-fi would have been immensely beneficial. My Verizon-powered Blackberry modem needed more power, Scotty. There was not enough bandwidth for me to run the Web conference portion of a conference call I was hosting. Luckily, one of my colleagues was on the call, so I handed off my host password, while driving like hell a little over the speed limit to find the nearest library with wi-fi. Chrysler, if you want me to consider buying a Man Van, give me wi-fi. The kids will thank you too, especially if they can be entertained via my wi-fi-enabled iPad on long road trips.
• Coffee maker. One less pitstop would make this extreme commuter much more efficient with his time. I'd suggest some sort of bathroom-like capabilities, too, but I assume I would still have to stop the car to utilize them. No real time to be gained by adding a toilet.
• Autopilot. Speaking of efficient use of time, when I get sleepy on the road, why rely on coffee at all? Make it for highway use only, and integrate the autopilot with the GPS navigation system. Set the course for your next exit, and when you get there an alarm will sound, waking you from your catnap. Cruise control is so old-school. It's time for an upgrade.
• Incinerator. If you want to offer a Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor to power deluxe models only, fantastic, but I absolutely need a standard device that rids the vehicle of spent snack wrappers, straws and napkins. My door pockets are forever getting crammed with trash, and much as I try to keep up by utilizing the garbage bins at gas stations, it always seems to be a needless cycle of messiness.
• iPod/iPhone dock. Charge it, play my podcasts and music, and give me control through the steering wheel. No more auxiliary cables, FM broadcast accessories or tape-deck adapters, please. An option to modify for the iPad would be a nice future enhancement, too.
• Interior bike rack. How about a Renniks Bicycle Tote? A dry bike makes for a happy cyclist, and a healthier commuter.
• Crock pot and/or breadmaker. If you're going to cook in the car, why make it difficult with all the aluminum foil and trial and error with finding the right spot in the engine block to cook the meal? Let's be more deliberate and provide a device for commuters who would like to eat less fast food and more home cooking. Give the road warriors back their time with the proper in-car device that would allow us to put dinner on the table as soon as we reach home while also being more efficient with the energy our cars are generating. There's got to be a carbon-neutral justification somewhere in this idea.

I can't have cornered the market on good Man Van ideas, especially given that all of these cater to my interests, hobbies and lifestyle. How would you equip your Man Van?

Coming soon to health food stores: Coffee and beer

Photo via H is for Home

Coming on the heels of my 3-cups-a-day coffee confession Monday, we learn from a University of Utah study that four cups of coffee a day appears to reduce the risk of oral cancers.

Refill, please.

Granted, there's the caveat that too much caffeine can increase the heart rate and blood pressure. However, there's evidence that some of the chemicals in coffee -- reportedly over 1,000 -- include antioxidants, which can protect against cancers.

Even better news? Another study shows that beer is one of the healthiest beverages available -- in moderation, of course.

I'm a little suspicious of the second study, given that it was released by The Beer Academy. I've downloaded the report and will read it with an eye toward deeper analysis. And by deeper analysis, I mean while I more closely examine the properties of the beer I'll have in one hand while I hold the report with my other.

Will blog for coffee

One thing you have likely learned about me from this blog over the years is that I love coffee. I subscribe to the reportedly Turkish proverb: "Coffee should be as black as hell, as strong as death, and as sweet as love." All those in favor indicate by saying, "Aye."

Aye.

My coffee reliance runs deep. On the days that I commute to New York, the timer on the coffee maker has been set the night before to make sure there's a hot pot brewed by the time I head out at 5 a.m. This also ensures that Commuter Mommy has coffee waiting for her when the boys and the dog start stirring a little later in the morning. Commute mornings are all about survival of the fittest for all involved, and coffee gives us a leg up on the Commuter Urchins. Lord help us when they start drinking coffee.

There are likely two additional stops for coffee in my future on these commuter mornings. By the time I get to the office 4 1/2 hours later, I am wired and ready to jump right into the requisite meetings and conference calls -- right after a stop in the men's room, naturally.

On the ride home later in the week, there's almost always a coffee pit stop, too. While this wreaks havoc with getting to sleep once I arrive home, it helps me make it home in one piece.

The side effect is that I also indulge in three cups of coffee during most mornings spent in the home office. We realized the extent of our addiction when we recently purchased decafffeinated coffee by mistake. Brandy and I wondered why we were still feeling so tired after consuming the first pot made with the impotent grounds, and only realized our shopping error when checking the package in our still-bleary-eyed attempt to make a second pot.

I'm not proud of this addiciton, but given that I have shed or severely curtailed most of my other vices -- cigarettes, red meat, martinis, midnight ice cream binges, Jelly Bellies -- I will be clinging to this last bad habit for a while longer.

All of this is a long-winded way of explaining why I am introducing you to three fellow caffeinated bloggers today as part of the New England blogging carnival. They are all part of the larger network of New England Bloggers compiled at Thoughts From an Evil Overlord, where Commuter Daddy is also listed.

• Coff-A-Cuppe
  Lives in an antique house, just like us. Can't talk straight when tired, just like us (hence the name of the blog). Likes to cook, just like us. Funny conversations with her boys, just like us.
• Coffee Slut
  My favorite blog name of the three, especially given what I wrote about my coffee love above. There's a lot of memes pursued by this fellow Massachusetts blogger: Sunday Stealing, Meet Me on Monday, Wordless Wednesday, and Follow Friday 40 and Over. My other favorite thing about this blog? The comments are tallied as cups of coffee.
• Wake Up And Smell The Coffee
  This Maine-based blogger also has three boys in an age range similar to our brood and this particular blog has some entertaining stories about time spent at story time and other activities with her boys. However, the real find is her photography blog. What can I say? I am easily lured by good photography blogs.

There are some other coffee-themed or named blogs that I follow from time to time and therefore should also introduce: Catnip and Coffee (also New England-based), DailyCupofJo (not New England-based) and Marketing Over Coffee (also New England-based; truthfully, I listen to the podcast more than I read the blog).

Enjoy, and cheers!

All hail Starbucks and free Wi-Fi

I've written a multitude of times about free Wi-Fi and its potential as a business driver for attracting an increasing remote and mobile workforce. I've written so much, in fact, that you might be growing sick of my rants.

Today, though, I only have praise for Starbucks, who announced this week that they are lifting Wi-Fi access restrictions in their stores. Free Wi-Fi for all. No whammies.

Currently, if you are a Starbucks card holder, which I am, you can get two free hours of Wi-Fi. Ordinarily, that is sufficient, especially when I am driving solo. Once a month, though, I "host" an off-site meeting with my remote staff. We're Panera devotees, because we can eat lunch, work and chat, down some dessert and coffee, and work some more with worrying about the Wi-Fi meter running out.

Now I am not pledging to switch our allegiance from Panera to Starbucks. That might cause a mutiny. We love our Panera meetings. However, Starbucks has just stepped up as a candidate for serious consideration for my solo-travel, working pit stops and as a potential meeting location with staff, vendors and others.

Dunkin' Donuts? Not so much. It's not that I don't like Dunkin' Donuts. I could drink caramel-swirl iced coffees with milk all summer long and twice on Mondays. It's just really hard for me to run on Dunkin' when they don't offer Wi-Fi.

Thank you, Starbucks. We road warriors appreciate the gesture, and it's a pretty safe bet you'll get more of our business as a result.

Conversations with Benjamin: Big bummer

Benjamin was deeply ensconced in a drawing project this morning, and was sharing a seat with Commuter Mommy. She was trying to work, so I tried to convince him to occupy one of the empty chairs, so as not to crowd his working mom's lair.

Brandy was happy to share, though, and corrected my suggestion.

Benjamin shows off his little bum.

"He's fine," she said. "He can stay. He has a little bum."

"And you have a...," Benjamin started.

"Easy, Ben," I warned, anticipating that he might be headed in the wrong direction. "Mom has a nice bum."

He was unfazed. "Mom has a big bum," he said, finishing what I feared had been his thought.

I held my breath. Brandy feigned shock and indignity. Benjamin giggled.

"And Dad has a large bum!" he added, with emphasis placed on the word large.

If this were a Batman comic, you'd have seen "Double zing!" in a bright yellow burst with a red border in the subsequent panel.

I'll be putting in some extra miles on the bike this weekend.