Hi, folks. Just wanted to update you all on what's going on in my life. Coaching is still going very well. We're into the actual season now with our first game having been Friday night. It didn't go so well as we ended up losing by 16. The other team played an aggressive game while LCA, to say the least, did not. Unfortunately, there isn't much practice time now to change a lot of things. We have three more games this week so the guys are going to be forced to grow up fast! It's delightful to be out on the court again and to be coaching. There's just something about working with kids in a situation like that, that I really love. It also helps that I occasionally get the opportunity to play in practice. How can you say no to playing? I'm also starting to really like the challenge of having to come up with ways to make these guys better thinkers, players and people. The mysteries of motivation and drive really come through when one coaches.
In other news, I have an interview this week. On various trips back from western Massachusetts, the Wrights and I have seen the New Balance headquarters from the turnpike coming into Boston. This gave us the idea to look at their website, search their careers/employment opportunities and see what popped up! Well, I got a call from New Balance and they were interested in me for a customer service position. If I were to get the job, I would be working at the headquarters in the call center with around 35 other people fielding calls from happy, mad, furious and apathetic callers. It might seem like a weird route to go, but I don't think that I would mind the position after having the positive experience of making numerous phone calls at the JFK Presidential Library this summer.
Yesterday, I attended a performance of Handel's Messiah at Boston Symphony Hall. It was quite an experience and a very good concert. I especially enjoyed the trumpeting during the concert. The Hall is a very ordinary brick building looking at it from the outside but a very rustic, beautiful thing on the inside. The seats are old leather with minimal padding and held together by those little fabric rivets and they sit on old wooden flooring. It's quite easy to imagine people from yesteryear enjoying concerts in the Hall.
Perhaps it's just my attitude, but I still find it hard to just marvel at things like the concert yesterday or Fenway Park in terms of how people generally think a small-town Kansas kid would act. I mean that in the sense that many see a picture of bright-eyed kid with mouth wide open wondering if it can get any better than this. It might be that I don't get as emotional as some, or as caught up in things, but I find myself thinking, this really is just another stage and those are just people. I have watched baseball games from Fenway on TV and heard about these wonderful civic centers in the big cities while growing up, and being at a distance does give them a mystique. But coming to them, there is something normal about them. They are unique due to their history, but we are all human in what we do and therefore, somewhat predictable. For me, that means that we do act, cook and talk differently in many respects, but in the end, we turn out to to be very similar in what we do and how we do things because we have one Creator and one image that we all come from. I guess you would all tell me at this point to start enjoying the intricacies and uniqueness of things in life. Maybe you're right.
Well, now you know why I'm not a great author or the next guy in line for Prarie Home Companion but I hope that gives you a glimpse of things for me here in Boston. I would appreciate your prayers in connection with this interview. It is Tuesday morning at 9:30 by the way.
Take care, all.
