Ramblings II


-So remember when I gave that warning about the first ramblings post, that it might be a little loopy because I was running on an all nighter? Well yeah, in the past 40 hours I've slept an hour and a half. So the level 5 warning is still in effect till further notice

-I'm listenting to "Men in Black" right now. Will Smith is quickly becomming one of my favorite artists. That's not a joke. He's a really good rapper, and the beats are catchy. I swear to god I'm not making this up.

-So me and Sean just had a pretty good chat on leadership. I've been doing a lot of self analysis on the topic, trying to determine the causes for why my captaining has been subpar so far. One thing that I came up with is that a lot of times I fall into the team mentality rather than fix/change it. CCC was an example of this, where as I mentioned before I thought we lost two games on a lack of intensity and fire. I kind of fell into the team mentality that was occuring rather than changing it and bringing that spark. This is something that needs to, and will change starting now. I've kind of treated this year as a captain as more of a training session. Right now this is Sean's team, and everyone knows it. As long as he is here I will be in the shadows, and that's fine because it's in the best interest of the team. I essentially need to make sure that I am ready to run the ship next year when Sean isn't around, and am trying to soak in everything I can now to make sure I'm properly prepared to do so. However, with that being my mentality, I lost sight of a lot of things for this year. The majority of practices this fall, I ended up running because of Sean's crazy schedule. Whether I was ready to be thrown into the flames or not, thats the role I was in and I didn't step up. I guess that's why the fall is made for mistakes and learning. The spring will be different...

-So as many of you know I started reading books recreationally, which is a pretty crazy thing. Right now I'm reading Winning by Jack Welch, who was arguably the best CEO of all time, building up GE into the powerhouse it is today. I've really enjoyed reading it so far, as a lot of the material is designed for the business world, which is an interest of mine, but really translates into any aspect of life you let it. On leadership he lists 8 rules that he folllowed:

1. leaders relentlessly upgrade their team, using every encounter as an oppurtunity to evaluate, coach, and build self confidence

2. leaders make sure people not only see the vision, they live and breathe it

3. leaders get into everyone's skin, exuding positive energy and optimism

4. leaders estbalish trust with candor, transparency, and credit

5. leaders have the courage to make unpopular decisions and gut calls

6. leaders probe and push with a curiosity that borders on skepticism, making sure their questions are answered with action

7. leaders inspire risk taking and learning by setting the example

8. leaders celebrate

It's real good stuff, and you can probably expect more things from the book to appear in my blog in the future.

-Wild Wild West, Jim West, desperado, rough rider, no ya dont want nada. None of this, gunning this, brother running this, buffalo soldier, looks its like i told cha. Yeah, I started singing Wild Wild West. Sorry. WILL SMITH 4 LIFE!!!

-So I pre-ordered the 4th season of 24 on DVD. For those of you who don't know 24, it's the best show on TV. I'm VERY excited about this, and am planning on watching it for 18 hours straight on December the 9th. I realize that this may be the weekned before finals, but really, I mean lets ask ourselves, what ARE finals? You don't know either. Exactly.

-Mike Yanchak sent me 6 emails today. 6!!!

-Me and Sean were just talking about Brent, and boy can I not wait for that kid to come back. Besides the fact that he is one of best, if not the best all around player on our team, he's also one of my favorite all around people. We as a team haven't kicked it into the next gear yet, something which I think will occur after we have our team meeting where we set a goal. Brent is one of those people that will lead the charge on stepping things up, especially since he has lost time to make up for being he's spent the last few months of his life on a boat.

-So I want to talk about Wes real quick, because I think he will be the X factor for our team this season. I think that how far our team goes will be similar to that of Wes's progress as a player. If he can turn himself into the superstar we all hope he does, I think our team can really do some special things. If he has another mediocre year like last season, then it's going to be a lot more difficult for our team to accomplish some of our goals. The thing about Wes is he's one of the most fundamental players on our team, as he rarely makes mistakes (well as long as he's not throwing hammers anyway). I think we need to have Stu on the D line, and its hard to say what Vatz's deal is going to be for the spring, so Wes needs to become a playmaker. I think he had a solid fall, and played really well at CCC. A lot of this had to do with the fact that he was clearly playing with more confidence, something me and him were talking about before the tourny. But now he has to turn another corner. Being a solid fundamental player isn't going to be enough, he has to become a playmaker at the Brent/Talle/Sean level. Everyone knows he has the throws, and while his cuts can be a bit preditable sometimes, he understands the concepts behind cutting pretty well. Now he needs to develop the explosiveness and speed to go with it. I also think him maintaining the confidence he played with at CCC is vital.

-OK blog interuption. I was going to write a little more on Wes, but I got out most of what I wanted to say. I just got this IM

nikb1456: are you going to the frisbee party on friday?
GardenStateOMind: yeah, im sure ill make an appearance
nikb1456: thats cool
GardenStateOMind: u
nikb1456: yeah, i think so

For those of you who don't know, nikb1456 is Nicole, the infamous exgirlfrined of a month and 22 days. Now what the fuck is this shit. Frisbee parties are my turf. I'm the captain of the the fuckin frisbee team for fuck's sake. It's not even like we're on bad terms or anything, but how the shit do you expect me to be hitting on girls and spittin game with my exgirlfrined there. I mean aren't there laws against this? I'm sure the comment section is going to explode with shit like "its ok, you werent getting anything anyway" or whatever, and that may be so, but its not the fucking point. There's just no fuckin way you can bring the A game with the exgirlfrined present. It's just not possible. I am not fuckin happy about this shit. All I wanted to do was just get drunk with my friends, and hit on random girls, and now this fuckin bomb gets dropped. Fuckin shit ass fuckin shit fuck. Now I'm angry and don't want to blog anymore. For everyone who is dissapointed because they wanted to keep reading, blame Nicole Benoit. She lives in Tower B, room 1118. And as long as your up there, can you get my Pitt Ultimate hoodie? I left it in her room. Whoops.