Steve Jobs & Albert Einstein wasted their lives...

I know that Steve Jobs was a genius and all, and that he even left plans to finally revolutionize TV, but I think he missed a biggie... and you will feel the pain in the next few weeks: The Holiday Shuttle Run.

Remember the Shuttle Run in school? Sprint between two lines ten feet apart, shuttling a pair of erasers back and forth, all against the clock.

Once you're married with kids, you learn that it was practice for the real-life Holiday Shuttle Run, in which you and your spouse sprint between your respective parents' homes on holidays. The kids are the erasers.

It is not easy meshing two families' holiday schedules to the satisfaction of all involved.

For us, Stacy had the hardest go of it. She has one unmarried sibling, which means dealing with her family's holiday schedule is easy. But I, on the other hand, have three siblings, each of whom is married to someone who also has siblings who also have spouses who also have siblings who also have spouses…  and all of whom have family holiday schedules to consider. Figure that out. You can't. No one could, except maybe Steve Jobs, who spent all his time tinkering with computers, or Albert Einstein, wasted his life working on the wrong Theory of Relativity.

Try explaining to your spouse that your brother's wife's brother's wife's sister needs to go to her new in-laws' this year, setting off a scheduling chain reaction resulting in you needing to be at your parents' house on Thanksgiving. Better yet, try working calendars out ahead of time so that everyone is, if not happy, at least understanding, of the resulting schedule.

THIS is the opportunity Jobs missed: some sort of "iHoliday Scheduler" that figures out optimum holiday schedules for all parties involved. You'd just plug in all of the family members and their respective scheduling needs (including ALL relevant holidays: Easter, Passover, Ramadan, the Burning Man Festival, Buddha Purnima, the Chinese New Year, Festivus, etc.), and sploot!, out comes a schedule that ensures that every family is represented equally in their allotment of precious holiday time.

But NOOOOOOOOOOOOO, Jobs had to waste all that time on the relatively insignificant global empire that Apple has become.

We'll all pay the price for his misguided career, again, over the next two months..