Here is a lightning fast rundown of my favorite finds this week:
1) The Speech of a Great Leader – I wanted to quickly point you to Rams coach Sean McVay’s speech accepting the NFL award of 2017 Coach of the Year. He never made it about himself. He expressed gratitude for man after man in his organization (and also his mom and girlfriend). Great leaders make it about everybody else.
Photo Credit: NFL
Also…just wanted to share this video of the Philadelphia Eagles:
2) Free USA3 – The Winter Olympic Games has its Opening Ceremony today. How beautiful to watch this display of international cooperation! To see all the athletes representing their nations is quite a sight. This year, as well as a few other times, North and South Korean athletes have walked together in the parade of nations. We will want to applaud.
Photo credit: Opening Ceremony, NBC
Then we remember the threats of nuclear attack.
Just yesterday, I was reminded of another sober reason not to celebrate. Three Americans are still being detained in North Korea. Businessmen. Educators. Americans. Held without reason. Sentenced without a trial to hard labor. Months ago…
Sol Kim, the son of detainee Tony Kim, posted a video on Youtube about the plight of these three Americans.
Photo Credit: CNN
Please do what you can if you are at the Olympics or on social media talking about the Olympics. Use #USA3 as a hashtag. Raise 3 fingers if you are present at the Games, when you cheer for our US athletes.
And pray.
3) More Than an App – KrueTV is shutting down.
This app is going away after today. It was a livestreaming platform for artists – new ones and seasoned ones alike. It was a springboard for many, including Beyond the Guitar.
I’m sad – watching many artists doing their “last stream” on Krue today. They will go to other platforms and we will find them. What I will miss is this community. It was extraordinary.
4) Valentine Sweetness – Gather a bunch of great women friends around February 14, and you get a feast of Valentine sweetness. Here is just a sampling:
5) Bonuses – This week was about 5 minutes long. I will close it out with what was going to be the bonuses. These will suffice for my fifth find:
A Film: Isle of Dogs
A Quote: “There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.” – James Baldwin
A Newly Discovered Product: Probably over 10 years ago, at Christmas time, in Cairo, Egypt, I attempted to make caramel. A Brazilian friend of mine told me how. Take unopened cans of sweetened condensed milk and cover them with water and heat on the stovetop for 3 hours. Really simple. Unless you fall back asleep after putting the turkey in the oven in the pre-dawn of a Christmas morning. At some point later, I awoke to a loud pop! On my way to the kitchen, another pop happened. When I arrived the white walls of our kitchen looked like the side of a Guernsey cow. The water had boiled out, and the cans had exploded. Golden brown caramel was splattered over every surface of the kitchen…on Christmas morning. I never made caramel again.
This was a lovely find this week:
and…Spring is coming:
Have a weekend of making memories with those you love. See you soon.