Safe. Humble home.
Drowsy future. A restless tome.
Silent beat of the night.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
A Maverick toward the tower.
Four imposers to the power
Silent must be the fight.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Little light. Little view.
Weapons of choice are few.
Douglas Adams would be proud.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Flee to the feel of air.
A place to die is there.
Two almost makes a crowd.
Buzz. Buzz.
Water kills as well as cotton.
Your choice of refuge ill gotten.
Sleep in the Irish Spring.
Buzz.
Stalked to the door of freedom
So ends the bloodly scrum.
The sounds of silence ring.
.....
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Friday, May 23, 2014
Win passive or Lose with Action?
Last night was my daughters first ever softball game. She's only had two practices. Both in a gym because of rainy weather. The practices had focused on the basics, fielding, hitting, positions. All the good stuff. my daughter was nervous but we had put in extra practice on our own and she was enjoying practice.
What we hadn't practiced for and what I rather embarrassingly hadn't prepared her for, was the drug that is win. It's siren song, it's taste which even quenches. What people will do to win. And do so completely within the rules.
The other team of under 10 year old girls had been told something so simple, so obvious and so well thought out that they were nigh unbeatable. Don't swing.
For many of the girls this is the first year that they have played kid pitch. Not unrelated, most of the kids have little to no experience pitching. 3 balls is a walk. 2 a strike out. If you want to win, bet on walks. And the other team did.
What made me most proud were two things; 1. My daughter identified the tactic early and tried to convince the rest of her team to follow suit. Good for the goose, good for the other goose in this case. The only drawback is that her team, in their gigantic two hours of practice time, hadn't really learned much about the strike zone. So it backfired. Poor girls would wait. Thinking a ball was coming, receive a strike and then swing like angry Amazon warriors at the following pitch.
I can't blame them. I'd have done the same. They had practiced and been taught to try and hit the ball. To make an effort. Now here was an adversary, who was winning by not trying to hit the ball. By not swinging at all. By just standing there and passively aggressively getting ten run inning after ten run inning. To be fair. It sucked.
Yet what the other team was doing wasn't cheating. It wasn't against the rules. In fact it simply showed they knew the rules better. And as I watched the frustration on my little girls face, not about the runs or the score or the losing but about the fact that she didn't have the chance to do anything, that the other team could win just by doing nothing, I began to wonder.
Yes. They won. But they never swung the bat. They barely did anything. It's not against the rules but it is against the spirit of the game? I honestly couldn't decide.
My daughter was very frustrated, angry and dejected after the game. She didn't understand how people could be rewarded for doing nothing. Even if it was the rules. They didn't try. They won by doing nothing. It didn't seem fair.
We talked and I'll admit I didn't immediately have a good answer. Because yes, I too felt there was some injustice in that they wanted to walk and not swing. But we worked through it, we let our anger and frustration out and we came to a conclusion.
The reason the other team won is because they decided not trying was more beneficial than trying. (Trying in this case meaning swinging) The only remedy was to make not swinging more painful than swinging. If the pitcher throws two strikes, the batter is out. (remember is U10 softball). So in an unexpected moment of fatherly joy my daughter made the most logical choice she could come too.
"I will become the pitcher. And I will strike them all out if they won't swing."
Problem solving. Crisis management. Ownership of a problem. Straight out guts.
I don't care if she wins or loses or ever becomes a pitcher. That moment of clarity. To see the problem and choose to be the one who fixes it, that. That is what sports can teach her.
I can't ask for anything more than that.
And I'll try not to get too loud when she strikes the kids out.
What we hadn't practiced for and what I rather embarrassingly hadn't prepared her for, was the drug that is win. It's siren song, it's taste which even quenches. What people will do to win. And do so completely within the rules.
The other team of under 10 year old girls had been told something so simple, so obvious and so well thought out that they were nigh unbeatable. Don't swing.
For many of the girls this is the first year that they have played kid pitch. Not unrelated, most of the kids have little to no experience pitching. 3 balls is a walk. 2 a strike out. If you want to win, bet on walks. And the other team did.
What made me most proud were two things; 1. My daughter identified the tactic early and tried to convince the rest of her team to follow suit. Good for the goose, good for the other goose in this case. The only drawback is that her team, in their gigantic two hours of practice time, hadn't really learned much about the strike zone. So it backfired. Poor girls would wait. Thinking a ball was coming, receive a strike and then swing like angry Amazon warriors at the following pitch.
I can't blame them. I'd have done the same. They had practiced and been taught to try and hit the ball. To make an effort. Now here was an adversary, who was winning by not trying to hit the ball. By not swinging at all. By just standing there and passively aggressively getting ten run inning after ten run inning. To be fair. It sucked.
Yet what the other team was doing wasn't cheating. It wasn't against the rules. In fact it simply showed they knew the rules better. And as I watched the frustration on my little girls face, not about the runs or the score or the losing but about the fact that she didn't have the chance to do anything, that the other team could win just by doing nothing, I began to wonder.
Yes. They won. But they never swung the bat. They barely did anything. It's not against the rules but it is against the spirit of the game? I honestly couldn't decide.
My daughter was very frustrated, angry and dejected after the game. She didn't understand how people could be rewarded for doing nothing. Even if it was the rules. They didn't try. They won by doing nothing. It didn't seem fair.
We talked and I'll admit I didn't immediately have a good answer. Because yes, I too felt there was some injustice in that they wanted to walk and not swing. But we worked through it, we let our anger and frustration out and we came to a conclusion.
The reason the other team won is because they decided not trying was more beneficial than trying. (Trying in this case meaning swinging) The only remedy was to make not swinging more painful than swinging. If the pitcher throws two strikes, the batter is out. (remember is U10 softball). So in an unexpected moment of fatherly joy my daughter made the most logical choice she could come too.
"I will become the pitcher. And I will strike them all out if they won't swing."
Problem solving. Crisis management. Ownership of a problem. Straight out guts.
I don't care if she wins or loses or ever becomes a pitcher. That moment of clarity. To see the problem and choose to be the one who fixes it, that. That is what sports can teach her.
I can't ask for anything more than that.
And I'll try not to get too loud when she strikes the kids out.
Monday, May 5, 2014
Minneapolis Comic Con 2014
I attended my first nerd convention when I was in grade school. A small underwhelming Star Trek convention in St Paul with my father. My second convention took at least another 20 years.
When I first heard of the Wizard World Comic Con coming to Minnesota, I was thrilled. Then there was the fact that William Shatner would be there. I was over the moon. Eventually, logic set in. The cost was too much. I couldn't justify the money for a picture, an autograph. Just material things I really don't need more of. That Bobby Labonte signed hat hasn't really changed my life....
But a good friend and I had talked about going, and she asked if I was going to go. So I decided to do one day. A day pass, try it out, see how it went. No huge expenditure. Just putting my toes in the water.
I totally regret not doing VIP. Nathan Fillion was there. Shatner was there. That might never happen again. Shatner/Kirk has always been a strange force in my life. Shatner reminds me of my father. But like the bizarro world version. My father is a very good man. But I've never seen him punch an alien. He's entirely too logical to sleep with a green alien. Let alone many.
Yet, Kirk was always like an uncle. A crazy uncle who was cool but not really always trustworthy or functional. I love my father. As a kid Kirk was the cool version of my dad. As I grew I realized that the logic, double talk, charm of Kirk was more my father than I had seen. I didn't really know my father as a person until I had him as a teacher. He was my dad. He wasn't a person. I saw him teach and in that classroom, in front of those students, talking about what he cared about. He was Kirk. That's another blog entirely. But long story short. Shatner holds a place in my heart.
I did get to see some great question and answer sessions. Sean Astin, James Marsters, Shatner himself. I loved every minute of it. Shatner answered four questions. He told amazing stories. I got goosebumps twice. I laughed hard. I saw other audience members frustrated by his circular story telling. It all worked. I loved it all. I wish I could have met him myself. Talked to him. I might have hugged him. So it's probably better this way.
But I do know that I will go again next year if there is another con. If there is someone I want to meet, someone like Fillion or Shatner, I will make the expenditure to do so.
When I first heard of the Wizard World Comic Con coming to Minnesota, I was thrilled. Then there was the fact that William Shatner would be there. I was over the moon. Eventually, logic set in. The cost was too much. I couldn't justify the money for a picture, an autograph. Just material things I really don't need more of. That Bobby Labonte signed hat hasn't really changed my life....
But a good friend and I had talked about going, and she asked if I was going to go. So I decided to do one day. A day pass, try it out, see how it went. No huge expenditure. Just putting my toes in the water.
I totally regret not doing VIP. Nathan Fillion was there. Shatner was there. That might never happen again. Shatner/Kirk has always been a strange force in my life. Shatner reminds me of my father. But like the bizarro world version. My father is a very good man. But I've never seen him punch an alien. He's entirely too logical to sleep with a green alien. Let alone many.
Yet, Kirk was always like an uncle. A crazy uncle who was cool but not really always trustworthy or functional. I love my father. As a kid Kirk was the cool version of my dad. As I grew I realized that the logic, double talk, charm of Kirk was more my father than I had seen. I didn't really know my father as a person until I had him as a teacher. He was my dad. He wasn't a person. I saw him teach and in that classroom, in front of those students, talking about what he cared about. He was Kirk. That's another blog entirely. But long story short. Shatner holds a place in my heart.
I did get to see some great question and answer sessions. Sean Astin, James Marsters, Shatner himself. I loved every minute of it. Shatner answered four questions. He told amazing stories. I got goosebumps twice. I laughed hard. I saw other audience members frustrated by his circular story telling. It all worked. I loved it all. I wish I could have met him myself. Talked to him. I might have hugged him. So it's probably better this way.
But I do know that I will go again next year if there is another con. If there is someone I want to meet, someone like Fillion or Shatner, I will make the expenditure to do so.
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