Keeping sane during much insanity

I'm not going to lie or even try to sugarcoat it. This is a very hectic time of year.

It's maddening. Nuts. Crazy. Insane.

The student-athletes are back on campus. In fact, the football, volleyball, men's and women's soccer teams have been back for over two weeks now. The fall sports season gets underway in full swing in seven days (August 28) and kicks into high gear for me on September 5 when football plays its first game.

There is so much to do that I'm sure I'm going to let something slip through the cracks. But I keep juggling a long, trying to keep everything going and making sure all the bases are covered.

It truly is a mad, mad, mad world for me right now.

Fortunately, I have found a few ways to try to keep sane during such times as these. First, there's writing this blog, but I guess you knew that. Sure, this might seem tedious and even pulling me away from my work, but jotting down my thoughts, feelings and frustrations is very therapeutic. I can hammer out my feelings, freeing my mind of any angst and stress to allow me to refocus and attack the never-ending SID to-do list.

Another great stress reliever for me is music. I have become a HUGE fan of www.pandora.com. For those of you who might not have heard of this website, it's basically an online radio station that you can dictate what types of music you want to hear. And since I have such a wide range of tastes in music, pandora.com is a must. (Currently, the pandora.com channels I've been listening to range from the Black Eyed Peas to King's X to the Kings of Leon.

On days like today when I'm working on player bios for media guides and the website, I'll play music to help me through the tedious repetition of putting together the bios. Putting the bios together are simple and easy, but it's tedious, mind-numbing like anything else you do over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Right now, I'm working on the football bios. We only have 94 players in uniform with 15 more red-shirted players. That's just 109 bios. For football only.

For me, music allows me to mentally unwind, shake off whatever frustrations I incur during the course of the day.

And there are several other stress and frustration relievers. I like golf, but getting on the course to play nine or even 18 holes just is not always possible. But the driving range is ALWAYS a nice tension release.

It's important for me to have this stress relievers in place because I do not want to take my angst home with me. It would not be fair to my bride or my kids for me to bring this stress into our home. They are not the cause of my stress or frustration, so they don't deserve me taking out my angst on them.

For that reason, I really enjoy the 20-25 minute drive home. During that time, my car becomes a decompression center and I jam and rock out the stress. And on days that doesn't work, a side trip to the driving range is in order.