Excellence

Observing: Three computers with three operating systems

I was told recently to do everything excellently. This was not to do things perfectly, but to do things the best that is possible. For me excellence is connected to my focus; am I focused on the task at hand or am I trying to do to much.

This surfaced tonight when we had exceptionally odd/bad data collection for at least 20 minutes, but things were poor for about 2 hours. Now if I may, there was a fairly significant earthquake starting that 20 minutes of bad data and that frazzled me. But I have no excuse for the first two hours except I was not focused and I was not being excellent.

So as a result I stopped, took a breath, and focused. No longer does the music matter or what will I do while waiting for the next image, I am going to focus on getting the data¹.

Now I must go back and observe.

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1. A tangent: One of the things that kicked me into focus was the comment that this data only exits once. The light is lost forever if it is not recorded. So remember that you will never have this moment again, what should you be focusing on? ↩

Illumination

Fourth of July 2012

See it here: http://flic.kr/p/gWKucq

See it here: http://flic.kr/p/gzyXeG

See it here: http://flic.kr/p/ghik8d

Sunset

The sunset as seen while walking my dog.

See it here: http://flic.kr/p/frrZ9Y

Upward

A public piece of art near the Indiana State Museum.

See it here: http://flic.kr/p/fqA9qk

Driving

See it here: http://flic.kr/p/ffuHJg

A Rival’s Legend

Sports are fun, and its a healthy way for me to feed my competitive spirit. I am always sad when competition takes over our better judgment. This was not the case the other night at the MLB All Star Game.

I am a Dodger fan and other than the Giants, there is no greater rival than the Yankees. Try as I might, I wish to dislike all who play in the pinstripes. This is very difficult when I fall in love with a player who later gets traded to that evil empire: Kuroda, Martin, Suzuki and others. But there is one Yankee great that I cannot dislike no matter how hard I try. Mariano Rivera is the greatest closer of our time, if not in the history of baseball. There have been few to rival him. Gagne was close, but that was only for a couple of seasons and he was likely on steroids. For Rivera to be as dominant as he was, both during and after the steroid era, is beyond impressive.

No matter how much I would like to mock every Yankee player, I must give my respect to Rivera. Because of his very impressive career, he earned everything he received the other night and his much deserved spot in the Hall of Fame.

The only thing more I wish on him is a blown save in the World Series against the Dodgers! Go Blue!

Disneyland Magic

See it here: http://flic.kr/p/f8WsFH

A Clean Hit

See it here: http://flic.kr/p/f1y9hj