You know every now and then I get hit with a wave of fear.  Nothing crippling.  More along the lines of uncertainity and I guess the fear of that.

What would I do if I lost my job?

What would happen if my mom or dad died (lucky enough to still have both)?

What happen to my children and wife if I die?  Or worse yet any one of them got hurt or died?

Perhaps this is normal as a Father and Husband?  It’s not like a dwell on it or am unable to do anything.

 Is this normal?

Carl Ripken Jr. was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this weekend.  MLB.com did a nice summary of his speech.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070729&content_id=2117722&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

Every baseball player today should be forced to watch or read his speech.  For that matter any pro or amateur athlete should too.

My wife gave me my first Harry Potter book shortly after our son was born.  She thought it would be nice for me to read it to him someday.  Though we haven’t done that just yet, my son and I have enjoyed talking about Harry and his adventures and watching some of the movies together (mostly the first one). 

I received my copy of the last book on Saturday and finished it on Sunday.  I do not recall ever feeling this much anticipation for a book before.  True I anticipated the arrival of the previous Harry Potter books and enjoyed them immensely, but I always knew another one was coming.  This time I knew the stories would be over, then what would I read?

Having read them all, most more than once I cannot wait to read them again with my children.  Harry’s adventures will be as classic as Stevenson’s or Tolkien’s.  Children for many generations to come will undoubtedly know them first through the movies but only those who will read the books first truly grasp the concepts that the author was trying to convey.

My wife has done a lot of very nice things for me over the years.  Giving me Harry Potter and his world was one of them and for that I thank her and love her.

There will never be another opportunity for me to read a Harry Potter book for the first time.  I’m sure over the coming years I will re-read all of the books again but you can only read a book once.  It’s like see a movie a second time, you know what happens and, although it might be a great movie, it’s just not the same as the first time.  A little something is lost.

Thank you Ms. Rowling for sharing the world of Harry with us.

Goodbye Harry. 

Thoughtful post today on LinkedIn Answers: Seeing Life thru the eyes of a 4 1/2 year old

What I really found most interesting were the responses.  Some cited “no time” while quite a few mentioned “going along to get along” as the reason why as adults we don’t ask Why questions.  I know I’m guilty but quite frankly, at least in my recent work situations, those who ask Why aren’t necessarily thought of as rational but instead as trouble makers.  Why is typically answered with “That’s the directive/decision/strategy”.  That is an acceptable answer but if you expect employees to rally behind something and give it their all then you need to answer their Why questions.  Remember you hired these people, so give them the benefit of the doubt and answer their questions.  I’m guessing as adults we don’t ask Why to often because it may also be seen as a sign of weakness.  You don’t know the Why but others do, what would my boss say if I don’t know Why.

Asking Why is natural.  When we stifle it we lose all around.  We lose innovation and discoveries.  We should all strive to ask at least one Why question a day and try to answer it.  Nothing too mind-blowing.  Think of what your child, nephew/niece, younger sibling. etc… would ask and then come up with an answer.  One of the LinkedIn responses pretty much sums it all up:

A child asks questions and expects that they all have answers. As we grow older, we grow used to the idea that some questions can’t be answered, or that they require such an enormous investment in time and energy that we can’t realistically hope to get (or understand) the answer. Enough of that, and we begin to ask fewer questions. Most people probably retain their curiosity (I think I do), just not the initiative to ask the questions when they realize that the answers aren’t readily available.

This is, of course, a grievous error, because some answers aren’t as difficult to come by as we assume. And by making the poor assumption, we fail to ask, and consequently fail to get an answer that might be helpful/surprising/interesting/etc.

- mclaus

HERO: From the Greek ἣρως, in mythology and folklore, a hero (male) or heroine (female) are characters that in the face of danger and adversity, from a position of weakness display courage and the will for self-sacrifice, that is, heroism, for some greater good, originally of martial courage or excellence but extended to more general moral excellence. 

Well he may not be Peter Petrelli, Hiro Nakamura or even Claire Bennet, but I’m thinking John Lovell just might qualify as a hero (read the story here).

In regards to Grandmother Rosa Jones’ statement:

“He ain’t no hero. He is a murderer and God will serve justice.”

I believe GrandMa Jones you might want to think that quite possibly God did serve justice that day.  You should be happy that His justice didn’t end up with your grandson dead next to his friend.  Your grandson, should he be ok, might get that second chance to turn his life around again.  Be happy for what God didn’t take away from you.  Be happy that at age 71 that Mr. Lovell’s eyesight may not have been what it was 20 or 30 years ago.  Be grateful Mr. Lovell didn’t have a second firearm.  I could go on, but mostly Rosa you need to be grateful that your grandson, who tried to rob a 71 year old man, wasn’t found lying face down with a bullet through his head.  Mr. Lovell isn’t the problem here.  He reacted to your grandson and his friend pointing a gun at him.  If it was me instead of Mr. Lovell, I’m sure I would have been found dead in that restroom because I don’t carry a gun.  What justice would you seek then from your God?  Be grateful that your grandson isn’t at least an actual murderer (that we know of).

Weekend in summary:

1. Red Sox win Friday night.
2. Coached baseball game.
3. Hosted a birthday party for my little girl.
4. Red Sox win Saturday.
5. Celebrated Father’s Day
6. Went to a baseball game with my family
7. Dinner out to celebrate birthday and Father’s Day
8. Red Sox win Sunday
9. Saved a turtle crossing the road
10. Did a little fishing.

That, by any definition, is a great weekend!

I’m fortunate enough to coach my child’s baseball team.  The league is one step above t-ball.  In our division basically the coach pitches to his team.  We do not keep track of strikes or balls and even bats each inning.  This is also the first year the children are introduced to the concept of ‘out’ and when they are out they need to sit.  Since it is still an instructional league and to keep play moving, if the ball is hit on the ground the batter tries for one base.  If they hit it in the air into the outfield the batter can take two bases.  There is no leading or stealing and we’re not supposed to keep track of scores.  Let’s be honest how accurate is a score where everyone hits and you can make 3 or more outs an inning.  It’s about teaching the kids about what to do and where to play.

So why the above description and how does the title of this post tie in?  Well there “has to be” a coach in every division who decides that his team doesn’t need to follow league rules.  I’m fine changing certain rules and other coaches and I have done it, but we agreed ahead of time, before the game begins.  This “coach” had his team taking as many bases as they can.  In this league, if you hit a ground ball odds are you could run all the way home each time.  What does that teach the kids.  In any other league you’re probably thrown out at first.  Now the “take as many bases” approach didn’t bother too much (he should have consulted with me first but oh well).  What really bothered me was that he did nothing to stop his kids who were on the bench from interfering in the game and preventing my team from making plays.  That bothered me and I said something to this “coach” about it.  He apparently didn’t see anything wrong with it.  “They’re just having fun.”  I mentioned that interfering with my team is not fun and besides there are league rules for hits and bases the runner gets.  His response was “do you want to teach them baseball or stop at two bases”.  My reply was teach them baseball.  He replied, “there you go”.  I told him that teaching players, let alone players on the bench, to interfere in the game isn’t necessarily “teaching them baseball” and reminded him that this was an instructional league.   We continued to play.  In that time I noticed that his idea of “teaching them baseball” was basically letting them hit the ball and run like crazy.  There seemed to be no concept of playing positions and team work (his team was pig piling each other to get to every ball).  His players continually tried to push or one-arm my players off bases to try to get them out.  And who would have guessed that the worse offender on his team was his son.  Way to go coach, you’re child and team are in for a lot of disappointments in life, you’re just one of them.

I can’t stand people like this.  I’m all for playing to win, but play in a league were the motivation is to win, here it’s to learn.  As evident by his team, the children still need to learn to play their positions and know what to do with the ball when they get it.

 It’s people like this that make me say people suck.  What an ass.

Just this weekend I heard the greatest thing ever.  No it wasn’t a joke.  No it wasn’t that I had won the lottery.  No it wasn’t my wife asking me for once for sex (that would be a sign of the apocalypse).

 The greatest thing I ever heard came from my son: 

“Dad you want to play catch with me.”

Two great things in life (not in any order): 

• A. Baseball 
• B. Your kids want you to play with them

It was a good weekend overall.