Besides the lights, camera, and action, Superbowl commercials rank right up there as on the main highlights of the big game. From cars to jobs to Internet domain companies there's nothing that can't be promoted on one of television's most watched nights. And most of them thrive on one major component: they're funny.

Presenting UNITARD, the superhero spokesman for VacationRental.org. UNITARD tirelessly fights for the happiness of travelers, and he will not rest until people learn the benefits of the affordable, quality vacation rental. He fights for us all.

Check out their vacation rental commercial premiering before Superbowl XLIV:



And while you're at it look at all their packages and offers that span the U.S., the Caribbean and Europe.

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Yesterday, I had to travel a considerable distance to visit my orthodontist for my last ever appointment for my year-old straightened teeth. I debated making the trip since I've moved so far away from where I used to live, but it was a mile or so from my old neighborhood in Queens --- where I settled when I first came to NYC. That alone was enough to motivate me to make and keep the appointment.

I was there for all of fifteen minutes. Dr. Mizrahi, a wise master of teeth-straightening, shook my hand, told me my teeth and I look great and sent me on my way with instructions to wear my retainer at nights, a couple of times a week, for the next several years.

Yippee...

Rather than just turn around and go home, I headed out to my old stomping grounds, stopped by the Toyota dealership on Hillside Avenue and Queens Boulevard and picked up some parts that I know how to install myself, which I did on the street. I looked at my little truck, plastered white with salt and exploding with used tissues from my daughter and candy wrappers from my son and decided it was time for a wash.

I took it to the spot I used to go every week. It's the car wash with the animals painted on the side that was featured in the Eddie Murphy movie Coming To America. The one that is down the street from the McDonald's that they dubbed McDowell's in the film.

My car came out spit-shined clean, glowing a radiant red, that I forgot actually existed. It hasn't looked that good in years. It definitely hasn't looked that good coming out of the affordable car washes in the Bronx and Westchester.

After visiting a friend I drove home thinking how happy I was I made that brief stop at the car wash. How I went the distance and got a result better than what I expected.

Go the distance in all things, work, physical fitness, experiences, even love. This can mean both the lengths you're willing to push yourself or even the actual physical distance you need to travel for a quality experience --- be it life, an adventure, an experience, a product, love and or happiness. It's worth it.

Have a great weekend.

Photo Credit: rse75

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As I breathe in the aroma of my cologne (Comme De Garcons) I pause and think back on the month of quasi silence I imposed on myself via this blog.

In September I will be 39...

When I was 23 I wrote in a journal what and who I'd be at 39.

I'd be...

• wealthy.
• wise.
• established.
• a brand new family man.
• an owner of at least two homes (nothing fancy, just economically sound).
  
• a frequent renter of yachts.
• world traveled.
• newly married to an exotic brown beauty who spoke English with an accent and didn't get American culture.
• filled with peace, happiness and a simple, basic relationship with my God, regardless of the challenges hurled my way.
  
• happily focused on the years ahead of me having dispensed with all the ones behind me (most important of them all).
  

Almost everything I've ever written in this one particular journal has come to pass whether I actually remember writing it or not.

Almost none of the above came to pass, and that that has didn't in the fashion I imagined.

The only coincidence (in my thinking) seems to be that my father had me at the ripe old age of 39. Never wanting to have children at such an old age, I completely understand now the logic behind being an established man before an established father....

The 2nd Sunday in January, I went to church with a friend and her mother and cried through the entire service, especially the sermon. My heart was in pieces and my soul didn't understand why, my mind was sorting out logical answers and my emotions were all over the place --- sad, encouraged, furious, fearful. The only thing my spirit could do was cry and with my tears, poison dripped out of me.

What poison? You might be asking yourself. What in the hamfat is he talking about? Maybe he needs another month off?

I spent most of the last decade hearing from the people closest to me about how I was too...

• too sensitive...
• too emotional...
• too irritable...
• too immature...
• too selfish..
• too cranky...
• too moody...
• too detached...
• too cold...
• too dramatic...
• too sensitive...(I know I already wrote this)...
• too self-centered...

I won't debate the truth in the above. I am not the recipient of my actions, so I can't speak on how I'm received by others. But I didn't hear much else in the opposite direction. And a weird thing happened. I began to search for compliments, hunger for my ego to be stroked, get desperate for kind words, want accolades for the most basic of activities, such as doing what I'm supposed to do around the house and doing what I'm supposed to be doing with my kids. I even wonder if this blog evolved into a slight cry for approval from all of you, my loyal readers. Worst of all I began going over and above the call of duty seeking approval and getting upset when that didn't happen.

But if I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, even if I think it's to a superior degree, isn't it simply what I'm supposed to be doing? And why get a cookie for that?

I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. What a pickle.

As 2009, the worst year of the worst decade of my life, ended, I looked in the mirror and didn't know who I was and I hated what I had become. I hated talking about it on this blog (or not talking about it). I hated living it in my skin. I needed to step off, to find me, to rediscover me, to be at peace with me, even if that means being at war (or not at ease) with everyone else in the process...

So I stepped off, prayed for peace, sought quietude and began to reteach myself how to be me, and be a Man, Dad & Husband at the same time. It required and will continue to require the precision of a surgeon, the tactical savvy of a sergeant and the knowledge of an archeologist.

Interestingly enough, people in these positions typically utter three words to their teams when things get critical and it's time to get serious and roll up their sleeves.

And that's what I'm doing and will continue to do, God willing. So that by the time I hit 39 in September, you and I can all celebrate the beauty of life, the power of marriage, the strength of family, the prosperity that life has to offer despite it's bumps and bruises.

I'm going in because as I approach 40 I don't want to sit around patting my belly reminiscing about long gone days, never to be lived again. I want to be able to be all that I can for my family, my community and my country. And I'm dead serious. Because if I'm not living life to the fullest then I might as well be...dead. Better that than miserable.

Come along for the ride and I promise you'll have some fun along the way. Thanks for being patient in January. I only lost a few of you and I gained several more somehow with only 4 posts.

That's it for now. Tune in for more in the coming days.

Don't forget to contribute to the efforts in Haiti.


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Just a quick check in more for a friend than for me. As many of you know I'm friends with author, Bernice McFadden. We've known each other since the late 90's back when people answered landline phones, having a cell was a commodity (not to mention the phone was huge) and everyone had a pager either hooked onto their belt or at the bottom of their bag.

I was beyond honored when Bernice asked me to shoot her for the back cover of her new book, Glorious. She told me, "I need something different, something new," with a blahze sigh as she's prone to do.

I remember being excited and then immediately scared. How am I supposed to do this? I'm just snapping pics of my baby. What if I screw up? Instead of caving to these fears I focused them and began reading up on lighting and portraiture and practiced on my daughter, my most willing and able subject (I am creating a monster, by the way).

Good thing, because Bernice's Brooklyn brownstone is a dark and sensual place, best for writing and other unmentionable activity --- not so much snapping photos. But I set up as best I could, I struggled for sure trying to make it work and after three hours I saw it in her eyes that she was done.

It took me a couple of weeks to pick the best shots out of the 400 or so that I took, but I got it done. This morning, I put together what I thought was a really nice Flash presentation with clickable links and etc., etc., until I watched it and saw that it looked like crap. Not willing to spend anymore hours sitting in front of the screen I whipped up the following slideshow (that I'm not too thrilled with) of a couple of my favorites. I wanted to shoot her coming out of the shadows/darkness as it's been that kind or road for her for the past year or so. Also she's a force to be reckoned with like light, one of the strongest forces that I'm aware of. Light always overpowers darkness even if it's the size of a pinhole.

Check out the world of Bernice McFadden. She also blogs over at Naki.

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I'm trying something new...

I've found a new place to add my two cents called Hub Pages. Check out my first article: Dad: As Easy As A, B, C. Please fan me over there as I'll be adding to it from time to time.

Otherwise...

You can find me with author, Bernice McFadden over at Soul Portrait.

I'm also doing the nature/still life thing over on Flickr,

& I'm never farther than a tweet on Twitter.

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And please, please, please visit the links I've posted regarding the Disaster Relief efforts over in Haiti. Aid is getting there in the most feasible, reasonable manner as quickly as humanly possible considering the conditions. But this means nothing to a group of people without food, water, shelter, clothing and hope. As of this morning an aftershock hit the nation and registered 6.1 on the Richter Scale.

The aid has to keep coming even after it ceases to be "the right thing to do."

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My life changed forever on January 14, 2006 at 7:04am. You could say the change wasn't sudden since it began nine or eight months earlier when God plopped my daughter into my wife's belly... (I know this is incredibly inaccurate but if you know how the process works, why belabor it?) But it was sudden because she showed up one month before her prospective due date...

Today my daughter is four and I remember her entrance into this world as if it were yesterday. However I have almost totally blacked out of my consciousness the following:

• Diapers - disposable undies made of paper for pee and poop. I can't believe I ever touched those things.
• Formula - at $25 a can (back then) I was overjoyed the day my daughter began eating solid food.
• Graco Infant Car Seat - it's almost mind boggling that I carried her everywhere in a bassinet. I spent nearly two years carrying around a human being like a woman carries her bag. Don't miss even a second of it.

If I never have to do these things again. It will be too soon. But that's just the guy in me talking. As they say, never say "never."

I've been a witness to many miracles in the lives of others and my own many times over. But the day my daughter was born, I was an eyewitness to God's handiwork and it humbled me like no other experience in my thirty-and change years on this earth.

I know I stated I wasn't going to blog this month, but she is my most precious present and deserves her shine here at the place where she is my inspiration. She is a gift to me for me to share with the world. I strive each day to be up to this task and do it to the best of my ability --- even when I make mistakes.

It's been an honor and a privilege so far.

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Happy 2010!

I'm still gone, but couldn't help but make mention that January is National Mentoring Month.

If you're on Twitter, it's trending today. Check it out... #mentor.

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