By Brian Lucas
“Artie, I think we managed to get ourselves in a little trouble!” –James West speaking tongue-in-cheek to Artemus Gordon when confronted by arch-villain Miguelito Loveless, a brilliant, but megalomaniacal little person.
In our rushed working environment today, that demands hyper efficiency, there is nothing as deadly to agile as a micromanager. If every person on the team is not empowered and trusted to perform their function; you cannot be agile. If you cannot be agile, you cannot deal with the constant and complex changes taking place. Worse still you cannot compete with those who are. If you cannot compete, you are dead! There is no room for micromanaging or micromanagers in today’s agile business environment.
I promised to cover this subject for my good friend Anthony! Anthony is a remarkably expressive person with a facile and intelligent mind. He is ready to engage in intelligent conversation on any subject. Both he and his wife are the souls of exuberant generosity and a pleasure to be around. We were discussing work the other day over a small libation and perhaps a cigar. During this pleasant diversion, he mentioned that his wife was recently saddled with a micromanager. The saddled reference immediately triggered a horseback riding reference in my brain, which led to the west, which led to the golden days of yesteryear and the TV series the Wild, Wild West[1].
The Wild, Wild West starring Robert Conrad and Ross Martin was one of the few TV series I watched in my younger days along with Don Herbert’s Mr. Wizard. As James West carried an arsenal concealed in the heels of his boots, of course, I promptly went about cutting the heels off my shoes and hollowing them out to conceal various handy objects in them[2]; like homemade lock picks and spools of string I pretended were fuses. This was an activity my father frowned upon for some inexplicable reason, even though I cleverly managed to reattach the heels and still make them removable through the use of drilled holes and finishing nails. I am sure Robert Conrad who played James West would have been amused though. But I digress…
Why the Wild, Wild West reference? Well for one, I am trying to satisfy a number of reader requests for some of my likes and dislikes, as it were, outside my formal agile blog posts. Second, the Wild, Wild West is a classic example of agility because they were not micromanaged by their boss. They were given broad goals and empowered to accomplish them rapidly (after all it was only an hour long show) in ingenious and effective ways.
Even the team was small; in fact it was only a two man team (three if you include Jim West’s horse[3]). The most important aspect of this team was that their boss trusted them to do their jobs. They were given a great deal of freedom of operation (after all how many of us have our own private luxury railroad cars[4]). This trust extended itself to the internal working relationship of the team as well since West and Gordon trusted each other implicitly.
Micromanagement on the other hand is the antithesis of trust and in fact a downright insult to the intelligence of an employee. There is nothing that will more speedily corrupt the self-actualization, attitude and commitment an employee has for their job and their company, as a micromanager. This does not mean to say that management cannot make suggestions for improvement. In an agile environment, anyone can. Associates can also suggest improvements to managers about the manager’s own work. Try it sometime Mr. Manager and see what suggestions you get. Are you afraid? The key word here is suggestions and not orders.
How do you avoid micromanagers? Well, as a company, don’t hire them. When you do hire someone new, make sure they understand the concept of team and employee empowerment. Tell them in explicit terms that micromanaging is not acceptable. Finally, as always, have management subject to review in an open 360 degree fashion. Making complaints behind someone’s back never serves a company well and eventually devolves into political intrigue. Open and honest reviews are fundamental to successful interpersonal relationships. Personalized criticism is not allowed, but suggestions for improvement are made. The reviews are frequent enough[5] so that changes can be made early. Poor behavior is interdicted before it becomes a bad habit.
So if you are a CEO, you need to nip micromanagement in the bud, right from the top and as soon as possible. Don’t procrastinate on this issue. You can read about the benefits of not procrastinating and ACTing immediately in my previous post A Natural Agilist Makes Mangia a Marvelous Experience. It will kill your company as surely as a bullet from a Smith and Wesson Russian .44 or a Colt .45. (Yes, I am familiar with old west firearms. Farmer Langford Peel and I were discussing the merrits of various firearms last month when I revisited the old west.) If you are a micromanager and reading this, take heart and begin an open dialog with the people you work with and build up a trust relationship with them. You will both be more effective and happier. Finally, as you can see, watching TV can be educational. It depends upon what you are watching and if your brain is on or off. Remember till next time, Keep Agile!
[1] Check it out on DVD or wherever you can find it. It is still an entertaining series.
[2] James West had hollowed out boot heels where he secreted everything from a derringer to explosives and fuses. Good thing I did not have access to a derringer.
[3] James West actually had two horses a more placid horse referred to as hobby horse and a fiery one that was more Arabian nicknamed superstar.
[4] Yes even the horse had his own car.
[5] If you wait for a year to pass you are far too late.
Keeping Agile™ with Brian Lucas 
Brian,
As always a great read, and even better perspective of an issue that plagues many institutions. It has already been forwarded and hopefully educated the right people. Thanks
My pleasure sir! Thank you for the idea and of course, stimulating conversation.
You are right Anthony, Brian is always a great read and he does have an amazingly net perspective on many issues that others make complicated. Brian has an innate talent for cutting through the fog in issues and bringing clarity and simplicity.
This is so funny and so true. Teaching with humor can be very effective. You must have been a “pistol” when you were growing up. Ha! Ha! Please write more like these.
I will try to post more in this vein Kathy, but to paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, “I must learn to guard myself against your pawky “pistol” humor.
Oh my God!!! This is so dry and funny I almost split my side laughing at work. What a riot Brian must have been growing up. The point that he is making here is so true though. I have worked for managers like this and it is the worst experience you can imagine. Thankfully my current manager is easy to work for and lets me do my work, but is there when I need her. I am going forward this link to all my friends. I can’t wait for the sequel. GET TO WORK ON IT NOW BRIAN! Opps I guess a bit of micromanagement just slipped out. Ha! Ha!
Yes Jackie a riot just about explains it, like the time I took the TV apart when I was 4 because I wanted to know how it worked. My father was not amused again, but he actually helped me put it back together. We worked on it till after midnight and I got to stay up late so I had a great time.
As Jackie says Brian where’s the sequel? Have you considered writing an autobiography? I am willing to bet you have many more amusing tales to tell. There have been a number of books about the super intelligent and what it was like for them growing up, but none told with humor you could use this blog to test out your material. We in turn would get some entertaining stories and learn more about agile.
Michael – Great horsefeathers an autobiography whatever will you readers think of next. Thanks for the sentiment though.
Hey Brian you write like you are trying to communicate with real people instead of a bunch of suits. In the south I can tell you that having someone come in and tell us everything we are doing in the plant is wrong when they don’t have any experience working in the real world doesn’t go down easy. In reading your blog I always get the feeling that you are talking to me and not at me. I like this approach to telling people not to micromanage. I am going to print it up and post it in the break room at the plant. When’s the next post coming out?
I am at least smart enough not to practice the form of seagull management you are describing here where someone flies in a drops excrement all over everybody and then flies out again. That never leads to successful change as you note, only resentment.
Brian,
This post really reaches me. I have, as I am sure most of us have, experienced micromanagement at times in my career, so I can relate to this. I am going to keep this link in my email as an arsenal and fire it at any micromanager I run into, Ha, Ha. I am impressed beyond words with your writing skills and your sense of humor which is absolutely precious. I never saw the series you are writing about, but I am going to have to see if it is available. (If only to check out the hollowed out boot heels and imagine a “little” Brian doing the same.) You have a growing number of fans here at the hospital and it is well merited. We don’t have time to surf the internet during work so I was surprise when Fran forwarded the link to your interview of Wayne to me. Now I am so glad she did. Your blog is my first stop when I get home after work. This post had me laughing all through dinner. -Haley
Here is another amusing tale then. James West carried a lock pick in the back of his coat. I of course sewed a flattened out nail in a pouch behind my T-shirt and proceeded to lock my entire family out of the house by trying to pick the lock with it and breaking the nail off in the lock. I eventually got better at it though, my dad knowing I wasn’t going to give up bought me my very own door lock I could practice on. It kept me occupied and out of trouble for a while.
I would never have dreamed of making this comparison and yet it is so apt. You have an amazing analytic ability. I never really saw the series, since it was before my time. I did watch one of the movies from which I gather that your contention is quite valid. It begs the question, are there any recent shows that you think have the same comparative agile validity? I suppose that question is predicated on whether you watch much current TV. From the content and comments you have made on your blog, you are apparently prolific reader. In my experience, most heavy readers, I have known, watched TV infrequently. Still it would be interesting for you to post a list of what TV shows you felt were representative of agile thinking.
I will post a list of favority TV shows, movies, books, music and food sometime since others have asked for it.
Micromanaging is the number one deadly sin in an agile organization. I myself have been guilty of it. I felt I was justified in intervening directly in a project. At times I was; but I was also robbing my people of the opportunity to grow. That was a hard lesson to learn. Your post is very demonstrable on this subject and makes the case for the positive nature of empowerment. I admire the humor you mixed into this post right from the start in the quote you used. You must have been quite the rascal when you were growing up dismantling everything in sight. I am sure you gave your father many a grey hair. I have no doubt he is proud of you now in what you have accomplished and the influence your blog is having.
Sincerely,
J.Turner
Still a rascal at times as those who know me could attest to or groan to if they are the target of my rascality or practical jokes.
This is simply the most marvelous expression of why you can’t be a micromanager in an agile environment. Amazing…
Thanks James! That was the intent to put micromanagers on notice.
If you want a great agile vs calcified comparison in Sixties sitcoms, how ’bout “Hogan’s Heroes”? What better example of a stultified, calcified organization, whose members are afraid to think for themselves, than the Germans, compared to the small, well-trained, autonomous team that Hogan commanded.
Good point Baron HH while to me a sillier show and not based on the “realism” like WWW was (Oh my stars, I can’t believe I was actually able to type that line!) another example of agility. Take a bad situation (being a prisioner of war) and turn it to your advantage (spy, sabotage and help other prisoners escape).
So funny and so true told so well.
Just wanted to say I saw your post on the bulletin board and I grabbed it and made a quick copy for my manager who is the all-time worst micromanager and put it on his desk anonymously. I am just waiting to see if he reads it and it has any effect. You can use my name I don’t care.
OK Jaylene let me know what fireworks result.
Funny, funny, funny. What a trip. Making a point the easy way! I sent it to a dude I know who is a real control freak. Will let you know if he wises up.
Brian, we have a doctor here who fits this description. I am going to print this out and drop it in the mail for him marked “personal please read”. -Fran
Ah Fran you are a naughty one.
This is very funny Brian, my friend. We have all experienced this sometime in our lives and perhaps been guilty of it when we did not know better. This is a great way to make a point! -Lou
Yep I will admit to micromanaging a time or two.
Hey Brian just letting you know the dude I sent your article to freaked out, but it was cool cause his boss found out about it and now he is on probation. We all have some breathing room now. if you know what I mean. Thanks Bro!!! -TT
Taye glad to be of help! If he goes postal don’t tell him where you got it!
What a story! I remember WWW as “Wild, Wild West” before it became “World Wide Web”. Good comparison with agile and micromanagement. I would never have thought of this myself. Very entertaining and educational blog you have started here Brian. Keep posting!!!!!!
Thanks Lee I will carry on as long as I have supportive readers like yourself.
Just sent your post on to a micromanager I ran into. She was soooo insulted. Good thing I don’t work for her.
Wow you ladies at the hospital are just in a naughty mood lately.
I finally brokedown and read this after getting a ton of emails with this link. Nice story. Glad I took the time to read it. Agile seems to be a thing of the future. We certainly don’t practice it here but it looks like we should. This made it very understandable.
Glad you broke down! Welcome to the readership!
Finally someone who knows how to explain what being agile is all about. Your blog explores so many great ways to explain agile from the very technical white papers you write like the imperative of having an agile organization structure to your interview series to your tale of two companies series to time travel to television. You have an amazingly prolific mind and quite a way with words. As a business planner I have found your blog to be a tremendous source of knowledge and incredibly wise perspective. My only complaint such as it is; is that you do not post nearly often enough. From your comments, I understand that this is not something you are doing professionally and are writing on your accord. What a shame this is not your full time profession.
With the deepest appreciation,
Peter Brown
Thank you Peter. I think perhaps agile is misnamed and I can only blame myself for that. Agile is about success and adaptation to changing environments and needs. I will write more in the future.
Brian if this is any indication at all, your autobiography would make facinating reading.
Oh Leigh I am far too young to write an autobiography!
This is as good a treatment on the subject of micromanagement as I have ever seen because it is effective. I have sent it is several managers guilty of this and believe it or not actually got back positive responses. That just goes to show that you can change minds if you make the right argument in the right way. Thanks Brian!
That is the most satisfying endorsement I could receive. Thank you Kurt! It shows the value of not criticizing directly, but offering an example and humor. Thanks again for letting me know your results.
Oh this was so funny Brian! You are a riot! I wish I had a teacher like you at college! Nice lesson learned about micromanaging your workforce and you did it in such a non-threatening way. Kudos to you! I am going to read all you blog from now on!
Thank you Terri welcome to the readership. Please keep commenting.
Nice way to deal with the subject of micromanagement and agile. You cannot be agile if you micromanage. You are right, of course, once again, as always, boy am I getting tired of saying that – but it seems as if you always are right! Keep being right someone needs to get everyone on track in business today. We have become our own worst enemy.
No I am not always right Mark, but I do appreciate the compliment. I enjoy good discussion and questions.
Ace Mate! Something tells me ya would have made a Dinky-di James West yourself though I never saw the show. Love to crack a tinnie with you sometime if you make it down under.
Jack if I ever get to Australia I’ll look you up if you tell me what pub you hang out at. First rounds on me.
If you worked as many years in business as I have you were bound to run into a micromanager. I ran into at least 5 in my career. All were very difficult and eventually impossible to work with. One was actually a CEO who constantly bore down into the deepest levels of our manufacturing process with bizarre ideas and instructions. He was a business major and not an engineer. He was also a shouter and scared the hell out of everyone. This was back in the 80s when we were in a job slump and everyone was afraid of losing theirs much like today. When things did not work out he always blamed everyone else. He always kept books in his office that he never read, but wanted everyone else to read. He came from a rich family and I gather they did not want him in the family business. No wonder. I remember the Wild, Wild West series though I was never a regular viewer. I wish I had this article while I was working for this idiot. I would have printed it out and put it on his desk when I finally resigned. Did I mention he was also very short?
Thanks for sharing your story with us Sam. The good news is it is all behind you now.
Good article on Micromanaging told with wit and wisdom. The author’s dry humor in the footnotes was a very nice touch.
Thanks for commenting Jim.
Can’t think of a better article on micromanaging! I know a few managers that should take this to heart.
Go with the crowd and send it to them anonymously of course.
I was a fan of the old Wild, Wild West TV series so this post gave me quite a chuckle. I don’t remember the quote attributed to Conrad, but it is definitely a quip that he would have made. To me, watching the show then was just entertainment. As I look back on it through the lens that Brian Lucas has created it was also educational. My father was never around much so I was a product of TV babysitting. In retrospect, I realize that much of my behavior was influenced by shows like this. WWW taught me to adapt quickly and be persistent against seemingly insurmountable problems. I would say both of those are part of being agile. These traits have made me successful in business as well as in life. It’s a little late now, but I would like to thank the cast, crew and writers of the show for that education and Brian Lucas for his insight and bringing this wonderful memory and most importantly the appreciation of it to life again.
Paul so many viewers missed the ironic humor that Conrad and Martin used. I am not sure if it was the writers or actors. I’d like to give them all the credit. A truly intelligent person will learn from whatever environment he is in. You learned the right lessons. I am sure the cast, crew and writers of the Wild, Wild West appreciate your thanks both those who are still with us and those who have passed on.
A friend just sent me the link to this and insisted I read it. Unfortunately, I never saw the tv show or the new movie. I don’t know much about agile really. I do think this is a very good post since it was readable and understandable even if you didn’t see the series. The whole post was filled with humor. I laughed out loud when I read the part about the author cutting off his heals to conceal things in them. I agree with what others must have written that Brian is someone I would like to know more about. Smart funny people who can write this well are too rare.
Thanks for the compliment Bobbie. I try to write for everyone not just a select audience. Afterall Einstein could explain his theories simply using a train and a ball being thrown in the air. If I can’t explain agile in similar terms I must not know much about it.
I agree with Bobbie and Paul this was a funny and informative post about the difficult subject of micromanaging. I am going to have to read the rest of Brian’s blog if all the posts are this good. He sounds like a neat person to get to know.
To read my blog is to know me. Thanks for becoming a reader.
What a treasure this post was! Man you have my vote for blogger of the year. I have run into a lot of idiot micro managers who always got in the way. They are vampires sucking the life out of you and the company. I have copied this down to my droid so I have it whenever I run into another micromanager. I’ll pop it in their face like a cross. Ha, Ha!
Just don’t get confused and pop your Droid in a vampire’s face.
I represent a group of interested readers who regularly read Brian’s blog (my lunch friends at work) and I was nominated to get the answers to our questions. They were all too chicken. This one is for Anthony – My questions are if Brian wrote this for your wife:
1) Did she read it?
2) What did she think?
3) Did it make her feel better?
4) Did this mysteriously show up on her boss’s desk (somehow)? I am thinking about printing it out and putting it on a manager’s desk (not mine).
5) What happened if she did? Seemed like a number of people used this post as a pin to deflate some self important micromanagers.
6) How long have you known Brian? Was he a real (pistol) when he was growing up? Is he still one now? He sounds like it.
7) Is Brian in real life as smart as he seems? and as funny as he seems here? Inquiring minds want to know. We need the inside scoop…
Amy see what you have started!
Amy Marie,
Brian gave me the “permission” to reply to you. HaHa!! My wife did read the blog. She thought it was spot on! She agreed with all the points Brian had made. She did not physically put it on her boss’s desk but sent out an email with the link as an educational and intertesting read for all. There was no feedback given to her but I am sure Brian’s blog readership grew that week.
As far as my relationship with Brian goes, I met him about a year ago. Since then we have become very good friends enjoying the frequent cigar and drink together. He has become one of my closest friends who I look forward to seeing and discussing many different aspects of life and business with. Brian is brilliant and witty as you surmised… But one of his main attributes is his warmth.. his home and ears are always open to a friend to talk, eat or just relax.. Brian wrote a comment about me on another post (which is all true HaHa)!! But my life has been enhanced by knowing him… Hope this helped to clear the mystery.
Geewiz Anthony, I never knew you needed permission to weigh in on a subject. It is one of the traits I love about you. Let us keep as much mystery as possible though.
For those of you that chose to read this I’ll apologize ahead of time for its length. I surf, subscribe and read a large number of blogs as a technology consultant. I just picked up on this blog and I am STUNNED at the comments on it and the diversity of the readers. I have flipped through a number of the posts scanning them and they are all interesting. The title of this one caught my eye since I once had a very bad experience with a micromanager. The post was impressive. It used a great analogy, was informative and had the right touch of humor. What struck me most is just how many comments Brian is getting and how meaningful and intelligent they are. A number are obviously from regular readers who comment, but there are also many onetime commenters. I even saw some lurkers (people who never comment) say they were commenting for the first time. Usually when there are these many comments, it is driven by controversy. That is not the case here. All the comments are positive (at least about the article content I saw a few complaints about their jobs or companies). I realize that this is a moderated blog (thank God! I just hate shifting through spam), but with the number of comments here it certainly doesn’t seem as if Brian is suppressing any opposition. In fact, he deals with it head on as he demonstrates in his post about entrenched skeptics and his friend Jim. So what is going on here? Well there are insights into the MAGIC of this blog in the comments about Brian from his friends. Everyone who seems to know Brian personally paints a picture of him as a brilliant, witty and insightful person, who seems to have a tremendous amount of knowledge on many diverse subjects. It’s hard to find someone that gives detailed technical advice about software like TFS, defines new organizational structures, makes business economic predictions, covers hurricanes, writes script like stories and apparently dabbles in physics dealing with something he calls multidimensional time. My past experience of dealing with brains like this is that they are difficult to talk to if not condescending. This is not true apparently of Brian. His friends speak of him as being very open and warm. Anthony’s view of Brian is particularly interesting since their friendship is recent. Usually only people who have been friends for years speak of one another in terms of this amount of respect and deference. The Magic here is that these traits Brian has (fortunately for us readers) come through in his writing. Anthony writes about Brian always having an open door for his friends. That’s rare today. Intelligent conversation has been seriously lacking in our society. We watch too much TV, complain too much about politics and just don’t reason and discuss issues in an intelligent manner as much as we should. Every issue of the day weather it is politics, immigration, guns, the economy or even more delicate subjects seems to result in hate monging. In wrapping this tirade up I have also have a question for Anthony. You say you and Brian get together for drinks and cigars I assume it is a public place. Where the heck did you find a bar that serves good single malt Scotch (I read in a post that Brian drinks SMS) and allows cigar smoking and was quite enough so you could actually have a conversation??? This inquiring mind wants to know!!!!!
A very fine analysis James, thank you for your insight. There are 3 full time cigar bars in the Lehigh Valley that I know of: The Leaf, The Cigars International Megastore and the Wooden Match.
Wow Brian – we are finding out more about you here this stream is heating up. Let’s all continue to badger Brian and his friends until they satisfy all our insatiable curiosity. Because your blog is so interesting Brian we just have to know more about you!!! lol
Now Nahleen what is life without mystery?
I agree with what James Patterson wrote. This is really getting interesting here. Lets have more of the same. Tell us all the details Anthony. All except about cigars, yuch!!!! -WW
To each their own vice, Wendy!
Yes I admit I too am very inquisitive to know more about Brian the author of these superb posts. There are things he does which I like very much like acknowledging comments with thoughtful responses and offering to have readers email him. I love his content and perspective. His writing has great informational value. Since he began to write with more humor, I find it even more entertaining. The glimpses he gives us into his personal life are intriguing. All this is icing on the cake though. What I wish for most is more posts. I would also like to see Brian explore more mediums like a weekly online chat. But I do admit that I am curious to meet him as well.
Thank you Shirley for your compliments. I am trying to find more time to post. My feeling is that an author’s work must be able to stand on its own and not rely on a colorful life or life style to be interesting.
This stream is getting like a twitter! I’m for it! Ha! Ha! I’ll weight in to I think Anthony should gather all Brian’s friends together and they should interview him and report back to us.
No he should not.
Ok I’ll admit some curiosity as well, but we are getting off the subject of Micromanagers here and agile. Anthony should probably just answer everyone’s questions so we can have at it and be done. I do have a legitimate question about micromanaging Brian. Are there any circumstances when you feel it is acceptable?
Actually you are right Dan. There are two circumstances when a person can shall we say interact with others in a very detailed and supervisorial way. One is where the senior person is a technical master and is imparting knowledge and expertise to an apprentice. At some point, if the teacher is really a master the student will become the teacher and the teacher must be prepared for this. The second case is where one person has a very detailed vision for something and all the technical knowledge for creating it, but it requires more human resource than one person can provide and the timeframe for creating it is tight. This is quite rare actually. Note I very intentionally added the last criteria of timeframe. If time permits the visionary should communicate their idea to the workforce and educate them as to all of its intricacies. The resulting effort will always be the better for it.
Hi Brian! Remember me? I have been reading your blog and it is the greatest!!! I have a new job and a manager who does not give me detailed directions. And yet he is never satisfied with what I do. I asked for and received specific goals and he gave them to me. Whenever I reach them he still criticizes me on how I do things, but would tell me how to do them. He is very established in the company and I am afraid to complain. Do you have any advice for me?
Email me and we will take this conversation offline. I am glad to see you have new employment, but I am sorry you have some difficulties. I have a guess at what is motivating your boss and a way for you to verify if it is right. If so I have a suggestion for you.
Hi Anthony, just to annoy Dan and Wendy and see if I can get an answer from you, What is your favorite cigar? I enjoy a Java or CAO Moontrance every now and again.
Well Anthony this one is addressed to you.
Hey Anthony!! Do you know any of Brian’s friends from childhood we could bug to find out about his early day. I want to know more about the young rascal who cut the heels of his shoes off and hollowed them out for secret compartments. You’ve been deputized to find out!!! lol
No he hasn’t Carla I’m the Marshal around these parts.
Hey everybody! I actually knew Brian when he was young though I have not seen him in years. I know a ton of stories many of them almost too funny for words. I am reluctant to relate any because he actually introduced my husband and I to each other and we are very happy so I owe him big time. He is without doubt super smart and a very interesting guy who is strangely both very complex and simple. I don’t know Anthony, but what he said is right. Brian is a very, very warm human being who doesn’t abandon friends when they are in trouble, who will pick you up when you are down and is generous to a fault. He is very private though so I was actually surprise to see him write a blog although I know he likes to write. I remember he used to write poetry which was beautiful. I don’t think he ever published any. That’s a shame. He also has a very nice powerful baritone voice. He likes to sing and was always breaking out in a song. I heard him sing the national anthem once at an event and he got a standing ovation. Well I have embarrassed him enough. Even though I have not seen him in years, I still consider him one of my best friends.
Glad to hear you and L are doing well Cheryl. I did not know you read my blog. I still consider you both good friends.
Wow Brian! When you told me your blog got a lot of comments, I didn’t know you meant this many!!!!!!!! I am really very impressed. This was a great story gently told. It obviously helped out Anthony’s wife as I suspect it did many others. It had me laughing again which is good for me. I thank you again for that! My ex was a fanatical micromanager amongst other less favorable traits. I wish I had your writing and your communication skills. You absolutely have to tell me more of these childhood tales. I wonder how many other characters you played. My question is who is Cheryl????? You never mentioned her. Can’t wait to see you! :Elaine
I won’t say, “See I told you!” oops see you later…
oh yeah this is heating up………..
and its time to put out the fire…
This is the coolest blog post I ever read. It flows so well, is personable, loaded with dry humor and very educational. I now have to see if I can dig up this old series somewhere to watch it. I wonder if anyone ever sent this link to any of the old cast they might get a kick out of it. I’ll bet they didn’t know they were teaching people to be agile!
Take action on your own and make it happen. Maybe you’ll end up with a free BlueRay set of the series.
Brian we are finding so much about you here on this post. So much more than on Wayne’s interview or the Mission Impossible post you dedicated to me. I took no end of ribbing for not noticing that one right away. I search your blog every day now for new content. This peak into your life is getting everyone here in a sweat. When do we get a photo? I am very jealous that we didn’t find out all these juicy details on MY post! lol Your friend Frannie!
hmmm… I think you meant “peek” Frannie… lol please keep reading. Thanks for considering me a friend!
Time for you to hop on your horse pardner. There’s a bunch of fillies out there with lassos for ya.
There’s a fine big appaloosa whose running gait I’ve been waiting to try out and I always keep a packet of coffee, flour and a slab of bacon in my saddle bag. There is a reason some of my friends call me Maverick.
I do know Brian personally… and he is a great guy… a much better one than even this blog shows… He is the most interesting person to talk to I have ever met. He can speak with authority on so many different subjects I lost track. He is usually very outgoing, but can be strangely shy at times. Thanks Brian for just being you…
Thanks G be good to yourself!
Like it or not dude this post is becoming your Facebook page.
Nope!
I know Brian as well. He plays the baroque recorder (I hope I spelled that right) plays chess (which I want him to teach me) and paints portraits (which I want one of) he is also a GREEAATT cook. ha ha ha thats enough for now
more than enough