Most of the courses I taught were multiple days long. The longest was a two week course. The shortest was just a couple of days. It’s important when a group of trainees will be together for several days it’s important to help them feel comfortable working together.
One of my ice breaker techiques was to ask each trainee to introduce him or herself and tell us the name of their high school mascot. I went to Timberline High School in Lacey, Washington. It’s a suburb of Olympia which some think is a suburb of Seattle. In any case, our mascot was a Blazer. He’s kind of like a lumberjack.
One interesting thing that happened every single class was that no matter the class size, at least one trainee would have attended a high school that had no mascot. Often it was someone who attended school outside of the United States. Schools in Europe and Asia typically don’t have mascots.
Today was the semi-finals for the Utah 6A high school football playoffs. My son’s team, Pleasant Grove, played against Lone Peak. They were vying for the opportunity to play American Fork who had won the earlier game. Pleasant Grove has never come this far in the playoffs. It was a great season.
I don’t have network or cable television. Yes, I’m a cord-cutter. We cut it over 10 years ago. I do have an Amazon Prime membership and it allows me to binge-watch shows. It’s a practice I’ve only recently started. I watched the first three seasons of The Man In The High Castle. I also watched the the one (and apparently only) season of Texas Rising. I’m currently watching season three of Vikings.
I enjoy period pieces and Vikings is excellent. Obviously, much of the series has to do with fighting. I was struck by the fact that my son’s school mascot is the vikings. Portions of the school are named after Norse gods and Norse mythological places. They resonate more after having watched the mini series over the past couple of weeks.
The Vikings don’t win every battle, of course. In fact, a good portion of season two saw them fighting in England. Eventually they lost, their settlement wiped out by English knights.
Today’s football game was not a close loss. My son’s team had their chances, but eventually the Vikings lost 28-0 to the Lone Peak team: the Lone Peak Knights.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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