With everyone watching the Super Bowl Sunday, and Tiger off hiding in a rehab clinic, not many people watched the Farmer’s Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, the site where Tiger outlasted Rocco Mediate on one leg in the 2008 US Open.  However, being that I am a self-admitted golf nerd, I still had the tournament on most of the time.  The winner was Ben Crane, and the only fact I knew about him was that he is known as the slowest player on tour and other players can’t stand being paired with him due to his snail like pace.

Fast forward to Sunday.  Crane is holding a one stroke lead going into 18, which is a par 5.  He plays the hole rather safely, and taps in a two foot putt for a par and for the victory.  Please watch the below video and see if you notice anything strange when me makes the final putt (start at the 1:30 mark)

The guy taps in and doesn’t even have a clue that he won the tournament.  When I saw this, I honestly thought it was a joke.  Then I saw his interview after, and it was it was completely truthful.  Old Ben said that he never pays attention to the leader board, goes out of his way NOT to look at the board, and instructs his caddy to never talk to him about standings.  How could this even be possible?  I thought the whole premise of sport is to, I don’t know, maybe win?  I just can’t see something like that happening in another sport.  What if he was down by a shot and had to be aggressive on the final hole, and played it safe, tapped in and lost by one?

Maybe if Peyton Manning didn’t know the Colts were down by seven Sunday in the 4th quarter, he wouldn’t have thrown the interception that cost them the game?

I was involved in a spirited debate with one of my friends at a Christmas party stating that golf was indeed a sport.  His counter argument is that you don’t sweat, you don’t run or jump, etc.  This guy pitched in the minor leagues, and my argument back was that you could say the act of pitching isn’t a sport for the very same reason.  However, I doubt that a relief pitcher would ever come into the game with blinders on, never look whose on base, no perception of the score, and just give his best effort.   I think I might have to rescind my argument.

To me its just another example of the “Wussification of America” where kids can no longer play dodge ball, or any other athletic event in P.E. class that determines a winner or loser.  God forbid they are prepared for the real world.

I really hope Ben Crane’s peers give him some serious heat, because his actions and reaction are an embarrassment to the sport, game, hobby of golf.

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.

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.

I thought when Federal investigators spent millions of dollars and years going after Barry Bonds, that Bonds would be the “poster boy” for the late 90s steroid era in baseball.  Now, with the Sports Illustrated report that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in 2003,  Alex has been thrown through the ringer the last two weeks, and seems to have done a pretty miserable job of trying to explain himself.  Here you have a guy who had already signed a
ten year contract in excess of $252,000,000.00, but he is going to play
‘amature hour’ and inject himself with a strange steroid that he
doesn’t even know how to use?  When your body is worth a quarter of a
billion dollars, I am pretty damn sure you are going to research what
you are putting into it.

He now tries to act contrite and say how sorry he
is to everyone he let down, to me, that couldn’t be further from the
truth.  He is sorry that this story has come to light.  He is sorry about the reaction, but what he should be, is enraged at Gene Orza and Donald Fehr and the baseball players union for the fact that Sports Illustrated got their hands on these test results.

The entire reason the drug test in question was institued was to get an anonymous look at baseball to see if there actually was a steroid problem, no punishments would be handed down, it was more of a census.  There were 1,200 players to be tested and if the tests results came back to show that more than 5% of Major League Baseball tested positive for steroids, they would implement a random drug testing program.  The results were coded so that two documents would be needed to determine the names.  The players seemed to know that the tests were coming and if so desired, had plenty of time to get the drugs out of their system.  Much to baseball’s chagrin, 104 players tested positive.  The Players Union is said to have notified all of those players, which included Rodriguez.  However, instead of then destroying these documents and protecting these players’ privacy, as promised, the records were kept, and were seized when a Federal investigation began into San Francisco’s BALCO labs.

So here we are, six years later and Alex Rodriguez has been thrown under the bus in front of the entire country.  Alex was one one of the 104 who tested positive, but the only one to be tarred and feathered in the court of public opinion.  Sure, his name probably carries the most cache’, but would it be right to throw out the other 103 names?  In my opinion, absolutely not.  Maybe this is happening behind the scenes, but Donald Fehr should be in full damage control mode to the members of the players union.  How they could trust anything coming out of his mouth going forward is beyond me.

Make no mistake about it, A-Rod cheated, and taking performancing drugs is wrong, but we are talking about an era where it is possible and probable that 50% of baseball were taking some sort of banned substances.  Major League Baseball cleaned up their act in 2005 when they started dolling out suspensions for positive tests, so for the most part the problem is in the past.  I am confident that most baseball fans are sick of hearing about the past, and would like to talk about what happens on the field, instead of this horrible act with completely false stories and excuses.

It is highly doutful that Rodriguez will take any legal action against the union, due to the negative publicity that would come with it, but the union is getting off much to easy in this situation.  They betrayed a tremendous amount of people and violated their privacy and should be repremanded for it.

Watching the footage yesterday of the US Airways crash into the Hudson river was simply amazing.  New York is going through a terrible time as of late.  The financial markets are a mess, Broadway shows are shutting down left and right, and overall the city seems to be in a dark malaise.  A plane crash you would think would just be one more horrible thing to add to the list, but I take it as the exact opposite.

How you could land a plane filled with 155 people in a river and come away with no serious injuries is nothing short of a miracle.  The response team of the Coast Guard and NYC water taxis was incredible.  The knowledge and skill of the pilot, Mr. Sullenberger, in such a crisis situation is beyond commendable.  I just can’t get enough of reading about this unbelievable event.

I was trying to come up with a better possible place to put a plane down in water on short notice and I’m convinced this was the best place on the globe.  I can’t imagine the response time if that were to happen on the Ohio river here in Cincinnati, it would take well over an hour to evacuate everyone, that is if the plane was still above water.

New York is an exciting, vibrant and tough city.  What took place yesterday is further indication of that.  The Big Apple deserves a pat on the back for yesterday’s heroics, it could have been a horrific tragedy at a time where the city and country as a whole is already reeling.  Instead, I believe it shows our resolve in tough situations, and maybe wishfully thinking, can be a spring board to our recovery.

The web has, without question, changed the lives of probably billions of people.  I came out of college at a perfect time to try to capitalize on this new marketplace, and it has been a blessing for myself and my family.  Anyone can start an online business, and unfortunately, thats where it seems all the small business is heading right now.

As the years go by, besides the web, it seems the ‘real world’ is becoming more and more full of corporations, and its rather disturbing.  For an example, just take a look at the way restaurants are going.  This May, we drove from Sarasota all the way up to Cincinnati.  Without fail, every single exit has the exact same chain restaurants for that stretch of 1,000 miles.  I remember thinking to myself while driving, ‘what kind of food is Georgia known for?’  After driving through the entire state, it appers that McDonalds and Subway are their speciality.

It isn’t just restaurants, two privately owned hardware stores here in Cincinnati that I used to go to have closed down within the last year.  They just cannot compete with the giant corporations of Lowe’s and Home Depot.  Before, you could walk into your local hardware store, and someone would be right there to help you find what you are looking for.  Now you have to go to this humongous warehouse and do a few laps around the place to find someone who can answer a question for you.

Sporting good stores are the same thing.  When I was ten years old, I vividly remember my dad getting me a specific Wilson A2000 baseball glove that he had to drive 30 miles to a small place in East Chicago, Indiana, AP Davis, to pick it up.  That place has since closed down as there is now a Dick’s Sporting Goods in every town.

Disney confronted this same subject with their movie Wall-e this summer, saying in the future, there will be only one store at which to shop, Buy & Large.  I’m not saying we are to that point, but the direction we are heading in is alarming.

On the flip side, the conglomerates have yet to push out the ‘little guy’ on the web.  In a sense, that is what we built our Text Link Ads business on.  Our goal was (is) to provide a service to web based businesses that gives them the opportunity to drive relevant traffic to theie website as well as rank well in the major search engines when someone is searching for their respective products or services.  When you break it down, it seems rather simple.

Using the example of the Wilson A200 baseball glove, just look at the search results.  The first page is loaded with small web based business who have worked hard to market their sites, and are put on an equal playing field with the big guys and are able to compete.  We have friends who have made great livings for themselves by jumping on an idea and starting an ecommerce store, so the opportunities are there fore everyone.

Selfishly, I hope the trend reverses with the brick and mortar businesses.  Small business, and entrepeneurship is what this country is all about.  You can be in Manhattan and eat at a different privately owned restaurant every day for something like 10 years.  My wife and I have a place on Anna Maria Island in Florida.  It has beautiful beaches and weather.  However, if someone asks about the place, the first thing I always point to is the fact that an ordinance prevents anyone from building anything higher than the tallest palm trees, and there is not a single chain restaurant on the entire island.  Which means it is not infested with one high rise condo after another or a Starbucks on every corner.  Everyone to a person, thinks that is a crazy thing in this day and age.

Walking into a small restaurant or shop where the you feel like you know the owners are the types of things that help to bring together a community.  The way things have gone in the last 15 years, it is pulling in the opposite direction.  Hopefully the current financial downturn will cause a shift in this direction, as its obvious that big business didn’t have all the answers.

At the end of the day, when my kids have grown, I hope they can grab a burger at the the neighborhood hangout that isn’t a Red Robin, and small business is still alive on main street, and not just on the internet.

Update:  I think USA Today read this entry :

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2008-12-11-anna-maria-island_N.htm

Unlike similar sunset celebrations in Florida tourist meccas such as Key West, there are no rowdy crowds, wall-to-wall bars or panhandlers. Also absent on Anna Maria are high-rise condos and chain hotels. You’ll have to drive off-island for a McDonald’s or Starbucks fix.

I had hoped to get this post out there much earlier, but after some extreme traveling over the last 10 days, I finally had a chance to get it out there.

We started the pig roast weekend off right with going golfing Friday morning.  The weather was supposed to be dicey, so all of us had quite a few layers on.  It ended up being a perfect day with temperatures in the 60s.  Those great conditions deteriorated completely by nightfall.  It began raining around 6 pm on Friday and didn’t stop until it turned into snow on Sunday.  We actually thought ahead and set up a few pop-up tents to protect ourselves from the elements.  The 86 pound guest of honor was dropped off Friday afternoon, and we put him on ice in my son’s old baby pool.  By 10 pm, we had nine guys who were at least as insane as myself who were ready and willing to brave the elements and help cook the pig.  We spent an hour or so stuffing the pig and getting it set up on the spit.  A friend of mine works in surgical sales.  I had no clue that this would qualify as experience to sew up the cavity of a pig, but Tim took care of it in no time.

We ended up getting her on the fire by midnight.  Many people would use a covered smoker for a pig roast, but we thought it would be fun to try to ‘rough it’ so to speak, so I picked up a manual rotisserie spit from eBay.  It seemed like it would work fine, we would have to make a quarter rotation every 15 minues.It seemed easy enough, but more on that later.

A quick note on the wardrobe, in my 32 years on this earth, that was the first time I have donned camouflage anything.  I figured that would be the appropriate attire for roasting a pig, and the crew seemed to get a chuckle out of it.

We set up the pit with charcoal along each of the sides with drip pans in the middle to try to prevent any flare ups as it cooked.  After two hours or so, we all seemed to be feeling pretty good about ourselves.  Everything had pretty much gone as planned at that point.  We ran into a couple of bumps, but we were mopping the beast every half hour or so, and things were looking good.  The party started to thin out around 4 am.  Some guys had gone home, a few others were getting some sleep in tents in my backyard.  At 4:30 I felt like I needed to get an hour or so of sleep.  I wasn’t as manly as some of the other guys, so I went into my house and was going to sleep on my couch.  I set the alarm for 6:00, thinking that 90 minutes of sleep would be a good thing after some adult beverages and sitting in the 40 degree rain all night.

What seemed like five minutes after lying down, my phone rang.  I popped up, assuming it was my alarm.  I looked down and it was 5:15 and it was one of my guys who was down by the fire.

“Bill, we have a problem, the spit broke, and the pig is down in the fire, you better get down here quick.”

For some reason, the first thought in my head was, ‘How am I going to be able to get in touch with 50 people and tell them the party is canceled?’  Now, I’m pretty sure, people would still come over even if the pig was slightly burned, but out of a dead sleep, I thought the world was ending.

When I got down to the fire, we had to survey the situation and wake up the guys on the sleep shift.  It appeared that the spit snapped in half and the pig had jack knifed and the back of it was down into the drip pan.  The spit was supposed to be able to withstand 120 pounds, so we couldn’t figure could how this could have happened, especially after five hours of cooking.  We attempted some ingenuity and used some cinder blocks to attempt to prop up the center of it, so it would be able to stay somewhat flat in the pit.  The problem was that we would no longer be able to turn the pig without physically picking it up.  Picking up 86 lbs of dead weight, especially when quite hot, isn’t the easiest task.

We made due with what we had to work with and finished the job around 10:30 am.  The actual party didn’t begin until 3:00 that afternoon, so we had plenty of time to do the carving and get things cleaned up.

Overall, for the first attempt,it was a good time, we had a nice crowd that afternoon, and the guys who helped out overnight had plenty of war stories to pass around.

I did learn plenty of lessons, and for the next pig roast, I would do a few things differently:

The party needs to be earlier in the year.  The wind, rain, sleet and snow are not very enjoyable while cooking.  I would also start the pig around dawn, not at midnight.  My wife was hesitant about any children seeing the pig,  I understand that, but when having a pig roast, its a must to have the pig as the centerpiece of the party, and see the guys working on it.  With the fact that the party was starting four hours after the pig was finished, it turns into a standard run of the mill dinner party.  Along the same lines, when the troopers who helped out cooking don’t get much if any sleep, it makes it pretty tough to enjoy the party the next night.  I was witness two of the guys passed out on the couch by 8 pm.

However, it was our maiden voyage, and all things considered, we did a fine job.  The food was edible, we have plenty of stories to talk about for years, and we were together with friends and family having a good time, and in the end that is what its all about.

People have different goals.  Some might want to play the guitar.  Others, maybe to run a marathon, or save up to by that dream house.  One of my goals is rather simple, Host a Pig Roast.  I have always enjoyed grilling, but now that we are back from New York, I wanted to take it to the next level and roast a pig, and I am going after it this weekend.

My wife is eight months pregnant, so I have accused her of being in the “nesting” phase for the baby.  As it turns out, I came to the realization that I have been nesting for the past two months for the arrival of the pig for the party.  Unfortunately, we have a lot of similarities.

She bought a crib for the baby’s arrival
I built a BBQ pit for the arrival of the swine.

She ordered a new stroller, car seat, etc.
I purchased 250 lbs of charcoal, some smoking wood, etc.

I’ll stop with the parallels as it is beginning to get disturbing.

The festivities begin for the boys tomorrow night.  We are going to play some cards and start prepping the beast at midnight, and putting him on the fire at 3 am.  The real party begins Saturday at 3:00 pm with wives and children.  We picked a great weekend as Saturday the weather calls for wind and snow.

The best part of it, is that I couldn’t care less about the weather, and I’m sure we will mess it up somehow, but nothing beats having a good time with friends and family.  I will post some pictures next week, and hopefully it will be a success!

There are three things I regret about college.

1. Not going somewhere that had big time college football
2. Never going on a true college spring break
3. Not going to Europe after graduation

Now I played baseball in college at Xavier University and we didn’t have a football team so that accounts for #1.  The baseball season was in full swing during spring break so that takes care of the second item, but I can’t use baseball as an excuse for #3.

I was able to go to Europe with six guys when I was 25,which included Jay Swansson and Patrick Gavin, the summer before the idea of Text Link Ads spawned. It was a great time, but going out of college is a great rite of passage for someone coming out of school and into the job market.  The life lessons and experiences are carried with you the rest of your life, which far outweigh the expense.

**As a disclaimer, yes, the economy is in the toilet and the dollar struggling against the euro, but hopefully that will be turned around by next May, when the next graduation class is ready.**

Going to another country is a lot like going to college.  I went to a  small high school in Indiana, with 110 students in my graduation class.  There were only three boys out of say 55, that went away to college.  Now there were many guys that went to the local community colleges, but only three that went away, which is pretty scary.  For me personally, it was a perfect way to grow into a man, and meet people from much different backgrounds.  It makes you realize that the world is slightly larger than the 50 mile radius you grew up in.  As I said, I grew up in Indiana and my roommates were from Wisconsin, Iowa and Pennsylvania, and we went to school in Ohio.  All of us are still good friends today.  Now mind you, I learned probably too much about turkey hunting and various other worthless items, but exposing yourself to different types of people does a lot on forming who you are as a person, and I feel better prepares you for the real world and work force.

I graduated from high school 13 years ago, and the numbers prove that a much higher percentage of kids are going to college, and being that way, a European adventure is the next step for getting someone ready for the ‘real world’.

Speaking from experience, it was incredible to see the difference in cultures of the countries, and the drastic difference in history.

When Americans want to see the history of our country, we turn to Washington D.C. or New York, but we are only roughly 230 years old.  When walking near the Vatican or the Coliseum, you get a true sense of history as those structures have been around nearly 2,000 years.  It gives you a great sense of appreciation as to what a small amount of time we have on this earth.  Below is a list of some of the lessons I have learned from the European cultures I have visited.

1. People are tremendously more laid back than Americans
2. Europeans seem to walk just about everywhere
3. They eat much less
4. They love to vacation, and make it a priority
5. They are very affectionate
6. They greatly respect history

On that first trip to Europe, we mainly visited Italy, Germany and Switzerland, so it isn’t at all fair to generalize all of those cultures into one, and some of those items listed are quite trivial, but it is an important life lesson to learn about and respect another culture from your own.  The “Go, Go, Go” attitude of Americans is laughed at in Europe.  People vacation for three weeks at a time, whereas here in the states, if you are gone for a long weekend you are glued to your Blackberry the entire time.

Besides discovering other cultures, it is also a great experience to learn about yourself and the friends you are with.  Each time I see one of those six guys that made the trip in 2001, we joke about the fun and crazy times we had over there.

I was lucky enough to go back with my wife, Nicole, in 2004.  We spent a solid two weeks backpacking and taking trains around Italy.  We would both consider it the best time we have ever had with each other.  It was before we had children, and I had basically no communication with work, so it was just the two of us with no distractions.  It was an amazing time that I am sure we will talk about until we are both old and gray.

My point to college grads is this, ‘The real world can wait’.  I have been fortunate enough to make the trip later in life, but it is ten times as difficult to do so.  It is probably the last time in your life where you don’t have a boss, a spouse, or children, so its the perfect chance to have the opportunity of a lifetime.