So, it is official. The "Chin" will not be leading the pack next year. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported today that Cowher was flattered, but not interested.

So, who will it be? Beats me.

Maybe we can break out the "Chow Towel". I think the marketing guys could do a lot with a guy named Jimbo, as well.



FYI: Most of the titles to the posts on my blog link to something related to the post. In this case, it is the article in the Tribune-Review.

This video is not intended for all audiences and is rated PG-13 for inappropriate use of football terminology.



From SI:

According to the Boston Herald, the man behind the song is a married Texas attorney with two kids who goes by BradyFan83. He told the paper, "It's a little bit of a satire on the adoration of athletes. And a little bit on the homoeroticism in sports. It works on many levels."

Nothing like a little homoerotic football video to bring down the integrity of my blog.

I have this problem. I can't seem to fall asleep. Not like ever, just tonight. I have ideas about why, but I can't say for sure. Maybe it is the fact that I go to bed too late every night and my body is not used to being in the slumber state until at least 1 AM. Maybe it has something to do with not being at my own house. Not that I am all that uncomfortable here at my sister's house, but the unfamiliar surroundings could be playing a part. It could be that I did pretty much nothing all day today except eat and sit in a recliner. I got in a nap this afternoon. So, that could be adding to the insomnia.

What ever the cause, I just laid in the bed for over half and hour and never even approached stage 1.

While I was laying there, I began to think. Not so much voluntarily, but thoughts just started running through my cerebral cortex. One thing led to another and then I was lost in them. This is the point at which I would normally fall asleep and end up dreaming about whatever it was that I was thinking about prior to getting knocked out by the sandman. However, tonight things did not work out that way. Maybe it was because I was excited about my grand scheme that I put together.

Recently, I have been bothered by... unhappy with... perplexed by... I'm not sure what the proper verbiage would be, but in short I something I am dealing with that I do not like. Well, I had some sort of epiphany while laying there not sleeping. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. I would tell all two of you that read this, but it involves other people and I would like to discuss my solution with them before unveiling it to the world. Soon enough, you will hear about it.

It is sort of one of those things that you pray about in search of some guidance on the best way to handle something. Well, I did that and I feel like I have an answer. However, I am so weak that I question whether this is the guidance I was seeking, or if this is me just coming up with something because I am tired of dealing with something.

It makes me think about in the New Testament where Jesus goes up to some of the disciples and says "Follow me." I do not remember reading where they questioned it much. They just dropped what they were doing and went along.

Maybe I just need to listen and just "follow".

Then again, maybe I just need to go to sleep.

I am not exactly sure what I want to be when I grow up, but I just found another thing to take off the list of prospective careers. I have decided that I do not want to be a Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge.

On Monday, Michael Johnson, not the athlete, but a current Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge had to decide what to do with an 89 year old man, George Weller, that has been convicted on 10 felony counts of vehicular manslaughter. Yes, that means he ran over and killed 10 people. In the process he managed to injure about 63 more.

The kicker is that he has never expressed remorse for what he did. At the scene of the accident witnesses claimed that Weller said, "Why didn't you get out of my way?" This is at the same time that there was a dead body draped over the windshield of his car and rescuers were trying frantically to help a horribly disfigured woman who had been dragged by the vehicle.

So, what do you do? Do you send some old man on his deathbed to prison to die there? Reports indicate that he is ailing and was unable to attend the sentencing. If you do, people might call you cruel and say you gave him a death sentence. Then, if you do not, what kind of message does it send about the elderly and the responsibility they have for their actions.

I really cannot find an answer I am 100% comfortable with. The problem is the decision goes farther than this one guy. It makes you think about who we allow to drive. There is always a big hub-ub made about teenagers and when they should be allowed to drive, but what about the other end of the spectrum?

I can see how you shouldn't punish all elderly because one man who "learned to drive in a Model-T" makes a wrong turn, and can't remember which pedal makes the horseless carriage slow down, but how do you decide who is too old to drive. Where is the line and how is it measured?

Thoughts?

The Dilbert Blog today has an interesting post followed by a dialogue of comments.

Tonight, I was in the kitchen cleaning up a mess I had made hours earlier. Kim had went to bed, and I had told her I would make sure to clean up all the dishes in the sink, after the football game was over, of course. See earlier she had tried to clean up the kitchen, but I had stopped her because we had friends over and I didn't want her to be stuck in the kitchen. I'm pretty sure that she thought I was going to leave them there all night.

So, I am in the kitchen cleaning up, and a song from this morning's service popped into my head and I started humming/singing it. I can't seem to remember which song it was now because I have the song from the slideshow stuck in my head, and that is all I can hear right now.

Well, I went from that song to thinking about everything that I did today. That lead me to thinking about everything that happened this past week leading up to this morning's service. FYI: Visio Dei, the church community I am involved in, had its first service in their/our new building this morning. It is unbelievable what God is doing in our community. I feel so undeserving to be a part of it, but I guess that is the point. We are all undeserving. That is where Grace comes in. Tangent.

Anyway, all this flowed into a long prayer about the myriad of things that I am thankful for. It would be impossible to list them all, but I would like to list a few here. You know, in the spirit of this week's holiday.

• Traci, thanks for being such a great friend to my wife. I think I can speak for the both of us and say that you were a blessing to her tonight. Matt, you're my boy, but it is unlikely we are going to lay on the chaise together.


• Smiths, thanks for being great friends. I hope we get to be neighbors. I feel blessed that you would consider it. Then again, you probably just liked the neighborhood, not us. Mandy, the last comment was for you. I didn't want to ruin it and say something serious. Thanks for putting up with me.


• Mailman, thanks for coming on Saturday. We got two unexpected refund checks and a giftcard in the mail.


• Nate, thanks for answering the question, "What do you want me to do?" on every other breath for three straight days.


• Rebecca, Emily, and Mary Kate, thanks for cleaning the kitchen floor.


• Charles and Dean, thanks for letting me grout the tile in the bathroom. It was the highlight of my work week.


• And a the biggest thanks goes out to Kim. Thank you for two wonderful years. I can't imagine them having gone any better. I look forward to all the rest. There are so many corny, over used, played out cliches that I could use, but the simplest way I can put it is that you are the greatest blessing God has ever given me. I love you.

Like I said, there are more things than I could ever type. I could never list all the many great friends, the many people that did superb work this weekend, and all the small blessings I am grateful for. I actually feel overwhelmed with thanks right now.

What are you thankful for?

So, recently MLB announced the winners of their Manager of the Year awards. The American league winner was pretty much a gimmie. I mean, who would have thunk it? Imagine you are on a deserted island locked in an underground room that looks like it could be used to do experiments on dolphins, and Benjamin, I mean, someone tries to tell you that the Detroit Tigers went to the World Series this year. No way, you believe them. But, yeah, it happened. So, definitely, Jim "I am quickly approaching the average age of the cast of Cocoon, but I can still smoke a carton of cigarettes during a rain delay." Leyland deserves the award.

But, Anyway, that is not the story. The story is that Joe Girardi of the Florida Marlins, (well, formerly of the Florida Marlins) won the award for the National League. Yes, the same Joe Girardi that was fired by the Marlins on October 3. How can that be? How can you win the award for being the best coach and get fired in the same year? It just seems like that should not happen.

Just to note, Ken Macha of the A's finished third in the voting for the American League MoY. Oh yeah, he was fired, too.

What does it take to keep your job as a major league skipper?

Don't you hate it when something good, something with so much potential to make the world a better place, turns out to be bad for you, or even worse bad for all the humans.

Take for example, the Big Mac. The Big Mac used to be so yummy with its two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun goodness. Then, one day Captain Healthly Man Dream Smasher swooped down and revealed to the world that the Big Mac has like 5,000 calories and is a one way ticket to an acute myocardial infarction. Now, I have to feel like my arteries are clogging more with every bite of my burger and fries. Or, I have to think about how I could have ordered the fruit parfay or a salad shaker.

Anyway, the thing that is all the rage with the kids these days, well, pretty much with everyone is My Space. I think my space is an awesome idea. It is a great online community. I think it has tons of positives, like bringing together old friends, and promoting local bands, and such. But, I read this article today that adds fuel to my fire about my space being shady.

The article is about how some official in Texas wants my space to remove profiles for death row inmates. Myspace.com: a place for friends, and criminals sentenced to death. I mean, it sounds like a good marketing plan. Just think about how many people we have in our prison systems. That is what you call an untapped market.

With little regulation on who can and cannot have a profile, my space lends it self to this sort of thing. What's probably worse are the people not behind bars, that should be, that are on the site. I mean, we have all probably heard some horror story about how some sex offender got in touch with a minor over the internet.

It is a shame that something with so much positive potential has these negative drawbacks.

Dang you trans fat!

So, whilst surfing the internet, I came upon Jason Ashdown's blog and noticed a post from a from a few weeks ago about a conference that Rob Bell is putting on at Mars Hill. I went to the site to get more info and found this funny question and answer.

Q: What will the weather be like in Grand Rapids, MI during the seminar in January?
A: The weather will be cold, with a high probability of snow, wind, and bitter rain that makes you wish you were somewhere else. This is not a seminar for the faint of heart. Grand Rapids is not for sissies.

This kind of makes me want to go even more.

I feel from time-to-time like I want to blog, but then life gets in the way. Most of the time when the urge hits, I am on the clock. Some of you know that I work for a company that is pretty flexible, but every time I get the urge to blog while at work I think back to this ethics video they had us watch a while back.

In a very cheesey dialog between two co-workers, it actually addressed blogging on company time. The girl in the video noticed that the timestamps on her friend's blogs were often during working hours. So, the girls goes on to tell her friend how he should not be blogging on company time, and he says "Good idea." and the video ends.

Well, being the problem solver I am I think about how I could change the timestamp on the posts to look like I they were posted in off hours. Then, that leads me to think about the moral, or ethical, (I'm not sure which word fits better here.) implications of my actions, and about this time, I realize that it is not the ethics that are stopping me. I is more likely the knowledge that I work for the man at a technology company where I already know internet traffic is tracked. So, they could probably, if they really felt like it, figure out when I post on my blog.

I the end, I realize that it just isn't worth it to waste my time at work posting to a web site where there is a good chance that no one is ever going to read it anyway.

Oh yeah, the point of me writing was to share an interesting blog that I read just now. I am not a frequent reader of the Dilbert blog. I just happened upon it because I have a friend that subscribes to it. Well todas post, I found quite enjoyable.
Check it out if you like.