I am passing on the pig this year, but rather going with a Mexican Fiesta for the Fish Roast this year.  Should be a good time with my Chicago Bears taking on the local favorite Bengals.  If anyone is in Cincinnati, please come out:

About a year ago, I wrote about how I was having a pig roast and built a nice little home for the swine.  Well, I knew my wife wouldn’t allow a cinder block crib of sort in our backyard for too long so we
decided to make some changes to our yard.  Our backyard was sloped severely to the back of our property, and the previous owners had some sort of weed garden on the hill that we weren’t so crazy about.

Back in April, we found out we were getting a decent tax return, so we thought we should put it toward fixing up the backyard.  I don’t think we really knew what we were getting into, because as of October 7 (only six months later), the wall finally reached the top level.  For a while, every room in our house was covered in dust from the various trucks going from the front to the back of the house thousands of times.  And now, it has been raining for the last month, so now instead of dust in the house, our shoes are all caked in mud.

We had to go through a full engineering process, go to the city a few times for permits, get endless rounds of bids, but Paramount Landscaping finally started work the second week of August.  Below is a decent timeline of the events with the photos:

This is the shot from my office looking down on the backyard, we had a
driveway and about 15 feet of grass before the slope went down to the
bottom level where are son’s swing set is located.

From the bottom looking up, you can see just how overgrown and jungle like that hill was.  We also had some run down stairs in the middle which broke during the pig roast last year.

Here is the shot after all the plants/weeds have been cleared from the hill and the footer of the wall dug out.  we also had to remove a large amount of Honeysuckle trees from the back of the house.  You couldn’t see our neighbors house before all of this removal.

The wall finally getting started on Aug 20.  The big space behind the bricks is for the ‘geogrid‘.  I, of course, had no idea how the process would work, but was shocked how tedious the work on the geogrid has been.  A layer of fine gravel and a layer of sand had to be laid on a mesh mat every two levels of bricks for the entire height of the wall 12 feet behind the face.

Good shot of the time consuming process of laying this geogrid every two levels of brick.

The stairs have been quite the undertaking as well, this is when they were about half way up to the top of the wall.  We had some lighting put into the wall for the steps as well.

I figured I would use my son Charlie as a measuring stick.

For awhile I thought Charlie was growing more quickly than the wall.

That idea changed with this shot…

Here it is, with the wall completely up to the top on October 7.  We still have a bunch of work going on with the stairs, the lower level and the upper level, but I’ll have to put up another post in six weeks when then is all completed

Not sure why I thought of this today, maybe it is the annoyance of Brett Favre or the football season, but I started thinking of a Sunday Night Football game at Soldier Field in 2000 with featured the Bears vs. the Packers.  I think it will go down as quite possibly one of the most moronic, yet comical maneuvers I have ever pulled.

The only bad thing about night football games is that it leads to endless hours of tailgating, which normally leads to endless hours of drinking.  I am going to use that as my excuse, in advance, for this story.

I did feel kind of blessed as Bears/Packers is always a big game, and then throw a nationally televised night game and it goes to a whole new level.

One other item is back at this time, I was told that season ticket holders could basically sell their tickets back to Ticketmaster and Ticketmaster would then attempt to sell them.  Because of this, I searched for tickets at Ticketmaster.com probably 500 times during that week, hoping some good seats would become available.  In a weird twist of fate, on search number 501 I found two tickets about 25 rows up at the 50 yard line in old Soldier Field.

We had probably 15 people at the tailgate, had a good time, for some reason someone brought a bottle of Goldschlager, which I feel was passed around until it was gone.  We made our trek into the game and found our nearly perfect seats.  The fireworks they have before a night came were awesome, and the crowd was going crazy.  Then unfortunately reality set in, and the Packers started pulling away in the second half and beat the Bears 28-6.  Our seats were behind the Packers bench, and as the game got more out of hand, some of the Packers were talking with the crowd by us.  It was at this time, my warped mind came up with an idea that I stole from my Dad from stories I heard from him as a kid…go on the field.

To take a step back, for some reason my Dad’s favorite line is, ‘Act like you own the place’.  I guess this worked for him, because he told me stories of him in his 20s  of how he snuck into both the Notre Dame football locker room after a game, and into the Chicago Bull’s locker room with my uncle and took Benny The Bull’s cape.

Not sure if I was trying to keep the Fish family tradition going, or what I was thinking, as I am anal about rule following to this day.  My wife makes fun of me for this just about daily.  Lets put it this way, you would never see me in the express lane in the grocery store with 11 items.

So I said to my buddy PG, “when the game ends, lets go on the field”.  He really didn’t even elicit a response, might have been sleeping wondering why we were still at the game when it was a blow out.  I repeated myself, and he proceeded to ask me if I was nuts. I then told him, ‘You do what you want, but I’m going on the field after the game.’ To which I still think he thought I had a screw loose and was probably not going to go through with it.

We sit through another agonizing ten minutes of a Bears defeat, and when the game ends and gun sounds, I make my way down the stairs instead of up. There is security standing at the entrance to the field behind the Packers bench, but I briskly walk past him like I knew what I was doing, and he didn’t even flinch. Next thing you know I am behind the bench by the Gatorade coolers, when the thought enters my mind of, ‘hmm, ok, what do I do now?’ I decide that my best option is to try to get to the Bears locker room. So I follow the players back to one end zone, and cross over to the other side of the field back to the tunnel to the Bears locker room, where a security guy politely tells me that I need a special pass to get back there. I was nearly defeated at this point, but then remembered that there are two teams, so made my way back across to the tunnel to the Packers locker room. This time I had learned my lesson, and wedged myself between two players and a trainer and made it right through security and am now back in the tunnel. Again, I didn’t have any real solid plan, so I was just going with the flow. After walking about 100 yards, a door opens and media and camera men start to enter. I give a quick look and realize it is a small room that the hold the post game press conferences in. I figured it would be kind of exciting to watch the press conference live, so I attempt to go into this room. A security guard again stops me and says I am not allowed in without a press pass. I immediately give a stern, “I’m with him”, and point to the camera guy next to me entering the press room. The camera guy, who I of course don’t know, and never even spoke to, gives an affirmative nod to the security guy and I’m now in the press room with the scribes. I was probably in there ten minutes, and Ted Thompson, the General Manager of the Packers came out and was taking questions. It was at this point when I came to the realization that it was extremely boring. Staple questions…canned responses, everyone seemed resigned to the fact that their time was being wasted, but I guess that is the life of a sports writer. It was at this point something to the likes of pure magic happened, a side door of this small room opened and the Packers locker room was now open to the media!

I strolled in to what looked like a wasteland of crumpled athletic tape thrown everywhere and a copious amount of giant naked men. If you are sensing a common theme here, its that I had no plan of what to do, it wasn’t like I had an agenda. As I walked through trailing the reporters, what to I see? A buck naked Brett Favre coming out of the shower with a towel over his shoulder. I immediately walked over to him and congratulated him on the win and shook his hand (while keeping direct eye contact). He went with, “Thanks buddy, I really appreciate it.” Now, I’m sure there are a lot of men who have shaken Brett Favre’s hand over the years, but how many of them could say they did it while he was completely naked. I would have to imagine that I am in a rather exclusive club. I managed to make my way near his locker and pocketed his game sock, as a momento. I figured that would be the highlight of the night, and should have just left, but I got kind of greedy.

I started walking around talking to players. I talked with John Thierry for a good five minutes about how intense the practice during the week and how they can give their bodies time to heal, he was a super nice guy. I then just started hanging behind the camera men as they taped interviews at player’s lockers, I was having the time of my life. It was at about this time a guy grabbed my arm and rightfully informed me that I had no business being in the locker room, and that I was going to jail. I looked at him as if his statement was absurd, and told him that I was let in by a member of the Packers media, and this must be a misunderstanding. I exited the locker room with this large man, and the head of the Packers media relations was just outside the door. I told him the same story, that I was there with a member of the media and wasn’t trying to cause any trouble. He asked me the name of the guy, and I absolutely no clue to this day where I pulled this name from, but I went with “Ron Schmedly”. He said, he wasn’t sure he was familiar with Ron. I then went with this sweet line. “Listen, I am not trying to cause any trouble for myself, or especially Ron. He was nice enough to let me in, and I understand I don’t have a pass, so I’ll just quietly leave.” They bought it for some reason and I left.

Next comes another bizarre moment as where I was let out was right where the Bears leave the locker room. There were probably 50 fans hanging out waiting for autographs, behind a small baracade. I decided to hang around as people were yelling for Brian Urlacher, Mike Brown and people like that. I then see Paul Edinger, the Bears kicker come out, and he is so small, that nobody realizes that is who it is. Paul happened to make a 52 yard field goal that night, so when he walks by, I go with, “Hey Paul, great kick tonight, that was a long one”. He stops in his tracks, walks over to me, puts his hand out, I’m thinking the handshake is coming, but he grabs my hand pulls it in and goes for the big one armed man hug “Thanks, man, thanks for coming out, just wish we could have got the win”. I couldn’t believe it, most guys blow off the fans, this guy over and we practically made out. I figured that was a perfect way to end the night.

As I was walking back to the car, it hit me that I was supposed to be driving two people home, and it was now a good 90 minutes after the game. I make the crazy long walk back to the car, parking lot is practically empty, pick up my phone to 12 messages from the crew wondering what happened to me, as PG last saw me making my way into the tunnel. The guys ended up getting a ride with someone else, and of course wouldn’t believe a word I told them, and I just kept yelling, “I have the sock to prove it”.

Now I spend nights watching Thomas the Train or Disney on Ice, not bad, but the memories of being 22 and a complete idiot still make me laugh.

The world has seen University of Oregon’s LeGarrette Blount punch Boise State’s Byron Hout way too many times.  I will be the first to say that Blount went to a state of insanity afterward trying to go into the crowd to fight, which skews my opinion, but it seems a bit crazy to end this kid’s career over a horrible indiscretion that was brought on directly from baiting from Hout.

If you have been living under a rock for the last week, I posted the video below.  Blount was a 2nd team pre-season All American running back, playing the first game of his senior season , on national television as the kickoff game of the college football season.  His team gets beat, he has a horrible game, eight rushes for minus five yards.  I would have to imagine it wasn’t the start he or Oregon was looking for.  Also, football is much different than baseball or basketball.  You are awarded for your unbridled aggressiveness and physicality.  It is a game of controlled rage, so emotions are many times off the charts.

Fast forward to the end of the game, Blount is walking to the Oregon sideline and Hout runs at him, slaps him on the shoulder pad and yells something at him, with a big smirk on his face.  Blount responds by taking a swing at him within a second of hearing what Hout had to say.  It is hard for me to believe that it could be considered a ’sucker punch’.  A sucker punch is when you sneak up on someone and they have no idea what is coming.  I don’t condone what Blount did, but I have a strong feeling that the whole story has not come to light for some reason.

People from Oregon have stated that either Hout asked Blount how one of his dead relatives are doing (who passed away the week prior), or used a racial slur.  If this is indeed the case, it still might not warrant an immediate punch in the face, but suspension for the rest of the season, and probably ending any shot at a professional career, that seems far too harsh.

If Byron Hout was a real man, he would stand up and disclose exactly what was said to Blount.  In the end, it all could have been avoided by Hout celebrating the victory with his teammates instead of making a point to go after someone on the opposing team.  The media loves to vilify people, which they have done endlessly with Blount, but Hout stepping forward, and everyone knowing the whole story could cast a much different light on this unfortunate situation.

This economic downturn has affected a wide range of people in this country.  In the last 12 months, both of my parents as well as my brother and sister lost their full time jobs.  Everyone does their best to remain positive, says things such as “hey, we are all healthy, we will be fine”, but there is no doubt it is an unprecidented difficult time upon us.

I’ve done my best to remain upbeat, using that “healthy” mantra, watching family and friends go through a tough stretch, and have constantly fallen back on the fact that I have a wonderful wife and two healthy kids.  However, over the past two months, that positive outlook took a rough turn for the worse, and a strange long distance encounter, was what I needed to snap out of it.

Our second son Carter was born just before Christmas.  As I wrote in a previous post, I am deathly afraid of child birth.  Nicole had a horrible pregnancy with the our oldest son, and the birth was just as bad.  For some crazy reason, the pregnancy was completely uneventful with Carter.  I kept joking that it was like she wasn’t even pregnant.  The birth was a little rough, but hey, he and his mom were healthy, and it was a great Christmas.

Around May 15, I went to Columbus on a weekend golf trip with some friends.  We do it every year, and it never fails to be a relaxing good time with the boys.  This year, right before we were going to start playing our first round, my wife called to tell me that our four month old baby Carter needed a CAT-scan right away and that his head was not growing correctly, and the doctors were ‘alarmed’.  This of course floored me, like it would any parent.  We were able to get the scan 36 hours later, and to sit there to watch your little guy get tied to a table for one of these is not exactly something I would recommend.  Thankfully, it turned out that the his brain was fine, but that he just needed to get fit with a corrective helmet to wear for two to three months.  The helmet isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it sure doesn’t make me feel good to strap it on his head and watch him start cursing at me in baby talk.

Our older son Charlie was born with a club foot.  He had to wear numerous casts for a few months and then wore corrective shoes until he was almost two years old.  At that time, it looked as if everything was healed.  He now has to go in once a year to see how things are coming along.

We just returned from a trip to Walt Disney World for his 4th birthday.  He had the time of his life, going on every single ride possible, as well as going down the hotel water slide 57 times in one day.  He did have a bit too much fun the night of his birthday,as evidence with this picture of him throwing up after eating a sundae and sprinting to the monorail to get back to the hotel before the water slide closed.  I mention it because he is a normal, hyper, crazy young boy, running around everywhere.  After his third birthday, he had his annual checkup on his foot and they said everything looked great.  He went for his last check up just Monday, and not so great.  We were told that the foot is growing incorrectly, and that he needs to have surgery to correct it.  He will be put under, have to stay the night in the hospital and be in a non weight bearing cast for six weeks.  This one was like a punch in the face to me.  It is one thing to have to put a helmet on a baby, but to put a crazy four year old in a cast and not be able to walk for at least six weeks…I still can’t imagine what it is going to be like.  I just feel so bad for the guy, and I was getting to a point where I was maybe feeling a little bit sorry for myself.

Sometimes it takes strange things to make you change your perspective, or maybe a random occurrence that makes you take a step back and assess the situation at hand.  Tuesday night, Nicole and I went to see The Dave Matthews Band at Riverbend here in Cincinnati.  I think I’ve probably been to 20 of his concerts over the past 15 years, and its a summer tradition.  Thanks to my buddy and co-worker, Brock Boser being in the Dave Matthews Band fan club all these years, we are able to get excellent seats.  This year was no exception as we were on the right side of the stage in the fifth row.  As we were hanging out listening to the music, due our seat locations, I was able to see some people somewhat back stage, but actually on the side of the stage opposite from us.  For some reason, my eye stopped on what appeared to be a family.  It was a mother, father, and what looked to be a college aged girl in a wheelchair, looking very ill.  For some reason I kept looking over there, and noticed the joy on the parents’ faces as they constantly looked at their daughter who was 25 feet away from the band watching them play.  It was kind of neat to see a group of people sharing a really poignant and somewhat private moment together, knowing their daughter was having a great time.  I pointed out the family to Nicole with the realization that in the big picture, our minor health problems with our children were not that bad.

About 45 minutes later in the show, in between songs, Dave Matthews says, “This one goes out to our new friend Natalie, who came to see us tonight.  I know it was difficult for you to get here, but we appreciate it.”  It was the coolest thing, because I’m pretty sure, absolutely nobody else in that 15,000 seat ampitheater besides the band and the crew knew who or what he was talking about.  I look over and both the mom and dad are hugging Natalie and both wiping tears from their faces.  I just thought it was so neat to do that in a way to not make a spectacle of the situation, or himself, but just that little message had to have meant the world to that family and sick girl.  The band then played the song ‘Grey Street’, which the lyrics do seem quite relevant, and a Dave Matthews geek next to me said to his friend that they have never played that song the whole tour.

It is not the best practice to have to see someone in a worse situation, to understand that what you have is not that bad, but that is exactly what happened to me that night. To witness the look on the parents face towards their child, I think it is something you only begin to understand as you become a parent.  Regardless, it was a really neat moment, and I earned some new respect for Dave Matthews for gesture he made, and from this day on, if I hear Grey Street, I will think of she and her parents.

Get well soon Natalie!!

The actual anniversary of the Columbine massacare was April 20, but I just finished a riveting book by Dave Cullen, on the events of that day and the aftermath of the tragedy. 

Every person has their own unique interests, and I’ve noticed that I am fascinated to read and learn about how people and media react in times of ‘unpresidented tragedy’, so to speak.  One example I can think of took place after President Kennedy was assinated in 1963.  It was immediately decided to swear in Lydon Johnson as the 36th president of the United States on board of Air Force I with the poor widowed Jackie Kennedy standing next to him in a outfit still covered in her husband’s blood.  There was no need for that symbolic act to take place so quickly in the midst of a tragedy, but they felt it was needed to show the country and the world, that America would continue to function undeterred, and I think they made the correct decision.

There are countless other instances, that I find intriguing, as how resillient Mayor Guilliani was essentially during the attacks of 9/11, saying ‘we will rebuild’ (even though nothing is even close to rebuilt almost eight years later).  It was reassuring the the country during a time of complete pandemonium.  Upon reading Cullen’s book Columbine, there were numerous decisions made by law enforcement and media that were both hastily and incorrectly made, and most of the public still is not aware of these mistakes.

It was widely reported that these kids, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were out to “kill the jocks” and exact revenge on people who picked on them.  The truth was that they had no premedited victims.  They simply wanted to kill everyone in the school and out do their idol, Timothy McVeigh, who orchestrated the Oklahoma City bombings in 1995, killing 168 people.  They plotted out in every way how they could kill the most possible students and teachers.  Harris and Klebold planted two giant propane tanks in the cafeteria of the school, and set a timer for the bombs to detonate at exactly 11:13, which they studied to be the highest traffic point in the cafeteria.  They also loaded their cars with homemade napalm bombs to go off one hour after the bombs in the cafeteria with the hopes of many more casualties from rescue workers and students who managed to escape the carnage inside.  This information was given to the media within days of the attack, but it was as if media’s story was already written.  Two shy goth boys who wanted to get back at the jocks that picked on them.  That story might have been convenient, and make other schools around the country take a hard look at hazing, but it was far from the truth. These boys were simply sociopaths.

The media also botched the story of Cassie Bernall, who lost her life that day.  A student who was in a state of shock immediately after the attack told a story that one of the killers asked her if she believed in God, and she answered ‘yes’, the killer laughed asked why, and then killed her with his sawed off shotgun.  The media ran with this story, and it was on every major news channel and newspaper.  The problem was that conversation never took place.  There are numerous studies that people at the scene of a crime tend to not be the best eye witnesses, due to the trama but at least five other students in the Columbine library at that time refuted that story, but no media outlets seemed to want to recant that story, and Cassie’s parents have dealt with not only the loss of their daughter, but her immediate rise to what some called sainthood, to then accused of trying to capitalize off of an untrue story by writing a book about her life.

You also have to take a look at the police.  They had detective John Stone, a man who had been Sheriff in Jefferson County for less than two years, and was more of a politician than a tactical sherriff.  it took them over four hours to storm the building at 3:20, incorrectly thinking it was a hostage standoff, when the shooters committed suicide three hours earlier at 12:08, allowing more than one student and faculty member to pass away due to the delay in sending in the SWAT team.  The only good to come out of that bad decision, was a change in all future similar situations, putting in place the Immediate Action Rapid Deployment tatic and may help saved some lives in the future.

When the attack was in progress, students fleed the building as quickly as possible.  The police and rescue teams had the students run into a large field behind the school.  Of course parents were all mortified, but couldn’t get to the school as a huge area had been roped off by police.  The parents were told to go to Leawood Elementary where the kids would be bussed over from the field.  Bus after bus arrived with families reuniting, and others wondering if their kids were still inside the school.  The police knew that 12 children were killed, but were not ready to tell the parents, so they instead gave them the false hope that one more bus was on the way.  As two hours went by, the parents rightfully wanted answers, doubting there was any additional busses, and it was only then that they were told their kids had been senselessly killed that day.

A decision was also made to leave the bodies of two deceased students in the parking lot of Columbine High School for over 48 hours, without even any covering.  The police stated fear that some of the bodies could have been staged with explosives when moved, but it stole the dignity of these two teenagers.  I can’t even wrap my head around how difficult it must have been for the parents of those two students, knowing their child’s deceased body lay in a parking lot covered in snow.

Overall, it was a horrible day in America, ruined the lives of many families, and made everyone feel a little less safe about going to school or sending their children to school.  The only positive you can possibly take out of it, is that we learn from the mistakes made by both the Sherriff’s Department and the media, and don’t repeat those same mistakes in another moment of tragedy.

I have been resisting Twitter for a good year now, but finally had to give in.  When Oprah speaks, people listen.  Last year when she had Jeff Bezos from Amazon to talk about the Kindle, sales for the Kindle skyrocketed, and it was out of stock for months.  So when I walked in the room and saw my wife watching an Oprah episode with Evan Williams,the CEO of Twitter, it was obvious that it was about to blow up even more, if that is even possible.  Well, it sure was possible, as some are suggesting that maybe over 1,000,000 people have signed up for Twitter within days of the Oprah episode. and as much as 37% of visits to the home page in days following episode were new users.

I guess in my mind, I didn’t care too much to hear what Ashton Kutcher was eating for dinner, or that one of my random friends were ‘going to the gym’.  However, in this period of over informing everyone, I decided to jump in.  You can follow me on Twitter right here.  I plan on using it as a vehicle for random thoughts, really the same as this blog but on a much more condensed level.  I’ll be posting snippets on business, the economy, sports, and breakfast customs.  I will say, that in my life I have never seen just hype for a product or service that Twitter has had over the last two months.  The buzz has been incredible, especially for something that is not hot off the shelves, but there is no doubt that the “Oprah Effect” helps.

Yes, I am a Chicago Bears fan, so it was instilled in me at an early age to hate anything and everything that has to do with the Green Bay Packers, but I secretly have always had some admiration for the “gunslinger”.  He was what football should be all about, being tough, commradderie, and having fun.  His yearly charade of retirement has turned from comedy, to sheer disgust.  I am pretty sure he started hinting at retirement each year starting in 2002.  He then finally made up his mind and sat up at a press conference with the Packers in 2007 and cried about how is body just couldn’t do it anymore, and he was ready to walk away to spend more time with his family.  Of course that lasted a few months until his ego decided that he couldn’t handle people not talking about him day after day.  So he starts this big saga of putting the Packers in a horrible situation asking to release him so he could play somewhere else, all of this during training camp for the 2008, after the Packers have already invested in Aaron Rodgers to take over.

After weeks of endless media speculation, the Packers finally released him and he jumped ship to the New York Jets, where he started off hot and faded down the stretch.  After the 2008 season he retired again.  He even made fun of himself in an interview about all of his retirements.  Here we are today, May 7, and the lead story on ESPN is that the Vikings are flying to to Mississippi to meet with Brett about joining them for next season.  Are you kidding me?

Rodger Clemens did the exact same thing numerous times.  In 2003, the Yankees played the Florida Marlins in the World Series.  Before the playoffs Clemens had said that the 2003 season would be his last.  He started game four of the series in Miami.  When he came out of the game in the bottom of the 8th, the Marlin fans rose in unison to give him a standing ovation.  I thought that was rather impressive when a visiting player gets a standing ovation from the home crowd, especially during the World Series.

It quickly became much stranger as the entire Marlins team came out of the dugout to give Clemens a standing ovation.  I have never seen anything like that in my life, an unbelievable sign of respect for a player deemed as one of the best pitchers ever, leaving the field for the last time.  It was one of those moments when you are watching a sporting event, and you know you will remember it for the rest of your life.  The only problem with it, was that Clemens completely contradicted himself and was back with the Yankees in 2004, and probably would still be pitching today if he wasn’t in the middle of the biggest steroid case in the history of sports.  Now, I vividly remember that moment, but more so as the moment when I stopped caring if an athlete spoke of retirement.

Jeff Pearlman wrote fascinating book on Clemens and spoke extensively about his ego.  In the end, to be a professional athlete, you have to have some sort of an ego.  In order to be in the top .1% of society in a specific skill, you have to believe you are that talented, so having an ego is a good thing to a certain extent.  Unfortunately, when your playing days are over, that ever growing ego still needs to be fed, and these two men are perfect examples who can’t bear to live outside of that spotlight.  It could be a byproduct of our society and semi worship of athletes that has created people like these two men, but to me, if you say you are hanging it up, accept praise and adulation from everyone, then go the exact opposite direction, you are a hippocrite and you have lost the respect of a lot of people, myself included.

We are in the middle of the second ‘Great Depression’.

The world is collapsing as we know it.

Capitalism is dead!

I think we have seen an interesting change of sentiment over the last six weeks or so.  It seems that the United States as a whole is sick and tired, of being sick and tired.  The economic quagmire we are currently in is going on its 18th month.  In our fast paced society, that is an extremely long time.  Since March 6, the Dow has been up over 20%, and is currently in the middle of a six week up streak.  Is everything great?  Of course not, but we are seeing plenty of signs that things are beginning to level off. Not to mention, I was extremely excited to find a picture of what appears to be a happy stock broker.  It sure beats the pictures in this FaceBook Group.

Of course you could look at standard economic measures, such as mortgage applications coming back to life, the banks are actually showing profits, we had the first successful IPO in over a year last week, and there have been ten M&A deals in the last two weeks alone.

You could also look at it from more of a high level perspective.  I spent all of last week in Florida, at our home on Anna Maria Island.  I have been visiting there for six years now, and I have NEVER seen it as crowded as it was last week.  I spoke to people at restaurants and they indicated that it was the busiest they have been in five years.  I saw a line of 30 people waiting outside of an ice cream shop just to get in.  I guess you could be cynical and say that many of these people were driving to Florida for Spring Break in lieu of a more extravagant trip, or “going to visit the grandparents”, but in the end, people were out vacationing and spending money.  The government has infused hundreds of billions of dollars into the banks, and companies like AIG, but there is no question that consumer spending, which accounts for two thirds of our overall economy, is what is going to get our economy back going in the right direction.

Yes, millions of people have lost their jobs in this downturn , and millions more will in the remainder of this year, but signs of recovery are beginning to pop up in many places.  We as Americans are quite resilient and it will be exciting to watch us crawl out of this and get people working again.

Each year when Spring rolls around and the Masters tournament looms, it makes me remeniss about what to this day was the single best moment of my life.  Of course I have the day each of our two children were born, and my wedding, but as far as a ‘moment’, what took place in 1997 could never be topped.  It feels kind of strange to put the details together of a personal story, but in these trying times, with millions of people losing their jobs, and 401Ks, I think it serves as a good message for overcoming a difficult time, and how sometimes it just takes a little luck, and your life can change for the better.

I played baseball at Xavier University here in Cincinnati, and came in as a freshman from a small highschool in Indiana in the fall of 1995.  I of course had no idea if I would play, or how I would do, but as an 18 year old, baseball was the most important part of my life by far.  I was lucky enough to start about half of the games my freshman year in the outfield.  I didn’t do anything special, but it was productive.  I vividly remember driving back home for the summer and knowing that two ouf our starting outfielders were graduating that I would be a full time starter going forward.  I couldn’t wait to get back to school and start fall practice my sophomore year.

Things changed after only one practice.  Yes, the two seniors graduated, but two freshman came in.  One ended up playing in the Major Leagues for two different teams, and the other was a 6′ 4″ switch hitter with an unreal throwing arm.  I quickly realized that me being in the starting lineup wasn’t going to be a given.  There was no doubt in my mind that these two guys had better skills than I did.

When I came back after Christmas break and we started getting ready for the season, I was absolutely horrible.  It was laffable how poorly I was hitting the ball, people go through slumps, but WOW was I bad.  We made our annual spring trip to Jacksonville to play 15 games and I played sparingly.  It was very difficult to swallow, but its not like I thought I wasn’t getting a fair shake by the coach, there were simply better players than me.

Around mid March, my parents came down to watch a weekend series at Xavier.  In a double header on Saturday, I didn’t even get off the bench.  That night at dinner, I told my parents that I wanted to transfer.  I still loved baseball, and enjoyed Xavier, but was competitive, and wanted to go somewhere where I would play.  My parents were a bit shell shocked as they had no idea I was feeling that way.   It was a horrible feeling to try to come to grips that I wasn’t good enough to play at Xavier.

The next Tuesday came along, and we played Kentucky at home.  In the first inning, our left fielder, Matt Watson, who has played with both the Mets and Athletics, had a line drive hit to him.  He dove and jammed his finger and he ended up breaking it.  I came in for him, and happened to go 3-4.  The next day was another 3-4 with a home run.

That weekend, we had our biggest conference rival, Virginia Tech coming into town, for a three game series on Saturday and Sunday.  After practice on Friday, Coach Morrey said to us that these three games would be the most important games ever played on our home field.  Obviously I was excited, as I was going to the on the field and part of it.  Once again, my parents made the drive down to Cincinnati.  We split the games on Saturday, and I had another good day hitting with a couple home runs.  The winner of the Sunday game would put that team on top of the Atlantic 10.

We had a back and forth game on Sunday, and were down by three in the bottom of the 9th.  We mounted a comeback, and I came up with runners on first and second with two outs, with us down by two runs.  I was down to my last strike and things weren’t looking good.  I got a high fastball, and hit it to left center field.  I was caught up in the moment, but as I was rounding first base I saw it clear the fence for a home run and we won the game.  I have never, and will never, experience the kind of euphoria felt at that moment.  The team came out of the dugout, we had a huge pile on the field, it was incredible.  When I saw my parents afterward, my Mom was sobbing, and I think its the only time in my life that I saw my Dad shed a tear.  It was as if I was having an out of body experience.

That afternoon we went to a restaurant and watched Tiger Woods win his first Masters, which has turned out to be a watershed moment in the sports world.

In the end, the people who cared about Xavier Baseball at that time, were probably limited to the guys on our team and our families, so it really wasn’t that big of a deal.  However, for me, it was the watershed moment of my life.  I went on to start every game the rest of my career, and was named captain of the team.  If I would have left Xavier, its doubtful I would have met my wife, or remained good friends with the teammates I spent four years with at Xavier.  I certainly would not be living in Cincinnati today. That one single moment, taught me that you can come out of tough times on top.  I actually think about that day probably more than I should 12 years later, but for me it is less about the fact that I hit a ball over a fence, and more about the pure unadulturated joy that I had at that moment, and sharing it with my family.