BREAKING: Son Suspended, Mom A-Gassed

(Dateline: My two blocks up the street)

Our neighbors and long time friends have the nicest son, Andrew. He really is great, very polite but sincere and geniunely funny. We have known him since he was born and our daughter has been in the same grade with him throughout four years of elementary school so we never expected him to have a dark, sinister side. Thus the news we got from his mom yesterday morning was a shock.

Andrew was frightened to go into school to the point of panic. He revealed to his parents that he was facing a 10 day suspension for behavior in school per a meeting with his principal the day before. Apparently this 9 year old menace to society was to be publicly excoriated for a very high crime. He had farted on a girl while playing ball in gym class.

Naturally the mother was beside herself. She assured her boy that everything would be alright and that certainly, there was a misunderstanding and she would call the school. As soon as she could she got the principle on the phone and declared that it must be a mistake and that these things must happen all the time in sports. The principle appeared confused by her vigorous defense but assured her that he would look further into the situation.

A couple of hours later Andrews mom got a call from the school office. A secretary told her that they had conducted an investigation of the matter but, frankly, couldn't figure out what happened. However not to worry, her son would not be suspended until they got to the bottom of the matter.

When the mom in question got home, her heart still racing from a day of suspense, Andrew casually came up to her with a slight aura of sheepishness.

"Mom, you know that thing about farting on Piper? Well, the more I think about it, the more I think I just dreamed it last night. In fact, by the time I got to school, I was pretty sure of it... I was just very sleepy this morning. Sorry."

I got nothin' to say....

Wanna Work From Home: Be A "Best"

While more and more men tend to hearth and home more and more men wish they could work from home. Internet ads and Good Morning America fluff pieces make home-work sound easy and fun, it is in fact, usually fruitless and frustrating. Real employers don't want to pay a salary to someone who's first priority isn't them so to get a paycheck in the mail you need to find something you enjoy and become so good at it that someone will be forced to pay you for it.

I have carved out a nice niche managing investments but I am not a stock picker in the sense that a million other day traders are. Long ago I found a technical niche in the markets that appeared to have a predictability. I researched and refined my niche until I became one of the top experts in the country at this one little thing. By finding one little art that no one else was mastering, I found a skill that now pays off quite well while fitting the demanding schedule of a haus-mensch.

An interesting allegory to this theory is the story of the quarterback and the snapper. I recently read about a former college quarterback who won a Heisman Trophy a couple decades back. He was the best player on his team and he surely got all the glory and the girls back in the day. His college roommate was also his center and he was neither the best player on the team nor the most acclaimed but he did have a skill. Rather than being the best player on his team or even the best center, he was the best long snapper. In fact he was so good at getting the ball to the punter that he made an NFL team as an undrafted rookie. Playing perhaps a dozen snaps a game, he was in the league for 13 years while his Quarterback roomie never collected an NFL paycheck. I often wonder what it would feel like for the man who was the best player on his team, most important player in all of college football, to visit the big-ass house a dozen years of NFL salary has bought his roomie who probably had to fight for scholarship money but was the very best at one, tiny, inglorious skill every football team needs.

Confucious said a thousand years ago and it still holds up: ... Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. ... Start with something you enjoy and find a niche to perfect. It may take years to master your niche or find a way to monetize it but look around... you have time on your hands between diapers and playdate appointments.