Craig & Co. in Town and New Speedway Sport - Blog #33 (Aug. 25 - 31)

Basketball Update:

Not much on this end. We are still working very hard in the preseason with a bunch of exhibition games coming up in the next few weeks. My body is feeling good too. I will put the link for our schedule below. The team on top is the home team and times are not official quite yet. The league is still figuring out streaming for the season. It may be paid, but it also may be free on YouTube. I will keep you all posted on that.

Schedule: https://www.flashscore.com/team/zielona-gora/r1BJiCyi/

Leadership Lesson:

If someone were to ask me what I am feeling when I am playing my absolute best, I would say that it is when I am playing with joy. I have been trying to make this an everyday thing and have improved at this over the last couple of years. Joy is different than happiness. Happiness is conditional. It is dependent on the situation or external factors that are going on in your life. If I score a lot, I am happy. If I get a promotion, I am happy. But living and playing (in this case) with joy means something different. It has to do with attacking your work with enthusiasm, passion, and intensity while also enjoying what you're doing. A great example of this is SpongeBob SquarePants. I got this idea from legendary football coach, Jim Harbaugh. He talks about how he loves SpongeBob's attitude, etc. Here is the clip.

https://www.facebook.com/barstoolsports/videos/pardon-my-take-jim-harbaugh/528544761219641/

While it is kind of a joke, he is right. You have a choice when you show up to work. Attack the day with joy or do not. Doing so will make your work better and more enjoyable. I need to work on this, but it is an important thing to do that can contribute to success.

Top 5 of the Week:

Types of Meat (Specific)

1. Steak - Not much of an explanation needed here. My only "luxury" meat on the list. Simply put, the best-tasting meat there is.

2. Wings - I love wings like crazy. Honestly, could have been number one. Some honey bbq with a little ranch does not miss.

3. Ribs - Juicy and delicious. Barbecue wings are amazing. Very messy and not the most fun to eat, but still amazing.

4. Fried Chicken - I like regular fried chicken, but I was thinking more along the lines of a fried chicken sandwich or even a good chicken tender. Nashville hot chicken style is the best version of this.

5. Ground Beef - Very versatile. Burgers, tacos, ground beef bowls, etc. I eat this type of meat the most probably, so I had to put it on the list.

What Else Did I Do This Week?

My cousin, Craig, and his family are currently living in London. However, his wife, Magda, is from Poland, roughly an hour south of Krakow. They spent most of August on holiday there with Magda's family. They started their road trip back on Friday and made a pit stop in ZG. We had a team event on Friday night at what I would describe as a motocross, mini NASCAR match. It is a massive sport in Poland. It is one team versus another. Each race is four laps with four contestants, two from each team. The bikes do not have brakes on them. They do laps, drifting around the corners, and cranking the gas on the straightaways. I had never seen anything like it. The team had an autograph signing section before the race, got some free food, and watched from the VIP section which was awesome. Craig and his fam (Magda, Leon, and Oscar) met me there too. They had never been to this sport before either. It was fun and a cool thing to experience as a part of the Polish culture. The kids loved it, and then, we headed back to stay the night at my place. My place has plenty of space for one or two, but we had a packed house with five. I had a blast hanging and spending more time with them.

Saturday, Craig, Leon, and I did the ZG parkrun which is a 5k that they do every weekend. Craig absolutely killed it, coming in around 20 minutes, and he got first place. Leon and I were hanging out toward the back. There were a couple of basketball fans running, so it was fun talking to them. The path was really cool too. We headed back and hung out at my apartment and had breakfast. Then, they packed up and resumed their road trip. Fun seeing some family out here in Poland! The rest of the day, I hung out, went for a walk, did some reading, and watched a bit of college football. The walking/running paths here are amazing. It really reminds me of northern Wisconsin. Beautiful greenery and trees. Fall colors are going to go crazy here.

Sunday, I traveled about a half an hour to go to a weapons museum. It wasn't particularly my cup of tea, but there were some very cool historical guns, uniforms, tanks, missiles, planes, and more at this museum. Poland has been in the middle of some very significant historical events in the last hundred years. It was cool to see all of the different things used in these wars from different world powers, including the US.

Top Meal of the Week:

I had a pretty boring week of eating, but I did have a Polish sausage at the Speedway on Friday. My first Polish sausage in Poland. It honestly was not anything special, and I would take a Wisconsin brat over it. It was still solid, though, so I'll give it a shoutout.

Cultural Difference in Poland:

Of the traveling I have done, it always interests me to see some of the little things that are different between different countries. A perfect example of this is jaywalking. Traveling to France or Italy, people walk across the street as they please, and I do not think the police care about jaywalkers. In Poland, people do not jaywalk. They really obey the rules, and the police will give you a ticket for jaywalking without a second thought from what I have heard. Now, this could simply be because it is enforced more strictly, but I also think it reflects the rule-following culture in Poland.