darrelhuish.net

It’s four in the morning,

the end of December,

I’m writing you now,

Just to see if you’re better. — L. Cohen, Famous Blue Raincoat

Some readers will understand that this has been a difficult week for reasons that can be left unexplained. I am thinking of the line “four in the morning” because I am proud of at least four members of ITS that have worked long hours, without being asked to, out of a self imposed sense of urgency to let our unanticipated visitors conclude their work and let us resume ours. These people know who they are, and if you look at the total of Maricopa, it is far more than “four” that are working into the morning(s) and into the weekend. Thank you.

Here is a link to an 80 minute Richard Shindell concert on Folk Alley. You can listen for free, and download it (and lots of other music) if you buy a tax-deductible membership.

Frank Tedesso has a new CD for sale on his web site. Most haven’t heard of Frank, or heard much from him musically for awhile, but if by chance you’ve heard me cover “Margaret and Vincent”, I learned it from one of Frank’s CDs. It is one of those songs that could be made into a 90 minute movie, and there would be plenty of artistry and plot.

And old Fiddler’s Dream friend, Gus Brett, once known locally as The Czar of Sorrow, has a new CD up on CDBAY. Gus is more than a little cool, and marches to his own drummer, fife and fiddle. (You go, bro.)

I was part of a family NFL Yahoo Fantasy League. I finished last, but that’s another story. This story is about perspective. As part of the payment package, we got access to a web application that tracked the players, the fantasy teams, and also showed the status of the “real” games in nearly real time for 17 weeks. What I got out of this experience (you have time to think when your team loses 13 games in a row) is that most of us have moved from caring about our teams to caring about our players. I don’t care if the Giants win, but if Eli Manning completes a pass, that’s points for me. So on one hand, you can think about moving to be more and more detailed in your thinking. It’s just one snap at a time, it’s just one kick, just one block. But on the other hand, you can imagine looking at all this from the commissioner’s point of view. (The NFL, not the Yahoo League. That latter commissioner was my nephew Trevor, by the way.) So, the Commish is watching and maybe his perspective is “do all the teams kick off on schedule?” or “If every kickoff goes into the end zone all year long, do we change the rules again?” My point is that his perspective is way different than Joe and Jill Fan. I bet he knows the total ratings of all games combined. He also knows how much revenue the NFL gets from Yahoo. (more than a little) He views mostly the macro stuff I bet.
So, it is a brand new year, and it makes me want to be fluid in my perspectives this year. Sometimes, it will be incredibly detailed… such as, “they sent the email, they asked for service, I wonder if anyone answered the email?” And other times, it won’t be about the play or the player or the daily budget numbers. Instead it will be “is the staff getting more skilled over time? Are we better aligned this year than last year? What are we going to do about it?”

The trick is to be able to know that the devil is in the details, and not to be distracted by the details. I want to take a good look at how ITS is doing, but also have a perspective on how Maricopa is doing, and what we can do to help. Here’s to 2007 and fresh beginnings.