Musings at Altitude

Like most sports fanatics in this country, I was glued to the TV tonight watching Brett Favre in a purple uniform take on his old team in their classic green and yellow.  The media hyped it up big time throughout the week, making sure we all knew that Favre has beaten every other NFL team except the Packers.  After a 30-23 win, Favre can now claim victory over every single NFL team during his career.  Wow!

Now that the Vikings are 4-0, all the pundits that said Favre was too old and should have stayed retired are very quiet.  Winning tends to do that to people…validates those who supported you and mutes those who came out so adamantly opposed to you when you made the decision to stay on in the job or keep playing.

But this situation with Brett Favre does bring up a good question…when is it time to quit?

How about this:

• quit if you no longer have the fire in the belly to do what you used to love doing
• quit if you no longer have the physical skills to do what you need to do and you can’t compensate for those lack of skills with others that surround you
• quit if you are sacrificing so much in one area of your life that its no longer worth in the part of your life that you love so much
• quit if your actions or reactions are causing more harm than good for the rest of the folks on your team
• quit if your enemies or competitors can use your age, diminishing reactions, weakening strength, or eroding skills against your team
• quit if you no longer have the ability to motivate your team and raise them to a level of a champion
• quit if you wake up in the morning and ask yourself, “why in the world am I punishing myself this way?”
• quit if your heart and mind both say, “I’m through”

Otherwise, go compete and win.  It’s insane to me to ask anyone to give up if they have the skills, the reactions, the mental abilities, and the competitiveness to win in the job they have chosen to compete in.  Equally as important, it’s a tragic loss to the team if a great leader that still has great skills and great passion for the game ends up quitting before he’s through.

Nuff said.

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I’m sitting in the Red Carpet Club in the Denver Airport, watching the activity on the ramp.  It amazes me how many things have to come together in near perfect timing to get a plane unloaded, cleaned, and then loaded again for the next flight.

This plane came in about 20 minutes ago, and as it was completing its taxi to dock at the gate, the support crews were already staged and ready to unload.  Within seconds after parking, a communications link was connected to the front of the plane, the tow bar was connected to the front wheels, the baggage conveyors were pulled up to the cargo hold doors, and the baggage carts had pulled up to collect the bags from the cargo hold and get them to the baggage claim area or their next flight.

Within minutes after that activity, the fuel and catering trucks arrived to pump the gas and replace the empty food carts, respectively.  The cabin is cleaned, the latrines are purged, the plane is inspected both inside and out, and then passengers are boarded in preparation and anticipation of that next flight.

No one does it better, faster, or more efficiently than Southwest Airlines, but all major airlines at their main hubs seem to do it incredibly fast.

As a million mile flyer on one airline and a million more air miles on a combination of several other airlines, I can tell you from personal experience that moving planes in and out of the hubs is both a science and an art.  It’s a science because everything has to be timed perfectly in order to achieve the minimum time at the gate and the maximum time in the air.  It’s an art because something always seems to go wrong and the very systematic activities that I mentioned above are often times accompanied by the chaotic (and on the verge of panic) response to those ill timed warning lights or shouldn’t-be-there drips outside of the plane. 

It’s probably good that we don’t know how many times those actually occur and what was done to actually fix those problems!

I’ll keep my fingers crossed that today the odds and the hard work of all these ground personnel hold up and we’ll push back and get in the air on time.

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I’ve been struggling with sleep lately, and sleeping in just doesn’t seem possible anymore.

But this morning, I was in a deep sleep…one of those special nights where no dreams (or nightmares) are remembered and you feel refreshed.

But at 6:26 I was startled by the phone ringing.  It was a 703 area code number (out in Northern Virginia) and since we have lots of friends and former co-workers there I semi-consciously answered.

Caller – “Is this Starbucks?”

Me – “No it’s not Starbucks!”

Caller – “Sorry!”

Then click.

I am both amused and encouraged by this event.

I’m going to smile a lot if a Starbucks has now opened that is close enough to my phone number to cause these types of mistakes to occur!  I can have lots of fun with callers trying to reach Starbucks!

More importantly, since I don’t believe in coincidence, it must be a reminder (or a new power drinker targeted marketing campaign) that I’m supposed to use my more than $100 in Starbucks gift cards that are lying here in my desk, and use them today!

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It’s 3:00 in the morning now.  The wind is blowing incredibly hard.  It’s a very visible (and audible) indication of change that is coming.  In fact, it’s supposed to be more than 20 degrees colder today (as a high) than yesterday.  The heater came on just now for the first time in several days.  Change is most certainly on the way.

As I look and listen, change is happening all around me, all the time.

So I shouldn’t be surprised or awed by it.

But I always am.

Sometimes the changes are so obviously good.

And I pray in thanksgiving for the wonderful blessing (unexpected or not) that occurred.

Sometimes the changes bring sadness and tears.

And then I pray for God’s wonderful arms to reach down and wrap us in His love and give us peace.

And I pray for resolution to the challenges that spring forth from the changes that occur.

But am I hoping for resolution, or faithfully believing in resolution?

With hope, prayer leads to waiting and wondering because we stand idly by hoping for God to work a miracle when God may very well want us to have our hope come from faith and our faith to lead to direct and relevant action in support of that very issue we are praying about.

With faith, prayer leads to action because we are so very often the tool that God will use to fix the problem that we pray so fervently about.

Too often, my prayers are delivered in a “launch and leave” mentality, and I turn the issue and the answer over to God and in essence wipe my hands of the resolution.

But prayer grounded in faith is active, not passive.

It’s arrogant of me to turn my worries and problems over to God without in turn making myself available to be used by Him to solve that very problem that I’ve laid at His feet.

On the contrary, it’s humble of me (and very important for me) to “lean not on my own understanding” and to release my worries to the Lord and obediently turn myself over to Him to be used in His way to fulfill His plan…which may indeed result in answers to the very prayers that I raise.

So my goal today is to pray and then act rather to pray and then wait.

I’m anxious to see the prayers that are answered when my arrogance turns to humility and my faith leads to action.

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I’ve been struggling mightily with love lately…loving those who may not agree with me…loving those who may adamantly oppose me…loving those who in their own actions seem to show no love at all…loving those who support something that I may believe in my core to be appalling…and the list goes on and on.

But God’s command is clear…”for anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”  That’s followed with “whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

We are commanded to love our brother, even if he’s a disagreeable, opposing, non-loving, appalling kind of guy.

Hmmm.

Boy that’s tough.

Nothing like a real challenge!

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How do you get a 13 month old young lady to focus?

You get on your laptop.

You get on the web and search for “I Love My Lips” by Larry from the Veggie Tales.

You turn it on, put the cursor in a safe place, let her play with the keyboard, and within seconds, she’s staring at Larry and dancing to the song. 

After a few more seconds, she’s leaning onto the screen to kiss Larry.

After a few more seconds, she’s sitting back quietly listening again.

And then, after about a minute, she’s pounding on the keyboard and finds the ESC button and turns it all off!

For that minute, she’s the cutest baby girl in the world.

OK…she’s always the cutest baby girl in the world!

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For the 4th time this week, I’m having fried catfish – twice at lunch and twice at dinner.

I can remember only one other time this year when I’ve had something 3 or more times in one week – halibut chunks in Anchorage.

That was pretty good.

This week with the fried catfish was awesome!

Nirvana?

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Over the past year, I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to get to know staff, students, and big time fans of the University of Houston…but my interactions were in academic arenas and not athletics.

Yesterday though, I sat down at the end of the day to relax and the University of Houston just happened to be playing Texas Tech on TV.  Houston had already beaten the #5 team in the country, Oklahoma State, and all the sudden everyone was asking, “Are they real?”  And this game was another tough test for them.

As I watched, I was drawn to the Houston quarterback, who had black tapes under each eye.  Under the right eye it had “IS”, and under the left eye it had “40:31”.

Since I’m not the brightest guy in the world, it took me a few minutes to realize it was a Bible passage – Isaiah 40:31 – which says:

But those who hope in the Lord

   will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

   they will run and not grow weary,

   they will walk and not be faint.

Those words proved to be prophetic as the 4th quarter marched on, and with just over 5 minutes left in the game and Houston trailing by 5, they got the ball back on their own 5 yard line.

For the next 5 minutes, I had the feeling that this special moment was what that quarterback lived for and what that Bible verse meant.  Sixteen plays later, Houston scored, taking the lead by 1, and then they denied Texas Tech in the final few seconds to win the game.

I enjoy every minute I spend working with the talented professors at students in Houston, but I guess now I need to jump on that bandwagon with some good friends who believe in their athletic teams as well!

What an incredible game, and what an incredible witness on national TV.

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This is the 3rd September in a row that Denise has flown out to North Carolina to meet up with her sister Charlotte. 

They join together each year in memory of their Mom in a walk to raise money for ovarian cancer research.  Though Mom lost her battle with cancer, she left behind a legacy of laughter and smiles that live on today with all those who were so blessed to have her part of their lives.

This year, 3 generations of ladies in our family flew out to join Charlotte for the walk, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the 4 here plus the one on the way flew out again next year!

I’m so proud of all those who make this trek and participate in this walk each year.

What a wonderful way to honor a very special lady.

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For the last 12 months, I’ve had a local office in Colorado Springs…living and working in the city where I really want to live and work, and commuting daily (when I wasn’t traveling) for only about 20 minutes each way at the most.

That may be the norm for many of you, but for me, it was a welcome change to what has traditionally been my place of business and commute over the last 11 years.  In 1999 and part of 2000, I commuted to Ireland from Colorado Springs to work.  In the latter part of 2000 and half of 2001, I commuted 75 miles each way to Denver to work.  In mid 2001 through mid 2003, I commuted to either Silicon Valley or Washington DC to do my business.  In mid 2003, we moved to the Washington DC area to work for 3 years before finally returning to our home in Colorado Springs in mid 2006.  From 2006 to August of 2008, I commuted to Anchorage, AK, for work, which then gave me the opportunity to have an office close to home this last year.

But that all comes to an end at the end of this month when I begin the 2 or 3 week a month commute back to Anchorage again.

For the first time in my life, I think I’m really going to miss a short commute in the city where I really want to work.

 

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