The Power Of Delegation

Yesterday I had some delivery guys from Best Buy carry a new clothes washing machine I recently purchased up to my 2nd floor where the laundry closet it. It felt great, because neither myself or Kris needed to lift a thing other than a credit card out of my wallet and a pen to sign my name.

We moved relatively recently from a condo to a townhouse. In our youthful stubbornness, we decided we could handle the move ourselves without any outside help, excluding her parents helping us with organizing and packing up the kitchen and clothes. In other words, we we were going to tackle the big and heavy stuff ourselves. That worked out alright, effort wise, for the beds and a few random smaller pieces of furniture. It was not quite as nice for the bigger things. We nearly broke Kristin's back carrying up our couch and one of the chests we have. I myself was dog tired and lost productivity for the Sunday/Monday that we moved. But we got the job done without paying a single mover a dine.

What was the net amount of money kept after doing the job ourselves? In hindsight, probably -$400.

Despite my former college football player frame that might be conducive to manual labor (read: lifting heavy stuff), I make my living as a software engineer - a job that only requires mental lifting. I get paid to produce what my mind tells my fingers to type. Considering that particular line of work requires me to 1) stay constantly abreast of what is happening in the industry 2) learning new skills almost daily and 3) work on current projects, every minute of my time that I can spend or every ounce of energy that I can conserve in order to do one of those three things carries monetary value. In hindsight, it would have been a hell of a lot easier to just pay movers to handle all of that big stuff while I geeked away at my machine or reading a book.

The old me would have probably tried to find a way to pick up my new washing machineand carry it in myself, based on some stubborn pride and inkling that I could save some money. Instead, I let the movers tote it in, for about half the cost that my hourly wage would probably be were I earning one, whilst I worked away yesterday afternoon staying focused on my task.

Delegation is a beautiful thing, and something I need to learn to do more often.

Five Wacky NFL Predictions for '09

I am waiting for massive svn commits to go through to our central repo. While that is going on, I figure it is time for a troll worthy post of wacky things I am going on a limb to predict to happen in the NFL in '09. I have absolutely no legitimate insight behind these predictions, for what it is worth.

1. Plaxico Burress will be the Comeback Player of the Year


2. Tom Brady's comeback will be underwhelming and he will not be one of the three QBs selected to the AFC for the pro bowl.


3. One team in the NFL will make the playoffs with a losing record. There is a 99% chance this team will come from the NFC West or NFC North. There is a 30% chance it will be the Arizona Cardinals with Matt Leinart at QB


4. For the first time since 1986 (Lawrence Taylor) the NFL MVP will be a defensive player. I am going to be really bold and predict that player to be Mario Williams of Houston.


5. Super Bowl: I have <drumroll /> the Washington Redskins over the Baltimore Ravens. It will be given a stupid label such as the Beltway Bowl.

Contact in NFL Non-Contact Drills? Big Suprise There...

I just watched this story on Outside the Lines this morning on ESPN.

The gist of it is that there were several season ending injuries that occurred during a Houston Texans mini-camp due to contact. The NFL stipulates there is to be no contact during mini-camps, in which players do not wear pads. Apparently this is a big surprise to folks - not so much to me.

Guess what sports fans... this happens in college football also - and mostly for the same reasons. Coaches want contact in drills because it is the only way you can train a player to get better at live tempo and live speed. They are also told that for certain practices you can not have contact. But they get around it.

You line up offensive and defensive players who, if you've read Dark Side of the Game you'd know, really don't like each other at all, whatsoever, despite being on the same team. The natural tension, plus the fact guys are trying to win starting jobs and roster/travel spots almost guarantees players will still go 100% live even though they do not have pads on. If you have a boy scout player who does not go hard during one of these "non-contact" sessions, all a coach needs to do is point how that player is being lazy or is being a "pussy" and that situation is immediately remedied to the coaches liking. It's all social engineering, and football players are typically ants who will bitch about it, but not question it at the end of the day - as was the case with all but about Texans players from the aforementioned story.

The solution here is either to a) get rid of non-contact practices all-together as one commentator on the show pointed out or b) stipulate and enforce that if there is a non-contact practice that offensive players and defensive players CANNOT be involved in the same drill with each other, thus minimizing any chance of their being live contact.