The River Never Gets Deeper than 2 Feet....NOT!

The summer of 2008, my family took a long weekend to New Buffalo, Michigan. Great little town. New Buffalo has one main street with some antique stores, an old fashioned ice cream parlor and a restaurant that serves one mean burger. We stayed at the only resort which actually was fairly new and nice. Really relaxing time. One of the days there we decided to go canoeing  I found a tour company online that offered canoeing, kayaking and other outdoor activities that impressed me enough to sign up the family for a 3 hour canoe trip down the river. Everyone was pretty excited. It's about a 1 1/2 hour drive until we get to the tour company that had all of this outdoor activity and found out quickly that they put all there money into a fancy website. The place was located on basically an abandoned lot and there was a 18 year old kid sitting in front of a tool shed. Not feeling really good about this,I asked if this was the tour company that I found online and he replies "Yep, website is kind of deceiving ain't it?"  Terrific. This kid isn't even intelligent enough to lie to us. I figure we came this far so let's see what we have. The kid shows us 2 canoes that seems safe enough and gives us life preservers to wear. He tells us to just stay on the river path (which was about 20 feet wide) and the canoe will basically guide itself. I ask if there are any waivers I need to sign and he looks at me with a stupid look and says "Nope". (I'm guessing they figure anything horrible happens, I get the tool shed and the canoes in a lawsuit).  The last thing the kid says is "Don't worry, the river never gets deeper than 2 feet"  Off we go.  I have my youngest daughter( 9 years old at the time) with me and my wife has my oldest daughter(13 years old at the time) in her canoe. The canoe trip is kind a of boring because the river is really narrow with not a lot to see but woods to either side of us and the river is fairly calm. At about the 2 hour mark my wife and oldest daughter get stuck in some dead trees and bushes that fell into the river. They are stuck and can't get themselves loose. I paddle back towards them and sitting in my canoe, I can't get them out. I tell them, I'm going to get out of my canoe and get them loose. As I climb out of my canoe and into the river, I realize that the water is about 50 degrees.  Even with the temperature outside being 80, this water was cold but I'm not planning on standing in it too long. I'm going to get the girls loose and jump back into my canoe. Well, I take one step towards my wife's canoe and WHUUPFFFHH!!!!  I drop into about 5 1/2 feet of water!!!!  My head is the only part of my body above water. I'm not happy!  My wife and kids after the initial surprise of me dropping into this deep water just lose it and start laughing hysterically. I can't blame them. It had to look funny. I didn't find it funny though. Also, as a reminder if you didn't remember, the water is freezing. I figure at minimum I'm going to have to get a fork to dig my family jewels out of my stomach where they have retreated to. I climb out of the deep end and onto a log. Still freezing my ass off, I get the girls loose. We get back on our way. I then realize that my cell phone was clipped to my belt which two minutes ago was submerged under water for 5 minutes like the rest of my body. Great! Now my cell phone is trashed. I'm really getting angry now. My youngest ask me "Dad, how much longer do we have until the end?" I say about an hour which at that point it clicks in that I have to sit in wet clothing for the next hour. Again, not happy. We finally get to the end of this ordeal. The kid from the tool shed is waiting there (he drove to get the canoes) and takes a good look at me. He says "Did ya decide on going swimming?" I'm seething and trying to stay calm. I say to him "No swimming,just happened to find the one part of the river that is over 5 feet deep".  He says "By the dead tree and bushes? Oh yeah, I probably should've told you about that" 

Ya think Gomer?

Black Market Danny

I've been really fortunate that I've had a wonderful financial planner that has really done a great job for me and family for the last 20 years. Basically, I give him carte blanche and he has made me money over the long haul. I don't pretend to know anything about stocks or investing but there are times where I see or hear something that catches my eye and I want to do something. So over the last 20 years my wife and financial planner have let me play with $1,000 on buying a stock that I get excited about. Well, both times I've done this, I've lost the $1,000 in less than 9 months. You want to put a company out of business, call me and tell me the company is hot and I'll buy the stock or short the stock(selling stock before you buy stock) and you will get rich.
     This next story is how I was going to( along with a lot of friends and relatives of mine) get rich. The year is 1991 and my brother at the time was one of the largest bond traders in Chicago. He was really in tune with the stock market. In all his years of financial success, he never told anyone about specific stocks or any other investment tip because primarily his expertise was bonds and he didn't want to have it on his head if someone lost money from his advice. Well, for some reason my brother started to tell everyone he knew about this new company that was making a Cancer drug and the company stock was shooting to the sky. My wife and I, newly married, didn't have a lot of money but we wanted to get in. So I bought $2,000 worth of stock( that was a decent amount of money for us at the time).  The next day the stock goes up 2 points! Holy Moly! The day after that it goes up another point!  Now, I'm getting really excited. I'm also talking to a bunch of friends that also bought the stock.  We are all getting really pumped up. After one week of buying this stock, it has gone up almost 4 points.  My wife and I are thinking of getting out of our apartment and look at some new houses with our new found riches. Feeling great about this stock, I buy $2,000 more. Now I'm into it for $4,000 which if I had come home one day and told my wife I wanted to buy $4,000 worth of stock, she would have had me checked into a mental hospital. The stock is still going up. My wife tells me we need to chill out and take a break from checking the stock every 3 hours. So not only do I not look every 3 hours but I actually take about 2 weeks off from checking.  One night I get a call from one of my friends in total panic. He says to me "I'm killing myself and wanted to say goodbye to you"  I said "What??!?" He says that the company that we all own this stock in did some human testing and the person tested grew a third arm!  I again said "What?!?!?"  He was half kidding half freaked out.  The company did testing and there were adverse effects on the human subject. The stock dropped 75% in value overnight! So, not only were are profits wiped out but now my $4,000 investment was down to about $800! I did not know what to tell my wife. She's fairly conservative when it comes to money and this wasn't going to bode well with her. I told her what happened but we should hold on to the stock. It might come back. WRONG!!! It was falling like a certain cruise ship that hit a large iceberg. Finally after about a 2 weeks when the stock was in the proverbial toilet, I sold it and got about $350 of my $4,000 investment back. OUCH!!!!  So 20 years later, I let my professional advisor do the investing and stick to the blog writing.

And The Winner Is......Habanero Pepper!

Yes, another story about me eating. This near death experience ( yes, worse than the Big Mac Challenge) from food happened in 2007 at our friends house. My wife and 2 daughters went over for dinner on a Sunday night at our close friends house who live about 5 minutes from us. We had a nice meal( I believe take out Chinese food) with our friends and their 2 kids.  Dinner ends and the kids go to the basement to hang out. The adults are all cleaning up in the kitchen when the wife starts to tell us about Habanero Peppers, knowing that my wife and I love spicy hot food. Let me preface by saying, if you don't know already, the Habanero Pepper is one of the hottest peppers in the world and barely used in cooking and definitely not eaten alone. (Makes a Jalapeno Pepper seem like a carrot). So she goes on to tell us that her 15 year son loves hot food, saw the Habanero Pepper on a TV show and wanted to try it. Our friend, who is a great gardener, decided to get Habanero Pepper seeds and grow some. When they were ready, she had her son try one and after he took a simple lick from one pepper, he said "No way! I'm not eating that!" So my wife being an adventurous eater said, "I'll try it"  She takes a bite that wouldn't  even qualify as minuscule piece in any one's mind and immediately spits it into our friend's sink. I'm sitting there thinking "How hot is this pepper?" I now say "Come here. I'll give it a shot"  I proceed to bite into half of the pepper and swallow it. HUGE MISTAKE!!!!  HOLY @$@$@#  MOLY!!!!!  This bad boy was HOT!!!!!  So now I'm sitting at the kitchen table hoping this pain will not last long.  My wife and our friends are cleaning up and talking and no one is noticing that I'm not feeling good. It basically feels like some is continually lighting a match in my stomach. Now if you've even met me one time, you know that I'm as outgoing and extroverted as it gets. I will talk to a fire hydrant if no one is around. Well, I'm just sitting there silent with my face in my hands. I cannot believe what kind of pain I'm in. Finally, my wife comes up to me and ask if I'm alright. I say to her "Go get the girls. We have to go home." She replies, "It's only 7:00?"  I said "Lisa, get the girls NOW!!!!" We thank our friends for having us over and go home. We get home and I immediately go upstairs to my bathroom to the cabinet where we keep our medicine and grab a bottle of Pepto Bismol. I chugged the entire bottle until it was empty.  I then went to my bed and proceeded to lay in the fetal position. After 90 minutes I finally felt better. My wife says to me "I would believe it if I didn't see it. You got beat for the 1st time by food" I had to agree with her. The "Human Billy Goat" was beaten. There was a chink in the cast iron stomach. Though, being the ignoramus that you all are learning I am, you can bet that there will be more postings down the road on me doing some moronic eating.  Bon Appetit!

Lady I Think You May Be The One With Issues

It's 1974 and  my 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Bood( tremendous name for a tremendously odd woman) had asked my class to write a paper on something personal about ourselves. My paper was on how I got my middle name. Well, after I wrote my paper, Mrs. Bood called my mother to tell her that she was a bit concerned with my paper and was wondering if there was anything going on with me or at my home that she should know about. She told my mother that she thought that I may have some issues that needed to be addressed. My mother asked why and Mrs. Bood said that when asked to write a paper about something personal about ourselves, that my story seemed to be not only massively exaggerated but an out an out fabrication. My mother being someone that wasn't going to let someone tell her that her son was a liar said right back at her "Lady, I think you may be the one with the issues, that story was 100% true!"
So, here is the story of how I got my middle name. Back in 1964, my mother (who was a really good athlete in her day) was on a bowling team in a league on the northside of Chicago. Her bowling team won the league title and my mother was a big part of it. Not only that but she also happened to be 8 months pregnant with me at the time! I'm sure in today's world, doctors probably would recommend that bowling at 8 months pregnant wouldn't be the best thing in the world to do. Also smoking cigarettes and having the occasional drink would probably be frowned upon which I also know my mother did while she was pregnant with me. (Guess what? anyone reading this over the age of 45, your moms probably did the same thing). So, anyhow, the bowling alley that she bowled at and won the league title was named the Howard Bowl. ( on Howard street by the Howard L for all you folks that grew up on the Northside of Chicago or Skokie). Yes, my mother had such a fond experience there that she named me after a bowling alley. So this is how I got my middle name.

Hey, Mom you couldn't have been in a league at ALL-STAR LANES in Skokie on Dempster?

Danny All-Star Friedman

That would have been sweet!

Captain Impulse

I like to think that I'm that I'm a decisive person but others may call it being impulsive. This next story will confirm the latter.  It was 2008 and I was looking to get a new car. Let me preface this by saying I've never been a car guy. What I mean is I don't need the fanciest or most expensive new car out there. I want a solid dependable car that gets me from A to B. I've never owned a BMW, Mercedes or the like.  Well, about 10 years ago I had such bad back problems ( Actually my piriformis muscle was really messed up-The piriformis muscle is a huge muscle that goes from you ankle to your butt) that I actually had to get rid of my Toyota Camry because if I drove it for more than 20 minutes, I'd be in pain for 3 days. So I had to find a car that my back could take. It ended up being a Ford Escape. Great little SUV that worked perfectly on my back. So now about 4 years go by and I'm thinking I might want a new car. Probably should just get the newer version of the Ford Escape, knowing that it works with my back issue but that would be too easy. In my infinite wisdom, I decide that if I can find a high end (BMW, Mercedes, Volvo or the like) truck in a price range I could live with, I would go that route. Looking on a bunch of car websites, something catches my eye( this was about 2 days after I decided to look for a new car). CARMAX had a Cadillac SRX ( a station wagon on steroids) that was only a year old, had about 15,000 miles on it and was right in my price range.  It's at a CARMAX about 45 minutes away from me and of course, I drive out there that afternoon.  The car salesman at CARMAX takes me out to see the car. It's a beauty. Fully Loaded. Great looking car. I take it for a test drive and decide I love it( test drive was about 2 blocks in the car lot). I call my wife and tell her about it. My wife knowing me and my impulsive nature says "You sure you want that car? Don't you have to be 70 to own a Cadillac?"  I tell her it's really nice. She says, "I know you're going to get it so just do it"  CARMAX has a policy that if you change your mind within 5 days, you can return the car you bought( REMEMBER THIS STATEMENT). I sell them my Ford Escape and then buy the Cadillac. I'm feeling great. I drive it home and it just so happens that my Father-in-Law is there standing with my wife on my driveway. As I get out, my Father-in- Law (who is 70 at the time) says "NICE CAR!" My wife just shrugged. The next day I drive to play golf in the morning and I feel a little twinge in my back. Uh oh. No way. This great new car cannot be hurting my back. I play golf and drive back. The Twinge in my back is getting worse. This is not good. Also, not good is that I'm about to get pulled over by an Illinois State Trooper for speeding. I pull to the shoulder and State Trooper (who looked pretty angry-maybe I interrupted his donut break) is eye balling my new car as he's writing me a speeding ticket. He says "The Caddies go mighty fast, don't they?"  Oh brother.  After I was handed the ticket by Officer Friendly I decided right there, the car is going back. This was bad Karma. The back pain, the ticket and all in just 2 days of owning the car. So I called CARMAX and said I changed my mind so I want to return the car. I could bring it back tomorrow and they could give me back Ford Escape I sold them. GUESS AGAIN. CARMAX's 5 day return policy only pertains to cars you buy not cars you sell them. So I was informed I can't get my Ford Escape back. I was steaming. All I wanted to do was get my old car back and forget about this. Nope. I spoke to everyone at CARMAX except the guy who washes the cars and was told the same thing. We own your old car. I still wanted to get rid of the Bad Karma Cadillac. So my plan was to take the car back the next morning when they open, get my money back and then go buy the newest version of the Ford Escape. Not happy but no problem. CARMAX did tell me that the car had to come back with no damage to it or they would not refund my money. I thought no problem but GUESS AGAIN. My wife was not around and I had to take my youngest to a birthday party at the municipal pool in my town. Now the pool was built in 1961 so the parking lot was built then too and the biggest cars they had to worry about were station wagons and not today's SUV monstrosities that every suburban mom seems to be driving. I drive my daughter to the pool and park so far away in the parking lot that we almost had to take a taxi to get her to the actual pool.  Survived that. Now it's the next morning and I have to get the Cadillac back to CARMAX in one piece. I'm driving on the highway about 35 miles per hour with my hazard lights on in the middle lane. I must have looked like a total mental patient but I didn't care. My wife is following me because I need a ride home and she's laughing the entire time. We get to the CARMAX return the car and get my money back. My wife drops me off at the Ford dealership and I buy a new Ford Escape like you might buy a candy bar.  No haggling, negotiating.  I like that color, let's go with it. 4 years later I still have that car and have been banned by my wife and financial planner from looking at car websites.