DGIF

Before you even start to read this post you have to throw out every stereotype you have ever come to know about people. Do it right now because this is not about race, color, gender, whatever you use to classify any group of people. This story is about two groups: GIVERS and TAKERS, with an emphasis on the TAKERS. In this world you can apply these two classifications to any one person in a certain situation and it should work.  And just because you are in one group now, this does not preclude from jumping into the other group later. It all depends on the circumstances you find yourself in at the very moment in time. When confronted with one of those proverbial forks in the road of life.....are you a GIVER or a TAKER? OK, that's all we need to know to proceed. Oops, I lied. We also need to know what EBT stands for....it is the abbreviation for Electronic Benefits Transfer and it is basically a debit card for the Food Stamp program. The Food Stamp Program is officially ...

I am staring down the barrel of 50.  As I write this I am three days away from turning the big five-O and it's about this time in life you realize there is more life in your rear view mirror than there is in your headlights.  I still believe my best days are ahead of me.  To quote Monty Python "I'm not dead yet!", but as I get older I think about the people I have met in my life and this one guy keeps popping up.  I don't know his name and we met for all of five minutes, and I hope he is doing well. I was in the Philadelphia are and it must have been 2005/2006.  I was working for Merck at the time and I was waiting for Pete Van Bemmel to pick me up so we could go to dinner.  I was sitting on this bench out front of the hotel and this guy walks out wearing all kinds of Philadelphia Phillie gear.  Me being Captain obvious ask this guy if he's going to the game and he replies affirmative.  We sit and wait together and he offers up that he is exc...