Comebacks all around usAt Winter Olympics, e.g.

Speed skater J.R. Celski, 19, was told to forget about competing:

".....perhaps the most unlikely Olympian competing in the Vancouver Games which kick off today with the opening ceremony. Five months ago Celski suffered what many thought was a career ending injury, surely a season ending one. He crashed into the boards during a race at the U.S. Olympic Trials and sliced his leg with his own skate. The gruesome cut went all the way to the bone and just missed his femoral artery by an inch."

Read the whole story.

Another comeback engineer: medalist skier Lindsey Vonn, who battled shin bruises, and considered dropping out, but is glad she didn't. Yet another: Bode Miller, highly vaunted 4 years ago at Torino, but came up empty and slipped out of the public consciousness. Now, in Vancouver, reprising his winning ways.

Sports reminds us:

Where there's a will to compete, a will to win, great things can happen.

Best rating we've seen for EC: #32

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

6:16 AM

"Extraordinary Comebacks: 201 Inspiring Stories of Courage, Triumph, and Success"

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #25,237 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Popular in this category: (What's this?)

#32 in

Books > Health, Mind & Body > Psychology & Counseling > By Topic > Motivation

EC is No. 48Monday, February 15, 2010

Amazon.com Sales Rank:
#44,352 in Books

#48 in

Books > Health, Mind & Body > Psychology & Counseling > By Topic > Motivation

Blind chef gets job at top eatery

Trotter's, Chicago. Read the Chicago Tribune piece....two words. A mazing.....

Goodbye decade of 2000s, we hardly knew ye....

A word of farewell to the Decade of Naughts

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:

Golden lads and girls all must,
as chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!

Fear no more the frown o' the great;
thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:

The sceptre, learning, physic,
must all follow this, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!

Fear no more the lightning flash,
nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
thou hast finish'd joy and moan:

All lovers young, all lovers must
consign to thee, and come to dust

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!

Wm Shakespeare

Posted New Year's Eve
End of a decade, start of a new one,
the last such embarking under the current world order?
Thursday, December 31, 2009

==================================

For what may lie straight ahead, we recommend to you our top pick of the decade in nonfiction:

Not all stories end in an Extraordinary Comeback

You may recall Pat Tillman as a former NFL star who walked away from a $3 million contract to serve his country in the aftermath of 9/11. His harrowing tale is told here:



Very sobering stuff, on every level. But as a treatise on "how stuff works," in the real world, this is a masterpiece.

Strength in what remains

The remarkable and moving story of one "Deo" -- a young man who fled Burundi, an African nation neighbor to Rwanda during the 1993 genocide, and after a sojourn and an Ivy League education in the USA, courtesy philanthropic friends, returns to build a medical clinic. Highly recommended.