The Rogers News

Category: Our Experiences

Tales of my life as told by me.

  • Cool as a Kid; Cool Again Now

    I was reminded, just now, of a childhood phenomenon involving Silly Putty and Sunday comics. The trick, as I’m guessing you know by now, was to press the Silly Putty onto the Peanuts’ strip (or your strip of choosing!) and then slowly peel it away. The newspaper ink transferred to the Silly Putty. That alone was entertaining, but even more so was contorting the transposed comic by stretching the Silly Putty.

    The Silly Putty Phenomenon just reoccurred when I removed the transparent Post-It note “flag” from my Michigan Court Rules of 1985 book and the ink was transposed from page 134 and onto my Post-It note.

    My memory is that those mornings spent perusing, but not earnestly consuming, the news of the day on the living room floor were always bright and sunny, but with the possibility of Sunday School looming.

  • Techie Lawyers

    From You Can’t Make Lawyers into Techies: 3 Lessons About LPM:

    Certainly, lawyers are not Luddites, determined to resist progress and deny any change. It’s that they are lawyers, not IT types. So that’s Lesson One: You can’t make lawyers talk IT; IT has to learn to talk lawyer.

    Lesson Two is that lawyers insist on immediate gratification. They will happily sacrifice technological sophistication with its attendant steep learning curve for instant utility.

    Lesson Three is the need for patience when introducing any sweeping change that seriously impacts traditional behaviors.  Lawyers don’t welcome transformative changes, but they will accept sequential phase shifts if only because their competitors do.

  • Top 5 Regrets of the Dying

    From the UK Guardian, a nurse polled dying patients for their regrets. The top five results were:

    1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
    2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
    3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
    4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
    5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

    This reminds me of a country song I used to listen to on the bus ride to North Campus at the University of Michigan for piano class. The song was, “I Hope You Dance,” by Lee Ann Womack. Its message is one of those cliches that encourages you to seize the day, live without regrets, etc. that is in horrible conflict with the fact that 99% of us have to work very hard for a living. Yet that song, along with dozens of quotes that I come upon each month while browsing the internet and the above informal poll, all work to remind us to be conscious of our mortality and that of those around us.

    I’ve found that No. 1 is difficult and always will be difficult because I care about those around me, and because of that love I am committed to living, at least in part, for them – as a husband, as a son, as a brother, as a friend. Inevitably, that pulls at my own selfish desires. That’s okay! No. 2 is a life-long challenge, but pursuing a profession that I find rewarding helps balance the reality of sitting inside on sunny days. I’m a man, so No. 3 doesn’t exist. Juuuuust kidding. I am better at expressing my feelings through writing than vebally, but that’s a start. No. 4 will always be difficult because it’s like trying to hit a moving target. Who’s married, single, in town, not too busy, I still have contact information for, etc. There’s a multitude of variables, and not enough time. Most important is to remember to keep putting myself out there, and ask friends out instead of waiting for an invitation.

  • Life Revisited – My Crepe Stand Plan

    Back in 2002 when I was a sophomore at the University of Michigan, and probably for some time before that, I had plans or dreams to open a crepe stand. While chatting with the bartender, Dan, at the TCG&CC last night the topic came up again as I ordered the chicken and mushroom crepes for dinner. My plans from 2002 are below. Fun to think about – maybe even a good business model during busy festivals.




  • The Daily: Big Moose Lake

    Then again he went down to the frozen waters of Big Moose Lake to see if he could be seen. And when he determined that he could not see or be seen, he returned to the lean-to of branches he built against the uprooted base of a fallen pine tree. He knelt, in the shelter, and placed his hands on the mesh of smooth stone, tangled roots and dry dirt. He looked up, listening, and heard only a pair of aging hardwoods, aroused by the breeze, necking in the distance. It was a polka-dot Heaven through a thatch-work quilted evergreen ceiling. And he breathed deep, as if to pull the stars a millimeter closer. For the companionship of the reflection of a friend’s face that might be found in a faraway moon. For the warmth of a stranger’s hug that might reach for him on a meteoric thundershower of a little bit of love.

    Then he lay down on the earth, cleared of snow, his head resting on a pile of fir branches he had gathered many hours ago. His nostrils stung of pine and his ribs pressed hard through his flesh against the frozen ground below. There was little he could do now, but look up, keep his eyes open, and dream of being found.

    Forever, he thought of escaping, and now – here in this wilderness that was so brutally foreign – all he wanted was the familiar, generic, daily routine he had left behind. He started to softly sing:

    It’s a world of laughter, a world or tears
    It’s a world of hope, and a world of fears
    There’s so much that we share
    That it’s time we’re aware
    It’s a small world after all

    It’s a small world after all
    It’s a small world after all
    It’s a small world after all
    It’s a small, small world

    There is just one moon and one golden sun
    And a smile means friendship to everyone.
    Though the mountains divide
    And the oceans are wide
    It’s a small small world

    This is a 20 minute story, which means I wrote it in roughly 20 minutes. I’ve done this before, and you can read those entries here. This entry was originally written from 10:15 am to 10:45 am on Sunday, January 15, 2012 in the clubhouse at Stokely Creek Lodge in Canada. I revised it on January 17, 2012. It was inspired by nordic skiing in the Canadian wood, where there were many lakes and fallen-over pine trees. The lyrics to “It’s a Small World” were added at the last minute, probably from a subconscious need to lighten the tone of the vignette. At play here is a desire to escape the routine, yet the fear that if or when that is accomplished that there will be nothing there. That it will be for naught. And in realizing that, to recognize the fullness of the present.

  • The Daily: Stokely Creek Lodge




  • The Daily: Fire Pit and Folk Songs

    That’s Lindsey and me warming our hands on cold winter Sunday evening. The kind of evening that we should be inside making a pot roast and drinking red wine. Instead, we’re outside trying to make a small fire larger so that we can eat more sugar and chocolate . . . s’mores!!!!

    This is one of those things that I didn’t know I wanted until I wanted it, and then I had to have it. To my surprise, such a fire pit can be acquired for less than $100 at our local home store (Lowes.com in our case).

    The power company trimmed some trees before we bought the house and left several stumps by our mailbox. Yogi and I transported five of them up the driveway, so that we could offer our guests some comfy seats from which to toast their marshmallows. It would be cool if Yogi, being the industrious St. Bernard that he is, would have offered to drag the stumps up the hill. Instead, I hoisted them in my old beater of a ‘mobile, the Great White Explorer, and let Yogi ride in the backseat to watch.

    We look forward to having you and you and you over for a bonfire one of these days – winter, spring, summer or fall!

    P.S. – The fire pit set in our woods makes me want to buy a guitar, memorize the lyrics to “The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald,” and grow a beard. Oh, if only I had all the time in the world!