Growing up in Rhode Island, I religiously devoured the Providence Journal sports section every morning. My favorite writer at the paper was Bill Reynolds. Perhaps Reynolds’ most popular column each week is his “For What It’s Worth” piece, a rambling, stream of conscious, collection of thoughts. In homage to Reynolds, I thought it might be fun to write a For What It’s Worth of my own as today’s blog post. So, without further ado, here goes:
- Spring Training is supposed to signify the onset of spring to baseball fans, but listening to interviews from Ft. Myers, Florida this week in the car while driving by 9-foot mounds of snow, I somehow found it difficult to envision spring arriving anytime soon.
- Thankfully, there isn’t much of an opportunity to feel sorry for yourself being home and unemployed when your 2 year-old son constantly does things like take your sunglasses and winter gloves to use for “safety” while “building.”
- Twitter pet peeve: The incredibly common, yet ridiculous habit of retweeting every Follow Friday (#FF) mention of yourself. For further thoughts on the matter, please read this blog post by Amanda Rykoff. I thought about composing a post on the subject, but I realized it would be almost verbatim what she wrote.
- While presenting Bill Russell with the Presidential Medal of Freedom this week, President Obama lent his support to the building of a statue for Russell in Boston. Here’s hoping his endorsement brings us closer to it coming to fruition. A Boston Globe Editorial makes an excellent case for the statue today. It reads, in part: “Russell, who played at the peak of America’s racial tension, should be commemorated not only for his prowess on the court, but for his expansive mind and powerful, outspoken sense of justice.”
- I very rarely seek a person’s autograph, but a couple years ago my wife and I and our then-newborn son waited in line for 3 hours for a chance to speak to Bill Russell & his daughter and have him sign a copy of his book, Red and Me. I am proud to have met him and look forward to retelling the story and explaining its significance to my son when he’s old enough. I was even able to elicit Russell’s trademark laugh during a funny exchange about my son, captured in the following photo:
- I’ve really been enjoying Subaru’s fun new “Dog Tested. Dog Approved.” campaign. According to a recent AdAge.Com piece, Kevin Mayer, the car maker’s director-marketing communications, said about half of Subaru’s customers own a pet, and it indexes higher than most car makers with dog owners. It therefore makes sense to market directly to the target audience of dog owners. I wonder why other car makers don’t embrace their popularity with certain segments of the population, especially with regards to certain models. I don’t have any statistics to reference, but anecdotally speaking, it sure seems that a high percentage of Honda Element drivers are also dog owners. This is due in part to the ease with which one can clean the back of the car (you can practically hose it down). If the numbers back up my assertion, it would seem to make sense for Honda to follow Subaru’s lead and begin actively marketing towards dog owners. See the following video for an example of the Subaru spots:
That’s about all for now. I wish you all a great weekend. I’m off to enjoy the unseasonably warm day here in Boston while watching the snow and ice melt off the roof with unbridled joy.
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