Teaming Up
February 21, 2012
Try as I might, and no matter how much I practiced, I never became comfortable going to my left as a high school basketball player. I feel the same way about some of this job I have today.
If I’m asked a question about student eligibility, my response is usually quick and confident. The topic is in my wheelhouse, my comfort zone, my right hand.
But when I need to make a decision about information technology, a subject that didn’t exist when I started in this work, I need much more time and I’m more tentative with my answers. And it feels like I’m dribbling with my left hand.
Unfortunately, as time goes by, I’m faced with more questions that are in my area of weakness than my area of strength. It’s just the way the world works today, with everything tied into or revolving around technology.
Fortunately, we’ve assembled a team at the MHSAA office that includes staff for whom technology is not a thing. It just is. Like the air they breathe. They are as instinctive with their advice about technology as I am about the transfer rule.
Gratefully, there’s room for both of us in a modern enterprise serving traditional values.
Long Days
September 20, 2016
When I read, I prefer three types of literature:
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Fun, fast fiction – so I can read more than one page before I fall asleep at night.
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Well written, lively biographies of historical figures, especially in American history.
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Articles and essays about space.
The pieces about space almost always have the effect of putting my world in humble perspective.
For example, this summer astronomers in Chile discovered Planet HD 131399Ab. It’s 320 light years from Earth, in the constellation Centaurus.
This planet is unlike any other in the known world. It has three suns. And the planet takes 600 of our Earth years to orbit its main sun once.
One day on Planet HD 131399Ab is like 600 years on Earth.
So, if you think you’ve had some long days recently, think again. Ponder Planet HD 131399Ab and its nearly 5 million-hour day.