What a wierd opening day of baseball for 2008 — the Boston Red Sox and Oakland A's in Japan!
I am none of the following:
– an isolationist,
– anti-Japanese,
– against global marketing,
– anti-expansion, or
– a stiff traditionalist who can't accept change (well, maybe I am to some degree)!
It's just IMHO (in my humble opinion) — it's just plain wrong to to open the baseball season in any country other than the U.S. or Canada. Opening Day should be the official inaugeration of Spring and should make you yearn for the smell of freshly mown grass, the sound of the crack of a bat, the warmth of the sun on your face, the sight of the teams running onto the field for a "real" game, and the taste of roasted peanuts followed by a hot dog and later snacking on sunflower seeds with a large Dr. Pepper . . . wait, where was I . . . .
To have Opening Day start at 5:00 in the morning, played by teams on the other side of a very large ocean, no broadcast available on radio, etc. is just frustrating. To make it even more strange, after this initial series, both teams will come back to the states and have additional Spring Training games before the season resumes. This year, I will consider Opening Day to be March 31st when most major league teams take the field for traditional day games to start their season.
Commissioner Selig is now talking about opening future seasons in Europe and other countries. Please, can we all just take a breath and learn from this first and listen to the response from fans like myself. We can all win. Here's a proposal — send two teams to another location like England or Germany but have them play their series after the official Opening Day of most other teams, then give them a break to fly back, rest, and then continue with their season once their series is over. No wierd opening day of the season, but with every other advantage of having teams play meaningful games abroad.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
My personality profile
I took a DiSC personality profile recently and scored highest on "Steady" no surprise to me! My patterns are Agent and Specialist. Here's the description of a Steady: "Steadiness (Submission in Marston's time): People with High S styles scores want a steady pace, security, and don't like sudden change. High S persons are calm, relaxed, patient, possessive, predictable, deliberate, stable, consistent, and tend to be unemotional and poker faced. Stable, Cooperative, Predictable, Deliberate, Work in background, Diplomatic, Consistent, Good listener, Sympathetic."
My personality profile on Gary Smalley and John Trent's scale is "Golden Retriever."
What does a balanced Golden Retriever look like? Since Golden Retrievers have an eagerness to please others, they have a hard time saying "No." Therefore, their greatest relational need is to set limits and boundaries essential for their own well-being. Further, Retrievers need to practice confronting others. Turn your ability to feel deeply about negative things into a positive step, one where you think and act decisively.
On the SOCIAL STYLE Model™, my primary style is "Amiable" with high Versatility (I play well with others). My back-up or subquadrant is the "Driver" which means that I take charge when needed. Here's the description for an Amiable:
"Amiables are people-oriented, and care more about close relationships than results or influence. They usually appear warm, friendly and cooperative. Amiables tend to move slowly with a low time discipline, minimizing risk and often using personal opinions to arrive at decisions. Belonging to a group is a primary need, and Amiables may make every effort to gain acceptance. They typically seek to uncover common ground, preferring to achieve objectives through understanding and mutual respect rather than force and authority. When managed by force without relationship, Amiables appear to cooperate initially but will likely lack commitment to the objectives and may later resist implementation."
So, what's your style?
My personality profile on Gary Smalley and John Trent's scale is "Golden Retriever."
| Strengths | Strengths Pushed Out of Balance |
| Sensitive feelings | Easily hurt |
| Loyal | Missed opportunities |
| Calm, even-keel | Lacking enthusiasm |
| Non-demanding, patient | Push-over, taken advantage of |
| Peace maker, hates confrontation | Misses honest intimacy |
| Enjoys routine, dislikes change | Stays in rut, not spontaneous |
| Warm & relational | Fewer deep friends |
| Accomodating | Too indecisive |
| Sympathetic, good listener | Holds on to other's hurt or pain |
What does a balanced Golden Retriever look like? Since Golden Retrievers have an eagerness to please others, they have a hard time saying "No." Therefore, their greatest relational need is to set limits and boundaries essential for their own well-being. Further, Retrievers need to practice confronting others. Turn your ability to feel deeply about negative things into a positive step, one where you think and act decisively.
On the SOCIAL STYLE Model™, my primary style is "Amiable" with high Versatility (I play well with others). My back-up or subquadrant is the "Driver" which means that I take charge when needed. Here's the description for an Amiable:
"Amiables are people-oriented, and care more about close relationships than results or influence. They usually appear warm, friendly and cooperative. Amiables tend to move slowly with a low time discipline, minimizing risk and often using personal opinions to arrive at decisions. Belonging to a group is a primary need, and Amiables may make every effort to gain acceptance. They typically seek to uncover common ground, preferring to achieve objectives through understanding and mutual respect rather than force and authority. When managed by force without relationship, Amiables appear to cooperate initially but will likely lack commitment to the objectives and may later resist implementation."
So, what's your style?
March 2008 Scattershooting
I've wanted to write for awhile now, but I'm so busy! I decided that I would write here until I got a certain amount of things accomplished. Tonight, goal completed! Various things to write about, so here's some scattershooting . . .
The main thing keeping me busy at the moment is getting our house to sell! Lots of minor repairs, some yard work, painting, etc. Boy, I'm ready for this to be over. We're hoping to stay within our school district with a little more room for the kids to roam.
Gearing up for March Madness? This Oregon Urology clinic has a genius idea that some guys should gear down. They're pitching that guys need to get a vasectomy before the tourney starts so that you have 4 days of non-stop NCAA basketball watching without hassle! Genius! Here's the news article, here's the link to the actual clinic's news item. I was hoping to get the audio of the commercial that ran on the Eugene, Oregon sports station but I can't find it anywhere.
Collin got promoted to the rank of Bear in Cub Scouts -- way to go Collin!
Also, getting ready for fantasy baseball season with my buds in the northeast. I love reviewing the teams and players. I also like ranking the players in their positions. However, I sure miss live drafts! Everything in online now which makes the season so easy, but the automatic drafts where you have to rank every player in one big list is a whippin'! I don't want to decide now between Jake Peavy and Carlos Beltran -- I'd rather wait and see which top players are available at all of the positions and then pick the one I like best. After the automatic draft last year, I was left scratching my head over some of the picks wondering why it drafted the way it did. Oh well, it's still a lot of fun.
The main thing keeping me busy at the moment is getting our house to sell! Lots of minor repairs, some yard work, painting, etc. Boy, I'm ready for this to be over. We're hoping to stay within our school district with a little more room for the kids to roam.
Gearing up for March Madness? This Oregon Urology clinic has a genius idea that some guys should gear down. They're pitching that guys need to get a vasectomy before the tourney starts so that you have 4 days of non-stop NCAA basketball watching without hassle! Genius! Here's the news article, here's the link to the actual clinic's news item. I was hoping to get the audio of the commercial that ran on the Eugene, Oregon sports station but I can't find it anywhere.
Collin got promoted to the rank of Bear in Cub Scouts -- way to go Collin!
Also, getting ready for fantasy baseball season with my buds in the northeast. I love reviewing the teams and players. I also like ranking the players in their positions. However, I sure miss live drafts! Everything in online now which makes the season so easy, but the automatic drafts where you have to rank every player in one big list is a whippin'! I don't want to decide now between Jake Peavy and Carlos Beltran -- I'd rather wait and see which top players are available at all of the positions and then pick the one I like best. After the automatic draft last year, I was left scratching my head over some of the picks wondering why it drafted the way it did. Oh well, it's still a lot of fun.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Let it snow . . .
It's snowing in Texas and I love it! Colorado is one of my favorite states and I love winter sports, I just wish I had the day off tomorrow so I could play in it. We had just put the boys to bed when we realized it was snowing so we went and got them to look out the window -- how cool!
Top U.S. Cities and the 7 Deadly Sins
Forbes just published some interesting information on what they consider to be "America's Most Sinful Cities." The online version is complete with an interactive map of each of the deadly sins and the cities that they selected (using data compiled from various sources) .
They failed to make it easy by providing a list of the top 10 cities in each category, relying instead on the map. Also, I was looking for the overall top 10 cities but they only show the cities within each category. Interestingly, Las Vegas only showed up on the list for "sloth."
They failed to make it easy by providing a list of the top 10 cities in each category, relying instead on the map. Also, I was looking for the overall top 10 cities but they only show the cities within each category. Interestingly, Las Vegas only showed up on the list for "sloth."
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