LONGWALKABOUT

Several months ago Sports Illustrated came up with their list of 100 Greatest Moments in Sports History.  I went through the entire list.  All one hundred.  It took me a while, because I fell asleep a couple times.  So, I made a pot of coffee and finished.  While it’s hard to argue with their top five, the rest of the list is a mish mosh.  Example.  Both Secretariat’s Triple Crown win and the U.S. women’s soccer 1999 World Cup win are on the list above the Immaculate Reception and Kirk Gibson’s home run in the 1988 World Series.  To add to the outrage.  They included the 1992 U.S. men’s Olympic basketball “Dream Team” on the list.  That is arguably the most overrated sports story ever.  C’mon Sports Illustrated, you’re better than this.

I could argue this list all day, but that would be boring.  So, what I’ve done is put together a list of my own.  This list has nothing to do with sporting greatness.  It’s all about entertainment value.  I give you.

Marc’s Top Five Most Ridiculously Entertaining Moments In Sports History

5.  Reporter vs. Brett Myers.  After a 2007 loss to the Padres, a reporter approached Phillies pitcher Brett Myers (an alleged wife beater and all around bad guy) about two home runs he had given up.  Myers ended up getting mad and called the reporter “retarded”.  The smirking reporter proceeded to ask Myers if he could spell retarded.  Hilarity and a lot of swearing ensued.  It still makes me laugh.  I also still don’t think Brett Myers can spell retarded.

4.  Dennis Green On The Bears.  Nothing is better than a coach freaking out to the media.  I could watch that every single week.  In 2006 the Arizona Cardinals lost a game to the Chicago Bears.  The Bears had no business being in that game, but after two fumble returns and a punt return, the Cardinals twenty point lead was gone and they went on to lose.  In the post-game, Dennis Green, the frustrated head coach of the Cardinals, delivered a great coaching rant.

3.  Randy Johnson Kills A Bird.  In a 2001 spring training game, Randy Johnson, whose fastballs reached into the triple digit miles per hour zone consistently, beaned a bird with a fastball.  At full speed, all you saw was an explosion of feathers about halfway between the pitcher’s mound and home plate.  This was funny to everyone but the bird, may he rest in peace.  Mr. Johnson, who has since retired, has now opened a photography company.  The logo of his company,,,,,,,,,, a dead bird.

2.  Bobby Knight Throws Chair.  In a 1985 game against Perdue, Indiana head coach Bobby Knight got upset about a foul called on one of his players.  He let the refs have it verbally and got called for a technical foul.  Coach Knight, who was never one to be shy, then decided that his indignation required further expression, so he picked up his chair and threw it across the court.  Awesome, just awesome.

1.  Phillip Wellman, My Hero.  In a 2007 minor league baseball game the manager of the Mississippi Braves got a little upset about the umpire throwing his pitcher out of the game.  He threw an epic tantrum that included throwing the pitcher’s rosin bag like a grenade.  It is my all time favorite sports meltdown.  In fact.  When I pass on from this world, I fully intend to write my own eulogy.  The last few lines will go something like this.  “Marc would like to let everyone know that he is not happy about the whole dying thing.  He finds it hard to express this unhappiness through words alone, so he wished us to play  this video on a loop for the remaining duration of the services.”  This two minutes and seventeen seconds of video will then be played on multiple flat screens until everyone goes home.

BONUS

Rick Monday Saves The Flag.  On April 25 forty years ago, Rick Monday, center fielder for the Chicago Cubs, played the hero.  Two protesters, you know the kind, the ones who are always mistaking their right to free speech for a right to interrupt everyone else’s good time, decided that they would light an American flag on fire in left-center field.  Rick Monday, who had served in the Marine Corps, decided that this was unnacceptable and swooped in to grab it before the morons could get it ignited.  Tommy Lasorda threw in some colorful language from the third base area.  A great moment which was commemorated in an iconic photo.

New Orleans.  New Orleans is great.  My wife just attended a conference there and I tagged along for four days.  She was in meetings most of the time during the daylight hours, which left me with a lot of unsupervised roaming time.  And roam I did.  The French Quarter. The Garden District.  The World War II Museum.  More of the French Quarter.  On our last day there, I decided to hop a street car up to the New Orleans City Park.

The City Park is nearly twice the size of New York’s Central Park.  It’s a beautiful combination of waterways, green spaces, and Spanish Moss covered live oak trees. Not to mention an art museum and various athletics facilities. Some of the live oaks date back more than 600 years. When hurricane Katrina hit and the levees failed, most of the park ended up covered by anywhere from one to ten feet of water. Since then, I am informed that it has largely recovered, minus around 2,000 trees and some buildings.

I decided to rent a bike for two hours.  On a Tuesday afternoon, there weren’t a ton of other people in the outer reaches of the park.  Let me just say that nothing makes you feel like you’re going to get murdered and thrown in a bayou like riding down a heavily wooded dirt road, thinking you’re alone, and then having some guy step out of the woods next to you.  Thirty minutes into my ride, I decided that I needed a mission.  When I think of Louisiana and bayous, I automatically think of alligators. Were there gators in the park?  My phone would know.

“Siri, are there alligators in New Orleans City Park?”

“Yes Marc, there are, but do you really think this is a good idea?”

“Really Siri, this is the first time in six months that you have actually answered any of my questions with useful information and now you want to give advice too.”

“Marc, what would your wife say?”

“Zip it.”

“But Marc, the average alligator bite averages over 2000 pounds per square inch, or three times the pressure of a great white shark bite.”

“Full of information today aren’t we. My next phone is going to be a Samsung.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

I spent the next twenty minutes on a fruitless search.  Then I ran into an old fisherman.  We had a short conversation, and he guided me to a trail that would eventually take me to a place where I might find an “eight footer” and possibly some others.  I had seen this trail earlier in the day and avoided it because of the whole, I didn’t want to be murdered and thrown in the bayou thing.  But away I went into the woods.  Being eaten by a gator didn’t seem as bad as being murdered.  At least it would be a better story.  Honestly, which conversation would you rather people be having at your funeral?  “What’d he die of?”  “Oh, congestive heart failure.” OR “What’d he die of?”  “Would you believe an alligator got him?”  “WOW.”

I reached the area that the fisherman had described and disappointedly rode back and forth scanning the water.  Nothing.  Then, after about fifteen minutes and five passes, I saw one.  It appeared to be about five feet long as it swam smoothly through the green water and vegetation.  I watched from about twenty to thirty feet away as it moved out into open water, stopping there momentarily as I tried to get a good picture.  Eventually it went behind a low hanging tree that blocked any good view that I had.  I climbed another tree next the water to try to get a better shot.  No luck.  I then became one of the misguided people in history who has thrown sticks into the water near an alligator to try to get it to move closer to him.  Again, no luck.

I had to return the bike and meet my wife for dinner, so I decided to be happy with the pictures that I had gotten, left my friend the gator, and pedaled back.  Thankfully, I was not murdered and thrown in the bayou along the way.  That would have been embarrassing.

 

My boys are getting big.  I don’t always notice it because I’m around them all the time.  Sometimes when I look at pictures I see the difference between 9 and 5, and 10 and 6. It’s huge.  Once in a while I’m reminded in other ways.

Two days ago I was wrestling with my six year old.  So you can get a clear picture of this, I should describe wrestling with my six year old.  It consists of him throwing MMA style punches and kicks at me with no concern at all for my safety, and me practicing my Karate Kid blocking skills. Until now this has gone pretty well.  Good times, good times.  Until now.   Near the end of this most recent match, I was laying on my side on my bed (the wrestling ring) and he was on his back with his feet toward me.  I glanced at a baseball game that was on the TV,,,,,,, and he struck.  He raised his leg and dropped a heel right into the side of my neck.  At that moment I may have seen more stars than the Hubble telescope.  I got mad.  He got upset. But we’re guys, so three minutes later we were watching the baseball game together. Seriously though, my neck is still sore.  He is getting big.

A day later we went for a bike ride.  I took the training wheels off of his bike about two months ago, but it wasn’t until this week that he really took off on his own.  We rode around in our neighborhood, me on my bike, him on his bmx wearing a Batman shirt and cape.  Riding a bike is a big milestone in a kids life.  It’s kind of that first step to freedom.  As I rode behind him watching the batman cape ripple in the breeze and his little legs pump up and down on those pedals, I realized that I am nowhere near ready to hand over car keys to either one of my kids. That will come way too fast.

After having my little guy nearly knock me out, and then watching him spread his wings, I know that no matter how annoying it is when people say, “They grow up too fast”, it’s true. You get so busy in the day to day grind of things, and then before you know it they’re big enough put you down for the count.  When my oldest comes to me with theological questions the conversation always seems to end with me telling him that he won’t totally understand God until he has kids of his own.  That makes me wonder if from time to time, in between shaking His head at the dumb stuff we do, God looks down and says, “Wow they are getting so big.  Where has the time gone?”

 

 

Including all of the time that my wife and I dated before we got married, we have been together for twenty two years.  That makes 22 birthdays, 22 Christmases, 15 anniversaries, and after kids come along, you have to throw Mother’s Days in there as well.  Not to mention all of the odd graduations and other occasions where a congratulatory gift is in order.  (Before you say, “What about Valentine’s Day?”  I mentioned our mutual disdain for that faux holiday in a previous post.)  If you add all of those days up it comes to somewhere around seventy to eighty times where I’ve had to procrastinate and then be very stressed for several days about what gift to buy.  That’s a lot of knowledge gained.  Now I would like to share some of that knowledge with the general public.

1.  Never ever buy sports related items for your lovely lady.  Yes, she may have accompanied you to a few sporting events where she enthusiastically cheered on your favorite team.   But,,,,, she did that because she loves you, not your team.  One year when I was dating my future wife, I bought her a football jersey for her birthday.  My wife doesn’t remember certain vacations that she has been on, but she remembers receiving that gift with amazing clarity.  If she ever gets alzheimer’s and remembers nothing else, I picture her turning to me every day and saying one thing.  “I can’t believe you bought me a football jersey.”  I haven’t mentioned the worst part of this yet.  Okay.  Here goes,,,,,,,,,………..  I included a collectible tin can of football cards along with the jersey.  I know.  It was bad.

2.  Pay attention to cues.  Women like to give hints about things that they want.  To guys this kind of thing is confusing and these cues often go unnoticed because honestly, we’re busy thinking about that football team that our wives or girlfriends are now beginning to hate.  Like a serial killer that wants to be caught, your significant other has been leaving clues for months about what she wants for her birthday and Christmas.  Turn this into a game.  Think of yourself as a detective who must decipher these clues in order to save his own life.  In all actuality, your life may be in danger if you get her a football jersey.

3.  Jewelry and perfume are usually winners, but you still have to adhere to rule two.  Jewelry does not make a good gift if it is the wrong kind of jewelry.  For example if I bought my wife a necklace that included anything in the shape of hearts or flowers, she might change the locks on the house.  Know what she likes.  Know what she already has.  Know what you think looks good on her.  Also, know your budget.  It’s never good to buy her a gift that says, “I Love You So Much, That I Have Endangered Our Financial Future.”

By using these few rules, I have gotten much better at not getting teased when giving my wife gifts.  In fact.  This year after Christmas, she told me that I am now her “Official Jewelry Buyer”. I was super excited about this until she told me that, NO, the title did not include a badge or any other kind of important looking I.D.

 

Epilogue:  Before my wife launches into another diatribe about that jersey, I’d just like to mention the first gift that she got for me when we were dating.  Two CD’s.  The first one – Tom Petty.  The second – Boys II Men.  This was the first time I had owned music by either of these artists.  I’m going to guess at her thought processes.  “Hmmm, what music do I buy a high school aged white guy?  Ooooh, there’s a CD with a white guy with long hair.  He’ll probably like that.  And you know what, he definitely lacks both rhythm and blues,,, and style, soooooo, okay Boys II Men.  Done.”  She should have just bought me a football jersey.

Our family just returned from a Spring Break trip to Florida.  We spent the first three days of our trip at Disney World,  “The Most Magical Place On Earth”.  From what I’ve been able to gather from our family’s two visits to Disney, a good part of the magic involves making money disappear from your wallet and then making you feel good about that.  As I sit here thinking about our trip and how I didn’t really need to put a new roof on my house, I sip coffee from my fantastic complimentary travel mug. Here are some highlights and observations from the land of the mouse.

• My ten year old son does not enjoy roller coaster drops. Before getting in line for any roller coaster, inevitably the question would come.  “This ride doesn’t have any big drops does it?”  Being the loving, caring parents that we are, my wife and I would answer, “No!  Now get in line.”  Some people may say that this could lead to trust issues and therapy later in life.  To them I say, “Hush!  Get in line and stop trying to ruin my vacation.”  Trust issues and therapy aside, there was another consequence to all of this.  Every thrill ride has a spot where they take your picture.  For a fee that is slightly more than reasonable, but slightly less than preposterous, you can own this photo that will forever remind you of how much you enjoyed your ride experience.  In our family’s case every photo showed two parents and a six year old laughing and smiling, and one unamused ten year old.
• When visiting Disney for multiple days, their dining plan options are usually the most cost effective way to eat.  Even when you have the dining plan, Disney insists on putting a price rundown on the receipt they give you at the register.  So, instead of getting a receipt that shows that you just used one meal credit, you get a receipt that shows you what your meal would have cost had you paid cash.  The number is usually really out of whack, so it leaves you feeling like a financial genius.  “Look honey, it’s a good thing we bought this dining plan because otherwise this lunch of burgers, fries, and drinks for four would have cost us $393.72.  We are brilliant!”
• We have been to Disney twice.  You’d expect the children to be the ones to get overwhelmed and have a meltdown.  In our family’s case it has been the parents.  The first time I remember my then 7 year old looking at us like, “My mom and dad really need  to get a grip.  Why am I the rational one here?”  This time, my wife and I decided to institute a poorly thought out, “NO GRUMPINESS” policy.  My six year old, who operates at 100% of whatever emotion he is feeling at present time, did not handle this well.  The result of our attempt at forced happiness——–   on the second morning of our vacation we were the proud parents of the only crying 6 year old in the entirety of Disney World.
• We spent the last Disney day at the Magic Kingdom.  Our plan of getting there early and beating the crowds to every big ride worked perfectly.  Big 5 done in 2 hours.  When we got back to the hotel that evening we were all tired.  Ten o’clock came and not one of us was left awake.  Then eleven o’clock came.  Someone rapidly knocked on the door of our room with a key.  My half asleep wife mumbled something, the person outside responded, my wife mumbled again.  AND THEN, the door to our room started to open.  I am a notoriously heavy sleeper.  In college, I slept through a fire drill with the alarm blaring right outside the door to my dorm room.  My wife had woken up more by now and she was startled.  She roused me and I was totally confused.  All I knew was that it was dark, the room door was opening, and it wasn’t supposed to be.  Naturally, I gave what I will describe as my best unintelligible karate type yell.  It worked.  The door rapidly closed.  By the time I put on a shirt and  went outside, whoever had  been there was gone.  We called the front desk to figure out what had happened.  Half an hour later they called us back and told us that one of their employees had gone to the wrong room and I had scared them away with my gallant yelling.  I’m not sure if I believe this.  I tend to think that it was Mickey or one of his henchmen, Pluto, Goofy, maybe Captain Hook.  I picture them in full costume outside our door looking back and forth to make sure there were no witnesses as they entered our room with a gazillion brochures to give us the hard sell on the Disney Vacation Club.

In closing I would like to say that there really is no place like Disney.  The attention they pay to detail is second to none.  At some point in their lives, everyone should skip three or four mortgage payments and take the kids down for several days.  And when you do, take my advice and don’t pass up the buffet at the Tusker House in Animal Kingdom.  It’s awesome.

 

Mitch Albom wrote a book called The Five People You Meet In Heaven.  I admit, I haven’t read it.  By all accounts it’s a good read.  (4 Stars on Amazon out of almost 3000 reviews)  It sounded like a great idea for a column, but A, it’s already been done.  And B, I couldn’t come up with five people.  Thinking long and hard, I could only come up with my grandparents and Roberto Clemente.  No one else quite measured up.

So here’s what I ended up with instead.  I give you,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

———– The Five People You Meet at the Grocery Store ———–

1. The ON A MISSION Shopper–  These people whip through the store at reckless speeds, their shopping carts on only two wheels when they round the corners.  Stopping to check the price of items is not a necessity.  In fact, stopping at any time during the shopping experience would be considered a failure.  They fly down the isles, grabbing things off the shelves while people dive out of the way.  They don’t always hit senior citizens in the achilles with the front of their cart, but when they do, they don’t even notice.
2. The I READ EVERY LABEL shopper–  This may hit a little close to home for my wife.  They stand there reading nutrition facts and descriptions of every item like they’re the most fascinating text in the world.  It should never take thirty minutes to get through the refrigerated section.  I am convinced someday I will see a headline in the paper about someone who inadvertently froze to death in the supermarket while trying to decide what kind of Eggos to buy.  At the end of your life when you tally up the numbers, the percentage of it spent in the grocery store should not be in double digits.
3. The I JUST CAME FROM THE GYM shopper–  I have a lot of these in my area.  I’m not really clear on the mindset of these people, so I’m just going to guess.  This is what I imagine going through their heads.  So glad it was leg-day today.  I hope that people are staring at my glutes while I try to decide what organic produce would best compliment the organic quinoa that I’m going to have for lunch.  Seriously, my glutes look great in these spandex pants,,,,,,,,,,,,,  I really just want ice cream, but NO, THAT’S FOR THE WEAK.
4. The BLOCKADE shopper–  Otherwise known as the I’m the only person in the world shopper.  This kind of shopper either stops in the middle of the isle to stare at different kinds of soup, or leaves their cart in the middle of the isle while they stare at different kinds of soup.  Why soup?  Mainly because I don’t really like it all that much, so that’s what I picture these inconsiderate folks buying.  There seem to be more of these people at Costco than anywhere else on the entire planet.  They take their oversized shopping carts and leave them sideways in the middle of the oversized isle while deciding which oversized can of New England clam chowder to buy.
5. The I’M JUST TRYING TO SURVIVE shopper–  Most of these people are accompanied by children.  I am intimately aware of the trials and tribulations of this kind of shopper.  You’ll hear them coming before you see them.  Then they round the corner.  One kid is contained in the cart seat while the other one runs in front grabbing things off the shelves and bringing them back to the cart.  The things they bring back are inevitably items the parent has never even considered purchasing.  It’s kind of like when a cat brings a dead chipmunk to the doorstep and they stand there looking all proud of themselves.  The parent has to tell them to put it back where they got it.  But the overly-eager kid knocks over the soup can display in the process, and in a winning turn of events trips the Blockade Shopper.  Score!

On Monday morning we’re all going to be in somewhat of a stupor.  Why?  Because people decided to screw around with time for no good reason.  Yes, some busybody had a down moment and got all nervous because they weren’t accomplishing something, so they decided that we needed to adjust time in order to accomplish more.  This kind of stuff happens in congress a lot.

It all started before the days of electricity, when candles were used for lighting.  The idea being, that by adding daylight hours to the end of the day, people would use less candle wax.  The Yankee Candle Company beat this idea back.  I believe the original quote was something like.  “This is obviously a war on candles, and our business in particular.  We have no idea why you would want to deprive the public of an extra hour of their homes smelling like a delicious macintosh apple, or a fresh baked pumpkin pie, or a field of lavender, or any other of our 137 scents.  NEW AROMAS AVAILABLE THIS FALL!”

In 1916 Germany became the first country to officially adopt the 1 hour daylight saving time.  They decided that it would help save them fuel for what they were trying accomplish at the time.  CONQUERING THE WORLD.  Luckily for the rest of us, it made no difference.

Because of WWI, Woodrow Wilson decided to bring the idea to the United States in 1918.  That lasted a whole seven months.  It is a popular myth that farmers were the reason for the time change, but they were actually instrumental in getting the law overturned.  They hated the way it messed up their schedule.  Their dissent, combined with the Great Schoolchildren’s Riot of 1918 (not a fact), made congress bow to the will of the people, and we lived without national time fiddling until the next time Germany decided that they wanted to CONQUER THE WORLD.

Even though there were no national daylight saving laws when it wasn’t war time, that didn’t stop municipalities from mercilessly toying with the clock.  When local politicians weren’t honoring other politicians with statues or getting involved in scandals, they were using their god complexes to tinker with time itself.  As History.com points out, “In 1965 there were 23 different pairs of start and end dates (for daylight saving time) in Iowa alone.”  In 1966 congress passed the Uniform Time Act.  This officially enacted DST and gave it an official start and end date.  That’s how we all got stuck with it.

The purpose of the whole fiasco is to save on energy.  Assuming we lazy people will refuse to get up early to take advantage of the extra morning sunlight, we are artificially being given more daylight at the end of the day.  This way we will use less energy lighting our homes and be able to get more done in the daylight hours.  However, recent studies by UCSB and the California Energy Commission have shown that it really has little to no influence on energy consumption, and people probably use more gasoline in the pursuit of leisure activities because of the extra sunlight.

SUMMARY:  Like many laws and rules, this is in place to make your life more complicated.  Everyone dislikes it, especially farmers and teachers.  I have the suspicion that if a group of us got together and went to congress to say, “Hey, why are we still doing this?”, the answer would be, “Because we said so. Now go to your room.”

LINKS

• The Sports Illustrated 100 Greatest Moments in Sports History is worth a look.
• The soldiers from WWII’s “Ghost Army” are up for a Congressional Gold Medal.  It’s a pretty interesting story.
• This penguin travels an unbelievable distance every year to visit the man who saved his life.
• I’m not saying that this avocado chimichurri bruschetta is the best thing ever, but it’s close.

 

 

 

 

It’s almost eighty degrees here today.  That’s still a bit nippy if you ask me, but since it’s only March, I’ll take it.  It is now warm enough for me to tell a story about the cold.

When I was in high school, I went camping with my friends a lot.  We had a small camp in the hills behind my house, with a fire ring and a couple of lean-to’s.  It didn’t matter what season it was, when we got a little bit restless, we’d grab some  gear and head up into the woods.

During the winter of my sophomore year of high school, we decided that we needed to do some snow camping.  We picked a Saturday night after a snowstorm and agreed to meet at my house.  My parents told us to be careful because the temperatures were going to be close to zero that night.  We weren’t worried.  You really shouldn’t take that into account, though.  Teenage boys don’t worry about much of anything.  I took two sleeping bags and figured I’d be fine.

The four of us took off into the woods with our backpacks and a borrowed toboggan.  We set up our sleeping bags, cooked dinner and talked about the stuff boys like to talk about.  Girls, music, school, movies, and girls.  You really don’t ever have better friends than you did in high school.  The rest of your life you have to deal with people who have gotten very good at hiding their ulterior motives.  When you’re young, everyones motives are fairly clear, even if they’re ulterior.

The night was beautiful.  It was clear and bright.  The moonlight was magnified by the snow, so visibility was very good.  When it was almost time to bunk down I threw a rock into the fire and let it sit for twenty minutes or so.  Then I wrapped it in an old dish towel and threw it into the bottom of my two sleeping bags.  I could feel the temperature dropping.  We all hunkered down.  I had to repeat the rock trick a few more times, but all in all, it wasn’t too bad of a night.  In the morning I crawled out of my bedding to a wicked cold.  I looked at the thermometer on my pack.  -12 degrees.   I love breakfast.  But when it’s that cold, no one feels like cooking breakfast.  All of us but one were awake and moving around now.  I started to get worried, so I did the teenage boy thing and asked one of my friends to kick the one guy still in his sleeping bag to see if he had frozen to death or not.  Before anyone kicked, I heard a muffled, “I’m awake.”

I couldn’t feel my face. I couldn’t feel my fingers.  I couldn’t feel my toes.  It was time to go home.  We started walking with our packs and the toboggan.  When we reached a significant downhill section of the woods, three of us decided to put the toboggan to good use.  We hopped on, built up some speed,,,,,,, and ran straight into a tree.  It was totaled.  The front end was completely smashed.  Luckily, no one was hurt.  As far as I know, that thing is still there in the woods exactly where we left it.

We stumbled out of the woods twenty minutes later.  Turns out my parents were worried about us, but that didn’t stop them from locking me out of the house.

This will be my only story about camping in below zero temperatures.  If it ever happens again, it will be because my plane has crashed in the Andes.

 

Ever have one of those weeks?  Let me tell you about mine.

• It started with a dream.  Sunday morning: There are people in my house.  People who don’t belong there.  Dangerous people.  I decide to do a room to room search for these nefarious people.  I look everywhere and finally come to the garage.  I slowly open the garage door,,,,,,,, and see two people leaving the garage through another door.  And I start yelling.  It turns out that I was actually yelling with my mouth closed.  I woke myself up.  My wife was laughing at me.  She said, “You know how the dog barks when he’s dreaming?  That’s what you just did.”  It was an omen.
• My youngest son came down with a fever on Sunday evening.  He ended up being out of school for FOUR days.  On the bright side, we did get lollipops at the doctor’s office.  I kind of resent their one lollipop per patient policy, which is why I told them that my particular HMO required a minimum of five Dum Dums per visit.
• Then my wife got sick.  Our house was starting to look like a Civil War field hospital.  People were moaning and asking for water.  There were cots in the hallway.  Tents were set up in the yard.  Amputations were being performed in the shed.  I am only exaggerating slightly.  I did some internet research and was able to diagnose both of them.  I was 95% sure that my youngest had yellow fever.  I was 85% sure that my wife had a common cold, but was acting like she had the measles.  I treated them aggressively with chicken noodle soup and then put on headphones to block out the continued moaning.
• And then,,, it snowed again.  Granted, it wasn’t much snow.  An inch or maybe a little more.  It was enough to be depressing.
• By the time Saturday came, we were all ready for some down time.  We went to visit family to relax and make each other laugh.  It was after eleven when we got back home.  Both kids were asleep in the backseat.  I woke up the little guy and opened the door for my oldest.  After unlocking the house, I returned to the car to witness an event of extreme awkwardness.   My wife was standing by the rear door of the car while my ten year old struggled with his seatbelt like it was a giant anaconda intent on suffocating him.  He was only half awake and he couldn’t figure out why it was so difficult to get out of the car.  My wife- “Undo the buckle.”  My son- “WHAT BUCKLE?”  Me- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA   Eventually he woke up enough to figure out why the seat belt was attacking him.  He defeated it and and we all went inside.  It was the perfect ending to this week.

Onward.  IT’S GOING TO BE SEVENTY ON WEDNESDAY.  My prayers are being heard.

LINKS

• A scuba diver who was looking for lobster got sucked into a cooling pipe for a nuclear reactor.
• A high school basketball player hit a full court shot at the end of the game to force overtime.
• A skyscraper in LA is putting in a glass slide on the 70th floor.
• I just finished watching the Tsunami Caught on Camera series of videos on Youtube.  It is heartbreaking and breathtaking at the same time.  So, the trailer for The Wave really caught my interest.

To commemorate the most pretentious night in entertainment, I have poured through many documents and historical accounts to come up with a mostly accurate history of the Academy Awards.  Enjoy.

In 1926/27 Louis Mayer and some of his friends formed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.  It appears as though the “Arts and Sciences” were thrown into the title as a way to make everything sound really legit.  Kind of like how garbagemen started calling themselves “sanitation engineers.”  Originally it was a way to keep the actors, writers, and directors from unionizing.  As an anti-union tool, the Academy was an absolute failure, because in the early 1930’s the unions and guilds formed anyway.

The very first Academy Awards were given out in 1929.  The very first best actor winner was actually Rin Tin Tin.  Yes.  The dog.  Before the awards were handed out, the Academy decided that it would be weird to give the first statue to a dog.  So, they held another vote, this time excluding animal actors no matter how great their emotional range.  A guy named Emil Jannings ended up winning best actor.  He then promptly went back to Germany to help make propaganda films for that exciting political movement known as the National Socialist German Worker’s Party.  Yeah, the Nazis.  These two events gave rise the two most popular hashtags of the year.  #Oscarsohuman and #Oscarsofascist.

The original Oscar statues were bronze coated with gold.  In the 30’s the Academy realized it would be much more cost effective to coat a tin alloy with gold, so that is what they did.  Credit for the design of the statue goes to Cedric Gibbons, who was famous for his art-deco set designs.  It was not designed after any particular person.  The name Oscar seems to have come from Margaret Herrick, who worked at the Academy.  Legend has it that she saw the statue and said, “Hey that looks like my uncle Oscar.”  Oscar Mayer, of hot dog and Wienermobile fame, appears to have no ties to the statue.

Over the years, almost three thousand Academy Awards have been handed out, and personally, I’m still unclear what the definition of a “supporting actor” is.  As far as I can tell, it is an award for the man or woman who should have been the main star of the film.  They started televising the awards in 1953.  The actors and actresses loved this because their favorite thing in the world was to be on screen anyways.  Now they could be on screen getting awards for being on screen.

Famous Hollywood people who have never won an Oscar include-

• Leonardo DiCaprio  (Although that will probably change this year.)
• Glenn Close
• Edward Norton
• Viola Davis
• Tom Cruise
• Samuel L. Jackson
• Robert Altman
• Stanley Kubrick
• Alfred Hitchcock
• Orson Welles
• Deborah Kerr
• Albert Finney
• Tom Green
• Me
• Rin Tin Tin  (Who was robbed on a technicality, as we’ve already discussed.)

As you can see, it’s a pretty exclusive club.

This year’s ceremony is at the Dolby Theatre.  (Doesn’t it bother you just a little bit that they spell it with an RE?)  The “red carpet” will be close to 500 feet long and 33 feet wide.  That seems really big, but in reality Quentin Tarantino and his ego take up most of that space.

Hopefully this has prepared you for small talk at any Oscar get togethers you are going to tonight.  All that is left is to sit back and enjoy the show.  Or, to sit back and wish that Seth McFarlane was hosting again.  It was such a gloriously uncomfortable affair that year.

And The Oscar Goes To……………..