Great! All we need is more vindictive mice! Reminds me why Mr. Jinks was right…
I hates meeces to pieces!
Archives (page 72 of 165)
I did it, I finally did it! After 15 years – yeah, yeah, I know – I did it! I had a physical on Friday. With Dr. Hussain. No, not Saddam HussEin…Hina HussAin! (BTW, it was the first time I’ve had a physical by a phemale physician…)
You’ve really gotta love a doctor who is (a) a comedian, (b) totally, brutally honest, or (c) all of the above. She did the whole examination thing (“look that way…cough!”) and then when she was giving me her “post-game” wrap-up, she said stuff like “blood pressure, bottom number a little high, heart, OK, etc. etc.” Then this…
But we need to jettison some excess tonnage!
Not “you could stand to lose a couple of pounds.” Not “eat a little healthier.” None of that stuff.
Jettison some excess tonnage!
She’s right, I know. And I got her OK to do the Y thing. And so far it’s paying off…down four pounds since last Monday! But jettison some excess tonnage?
10,000 comdedians out of work, and I get this one…
It’s a classical unwind tonight at the old “Just Charlie” hacienda! And what an unwind it is! Ottorino Respighi’s great symphonic poem Pini di Roma, The Pines of Rome! I first heard this great piece on the field, 1975, played by the very first drum corps I ever saw live and in person, the Muchachos of Hawthorne, New Jersey. It has been one of my favorites ever since! Tonight I’m listening to the greatest conductor who ever lived – Karajan – leading the greatest symphony orchestra in the world – the Berlin Philharmonic! Great stuff!
Here’s a little snippet from my favorite part – I pini della via Appia – The Pines of the Appian Way – but the snippet’s not even the best part of the best part. Know what I mean, Vern? You’ll just have to take my word for it, and find the rest of that section. Chances are, it’ll be a part of your “at bat” playlist, just like it is a part of mine!
“It does look on the surface as if it’s tongue in cheek or ironic,” says Jana Reiss, author of the upcoming book “American Pilgrimage,” a reputable, in-depth study of how Americans worship, sometimes in unconventional ways.
“But there’s a serious strain of spirituality” in some forms of Elvis worship, she continues. “The way some people interact with Elvis, and the way they visit Graceland, it’s the same dynamic that draws people to bona fide saints. There are people who say Jesus is in heaven helping people here on Earth, and so is Elvis, and it’s not my place to laugh at that. There are people who build shrines to Elvis in their homes, Web sites where people post their experiences of going to Graceland.”
Posted sans comment. You can take it from here…
Some quotes to chew on today…
I’ve said it a hundred times, a great library is the heart of a great university, and if we want to remain a big league university, we’ve got to have a big league library.
Throughout my life, I have always had the ability to concentrate on what has to be done and not worry about things I can’t do anything about. If I can do something about it, I go after it and try to get it done by giving my best shot. If I succeed, fine, but if I fail I put it behind me.
The players who have been most important to the success of [our] teams have just naturally kept their priorities straight: football a high second, but academics an undisputed first.
What are coaches? Number one, we’re teachers and we’re educators. We have the same obligations as all teachers at our institutions, except we probably have more influence over our young people than anyone other than their families.
…we’re dealing with emotions; we’re dealing with commitment; we’re dealing with discipline, and loyalty, and pride. The things that make a difference in a person’s life — pride, loyalty and commitment — are the things that make a difference in this country. We’re teaching them (student-athletes) the realities of the competitive life.
Just winning is a silly reason to be serious about a game. For a kid still in school, devotion to winning football games at nearly any cost may cripple his mind for life. Institutions of higher learning don’t have the moral right to exploit and mislead inexperienced kids that way.
The purpose of college football is to serve education, not the other way around. I hound my players to get involved. Ten years from now I want them to look back on college as a wonderful time of expanding themselves — not just four years of playing football.
I don’t think our uniforms look that bad. I think they say something to kids about team-oriented play and an austere approach to life.
Money alone will not make you happy. Success without honor is an unseasoned dish. It will satisfy your hunger, but it won’t taste good.
Not too shabby stuff for a guy who majored in English Literature at an Ivy League school, and who sits up half the night, as he did for years, doing ‘x’s’ and ‘o’s’ for the next day’s practice or next Saturday’s game, listening to opera.
You readers will remember that I am a Moleskine fanatic. I also use a plain ol’ paper Day-Timer. There are a lot of reasons for this decidedly Luddite attitude…
- I don’t need to learn some fancy handwriting scheme
- I don’t have to worry about battery life
- I can always leave a note for Redneck Pastors, telling them that our lunch has moved down the street
- And of course, the main reason I don’t have a Palm or whatever is that I have my lovely and gracious wife, who knows and remembers everything and comes with automatic reminders on by default.
But now this takes simple elegance to a whole new level. The guy who posted this on the Getting Things Done forums commented…
No paper. No batteries. Always with you.
Seth Godin points us all to Scott Hampton’s blog about changing what we do in order to change what we accomplish. He includes this great paragraph…
Sometimes I use this as an example when I’m at client sites. I tell them the moral of the story, too: “If you can’t change the little things in your methods, you’ll never change the big things. Pick something, make it better. Don’t worry if it is just a little thing. If you lather, rinse, and repeat that a few times, you will have made a big difference. BUT if you wait for everyone else to change BEFORE you will, remember that everyone else is thinking the same thing, and so nobody will change anything. Don’t wait for permission, or worry about doing something different, or invent reasons why you don’t have authority. Somebody has to make the first move. It might as well be you. Change your world, today.”
Seth, as usual, drives the point home with this question…
If you aren’t doing anything different, how can you expect to accomplish anything different?
This idea is especially relevant at the beginning of a new year, when we are evaluating and planning. So many of the “resolutions” we make never make it past January 2, and so many of the big dreams and plans we have for our lives, our organizations, etc. never see the light of day. Why? In large part – and I’m speaking from personal and painful experience here – it’s because we keep on doing the same stuff, while expecting a different outcome.
Somebody blogged earlier this week about their New Year’s resolutions. One the top ones was…
Change something without getting permission.
I like that. Do you want to change your world? Change something. Today. Now.
The Georgia Dome in Atlanta hosted three big games over the last four days: the Peach Bowl, the Atlanta Falcons‘ season finale, and the Sugar Bowl last night (hey, Gary…how ’bout them Dawgs?)
Anyway, it takes a lot to get those kinds of events to work – a logistical nightmare, at best. The Atlanta paper has this pretty cool time-lapse movie of what happened to get the Georgia Dome ready for each game.
For you guys and gals out there who have to depend on setup/teardown crews, this just might help you appreciate what they do just a little more.
There’s a pretty good article in the Atlanta paper about Georgia coach Mark Richt’s relationship with his dad. The article includes this line, which has become my favorite quote of the year, so far…
The same holds true for Mark, who knows that no matter what happens on the field or what is shouted from the stands, he can look down just beyond the 35-yard line and see a proud father who doesn’t care about the game but about his son who’s in it.
One day, maybe, just maybe, somebody might write something like that about “The Boy.”
Here’s some stuff that’s been sitting in my draft posts pile…
- New Year’s resolutions for bosses.
- Wanna live a long time? Mind your own business! Link via Randy Bohlender
- A church in the middle of the marketplace
- New Year’s resolutions for pastors
- Be patient with yourself. Link via Phil Gerbyshak