How could I be wrong??

 As dawn fell on the 2022 football season, I listened to oh so many experts on the radio saying how bad the Bears are, how they didn't do anything to put weapons around Fields and that they are destined to have a top 5 pick while Vegas put their over/under win total at 6 games. Six games??? They were 6-11 last year with Foles and Dalton starting games and with a universally admonished offensive line and Matt Nagy as the coach and play caller doing just a terrible, terrible job. But they had Mack and Hicks and Goldman on defense and Allen Robinson on offense. Well, Mack was hurt half the season as was Hicks and Goldman hasn't been even below average since before Covid. Robinson was just cashing a paycheck and offered nothing to the offense. So how could the Bears not be AT LEAST as good as the year before with: two top 60 defensive draft picks, three new offensive linemen, surely some FA WR pickups by Ryan Poles and what should still be a top 15 defense?  

But the uneducated masses were talking about how the Bears would have a horrible season and be able to take a top flight WR in the first 5 picks and turn it around next year. Well I have news for ya: if the Bears were going to be picking in the top 5, that means Justin Fields was not the guy and they'd be taking a QB. There's no other way for that to playout. 

Enter Ryan Poles.

His FA pickups were less than stellar. Let's look at WR pickups: N'Keal Harry (hurt the first half of the season), Byron Pringle (also hurt most of the first half of the season and then couldn't figure out many plays), Dante Pettis and ESB have been below average, Smith-Marsette cost us the Vikings game. On the line, his big acquisition was Lucas Patrick to start at center, but he was hurt and only played parts of the first 7 games and Dakota Dozier who didn't play at all. He also acquired Reiff and Schofield, who have been below average subs. Alex Leatherwood hasn't contributed at all until this last week and that was minimal. So Poles spent little and got the same in return. 

Then, the trade deadline came. 

Off went Quinn, our only pass rush threat and Roquan Smith, probably our best defensive player. Now our defense had no talent at all in the front 7 when three of the back 4 got hurt (Jackson, Brisker, and Gordon), they had no chance of stopping anyone. Johnson was also hurt on and off during the season. So the Bears quickly started giving up 30+ a game. Tough to win that way. 

And they didn't. BUT, they were in games until the end, mostly due to Justin Fields (and play calling by Luke Getsy). Fields set all sorts of records for running: most yards in a game by a QB, most consecutive games with 50 yard rushing touchdown and I'm forgetting others. Going into last week, he was top 10 and I think top 7 in rushing in the league. 

Unfortunately, the lack of talent at WR and OL really, really hurts you if you're in the two minute drill and need to score. The defense doesn't care about stopping the run anymore and just pins their ears back and comes after the QB. So the Bears are 1-9 in games where they have a chance to win in the last 6 minutes. Just awful. 

And THAT's how the Bears took a 6 win team and made it a 3 win team despite better coaching and while still having their QB of the future. 

Roe Reversal

Not the usual update today as instead of what's going on with me or the family, I thought I'd comment on what's going on with the country. It's Monday today and on Friday the supreme court reversed the constitutional protection provided to women wanting an abortion and threw it back to the states to decide. The vote was along party lines, which usually means it's bad legislation or in this case, a bad reversal of legislation. Now, there are many things about this that pisses me off, but in general here are a few. 

Sen. Collins and Manchin were COMPLETELY SURPRISED that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh lied to them about their desire to overturn Roe V. Wade. Really?!?! You didn't think they were lying to get your vote so they could get a lifetime appointment to a prestigious position??  Unfuckingbelievable. OF COURSE THEY FUCKING LIED YOU DUMB FUCKS!!! They were presented by Trump who lied, on average, 12.5 times a day for 4 years!!! Why the fuck do you think they WOULDN'T lie??? You're the only two dumb assholes who believed them. Just unbelievable. 

Clarence Thomas....I mean, what a fucking piece of work this ass clown is. He doesn't say shit for 30 years (literally he rarely commented at all on cases) and now that he's in the significant majority, he's all "Bring me fucking anything and I'll get it overturned!!"  Contraception, gun laws and protective gay legislation are next. What a prick. And his Nazi wife is no better. She's all in support of the January 6th insurrection and somehow is not having to answer for it. Hopefully the commission includes her in recommendations to the DOJ for prosecution. 

Illinois fortunately, is still a safe place for women. Unfortunately, there aren't many places in the Midwest that are. Minnesota is, Iowa currently is but that could change quickly and Indiana is expected to change. Can you even imagine being raped, impregnated and having to give birth? And then, because of parental rights, you'd have to share custody with your rapist. This is NOT a wild, out there idea. This exact scenario would play out today in about a dozen states. Unbelievable. Way to go SCOTUS. Oh, it's different for incest though right? Nope. Same shit, different asshole. 

My next post, hopefully, will be about the covid19 and how absolutely, incredibly wrong people were who followed tRump (and anti-vaxxers) regarding: how covid was a Democrat distraction, how he recommend hydroxychloriquine (which was proven useless as a treatment), how the anti-vaxxers recommended a horse medicine instead of a vaccine that's safe and effective. 

Memorial Day 2022

 

It’s been a while, again, since I’ve written, so maybe just a general update today.

M and T both wrapped up classes on Friday, 3^rd grade and 1^st respectively. M seemed more okay with it, probably because she’s finished two other grades already and knows that your enjoyment in the new school year will depend mostly on what you make of it. T does not have that experience, heck, he spent part of kindergarten at home! But he had a ton of fun, made friends and seemed to be well liked.

On that note, we went to his first grade art fair, not only to see his two pieces, but to get the contact info of two kids. However, several other kids saw him walking by on his way elsewhere and said “Hi T!!” very excitedly. That’s always great to see. He ended up having a play date with one the kids whose contact info we got and family we met.

With a trip to Florida upcoming, I’m going to get my second booster tomorrow. I qualify and people in Florida are nuts, so it’s at least a little more protection for me. Covid has been on the rise around the country for the last two months, but hospitals are not in danger of being overrun and that was always the main issue for me: contract Covid and die if you choose not to get the vaccine or use horse medicine instead, that’s fine, just stay out of the hospitals. People with  unpreventable problems need their services. Granted, there are breakthrough cases of Covid even for the vaccinated and those folks would get a pass to go the hospital because at least they tried.

Yesterday I started a window well project. First, I cleaned them and vacuumed them (and removed a mouse and a toad, both alive and both successfully). Next I’ll paint them white with Rustoleum. Finally, I’ll add new white marble stones to the base. Should really brighten them up!!

For Mother’s Day, I bought LL an elevated garden. It’s about 5’x 3’ and she opted to grow some veggies. The garden we had in the corner of the yard was just sooooo much work trying to keep the weeds down that we gave up last year. Now there is just a pine tree that we’ll have to move elsewhere in the yard soon before it gets too big. So far so good on the garden!

M has found a new love in swimming. At one point she was going four days a week! She was taking lessons once a week and then tried out for a swim team and made it and they meet three days a week. Once the lessons run out, she’ll just do the team. Or just do the lessons if the team takes off for the summer or whatever. We’re so happy for her!!!

T is back at martial arts and still really likes soccer. He keeps improving at both! He’ll continue with swim lessons during the summer like last year, but he’ll also have a baseball camp I believe and a chess camp again. He’s a well rounded young man. Like his father and grandfather, he’s smaller than some kids his age and is much better at math than reading/spelling. His grandfather developed a love of reading though, something that did not click with me.

Hitting the shot

 

While I’ve wanted to create an entry about Covid, what we know, where we are and where we’re going, the impetus for today’s post is a simple basket. Not a wicker basket, a basketball basket. Marissa played in a basketball league for the first time and without really any practice or experience. We were proud that she was doing something athletic and outside of her comfort zone. Then we watched all season long as she learned little things game after game: how to lose someone who is guarding you, how to set a pick, how to guard and keep an eye on the ball at the same time, how to dribble and protect the ball and being ready to rebound. Then, the last week, today, game 13, she not only did all of those things, she rolled around a pick set for her by the best player on the team (a reversal from the norm of Marissa setting the pick), dribbled from the top of the key, shot and scored!!! It was so awesome!! It turned out to be the last basket of the game for either team. I was so freaking proud of how far she’s come without us having access to an indoor court to practice at all.

The Lime Huskies!

Thomas is doing great in martial arts. Interestingly, we discussed doing pushups and how if he did them every day or even three times a week, by the end of the year he would have done XX thousands. He loved that idea, so he’s doing 20 pushups a day, three days a week. While his form is still not great, the hope is that he’ll get stronger and better at them over the course of a year. Kudos young man!!

Laura went to visit her sister and help her pick up a dog from a breeder, so I was on daddy duty for four days. Saturday morning, I decided to buy and cook Spam for the very first time! Diced Spam with scrambled eggs and cheese was the dish I chose and the kids loved it!! Marissa even had seconds. It was pretty tasty!!!

On a non-family note, Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of last week, as intelligence had predicted. Ukraine is fighting back, but of course they are massively outgunned. I say send them stingers and whatever we can to help them repel the Russian hordes led by Putin. It is good to see sporting events and such that were slated for or to include Russia are being cancelled. The Russian people probably don’t know what’s going on or if they do, why it’s happening, but once you take away their sporting events and concerts, questions will be asked. It’s a dictatorship, so they won’t be able to do anything about it, but maybe internal pressure will help stop Putin’s war.

Thomas-centric

Quite the day yesterday! As usual, I met Thomas and Marissa at the end of the driveway when they got off the bus. Thomas said he wanted to talk to me about something. Turns out he traded some Pokemon cards for some sports cards, specifically a random ‘90’s Larry Bird card and a Frank Thomas baseball card from 1990, a Fleer, not the real rookie. While they were under plastic, they weren’t in great shape, though they could have been worse. Anyway, the cards led to a discussion about baseball cards and their value and what cards did I have and how much were they worth and HOLY COW that much!! Now he wants to know more about them and how to start collecting. Gotta tell ya (which is really just telling future me), that I’m pretty happy. He also wants to go through my boxes and boxes of memorabilia with me. Yay me!

 Earlier in the day, an email group I was on discussed the cheapness of the McCaskeys and that someone said Halas was so cheap, he still had his first communion money. That made me think about my first communion. I don't remember much from my first communion, but I remember my dad's dad passing me on the stairs of his house (my first communion was in Altoona PA during one of our trips to visit relatives) as I went up and he slowly hobbled down saying "Congratulations." in the gruff voice of a depression era elderly man who had been smoking and drinking seemingly all his life as he slipped me $5. I'm not sure if I got any money from anyone else, but that $5 meant the world to me, not because of the value, which certainly WAS substantial, but because Grandpa Sutton didn’t express feelings too often (other than anger!).

Today is a big day for Thomas with a spelling test, a sight word test, a math test and THEN testing for his yellow belt when he gets home. Thomas studies Jeet Kune Do, a Chinese martial art developed by Bruce Lee. He enjoys it and has really progressed well in the last two months!! 

*****Update on Friday's events: Thomas scored perfect on his spelling test, sight words and math test. Then he tested for and received his yellow belt! He was probably the second best white belt testing, surpassed only by a girl who is at least 3 years older than him. It was a good day!! 

2016 NFL Draft revisited

As I watched Dak Prescott play today on wildcard weekend, I harkened back to the 2016 NFL Draft. Dak was taken in the 4^th round that year. 4^th round!!! Amazing. And LATE in the fourth round, pick 28 in that round and 135^th overall. So everyone, including Dallas, passed on him at least three times. The thing that sticks in my craw though is that the recently fired Ryan Pace, GM of the Bears, passed on him three times in the fourth round alone!!! C’mon dude!!! You said we should draft a QB every year and you didn’t (except for one 6^th rounder and Mitch until this past year with Fields). This was the chance.

But what about the other teams and the draft in general? Interestingly, not many teams NEEDED a QB after the first round and some other fun stuff was going on.

At the top of the draft, Jared Goff was selected by the LA Rams and Philly spent the second pick on Wentz. Joey Bosa, Ezekiel Elliott, and Jalen Ramsey were the next three and all better than the first two. Laremy Tonsil, a hulking tackle out of Mississippi was dropping as a video of him smoking pot with a gas mask on was leaked. Cost the dude hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Bears went with the undersized Leonard Floyd out of Georgia and then proceeded to not coach him up at all. He became a pro bowler with the Rams.

At the bottom of the first round, #25, Pittsburgh took Artie Burns. Seattle picked 31 and took Germain Ifedi. Seemingly innocuous except they both ended up on the Bears under Pace. My guess is he scouted them and remembered, hell, probably enamored with them and brought them to the Bears when he could.

Denver drafted Paxton Lynch with #26 and he’s been no good. The Jets took Christian Hackenberg in the second round, also awful. The Bears took Cody Whitehair, who has been ok on the offensive line. Tampa really did a number by taking Roberto Aguayo, a kicker, with the 59^th pick overall. He didn’t make it, but did get a shot with the Bears, probably because Pace remembered him from the draft.

In the third round, Pace took Bullard who was only ever a special teamer at best. Not great for a third rounder. New England, with Tom Brady at QB, took Jacoby Brisset while the Browns took Cody Kessler and went to war with him and Josh McCown. Ugh. The Bears lost Cutler after 5 games and had to turn to Matt Barkley and Brian Hoyer. Double ugh. Imagine if, in the fourth round, with one of their three picks in that round, they took Dak Prescott. My oh my how their fortunes could have changed.

Instead though the Bears took Kwiatkowski, who turned into a baller at LB, Deon Bush and D’eondre Hall. Ugh. Kwiatkowski is with the Raiders, Bush is a sub safety and Hall is no longer in the league. Just God awful to miss on a QB of Dak’s caliber while having 6 picks ahead of his selection.

Proud Parents!

 The other week, Laura and I had a proud parenting moment as our kids were recognized by their teachers basically for being good kids. Sure, they TELL you that their good kids, but are they really behaving. Well, these seem to indicate that yes, yes they are. 

We also received an email from Thomas' teacher last week that iterated that we're raising a great kid: 

Hello Mr. and Mrs. Sutton,

Thomas is a wonderful little boy everyday, but today was extra special.  There was a little boy that was just very sad today.  Thomas went up to him and talked with him to see if there was anything he could do to help!  He included this boy and made him feel better.  I just want you to know that his kindness did not go unnoticed and that I am so proud of him!!

I mean, what more could you want?? Marissa did a similar thing while helping me with coaching Thomas' soccer team. One of the players, who is often late and disinterested, was sort of just laying on the ground for no reason. Marissa went over to see if she was okay and came over to me to report on her. 

So the kids are doing well and we're hoping that tomorrow the CDC will approve vaccines for 5-11 year olds. Laura and I would like to get boosters too, but we don't qualify quite yet. Some interesting info on Covid: 5M people worldwide have died from Covid. Unvaccinated people are swamping hospitals across the country and taking up hospital beds. If someone has a heart attack and you are unvaccinated with Covid, you shouldn't get a room or a bed if the hospital is full. You're problem was completely preventable, so no bed for you!! We need to start being tougher on these idiots who listen to carnival barkers for their medicinal advice. 

The #1 killer of policemen across the country is Covid and they are public servants who are supposed to serve and protect. Can't do that if you have Covid or are a carrier, so yes, mandate vaccinations for cops or fire them. I have absolutely no problem with that. 

Harry Potter and the Mirror of Erised

A beloved series of books in our family, like many, is the Harry Potter series. The kids have Harry Potter Legos, costumes, action figures, wands, etc., a seemingly endless number of things. The books are some of the few that I have really enjoyed reading in my adult life (I'm more of a "I'll wait for the movie" kind of guy). So as we near Halloween, it doesn't seem too surprising that the kids were attending a Harry Potter themed event where they were making potions, casting spells, going through the sorting hat process, picking a wand and playing Quidditch. One other thing they were able to do is stand in front of the Mirror of Erised (Desire spelled backwards). 

Now, if you're a Potter fan I'm sure you remember that the mirror would show what you desired most. For Harry, it reflected himself with his parents on either side of him. It's an understandably sad part of the book and movie. 

When the kids came home from the event, I was upstairs in bed watching one of several sports events on television. Marissa made her way upstairs first (after they both had McDonald's because even though they had dinner before they left, they "were starving"). She crawled on top of the bed to give me the requested hug and told me all about the event. 

Then she said, "And when we went in front of the mirror, do you know what I most desired?" 

No, what?

"Grandpa. Everybody misses him." 

It kills me sometimes how much I love these kids. And I miss you too Pops. ♥

2021, a year in health

 The other day, Thomas declared that he wanted to be a writer….oh, and a minor league soccer player and maybe a football player. He stated clearly that if you are a writer, you’ll also read better. Seems logical to me! Writing everyday is his goal and I told him about my class in college where I wrote in a journal everyday and my blog, which, while not every day, was pretty frequent.  He wanted to see the blog, so I showed him and next to each year down column A on the front page is listed the number of entries for that year. While some were 200 or 300, since the kids were born, the numbers have dwindled to single digits or teens. He implored me to write more, so here I am!!

I’ve been wanting to write about health changes this year as some stuff is going on and it’s probably good to keep a written record. During covid, I put on probably 15 pounds as the gym was closed and I was recovering from shoulder surgery. Did that mean I had to snack before dinner and at night? Nope. Did I do that anyway? Yep. So, as I pushed 230, I realized I had to change my eating habits, plus the gym was now open and I was 6 months away from shoulder surgery and able to workout now. That was all this spring. I started coaching Thomas’ soccer team as I had in the past, but after the first practice in mid April, my back really hurt. It steadily got worse until I realized it was sciatica, complete with nerve pain going down each butt cheek.

To combat the symptoms, I bought new shoes and an inversion table, along with plenty of ibuprofen. Unfortunately it was probably a month or so before looking up online how to treat it and probably two months before going to see the doctor. While the pain was very present when transitioning from sitting to standing, it wasn’t present when sleeping or sitting or standing for short periods of time. Walking longer distances would require a break to stretch, but up to a mile was usually ok. Still, ugh.

My PCP diagnosed me with lumbago sciatica, which Laura got a kick out of (“who uses the term lumbago anymore?”). Anyway, here it is October and with our deductibles met, I’ve decided to try to clear it up with some physical therapy, we’ll see. Interestingly, it doesn’t hurt WHILE I’m golfing or working out; only after or the next day or even the same day BEFORE I do those things.

But I also am fighting the pain by losing weight. I’ve dropped 15 pounds to 213 and I hope to lose another 10. It’s a little tough during Bears season, but I’m managing.

The numbness I would get in my arms when sleeping on one side or the other has subsided though I don’t know if that’s from losing weight or being a year past surgery now or what. My PCP said it’s just part of getting old. Ha!

After my shoulder rehab, I wanted to get out and golf as much as possible this summer and I’ve probably played 25-30 rounds which is a ton more than normal for me. It’s been great and while I’m still a bit inconsistent, my strength is coming back. Unfortunately, the middle finger on my left hand seems to be developing arthritis or something as it stiffens at night, especially after golf. We’ll see what a winter off does.

My eyesight continues to deteriorate a bit, with more “spotting”. They aren’t super noticeable at any point in time during the day, but I do see them periodically if I look for them. And of course reading glasses, while rarely needed 5 years ago, are now essential.  Nothing I can do about that. Even the doctor who did my Lasik surgery when I was 35 said it would have no impact on my need for reading glasses when the time came. He was right!

So there you go Thomas, another update in the books. I’ll try to keep writing regularly if possible and you’ll be able to do whatever you want, or nothing, with the entries!

First Day of School 2021

 It was the first day of school for the kiddos today and it was a completely different day than we’ve had for…..eight years. Thomas started first grade and that meant he and Marissa both were gone to school for the majority of the day, which was a first. It was especially difficult on the heels of 2020 when the kids were remote learning for at least half the year.

We walked them to the bus and even though just last week Thomas “didn’t want to talk about school” and called the first day of first grade “the apocalypse”, he was excited to go. And as you might expect, he had a great day.

Marissa had a good day, but was a little worn out. The A/C was out in the school and Thomas didn’t even realize it until Marissa told him later. Their classes are on different floors though with Marissa’s on two and Thomas on the first, which may have contributed to it being slightly cooler.

Our nanny, Jessica, also started working for another family today. Her new family has a teacher for a mom who needs someone during the school year to watch her newborn, but also get the kids to school and be there when they get home. The situation works out for us because we would need her most in the summer, just when the teacher really wouldn’t need her. Even though she worked today, she stopped by the house at around 5:00 to give the kids “first day of school” treats. Very nice!

Picture time!

The (Three) Season (Room) of Our Lives

Catching up on some things that occupied my mind-space today: a Covid related FaceBook post, a  Wendy's commercial, my awful back pain and the completion of our three season room. 

Someone with whom I used to work, and in fact I hired, posted today on FaceBook a meme related to Covid. It said: If you had a 99.8% of NOT getting cancer, how would you feel if you were forced to still go through chemotherapy? 

Now this person, astonishingly, is a rabid anti-vaxer. In this day and age, you really have to have your head in the sand if you don't believe in the science behind vaccinations. She does. She also chooses to follow and defend discredited pseudo doctors who speak out against vaccines. It's really the dumbest thing since Quanon, only Q happened after anti-vaxers and I imagine their Venn diagram is almost just one circle. 

Anyway, this post was wrong on so many levels. Your chance of getting Covid is not .2%. I believe your chance of DYING from Covid is about .2%, or 10x what it is for the flu. The vaccine has shown to be 100% effective against you dying from Covid. Read that again. Yes, 100% effective. So if you haven't gotten the vaccine, that's on you. 

Chemotherapy is a months long if not years long incredibly painful and exhausting process. A Covid vaccine takes 5 seconds and IF you have symptoms, they are minor and last a day. That's a huge fucking stretch to compare chemo to the vaccine. 

If you have cancer and choose not to do chemo, the cancer will not mutate inside and get passed on to someone else. Covid however, COULD mutate inside you as it replicates and produce an even deadlier and/or more contagious variant of the virus that could harm the entire planet. You could be the Typhoid Mary of Covid if you don't get the vaccine. That's an actual possibility. 

Wendy's is running a commercial where they have an alarm going off and a techno voice saying "Bag Alert. Major Bag Alert." So they have some bag deal apparently, but nobody on their marketing team knows that calling someone a "bag" is derisive and is generally short for douchebag or jagbag or some other such term. Every time I hear the commercial I think to myself, there's a douchebag nearby!! 

A little more than a month ago now, the kids started playing soccer on Thursdays and Saturdays with practice on Thursdays. I didn't volunteer to coach, but I did volunteer to help. Unfortunately, no one else volunteered to do either, so I was left holding the bag. Shortly after running around on admittedly older sneakers, my lower back started ailing. It has continued to hurt with a pain going down both butt cheeks when it flares up. Normally the flare up is right after I get out of bed in the morning, including in the shower. Periodically during the day the pain reappears and stops me mid-step. That said, I'm able to golf and go to the gym to workout (including riding the stationary bike), without pain. Go figure. It could be a slipped disc that would rectify itself in time. It seems like Sciatica has these symptoms as well, which could also rectify itself. OR it could be something worse, like spinal stenosis. Let's hope not. 

Finally, our three season room is complete! We tore out the pergola and put in the room covering a slightly larger foot print. Why 3 seasons? Our house is plenty big and I don't want to add to the tax base for it. Since the room has no heating or A/C, it would not be considered additional square footage for the house for tax purposes. Win win! However, it is SOLID! The HOA said we had to make it look like the rest of the house which, on the first level, is brick. The contractor did a great job a price about half what we were quoted from two other companies. I'll post some pics here of the final product and then work backwards with some pics from construction. 

  

This is how it looks now! We've also added a table and parts of an L shaped sofa, but it's not complete yet.

And now we go back to the construction phase.

Demo of the pergola

Demo of part of the patio

The big equipment

New base poured

The brick exterior going up

Brickwork is done!

An update including our local HIE stay

 It's a lazy, chilly, late March Sunday, the day after celebrating birthdays and Easter with my extended family at a restaurant. As I sit at my desk watching a Will Ferrell marathon while I look for interesting articles to read or sports stories to follow, I decided it would be a perfect time to write a blog entry. But what to write about?? 

My shoulder is ready to go for golf season as I'm able to do pushups on a bench, maybe even the ground, but I haven't tried. Today I went to Golf Galaxy to take some swings with new drivers, but there were too many people there. I'll go back midweek and see what I can do then. 

On Friday, the pergola off the back of the house was taken down, piece by piece, as we prepare for construction to start on our three season room. Very excited!

The Bears decided to allow the man who traded up one spot to select Mitch Trubisky instead of (at the very least!) standing pat at taking whichever of three QBs would fall to him. Spoiler alert, the other two were really good and Mitch was really bad. That same guy had just signed Mike Glennon for a guaranteed $19M in the offseason. He also sucked. Then the same guy trades a fourth round pick for Nick Foles and guarantees him $21M. He also sucked. So the Bears give him one last shot in free agency to right the ship, secretly extending his contract for a year (I'm virtually certain of this) to match his head coach's contract, and he lands Andy Dalton for $10M guaranteed for one year, more than triple what Dallas paid him last year. It's a clusterfuck at Halas Hall. Only a marquis, proven QB can save them. 

One final note, we decided to do a staycation at our local Holiday Inn Express. Below is the letter (and review) that I wrote and posted on several travel sites. No response, 3 weeks later. Contrast that to the local Domino's which gave us flat bread bites  and received a strong rebuke from yours truly. The manager there gave us essentially 4 free orders of bread bits and two desserts. Here's my HIE letter: 

Before posting our review on Yelp and travel websites, we wanted to provide you with a recap of our experience at the Mokena Holiday Inn Express last Friday, February 26.

"We live in town and decided a few weeks ago to have a staycation at this hotel for a night and let our two children, 6 and 8, swim to their hearts’ content.  To make sure the pool was open, we called two weeks ago, at which time they told us that they couldn’t know for sure that the pool would be open, but that it was open currently. Midweek last week, we called again and actually made the reservation at which time we were told the pool was indeed open. Finally, we called FRIDAY MORNING at 10:00 to make sure the pool was open and told the desk person that our SOLE reason for coming to the hotel was for the pool. We were told the pool was open and, in fact, we could check in early (1:00). How nice!

 So you can understand our immense frustration upon checking in at around 1:30 when we were told that the pool was closed. Several times over the next 90 minutes we called the front desk to ask about when the pool would open, why was it closed and why were we told it was open when it wasn’t? We were also told that the front desk had to wait for the General Manager to call and tell them it was okay to open the pool and that the GM was offsite currently and they couldn’t reach them. This means if there was a robbery or the hotel was on fire, nobody on site could reach the GM? That hardly seems likely and if it is then it’s almost worse than lying to us. What an absolutely ridiculous chain of command you have in place if that’s true. “Here’s the only person who can make decisions, but they are unreachable.” That should never be the answer.

Finally, I went down to look at the pool myself and there was a genuinely pleasant, bearded man there skimming the pool. He told me the pool was completely fine and we could come down and swim whenever. I went over the front desk to both inform them and verify that this man had the authority to open the pool (though he was obviously an HIE employee). There were two women working the front desk and one, who checked us in, was at least pleasant while being unhelpful. The other, with red hair, was an embarrassment to all customer service employees. When approached with the information about the pool, she reiterated that she had to wait until the GM gave approval. To which I replied, “Then who is working on the pool and telling me it’s ok?”

“I don’t know.” She replied.

“What do you mean you don’t know?  It’s a bearded guy.”

“I don’t know who it is. I can’t see through walls!” She obviously wasn’t planning on moving from behind the front desk and traverse the 25 yards to the pool and see who it was.

“So there’s a guy working on your pool and you don’t know who it is? This isn’t Disney! It’s not like you have thousands of employees. You probably have, what, 5 people working here today?”

“No sir, we have more than 5.”

“Well one of them is working on the pool and he said it’s okay to swim.”

She continued to insist on hearing from her unreachable GM. She also declined to go investigate who was working on the pool and what they had to say, so I had to go over and ask him to talk to the women at the front desk because they weren’t listening to me. Again, he was super pleasant and said that he would. 

It’s seems to me that pretty high on the list of duties of a front desk person at a hotel,  right behind checking people in and out, is knowing who is in the building and especially who is working. Her rudeness, unpleasantness and shirking of responsibilities would certainly prevent her from working at any company that I would run, so I figured someone in charge there would want to know about our experience. "

Those who know me well, KNOW that my first version had a ton of swearing in it. I really wanted to convey to the owner of this property though that they had a subpar employee. If they choose to ignore it, that's on them. 

Where are they now?

 

Lighthearted entry today covering an interesting topic (to me): the 1971 MLB draft.

Now, how the hell did I get on this topic. Well, you want to talk about a rabbit hole? Actually it wasn’t too bad. It started by looking at baseball cards on Ebay and specifically one entitled “Baseball ReDraft 1971”. 

It’s an interesting theme for a card: who would you choose in the top four given the benefit of hindsight?  Since I was 5 in 1971, it really struck a chord with me as the guys on the card were stars while I was growing up. So that card made me look up the 1971 draft to see if I agreed (I take issue with Hernandez being #4). Looking at the MLB draft for 1971 also took me down memory lane as the players in that draft I remember from seeing play or collecting their baseball card or because they have ridiculous names (like Biff Pocoroba who was drafted in the 17^th round by the Braves and had a 10 year career).

We always hear about those who slipped in the draft and made it big (most famously in the NFL with Tom Brady getting drafted in the 6^th round ,199^th overall and the 7^th QB selected).  In baseball, with technically 48 rounds in the draft (not all the teams even went that deep), those who got passed up and made it, occur more frequently, but not as often as those in the top 10 who turn into busts. As I take a stroll through the list, I’ll be tossing out some of each!

The top 14 are filled with misses except for Frank Tanana at 13 by California who threw from the left side and was a force to be reckoned with when starting after Nolan Ryan. Whew, tough combo.

Tom Veryzer was taken at 11 and had a 12 year career, but only played regularly in six seasons and was traded several times. Not an awful utility man, but not a top 15 draft pick either.

Jim Rice comes along at 15 and he’s definitely well positioned on the card as #3 overall. The two in front of him, drafted in the second round with picks 29 and 30, were also great hitters but played the much more important 3^rd base position.

Larry Herndon was picked at 54 and had a 14 year career that included winning the World Series with the Tigers in 1984. Didn’t help out the Cardinals who drafted him though. I was still very much into the Tigers in 1984 and listened to most of their games on the radio, even during the day in my senior year in high school.

Dennis Lamp was taken at 62 by the Cubs, who wish they took Ron "Louisiana Lightning" Guidry instead who went 3 picks later.

There was a long talent drought then until Warren Cromartie was taken at pick 143, but Dave Freisleben, who was taken at pick 96, is a name I always knew growing up, at least since his rookie card in 1974. You see, that was the year the San Diego Padres were garbage and were being sold to a businessman who was going to move them to Washington. Freisleben was a rookie in the Padre system and appeared with three other players on a rookie pitchers card. Some of his cards, and other Padre players, had the team name replaced with “Washington Nat’l League”. Ray Kroc, yes, the McDonald’s owner, stepped in last minute and bought the Padres and kept them in San Diego.

Then we drop all the way to pick 278 where Dave Bergman was drafted by the Cubs (his favorite team) in round 12, right out of high school. Bergman opted to go to college at Illinois State and was drafted again in 1974 by the NY Yankees. He had a 17 year career including also being a member of the 1984 Champion Tigers.

Not much else talent wise was selected until Keith Hernandez at pick 776. Ron Wrona, Rick Wrona’s (one of three Cubs catchers in 1989 when they won the division) father, was selected by the Dodgers at 788. 

Joe Theisman was drafted with pick 764 by the Twins, but he was also drafted by the Dolphins, though he opted to play in the CFL with Toronto for $50k a year.

Joe wasn’t the only QB drafted in 1971. Steve Bartkowski, who would eventually be taken #1 by the Falcons in 1975 just ahead of Walter Payton, was drafted out of high school by the Royals at #699.

James Van Der Beek was taken at pick #570 by the Washington Senators, the father of the James Van Der Beek that you know from Dawson’s Creek.

But what happened to some of the other guys in the draft? Players like: Otis Zagorski, Hiawatha Roberson, Walt Rzepiennik, Steve Kooshkalis and Don Stackpole, the last player taken in the draft at #794. I bet they have stories too.

The Non-Queen's Gambit

Much like many folks during this pandemic, I've watched a lot more television.....or at least tried to. Unfortunately, the pandemic closed down the movie and production studios as well, so there hasn't been a ton of new shows to watch. As such, you get some shows that EVERYONE sees, just because there's nothing else on. Tiger King is one of those shows and yes, we watched it. But we also watched Queen's Gambit, a six episode show about an orphan chess prodigy in the 1960's. 

While only six episodes, it was an extremely compelling story about savants and how they deal with life as a savant (in whatever area, this one happened to be chess). As a child in an orphanage, the 9 year old heroine sees the janitor playing chess and eventually has him teach her how to play.  You can imagine that it starts out a little rough on her, but she catches on surprisingly fast (as you would expect from a savant) and away the story goes. 

She learns many lessons along the way and one that she learns early and that the story flashes back to a few times, is that you lose gracefully. When you are defeated, you resign. You don't play out every last move wasting people's time, you resign. You don't abruptly get up and walk away either; you tip your king or just stand up and shake your opponent's hand. We just watched the last episode last night and it struck me as a great life lesson for people of all cultures, but certainly here in the U.S. Our competitive nature is often like that of a child; play until there's no more hope instead of resigning with dignity and acknowledging your opponent.

Now, in some sports you play to the whistle as they say and that's absolutely fine. But down by 30 with 2 minutes to play in football or a similar amount in basketball or hockey, seems to make less sense. 

In politics, t-Rump continues to embarrass himself, the republican party, the presidency and the U.S. with his ridiculous, hopeless, classless lawsuits. When cornered by multiple pieces and no where to go, he opted to play it out to the last, filing some 57 lawsuits including one just the other day with the SCOTUS who has already sternly rebuffed him once. Any dignity that t-Rump had was lost probably before he did his television show, but he is clearly now showing how much of a buffoon he has always been. He would have been a reprehensible chess player. 

Giving Thanks

It’s hard to believe that there’s much to give thanks for after the year we have. Two days ago was the anniversary of Laura breaking her foot, which was the swizzle stick stirring the Molotov cocktail that would become 2020. There’s always something to be thankful for.

For instance, Laura ended up with a blood clot in her leg that was diagnosed on her final visit to the doctor for her broken foot.  Super thankful that it was discovered. The doctors, while checking for blood clots in her lungs, found out she had pneumonia. Very thankful that they discovered and treated that as well. Very thankful that we have great access to doctors.  

Having good health insurance is another thing to be thankful for as I had asymptomatic ventricular tachycardia for a long time and it flared up over the last year. After getting all sorts of scans and monitors, I think it’s because I started getting a large iced coffee in the afternoon and it had a bad effect on me. Since cutting back to a medium coffee in the afternoon, I’ve been fine! We’re also very thankful that we have solid home owner’s insurance when our sump pump and backup both failed in January.

Nobody in our family has contracted Covid-19 (yet) thankfully, despite another resurgence of the disease that’s killing 130 people a day in Illinois alone. Just awful. Our cleaning lady, neighbor and one of my business partners have all contracted it. Not fun for them. Fortunately, they have all recovered as most people do who contract it. If you’re immunocompromised though or have certain underlying ailments, there is no recovery. There’s no good time of year for all of these people to be dying, but it’s a particularly bad time of year. As I’ve said since April, we need these inexpensive, quick turnaround tests distributed and available to people as quickly as possible. If people can quickly and easily test themselves at home, they will quarantine themselves. If people don’t know if they’re sick for sure, they’re going to go about their daily routine and infect other people.

And of course we’re thankful that the slug of a human, t-Rump, has been ousted from office, despite his ongoing disbelief. Recently he actually said that he would leave office if the electoral college voted as such. NO SHIT SHERLOCK! Such an unbelievable dumbass. Every case his monkey Giuliani has presented in court fighting the election results has been thrown out for lack of evidence, most of them when they were first presented to the court with the comment from Rudy’s team that they didn’t have any actual evidence but that they believe there was fraud going on (https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-attorneys-described-giuliani-deranged-122255613.html). Nice work Rudy. Good choice t-Rump. What a clown. Now he’s pardoning anyone and everyone he can, even from prosecution for charges yet to be brought. Why? Because you know damn well he’s in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution (Saudi room rentals, et al) and likely treason for asking foreign governments to interfere with the election. He was already impeached for obstruction of congress and if not for a republican stacked senate, would have already been removed from office.  One pardon was Michael Flynn, the guy who confessed to lying to congress for t-Rump. Unbelievable.

The ability of outgoing elected officials to pardon people is a farce, always has been. Whether POTUS or Governor, it should not be allowed. It really shouldn’t be allowed AT ALL in fact, whether you’re an outgoing official or not. A court and jury have declared this person guilty and now you have, potentially, some television personality with the attention span of gnat deciding they were wrong. It’s just not the right way for a judicial system to run. At best, maybe, they should allow for another trial. At best! Even that has a negative taxpayer consequence.

On a lighter note, Santa came into my office today and said he shaved his beard, changed his glasses, shrank and oh yeah, made himself less old. Ha! Outstanding. Love that kid a ton. Oh, the non-smile was him being very matter-of-fact about his statements. 

Fall 2020 Update

 It's been a crazy few months since I last wrote, to say the least! As of today, we finally voted that toxic, rodent of a human t-Rump out of office and we can finally bring some honor back to the role of POTUS. The consistent lies he pushed (I've read over 21,000 or 14 a day from one source, but also "only" 4-6 per day which is closer to 7,500) have just been too much. He's done nothing positive for the country that I can recount unless you're a top 1% or mega-business owner. His tax break certainly didn't help me out (or anyone else in a highly taxed state) as it limited state and local deductions to $10k, so that cost me close to $10k. The economy outperformed under Obama by a factor of 4 vs. him according to some measure that I read, so I assume even a rock could have done better than t-Rump. Finally, and probably most devastatingly, he ignored ALL science and health warnings about the coronavirus even openly mocking doctors, mask wearers and other "losers" as well as calling it a democratic conspiracy, while the virus took a firm hold in the US and killed hundreds of thousands and hospitalizing 2 million. And these really don't deal with what a despicable human being he is, though that much lying is obviously a pathological issue. The guy is an orange ass clown who only cares about himself. January 20th can't come soon enough. 

Finally, after three years from initial injury (my guess at least), I was able to have surgery to repair my torn rotator cuff and labrum in my left shoulder. That was just over 3 weeks ago and recovery has been pretty good. I'm still on the passive motion machine for several hours a day and then I ice it for 30-60 minutes, so it's taking up a good chunk of my day. 

While all this is going on, I have been able to make progress on a good project: the whole home back-up generator. No more power outages for us!! Covid set us back on this front as well due to delivery issues and changing the gas meter delays, but it's going to be installed next Thursday. Yay! No more worrying about the weather. 

Other projects that worked out this year: hanging pictures, getting a new sump pump and waterflow back-up system (after the flood), spray painting the front light fixtures, installing garage organizing system, bought a freezer for the garage, new downspout pipe that leads to the yard from one corner of the garage (it was clogged and backing up) and new mulch. I tried to move the gate for the fence and install a new gate in the back, but covid interrupted the fence folks supply chain so I can't get it done until the spring. 

A project that's just taking off is creating a three season room off the back of the house. The overall size and materials seem to be finalized, but there are many, many details to go.

The kids are doing great, though as Covid spikes again (10,000 new cases a day in Illinois alone), there is a likelihood that they will be returning to e-learning from home. 

Marissa as Willa from Zombies 2

Thomas as a vampire (with a spider kicker)

A large turtle that we found in the yard (we think) trying to get back to its pond.

Sign of the Times

States and the country have stages they are, somewhat arbitrarily, defining as we open back up. While Illinois went on full shutdown for two months to really limit the impact on hospitals’ ICUs, some states did not take the same tact or do it for as long. Now, two weeks after Memorial Day, those states are having a significant influx of new cases of Covid 19 and their ICUs are near capacity. From what I’ve read, there is some number of people who are going to get infected and be hospitalized (and die). Our goal has always been, just don’t overwhelm the hospital system and make doctors choose who gets a chance at living and who is not "worth" treatment, much like a triage unit in war time. New York and Detroit early on had to basically take this tact. Fortunately we did not in Illinois. 

On a more personal note, since this is my blog, I thought it would be interesting to “track” the impact of the virus based on what I can and can’t buy at the grocery store. First it was toilet paper and paper towels, followed by tissue. If you find yourself at the start of something that will cause sheltering in place, you want to get some of these and I would recommend hitting your secondary stores (for me, Meijer and Jewel are level one and Berkotts is secondary) as well as the hardware stores (which also usually have cleaning supplies. The latter might have a supply for a few days after the others run out. And the smart stores should have really put an immediate limit on the high demand items to prevent hoarding as much as possible.

After the paper products (which people use more of at home when not going into the office), yeast was almost impossible to find. People are staying home and they need projects to work on with their kids and don’t want to go to the grocery stores, so they bake at home. Makes sense. Milk never seemed to run too low, but eggs ran out more than one day. Along with these, cleaning supplies and laundry detergent start to run out. As meat processing plants started to shut down, there was some shortages in pork, beef and chicken, but now there seems to be a fair amount of all of them and very few times have I been unable to purchase these items.

Eventually you get to where the random stuff starts to run out: Brummel and Brown butter spread made with Yogurt was the poster child of these products. You couldn’t find it anywhere until just about a week ago. I’m not sure what the supply chain looks like for it, but it was out for almost three months.

Other things on my shopping list that we could not find: 2% Swiss cheese singles and more recently, shelled edamame has been gone (even shelled has been tough to find). Obviously things like Clorox wipes are still non-existent as are large bottles of hand sanitizer (which I fortunately had bought two of last year).

So now that we are about three months into the shelter in place order and four months into when the hoarding started, you’re finally seeing a CHOICE in toilet paper and facial tissue available at larger stores. Yeast became available more readily in the last few weeks. And interestingly, fruits and vegetables, which have a shorter shelf life and different supply chain, never seemed to really be unavailable completely.

The Day to Day

There seemed to be so much hope for a reasonable transition to normalcy in my last post, but sadly that has not come to pass. Daily here in Illinois, as they ramp up the testing to more and more people, the number of infected people continues to increase, as you might expect. However, the deaths continue to trend higher as well, which is not necessarily an expected consequence of more testing. I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet and following the trend line on deaths related to Covid 19 and the 14 day average continues to increase (now about 110 people per day). Daily I listen to two, three or four infectious disease doctors regarding what’s going on in: new treatments, old treatments being resurrected, idiotic things the potus says (the doctors really, really show great restraint when talking about him, it’s impressive), treatments for Covid, vaccine development, anti-body testing, and of course the current figures for those tested, those infected and those that have passed.

But I also read some stories online and one, which was a story from a few days ago on the news that just got onto the internet news feed revolves around potential positive impacts of vitamin-D, or more accurately, the NEGATIVE impacts of vitamin-D deficiency. Those two things are not the same thing. Patients with a vitamin D deficiency have seen notably worse outcomes, but it has not been tested, only observed, which means it could be a coincidence.

Remdesivir has also been observed to alleviate some symptoms of the most adversely impacted it appears, increasing recovery time by 3-4 days. So that’s promising, but still, best not to need it.

Vaccines have been in development and various stages of testing since January, while the potus still espoused that the virus was a democratic hoax. Good call orange man.

While I didn’t want this to be a political post, I can’t help but remind my future self of what Turtle man, Mitch the bitch McConnell said yesterday to reporters. He blamed Obama for the U.S.’s inaction to Covid 19. Somehow he felt that it was Obama who cut the infectious disease budget the last three years.

It was not.

That it was Obama who removed the infectious disease liaison in China early last year.

It was not.

That it was Obama who ignored the scientists and other countries under the belief that first the disease was a conspiracy and then that it would just disappear once warm weather arrived.

It was not.

That it was Obama who ignored Dr. Rick Bright and fired him for trying to warn us early on about Covid 19.

It was not.

That it was Obama who did not leave a 69 page National Security Council “playbook” on what to do in case of a pandemic.

He did leave one and it’s been ignored.

And just as bad as any of that, if Mitch or Trump thought our pandemic response was insufficient, they had three damn years to do something about it. Instead they were too busy repealing anything Obama touched and far too concerned about partisan politics. It’s much easier to edit than to create. Obama created. Trump just edits.

So now some states are opening up a bit and some are more aggressive. Already I’ve seen videos of bars in Texas and Wisconsin that are bustling, with no social distancing and no masks. You’d like to think, “Well, the rona will take them out.” But it doesn’t work that way. It may take out some of them, but more likely they will just be carriers and infect other people who may be following stricter guidelines but cross paths with one of these clowns. It’s really embarrassing how people can’t live a somewhat restrained existence for two months without freaking out. Their selfishness is overwhelming. But it also says something about our society and it’s not just about people wanting to get back to their normal. First, they have no knowledge of, or interest in, history. And that’s not even history back to 1918 that I’m talking about, though that pandemic should have served enough notice to all people to work towards solutions for the next one. Just go back to Swine Flu or SARS. Look what South Korea did and how they developed social tracing to isolate infected people and test possibly infected people more quickly. We do none of that. Sure, if you get someone terribly sick with ECOLI, they’ll trace it back to the Denny’s, but that’s about it.

Thinking on a lighter note, I’m hopeful that the football season will be played, with or without fans in the stands. I’m truly fine either way, though of course if fans are allowed, it means we have effective treatments and possibly a vaccine. Here’s hoping!!