On The Fly

July Customer Service All Star “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” I was reminded of this recently while learning a new job in the Electrical department of Home Depot. After almost 30 years of working in the jewelry industry, I found myself overwhelmed this summer with: new training materials, employee names, technical terms, acronyms, advice, procedures, passwords, and of all things - locker combinations. Developing a readiness to learn is the art that all good teachers practice. I’m afraid people tend to forget what it’s like to be a beginner. I know I do at times. Let’s face it, you tend to take for granted the things you do by habit. In hindsight, it’s easy to explain experiences based on your level of knowledge and understanding, rather than a student’s level of mental preparedness. There’s the key - mental preparedness. Learning a new job is not just having the right attitude towards the job; it’s being able to process the information and DO ...

Team BMC 2015 Team BMC wins the team time  trial  by one second in  stage  nine! Ah, Summer! Bicycling magic is renewed for millions when the voices of Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen, and Bob Roll, grace the television airwaves broadcasting  Le Tour de France   (Le Tour). When you dare to believe you’re an accomplished bicyclist, just tune into the NBC SN Sports broadcast of Le Tour in July ( July 4 - July 26, 2015) . Very quickly humility sets in. To date, the riders in that race have ridden nine grueling stages, with an average distance of 186 kilometers, that’s 115 miles per day. This year is the 102 nd  Anniversary - 21 stages, a total distance of 3,360 kilometers, and only two,  yes two , rest days - of this classic race that tours the French countryside with the finale in Paris on the Champs-Elysées. Dare I say it – Le Tour can inspire even casual riders, take your bicycles from the back shed, dust them off, inflate their tires...

“Can you believe this? Everything is gone! It was 7:00 p.m., we were headed home after sampling the 29th Annual Fallbrook, California, Avocado Festival. As if by magic all traces of  frantic activity had disappeared when we left that evening, including the traffic. Only a few hours before a nine-block section of Main Street was closed to vehicles and converted to - avocado nirvana? If you’ve never visited the village of Fallbrook, it is an unincorporated community in northern San Diego County of about 30,500 residents. This quiet community is known for it’s avocado groves and claims the title “Avocado Capital of the World.” Before leaving for the festival that morning all our friends could talk about was the grandeur of avocados; an art contest, a children's avocado race, and so much more. We glanced at the local newspaper.  “Unbelievable - this festival draws anywhere from 70,000 to 100,000 people. Where in the world will all these people park?” We threw a few ...

The signs are all around you. Leaves on the trees have started to pop. Aqua blue skies form the backdrop over an eye pleasing green diamond, spotted with bases so white they glow against the brown clay of the infield. Listen carefully and you will hear the melancholy sounds of baseball on the radio. . . " Two and two to Harvey Kuenn, one strike away. Sandy into his windup, here's the pitch: Swung on and missed, a perfect game!"   For millions of fans spring rings in The National Pastime;  baseball. A time of renewed hope and fresh starts. The season officially kicked off Sunday, April 5, 2015, 7:05 pm (CST) with the Chicago Cubs battling the St. Louis Cardinals at historic Wrigley Field on ESPN   Sunday Night Baseball . Don't be fooled though, it's the magic of radio that still captures the vivid  detail and excitement of a game. " He has done it four straight years, and now he caps it: On his fourth no-hitter he made it a perfect game."   ...

Redevelopment starts small. Could it be something as simple as Christmas lights on the square? Let’s hope so. During a recent visit to Cuba, Illinois, I discovered a nugget of renewal. Cuba is a small, rural farming community in west-central Illinois where I grew up. Like many small towns, it has a Main Street, boasts a central square with a bandstand, old-fashioned street lamps, and a veterans’ memorial, surrounded by the local businesses. During my youth, it was a thriving community. Today it’s a relic, one of those midwestern towns that have fallen into decay. I never witnessed the decay; it was 1976 when I moved to Macomb to attend Western Illinois University. From there, I moved to California. At least once a year I return home to visit family. This year I lost my father . He was 80 years old, his spirit lives in all the people he touched.  Exasperated by the realization of losing her friend and lifelong companion, I quickly realized my mother found a lot ...

Fender Stratocaster “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” I’m sure you’ve heard that mind-numbing cliche many times. Well, I’m here to say that education is not a bag of tricks and humans are not dogs. Some do resemble their  ole’ dog, anyway . . .  For years I heard that platitude from students who would use it as excuse for not being able to successfully learn a new skill to their satisfaction or expectation. Agreed, learning a new skill is challenging. Let’s be honest, it’s downright hard. We tend to get entrenched in our comfortable ruts. Think back a minute. Remember what it was like to learn to ride a bicycle? It was exhilarating! Well, maybe not at first. Did you have training wheels? I’m sorry. What happened when your Dad removed those training wheels. I’ll bet you fell - over and over again. But with a determination that refused to quit, you learned to ride. It was simply a matter of learning the tricks.    You see, to remain young and ...

On January 24, 2015, at 1:08 p.m. Donald Lee Ball, my Dad, made the transition to heaven. He was a devoted husband, father of four, grandfather to seven, and yes, a great-grandfather to four healthy babies. He loved his family and nature’s bounty. He was always active, an athlete, and an outdoorsman. A mans-man who taught his children to work hard, be honest, and treasure family values. His spirit (our gift) lives in all the people he touched.  My best memory of my father was his love of baseball. Not spring training or a visit to a major league ballpark, nor was it meeting a famous ballplayer. For me, it was learning to catch lightning and field line drives with my Dad. My attention was not on major league baseball (see, A Budding Cubs Fan ) as a youngster. The game, at that level, was always background noise from an old transistor radio tuned to WGN Chicago. In Cuba, Illinois baseball fans chewed on one another every season over the battle between the Chicago Cubs and the S...

What Doc Burch Taught Me About Staying Active. We talk a lot about "life hacks" these days, but most of them don’t have a very long shelf life. Usually, they’re forgotten by the next app update. But back in 1972, I received a piece of advice that came with a 50-year warranty. It’s the reason I’m still on my bike today, still chasing a golf ball around Carlsbad, and still—mostly—in one piece. The Kick That Changed Everything It started with a literal kick in the pants. A kid at school in Cuba, Illinois, was joking around and caught me just right. By the next morning, my lower back was screaming. My mom didn’t reach for the Tylenol; she reached for her car keys. "Let’s go see Doc Burch," she said. "He’ll fix you right up." Harry E. Burch, D.C., was a fixture in Lewistown. He’d graduated from Palmer College in ’59 and had been our family’s go-to for years. He was a man of practiced hands and steady eyes. After a quick exam and an X-ray, the mood in the room s...