To retire or not to retire

It is easy to see why Wisconsinites fell in love with Brett Favre. He is a great football player. One of only two football players to be awarded MVP three consecutive years. He led the Green Bay Packers to two Super Bowls, winning one of them. He started for the Packers for 16 seasons. He has the record for most passing TDs. He became known around the world for his iconic play, putting a small city, tucked away in northeast Wisconsin, on the map. He bolstered every Wisconsinites pride for the state in which they live. The Packers, as they are known today, would not be the same franchise had they never acquired Brett Favre.

He seems likeable, like a guy you could sit down and have a beer with too. But we’ve heard that one before. Patience with Brett Favre’s actions has to be running thin around this state. I moved to Wisconsin in 2007 and followed Brett Favre through one of the most historic seasons ever. I don’t have a history of being a Brett Favre fan, but I’m saying if I did, I would be very frustrated with him at this point. Regardless, I am still frustrated with professionals that don’t know when to retire.

Brett Favre has officially retired twice, but he has put legions of fans through the ringer more than twice, by just deciding at the last minute that he will come back and play another season for the Packers. When he officially came out of retirement for the first time, he requested to be released from the Packers in order to shop himself around a little bit. He landed with the New York Jets and accused the Packers of not being straightforward with him. As I understand, the Packers were fairly straightforward, saying that the franchise was ready to move on with Aaron Rodgers at QB. Although that decision doesn’t make sense when a hall of famer wants to come back and play, that’s the decision they made and apparently told Brett Favre. That seems pretty straightforward to me.

After a season with the Jets, Favre retired for the second time in February of 2009.  Yet again, Favre doesn’t appear to be ready for retirement. Although some rumors have been dismissed, it is being reported that Favre sent x-rays to the Vikings for them to access whether or not Favre would need surgery on his throwing arm. The Vikings aren’t just another team, they are one of the Packers’ biggest rivals, a hated neighbor, and now, there are rumors of Favre being open to playing in Minnesota if the health of his throwing arm is good.

There is some truth to the platitude that it is hard for people to know when to quit, especially professional athletes. However, in the case of Brett Favre, I feel the sympathy wearing thin. The Milwaukee paper even photo-shopped a picture of Favre appearing in a Vikings jersey and donning a Vikings helmet, comparing him to Judas.

After contemplating retirement or going through with it for the last five years, Brett Favre is quickly becoming a nuisance. It makes me question his motives. It can’t possibly be that hard to know when to retire. It makes me think he just likes to get his name out there and stir up the same drama every off-season. It is confirming a premonition I’ve had that Brett Favre is more of a drama queen than a guy I’d like to have a beer with.

From Maxima to Maxima

We found this on Wednesday. We looked at a couple other sedans and quite a few SUVs, but decided an SUV is just a bit too much car for us. So, we bought this 2006 Maxima yesterday. 

Pretty big deal, buying a car for the first time. We were both quite nervous, but really excited to get the keys and drive this home. I just drove it to the supermarket this morning to buy some Fat Tire and 1554 (more on this later) and even that was thrilling. It made me want to go on a road trip. 

My old Maxima had 190 horsepower. I didn't think it was a slow car by any means. Actually, up till the last day I drove it I felt like it could take on most other cars on the road. It probably could. Lord knows I tried a few times. Take the 1996 Maxima's engine and throw in another 75 horsepower and you get our new Maxima. With 265 hp under the hood it is going to take a little time to get used to the jumpiness of the car because the lightest tap might send the car surging forward. When you feel that surge it is hard to take your foot off the pedal. You want more. You don't want to ease off.

Maximas make you want to do a lot of silly things. One reason we got another.

We took her out for a photo shoot last night even though the light wasn't great. 

They aren't chrome, but they'll do.

One of the very happy owners.

In Memoriam

Funny thing about the GRE. I took it less than an hour after I was in a 4-car accident on the interstate on the way to the testing center. Literally, my first thought after the accident was there is no effing way I am missing the GRE today. 

I was okay and so were the others involved in the accident. It wasn't my fault either. I was in the middle car of three stopped cars in stop-n-go traffic on the freeway when an unlucky girl didn't notice the cars were stopped in front of her and she slammed right into the first car. Unlucky for her because this was all her fault. Unlucky for her that the first car she slammed into, the one behind me, was a fairly new Saab that the owner had just bought a week ago. The impact of her car slammed the Saab into my Maxima and my Maxima went into the back of a pickup truck. We waited one minute for the sheriff and he took our information and I drove on to the test center in a car that didn't exactly look drivable, but it had one more place to take me and I was not going to let it die before we arrived at the final destination.

I suppose a lot of people feel the truth in this cliche before they are 26, but I feel old now that I realize there isn't anything like your first car. The Maxima was a total loss, with damages in excess of $5,000. I cleaned it out a couple days ago. No more 17-inch, chrome rims. No more black on black. 

Kate and I are buying our first car together tonight. I'll post about that later, but for now it is time to get sentimental and remember the Maxima and where she took me and many of you. She was a beautiful car.

While I was home for Easter in 2003, my parents surprised me with the Maxima. It all started with my Dad silently dangling a car key in front of me. I knew, but could not believe, what that meant. I took the key and rushed outside to the driveway and this is what I found.

Guy was with me and it was one of the most memorable experiences that I had with him. He was there for a big moment in my life. Yeah, I had the freedom to drive places before I had a car, but not the freedom that truly having your own car brings you. This was the first time I sat in the Maxima.

The Maxima, Me, and the proud parents gather together for a picture before I roll up to Laramie for the first time in my own car.

Travis, I believe, behind the wheel of the Maxima as we head out on the first leg of our move from Colorado to Milwaukee. 

The Maxima was a road trip pro. No breakdowns. No issues. This picture was taken near the end of the Maxima's last, big road trip this summer. We were almost back to Milwaukee after taking it out to Colorado and Wyoming.

Maxima covered in snow. She turned dirty when you had to drive her in snow but after a while I could even coax her through the snowbound streets of Longmont during the Christmas 2006 blizzard. 

R.I.P. Precision Driving with Erik

R.I.P. 1996 Nissan Maxima

The GRE

I took the GRE. I didn't get a perfect score. I wasn't expecting a perfect score. I wanted a score that would leave me happy. I wanted a score that would leave me feeling like it wasn't necessary to take the GRE again. I wanted to be over and done with the GRE last Thursday. 

That's exactly what happened. 

New Belgium + Milwaukee = About Freaking TIme

I saw an ad in a local paper just yesterday that I couldn't believe at first. New Belgium? Fat Tire? "Now legally cruising into America's Dairyland." ?!?

Starting tomorrow, New Belgium will be sold in Wisconsin. By mid-summer other brews (besides Fat Tire and 1554) will be available in the area.

Now we just need a Rio. 

King of Kong

I recently ran across this post at the Burnside Writer's Blog about the documentary The King of Kong. The post reminded me that I finally needed to set aside some time to watch this wildly popular film about the trials and tribulations of a man called Steve Wiebe and his arch-nemesis, Billy Mitchell, as they duke it out for the world record in the arcade version of Donkey Kong. 

Tonight, I finally watched the doc and was introduced to Billy Mitchell, or at least the objective look at Billy Mitchell through the eyes of the director of the film. Thusly, I was introduced to the most bombastic ass I have ever seen in film. The directors swear to the honest representation of Billy Mitchell in the movie. However, Mitchell disagrees and says one scene, in which Mitchell appears to snub Wiebe, has been edited in a way that paints Mitchell in a negative light. You can read about the disputed scene in the AV Club's interview with him that I linked to in the first sentence of this paragraph. 

Billy Mitchell aside, The King of Kong is a highly entertaining documentary that is as much about a man finally achieving a goal as it is about a classic arcade game. Wiebe is the guy who has always been good at a lot of different things, but being the best in the world at any one of those things has always evaded him. Wiebe looks to be on the rise in the film and over the 80 minutes of Kong, the director Seth Gordon, intricately weaves a story of the fiercely competitive classic arcade gaming world with dozens of interviews, drama, and history. 

Take any skill, no matter how extraneous it might seem, and there will be a group of people that have become so good at that one skill (in the case of this film, playing Donkey Kong), that their story will cross boundaries. Their story will encompass so much of the human struggle to overcome anything and anyone in their path that it will speak to those who aren't obsessed with the same skill. Great documentaries usually achieve this effect. King of Kong does.

Time Out

I think it is clear that I haven't had much time to devote to blogging or writing lately. That's sad, but some time away from both will be healthy. 

Don't expect anything until after this Thursday. 

That's Hott

81 in Milwaukee today. Weird.

7 Days

Next Thursday at 1pm is my date with the GRE. I find out my scores right after I finish the test. Thusly, I’ll be in one of two moods on Thursday night. Slightly buzzed to drunk with an ebullient disposition or slightly buzzed to drunk with a don’t-talk-to-me-because-I’ll-kick-your-ass disposition.

Pray that it’s the former.

Cheney Schmeney

Why should we care what Cheney thinks about the way the president is running the country? The media are sort of drooling over this guy right now like he was some sort of success over the last eight years. Correct me if I am wrong, honestly, but I’m pretty sure most everything about the United States has gone to hell in the last eight years. Cheney manipulated Bush like a puppet and, in turn, the American people.

I’m pretty sure a majority of Americans feel the same way. Oh wait, yep. I am sure about that one. See November 4^th.  Enough with Cheney. How can anyone determine the efficacy of an administration’s policies in roughly 100 days? And if one were so bold, what honorable decision by the previous administration qualifies them for a commentary at this point?

And Sullivan always has the coolest videos. This one of some bike stunts around Edinburgh. Amazing!

Free XBOX 360...seriously

Remember this? You know, the raffle you may or may not have entered to win an XBOX 360. Congratulations to you if you didn’t enter the raffle. You didn’t waste your time.

My condolences to everyone that did enter this little raffle. I was trying to tell everyone I would win, but still, people signed up like they had a chance. Let’s face it, you never did.

My new, used XBOX 360 arrived in the mail today. Thanks, Jarrod.

Pusillanimity

Maybe you don’t know this about me, but I’m not a big fan of guns. Actually, I see no use for them in our society. I wasn’t under any illusion when I voted for Obama. I couldn’t possibly have hoped that he would get rid of guns, but I had hoped that the Senate, under Obama’s guidance, would reinstate the assault-weapons ban that expired in September 2004.

I feel there are more pressing issues for Obama than getting right to the assault-weapons ban or at least to stricter laws making it harder for a man like Richard Poplawski to get an AK-47. However, I do expect Obama to move on these issues sometime soon and by the looks of this article in last week’s Newsweek, that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.

I thought this reader comment left at the bottom of the Newsweek article summed it up best:

"Damn, you Americans sure are difficult to understand. How can you love a tool for killing?"

YouTube + Ayn Rand

Found on YouTube, Mike Wallace interviews Ayn Rand in 1959. Very interesting. Wallace even lights up a cigarette in part II. Parts II and III.

The Fountainhead

For the third classic book of 2009, I went with The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. This book is a new favorite of mine. I didn’t expect it to become one. Actually, I didn’t know what to expect from this book and I didn’t know that much about Ayn Rand other than that her philosophy doesn’t quite match up with mine.

A lot of the books I love, I love because they reaffirm my values and way of life. But The Fountainhead undermines it and at times it is the antithesis of my beliefs, but that’s why I loved it. I found myself disagreeing and agreeing with bits of Rand’s philosophy. The Fountainhead challenged me and made me contemplate the impossible complexity of the human existence more than any other book recently has.

I’ll probably write more about it later, but I just had to say, Ayn Rand believes differently than I do, but damn, she could write a book.

Go West, Young Man

What I wrote last summer as we drove back to the Midwest through Wyoming:

The West is great. There is nothing like it. It’s been one year. That’s not long, but it remains home. This land is blessed and I am blessed by its unpredictability, staggering beauty, and its ability to effect my decisions even after I leave. Seeing the West again has been like pulling an old childhood book off of the shelf. When I see the book on a shelf I recognize it as one of my favorites, but it isn’t until I open it up and look inside that I realize this is the book that shaped my life. This is where I have been built…in these pages or, in this case, on this land. The book represents the purest form of life I know and even though I may not be around it right now or return to it very soon, it is something that needs to be opened, read, looked at, felt, and smelled on a consistent basis or else a huge part of me is going to die.  

Tea Parties

Exactly what I was thinking…

Does the lack of any actual tax increases undercut this anti-tax rebellion?

- Josh Marshall

Five Guys

A Five Guys Burgers and Fries recently opened up in Milwaukee. We went. I reviewed. I posted it here. Check it out.

To the Dells

I am going to Wisconsin Dells this weekend, a town of 2,500 people (2000 census data as reported by Wikipedia) with 18 indoor waterparks. I am sure they call themselves the waterpark capital of the world. I am always skeptical of statements like that. I don't know if it is true or if it is hyperbole. We will be coming back to the city for church, but we'll be spending most of our Easter weekend at the waterparks.

Happy Easter to you.

And happy birthday to this blog. Six Hours on Sunday will be four years old on Sunday. It's my little baby.

Best commercial on TV

There are so many beer ads these days that it is hard for one to stand out from the pack, but each time I have seen this Heineken commercial I've gotten this irrepressible laughter. Maybe it's just a stupid ad, but it strikes me as a creative, hilarious juxtaposition.

Potato Day...Really?

Watch Baracknophopbia - Obey. So on.

Their Failing Memory

I haven’t linked to a political blog in a very long time, but I read something at Sullivan’s blog today that accurately describes my angst and anger about the Republican response to President Obama.

Money Quote:

The remarkable thing about today's partisan Republicans is their capacity to forget instantly and entirely anything that went on for the past eight years. And so suddenly we are rushing toward socialism, even though by far the biggest jumps in state power and debt occurred under a president they worshiped and worked hard to re-elect. There were no tea-parties to protest the $32 trillion Medicare prescription drug benefit. There was no Randian rumbling as Bush took over local schools. There was no defense of the Constitution as Bush and Cheney secretly suspended the fourth and first amendments. But put a moderate Democrat in office tackling a historic collapse in demand - and spending must be frozen! Reading the partisan right blogs, this ability to disappear the past is striking, and it helps explain base GOP loathing of Obama (even if the base is much smaller than it was).

Thank you.

This is a competition, right?

How can a championship game be so lopsided? I'm watching the basketball game right now and there is still 7 minutes left in the first half and UNC has a 20-point lead. 

I'm glad I picked UNC to win the championship, but I think a million others made the same pick on ESPN, where my bracket currently ranks 1,248,671. Not so good, but it's doing better than Obama's bracket. 

Can I see Dr. Benton punch the air one last time?

Besides The Daily Show, there are three shows I watch on a regular basis, all because I am married to Kate. The shows are House, Grey’s Anatomy and ER. When I started dating Kate she was already an ER devotee. She’s been watching House from the beginning and was slowest to warm to Grey’s Anatomy. There are brilliant aspects of each one of these dramas. The characters and ongoing plot twists can make for an addicting show. However, I could stop watching altogether tomorrow and be okay with that. I don’t think Kate could.

Kate is a professional in the field of medicine. The interest she takes in these shows is not comparable to mine. I watch them more for Kate than for any other reason. Stories told in the shows and the hours spent watching them constitute a fairly large gap of time every week. I might be doing something different with that time if I was single, not necessarily because I am married to Kate, but because I love her. And, in a way, (this may sound weird) when I married Kate, I married her favorite TV shows. I married her interests. No matter how inconsequential a TV show may be, it is valuable to me because it is time I can spend with Kate.

After all that time watching TV shows, because someone else is invested in them, one becomes hooked as well on all the peculiarities of character and intricacies of plot. So, it was a little bittersweet last night when ER signed off for the last time. Kate and I have been watching this show for as long as we have been together (the last six seasons) and before that, ER was the preferred television show of Thursday nights at my childhood home, going back to when I was 11 years old. That’s a long, damn time. I’m not trying to gauge what kind of role a TV series has played in my life. The answer would probably be vague and the task a bit shallow, but I know it has played some role and because of that it was a little sad to hear the ER theme music one last time last night. 

the WAR of ART

On a friend’s recommendation, I read a book over the weekend. The book is called the WAR of ART and it is by Steven Pressfield, author of The Legend of Bagger Vance and other prominent works of fiction. The subtitle of the book reads, “Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles.”

Pressfield offers copious amounts of wisdom for aspiring artists of all kinds in this short work of nonfiction. He spends most of the 163 pages of this book writing about Resistance. Resistance is anything that “prevents us from achieving the life God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius.” Quite convincingly, he proves the existence of Resistance and he reminds us that Resistance is a formidable opponent. Resistance is “harder to kick than crack cocaine.” “You think Resistance isn’t real? Resistance will bury you.”

If you have strived to create anything, to stay in a relationship or marriage that is falling apart, to achieve a lofty goal, you know what Resistance is. And those in the business of creating things know most intimately the disgusting shades Resistance can wear.

“Resistance will bury you.” Reading this was like a stake through the heart. It is so damn painful, yet wise. I lament for the times in my life that were buried by Resistance. This sentence, and this whole book, worked as a motivator for me because I don’t want my life to be won by Resistance. There is no life if Resistance wins. The flame is snuffed out and all one will ever know is commonality, a truly boring existence.

Pressfield writes, “The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.” We all have to face important calls and actions, and this book made me ponder all types of Resistance in my life. I am going to sit down and make a list. I hope to share some of it on here, but I encourage you to do the same. Make a list of things that are keeping you from your dreams. Get them down on paper. Strike a line through them. Strike them from your life.

After writing all that, I thought of another quote, but not from the book. There are plenty of good quotes in the book. I recommend you read it, but this quote is from a movie, from The Shawshank Redemption, from Red (played by Morgan Freeman):

Get busy living or get busy dying. That's goddamn right. For the second time in my life, I'm guilty of committing a crime. Parole violation. Course, I doubt they're going to throw up any road blocks for that. Not for an old crook like me. I find I'm so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel. A free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope...

I still miss the Rio...

I have a new post at examiner about finding good Mexican food in Milwaukee. Check it out.

On The Cover II

My MxPx library is up to 246 songs. I’ve been listening to them for, well, ten years and running. One of the first albums I bought, On The Cover, is a little known cover album (if you aren’t an MxPx fan) of a wide variety of songs. From the beginning, it has been one of my favorites. There is no beating “Take On Me” by A-Ha. And I always was a sucker for “Drum Machine Joy” and “You Found Me.” So I was really excited to hear of MxPx’s On The Cover II. I picked it up last week and the songs are growing on me. The instantly recognizable hits are “I Will Follow”, “500 Miles”, and “Major Tom.” “Somebody to Love” and “Linda Linda” are also promising.

I’ve only listened through twice. I’m sure to find more songs I love, but if you are in the mood for punk rawk covers, you can’t go wrong with this album or it’s predecessor.

Meditations

Why did I have a proclivity for Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations? To be honest, I think I was very confused when I picked the book up. I thought I had heard some time ago that Meditations was a founding treatise of sorts on modern Christian thinking, even though it was written in the second century.

I was wrong. Although there are passages in the book that can be construed as Christian tenets, they aren’t explicitly Christian statements. There is no mention of Jesus, only of God and Gods and, even then, the mention of God seems off-the-cuff.

After having done a little research on Meditations, I think the book I must have confused it for is Confessions by St. Augustine. My bad, St. Augustine. I can’t give to you the month I toiled with Meditations which, by the way, is only 93 pages long.

As you might be able to tell, I didn’t care for the book. It made me thankful, once again, that I was, and never will be, a student of philosophy. Meditations bored me with its mostly archaic language and stiff translation. However, I did find myself sporadically underlining sentences throughout the book. I will close with a couple lines after this pronouncement: Meditations is a boring book. Sure, it is a classic in the Stoic tradition, but unless it’s on a course syllabus, stay away.

“For clearly one who loses his temper is turning away from Reason with a kind of pain and inward spasm; whereas he who offends through appetite is the victim of pleasure and is clearly more vicious in a way and more effeminate in his wrongdoing.” – Mediations, Book II, Chapter 10

“Don’t live as though you were going to live a myriad years. Fate is hanging over your head; while you have life, while you may, become good.” – Mediations, Book IV, Chapter 17

Broadcasting, not living

Via Sullivan’s blog yesterday I was directed to a post by Nicholas Carr, in which he talks about Jean Baudrillard’s simulacra and simulation obsession and how he accurately spoke of an era in which “we broadcast our lives instead of live them.”

Money quote:

The fact that Baudrillard could so clearly describe the twitterification phenomenon ten years before it became a phenomenon reveals that the phrase “new media,” when used to describe the exchange of digital messages over the Internet, is a coinage of the fabulist. What we see today is not discontinuity but continuity. Mass media reaches its natural end-state when we broadcast our lives rather than live them.

The age of Twitter is upon us and that’s bad news for productivity. That’s bad news for constituents that want their elected officials to do their job instead of posting snarky prattle about an opponent’s speech in congress or something of the sort.

But it’s not just the productivity of politicians that is concerning, it is everyone’s productivity. Twittering is nearly identical to updating the status on one’s facebook page. When I had facebook, I could sign on and view my friends with updated statuses. I could see from the list of friends that some were working, some were exercising, and others were pissed about the outcome of some game last night. You see what I am getting at? This information is completely useless; it corroborates Carr’s point.

What could John McCain politicians have done during President Barack Obama’s non-SOTU address if they weren’t concerned about appearing to be hip by using Twitter? What could you have done instead of constantly letting us know where you were? 

14,650 Yards

Collegiate swimming teams usually get a break of 2-3 weeks after the last meet of the season before they come back from spring training, which often lasts up until the week of finals in the spring semester. My team started swimming on Monday and I have decided to get in the water and swim the workouts with them during the spring.

I swam three times last week in order to sort of prepare for Monday. However, the most I did last week was 2400 yards. So, when Monday rolled around and the workout we gave them was 4750 yards, I was hurting, but I did it all. And the day after that I did 4950 yards. The day after that I did another 4950. I still have something left in the tank, but I can feel the lack of a base when I get in the water with our athletes. They make me feel slow and out of shape, but the desire to race is still there and each one of these workouts is chipping away at the months and years I’ve spent out of the pool since it used to be my home.

I exercise for my job. How lucky I am.

Random Sentences with GRE Vocab

The professor intended to abase me with her criticisms of my short story.

The pain abates as I swim more regularly.

At the last possible second, Cheney abdicated his position and the Veep’s residence became visible on Google Earth once again.

(The following sentence was the example given on the vocabulary card for aberrant.) Since he had been a steady, cheerful worker for many years, his fellow postal workers did not expect his aberrant burst of rage.

USA Swimming is holding Michael Phelps in abeyance for taking a hit off of that bong.

People thought he had abjured his Christian faith when they found out he voted for a Democrat.

He absconded from the sanctuary because the sermon was awful.

His appetite for cheese was abstemious to begin with, but he abstained from eating it throughout lent.

That man’s belly button is an abyss. I am sure his love for donuts resulted in an accretion of that gaping hole.

It was supposed to be the acme of cheese, but its acidulous finish made Bryce puke.

He adulterated everything he touched.

I had a smug look on my face as I advocated the vegetarian diet.

Aerie is a word that is commonly used as an answer in crossword puzzles.

After seeing his artwork, I was convinced he couldn’t have been a part of the aesthetic movement.

How could Bill’s love for Hillary not be affected?

Some are worried that Obama is seeking to aggrandize government.

His alacrity aided him in his Jeopardy victory.

My noise cancelling headphones helped to alleviate the incessant noise from your mouth.

He amalgamated the ingredients for his favorite cookies.

Thinking about a MFA

An excerpt from an email I sent to a writing professor:

My question for you is, what is the value of an MFA? In my idealized world, the value of an MFA would include a job following graduation (either in academia or writing for almost any publication) and, hopefully, some sort of publishable work because, after all, I just spent a few years of my life honing my writing skills and I would have a marketable skill. In reality, none of that is guaranteed to happen and that concerns me. 

Why has this doubt crept into my mind? I guess I have some doubt in my writing ability. Luckily, I know I am not alone in that doubt/fear. I would venture a guess that all writers feel that way at some point or throughout their entire lives. Couple that with the Hemingway quote ("Real seriousness in regard to writing is one of two absolute necessities. The other, unfortunately, is talent.") and I don't exactly become a wellspring of hope because I know talent and fabulous prose can't necessarily be taught. 

With that said, I believe in my writing. That belief may be hanging by a thread now and forevermore, but it is there, and it is what is driving me to pursue writing in almost any manner, and more specifically, working toward an MFA. 

I recently finished reading a series of thought provoking posts at an online literary journal which attempts to qualify, define, and consider the value of getting an MFA. You can find them here , here , and here . Read them if you want, but it isn't necessary because my original question still remains, what is the value of an MFA?

Deep Thought

Obama's problems are ones that he mostly inherited from Bush and damn the man for trying to solve more than one issue at a time. How irresponsible.

The Madness

I am currently on the overall leaderboard in ESPN’s bracket challenge. There were over five million brackets filled out at espn.com and somehow I’ve gotten lucky and correctly picked most of these games so far, but I don’t know, Cleveland State might be the death of me.

You may have believed me for a second. I am sorry about that. It just felt good to act like I was some big time basketball guru who doesn’t need to do all the analyzing and research. I just know the winners. In real life I am not on the leaderboard, but I have now broken into the top 850,000 at espn.com. For a little bit I was just hovering around 3.5 million in the rankings and then Wisconsin, Siena, and Arizona won and I jumped up to 1.5 million-ish. When it is all said and done, I may be back down in the dumps after the final four, but the fact that I’ve even broken the top million after spending roughly sixty seconds filling out my bracket and with no research into any of the matchups, is a testament to the madness of the tournament. It is anybody’s game and that’s why this mayhem is so appealing to the masses with great or little investments in the outcome. 

Warren Buffett Wisdom

This is Warren Buffett writing in Newsweek about the economy:

The present housing debacle should teach homebuyers, lenders, brokers and government some simple lessons that will ensure stability in the future. Home purchases should involve an honest-to-God down payment of at least 10 percent and monthly payments that can be comfortably handled by the borrower's income. That income should be carefully verified. Putting people into homes, though a desirable goal, shouldn't be our country's primary objective. Keeping them in their homes should be the ambition.

And…

Approval, though, is not the goal of investing. In fact, approval is often counter-productive because it sedates the brain and makes it less receptive to new facts or a re-examination of conclusions formed earlier.

The first passage is just personally relevant for me right now. Kate and I would like to be homeowners in less than two years so we have started to talk about how we would go about purchasing a home. Our goal is to put at least 10 percent down. With this goal in mind, we are going to be automatically limited to a price range that is feasible, meaning if we can’t put 10 percent down right away; the house is not within our income.

Buffett’s writing here strikes me as just common sense, although it isn’t very common. Many of us buy with our eyes without any consideration of our assets. I’ve been guilty of this before. However, when purchasing a home, one needs to purchase within their income. That just seems very obvious to me, but apparently not so much to many Americans who just needed to have that McMansion, even if it meant getting an adjustable-rate-mortgage to have it.

What I love about the second passage is its wisdom. Approval sedates and inures us to archaic prejudices, or a life we weren’t called to live. A “reexamination of conclusions formed earlier” is essential to learning and education. Just something to think about.

SoCal Visit List

Shamu’s got ups.

In-N-Out is no longer an obsession of mine. I have found their burgers and fries less than ideal for a couple years now. I am becoming more of an epicure and things that used to be great are just good or average now.

On the flights back to Milwaukee I officially went through all of my GRE vocab flashcards without missing a single word. There are 500 words in that box. I’ve been connected to that little box for a while now. At first it represented an almost insurmountable task, memorizing 500 words that I might not use in everyday conversation for the rest of my life. It then became a friend, a loyal sidekick of education. And now it’s my bitch, because I go through the box once a day and I know all of those words. We’re still friends though.

I slept miserably every single night. The Hoge crew has a hand-me-down double bed in the guestroom with an awful footboard on it that makes for difficult sleeping when you are over six feet tall. Kate got the bed. I lasted two nights on it before I opted for an air mattress.

It was warmer in Milwaukee yesterday (high of 74) than it was during any one of the days in San Diego.

The 57-degree water made me miss the 70-degree water of Florida beaches. However, I prefer the west coast.

I am so, so, so thankful I don’t have a kid. For Kate, the feeling is mutual. I was thankful for this exact reason before this trip, but I am even more thankful after spending a week out there. I am also more appreciative of and impressed by people that are good parents and people that actually want to have kids.

I still want to live on The Strand on Manhattan Beach. I think I could put up with people walking by everyday and gazing into my house. That’s what tinted windows are for. I wouldn’t mind a house like this.

Some people in California just have no clue of Lake Michigan’s size. No, you can’t see across the lake. Yes, you can surf its waves sometimes.

My sister is doing a great job of being a mother. Her job, her life, is this girl and that’s incredible devotion and love.

So Many Pictures

We took 310 pictures/videos in California. Here are a few. If I ever upload the rest to flickr or another site I will let you know. We had a great trip. More on that later. For now, pictures.

Finally getting a picture of me holding Brooklyn on the last day we were there. 

Brooklyn on the Manhattan Beach pier. Kate got this one. A picture perfect girl.

We went to Sea World one day. It was awesome. I've got a lot of amazing pictures from the Shamu show and videos. I'll try to upload some in the future.

Brooklyn and her grandpa in La Jolla.

La Jolla, California.

I carried Brooklyn on my back during our afternoon in La Jolla. She loved it and was very well behaved...and not too heavy.

Hot, with one 't'

73 degrees in Milwaukee and rising. I think there is going to be a record broken today. 

Cali, great place to visit

Thirteen months is a long time to go without seeing my sister, her husband, and their only child. This is the kind of gap that would only be acceptable if I lived on the other side of the Atlantic, but even then, I would secretly hope that thirteen months would not pass between visits.

Nevertheless, that is exactly what has happened and my sister and family are only in California. I want to say never again. This is not going to happen again because I care too much about my relationship with them. However, once you do something it sort of becomes easier to do and we tend to become indolent in our quest to never let it happen again. As for this, I hope that’s not the case. The thirteen months have been hard. I don’t want it to get harder.

We leave tomorrow. Back on Sunday.

Bold = Praying for Obama outloud in church

Written January 25, 2009

A girl prayed for Obama this morning and thanked God for the new president. I thought this was brave of her. Even I, an Obama volunteer, cringed a little, but then I asked myself, why should I cringe? How did we let it get that bad in the church that people cringe when someone thanks God for this country’s new, democratic leader?

This is sad, but true. Words of thankfulness for a democrat in the Oval Office felt out of place this morning. The speaker took a risk by praying for Obama and thanking God for him. Some people in the pews might have felt uncomfortable and might have been offended. That’s okay. Plenty of people before have been offended by messages of exclusivity, intolerance and the dangers of some highlighted sins, i.e. homosexuality, gay marriage, and a vote that is pro-choice.

I want to see honesty and openness from the pulpit that highlights inclusiveness, love, scriptural discussion, debate and forgiveness. Open up the church to people with words. Break down old barriers. Don’t shut the doors. Don’t build up walls.

Voting against abortion is a prerequisite to sit in the pews every Sunday morning and so is a desire to constitutionally outlaw gay marriage or gay civil unions. To sit in the pews, one must not support stem-cell research. These ideas are rubbish, absolute drivel, handed down from generation to generation and I am thankful that this morning someone did their best to shatter them by simply praying for someone.

This Cafe Has Pets

Much like Jefferson Street, Water Street and the nearby streets in the Third Ward have a plethora of restaurants. Some of them are huge (Milwaukee Ale House) and some are skinny, able to stride past in a few steps (Rustico). And some are sort of hard to find like the Third Ward Café. Maybe it is too good at blending in or easily missed because it is across the street from the Milwaukee Public Market.

If it weren’t for our friends standing inside the door, my wife and I would have walked right past the entrance. Once inside we found ourselves in a very intimate dining setting with lots of candles, huge booths and a plate of olives waiting for us at the table. The service and atmosphere were promising starts to the evening and I was looking forward to having my taste buds stimulated when I saw a sizable, dark object scurrying down the brick wall I was facing, roughly ten feet away. When I realized it was a two-inch long cockroach I gently nudged my wife. Our friends knew something was up when my wife’s eyes widened like she had seen a ghost. As one of our friends caught sight of the cockroach and let out an audible gasp of surprise, it ran toward the ground and disappeared out of sight.

There was a moment in which we thought of leaving. We didn’t and we all made a gallant attempt at acting like the roach didn’t bother us. However, throughout the meal I kept my eye in the corner for the cockroach. It didn’t show itself again and, luckily, the food and wine was enjoyable enough to keep our minds off the roach for a bit. As for the food, it was good, but not exceptional. I had the minestrone with the salmon and noodles. The Chilean Sea Bass my wife had was delicious, but it was half the size of my salmon and nine dollars more which made me feel bad for giving the restaurant the money we did. Going out is such a risk. You are going to pay for it whether you like it or not and when it was all said and done, we left feeling like the Third Ward Café was just a scant overpriced. It is not that we didn’t like it. The food was fine. Service was excellent and the restaurant appeared to be clean. It was the roach that sort of spoiled the night. Look, I know a lot of restaurants have roaches, but keep them out of the sight of customers. If I hadn’t seen it, maybe I would feel completely different about the experience, but for now, the Third Ward Café is filed under the good, but not likely to return label. 

More Conference Photos

One of the sprinters had a great friend taking pictures during the entire meet. They are exceptional. If you care to see any of them please check out her flickr page. Here is the link to the conference set.

The Dow Doesn't Know All

A gem from last night's show. 

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

The Dow Knows All

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Not Hoping for Failure

"When a real crisis happened on 9/11, I remember the Democrats rushing to do whatever Bush wanted. I remember hand-holding and singing on the Capitol Steps. I don’t remember them hoping Bush’s response would fail," - John Cole. 

Via: The Dish.

Pics from the Meet

The youngest D-1 swimming staff in the country. Average age: 25. 

Not the clearest shot, but I like it because it captures a lot of action. Kate was there for Saturday and taking pictures for most of the time.

On the starting blocks. 

Erica and I at our posts.

Picture of the Meet

With the school record holding 200 free relay. Jake, Ed, Me, Andrew and Kyle.

The Last Swim

Conference is over. What a long, wonderful week of swimming. 

The women finished in 2nd place, one place up from last year. The men finished 3rd with 56 points separating them from first place. They also moved up this year compared to last year's finish. 

All relay records were broken on both sides. The last race of the night was the men's 400 free relay. The previous record was a 3:02.48 and this team of guys had been gunning for that record all season long. They finished with a time of 3:00.68, with a senior anchoring the relay with a personal best split of 45.36. It was an extremely gratifying race to watch as a coach and something that I will always remember because of my connection with each one of those guys.