WhiskeyBravo

Ariel pitching

William’s baseball season is now in full swing. Second game today versus one of the other Salisbury teams. Not a good result but not terrible either. I set up a new gallery for the season.

Well it sure took a while, but the Lady Falcons chose Senior Night under the lights at Pates Park as the setting for their first victory! They didn’t make it easy either. After leading the whole game, things got rough at the top of the 7th and the girls fell behind 10-8. But they came back hitting and Ashley had an inside the park homer to tie it up. Meagan had an infield hit to get to first, Allyssa and Nirie moved her to third with sacrifices, then Bri drove her in for the win. Very exciting!

Meagan at work

We were able to enjoy our first softball game of the season that didn’t require a winter coat! Sadly, the team continues without a win on the season, but they are still fighting. On a bright note, Meagan got an opportunity to pitch for the first time in the season, striking out 4 and allowing only a couple of hits in two innings.

No video from today, but I did put up a gallery with a few pictures.

Judy, Wanda, Buddy and Mary

My grandmother Mary Moreland passed to her final resting place on Monday, after a short battle. She had 91 years of energy and love filled life. Adored by many, she left a large legacy of family to carry on. Her obituary is here.

She will be missed.

After three games in four days, the Lady Falcons are still winless, but the games have been hard fought and things are definitely going to go their way soon. Today they played #1 BECA and held them to two runs through 5 innings. A very good performance. Pictures from all three games are in the gallery. N Lehigh, Caty, Beca

Ah, spring… Time for too many things to do at once!

Typical spring weekend. It started out Friday evening with William going on a camping trip with Scouts. I chose not to go on this one, owing more than a little to the fact that I had not yet even looked at my taxes. There was also the fact that Meagan had a stand at the Harry S. Truman elementary school craft show selling her self designed and made merchandise from MW Deigns. We set that up at 9:30 AM Saturday.

Seems that the economic slowdown is even hitting craft shows. Turnout was low and sales were disappointing.

Before the show was even halfway over, Meagan needed to leave for a varsity softball game versus Dieruff at Pates Park. The team looks significantly better than last season even at this early juncture, and despite a 7-5 loss they fought hard all the way through the game and were in it to the end. I was video taping so I didn’t get great photos, but several good shots of the girls hitting and the pitchers at work. All the pictures are in the gallery.

Somewhere I found time to start the taxes.

Sunday morning started off early again with replacing the dugout roofs at the ball field at 8:00 AM.

I think I’ll take the rest of the day off.

I have to admit I was scared.

You see, I’ve been to India, three times in fact, and I’ve seen the transportation system first hand. The chaos of Chennai airport, the insanity of city traffic, the “delivery” system of 2-cycle carts, trucks, and ox driven wagons. So, boxing up my dad’s 50 year old slides, irreplaceable images all, and sending them to ScanCafe to be shipped off to India, scanned and returned, worried me just a bit.

I wasn’t worried about quality. Our company has 2000 people working in India, and they are highly capable and very professional. No, I was simply worried I would never see my slides again. Sure, ScanCafe insures your images to the tune of $10K. That provides some comfort, but it won’t replace lost moments captured on film. I had read and heard good things about ScanCafe from Twipphoto and others, so I packed up about 200 images as a test and shipped them off.

Dad in Iran - 1953

I needn’t have worried. ScanCafe kept me apprised of my precious cargo every step of the way. The web site makes ordering a snap and has all the fancy web 2.0 features you would expect. Five weeks or so after I sent out my slides, my images were on line for my review and selection. I was very pleasantly surprised with the quality. I had sent a number of slides that were definitely a challenge, badly faded and color cast, and they were restored beautifully within the standard service that includes “up to three minutes” of manual corrections. I put an assortment of pictures in the gallery. not all of these were done by ScanCafe. You can tell the ones I did, they have dust and scratches ScanCafe also offers restoration services and a few of my images could have benefited from more retouching, but I opted to do it myself.

I was so thrilled with the service I immediately boxed up an additional 500 slides and sent them. No fear this time, just anticipation!

It has already been a big week for the Walsh household. Mom celebrated her 70′th birthday on Friday. Unfortunately she is still stuck in rehab but she should be home soon!

William Walsh

Tonight was a big event for William, he had his Confirmation service for church. Pictures of him, his cousin Tara and his buddy Adam in the gallery

14 years ago I bought a 1964 Austin Healey Sprite from the proverbial barn. After a year of my neglect (good intentions, little time) I sold it to a coworker. After 12 years of his neglect (same intentions, same limitations) I brought the little car back into the family fold last winter.

The intention was for it to be a project for Meagan and I. Well, if anyone has less free time then I do, I suppose it is a Junior honor student who plays softball, volleyball, and participates in virtually every scholastic program imaginable. Suffice to say Meagan hasn’t done much to this point other than pick out colors

Nevertheless, progress has indeed been made! After putzing around with the car for the last couple of months with my dear friend John, the little beast ran last night! No, it won’t be on the road anytime very soon. The purpose of getting it running was to make sure the engine was solid (it is), and now it will be coming out of the car to allow for a more comprehensive clean-up, repair and paint.

I’ll keep progress posted here

For the past several weeks, I have experienced a side of leadership that most leaders hope they will never have to face, but nearly all will. That time when you have to ask GOOD people to leave your company for reasons completely outside their personal control.

Day after day of reviewing names, considering what you will need in the future to succeed, and taking decisions that will affect peoples lives. It is a wearying experience, full of sleepless nights and stressful days. It is also a learning experience, one which I hope I never need to apply the lessons from (but probably will). I saw what was done well, and what was done poorly. I took part in decisions based on logic and principal, and saw other decisions based on politics and personal relationships. If I am completely authentic with myself, I’m sure some of my own decisions were influenced by personal relationships and politics, or at the very least I turned away when I saw it.

So often these decisions are taken in near vacuum, self imposed by management. It is a terrible thing for those inside the vacuum, starving for air (input), and for those outside, aware “something” is happening yet unable to have their voices heard. The need to “control” the information nearly always trumps the desire to communicate and collect input to assure the best possible decisions are taken. It is a great pity.

I learned and I grew. I saw great strength and determination in the faces of many who left, frankly making it even more difficult to let go of exceptional people. It’s tragic that companies are not as adept at adjusting their revenue to match their talent as they have become at adjusting their “resources” (what you call people to depersonalize them) to match the business level they accept.