Hey,

Excellence = talent + passion + dedication.
There's a true beauty in seeing talented people caring intensely about what they do and then working their asses off to make it happen.
Go!

I'm getting old, I guess. Duh.
I'm losing my fucking tolerance for stuff that sucks... popular culture, journalism, politics, professional sports, etc. (no kidding... he he)
In exchange, my love of excellence has grown... classical music, reading, the stock market, architecture, software & the internet, beautiful caring people, etc.

1. The Dublin Phil
I saw the Dublin Philharmonic Saturday night at Wheaton College. Man, they were outstanding. Excellent.
  • The group was really young, especially when compared to the CSO. But you could feel the concentration and their tightness as a group. The conductor had to really conduct to guide them.
  • Their pianist, Conor Linehan, performed Beethoven's piano concerto #3. Incredible. I have no comprehension of how someone can become so accomplished at something like that... I'm speaking of both messrs. Beethoven and Linehan.
  • AM's little red dress at the show was incredible/excellent/beautiful as well. Yow!
2. The Stock Market
I spend much of my time these days learning the stock market.
I've invested for years, but usually pretty passively.

Now, I'm learning how to trade and more actively enter and exit the market and various asset classes. It's fascinating, and there are an incredible number of blogs and websites on the subject. So many talented, smart people are applying themselves to the max to be a successful investor. In short, they strive to achieve excellence. I do too.

Out there somewhere, somebody is confidently trading the market right now during today's slide. I hope to join them some day; I'm still learning and taking baby steps. I hope to be able to apply the tag "excellence" to my market knowledge and trading... again, some day.

3. Ropewalking

Movie: "Man on Wire"
Review: 3 bill-stars (out of 5)... worth seeing


The subject of "Man on Wire" is some Frenchie dude who, 30+ years ago, walked a jury-rigged tightrope between the two World trade Center towers. This review is easy:
  • The actual act of the guy ropewalking between the twin towers is utterly inconceivable to me and is breath-taking.
  • The movie is just OK. The really interesting stuff is just the old footage of this guy ropewalking.
It's funny. What this guy did is just incredible, but him and his buddies talking about it 30 years later, it sounds like every other "the touchdown I scored in high school" story. Yawn.

On the subject of excellence...
Movie: "The Sixth Sense"
Review: 5 bill-stars (out of 5)... outstanding!


I saw the last 30 minutes of "Sixth Sense" this weekend on crappy TV. "Sixth Sense" is excellent... and chilling to the bone at the end there. It's hard to summon better movie-making.

I was one of the lucky ones... I didn't know diddly about "Sixth Sense" when I went to see it at the theater. The movie is 10 years old now, and the number of young people who haven't seen it necessarily grows every day. If you haven't seen "Sixth Sense", don't google it or whatever... just watch it.

Wrap
Of course, the contrast to this beauty and excellence is embodied in our current government shenanigans. But why go negative at the end. Not me. I'm smiling!
little red dress... yow, bill

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