iPAD Case by Portenzo

I got an iPad2 for my birthday/Christmas present this year, and plan to use it for business (it's a GREAT tool for salespeople) as well as fun. Then I began the search for a case to wrap around it. I am, by nature, a person who researches things to find exactly what I want before I buy it. I read multiple online reviews of just about pretty much every case you could buy for the iPAD until I found the Portenzo, the reviews of which were very nearly unanimously positive.

So, I decided to investigate a little deeper. I had several questions so I contacted Darin, the guy who runs Portenzo. Yes, the owner of the company answers his own e-mail. His responses were quick and thorough, and I felt I could proceed with confidence. Let me tell you why I decided to buy from Darin.

In comparisons, the Portenzo was a little more expensive than the mass-produced Made in China models I saw everywhere, but not by much, honestly. The Portenzo case is hand made, to order, and you can choose the outside cover color and material as well as the inside colors and materials. It's also made in America. Seriously. When was the last time you were even ABLE to buy something handmade in America?

Second, there is something artistic about Portenzo cases. The case is made in the style of a Moleskine notebook (Dodo Cases are similar, but reviews were sketchy on how well they hold up), which I have always found to be classy and elegant, and also serves to disguise the computer to help prevent theft. Quite simply, it is beautiful. The leather is luxurious, the inside fabric is vibrant (I ordered the blue) and it is unique in its iPad presentation.


Last, the details are just a little more thought out (a stylus holder) and the attention to detail is almost perfect. The strap on my case covers the camera on the back, providing one more level of protection). The only quibble I have, and it's a small one, is that the volume controls are hard to adjust.

Like I said, you may pay a little more for a Portenzo case. But what you will receive is a well designed, well thought out, well constructed, Made in America work of beauty. Check it at www.portenzo.com

Feeding the Homeless - Not What I Expected

Mrs. Fish and I went out on Friday night last week to feed the homeless. There is a local Mission in Harrisburg, where young men and women can stay to get back on their feet. They have a van to reach those people who don't want to stay at the Mission and it carries hot food out to the homeless throughout the city. They need volunteers to help man the van so we signed up with another woman from our church.

I honestly didn't know what to expect. The van leaves at about 8pm drives to places where the homeless congregate, with about 10 stops throughout the night, across the city. At each stop, Mrs. Fish and another volunteer passed out blankets and clothes, including gloves, socks, underwear and sweaters. There was sometimes a rush, and sometimes scuffling, but they did well to keep things going smoothly. It was cold out, but not frigid/freezing, but that weather is surely coming and the warm supplies will be more and more important.

When we stopped, I jumped in the back of the van and grabbed the soup crates and set up a mini mobile serving area. I then started passing out toiletries including razors, shaving cream, soap, wash cloths. Then, I got on the soup ladle to pass out hot soup and pour hot coffee. On a night like that, it was very much appreciated. All of this set up and activity also gave me a chance to talk to the people as they came up, to hear their stories. It was humbling.

Carl, the Mobile Mission leader, has a rapport with the people of the city and a knowledge of where they are. It's weird, I have worked in the city for 15 years and never really saw the places he took us to. I mean, I had been past them, but I didn't see them as places where people lived, as homeless communities. I've never been one to turn away from the homeless, but I know I never sought them out, either.

I thought this trip would be depressing, but it wasn't so. I talked with the men and women and heard their stories. There is a camaraderie and community among the people, a sense of looking out for their common welfare. I'm not saying it was easy, just that it wasn't sad, like I think I was expecting it to be. In the end, I came to recognize a quiet, simple dignity that I wasn't expecting, and their kindness and generosity to me and to one another was uplifting.

We got home to our warm house about 1am and I was so grateful for what I have - family,, friends, clothing, a warm house. I definitely think I will do this trip more often.

Happy Anniversary - 18 Years

Today Mrs. Fish and I celebrate 18 years. I honestly couldn't imagine doing this crazy trip with anyone else. We are raising an amazing daughter, continuing to grow and learn together, and we are still friends after all these years. I am a blessed man, to be certain.

What I've learned:
1) Be friends - We've had ups and they're AWESOME. When things get tough, we needed something to fall back on. I fall back on the fact that we were friends first, and that friendship was based on mutual respect.

2) Be lovers - Kids, jobs, family, bills, all have a way of draining the love from a marriage. If we don't fill that bucket, things go south. It doesn't have to be big extravagant over-the-top declarations or acts of love, but if we don't set aside that time, look out. And, when we do, even when we think we're too tired, too distracted, too ___________, our marriage gets better.

3) Talk about money - even when we didn't have any, we still talked about it. I think there is very little that will rip a marriage apart as quickly as being on different pages about money. I'm still learning how to do it, but some of the best conversations and best moments of closeness I have had with Mrs. Fish have been over conversations around money.

4) Grow. I have grown with my wife and without her. I want to keep on learning new things, and I think that has made me a better husband. I am learning about my health, writing and art. She learns about music (something I know hopelessly little about), books (she reads a TON of books), and fashion.

5) Know your purpose. I have a strong faith and it's been deepened over the years. It hasn't always been easy, and God has called me to some challenging places. Mrs. Fish wasn't always as faith-focused as I, but she has supported me through that walk, even when she didn't understand or necessarily agree with it. God continues to work on us, and also through us, because I have trusted that He has a purpose for me. Mrs. Fish's faith has deepened and expanded because I have stayed true to that focus over the years, and God is rewarding it with new challenges and opportunities. That grounding, that sense of purpose, has been my rudder through marriage, raising a now 13 year-old daughter in today's society, cancer, conflict, friendships and the challenges we have faced together.

I'm not saying we have it figured out, just my observations of what has worked for us over the past 18 years.

Stuttering

Many of you know that Li'l Fish, my 13 year-old daughter stutters and has done so since shortly after she began speaking. It has rarely slowed her down, to the point where she is now actively participating in the National Stuttering Association (NSA) and even gave a Keynote speech to nearly 600 people at their annual conference two years ago.

Through the course of all of this, we have met some AMAZING people who stutter. One of them is Philip, a remarkable young man who has a lot to say. He's in a college class where the teacher would prefer he didn't. His story just made the New York Times. You can read the story by CLICKING HERE.

The central message of the NSA is this: If you stutter, you are not alone. I just wanted to pass this along, because so often people who stutter suffer in silence and never find their voices. My daughter, and Philip, have been empowered to find their voices, and to USE them, through the NSA. You can find out more about the NSA at www.WeStutter.org

Mr. Fix-it

I had my article posted in Family Voices, the official magazine of the National Stuttering Association! Very cool!

We're dads. We're programmed to fix things. It's irrevocably built into our DNA, more than our love or hatred of the designated hitter, our desire for an engine with more horsepower, our need to get rid of ALL of the crabgrass our lawns, or even the quest for the perfect barbeque technique (HINT: it's timing - don't turn things more than once). So what does a dad do when presented with a kid who is "broken"? These tiny little beings don't come with an instruction manual, and not having a manual is so much worse than those multi-lingual, poorly drawn pamphlets that inevitably come with our Summer weekend do-it-yourself projects. At least with those instructions, some of the Swedish words bear a faint resemblance to English and you can almost, if you squint, make out where the thingamajig screws into the whatsit.

So you can imagine my confusion when my daughter, Katie, began stuttering around age 3. Surely there must be a manual for this. There has to be a way to fix it, right? My wife, Joan, and I jumped on the Internet and began looking around. Fortunately, we quickly found the source of the problem. Unfortunately, according to the all-knowing 21st Century oracle, the problem was us. We talked too fast. and we talked over each other. And we talked a lot. If we just slowed down, listened, had long pauses where Katie could interject, her stuttering would go away. "Well, that was easy" I said to Joan. Surely this Jersey-born guy and his Philadelphia-born wife could speak slowly. Even if we were both raised in gift-of-the-gab Irish families. You know, the type of family where conversation was equal parts Formula I racing, fencing match and blood sport. We can so do this, I thought. So Joan and I slooooowed down (This took more than one try. A lot more than one try). Only, Katie kept right on bumping away.

Well, there was still no manual available, so we took the next logical step. We went to an expert, in this case our doctor. Surely, the doctor would be able to tell us what was wrong and then we could set about the task of fixing it. Once again, we found the source of the problem, and we were told that it was...us. We were putting too much pressure on Katie. We were too demanding. If we could just relax about EVERYTHING, Katie would be just fine. This was nothing to worry about and it would just fade away if we could just relax. Have you ever tried to relax, knowing that something depended on your relaxing? That one did not come easily to any of us, but we managed to be MORE relaxed and that was going to have to be enough. But still, Katie stuttered.

So surely, I thought, there must be some sort of expert who specializes in this sort of thing. It was then we found the National Stuttering Association and I felt like Galahad finding the Grail. Surely these knowledgeable professionals with their years of training and experience would be able to cure my daughter. So we packed the family up and headed out to the NSA's annual conference in Atlanta. I was wondering, on the ride down there, just how long it would take to fix Katie, to cure her of this malady.

That was more than five years ago, and Katie still stutters. What I learned in that first Conference, and what I am reminded of each year I go, was that she didn't need to be fixed because she wasn't broken. Like the kids, teens and adults I met at the conference, Katie is smart, funny, beautiful and talented. What is broken, what needs to be fixed, I am learning, is a society that treats people who stutter as less than what they are. And so, I am going to acknowledge the nature of my DNA, that the need to fix things is an integral part of that, and I am going to set about changing this society to a place where my daughter's voice can be heard, because she has a lot to say.

LiveSTRONG Ride for Five: Part III

You are riding hard now, trying to make the cutoff. You can feel the lactic acid building up in your legs, particularly on the hills. You remember your friend Kurt saying the world is flat when you're in a car. Not so much when you're on a bike. You're breathing a little heavier now, too, but you still labor onward, and also upward. You're in some bigger hills now, and trying to remember where the cutoff is, how far you still have to go, and you're trying to do the math in your head. Your head which has begun to ache. Badly.

You felt it coming on at the last rest stop and asked at the first aid station if they had Tylenol or ibuprofen. All they had was aspirin, and you're pretty sure it's just in case someone has a heart attack. You are not going to have a heart attack. But you're starting to feel like this headache could kill you. How does one run an event like LiveSTRONG and not have ibuprofen or Tylenol? You remember from previous years there is a rest area just past the cutoff area, and if you make it, you might be able to find some relief. You pedal harder.

You find yourself looking at the clock. It is past 10.00 now. If they've moved the cutoff up, you won't be able to ride the 100 mile course for the second year in a row. You look at the sky and while there are clouds in the sky, there is certainly no sign of threatening weather. You take some solace in this fact and get out of the saddle for a bit to change your position on the saddle. It feels good to pedal from a standing position for a while. Then you see the cutoff area. You pedal up, hopeful.

You see hordes of riders being directed to the left. The 70 mile course. It occurs to you exactly what has happened. They have closed the 100 mile course. Again. It is 10.13. You're somewhat perplexed because the skies look fine. There have been some light sprinkles, but nothing worthy of rerouting. You are disappointed. Many of the people surrounding you are bitter. And angry. And vocal. A couple of riders go through the rerout, with the understanding they will be alone, unsupported, on the course. You think about it for ten seconds and then think better of it. You turn to the 70 mile course and pedal away from the complaining. Your head is still pounding.

A guy pedals up next to you and strikes up a conversation. He starts complaining about the 100 mile course being closed and you bite down on your tongue until you taste blood. After a couple minutes of this, the man reads your silence, then says cheerfully, "But it's not really why we're out here today, is it?" A glimmer of hope lights on your ride and you start to talk easily with this guy, whose name is Vinnie, from New Jersey. Two years ago, he had a rash and it was really bugging him and his girlfriend was nagging him and nagging him to go see a dermatologist. Finally, he relented, to get her to stop whining (the irony was not lost on me at this point) and he went to the doctor. The doctor took one look at the rash and said, "That doesn't concern me, but this mole, this mole, and that mole do. We're going to cut them out, today." So they cut out his moles and they tested positive for melanoma. A silly rash and his girlfriend's badgering had saved his life. Now he tells people that if things don't seem right, they should go see a doctor. It's the same thing that saved your life five years ago. It's the same you've been preaching ever since.

You pull into a rest area and say goodbye to Vinnie from New Jersey and you're glad you were able to share stories. Now, you need Tylenol. You locate the first aid station and mercifully they have some. The guy asks if you want three or four. Two will be loads, you assure him. He is surprised. You are surprised that people would take more than 2. You toss them in your mouth and knock them back dry. Relief is on its way.

Sean and Jennifer pull in and now the remaining Team Fish riders are all together. You leave together and talk lightly, focusing on the riding. Sean decides to stop and take pictures, so you and Jennifer ride on. Jennifer is a strong rider and your pace matches each other well. The miles flow beneath you as you talk of her three children, how different they are, how precious they are to her. You think about your own Li'l Fish and how much you love her, how the fight you had five years ago almost took so much from you. You realize again she won't be at the finish line for the first time this year, that she and Mrs. Fish are home getting ready for school and a Selena Gomez concert. You miss them immensely, but you know the love you have for them will bridge the miles.

Overall, you are feeling solid, and your headache is gone. Your commitment to eat when you can, even if you have to force it a bit, has served you well. The switch from Gatorade to a more complete drink, Heed, this year has kept the cramps at bay and you feel energetic. You are in good shape. You enter the last miles and the rolling hills. You realize you are almost finished, and as with last year, you are surprised at how quickly this has happened with the 30 fewer miles. You pull over to TXT Mrs. Fish and Li'l Fish, then head for the finish line, tell them how much you love them.

The finish line is divided to the left for riders and to the right for survivors. When you finish down the chute, people are going nuts and screaming for you when they realize you are a survivor. It's all a little much and you feel the tears come again, for the five more years you have had to fight this awful disease. For the five more years you have had to live your life. For the five more years you had had to spend with your friends, and to see your brother become a father. And most of all for the five more years you have had to love your wife and hold your daughter. The Ride for FIVE is over, and you look to the skies and thank your God for FIVE more years.

LiveSTRONG: Ride for FIVE Part II

You ride easily over the starting area. The first ten miles are lightly rolling hills, and you can feel your legs, the power in them that you've built over this season's training. You trained hard this year, and it is paying off already. You realize you've forgotten only one thing, but it could be major. You're a redhead and you've forgotten sunscreen. It's still early, so the sun is barely up, and you're relatively sure they'll have sunscreen at the first rest stop. You choose not to worry about it just yet. One of the things you have learned is that the people who do well in this event are adaptable and tend not to panic. Check and check.

At the first rest stop, you drop off to get sunscreen and they do indeed have some. And, of course, the booth is manned by a redhead, who immediately sets about scolding me for not having any on. "Don't forget you're ears," she says to you. She realizes your mother is not hear to make sure you get them. On the whole, Lance's sunscreen is awful. It never, ever soaks into the skin. It just lays on your arms, legs and face with a pale white covering. You quip to the volunteer that it's a good thing this is not a beauty contest. On the plus side, for the remainder of the day, you will not need to reapply a single time. It is both wonderful and terrible.

The first stop is also an opportunity to regroup. Your friend George is hurting, can't get the legs under him for the ride. He can't figure out what it is, and you're equally confounded, as you know he has done some decent riding in preparation for this event. He is hurting to the point where he decides to cutoff at 20 miles, the legs simply unable to do what his mind and spirit are trying to will them to do. You remain puzzled for the rest of the day about exactly what just happened.

You catch up to your brother, Pat, and ride with him for a while, talking about his one-year-old twins and the joys and terrors and general sleeplessness of parenthood at that age. It's a juggling act, and you remember back to when your own daughter was that age. It was so long ago, before cancer, actually,. Sometimes you divide your life into pieces like this, before and after cancer. Most of the time, though, you're just grateful there is an after cancer, so you can ride with your brother and talk about his kids.

At the 45 mile cutoff, your takes a left and heads for home, for his children, while you stand up and rise to the next hill. Jennifer and Sean are up ahead somewhere, and you're confident you'll see them soon. You pedal a bit harder now, the 10.00 cutoff looming in your head. You still find time to toss BUTNZ! to the people who have come out to support the ride, especially the kids, waving like maniacs and cheering us all on. And, the cowbell people, who support you every year with their encouragement.

You speak with survivors who are riding with you. Like Tracy, the four year survivor of Ewings Sarcoma, a cancer that attacks the tissue and bone of your body. You speak with Ron who tells you he is a testicular cancer survivor. You ask him, "Did you lose Lefty or Righty?" He is taken aback until you explain you lost Lefty and he says, "I lost Righty, so I guess between us we make a whole man." You say simply, "I suspect together we make a great deal more than that" and he nods in tacit agreement. There is Carl, a runner who got the biking bug and now rides in events like this because he is in love with cycling. He wears the Navy jersey in support of his brother, who is in San Diego on active duty, and he talks about how much he misses him because they were always so close.

You also see people you know from previous rides. Jon's Crew rides in memory of Jonathan a young man who passed away. You see Jim, who fought with you through the last stages of last year's ride, over the last hills through driving rain, each of you encouraging the other. He has added another year under his brain cancer survivorship belt.

On and on it goes, thousands of people on a single road, pedalling to fight cancer because of these stories. Eventually, you catch up with Sean and Jenny, and you start focusing on making the cutoff. It's going to be close. Sean pulls for you for a bit, then tells you just to GO FISH GO! You race ahead to try to make the cutoff so they will let you ride the 100 mile course.

LiveSTRONG: Ride for FIVE Part I

Your alarm goes off at 5:15 am. Every year you think you're prepared for just how early this is, but you never are. In situations like this, you have two go-to songs: the Triathlon Song...

...or the one by Mark Knopfler for which you can never find a video. You choose Knopfler. Your body has some creaks that you're certain weren't there last year, perhaps weren't even there yesterday, but still you rise. Quickly, you don the gear you have laid out the night before, everything designed to streamline the process and get you out the door more quickly. You have a mission, and you cannot be late. This is your focus, now.

Your jersey is the seafoam aqua of The Lounge, an inside joke for many of the cyclists you know, emblazoned with the code that is both an impetus for humor and an odd badge of welcoming. You double check your shoes and your helmet, because you realize without these, you won't be allowed to ride. Quickly, you pack up the sleeping bag, the air mattress, your belongings are tossed in a knapsack with the LiveSTRONG logo. It's a gift awarded for the fundraising you did last year, for the efforts of your friends and family and a host of people who care about you and hate cancer. Many of them you have never met, but you will spend all day thinking about them. But not now. You are packed up and ready to go. It is 5:30.


You walk out to your car, make sure your bicycle is secured on the back of the car and drive out of the garage, probably for the last time. You think of your mother-in-law and the kindness she has shown you in allowing you to crash at her place for the past 5 years. You say a prayer for her that God watches over her.

You stop at the Dunkin' Donuts on the way out, another tradition for the past five years. The coffee cannot come soon enough, and you also order a bagel with ham and egg. You know it's going to taste awful, but you also need the calories. The coffee is the first sign of hope you have had today, black and perfect. There is hardly any traffic at all and you get to the event venue ahead of schedule. Your friend George is already there and you get texts from the rest of the team they will be there quickly.
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You speak easily with George, you've known him for almost ten years now. He's a good man, and a good father, and always trying to be better at both, so you recognize in him a kindred spirit, as you also did when you first met him. Your friend Jenny shows up, and it's good to see her again. You have seen her for nearly two years, you guess, when you ran in a race to celebrate her brother, Tony, who died of colon cancer. Your sure she's thinking of him now, and you say a silent prayer for her as well. Your brother Pat joins the Team Fish group, the illustrious Patfish Hunter who has ridden every LiveSTRONG with you. You're glad the tradition continues, and you're glad his coworker Sean has joined you yet again. Team Fish is now together and assembled.

You pedal down to the start line and you think about the Team Fish people who are not there this year. Family commitments have kept Kurt and Randy out this year, as well as a host of others who had "maybe" circled for this date. You're hoping they'll be with you again next year, then you turn to face the sea of bicycles and the task before you.

You secretly curse the idiots who set up the announcing booth, with all of the speakers facing away from the cyclists. You're sure it makes sense to someone, but to you it sounds like that etacher in the Charlie Brown series who just goes on in a monotone, "WAH WAH WAH WAH WAHHHHHHHHHN..." It might be amusing in the Sunday comics, less so for an event like this. You can't hear a thing until music begins to play and thousands of bikers go silent. last year they had a jazz singer and this year an opera singer. Both times you were moved nearly to tears. You think of your friends Eric and Kurt and the rest of the people you know serving this country to keep you and your family safe. You recognize a feeling most people would call gratitude, but you recognize that only scratches the surface of the thanks you feel.

Normally, they run a pretty tight ship with regard to start times. This time it is handled poorly, and you actually start 20 minutes late. As you roll out, you catch people discussing the possibility of storms coming in. The normal cutoff time to ride the 100 mile course is to reach a certain checkpoint at 10.30. The organizers reserve the right, it is said, to redirect 100 mile riders onto the 70 mile course if they don't make the cutoff by 10.00. There is not a cloud in the sky, so you don't worry about this. You're happy to be riding, finally, with Team Fish. And off you go onto the course.