I have taken tomorrow off, so that I may attend the Maryland Small Business Week Awards breakfast in Baltimore. The breakfast, which starts at the insane time of 7:00am and lasts until 9:30, is a chance for folks to network, mingle, act like they are not still sleep and to watch their fellow small business peers get honored. As I'm quite sure I've mentioned more times than anyone not related to me would care to hear, my father is being honored at this breakfast, and he will be given the small business journalist award

My brother and I will easily have to wake up at 5am tomorrow, be on the road from DC towards Baltimore by at least 6, and be expected to be "on" and friendly by 7am. I work for a small business, so I guess I should be doing some networking, but chances are I'll be too lazy to do so. My brother works for a bank, so it is to his advantage to network, and he'll definitely rise to the occasion, which will automatically cause me to do the same, because he's not better than me at anything. You may be wondering what my point is here, and although its taken me two paragraphs, I plan on conveying that.

For 34 years (31 for my brother) my father has been there for us in every way imaginable. First and foremost, he's been there for us financially, he's given us support at our athletic events, in school, at graduations, at weddings, birth of children, he's given us love and great advice, and he's far and away exceeded the duties of a great father in my biased opinion. Tomorrow morning will represent one of the few times we have to actually return the favor, and to have that opportunity is more rewarding than I could ever articulate in such a trivial blog post. But I tried my hand at genuflection nonetheless.

By the way, the other time I was able to be there for my father, is when he was divorcing his second wife. She was coming by to get the rest of her clothes, and my dad asked me to be there, just in case she a)starting going crazy like Glenn Close on him, or b) she tried to give him the business, and then lie in court and said they had sex, which would complicate the ongoing divorce proceedings. So he called me over, and had me answer-the-door duty. Eventualy the doorbell rang, I opened the door, and there was cleavage everywhere, and initially she had a seductive look on her face, until she saw it was me and not my father. Then she stormed past me, asked where my father was, and proceeded to angrily get her stuff. I had foiled her plot, and frankly I felt like a rock star for doing so. As fun as that was, I'd much rather be there for my dad the way I will tomorrow.


Yah Mo B There - Michael McDonald and James Ingram
Notice how this video was shot in 1992, and Michael McDonald looks exactly the same as he does now. In fact, I think he's looked the same since 1972.