Inside Tad's Mind

During Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat when I came out to ask the audience for donations, I always talked about how the Empress Theatre is all about dreams. Leo Ware's dream of restoring the Empress Theatre and producing plays, our dreams of expanding from the Empress Theatre to the Oquirrh Hills Performing Arts Complex, the dreams of our actors and other volunteers. Randy Pausch was also about dreams. If you haven't seen this video yet, you need to. Yes, it's an hour and 16 minutes long, but you need to watch it anyway. One of my early mentors once told me to live my life as if each day might be my last, but also to live as though each day was the first day of the rest of my life. That was always good advice, but Randy Pausch tells it with a little more punch than most. Today really was his last day, and he knew it was coming when he gave "the last lecture." The same mentor taught me "Someone has everything you want in life, and they will gladl...

One of my mentors once told me to "live each day as if it is your last, and to live each day as if it is the first day of the rest of your life." Watching this video of Randy Pausch's last lecture at Carnegie Mellon kinda puts that in perspective. Pausch knew he only had 3-6 months to live when he gave the lecture. It's long, but worth watching every minute of! It'll put some priorities in the right order.

Well, here it is, my last day working for the State of Utah. Everything's been packed up and taken home except for a few miscellanous things I can carry in my brief case. I've converted all of my "keeper" email to rtf and copied them to a dvd. (Jim will be so happy to get the drive space back from my email account!) I've written my "farewell" email and sent it out; several people have wished me well. All that's left is to turn in my key and badge, and wait for the bus home. Which won't be here until 4:45... almost 4 hours from now. There are some things I am going to miss. The air-conditioning is the first thing that comes to mind! And having two flat-screen monitors. The friendships with some co-workers, but there are really only a few: Brent, Bob (most of the time), Brett, Ryan, Rachael (but I haven't seen much of her for a long time), Laurie, Kaye, Janet, Bill C. Stealing pretzels from Laurie Lieb. Walking to the Tax Commission cafeteria a...