My friend Amy posted a couple videos of her sons, Elliot and Ben, showcasing their dancing skills to Lady Gaga's Bad Romance on YouTube. Since then, Ben has been completely obsessed with how many hits it has and how quickly it will go "viral". Elliott? He just seems to be along for the ride on this one. And as of a couple of days ago, the hit-counter for both videos sat at an even 40 hits each. Therein lies the problem.

Unbeknownst to Amy, I asked my friend Daniel to post both videos on his p...

Over the weekend, I re-watched The Graduate. It's been a decade and a half since I've seen that movie. There is a scene towards the end of the movie where Dustin Hoffman is pounding on a large glass window on a balcony overlooking the altar where his love interest is about to get married. In his desperate attempt to halt the ceremony, he repeatedly yells her name.

Over time that scene grew on me, but for whatever reason, I could never remember the girl's name. For years I walked around randoml...

I enjoy hiking. Growing up in Chicago and then spending a few years in Boston, I never had much of an opportunity to appreciate this activity until I moved to Seattle. Out here, everyone drinks coffee, complains about the weather, and hikes. Pretty much in that order.

My friend Don is an avid hiker, and when the opportunity presents itself, we will hit the trails. Now Don is an interesting person. During the day he acts as the VP of Finance to a large corporation tossing around financial deriv...

On a whim, I recently tried to reconnect with an old friend using one of the popular social networking sites. Not being a member, I had to send an anonymous email without any obvious proof of who I was. In response, like the "secret question" you have to answer when you forget your password, he asked what I had once given him for a birthday present in order to prove my identity. Fair enough. Here is my story:

We met during my first couple of weeks in college. As far as guys were concerned, he...