Father's Day | Without a Vision - Mike Mullin, St. Cloud

Musings on a Monday Morning from Mike Mullin…

The weekly Newsletter of Without A Vision Consultancy LLC

June 10, 2019 – Mediocrity Abhors Excellence

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This coming week will feature the greatest amount of daylight of the entire year — except for my readers in New Zealand!
- Sorry, these are Northern Hemisphere-centric Musings…
If you enjoy weather — and who doesn’t? — last Thursday might have established itself as the benchmark for the rest of summer.
“An inch at a time,” said the old woman weeding her garden.
- Not many better metaphors for life.
The Japanese Lilacs are poised to release their sweet fragrances at any moment; the heavenly white blossoms will happily linger for a couple weeks in cool weather.
- As will also the fragrance of the Lindens, or if you prefer, Basswoods.
Come to think of it, why would anyone – directly or indirectly – knowingly dump harmful or toxic waste into a river, lake, stream – or anywhere?
Do you think the manufacturer risks legal action for making more than one, Best Dad Ever cap?
- How about the retailer?
When we were first married we bought a dining room table and chairs. We couldn’t afford a dining room set but we bought one anyway.
- I’ve written about this before: All the chairs are broken, though the kids did buy us a new set of chairs four Christmases ago.
  - Now, we’ve finally repaired, sanded, and refinished the table… wow, it looks nice!
    - Conservative estimate: 315,000 meals served to our kids and guests at this table over the last 40 years.
The (happy/ grateful) life of a Dad — Most of the following is true and occurred last Thursday afternoon within the span of approximately one hour:
- Laurie and I drove to Lake Lake Carlos for the highly-anticipated premiere of the Lutheran summer camp opera. This annual cusp-of-summer highlight always features creative, talented, youthful exuberance while never failing to produce tears, goosebumps, and the blubbery softening of emotions.
  - We arrive at the venue and within minutes our Toronto son phones (he never phones during the week or the middle of the day) while he’s hiking around Manhattan prior to a celebratory dinner engagement — just killing time, but his Raptors won (congrats!)…
    - Our son from Washington City sends photographs of our youngest granddaughter enjoying library time; at nine months-old she’s apparently reading at a grade #3 level and is the star of the class (of course!)…
      - Our #3 son from Minneapolis wonders if I’m available for nine holes of golf, immediately (I don’t play golf, one of the kids stole my clubs and my shoulders don’t work)…
        Our local son-in-law, married to our oldest daughter, wants to know if we will plant seeds that produce giant 1,000-pound pumpkins and also some giant sunflowers (of course, bring them over! These aren’t normally grown in small urban yards, but sure)…
        The 15-months-old Pi Day grandson face phones from Chicago on 6/14 (get it? 3.14) for his almost-daily visit, but we have to punch him (gut guilt!) we can’t face phone right now, we’re at the opera…
        Our next son’s cat died (can we bury him in the yard? sure), and he was our son’s best, best friend, truly; Pancake was his name and all forty orange pounds of him had been rescued 8 years ago from the Duluth pound; he died a healthier, happier, svelte 15 pounds…
        Our other Minneapolis son is trouble-shooting my LinkedIn account; the trouble is with the user, he reports, and not with the program…
        We’re with another one of our daughters – who is to be married in a year at this same venue that features the Lutheran opera — waiting with her future in-laws visiting from Ghana and Liberia — for the curtain to go up…
        Was our New Jersey son involved in that skyscraper helicopter crash, his Mom wants to know? (nope)…
        Our daughter working with the Minnesota Conservation Corps has made a surprise visit to her younger brother in Duluth (not the same brother with the cat) and the brother has sent a photo of the sighting since we haven’t seen her in three weeks and probably won’t for the rest of the summer…
        The opera curtain goes up with a flourish — and the kids don’t disappoint, none of them, not even the visitor from Liberia!
Throughout my life I’ve not been blessed with money, talent, athleticism, or good looks — and so I’ve had to make do with what I could scrounge and leverage.
- On the importance of healthy relationships I would tell you to not make the same mistakes I made, but I’m not sure what they are.
  - I’ve been blessed with thousands of acquaintances, but alas, very few friends.
    - Recently I became aware of research reported in The New York Times suggesting a large circle of acquaintances might be just as important — or more so — than a small number of primary relationships… in which case, I’d be well-positioned.
Mediocrity abhors excellence.
- Stay far away from one if you want the other.