Popeye’s Chicken Selects
A pork chop dinner prepared by my wife (very good, by the way)
A bowl of dry roasted peanuts
Two thin mint Girl Scout cookies
The ears off a chocolate Easter bunny.

This is what I ate last night. I’m sometimes guilty of stress eating. I do not respect myself in the morning.

In gambling, push is a tie. In the gamble of business, there are no ties, only pushing.

There are times in my life running a business (writing “my life and my business” would be like writing “my left eye and my right eye” as opposed to, “my eyes”) — there are times in my life running a business when all I have is pushing. Right now is one of those times.

I just keep pushing forward because that’s what I do, despite a lot trying to push back at me. My wife and I are restructuring her business (correctly, if you ask me) to ensure she can turn a profit in a deepening recession. A member of the immediate family is sick, going through hospital tests and heading, probably, toward surgery. And, of course, I’m a father of two teens and an adult — need I say more?

I could stop pushing. I could allow myself a rest. But then I would just be treading water in business, and that would be way worse than a push in gambling.

(In the next episode of Blogenberg, the secret compass that ensures I am heading in the right direction in business even when it feels like pushing forward is a struggle.)

I have uncovered evidence of the stupidest editorial planning meeting since paper was invented. It clearly happened at the offices of Bethesda magazine. The March/April issue is “The Parenting Issue.” The cover story is about two local teenagers who committed suicide.

The cover reads, “Parents’ Worst Nightmare: [Two] local teenagers took their own lives. For the first time, their parents talk about what happened — and the warning signs they missed.”

So let me get this straight. This morose, tragic cover, with black rose and everything, is supposed to get me, a parent of three, including two teens, to pick this magazine up in the grocery store line (in the middle of a deepening recession, no less)? Yeah, that’s the parenting issue every parent wants to read right now.

This week’s recommended reading from your friends at Blogenberg…

• Anil Dash challenges us to expect more from companies when they express their “vision”. We need also to evaluate “how well they articulate a desire to give back to our culture.”
• Seth Godin describes as well as we’ve seen - and more succinctly than most - the impact of guilds and trade groups fighting for the status quo in the face of changing technology and markets.
• Kaye Monty shares some thoughts on whether “to tweet or not to tweet.”
• Check out the Guardian’s discussion on sustainability with Patagonia’s VP or Marketing.
• Why do big brands struggle with social media?
• Philip Lawler provides some interesting insight into the PR challenges facing the Vatican and offers some thoughts on how it can improve them.
• The last encyclopedia salesman finally retires.
• Perhaps it really is all about who you know: the economics of popularity.

On so many levels, a father doesn’t like this conversation, which took place at the mall via cell phone this Saturday between my 14-year-old daughter and me:

Daughter: Can you come to Victoria’s Secret?
Me: Why?
Daughter: I need a new strapless bra for my dress tonight, and I don’t think I have enough money.
Me: How much is the bra?
Daughter: Um, let me look. Oh my gosh. You really need to just come down here.
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My 14-year-old son is like me, but more. I can be emotional. He’s more so. I was a good athlete. He’s much more so. No surprise, we bang heads on a regular basis. But what I appreciate about him — a characteristic his older brother shares — is that we can get very angry at each other and then, within a few minutes, we’re done. At one point on Sunday, he was furious at me. But within a few minutes we were talking lacrosse. That, to me, is how men act.