Thursday, January 17, 2008

More Things to Shake your Head at

An inmate in Denver is suing the county because it's too easy to break out of the county jail. He's done it twice in 2 years but the second time he fell 40 feet and got hurt. He says authorities caused his injuries by making it too easy to fly the coop. Wings might have helped him in his fall...

Then there was a Wisonsin dad who got so upset that his 7 yr old son wouldn't wear a Green Bay Packer jersey that he restrained him and taped the jersey onto him. "Columbia County Lt. Wayne Smith said Kowald restrained the boy with tape for about an hour and taped the shirt to him.

"He wanted the juvenile to be a Packers fan, and I would suggest he went about it the wrong way," Smith said."

He should spend some time with that kid who's worn his Packer jersey every day for the past 4 years....

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Fans Carrying Things Too Far

From the San Diego Union newspaper

January 9, 2008

Funny is this: West Virginia U. students torching couches on their front porches after a big football win.

Funny isn't this: Relatives of Rich Rodriguez have been harassed and threatened in the three weeks since his resignation as Mountaineers football coach, according to the new Michigan coach's relatives.

His mother, Arleen Rodriguez, told the Charleston Daily Mail her teenage grandson received a death threat and found other harassing notes taped to his locker at East Fairmont High. She said her 12-year-old granddaughter had to be escorted to classes.
Mountaineers fans furious about Rodriguez's Dec. 16 decision to bolt for Ann Arbor also vandalized his home near Morgantown, hanging signs on a fence and tossing a mailbox in the yard.

“He put seven years into WVU and now everybody thinks he's garbage,” his mother said. “Think like a parent. That's all I can say. Think about it. Think about what you're doing.”

The backlash has been cyber-nasty, too. On the Facebook social networking site, dozens of groups with profanity-laced names have formed, devoted to wishing ill for Rodriguez and his family.

You may recall that last month, WVU kicker Pat McAfee received angry text messages and had his car vandalized after missing two field goals in the team's 13-9 loss to arch-rival Pitt. The loss knocked WVU out of national championship contention.

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Come on people, get real. Harrasing a 12 year old and a teenager because their dad decides to take a job in another state. Vandalizing someone's car because he misses a couple of field goals. Get a life. There are so many more important things to get emotional about than sports. I talked about it in one of my earlier posts. What is it about sports that brings out the idiot in people? It's a game, it's not life. Relax.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

What Do We Believe

Ok, Politics and Roger Clemens...Do they really think we buy into everything they're telling us? How do you know for certain? What do we believe? Roger's saying he wasn't aware that he was going to be named in the report but according to the report, they contacted everyone in the report to try to get the player's side of it. He says he was getting shots for B12 and lidocaine. Well, from other things I've read, you get those shots in the arm, not the butt. Frankly, I'm just really tired of hearing his spiel. The other thing, how offensive is it to record a conversation and use it to his advantage in an interview. Who's to say he didn't edit the tape to make it sound the way he wants? I don't trust him at all.

As for politics, gosh, can't believe a single thing that comes out of their mouths. Thank goodness for factcheck.org. I'm so sick of politics and the mud slinging and name calling. It shows the type of individuals these people are. Unfortunately, I know that without doing so, they wouldn't be able to compete. However, to tell people they can do things that they can't, that they'll solve all the worlds troubles withing their first couple of years in office, is a bold faced lie. And people buy into it all. Here's a fun site to learn which candidate of the two major political parties best matches your views at: http://www.vajoe.com/candidate_calculator.html.

Ultimately, you need to stay true to yourself, educate yourself and question everything. Then you'll know what you can believe in.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Once Again, It's Not Cheating if You Don't Get Caught

You've got to love professional athletes. They'll cheat in plain view and then tell the world they didn't do it. That is, they'll have their attorney tell the world, or agent tell the world, or somebody else tell the world. There are exceptions of course, but all of these individuals named in the Mitchell Report were given the chance to talk to Mr. Mitchell and give their side of it, and the didn't. So now one of them is screaming that it's all a lie, he didn't do steroids. Well too bad. You had your chance. As for the rest of the clubhouse, come on, these guys aren't that secretive. It's one thing to say you never saw it happen in the clubhouse and quite another to know it was going on and didn't say anything about it. Anyone can turn their backs and claim they never saw it but it takes a man to stand up and confront it. It's a problem, much larger than the 80sh individuals named in the report. College and high school kids are doing HGH and steroids now. Who gave them the idea? If they're thinking that they won't be able to compete at higher levels if they don't start this stuff at their age, that's pretty sad. It's one thing for an adult to make choices on their lives, but it's now affecting those who are too young to make those choices, but feel they need to in order to compete with everyone else. Unfortunately, now I feel the need to read Jose Canseco's book on the matter. I heard one talk host say that it's not right that we as fans get so caught up in these athletes. Our main focus should be home, family, jobs. In a way, he's right, but that doesn't happen. We adopt these athletes into our hearts. We want them to do well so as a team, the team that represents us, does well. We all feel the need to have those people honestly represent us. When we find out they cheat, well, for most of us, we feel like we've been let down. Funny though, how others are so easy to overlook the cheating if those people are helping our team win. It's a mixed up, mungled up world we live in.

Another thing I'm not looking forward to are the elections. Every one of the candidates is a liar and a cheat. There's a great site - factcheck.org. They're totally impartial and will break down what the politicians are saying and separate the fact from fiction. It's one of the only ways to get the truth through this whole thing. There's much more to say on this, but that'll come later.

Friday, November 30, 2007

Expectations

Why is it that expectations we place on others affects us so much. Are we not our own people? Are we not supposed to make our own decisions based on what's best for us? Why should we expect others to act in accordance to our expectations? Common courtesies aside, you can tell more about a person from what they do than what they say.

We all know someone, or many people, who are so into their lives that they don't care about others. They go where they want, when they want and do what they want, when they want without caring how it affects others. Is there something wrong with that? To the others I guess. To that person, it's who they are.

Is that good enough though, to excuse them because "that's who they are"? I don't think so. I mentioned common courtesies earlier. These include calling people on their birthdays or other days that are special to them. Remembering special days. Being thoughtful and anticipating what someone would like and doing random acts of kindness. One smile or kind word can turn someone's day around, and it doesn't take much time out of your day to do it.

Had a situation this week where it was my wife's birthday. It's customary in our family to call the person who's birthday it is and sing/wish them a happy birthday. Most of us are good about doing it, but there are a few who are caught up in their worlds and either don't have time or take the time to call. As much as I can say that that's to be expected, and that's who they are, it hurts, because after 16 years of marriage, my wife is as much an extended family member as the rest of us. However, what hurt the most is when our oldest daughter didn't call. My wife said to let it go, she had a good birthday, it's okay, she's learned not to expect much from some people so she won't be disappointed. Well, I wasn't fine with it. I called our daughter and told her I wasn't real happy that she didn't call her mother on her birthday. She needs to realize that what she does affects other people. My sister tells me not to give up on those that are close to us, but careless in their actions. Okay I won't give up on them, but I'm not going to give them a green light to continue to get away with their unthoughtfulness. I'll let them know that they forgot to do something or call someone and I'll remind them several times. When the time comes where I know they just don't care, then I'll start to drift to giving up on them.

What do you expect?

Monday, November 26, 2007

It's Amazing

People are amazing. Life is amazing. Things are amazing. Define amazing. Anything and everything that makes you shake you head in wonder, do a double take, take a step back to ponder. Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, New England Patriots, San Diego Chargers, Miami Dolphins - Amazing. Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, France - Amazing. Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs - Amazing. Every day, something somewhere will make you ponder. Is $275,000,000 too much to pay a baseball player? Obviously not. Amazing. Is growing abnormally over the course of a couple of years, yet denying it all the way to jail aver the top? Apparently not for some. Amazing. Is going undefeated the same year the only historical undefeated team goes win less out of the question? Guess not. Amazing. How about a team who supposedly has some of the best players in the game, playing .500 football. Out of line? Not at all. Amazing.

I can go on and on. Nature gives us amazing things every day. Birth, death, life; all around us, every day. Amazing. Unconditional love, conditional love, love that is and shouldn't be, love that should be but isn't. Amazing. Sunrises, sunsets, snow fall, rain fall. Amazing. Albert Einstein had a great quote, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." Amazing.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Friggin Sports

What is it about team sports? Win or lose, our team can totally control our emotions. From high school to professional, they make such an impact on us. Why is that? Is it that they represent us? They belong to us emotionally? They build us up and let us down? I don't know. I think it may have to do with expectations. If you live in a bad sports town, where the teams continually lose, you don't expect much, and you don't get disappointed. However, once good year can make you believe that there should be other good years and the expectations go up. When the next year isn't so good, there's disappointment. When you grow up loving sports, and you marry the local teams, you live and die by what they do. When they win, you're great. When they lose, it's the pits. The Padres have a play-in game today. It was a season of ups and downs. They don't have the best team, by far, but they've played well for the most part. It's hard to love a team like that 'cause you never know what you're going to get. You don't want to get too excited because you figure they'll let you down at some point. This weekend, they only had to win one of two games. They lost them both. Now, they have to win tonight or they don't make the playoffs. The Chargers...supposed to have some of the best talent in the league. Finished 14 and 2 last year and expectations were huge. Super Bowl huge. What do we have? 1 and 3 so far this year and they are looking horrible.

Did you hear about the Oklahoma fan who about killed a Texas fan for wearing a Texas shirt into the bar in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma fan, a 56 year old minister no less and not even an alumni, tore into this guys crotch and caused him to get about 60 stitches to close the wounds. The stories go on and on, about parents berating the coaches, parents beating up other parents, fights in the stands, etc. What is it?

I guess if you go deep, it's like protecting your country's flag, your city's honor. I will fight as long as my team is fighting. If my team fights no more, than the heck with them, and I'll let them know that they've disappointed me. I'll boo, I'll stop going to the games, I'll stop tuning in. That'll show them. But wait, they've won a game, maybe, just maybe that'll turn it around for them. Maybe I'll be able to hold up my head and support my team, support my city again. The expectations...Friggin sports.