Your Nomination For Mint Director

red sox manager Bobby Valentine.

The Easter Bunny
Why? He has shown a real knack for success when it comes to distributing chocolate under the guise of a religious holiday and I think he would bring that same dedication and work ethic to the mint.

The Easter Bunny would allow an entire new generation of coin collectors to take notice should he be appointed Director of the Mint. Think about it for a moment if you will:

Millions of little kids needed to appreciate the significance of Easter Sunday but as life would have it, what little kid really wants to sit around and think about God and religion on a Sunday once church is over?

What about little kids that don't go to church? How could they also participate in this holiest of days? Certainly a Chocolate-Christ-on-a-Crucifix was not going to entice them so instead the Easter Bunny came along. And although the thought is nauseating, there is something enticing about a bunny ting magical colored eggs that have chocolate inside of them that has elevated this holiest of Sundays to where it is today.

Indeed, the Easter Bunny would produce a series of new Half Dollar Commemorative with iconic figures such as Willy Wonka and Milton S. Hershey. There would be a revised version of Capped Bust Coinage that you could peel away the thin shell, made of silver that can be scrapped, and enjoy the chocolate treat inside.

Yes, my fellow collectors and Americans, the Easter Bunny taking over the mint would be a fine idea.

Then again, maybe Bibiana would do a good job. Oh well, one can only dream...

Geeez, why not Dusty Baker? :-)

The Reds have 9 games to rest all of their pitchers before the playoffs start. Can't wait!

. . . . Bibi-whatnow? Sounds like a match made in heaven with my old compliance director, Baldev Bhogal. (Not kidding.) One of our auditors asked once how I'd learned to pronounce his name because nobody could ever get it right, and died laughing when I confessed the real answer: in my head, whenever I read his name I always hear Rod Serling gravely intoning "Next week, we find out! Will Superman defeat Baldev Bhogal, the newest menace of Metropolis City?"


I nominate JBUCK!!


. . . . actually, I have a nominee probably none of you have ever heard jack about, but I can back this up. His name is Neil Lambert, and if you've heard of my pop star crush on Adam Lambert, you can guess whose little brother Neil is.

BUT! I am not basing this on cuteness alone (although Neil is adorable). No, Neil was a poli-sci major whose major led him to become quite the pragmatist, and he came with a built-in set of brains; when Adam started his first tour, Neil asked if he could come along as a roadie. Adam said okay and Neil started out chucking cases onto trucks. By the end of the tour six months later he'd worked his way up into this weird position where he was part PR, part security, part roadie, and also Adam's production assistant (analogous in music to the theatrical stage manager--basically, he was second in command to only Adam, and he also happened to throw things onto trucks). If you wanted to get something done and Adam wasn't available, Neil would either get it done or explain to you very concisely why it couldn't happen--and when a technological disaster struck in Paris and wiped out a bunch of stuff fans had paid hard-earned money for, Neil was the one who masterminded the solution in only four days.

And--oh, sorry, did I mislead you into believing he did all this in six months? So sorry--all of the roadies from the US portion of the tour went home when Adam went to Asia. Neil pulled off that climb up the ladder in three months. So he was learning to read cues, operate a soundboard (as a former theatre major, I can't believe it took him less than a year to do this, much less only a QUARTER of one), talk to deejays and music execs, and control a crew of approx. 60 people--all while doing a completely different job. (Also, when Adam needs math for something, guess who sits down and sorts out Adam's befuddled, can't-do-this-math-thing alphabet soup of numbers? The fact that Neil can do the math isn't all that amazing, but the fact that he can make sense of Adam's math and then turn it into real math is exactly the kind of skill someone running the Mint needs. If you're wondering how bad the addition and subtraction of a 30-year-old man can possibly be, especially when he's trained in music . . . um, well. His math makes me feel better about my math, especially when he thinks "four hours" after 2pm = midnight.)

If he can do that, he can do pretty much anything. "Learning on the job" isn't even it. And the softhearted, softheaded sentimentalism that keeps the cent around and stodgily declares that we must have a nickel just as it has always been, so it has been, so it will be, is so alien to him he'd probably look at the board of execs, blink, and go " . . . are you KIDDING me? Can you do math . . . pretty much AT ALL? Give me one good reason we still have a one-cent coin and I'll let you keep it. ONE good reason. You don't even need two."


So yes. He isn't old enough to be President. He should be the Mint Director instead

Im super excited for the playoffs as well. Crazy how Dusty was having those mini strokes the last few weeks. Glad to see hes expected to make a full recovery

You think we are being rough on Bibiana Boerio? Just wait until the fourth estate starts digging into my background!