INFLUENTIAL BEHAVIOR

WOW - SLOW SPORTS DAY

Really?!?!!....I just noticed that the top 3 sports stories of the day all had to do with players signing multi-zillion dollar contracts. Perfect timing...hard economic times and we should feel great that Manny finally has his 45 million dollars for 2 years. I was thinking it would be nice to sit down with my agent and ink out a 5 year, 1 million dollar contract myself. That's all I want. I don't need more. But if I perform well I may want to re-negotiate after a few years. If the university doesn't like my offer, I'll be accepting offers from other schools. How's that? Multi year deals!! Bonuses!!!! I guess that's the price I pay for being in this profession. The good news...Manny is peaking in his 30's. I'll peak in my profession just before I drop - remember that I have genes that won't allow me to live past 70. But that's still ok. At least I won't have to talk about how great my career was once I'm 45. ooohhh....that's coming up a bit too soon

MAD HOT BALLROOM

Independent film - flew completely under the radar two years ago. This is a fantastic documentary about a ballroom dance program in the New York City Public School system. I know - sounds goofy .....not when you see the kids that get involved in this program. Evidently it was the second largest grossing documentary that year - second to March of the Penguins. The film follows individuals and groups of students at three different schools and inspires us to see what can happen when teachers really care about kids as individuals. I could not recommend it more highly. GREAT film.

FIREBIRD

I thought that my blog didn't connect for the first time but actually Mad Hot Ballroom has to do with the importance of teaching others and giving them role models (just like Manny and his big contract)....and well..the Firebird - it's a ballet!!!!! So I'm walking my little girl to art the other day and she said out of the blue "Daddy, I really like Firebird". I said, "How do you know Firebird?" (wrong question by dad) "Uh...dad....I was at your concert when you did it last week". So there it is...my daughter, who sketches art through most of my programs and pretends not to pay attention remembered that piece. And now today in the car, my boy gets in and I crank the Chicago Symphony playing Firebird. He immediately noticed differences in instrumentation from the version we're playing with my youth orchestra which he is a part of. We're doing the 1919 version and the recording was the later version with some re-orchestration. I kept trying to shut it off but he wouldn't let me...."no, I want to hear more..I want to hear more....uh......dad, we can't do that part that slow...we have to do it fast just like you conduct it". First time he ever slapped my hand away when trying to turn off a recording. I guess how we influence kids may happen at moments when we just don't realize it.