My Life in Sports

Call me a naive.
Call me a wild eyed optimist.
Tell me that I've lost my mind, my common sense and any sense of proportion.
I don't care.

This picture by Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette perfectly expresses my feelings about my beloved Pirates. (If you're a Pirates fan you should be reading Dejan. Good writer, loves the 'Burgh and is a straight shooter about the ball club)



Yeah the skies have been dark for the Buccos. Better times are coming. I BELIEVE!

In other sports news:

I played what is assuredly my last round of golf for the summer. (For the record I believe it was my THIRD round of the summer. Sigh). I lost 3 balls and shot +14.

And was thoroughly satisfied.

Since my goal is to shoot bogey golf (+9) on a regular basis, a 14 over with as little play as I've had was pretty good (and yes the scorer was slightly generous, but only slightly). I was working on a new twist for my swing and it showed marked improvement. If I can only get out and play a bit more I might not be too far away from where I want to be. And it was a GLORIOUS fall day to play.

Volleyball season has begun. Lots of new team mates and I am arguably one of the best players on the team. Yeah, that's not good. We lost our first match 0-3 came back the next week to lose 1-2. You gotta like the trend. It's a fun group and we can laugh at ourselves. So we end up laughing a lot. Good exercise too. I'm happy.

Football pool time. I do a "for fun" pool with an Episcopal youth group in Minnesota, all done online. Last week I missed only the Bills game (never fill out your pool with your heart) and thereby was only down 5 points for the week. And finished THIRD!! That's pretty good but still, you miss one game you figure you might finish first. Hasn't happened in three years yet. I'm currently 22 overall for the season out of about 90 players. Still pretty good, only missing on one game.

Peace

Gobsmacked!

Lovely word gobsmacked. If I understand it correctly it means to be greatly surprised, stunned even by a sudden turn of events.

And that's exactly how I feel about the football pool this morning.

It was a wretched week. I only got 9 of 16 games right, I missed on my top two favorites (Tampa Bay losing to San Fran and Houston losing to Oakland) so I knew my point total was going to get hammered.

Well so did everyone else's. With 77 points (which is like 60% of the total available) I was only 20 points behind this week's #1! So instead of FALLING in the standings, I ROSE in the standings! Only 3 people above me overall outscored me this week. Astoundingly I'm now only 90 points out of first place overall. Of course with only 1 week left the chances of me winning approach zero. But my goal was to finish in the top 10 (only 8 points away) and within 10% of the winner's total points (I'll have to finish within 150 points of first so I'm probably in pretty good shape for that one too).

The really funny thing is that I'm totally dumped the statistics analysis routine and just gone with my gut. Watch out for coast to coast games (like that TB/SF one!), watch out for division games, rivalry games and bad team/bad team and good team/good team matches. The problem becomes teams like San Diego who can be very good and very awful. Tough to pick week to week.

So I'm at #14 overall and was #14 for the week as well. Pretty sweet. One last big week and we'll see how we do.

Otherwise a bunch more snow last night. Followed by rain and 40 degrees on Weds, snow and 30 degrees for Christmas, rain and 40s Friday, rain and 50s Saturday then winter returns. Weird. But we can use some snow pile reduction again so I won't complain. And it makes doing some Christmas travelling easier too.

Peace

Weekend Update December 15

The Weekend That Was - Still running around on weekends! Yeesh. The diocesan staff Christmas party was Friday night at the bishop's house (fun as always) then we stayed the night at a local hotel since we were picking up the kid the next day. Did a little Christmas shopping and then home. Up Sunday to lead our adult forum. We're doing an Advent series based on hymns. My "topic" was the second coming. Not too many land mines there, lol. The discussion went well. Out for lunch then home to watch most of the Bills fiasco and the first half of the Steelers game. My football pool is going to get hammered. I picked lots of winners but the Redskins, Titans and Cardinals just killed my point total. Sigh. Baked some cookies and a small fruitcake (never done a small fruitcake before!). Then watched a movie (see below). I just want a "not doin' nuttin'" kind of weekend!


The To Do List - Bumped off a few small projects (Yay! and there was much rejoicing) I'll be attending a meeting of whatever remnant exists of a congregation that has left TEC. It's our first in WNY, so the bishop and several members of the staff will be there. There might be more of us than them but we'll see. Then some more small projects still in my sights.


What Am I Procrastinating About? - Would it surprise you to discover that this is my LEAST favorite part of this post each week? Procrastination is part of my lifestyle. I actually have some phone I should have made weeks ago that I need to report on come Sunday. So I better get my butt in gear.

What Am I Watching/Reading/Listening To? Finished the Brautigan and moved on to the new Jan Karon book "Home to Holly Springs". I love the Mitford books and this one (which doesn't take place in Mitford at all) is absolutely wonderful. I only have one small grump with it (Fr. Tim runs into one of his old buddies in a rather unlikely way). It's one of the few books I've read recently that I just wanted to keep on reading till it was over. It was fun. I needed that. I think I'm going to work on a book about Lincoln as Commander in Chief. Curiously, given that he spent more time on that aspect of the presidency than any other there are virtually no books written about it. Given my affection for both the president and military history I think I'll like this one.

Not much music again this week. Listened to some music the kid played on the college station. One song really jumped out at me "Girl's Not Grey" by AFI. Really like that cut.

This week's movie was - Minority Report. Sigh. I really wanted to like this movie and it's pretty good. But it makes the mistake so many sci-fi movies do, sacrifice story for special effects. In the last 30-40 minutes they abandon the high visuals and actually dig into the story and the movie gets MUCH better. A really good story idea (well, duh it's a Philip K. Dick story) with a fair to middlin' cast. Cruise is his usual rather brittle 'droid but in the right roles it works. And I think it was fine here. But it could have been so much better.

Next Up The meeting in Tonawanda, Youth Commission and then CHRISTMAS!!!!!!! Oh, which reminds me,need to do some shopping!

How Am I Doing Feeling a little disconnected spiritually right now. Probably a good time to really get into Advent.

Peace

I'm grumpy, you may not want to talk to me

My volleyball was swept out of the playoffs.

I had the worst week of anyone in the top 10 in the football pool and have fallen to #13.

Just got back from my doctor and while most of my blood tests came back with improvement (some quite improved) she's still on about heart attack risk, more drugs and oh yes my personal favorite, the possibility that I might be diabetic or at least headed that way. I find that news extremely unsettling (to say the least). All this despite the fact that I continue to lose weight, exercise and watch my diet. Apparently I need to lose MORE weight, exercise MORE, and watch my diet MORE. All in response to possibilities. She's a good doc which why I continue to listen but I wonder if perhaps she isn't a bit TOO proactive in her style.

I am not a happy camper.

My weigh in this morning did show another pound lost, down to 187.

Weekend Update November 17

The Weekend That Was - Back into the busy, busy, run-go-look-see-do weekend. Sigh. Saturday was Happening board meeting in the morning, then lunch at Niagara with the kid, then hanging around wasting time at the mall in the afternoon, then we went to see NU's production of "The Rink". The play's book was written by Terrance McNally, Lyrics by Fred Ebb and Music by John Kander (Kander and Ebb also created Cabaret and Chicago. McNally did Kiss of the Spider Woman and The Full Monty). This is not any of their best work. The characters are thin, the music is not particularly memorable. The cast did a really nice job with a really weak script. Trivia note - The Rink opened on Broadway on my 26th birthday. We didn't get home till 1:30 so we slept in and didn't go to church on Sunday. Sunday was Youth Commission, followed by that exceedingly weird Pittsburgh-San Diego game (which at least we won, sorry Marko). That may have been the weirdest officiated game ever but most of what I saw called on the Black and Gold they deserved.

Then we got home and the snow began. And it kept on snowing all night. There's 15- 16 inches of snow on my back deck, a little less (but only a little) in the driveways. How much was there two days ago? NONE. So I spent 90 minutes with the snowblower and shovel digging out both driveways and the stairs and a patch of the back deck. And what do I see outside my window as I write this? Still more snow.


The To Do List - I have a bunch of smaller projects that I just need to eliminate. A couple reports, a camp graphic to create, stuff like that.


What Am I Procrastinating About? - Mostly doing those small projects. Silly. I could knock off a most of them in the week and be done with them.

What Am I Watching/Reading/Listening To? I readRichard Brautigan , which was interesting and strange. I'd be willing to read more. Now I'm on to John Updike's "Rabbit, Run". At first I thought it was going to be another "Humboldt's Gift" but it's growing on me. Interesting that it features a character of an Episcopal priest (rather ineffectual like all the other characters in the book) and that it was written as a kind of respones to Jack Kerouac's "On the Road", which happens by sheer luck to be the next book I want to read!

Haven't managed to see a movie, listen to a podcast or hear any music all week. Very sad.



Next Up I'm still not sure what's up next. I find that rather disturbing.

How Am I Doing Still feeling pretty good (except when I look at that snow!) volleyball tonight, weigh in tomorrow.

Peace

A mid week update

Interesting week so far. Not necessarily my most productive (so far, there's still time!) but interesting.

On the weight loss front I pushed through 190 pounds last week for the first time in years. And I stayed below it for this week's weigh in. I only lost a fraction of a pound more but I didn't bounce back up again. Which feels very good.

My volleyball team won their first match of the season. A 3-0 sweep! Very satisfying. Particularly because we played well and because we finally saw a team look at us with that "We can't beat these guys" look in their eyes. I served very well and wasn't awful otherwise.

Football pool! I continue to hang out in the 60-70% of points range. Unfortunately folks keep doing just a little better than that so I'm usually only top 20 for any given week. But I've been very consistent being right around the top 10 overall. In fact the weekly update e-mail from our pool leader said the following:

Jay . . . you've been in 9th, then 11th for 2 week, then 6th, 7th, then 12th, and then 9th, 11th, and now 10th. Dude, consistency is the name of the game!!! Way to go!!

Consistency was my goal for this year. Oh, and being in the top 10 too.

Got our first snow of the season. First "real" snow that is. Flurries, snow that doesn't stick, or can be swept with a broom are not "real" snow. We got about 8 inches Sunday night into Monday morning. Took the snowblower out but it was a mess. The ground is still warm underneath the snow (and will be for a while yet) so the bottom inch turns to heavy slush. Which clogs the snowblower. No fun. Rain tomorrow and temps in the 60s so it will all go away.

Found what I think is a great new service for communicating with the current generation of youth. I'll blog about that tomorrow or Friday.

Peace

Weekend Update - November 3

The Weekend That Was - This was one of those "Wait, did a weekend just slip by me?" weekends. Halloween on Friday. Didn't see a lot of kids but a decent number. Had one kid totally reject our offerings (bags of chips) and one who acted as if it were his favorite treat of the evening. I had a meeting in Buffalo Saturday (it was a good meeting but it chewed up a chunk of the day), then church on Sunday, a Lutheran youth event (bowling! I rolled a 147, 127 and 112) then volley ball practice. Came home to watch the Brazilian Grand Prix on tape (congrats to Lewis Hamilton for his championship and Felipe Massa for a great year)

So it it didn't feel like much of a weekend but it was OK!

The To Do List - Got some tasks for Youth Commission to follow up on, notes to my Lutheran friends, some early camp details and I'm sure a bunch of other stuff too.


What Am I Procrastinating About? - Still haven't gotten to that paperwork yet. Sigh. I hate paperwork.

What Am I Watching/Reading/Listening To? I'm reading "The Irregulars - Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington" by Jennet Conant. I've always loved real life spy stories and the story of the British Security Coordination group has always been fascinating. That's the whole "Man Called Intrepid" thing plus where Ian Fleming (of 007 fame) got his start in spying too. Dahl is the well known children's author but was quite the playboy during the war as part of his spying. A lot of it is familiar ground for me but it's a good read.

Took the opportunity on Halloween to watch "Frankenstein
" the 1931 Boris Karloff classic version. I realized I've never seen the whole movie beginning to end! Also never realized how much business in "Young Frankestein" was just ripped directly out of the original! It really still plays quite well. Some of the acting style of the day is a bit dated but it was great. And I saw the original uneditted version too. Very nice. Not much time to see anything else.

Don't know much about her but heard a couple tunes from Maria Dunn, a Scottish folk singer. Really liked the sound.


Next Up Lots of little projects at the moment. I don't think I have any bigguns.

How Am I Doing Football pool doing well. Looks like it'll be a breakthrough week for the weight loss program with a chance to put another milestone behind me. Food journalling is my new thing and it's just depressing. Job is OK, I'm still in post-major-project-let-down mode. Gotta shake that. The car just sucked another $300+ out my wallet but it's running pretty well at the moment. So I guess I'm doing pretty well.

Peace

I'm Feeling Better!

The title is to be read with Monty Python and the Holy Grail in mind.

With the big weekend out of the way (and it went pretty well), that's lifted my spirits some. Plus today I went and saw my "financial advisor". Now I put that in parentheses because it still feels weird to say that. Like I have a lot of money hanging around. I have a small investment portfolio that I inherited from my folks and that includes the advisor. My dad picked them out and they've done wonderful things for us over the years. Once a year I go down and talk with them.

This year I was in a bit of a panic. That small investment portfolio is a LOT smaller than it was just two months ago. But I came away feeling pretty good. One fund actually MADE money in the last year even with the last two months included. Overall we actually out performed the market. I have very little understanding of what he says to me even though he talks very slowly and uses short words. We talked about our plans for our personal finances and he said we were on the right track. Oh and he believes the worst of the market fluctuations are behind us.

I'm just telling you what he said. Made me feel better.

What doesn't make me feel better is my whole weight thing. I'm stuck at 193 pounds. Have been for months. So today I added a food journal. I hate doing stuff like this cause it's boring. Then I saw today's totals! I was more than a third over my goal. With no exercise to speak of since I was on the road for 7 hours. Hmmmm, I may have stumbled onto something here.

Also interesting to note that after getting used to eating healthy the fast food burger I grabbed today (I know, I know, bad decision!) sat in my stomach like a lead weight.

Football pool was pretty good. 79% on picks good for 13th on the week and up to 9th for the year. I never broke Top 15 last year and spent most of the season in the 30s as I remember. The Miami loss killed me but I did (gulp)choose the Giants to win.

But in the end I'm feeling better. And that's nice for a change.

Peace

Update plus 12 seconds

Quick update:

I lost another pound. I can see the next milestone! With a good week I can be below 190 pounds by this time next week.

I had an excellent week on the football pool. I missed only 3 picks this week and still finished tied for 5th place. I move up to 6th overall just 19 points behind the leader! Yeah baby!

Volleyball was good and bad last night. Played fairly uninspiredly but we won our first game. Still haven't won a match yet but at least we didn't get shut out.

Something new! Call it 12 seconds a day with Jay (yes I'm going to try and scratch out 12 seconds every week day at least to do this). It should be an interesting challenge. Let's see how this works embeded on the page. This is a flash program.

And so it begins on 12seconds.tv

Let me know if this works for you. It's being squirelly.

Just some random stuff

I studiously avoid airing my political views here. But this is a candidate I could absolutely get behind:


I approached the football pool results for this past week with fear and trembling. Out of a total of 91 possible points I got 56. Figured my standing would take a hammering. Turns out the weeks champ had a total of 66 points! Stupid Broncos. So I remain in 11th place. Not sure I like this coming week any better.

Weight loss contest - down 1 pound. But hey it's DOWN a pound. Any weight I lose from here on out is territory I haven't seen in over 20 years. Kinda cool when I realize that I will have no choice soon but to buy new clothes. My current wardrobe is starting to hang on me like I'd just gotten over a long illness.

Added a new recipe to my repertoire! Homemade spaghetti sauce. It's very close to the classic "Godfather" sauce (which legend says is actually the Coppola family recipe) and it was delicious! I was little worried because spaghetti is one of my lady wife's favorites and she can be a little picky (just a little). She's happy to make the homemade sauce our regular. Very cool.

And I pulled off a little car repair spiffiness too. I swapped out the door jamb switch on the driver's door. Now I not only have the interior light come on when I get in but the "lights on" warning chime now works too! Took all of five minutes. But oh so satisfying.

Later today I'll launch the first youth ministry video (actually this would be youth ministry videos v.2. We tried last year and had some technical problems) It's just a quick collection of memories from EYE but it's nice to have one up and running.

Bits o news

Been a strange week so far:

A very dear friend at church passed away yesterday. It was not unexpected in any way but it's still sad. She was a special lady and will be missed. Funeral tomorrow.

Had to take our older cat to the vet yesterday because she had pretty much lost all interest in anything. She barely flinched when the kitten would jump on her and gnaw on her head rather than growling and hissing per usual. And she wouldn't even budge when my lady wife came into the house. This cat has always treated her as the "goddess" and needs her undivided attention for at least 20 minutes at the end of every day. The last three days? Didn't even turn her head. The early word is not good -liver damage, kidney damage. She's a very sick kitty with a very poor prognosis. She's in the animal hospital for the time being.

In news of lighter note and less importance -

My first weigh in on my new contest put me in the top 5. I doubt I'll stay there. Lost just over 2% of my initial weight. I would really love to drop below that next 10 pound milestone. Just four pounds away.

Dropped out of the top 10 in the football pool. It was a wretched week. Come on the Dolphins beating the Patriots? And a serious case of tail whoopin' at that. A couple other teams let me down as well. So I fell to 11th place. Still picked something like 10 out 16 games last week but got several high point games that I missed. Need a better week this week. Only 13 games to pick.

I've spent most of the day waiting on a software download that I need for the big project I'm sitting on. So everything has been on hold. Doing lots of little things.

Peace

And the latest update is...

Had a little adventure today trying to leave Binghamton.

The car I drove doesn't have a functional "dinger" (warning chime I believe is the correct terminology but everyone I know says "dinger") for leaving the lights on. When I got to Binghamton yesterday I'd had them on for visibility but it was a bright shiny day and I never noticed. So they got left on.

For 20 hours.

Can you say "dead battery"? Oh, so very dead.

Bad words, bad words, bad words.

So my very good friend Debi Clarke from the Diocese of New Jersey agreed to give the battery a jump. Actually Debi said I could use her car for the jump because she knows nothing about cars and in many ways would be perfectly happy if cars didn't exist. That was fine because routine stuff like jumping batteries was something I learned early from my dad.

First problem - Debi has never actually popped open her own hood and isn't sure how to do it. Now this may sound like I'm picking on Debi but the truth is I looked at the owner's manual, looked where it was supposed to be and I didn't see it either! A black plastic handle up against a black plastic wall just kinda disappears. Eventually we figured it out together.

Second problem - The battery in her VW (Jetta I think) is actually HIDDEN! It's in a weird place (behind the engine compartment just below the passenger side windshield) and it's actually covered with a sliding panel! There is a symbol for the battery impressed into the panel but again - black on black. We figured it out.

Third problem - Note I said it's on the PASSENGER side of the engine bay. The only available slot next to my car was on MY passenger side. Yep, jumper cables came up about 18 inches short.

At this point I began to laugh. I sent my lady wife a text telling her my departure was being delayed and why. I could hear her laughter right across the state.

So now my good friend Kep Short, also of the Diocese of New Jersey, pulls his car up. The hood pops open, the battery isn't hidden and IS on the traditional side and all is good. As my battery charged a little Kep took a second look at his own engine bay and discovered the last tech to work on it left one of those rechargeable flashlights sitting just behind the air filter. Had probably been riding around that way for a couple weeks maybe?

All this as Binghamton drizzled on our heads.

Car started. Deb and Kep headed east. I headed west. The rest of the trip was wonderfully boring.


On another front I've hooked back up with the football pool I did last year. I won't bore you with too many details but the first week went OK. I got 11 out of 16 games right. I picked the Colts, Chargers, Lions (against a rookie QB!), Titans, and Bengals. The Colts, Chargers and Titans are probably anomalies (not positive about the Titans) and the Bengals and Lions are probably going to be just awful this season.

After week one I'm listed in 20th place although places 18,19 and 20 were all identical. But 20th is still much better than where I spent most of last season. This coming week looks like a complete field of landmines. Maybe I'll get lucky.

Good to be home.

Peace

Are You Ready?

This is my column from the March issue of our diocesan newspaper

When I was in college a group of us discussed “What do you want to be when you grow up?”. There was one answer that puzzled me. A young lady in the group said she wanted to be a “star”. That puzzled me then and it puzzles me now. Based on the lives of some of our current generation of “stars” the concept looks greatly overrated. Then and now what I hope for IF I ever grow up is that I'll be good enough at what I do to earn the respect of the people around me. Maybe someday I'll get a shot at being a star (I'd do it right of course) but if I don't that's OK too. I want to be ready to do the right thing when the moment arrives.
I was thinking about that concept after this year's Super Bowl. Going into the game we knew who the “stars” were. Brady, Moss, Manning, Strahan. We expected them to do their star thing, to lead the way, to be the “story” of the Super Bowl. Instead we got David Tyree. Caught the first of the two Giants' touchdowns and made that incredible, holding-the-ball-against-his-helmet catch. David Tyree is going to be on NFL highlight films for the next 20 years.

Coming into that game David Tyree was about as far from a “star” as you can get.

For the season Tyree was the 12th most productive receiver on the team. He caught 4 passes. Four. None of them for touchdowns. He played in 12 games out 16 in the regular season and caught four passes. Two rookies caught more passes than he did.

But at the moment when he was needed, David Tyree was ready.

Sometimes it feels like the “star” game works its way into Christianity. We hear Christians who talk about being “Prayer warriors”, how strong in the faith they are, about what great mission work they're doing, how many souls they brought to Jesus. I'll admit that I even buy into sometimes. I look at them and think “Wow, I can't do that. They're accomplishing so much more.” It makes me feel bad. On really bad days it makes me wonder if I shouldn't just pack it in. I can never be a “star”. Sainthood is beyond my grasp. Besides St. Jay of Jamestown just sounds silly.

When I stop and think about it I realize I don't need to be a star. I need to work on being the best possible me I can. David Tyree showed up for practice every day. He worked hard. Most days no one other than his teammates looked at him twice. Until Super Bowl Sunday.

I don't know when my Super Bowl Sunday of faith may arrive. So I have to prepare every day, work on being the best child of God I can be at the moment. It's possible I'll never be a “star”. The day may come when I get the chance to show what a life in faith should look like. The day may come when I need to be a vehicle for Christ in the world. In fact those days probably come a lot more often than we realize.

Are you ready?

Peace.

Happy 2008!

I know everyone else in the blogosphere is way ahead of me on this one but I really took the end of last year off from most of my usual activities. So let's get caught up.

Christmas was lovely. Best presents were the circular saw from the in laws and two tickets to a March Bruce Springsteen concert from my brothers. Have I mentioned recently what a wonderful pair of brothers God has blessed me with? Primo times two.

The weather has been fine. It snowed lightly on Christmas Eve so we had a white Christmas.

My football pool. I never really recovered from my bad start but did finish in the top 50% of the pool. So I wasn't utterly humiliated. The next to last week was very good. I finished #8 for the week and #2 in the points per pick category. The last week of the season was a disaster. Too many teams resting starters and playoff implications and just bad football. Bleah. Still thinking about whether to try the playoff pool too. I'm just very leery of my Steelers prospects.

Watched the "Winter Classic" hockey game. From the comfort of my living room, natch. Yes, it was every bit as cold and snowy as it looked. And yes I was perfectly happy that the Pens won. I would have been almost as happy if the Sabres had. Almost.

New Year's Day some idiot backed into my car
and drove away. That's about a two foot crack in the high tech plastic door panel on my Saturn. Which will cost a mere $900 to repair and paint to match.
Sigh.
I'm struggling with some very un-Christian thoughts about whoever did this.

Beyond that I'm looking forward to the New Year. It has the potential for some really good things this year I believe.

I'll try and get more caught up next week.

Peace!

Pittsburgh 3 Miami 0

Yes, that was the most ridiculous, absurd, horrible football game I've ever watched. It was a train wreck, not so much because the teams were incompetent but because there was so little they could do about any of it. That field was wretched.

In the end I'll take the results.

Oh, quick update on my football pool. I'm doing better (except when my beloved Steelers mess me up by losing to the JETS of all teams). But this was a tough week, I got 9 of 16 games right for 100 out of 136 points. So my points per pick was pretty good.

H/T to Kevin Boddecker for this one:


Yeah, that actually makes a lot more sense.

Peace

Football makes me crazy!

Well my football pool got hammered this weekend. Going into tonight's game I'm 6-7. Yuck. And I thought both the Bills and the Steelers were really going to put a damper on my day but they pulled it out.

I saw a movie in the theater the other day! Can't remember the last one of those. It was on the recommendation of my favorite daughter and was pretty cool.

Across The Universe Someone compared it to "If Moulin Rouge and Hair had a child..." and that's probably pretty close. The story really revolves around the Beatles music (there are 30+ in the film)it's set in the '60's during the Viet Nam war. The main characters are Jude and Lucy (Beatles, Beatles, Beatles!)and the story is pretty straight forward. Bono, Eddie Izzard, and Selma Hayek makes cameos. The audience was almost entirely late HS/college age plus us older folks. It was really a lot of fun and great to sing along with (quietly of course!)

Stranger Than Fiction Let's be up front here. I don't like Will Ferrell, I generally don't think he's funny. "Anchorman" was OK (funnier than I expected), everything else is crap (apologies to the language sensitive). But I really liked this movie. Reminds me of Jim Carey in "The Majestic", toning it down and actually doing some acting. Now Carey's fans hated "The Majestic" and so he's gone back to doing his "thing" and I expect that this will be the same. But it's a wonderful sensitive movie that's funny and touching and well done.

And a book I read:

At First Sight by Nicholas Sparks. Don't ask me why I read this. It's a NYT best seller but essentially it's a romance novel and I don't read romance novels. No one remembers how it got into our house but the cover looked interesting and I needed something to read. It's well written, kinda funny, very touching and yes I read the whole thing. I'll probably never pick up another book by Sparks (the plot was really simple and obvious. I'm astounded to see some people call the ending a "surprise"). But I did enjoy it.

I dumped several of the books I listed before, they just weren't grabbing me. So I'm reading an old friend - The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. Great books.

Peace

Football pool update

OK, the weekly results are out. I finished right around 25th for the week and that moves me into the top 50 overall. I had 10 correct picks, the top person had 13 (out of 14! Bet she missed the Pack)and I had 84 points the top person had 97. My best week so far.

Green Bay was the major stumbling block for everyone. 5 people picked Chicago out of about 100 folks playing!

All right, all right! I'll stop obsessing about my football pool!

(Actually I'll just obsess quietly)

Peace

Post Monday Night Football

I've been a bit slothful with the blog, my apologies. I've been checking out the travel photos from the acolytes trip of my friends Kim and Lee to the National cathedral (here's the crew)


Meanwhile here in western New York we're trying to figure out how we feel about last night's game. We weren't supposed to win, heck we weren't supposed to be CLOSE and we led the Cowboys for most of the game. Only to lose in the final two seconds. You see we've been here before. Just ask any WNY sports fan about the phrases "Wide Right" and "No Goal". Then buy them a drink and help them wipe away their tears.

I'm torn myself. After 20+ years the Bills are my #1A team (Steelers are #1). I root for them, pay attention, know the players the whole deal.

But I was hoping they'd lose last night.

I had the Cowboys in my pool.

I'm doing a football pool with a youth group out in Minnesota (the wonders of the internet). To be honest I've been fairly wretched with a brief moment of merely mediocre. But Sunday! The pool is done by picking winners and then assigning confidence points to each pick. So this week with 14 games the highest point total was 14. (Umm, errr, Dallas over Buffalo). By the time the Sunday afternoon games were over I was 9 correct picks out of 12 with two of the misses being my 1 point and two point games.

YEAH BABY!!!!

Then the Bears re-discover the concept of offense and upset the Packers (my 12 point pick!) Noooooooo!

As I watch the game Monday night I am utterly torn. The Bills are WINNING!!! Yay!. The BILLS are winning! NOOOOOOOO!

In the end I finished 10 of 14 for 84 out of 105 points (or is it 85 out of 104? Can't remember)

If only those darned Packers.......

(Breathe)

It's OK, really.
I'll be fine.
Peace

Oh the things I do!

Been busy, run off my feet the last week.

Nothing too profound but a couple things to share:

Went bowling with the Lutheran youth group I work with. Haven't bowled in a LOOOOONG time so my scores weren't too unfathomable (92 and 107) Once I got a feel for the motion again I just didn't have the touch and kept leaving spares. Ended up with lots of 7s, 8s and 9s. Plus the machines were setting the pins strangely so a perfect pocket hit would leave you with three standing. Or pins would just randomly fall down (happened a LOT). But it was fun and the youth had a great time so that's all that mattered.

A couple movies to add to the list:

Pulp Fiction - I'll catch pieces of it on TV but clearly it's a movie you have to see uncut. People had given me the impression that it was incredibly violent but it's really not. The deaths are spectacular but it's very classic Greek theater. They all take place "off stage" and you only see the aftermath. Now as for language! If bad words upset you do NOT want to watch this movie. It becomes funny (at least to me) after a while because they swear CONSTANTLY! For all that it was a really good movie. Visually stylish, amazing dialogue and a cast to die for. Highly recommended.

Rushmore - Man did I go into this one with misgivings. I'd been told "If you liked Napoleon Dynamite you'll probably like this". I hated Napoleon Dynamite. Two hours of my life I'll never get back. But I really like this one. Yes, it's strange. Yes, the main character has a weirdly obsessive personality (as compared to normally obsessive). But it's a neat little off beat story that carries you right along to the end. And you have to love the production values of the main characters stage shows! Worth a look when you're in the mood for something a little quirky.

I went to something new last weekend. It's called Artists Share and it's co-sponsored by a local church and the Arts Council. Literally it's a chance for artists to come together and share/show their work and get some feedback. This month was writing (last month was photography) and it was very cool. I ran into an old co-worker of mine (old only in the sense of jobs neither of us hold any more. She's a fair bit younger than I am!) I now discover that she is a prolific and talented writer! It's just fun to be around folks who are creative again. I think I'll keep coming back. In fact I'm working on a new blog that will be dedicated just to whatever creative pursuits I can produce. We'll see how that goes.

I'm trying one other new thing. I'm in a football pool. Since I don't bet (because I lose)I've never done a pool before. One of my brothers usually does a football pool or two during the NFL season so I've thought about it. This one's great, it's "sponsored" by the youth group of a friend of mine. So there's no money, no prizes, just the glory of winning it all. It's also simple and appeals to me. No worries about point spreads or anything like that. It's simple you pick the winners of the 16 games each week. Then you rank your "confidence" in each pick. For example this week I picked New England over Buffalo (sorry my fellow Bills fans but seriously did ANYONE think they'd win?) and ranked it 16, my highest confidence. Those then turn into points if you're right. Without tonight's game (which has my lowest confidence point total - 1) I'm at 81 points. Not real good, not terrible but not gonna win either. The first week someone picked all 16 games right! How do you do that ON THE FIRST WEEK!?!?!?!?!? This week's disappointments were San Diego and Denver. I picked Philadelphia to win so that felt good. So I imagine I'm still firmly mid pack somewhere. Let's see if I can't do better as the season goes along.

So on the whole a pretty good week. But lots still to do.

So off I go.
Peace