ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt gave the commencement address at Wisconsin-Madison this last weekend.
The challenge for you may come now when you’re confronted with this harsh reality that you can’t Google your life. There is no high speed connection for your hopes and dreams. You can’t just type doctor, lawyer, CEO and the space bar and hit “enter” and have that become your reality. And I know that you know that, but knowing it and dealing with it with any degree of grace is an entirely different animal altogether. It requires something in short supply at the moment, and that is patience. No shortcuts, ok? But oddly enough I think that’s the good news here, and I would encourage you to embrace the notion that the process of realizing the dream, the process of getting from where you are now sitting to where you hope someday to stand is the good part. It’s every bit as important as the dream realized – the old adage, “the journey, not the destination.” Because I think life is not about finish lines.
Such an easy concept to grasp, but a difficult one to live.
Van Pelt is one of the last reasons to pay attention to ESPN.
Apple came out with their new line of iPods today. They’re sure pretty and stuff.
I’ve been looking at PDAs the last several days. I need something with a calendar and e-mail access, but I have no desire to pay Verizon an extra $40/month for the privilege. WiFi is definitely the answer. It’s close to ubiquitous now, and will only get better as time goes on. So why pay the phone company for something I can get for free?
The Nokia n800 appears to be the best such device on the market today. The only drawbacks are it doesn’t have any sort of word processing or spreadsheet programs. It’s got contact management and calendar applications, but it’s primarily an Internet device. That’s nice and all, but it doesn’t quite get there for me.
The iPhone does a ton, but the lack of a spreadsheet program is a deal breaker for me. I’ve been using Open Office’s spreadsheet program for a while now and really like it. In fact, I’ve ditched Microsoft Office on the new machine and run Open Office exclusively. It’s a pretty sweet little suite.
What I think I’m gonna wait for is the rumored Google phone. I’m almost exclusively Google these days. I use gmail for my e-mail, google calendar to keep track of what I’m doing and what else is going on (if you haven’t loaded the Winter Hawks schedule into your Google Calendar, you’re missing out… I’m particularly excited about the 5am start on October 21…I’ll totally be there, likely drunk and pounding on the glass), Picassa for my photos, and Google Docs for my resume and other important documents. If The Googles can come up with a mobile device to keep me in touch with all this stuff, I’m there.
I know. I know. I said the exact same stuff about the iPhone six months ago (and I think I owe David Wright a beer), but this time I mean it. I’ll be first in line for the Google phone.
Andy, as usual, has posted excellent training camp recaps here and here and even makes some suggestions predictions as to who folks might see in Everett this weekend. Chip Petrino has apparently been let go by the club. He was a tweener last season and a guy who never made a big impression while on the ice. I kept waiting for #8 to do something and he never did. A good move by the Hawks? It’s more of an “eh”. Life goes on. I do wish him success where he lands.
The other name which kind of shocked me was Scott Gabriel. Shocked as in I’d completely forgotten he was still on the roster. And with the bumper crop of d-man coming to town (Welcome Brett Ponich! May your stay be long and productive!) I’m guessing we could see Gabriel in another uniform at some point. Packaged with a pick for a 20? Hmmmmm……
I didn’t make it down to camp this year which is a bummer. I had a blast last season watching a couple of games. It just wasn’t in the cards this time around. I’m curious to see how different Kromm is from Williamson. I read a couple of quotes about mental and physical preparation. How he wants “his” kind of kids. It’s all well and good, I suppose. But it’s all coach speak and I’d be shocked if you didn’t hear the same sorts of things out of Williamson. So what’s the difference? I don’t know. It’s all change for change’s sake.
The players, from what I’ve read and heard, have all come in motivated and ready to go. Several veterans were back in town a week early to prepare for the coming season. That’s a good sign particularly coming off what had to have been a depressing season last year. Mucha is a little taller andthere have been good reports on the new Euro. All good good signs.
So I don’t know about you, but I’m about ready for the puck to drop. My Oregon State Beavers kick-off on Thursday night to start the season. That means the Fall is just around the corner. Good times.
Oh! Almost forgot to mention. Some unknown party has created a Google Calendar for the coming season. It’s easily dumped into the calendar program of your choice. Makes setting your schedule a breeze. So a quick shout-out to the kind soul who put in the effort.
I received several Google hits today related to the passing of Fairview Councilor Jim Raze. I’m not sure why that is.
If you’ve come to learn more about him, you can do so here. You can read about his passing here.
My condolences to all who knew him.
