maestrojpl

who in the heII am I to judge him.

I hate that he lied about roids.  I hate when any athlete lies about PED's.  It's the ultimate slap in the face to the spirit of competition and sportsmanship.  It disgust me and pisses me off tremendously, but I have to give A-Rod a little bit of credit.

It took some balls to sit there with Gammons and tell the truth (at least part of it).  I cannot imagine the pressure that a young man would feel being the highest paid player in the history of a sport.  I can see how that would make a young man think about trying to get an edge to live up to all the HYPE.  I can see how the temptation might be overwhelming with an entire franchise asking you to carry it and a locker room full of teammates doing drugs.

All I can say is I won't judge A-Rod and he did earn a slight bit of respect from me for talking about his shady past.

That is the thought that has been running through my mind lately...........say it a'int so.

I speak almost entirely through sarcasm, witty comments, sexual innuendo and puns. I am able to carry on a conversation, but rarely does the aforementioned list escape entry into the discussion. I come by this trait honestly. My father is a peanut gallery expert. He works more in pun and corny jokes than I do, but I learned the ropes from my old man without a doubt. Now that I am turning into him more and more it is pretty surreal to be in a group gathering with him and see us one-upping eachother from across the room. Rudely interrupting perfectly normal conversations with our interjections of "humor".

As I have matured (laughable) or become older I have started to realize that maybe there is more to life than being the funny guy. I have held positions of leadership throughout my life in and out of work and I am able to temper down this behavior if needed, but I really prefer to be able to let loose. I have somehow avoided any lawsuits or pummelings so far in my life, but sometimes I can tell that my incessant "head in the gutter" status does wear people down.

Of course, now I have kids and I have learned that kids don't get sarcasm. They just stare blankly at you or run to another room. Not really a strong relationship builder.

So basically that leaves my co-workers, friends that I rarely get to see, and the people on this message board to bear the brunt of my behavior. My wife tolerates the wit, but the innuendo has been squashed. Basically I am here to declare that I am officially going to declare 2009 and the future as "My half-a$$ed attempt to tone down my over-the-top overt sexual innuendo and smart a$$ comments."

Wish me luck.

A bit of a rant here.

I grew up in a sports household.  I played everything from team sports to individual sports.  I was on the soccer team, baseball team, basketball team, football team, tennis team, track team and I played racquetball, golf and swam.  I loved and love sports with a passion.  I even attended polo matches, motocross and horse races as a kid.  I was always around sports.  I don't feel that I was pushed into sports by my parents though.  I was always presented a choice prior to entering a new sport.  Would you like to learn how to play golf?  If I said yes my father and I would pursue golf etc. My father was happy to coach my brother and my team's if needed and he was a good teacher.

Now that I am a parent I am reluctant to enter my young kids into the world of sports however.  Mostly because I see kids being pushed in ways that I don't think are beneficial to their development.  I want to expose my kids to many things including sports, but I do not want to push them into it.

Where is this coming from?  I guess it is a feeling that I have had for some time, but as a parent I suppose I see things from a different point of view than I did pre-kids.  I see kids whose parents are living vicariously through there kid's sports.  I see kids pushed beyond the physical capacities of their young bodies.  I see the ultra competitive win at all costs insanity of parents passed on to their kids.  I see kids holding press conferences at their schools to announce where they intend to play college football despite the fact that it is a total fabrication. 

What prompted me to write this blog entry was something that is happening in my own neigborhood.   A friend of mine is coaching his son's 6-7 year old basketball team.  You know 1st and 2nd grade learn how to dribble, learn how to pass, learn how to run a play or two and learn the rules of the game.  Non competitive with loose interpretation of the rules to ease the kids into a team sport that can teach them life lessons in the years to come.  WRONG!!!!!!!!!!! 

He has a team of 8 players, 4 of whom are taking private basketball lessons.  PRIVATE BASKETBALL LESSONS for 6 and 7 year olds.  This has gone too far IMHO.  Basketball is a team sport first of all.  Private basketball lessons for 6 and 7 year olds should be in their driveway with their father, not $20 per hour sessions with some sleaze ball trying to make a buck off of 1st graders.  I guess I don't fault the "expert teachers" so much as the parents, but there is plenty of disdain to go around from me.  I could rant for a while hear but I will keep it brief to say that this is the exact reason that I am reluctant to enter my kids into today's world of youth sports.

I have been tracking the bowl games this season and now that they are completed I will begin presenting some data from what I have found.  One thing I tracked was milage traveled by teams to bowl sites.  I looked at distances, the difference between the opponents travel, results of the games compared to difference in travel and "home" bowl game statistics.  Here is what I have found in my analysis so far.

There were 11 "home" bowl games this bowl season.  I classified those as games in which one of the teams traveled 100 miles or less to the bowl site.  The home teams were Navy, USF, Southern Miss, Hawaii, Cal, La Tech, Rice, Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech, Buffalo, and USC.

These teams went 7-4 in their bowl games this season.  The "home" team was 6-5 against the spread in these games.

I also looked at the teams who traveled fewer miles in all of the bowl games and by that qualification the less traveled team was 20-14.

I also broke down the games by score of the games.

There were 8 games that were "blowouts" which I qualified as 21 point or greater victories.  The median milage difference in these games was 852 miles and the mean milage difference was 1270 miles.  The closest milage difference in a blowout was 81 miles and the furthest was 5000 miles.  The other differences were 503, 525, 835, 870, 1050, and 1293 miles

There were 10 games that were decided by 8-20 points. The median milage difference in these games was 225 miles and the mean milage difference was 610 miles.  The closest milage difference in these games was 99 miles and the furthest was 2227 miles.  The other differences were 128, 142, 216, 233, 439, 702, 758, and 1159 miles

There were 16 games that were decided by 7 points or fewer.  The median milage difference in these games was 494 miles and the mean milage difference was 789 miles. The closest milage difference in these games was 156 miles and the furthest was 3097.  The other differences were 204, 234, 242, 304, 347, 405, 439, 549, 795, 802, 1103, 1187, and 1953 miles.

Of the 16 games decided by 7 or fewer points there were 11 games decided by 5 points or fewer.  The median milage difference in these games was 405 miles and the mean milage difference was 570 miles.

Of the 16 games decided by 7 or fewer points there were 7 games decided by 3 points or fewer.  The median milage difference in these games was 242 miles and the mean milage difference was 560 miles.

Obviously these are small samples.  I just find things like this interesting.  Take it for what it's worth. 

When I was a single man living in an apartment I decided I wanted a pet.  I like big dogs but that wasn't an option in my mind without a yard to play in.  My girlfriend at the time had an aunt whose cat birthed a litter.  I had never had a cat, and I was actually fairly allergic to the few I had spent time around, but I took one of the kittens anyhow.  That was about 10 years ago.

About 8 weeks ago I was working on the house and was in and out of the garage all day.  My wife and kids were visiting my in-laws and apparently Duncan found his way outside.  He doesn't have front claws so we discourage him from being outside, but he does love to get out and roll around on the concrete and look at birds.  I guess this time he went a little further and we lost Duncan.  We called all of the vets in the area, and the pound, and put signs up all over the neighborhood but we didn't get any calls except from a very mean kid who thought he was funny by telling me he ran over my cat. 

As the weeks passed I found myself looking around the neighborhood less and less.  On my runs I expected less and less to find Duncan somewhere around the next corner.  We gave our leftoever litter and food to our neighbors who have 2 cats and we hoped that someone had taken Duncan in. 

Since he was lost we have had some bitter cold nights in the teens and even a couple colder, a couple of snow and ice events that stayed around for a few days.  If Duncan was outside I was concerned he would have frozen to death.

I received a phone call tonight from a man who remembered seeing one of my signs (that had all but blown away or been rained on enough to be unreadable) and found one that still had my phone number on it.  He lived 2 blocks from my house and he had a cat that sounded like Duncan.  Sure enough it is him and he is now home.  He is a skinny scared shadow of his former self, but he appears to be ok.  He is certainly purring plenty and will hopefully never pull this stunt again.  I am amazed that he was able to survive outside for so long.  What an amazing little animal.

and it is not one of the qualities that I hoped to pass on unfortunately. 

I am thrilled that she resembles me in some ways to keep the Italian genes alive, and I hope that she does adopt some of the better qualities that I possess such as a desire to help people, a desire to care for the planet, and a sense of humor.  I don't have too much more to offer, but I can hope for these things.

However, it appears that my sweet little angel has inherited one of my worst qualities as well and that is as a "thing-thrower."  I was definitely a "thing-thrower" as a kid growing up.  Really only in individual sports, but I definitely did my share of tennis racket and golf club tossing in my younger days.  I have even thrown a tool or two in adulthood when a particular home improvement project was not going my way.  It's an extremely silly and childish way to express anger and frustration without a doubt, but I cannot deny that it is part of who I am/was. 

So anyhow, Squirt (what I call her) has inherited the "thing-throwing" trait and it is getting her in a lot of trouble around the house these days.  She is approaching 4 years old and anger management is not one of her strong suits (is it any 4 year old's strong suits?).  She has taken to throwing markers, paper, toys etc. when she doesn't get her way.  It's not something that is out of control and she is always punished for this behavior, but it's just so funny to see yourself in your kids in both good and bad ways.

Hopefully we can curb this behavior and focus on the positive attributes that my wonderful wife and I have passed on to our little Squirt.  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Well, I have really been into politics this year (for me at least).  I followed the primaries in both parties closely and have tried to be diligent in really studying the candidates and their positions this cycle.  It is obviously going to be a unique year with a bi-racial candidate and woman on the brink of making history, and it is easy to get swept up into all of the momentum that both parties have created.

I have gone back and forth on who I could see myself voting for in November and had told myself that there was still plenty of time to continue collecting data and listening before making a decision.

However, as I watched John McCain speaking last night I was moved.  Moved to a decision.  Moved to an obligation in my response to what I watched last night.  My decision is to vote for John McCain.  He deserves my vote.  I owe it to him for his life of service to our country.  That is how I feel about it now and it is clear to me what I will do in that booth in November. 

"Thank you Bob."

"You're Welcome Sue."

It seems like a simple enough response.  Very pleasant and it shows a confidence and ownership of receiving thanks IMO.  Nowadays you don't hear it that often though.  So what happened to "you're welcome"?

The common response that I now hear goes like this........

"Thank You Bob."

"No thank You Sue."

No one willing to accept the thank you in this interaction.  I don't know why stuff like this bothers me, but I think that it speaks more to our passive-aggressive/politically correct societal nature.  It's almost like "you're welcome" is too aggressive a response for some reason.

Any thoughts?  Am I way off base here?