MMIX - the good, the bad, the ugly

okay, obama was sworn in. good? bad? or ugly? as i try not to coin politically here, i'll leave that up to you. i will say this . . . i'm disappointed in his fulfillment/lack of fulfillment of certain campaign promises. and i'm not sure where we, as a country are headed. but perhaps the biggest news of 09 - obama.

and on the subject . . . the ongoing dispute about his right to become president of these united states of america. was he or was he not truly born in hawaii? i'm kind of tired of hearing the discussion. he's in office. matter closed.

michael jackson died. as did farrah faucett. i preferred farrah 10-1 over michael. although there was a time when michael became almost as pretty as, oh, diana ross, he never got close to farrah in appearance. and right or wrong, i choose to think farrah had more character than michael. so i'm tired of hearing the michael jackson hype as well. he's gone. just like elvis. i don't need to know about family manipulations or attempts to control his estate. he's gone. just like elvis.

the lakers won the nba championship. i didn't like that. i don't much like the lakers. mostly i don't like kobe bryant. he's an egocentric ball hog. glory hog. and the worst part of it is . . . he's also damned good. makes shots no one should be able to make. and that pisses me off even more. i just don't like the guy. as far as i'm concerned, the lakers pretty much rival the yankees in terms of hatred. who do i want to win the world series? anyone but the yankees. who do i want to win the nba title? anyone but the lakers.

who do i want to win the nascar championship? anybody but baby jimmie johnson. or the bigger evil, kyle busch. and i lost that one, too. lakers, yankees, baby jimmie. i had a bad sports year. wonder who won the super bowl. don't really remember. steelers? that wasn't so bad. wait. yes it was. i believe they beat my arizona cardinals. not my favorite team, but a group of my former home boys. didn't mind the steelers so much. just would have been a better story to have seen the cardinals win.

there probably was a hockey championship of some sort. i didn't really notice.

other news? probably. right now i remember mostly the blizzard of 2009. that's the most recent event. but we've already beaten that up pretty badly, so i'll let it go.

but even though i had a bad sporting year on aught nine, overall, not so bad. got me a metal detector and found lots of "treasures". got myself a new, self-propelled lawn mower. visited kids here and there. had a new grandson. mostly, life was good.

joined facebook and re-connected with some old friends. none that i've seen. but we've communicated electronically. that's been fun.

got a new laptop. that's a good thing. new laptop is loaded with vista. that's not particularly good.

trip to colorado for my nephew's wedding earned me a damn speeding ticket. cop got the wrong guy. but i couldn't convince him of that. that was bad. very bad.

oh, scooter moved away from home. into his own apartment. took a lot of getting used to. for me, not for him. i had to learn to talk to my wife again. it was either that of the dogs. for conversation i generally prefer the wife. and maybe that's why we seem to have a better relationship. we talk more. we know each other more. kind of like old times. that's been good.

and scooter still comes to visit frequently. not like he moved across the country or anything. just across town. so that's ok, too.

well, i've meandered on long enough and said mostly nothing. those of you who read this . . . i apologize for it's lack of insightful content. but i got bored. nothing on tv after the thunder game. too early to go to bed. writing this is a good transition. maybe next post will be better. tune in next week.

the blizzard of christmas, 09

so often here in oklahoma the weather is news. tornadoes in the springtime. rain. ice storms. and more times than not the media hoopla made of the weather turns out to be pretty much sensationalistic. it's almost as if they make a big deal of reporting impending severe weather to scare you into watching their news broadcasts longer.

as a consequence, we the people become complacent. we view their reporting in somewhat of a ho-hum fashion. oh yeah, they're predicting a big snow storm. like that's gonna happen.

and the christmas of 09 was pretty much that way. they started reporting on this storm at least a week ahead of time. forecasting cold, windy conditions with perhaps 6 inches of snow. and then maybe a foot of snow. one report a couple days before christmas eve indicated we should prepare for one to three feet of snow. with winds gusting to 50 miles per hour. and then the more realistic approach, the meteorologists would concede that maybe we'd get 1 to 3 inches of snow, with 6 inches tops.

well, for once the devastating forecast came to fruition. christmas eve, 09. started innocently enough. a bit of drizzle in the wee hours of the morning. when i got up at 7 the rain seemed to be turning into sleet. and when i looked out on the patio the wind had blown over one of our metal lawn chairs. i stepped out onto the patio to upright the chair and noticed immediately that the rain that had fallen on that chair had turned to ice. hmmm, that's a bad sign.

by 8 the rain/sleet had turned to snow. hard, blowing slow. 50 miles an hour wind gusts? turned out there were reports of wind gusts surging to 64 miles an hour. and the snow was falling sideways. and beginning to accumulate.

but it's christmas eve. scooter's working today. down at the mall on the south end of the metro area. and he's coming home after work for our christmas eve celebration. he suggested we do our christmas stockings and such on christmas eve so he could share his christmas morning with tracie, his girlfriend. so, egg nog and hot apple cider at the ready. we're all looking forward to a warm and toasty white christmas eve.

around noon the tv broadcasts all turned to weather tracking news shows. no other programming. just the weather conditions. and they were advising all residents to go home. and stay home. don't go shopping. don't go anywhere. stay home. and if you have friends or relatives out shopping at the malls, call them and tell them that if they want to be home by christmas, they need to go home NOW!

by 2 scooter called saying he was coming home. most of the stores in the mall had closed. i advised him to take it slow and easy. he's experienced in snow driving, so not too awful concerned. but lots of wrecks on all local roadways. so he'll be careful. and five minutes later he called. he's stuck in a snowdrift in the mall parking lot.

i considered going down to pick him up. it's about a 15 mile trip, but i figured in these conditions it would take an hour or more to get there. i told scooter to give it a little time and see if conditions clear a bit. meanwhile, i donned my snow duds and went out to shovel the driveway.

at that point we reportedly had 8 inches of snow. with drifts, of course, thanks to the gusting winds. but my driveway said 18 inches. up against the garage door even deeper. i shoveled a bit, then realized the foolishness of the entire matter. for looking out into the cul de sac i realized that the entire street, for that matter the entire neighborhood, is buried in the same type of snow. and underneath it all . . . the frozen sleet from earlier today. i'm not going anywhere.

and about the same time i realized it was hopeless scooter called with the same understanding. he'd decided he'd just spend the night at the mall. he and many of his co-workers. good idea. maybe santa will find them there.

now the airport's closed. travelers are stranded. cars are slid off roadways all over the place. and just recently the interstate system was completely closed. law enforcement officers will not even respond to accidents without injury, and can't get to all injury accidents.

and there's a 20 car pile up west of town on i-40 plus what's believed to be a 50 vehicle wreck on the east end of oklahoma city. and highway patrol is sending their officers home. they can't negotiate these conditions in a two-wheel drive crown victoria. only the 4 wheel drive suv type vehicles can get around. even the rescue tow trucks are getting stuck.

so, there's no place like home for the holidays. and we're staying here. merry christmas to all, particularly those stuck in the mall. or in their cars skidded off the road.

christmas letter? plus a new look

my sister said she thought she might send out her christmas letters via e-mail this year. struck me as rather gauche. christmas letters never really felt just right to me. sure, it's a nice idea to annually send updates to those you don't correspond with regularly. so that's a good idea. and a christmas letter folded neatly inside a christmas card, that's a neat idea. a christmas letter in lieu of a christmas card never really felt right to me either. but then, if you've read much of what i've written you know i'm a traditionalist.

not that we send lots of christmas cards. for in spite of being the traditionalist, i also feel that cards to those you talk to, e-mail to, chat with, regularly are mostly unnecessary. so i guess it goes without saying that i'm not much for christmas cards these days either.

but a christmas letter via e-mail? is that ok? would amy vanderbilt roll over in her grave? isn't she the one that wrote the bible on etiquette? any vanderbilt? probably she didn't live to see the advent of e-mail to begin with. but i doubt she'd sanction the idea. is she still alive?

then i noticed another friend posted the christmas letter on facebook. efficient. and to her credit, seemingly she sent these out to many, and those of us that are distant friends still get to read their news thru the facebook posting. good idea. and i think it's totally acceptable as a back up to the mailing of the original to those she'd normally mail. i vote "good idea" on this one.

so i got to thinking about writing a christmas letter and just posting it on my blog here. maybe not the most acceptable method, but not many read this thing anyhow, so who's really gonna complain?

so, where to start. i've never written a christmas letter before. surely there has been news throughout the year. but what news there's been i've pretty much written about. so my christmas letter needs to say "read prior posts for the family news during this past year". how's that?

i've ranted a bit about things that bug me. one i haven't mentioned centers around christmas time. namely . . . xmas. i'm not fanatically religious. i term myself spiritual instead. but for godsakes, have enough respect for the meaning behind the season to not replace "christ" with merely an "x". i don't even use the "x" to abbreviate crosswalk. but it's entirely unacceptable to replace "christ" with an "x" in christmas. if a retailer does that, i'm boycotting. i encourage you all to follow suit on this. in the spirit of my "it is what it is" posting, i ask your assistance in restoring the tradition of christmas and eliminating the "x" factor.

and if you paid any attention, you may be wondering why my title also mentioned a "new look". and if you really paid attention you'll notice that the ads that once graced the side column of this page are now missing. well, seems as though the google ad-sense ads have been withdrawn from my page. just happened. i had nothing to do with it. i'd "monetized" this blog back in april or so, just to see if i had enough activity to create any revenue. at four or five months i had amassed a whopping 28 bucks or so. and they don't pay you til you reach a hundred dollars. but i got some sort of sadistic pleasure watching my wealth accumulate from these ads.

then i mentioned to a friend that blogs could pay. especially if you were lucky enough to write stuff that people actually wanted to read. so he decided to make it work for him. he wrote some interesting enough stuff. he monetized. then posted on facebook, and maybe elsewhere, openly asking folks to read his blog and click on the ads. that's a contract no-no with google's ad-sense. i guess google thinks that blog readers don't know that we can get paid by having people click.

well, my friend cruised to a hundred bucks in a few days. and had his ads pulled. apparently because they determined he'd violated the terms and conditions of the ad-sense contract. he told me about it. and i laughed at him. and funny, at the same time my earnings grew from 28 bucks to 72 dollars in just a few days. apparently my buddy was also encourage others to view his friends' blogs and ad-click them. then by association alone, google pulled my ads. just as i was about to reach the magical hundred dollar mark. and they'd have to pay me.

i protested to google. i'd really done nothing wrong. guilt by association, i guess. that was three weeks ago, and i've had absoultely no response to my plea. so i guess google with keep me terminated so they will never have to pay me. which in my opinion is tantamount to false advertising.

so i'm now boycotting google as well. thing is, however, google controls my blog hosting site. they may just kill my entire blog when they read this one. if they do, well thanks to all who have read. thanks even more to those that enjoyed. and to google . . . well, no thanks.

it is what it is. isn't it?

hear it a lot these days. it is what it is. i think it all started with the major league baseball scandal. as i recall it was roger clemens who started it all. roger, the rocket, clemens. at one time one of my beloved red sox heros. who went on to become one of those damned yankees. those dreaded, despised yankees. and then even on from there. and became a reputed steroid user, who, as many have done before him, and after him, now bases his life on the notion of "plausible deniability".

but in his senate testimony it was either roger, or his former trainer and reputed injectionist (whose name escapes me at the moment), ah, brian macnamee, i think, who repeatedly used the term "it is what it is". what exactly does that mean?

and i should admit right off, i hate cliches. i don't use them. even the old adage cliches. i think the use of them smacks of a lack of thoughtful vocabulary on the part of the one that uses them. another example of the over-used/abused cliches started when our esteemed she-god, oprah winfrey, coined the expression "don't go there".

she used it to relate to conversational topics. what she really meant was essentially "i don't really want to talk about that at this moment". and how that turned into "don't go there", or even worse, "don't even go there", or "let's not go there", well, what's that all about?

when somebody says to me "don't go there", i'm inclined to ask, where? where exactly would i be going? i'm sitting here talking and have absolutely no intention of going anywhere. so why would you suggest to me that i "don't go there". or over there? or down there? or across there? obviously i am not going anywhere. i'm sitting right here talking. no plans to go anywhere.

so recently the "it is what it is" thing has become more of an annoyance than "don't go there".

i was talking to my sister the other day. and i was lamenting the fact that something was the way it was. and i guess in an attempt to placate me, she said "well, jer, it is what it is." and it caught me at a thoughtful moment. and i replied, "yes, i suppose it is. however, it only is what it is because no one seems to care to try to make it what it isn't. what it could be. what it should be".

my feeling at that time was that i didn't have to settle for it being what it is. i felt compelled to tackle the quest of making it what it is not. making "it" what "it" really oughta be. this was a week or so ago, and since then i've pretty much decided that i have a new goal in life. that being . . . changing "it is what it is" to "let's make it the way it really oughta be in the first place".

recognizing that any cause needs to be worthy, i've decided my first venture into making this transition is to pick a cause worthy of changing. i opted for christmas. for many, many years now christmas has been one of those "is what it is" things. i think it's time to make christmas "it isn't what it became, it's now what it should have been all along".

perhaps a decade or two ago, in my mind thanksgiving became the greatest american holiday. because it has become a time of being with family. yes, enjoying a good meal is part of it. but the main focus of thanksgiving, at least in my family, has been being together as a family. i came to look forward to thanksgiving much more than christmas. more than july 4th. more even than valentine's day or president's day. because it's so heart warming to be around friends and family. and pumpkin pie.

and lately christmas has become somewhat of a dreaded holiday rather than one of anxious anticipation. the reason: commercialization. look around you. the media begins touting "black friday" more than a month before it's upon us. newspapers are crammed full of full color sales flyers encouraging us to get out there and spend a bunch of money on those we love. tv commercials make us feel that we're genetically tied to ebonezer scrooge, before the ghost visits, if we don't go out and spend all our money, if not our entire credit limits, on gifts for family and friends. why? because . . . . . "it is what it is".

my undertaking is to change this. to restore christmas to a time of loving and caring. and yes, even sharing. but not necessarily a sharing of gifts. but rather, a sharing of love. of feelings. of warmth and caring.

i hereby ask of all of you who read this silly blog this one thing: take christmas back to what it really should be. some may feel christmas is a time for honoring the birth of jesus. some may not share in that opinion. it really doesn't matter. while it's become politically correct to refer to this time of the year as "the holiday season" rather than as "christmas" (that could become my next blog topic. either that or the propensity of some to abbreviate it to x-mas.) it's mainly become a season of corporate greed followed very closely by the materialistic greed of those for whom the gifts are purchased. let's stop all that.

let's put up our christmas tree this year. and let's put packages underneath it that really reflect the way we feel about the person we're gifting. a note of gratitude. a card of caring. a piece of our heart. we don't need to continue to allow this holiday to be simply a worldwide economic injection. let's change it from "it is what it is" to "it's become what it should be.

ode to college football

in the not too distant past i felt college football was a travesty. we have the ncaa policing all the athletes/programs to make sure the players remain amateur. no payola. no agents. etc.

but my opinion then was . . . why? they're essentially being paid to play football. scholarships for tuition, books, room, food, a stipend for clothing. isn't that equal to getting paid. consider that a year in a major college would cost the non-scholarship student somewhere between 15-20 grand. and that's not including meals! so these guys are already paid performers.

and if the ncaa is so diligent about policing these things, laying down penalties for schools violating the codes, players violating the codes, how does a fellow like reggie bush move his family on up to the eastside? without any penalty whatsoever? ok, pete carroll didn't know his family was being lavished. usc didn't know his family was being lavished. but they certainly lived in a nicer neighborhood when reggie played at usc than they had when he was recruited. don't you think that would make one suspicious?

and football and the ncaa aren't the only guilty parties. i've been asking for a while how lebron james, back in high school, could possible afford to drive a hummer. the son of a single mom, working to support her family, and he drove a hummer? no ncaa to police high school sports, i guess. but doesn't that smack of some sort of payola?

back to college football . . . and back to the way i used to feel . . . college football is fundamentally a professional environment. the players get paid, either in cash (yeah, they get money, but that's legal because they have jobs. one scholarship athlete told me he was given a job by the college when he first got there - turning the lights off at the tennis courts every night. He got paid fairly well for challenging endeavor. particularly considering the lights were on a timer, and, if he remembered to do so, all he had to do was look out his dorm window at 10 pm to make sure the timers were functioning. and if he forgot, or wasn't in to do so, the maintenance folks would take care of it.)

so i felt that athletic scholarships at colleges and universities should be eliminated. entirely. let the players, football and others, go into a minor league situation (i know, football doesn't really have one, but eliminate scholarships and one would start up real quick.) and learn their trade there. let the college teams field players from among the enrolled students. quit filling classrooms with athletes, a good portion of which don't care about the education offered, but just the stepping stone to bigger, better things. (and if you don't agree with that, look at college basketball, and the number of players that play one season and then opt out to the nba.)

the argument i got, mostly, was that college sports bring big bucks to the colleges. tv rights, gate receipts, merchandise revenues, etc. my argument back was . . . so, that money is spent on scholarships, facilities, recruiting expenses, etc. in essence, the money generated by college sporting programs goes back to the sporting program, not to the college in general to fund, if you can imagine, educating students?

but my stance softened a couple of years ago. i began to enjoy watching college football. hard not to when you're in oklahoma. it's on the forefront of everyone's mind. i've liked watching the sooners and sam bradford and bob stoops coaching. but now the sooners are faltering. badly. and watching perhaps the worst performance i've seen by a team of this calibre last night i began to wonder how this could happen. and then it hit me.

landry jones, highly recruited, highly touted high school athlete out of new mexico, and heir apparent to the ou quarterback slot with the departure of heisman winning sam bradford, put on what has to be the worst display of ineptitude i've ever seen by a big school college quarterback. and during the second half of the game i'm wondering why stoops would stick with this guy. don't we have a third string quarterback we can play rather than this guy? and then i realized the truth. ou has way too much invested in this kid to bench him. doing that would damage the recruiting reputation of the school itself. the alumni would question the move. and perhaps a few of the next alumni donated dollars would go elsewhere. to charity, for chrissakes. or somewhere. can't have that happening.

so now i'm back to my original feeling about college football, and other college sporting endeavors. let the educations be doled out to those that really want them, and let the athletes get their grooming in a minor league environment. amateur athletes? not on your life.

the race is over

i've been a racing fan of some sort for as long as i remember. i recall when i was real young dad had some friend that owned and/or raced a jalopy, and we would go to the race track at 11 mile corner, the pinal county fairgrounds, and watch him race. for those of you younger than me, a jalopy was what ultimately evolved into a modified. back then, however, roll cages, fire suits, and most other times of safety equipment were optional. made racing pretty interesting.

i remember very fondly looking forward to memorial day, cause dad would sit and listen to the radio broadcast of the indianapolis 500 all day. i liked that. back before tv recognized that people would watch a sporting event that long after all.

i paid little attention to nascar during my early years. oh, i knew who richard petty was. and cale yarborough. but i wasn't a nascar fan. the only racing i really knew was the indianapolis 500. plus what little racing we happened to see at a local track.

but i became an avid fan shortly after i moved to yuma. circa 1980, or so. my friend buford owned a used car lot, and his mechanic raced at the dirt track just across the river in bard, california. i started going to watch the shows with buford, and soon became a big fan. every race night buford and i would pack a cooler with beer and head out to the races. great fun.

1985 changed it all. the local track, struggling, and trying to attract more racers, which would also attract more fans, created what they called their "bomber" division. take any old street car, remove all glass and flammable materials, weld in a roll cage of some sort, strap on a helmet, paint a number on it, and go racing.

the concept intrigued me. and my buddy spot had bought an old pontiac that he had tried to enter in a demolition derby. as luck would have it, the car wouldn't start at derby time so he had the car sitting idle. i read about the new racing division and offered spot sponsorship from our company if he'd race it. and he did.

he rolled the car in the first race, blew it up in the second. but both of us were hooked. we bought another car and kept racing. after half dozen races of so spot actually got pretty competitive. and as the car owner, i was pretty proud. i sat in the stands drinking my bud light and feeling pretty much like rick hendrick probably feels now. successful race car owner.

we drank just enough beer at the races to impair our judgement just slightly. and one night at the end of the race show, when, as always, we went down into the pits to help load car and tools, spot had just been told that they had scheduled a special race for the following weekend. memorial day weekend. when we normally didn't have a race scheduled. thing was that the touring sprint cars were racing, and the track insurance company now required that at least one local division race when they were promoting special events. ok, that's fine. but spot had family plans out of town that weekend, so wouldn't be available to race. and he suggested that i drive his car for that one race.

we drank just enough beer at the races to impair judgement just slightly. and i'm the first to admit that, on that particular night, my judgement was impaired, for i agreed that, yes, i should race his car the following weekend. successful car owner about to become successful race car driver.

and when i awoke sunday morning and remembered what i had agreed to, i had to make a rush trip to the bathroom. holy crap! i agreed to drive a race car? on a race track? with other cars racing too? must have had impaired judgement.

i spent most of the following week trying to figure out how to get out of driving that stupid race car in that stupid race. while i wouldn't have admitted it to anyone then, i was scared. really scared. but i couldn't find a way to graciously bow out. i was stuck. and i was being really encouraged by a couple of my other friends that were involved in racing.

ok, race day comes, i'm gonna do it. we haul the car to the track. phyl and casshole as my pit crew, me as a driver. perfect recipe for success. and we lined the car up for the first race. and at the end of the pace lap, with me poised comfortably in the back of the field (that was the norm for a beginner back then. if you hadn't raced before, start in the back so you don't screw up and cause trouble for everyone else.) the green flag waved.

i raced a couple of laps just the way my mentor, phyl, had advised me. "just follow the car in front of you til you figure out he's going too slow, then pass him." well, before i could pass the car in front of me, and i was actually thinking i was ready to, the race leader came up behind me. and then moved beside me. that's when i noticed him. and in passing me, he actually smacked the side of my car. and that made me mad. it was not necessary at all.

road rage is a wondrous thing. i was so mad at that guy for smacking me as he passed that i decided i'd catch up with him and smack him back. so i followed him. stayed right on his bumper. for several laps. and we were both passing cars. staying right together. and then it occurred to me that i was racing just as fast as the best driver on the track. and about the same time i remembered that i was scared. so i backed off a bit, never did catch him so i could smack him, but somehow finished that heat race in fourth position.

then came the main event. and i'm starting in the third row. i should let them move me to the back. but i'm having fun now so i want to be right there in the mix. and the green flag flies. and the race is on. we run a few laps and then this fool tries to pass me outside going into turn one. and he gets slideways and turns right in front of me. and i smacked him. t-boned him, in fact. hard. and he rolled over. landed upside down with the front of my car on top of his car. and i'm scared all over again. my heart's racing much faster than i ever was. and i'm sitting in my race car, perched at a rather strange angle, and someone is hollering at me. finally i realize he's yelling "kill your engine!" guess i still had my foot on the accelerator, engine racing. i may have been in some sort of shock.

well, turns out the other guy was just fine. i was really afraid i'd killed someone. there were roll bar pieces and car parts all over the track. when i finally gathered my wits enough to climb out of my car i could see all that. and i could see the other guy had gotten out much quicker than i had. guess i would too, if i were upside down and had gas dripping all around me. i looked at my car and heaved a big sigh of relief knowing that my racing was over. the car was wrecked.

but phyl and casshole had other ideas. they had the car towed into the pits, changed a tire, pulled the plastic fan shroud away from the fan, had me try starting the car, and it did start. and they wanted me to race again. in fact, the race was about ready to restart. i could re-join the race without even losing a lap. but i was scared. i didn't want to. but they insisted. and i couldn't come up with a real excuse not to. so, there i went. and as the pack took the green flag once again, and i pulled onto the track right behind them as they roared into turn one, i actually heard the crowd cheer. and i felt pleased. and i raced again. and i had fun. and i was hooked.

i finished third in that race. but the following weekend i had to give the keys back to spot. but i was so taken by racing that i built my own car. and i raced a lot. with some degree of success. even captured the "rookie of the year" trophy. hey now, i'm an all-star.

and along about that time i also began to watch nascar races on tv. and felt a kinship to the drivers. and i became a nascar fan. an avid nascar fan.

for 20 plus years i've rarely missed a cup race. winston cup, nextel cup, sprint cup. whatever. but lately i find that i'm losing interest. nascar has, in my opinion, made too many bad changes. the cars are far from being "stock" cars. they hardly resemble anything you'll see in a dealership showroom. and the sport is all about money. gone are the days when a fella can race competitively on a shoestring budget. it's big business. and i'm losing interest.

ten years ago i started a nascar fantasy league. just a few of us at first. family members. but interest grew. friends joined in. friends became nascar fans because they joined in. i kept stats religiously. i've always been somewhat of a stat freak, and this project was tailor-made for that. and ten different seasons i tracked fantasy points throughout the cup season. but today that all ended.

my new laptop has a new version of excel. and my excel spreadsheet, the one i use for compiling racing points, stats, whatever, just doesn't like to work with this new version of excel. i've fought it. i've cussed it. and it just doesn't want to work. and it frustrated me. and the racing seems to have grown boring. and that frustrated me. and today i passed the torch. i resigned my role as commissioner of the nix family racing league on to my son, my assistant commissioner, scooter. and the race has come to an end.

the end of what should have been

i attended my first lumberjack football game when i was 11. my sister was in her freshman year at nau, well, back then it was asc, arizona state college. she had been a majorette in high school, even drum majorette her senior year, and was now a majorette with the lumberjack marching band. and we made the journey from casa grande to flagstaff for mom and dad's day weekend and took in the game largely to see her perform. but also to watch the football game.

lumberjack stadium was amazing. on our side the stands were covered. i'd never been in a covered stadium before. even the asu stadium wasn't covered. this was really cool.
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i don't really remember much about that game. i'm guessing we left after half-time because it was pretty darned cold. but i was there long enough that i was in awe of college football, particularly our team. they sold these small cowbells, and everyone would ring them when our lumberjacks did something good. and after each score this team of bearded lumberjacks would tow the logging wheels from one end of the field to the other. this was great entertainment.

i had two older sisters who attended nau. when lynda graduated, jo enrolled. and i enrolled while jo was still there. and i so fondly remember my first game at lumberjack stadium as a college man. we dressed to go the game. sports coat, tie. and if we could find someone old enough to buy it, we'd hide a half-pint in our inside coat pocket. we weren't yet sophisicated enough to have a flask. but the bottle worked just fine. we'd hit the concession stand for a coke, sneak in a capful of two of popov vodka or ten high, add more later, and have a groovy time watching the game, ringing our cowbells and cheering on our rugged football players.

the student side bleachers were not covered. and that was a good thing. the games were almost always during the day - except for special occasion games, and while the temperatures in flagstaff dipped pretty low at times, for the most part we had the sunshine in our faces, and a few thousand tightly packed in warm bodies to keep us comfortable. a perfect setting for college football.

why then did they ruin it. in 1979 they opened the skydome. an interesting architectural structure that was the first of its kind for such a small school. heck, for that matter, i don't think any of the major colleges have indoor football even now. and in my opinion, the skydome ruined football at my favorite university.

back in the outdoor stadium days the players were tough, and the fans were too. football, you see, was meant to be played outdoors. in good and bad weather. the thing that seperates football from other sports is that it can be played in horrid weather conditions. and i played a bit of football in high school, and to me the games that were the most fun were played in the rain. slipping, sliding, getting muddy. all added to the fun.

and to me it seemed the community turned out in force to lumberjack stadium. we made lots of noise, cowbells and air horns and just fan cheering. the stands were always full. we truly had the home field advantage. now, in the dome, the cowbells and airhorns are gone. probably forbidden. and the turn out is pathetic. the student side isn't near a crowded as the old stadium would get. and even the "adult" side is very sparsely settled in. and you'd think crowd noise would be nearly intolerable at an indoor venue. but it's nothing like it was in the old days.

and now i read the article i've pasted below. i'd always hoped that someday nau would see the light and at least return football to the great outdoors for day time games. not to be. they're demolishing lumberjack stadium. and with it, in my opinion, the great tradition of college football in flagstaff. some things should never change.

















Lumberjack Stadium being razed: By JOE FERGUSONSun Staff Reporter Wednesday, October 14, 2009







Crews began tearing down Lumberjack Stadium this week to make room for the new Health and Learning Center.The $106 million project will replace the 40-year-old Fronske Health Center, renovate and expand the 20-year-old Recreation Center and replace the 49-year-old stadium when completed in the fall of 2011. One of the first construction subcontracts issued by the Phoenix-based general contractor, Mortenson Construction, went to Dickens Quality Demolition, also of Phoenix.The contract, estimated to be worth under $1 million, will employ 23 people for roughly the next two months.Jane Kuhn, an associate vice president, said NAU encourages the selection of local contractors whenever possible.As for the demolition contact, Kuhn said she did not know if there were any local demolition companies. But Todd Sleeper, the owner of Flagstaff-based Eagle Mountain Construction, said his company could have done the work.He said he discussed the demolition contract with Mortenson Construction, but ultimately decided against submitting a formal bid.The strict requirements to meet the green building codes for the Health and Learning Center, he said, made it difficult for him to place a competitive bid. One stipulation, Sleeper said, would have required his crews to separate out the steel from the rubble of the former stadium.Ron Wilson with Mortenson Construction said his company has already given several contracts to local firms, naming Flagstaff- based Ignace Brothers Drywall as one example.Wilson added he has received 43 bids from local subcontractors but has not yet completed its hiring process.He said the next phase will be to pour the concrete foundation and erect the steel frame for the new facility this December.The construction has already closed off a large parking lot next to Lumberjack Stadium, reducing the number of parking spaces on campus by 230, said Kuhn.Nearby streets won't be immediately affected, said Kuhn, but a different project in several weeks will close off the north end of San Francisco Street on campus.The construction bond will be paid back primarily through students fees. Students are currently paying $290 a year, but the fee will increase to $500 a year by the fall of 2011.The new Health and Learning Center is expected to be open in the fall of 2011.Joe