Details and Tortilla chips.

Good morning and happy Friday to all!!

I subscribe to a service that sends a scripture to your inbox everyday. Some days (even though I hate to admit it) it doesn’t do a lot for me. Today’s however made me feel somewhat safer than normal on a day I am stepping into a situation I am unfamiliar with and skeptical about my ability to handle well. Here’s the scripture……

The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.

Psalm 37:23 (New Living Translation)

EVERY detail?

I’m glad SOMEONE has their eye on every detail today. Today I am the only guy here at work that is handling aircraft engine sales. I don’t normally handle engine sales, I’m the repair guy. I’ve never been much of a salesman. I sold Kirby vacuum cleaners door-to-door for a week or so in college (mistake). I only sold one, and then that particular person (I found out later) ended up defaulting on their financing and the company had to “repossess” the $2000 vacuum. I also used to sell car stereos at Best Buy, but that was easy because everyone loves cool new electronic toys. I don’t think it counts when you are good at selling something that sells itself like that. There are a LOT of details involved in doing what I’m doing today. Details I’m not used to paying attention to. Details that if handled correctly mean getting an $18, 000 order that will solve a problem for an airline that is on a deadline and needs a part to get an aircraft back in the air. Or, if handled incorrectly, make me and my company look like idiots and cause an airline to go elsewhere with their needs next time. Whoa…….

Tick, tock, tick, tock……..

Wow, this day has gone by faster than I could have ever expected. Triumphantly I can say I haven’t endangered the future of my company, and I processed in the neighborhood of $55, 000 worth of sales today. Anyway, you aren’t here to read about my corporate exploits. Or, maybe you are, I’m not sure.

I really believe that you learn something new every day. I don’t care if you don’t leave the house on a given day, you will learn something new.

I’ll tell you what I learned yesterday. I learned that you shouldn’t eat lunch in the same room as 75 high school kids who are out to lunch with their teachers as a “reward” for something done in class. First of all, these kids have only been in school for what, a month and a half?! What could they have possibly done so well in that short of an amount of time to warrant being taken out to lunch on a school day by their teachers at a local restaurant? Most of the time these days, high school teachers at this time of year are still trying to keep their kids in their seats and not running around the room with hormones and Red Bull shooting out of every pore in their bodies. Much less doing something that deserves a “reward”. Secondly, do you remember what your high school cafeteria sounded like around noon every weekday? That jumbled roar of adolescent voices, jabbering endlessly about the boy that doesn’t know they exist, or the teacher that treated them unfairly, or how their boyfriend is a tool, or what they are going to wear to homecoming. Yack, yack, yack, yack, yack. Well, take that enormous blast of teen angst, condense it into the dining room of a family owned, somewhat hole-in-the-wall tex-mex restaurant and you’ve got the soundtrack to my lunch break on Thursday.

All Emo, All the time……..yikes.

I don’t want to sound like an old person, but Jiminy Christmas!! (OK, that wasn’t the best way to keep from sounding old) I was borderline suicidal. I felt I could not mentally wade through the crowd of “rad” vintage t-shirts and sideways-cocked, mesh-backed trucker hats that filled the room to find a reason to live one more second. (Which by the way, “rad” was MY generations word darn it, you little punks stole it in a “throwback” 80’s culture resurgence. Believe it Colton, or Braden, or whatever your hip little name is!) Then I was rescued for a brief moment by the hilarity that ensued when the waiters tried to take the groups’ order. I mentioned I was in a “family owned” restaurant. This particular family doesn’t really see the value in hiring wait staff that has a whole lot of experience conversing in English. Also, the 2 individuals doing the waiting that day seemed particularly soft spoken.

Not good.

What followed was my meal time entertainment. Half naturalized South American immigrants trying to decipher the teenagers’ orders through poorly veiled insults about their accents or their lack of command of the English language. Not to mention, mouths FULL of half chewed tortilla chips. Again, I hate to sound old, but were these kids raised in a flippin’ barn!? The mess left over after they were done must have been horrific.

I really hope their teachers tipped well…………maybe that’s what THEY learned yesterday.

Well, another Friday in the books. Hope yours’ went well. Check back soon………..

Until then…………..

Some title huh?

The center of the blend..........you may not think you know what I'm talking about, but you do, and I'll prove it to you.

When I was in college, I played snare drum (among other things) in the drumline at The University of Texas at Arlington. Our ringmaster at that time was a man by the name of Michael Varner. Excuse me, Dr. Michael Varner now........forgive me. I will remember many things about my time under the watchful eye of Dr. Varner. Lots of sweltering, outdoor rehearsals. In August. In Texas. On Astroturf.....whew. Many tips on how play "through" a drum, not "on" a drum. How NOT to wear a beard..........sorry it had to be said. But the most memorable things about drumming for Varner were what we affectionately referred to as "Varnerisms". Stragecially placed catch phrases that sometimes rang true, but most other times bordered on indecipherable. For example he would throw out such verbal gems as, "How can you be at your best, when you're not at your best?" and "I'm %100 in front of you, but I'm %100 behind you".

Let those sink in.......

Most of these quips were dismissed by us college kids as a well meaning instructor trying his dead-level best to give his drumline bulletin board material to fuel them on their musical journey to new heights in the world of non-competitive college marching band.

One of these "Varnerisms" however has been simmering in the back of my mind for years. When I first heard it, I could say nothing but, "Huh?! What in the world is he talking about?" Even once my snare drumming collegues and I had figured out what he meant, it still seemed to us to be about the most roundabout way of saying what he meant. What follows are the exact words that he said to the snare drum line some time during my first college drum camp in the summer of 1994 at UTA:

"The key to playing together well as a unit, is focusing on the center of the blend of the stuff"

"Focus on the center of the blend of the stuff?", I asked myself quietly, "Is this some kind of upper-level college drumline lingo I've never heard before?". I wasn't sure if I was supposed to know what he was talking about or not. I hoped everyone else was as confused as me. I didn't know where the blend was, and I did’nt have very much faith in my ability to find the center of it. As I soon came to understand, Varner was telling us to listen towards the center of the snare line, to the section leader, the most experienced and technically adept member of our little group. Instead of trying to play to be heard on our own, we were to listen to the center and try to become a part of the sound the snare line as a whole was producing, “The Blend” as Varner called it. The last part of the expression, “of the stuff”, I still believe was Varner just verbally trailing off because he had already expressed such genius with “Focus on the center of the blend” that “of the stuff” was the best he could come up with on such short notice.

So……

What bit of wisdom did I glean from these verbal acrobatics? What seed of knowledge was planted in my young mind that would years later become the basis for my first foray into amateur electronic life chronicling in the inter-web blogosphere?

Welcome to “The Center of the Blend” – the pursuit of focus.

Wow, I just made that up………not bad huh?

There are any number of parallels that can be drawn to the “Varnerism” I explained the origins of above. I find this expression to mean different things on different days, according to my mood or surroundings. Some days it’s a joke. A rambling, hilarious bit of nonsense exchanged between myself and my college buddies that were around at its’ inception. Other days, it means “Wake up Kyle! You know where you are supposed to be focusing, why aren’t you doing it!!” I find myself in the latter situation most often, wondering what I’m doing, where I’m going, and what I plan on doing once I get there. Sure of absolutely nothing, save the fact that I’m completely unsure of everything.

Writing seems to be therapeutic for some, I’ve heard. I’ve never been much of a “blogger”. My previous attempts at such trendy things have been measured and found seriously wanting. So, my quality of content and frequency of updates to this “blog” are things that I’m sure will be called into question by those of you who deem this inaugural post worthy of reading. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, check back every so often for more of my ramblings and efforts to determine my definition of “focus” and the location of the “center of the blend”.

Until then...........