Musings By Gerard Volker

The Bet (why my daughter is destined to be a Buckeye)

2010-10-02T16:58:00.009-04:00

My brainy daughter, let's call her Moesha, is a High School Senior and has expressed an interest in attending a few different universities. The short list: THE Ohio State University, University of Illinois, Northwestern, and University of Chicago. As a parent, there are three economic magic words you begin to learn when your kid is this age: "in-state tuition". It's exciting to look at schools all over God's green earth, but at the end of the day, it's all about the money, honey.

Most parents take their kid to visit all (or most) of the schools they are interested in attending, apply for financial aid and scholarships, pray, cross their fingers, and wait to see what happens. And, we've done some of that. However, we aren't most parents. "Let football decide where you go".

The parental (and economic) consensus in the house has long been for her to attend Ohio State. We are also a sports-oriented family. Why not use unconventional means to make a significant decision? The premise is simple: if the Ohio State Football team wins against a school, that school is eliminated from consideration.

What about academics? What if she gets a scholarship to a "losing" school? Those could be factors, yes. But, in the meantime, we have a system, and it's working.

Today's game: Ohio State @ Illinois. Buckeyes play poorly. Game comes down to the last few minutes. Terrelle Pryor gets a mild injury. The offensive play calling is awful. Somehow, the Buckeyes pull out the win!

More good news: Unversity of Chicago has a Division III Football Team, and Ohio State doesn't play Northwestern this year.

I can already hear Carmen Ohio...

Today's Random Thoughts - Olympic Edition

2008-08-13T21:49:00.013-04:00

The poor air quality in China has been well documented, but LOOK AT IT ON YOUR HD TV! It's very scary. You can't even see outside for more than fifty feet behind Bob Costas during a broadcast. A local news story here in Columbus interviewed an expert in pollution from Ohio State, and he said "it could all come here." Enjoy those cheap Chinese products from the world's factory while they last folks, the environment is paying for it.
Michael Phelps might be the greatest swimmer and Olympian ever, but he still has horse teeth.
I used to hang out at fairs with the "Guess Your Age And Weight" people (seriously) so I'm not bad at guessing. If those little Chinese gymnasts are really close to (or are already) sixteen, they could star in Disney's new feature film, "Honey, I Shrunk the Gymnasts".
I've come up with a universal definition of barbeque: anything that's dead, cooked, and has sauce on it.

Things I've noticed lately - April 2008

2008-04-24T13:57:00.010-04:00

Greetings from Pine Valley! I was running at the gym during lunch the other day and "All My Children" was on the TV. I was listening to a BBC World Football (Soccer) Podcast while watching the soap and running four miles, which--in combination--sounds like something that should be on a warning label (kids, don't try this at home). Don't ask me why I was running at the gym when it's now over 70F outside. I guess winter habits die hard, and since we went straight from winter to summer this year in Central Ohio, I haven't had time to adjust. Anyway, the seemingly ageless Erica Cain (Susan Lucci) is in prison, something about a struggle and a gun is all I could pick up from the close captions. Her makeup still looked great--nice that inmates get professional makeup jobs these days. Your tax dollars at work? I guess it's just TV. Where are Phoebe, Tad, and Jenny when you really need them?

My Uncle got me hooked on (the original) Star Trek reruns as a kid, and we occasionally trade emails about Trekkie news items (like the new movie coming out next year). I watched the classic "Kodos" Shakespearean actor/mass murderer Star Trek episode the other night. This is Star Trek at it's funky finest! A weird thing I never really noticed in the show before: Kirk signs stuff all the time. People come by the deck to his captain's chair and he puts his John Hancock on whatever they put in front of him with barely a glance. Questions: In the future do we really still need to manually sign stuff? Don't we really already have many kinds of electronic approval? Multi-key encryption? Touchscreen, optical scan, or hologram-based approval process? Pul-ease!!! I realize this was filmed in the 1960's, but they really missed the boat on this one. Plus, their etch-a-sketch plastic box props that contain all the alleged reports to sign....I could make better boxes with papier-mâché!

Will a bad economy support a CVS and a Starbucks on every corner?

The Green Mill

2008-01-12T14:40:00.000-05:00

My good friend Harry and I found our work-related travel schedules aligning this week in Chicago and decided to go hear some jazz at Chicago's historic and legendary jazz club, the Green Mill. Only a short cab ride from downtown, and one word: WOW! Residing in beautiful, Columbus, Ohio I could only compare the interior to the Blue Danube, a Columbus landmark, but the semi-restored art deco was way cooler, especially when you know Al Capone used to hang here. The scene was awesome--we got there twenty minutes before the 9PM gig and it was pretty empty, but by the middle of the first set the place was SRO. The beer was excellent (PBR on draft, of course), and--perhaps most importantly--the music was smokin'. Chicago's own Deep Blue Organ Trio provided the excellent jazz, featuring Chris Foreman on Hammond B3. Tuesday night is currently their weekly gig at the Mill, be sure and get there early for good seat.

Top Three Reasons The Ohio State Buckeyes Lost The (Another) National Championship Game

2008-01-12T13:49:00.000-05:00

I find it's much easier to write about the game a few days after a tough loss. I guess it's not so bad making it to the big game two years in a row, and three out of six years. After careful reflection, here are my top five reasons the Buckeyes lost to LSU in the 2008 National Championship Game.

1. The game was closer than the score. You might be able to say this about most games, but this game really hinged on ~5 plays. If these plays turn out in OSU's favor instead of LSU's, the Buckeyes likely win the game. You already know the plays: 1) the roughing the punter call, 2) Robiskie dropping the TD pass (it was IN HIS HANDS!) which would put OSU up 17-10, 3) the subsequent blocked FG, 4) Roy Small letting the LSU cornerback take the ball away from him (in soccer we call it a 50/50 ball--win it!), and 5) the one-sided nature of the the officiating. 5 personal foul calls on OSU?!? Maybe the face mask on Laurinaitis it legit--although it didn't look that bad, the only other one I remember them showing on replay was a hit out of bounds, and it was borderline at best. It's shocking that LSU, the #2 most penalizied team in I-A football, had one penalty called on them the entire game? Looked like some holding going on upfront to me, but what do I know?
2. The #1 ranked defense didn't look the part in the first half. They did settle down in the second half, but too little too late.
3. The offensive play calling, with the exception of the Brandon Saine pass play in the first offensive series, lacked creativity. Is Walt Harris available to coach the offense?

The future: It's good to know we only started three Seniors this year--the Buckeyes are young. Boeckman and Beanie will be back to lead the offense, and the receivers are a year older. The D is always solid. I do like our chances in 2008-2009!

See you in Miami in January 2009!

A Winter Poem

2007-12-28T17:55:00.000-05:00

The crisp winter day

The white covers the greenish-brown

A blur of red out my kitchen window

The cardinal

Red bird on brown branch

Berries of the same color, his goal

I stop my washing of the cup for a glance

And he disappears

Walker, Cell Phone Ranger

2007-08-24T20:02:00.001-04:00

NEWS BULLETIN...NEWS BULLETIN...NEWS BULLETIN...

Colonial Hills, OH (AP) Dan and Christine Walker, who last made a cell phone purchase around the time of the Louisiana Purchase, have been rumored to be seen at a local Verizon Wireless Store where they purchased a Family Plan.

"It's true", said a neighbor who would only identify himself as the Whiskey Man. "I saw 'em with them dere--hiccup--fancy new fangled mobile phones. Both the man and the woman--hiccup--both had 'em, and the woman-child with the curly hair too--they were all talkin' on them and they didn't have strings. Kinda like those walkie-talkies they show on TV."

Friends of the Walkers have long been smitten with their devotion to their Styrofoam cup/kite string cell phones, and have all heard Dan say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Why the sudden change of heart? Neighbors can only guess.

"The strings were goin' bad", added the Whiskey Man. "They had to yell louder and louder and no one could here 'em, and you can't get strings and cups like that no more."

While the global social, political, and economic impact of this policy shift has yet to be determined, many other friends and family of the Walkers--all Verizon subscribers--are grateful that they can now call them without using up all their minutes.

Death By Device?

2007-08-24T19:43:00.000-04:00

We are all going to die by our devices. No, I don't mean devices in the "addicted to oil and fossil fuel" sense, as our planet dies (though this isn't looking good at the moment), nor do I mean our use of various forms of stimulants (read: Starbucks), drugs, or alcohol. I am referring to our real devices: our cell phones and crackberries.

I was driving down the interstate yesterday on a five-lane highway going seventy miles per hour, and both the person driving in the lane on the left and the person in the lane on my right were swerving in and out of their lanes, not paying attention to the road. Upon closer inspection, both were looking down in their laps at some kind of device, and typing while they were driving.

I know what you are thinking...but Gerard, you are the king of multi-tasking! What's a little driving while texting? This should be no problem for you! Guilty. My wife tells me I'm going to kill us, and she may be right. But, I am starting to see the error of my ways. After watching these two cars squeeze me (I had to accelerate or be crushed), I am swearing off device usage while driving. I have a fifteen-minute commute! Whatever it is, it can wait, can't it?

If you've been watching the news, you've seen that this is starting to get media attention. Congress is ready to act. If you've even driven in D.C., it's not hard to tell why. I'm not the first to have the beegeebees scared out of me while driving. My only question is how many people have I terrified? Did they swerve to miss me? Get so scared they soiled themselves? Have a close call? I can only say I haven't heard any accidents, but I was probably too busy texting or taking conference calls on my crackberry to notice anyway.

"Jimmy Of Arabia, Oklahoma", Second In A Series Of Short Stories

2006-12-31T13:22:00.000-05:00

Her eyes were amazing, like a cat, small vertical slits that would get wide like an oval in the dark. We were in a dark room, drinking wine coolers together and smoking menthol cigarettes, along with a few other people that had met while working at the Tulsa State Fair, after hours. We talked about where we were from, how long we had been working at fairs, and other things about our lives. The talk got deeper. I told her I had recently decided to become a Christian, after growing up mildly catholic, rejecting it favor of atheism, but had been exposed to the bible in the past year and was amazed at its relevance and message for humanity. She shared that it wasn’t as difficult as it looked to do her job at the fair, she got tons of breaks, and she could even read a little while working. I liked her, and I could tell she liked me. She was a couple of years older than me, but I was old for my age. I asked her if she had a boyfriend, and she said that she had just broken up with someone a few days before. She kissed me, and I noticed her tongue was also different, split in the middle, like a serpent. I was seventeen years old and traveling through the country selling food at fairs and festivals. She was the snake lady at the freak show at the fair.

Two cities in the State of Oklahoma, Tulsa and Oklahoma City, both have an event they call the State Fair. I don't know the history of the events or their apparent rivalry, but they are still held a couple of weeks apart every fall. At the ripe old age of 17, I found myself working at the Tulsa version, probably the smaller of the two events, and the one with “event envy”. Tulsa was a nice middle-class, good-sized town in Middle America; it reminded me a bit of my hometown in Ohio, except the preppies wore cowboy boots instead of top-siders. Nice town, nice people, some might say. For me, it was just another stop on the fair express, three more weeks in the next city with an event big enough to fit our pit barbeque restaurant, home of the “whole hog”.

Our setup for the fair was a nightmare. We had a smaller space than I was used to, so instead of a large, pre-assembled tent from a third-party company waiting for us when we arrived, we put together this puzzle-like thing that was buried in one of the trucks, an ancient wood temporary restaurant-like structure with room for tables along the edge of each side, which was probably built and designed by some church group in the nineteen-fifties. It was like a giant puzzle from hell—no clue as to what part went where, and took us three days to put together.

Jimmy, who had spent the last fair in New Mexico living in a side-storage bin of one of the trucks, was like a bipolar big brother to me. When he was "up", he was a great guy to work with, was always there when you needed him, and was a lot of fun to be around. When he was “down”, he was dark, depressed, and would frequently disappear in the middle of the day, making my job quite a bit harder. This was not a down day.

It was very cloudy and humid, in the middle of the week. The fair was about half over, and I hadn’t talked to the snake lady for several days. I assumed she had reconciled with her boyfriend or, perhaps she was just protecting me from him, she said he was not a nice man. It rained like monsoon in the afternoon and we had at least a foot of water on the ground in the barbeque pit. We had limited freezer space and so we used an ice freezer, the kind you find at a grocery store when you need a bag of ice. We used it to store meat, laying metal trays on top of ice bags, or pieces of wood pallets. In the free-standing water I was transferring a metal tray of meat between a metal table and the ice freezer when I was shocked—literally. It felt like a cartoon character looks when his flesh disappears and his skeleton is visible to everyone in black and white, like someone had hit me with a hammer in the head. I sat a table in the back of our tent afterwards and chain-smoked, my hands shaking and my body trembling for more than an hour. Jimmy was there to cover for me in the cook shack, and was nursing me back to health by handing me cigarettes and wine coolers whenever I needed another.

The weather cleared, so did my head, and the snake-lady came to visit me. "Are you coming to the Jamboree tonight?” she asked. Having no idea what this was, she explained to me that it was a party for all of the carnival workers. "Where have you been the past few days?", was my only emotionally hurt response. "My boyfriend told me he heard I was seeing someone else and he was going to find out who he was and kill him, so I decided to start seeing him again. But, don't worry, he doesn't know who you are." I didn't know anything about this guy except that he was "mean", but I had seen them together from a distance, and I could tell he was slightly taller than me, with lots of tattoos, and he had at least a hundred pounds on me. I was six-foot-two, but I was one hundred and fifty pounds dripping wet. "What if I taught him a lesson?” I asked, comically. "I hope you make it tonight", was her smiling reply.

The Jamboree could only be described as the closest thing I have experienced to hell on earth. First, a ten-dollar cover charge--how could the low-paid the fair workers afford this? Second, you had to buy tickets to purchase alcohol and food, which was all overpriced. What is it about tickets at festivals? Are people selling food and alcohol never trustworthy to handle cash? Third, a rock band playing bad Southern Rock covers (think "Freebird" over and over and over again). Fourth, next to the rock band, a large blue sheet hanging like a curtain, with large lights behind it, and a man and woman behind the curtain literally "getting it on". Probably naked, their pornographic silhouettes merging for all to see. Fifth, various food and alcohol stands, tattoo artists, and other people selling their wares. Sixth, it was pretty crowded. Seventh, the rock band and shadow-porn took a break and an auction started, selling all kinds of stuff from leather jackets to saber swords.

I had already consumed a couple of beers, and I hit the restroom. It was crowded, and the "card guy" was holding court in the men's room, selling his gambling squares. For five dollars, you had the chance to make a couple of hundred, which for the hand-to-mouth fair worker was a decent sum. I passed on buying a square, but as I was walking out of the restroom someone turned off the light switch. The card guy started screaming about getting robbed, and I flipped the light switch back on as I was walking out. About five steps outside the restroom the card guy accosted me. "You punk, I never liked you, and you turned off the light switch so someone could try to rob me". I started to plead my case, "No, I turned it ON, someone el....” POW! He hit me in the jaw with all of his might, and I went down like I was dancing the limbo. I shot back up; ready to defend myself, but Jimmy magically appeared and stepped in between us. Jimmy was a huge man, a real boxer, there were rumors he was a Golden Gloves champion in his younger days, and he had the largest hands of any man I've ever seen. I knew I was protected. "This kid is an honest kid, and if he said he didn't turn off the light, he didn't turn off the light," Jimmy said in his Boone County, Indiana drawl. You said someone tried to rob you?" "Yes...well no, but I could have been robbed, and I never liked that kid", said the card guy. "So, you just took a cheap shot at my friend, who didn't do anything to you, who says he actually turned on the light to help you? Walk away right now. Walk away. And don't ever mess with my friend again." It was amazing watching Jimmy, who was twice as big as this guy, reason with him, when he could have taken him out with one punch. The card guy walked away.

I used my last tickets to buy Jimmy and myself another beer, and I soon realized that Jimmy was already drunk. I held the cold beer can on my quickly swelling lip. The auction was still going on, and the saber swords were up for bid. The bidding was over three hundred and fifty-dollars and then Jimmy yelled, "FOUR-HUNDRED!" He was now the proud owner of two large saber swords. "What the hell are you going to do with two saber swords?” I asked. He just looked at me with a sinister smirk.

When we walked outside, Jimmy said we needed to "go and steal some camels" from the kids area of the fair. Next to the petting zoo and the pony rides, they had camel rides, and--like the other fair animals--the camels were kept in a barn at night. I decided I wasn't up for stealing camels, which I was sure would bring some kind of eye-for-an-eye justice if we were caught. I still have the picture in my head of Jimmy, riding down the main street of Tulsa on a camel, saber swords in hand. I never saw Jimmy again. For all I know, he is still riding his camel in Tulsa.

During tear down after the last night of the fair, I saw the snake lady for the last time. She asked where we were headed, which was Mississippi, on our way to Florida. She (and the entire amusement company that owned the rides and the freak show) was headed to Texas. We hugged, and said that we hoped that we would see each other again, which was not unrealistic given our current career choices. But three months later, I would be working at a Kroger in Columbus, Ohio, bagging groceries, my days working at fairs would be complete.

I've never paid to get in a freak show at a fair since, but a few times it's been included in the entrance fee at the Ohio State Fair. I've always walked cautiously up to the optical-illusion cases where the snake-ladies typically reside, wondering if I might bump into her again, and if I would even remember her face.

Harry, The Cat Lover

2006-10-29T10:07:00.000-05:00

"Wook at the kitttty.....She's soooo pah-wettty." My friend Harry has become a cat-lover, and I am mortified.

I should back up and give you the history. I have always had cats. In my youth, we once had two female cats, a mother and daughter, give birth to kittens in the same month, giving us--briefly--a total of twelve cats. During a neighborhood yard sale, my Dad put the kittens in a big basket with an impressive sign stating "FREE KITTENS", with something witty like "GUARANTEED TO BE CUTE AND CUDDLY." I think we gave away all but one of the kittens that day.

When I got married, my wife and I went out a got a cat within a few months. We've had a collection of felines over the years, often named after our favorite sporting heroes. At the moment, we have one cat, who often behaves more like a dog.

My friend Harry and his wife Constance (you can call her Connie, but don't call her Coonie), rented a half of a duplex just up the street from our first rental. We went to the same church, ended up in the same home group bible study, have kids close the same ages, and have become the best of friends.

Harry and I shared a love of Pabst Blue Ribbon in these early days, before our taste buds matured. We would scrounge up a few dollars together, walk up the street to the carry-out, pick up a six-pack of tall boys, and hang out at my place playing computer games, often staying up way too late for a weeknight. Harry would sneeze the entire time he was at my house, his eyes would water, and he would frequently complain how much he hated my "(expletive) cats."

Harry is a salesman extrordinare who grew up primarily in the Midwest but with both Parents (and all extended family) coming from the relatively deep South. He's a hunter, fisherman, and generally speaking, a man's man, always with incredible hunting dogs--NOT a cat guy. In my own defense, my interest in pets has dwindled over the years, maybe something to do with having kids.

A few months ago he and Connie (who also still claims to be allergic to cats) took in an injured stray. I was in disbelief for weeks after they told us, until I saw the shaved and now being gently nursed back to health femme fatale, that somehow appeared to win their hearts after years of cat-hatred.

For the first few weeks they would ask, "Do you want another cat? She's awesome and very pretty." After a while, they stopped asking. She's clearly a member of their family now, even putting the dogs in their rightful place.

Sitting at Harry's place last week, having a beer and watching a game, as he makes goo-goo eyes at the cat and does his best baby talk voice when she enters the room, I can only conclude that he's now in touch with his 'feline'-side. "There she is! Helwo you sweet widdle girl"....

Bono On Grace Vs. Karma (among other things)

2006-09-04T16:32:00.000-04:00

Bono from U2 as quoted in Ode Magazine, Issue 28. Worth a read...Enjoy!

http://www.odemagazine.com/article.php?aID=4190

Excerpt:

We have been talking before about Jesuit priests arriving with the conquistadors in South and Central America with the gospel in one hand and a rifle in the other.

I know, I know. Religion can be the enemy of God. It's often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building. [laughs] A list of instructions where there was once was conviction; dogma where once people just did it; a congregation led by a man where once they were led by the Holy Spirit. Discipline replacing discipleship. But the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma.

I haven't heard you talk about that.

I really believe we've moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.

That doesn't make it clearer for me.

You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics; in physical laws every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the Universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that as you reap, so will you sow stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.

I'd be interested to hear that.

That's between me and God. But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep shit. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity.

Pictures with the Red Sox Legends(?)

2006-08-05T14:20:00.000-04:00

While attending Microsoft's Annual TechEd Conference in Boston this June, I had the opportunity to get signatures and take pictures with the "Red Sox Legends". This was easily the best Attendee Party I have experienced, and this includes riding the Aerosmith Rock-N-Roll Rollercoaster four straight times with no line during IBM's Lotusphere Conference, held at Disney's MGM Studio Amusement Park in Orlando, a few years back.

Microsoft rented out historic Fenway Park for the evening. Attendees had access to the perimeter of the entire field, the visitors dugout, and all areas of the stadium, including the club level. A stage was built over the first base dugout and the band "Train" held a concert. Most of the concession stands were open with food and beverages, but it took a trained olfactory sense to find the beer stands that featured Sam Adams.

As a life-long Cincinnati Reds fan, I was pleased to see our old friend and now alleged Red Sox Legend Wily Mo Pena (on the DL at the time) arrive and take a seat in the signature/picture area right before I finished my ~30 minutes in line. I told Wily Mo how I had predicted he would win the NL MVP award this year before he was traded to the Red Sox for Bronson Arroyo. Wily Mo answered in broken English and I quickly realized he had no idea what I had said.

So far, this has been good trade for the Reds--who are leading in wild-card hunt at the moment. However, as I write this, Bronson just gave up a 3-run dinger to Brian McCann of the Braves in the first inning, a game in which he is attempting to earn his tenth win of the season for the ninth time (not a good sign).

On a more historic note, I also had my picture taken with Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd, a decent pitcher with a better nickname, and 60-70's infielder Rico Petrocelli, a fan favorite.

Enjoy the pics. Sorry for the PROOF tags, I didn't bring my own camera to the stadium--DOH!--and I'm not coughing up $12 a picture to the Red Sox.

Oh...and GO REDS!

Top Six Reasons Why The U.S.A. Fell Apart In Germany

2006-06-22T12:50:00.000-04:00

Here it is, the analysis you've been waiting for, in no particular order...

6. Bruce Arena lacked the coaching creativity and brilliance in strategy that had marked his career so far. Where were the surprise moves to throw the other teams off balance? Why didn't Johnson play against Italy? Why not bench Donovan to shake things up? Why does he continue to play his old University of Virginia homers even when they are DONE (see 4 below).
5. Landon Donovan didn't show up in Germany. For those who have followed his career, he doesn't play well in Deutchland (just ask Bayer Leverkusen).
4. Eddie Pope is DONE. At least 2 of the goals scored by Czech Republic and Italy were a result of him getting burned. I respect what he has done in his career, but he's too slow to mark the world's best strikers--just ask Real Salt Lake. Jimmy Conrad played the Ghana game and proved he should have started the entire tournament--perhaps we'd still be alive?
3. Officiating! Where did they find these officials? MLS? A penalty kick for a 50/50 ball with no card given against Ghana? PUH-LEASE. This was just unlucky.
2. Goalkeeping. Remember how Brad Friedel beat out Kasey Keller for the starting job in 2002 and Keller didn't even get a cup of coffee? No doubt that Keller is a quality keeper, but Friedel kept us in games in 2002 with amazing saves--Keller only stopped the shots that he was supposed to in 2006, and didn't give the defense any lifts. And, his ball distribution was lacking--his outlet to no one against Czech Republic resulted in their first goal and the U.S. never recovered for the entire tournament.
1. Finishing. No one wanted to finish or they just couldn't get it done. Donovan looked lost when dribbling in the box against Ghana. Take a shot! The teams that have scored lots of goals in this tournament had great runs and had great finishing--we had neither. No goals=no wins=go home early. The U.S. was unlucky not to score on a few occasions, but they didn't have that finishing flair that characterized their qualifying run.

Now, the questions begin. Will Arena be back for 2008 in South Africa? Will the U.S. even qualify? As expected, have we truly seen the last of Reyna, McBride, Keller, and Pope as National Team players? Who will lead us in the future in light of Donovan's failure in Germany?

Overall, I am still proud to be a fan of U.S. Soccer and I appreciate all that these men have contributed. I just wish they would have beat Ghana today...

Wisdom For The New Millennium

2006-04-10T13:13:00.000-04:00

WARNING: this will be updated as I think of more items...

When using a vending machine and purchasing a product that is more than $1, always put the dollar in the feeder first. This will save you from potentially losing your .25 or .50 if the feeder is broken.
Always check to make sure the air conditioning in the used car you are purchasing actually works. Let's just say I know a guy who knows a guy that bought a car that didn't even have air conditioning, by accident. Ok, I admit it was me that bought the car.
Consumer frustration: why do computer stores carry wireless access points and network cards from a zillion vendors, and often three or four different models from the same vendor with the exact same specifications? Answer: the industry changes all the time. Models are updated to add new standards and sometimes, yes, just change the logo. Just purchase your wireless stuff from a known brand--not the generic junk from a company that won't be around in 6 months when you need to download a new driver.

Lord Of The Rings: THE MUSICAL?!?

2006-03-30T09:25:00.000-05:00

HELP ME! Ever since I heard the news about the musical version of The Lord Of The Rings (LOTR), I can't stop these crazy lyrics from popping in my head. I fear I could burst into song at any se....

"precious...my precious...you were once my ring, and I'd give anything...."

I can't stop it...it just suddenly comes upon me. My wife and kids think I'm going crazy, but are mostly annoyed.

"the king is back" (chorus: "no way")..."the king is back (chorus: "you don't say.")

"He used to be Gandalf The Grey...but now he's Gandalf The White....he fought a demon in a cave, and he's back to save the day."

"Saurmon is an evil wizard, he digs up Orcs and that's no lie..."

"The Shire is the place to be...a beautiful home for you and me".

SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME! Maybe, by posting this, it will free my mind from this torture, this pain, this horrible curse.

"The elves may have gone to the next life--tragic, but at least they left us people that make cookies...ooohhh, that elfin-magic...

No, I think it's permanent...

"Johnny Cash", First In A Series Of Short Stories

2006-03-26T15:30:00.000-05:00

I am awakened from a deep sleep by a thud, no, several thuds. A very loud knock at the door, the kind where someone is using their forearm or fist. Jerry, the truck driver, onion peeler, Pall Mall smoker, and Vietnam Veteran sharing my motel, looks up from his bed of a blanket and pillow on the floor of the cheap room in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He looks at me, and I sit up in my bed and give a clueless stare. The door, only three feet from my head, explodes with sound again. “Who is it?” Jerry yells. “It’s Johnny Cash”, a man with a deep voice replies. Jerry looks at me again with a twisted smirk and barks out, “You’ve got the wrong room, brother."

The next morning, the weather turns bad in Albuquerque. Tornadoes, they say, are possible. It’s windy in the morning, really windy. I’m from the Midwest, and don’t know about the desert. My co-workers at "Chuck Charles Whole Hog Wild West Barbeque", selling ribs, chicken, and all the fixings at the New Mexico State Fair, engage in a discussion about tornadoes as opposed to dust devils. “Ain’t no tornados out here with all this sand," Jerry says. “Just dust devils, but they ain’t no fun neither. Big ones like a sand storm. Sand everywhere. Bury you alive. It’s a good thing there ain’t tornados here. See all these rides at the fair? They’re made of pig iron. Big wind pick ‘em up and break up apart. Ever see pig iron go straight through a man? I saw it once in South Carolina. Bad storm at a fair. Wasn’t pretty.” By ten in the morning, Jerry and I decided that if the weather turns really bad and we are going to die today, we will die in a drinking establishment, washing away our sorrows.

They close the fairgrounds due to the weather, and then air raid sirens start, but Jerry and I saw the wind picking up and abandoned our posts at the barbeque pit. I didn’t even bother to put out the whole hog, a pig with an apple it its mouth in the center of the barbeque pit, to display today.

It wasn’t always this way. I was seventeen years old, I had just quit high school in the middle of my junior year, I was a long way from home, in the Southwest United States and completely on my own for the first time, and I was making plans to for my own potential demise.

I started working fairs and festivals when I was thirteen, helping out at a lemonade-shakeup booth at an annual community festival. Working at a festival or fair here or there around Ohio had, by the time I was 15, turned into my first career, working the entire summer away from home, traveling from town to town. I referred to myself as "a food concessions worker at fairs and festivals." I was, as my friends still like to say, "A Carny."

The dive of a bar has a decent crowd for eleven in the morning, just hardcore alcoholics and people from the night shift having an extended happy hour after work, and the TV is turned to the news. A shopping mall a couple of miles from the fairgrounds lost part of its roof in the storm. It’s the first tornado that has been seen in New Mexico in a long time, the TV reporter says. Jerry and I order beers and shots of cheap bourbon. I still hate bourbon today, twenty years later, unless it’s really, really good stuff.

In Ohio where I’m from, I would drink beer, wine coolers, and occasionally vodka mixed with something else. During high school breaks between periods, my best friend Tomas and I would head over to closest Dairy Mart Convenience Store and pick up a six-pack of the cheapest beer we could find. Usually, it was Milwaukee’s Best Light for a dollar and sixty-nine cents. Tomas would sometimes help me escape from high school by dropping me off at my job at the local wedding cake bakery, where I did accounting on the computer, and also helped with the retail store and occasionally the baking or bagging of bread or icing of wedding cakes. That’s true friendship, I think, driving a friend to get cheap beer during a morning break in classes and then dropping him off at work. To this day, Tomas is still one of the coolest cats I know, and we still keep in touch.

The TV news continues, and they are reporting a murder from the night before. Jerry and I both look in disbelief as they say the name of motel where the body was found. It’s our cheap motel, and the room they show in the video clip removing the body in a bag is exactly two doors down from our room. I order another double-shot of bourbon for both of us, grateful that Jerry didn’t open the door of our room last night for the self-proclaimed Mr. Cash, who indeed appears to have had the wrong room.

After the events of last night, Jerry tells me doesn’t want to share the motel room anymore. He’d rather take his pay for the day and use it on something besides splitting a twenty-one dollar hotel bill with me. I couldn’t really blame him, the room was disgusting, and he slept on the floor. A few nights before the knock at the door, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning feeling something on my chest. Laying on my back, I glanced down at my chest and saw what must have been the world’s largest German cockroach. Or, maybe it just seemed bigger since it was on my chest, and it appeared to be staring me down, or sizing me up, like a boxer ready to touch the gloves of their opponent. I jumped up faster than I ever had before or ever have since, ready to kill or be killed, but the roach moved fast and scampered under a corner before I could smash it with my shoe. This woke up Jerry who looked at me, then looked at the re-run of Sally Jesse Raphael on the television that was left on that night, and then he yelled “don’t make that kind of racket at night boy, I might think I’m getting’ shot or something and turn crazy on ya without thinkin’ about it.” He was a Vietnam Veteran, so I can’t even imagine what kind of things woke him up in the jungle, I just knew I wouldn’t make that kind of noise again. I wondered later if he would have been able to handle our mysterious motel room visitor.

Jerry probably spent the extra money he saved on the motel room on more booze and slept in one of the trucks that carried our wares from fair to fair, I never really knew. I decided the cheap motel was way too dicey to stay there on my own. My boss, Chuck Charles, made an appearance for one of few times at that fair, and offered to let me stay at his mobile home, which he had hooked up at a campground on the outskirts of town, and wasn’t using. The problem was I had to get a ride out there, and he couldn’t drive me, he was too busy cheating on his wife. I probably could have driven one of the company trucks there, but my parents didn’t let me get my drivers license the year before, when all other sixteen year-olds were sporting their parents wood-paneled station wagons, beater cars, or the occasional new Chevy Chevette, the cheapest car of the day, in the school parking lot. No, I had received the first bad grade of my life, a D in Algebra II my sophomore year, and as punishment, incentive, or whatever it was, I wasn’t allowed to get my license. This didn’t stop me from occasionally making a delivery run in the van at the bakery, at least until I clipped the mirror of a brand new truck driven by an off-duty suburban police officer. There’s little more humiliating than having to ask your parents to help you fix a problem like that—drive me to the car dealer to buy a new mirror and drop it off at the police station.

The first night to get to the campground I hired a cab, but it turned out to cost as much as the cheap motel. A young Mexican-American family was working at the fair with us; Jorge, Luisa, and their young son Jose. The husband and wife would alternate working the front counter or do food preparation work in the back while tending to their two-year old son. They were from East L.A., headed to Texas, and working along the way. The second night they offered to drive me out the campground for half of what it cost me to hire a cab, and I graciously accepted. They just needed to make “a little stop along the way.”

They drove a beautiful and completely restored large sixties convertible, I’m not sure the make or model, but it did that have feature where it could bounce up and down. We drove to a house, stopping off to pickup a 12-pack of beer to drink along the way. The house was in a working-class part of town and Jorge went in with a wad of cash. There were very loud voices inside, but he emerged unscathed, and we drove away quickly, I’m now suspecting I just witnessed something illegal, but I wasn’t sure exactly what. We drove less than a mile, and I sipped my beer, praying to God that I wasn’t going to get killed and I’d actually make it to the campground, when a police car pulled up behind us, sirens blaring, lights flashing. In my panic, I lofted my half-full beer can out of the convertible, and was instantly scolded by Jorge, “What are you doing!?! Trying to get us busted?” Jorge, who did seem like an honest man, quickly stashed something under the seat. A very tall, very white, county sheriff walked up to the convertible and immediately asked all of us for our social security numbers. We all rattled off numbers, when it was my turn, I gave him nine digits, but I don’t think it was as my SSN. He didn’t seem to care, I was the only gringo in the car, and after checking Jorge’s drivers license and his registration of the car he let us go without so much as a warning. I made it to the mobile home, again unscathed. The next day they didn’t show to pick me up, and we didn’t see them again until the last couple of days at the fair, when they appeared one day and wanted their jobs back. I took cabs to and from the campground for the rest of the trip.

Many of the men I worked with at these fairs, like Jerry, probably couldn’t have worked anywhere else—at least not for very long. Either the Vietnam War, choices they made, or simply life itself, had left them as shadows compared to what they could have been. Jimmy from Illinois, a former boxer, was the comedian of the bunch. A large man with hands at least twice the size of most men, he protected me from getting beaten more than once by someone who didn’t like my smart-aleck mouth. While in New Mexico, he decided to save money by sleeping in the “pot-belly” (a storage area above the wheel well) of one of the trucks. Sometimes at night, when prepping for the next day or just drinking a beer after work, you would see the large steel door of the pot-belly open just a crack, then watch as an one of his extremities appeared and he proceeded to urinate on the ground. The first time I saw this, I laughed so hard that I almost peed myself.

After the new The New Mexico State Fair, we drove to Northeast to Tulsa, Oklahoma for the Tulsa State Fair. Camels, Saber-swords, the Carny Jamboree, and the Snake-Lady would await me there.

People I've Met (or at least seen) at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport

2006-03-26T13:41:00.000-05:00

I frequent Chicago's O'Hare International Airport...my employer is based nearby. As a result of spending countless hours there over the years, here are a few of the people I've had the chance to see and--if the opportunity presented itself--actually meet.

Oscar Robertson (the big "O"), Basketball Legend--MET, very approachable, nice guy, 1998.
Bruce Arena, Former Coach of the U.S. National Soccer Team. MET: shared a cab downtown in 1999 and told him that "Brian McBride is the best American player I've seen in the air".
Jesse Jackson, Politician/Pastor--SAW (too many bodyguards to meet), 2001.
Ronnie Lott, Football Legend--MET (and yes, the finger really IS gone), 2003.
Quincy Jones, Musician/Producer, 2005. He was with his woman and didn't look like he wanted to talk.
Kim Peek, The "Real" Rain Man. March 2007. Kim and his Father were flying from Chicago to Columbus on my flight. When someone else recognized him, he guessed the day of the week the person was born based on their birthdate.