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From: Adam Knighton <adam.knighton@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jan 27, 2019 at 2:19 PM
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Drawing the Power of Jesus Christ into Our Lives

https://www.lds.org/study/general-conference/2017/04/drawing-the-power-of-jesus-christ-into-our-lives

Fwd: Check out Blame Game from Revisionist History

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From: Adam Knighton <adam.knighton@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Feb 4, 2019 at 6:37 AM
Subject: Check out Blame Game from Revisionist History
To: <adam.knighton@gmail.com>

https://play.google.com/music/m/Ditscvqwkgh4mtnp5myuixrmw4e?t=Blame_Game_-_Revisionist_History

Fwd: How Venezuela's crisis developed and drove out millions of people - BBC News

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From: Adam Knighton <adam.knighton@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 6:14 AM
Subject: How Venezuela's crisis developed and drove out millions of people - BBC News
To: <adam.knighton@gmail.com>

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-36319877

Fwd: FW: Thought

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Adam Knighton <adam.knighton@vareximaging.com>
Date: Mon, Jan 7, 2019 at 11:44 AM
Subject: FW: Thought
To: Adam Knighton <adam.knighton@gmail.com>

Adam Knighton, CPIM, CLTD
Strategic Sourcing
Varex Imaging Corporation
t: 801.973.5144

From: Bob Herlin <bobmisc@hotmail.com>
Sent: Monday, January 7, 2019 9:18 AM
To: Brenda Brklacich <brenda.brklacich@vareximaging.com>; Adam Knighton <adam.knighton@vareximaging.com>
Subject: Fwd: Thought


Get Outlook for Android<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Faka.ms%2Fghei36&data=02%7C01%7Cadam.knighton%40vareximaging.com%7C642c431398cf4bd8d7ee08d674bbc1c3%7C0eee4667af5044feabd20490655d3721%7C1%7C1%7C636824747141185553&sdata=NJ8weB%2ByNZJLwpcp8QF3QWC%2FXvwuN28c2FZp5qMdgA0%3D&reserved=0>

________________________________
From: Bob Herlin <bobmisc@hotmail.com<mailto:bobmisc@hotmail.com>>
Sent: Sunday, January 6, 2019 8:41:47 PM
To: Amanda Mason; Cheryl Larsen; Chris Melo; Gina Snodgrass; Justin Berg; Karl Albrecht; Jarred Mason; Lisa Briggs; Pam Klekas; Richard Trask; Shane Cottrell; Jeff Meservy; Ernesto Aquino Deyro; Cristie Deyro; Noel Placer; Jeremy Robertson; Kendra Herlin; Linda Alldredge
Subject: Thought


"Don't widen the plate."

Twenty years ago, in Nashville, Tennessee, during the first week of January, 1996, more than 4,000 baseball coaches descended upon the Opryland Hotel for the 52nd annual ABCA's convention.

While I waited in line to register with the hotel staff, I heard other more veteran coaches rumbling about the lineup of speakers scheduled to present during the weekend. One name kept resurfacing, always with the same sentiment - "John Scolinos is here? Oh, man, worth every penny of my airfare."

Who is John Scolinos, I wondered. No matter; I was just happy to be there.

In 1996, Coach Scolinos was 78 years old and five years retired from a college coaching career that began in 1948. He shuffled to the stage to an impressive standing ovation, wearing dark polyester pants, a light blue shirt, and a string around his neck from which home plate hung - a full-sized, stark-white home plate.

Seriously, I wondered, who is this guy?

After speaking for twenty-five minutes, not once mentioning the prop hanging around his neck, Coach Scolinos appeared to notice the snickering among some of the coaches. Even those who knew Coach Scolinos had to wonder exactly where he was going with this, or if he had simply forgotten about home plate since he'd gotten on stage. Then, finally ...

"You're probably all wondering why I'm wearing home plate around my neck," he said, his voice growing irascible. I laughed along with the others, acknowledging the possibility. "I may be old, but I'm not crazy. The reason I stand before you today is to share with you baseball people what I've learned in my life, what I've learned about home plate in my 78 years."

Several hands went up when Scolinos asked how many Little League coaches were in the room. "Do you know how wide home plate is in Little League?"

After a pause, someone offered, "Seventeen inches?", more of a question than answer.

"That's right," he said. "How about in Babe Ruth's day? Any Babe Ruth coaches in the house?" Another long pause.

"Seventeen inches?" a guess from another reluctant coach.

"That's right," said Scolinos. "Now, how many high school coaches do we have in the room?" Hundreds of hands shot up, as the pattern began to appear. "How wide is home plate in high school baseball?"

"Seventeen inches," they said, sounding more confident.

"You're right!" Scolinos barked. "And you college coaches, how wide is home plate in college?"

"Seventeen inches!" we said, in unison.

"Any Minor League coaches here? How wide is home plate in pro ball?"............"Seventeen inches!"

"RIGHT! And in the Major Leagues, how wide home plate is in the Major Leagues?

"Seventeen inches!"

"SEV-EN-TEEN INCHES!" he confirmed, his voice bellowing off the walls. "And what do they do with a Big League pitcher who can't throw the ball over seventeen inches?" Pause. "They send him to Pocatello !" he hollered, drawing raucous laughter. "What they don't do is this: they don't say, 'Ah, that's okay, Jimmy. If you can't hit a seventeen-inch target? We'll make it eighteen inches or nineteen inches. We'll make it twenty inches so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can't hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say twenty-five inches.'"

Pause. "Coaches... what do we do when your best player shows up late to practice? or when our team rules forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets caught drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him? Do we widen home plate? "

The chuckles gradually faded as four thousand coaches grew quiet, the fog lifting as the old coach's message began to unfold. He turned the plate toward himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw something. When he turned it toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed, complete with a freshly drawn door and two windows. "This is the problem in our homes today. With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids. With our discipline.

We don't teach accountability to our kids, and there is no consequence for failing to meet standards. We just widen the plate!"

Pause. Then, to the point at the top of the house he added a small American flag. "This is the problem in our schools today. The quality of our education is going downhill fast and teachers have been stripped of the tools they need to be successful, and to educate and discipline our young people. We are allowing others to widen home plate! Where is that getting us?"

Silence. He replaced the flag with a Cross. "And this is the problem in the Church, where powerful people in positions of authority have taken advantage of young children, only to have such an atrocity swept under the rug for years. Our church leaders are widening home plate for themselves! And we allow it."

"And the same is true with our government. Our so-called representatives make rules for us that don't apply to themselves. They take bribes from lobbyists and foreign countries. They no longer serve us. And we allow them to widen home plate! We see our country falling into a dark abyss while we just watch."

I was amazed. At a baseball convention where I expected to learn something about curve balls and bunting and how to run better practices, I had learned something far more valuable.

From an old man with home plate strung around his neck, I had learned something about life, about myself, about my own weaknesses and about my responsibilities as a leader. I had to hold myself and others accountable to that which I knew to be right, lest our families, our faith, and our society continue down an undesirable path.

"If I am lucky," Coach Scolinos concluded, "you will remember one thing from this old coach today. It is this: "If we fail to hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard of what we know to be right; if we fail to hold our spouses and our children to the same standards, if we are unwilling or unable to provide a consequence when they do not meet the standard; and if our schools & churches & our government fail to hold themselves accountable to those they serve, there is but one thing to look forward to ..."

With that, he held home plate in front of his chest, turned it around, and revealed its dark black backside, "...We have dark days ahead!."

Note: Coach Scolinos died in 2009 at the age of 91, but not before touching the lives of hundreds of players and coaches, including mine. Meeting him at my first ABCA convention kept me returning year after year, looking for similar wisdom and inspiration from other coaches. He is the best clinic speaker the ABCA has ever known because he was so much more than a baseball coach. His message was clear: "Coaches, keep your players-no matter how good they are-your own children, your churches, your government, and most of all, keep yourself at seventeen inches."

And this my friends is what our country has become and what is wrong with it today, and now go out there and fix it!

"Don't widen the plate."



Bob Herlin

Electronic Music

I love electronic music. I was trying to figure out when I first realized I liked it. My first thought, however, was about when I was first exposed to it on a conscious level, and I think that was in the sixth grade, so I must have been eleven.

We had to take a music appreciation class, and the music exposure ranged from Kumbia to Come on Eileen. This was 1984 after all. There was something electronic in the book, but it wasn't Eno or Vangelis. Come to think of it the selection was probably Tangerine Dream from the early Seventies. All it was was Moog whistles, whines and clicks. Literally, it made me ill.

1983/84 was a magical time for music. Pop radio played wall to wall Thriller. I remember I asked for Thriller for Christmas, believe it or not I got Lionel Richie's Can't Slow Down instead. I actually liked it, but I was disappointed that my parents were confused by which black guy sang Billy Jean. Actually, they were painfully aware of who Michael Jackson was, and didn't want to encourage me, so that was the last time I tried to be overtly-- "BAD! You know it!"

Anyway, where was I...? 1984--yes, right. Van Halen!

Van Halen's album 1984 has this track on it called 1984, which leads immediately into the track, Jump. Jump was very popular and played routinely, oh every four hours or so, on Rock 103.2. The same station, incidentally, that played Dr. Demento Saturday afternoons. In Salt Lake on 103.5 Dr. Demento was aired Sunday nights at 10:30. I wasn't supposed to listen to 103.2, but like crossing international boarders, I could freely indulge at a friend's house. This is the same "friend's house" we used to play power slam dunk on the trampoline moved under the basketball hoop in the back yard.

Anyway, this friend and his older brother laughed and mocked me one winter morning when we were jamming to Jump when they played air guitar and drums, and I played air keyboard. They insisted Van Halen would never use synthesizers. I was embarased, "How was I supposed to know Eddie Van Halen only played the guitar? I don't have MTV!"

So I've been confused and bewildered ever since, but until today I had surmised that it was possible to play cords like that on the ax with a little help, maybe. NOW I have proof that yes my friend, who's name I can't remember, you were wrong and I, I was right, oh yes. Eddie does know how to play the piano, and there is more than one way to cut down a tree, even he knows it.

I couldn't believe that I have never seen this video all the way through. Fortunately, YouTube exists to put my tortured mind to rest.

Look to see David Lee Roth mock Eddie by playing air keyboard. I feel so vindicated, and this video is so dumb.



Strangely enough, I think Eddie Van Halen's Jump was what lead me to appreciate electronic music on a conscious level. It was cool, not like Chariots of Fire. I had no other exposure, except new wave stuff like Thompson Twins, and movie soundtracks like Harold Fultimiar's Axel F. .

In hind sight, I know I've like electronic music before the sixth grade. I've since discovered that the theme music to Ira Flatow's old PBS science program Newton's Apple was in fact Kraftwerk's Ruckzuck. I really liked that music, and there have been others, but unfortunately it always seemed to be obscure and unknowable to a little kid. Thanks to the Internet, and tools like SoundHound, it's much easier to identify and consume great Electronic Music.

Wow! It's been a long time away. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have seriously taken over things, haven't they?

Well, gotta go.... Bye.

The Morality of Golf...?

Let Tiger win, if he can. Why not? The last I checked golf was not a good metaphor of morality, and doesn't really fit the model of a good life. And, if it does, I don't understand golf.

Win or lose it is this guy's livelihood. Let him play without comment. Besides, doesn't morality state you should probably keep your balls out of other people's holes, and keep your putter in your pants, which are two examples of how good golf isn't to be played.

My Caucus Meeting Education

I mistakenly thought the purpose of the caucus was to settle the precinct on one candidate for each elected position. I thought this was how the precinct's delegates knew who to vote for at the party conventions, sort of like a tiny Electoral College. Instead, the purpose of the caucus is to just elect the delegates. To this end I did not consider the notion that a delegate might ignore the wishes of her caucus and vote her own "conscience".

I learned that you go to your caucus meeting to participate in nominating and electing delegates whom you stand a good chance of at least knowing well. Once the delegates are elected by a simple majority of those in attendance you magically know who your neighborhood's delegates are, then you know who you need to talk to about which candidate you want them to vote for at the convention.

Since everyone couldn't possibly go the the party's convention your delegates must "represent" your vote at these meetings. It takes a bit of faith, to be sure. However, if you don't participate in your precinct's caucus meeting you forfeit your opportunity to exercise your most basic democratic right in helping form your government. This is why the United States isn't a democracy, at least outside of the caucus meeting, it is a representative republic. Neither are your state and local governments true democracies, because there is always some degree of faith in representation present in their operation.

It is sad when we can't trust our government. I hope by my writing what I learned last night at my caucus meeting you will now have the tools you need to build a more representative and responsible government, a government you can be proud of.

twitter victim

I finally did it. I caved. @adamknighton... tah-weeet.

The Last Bath in the White House

As you may or may not know, and depending on who you ask, the White House has a rather spacious master bath.

Why, you may be asking yourself, does the White House need such a large and spacious master bath? Well, do you remember President William H. Taft? If you do, then you'll have some clue as to why President Woodrow Wilson had the President's master bath renovated and enlarged in his honor.

In fact, the room is so large now you can sit a 54 piece orchestra in there right between the tub and the linen closet. It's only a good softball's throw from the toilet and bidet to the other side of the room, but I tell you, the acoustics are phenomenal, and President Wilson took full advantage.

Wilson, it's written, would get up each morning and burst out ballad after folk ballad to the accompaniment of the White House's Orchestra, as he lay comfortably in the over-sized tub that might have saved Taft's life, if he'd had one.

Fortunately, this little known tradition of Presidential "shower" ballads continues to this day, each President adding his own personal touch to the experience. For example, Nixon would warble almost uncontrollably, as if he were having an epileptic fit. LBJ, on the other hand, would hum quietly and inauspiciously. Kennedy had his bad back, which tightened up if he sang, so he hardly sang at all.

Eisenhower and Truman were warblers like Nixon used to be, but not quite as aggressive.

FDR didn't appreciate the orchestra, preferring the phonograph instead. Still, his voice would sound out like fine chocolate to scent the air each and every morning.

Hoover was a baritone, who liked to sing falsetto as he lathered himself. One morning, the White House Press secretary, George Akerson, walked into ear shot and mistakenly thought a teenage boy was using the facilities and must have been hurt, requiring medical assistance. This turned out to be one of the more embarrassing moments for President Hoover.

President Calvin Coolidge would bring in cabaret singers and just mouth the words while pretending to sing the songs himself. It was he who popularized the term, lip-sync. He used the term as an example of his laissez-faire style and general attitude toward life and the Federal Government.

Harding, unfortunately, never used the master bath for bathing, preferring instead to use the sink in the bathroom just off the Oval Office.

Since Nixon, President Ford would insist the White House Orchestra trade instruments amongst themselves, and would appear to delight in the confusion, quietly laughing to himself as he read the morning paper.

Carter had a jukebox and disco balls installed in 1978. He wasn't one to limit himself to the classics.

Reagan kept his entire equestrian and livestock menagerie in the master bath for the first five years of his presidency. Finally, in the spring of 1986, First Lady Nancy Reagan had the mess moved back to the ranch in California, and made the room her personal spa and Astrological meditation area.

President George H.W. Bush also differed to his wife the honor of using the master bath with exclusivity. Mrs. Bush, you guessed it, a warbler.

Clinton, well, let's just say he lit a lot of cigars up there when Hillary wasn't around.

George W. Bush, in the summer of 2002, stopped using the master bath suddenly. In White House transcripts President Bush is quoted as saying to his Chief of Staff, Karl Rove, "...I spent the entire night up there looking for the f**king light switch. It's damned creepy in there with out the light on. I'm never going back in there, no matter how bad I gotta pee."

And that brings us to our current president--President Obama.

President Obama has a great baritone voice. In fact, he's so enamored with his ability to sing in the bath tub, with the orchestra, as Wilson had intended, that he invited a recording to be made for the White House archive.

Here he is singing "The First Thing You Know", from the 1960's Broadway smash, Paint Your Wagon. President Obama...