How Cool Would This Be?

I have to admit, I watched the closing ceremonies of the Olympics last night hoping to see a redux of the openers, waiting for that Mystery Science Theater 3000-esque moment where production became perfect blog material. It didn't happen.

But I'm not disappointed. Not in this case. Just before they aired the closing ceremonies, they displayed a condensed version of the mens 50km cross-country ski race in which Italy's Georgio Di Centa sprinted to the front of the pack...

Just to cross the finish line first in front of his countrymen and celebrate like this...
...and have 30,000 more of your countrymen cheering for you and singing with you as your national anthem is played because you won the gold medal.
By the way, the gold medal was presented to him by his sister, a previous Olympic gold medal winner, so it wasn't just in front of his countrymen but his family as well. It doesn't get much better than that - not only realizing the goal of previous four years of pain and hard work, but doing so in front of friends, family, and countrymen on your home turf while on international television.

That's good stuff. If that were me, I'd have balled my eyes out up on the medal stand.

It made me remember how much I missed my sister. I haven't spoken to her in about twenty months, and haven't seen her in a little over four years. Sad thing is, so much has happened in each of our lives now that I'm not sure the relationship would ever be the same even if we did start talking again. But god, how I miss her.

Sis, if by some chance you're reading this, I love ya'.

My First Meme...

Forgive me if I indulge myself a bit. I haven't done one of these before.

3 JOBS I'VE HELD: Inbound call center representative; Assistant Branch Manager/Supervisor; High School English Teacher

3 MOVIES I COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER: The Blues Brothers; Tombstone; The Matrix

3 PLACES I'VE LIVED: Columbus, OH; Phoenix, AZ; Payson, AZ

3 FAVORITE TV SHOWS: Football; Sportscenter; The Simpsons (I needed at least one non-sports show, although NHL and college hoops are both right there)

3 VACATIONS I'VE TAKEN: Catalina Island; Oceanside, CA; Disneyland; Vegas; GenCon Indy. That's five. Sue me.

3 WEBSITES I VISIT DAILY: Every blog/link listed to my right; ROEmpire.com; yahoo.com

3 FAVORITE FOODS: Pizza; creme brulee; baby back ribs.

3 PLACES I'D RATHER BE: In a condo by Santa Monica Pier or Newport Beach; In a home next to a stream in the woods; in the rose garden of our back yard on the hill overlooking the ocean with the one I love watching the sunset.

V is for "I wanna see this movie"

I'm quite intrigued by this movie. I haven't seen a lot of trailers/info on it and I want to keep as fresh of a mind as possible before I see it, but The Wachowski Brothers didn't let me down with the Matrix trilogy (yeah, yeah, they got worse as they went on, but still much fun to watch). Kinda looks like D'artagnan meets 1984.

And I likes me some Alexandre Dumas.

(Come to think of it, I like most French novels and poetry I've read...)

(Yes, I know. 1984 isn't French.)

American Idol (not the music kind)

As a culture, America has largely outlived the idea of mentorship. For the most part we no longer make our employees complete an aprenticeship prior to graduating them into the real workforce, and we continue to have dual-income families which leads to kids at home alone more frequently. While, to some degree, I can see we've sacrificed some of these practices out of perceived necessisty, the more our young folk lose contact with responsible, upstanding adults, the more we leave the future up for grabs.

By and large, whether we like it or not, many of us are who we are because of what we learned from our parents, caretakers, teachers, or coaches...our own personal American Idols, if you will. Of course rarely did we adopt or reject practices consciously...more often than not we simply observed what our folks did over and over again, then when we faced a similar problem/situation, we fell back on our knowledge base - whatever we'd observed in life - and acted in kind (or in the oposite manner if that's what our observations told us might be better). Put that into real life. I'm no saint, but I largely am who I am because of my parents and my youth pastors. Much of what I know about computers came from watching others. Much of what I know about judging came from watching others and listening to others. Almost all of what I know about teaching comes from having been taught by the best our district had to offer. I'd be willing to bet that, when you peel away all the other stuff, almost all of you are largely the same.

And who/what are our young people around now? Parents are away, so we have the TV and internet to acompany them. We're short on good, qualified staff and becoming more "efficient" with our funds, so computer-based training has become much more prevelant. And many of the best veteran teachers are retiring soon, while some of the best would-be educators are being priced out of the market because a teacher's wage can barely support an individual in many areas, let alone a family.

I was one of the lucky ones. I had two loving parents to raise me the whole way, along with caring teachers and pastors as significant supporting staff. I'd encourage all of us to do the same for the young people we're around, especially teens. Not coincidentally, many of us go to tournaments or conventions where we're around that crowd. By no means am I suggesting that we all have to turn on our halos and walk on eggshells. I'd just hope that, in some way, be it coaching, mentoring, training, or whateva, we've all passed on some of what we know to those younger than us so that they can carry on or even best whatever success we've had in our lives.


Except for Kiki. Please, somebody lock that guy up before he corrupts an entire generation...

Who Am I?

You tell me. Let's see if we agree.

What would I buy

The Powerball Jackpot is $300M+ right now. Yes, I bought a ticket. But the weird thing is that, materially speaking, I don't really have a lot of wants.

The biggest would be a little place of my own by the water - preferably the ocean, but even a sea, lake, or stream would be fine. And a Corvette to park in the garage. Of course I'd pay off all my debts and those of my family (I hardly have any family so it really wouldn't take much). And I'd pick up a few gadgets...a laptop, a new stereo, and maybe a cool little football-and-dvd-watchin' theatre system. But after that there's not really a lot that I want as far as "stuff" goes. A lot of it would probably end up in various investment accounts so that there's no shortage of living money down the road. That's no to say I couldn't or wouldn't spend a-plenty, though. I'd love to go traveling and I'm sure I'd find stuff to buy as I went around the globe, and with that kind of money a little impulse buying won't kill me. Although, since I could afford to hire an outstanding hitman, it might kill someone else.

Hmm...maybe I'd see if I could become a minority owner of a team in each of the four major pro sports leagues...

(and to those that would point out that the actual cash value of the Powerball jackpot taken in lump sum after taxes is only around 75M, I say "Lemme dream. You STFU.")

Bleh

Sometimes you could just use a drink.

Maids of the world rejoice! The future is now!

Those crazy Brits...what will they think of next?

There's even a broom controversy!!! I love this sport!

A case for broadened drug testing by the IOC

Clearly performance-enhancing drugs, HGH, and other blood-doping substances have tainted the national and international sports scenes. From Rafael Palmeiro, Mark McGuire, Jose Canseco, and Bonds (don't even try to tell me he didn't juice) to East German lady swimmers testing positive for "male," Bode Miller's stoned and hungover downhill runs, the USA and Canadian track team scandals...the list goes on. The IOC has done a fair job of testing as rigorously as reasonably possible to clean the assorted sports and games, but I contest that their scope isn't yet as wide as necessary. As evidence, I present the following pictures...



What part of "Dude, you should light your back and head on fire and go skate around out there with a space helmet!" sounds like a good idea? Note: the creators of this costume appear to be fans of Spiderman; it smacks of the Green Goblin. But red.



Apparently this fellow needed a fix bad enough to dress up like a cow. In this frame he's having second thoughts...


...but, alas, his dependency takes hold of him.

Although you can't tell very clearly from this picture, they put men in the trees and made them dance around. Clearly this scene was evoked by a similar LSD-induced episode out in the forest...dancing trees with dancing cows...


I haven't the words...


Acid-tripping during a biology video, me thinks...


Okay, now this looks like somethign I killed in a video game last night. Or a circa 1980's punk rocker, sans the black vest.


They even go so far as to showcase the Swiss weed-smoking team! Biggest bongs I've ever seen. Note the man on the left is holding it in for effect, while the man on the right is ready for another hit. Can I get a "Reeecolaaaaa", anybody?

This is an outrage! Contact your local Olympic delegation official today and demand drug testing for the opening ceremonies! And if that doesn't work, take it straight to the IOC. I hear bribes work well (case in point - 2002 Winter Olympics landing in Salt Lake City). If you send cash, though, be sure to include a note saying them's for spendin' , not for smokin'.

All's well that ends well

Here's to the Bus...I'm glad you got your championship and happy to see you go out on top!

And now that the big game is over, here's one of my my favorite short films from Super Bowls gone by:



Do I love what I do? Hell yeah....

The most decorated microphone ever

A buddy of mine called me up yesterday and said he had a spare ticket to the Lenny Kravitz/Aerosmith concert tonight and asked if I'd like to go. Granted, I'm not the world's biggest fan of either band but when you get a free ticket offered for something like that, you take it. Or at least I do. So I did.

Good times. Kravitz played a lot of his hits from the past 5-10 years, while Aerosmith largely focused on their classic hits from the 70s and 80s with only a couple songs from 1990+ thrown in. Here's some observations:

1) Steven Tyler might just be the only man on earth that can wear multiple brightly-colored and/or patterned silk scarves and not be accused of being homosexual by the American public.

2) Tyler was using a wireless microphone so he could trapse around the stage and surrounding "piers" that spiked off, but when he went to remove it from the stand he couldn't - it was tied in by multiple brightly-colored and/or patterned silk scarves (for real!) so he had to just carry the microphone stand with him everywhere he walked.

3) While Tyler was walking through the crowd ladies proceeded to throw their panties at him - a tradition long held by lovers of rock stars and Wayne Newton/Tom Jones. That got me thinking...as much as the idea appeals to my love of the ladyfolk, if girls threw their thongs at me while I was walking around work, I don't quite know what I'd do. I suspect I'll never have to worry about that, so let's move on.

4) A short-sleeve, cotton concert T was $35; long sleeve was $55, hoodie was $75. I thought they maybe just forgot to switch out the price buttons from the hockey game last night, so I got in line to ask. They didn't forget. I got out of line and went back to my seat.

5) There was quite a variety of ladies there, ranging from 16-60, and from trailer trash to stunningly beautiful. And I saw more breasts there than I really cared to. Many of them were decades old and hadn't seen a bra since the training bra they wore 40+ years ago. I think I tripped on a couple of them. But there were definitely some good ones, though; and if you like breasts (and I know that many of you are big fans), it was a good concert to be at.

6) I've never heard of tailgating after the event, but evidently I was in the minority. I saw more people sitting on the back of trucks after the concert workin' on a 12-pack than I really wanted to. My only consolation was that they were drinking in a parking lot and NOT on the roadways.

7) We haven't had rain in almost 110 consecutive days here, but it was still f'n cold outside after the concert.

8) Kravitz put on a great opening act, and his band sounded far superior to Aerosmith from a tech/accoustics standpoint. Aerosmith had the guitars so loud that it simply pushed the red line so the vocals were largely indecipherable, the lead guitar became distorted (not the effect kind, the crappy kind) and 1/2 the mic's on the drum set were effectively rendered useless.

9) As good as Kravitz' band sounded, I had to continually get up and stand behind a wall in the concourse. The bass drum was hitting so hard that my heart started palpitating as bad as it ever has, and I now start to wonder if it's time to finally go on medication for it.

10) Steven Tyler's lips have got to be some of the widest and loosest around (kinda like Hayden's mom's - you can put that in the blog if you like). He can still whale on the vocals but at some points I swear he was attempting to ingest a watermelon whole.