One of the hardest things for me to see when I took my dad back to Vietnam was my father’s pain when visiting my Grandmother’s tomb. I’ve never seen him hurt so bad…

His latest email for Mother’s Day brought back the memory of my dad on his hands and knees crying out for his mom. I’ll never know his pain, but I do know his heart in this email.

His written english may be challenging for some to read, but it doesn’t make it any less meaningful.

It came attached with the photos above as well… my dad’s the man.

My mom is the bees knees. Happy Mother’s Day.

Love you Mom, love you Dad.

- – - – - 

Here’s the email:

Children,

Forward to you this e-mail from one of my Navy friend. It’s hitting me real bad and broken my heart.

Unfortunate to me… You know what’s happened.  I lost my mom 62 years ago when I was just 3 and a half years old. I never have a chance, just ONCE, to say or to tell her anything…

On the eve of Mother Day and the eve of my life. Kids do something for your mom to make her happy, saying you are loving her so much… before too late.

- Dad

Returning to my hotel in Tiburon from the Hacking Autism, ‘I Want to Say’ premier in San Francisco.

I chose to stay out here to get away from the distractions of the city… exactly what I was looking for.

And yes, my rental is a Camaro.

‘Kids,

Live your life to it’s fullest extent…

…”LIFE is short. Break the RULES. FORGIVE quickly, KISS slowly, LOVE truly, LAUGH uncontrollably and NEVER REGRET anything that made you SMILE.”

- Mom + Dad’

Click here to view the embedded video.

Which is a way more awesome version of the following, of which we did for Chevy last spring.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We should have went with our gut on this one and sold the spec harder.

Hat’s off to TNT and the group behind the Drama on a Quiet Square ad for nailing the idea/execution. It was incredible.

Mike and I went to get our culture on at the Guggenheim and MoMA.

Followed by the Flyers vs Penguins playoffs game.

Solid Sunday in NYC.

Got a bike today so I can start patrolling the streets of NYC.

Day 1 on the bike was a spin around Prospect Park.

As I was walking out of the office tonight, I realized I don’t have any photos of our beautiful Art Deco lobby.

So I took a couple… literally two.

It’s my sister, brother-in-law and Mia’s last night in New York, so I took them to one of my favorite restaurants, Bubby’s.

Mia colored, we ate and on the way out we stuck her on the cow.

Cuteness ensued, with the exception of all the adults stuffing our faces with fried chicken and BBQ.

I’ve been waiting for this music video to drop for a while now.

I dig it… it’s artful, but feels like a Kanye and Jay video I’ve seen before… not like there’s anything wrong with that…

…because there’s a lot of things right with that.

Love, LOVE this song.

Even though I’m not at GSP anymore, my former kick ass family still included me on the submission.

Gold + Grand Research Innovation Awards for ‘There’s Life to Be Done’, Chevy Silverado.

BOOM. Check + Check.

Congrats to everyone and big thanks and hugs to Heather Barrett for the sweet note to break the news!

Check out the other winners/finalists here.

Track of the moment.

Discovered this off Spotify recently. Really feelin’ this song.

Artwork above is from Wise Blood album cover. 

Sent with a gentle note to, “Please read.”

“Right from the moment of our birth, we are under the care and kindness of our parents, and then later on in our life when we are oppressed by sickness and become old, we are again dependent on the kindness of others.

Since at the beginning and end of our lives we are so dependent on other’s kindness, how can it be in the middle that we would neglect kindness towards others?”

-The Dalai Lama

Going through some old YouTube saves.

The older my dad gets the closer we get.

Thanks to the interwebs and the added time he has due to retirement, he’s been sharing links and ‘spammy/chain’ e-mails with me encouraging me to smile more and love harder.

I actually really look forward to these.

This week’s gem is David Copperfield Flying.

My dad titled the email, ‘Peter Pan!’

Of which I translated to, don’t forget what it’s like to be a kid.

This girl’s so sweet.

This X Factor UK performance gave me goosebumps.

And there are moments where her accent peeks out and it’s brilliant.

WOW… just WOW.

WTF just happened. This video is so HARD.

My vote for music video of the year.

I was not expecting any of that.

So it’s more of a mashup of sorts, but whatever it is, it’s pretty freaking cool.

You can find more of Jervy Santiago’s work here.

He #major.