Blog #11 On my recent blog hiatus... / February 13, 2018 by Preston Swigart

Life happens

Editor/kid #3/social media expert. This is all your fault!!

Early in my participation in the blog writing game, with light bulbs illuminating and all kinds of blog-related opportunities exploding in my mind, I asked my editor/daughter Alyssa about how often she thought I should post. I had no idea what her answer might be. Daily? Monthly?? Bi-annually??? And also no idea of the repercussions her answer would carry. She casually remarked something like “Oh, every week or so should be about right...” So, in my naive initial enthusiasm, I figured I would try to hold to that frequency and see what happened. I should have known something obvious—like life itself, would happen. I made it about 10 weeks before the overwhelming convergence of moving from our house of 23 years to a new, smaller town life, along with Christmas, family and all things holiday related brought many previously important parts of my life, including the blog, to a screeching halt. The ethereal and self-cleansing act of blog writing was moved to some distant back burner, only to be replaced by things more necessary—fixing up a new house, the odd ebb and flow of my work (which thankfully recently turned up several notches), trying to manage both my aging father’s and my own lives etc., etc.

Now I’m not sure how many people actually noticed that the lifeinthetalllane.com blog faucet, running at full force since the middle of October, abruptly shut off just before the double holiday whammy. But dry up it did, and not for the absence of water running through it. Maybe more like for the lack of an appropriate faucet. “Oh yeah, aren’t you that guy that wrote a few blogs back in late 2017?” Gone without a trace?! In fact, as of this writing one and only one person has asked me when I was going to post again. Fortunately this person, though a recent acquaintance, holds quite a bit of weight because she is a former English teacher. (You know who you are—the fact that you asked means a lot. Thanks for reading!)

In my hiatus, which has, truth be told, dragged on much longer than I thought it would, I have learned several things:

—Since it seems I’m doing this for me (and maybe one other person) I will do it when I choose and when the time required to post doesn’t destroy something of higher priority in my fairly complicated life. The weekly post regimen was a good exercise in blog discipline, but I’m not going to stress if I can’t publish on my given deadline day. I now know for the most part nobody else will stress either, and that's fine. Seems like almost every day there’s some tidbit of a situation that happens to me that could inspire a new blog entry out of my self acknowledged ADD'd out mind. I note those and keep them for future reference whenever possible. That’s not the problem.

--I’ve come to realize I’m somewhat torn as I go back and forth on what this thing should actually be: Is it a take on current affairs either in my life or more broadly? Maybe. Yeah I know I wrote about what I was thankful for around Thanksgiving—by the way, as of this writing the car is STILL not fixed...Or is it more of a mining exercise—digging the odd tidbits from the depths of my mind that someone hopefully might take an interest in. Realistically, probably a little of both.

**Hard to believe that this vehicle falls into the same class as the trusty Suburban. Turtle indeed!**

--Certainly the things that happen to me and that I think about form the fabric of this blog. I may eat my own words, but at this point I don’t plan to write directly about, for example, what Santa Claus might have brought me. (Unless he brings me something really cool like the Lamborghini SUV I recently saw at the Auto Show. The same Lamborghini that, when I texted a picture of to one of my daughters, then responded back that it looked like a turtle. That would be a zero to 60 mph in like 2.6 second turtle...)

So please bear with me as I fight for my sea legs in this (still new to me) attempted equilibrium of writing at least semi-regularly. I do find value and importance simply in the act of writing. The jotting down and writing of things that pop into my head is the easy part. That can and does happen any time, day or night thanks to the trusty iPhone, never far from my grasp. It’s putting it all into a presentable form so that someone other than me might actually make sense of it of all that holds me up. Although enjoyable and a great learning experience, it's a lot of work! Please stay tuned. I hope that even as I write about seemingly nothing that these words might have some meaning and connection for at least someone out there.

Blog #10 On something I call "the great divide", or, that there are basically two kinds of people nowadays...those that can remember what it was like before the Internet and those that can't. / December 15, 2017 by Preston Swigart

I’ve often thought that the dividing line between my kid’s generation and mine has some sort of extra significance. Of course with the passing of time and sheer progress that divide would be significant regardless. But it seems there’s a line drawn in the sand in this case that doesn’t happen with every generation transitioning to the next. Maybe I’ve missed something and there’s already a name for the phenomena I’m going to try to describe. Or maybe something like this happens with every parent/kid set of generations? Anyway, here goes: Given that at one end, my kids squarely fall into the millennial category, being all currently placed somewhere in their 20s. At the other end of the spectrum my beautiful, aging gracefully wife Michelle and I are at the tail end of the baby boomers. The extra significance (if there is any at all) is this: Our first daughter was born in 1990, right around the time we got our first personal computer or PC, the now venerable, more like a museum piece IBM PS/1. I suppose I was and still am what could be called an 'early adopter'. Even so, daughter #1 and the two daughters that followed have no recollection of, have never existed, without a personal computer and everything it brings in their home.

The IBM PS/1.  Early version of a home computer.  Did IBM create a monster??? — **The IBM PS/1. Early version of a home computer. Did IBM create a monster???**

Now as computers go, the PS/1 was little more than an electric typewriter with a screen compared to the easily obtained and inexpensive supercomputers of today. The PS/1 and the dot matrix little printer that came with it set us back over $2000, which fortunately we were able to put on a payment plan through Michelle’s work, because that was a lot of money back then (still is, actually). Being the tech nerd I am, I remember its specs well. It had a '80286' processor, (what the heck was a processor??) a 30 Megabyte hard drive, and 1 Megabyte of random access memory or RAM. IBM touted in their flyer that the RAM was expandable to 2MB. Wow—double!!! I thought if 1MB was good 2MB must be better but I really had no idea why. So I investigated how much it would cost to double the RAM and found out it was over $1000. Needless to say I did not end up with expanded RAM in that model. But the PS/1 did allow us to do the basic computing of the day—word processing, keeping track of our finances, etc. It also had an incredibly slow modem that through connection to a phone line, allowed access to this strange and wonderful thing, the rudimentary Internet of 1990. The online service ‘Prodigy’ was the interface it came bundled with to allow this, with brand new ‘America On Line’ or AOL being its big competitor. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which one prevailed. I obtained another brand new thing to me back then, my first email address, preston_swig@prodigy.net. It was the time to start becoming familiar with all the computer lingo that we now take for granted. A period is not a period any more, but a dot. As in 'dot com’. ‘Period com’ just didn't have that modern techy computer feel, I guess. I had never known the little line that I ended up with in the middle of my email address to differentiate myself from the other Prestons online out there was called an underscore. I probably didn’t even need it that early in the game.

For you tech nerds like me out there, I find it interesting to compare the specs of the PS/1 and my current HP desktop PC, now fairly old itself, that I'm using now to write these words. If your eyes glaze over at these numbers and Mhz's and Ghz's , just skip this paragraph!! Even by my calculations, math never being my strong suit, the numbers are staggering in comparison. (And yes I know about Moore's law and all that sort of thing...)

IBM PS/1. Circa 1990

--80286 processor running at 10 Mhz. (several generations before the 'Pentium' chip)

--1 MB of RAM

--30MB hard drive on board

--5 1/4" floppy disk drive

--Operating system: DOS 4.0. No MS Windows here, at least not quite yet. Windows 3.0 was soon to launch.

--Price: $2000 (that is in 1990 dollars of course)

--Connectivity: (What is connectivity...Is that even a word in the computer world of the early 90's???)

HP Latitude Desktop. Circa 2012 or so.

--Intel Core i7-2600 processor running at 3.4 Ghz (runs 340 times faster than PS/1 processor)

--8GB of RAM (8000 times more random access memory than PS/1)

--1 Terabyte hard drive on board (33,333 times more storage space than PS/1)

--DVD/CD read/write drive

--Operating system: Windows7

--Price: $1000 (in 2012 dollars)

--Connectivity: Multiple USB, Wifi, Bluetooth, LAN

(Even the 2012 desktop is already antiquated by today's standards, 5 years being an eternity in the computer world, let alone 27!!!! A truly modern desktop would have a BluRay read/write drive, Windows10, at least twice the RAM and who knows how much more hard drive space...twice at minimum maybe more, plus some sort of gigantic monitor that would take up half my desk.)

My kids, when they got old enough--about the ripe old age of 2 or so, took all this early computing stuff and ran with it, just like many others of their generation. We got them various programs that were touted as games but were really educational in some way. The various Jumpstart programs were big in our young family, and they enjoyed Jumpstart Kindergarten and progressed up through the grade levels. I joked that they would take it all the way to Jumpstart Masters Degree. In their minds the computer had always been there and was just there, part of the fabric of our family’s lives. I had a bit of a different perspective, being filled with amazement at its capabilities, even back then in the infancy of home computing. I thought it was the coolest thing ever that when paying bills the computer would write your checks out for you and all you had to do was sign them. This many years later I still do that frequently instead of the more modern completely electronic payment. Old habits die hard I guess. I started making electronic databases of my stuff, recording lists and other things that I kept in the ‘folders’ that lived in the depths of the computer, another rebranding of a familiar term that amused me. The computer of 1990 was a modern technological wonder of all sorts to me. And I had no idea of what was yet to come. We had now jumped on the train of needing upgraded hardware every couple years to keep up with 'progress'.

**Little did she know that one day this would be her job!**

Nowadays, 27 years later--the entire life of kid #1, things have changed just a bit. The entire concept of the home PC is old school and on its way out, having lost out to mobility and the ever increasing computing power of the ubiquitous smart phone. Even old fashioned me spends a good deal of time doing something that likely hadn't even been thought of back then--yet another interesting word invention, 'blogging'. My youngest daughter, kid #3 of 3, circa 1995, who never even got to experience the original PC in our house because we had already jumped on the upgrade bandwagon, has a job in digital media getting paid good money to do something that didn't even exist in the times I refer to above. She is an expert in what has become an incredibly pervasive offshoot of that rudimentary early Internet I remember--that of social media. Already an excellent writer, she learned all about writing in college getting an English degree, combined it with the knowledge of social media that has always been part of her life, and Voila! A modern job with one of today's contemporary, successful companies. Frequent visitors of this blog site will know I'm talking about Alyssa, of whom I am very proud!

**Every school report I ever did came in some way out of these hallowed pages...hopefully not verbatim.**

"Is this the party to whom I'm speaking?"  (RIP Gerry Govig) — **"Is this the party to whom I'm speaking?" (RIP Gerry Govig)**

What is the point of all this nonsense? In the end, I guess we were at a crossroads back then, and as is typical of this sort of thing, didn't even realize it. I can look back on this era of my life and say that the interjection into our lives of that little PC that sat on the dining room table for the longest time was a game changer. One BIG game changer, quite honestly. But it does give people like me (who probably dwell in the past more than necessary) a perspective on what used to be. As we transitioned into the digital age, I started to have an appreciation for the things that were now on their way out, gone or receding into the swirling winds of recent history. The World Book encyclopedia at the end of our hallway, the green corded rotary phone hanging on the wall, writing out checks by hand and keeping a register that I could never find, looking up a phone number in the big thick Yellow Pages kept under the counter--I could go on and on. When that computer came into our house all these things that were staples of my early life started to become antiquated and outmoded. And if I mentioned any of the above to my kids, they would look at me quizzically and say something like "You had to do what???" Progress?? Of course--and necessary, but in my humble opinion also good things to cherish and remember.

Blog #9 On moving to a new house after 23 years, or "Dear Mr. Home Inspector"... / December 9, 2017 by Preston Swigart

If you’ve talked to me any time lately you know we are in the process of moving. It's a big deal. After 23 years we are leaving the suburbs and moving an hour’s drive north to a smaller, less hectic town and (hopefully less hectic as well) lifestyle. My box packing machine of a wife Michelle aptly says in this case we are a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll...

Anyone who has been through a move recently can attest that, in this day and age especially, it is not exactly a pleasant experience, especially after so many years in one place. Even though the end result is exciting, new and fun to think about, in this case almost every aspect has had some part of it that turned out to be the exact opposite of fun. The mortgage process with all of today’s checks and balances has been (I’m being diplomatic here) particularly frustrating. The sorting and purging of huge amounts of all your stuff only to find there are still a seemingly infinite amount of possessions still left to box up and move. Each of these could be a blog entry in itself, but in this case I’m focusing on something that happened fairly early on that has rippled through this whole process like a huge boulder dropped in a mirror calm pool of water. I’m talking about the process of getting your home inspected. This week’s entry is a love letter to the guy that inspected my house...

Dear Mr. Home Inspector,

I call foul and I hope you realize the gravity of your mistake. Do you realize that by the wording of what you say or don’t say in your inspection report you could have the sale of two or even three houses and their associated family's lives hanging in the balance? Do you take this seriously?? If nothing else your words dictate whether large sums of money should be spent to fix what you say is wrong. In this case over $1500 will be spent due to your professional opinion because we want our buyers to be comfortable with the house they are buying. I should trust you because you have an alphabet jumble of all these accreditation letters next to your name on your business card?

FROM YOUR REPORT:  WHAT YOU SAW WHEN YOU STUCK YOUR HEAD INTO THE ATTIC... — **FROM YOUR REPORT: WHAT YOU SAW WHEN YOU STUCK YOUR HEAD INTO THE ATTIC...**

It seems to me you should have seen the insulated vent pipe in the attic that you said wasn’t there, referring to as being lacking and chastising me for the lack thereof throughout the rest of your home inspection summary. All you would've had to do was actually go into the attic instead of a cursory sticking of your head up there, instead of focusing on what was easy to see---old remnants of silver duct work up there from days gone by. The lack of a vent pipe that made you admonish me for not having proper attic ventilation time and time again in your report. The lack of a vent pipe that the young family who is buying our house reads about in your report and understandably is concerned about out of concern for their little kids. The lack of a vent pipe that you said allowed ‘microbial growth’ or (dare we say it?) 'mold' to grow unbeknownst to us in our attic. Yes...the vent pipe that was there all along, quietly doing what it was supposed to—venting the sometimes moist air from the bathrooms in the house outside and keeping moisture out of my attic. Your report is filled with your speculations but nothing that back them up. But you said the attic was improperly vented and since you said it I should believe you, and furthermore, pay someone lots of money to "remediate" it. After all there are all these signs of moisture. Just look at all the pictures you took to rub it in. You can sure tell if something is wet from a picture. Do you get a cut from all the various remediation specialists that have to come and eradicate whatever you may say is wrong with a house?

NOT PART OF YOUR REPORT:  WHAT YOU MISSED THAT WAS THERE ALL ALONG...INSULATED VENT PIPE. — **NOT PART OF YOUR REPORT: WHAT YOU MISSED THAT WAS THERE ALL ALONG...INSULATED VENT PIPE.**

Did it ever occur to you that the signs you saw and interpreted so swiftly could have been ancient history, like a fossil begging you to peel off the layers and interpret the correct story of its life long ago? Could it be that we recognized exactly what you are accusing us of not doing long ago and took careful and appropriate steps to attempt to make it go away? Could you admit you're dead wrong on this point? Or a couple other areas that I'm not even mentioning here? Probably not, you've moved on to bequeath your hallowed opinion on some other unsuspecting homeowner.

Blog #8 On the subject of blog feedback. I need your help... / December 1, 2017 by Preston Swigart

We live in strange times for sure...For example, just this week two once well respected pillars of modern media go down in one day due to sexual misconduct. Stunning and sad news to be sure, for all parties involved. With that in mind, I’m not going anywhere near it! I will continue down my reasonably light and airy path and attempt to create some sort of a diversion to all this madness. In this case, I’m going to be bold and ask for some assistance...

Now that I have a few blog posts under my belt, when friends run into me in person the subject of me writing the blog often comes up. Now I hope you know, I actually try my best NOT to bring it up, because I have no clue what the rules of engagement are for something like this. For example, if you run into someone with whom you are Facebook friends, do you say something like, "Hey! Nice post yesterday...?” I know for sure I don't, feeling that there is some line crossed if you talk in conversation about your digital efforts at communicating. It’s like face to face, old fashioned conversations and communicating via social media are two totally different worlds. If asked and prompted, I will talk about the blog as much as anyone would like. But I am not one typically to blow my own horn, at least in verbal conversation. For some reason all bets seem to be off when it comes to me writing though. For me, the writing down of thoughts and (the possibility of) those thoughts being seen by someone else seems to cross some sort of boundary that I wouldn't cross in conversation.

The one question about the blog that seems to come up inevitably in some form during conversation is, "Who are you doing this for?" A legitimate question to be sure, and actually one that I have a tough time answering. The initial answer is, "Me", of course. I have already written about the therapeutic value of being able to convey my thoughts in some sort of written form. That has been a wonderful part of all this. There will be more to come on that subject. And yes, I know I write on the long winded side! But there is also the ‘meaning’ department. Of course what I write has meaning to me. But there is also a part of me that wonders if what I have to say has any value to anyone else. I guess my ideal goal in each blog entry is to try to convey some sort of message (albeit subtle sometimes) that makes one pause, maybe just for a short moment, to think about what I have presented. I have no idea if I am accomplishing that goal or not, quite honestly. I also get asked if I have a lot of 'followers', to which I always shrug. I don't know, and furthermore don't even know how you become a 'follower'. It's not like there's a little button that you click on that says 'Follow'...is there? Although there is considerable analytic data available from my website host, not one of its many sections of data details ‘number of followers’.

With the experience of posting something every Friday for a couple months under my belt, I can tell you it is a lot of work. Anyone that I've talked to with blog experience can attest to that. However, at this point it is still a labor of love. I have generated a good deal of so far unpublished material in one form or another, some complete entries and others just rough ideas, and do plan on doing this for some time to come. So I’m in this for the long haul, at least as my weird schedule permits. The work part comes in the notification, and I want to come up with an efficient way that notifies the people that would like to know about it, and doesn't bother the ones who aren't interested.

Please know I am flattered if you are interested, but also completely understand if you aren't. I can't quite figure out how to handle this, because I am on the inside looking out, and I don't know how I would react if I was reading something like this written by someone else. But I would ask you to bear with me and help me figure out a (better) way of notifying those that ARE interested.

So far I have used Facebook and LinkedIn as my two main methods of notification. I've recently realized the Facebook end of this may be flawed because of their dreaded 'algorithms'. (Thanks Alan Cohen, this is all your fault.) In other words, if I've posted that there’s a new entry on FB to all my 400-plus friends, those algorithms decide to notify some fraction of that number, based on what you 'like' and click on often and who knows what else. I don't know if it is 100, 200, or maybe just 50 or less. But in my mind, everyone that I would at least like to know that I am writing is not finding out about it, at least regularly. I don't know if LinkedIn works the same way or not...But including all my LinkedIn contacts close to doubles the possible notifications.

My next method has been the 'other' social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter. These have not been particularly useful so far, mainly because I started new work related (Northend Media LTD) accounts, and consequently have very few followers so far. But I keep putting posts on, and following others as need be. I can be patient with regard to those.

The last, and most promising, method is what I call the ‘direct’ one. I have a text message group that currently tries to reach people I'm not FB friends with. I just send out a message saying there's a new post, and include a link. Pretty simple. I know there is a way to do this with email as well, but it require a few steps more than the text. But I could build a group email as well for notification if needed.

This is where I ask for your help. What should I do? Should I do anything? Or does it even matter?? After all, there are quite a few other things you could be doing with your time. If you would, please let me know in some way or another. You can comment on FB, LinkedIn, on the blog page itself, or via any of the ways to contact me listed in my 'About' page in the blog website. As a blogging newbie, I'm curious about all this, and at this point at least, know of no other way to figure what to do...

As always, I appreciate your time spent reading, and thanks for any input you may give. And please know, I'm just getting warmed up!!!

Blog #7 On why getting in a fairly serious car accident is a good thing / November 24, 2017 by Preston Swigart

Sometimes things appear to be really nasty on the outside but on further inspection turn out to be not so bad, or maybe even lots better than that...so on this Thanksgiving weekend, something not so good that happened that I'm thankful for, followed by my top 10 reasons why all this was actually a good thing.

The Mooneys, Swigarts, Govigs and various fiance's and boyfriends on Fake Thanksgiving, less than an hour before the ill-ated incident.

Saturday night, November 18. It had either rained or semi-snowed all that day. By 8:00pm or so it was dark, but roads were no more than wet. I am in my Suburban, driving home from my sister-in-law's house after a day of what our family has come to call 'fake' Thanksgiving. 'Fake' in this case being no more than celebrating Thanksgiving on a day that is more convenient for all now mostly adult family members to attend easier than the actual Thursday of Thanksgiving. Everything else is Thanksgiving all the way--family, food, fellowship, fun and everything that goes along with all that. Along with me in the Suburban is someone familiar to regular readers of this blog, my youngest daughter Alyssa, her boyfriend Addison and our faithful dog Gryff. We had left Grand Ledge minutes earlier for the hour and a half or so trek home in a convoy of cars. My other two daughters and one fiance, my wife, mother-in-law, and brother-in-law Scott, all either driving or passengers in three other cars.

Most of the time my trusty Suburban is my mobile office, hauling me and all my considerable amount of equipment to whatever location I may need it. As you may know, my work is based on location television news and video production. As such it is configured mostly as a cargo vehicle, back seats folded down, third row seats stored safely away in the basement, shelving unit for all the gear in the big rear cavern. Room for me as a driver and a co-worker but that’s about it. On extremely rare occasions I do need to haul people in this behemoth of a vehicle. All the gear, the custom shelves, everything work related then comes out and the Suburban goes back to its more typical use of today, that of a soccer Mom vehicle. A capable hauler of quite a few people and all their stuff if necessary. This happened to be one of those rare occasions.

The clown car is dwarfed by the Suburban in every way possible. except well, maybe, gas mileage. But in this case I will take 16 mpg any day of the week!!

Assembling my immediate family completely these days is a logistical feat of some difficulty. One daughter, Betsy, in from Colorado, and the other two daughters coming home from Chicago. In this case, my oldest daughter Lindsey had rented a car and had actually been 'downgraded' to a smaller one because of availability. We joked that she had ended up in a 'clown car'. A Kia something or other. Economical transportation of course, but safe?

As we began our journey, I got myself settled in for the trip. Iphone plugged in, music playing...'Rock and roll all night' from Kiss Alive. There would soon be a kiss, but not in any way the gentle type you might expect. The dark Buick sedan came out of nowhere to my right, entering the corner of my field of vision at right a angle to the Suburban only a split second before impact. And what an impact it was! By this advanced age I unfortunately can say I have been in several car accidents, but none of them had even close to the severity of this one...a better word for it may be just plain..."crash." In every sense of the word. Alyssa screamed and the dog went flying. As we came to rest, I glanced around, made sure everyone was OK, and thought, "This car is going to be totaled".

I grabbed my phone, jumped out of the car dialing 911, adrenaline and the intensity of the crash making my mind race the equivalent of the Indy 500 in an instant. As I headed towards the back of the car, the logical place for the person that hit me should come to rest, there was no one. As I was telling the 911 operator that I believed I had been involved in a hit and run accident, a guy appeared from the adjacent parking lot to where we had stopped, telling me he'd seen the whole thing and that the other car had headed into a Menard's parking lot set back from the road. He also said that it looked like someone had followed the car there.

Main impact--directly behind the front wheel at the seam between the fender and door.  Fortunately for my passengers and I, probably one of the most sturdy parts of the car to run into.  Tire and wheel damage as well, but still held air an… — Main impact--directly behind the front wheel at the seam between the fender and door. Fortunately for my passengers and I, probably one of the most sturdy parts of the car to run into. Tire and wheel damage as well, but still held air and rolled fairly straight.

Turns out my bro-in-law Scott, driving along in our convoy, had seen everything and followed the guy to where he stopped. He did yeoman duty trying to get the guy to surrender his insurance info, but the guy resisted, saying he didn't have it with him, and despite Scott's best efforts he and the woman with him took off, their black Buick sedan severely damaged in the front from an impact with a Suburban where the big SUV clearly won the battle. When I finally assessed the damage on the Suburban, I was amazed. It had taken the main impact just behind the right front wheel, and the entire passenger side of the truck was dented and bruised, front to back. But amazingly after a parking lot trial run, driveable. Though the steering wheel now looked liked I was making a left turn all the time when going straight.

All these events, upon much reflection, have believe it or not, made me realize how fortunate I am that the things happened the way they did...In best Letterman fashion, here's my Top Ten list:

I'm thankful...

#10. That I have broad form collision insurance which pays for everything through the confusing haze of Michigan no fault insurance, even though this was a true hit and run.

#9. That there was a witness there for the responding Eaton County sheriff to talk to who reported the story simply as "the black car T-boned the Suburban."

#8. That the Suburban, as damaged it was, was able to transport us safely an hour and a half half back home.

#7. That the other guy, whoever he was, even though he hit me, was OK enough to drive away in his severely damaged car without surrendering any personal information or his proof of insurance. I don't know his circumstances but I suspect if the cops had talked to him it probably wouldn't have been good.

#6 That, after this incident, I was still able to use the Suburban in its damaged condition to work. (Even though the passenger side door doesn’t open)

#5. That I’m driving a Suburban, and I’m the one that got nailed.

#4. My daughter Lindsey was driving a 'clown car' and she’s NOT the one that got nailed.

#3. The rest of my family convoying with me in various other, much less substantial cars were NOT the ones that got nailed either.

#2. That if we had traveled 3 more feet forward and were hit, we would've had a door impact and not a fender impact...this could be quite a different story I'm telling. The matter of a fraction of a second. BOTH my passengers were sitting on that side of the car.

#1. And the most important #1 reason, (drum roll, please...) that this whole thing wasn’t worse than it was. No human or dog damage whatsoever. Truck damage? I'll take and happily deal with it.

On this Thanksgiving weekend, I say thank you. Thank you God, if you are watching over me and those I Iove, you've taught me a lesson. Thank you Chevrolet, for allowing me to drive a vehicle that protects me and the others with me, and 'takes a licking and keeps on ticking'. I hope the therapeutic value that I get from relaying all this will not be wasted, and that someone reading these rambling words may be able to see that there is indeed a silver lining to many nasty things. A belated Happy Thanksgiving!

This me going straight down the road now. A metaphor for...what??? Maybe going straight means taking a left turn every once in a while???

In this case at least, the Titanic survives the crash and, while damaged, continues on to Liverpool,   while the unidentified iceberg just floats away...Doesn't look that bad, but that… — **In this case at least, the Titanic survives the crash and, while damaged, continues on to Liverpool,**
**while the unidentified iceberg just floats away...Doesn't look that bad, but that is $8500 worth of damage!**

Blog #6 On the trials and tribulations of being named Preston / November 17, 2017 by Preston Swigart

When you need a distinguished lawyer character on a TV drama who at first is good but turns out to sinister —what do you name him? Gotta be something a little unique, maybe a hint of mystery, definitely distinguished. Not Bob or John or Mike, or Larry, or any of the hundreds of other regular sounding names I fervently wished my parents had blessed me from birth with. How about Preston? Yes Preston. That's a perfect name for the nice looking lawyer that seems so earnest and good but ends up being a dastardly criminal. But maybe not necessarily for, at that time anyway, a tall, kind of awkward quiet kid who might have stood out anyway and didn’t like it one bit. Gosh darn it, anything but that name...Preston. Thanks a bunch Mom and Dad, you really did me a favor!

When I was in 4th grade or so, I was already pretty fed up with my name. Grandmother’s maiden name and all that notwithstanding, I just didn’t think it was was cool to be a fourth grader named Preston that school year of 1970-something in Mrs. Maring’s class. Not when I already stuck out more than usual because of my even then elevated height. Nope, by then I had had enough of everything about being named Preston. So I decided to do something radical about it. I decided to change my identity. There was this (I thought at the time, anyway) really cool 5th grader with the last name of Douglas. I admired him for some reason which escapes me now, but at that time to me he was the coolest kid ever, and I longed to be him. I don’t think he was particularly popular, rich, good at sports, or lucky with the 5th grade (and very mature) ladies, but he had what I thought was the best name ever...his name was...

wait for it...

Larry. Yes, Larry. Larry Douglas. Larry, if you are out there, forgive me for having the fourth grade version of a man crush on not you, but your name. I just liked the way it sounded. So...so...just normal. Believe it or not for awhile I even signed my school homework papers with my cool new name. Larry Swigart. I liked the loop of the cursive L, the two R's in a row and that Y at the end—if you had a neat name like that you could sign your name and end it with a flourish with that Y. Larry Swigart. Nice ring to it, don’t you think? To use a modern phrase that I generally abhor, but absolutely fits right here...OMG.

Fast forward to the beginning of my freshman year in college. In our CMU campus dorm, the RA wanted to help everyone get acquainted. A reasonable thing to do for a bunch of pimply faced strangers all of a sudden on their own for the first time in their young lives. On the door of each dorm room were colorful balloons with the names and home cities of each of the four (or five in our case--freshman overflow) inhabitants. Steve Rienstra, Grand Rapids. Of course his name ended with "stra", he's from the west side of the state. Jay Berg, Livonia. Pure normal. Phil Flavin, Inkster. More normal but with a cool Irish twist. Tom Brothers, East Detroit. Oh to have a last name like that! Preston Swigart, Bloomfield Hills. Oh hell. On top of being named Preston, having a last name no one could ever get right, I had to be from Bloomfield Hills too? Please just kill me now. Steve Rienstra of Grand Rapids fame later told me he thought I would show up in a limo with servants in tow...Thanks again Mom and Dad! Not only did you saddle me with the weirdest name ever, but we had to live in Bloomfield Hills too?? Such a crisis!!

As an adult fortunately my perspective has changed somewhat. I can look back on my childhood and college years from the perspective of many years now, and see that things are just a bit different. A given: people comment on and remember my name. Hmm, maybe that's not such a bad thing since I'm in business for myself and there is tons of competition and talent my chosen field of work. In this crazy day and age, anything to get a bit ahead I suppose. Maybe now I'm proud to say I'm named after my grandmother on my Mom's side, and that I have a bunch of relatives with the last name of Preston up there in the Duluth area of northern "Minnesoota"...There are responsibilities that come with a handle like this, especially when coupled with semi-abnormal height. I'm often at a disadvantage when someone I barely know or remember comes up to me and calls me by name. So I've taken that as a challenge, and do my best to remember their names as well. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but I always try, and then I feel guilty if I don't succeed.

'Old' Preston, nephew Gavin and nephew 'cool' Preston a few years back

Nowadays the name is not so uncommon and that pleases me. I'm proud to say I even have a namesake in my own family—thanks little bro with the normal sounding name of Matthew...My nephew, originally called by me "baby Preston", then "little Preston", who has now morphed into high school going, baseball playing, flame throwing "cool Preston" to my "old Preston". Pretty awesome if I do say so myself. Thanks a bunch Mom and Dad, and Grandmother Mary Preston too. I mean it this time in all the best ways. You really did me a favor. I'm honored to carry on this name and what it stands for in our family. If people remember it and me, well maybe that's a good thing, and maybe I won't try to melt into the wall so I don't stand out anymore. Love, Preston

My Grandmother Mary Preston Nyberg, along with my cousin Marie from Sweden.  I am a direct and proud result of Mary meeting and eventually marrying a big tall Swedish guy, my Swedish Grandfather Jacob Nyberg. — My Grandmother Mary Preston Nyberg, along with my cousin Marie from Sweden. I am a direct and proud result of Mary meeting and eventually marrying a big tall Swedish guy, my Swedish Grandfather Jacob Nyberg.

POST SCRIPT: One of my high school friends just notified me that Larry Douglas passed away some years ago. RIP Larry, I hope in some way you knew that to me at one time you had it all, dude. Thanks to Angela Dupuis Galbraith for getting me up to speed.

Blog #5 On the area that I live in being (at least for the time being) "under control"... / November 10, 2017 by Preston Swigart

Juan Anguiano of the NBC News Chicago bureau, my co-worker, friend, and surrogate son.

A relatively innocent email thread recently resulted in the idea for this post. I was emailing back-and-forth with one of my coworkers and friends who is responsible for booking news crews for the NBC News Bureau in Chicago. I had casually remarked to Juan Anguiano, one of the guys who can hold my financial fate in his hand, that I wasn’t doing much news-wise recently but there were a lot of other things going on in my life...Things such as being in the process of selling our house and readying ourselves to move, and taking care of my aging father among quite a few others. Just before this thread occurred, I had sent out a notification to my NBC friends and contacts both in Chicago and New York that I was excited to have some new equipment I was rolling out that I hoped they would be happy about and hire me more...Juan was responding back, and the email thread went as below...

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To: Preston Swigart