Nick Huhn - Creative Versatilist

Having been tagged by Jason Falls earlier today, I am obligated to partake in his “thanks for the influence” meme. Although I start each day with a hackneyed self-composed ‘prayer’ (below), admittedly it’s been a while since I reflected on a deeper level.

“dear lord: thank you for my friends and family; past, present and future. thank you for blessing me with the skills, talents, abilities and opportunities to make a difference. may i use them to the best of my ability and to serve you. please guide me with your grace and be with those who need you most.”

I’m a lot more spiritual than i am religious, but I do try to give thanks for the many people and gifts in my life on a daily basis. (I mutter this to myself while I wash my hair - works for me. Except whenever I smell the scent of shampoo I feel compelled to pray. Don’t you love the human brain?) In no particular order and without even more tangential stupidity, here are a few folks that keep the wind in my sails and for whom I am most thankful this year.

1. My parents: Having put up with more shit than a colostomy bag over the last year+, their courage, tenacity, and ‘take the high road’ attitude on significantly varying elements of life have been truly inspirational to me. Sure it’s easy to tag your parents as the most influential people in life, but they have both fought remarkably hard to overcome some significant emotional and health-related adversity for far too long. Mom says she’s thankful that my sisters and I didn’t turn out to be ‘druggies’ or ‘losers’ like some of our old pals did, but I can only thank them for setting a good example and reminding us through thick and thin what was really important. As a new parent myself, I will inherit and build upon the solid foundation of values and moral perspectives. I love you, mom and dad, even though I don’t have the emotional fortitude to say it aloud.
2. My wife: While my parents could have easily spent their life savings on therapy during the last several months, Megan could have crafted a few dozen episodes of The Office (and Judge Judy perhaps) throughout her grueling 2007. Her ability to persevere through anything - and I mean absolutely everything - reminds me of what it means to be strong. Megan’s 2007 trials aside [she's moved on in many ways], I have to give thanks for her innumerable sacrifices as a new mom. Not only have I learned that my old bachelor pad laundry hamper actually doubles as a surface on which to walk and rest furniture, she sacrifices so much of her time and energy taking care of the unique needs of me and our new daughter. She’s completely selfless and modest unnecessarily, and I can’t imagine a better person to share my love and life with. Here’s to many more years of putting up with me and my quirks, and thanks in advance for the beautiful young woman that will take after her mom in so many wonderful ways.
3. Lin Sharpe, Linda Bunch, Gary Brunsman: Whether they know it or not, these three folks from several years back were awesome role models for me back when I was a clueless teenager working at one of the fastest growing pizza companies in Amurca. Linda was my first boss. Like most people with that responsibility, she had no idea what to do with me. But as a great parent and coach herself, she gave me plenty of opportunity to contribute in a variety of ways and gave great insight for my long term career. When I came to her during the summer of 1995 complaining that my friends got to make $6 / hr as lackadaisical lifeguards while I raked in the mad scrilla at $4.25, she reminded me that there was nothing lackadaisical about supporting the mission-critical I.S. needs of Papa John’s or me in general.
   Lin Sharpe took the reigns from there. A talented and cocky recent graduate of RHIT, he took me under his wing in a tough parent kinda way. “Screw up and it comes out of your paycheck,” he’d quip as I frantically figured out how to upgrade RAM, overclock processors and manage the LAN/WAN as sysadmin. I had no idea what I was doing at first, but his unspoken and at times condescending confidence in me led me to be meticulous and passionate about my contributions to the increasingly world-class organization. Lin probably has no idea he’s one of my favorite mentors; he might think I hated him in fact. Quite the opposite, so thanks so much, wherever you are today.
   Gary Brunsman was another supervisor of mine during my 5+ year stint at PJI. We worked together on papajohns.com as it evolved into an online ordering platform rather than a summer project in 1997. Suffice it to say that Gary was one of a few people that genuinely listened to me cared about me as an individual despite the pervasive, “oh isn’t that ‘doogie howser’ kid so cute?” stigma. I keep reminding myself that I was only age 15 - 20 when I did all that crazy stuff. Gary, unlike many, didn’t care: he was a friend first, mentor second, and supervisor third. He’s a super guy in general and we’ve kept in touch over the years despite our career and geographic moves.
   Thanks to anyone and everyone at PJI that contributed to my success and adventures as we grew from <500 to 2000+ stores. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have been a part of that entrepreneurial adventure. Priceless.
4. My ‘IRL’ friends: most if not all of my ‘in real life’ friends probably have no idea what exactly it is I have done for the last 5 years to keep food on the table. “Something with websites, i dunno,” is the best way they can describe what I do. It’s probably better that way so we can keep to reliving high school / fraternity / mutual friend stories rather than link-whoring and hawking beta invites to each other on second life. The array of attorneys, investment pros, real estate agents, marketing / sales gurus, and software geeks keep the conversation lively by chatting about absolutely anything but our respective professions. Unless provoked. In fact this is usually my only information channel for learning anything about sports, pop culture or epicurean pursuits. Thankfully most of you don’t maintain blogs or any Facebook profiles I can link to right now. You know who you are and why you’re important to me, I hope, and I sincerely miss being a part of a crew with my new obligations as a parent. BTW, when your kid links to or ‘friends’ me someday, I might have a frickin heart attack.
5. My sisters, Jackie and Leslie: Rarely do siblings get along as well as my sisters and I do. We weren’t all that close growing up (who didn’t pester the living hell out of siblings?!), but through our high school and college years we all bonded in some incredible ways. Maybe it was the beer I bought for them from time to time, or maybe it was simply an emotional coming of age for all of us concurrently. Regardless, they’re my best friends and confidants and will continue to be indefinitely. In fact, I’d love for Harper to have a sibling just so she can experience the love and hilarity my sisters and I share. We couldn’t be more opposite on so many dimensions, but just like my IRL friends, that’s what keeps it interesting.

Happy turkeytime to all. Thanks, Falls, for making me think about this and preserve it for posterity. I won’t tag anyone because I hope they do a better job of unplugging for the next 4 days than I will.