An Epic Afternoon

It is often said of sports well played that the difference between winning and losing is very small. Today--this fall--two high school field hockey teams showed just how slender that gap can be.


For the last four years the North Carolina Field Hockey Association championship game has featured Chapel Hill High against East Chapel Hill High. East won last year's title; CH won the two previous. This fall they played each other twice during the regular season. In the first game CH scored with four minutes left to win at East, 2-1. In the rematch, East scored in the first minute and held on to win 1-0. Each won their playoff semifinal 5-0. And today, on a neutral field, they played for another championship.

Sixty minutes of play settled nothing; CH came closest with a goal that was disallowed for striking a CH foot on its way in.*


The teams then began two ten-minute sudden death overtimes. To increase the possibility of a score, the sides were reduced from 11v11 to 7v7. With more space and tired legs, overtime usually tilts from one end of the field to the other, each side growing more desperate to knock a ball in or push it aside. In the final two minutes of the second OT--after nearly 80 minutes of level play--East got the golden goal, leaving our golden Tigers with nothing but the utter exhaustion of total effort for their reward.

It's easy to say since our girls fell one goal short, but it's hard to believe that one of these teams is really much better than the other. I will also add that it's easier to play in a game like this than to watch it. It was an epic afternoon. Congratulations Tigers for a season of excellence.

*One of field hockey's many arcane rules is that you can only touch the ball with your stick. And only the flat side of your stick, not the rounded one. And everybody's stick has the same side rounded--sorry, lefties. The most commonly uttered words at a field hockey game are, "So why'd they blow the whistle there?"

Sad Times

One of the plum parts of my job has been getting the NY Times delivered to my house. Before I started working for Vervago I knew zero about business, and reading the Times has allowed me to learn a great deal about how the world looks from the business perspective, as well as keep up with news about some of our biggest clients.

Then I started to have second thoughts. Most days I did not read anything more than the biz section, which meant I was recycling piles of paper that I had not used. So I switched my subscription to only the digital edition. But that didn't work either; I had plenty to read on my computer already, and most days I did not turn to the Times because of all that other reading. Also, I was already spending lots of time in front of the screen, and I needed to do some reading away from my laptop. It was not convenient to bring my laptop to field hockey practices and orthodontist appointments, and even if it were, my eyes needed a break from the back-lit screen. So I re-upped for the paper version and I have been a happy and portable Times reader again.


But now I have a Kindle, and I have signed up for the two-week free trial of the Times, and it is fantastic. All the mobility of the paper version, plus the "greenness" of the lack of paper, and I am hooked. I can take it anywhere, getting my break from the laptop, without filling my recycling bin. So this morning I called the Times and once again shifted to the digital-only edition (as kind of a backup, and to keep supporting the Times financially, and in case I can't kick my crossword puzzle addiction). The woman to whom I spoke was not happy to hear of my decision. When I told her I was replacing the paper with the Kindle version, but wanted to keep the electronic edition on my laptop as well, she informed me of the limitations of the Kindle edition (no stocks, crossword, only one b/w photo per story). I reminded her I was willing to keep the electronic edition as well as the Kindle. She suggested I might want to keep the Sunday paper "to get the best of both worlds." I declined. She put me on hold to process my request, but when she came back on she offered me 6 months of the Sunday paper at half-off. I declined again.

I realize the newspaper industry is undergoing a seismic shift in distribution model. I know we need to pay for good reporting. But the Times is clearly viewing the Kindle edition not as a new opportunity but as a cannibalizing of the paper version. I hope they are wrong, but I do not plan to go back to a paper newspaper any time soon.

Today's Thought about Single-Tasking: DWC

That's Driving While Cellphoning. I am going to try to end, or at least severely curb, this habit. This article from the NY Times scared me. Not only is it obvious that even talking on the phone--even with a hands-free kit--is dangerous to me, it endangers everyone else on the road too. It scared me as the father of one kid with a permit and another who can't wait to get hers--I need to model safe driving habits for them. Not only are the arguments in favor of DWC--you're attacking my freedom, you can't make stupidity illegal, the cellphone companies are "neutral" on the topic--all sound like what the tobacco companies said about smoking, or the beer companies said about drunk driving.

What's really frightening to me is to read that there's a tiny adrenaline rush when we are contacted electronically. As someone who has fallen madly for his iPhone in the 2.5 months I've owned it, who uses a 5 minute wait at the end of marching band rehearsal or field hockey practice to check my email, who now is lusting for a Kindle, ... wow, my addiction is worse than I thought.



I have already been practicing only dialing my phone when I first get in my car. But now I am thinking that the phone can stay on only in case there is a real emergency. I will answer only with my hands-free. If it's not an emergency, I end the call. I need to be careful, and I want my kids to be careful too.

Tonight's Experiment with Single-Tasking

By chance I heard that tonight our public radio station was airing a percussion concerto during its monthly broadcast of the NC Symphony, so I let Bobby know and we turned it on. When he called to me that the piece was beginning, I left my computer and headed into the family room to listen with him. Here was my chance to do one thing: listen to music.


Here's what I noticed. My eyes immediately went to the bookshelf, then to the DVD/videogame shelf. I noticed this, and closed my eyes to maintain focus on the music. I soon felt sleepy, so I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling. Eventually I started thinking about this post I would later write. I looked at Bobby, so was looking at the floor with his eyes soft-focused. I asked him a couple of questions. My eyes roamed back to the books and DVDs. I closed my eyes again. I got sleepy again. Back to the ceiling. I probably heard about 2/3 of the piece, maybe less.

I think this is going to be an important practice for me. I also think my mind could benefit from more regular meditation.

Destroying Myths about Multi-Tasking

So these researchers at Stanford wanted to see what made multi-taskers better than the rest of us at dividing their attention so adroitly. But according to a piece in today's NY Times, they discovered the opposite: not only do they not have skills the rest of us lack, but the better they thought they were at multi-tasking, the worse they were at it!


I am slowly becoming aware of how easily distracted I am, and I am taking some steps to change my habits. I have removed sidebars from my desktop--those rotating pictures and constantly-updating headlines were not helping my productivity at all. I got rid of the alert box that let me know every time I had new work email--now I check my inbox when I feel like it, thank you. I listen to music while working less often. I only dial my cellphone when my car is not moving.


Still to accomplish: shutting off the cellphone while driving; ending automatic send/receive in Outlook; not typing while on the phone (and its sister distraction, web surfing when phone meetings get slow) and eating while not reading the newspaper. This last one will be the hardest, because, especially when traveling, getting to read while eating is an indulgence: two of my favorite things together!

Ted Kennedy and the Power of Parallel Structure

I'm 46 years old, and today is the first day of my life that Ted Kennedy has not been a US Senator. It's natural for me to be drawn into the Kennedy mystique--born in 1963, seven months before JFK was assassinated, I am a native New Englander from an Irish Catholic family (well, partially--while my paternal grandmother was born Margaret Mary Murphy on Christmas Day 1901, I am equally proud of my Polish-American heritage, and besides my parents did not send me to parochial school). Nana had Kennedy books and photos in her home, as a kid I visited the JFK library in Boston, and growing up in New Hampshire gave me up-close exposure to politics. But Teddy had it tough--we all compared his obvious human frailties with the lionized and sanitized memories of his fallen brothers. In 1980 I was 17 and I worked for President Carter's reelection rather than Ted's campaign. In those days he had not yet learned how to bear the mantle of the Kennedy Mystique gracefully.

Reading and hearing his speeches these last couple of days has reminded me of Principle #1 of the Kennedy School of Powerful Oratory: parallel structure. I remember at least one high school English teacher (I think it was the fantastic Merle Drowne) using JFK speeches to teach us parallel structure, most famously "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

Ted built his reputation as a speaker on the use of parallelism:

Eulogizing RFK in New York in 1968: “My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.”

Conceding defeat to President Carter at the 1980 convention: “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

Supporting Senator Obama at last year's convention: “I have come here tonight to stand with you to change America, to restore its future, to rise to our best ideals and to elect Barack Obama president of the United States.”

There is no secret to this stuff--the Romans were using it a couple of millenia ago--but the power of rhythm and cadence to move us feels timeless. And now one of its greatest modern practitioners is gone. For all his personal flaws, Ted did more with his long life than I would have thought possible 30 years ago.

In Memory of Deil

Deil Wright died today. On the first Sunday Vicki and I attended Aldersgate United Methodist Church, right before the start of the first Gulf War in January 1991, Deil invited me to attend a men's breakfast. For many others before and after us, his kind spirit was how we went from being guests to being members at Aldersgate.

My fondest memory of Deil will be how, in a church softball game, if he came to bat with a runner on first, he always could hit the ball down the right field line, ensuring that the runner would make it Tleast to third. This spring he gave my parents and me Red Sox hats he'd received at a spring training game. I will wear mine in his memory. May his generous soul be at peace.


-- Post From My iPhone