Happy Independence Day!!

God Bless the USA, and God Bless our soldiers.

I for one am not thankful enough for the privilege and joy that it has been to grow up where I have, and live where I do. I am truly blessed to live in America!



Hope you have a safe and blessed holiday, filled with family, fun, fireworks, and barbecues! :)

Sing Of Mary

If this is not one of the most beautiful songs you have ever heard, well, you have heard more beautiful songs than I :)

Fr. Mike Schmitz on The Meaning of the Body

Here is a great clip from a really great priest... Fr. Mike Schmitz talking about the meaning of the body (pages from Theology of the Body).

It is a short clip, only 2 minutes, so you have no excuse not to watch it...

Google Doodles

I came across a cool article about the top 5 Google Doodles from The Washington Post, and thought it would be fun to share.

It has videos of the top 5, and I would encourage you to check them out if you are looking for 3 minutes of entertainment. My favorite out of their top 5 is the one about John Lennnon:



Do you have a favorite?

Scrubs "My Old Lady" Ending

I am a fan of Scrubs, and for my money the best episode of the series came in the first season, called "My Old Lady."



One thing the episodes talks about is always learning from your experiences, and from taking time for yourself to understand your dreams, goals, and life. It is about taking chances and making decisions. It is about getting to know people and trying to understand them.

This is the reason why I believe it is the best episode of Scrubs.

Little Acts of Kindness Matter

I watched a video of a speech by a volunteer firefighter, who told of a couple key lessons he learned from going into a burning building.



One thing he learned was that you should never wait to make a difference in someone's life. There is no need to wait to give until you can "afford" to... if you are waiting for the perfect time, it will never come. Give what you can, it will be enough.

The other important message is that little acts of kindness really do matter. We may think that when we do something little to help another person that it is not actually helping, but that couldn't be further from the case. A little act of kindness can go a long way.

As the saying goes and as we know is true, kindness is contagious. When you perform a kind act or send a smile someone's way, they are more likely to do the same for someone else. They will be put in a better mood, and they will put others in a better mood because of it.

The time is always right to help out another person, whether it is with a big act or a small act.

Steve Jobs Commencement Speech

I shared this video once upon a time, but with graduations happening around the country within these couple of weeks, I thought it would be appropriate to share the best commencement speech I have ever heard.



Best of luck to those moving on to their next stage in life... it is scary, but pretty darn rewarding too!

John Wooden on True Success

The other day I came across this talk by John Wooden on what he sees as true success... it is a great video of the inspiring and wise old coach, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone.



In the video, Wooden gives his definition of success. He says that success is:

"Peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you're capable."

Notice that his definition of success has nothing to do with achieving more fame or money than another person, a point which he makes in the talk. Instead, it is concerned with doing the best that you are capable of, and being satisfied with yourself and the life that you are living.

People see success as being in competition with other people, but Wooden says, "Never try to be better than anyone else." Rather, be the best you that you can be. At the end of the day, you need to be able to look yourself in the mirror and be satisfied, and that will not happen over the long-term if you are reaching for more fame, money, or popularity than other people. Those goals are fleeting, and are concerned with pride, not the true sense of satisfaction and fulfillment that comes from real growth as a person.

What is your definition of success? You need to evaluate that first, because that is what you will judge yourself on. If you have a warped sense of what being successful means, chances are you will be focused on the wrong things, and this will severely stunt your growth as a person.

Wooden had it right with his definition of success. True success is becoming the best person that you are capable of becoming. It has nothing to do with so many of the earthly things that we usually judge success on. If we truly are able to embrace this definition of success and live our life based on it, how much happier we would be.

Sarah Kay: "If I Should Have A Daughter..."

Great speech by Sarah Kay, founder of Project VOICE... she is a great and exciting speaker. I really enjoyed this speech! Very inspirational and powerful. It is 18 minutes long, but time goes quick... I wish it had been longer.

"You will put the star in starting over and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life."

".. He became a man in love again"

I saw this video and thought the overall message of it was something that we could all take a lesson from.



The key phrase in it, I believe, is, "By acting like a man in love, he became a man in love again."

I have written before about how a way to get a certain behavior or become a certain kind of person is to act as if you already have that trait. Fake it til you make it.

I think, in a roundabout way, a similar message is shown here. As soon as he began to act as if he was in love (by taking his wife to shows, reading to her... all of the things that she loves), he found that he no longer had to act like he was in love - because he WAS in love again.

In the same way, if we pretend we are nice to strangers, kind, generous, patient (or any other virtue which we hope to possess), we will soon find out that we are no longer pretending, but we have become that person.

We are creatures of habit. Excellence, Aristole said, is a habit. If we struggle with patience, but then, in a sense, "pretend" that we are patient. we will become patient. We are what we repeatedly do.

"Dream On" Sports Montage

One of the best sports montage videos you will ever see. Warning: goosebumps inducing...

Lou Gehrig Speech

Lou Gehrig is well-known both by those who follow baseball, and those who don't. For baseball fans, they know him as perhaps the great first baseman of all-time. For everyone else, they know him by the disease ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Another way that he is known is through the eloquence and inspiration of his speech given at Yankee Stadium. The full text of the speech is:

"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

"Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I'm lucky.

"When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift - that's something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies - that's something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter - that's something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body - it's a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed - that's the finest I know.

"So I close in saying that I may have had a bad break, but I have an awful lot to live for."

Let us always keep that in mind... we've got an awful lot to live for.

Why College Basketball Is So Great :)

Listen to the excitement of Gus Johnson, the announcer.... such a great sport! :)

Lion King - The Hula Song

Just a classic movie scene that you should watch and enjoy!!

:)