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15 septembre Living on a prayer Last night as I was trying to catch up with all of you I stopped by Spinning_Rey_Rey's blog and as I read through she mentioned Bon Jovi as something that made her happy. For whatever reason it instantly trigured a story that I hadn't thought of in years, and since she enjoyed it so much I thought I would share it with the rest of you.
I played on my high schools basketball team back in the day, and we were all extremely nervous as we were dressing out for a big tournament game. For those of you who played high school or college sports you know typically a locker room is a pretty boisterous place but the importance of the tournament had us very subdued. I was sitting in my chair when for some unkown reason I blurt out, " Johnny works out on the dock. Union's been on strike he's down on his luck it's tough." One by one everyone joins in until we all are singing Living on a Prayer. As soon as we finished singing we all bust out laughing, and even though we lost by 3 points that day probably played one of our best games of the season. It was probably the most fun I had during my entire high school athletic's experience (I played Basketball, Soccer, and I ran track as well).
For whatever reason I have always seen this as my slow clap experience. For those of you who have seen the movie Not Another Teen Movie you know excatly what I'm talking about. Hope all is well with each of you. Take care. 14 septembre Great experience First of all I would like to apologize to everyone for not stopping by your blogs recently and saying hello, but this has been one helluva week. I've been in Denver the last couple of days at a class titled Communicating in Difficult Situations for Managers , and that has taken up quite a bit of my days and nights this week. The class ended today and was one of the best management development classes that I've taken. The instructor always makes or breaks these "soft skills" classes, and this guy really had it on the money. What he did was introduced some interesting examples of situations he encountered, and then took us through several different processes on he could somehow resolve the situation. Alot of the time these classes focus on problem solution only, but he really emphasized becoming comfortable with working through the problem using a process that you were the most comfortable with. He really offered some really different ways to look at problems and solutions as well as how better to manage stress. Just a very informative class.
My favorite part of these classes is lunch on the company dime. I went to the ESPN Zone restaurant for the first time today and thought it was really cool. I'd like to go back there again on a football saturday or sunday with a group of guys and sit around have some food and a couple of drinks and just enjoy all of the gigantic tvs in a group. I also went to one of my favorite restaurants in dowtown denver a place called Marlowe's. If you get there at just the right time you can get a seat on the patio, which is on Denver's 16th street mall, which is just about the most perfect people watching venues in the state. A great class was only made better by some really good food.
I took advantage of the opportunity in one of our small group sessions in the class to continue to walk through my options in what seems to be my never ending career or career change (get my doctorate in history so that I can teach History at a small college) debate. Ang really encourages this because she knows it something that I would really love to do. She would really like to return the favour to me, because I really encouraged her to leave her job to pursue photography and then to start-up her own company once Ellyanna was born. It was good to talk through the issues involved with this with people who really had nothing at stake, because I got some really interesting questions posed to me and it really made me think about a number of issues that I had never really considered until the last couple of days.
I'm interviewing again tommorrow, and after my interviews I'm going to go to a book reading and signing at the tattered cover bookstore. Sussanna Clarke will be discussing her book Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell which was my favorite book of 2004. It's been released to paperback recently , and so she is doing the book tour to promote the paperback. If you enjoy fantasy novels then this one is a great one to pick up.
Well I should stop now so that I have time to go by each of your blogs and catch up with whats going on with all of you. Hope all is well. Take care. 11 septembre 4 years later I can't believe it's been four years since the towers fell. Like all of you I know I will never forget the day. It was my scheduled day off, and I was asleep when the phone rang. It was Ang. She apologized for waking me up, but that everyone at work was talking about a plane flying into one of the world trade center towers, and that I should go turn on the news. I turned to CNN and sat there stunned as I saw the second plane hit the tower live. Ang had put the newspaper on the coffee table for me, and at that moment I put it in the trash because I knew at that moment whatever was supposed to be important just wasn't anymore. In a way I wish I would have kept that newspaper just as a symbol. I like many of you kept the paper dated September 12th. I keep newspapers that have historical significance to them so that years later I can go back and read about what we thought at the time. Now I keep them because I think they'll be important for Ellyanna to have as she grows up.
LIke the rest of you I have other events that I can remember ever detail of what I was doing before they happened. Until the planes hit the towers the most significant to me was the Challenger explosion. I was in seventh grade at the time. I was in history class, and had to go to the bathroom. As I was getting a drink of water the class clown walks up to me and tells me that the shuttle had just exploded. I looked at him and told him not to joke about stuff like that, and with a straight face he tells me that he's not kidding that they were watching the launch in science class. Maybe five minutes later a PA announcement asked us all to go to the auditorium where the first shuttle disaster was announced to us.
The other moment is something probably none of the rest of you even remember and in truth I don't know why it was such an important moment for me, but for whatever reason the moment that I heard that Magic Johnson had contracted HIV was one I'll never forget. It was my freshman year of college. I was sitting at my desk in my dorm room studying for a Western Civilization quiz I was to have the next day. As the radio cut from music to the on the hour news report my head went up to listen to whatever might be new in the world. I'll never forget the way my jaw dropped when the news anchor made the announcement about Magic. I think that moment was surreal for me because I had grown up thinking that this was a disease for the homosexual community, and that heterosexuals were somehow immune. I'm not proud of the fact that I ever thought that, but my preconceived world certainly changed that day.
I'm sure there are a thousand things I could say about each and everyone of those events right now, but there significance, at least the first two anyway, have been discussed debated and mourned so much that I don't think I could say anything that hasn't already been said. Of course now along with these other events we can add to that the greatest natural disaster in our nations history. Katrina is still too fresh in my mind the images too bold and new. I just don't think I can say any more about that one yet. Take care
9 septembre supreme courtI finished reading What Kind of Nation yesterday and started another non-fiction book called Shattered Nation. It’s a history of the Confederacy as well as a history of the reconstruction era south. I’m not typically a huge civil war buff but the approach that the woman took in her introduction intrigued me enough to pick it up. Back to What Kind of Nation it’s been really interesting reading in the paper about how the late William Rehinquist helped write many of his descisions as well as seeing how they contrasted in other areas such as unity. One of the books written about Rehinquist is called the divided court because of the abundance of 5-4 decisions during his tenor as Chief Justice. In contrast John Marshall’s court is remembered for the number of unanimous decisions that the court reached. Many of them were when he was the only member of his political party on the court. It’s also been interesting learning how the roles of the judiciary and the federal and state governments developed by rulings in very different cases none of which seemed terribly important at first glance. More importantly it’s been interesting thinking on how each of those decisions seem innocent enough now in our era of a clearly defined America (in relative terms to the early republic anyway),
I’m probably one of the few people looking forward to watching the confirmation hearings on CSPAN. I remember watching the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings during my freshman year in college (1991), but I remember them more for Anita Hill than for anything he had ever written or said. I’m also eager to hear on whom the president will give his second nomination too. With two other judges ages reaching into there 70’s I guess I’ll be really surprised if Bush doesn’t get a third nomination before his term is up.
Well as for other stuff it should be a good weekend. Ang has got a couple of photo shoots on Saturday and Sunday and we'll squeeze the company picnic at the Colorado Rockies on Saturday for good measure. Before I jumped on here I spent some time dinking with my fantasy football teams (I have two), and since my senior year of college my college friends and I have been picking pro-football games each week. We used to pick via email then it became too much of a choir for whoever was incharge of tallying the votes now we use a yahoo service to do it for us. We have a great time with it. Unfortunately I have never won the picks. I always forget to pick one week and that becomes my automatic disqualifier. Last year I picked every week and lost anyway so no excuses. Well I hope you all have a great weekend. Take care
7 septembre alot going onIs it just me or does it seem like there is more going on right now in global and national events at one time that at any other point in recent history. We have wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a potential conflict with Iran, continuing negotiations/conflict with North Korea, confirmation hearings for a new supreme court justice, appointment of a Supreme Court Chief Justice, the tragic flooding in Mississippi and New Orleans, the ever increasing energy prices (most specifically gas), and this month usually kick starts the mid term election campaigns officially. 2005 has certainly been an eventful year, and I’m just curious if anyone can remember a year other than 1968 when the nation had this much going on at one time. I did a moderate amount of research and I couldn’t come up with a year that even came close to this one, but I’d like to hear opinions on this one.
I got some very interesting family news on Saturday. My brother is getting married in December and not to the girl that he came out here with in July. That was the really shocking part to us anyway. Ang does a much better job than I could laying it all out in her blog so click the link for all the details. Also check out the two newest pictures in her photo album. She’s becoming a photo-shop expert and she did some really cool stuff with the photos she took at the Harry Potter mid night madness release back on July 16th.
I’m totally stoked that tomorrow kicks off the regular season for NFL football. My only complaint is that I’m going to be at work instead of at home watching the game. No biggie I’m off all weekend long so I’ll be able to catch games on Sunday. Unfortunately my team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are probably going to have another bad season. I guess thats why they play the games though, I mean last year everyone predicted San Diego to finish last and they won there division. There is always hope at the start of every season. I’m also stoked about Ohio State v/s Texas on Saturday. Whenever you can see teams ranked #6 and #2 in the nation respectively play this early in the year it’s a really fun thing. Ang has got a couple of photo shoots this weekend so I won’t feel too guilty watching football’o’plenty while she is away.
Thanks for everyones responses on my little ethics study. I just find choices where no one is watching really interesting. Hope all of you are doing well. Take care. |
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