Author: Wil

Where the hell is my $!#@%ing baseball glove?!”
I looked everywhere: in the closet, in the garage, under the dining room table, behind the couch, in the oven, on the patio . . . I finally stormed into my bedroom, where my wife was watching TV.
“Have you seen my baseball glove?”
“Why do you need your baseball glove at 10:30 on a Saturday night?”
Normally, the answer to this question would involve me making mildly to extremely inappropriate suggestions involving a trip to trashy lingerie and some Jack Daniels . . . but I was faced with a serious problem. I had a fever, and the only prescription was my baseball glove!
“I’m going to Dodger Stadium with my dad tomorrow morning for their Father’s Day ‘play catch with dad in the outfield’ event, and I need my glove!”
I started tearing through my dresser.
“You think your baseball glove is underneath your T-shirts?” She said.
“Well . . .” I realized how irrational I was being, and decided that I wouldn’t tell her about the washing machine, freezer, dishwasher, or down the street behind that bush that covers the hole in the fence. “It’s just really important to me.”
“When did you last see it?” She said.
“I let the kids use it for street hockey a couple days ago.”
“Did you look in the closet with the other baseball stuff?”
“Yes.”
“Garage?”
“Yes! I looked in all the places it should be!” I kicked the side of the bed and hurt my toes. “GodDAMMIT!”
I stormed out of our room, and picked up the kitchen phone to call my dad, and tell him I couldn’t go. When I put the receiver to my ear, it was beeping that I had a message. I automatically hit “9#” and typed in my password.
“You have . . . ONE . . . new message,” the friendly voice said.
I pushed the “1” key twice and listened.
“Hi, it’s dad. I just wanted to let you know that I talked with your brother, and he is going to come down and meet us at nine tomorrow morning! I am so excited to be spending my Father’s Day with all my children at Dodger Stadium! It’s going to be great! I love you, Wilbert. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“That was your last message. To save it, press 2. To erase it, press 3.”
I instinctively hit 3 and hung up.
“Oh crap. I bet I’m going to want that message back, someday.”
After another fifteen minutes or so of searching, I ended up back in my bedroom.
“Sorry about that,” I said to my wife, “It’s just really important to me that I get to go tomorrow.”
“It will turn up, Wil. Just relax.”
“I wonder if I put it in my backpack,” I said.
I keep my backpack between my bedside table, and the closet door. It’s not uncommon for a few T-shirts, or my running clothes to end up stacked on top of my backpack, as part of the “bachelor cleanup.” I looked down and saw a couple of magazines and a book sitting atop the laundry I’d folded (but failed to put away) a few days before; underneath it, was my backpack.
I reached down, past all that junk, and picked up my backpack. The first compartment was open and empty. The second compartment had an old Vanity Fair, a Clif bar, and about a pound of sand from the beach in it . . . but no glove.
I sighed. “This sucks so much,” I said. I picked up my clothes to replace my backpack, and saw my glove sitting on the floor.
“I found it! Yes!”
“Where was it?” Anne said.
“It must have been on top of my backpack. Thank god.”
“See? I told you it would turn up.” She smiled at me.
Even though I’ve had this glove for years, and it’s a broken in as it’s going to get, I put a baseball in the pocket, wrapped it up, and put it on the floor next to the bed . . . it seemed like the right thing to do.
Next time: Hey dad, want to have a catch?

And now, a programming note: Tonight, I will be on The David Lawrence Show to talk about gmail4troops.com, including some very exciting news about the number of troops and familes we’ve hooked up, and what the next step for our effort is.
There’s a very good chance that I’ll also have some exciting personal news to announce, too.
I’m on at 9PM Pacific time. There are several different listening options available at David’s website. Information on my specific show (including a link to download it, once we’re done) is here.

I am blown away by WWdN readers. Seriously.
In less than three days, I’ve gotten tons of responses to every single challenge I issued in the last post.
The result? gmail4troops.com!
And if that’s not enough, some guys pulled together gmailforthetroops.com before we could even get our site going.
My favorite thing about this (other than the “good deed” nature of it — I’m always looking for a way to do good deeds) is how for the vast majority of people, it doesn’t matter if you’re a liberal or a conservative, a dove or a hawk . . . we’re all coming together to do something cool for our soldiers in the field. I hope that there’s a bonus to this too: maybe someone will give out invites, feel good about it, and donate a phone card . . . then they’ll help put together a care package . . . then, maybe they’ll volunteer to help out a soldier’s husband or wife, or become pen pals . . . this could really be the start of something cool, and may help improve morale for our guys and gals in uniform.
When I started this lame website so long ago, I never thought that any of these cool things would happen . . . and now, I can’t wait to see what happens next!
I’ll do my best to get back to regular blogging next week. I’ve been waiting for Anne to have time to write up about the marathon, and I’ve been crazy busy with auditions, meetings, and some actual jobs (!). More on all that after the weekend.

I keep reading about how soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are having their tours extended long beyond when they expected to come home, and their morale is suffering as a result. Thankfully, many of our soldiers are able to stay in touch with friends and family via the Internet, but their e-mail access is often very limited.
WWdN reader Drew sent me the following note earlier today:

I will send you an invitation for the hard to get Gmail if you post something on your site telling others to give their invites to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. See, Google gives 1 gig of email space, perfect for movies and pictures from home, but it’s invite only. When you get an account you will get invites too, and if you could pass them along to those who need em that would rule.

I think this is a fantastic idea, and an easy, but very powerful way for many of us to help support our troops. GMail gives users 1 GIG of free storage space, which is more than enough for pictures, movies, sound files . . . all sorts of things that could help our servicemen and women feel a little closer to home.
The thing about GMail is that it’s currently invite-only, so I e-mailed Drew back, and asked him if he had some sort of clearinghouse set up for soldiers to submit requests for invites. He responded:

No, but about 10 of us are trolling www.gmailswap.com looking for folks in the military. See, once you talk to one of them, they pass an email along to fellows stationed with them, so we’re just trying to dole them out as we get the request.
There’s no way to know how long Gmail will be invite only, but SGT Tim Knowles in Afghanistan said that good morale is hard to come by out there and in Iraq, and the guys are buzzing about the possibilities of 1 gig. They all seem to have hotmail and well it’s weak.
I’m going to look into getting a site together or at least a list.

Of course, there are epic assholes online who will pose as soldiers so they can get invites, but I think it’s completely worth the risk.
So here is your challenge, WWdN readers:

• Help spread the word about this effort, and keep checking back here for a link to the soon-to-be-built clearinghouse for requests.
• If you’re a designer, and you would like to donate some time, or a host who would like to donate some space and / or bandwidth, send me an e-mail and I’ll pass it along to Drew.
• If you’re a reporter, maybe you’d like to do a story about a bunch of nerds who are working to do something cool to support our troops. Maybe your story will be seen by some other people who can get on board, and together, we can make a positive difference!
• If you’re a Google employee, maybe you’d like to come up with a way to ensure that members of the armed services can get GMail acocunts, no matter what.
• If you’re a fellow blogger, you can link this post, or the clearinghouse website when it goes live.
• And of course, if you’re a GMail account-holder, you can use those invites that are piling up (I’ve sent out six in the last week) to do something really cool for some people who are making an incredible sacrifice right now.

Okay, now you know what to do, so get to it!

Dave Barry, one of the funniest guys on the planet, gives us a hilarious look into the heart of America’s current love affair with Poker:

Be advised that a Poker Craze is sweeping the nation. Almost every night, there are poker tournaments on television. And if you think that would be boring, I have three words for you: Correct-O-Mundo.
The problem is that there’s not a lot of action in televised poker, where the most strenuous thing the players do is push plastic chips about 15 inches. (Granted, this is more action than you see in televised golf.)
To make matters worse, poker players do not betray any feelings, so what you have, visually, is a bunch of grim-faced guys looking like a hemorrhoid support group. Most of the emotion is supplied by the TV commentators, who, in hushed, dramatic tones, say things like: “He’s thinking about what to do here, Bob.” “You just know that, inside, he is churning with emotions, Bob.” “I’m sure glad I took powerful methamphetamines before this broadcast, Bob.”
The guys on TV are usually playing “Texas Hold ’em,” which is the hottest poker game at the moment, although there are many other popular variations of poker, including Seven Card Stud, Five Card Draw, Alabama Grope ’em, Iowa Bore ’em, Six Card High Low Medium Jacks Wild Stud Draw Go Fish, Cincinnati Lawn Flamingo, Florida Recount ’em, New Jersey Whack ’em, New York Kvetch ’em, Red Rover and Whist.
All of these games are essentially the same: A person (or, in poker slang, “dealer”) gives you some cards (“cards”), which you look at in a furtive manner (“sneaking a gander”) to see if you have a good hand (“bling bling”) after which you bet (“kiss the eel”) by placing money (“cheese”) into the pot (“marijuana”). This goes on until somebody (“not you”) wins, at which point the losers express heartfelt congratulations in colorful slang.

It just gets better from there. I was flipping between WPT and the Dodgers tonight, and wondering when I’ll have time to sit down and actually play again. Maybe I’ll get a chance to show Dave Barry what all the excitement is about!
(Big thanks to WWdN reader Troy, for the link!)