The Sports Movie genre is one filled with many classic films. As Americans, nothing gets our hearts pumping like sports, so it's no wonder we love our sports movies. I previewed this last week, and in keeping with trying to roll these out before Friday, I thought I should get this list out there tonight.
I mentioned that "Hoosiers" and "Rudy" aren't in my top 5, they are actually 6 and 7, respectively. Even though I love golf, "Caddyshack" is not even in my top 10...don't get me wrong, it's a really good movie, but I actually prefer more serious golf movies. My top 5 consists of 3 baseball movies and 2 golf movies.
5 - "The Rookie": This movie stars Dennis Quaid as Jim Morris, a high school baseball coach turned Major League pitcher. This movie is actually based on a true story. In the movie, Morris (Quaid) is in his mid 30's, when he starts pitching to his Texas high school baseball team to help them learn how to hit. His players are amazed at the speed he has on the ball, and make him promise to go try out for the Major Leagues if they win state (or maybe it was districts). Well, they do and he tries out and eventually lands with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and he makes his debut in Arlington Texas, with all his family and friends in attendance. Very moving stuff.
4 - "The Greatest Game Ever Played": Yet another movie based on a true story. This is based on the biggest moment in the history of American Golf. In 1913, little known amateur Francis Ouimet shocked the golf word by beating two of Great Britain's biggest stars, Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, to win the U.S. Open, contested at The Country Club in Brookline, MA. Ouimet had caddied at The Country Club as a kid, and was a local hero. Shia Lebouf stars as Franci Ouimet. Bill Paxton directed "The Greatest Game Ever Played" and it has some shots and effects that make this a very different feeling golf movie.
3 - "Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius": Bobby Jones is without a doubt, the greatest amateur golfer that ever lived. He won 13 major championships (for amateurs, that's US Open, US Amateur, British Open and British Amateur), including all 4 in 1929. He retired in 1929 and 5 years later open Augusta National in Augusta Georgia, and began hosting the Masters. The Masters happens to be my favorite golf tournament in the free or oppressed world. "Stroke of Genius" stars Jim Caveizel as Bobby Jones. The movie follows him from childhood up through winning all 4 majors in 1929 and retiring. I love this movie and watch it every time I can when it's on the Golf Channel.
2 - "Field of Dreams": "Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa." I had a very hard time not putting this #1. Baseball movies seem to be the one type of movie Kevin Costner can really pull off, and he definitely pulls this one off, with the help of James Earl Jones, Burt Lancaster, Ray Liotta and Amy Madigan. I'm sure everyone knows this story. Costner stars as Ray Kinsella, an Iowa farmer who begins hearing voices coming from his corn field. Shot near Dyersville, Iowa, "Field of Dreams" tugs at your heart and reminds you of how great baseball can be. The final scenes of "Field of Dreams" give me goosebumps just thinking about them. "People will come Ray".
1 - "Major League": I know what you're thinking...I can't believe he rated that his #1 sports movie of all time. But, seriously, this is a great movie! Those lovable losers, the Cleveland Indians, are under new ownership, and she hates Cleveland. In an effort to move the team to Miami, the new owner assembles the worst collection of players she can, with the express goal of being bad enough to get out of her contract with Cleveland so she can move the team. The misfit band includes aging catcher Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger), "Wild Thing" Rick Vaughn (Charlie Sheen) at pitcher, and Willie "Mayes" Hayes (Wesley Snipes), Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernson) and Pedro Cerano (Dennis Haysbert) playing the field. This bunch is managed by Lou Brown (James Gammon). Somehow, this band of losers finds a way to start winning and makes it to a 1 game playoff against the hated New York Yankees. Bob Uecker is the play by play announcer and adds a lot of comedy, and I still get goose bumps every time I see the final scene where Rick Vaughn faces off against the Yankees' top slugger. Classic stuff.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Salsa Recipe
At work today, we celebrated Dip Day. I love saying "Dip Day". This is Engineer's week, so all week long, my department has been having special events. Today, we could bring in our favorite dip to share. People could vote on their favorite, and the winner got a prize.
I got 2nd place with my salsa of joy...and joyness (Charlie Unicorn reference there). Sure, that sounds impressive, until you consider that there were only 5 dips entered, and only 12 people voted. Apparently not everyone was as excited about Dip Day as I was. However, given that all my salsa was gone by the end of the day, I'm guessing way more than 12 people partook in the variety of dips. So, this department dip contest was much like America...many people participate, but few care enough to vote.
I did get a few requests for the recipe, so I'm sharing it here. I based this off a recipe I found that was supposed to replicate Chili's salsa, which I really like. I tweaked the ingredients and amounts to hit my salsa sweet spot.
Jake's Salsa of Joy, and Joyness
Ingredients:
1/4 Cup Yellow Onion
7-10 Jalapeno Slices (You can use fresh Jalapeno or from a Jar)
1 Can Whole Peeled Tomatoes (14.5 ounce, I recommend Hunt's)
1 Can Diced Tomatoes with Green Chiles (10 ounce, I recommend Rotel's)
1 Tbsp. Lime Juice
1 tsp. Garlic Salt
1/2 tsp. Cumin
1/2 tsp. Sugar
1/4-1/2 tsp. dried Cilantro
Directions:
1 - Combine Onion and Jalapeno in a food processor and process for
5-10 seconds.
2 - Add both cans of tomatoes, lime juice, Garlic Salt, Cumin, Sugar and Cilantro, and process until well blended, but do not puree.
3 - Chill for a few hours to let the flavors combine...the longer the better. I usually go for at least 12 hours.
A couple of notes:
1 - Adjust the amount of cilantro to suit your desires. I generally just eyeball it.
2 - Most of the heat comes from the Jalapenos, so the more the hotter.
Hopefully you will like this recipe and be able to tweak it to suit your salsa eating preferences. If you google "Chili's Salsa Recipe" you will find the original that I started from. Or you can just click the link I provided. Enjoy!
I got 2nd place with my salsa of joy...and joyness (Charlie Unicorn reference there). Sure, that sounds impressive, until you consider that there were only 5 dips entered, and only 12 people voted. Apparently not everyone was as excited about Dip Day as I was. However, given that all my salsa was gone by the end of the day, I'm guessing way more than 12 people partook in the variety of dips. So, this department dip contest was much like America...many people participate, but few care enough to vote.
I did get a few requests for the recipe, so I'm sharing it here. I based this off a recipe I found that was supposed to replicate Chili's salsa, which I really like. I tweaked the ingredients and amounts to hit my salsa sweet spot.
Jake's Salsa of Joy, and Joyness
Ingredients:
1/4 Cup Yellow Onion
7-10 Jalapeno Slices (You can use fresh Jalapeno or from a Jar)
1 Can Whole Peeled Tomatoes (14.5 ounce, I recommend Hunt's)
1 Can Diced Tomatoes with Green Chiles (10 ounce, I recommend Rotel's)
1 Tbsp. Lime Juice
1 tsp. Garlic Salt
1/2 tsp. Cumin
1/2 tsp. Sugar
1/4-1/2 tsp. dried Cilantro
Directions:
1 - Combine Onion and Jalapeno in a food processor and process for
5-10 seconds.
2 - Add both cans of tomatoes, lime juice, Garlic Salt, Cumin, Sugar and Cilantro, and process until well blended, but do not puree.
3 - Chill for a few hours to let the flavors combine...the longer the better. I usually go for at least 12 hours.
A couple of notes:
1 - Adjust the amount of cilantro to suit your desires. I generally just eyeball it.
2 - Most of the heat comes from the Jalapenos, so the more the hotter.
Hopefully you will like this recipe and be able to tweak it to suit your salsa eating preferences. If you google "Chili's Salsa Recipe" you will find the original that I started from. Or you can just click the link I provided. Enjoy!
Monday, February 21, 2011
Living Life with Passion and Purpose
The title of this blog is the title of the 1 day conference my wife and I attended with Matthew Kelly last Saturday. We had a wonderful day with about 1,000 other Catholics, and as I told Nuke earlier today, God was definitely in our midst. I'm not sure I can do the day justice in a blog, but I'm going to try to hit the highlights of the day. This is going to be really long, so please forgive typos. I'll try to proof read it as best I can.
After some opening remarks by Matthew Kelly, and a song by Eliot Morris, we got down to business. We had 6 hours and 4 sessions to cover, plus we had to squeeze lunch in there.
Session One was called the Voice of God. We discussed the 3 ordinary voices of God, those being Legitimate Need, Talent and Ability and the Voice of our Deepest Desire. These voices made a lot of sense to me, but what surprised me was the discussion on Talent and Ability. Matthew made the point that our Common Talents are far more powerful than our Unique Talents. Our common talents give us greater ability to be affect other people's lives than our unique talents. With our common talents, we can all answer the call to love God and each other a little more.
Session One continued with a strategy that Matthew uses to discern the voice of God. First, you have to enter the Classroom of Silence, which is 10-15 minutes of total silence. Second, you have to frame the question to God, and you can't change it. The question should be a Yes or a No type question. Once you have the question framed, you should enter the classroom of silence every day for 30 days, and at the end of your silence, ask God the question and then write down His answer. Then, write down what was going on that day, so you can evaluate whether the answer was from you or God. If you don't have 30 days, you have to do it more often to search for the answer. After whatever the specified period of time is, you should have an answer that you can be very sure is from God. If the decision involves more people, get the other people to do the same thing. Matthew can't promise that this will work for everybody, but it is a process that has worked for him throughout his life.
After some more music from Eliot Morris, we started Session 2, which was called "The Jesus Question." The theme of this session is, how do we answer the question that Jesus asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?". This session focused on how we, as Catholics answer that question, and further, how we live it out, specifically focusing on the fact that Catholics believe the Eucharist is Jesus' body and blood.
This session eventually moved into Bible reading, which is the next step after answering the Jesus question, and this is where Matthew stressed that we live an average of 77 years. In 77 years, we better read the only book God ever wrote, because He will ask. We make time to watch all kinds of things on TV and read all kinds of books, but we can't make 10-15 minutes a day to read the Word of God. The suggested strategy for Bible reading, if you haven't been doing it, was to begin with the 4 Gospels, and read them over and over again for a year. Then spend the 2nd year reading the New Testament over and over again. Once you understand these parts of the Bible, the Old Testament and it's ties to the New Testament make more sense.
Finally, this session ended with coaching. We have 2 methods, as Catholics, to get coaching. We can read good Spiritual books. In addition to Bible reading, Matthew suggested reading a good Spiritual Book for 10-15 minutes a day. This can be a book about a Saint, or just something like "Rediscovering Catholicism" (my example, not his). The other method for coaching is Reconciliation, where the Priest absolves our sins and coaches us on better behavior.
Session 3 was an interactive session. We were looking at our Spiritual History, so Matthew asked us a series of questions around a topic, and we were asked to write down how we did on that topic at various stages in our life. This was eye opening for me. I only really got serious about my faith in the last year or so...I mean really serious. I had tried things off and on for the past 5-6 years, but the last year has been much more serious. I found that, for the first 30 years of my life, I was pretty darn selfish and probably pretty difficult to live with. I resolved to do a better job in the next 30 years, should God give me 30 more years.
The final session was called "Setting the World On Fire." In this session, we learned a new method to quiet our minds for prayer. As a group of 1,000 people, we entered the Classroom of Silence, and were asked to sit completely still and focus on the image of a rose. If we got an itch or an urge to move, we were told to ignore it. If a stray thought popped into our head, we were told to refocus on our prayer. The idea was to force ourself to ignore the outside world, bascially building our spiritual muscle. This focusing was to quiet our minds, which is very difficult. But after 2-3 minutes, I did feel like my mind had quieted a bit. I tried this again last night, fully intending to spend 10-15 minutes, but I must have done a really good job quieting my mind, because I dozed off. I'll have to practice.
Finally, Matthew closed with some motivational words. We all have it within us to change our habits and become the person God wants us to be (the best-version-of-ourselves). As we make these changes, we become more holy, which makes us more appealing to those around us. One person can make a difference in his home, his Parish and even in the world, by living genuinely, striving every day to be the person God wants us to be. And that's really the goal of all this, to become the person God wants us to be.
Just a wonderful day. I learned so much and I'm working to apply it. I bought a couple of books this weekend and I'm looking forward to reading them. I'm working to become a better-version-of-myself, and I hope that I can help others do this in their lives as well, starting with my family and friends. I know I didn't do this conference justice with this blog. If anyone out there gets a chance to attend a Matthew Kelly event, I highly recommend it.
After some opening remarks by Matthew Kelly, and a song by Eliot Morris, we got down to business. We had 6 hours and 4 sessions to cover, plus we had to squeeze lunch in there.
Session One was called the Voice of God. We discussed the 3 ordinary voices of God, those being Legitimate Need, Talent and Ability and the Voice of our Deepest Desire. These voices made a lot of sense to me, but what surprised me was the discussion on Talent and Ability. Matthew made the point that our Common Talents are far more powerful than our Unique Talents. Our common talents give us greater ability to be affect other people's lives than our unique talents. With our common talents, we can all answer the call to love God and each other a little more.
Session One continued with a strategy that Matthew uses to discern the voice of God. First, you have to enter the Classroom of Silence, which is 10-15 minutes of total silence. Second, you have to frame the question to God, and you can't change it. The question should be a Yes or a No type question. Once you have the question framed, you should enter the classroom of silence every day for 30 days, and at the end of your silence, ask God the question and then write down His answer. Then, write down what was going on that day, so you can evaluate whether the answer was from you or God. If you don't have 30 days, you have to do it more often to search for the answer. After whatever the specified period of time is, you should have an answer that you can be very sure is from God. If the decision involves more people, get the other people to do the same thing. Matthew can't promise that this will work for everybody, but it is a process that has worked for him throughout his life.
After some more music from Eliot Morris, we started Session 2, which was called "The Jesus Question." The theme of this session is, how do we answer the question that Jesus asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?". This session focused on how we, as Catholics answer that question, and further, how we live it out, specifically focusing on the fact that Catholics believe the Eucharist is Jesus' body and blood.
This session eventually moved into Bible reading, which is the next step after answering the Jesus question, and this is where Matthew stressed that we live an average of 77 years. In 77 years, we better read the only book God ever wrote, because He will ask. We make time to watch all kinds of things on TV and read all kinds of books, but we can't make 10-15 minutes a day to read the Word of God. The suggested strategy for Bible reading, if you haven't been doing it, was to begin with the 4 Gospels, and read them over and over again for a year. Then spend the 2nd year reading the New Testament over and over again. Once you understand these parts of the Bible, the Old Testament and it's ties to the New Testament make more sense.
Finally, this session ended with coaching. We have 2 methods, as Catholics, to get coaching. We can read good Spiritual books. In addition to Bible reading, Matthew suggested reading a good Spiritual Book for 10-15 minutes a day. This can be a book about a Saint, or just something like "Rediscovering Catholicism" (my example, not his). The other method for coaching is Reconciliation, where the Priest absolves our sins and coaches us on better behavior.
Session 3 was an interactive session. We were looking at our Spiritual History, so Matthew asked us a series of questions around a topic, and we were asked to write down how we did on that topic at various stages in our life. This was eye opening for me. I only really got serious about my faith in the last year or so...I mean really serious. I had tried things off and on for the past 5-6 years, but the last year has been much more serious. I found that, for the first 30 years of my life, I was pretty darn selfish and probably pretty difficult to live with. I resolved to do a better job in the next 30 years, should God give me 30 more years.
The final session was called "Setting the World On Fire." In this session, we learned a new method to quiet our minds for prayer. As a group of 1,000 people, we entered the Classroom of Silence, and were asked to sit completely still and focus on the image of a rose. If we got an itch or an urge to move, we were told to ignore it. If a stray thought popped into our head, we were told to refocus on our prayer. The idea was to force ourself to ignore the outside world, bascially building our spiritual muscle. This focusing was to quiet our minds, which is very difficult. But after 2-3 minutes, I did feel like my mind had quieted a bit. I tried this again last night, fully intending to spend 10-15 minutes, but I must have done a really good job quieting my mind, because I dozed off. I'll have to practice.
Finally, Matthew closed with some motivational words. We all have it within us to change our habits and become the person God wants us to be (the best-version-of-ourselves). As we make these changes, we become more holy, which makes us more appealing to those around us. One person can make a difference in his home, his Parish and even in the world, by living genuinely, striving every day to be the person God wants us to be. And that's really the goal of all this, to become the person God wants us to be.
Just a wonderful day. I learned so much and I'm working to apply it. I bought a couple of books this weekend and I'm looking forward to reading them. I'm working to become a better-version-of-myself, and I hope that I can help others do this in their lives as well, starting with my family and friends. I know I didn't do this conference justice with this blog. If anyone out there gets a chance to attend a Matthew Kelly event, I highly recommend it.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Are Unions Needed Anymore?
Labor unions have been in the news a lot lately. This past week, the public employees union (most notably teachers) in Wisconsin was all over the news. The Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker (R), is attempting to pass a law that would remove the rights of the State Union employees to collectively bargain on the amount they pay for their health benefits and pension. This lead to a week of protests at the capital, teachers participating in a sick out, and Democrat lawmakers fleeing the state to avoid voting on this issue. Wisconsin currently has a $3.6 Billion dollar budget deficit, and a balanced budget amendment, so something has to give. Governor Walker has already said that either this bill goes through, or 6,000 state employees have to be laid off. I could do pages and pages on the Wisconsin issue, but I think anyone who reads this blog knows who I side with on this one. We're all gonna have to make sacrifices to turn things around, and that includes unionized workers.
The Wisconsin public workers union is not the only union in the news. The NFL Players Association and NFL owners are nearing an owner lockout because they can't agree on a revenue split. Looks like the NBA is up next. This got me thinking, are unions even needed in this country anymore? I would argue no, and here are several reasons why.
First, the statistic that I heard a while back is that only about 12% of all workers in this country are unionized. So, this means the other 88% of workers in this country get by without unionizing. It goes without saying that not all of those non-union employees are thrilled with their wages and benefits, but it does point to the fact that most jobs available today do not feel the need to unionize.
Second, unions end up causing expense issues that need not happen. For example, I would argue, and most experts would agree, that one of the main reasons for the GM and Chrysler collapses were union negotiated contracts. Sure, the management of those companies was equally at fault for signing those deals as well. But I would argue that the union nature of those deals made it more difficult for those companies to adapt when they should have...obviously Ford had a vision the others did not and reacted appropriately, so in fairness, this alone is not enough reason to say unions are no longer useful.
Third, and I think this might be the most important reason, conditions are vastly different now than 100 years ago when unions formed. When the unions formed, workers were paid pennies to work in dangerous conditions. At that time, unions absolutely had a place in American industry, and they drove some really good changes. We now have agencies like OSHA to help ensure workplace safety. We are also a much more mobile society now, so if you don't like the conditions of your current job, you have options that you didn't have 100 years ago.
Finally, unions are really career limiting. Once you sign into a union, you are subject to whatever the contract says, whether you perform far above expectations or far below expectations. Unions allow the bottom of the barrel to hang on for years and years and years, while keeping the top performers from being rewarded like they should be. In a global market where companies have to be competitive, they need to keep their top performers, and they need a mechanism to motivate, and if necessary, get rid of the bottom feeders. Unions stifle this ability for businesses.
I think unions are an institution that's time needs to come to an end. Really, the only reason unions stay around now are because they are a powerful political arm of the Democratic party, and Democrat politicians do whatever they can to keep the unions as strong as they can. Should 12% of the population have the power they have? Yet, they do because the Democrats need them. Look how President Obama reacted to the Wisconsin situation this week. His campaign arm (Organizing for America) is helping to organize the protests! This is the President of the United States, directly meddling where he has no Constitutional right to meddle. Frankly, Obama should have kept his mouth shut and stayed completely out of this. This is a state issue, so let the state work it out. But Obama had to stand up for his union cronies. He needs them if he wants to have any shot at a 2nd term and he knows it.
I don't know if you'll all agree with me on this one, but I think I make a good case that we don't need unions anymore. Now if I can just get people in a position to do something about these issue to start reading my blog.
The Wisconsin public workers union is not the only union in the news. The NFL Players Association and NFL owners are nearing an owner lockout because they can't agree on a revenue split. Looks like the NBA is up next. This got me thinking, are unions even needed in this country anymore? I would argue no, and here are several reasons why.
First, the statistic that I heard a while back is that only about 12% of all workers in this country are unionized. So, this means the other 88% of workers in this country get by without unionizing. It goes without saying that not all of those non-union employees are thrilled with their wages and benefits, but it does point to the fact that most jobs available today do not feel the need to unionize.
Second, unions end up causing expense issues that need not happen. For example, I would argue, and most experts would agree, that one of the main reasons for the GM and Chrysler collapses were union negotiated contracts. Sure, the management of those companies was equally at fault for signing those deals as well. But I would argue that the union nature of those deals made it more difficult for those companies to adapt when they should have...obviously Ford had a vision the others did not and reacted appropriately, so in fairness, this alone is not enough reason to say unions are no longer useful.
Third, and I think this might be the most important reason, conditions are vastly different now than 100 years ago when unions formed. When the unions formed, workers were paid pennies to work in dangerous conditions. At that time, unions absolutely had a place in American industry, and they drove some really good changes. We now have agencies like OSHA to help ensure workplace safety. We are also a much more mobile society now, so if you don't like the conditions of your current job, you have options that you didn't have 100 years ago.
Finally, unions are really career limiting. Once you sign into a union, you are subject to whatever the contract says, whether you perform far above expectations or far below expectations. Unions allow the bottom of the barrel to hang on for years and years and years, while keeping the top performers from being rewarded like they should be. In a global market where companies have to be competitive, they need to keep their top performers, and they need a mechanism to motivate, and if necessary, get rid of the bottom feeders. Unions stifle this ability for businesses.
I think unions are an institution that's time needs to come to an end. Really, the only reason unions stay around now are because they are a powerful political arm of the Democratic party, and Democrat politicians do whatever they can to keep the unions as strong as they can. Should 12% of the population have the power they have? Yet, they do because the Democrats need them. Look how President Obama reacted to the Wisconsin situation this week. His campaign arm (Organizing for America) is helping to organize the protests! This is the President of the United States, directly meddling where he has no Constitutional right to meddle. Frankly, Obama should have kept his mouth shut and stayed completely out of this. This is a state issue, so let the state work it out. But Obama had to stand up for his union cronies. He needs them if he wants to have any shot at a 2nd term and he knows it.
I don't know if you'll all agree with me on this one, but I think I make a good case that we don't need unions anymore. Now if I can just get people in a position to do something about these issue to start reading my blog.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
