June 15, 2004
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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