My step-son-in-law the baseball producer.

Yesterday I introduced you to Matt the Geek who's creating software for Eloqua in Toronto. So today I'd like you to meet Mike the Baseball Producer in New York. Actually it's Mike, the Executive Producer of MLB Advanced Media. I forgot to find out if he's THE Executive Producer or AN Executive Producer. I'm sure there's a difference...and that difference may be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that could support me in my old age.

Mike married our middle daughter (which, as you know, means "the kid who was ignored entirely while the eldest got all the attention and the youngest remained the baby"). Laura met him while he was in Toronto producing something, and the next thing you know, I was grilling the guy about all those things that are oh, so important to me.

"Which of your uncles is a pilot for Alitalia?" Answer: None
"Which of your cousins has a villa in Italy?" Answer: Don't know any of the cousins
"Which of your relatives can get me a great deal on Italian shoes?" None.

Despite his obvious shortcomings, we liked the guy and before we knew it Laura was fleeing her Canadian homeland to become Mrs. Furno of New Jersey. She got married at a university campus in Virginia with, Shorty, the star of Mike's first documentary as her best man. (The photo at the top is Mike with Shorty. Mike's the one who needs a shave.)

This past summer we took Mike and Laura to Italy so Mike could find his long lost relatives (hopefully, a pilot for Alitalia, a cousin with a villa in Amalfi, and a nice aunt with a shoe store in Florence). The best he could do was a lady in a bakery in his Mom's hometown of Priverno who recognized his mother's last name and said she knew members of the family. Not well enough, it turns out, to give him a free piece of pizza bread.

Ah, well...

It was a wonderful trip and we had great fun watching Mike get in touch with his Italian roots. He became particularly adept at reading road signs with a thick Italian accent, and he bought a nice linen suit. Maybe if he keeps traveling to Italy he'll find an uncle with a tailor shop and a long lost cousin who owns a Ferrari dealership. A girl can dream, can't she?

A couple of weeks ago Laura sent me this link to a video Mike put together for MLB because she's so very proud of his production talents.

You know, I don't recall Laura referring to me as a "trailblazer" in 1989 when I put together that Wollensak presentation commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Imperial Optical -- to the tune of "In the Mood" by Glenn Miller, a song that was popular the year Imperial Optical opened.

Yeah...kids today. They've got all the luxuries of computer editing. I had 300 dusty photographs that had to be made into slides, two carousels, a projector, a tape player and a Wollensak unit. And, more than that, I had the false impression that I knew how to operate a Wollensak unit. (After I'd completed the project Alex informed me that I'd never done it before. He had. I'd forgotten and thought it was me. Yes, even in my 30s I had no memory whatsoever.)

Ah, well... Time to stop whining and feeling sorry for myself because in my day we edited with strips of film cut into pieces, audio reels, a grease pencil, a razor blade and Scotch tape.

I hope you enjoy Mike's video. I'm very proud of his work. I'll also be very proud of his work when he decides to become a film producer in Italy and take his step-mother-in-law along to work with Ennio Morricone on the soundtrack.

Oh, yeah...yesterday was Mike's birthday. If you happen to be in New York, I'm sure Mike would love it if you stopped by his office in the meat packing district and sang a chorus of Happy Birthday to him.



Note to Mike: I promise to take this post down if you'll drop by Fr. Jonathan Morris' church to say hi for me. He's at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in Soho.