When boarding a plane please do not act as if you are the only person that matters, and that your carry on luggage is the prized possession of Queen Elizabeth!! Try hard not to pull someone else's carry-on out of the overhead and throw it to the floor to make room for your own. When a somewhat quiet, sheepish gentlemen tells you calmly that the garment bag you just threw on the floor is his you may not want to yell at him for not speaking up and claiming it when you asked everyone who's bag it was. When this same gentlemen inquires where you are going to now put his garment bag try hard not to snap at him and tell him that it will have just as much space as it did where it was before you ripped it out of the overhead, if that were true you would not have had to move it in the first place. When all of this chaos is over, and YOU are satisfied that YOUR piece of luggage has been accommodated please try to resist the urge to shove another gentlemen on the back of the shoulder because you want him to get up so you may take your middle seat.
Yes, I did witness a woman doing just this, and I have grossly understated it, on my flight from Baltimore to Denver on Thursday. No one said a great deal to her because I honestly believe that we were all in shock. The gentlemen who was the owner of the garment bag deserves a gold star for not strangling this woman in the aisle.
Traveling is difficult enough, and especially air travel these days, without people taking their issues, inadequacies, or self-loathing out on those around them. OK, maybe that was a bit harsh, but this woman was an absolute piece of work.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
Saturday, July 7, 2012
The Right Stuff
It is late, where I am from, an very late where I am, so this will be short and to the point.
Why do people find it so hard to do the right thing??!!
I have been told many, many times in my life that I am "TOO" black and white. I have amended this to being too black and white in a grey world, but there are plenty of examples where there is right and wrong and nothing in between and yet people still have trouble finding right.
If you find someone's wallet and there is one thousand dollar in it, credit cards and ID what do you do? Return it to its owner. OK, that one was easy!! If you are a kid and you see a bully picking on another kid what do you do? Come to the aid and defense of the weaker student, or get a teacher to do so. That one is easy too!! In the case of the older woman who was bullied, that is putting it nicely, on the school bus, stand up for her, get the bus driver to step in, or notify your teachers/principal when you get to school. That one is obviously tougher because there is "group think," and peer pressure and so on, but still the right thing must be done.
These are fairly simple examples of every day right and wrong. In the past few weeks I have had some more specific examples of people not stepping up and doing what is right, moral, civil, kind, caring. In each of these cases the appropriate action was, and still is, plainly obvious to any and all that have been queried on these matters, and yet the actions taken have been anything but appropriate.
Right, correct, kind, appropriate, is not that hard to determine more often than not. Just step up and do what is right, not what is easy, popular, best for you personally.
"The good of the many outweighs the good of the few or the one." It is amazing how often these words from Spock can guide us appropriately.
Why do people find it so hard to do the right thing??!!
I have been told many, many times in my life that I am "TOO" black and white. I have amended this to being too black and white in a grey world, but there are plenty of examples where there is right and wrong and nothing in between and yet people still have trouble finding right.
If you find someone's wallet and there is one thousand dollar in it, credit cards and ID what do you do? Return it to its owner. OK, that one was easy!! If you are a kid and you see a bully picking on another kid what do you do? Come to the aid and defense of the weaker student, or get a teacher to do so. That one is easy too!! In the case of the older woman who was bullied, that is putting it nicely, on the school bus, stand up for her, get the bus driver to step in, or notify your teachers/principal when you get to school. That one is obviously tougher because there is "group think," and peer pressure and so on, but still the right thing must be done.
These are fairly simple examples of every day right and wrong. In the past few weeks I have had some more specific examples of people not stepping up and doing what is right, moral, civil, kind, caring. In each of these cases the appropriate action was, and still is, plainly obvious to any and all that have been queried on these matters, and yet the actions taken have been anything but appropriate.
Right, correct, kind, appropriate, is not that hard to determine more often than not. Just step up and do what is right, not what is easy, popular, best for you personally.
"The good of the many outweighs the good of the few or the one." It is amazing how often these words from Spock can guide us appropriately.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Idiots Abound
So there are a number of things that I have found out along the way being on college campuses of late that absolutely blow my mind and make me wonder how we seem to be getting exponentially more asinine with each generation. The proof here should be that students will openly discuss/explain this behavior, proudly I might add, in a classroom setting.
First, "beer pong." The name of the game should suggest this would be a game similar to ping pong but with beer involved in some way. Refresher, ping pong is played on a table with a net, not unlike tennis, and paddles instead of rackets. At some point along the way someone at Dartmouth College, the inspiration for the movie Animal House, I should say movie classic, decided that if you put a cup at either end of the table and fill it with beer the game could get more interesting. Like most drinking games, beer pong was created to bring sport into the weekend festivities on a college campus. The rules were incredibly simple, hit the cup, in the natural course of playing ping pong and when the point is ended that player has to take a sip of beer. Sink the ball in the cup and not only do you get a point in the game, but that player then has to chug the beer. Ping pong is a fun game with a group of people and since the ping pong table is always in the basement of the fraternity, as is the keg (s), only made sense to combine the two activities.
Again, point of beer pong in the 80s: have some beers with friends while playing a time honored game.
Fast forward to the beginning of the 21st century, Stanley Kubrick's century, and you will find that the tables have been taking out of the stale beer, sticky floored basements of fraternities, and have been replaced on lawns on college campuses across the country by anything college students can find, even the bathroom door, laying across two saw horses, or anything else similar. The net is gone and the paddles are no longer used. Also, the one cup has been replaced by 10 cups on each end, and this is no longer the same game with the same purpose. The purpose is now to throw, or drop, the ping pong ball, nice of them to at least keep that token in the game, into one of the ten cups on the other end of the table, door, and every time you do the other team has to chug a beer, both players. The game takes less time, and 10 time the beer is consumed as before.
Point of the game: get as drunk as possible as fast as possible in order to relieve all parties present of their inhibitions and maybe more importantly their responsibility for their own behavior.
Results, as told by students in classes I have been teaching on a college campus that remain nameless:
First, "beer pong." The name of the game should suggest this would be a game similar to ping pong but with beer involved in some way. Refresher, ping pong is played on a table with a net, not unlike tennis, and paddles instead of rackets. At some point along the way someone at Dartmouth College, the inspiration for the movie Animal House, I should say movie classic, decided that if you put a cup at either end of the table and fill it with beer the game could get more interesting. Like most drinking games, beer pong was created to bring sport into the weekend festivities on a college campus. The rules were incredibly simple, hit the cup, in the natural course of playing ping pong and when the point is ended that player has to take a sip of beer. Sink the ball in the cup and not only do you get a point in the game, but that player then has to chug the beer. Ping pong is a fun game with a group of people and since the ping pong table is always in the basement of the fraternity, as is the keg (s), only made sense to combine the two activities.
Again, point of beer pong in the 80s: have some beers with friends while playing a time honored game.
Fast forward to the beginning of the 21st century, Stanley Kubrick's century, and you will find that the tables have been taking out of the stale beer, sticky floored basements of fraternities, and have been replaced on lawns on college campuses across the country by anything college students can find, even the bathroom door, laying across two saw horses, or anything else similar. The net is gone and the paddles are no longer used. Also, the one cup has been replaced by 10 cups on each end, and this is no longer the same game with the same purpose. The purpose is now to throw, or drop, the ping pong ball, nice of them to at least keep that token in the game, into one of the ten cups on the other end of the table, door, and every time you do the other team has to chug a beer, both players. The game takes less time, and 10 time the beer is consumed as before.
Point of the game: get as drunk as possible as fast as possible in order to relieve all parties present of their inhibitions and maybe more importantly their responsibility for their own behavior.
Results, as told by students in classes I have been teaching on a college campus that remain nameless:
- Two separate women from two different classes and two different houses on campus both told stories of falling down their stares over Halloween weekend and not remembering a thing, waking up bruised and sore and having to be told by "friends" what happened. The stories were eerily similar and both "women" were proud to be telling these stories.
- College students have come to believe that once a "friend," or stranger for that matter, passes out at a party, if their shoes are on then they are "fair game." This is the one that really disturbs me. This means that they can be, and will be more often than not, written on in permanent marker, drawn on, tied up, duct taped, stripped, moved out to the front lawn...and this is the short list.
Common human decency is gone on college campuses across the country. I have good friends coaching in colleges from Denver to DC and back and although you would hope it would be different at the so called "better" schools, the Stanfords, the Dartmouths and so on, and unfortunately, if anything it is worse. Apparently stupidity knows no economic barriers. I will tell you that I have seen parents that are just as bad or worse, and so you can see where it came from, but it is still troubling. As a coach all I can do is have the conversations, share my views, and enforce rules put in place and then hope that we can affect some change.
I will tell you that the courses were actually stats courses that I have taught in multiple places and thus what is above is actually a combination of stories told in class as part of "ice breakers," and information that came out as part of group projects and presentations. I have also been close enough to my players over the years to have seen some of this behavior while trying to remove players from these situations.
College students should have fun, enjoy the "college experience," and build lasting friendships and memories. I just wish more of these friendships and memories didn't require an ensemble to tell the story because the individuals have trouble remembering in total.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Be Nice
"If somebody gets in your face and calls you a cocksucker, I want you to be nice. Ask him to walk. Be nice. If he won't walk, walk him. But be nice. If you can't walk him, one of the others will help you, and you'll both be nice. I want you to remember that it's a job. It's nothing personal. I want you to be nice until it's time to not be nice."
Every time I hear the phrase "be nice," or say the same to one of my players, I hear Patrick Swayze saying it over and over in the above quite from the movie Road House.
It is funny because yesterday at the back I tried to hold the door for a gentlemen that had ridden up on his bike at roughly the same time and he shook me off and looked at me like I had done something wrong. The last time I flew I helped a short, older woman with her bags and the young woman sitting in my row acted as if I had just saved a life.
Imagine what this planet would be like if everyone on it did just one "nice" thing for someone else every single day. Now imagine what this planet would be like if everyone did everything nice they could for everyone they came across during the course of the day.
I am not talking about anything difficult, I am talking about opening doors, picking something up for someone that they have dropped, or here is a big one, say excuse me when you walk in front of someone that is conversing with someone else in public. There are a number of little things, call it manners, call it being polite, call it upbringing, that we all could do during the course of the day that used to be common place and need to be again if we are going to save our country and our planet!!
Every time I hear the phrase "be nice," or say the same to one of my players, I hear Patrick Swayze saying it over and over in the above quite from the movie Road House.
It is funny because yesterday at the back I tried to hold the door for a gentlemen that had ridden up on his bike at roughly the same time and he shook me off and looked at me like I had done something wrong. The last time I flew I helped a short, older woman with her bags and the young woman sitting in my row acted as if I had just saved a life.
Imagine what this planet would be like if everyone on it did just one "nice" thing for someone else every single day. Now imagine what this planet would be like if everyone did everything nice they could for everyone they came across during the course of the day.
I am not talking about anything difficult, I am talking about opening doors, picking something up for someone that they have dropped, or here is a big one, say excuse me when you walk in front of someone that is conversing with someone else in public. There are a number of little things, call it manners, call it being polite, call it upbringing, that we all could do during the course of the day that used to be common place and need to be again if we are going to save our country and our planet!!
Common Sense Won't Kill You
OK. It has been a while since I have had time to post, and thankfully there have been no shortage of stupid acts in that time to inspire me. This one however takes the cake.
I have been out of town a great deal of late, so little things like going to the grocery store in the evening to pick up a few things is enjoyable. One night last week as I came out of the store, around dusk, something in the corner of the parking lot caught my eye. I put the grocery bags in the car and then stood there for a minute trying to figure out what it was. As the object that caught my attention began to gain altitude I realized that this was a very small, home made, hot air balloon. It appeared to be a linen or paper construction and what had caught my eye was the lighting of the heat source at the base of this balloon.
Now, I love balloons, and I even think fire is kind of cool, but obviously there is a time and a place. The time is definitely not around the first day of summer as forest fires rage in Colorado and the foothills here have been described as "fuel, waiting for a spark." The place is most definitely not in a grocery store parking lot less than half a mile from the base of said foothills.
I hope that this "air craft" landed without incident, or better yet didn't land at all and is now sending photos from space back to earth, but I somehow doubt that.
A little common sense can go a long, long way!!
I have been out of town a great deal of late, so little things like going to the grocery store in the evening to pick up a few things is enjoyable. One night last week as I came out of the store, around dusk, something in the corner of the parking lot caught my eye. I put the grocery bags in the car and then stood there for a minute trying to figure out what it was. As the object that caught my attention began to gain altitude I realized that this was a very small, home made, hot air balloon. It appeared to be a linen or paper construction and what had caught my eye was the lighting of the heat source at the base of this balloon.
Now, I love balloons, and I even think fire is kind of cool, but obviously there is a time and a place. The time is definitely not around the first day of summer as forest fires rage in Colorado and the foothills here have been described as "fuel, waiting for a spark." The place is most definitely not in a grocery store parking lot less than half a mile from the base of said foothills.
I hope that this "air craft" landed without incident, or better yet didn't land at all and is now sending photos from space back to earth, but I somehow doubt that.
A little common sense can go a long, long way!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)