Ry and Coop Dot Com

Yesterday was the annual Prutsman Christmas Party and the crowd didn’t disappoint.  We had a lot of fun and I even won $10 in a lotto scratch off.

Ryan had great time with his cousins even though this attempt at a family picture didn’t really come together as planned. 

Landon and Ethan were both very patient with our little terror and even allowed for a quick picture (though note the fudge at the corners of the mouth which explains why it was easy to take the picture.)

When it came time to take a family picture, well that didn’t go as planned.  Trying to get five boys to sit still while Dora the Explorer is on TV is like trying to hold back Niagara Falls with a dixie cup.  We did the best we could.  Next year we’ll have to try earlier and bring a lot more chocolate bribery!

On Monday I told you that I finally was able to get Ryan to sit near Santa.  The one thing I failed to mention is that I was totally unprepared for the experience.  Jenn will be the first to tell you that I don’t always think things through and even if I have the best of intentions, I don’t always generate the best of results.  I’d say, unequivocally, this is one of those times. 

For those of you who’re wondering what I’m talking about, perhaps you’ll indulge me with a little test.  Can you point out three things wrong with this otherwise cute picture of Santa and Ry-guy?

I’ll wait… take a good look!

Ready?

Now, for all the men who’re looking at this picture.  Do you know that Army Green and NY Giants Red doesn’t match?  I always thought Green and Red were Christmas colors! 

#2.  Did you notice the spaghetti left all over Ryan’s face?  I swear I wiped his mouth clean so I have no idea where he got that… perhaps he was storing some food like a chipmunk.

#3.  This is much harder but take a look at the lower right hand corner of the picture.  Apparently the chipmunk spaghetti fell onto the shirt.

There’s more.  Things like the fact that he’s in a t-shirt, or that he drooled all over his shirt.  How about the fact that I was distracting him in such a way that he would take his eyes off the camera and look at me. 

All in all, this was a failure. The one thing I can say about this particular failure though was I had a lot of fun while I was failing….

Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of John Lennon’s death and the media went wild covering that story. I personally don’t get the Beatles. Sure, I recognize their musical abilities and the band’s contributions to today’s pop culture, but I just never understood the big deal. I’d take Paul Simon over Paul McCartney any day.

I wonder what Ryan will write in his child’s blog 30 years from now. Perhaps he’ll even be writing about his own musical contributions. He’s getting some good practicing in now.

I’ve grown a lot as a person and nothing proves that more than my tolerance for germs.  As a child, if you breathed in the same room that I stood in, I’d freak and run.  Sharing food was completely out of the question and I’d rather sit on death row than share a toothbrush.  The idea of sharing toothpaste with another person was enough to make me sick to my stomach.  As I’ve grown older, my attitude changed.  At first it was out of necessity.  Running at Geneseo was my first foray into sharing water bottles and it was out of necessity.  The team would go 8 or 10 miles or do an intense workout on the track and I often didn’t bring enough water with me.  Sharing was a means of survival.  Once I started dating Jenn, she somehow convinced me that sharing toothpaste would be both acceptable and economical.  I’m still not sure how she did that but she did.  Now, I’m pretty much open to sharing everything.

Now for those of you who’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that Ryan gets sick a lot.  I think it’s partly due to his prematurity and I think it’s mostly due to that child snot factory that is common in most day cares. So, as I was watching Ryan play with this train set, my first reaction was one of complete horror.  “How many kids have touched this thing,” I thought to myself, “I’m getting sick just looking at it.”  Then, as I watched his complete amusement, I thought to myself that it couldn’t be that bad.  Every little germ he gets will make him stronger.  He got a few tonight but he had a blast doing it.  I’m going to bed now, shared toothpaste and all.

Today was not a good day at work.  After traveling to Gillette Stadium yesterday and today to do a live webcam remote only to have the service unable to connect to the web and have countless people looking to me to provide answers I didn’t have, I was ready for a break.  Thankfully, my lovely super wonderful sister stopped by to spend some time with Ry-guy.  As I sit here waiting for the last of the broadcast to upload so I can put it online as a video, I have a chance to reflect on the mess a bit more.  There are always things I can do better and we’ll treat this as a learning experience.  We still had some amazing content with former Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi and it’ll be available for ESPN fans in about 15 minutes.  What’s more, I realize that there’s some perspective that needs to be had here.  There are many worse things that could and have happened to people, probably even today.  Ryan reminded me tonight at dinner that there are two sides to most messes.  Sure, he’s got a mess here but he’s pretty freakin’ cute.  There are messes and then there are MESSES.  Today I just had a mess. 

I’m sitting in my hotel room tonight reflecting on the day and I realize that I’ve been really busy today.  We began the day with a little construction work as I helped my friends Joe and Julie Rossi hang a ceiling fan in their living room.  This was a pretty simple project and the best part was Ryan had some free time with Julie, who’s a speech pathologist.  It might sound trivial to you but as we were driving home Ryan and I sang “Old McDonald had a farm EIEIO” for the first time.  The first time?  Why yes, until this morning’s lesson, it was only EIEIEIEIEI.  I’d say that’s progress.

So, after heading back home I quickly packed my bags for Foxbourough Massachusetts, the home of the New England Patriots.  Tomorrow morning ESPN is doing a live broadcast and they’ve decided to webcast that on ESPN.com, ESPNRADIO.com, ESPNBOSTON.com and ESPNNEWYORK.com.  So this afternoon was spent pulling wires, testing internet connections, configuring cameras and meeting with staff.  Tonight was more of the same but now we’re done and I’m comfortable we’re going to have a smooth show tomorrow. 

This is an interesting job because it allows me to see what others in my industry do.  It would be a great job for someone who’s younger with a lot of energy.  You basically get to travel on the company’s dime, see all kinds of great venues and meet all kinds of famous people.  The payment for all of this is that you don’t get to call anyplace home.  I watched a dozen or so people leave the arena we were in to make calls to their families.  Rodney, the contract engineer that ESPN Radio hires for many of these events was one of them.  He’s a really cool and smart guy who’s a very good engineer and makes the time go faster.  It got me thinking, strangely enough, about how I started my day and it reminded me of the picture I took in our driveway after I brought Ryan home this morning.  I couldn’t do Rodney’s job.  I bet I could figure out the technical aspects of the job but I’d never be able to miss so many pictures like this.  If anyone asked would I rather spend time with Rodney or Ryan, there’s really no question which I’d prefer…as nice as Rodney is.