There was some talk recently about distractions at work. Guys were complaining they can’t get anything done with so many distractions. We used to have an open work space where you could see and hear everyone in the room. Now we have higher cubicle walls. Personally, I preferred the old layout.

When a someone tells me they can’t focus because there is a conversation going on in another cubicle, I want to just tell them to “clear the mechanism”. Sadly, I don’t think any of them know what I would be referring to. It seems all the programmers I currently work with now hate sports – and make it known.

What I am referring to is the scene in For Love of the Game where Billy Chapel is starting to pitch. Yankees fans are being loud and obnoxious (go figure). Just before throwing the first pitch he says to himself, “Clear the mechanism“. The crowd blurs and falls silent and Chapel enters his zone.

I was going to share this video with co-workers, but I couldn’t find it, so I took the time to snip it off my DVD and upload it to YouTube. Check it out.

This is for real. I played football, basketball, and baseball in high school. Honestly, I don’t remember the crowd when playing. There are times when you do, like when timeout is called, or your passing a ball in-bounds and guys are yanking on your jersey. But most of the game, you are so focused on the game that you don’t even know there is a crowd around you.

You really can get in a zone while programming. I don’t notice other conversations around me unless I choose too. I can get in a zone while programming that I don’t notice much of anything around me.

Sadly, I don’t have tips on how to develop this type of focus… just letting you know its for real.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

It’s that time of year again. My contract is up on DIRECTV, so I’m preparing to make the switch to Dish Network for some new DVR’s and more channels for the money.

I’m a bit hesitant though. Even though I’m a big fan of satellite television, I’m actually considering Comcast. Why? Well, it’s been over a year, and still the Mountain (mtn) is only available on Comcast. Now, was this some ploy by Comcast to get more subscribers? So what’s a guy to do, be stubborn and say no to the monopoly, or enjoy some BYU & Utah Football?

Decisions… Decisions…

I guess for now, I can do my part by signing online petitions and making my voice heard. I will be sure to tell DIRECTV that the reason I am leaving is because they won’t offer mtn.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Luckily this batter was wearing a cup! This is quite odd. A right handed batter gets beaned in the… well… by a right handed pitcher.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Today, Google Video recommended that I watch this video. See the screenshot for proof. Now, I recommend you watch it too!

I actually didn’t get to watch the game this year because of the whole Mountain West – Comcrap Monopoly. So I’d like to thank the guy that put this video together for those of us less fortunate.

[tags]BYU, Utah, Football[/tags]

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I read this article on SI.com this morning about David Beckham coming to America to play soccer. It seems to be all the buzz right now.

Personally, I could care less. I wouldn’t care if soccer just went away. I find it extremely boring. That’s okay though. My favorite sport is baseball and I realize that there are a lot more people in the world that find baseball boring than there are people that find soccer boring.

But I enjoyed the article mostly because of the last paragraph that bridged the two sports.

In the meantime, may we hope that some other country of the world with a struggling baseball league will decide that the way to make it work is to take Barry Bonds off our hands.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I really like Jeff Francoeur. I suppose he’ll take over as my favorite player after Chipper retires, just as Chipper took over for the gap left by Murph when he won my respect his rookie year. Why Francoeur? I’m not totally sure. I know it has nothing to do with my wife thinking he’s the cutest guy on the team. I think it is because he reminds of how I play baseball – very aggressive at the plate hoping to get lucky

Well I’ve noticed that in a few of his photos he has Joshua 1:9 written on the back of his batting glove.

Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

Pretty cool, I think.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

You can now go rant and rave about your favorite team and have a chance to win some tickets to their next game at GoTeamsGo Sports Forum.

Here are the details of the contest:

$300 Ticket Contest
Pick the Score and Win Tickets
We’re having a pick-the-score & pick-the-winner contest. Chat with sports fans and place your picks on football and baseball games. Also pick the Nextel Cup race winners.

$300 in Free Tickets
We’re giving away $300 in tickets. We’ve partnered with e-Tickets.us.com and TicketsNow.com for the prizes.

How to Play
1) Goto our forum for any of the NFL teams, any listed NCAA football teams, any MLB team, or the NASCAR forum.
2) Find the thread for the next upcoming game or Nextel Cup race. If it’s a game where both teams have a forum, the game prediction thread will be in the home team’s forum.
3) Post your prediction. Tell us who will win plus the exact score. For NASCAR, pick the top 2 finishers in order.
4) If your prediction is correct, come back after the game and let us know about your correct pick in the Correct Picks Thread thread.

Tiebreaker
5) If we have more than 1 person get a correct pick, we’ll pull 2 correct picker’s names at random. Name with more posts for Oct 18-23 will get 1st prize, other name will get 2nd prize. So you’re more likely to win 1st place if you chat alot with the other sports fans here at GoTeamsGo.

Contest Dates
The contest begins October 3 and ends at midnight on October 23, 2006. We’ll count posts made from Oct 18-23 in deciding 1st prize and 2nd prize between the 2 winners.

Now I’d just like to see a forum there dedicated to the Mountain West. They are talking BYU though!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I thought it was odd that Brian McCann got thrown out in last nights game. It seems to me the ump was just on a major power trip there!

After Davies issued a third-inning leadoff walk to Carlos Delgado, Brian McCann had a civil exchange with West, who promptly issued the soft-spoken catcher his first career ejection.

“I asked him, ‘Where did you have that call?’” McCann said. “He said, ‘I had it low.’ Then he asked me, ‘Where did you have it?’ I said, ‘I had it down the middle.’ Before I could even … I was getting thrown out. There wasn’t one cuss word. I wasn’t even yelling at him.”

Full Story

[tags]Braves, Brian McCann, Baseball[/tags]

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Living a normal life: Shawn Murphy always considered his all-star father just his ‘Dad’
By Jay Hinton
Deseret Morning News

While growing up, Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium was Shawn Murphy’s playground.

He spent many summer days playing catch on the field with his brothers and father, running in the tunnels, or just hanging out in the clubhouse waiting for the game to start.

His dad played for the Braves, was a national and local hero, and was on TV regularly.

At the time, it was normal. That’s just what Dad did.

Even today, 13 years after his father Dale, a two-time National League MVP, retired after 18 seasons, Shawn still has a difficult time seeing it any other way.

“I think it still hasn’t even sunk in really,” said Shawn, Utah State’s starting left tackle.

“People know him. We’ll be out in public with him and people will ask for autographs, but it still never sinks in that other people looked up to him and watched him on TV and respected him in that way. He’s just my dad,” he said.

Looking back, Shawn, 23, realizes it was his father’s ability to perfectly mix family life and baseball that made him feel that way. He and his six brothers and one sister have never taken a back seat to baseball.

“Baseball was part of our family and still is,” Shawn said. “He was really good at splitting his time. When he had to work, he was at work. That was his job. He was really good at not bringing his work home with him. … He was a family man and put us before anything.”

Two years ago, Shawn called upon that carefully fostered father-son relationship.

Shawn played one year at Ricks College in 2001 before serving an LDS Church mission to Brazil. He knew the school was dropping athletics and he would have to find another school when he returned or quit playing.

“I figured I would have two years to see what I was going to do,” he said. “The whole time I was out there I went back and forth on what I was going to do. There were times I had decided I wasn’t going to play anymore and then there were days I would want to get home and play again.”

He asked his dad for his input.

“His advice was to do what I wanted to do and do what would make me happy. He offered his whole support in whatever choice I made,” Shawn said. “I grew up around kids whose parents were a little more forceful as far as sports and extra-curricular activities and it’s such a relief to know whatever I do, my parents, especially my dad, will support me.”

Still undecided, Shawn attended the BYU-Notre Dame football game two years ago with a field pass his father gave him.

“I can’t really remember if it was premeditated or not, but I gave it to him. He saw some guys on the BYU team that he played with at Ricks and so it started that feeling,” Dale said.”I didn’t want to push, but I wanted to encourage him that he was a good football player and a good athlete and it would be a good experience for him.”

It proved to be exactly what Shawn needed.

“I got home from my mission, going to school and working and maybe I didn’t think I could do it,” Shawn said. “I was watching that (game) thinking it would be awesome to do this, so I decided to give it another shot.”

Shawn called then Dixie State coach Greg Croshaw and he played there last season. The Rebels didn’t have any returning offensive linemen and asked him to switch from defense to offense. It was a change he made out of need, but didn’t necessarily welcome it.

“I was kind of bummed out to tell you the truth. People tend to think of the offensive line as the boring position and think of it as something the non-athletic people do, but after playing it for a week it was fun,” he said.

Shawn started every game for the Rebels, who finished 9-3, and capped their final year as a junior college with a 35-31 victory over Garden City in the Dixie Rotary Bowl.

His dad was at every game, home and away.

This year, Shawn, 6-foot-4, 307 pounds, has started all four games for the Aggies (0-4), who have yet to score an offensive touchdown.

Yet again, he relies on the advice of his dad, who experienced his share of tough times during his lengthy career.

“We talked about it at lunch on Monday,” Shawn said. “His advice was to keep going and that letting up and giving up won’t solve anything. … It’s pretty frustrating right now, but I think he’s right.”

Even to this day, his father still tries to keep his professional life separate from his personal life, but seldom does a day go by that he isn’t reminded by someone else of what his dad meant to baseball, and he never tires being known as the son of Dale and Nancy Murphy.

“If you walked around our whole house you probably wouldn’t be able to know a baseball player lived there. He’s shy about it,” Shawn said, adding that his dad’s two NL MVP awards are in a box in the storage room.

“He was so good at what he did and such a great role model and example that it does make me proud. He’s a great person to be associated with,” Shawn said.

[tags]Dale Murphy, Atlanta Braves[/tags]

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Last night’s amazing comeback by the Dodgers had me feeling a bit sorry for those Padres. It reminded me of a joke Nate Colbert once told me concerning how BAD the Padres were at the time:

Last week a guy in San Diego had two Padres tickets on the dash of his car. He reported to the police that someone had broken in and left two more.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.