Dear Terrible Terry Tate

Watch this link first if youdon't know who Triple T is...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzToNo7A-94



Dear Terrible Terry Tate,


With the upcoming Corporate Office Draft coming up, I wanted to write to you for a couple reasons.

First, I want to thank you for demonstrating to me how valuable an office linebacker can be. Prior to seeing your work, my firm Bastie & Associates, usually went into the Corporate Draft looking for a multi-skilled versatile defensive player, such as a punt returning cornerback. However, after many years of missing the first round of the draft, and having to “settle” for a secondary player, we are now looking to cash in our chips to acquire a first rate Napalm-laying M.F. Middle Linebacker in the form of a Triple T.

Secondly, we would like to bring Triple T out of retirement, and offer you the opportunity to join Team Bastie in a consulting role. Having talked about this at the shareholders meeting, the committee is in agreement that having a rookie office linebacker without a support system, is not in our best interest in moulding our #1 draft pick to being the team player/enforcer we are aspiring him to be.

We are convinced that we have the makings of a great office, and with the right approach, we can bring our firm to the top of the Corporate World. We have revolutionized our TPS Reports to be fully automated, and have made other arrangements to keep "Joe Employee" in check to minimize a full time enforcer role that you may have been used to at other firms. In short, we have cleaned up a lot of the “crap” here at Bastie & Associates that you normally would’ve spent countless hours cleaning up at other firms.

Please have your people talk to our people, and we hope that we can find a mutually beneficial arrangement that can satisfy your needs and goals as well as ours.

Sincerely,



Charles Bastie Esq.

My Swedish Experince. Tack sa Mycket!!

I went backpacking to Europe in the summer of 1998, which not only seems like it was forever ago, it WAS forever ago. I kept a journal from that trip and I re-read each entry on that day to see what I was doing on this day in 1998. It's almost like going back into a time machine to a time I remember, but yet, I hardly recall being that person. That kid from 1998 is long gone, having been replaced by this worn down man now writing these thoughts to you.

At this time in August, I was in Stockholm, Sweden. I had gotten there via Copenhagen and arrived alone and in the rain. I checked into a hostel and I met many people and during my first couple nights in Stockholm, I fell in love with the people and the beautiful city it truly was.

I met a girl (Martina) at a concert in a park downtown and had an immediate connection to her, and through her, I met many of her friends. I was invited to a very traditional party that Swedes have in August where they eat crayfish and bread while drinking Snapps. The guy throwing the party (Mathias) welcomed me with open arms to his house and his party. All night long we sang, drank and ate. I met everyone at the party and it felt like I had known these people my entire life. We were laughing, telling stories well into the wee hours of the morning. I was amazed that these people would take me in as well as they did. What a fantastic night!! I still have pictures of it to remind me of how friendly these Swedes were.

When I left Sweden a few days later, they took me out and we had another amazing night together. I had a connection with these people that I knew just didn't happen every day, and I embraced it. I would like to think that they had the same feeling towards me, and when I left Sweden for the final time, I knew I would never forget these people...

But when I returned to Canada, I became entrenched in my day to day life, and you slowly forget all these moments that you experienced and vow to never forget. So I made an effort to keep in touch with Peter, Martina, Mathias and the other Swedes that I befriended by a chance encounter on a beautiful August night in 1998.

And here it is 2010, and we are all grown up, well past our prime of life. And I have been lucky enough to watch them all have children of their own, and visit them over the years. We still call and email and talk just like it was that night all those years ago. Some experience that spans 12 years of friendship eh?

So, to all my Swedish friends out there, and you all know who you are, thank you for taking me under your wings while in your beautiful country, and thank you more importantly for your love and friendship over all of these years. Have a great Crayfish season!!

Kram,

Chuck

How Men and Women have Changed...

You know, I think that the biggest difference in Men and Women is the perception and approach.

Usually men are the hunters, and women like to be pursued. But a lot of things in our culture has changed the way that this game which was traditionally unaltered for many decades previous to now, is now played. Women are much more independent now, and need less from us men because they are empowered in so many other areas. They have their own lives now, and I think it is much more fair to say that men and women have become true partners now more than ever before, whereas just 25 years ago, this was not the case.

However, if you have grown up being a "Generation X'er" like myself, it is a bit like being trained to use a slide rule and then a calculator comes out to replace it. I think our fathers taught us to be providers for our family first, and husbands second. Let me explain...

In every man's life, we are taught from a very young age that there is always someone looking over our shoulder to take what we have worked hard for. This could apply to our jobs, family, home, kids, or whatever we place value on. Most men have huge ego's and it can be said that we would do almost anything to prevent this from happening to us. So usually, we place more emphasis on working and providing than we do on the softer people skills of family life and being a husband. In fact, we just emulated what we saw our fathers do to our mothers, and that's how we based our lives in our marriage. We lose that balance in life and all the while we try to tell ourselves that we are doing this to "give our kids a better life of choices than I had" -That's pretty much every man's take on that.

But times have changed so much in our lifetime. We have had the biggest evolution of change that any generation in the history of mankind has seen, and to tell you the truth, most of us men haven't changed with it. I'll give you an example...

When we first meet our future wife, we have dated and dated and found out what it is that we DON'T want in a mate. So when we finally find the girl of our dreams, we hope and pray that she won't EVER change.
 -She is perfect exactly the way she is. But that's just not realistic. People have to change, and we want things to stay exactly the way they are because we are comfortable. Then, when you add kids and responsibilities, we freeze. We simply aren't prepared for this because it is totally different from what we are used to. The dynamic changes, as does our partner, and then we freak out. )This usually explains the male mid-life crisis...lol)

Women on the other hand usually find a man that they think is ALMOST perfect and then say something like, "He's just so great, but if I can just change him, he would be perfect." And then this is where God sits back and starts to laugh...Try and change a man who doesn't want change or to BE changed and you can figure out how the rest goes, right?

And that's where most of us end up. Men look for that girl who won't change, and appreciate us for who we are, and women look for that exciting man that won't be boring and can show affection. I mean, when you think about it, how many women do you know leave their husbands or have affairs with men that are professionals? Not too many, simply because they have no time and they usually aren't very exciting. They already have a boring mate as it is now, why trade one for another?

Besides, there are SO many more choices now than there were ever available just 10 years ago. I think nowadays you have TOO many choices. If you can't meet people in this day and age, then you really have no excuse. But usually, most people will always say that "there just aren't good men/women out there" There are, but you have to work hard and trade something, to get something good.

And you always seem to trade for what you don't have, don't you?

I wonder if people nowadays will ever be satisfied with what they have, as opposed to what they think that they are entitled to... Hmmm?

And I think we can all agree on this; that what we think we are entitled to, and what is reality, are 2 totally different things...

The reasons why most people aren't happy in their relationships

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about relationships, and he asked me if I thought most people were happy in their relationships and I said. "No!!"

Was I being cynical, or was I being realistic?

Well, the realistic side of me pulled out all the data on divorce rates skyrocketing since the 70's and 80's, and I thought, can statistics lie? How many friends and couples have I personally watched get married at the height of their love for each other, only to have that love be corrupted by one or both of them and have that relationship sour and ultimately break-up? The answer is almost every single one of them. I would have to say only a small percentage of my friends who were married only 5 years ago are still happily married.

Notice I said "Happily Married"? Sure, there are some that are still together, but they are mostly not happy... Many factors seem to keep them together. Noble factors usually, like Kids, family, sickness, or it could be the usual bad ones like, money, security, or insecurity.

So why are most people these days unhappy in their relationships? How does love ween itself from all these marriages? I'll tell you why... Because we want everything that we don't have.

In every relationship, we have love, security, family, money, health and trust. And if we don't maintain each and every one of these (and there are many more, but for now, let's just start with these) we lose the balance and start to become resentful of what we don't have, and it really tears down from what we actually DO have,

If we have a healthy family unit and there is love, but no money, it takes a stressful toll on the relationship. If you have money, but poor health, or no love, it becomes the exact same thing. In fact, you can substitute just about every scenario around, and you will find the same thing happens...the ultimate demise of the relationship, and it's just a matter of time.

There just doesn't seem to be a whole lot of perseverance and fight left in most people when it comes to their personal romance and their relationships these days. It's just too hard to fight, and too easy to let go and find somebody new. -Especially when resentment rears it's ugly head, and when that happens, it's all over but the paperwork. Resentment will make it almost impossible to escape unless you make a conscious decision to remove it completely, and that requires forgiveness and faith. Most of us don't have the ability to do this anymore, and then it's really, just a matter of time...

It seems to me that we simply just don't realize the good things that we do have, and work on the things that we don't have. -And it always takes something bigger than what we are used to, to open our eyes and realize how good we have it compared to others around us. A death, a sickness, or something of life-changing magnitude before we clue in...

If you think about people who have affairs, they usually always seem to graduate to the thrill in other people that they don't have in the present. Women who have security and wealth, always target men who are exciting and pay more attention to them than what they get at home. Men usually go through their mid-life crisis and always pick a young, hot bodied girl that they can "buy" with the security that he has been able to build over the course of his life. Usually, these affairs are only sexual and mental stimulation's to fix the unfixable problem at home.

Ultimately, we are selfish beings by nature, and this trait leads us to either make a bad decision, or it leaves us to not make a bad decision, and leave yourself even more unhappy in your current situation. Either way, this is a lose-lose scenario.

I think the people who actually make it in relationships seem to be able to balance the good with the bad. They seem to accept adversity better, and seem to be able to adapt to it rather than becoming quickly overwhelmed in their emotions. The people who seem to stay together are the ones who work at it, AND have the connection that can be worked on. People change, and these people seem to accept that fact, and change with each other rather than the rest of us who change apart from each other.

But ultimately, there has to be love. But just like the song says, "Sometimes, love just ain't enough"