The New BrianSiguenza.com

What a strange time. We just had Halloween a couple of weeks ago, followed by the U.S. elections. Now all of the sudden, it is Friday the thirteenth. Then again, most of this year has felt like one thing after another. The date notwithstanding, my morning was booked with work functions. Ever since the pandemic started, which someone on one of my social media accounts noted was right before the last Friday the thirteenth in March, I have been alternating between working at home and in the office. Some functions still require my physical presence and I had scheduled myself to take care of those this particular morning. The first thing I normally do when I get up is to check my phone for e-mails and any news that I might have missed overnight. You can take the journalist out of the newsroom, but you cannot take the newsroom out of the journalist.

One e-mail came from Dr. Tiell, asking about availability to go over the ICC website this morning. She laid out her plans between eight and eleven a.m. Eastern Time, noting she would be free at nine (B. Tiell, personal communication, November 13, 2020). I was going into the office at ten (nine-o’clock Central) and could not alter those plans but Dr. Tiell did give the option for tomorrow morning, which of course is Saturday and in the age of COVID, I do not have anything going for the day, except I do like to sleep in on days off but not too late. So I agreed to discuss the website tomorrow at 11/10c.

Another productive Thursday is in the books. We held our weekly meeting once again by telephone, which seems to work better from a technological standpoint although I was unable to use my computer as a speaker. Everyone dials into a number based here in Iowa. Fun fact: the area code, 712, is where I lived for my first six years of existence then returned to begin my professional career. The only other hiccup besides my connectivity issues was Liston having a side conversation with someone while Josh is trying to relay brochure edits to me, so it seemed to work nicely. That being said, I think instances like reviewing a visual document call for a Zoom meeting because you can share the screen with other participants, thus they see the same thing you see.

With Zoom, they can watch you make changes to the document in real-time and let you know immediately whether it works or not. Some changes are going to take a little longer to make and because you do not want to hold the proceedings up by playing around with the content right then and there, you make note of them and fix it when you have an opportunity. The drawback to Zoom is that while you can use it on a mobile device, it is not always conducive to business when you are on the go as Liston normally is. A lot of factors at play in our meetings, it is a matter of finding the solution that best fits those factors.

Tonight makes a very special occasion: the 100th day in which I have performed work on behalf of the International Cultural Consortium. It has been my great honor to do so over the past nearly six months and I am proud of how far Life After the Games has come in that time. The plan is really starting to come together, now the focus can be on making sure it gets in front of the right people. I continue to work toward that by including just about any contact I can find. And how appropriate is this? As we reach Masters Weekend, the list I am working on now consists of golf organizations. The tournament was of course moved from its traditional April slot due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

If not for COVID-19, I would be attending football and basketball games this time of year plus planning for an 8k run with my nonprofit. On the flip side of that, I would be all done with the MBA program by now on account of going to Japan for the Olympics a few months earlier. Obviously, it did not work out that way and I had to adjust accordingly like so many others. The virus continues to run rampant throughout the world, to the point where officials are telling American families they should not be gathering over the holidays. It is a very unfortunate situation but if there is a silver lining to it, I have fewer distractions as I head toward the home stretch of my MBA studies.

Fencing contacts are all wrapped up and I have made my way through floorball and ultimate frisbee (yes, there is an international federation for ultimate frisbee). Now I have made it to what is known outside America as football–we call it soccer here. The organization overseeing that sport around the world is none other than FIFA, the people behind the World Cup plus the video game series from EA Sports. Considering the importance of soccer/football as a sport, you would think that the national governing bodies might take the same approach as your major collegiate conferences and make it where fans can not easily reach them. Surprisingly, I find that not to be the case. I have the e-mails of more than 130 organizations on my list and that is just through Myanmar.

What is especially interesting is that a lot of these groups use general providers like Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail as addresses rather than creating one through a website domain they own. Josh had actually referenced something about this in the last meeting we had, saying it was much easier to use one of those free services and not set up one more e-mail account. More accounts mean more chances for junk mail to land in one of them, which can complicate the communication process. Personally, I have four accounts: one is for work, one is issued by Tiffin, then the other two are personal and where a lot of mass distribution comes in. It is hard to keep track of all the messages I get in my personal accounts. Thus I can certainly see where organizers want to streamline their communications by limiting themselves to a single account.

My world contact database continues to grow larger: I am now up to fencing, which I have seen conducted at the Olympics before. I do not know a lot about fencing but found how the participants compete and the game is scored to be pretty fascinating. I am glad that I can spend time curating this list, though it is not a priority at the moment. Other items will come up that require my immediate attention. Such was the case this evening when an e-mail came my way with requested changes to the ICC website. Adjustments generally will not take me that long to complete but we are talking about technology here, so I had to conduct a bit of a deep dive to make it exactly how I wanted it.

This was of course a frustrating endeavor that resulted in a phone call to technical support. The best they could do was refer me to a design consultant who would not get back to me until tomorrow morning. That would have been fine because while it is a pressing issue, it is not so pressing that it had to be taken care of immediately. However, I took a hard look at the code for the page to see what was causing the issue. It usually has something to do with the coding. Lo and behold, I was able to solve the issue on my own and the website is fixed. I never cease to amaze myself with what I can accomplish.

Today was the first day in almost a week where my television was not tuned to cable news. It is a relief to be able to shift my focus back to the responsibilities that I have: my full-time job and, of course, this mentorship which I am closing in on fifty hours to its completion with twenty-nine days remaining. So I have made up some ground combing through list after list of e-mails for international federations, some associated very closely with the Olympics and others not so much. Here is what I have covered over the past several days: the Commonwealth Games, cricket, curling, dance, darts, dragon boat racing, and draughts. Draught simply means draft in British (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). Just like draught beer. Does that mean I am dealing with some sort of a drinking game?

The answer, it turns out, is no. Draught is also British for what we call checkers (Masters Traditional Games, 2019). I am curious to know how they came up with the name draughts for that game. Maybe because it is popular to play in pubs, although I have visited British pubs before and do not recall seeing checkerboards. There are, however, federations in Africa because I included fifteen of them on my e-mail list before calling it an evening. Other regions like Europe and North America will likely come tomorrow. With all the e-mails I have put in, you would think I was much further along than “draughts”. It just goes to show the extent to which people around the world love games.

References

Masters Traditional Games. (2019). The rules of draughts. Retrieved from https://www.mastersofgames.com/rules/draughts-rules.htm

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Draught. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved November 8, 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/draught

Tonight felt nice. Nice to be putting in e-mail contacts to the sounds of a double-overtime thriller between Clemson and Notre Dame rather than the individuals using their video screens to analyze votes on the news networks. Nothing against any of them, they have done a remarkable job in their coverage of a super-tight presidential election and they can hopefully take some well-deserved time off soon. It just felt nice because it felt like a return to normal, whatever normal is these days. NBC did interrupt the football game to air remarks from Joseph R. Biden Jr. in which he laid out his hopes for a deeply-divided nation during his presidency. The former vice president had been declared the victor in his race with incumbent Donald Trump earlier in the day, setting off a wave of celebrations across the country and even around the world.

When I had a meeting a couple of weeks ago with the MBA student who will replace me at the ICC, he asked what I planned to do in the future. The honest answer I gave him was that my own personal future was something I try very, very hard not to think about. As it is, I live a rather charmed life compared to so many out there who worry about paying their bills or sending their kids off to school during a pandemic. I know, however, that things can change for me at any time and that is why I put in the work for almost four years on a Master in Business Administration. Now that I am less than a month away from finishing it, my approach will be to let the chips fall where they may. That may not sound like a winning strategy, but it is one that I believe fits me the best.

Well, here we are Friday evening, and still no word on a decision in the presidential election. The change in numbers has been few and far between today, so we are still in an intense wait-and-see approach although it seems imminent based on the media coverage that Joe Biden will win. With that, I turn to my ICC work. I got the go-ahead to update our website to include our new partners in this venture. Since the page is published, I think I am okay to identify who they are. We have Aliann Pompey, a four-time Olympic runner from Guyana, as the honorary chairperson for Life After the Games. Additionally, James DeMeo is part of the team as the person behind the Sport & Special Event Security certification. You can read more about both Aliann and James’ backgrounds on the website.

There was some difficulty with getting the profiles to match up like what was already on the page. Web design is not exactly my forte, so it took some work on my part to make it exactly how I wanted it. Felt like it should have taken longer than seventy-five minutes to edit the page, but I can surprise myself with how I figure things out. That does not mean something else will not need to change later on. For right now though, I am satisfied with what is on there, allowing me to move on with adding more contacts to my ever-expanding list. These are some nice ways to pass the time while we are kept in suspense here in the U.S.

Today is the first three-hour tour I have done for the ICC since August 20, buoyed by an effective Thursday meeting with clear plans of action as we move forward. I dialed in by telephone using Google Meet, which seemed to have fewer complications than Zoom for others on the call. This actually worked for me because I could continue to watch election coverage on CNN and no one would be the wiser. Not to worry, I had the sound on mute and managed to pay attention to the discussion. Dr. Tiell sent out an agenda earlier in the day and we went over each item. The gentleman who is coming on to handle the Sport and Special Event Security certification joined us briefly and we discussed progress in that department.

Part of today’s meeting was to go over revisions to the Life After the Games brochure now that we have our honorary chairperson. Dr. Tiell and Josh both had recommendations about changing the content in the brochure, which I have worked through and taken care of for the time being. I also drafted a message that will go out to the honorary chairperson that outlines topics to be covered during a special meeting to be held in a little over a week. So today was quite productive and it had to be since we continue to wait to hear who Americans elected as their president. This has become quite the week to be sure, and it is nice to have other projects to keep me occupied during such a holding period.

The last twenty-four hours have been an up-and-down affair. I am a little surprised at how long it has taken to count the votes in some swing states and I hope that we can reach a conclusion soon. One race that has been decided: Dr. Liston Bochette, my mentor, has been elected to the council for the City of Fort Myers in Florida. I received the news from him via WhatsApp early this morning, but I do better at communicating via e-mail than WhatsApp and got so absorbed into watching the national results on CNN and keeping a tab with the New York Times website open while I work that I did not get around to congratulating him until a little over one hour ago.

I likened elections to a sporting event last night. What I am noticing now, however, is that this particular race is now turning into a chess match. The Trump campaign has filed a series of lawsuits to challenge the results coming into these tightly-contested states (Sherman, 2020). I mention chess because ironically, I am in the midst of contacts for members of the International Chess Federation. I do not know that the ICC will be going after chess players for Life After the Games but the information is there if they do. So far, I have gone through chess, cheerleading, and bridge–yes, bridge–in addition to baseball, basketball, and American football. The games people play are quite fascinating, whether a physical game like contact sports or a mental exercise like chess or…politics.

Reference

Sherman, M. (2020, November 4). Trump sues in 3 states, laying ground for contesting outcome. Retrieved from https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-seeks-voting-stop-25762f69b27dfbccc4fd8077fb5fdc91