Visual Proof

I actually got to play on Saturday, and Eric got a picture of me. This is one of the many rollout passes I had to run, and I shook a defender off of me on this one. Yea me.

I doubt that despite my playing very well, that anything will change. Practice on Wednesday should be interesting to say the least.

Bob got some more shots, and I'm gonna figure out a way to get the picture viewer from the site onto here.

Say What?

Overheard from a female while out on Thursday night....

"Porn fixed my VCR!!!"

Porn. The answer to everything, now including mechanical repair.

"So You're Saying There's A Chance!!!!"

I'm going to get my chance this Saturday. It might be just a brief chance, but a chance nonetheless.

We'll keep you posted.

You Know It's Bad When...

... you get excited that you have to drive through Chicago traffic instead of Milwaukee traffic for a whole day.

And that's what happened on Wednesday, as I had to go to Wheaton, Illinois for work. Wheaton is a western suburb of Chicago, so it's not like I had to go through downtown Chicago, but the expressways in Chi-town are sure to have some type of traffic jam at any time of the day.

But it's getting so hard to get around this bassackwards town of Milwaukee, that I actually relished the thought of NOT driving in it for a day.

For those very, very few readers of mine that aren't from the Milwaukee area, here's a map of the freeway system in the city. It's a very simple design, not like the maze that can be the Chicago freeway system. You can click on the map for a bigger picture.



Looks pretty easy to navigate, no?

Well, where should I start? I happen to live where the star is located on the map. Lets just say that if I'd like to get to the southside of town, the city planners of Milwaukee stick their collective asses out the windows of their offices and invite me to pucker up my lips.

The downtown area ( by the lake, where 43, 94, and 794 meet ) is going through a major construction update, that should be complete by 2034. That interchange is known as the Marquette interchange, and is currently being rebuilt. ( the big letter 'B' ) The first phase of this construction has closed the 94 east ramp to the 94/43 ramp to go south to Chicago.

Which in of itself wouldn't be so bad, except Tuesday, I needed to go to an area just south of the airport ( by where I've typed 'Chicago' ). There's a bypass of 94 that SHOULD make getting to the airport pretty easy, and completely avoids downtown. Except on Tuesday, at NOON, those fucktards thought it would be a good idea to shut down TWO of the THREE lanes on 894 ( the big 'C' ) on the southbound lanes. So I couldn't go downtown, and the one lane that was open was basically a parking lot. To traverse that short stretch of the freeway normally takes 8-10 min. Not Tuesday. 30 minutes. Bitches. Good idea - lets fuck up the ONLY open way to the southside.

My favorite construction annoyance is where the big 'A' is. There's a small spur by Miller Park that goes south and north into the outer Milwaukee city limits, and makes it pretty easy to access the near-western suburbs. I frequently use this spur to go home from downtown, and USED to use it to get on the freeway to go downtown.

Not anymore. They've closed the ramp that goes from the southbound 41 onto eastbound 94 to downtown. Not because they're working on the ramp. Oh, far from it. They're just trying to limit traffic flow to downtown - so they closed the ramp. WTF? Because of the construction, they're redoing just about all the major bridges that cross the river that runs through downtown Milwaukee. In essence, every single east/west street into downtown is closed just before you approach downtown. The only way into downtown is the goddamn freeway!!! Good plan asshats.

One last note about downtown. They've also closed every ramp to get off the freeway downtown, with the exception of two of them. You either have to get off at 6th street, which is basically at the interchange - or you have to go all the way to the lake, then get off. I'm sure business downtown is just loving this. Cuz even if you get there, all the streets are torn up once you're in the black hole that is downtown.

But it's not just downtown that's tearing up it's streets. My lovely town of Wauwatosa is doing the same with just about every east/west street as well. Letters 'D' and 'E' indicate areas you can't hardly get through because of construction.

I think I'm gonna buy stock in the company that makes those big orange barrels. Or go and slap everyone of the city planners that decided this would make a good 'plan' for a construction schedule. Dickheads.

Give Peace A Chance

Actually.....

Fuck Peace.

Give Kuflax a chance.

No? Well, can't say I didn't try.

A Piece of Humble Pie, Order For One Please

So I'm not very happy with the situation with my hobby. I know it's stupid to get upset about it, but I do work very hard, and this is something I want very badly. But as I said before, it's just a hobby, so it's kinda silly to get worked up over it.

Especially if you watched Sportscenter at all this last week.

I wrote about the piece they did on Jason McElwein, and at the end, I mention that there should be a whole network dedicated to just showing 'feel good sports stories'.

No there shouldn't be.

I wouldn't be able to handle it. Sportscenter this past week, ran their "My Wish" segment. Each story was about a kid who had a sports dream, but because of some physical or mental disability, would never be able to live out that dream. So the folks at ESPN/ABC made the dreams a reality.

The first one I saw was about a girl named Katie. She played Little League baseball in Oregon. Her team won the state championship a few years ago, and she was the only girl on the team. She was a leader on the team, both in play, and in spirit. But she had to give it up, when it was discovered she had brain cancer.

Katie is a huge Seattle Mariners fan, so they rounded up the whole bunch of Little Leaguers that won the title a few years ago, and took them out to the stadium for a Mariners game. Well, everyone on the team except one - Katie's best friend. I think his name was Brandon, but he had moved down south, and couldn't make the trip with the team. Katie was pretty bummed out about that fact, but looked forward to the trip.

After having a chance to run around the bases before the game, and meet alot of the players, they took the team to centerfield for a team photo. The PA announcer then boomed over the stadium that it wasn't a complete team photo, and that someone was missing. He directed their attention to the centerfield gate, where Brandon came running in to greet Katie.

Pretty sappy I know.

The next one had a kid with a birth defect that left him with liver and kidney failure at age one. He's now 10, and spends nine hours a day on dialysis. The disease has forced him to put on weight faster than most kids, and limits his range of motion due to central nervous system damage as a result of the liver and kidney failure at such a young age.

Despite all the limitations, the kid insists on going out in the yard everyday, and hitting a baseball off of the tee. Prolonged movements leave him sore, and even more incapacitated later on in the day - but he won't come in the house until he's hit several balls off the tee, and walked around the bases.

He got to spend a day with Todd Helton of the Colorado Rockies, and hit off a tee on home plate at Coors Field.

That story kinda got to me. And the series got me thinking about my situation. I have above average motor skills. I know I'm lucky to be able to play sports the way I do. Sometimes I bitch about my situation, but then I see something like this, and think that those kids would shave years off their lives to be able to do what I can do.

And that's a pretty humbling thought. But I'm still going to fight for the starting job, and when/if I get it, it will mean a little bit more now that I've been reminded of just how precious each one of those seconds on the field of competition are.

PWNED!!!

Our good friend Poohbear. This pic is from a while ago, but I didn't know it existed until now. We were at a wedding, and his mother dared me to smash a piece of dessert in his face. So of course I did. I stealthily hid a piece behind my back... came up to him... put my other arm around him... and pressed the cake as hard as I could into his face.

And I didn't notice till now, but apparently I'm more talented than I knew. Statistically it has to be pretty hard to miss - but I didn't get any on his forehead. That's rather impressive in hindsight.

Take Two

Click for a bigger image. This is the picture I was trying to put up last night. Bob's usual lens was in the shop, and this was taken at night, so there was no way to have this picture NOT come out blurry - but I like it. This won't make much sense for people that never played football - but that's kinda what it looks like out on the field while you're playing. Especially at quarterback. There's ten guys ( all bigger than you are ), standing within FEET of you, with body parts flailing around, and grunts, and all moving different directions. Some of the guys within feet of you are literally trying to send you to the hospital, because it means their team has a better chance of winning then. Then, there's ten other guys on the field, all running various directions away from you. Half of them are on your team, and the other half aren't. And you have to process this information of who's going where, and when they're gonna be there, in under two seconds.

So it kinda looks like the picture above. God I love that sport.

And P.S. - My mechanics are JUST FINE in that picture. Non-throwing hand below eye level - shoulders square to the target - arm coming down in an overhand throwing motion - not throwing off my back foot ( as evidenced by the back foot OFF the ground as it should be ) - eyes looking down field, not up.............. so yeah. Just thought I'd point that out. No, I'm not bitter.

The Greatest 27 Hours of Sport

Well, almost.

It started on Friday, when I was on-call for work. I work for a guy named Patrick, and some second shift times I have to be on call, for which I do get paid. On Friday, Patrick was going to play baseball, and he needed a shortstop, so he called me. As to not take the hours away from me, he kept me on the clock while I went to go play hardball in Port Washington.

I got paid to play ball. I've been waiting 29 years to say that one.... even if it is a stretch.

Then, on Saturday morning, Bob, Nort, a co-worker of Bob's and I went to go golf. Nort and I split the challenges we pitted against each other for a wash on the pitchers of beer - but he and I cleaned house on the back nine for beer against the old guys. Each hole was a team combined score hole for a pitcher of beer. Nort and I won eight of the nine holes. We didn't cash in on all the beer in the clubhouse, because I had a football game ( details to follow ) that night, so I couldn't get too drunk that afternoon.

Oh, did I mention that I had a beer at 8:15 in the morning? We had a 7:20 tee time, and the beer girl came around at 8:15. God I love golf.

To cap off the sports day, we had a football game on Saturday night. We won the game, despite not playing as well as we should have. I got a few snaps in, and despite playing well in such a limited capacity, I was happy with my performance.

At least until I left the bar that night. A few conversations were overheard, and to say that my situation is still murky at best, would sound nice at this point. Apparently they're thinking of making a change at QB, but those plans have me nowhere on the radar. The knock against me is my mechanics, and I don't dispute that I'm not textbook when it comes to throwing the football. But for the last year and a half, the end result has been good - so I was told in no uncertain terms, that mechanics wouldn't factor into a decision, so long as I still was performing well. The guy that they'd make the change to has flaws with his mechanics as well... but don't even get me started on that.

I'm beginning to think that I was told wrong. I'm thinking it wasn't really as close as they said it was. I'm thinking that they're holding on to the past when they look ahead. I was told that I hadn't earned the trust of the team - but the only way to earn that is by playing. I saw the looks on the faces of the other ten guys when I went out there - they trusted me. They blocked for me when I got a few chances to throw. So I don't know what to do at this point. The more lip service I get, the more I think that I really don't have a chance to play here. And it sucks. I know I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago, but it's eating at me inside.

I know I can do this. I know without a doubt that I'm better than the guy that they would make a change to.

But I don't see that happening. I wish I had a better answer. If I sucked, Willy could just punch me in the face, and tell me to shut up. If I fumbled, or threw picks, I'd understand. I worked my ass off for a chance - and up until recently, I thought I was given the chance. The more the season rolls by, I'm beginning to think that wasn't the case. And that's a scary thought coming from this team. It's not supposed to be like this.

And thus ended the Greatest 27 Hours of Sport. I said 'almost' at the start of this post because of the conversations overheard at the bar - but that not withstanding, it still was a pretty kick ass day of sports. And now I'm trying to upload a picture from the game, but Blogger is being a bitch about it.

Radio Stations Play Songs...

WHOLE songs.

Not ten second clips. Back to back to back to back.

102.1 here in Milwaukee has changed formats, to the "Quick 102.1" They ran a tag line of 'We just played 201 songs this past hour.... the Hog only played 9..."

Ummmmm, hello? You didn't play 201 songs - you played 201 CLIPS from songs. They're playing the most recognizable section, in 5 to 10 second bursts, of the songs they normally would play. And they're just stringing them together, and quite frankly, it's TERRIBLE.

They say that they're following market research that says that people want to listen to their favorite songs... and that people want to listen to the favorite parts of their favorite songs. So how on God's green earf did they come up with this plan? Of course people want to listen to their favorite songs..... they're favorites for a reason. But to only listen to the five or ten second clip, only to have it go away for another clip is quite annoying.

Yet again, business people making decisions that make no sense. I couldn't even get clarification on their website, cuz it was "under construction" as of Monday night.

'Worldwide Leader', My Ass

How has no one come up with a network to rival ESPN? CNN got their start, and after they proved to be successful, FOX and NBC followed suit with 24hr news stations.

I know FOX does a regional sports thing, but holy cripes - ESPN puts on some absolutely abysmal programming, that it shouldn't take much work to draw viewers away from them on a national scope.

But that's not exactly what's been bothering me lately about the 'Worldwide Leader'. As terrible as most of their coverage is, they at this point have the resources to cover just about anything. So I peruse the company website ESPN.com for a quick overview of my sports stories for the day. But lately, most of the info that I'd like to get from them, is part of their "Insider" coverage - and inaccessible to me, unless I suscribe to the "Insider" package.

I understand that websites should be viable business operations, but in this case, it's actually having the opposite effect. ESPN.com has decided that pretty much every and any article pertaining to college football is an "Insider" article... which means I can't read it. So you know what? I don't even bother with them for college football information. Which sucks, because no one else nationally has the access that ESPN does. But it's gotten to the point that I know ESPN won't even give me the coverage on college football, so I go elsewhere.

There was an article about NFL wide receivers on the site today, and there was no mention of it being an "Insider" article on the front page, but when you click on the link... oops...."You need to be an "Insider" to read this article!" Bitches.

It used to just be college football. Now, on the main page, there's a section that lists the top three articles for each major sport. Two of the three MLB articles are "Insider", as one of the NFL articles ( separate from the one I mentioned before ) ... ALL three NBA articles are, and all three college football articles.

Are there that many people out there that are just cattle, and sign up for this stuff? It used to be free... and that's what bugs me. It's not like they added a new feature, and said that I now have to pay for it.

Way to drive away your target market douchbags. Why can't some rich guy feel the same way I do, and create some competition for ESPN?? I'd sure as hell watch/surf anything else.

"Boom Goes the Dynamite"

And a very happy belated 4th of July to you all. I hope you had a chance to go out and enjoy the absolutely perfect weather we had. I actually ended up working a few hours on the 4th, and didn't get to catch the local fireworks, and only saw the tops of a few of the pyrotechnics on the third. I love me some fireworks, and every year, I try to make a point to catch them, and sadly, this year I fell short again.

But someone was nice enough to send me a picture from the 3rd of July fireworks at the lakefront. I presume it was taken with a camera-phone, and it turned out really well. Not as good as being there in person, but I'll take it this year I guess.

Next year............. I'll be there.

Home Sweet Home

This Saturday night, at seven pm, the Hitmen will play a home game against the Fond du Lac Crusaders. We spent an extra half hour prepping for them today at practice, and I actually got some snaps.

But before you get all excited, they were snaps playing as the Crusader offense, as a look for our defense to see. I did pretty well though, so I just might have to go play for them. Hell, Fond du Lac isn't that much farther away than Muskego......

Yeah. Anyways.

It should be a good show in Muskego. We need alot of peeps to turn out for the game, so if you ain't gots sh*t to do, get your ass out there. It's only 5 bucks, and we should be in a position to get me on the field at some point. It's at the High School - and I've put the map on the Hitmen website.