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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I’m more excited about the new Star Wars movie this week than Luke Skywalker is about going to the Toshi Station to pick up power converters, and I believe if you are learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share lessons I learned during my recent trip to Dallas, TX.
Today’s fun fact:
Today’s Fun Fact: In honor of The Force Awakens being the 7th feature film in the Star Wars franchise, here are seven fun Star Wars facts for you.
- For his performance in the fourth episode of Star Wars, A New Hope, Harrison Ford was paid US $10,000, which equals just over $39,000 in today’s world.
- According to the book The Making of Star Wars by J. W. Rinzler, Lucas planned Yoda to be played by a real monkey who would be wearing a mask and carrying a cane.
- Not only did John Williams win an Oscar for the Star Wars soundtrack, it was also named as the greatest film score of all time by the American Film Institute.
- The word Yoda comes from the Sanskrit word for “warrior.” While “Vader” is the Dutch word for “father.”
- Luke Skywalker and his family were originally imagined as dwarfs.
- Lucas came up with the name for Astromech droid when he nodded off while making American Graffiti. He woke up when the film’s sound editor asked for Reel 2, Dialog Track 2 in the abbreviated form – R2D2.
- Chewbacca’s name is derived from sobaka, the Russian word for dog. His voice is a mix of bears, walruses, lions and badgers.
What I learned yesterday.
Exactly 12 days ago I climbed inside a car along side my wife, and headed south toward Dallas, TX. It’s not often that we get time away together. In fact, since we had kids 13 years ago, I can probably count the number of times we’ve gone away together on one hand. Don’t feel bad; it’s mostly due to the fact that we’re both very content staying at home and hanging out.
Having said that, we were both really excited to be heading to Dallas. You see, we had a very specific reason for our trip south of the Red River. We were headed out to see one of our favorite rock bands, Muse. I first discovered Muse about 6 years ago while doing The Fringe Podcast. Jason, one of my co-hosts suggested that we play a part of their song “Uprising” at the end of one of our episodes.
I’d never heard “Uprising” or even heard of Muse. I pulled it up on YouTube and instantly loved it. I soon discovered more of their songs I like such as “Hysteria,” “Butterflies and Hurricanes,” “Fury,” “Madness,” “Knights of Cynonia,” and many others. I created a Muse playlist for Spotify, watched full-length concerts on YouTube, and found them making up a regular spot on my music rotation. However, one thing I didn’t do is tell my wife about Muse.
I really don’t know why I never told her about them. My wife and I don’t typically like the same type of music, but Muse is right up her alley.
About 6 months ago Kari discovered Muse. It turns out that they were not just up her alley. Kari fell in love with the band. She began researching them online, creating her own Spotify playlists, recording their concerts from the Palladia channel, and pretty much talking about them 24/7.
She joined the Muse fan club. On the day they announced they were doing a world tour, she got upset that very few US dates were announced. With the promise that new US dates would be added soon, she kept a close eye on their social media networks so that she’d be the first to know when they were coming to our area.
Soon the day arrived! They announced new dates and Dallas was on the list! At only about 3 hours from Oklahoma City, it was the closest city on their tour to our location, and we agreed to travel to Dallas to see them. The minute tickets went on sale, she snatched ourS up. Needless to say, she got us great seats.
Getting to Dallas is easy. From my house I only need to drive about 1 mile to a road called Broadway. Broadway turns into the Broadway Extension. The Broadway Extension flows right into I-35, and I-35 takes you all the way to Dallas.
We left in plenty of time to get to Dallas, check into the hotel, go pick up our tickets aT will call, eat dinner, and get to our seats at least 30 minutes before show time. Of course as we traversed the 218 miles that separate our house from the American Airlines Center, we rocked out to Muse to pass the time.
The concert was fantastic. Even though they battled technical and logistical issues that caused them to drop the opening act for the night and start the show 3 hours late, we loved it! The played every song that I had on my short list of “must hear” tunes. Kari got every song she wanted except “Hysteria.” As I mentioned earlier, it’s a great tune, and I was bummed that they didn’t play it too.
Once the concert was over we headed back to the hotel. By the time we got out of the parking garage, got on the highway, arrived to the hotel, and got ready for bed, it was 2am. We’d hoped to get up kind of early and head back to OKC, but now it was looking more like we’d sleep in a bit before hitting the road.
The fire alarm had other plans. Shortly before 4am we were jolted awake by the sharp, shrill tones of the alarm positioned just above the bed. Fortunately it was a false alarm. Unfortunately, there was an issue with the system that caused it to go off 24 more times throughout the night.
Needless to say, we did not get a good night’s rest, and once the sun was up, we packed our things and got out of there. Of course, not before we stopped by the front desk and got a full refund for the room.
I-35 was less than a mile from our hotel, but because of where the hotel is built, we couldn’t get back on the main road that is the straightest route. In today’s age of GPS and navigation devices, this did not pose a problem. I simply typed in my location to my phone, and Siri offered up directions on how to get to I-35.
However, I missed the first turn and Siri had to recalculate a new route. The new route was not too much out of the way, and we soon found our way onto I-35 and headed north. While I’ve gone to Dallas many times in my life, I’ve actually only traveled to the downtown area once, about 20 years ago. Still, once we made it to I-35 I was confident that I could find our way home from there and I turned off the navigation. That turned out to be a mistake.
We soon came to a fork in the road that gave us two options. Option 1 was to take I-35 west toward DFW Airport, and option 2 was to take I-35 east. I chose I-35 east. I did this because I-35 breaks into two parts at Denton. I-35 east goes to Dallas, and I-35 west goes to Fort Worth. I didn’t want to go to Fort Worth or the airport. I wanted to stay on I-35 east and go back toward Denton where the road converges back to simply, I-35.
We stayed on I-35 east for about 30 minutes. Nothing seemed familiar. At first I didn’t think anything of it. I haven’t been that far south much before, and I was on the other side of the highway when we came down, so I figured it was just the change of perspective that made it seem different.
So I started looking for clues that might reveal we were indeed on the right path. When we’d traveled a bit further, Kari chimed in and mentioned that nothing looked familiar to her. Uh oh.
We were in need of gas, so I took the next exit to fill up the tank and consult the navigation app on my phone. It revealed what we’d feared most. We were off course.
I told the navigation system to guide us to Denton, and it calculated a new route. We climbed back into the car, now which was now armed with a full tank of gas, and I was armed with a large cup of coffee. We drove and drove and drove and drove. We saw signs for Waco. In case you don’t know, Waco is SOUTH of Dallas. We wanted to go north.
A few minutes later the GPS guided us to a highway that was a westbound route, and it eventually routed us back to I-35. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the Dallas skyline in the distance. We were north of the Dallas skyline when we’d began our journey, so it was shocking to see it squarely in our path. As it turned out, we had traveled well east and south of Dallas. We were over an hour off course.
As we approached that familiar fork in the road, I found myself confused again. As it turned out, the signs are not labeled I-35, but I-635. Still, I could totally see why I opted for the route that said east. Even as the GPS system is commanding me to take the west route, it seemed like the wrong path.
It wasn’t the wrong path. In a matter of minutes we were driving in places that looked familiar. I turned the GPS system off, and the rest of our trip was smooth sailing.
Here’s what I learned.
This is the time of year that I like to look back and see how the year went. When the year began, I had a course in mind. I had a good idea of where I wanted to go. I wanted to learn new things, add new resources to help my clients, add new clients to my company, spend more time with my family, be more disciplined, and more.
How can I determine if I’ve made progress? How do I know if I’m on the right path?
Well, it started by writing down my goals and sharing them with you. A few times throughout the year, I shared updates with you. Those were the moments when I pulled off to the side of the road to check the map and get refueled. It was at those points that I made necessary adjustments to my route.
I found that sometimes I was on the wrong path, and I wasn’t really sure how it happened. I was sure that I had made the right decisions, and yet I was not in the spot that I’d planned.
At other times, mostly the entire 4th quarter of the year, I felt like I just didn’t have enough pep to keep up with the demand. I felt like I was a little 4 cylinder pickup truck that was trying to pull a semi trailer. The trailer was moving, but it wasn’t nearly as efficient as it should be.
So where do I go from here?
As I said from the outset of the goals, we don’t need January 1st to roll around to set a goal, start a new initiative, or change our behavior. The truth is, January 1st is just a good of a day as October 13th.
I will have goals and objectives that I will set out to accomplish in 2016, but it’s just as important to keep working on the things I set out to do in 2015, to see them through to completion.
As we look at closing the book on 2015, I’m really happy with what the year has entailed. I’ve not reached all my goals, nor will I reach them by the end of the year, but my journey isn’t over. I’ll continue my course, make corrections along the way, and keep blazing my trail one day at a time. I’ll do it all with the help of my wife Kari, the wisdom of my trusted friends, and the guidance of almighty God. After all, life is so much better when we don’t have to travel it alone, especially when the possibilities are endless and the road will take you anywhere.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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