​Digging for answers to questions is different today than it was probably even five year ago. Since the internet invaded our personal and private lives, we’ve increasingly used it to gather information about things we know nothing about or just plain research for a project, story or to answer a question.
 
Go online, call up the name of a company, business, organization, issue, country or team and you got what you wanted. For 5+ years, that search includes Google. “Just Google it” is the phrase.
 
Not for everyone though. Some of us still try to find an answer ourselves.
 
Two weeks ago, a friend of mine talked about some player on the Denver Nuggets who had played basketball at Marquette University. He recently scored over 50 points in a game with the Nuggets. His first name was Jamal.
 
I know some basketball, and so does he. He couldn’t remember the last name. I started naming names of Marquette U players in the NBA – Jimmy Butler, Jae Crowder, Dwayne Wade. I knew none of them was the guy his memory bank was searching for, but also recognize that if you jog someone with names it will often trigger the right memory. This didn’t work.
 
We stretched, batted around names, grew increasingly frustrated. I told him to stop thinking about it and the name would come to him. He probably was ready to Google it.
 
“I’ll go find the answer,” I said, getting up and heading over to four of my trusty sources at the workout facility, my ever-present investigative journalistic skills pulsing. “I’ll show him.”

You can usually tell if someone has played basketball by their build, the tee shirt he or she wears while exercising or the conversations you overhear them having with others in the gym. I strolled over to the first of the candidates who appeared likely to help. He had ear buds in. After posing the question, “Do you know that guy on the Nuggets who recently scored over 50 points who came from Marquette,” he looked at me blankly, shook his head and went back to pounding weights.
 
The second guy was a dead lifter, probably trying to increase his vertical jump. He, too, had to pull the ear buds out before looking at me like I’d just arrived from the planet Uranus, added 25 pounds to each side of the bar and began squatting again.
 
The third guy threw some names out there, played along, but he, too, didn’t know. Finally, I walked over to the corner lifting area to talk to the fourth guy, a newcomer to the facility in his early 20’s who consistently discussed basketball. He pulled his buds out, listened patiently, said he didn’t know, and then, “I’ll Google it.”
 
Before I knew it, he had the answer: Jamal Murray. It was nice to come back to my buddy with the name, but disturbing we had to go the Google route. I like to think that there was enough personal knowledge in the gym to find the answer, but we did all have to get to our jobs at some point.

I thanked him, headed back over to my friend, and gave him the name:  “Jamal Murray, but he didn’t play college ball at Marquette. He played at Kentucky.”
 
I hold out hope that the next time I head out on the personal information search that we have the college right.  Then we should be able to collectively find the answer without big brother.

​We have two thieves in our family. One is more egregious than the other, sneaking off to do the dirty deed, then slinking to our house, happy with the spoils, thinking she’s brought something important home that my wife and I should be proud of.

The theft is from our neighbors, one up at the end of our long gravel driveway, and the other through a strand of trees and on a slight hill. Both neighbors appear oblivious that things disappear at a regular pace from their yards.
 
It’s dog bones we’re talking about. One of our dogs might as well put the burglar’s mask on and pretend she has a role in the TV series given how frequently she snorts around and comes back with fresh loot to deposit on our front step, tail wagging.

She thinks we should be proud. We don’t praise her. But every time (a slight exaggeration on the word “every”) we head up to get the mail or newspaper, Pepper finds a new gift for our house.
 
This appears to be her job. I don’t know why dogs do this. I understand they enjoy gnawing on bones, sharpening their teeth and doing their best to suck the marrow out. We buy big-ass bones for both our hounds on a regular basis. Is that enough for them? NO! Of course not. They must steal to appease their inner beast.
 
It must have something to do with the hunt. By foraging and finding one themselves, it satisfies some inner animalistic urge in the animal. They sniff around, get a feel for the terrain, look out for the enemy (the dog of the house under attack) and then pounce, pulling off the heist and sprinting through the woods with their booty.
 
The body language of Pepper when she returns home cracks me up. She gives us the “aren’t you proud of me look,” drops is so we can check out whether the bone meets our standards (I presume anyway), then picks it back up and clicks her nails across the hallway to her bed in the front room to begin her assault.

Do the neighbors’ bone taste better than ours? Are they fresher?  There’s no way to tell.
 
We’re thankful our neighbors don’t complain. I can imagine their conversations.
 
“Dear, what happened to that hip bone we gave Rufus last night?”
 
“It should be in the backyard. She ran right out of the house after we gave it to her.”
 
“Well, she’s begging for another one, and I checked all over the yard this morning and couldn’t find it anywhere. I must be blind.”
 
Nope, you’re not blind, nor out of your mind. You’ve just been hoodwinked by the dog burglar.
 
We no longer have to buy dog bones because of Pepper’s relentless raids. Working undercover, she slinks over to search for something to steal, returning home repeatedly with new unearthed goodies.
 
She’ll be back, sniffing each neighbors’ bushes, eyeballing the turf, sprinting to grab her newest toy and returning to her master like a proud mama. “LOOK WHAT I STOLE.”
 
Good thing there is no dog prison. She’d be locked up for life.

​Doing three things at the same time is not a good idea. I don’t know why humans choose to accomplish tasks that way, but many of us certainly do. I’m an example, that’s for sure.

I’m also an example of why you shouldn’t juggle like that. Case in point: in the morning, I’m trying to get out the door with the least amount of hassle. You want to take on the day fresh, with no frustrations. Get the flow going in the right direction.

That means pulling together any food, workout clothes and work-related materials and put them in carrying cases before trudging to the car. This can be done in one trip. In fact, typically that is the case.

What happens?  Frequently (not necessarily every day, but often more than once a week), I drop something on the way out the door because I’m trying to do too much. A report due that day falls and the paper scatters. The workout bag strap slips from my shoulder and it bounces off my knee, catching between my feet and I stumble in the dark. Or, as I get to the car, it has magically locked itself overnight (what’s up with that?) in the garage and I have to put EVERYTHING down and rummage in my right pants’ pocket for the car keys to click the door open.  Beep, beep.
 
This creates frustration. Not super-nova pissed off, raging, frothing at the mouth wanting to lash out at another human being or inanimate object anger, but still, getting off on the wrong foot. The smile erased from your face, your little cocoon comes unwrapped.
 
This happened to me often enough where I FINALLY (after how many years?) decided to do something about it.  Not hard to change. The first step was simply saying to myself, “Why do you keep trying to carry all that crap to the car in one trip? Why don’t you take two trips? It’s going to add 30 seconds to your commute.”
 
I did that. The past 3-4 weeks (this is not a New Year’s resolution; this is just a very minor life improvement activity) I’ve been making two trips to the car in the morning, moving more slowly, contemplating what to carry the first time out, and what to leave inside for the second walk to the vehicle.

I haven’t dropped anything during this time. I haven’t cursed. My knee has not slammed into a doorknob, nor has anything been forgotten inside that got remembered 11 miles down the road, so no “Dammits, I forgot the coffee cup again” statements (that no one hears anyway except the reflection in the car mirror of a frowning absent-minded driver upset that he’s going to use a Styrofoam cup at the office and create more garbage in the world).
 
Stop trying to do three things at once. That’s my advice this week.
 
 
You’ll get more accomplished in the long run by starting your day moving more slowly and with a leisurely attitude. Your life will flow more smoothly. Interestingly (and you wouldn’t think this to be the case), you’ll save time. Why? Because you make fewer mistakes. Your mental energy stays positive.
 
There’s a lot to be said for changing the simple little things to improve your life. Think about it, then give it a try.

​In general, there’s not much that scares me in life. I’d rather have my ashes scattered after going for it, taking the risk, exploring terrain previously uncovered.

Yet there’s a nagging sense of fear that grows in me. It’s developed over the past 6-months. It’s personal. It’s related to semi-trucks driving on the interstate.
 
This past February, I changed jobs and went to work for Referee Magazine and the National Association of Sports Officials. This necessitated a significant interstate highway commute on a daily basis. Probably about 40+ miles on the interstate from west of Milwaukee, south to Racine, WI.
 
This new stage of life started out okay last February. When June hit, construction season began, Foxconn activities picked up in Southeast Wisconsin and summer vacationers came up from Illinois to increase traffic on the roads; that’s when things intensified.
 
One out of three lanes southbound closed heading towards the Racine exit. Not a biggie. Still……
 
During that period, about once every two weeks, a semi-truck would begin to change lanes while I was right next to it. Every time this happened, the truck driver ultimately recognized my car was there and drifted back into his lane. It was close, very close several times, as I remember shifting onto the shoulder.
 
You can imagine your andrenaline kicking in. My heart thundered for miles. My hands went tingly. I had trouble breathing.
 
When this happens multiple times, it begins to affect your behavior. One morning, a car maybe 10 feet in front of me swerved, then bucked into my middle lane. Since I was watching closely, I was able to immediately swerve to the left as the driver lost control, his/her car swinging wildly. My blood flushing through my veins, I watched in the rearview mirror as s/he continued to fight the wheel, a semi slamming on the brakes and turning its entire carriage perpendicular to the traffic flow and both the car and truck slamming into the median.
 
The next day I looked at the skid marks while commuting in and wondered if there were survivors.
 
By mid-summer, as traffic increased and multiple exits closed with the Foxconn buildup continuing, dump trucks were added to the mix of traffic entering in heavy spurts due to the closing of entrance ramps. Concrete barriers closed down the room to the sides and no shoulders existed for the final 6-8 miles of the morning commute to work. In the fall, the same occurred on the commute home.
 
Semis to the right, semis in front, semis behind. Often boxed in, the drive intensity and fear factor increased. Your car is wedged. Do they see you? When they start drifting, is the driver about to fall asleep? There is nowhere to go.
 
Small solutions had me taking back roads, but there was no full escape. At some point during this time, I realized I’d begun to fear the crash. It permeated the drive.
 
It’s wrong, but now when I can pass a semi, I floor it at full speed to get past them. Maybe that’s another bad thing for safety on the highway. But it’s my coping mechanism.

I do know that if a state trooper pulls me over, I’m going to talk about my fear and I think s/he will understand.