August 30, 2010 at 9:54 am
This is the baseball glove I used during my Little League career, which ran from about 1978 to 1981. You can still see my name and uniform number (#14) written there, along with “McGee Real Estate” — my dad was the team sponsor.
This is also the baseball glove that I used on Sunday during the Gesa/Tri-City Dust Devils Fantasy Baseball Camp & Game. I played third base, which is the position I played most often during Little League. It was just like old times.
I’m still sore but would go out there right now and do it again if I could. It was that fun.
If you want to see some of the photos I took on the field during the game, and hear about my personal stats, you’ll have to read more over here.
August 29, 2010 at 10:19 pm
Fairness is giving all people the treatment they earn and deserve. It doesn’t mean treating everyone alike. That’s unfair, because everyone doesn’t earn the same treatment.
Love this one. It’s the start of a section of the book called “A Leader Is Fair.” And it’s very true. I know it’s true in parenting. Kids always want to be treated the same way as their brother, sister, or friends. But sometimes they don’t earn the same treatment. It also applies quite often to us grown-ups, too.
If you don’t know what this post/series is about, see the John Wooden tag and specifically the first quote I posted.
August 22, 2010 at 7:03 pm
How on earth have I managed 12 years of home ownership without owning a leaf blower before now? Greatest. Tool. Ever. Only one downside: much less calorie burning via sweeping and raking.
August 21, 2010 at 10:10 pm
Hate to get all Tony Robbins here, but I put this on Twitter and Facebook earlier today and also want to mention it here and bookmark it via a blog post because I really believe this to be true.
Research shows what you say about others says a lot about you
In a nutshell, how you think about others and talk about others says as much about you as it says about them.
They discovered particularly strong associations between positively judging others and how enthusiastic, happy, kind-hearted, courteous, emotionally stable and capable the person describes oneself and is described by others.
“Seeing others positively reveals our own positive traits,” Wood says.
The study also found that how positively you see other people shows how satisfied you are with your own life, and how much you are liked by others.
In contrast, negative perceptions of others are linked to higher levels of narcissism and antisocial behavior.
The mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. If you’re attacking, criticizing, and saying hateful things about others … think about where it’s coming from.
August 16, 2010 at 11:56 am
I was going to do a blog post here listing a bunch of my pet peeves. Then I realized that my family and friends would take that list and use it against me. I’d never be able to avoid them. Ack!
So that idea is dead.
Moral of the story: Avoid blogging mistakes by thinking your idea through to its natural conclusion.
August 14, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Our summer-long contest between ground-based tomatoes and the Topsy Turvy planter is over, and it’s not even close. This contest was kinda like the New York Yankees against a local T-ball team. The tomato plants that we put in the ground in our front yard are dominating the Topsy-Turvy plants … not to mention dominating pretty much everything else that’s growing around them.
Have a look:
The tomato plant is on the right, and is bigger and wider than I ever expected it to be. It was growing so big that I had to cut the branches of the bush to the left. So far, we’ve pulled four red tomatoes from this plant and oh my goodness, are they delicious! When I counted two nights ago, there were 17 tomatoes growing on this plant right now.
Meanwhile, the Topsy Turvy planter in the back hasn’t produced a single tomato yet — there are two growing on it and getting red, but we haven’t picked either yet. And there’s no sign of any more tomatoes to come from the Topsy Turvy planter.
Traditional growing FTW.
August 11, 2010 at 4:57 pm
These:
Special K Bars. Only 90 calories each (as you can see) and they taste delicious. Totally not like granola bars, which I don’t like. These have flavor. They taste like something between cereal and and a Rice Krispie Treat (which I don’t like, usually).
We get the variety pack above — chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry — but we buy the blueberry separately, and those are the best.
Did I mention they’re only 90 calories each? Love ‘em.
That’s all. Carry on.
August 10, 2010 at 7:45 pm
The most essential thing for a leader to have is the respect of those under his or her supervision. It starts with giving them respect.
You must make it clear that you are working together. Those under your supervision are not working for you but with you, and you all have a common goal.
To repeat that last part: Those under your supervision are not working for you but with you. In order for those under your supervision to be working with you … YOU MUST BE WORKING, TOO. And that seems like one of the problems we have in society today: Too many leaders trying to lead, and not succeeding because they’ve stopped working.
If you don’t know what this post/series is about, see the John Wooden tag and specifically the first quote I posted.
August 9, 2010 at 10:34 pm
And I can’t stop watching them.
It’s weird. In a typical baseball season, I’ll watch the Mariners until about maybe 8:00 pm or so, when I come out to my office and get back to the day’s work. And then I’ll look for the score the next day. But for some reason, when the Mariners are possibly about to have their worst season ever, I’m watching a lot of games all the way ’til the end. It’s like I can’t stop watching. I can’t turn my head and look away. What creative way will they find to lose a game tonight? How will the broadcasters entertain themselves during this sleeper?
They’ve become the biggest train-wreck in sports. That’s gotta be why.
And Don Wakamatsu certainly deserved better than being fired today. If anyone deserved a firing, it was GM Jack Zduriencik. He’s the guy who built a roster with a bunch of guys that wouldn’t be good enough to play for any other team in baseball. He’s the guy who agreed to let Griffey come back for one more year. He’s the guy who thought Milton Bradley and Casey Kotchman were going to make the Mariners offense better.
The roster has been the Mariners’ problem all year long. The guys who spent most of this year batting 3-4-5 for the Mariners (Gutierrez, Lopez, Bradley) would be batting 6-7-8 on nearly every other team in baseball. If I knew on Opening Day that this team wasn’t gonna score any runs, why did so many other people expect Big Things? (The Mariners’ marketing dept. didn’t help things with those ridiculous commercials at the start of the year talking about the World Series, about Ichiro and Figgins being the best 1-2 hitting pair in baseball history, etc.)
In my perfect world, Zduriencik and Wakamatsu would have stayed together, taken a mulligan on this season, and started fixing the roster in the off-season. Oh, well.
I’ll say this: I bet Don Wakamatsu wins a World Series ring before the Mariners do.
July 26, 2010 at 9:43 pm
Some of you may recall that, earlier this year, we came very close to buying a new home. In a seven-day span, we found a wonderful home, fixed up our current house, and wrote an offer … only to have to walk away when we got bad news from our accountant about how much we owed Uncle Sam.
It sucked.
For me, probably the biggest attraction about the other house was that there was nothing behind it but mountains and sky to the west. I took this photo tonight. This is what could’ve been:
If we’d bought that house, that would’ve been our backyard view. Every night. I’d have sat with my laptop out on the back patio and been completely unproductive.
I showed the house to Cari’s mom a couple weeks ago when she was visiting. I think she agreed with me that the house itself isn’t all that grand.
But the view is something else.
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