Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Celebrate Earth Day with the BrightTALK Green Week Summit Series
In honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day we are hosting a Green Week Summit Series which includes over 50 webcast presentations by some of the world's leading experts. The presentations all target business professionals, and topics include Green IT, Corporate Responsibility, Water Management, Green Building, Data Center Efficiency, Marketing, and Environmental Regulation & Compliance.You can watch any or all of them for free. The presentations are interactive if you're able to tune in live, and will also be recorded if it's more convenient for you to watch them afterward on-demand.
I have embedded one of my favorites below and you can peruse the full program here: BrightTALK Green Week
You can watch the presentation below from this page via the embedded BrightTALK player.The webcast has already been summarized on Contagious.com and features:
Rich Lechner, VP, Energy & Environment, IBM
Will Swope, VP & Managing Director, Intel
Amy Skoczlas-Cole, Director, eBay Green Team
Andy Bateman, CEO, Interbrand
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Life Lessons
My 96 year old great-grandma has seen a few things in her life.
Growing up on a farm in Arkansas, she and her husband sold their property for a Chevy and drove west to California to settle in the land of opportunity. She has picked cotton, cooked in restaurants, seen the US through both world wars, and lived long enough to spend holidays with her great great grandchildren.
She has an infectious and magnetic personality that exudes love through every movement and action it commands of her, and I plan to put her story on paper in the next year. She's already looking forward to her 100th birthday party, and creates a queen sized quilt each month with her arthritic fingers.
I often call her on Sundays and wanted to quickly share a few bits of wisdom she shared today:
- There is no use feeling sad and sorry for yourself - be happy and enjoy your life
- Everything you do will be better if you do it with love
Just after hanging up the phone with her, I headed for an ice cream shop down the street. Walking down the street toward me was an elderly man with a cane, slowly making his way down the San Francisco hill. Every five or six shuffled steps, he stopped walking, switched his heaping ice cream cone from his left to right hand, and took a big bite.
I stopped in a doorway and became one of four or five faces on the block staring at the happy old stranger as he enjoyed his cone. Another example of someone who has come to realize what's important: being happy and having fun.
Growing up on a farm in Arkansas, she and her husband sold their property for a Chevy and drove west to California to settle in the land of opportunity. She has picked cotton, cooked in restaurants, seen the US through both world wars, and lived long enough to spend holidays with her great great grandchildren.
She has an infectious and magnetic personality that exudes love through every movement and action it commands of her, and I plan to put her story on paper in the next year. She's already looking forward to her 100th birthday party, and creates a queen sized quilt each month with her arthritic fingers.
I often call her on Sundays and wanted to quickly share a few bits of wisdom she shared today:
- There is no use feeling sad and sorry for yourself - be happy and enjoy your life
- Everything you do will be better if you do it with love
Just after hanging up the phone with her, I headed for an ice cream shop down the street. Walking down the street toward me was an elderly man with a cane, slowly making his way down the San Francisco hill. Every five or six shuffled steps, he stopped walking, switched his heaping ice cream cone from his left to right hand, and took a big bite.
I stopped in a doorway and became one of four or five faces on the block staring at the happy old stranger as he enjoyed his cone. Another example of someone who has come to realize what's important: being happy and having fun.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Drake Volleyball
Somehow a fiery red headed volleyball coach inspired me to pick up the sport as a freshman in high school, leaving baseball behind and playing a sport I had never played.
Four years later we had won the North Coast Section championship three years in a row (after a 2nd place finish freshman year), I had been all-league three times, and I was deciding whether or not to play in college. It has continued to be a part of my life since and now after graduating from school I find myself back in the same gym as an assistant coach.
This last weekend we hosted a tournament and the team which has only three returning players made it to the semi-finals. It was a great showing, and an amazing improvement from a month ago when many started playing for the first time in their lives. It's a pleasure to watch and be a part of.
I hope that in a few years these kids will look back at the same successes we had when I was in school, I'll move on, and the cycle will continue...
Four years later we had won the North Coast Section championship three years in a row (after a 2nd place finish freshman year), I had been all-league three times, and I was deciding whether or not to play in college. It has continued to be a part of my life since and now after graduating from school I find myself back in the same gym as an assistant coach.
This last weekend we hosted a tournament and the team which has only three returning players made it to the semi-finals. It was a great showing, and an amazing improvement from a month ago when many started playing for the first time in their lives. It's a pleasure to watch and be a part of.
I hope that in a few years these kids will look back at the same successes we had when I was in school, I'll move on, and the cycle will continue...
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Volleyball at San Quentin
Today I played volleyball with inmates in the yard at San Quentin, a maximum security prison.
At the suggestion of John Hedlund, head coach at Drake High School, my fellow assistant coach and I accompanied him inside the gates to become the first non-inmates to ever play volleyball in the prison.
Recently there has been some press coverage of the tennis and baseball programs from outlets like ESPN, and there were a couple women reporting on the activities today.
The best thing to do was to relax and just have fun. After gaining security clearance via a background check, we were allowed to pass through the three security gates and inside the castle-like front gate.
Once inside we were walked through the grounds with our guide pointing out things like the old hospital (built in 1885, currently being replaced), death row, the gunmen in the towers, and eventually, the rec yard. The prison is designed for about 3,000, and houses around 5,300 now.
We were assured that we would be fine and that the gunmen would be watching us. Our introduction to the yard security guard was less encouraging as he mentioned that everyone in San Quentin had a serious history of crime or had committed murder, and that fights and violence were actually a common theme. "Shanks, throat slitting, it happens pretty often. We had one last night..."
Right...now to meet our new friends. We were told that the Hispanics were most into volleyball, and sure enough a few minutes after running into the tennis players in the video below (both in for murder), a net and poles were rolling toward us, pushed by a trio of "norteños" or northern Mexicans.
Since baseball tryouts were also taking place today, we couldn't play on the field and they rolled the net onto the blacktop. Since it was sloped like crazy, we asked if we could move it to a flat spot next to the workout bars and tennis court. The inmates looked at each other with hesitant glances and then their leader named Gilbert decided he would see if he could work something out with the heavily tattooed whites and Asians working out and hanging out on tables and benches. After 10 minutes or so of discussion with three different groups, he announced that we could move down there.
The game began, with a muddy and rocky court and lines drawn with rocks, in the middle of a few racially segregated crowds of inmates, most of whom were doing pushups, crunches and pull-ups, or talking in small groups. Other inmates jogged around the perimeter of the blacktop. It was the three of us versus the three norteños. They weren't great, but were very into it.
We attracted some interest from some other guys around the yard and we had a few teams rotating in, including people from a bunch of different groups...black, white, Asian...
It was clear from their words and play that a bunch of them had played in the past, although they weren't quite up to date on rules. "Back when we were free that wasn't a rule" a guy said once.
We played for about two hours straight, and eventually mixed teams with inmates for the last couple games to 15. The uncomfortable moments came when guys would bump knees under the net, slip and fall in the mud, or a ball would be hit off the court and into someone's territory. Usually an inmate would ask for the ball and they'd throw it back to us without hesitation. One a ball bounced up and hit a guy playing poker in the head, but fortunately he didn't seem to mind. His friend had a minor issue, but it passed.
Interesting stories to come I'm sure, as we're now expected to do it regularly. The prison sports director was really excited about how well it went, and mentioned that the part of the yard we were using hadn't been used in a long time, and that the guys there made a concession to allow us to use it. He was also happy about the different groups coming together and all the guys were very thankful after. I'm hoping to either bring a camera myself or have someone accompany us to document some of the inmates and the yard because it is really another world in there. You can get an idea from the video below.
Just beyond the watch towers with guards and guns there is a great view of Mount Tam, and I assume that view represents freedom that few of them will ever get to see.
At the suggestion of John Hedlund, head coach at Drake High School, my fellow assistant coach and I accompanied him inside the gates to become the first non-inmates to ever play volleyball in the prison.
Recently there has been some press coverage of the tennis and baseball programs from outlets like ESPN, and there were a couple women reporting on the activities today.
The best thing to do was to relax and just have fun. After gaining security clearance via a background check, we were allowed to pass through the three security gates and inside the castle-like front gate.
Once inside we were walked through the grounds with our guide pointing out things like the old hospital (built in 1885, currently being replaced), death row, the gunmen in the towers, and eventually, the rec yard. The prison is designed for about 3,000, and houses around 5,300 now.
We were assured that we would be fine and that the gunmen would be watching us. Our introduction to the yard security guard was less encouraging as he mentioned that everyone in San Quentin had a serious history of crime or had committed murder, and that fights and violence were actually a common theme. "Shanks, throat slitting, it happens pretty often. We had one last night..."
Right...now to meet our new friends. We were told that the Hispanics were most into volleyball, and sure enough a few minutes after running into the tennis players in the video below (both in for murder), a net and poles were rolling toward us, pushed by a trio of "norteños" or northern Mexicans.
Since baseball tryouts were also taking place today, we couldn't play on the field and they rolled the net onto the blacktop. Since it was sloped like crazy, we asked if we could move it to a flat spot next to the workout bars and tennis court. The inmates looked at each other with hesitant glances and then their leader named Gilbert decided he would see if he could work something out with the heavily tattooed whites and Asians working out and hanging out on tables and benches. After 10 minutes or so of discussion with three different groups, he announced that we could move down there.
The game began, with a muddy and rocky court and lines drawn with rocks, in the middle of a few racially segregated crowds of inmates, most of whom were doing pushups, crunches and pull-ups, or talking in small groups. Other inmates jogged around the perimeter of the blacktop. It was the three of us versus the three norteños. They weren't great, but were very into it.
We attracted some interest from some other guys around the yard and we had a few teams rotating in, including people from a bunch of different groups...black, white, Asian...
It was clear from their words and play that a bunch of them had played in the past, although they weren't quite up to date on rules. "Back when we were free that wasn't a rule" a guy said once.
We played for about two hours straight, and eventually mixed teams with inmates for the last couple games to 15. The uncomfortable moments came when guys would bump knees under the net, slip and fall in the mud, or a ball would be hit off the court and into someone's territory. Usually an inmate would ask for the ball and they'd throw it back to us without hesitation. One a ball bounced up and hit a guy playing poker in the head, but fortunately he didn't seem to mind. His friend had a minor issue, but it passed.
Interesting stories to come I'm sure, as we're now expected to do it regularly. The prison sports director was really excited about how well it went, and mentioned that the part of the yard we were using hadn't been used in a long time, and that the guys there made a concession to allow us to use it. He was also happy about the different groups coming together and all the guys were very thankful after. I'm hoping to either bring a camera myself or have someone accompany us to document some of the inmates and the yard because it is really another world in there. You can get an idea from the video below.
Just beyond the watch towers with guards and guns there is a great view of Mount Tam, and I assume that view represents freedom that few of them will ever get to see.
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