it's the end of this blog as i know it, and i feel fine.....

I started writing here about 6 or 7 years ago. It was fun. It gave me an outlet for creativity. I work with numbers all day long, things that are absolute. So this was a nice diversion.

Over time, the fun went away. I guess it started a few months ago. Writing here became more of a task, a chore, a job. Something I had to do. The past few days it finally hit me that I don't have to do this if I don't want to. Why do something that's supposed to be fun when it's not fun any more?

So thanks for coming here to read about my life, my family, my oddities. I've made some friends on here that I didn't have before I started writing this blog, and that was a nice added bonus. I've made some people laugh, some people cry, and some people mad. That's pretty much how my life outside of the blog has always been, too.

If you're on Facebook, look me up. We'll keep in touch.....

so very close.....

Maintenance crews at Bryant-Denny Stadium were seen spraying tanks full of diluted bleach on the bleachers and home sidelines Saturday evening. The #1 (or #2, depending upon which poll you look at) team in the country and their fans apparently peed in their pants Saturday afternoon.

Yes, Alabama won. And like Lane Kiffin, I refuse to count moral victories as wins. That's what Vanderbilt fans do. (Yes, I said it.) But Tennessee came to Tuscaloosa as a 2-touchdown underdog. And for 59 minutes and 56 seconds, they kept up with Alabama. Their chance to win came down to a 44-yard kick off the foot of a kicker with a quad injury. But to their credit, Alabama made plays when they had to. And that's what good teams do.

I like where we're heading as a football team. We've played the #1 team in the country twice this year and scared them both. The wins will come in time.....

just put the phone up to scruffy's ear.....

SF Weekly - 9/18/09

The San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals operates an assistance-dog program under a $500,000 grant and not only provides the trained dog but also yearly "refresher" sessions to keep the dog sharp. However, client Patricia Frieze told SF Weekly in September that the organization had asked her whether it could do the refresher course this year by telephone instead of a home visit by a trainer.

could be a mutiny in titan-town.....

This was from a Titans fan who attended an event here in Nashville yesterday. Jeff Fisher was introducing the speaker, Tony Dungy, and according to this Tweeter, here's what happened:

Jeff Fisher just took off his jacket and he had on a Colts jersey and said, "I just wanted to feel like a winner!"

And here's the picture:



















Wow. Part of me thinks this is funny. Another part of me thinks Coach Fisher might get a call from ol' Bud Adams.....

words of wisdom to inspire you.....

The greatest revenge is to accomplish what others say you cannot do. That and gluing someone's hands to their face while they sleep, covering the kitchen floor with butter, setting off the fire alarm and watching them fall trying to escape the house.

Leroy Smith

tommy boy moment.....

Remember the scene in Tommy Boy where Chris Farley and David Spade were in the car listening to the radio? They were singing along with the songs. Then The Carpenters' "Superstar" came on. They both looked at each other, called the song lame. The next scene you see, they're singing along and crying during the chorus.

I went for a run Saturday morning. It was cool, 52 degrees. The rain had stopped, but it was damp. I stepped out the door in shorts and a long sleeve Under Armour shirt and immediately thought about going back in for a jacket, but figured I'd be OK after I started running.

I had my iPod set to shuffle all 900+ songs. Songs played by Cage the Elephant, The Doobies, The Eagles, Elvis Costello, James Morrison, Al Wilson and others. Most of the songs I listened to all the way through, but some I skipped over. As I started the last mile, it came on - Barry Manilow's Could It Be Magic. Every now and then, when I'm shuffling the whole catalog, a song will come on that I don't really want to hear at the moment, so I'll press the forward button to the next song. But I couldn't do it this time. From song's opening of the piano solo, I was under some king of spell, unable to lift my arm to go to the next song.

But I didn't cry like Farley and Spade. No, seriously, I didn't.....

good saturday.....

I'm not sure who that was wearing the #8 jersey on Saturday. He looked like Jonathan Crompton, but he sure as heck didn't play like JC. If not for special teams, it would have been an almost-perfect game.

I don't like Georgia. I don't know why, I just don't. Beating Georgia the way they did was just great.

Meg's big sister came over for dinner Saturday night. The bride had made all the fixins for hot fudge cake. I couldn't wait. I stayed away from sweets all day long just so I could eat a big ol' piece with a glass of cold milk.

Sara was the first to finish her chili. She asked when we could eat the hot fudge cake. The bride went over to the stove and turned on the eye for the hot fudge sauce. Or at least she thought that's what she was turning on. Funny thing about stoves - if you turn on the wrong eye, the thing you think you're heating up doesn't get hot. Sara was anxious to eat, so she kept checking the sauce. All of a sudden, we heard a crack that sounded like a gun had gone off. Glass went everywhere. The cake pan, made of glass, was sitting on a now very hot stove eye. It scared Sara too death. Not only the sound, but also the thought that we wouldn't be having hot fudge cake for dessert.

So Meg, Sara and Whitney headed to Publix and bought the stuff to make more. I'm happy to say it was delicious.

It was a good Saturday.....

yard sale faux pas.....

WBAL-TV (Baltimore) - 8/11/09

David Perticone, 46, was arrested in Severn, Md., in August and charged with stealing about $25,000 worth of items from a woman's house just down the block. The woman discovered the items in Perticone's front yard, part of a yard sale he was conducting.

inexplicable side effects of brain injury.....

BBC News - 9/2/09

Malcolm Darby, 70, awoke from surgery following a stroke in Oakham, England, last year to find that he had near-perfect vision (after having worn eyeglasses since age 2) but later discovered that he no longer spoke or understood French.

the attempt to recapture ignorance.....

I'm reading the book Second Hand by Michael Zadoorian. It's about a guy who's a "junker", someone who runs a second hand store and is constantly on the lookout for things to buy so he can clean them up and sell them to someone else.

There's a part in the book where a man comes in and buys an old, non-working radio. He says his parents had one just like it when he was a kid and that he hadn't seen one like it in decades. Richard, the owner of the store, thinks about this as the man leaves the store with his new purchase:

This is a strange thing about people. We own something as children, then as adults we are willing to buy it again for about a hundred times the original cost. We think we’re buying back our youth or our innocence or something like that, but what we’re really buying back is our ignorance. We want to remember a time when we didn’t know so much.

I read this and it hit me that I've been guilty of this very thing. I saw an old "Billy Blastoff" toy on eBay a year or so ago. In mint condition, the cost was about $300. I knew I couldn't afford it, and wouldn't buy it even if I could, but the memories it brought back were incredible. I was 5 years old when I got "Billy" for Christmas. You can't get much more ignorant than 5 years old.

I thought about the author's words on the way into work this morning. It struck me that Facebook is allowing people to recapture their ignorance with its service. We reconnect with people we haven't seen in decades, back to a time when our lives were less complicated, more innocent, more ignorant to what was to come later in life; back to a time when we didn't know nearly as much as we thought we did.

I can see the new marketing campaign now - "Facebook - ignorance realized". Yeah, maybe not.....

tough times for football fans in tennessee.....

Anyone who thought the Vols would go 8-4 or 9-3 when the season started has had that fantasy shattered by reality. While Hardesty is leading the SEC in rushing, he appears to be all we've got on offense. I'm not going to pile onto Crompton - we knew what he was going in to the season, and he is who he is. The defense looked lost at times Saturday night against Auburn. Maybe it was because they were on the field so much. It's going to be a long season for Vol fans.

Speaking of long seasons, the Titans took the field against Jacksonville Sunday afternoon. You may have noticed that I didn't say they played. The bride and I left before halftime and went to the library. You know I'm not thrilled when the library wins out over a football game. The thing is, I'm trying to figure out how they got so bad so fast. The defense can't stop anyone. The offense has Chris Johnson and that's about it. We need a quarterback. I'm predicting that Mr. Young gets the start next week.

I'm a fan. I'll stay true to my teams. But the growing pains won't be any fun.....