You probably noticed I haven’t blogged in awhile.  Many of you are probably worried sick.  Just so you know, I am just fine, although I have been having back spasms and some pesky post-nasal drip lately.  Part of the reason for the neglect has to do with misfortune.  Seven inches of rain that dropped from the sky in a 10 hour period managed to breach the basement wall of my family room a few weeks ago.  I had to move everything out of there, which meant disconnecting my big screen TV until I could resolve all my drainage issues.  And my television set that I watch outside on my patio wouldn’t work after i was forced to install the shitty mini cable box that my cable provider now requires.   It’s a double whammy for me, a shit sandwich that I unfortunately have to bite into, because it’s football season- big screen TV disabled and my outside TV not working.  It’s imperative those televisions fire up this time of year.  Sure I could watch my games in our bedroom, but that’s just not right. At least that’s my wife viewpoint.  I have to have my quarterly snacks, and she hates it when I sweep all the crumbs over to her side of the bed.

Watching Football

So I had a cubic yard of fill dirt delivered and I went to work filling in depressions in the ground close to the house that caused the seepage into my family room, sealed all step and sidewalk seems with polyurethane caulk (that shit is great- but pricey) and removed the saturated carpet and took it to the dump.  I scrapped the idea of reinstalling carpet, and instead went with PVC floor tiles.  But I had to wait a week for their delivery, which wasn’t necessary a bad thing because I had a lot of remodeling I wanted to do in the family room anyway.  I finally finished the room off yesterday.  We threw down a nice big area rug to tie things together.  It looks pretty sweet.                             Watching Soccer

I have to tell you I am not happy with my cable company.  Or Radio Shack.   After two no shows a cable company technician finally showed up only to tell me the cable I ran out to my patio years ago was not the preferred type and it would not conduct well enough for their piece of shit mini box.  Well fuck!  I bought that cable from Radio Shack and that’s what the doofus guy there cut and handed to me.  I wish I could find out who that jerk was.  I’d give him a good piece of my mind- maybe egg his house.  And I wouldn’t be using just average eggs.  No sir.  Extra-extra large.  And I’d let them set out in the sun for a week before I started flinging them.

I do remember that guy had a name tag, and though I can’t recall the name on it, the word “manager” was emblazoned boldly across it.  So of course I figured he knew what he was doing.  So because of that twit I had to spend a day re-running preferred cable to my patio.  The type you should use is RG6 if you feel in need of the information.  What pissed me off was everything was working just fine till that worthless mini box showed up.  My cable company mailed 3 of them to me for all my TV’s, and they acted like they were doing me a big favor.  My picture was going to be all super and swell because their stupid mini boxes would provide me with all digital reception.  Instead what I got in my back yard was an annoying TV screen  reminder that something wasn’t quite right and would necessitate a house call from a technician.  If the message had read something like “Thanks to the douchenozzle at Radio Shack, our piece of shit mini box won’t work,”  I think I would have been more tolerant of all the inconvenience my cable company was inflicting on me.

Wow!  Yesterday I got my outside TV all hooked up to my new cable and man, I hate to say it but all digital is the cat’s meow.  To be honest with you, the picture I was getting outside before the mini box era was a little distorted on a few channels- distorted in the way that all of us that lived in the 50’s remember picture distortion.  Television sets really took a beating back then.  What seemed to resolve an annoying vertical roll or fuzzy picture was a nice fist pounding to the top of the set.  So a little distortion was something I could live with.  At least there was a picture.  I couldn’t quite make out a ball in flight, but I could definitely see a bunch of  guys running around and knocking the shit out of each other.  And that’s really all I need.

Which brings me to the real reason my blogging has been on the back burner.  As you might have guessed, I have a character flaw, and it’s called football.  I am completely obsessed by the sport and I know it occupies way too much of my time but I can not help myself.  I played the game in grade school and high school and loved it, but I’d like to think now that I am a

Me Receiving Hand-Off During Practice for the Big Game Against St. Marys

reasonably mature person I can see that it is just a game, and more importantly, a game with significant physically and mentally destructive repercussions for those competing in it.  And that is probably where inlays its magnetic power.  For me the sport holds a gnawing compulsion to view much like the morbid curiosity invoked by a horrific car wreck.  And the money that’s involved.  Holy shit.

I know these things and yet I sit and watch, day and night.  But in my defense, while I have been sitting, I have been thinking of solutions.  I believe there are things we can do to make the game more palatable to our consciences.  I must tell you about them some day.  Maybe after the Super Bowl.

Geezuz!   Another 7 inches of rain the past two days.  You’ll be happy to know all is well in my basement.  Thank god!  Theres a Thursday night game tonight.

Here we go again.  There doesn’t seem to be enough speed in the universe.  Practically the entire country is clamoring for a faster brand of baseball, and now the new commissioner of the professional league is all set to step in and accommodate.  Once again I would argue with the concept.  Baseball is about all we have left in the way of a timeless sport.  I admit the intentional walk seems like a time-waster, and one of the proposed rule changes is to get rid of it.  But man, when it goes wrong, what great entertainment.  Go ahead and tweek it here and there if you must, but let’s not get carried away.  I say keep the game just as it is.  My feeling is we should have a sport that clings to old fashioned rules, rules that exhibit, even demand, patience.  I’ll tell you why.

TD Ameritrade Park

My wife and I were at a college baseball game last week, Creighton played Xavier.  Creighton plays their home games in TD Ameritrade Park, the host facility of the annual College World Series here in Omaha.  The place can seat about 25 thousand people.  But outside of four or five games a year, only a couple thousand at best attend Creighton games.  Which is fine with my wife and me.  Better that than being beleaguered by loud-mouth drunks informing everyone inside as well as outside the stadium what a douchebag they think the umpire is.  My wife and I are thus usually surrounded not by people, but by a euphoric paradox.  We can partake in all the excitement of the game, yet blissfully immerse ourselves in the tranquil beauty of this magnificent ball park.  I should tell you we are more than biased.  It is my alma mater playing these games, but just as special, my son was the lead architect that designed the facility.  For that reason we probably get carried away with our respectful treatment of the place.  For instance, my wife scolds me for littering the ground with peanut shells.

My wife and I didn’t get to the ball park until after the National Anthem.  When we got to our seats (season tickets, ninth row right behind home plate) they were occupied.  Rather than ask people to move, we quietly accommodated by slipping into two seats in the next row up.  After all, it’s Creighton/Xavier.  Not exactly a sell out.  In our officially reserved seats, and in a dozen adjacent seats, were members of a teen-aged baseball team.  The group was adorned in game gear, wearing team T-shirts that identified them as visitors from a town somewhere in central Iowa.  I imagine the team was in town for a little league tournament, and coaches and parents wanted to treat the kids to a ball game at TD Ameritrade.  Not once during the entire game did any one of the big-leaguers-in-waiting cast an eye towards the field of play.  Eyes instead were cast upon cell phones taking selfies and group pictures as well as a teen-aged femme fatale who somehow managed to tag along and provide more compelling entertainment for the boys than the ball game.  The little bastards could not sit still.  The entire group was in constant motion, moving from seat to seat, row to row, and back again.  The stadium was 80% empty and these fidgety little fucks had to pick seats right in front of us, and our seats no less.  Is this where the youth of America is headed?  Are they all like this, with the attention span of a goldfish?  There were adults sitting in close proximity that I assume were supposed to supervise, but there was none of that going on.  I won’t be a hypocrite and tell you that when I was a teen-ager I didn’t goof off at a ball game when I was sitting in the stands with friends.  But at least we had the presence of mind to watch for foul-tips.  At a baseball game that can be, should be, a matter of instinctive survival.  If we were living in a pre-historic time, a roaming saber-toothed tiger coming across this clueless bunch would have to feel he had effortlessly stumbled upon a free all-you-can-eat buffet.  And in real time, had this hyperactive group been sitting in seats along a baseline, a screaming line drive in their direction would have easily taken out two or three of them.  I can’t say that I wouldn’t have rushed home after the game to see if I could catch it all on the evening news.

Especially to the point, if I was ever representing a team, my coaches would never put up with any pre-pubescent nonsense.  If my dad was there, he would step over and give me a knuckle-blast across the back of my head.  More knuckle-blasts and less Ritalin I say.  If you’re suited up like you actually play the game, you should understand how to play it.  It’s baseball.   It’s supposed to be slow.  Watch the fucking game.  You might learn something.

I have a lot of time on my hands now that I am retired and one of the things I do a lot is read stuff on ESPN’s web site.  Recently I ran across an article in which Mark Cuban, owner of the professional basketball team the Dallas Mavericks, made an interesting comment about college basketball.  It’s his belief that college basketball is in a horrible state and hurting the NBA.  His complaint is it’s too boring, too slow, too much milking the clock and not enough scoring.  Too much defense, not enough offense.  All that is probably true.  Mark Cuban is stinking rich and didn’t have anything handed to him.  He has to be a really smart guy, and obviously knows basketball.  I can’t say I am a smart guy, and I am certainly not stinking rich.  But still, I have to argue his point about college basketball.  I think it’s great.  Admittedly I am kind of a defensively orientated fan.  I like the strategy involved.  It doesn’t matter what sport I find entertaining.  I like the defensive aspect of it.  Except soccer.  I just can’t get tuned in there.  Overall, offense, defense, it’s all the same with that sport. It’s just boring.  But that’s just me. No offense to all you soccer fans out there.

To be honest, I never watch pro basketball.  I actually consider that to be even more boring than soccer.  There’s way too much offense- players running up and down the court trading baskets.  One team scores, then the other team scores.  They might as well start the game by giving each team 100 points, and then play for two minutes.  The end result would be the same as playing out a whole game, and have the benefit of saving everyone a lot of time.  Which is what Mark, and most of the country, seems to want in the first place.  Everyone is always in a hurry.  We can’t seem to get things done fast enough.  I think there are problems on the horizon if we all don’t learn to slow down.  And I’m not alone, let me tell you.  I’ve talked to my neighbors about this.  Just the other day some dick in a fancy BMW went tearing down our street.  Scared the hell out of poor old Mrs. Hanksteder, and Wally- he has five kids all under twelve years old and lives a whole block away- he practically took one for the team by stepping out in the street to confront that dip shit.  It didn’t do a whole lot of good and he’s lucky he didn’t get run over, but thank god for Wally and people like him that take a stand.  I gotta tell you I’m not about to step out into the street and take on anything that weighs a couple thousand pounds more than I do.  Actually I did try that once, but admittedly I had been drinking.  It’s sort of a long story.  And of course Wally has all those kids.  They do kind of wonder off his property a lot.  I’m not so sure his oldest didn’t egg my house last Halloween.  I’ll be laying for the little bastard this year.

Back to Mark Cuban.  His most salient point was that college ball is ruining the NBA.  Ok, I guess that’s possible and personally I couldn’t care less.  But to drive the point home, he suggested that schools were failing the kids themselves with the kind of basketball colleges are producing.  Referring to college basketball programs, his exact words were “If you want to keep kids in school and keep them from being pro, they’re doing it the exact right way.”  That’s apparently a criticism.  WTF?  Keeping kids in school is a bad thing?  It is obvious Mark believes, as many others do, that college athletic programs are little more than farm clubs for professional ranks. No doubt there are truly talented one and doners out there, but I think we need to put the breaks on this type of thinking.  Give athletes some auxiliary financial aid, but more importantly encourage them to stay in school, not leave it.  A college degree might be the only chance many of these college athletes have of getting ahead in life. Even those college players that are lucky enough to make it professionally might find some sort of degree to be a worth while back up plan.  Every boy scout will tell you to be prepared.  You never know when you might get your knee cap blown off in a strip-club altercation.  If more defense and a slower college game is what it takes to keep kids in school, I say go for it.

I hate complainers.  Especially if that’s all they do.  The constant cynicism- who needs it?  Take my neighbor.  He’s always complaining.  He has craftily categorized his personal use of the English language into complaint folders with titles and tabs.  For instance, he has a favorite complaint for each of the four seasons.  Spring will bring a shower of complaints about the pollen count and the unthoughtful behavior of his Kentucky bluegrass that he says he has to mow every five days.  And that complaint involves a lie because he’s lucky to accomplish that in double that time.  You know its summer when every conversation you have with him starts off with complaints about the heat and humidity.  The real head-scratcher occurs in the fall.  Somehow he expects me to keep all the leaves of my trees from blowing into his yard.  I’ve come to appreciate winter.  That’s because that’s the time of year my neighbor more or less hibernates.  For the most part I only run into him if we are both involved in snow removal at the same time.  I consider myself to be  careful and alert to danger, so I have become pretty good at avoiding that scenario.

All the grumbling wears me out.  The thing of it is though, it’s affected my own attitude.  Just look through the previous paragraph.  I am starting to become a complainer!  It’s not just complaints about my neighbor.  Cynicism is creeping into my daily life.  If you had a peek at my “About” tabs, you will notice a couple of things.  First, I am retired, and second, I profess to be a non-complainer, or at least have generally  limited my complaints to the froth of corporate conduct.  But it seems with my retirement I have more time to think about stuff, the kind of stuff that bothers me.  So I’ve started complaining more, like about my neighbor.  And it’s gotten out of hand.  Take the NFL playoff game this year between Green Bay and Seattle.  There is no way the Packers should have lost that game.  Something fishy went on there.  Maybe that ball Seattle used for the on-side kick was under-inflated.  Looking back now, it seems only logical to assume that.  As long as the NFL is scrutinizing the Patriots, why not throw the Seahawks into the mix.  Deep down I suspect Divine Intervention was to blame for that Packer fiasco.  Even with some Seattle shenanigans going on, there’s no way the Packers could look that hapless.  And one thing about me, I like to take my complaints straight to the top.  (See photo below)

You’re probably thinking this reaction is a little over the top.  I’m starting to realize that too.  That’s why I decided to turn over a new leaf.  I am going to get this complaining thing under control once and for all.  Well, maybe not quite once and for all, but I am no longer going to complain just to complain.  Any complaint I have will be constructively contextualized.  And there is a psychological tool I think I can use to help me stay focused.  I got so bogged down in my complaining during this short time I almost forgot about it.  Ask yourself this question: “What are two of the most important things I can do to reduce negativity?”  The two that come to my mind are “thinking happy thoughts'” and “staying relaxed.”

One of the best ways to think happy thoughts is to recollect fond memories.  When I want to tackle that, I start looking at old photographs.  I think this would work well for you also, and for everyone, really.  Take a look at this second photo of me that follows.  See how totally relaxed I am?  Totally.  And talk about happy!  I guess you can’t quite make that out, but believe me I was extremely happy.  This was right after the Packers beat the Cowboys in the playoffs.  Might have been during the game.  I don’t properly recollect.  Anyway, this is my “go-to” prop to help me stay focused.  This is me, in my perfect “non-complain mode.”  If I apply myself and keep recalling the steps I took to get to this level of relaxation, I am very confident you won’t be hearing much in the way of complaining from me.  If you care to, you can share your preferred method of relaxation.