My wife, Christine's sister, Janet Thiel, is a centerfold. Actually, Christine's first cousin, Jeana Tomasina, was a Playboy Playmate of the Month centerfold back in the eighties.

We have a lot of those issues. I read Playboy for the same reasons I read National Geographic. Great big full-page color pictures of places I ain't ever going to visit.

Jeana is now one of the stars on Real Housewives of Orange County, which appears on the Bravo Channel.

Jeana Keough, a 40-something former Playboy Playmate and actress, is now the wife of former major league baseball pitcher Matt Keough and their son is about to begin playing minor league baseball in California.

Having a Playmate of the Month in the family is like having a bank robber in the family. You're not sure whether you should be proud or not.

Be that as it may, the notoriety of being a Playmate of the Month and television star has some intrinsic value, if for no other reasons than bragging rights. (Ah yes, the redneck Alpha male in me is coming out).

Christine's sister Janet is also a centerfold, but she was a different kind of centerfold. Janet was a member of the Cool Max Iron Man Triathlon Team. She and her teammates were featured as a centerfold in a number of magazines promoting Cool Max.

Janet no longer competes as much as she once did, but doing the Iron Man requires tons of training and preparation. The true Iron Man Triathlon has the participants swimming for four miles in the ocean. When they get on land, they get on a bicycle and peddle for 112 miles.

Then, as if they aren't already worn plumb out, they run a 26 and a quarter mile marathon. I'm fond of saying, "Janet's light is on but nobody is home." She did that several times per year back in her peak competition years.

Janet's real forte was swimming. She attended College of Charleston on a swimming scholarship and that was her real strength. After college, she went to work at the V. C. Summer Nuclear Plant where she was involved with security.

Many days she would run to work, swim at lunch and then bicycle home at night just to get her workout in. The next day, she would reverse the process. That takes commitment.

It occurs to me that you really have to be committed to what you're doing to invest that kind of time and effort into something. Are you as committed to your vocation as Janet Thiel was to her avocation?

It takes that kind of dedication to succeed at anything you do in life, whether it is being a centerfold for Playboy or a centerfold for Cool Max. I admire that in other people and would hope that I have that kind of dedication to my own vocation or avocation.