Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Still don't know what I'm doing 6/15/04

My three sons will hereinafter be referred to as One (the oldest), Two (the middle) and Three (the youngest), at least until such time as I have their permission to use their names. One of Two's closest friends was in an automobile accident overnight. He was going 35 mph (according to the accident investigation) and hydroplaned into a tree on a residential street. Both of his legs are broken (one heel is "crushed") and will require surgery. He cannot walk at all and won't walk for quite some time. His clavicle is broken and his lungs are bruised, injuries caused by the seat belt, which also apparently saved his life. Two has just called from the hospital, where some of the friends have gathered. I think they're pretty stunned by the severity of his injuries, given the speed he was driving. I just don't think anyone understands the devastation of "impact" until after experiencing an accident. The injured friend was on my 18U baseball team. He was a pitcher. I'm sorry that he's hurt and have told Three that I will take him to visit in the hospital tomorrow and have called One (who lives in another state) and asked that he send an email (something the hospital offers, nice, huh?). _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Two and his friends visited their Injured Buddy and were quite taken by the seriousness of his injuries. A Dad of a friend, who is also an orthopedic surgeon, visited while they were there, and said that a few years ago, his heel injury could not have been repaired. No one asked what the consequences would have been but I suggested amputation and they were shocked. None of them had thought of that. The Dad Doc also said that his foot would never quite work the same again (he would have no lateral flexibility, but would be able to move his foot up and down). Sometimes I find it hard to believe how blind we are to the carnage of driving and riding in cars. We love our automobiles and look away from the death and destruction because we must drive. It rained all afternoon, and I can still hear the thunder. I was supposed to work 2 Little League Baseball ("LLB") 9 year old tournament (all-star) games (as a LLB district staff volunteer). It's something I do every summer, although it's been quite a while since I've worked a 9 year old tournament (they are so cute!), having had the good fortune to be involved with the 10s, 11s and 12s over recent summers. Another aspect of the younger tournaments, is that the coaches are more likely to have never done this (coach a post-season tournament team) before and less likely to understand the procedures and the pecking order. They are used to batting everyone during their recreational ("rec") season, and must bat nine, within strict guidelines, during the tournaments. It's my job to make sure they do so properly (among other things). Fortunately, I'm not alone and much of the time (certainly for the first days) I have with me another (very senior) district staff member. He's probably 20 years older than I am and really knows how to run a Little League tournament better than anyone in the district. What a resource! He's also a delight to spend time with in the booth and I look forward to my time with him every year. Hopefully, I'll be able to spend some time at the 12 year old tournament this year too (although it's not being hosted by my home park), the first round on The Road to Williamsport and the Little League World Series ("LLWS"). It never ceases to move me, standing in the booth, watching the boys (and and occasional girl) standing on the baselines with their hats over their hearts, singing the Star Spangled Banner and reciting the Little League Pledge (see * below), knowing that all over the world in dozens (hundreds?) of countries, tens of thousands of kids are doing the exact same thing as part of the exact same event, all leading to the LLWS. There is nothing else like it in sports or in the world. Perhaps I will give up being a LLB volunteer one day. My youngest, Three, is 16 and still plays baseball, but hasn't played in an LLB affiliated program since he was 12. Still, somehow, every year, when I swear I'm going to quit and spend my summer doing something more productive, or useful to my family, or financially rewarding, or even just more relaxing and restful, I can't do it, can't make myself stay away, surprised to hear myself saying, "yes," when they call to ask me to work. We're in the third day of this tournament. Tonight would have been Games 6 & 7. The coaches are getting the hang of it and have figured out who is in charge. It's just getting to be fun. I was disappointed about the rain although, when it's not messing up baseball plans, it's my favorite weather. *THE LITTLE LEAGUE PLEDGE: I trust in God. I love my Country and will respect its laws. I will play fair and strive to win. But, win or lose, I will always do my best. Another problem is that if we get one more rain out, I'll miss the finals, because I have to leave with Two for his College Orientation on Sunday morning early. We have a five hundred mile drive and he is to be there by 2:00, although I think it's a *soft* target and that the consequences for arriving between 2 and 5 are minimal. I'm looking forward to my two nights in a nice hotel in a very interesting city. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ It's quiet. Two and his friend are sitting on the front porch with their girlfriends. The rain has turned to something lighter than a drizzle, a mist perhaps, and the sky is lighter in the west, so everything's a rosy glow. I'm inside, enjoying this surprise time, courtesy of the games being rained out. It's been very stressful lately, well, forever, but I think it's fair to say that, over the last six years, we've been in the throes of uniquely stressful circumstances, the very unexpected result of my husband's invention and the patents related to it. The patent process in our country was originally designed to protect inventors and provide the world access to their inventions, but has been corrupted to make it almost impossible for an ordinary individual to obtain and maintain adequate protection of a significant invention. It can't be done with one patent, because large corporations will simply design around one patent, and the USPTO makes certain that it takes a long time and a lot of money to obtain the additional patents neccessary to protect and profit from the invention. Each time the patent office rejects an application, the applicant has to go back, spend more money with their lawyers and re-file the application, paying another filing fee. What motivation could this very profitable government agency have to allow an application? Our latest patent was rejected five times during the prosecution. Our most active pending application, has been rejected four and we're preparing to re-file again, with changes. Most inventors give up, unable to bear inflicting the hardship on their families. The smart, or lucky ones, have someone who can handle the patent-related work and are able to keep their day jobs, and that would be my first advice to anyone starting out on the path to patenting, "Don't quit your day job." It costs too much before it can yield, and is so distracting and so seductive that it's very hard to keep doing what you were doing before the invention, to pay the suddenly escalating bills. So, big companies end up owning most of the important patents. The poor fool who assigns their patents to their mom and pop business in hope of attracting "financing" ultimately loses the intellectual property when the business fails because of the burden of all the professionals (accountants and attorneys) required by the investor to provide meaningless projections on a weekly basis, overwhelming the business owner with skyrocketing costs and not enough focus and energy to actually sell anything, and the "investor" or "vulture capitalist" walks away with the IP. Then there are folks who somehow manage not to assign the patents to the company, but finally just can't take the pain, and after liquidating every other asset to support the invention just a little longer until profit or infringement prosecution is enough to take care of the family, they give up and sell the patents, to have a car and keep the power on and pay the tuition and eat, no doubt to some big company with which they have long been doing battle. It sucks and I'm tired. Good that we had the rain.

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