A number of family members and friends asked why I didn't send my customary "Yearly Summary" with my holiday card this year. Rest assured, my yearly recap has not been cancelled. I decided to mail the card and the summary separately. I hate to write about a year when it has not yet ended, which explains the delay. I'll probably do the same thing next year, so please expect the same. However, the format may change each year. This year is a perfect example.
1997 was a very challenging year in a number of respects. As such, the "text version" of my yearly recap is just not the right vehicle for highlighting the year to family and friends. Instead, I thought I would put the best possible spin on the year and present a top-10 list. Certainly, there are many things for which to be thankful. To focus on my blessings is a matter of perspective, if not fundamentally a paradigm shift. With that, here ("from the home office in Lincoln, Nebraska...") are the top-10 highlights for 1997 (in chronological order). Enjoy!
- Rolling into 1997 in the tropical splendor of the Caribbean. Sun and warmth, great food, unbelievable amenities, super company, postcard vistas...an overdose of pleasure.
- Going on a two-week adventure-of-a-lifetime to Antarctica with my Grandfather Miller. If anybody wants a story or two, just ask me about this trip (but allot a few hours for my response). Wow!!!
- Being assigned to a new client at Andersen Consulting. After 3 ½ years at the MCI client, I got an assignment at the Sprint PCS client in Kansas City, Missouri. I commuted weekly from D.C. for nine months, and I loved every minute of it (well...almost every minute). I fell in love with Kansas City, and I got some terrific professional experiences. May I always have this sense of growth and impact in my profession!
- Traveling to San Francisco for the Memorial Day Weekend. I performed in a brass choir at the wedding of a friend I met at Tanglewood in 1990, and I spent the balance of the weekend getting a drunken-with-life bike tour of the Bay Area with some wonderful high school friends.
- Performing on the same stage as trumpeter Doc Severinsen (of "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" fame) and baritone William Warfield (best known for his rendition of "Ol' Man River" in the 1950's musical "Showboat"). I was a member of the McLean Orchestra which backed these wonderful musicians. The compact disc recording of this concert was the #1 selling CD in the classical section of Tower Records for over 3 weeks!
- Performing with my brass quintet at the wedding reception for my Grandfather Miller and his fantastic bride, Renie Pierce. I would have been content just to be a part of this occasion and to enjoy family, but to contribute music, as well, was over the top. In my view, sharing music with people you love on a special occasion is the purest manifestation of music. That is why music was created in the first place.
- Traveling to Orlando, Florida to attend the DCI World Championships. Even though I make this trip each year, the significance is not diminished. More than anything else, this trip is about maintaining friendships that began back in my drum corps days. Of course, it doesn't hurt that I love screaming brass and raging percussion, as well. Can't wait for next year!
- Visiting Fallingwater with my Mother. This house (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright) is regarded by many as the most important architectural work in America, and seeing it helped me to understand this high praise. The ideas which fueled the design of Fallingwater feel kindred (somehow) to ideas which propel me in yet-undefined directions.
- Visiting with my 4th Grade Teacher in Leavenworth, Kansas. While on assignment in Kansas, I went on a tour of my old elementary school (from 1975), and I asked the office if they remembered my teacher, Del Wollesen. They told me that he retired just two years ago, and they kindly put me in touch with him. What a thrill to have dinner with a man I last knew when I was a child, 22 years ago!
- Taking in a weekend of Broadway during the Christmas Season with Grandpa Miller, Renie, and my Mother. The Lion King was the highlight (right behind dinner at Lutece, on 249 East 50th Street, just in case you are ever in NYC).
"Work is work. Nothing more. Look for happiness elsewhere." – Dana Goldberg, friend
"...getting an F...does not motivate people to pursue excellence." – Scott Stewart, Director, Madison Scouts Drum & Bugle Corps
"The real fault is to have faults and not try to mend them." – Confucius
"I find art is at its worst when it is too easy; the greater the struggle, the better the art." – Rosemary Feit Covey, artist and friend
"Simplicity...is the result of profound thought." – Chinese fortune cookie (found hanging on a friend's refrigerator)
"Voluntary simplicity involves both inner and outer condition. It means singleness of purpose, sincerity and honesty within, as well as avoidance of exterior clutter, of many possessions irrelevant to the chief purpose of life. It means an ordering and guiding of our energy and our desires, a partial restraint in some directions in order to secure greater abundance of life in other directions. It involves a deliberate organization of life for a purpose." – Richard Gregg, 1936
"Civilization, in the real sense of the term, consists not in the multiplication, but in the deliberate and voluntary reduction of wants. This alone promotes real happiness and contentment." – Gandhi
"We can't have freedom if we keep spending, because then we have nothing to fall back on. With nothing saved or invested, we have to keep on working whether we want to or not." – Janet Luhrs
"It is awareness that keeps people off treadmills." – Janet Luhrs
"(Simple living) gives people a fresh way to look at old habitual patterns, to discover for themselves empowered new ways of doing things." – Vicki Robin, co-author of Your Money or Your Life
"If we live in a complex world, it is one of our own design." – Ernest Callenbach, author
"What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half hour?" – Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Man's mind once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." – Oliver Wendell Holmes
"When we cannot find contentment in ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere." – Francois de La Rochefoucald
"Country Clubs are one of the last great bastions of institutionalized racism." – David Brinkley
"The toughest competition you face is yourself." – Michael Jordan
"It's all about desire. You got to want it real bad." – Michael Jordan, upon winning his 5th NBA Championship
"I finally realized that the most interesting people on television weren't watching television." – Mike Renfroe
Question: "Do you believe in God?" Answer: "I know God." – anonymous priest
"Wine has only one reason to exist – to give pleasure; we cannot live on memories." – anonymous wine expert
"For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him, he must regard himself as greater than he is." – Goethe
"Enjoy every minute...there is plenty of time to be dead." – Paul Edelmann, friend
"Do what you can do, but do it." – Reverend Ronald A. Ruth
"I do not try to be better than anybody else. I only try to be better than myself." – Dan Jansen, Olympic Gold Medalist in Speed Skating
"Ambivalence is a good sign of a bad idea." – David Welch
"Invest in the kinds of friends that will someday attend your funeral." – David Welch
"It's not the age of the car – it's the mileage (that counts)." – Anonymous
"I'm losing it! But it is a pretty painless way to go, I must say." – Michi Szpatura, friend (whose "it," to the contrary, is very together)
"...the slowness of progress." – Reynolds Price, Novelist and Professor at Duke University
"...(Princess Diana) reminded us that dreams do come true, but only for a little while." – Susan Stamberg of National Public Radio, on the death of Princess Diana
"The most functional art is the way we live our life." – David Welch
"The danger in saying what you think is that you might learn what someone else thinks." – Bruce Smiley, cousin
"Don't forget to put love before success in life." – Fred Rogers ("Mr. Rogers")
"Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember." – Oscar Levant, pianist
"Small gestures are often large ones in disguise." – David Welch
"I reject get-it-done, make-it-happen thinking. I want to slow things down so I understand them better." – Governor Jerry Brown
"Genius isn't one great idea, it's a lifestyle." – Diane Cyr, author
"Genius is the ability to make the complex look simple." - Anonymous
"Don't just 'trust your gut' – work hard to understand what it is telling you." – David Welch
"Confidence is backed by competence." – Peggy Fox, news anchor
"Perception lags reality." – Rob Reid, co-worker
"When you take the blinders off of a horse, you end up in the ditch." – Tim Greene, former NFL player and analyst for the Fox Television Network
"Being simple is not complicated – but it is hard." – Dr. Craig Barnes, Pastor of the National Presbyterian Church
"At my age, I don't even buy green bananas." – anonymous joke retold by my very young Grandfather, George Miller
"I never learn anything from people who can't call shit 'shit.'" – Anonymous
"Principle: A brief, memorable statement designed to shape perspectives and guide decision making in times of ambiguity." – from an Andersen Consulting class
"Light tomorrow with today!" – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"...sometimes you have to go on pure emotion." – The "Car Talk Guys" from National Public Radio
"Trust wisdom." – David Welch
"Although I often sing about where I'm headed rather than where I'm from, most of (my) songs are about facing the stuff that follows me when I run." – David Wilcox, singer and songwriter
"He who develops his God-given gifts with view to aiding humanity, manifests truth." – William Grant Still, composer
| Where I could be found in 1997 (90,000+ flying miles later!) | |
| Marie Galante | Menlo Park, California |
| Gustavia | Palo Alto, California |
| Ile de Sainte-Barthelemy (St. Bart's) | Sausalito, California |
| St. Lucia | Tiburon, California |
| St. Lawrence Parish, Barbados | Springfield, Virginia |
| San Juan, Puerto Rico | Richmond, Virginia |
| Falls Church, Virginia | Midlothian, Virginia |
| Atlanta, Georgia | Lee's Summit, Missouri |
| Miami, Florida | New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Santiago, Chile | Baton Rouge, Louisiana |
| Ushuaia, Argentina | Rosemont, Illinois |
| The Drake Passage | Branson, Missouri |
| Antarctica Yankee Harbor, Greenwhich Island; Paulet Island; Pitt Point; James Ross Island; Devil's Island; Deception Island; Neumayer Channel; Port Lockroy; Torgersen Island; Palmer Station, Anvers Island; Petermann Island (Circumcision Harbor); Paradise Bay; Orne Islands |
Orlando, Florida |
| Cape Horn | Maitland, Florida |
| Punta Arenas, Chile | Winter Park, Florida |
| St. Charles, Illinois | Charlotte, North Carolina |
| Chicago, Illinois | Vienna, Virginia |
| Washington, D.C. | Dallas, Texas |
| Blacksburg, Virginia | Fort Worth, Texas |
| Chantilly, Virginia | Bowie, Maryland |
| Alexandria, Virginia | Fort Leavenworth, Kansas |
| McLean, Virginia | Penn Alps, Pennsylvania |
| Roanoke, Virginia | Bear Run, Pennsylvania |
| Orange County, Virginia | Bethesda, Maryland |
| Charlottesville, Virginia | Christiansburg, Virginia |
| Fairfax, Virginia | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Annandale, Virginia | Leavenworth, Kansas |
| Kansas City, Missouri | Manhattan |
| Reedville, Virginia | New York City |
| Overland Park, Kansas | Crescent City, Florida |
| San Francisco, California | Clearwater, Florida |
| Redwood City, California | Palm Harbor, Florida |
