Don't Get Me Started

It's our fault...we voted them in

2009-04-21T18:23:00.001-07:00

NOTE: The following is a reprint of my column, "Reality...And Other Tall Tales" that was published in the April 20 edition of the Keith County News. Enjoy...Mikey C

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More than 20 years ago, the progressive heavy metal band Queensryche released a concept album called “Operation: Mind-crime,” which contained a song that speaks well, more than a generation later, to the current state of our nation.

In the song, “Revolution Calling,” vocalist Geoff Tate issues a call for change in Washington:

“Got no love for politicians, or that crazy scene in D.C., it’s just a power mad town,

But the time is ripe for changes, there’s a growing feeling, that taking a chance on a new kind of vision is due...”

Last week, “Tea Party” protests were held across the country as a sign to the “leadership” at Washington, D.C., that the American people are not happy with the government bailouts and the outlandish spending that has driven our national debt so far into the red (paying interest on the debt, for this year alone, will cost more than $800 billion) that it will take several generations to pay it off.

Some claim these demonstrations are being directed at the Obama administration, but the blame goes well beyond the new president and his tax paying-avoiding henchmen.

The blame goes far beyond the free-spending, liberal Democrats who control both sides of Congress. And, the blame is cast beyond the previous administration, which took a government surplus and turned it into the biggest deficit our nation has ever experienced; and the Republican party, which took greed to a whole new level during the past decade.

While they are the ones actively ruining our once-proud nation, the blame goes beyond the bozos in our nation’s capital. It falls on you and me, because we put these idiots in office to begin with.

Those who blindly vote along major party lines have historically voted for “representatives” who are nothing more than career politicians, willing to tell you what you want to hear to get your vote.

Many people don’t even pay attention to these bozos while they wildly spend millions of dollars on television advertising that, more often than not, points more to their opponent’s bad points than what they, themselves, will do if you elect them to office. People will, more often than not, vote for, or against, the candidate whose ads they see most often, regardless of what their position is on the issues of the day.

In the weeks leading up to the last election, I made a discovery: the problem is not that EITHER party is running the show in Washington – the problem is that BOTH parties exist as hollow, prostituted shadows of their former selves.

With that epiphany in mind, I came to the conclusion that neither party’s candidates were worthy of my vote. So, when it came time to mark my ballot, I voted for third-party or independent candidates, and even wrote my own name in for the Senate seat.

Everybody I talked to about my decision (and I’m sure some of you reading this will agree) chastised me for “wasting” my votes. Why vote for someone who you know is not going to win the election, they asked.

Ah, but here’s the rub...all but one or two of those individuals currently “representing” us in Congress are either Republicans or Democrats. And, guess who is running our national debt into the ground right now with their government bailouts and socialist agendas?

Those of you who went to the polls last November thinking that voting for Obama, or whoever else, was “the candidate of change,” obviously, were sold a bill of goods.

I, on the other hand, saw these frauds for what they have shown us to be, and in no way do I, nor will I, support anyone in Washington who has any ties to either of the two major political parties. The only “change” we saw is new faces, singing the next verse in the same old song and dance. And, as long as we continue to vote for representatives of these pathetic political parties, we will continue getting the same results.

If you want to vote for real change the next time around, make sure the ballot you cast doesn’t include a single Democrat or Republican. Only then will we begin to see real change...the “new kind of vision” our country so desperately needs right now.

Random thoughts and observations

2009-03-23T19:29:00.001-07:00

Just a few random thoughts this time around as my brain makes the adjustment to Daylight Savings Time in the Mountain Time Zone...

-- Don't you wish you could get a member of Congress to say what he REALLY believes, and then stand behind it when questioned by the lunatic fringe known as the mainstream media.

Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa recently said that these goons who took bailout money and then gave their executives mega-huge bonuses for their incompetence, should do the honorable thing...apologize and then either resign or commit suicide.

Grassley cited the Japanese culture, where people in similar positions would rather off themselves than to shame their families and resign their posts.

It's a great idea...except that the next day, Grassley's hard-on became a vagina, he pussed out and backtracked on his earlier statement, suggesting that they should at least resign.

No, no, dumbass...they SHOULD take themselves out of the gene pool, and they should do it as soon as possible. And while we're at it, a similar fate should befall those who allegedly lead our once-great nation and have run it into such a bad state that the only way out is for them to leave office and replace them with competent people of much higher character.

Grassley, Kennedy, Pelosi, Schumer...they should all fall on a sword and do our nation right for once. Their continued failures are putting us on the road to ruin, and if they had ANY brains, they'd see that the problem can be found in their mirrors.

-- Played golf Saturday and Sunday. Threw snowballs in the wind Monday.

Ladies and gentlemen...welcome to spring in Nebraska.

-- I've come to a conclusion that should solve my longstanding bachelor status: I'm going to be more of an asshole.

It's been said that nice guys finish last. I don't know about that, but I do know this...nice guys don't get the girl.

Assholes, on the other hand...they score more often than Gene Simmons on a tour bus.

I've witnessed so many instances where a girl, who I might find attractive, hooks up with a guy that, while appearing to be a good guy on the outside, is a real asshole to the woman.

Some guys are OK as long as they are sober. One shot of tequila, shake lightly and VOILA...instant asshole. And, for whatever reason, chicks DIG the alcohol-fueled asshole.

Others just have a really screwed up view about the fairer sex. If they're barefoot, pregnant, and don't talk back, they're fine. If they get out of line...it's his job, in his teeny little mind, to slap the bitch back in line. Again, the ladies love the caveman-reared neanderthal, for reasons I can't seem to grasp.

I have a pretty long-standing track record of treating the women in my life right. Mind you, I haven't been PERFECT...but I can safely say there are no assaults on my record, and aside from the alcohol-induced occasions where I might SAY something wrong, I've been respectful and, at the very least, willing to listen to her side of the story.

This approach has, for whatever reason, failed miserably, and has been a consistent failure for the last 15 years. The carnage left behind has left my heart broken, shattered, tattered and left by the side of the road. The heart has long since healed, the scars a badge of honor...but that way of dating is not getting what I want in the pursuit of Ms. Right.

Therefore, I am going to change my philosophy, start treating women like they want to be treated...which, obviously, is like shit...and that should set me up for meeting the woman of my dreams. Being more of an asshole, and less of a nice guy, is going to net that special woman who I can treat like garbage and, at the end of the day, have her loving me in a way that will have other men wondering what I've wondered of many others:

"How the hell does an asshole like him wind up with a hottie like her?"

And if that doesn't work...I'm going to become a monk.

-- How's your NCAA bracket doing these days?

Mine is doing quite well, thank you. My projected final four (Louisville, North Carolina, Memphis and Pittsburgh) survived the first weekend, which is something I haven't been able to do for a number of years now. Of the 16 teams still remaining, 14 were on my list of Sweet 16 teams when this insanity got underway last week.

I don't want to jinx the good thing I've got going, but it could be my best NCAA bracket pick ever. As long as Louisville and North Carolina keep winning, and Pitt and Memphis can win two more, I'll be happier than Dick Vitale on Selection Sunday.

-- And, finally, from the "Birthdays you'd have bet $10,000,000 would never have been celebrated" department...rapper and resident gold-toothed black clown Flava Flav turned 50 over the weekend.

Considering his history in rap music, L.A. gangs, dating Brigitte Nielsen and involving himself with more skanky sluts than all the trailer parks south of the Mason-Dixon line combined...I'm sure the over-under on the age on his death certificate was in the low 30's.

Certainly, his IQ falls below that numerical range...

Thanks for playing, you've been a lovely audience...stay tuned for Alan O'Day.

Why can't we return politicians sooner?

2009-03-11T22:07:00.001-07:00

If you buy a TV at Best Buy and the TV doesn't work, you can take it back to the store and get your money back.

The same holds true if you buy a faulty microwave at Wal-Mart, a bad video game at Game Stop or a box of cereal with a dead mouse in it at your local grocery store.

Why can't we do the same thing with the morons who are elected to public office? Why do we have to wait four years to "return" these idiots to whatever hole we found them buried in when they were elected last November?

Seriously...I thought that the clusterfuck of imbeciles who were elected in the 2004 and 2006 elections were the bottom of the barrel. This collection of mental midgets had the intellectual capacity of an anteater's bowel movement. We CAN'T do any worse in 2008, I thought to myself.

And I was wrong...holy horseshit was I wrong. I haven't been THAT wrong since the last argument I had when I was married (and you guys with spouses, you know what I'm talking about).

These losers who are allegedly representing our wishes in Washington are doing everything EXCEPT our wishes. And guess who's going to foot the bill for this grandiose glob of incompetence? That's right, pal...you, me, your spouse, my future spouse, our children, their children, and any illegitimate children who might unexpectedly pop up on the outer branches of the family tree.

Wasn't this an election of "change" that we were going to experience??? Nobody said that the change would consist of making things even worse than they already are.

Alleged President Barack Obama promised that business would be conducted differently in Washington with him in charge. It was the "There's a new sheriff in town, and his name's Reggie Hammond" speech.

And what have we got for our change? A $787 billion "stimulus" package and a recently passed budget of over $400 billion that is so full of pork it makes Famous Dave's look like a vegetarian buffet. And when he's grilled on it, he tries to tell us that it was former President Bush who bailed the banks out...conveniently forgetting that it was a DEMOCRAP-CONTROLLED CONGRESS (of which he was a member of at the time) THAT BEGGED FOR AND PASSED THE LEGISLATION.

Wasn't Obama going to do away with all those cute little bells and whistles our alleged representatives sneak into these bills? Fantastic job, Mr. President -- that $400 billion-plus bill you just signed into law contains a whopping NINE THOUSAND FREAKING EARMARKS!!! Great work keeping those whores in check, Einstein.

And the hits just keep on a-comin', folks. The House of Representatives' house mother, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, is flapping her lips about the need for ANOTHER stimulus package of as much as $500 billion. And doesn't it seem funny that every time that worthless broad speaks, or Obama spouts off on the economy, our 401K's and IRA's lose thousands of dollars more in value? Shaddap already...you're talking us all into an economy where we live our retirement years in our grandkids' basements with a box of Town House crackers and a warm, half-consumed can of Diet Pepsi.

So between the two stimulus packages and the new pork-flooded budget signed by our dubious leader, you're staring at almost $2 trillion on those three items alone. TWO TRILLION GREENBACKS, boys and girls. That's well over $20,000 for every man, woman, and child legally residing within our borders.

Here's a better idea, you D.C. assholes...instead of whoring yourselves out to Big Banks, Big Oil and whatever big cock you're sucking on right now...how about handing that "stimulus package" over to the people who could actually "stimulate" this abortion of an economy we've got right now? If I have to choose between my neighbors and I spending $20,000 a head, and some corporate buffoon at General Motors, Citibank or whatever worthless corporation with goons in three-piece suits holding their hands out for more money to spend on lavish "retreats" for their management -- most of whom are incapable of spending more than 15 seconds in the real world without pissing their pants over not having access to a resort to suntan their shriveling nutsacks -- I'd bet my money on the latter shitting away yet another "stimulus package" just as they flushed this latest one down the toilet.

Guess what, folks? I didn't elect ANY of these clods to "represent" me in Washington. I voted strictly independent and third-party candidates, because I knew EXACTLY what kind of garbage the Democraps and Repukeicans were going to send to D.C. to "represent" us.

I voted this way and everybody...EVERYBODY...laughed at me, mocked me and made fun of me for the choice I made. Well guess who called the shot and is holding a full deck of "I told you so" trump cards right about now??? Here's a quick clue...he's the author of this here little blog.

Like it says in an old Aerosmith classic -- "It's the same old story, same old song and dance, my friends..."

I hope that, in 2010 and 2012, when the time comes to vote these yahoos out of office, we will all remember where we are at right now and ask ourself one simple question: AM I STUPID ENOUGH TO BELIEVE THE DEMOCRAPS AND REPUKEICANS ARE REALLY INTERESTED IN MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, OR AM I SMART ENOUGH TO REALIZE BOTH PARTIES ARE A WORTHLESS BAG OF BAT SHIT AND AM GOING TO VOTE FOR REAL CHANGE THIS TIME?

That's it for this time, and as always...if you like what you've read, tell a friend, and if you DON'T like it...tell an enemy.

Time to let out the guitar hero in each of us

2009-03-06T00:44:00.000-08:00

If you grew up during the rock and roll era (amazingly enough, most of you have, at least in a physical sense), you have played air guitar at least once in your life.

You may not publicly admit to it, but you have. You know you have. And you're full of crap if you say you haven't.

When The Beatles and The Rolling Stones appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, it spawned zillions of otherwise semi-intelligent members of the human race to pick up a guitar and start their own local band.

Most never made it out of mom's basement (actually, most had one appearance in mom's basement, then were banished to the shed out in back with the lawn mower). Some played small venues, such as their backyard or Moe's Cafe on the corner in their home town. A handful actually graduated to playing the senior prom in their high school gymnasiums (while missing out on the REAL graduation that took place a few weeks later).

A select few, however, found their way to the big time. They recorded an album. The album found its way to some podunk radio station in North Dakota. Then South Dakota. And, if they were really lucky, they made it to actual radio stations with an audience of more than 1,000 people. Only the extremely blessed made it big enough to record a few albums, get them played all over the country, make a guest appearance on a talk show, go on their own headlining tour and subsequently break up amid a haze of drugs, booze, ex-girlfriends, wrecked Ferraris and sexually-transmitted diseases that become fodder for an episode of VH1's "Behind The Music."

But enough about the real world...let's talk about that fantasy we all shared: playing guitar in a rock and roll band.

Most of the time, our experience was limited to standing in front of the mirror in our bathroom, the door locked behind us, and the stereo cranked loud enough that people in neighboring counties would complain about the noise. We mimicked the strumming on our belt buckle, held our other hand out as we hit the note perfectly on the fret each and every time and, if we were talented enough, would lip-synch the lyrics better than Britney Spears.

Sometimes, we would be caught in the act of jamming out to our favorite guitar-oriented song. Did we give a damn? HELL NO...we were too busy rockin' to care what we looked like. We were legends...in our own mind, but legends nonetheless.

Well, now there's a little something out there for us wannabe Yngwie Malmsteens in the audience (and if you actually KNOW a Yngwie Malmsteen song, you are a true guitar rock fan) called Guitar Hero. It's a video game that can be played on XBox, Playstation or whatever video gaming console you've got, and it comes with its own guitar that can be connected to the game system, giving you the chance to be the Jimi Hendrix you always thought you could be.

I broke down recently and bought the newest version, complete with a WIRELESS system that allows me to play guitar in the kitchen, on the toilet, in my bed or standing in my underwear on the front porch in broad daylight (I haven't actually TRIED the front porch thing yet, but if I master Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher" anytime soon, I'm going to walk out in my Hanes briefs and do just that. And don't think for one second that I won't...).

In learning how to play the "guitar" setup, though, I have discovered some useful tips that the game's how-to section doesn't tell you. Here are some things to think about before you turn on, plug in, tune out and rock on:

1. Ted Nugent can lean back from his knees during the solo to "Strangelhold." You are NOT Ted Nugent.

After playing a couple of songs and beginning to feel a groove while you're playing, you tend to either lean on one leg or kind of bounce up and down like you're trying to shake an unexploded fart bubble from your boxers. If you don't stretch out beforehand, you will feel it in your knees, and it's a feeling that closely resembles the feeling when somebody comes up from behind and whacks you in the back of the legs with a golf club.

And as much as you try to avoid it, you will make goofy faces while trying to hit certain notes, just like the real guitar players do. Don't fight it...just feel the groove, baby.

2. Your attention please...that is, your UNDIVIDED attention, dumbass.

There is very little room for error with this game. It's not like Galaga, where if you miss the ship the first time it floats by, you can always get it the next time around.

The notes come at you on an endless fretboard, and you have to hit the right fret color to match the color that is coming up next, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME clicking the strum key in the middle of the guitar.

You can't do one and not the other. It has to be in sync, and it has to be right on or you don't score points. And if you screw that up enough times, you start getting booed (and not the fake booing your family does to make fun of your playing air guitar in the living room...or is this something that only I had to experience in my youth???). Screw it up really bad, and you not only get booed, but the song ends prematurely and your band members boo you off the stage as well.

And if your friend calls about playing poker next weekend while you're in the middle of a Scorpions solo? Don't hit pause in the middle of the solo. You'll ruin your consecutive note streak, screw up your chances for high score and will hate your friend for breaking into your rhythm. And then you'll try to take it out on him at the poker table the next night, but will play angry and lose your entire paycheck in the process. And there's really nothing more pathetic than a hung over, broke, wannabe guitar player.

3. Who the *#@%^#$ is Bullet For My Valentine???

The new Guitar Hero: World Tour game contains a bunch of great classic tunes, with songs like Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train," the Pat Benatar classic "Heartbreaker" and even FM radio hits like "Do It Again" from Steely Dan and "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band. There is even Michael Jackson's "Beat It" (which, if you remember featured the guitar wizardry of one Edward Van Halen).

There are, however, songs by groups who I'm vaguely familiar with, but wouldn't know their music if somebody shoved an iPod full of their tunes up my ass. They're SO unfamiliar that I can't even tell you the names of the bands. And if they're unfamiliar to me, why would I bother to play songs I've never heard before?

4. "Medium" = "Impossible"

There are five levels you can play at, and each one is progressively tougher.

"Beginner" is for people whose hand-eye coordination is one step on the south side of retardation. If you can't play along at this level, you should sell your Playstation and stick to playing solitaire on your PC.

"Easy" is a little more challenging, but not really that tough as long as you follow the three previous rules above. I struggled with just one song at this level, which wouldn't have been so bad except it was Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama," which is my all-time favorite karaoke song. Singing this song is easy... playing it, not so much.

"Medium" is where things get hairy. It's not all that difficult to strum along using three of the five fret keys. Using your index, middle and ring fingers, it's pretty easy to keep up. Throw that pinky finger in, though, and the confusion factor multiplies. If it's a fast-paced song, don't even try this. You will be booed offstage within the first 50 notes. And there are no winners when that happens.

After that are "Hard" and "Expert" -- if you can play any song at this level with any kind of reasonable accuracy...I hate you and will break all 10 of your fingers with a brick if I ever get the chance.

Guitar Hero has fast become one of the most popular video games on the planet (another game, Rock Band, is a clone of the Guitar Hero franchise), and some bands have even signed deals to have exclusive versions of the game featuring many of their hits. Metallica and Aerosmith already have their own games, and I'm sure it won't be long before we see other classic bands get their own game.

It will be yet another chance for the rock star in all of us to live out our dreams of being a guitar god, so long as we remember to sit down while we're playing that big solo in "Kick Out The Jams."

I'd love to write some more, but I need to get back to the guitar. I need to bang my head and nail the solo to a Motorhead song before bedtime.

ROCK ON, DUDES...YEAHHHHHHHHHHOOOOWWWWW!!!!

The cat in the...uh...bong?

2009-03-03T22:40:00.001-08:00

Yeah, that's right...you're getting a second column this week. I'm making up for lost time, so it's either this or wander aimlessly around Wal-Mart's automotive department.

Here are a few random thoughts about recent items in the news...

-- Did you hear the one about the cat in the bong?

A Lincoln, Neb. man stuffed his girlfriend's six-month old cat inside a 12-by-6-inch base of his bong. The cat was discovered when authorities paid a visit to answer a domestic disturbance and found the man smoking marijuana from the bong.

The man has been arrested and the cat was freed. After eating an entire bag of Meow Mix at the animal shelter, the cat was asked if he was OK. "Meow, dude," the cat said.

-- Southwest Airlines has painted one of its airplanes, and it's got some people thinking about taking "The Mile High Club" to new heights.

Seems the plane has been used as a canvas for Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover girl Bar Refaeli, whose gorgeous body is seen laying across the body of the plane.

Some passengers are objecting to being forced to fly in a plane that features a Sports Illustrated model. Quite honestly, I'd fly the friendly skies a lot more often if the stewardesses looked more like your typical Sports Illustrated swimsuit model than what they currently look like...which is something more along the lines of a typical Sports Illustrated subscriber.

-- Michael Jackson has been cleared by his doctors to perform 10 lives concerts in London, England this year.

Some news items just beg to have jokes written about them. Others write the joke for you. This one falls squarely on the side of the latter, so let's move on...

-- Matt Stafford was an outstanding quarterback at the University of Georgia, but you have to wonder if something's wrong with this young man.

When asked recently who he'd like to play for, he made no bones about it: he wants to play for the Detroit Lions.

Yes...THOSE Detroit Lions...the ones that went 0-16 last year.

Judging from that statement, we must conclude one of two things:

1. Stafford's helmet never got strapped on tight enough during those big games against Florida the last few years

ORRRRR...

2. Georgia's entrance exams for college athletes are REAL easy to pass.

-- This one's for all the Mac fans in the audience, courtesy of Jimmy Fallon:

Did you hear that Microsoft is opening its own stores to challenge Apple's chain of stores?

There's only one problem...if you ask a Microsoft customer service rep for help, they freeze.

-- How messed up is the American political system right now?

Here's today's indicator...it seems the Democratic Party is so paranoid about Rush Limbaugh that they are trying to claim that Limbaugh actually runs the party.

Of course, that pissed off leaders of the GOP, who said Limbaugh is nothing more than an entertainer.

And THAT pissed off Limbaugh, who basically took the GOP to task for forgetting its core values and selling its soul in an effort to win an unwinnable election.

Of course, the leaders of the GOP quickly turned tails like the spineless puppies they are and recanted their statement, which now has Democrats literally pissing themselves with glee as they knock each other over to try to be the first to say "I TOLD YOU SO!!!"

I'm not one to advocate random violence...but after witnessing this mind-numbingly moronic clusterfuck, if somebody were to drop a bomb and obliterate all of Washington, D.C. tomorrow, would that REALLY be a bad thing for our nation???

-- Just a reminder...six months from tomorrow is the season opener for "the pride of all Nebraska"...the Husker marching band's first big public performance.

I mention this because my daughter, Kylie, is probably going to be a member of the flag squad and would be a part of the band when they take the field at Memorial Stadium for their season opener on Saturday, Sept. 5.

There is a rumor floating around that an otherwise-meaningless game of football will be played in between the band's performances. I guess they're looking for new ways to keep 84,000 people entertained between band performances these days, and this seems to be something that is catching on.

That's all for this time, ladies and gents. As always, if you've enjoyed what you've read, forward the website to a friend. And if you didn't enjoy it...forward it to an enemy.

PAY THE MAN HIS MONEY!!! -- John Malkovich as Teddy KGB in "Rounders"

Just a few thoughts...

2009-03-02T19:08:00.001-08:00

Just a few thoughts as I finally catch up from a wild two weeks of state wrestling, poker, broken water heaters and my late-arriving bout with the cold:

-- A member of the Nebraska Legislature wants to make the act of not wearing a seat belt a primary offense, putting it on the same level as running a red light, speeding or any other moving violation.

State Sen. John Harms of Scottsbluff has introduced LB106, which would allow Nebraska to join 26 other states that have seat belt violations as a primary traffic offense. Supposedly, this would qualify the state for more federal funding.

At the present time, you can only be ticketed for a seat belt violation if you get pulled over for another traffic violation. As if cops don't have enough to worry about now, if this bill is passed they will have to keep a closer eye on motorists and try and catch the ones who are riding without a seat belt.

Now I'll be the first to applaud the use of seat belts. Seat belts saved my ass one night when I was involved in a high-speed car crash that caused my car to overturn. Were it not for that seat belt, you probably wouldn't be reading this.

But I'm also one for not having government legislate our day-to-day existence, and I think this is taking another step toward that.

As long as you are not in my vehicle, I feel it is well within your rights to put yourself at risk and not wear a seat belt in your vehicle. You want to put your life on the line and not wear one? Fantastic. Knock yourself out (metaphorically speaking, of course).

If you're in my car, the vehicle doesn't move until you're strapped in. If that's a problem, you have two remaining options: climb in the trunk or get out and walk your sorry ass wherever we're going.

Harms thinks we Nebraskans need to "shed our image as independent-thinking Westerners who don't like government telling them what to do." On the contrary...I think we independent-thinking citizens need to tell those who want to micro-manage our lives through the making of laws such as these need to tell those legislators to go screw themselves.

And I just might get in my car, buckle up, and make the four-hour trek to Lincoln to do just that.

-- Last month, I made over $500 playing poker.

During that same time frame, my IRA lost more than twice that amount.

The stock market has lost more than half its value from a year ago, and has dropped more than 30 percent since Barack Obama took the oath of office as President of the United States.

Right now, I have better odds making money sitting down at a $2-$5 no-limit table with $500 than I do putting that $500 into a retirement account.

Some people take a dim view on games such as poker and the fact that some people can lose a lot of money playing the odds of catching a back-door flush or having a straight run over by a full house.

Comparing that to these financial wizards who keep asking for multi-billion dollar handouts and mismanage company funds to the point that people are losing tens of thousands of dollars every day in the stock market, I really have a hard time telling which is worse for your nest egg.

At this point in time, you have better odds cashing in your IRA and spending the proceeds at the roulette wheel than you do keeping it in the stock market. The only difference is...if you know how certain games are played, you can play the odds and make more money than you do putting your retirement in the hands of some of the swindlers and scumbags on Wall Street.

-- So Alex Rodriguez has copped to using steroids.

How is this news?

The sport that was once known as Major League Baseball is fast becoming the 21st century version of what WWE is to real wrestling...a pathetic phony of the real thing.

Rodriguez' name was among 104 on a list of a group of players who were tested prior to the start of the league's drug-testing program. Those names were not supposed to be released, but Sports Illustrated got a hold of them and outed Rodriguez (while, oddly enough, keeping the other 103 names secret).

I have always loved baseball, but Major League Baseball lost me back in 1994 when the league went on a season-ending strike that killed the World Series. I have not actively followed the sport since then, although I do keep tabs on some of the major stories surrounding the sport.

The league is a shambles, thanks in no small part to its alleged commissioner, Bud Selig. He was the acting commissioner when the 1994 strike took place, and has continued to mismanage the league to the point that it has become a joke.

We have seen so many big-name players succumb to the seduction of steroids. Players like Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettite and now Rodriguez have sullied the integrity of this once-great American institution, to the point where we now see somebody pull of some amazing feat and ask ourselves, "I wonder if he's juiced, too?"

Until baseball gets a commissioner with the balls to actually do something about the problem -- permanently banning first-time offenders leaps to mind -- Major League Baseball will be a fraud to the real sport. I'll watch college and American Legion baseball, but the pro game is a fake until they get a real commissioner running the game and doing the things that keep cheaters out of the sport for good.

That's this week's column. As always...If you enjoyed it, forward the website to a friend. And if you didn't enjoy it, forward it to an enemy.

Until next time...

Keep On Rockin' In the Guitar Hero World

2009-02-15T22:42:00.000-08:00

I'm 42 years old. I'm at the stage in my life where, one might think, I've outgrown some things that I used to enjoy when I was younger.

Like being in a rock and roll band, for instance.

Now I'm not going to kid anybody here...I don't have the rock and roll "look." I'm not tall, lean and lugging an oversized squirrel around in my jockey shorts. I don't own any leather pants that are so tight you have to jump off the roof of your parents house to get into them. Hell, I can't scream at a high enough octave to make the neighbor dog's ears bleed.

And yet, I just can't seem to shake that dream of being a rock and roll star.

I must admit (and those who have heard me can verify this), I'm not a bad karaoke singer. While most stick to the safe, easy-to-sing songs, I'm one to stretch it out a little bit. I'll sing "Smoke On The Water" by Deep Purple or "Ice Cream Man" by Van Halen. Get us far enough into the evening (read: minimum six beers and five minutes before last call) and I'll even break out Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train."

But when it comes to playing instruments...well, that's another story altogether.

That's why I decided recently to take some of my poker winnings and...get ready...learn how to play Guitar Hero.
(My mother knows where I live and work...just have her send the guys with the backward-fitting jackets there.)

Now when you watch one of these guitar greats like Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, Eddie Van Halen or John Petrucci (guitarist of Dream Theater, the best progressive rock band ever, in my opinion), these guys make playing the guitar look easy. The way they effortlessly maneuver their fingers across the fretboard and somehow never miss a note, regardless of how fast they are playing, is something I could just sit and watch all day.

The problem with that is this...after watching and listening them for a couple of hours, you begin to think to yourself, "Hey...I can do that."

And unless you've been living under a rock lately, you no doubt have heard all this talk about Guitar Hero and Rock Band, video games you can hook up to your Playstation, XBox 360, or Wii game systems and play along with actual songs made by actual rock groups with actual talent. Get a few songs under your belt, and your frickin' Bruce Springsteen (with the E Street Band, if you can get the rest of the family to play the other instruments that come with the game).

Recently, I bought the new Guitar Hero World Tour edition, which came complete with a brand new Fender-lookalike guitar. Attach the straps, insert the remote to the game system, put the game CD in and you are ready to rock your ass off.

Allegedly.

I started out on the easy level with a couple of songs I'm familiar with, "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor and "Livin' On A Prayer" by Bon Jovi. Playing on the easy level, I was able to get through both songs without too much trouble.

Then I remembered...there are special cheat codes you can enter into the system that allows you access to many more songs (the original list had a bunch of songs that I didn't know or could care less to learn how to play. "The One I Love" by REM? I'd rather learn how to fart the song "Mary Had A Little Lamb" after a meal of Mexican food).

I found one of my favorite karaoke songs, "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I have the words of this song memorized, I thought. I can sing along AND play at the same time.

Uhh...no I can't.

Early on, I discovered that concentrating on the video screen and matching what I was seeing on the screen with what I was doing with the guitar is not near as easy as it looks (I can't even begin to imagine, at this moment, how to learn to play the song on a real guitar). Before long, I thought I was getting a feel for it. As the song continued, though, the notes kept getting tougher and, before long, I started to hear the voices of discontent in the crowd.

I tried to pick things up and really focus, but I couldn't get my fingers in sync. I was either too soon or too late, or I'd just miss the notes altogether. Miss enough notes, and the song's over, the crowd boos unmercifully and the other band members look at you in disgust (oddly enough, this is a fairly accurate description of the last two years of my marriage).

I've watched my daughter and her boyfriend play Guitar Hero, and those two -- compared to me -- are rock legends. My daughter plays the ending solo from Metallica's "One" like she wrote the song (even though the song was out a good 18 months before she was even born). Her boyfriend plays like a maniac. They both make me look like a complete idiot.

And maybe it's just one of those generation things. When video games first came out, it was amusing to watch my parents try to maneuver a joystick and play Asteroids or some other game that my sister and I were experts at.
"Here, Mom," I'd say, taking the joystick from her. "Let me show you how to get out of Level 1 without losing all your lives."

But while my parents quickly learned to give up the video games and let the kids become world-class players, I'm not going to step down from my throne atop the family video game kingdom so quietly. I'm going to work on my Guitar Hero skills and, with a little luck, be able to go toe-to-toe and fret-to-fret with my daughter in a showdown on Motley Crue's "Kickstart My Heart."

So if you'll excuse me, I've got some rockin' to do.

Green, Red, Green, Red...no, Green, Yellow, Green, Red...no...oh screw it.

Where's Pac Man when you really need him?

Baseball player on steroids? THAT'S news???

2009-02-09T22:06:00.001-08:00

Hey, it's good to be back. A lot has happened since you last heard from me here. Let's run down some of the highlights, shall we?

-- The United States elected a black President.

-- The Philadelphia Phillies won a World Series, beating the Tampa Bay Rays.

-- America's Olympic sweetheart is pulling bong hits at frat houses.

-- The nation's economy is in the tank.

-- Unemployment is skyrocketing.

-- A slut in a bikini with no musical talent made the first cut on American Idol.

And yet, with all of that, the only thing anybody seems to want to talk about is yet another overpaid, egomaniacal, professional baseball player taking steroids.

That's news?

Of course it is...any time ESPN breaks into its fifth re-airing of Mike & Mike In The Morning, it's got to be something of vital importance. And if it's not their goofy man-crush over Brett Favre, then it's gotta be really BIG news to make that programming change.

To catch you up on the details...New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez was fingered in a Sports Illustrated special report last week as one of 104 players who tested positive for steroids back in 2003 when the organization formerly known as Major League Baseball did a random drug test as part of an agreement with the players' union to get drug testing in the sport.

As part of the agreement, the names were supposed to be kept secret and the results destroyed after a certain period of time.
For whatever reason, that was not done and some crack journalists at Sports Illustrated got the information and released it in a story last week.

Rodriguez was supposed to be baseball's golden child. Alleged commissioner Bud Selig (can anyone detect a hint of a possible negative air about my feelings for Major League Baseball right about now?) has held Rodriguez up as the exception to the rule of today's superstar baseball players who are setting, or working their way toward, records that may never be broken. He was the one that was going to hit 800 or more homers and make the all-time home run record that was prostituted by Barry Bonds (who is well on his way to a nice prison stay after lying about not using steroids) a clean record again, just like it was when Hank Aaron overcame his lack of size (by comparison to Bonds, Mark McGwire and Rodriguez) and the not-so-overt threats of racial hatred to hit 755 home runs in a remarkable career that spanned three decades.

Well guess what? it seems the golden child has a little tarnish on him that's not coming off. And don't think his admission on national television yesterday -- which came two years after he claimed he was clean while doing another television interview -- is going to get him off easy. While he won't face any penalties by the league (the drug tests he failed were done before penalties were put in place) or an interview with Congress (evidently, there's an economy in trouble that's just a little more important), he will have to face the court of public opinion. And after having to deal with Bonds, McGwire, Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro, Jason Giambi, Andy Pettite and whoever else has been caught juicing lately, I don't think he's going to find a very sympathetic court in any of the 30 big-league ballparks. Certainly not at Fenway Park in Boston...if you think the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is an intense one, just wait until Boston fans see ol' A-Rod trot onto their home field.

So what have we learned from this latest made-for-TV controversy, boys and girls? We have two things to focus on:

1. Major League Baseball has become the 21st century version of pro wrestling.

Back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, athletes used to wrestle professionally, and did it without the benefit of bad story lines, steroid-inflated muscles and sluts with more paint on them than the fans in Madison Square Garden during a sold-out KISS concert. These were real men competing in a real sport, until somebody came up with the idea that it needed more of an entertainment push.

Until probably the mid to late 1970's, wrestling still had an air of legitimacy about it. They were still wrestling, but there was more showmanship to it and the beginning of some storylines that came with pre-determined outcomes to matches. Today, it's nothing more than a pathetic imitation of what it once was, complete with storylines that make porn directors cringe in disgust and an unscrupulous, pathetic leader who seems content with physically abusing people and then, when they no longer hold any entertainment value, casting them aside like yesterday's trash.

Funny...but Major League Baseball is resembling WWE more and more every day. The athletes, more and more, are fake. The stats they put up are fake. And their league is run by an unscrupulous, pathetic leader who seems content with pumping up the athletes, which in turn pumps up the stats, which in turn pumps up the attendance numbers, the memorabilia sales and the ticket prices. And when those "athletes" either break down or run afoul of the court of public opinion, they are cast aside and left to fend for themselves, regardless of which court they happen to be dealing with.

Bud Selig has absolutely wrecked this once great sport and has tarnished its legitimacy to the point that I'm starting to wonder why ESPN, Fox Sports and all the other sports channels waste even one moment discussing what once was America's greatest sport.

2. Our worship of celebrity has gotten way out of control

Remember the Gatorade "I Wanna Be Like Mike" commercials that showed kids trying to play basketball like Michael Jordan?

That's nothing compared to what we, as a society, do with celebrity these days. We build these people up, buy tickets to watch them, build websites and YouTube videos as shrines to their perceived greatness, buy anything they pitch in commercials...and then blow them up as big as day the first time they screw up.

Remember when everybody was fawning over Paris Hilton...until her porn video came out? How about Lindsay Lohan...until she started boozing it up and turned into a lesbian? And what about Britney Spears, the pop queen turned psycho nutjob?

Until A-Rod's recent coming out of the steroid closet, the sports world was all aghast at the pictures of Olympic swimming sensation Michael Phelps, who was photographed taking a hit from a bong at a college party in South Carolina. Oh what a big deal THAT was...until A-Rod's 'roid report.

We put these people up on pedestals and become so disappointed when something comes along and knocks them down. And when you get down to it, these are the WORST people we should be aspiring to be.

I don't want to be like Mike (although I loved watching him play). I don't want to be like Tiger (although I'm looking forward to seeing him reclaim his spot atop the golf world). Hell...there are times I'm not sure I even want to be like ME (usually in the mornings before I've rubbed the sleep out of my eyes...other than that, being me never sucks).

If I'm going to emulate somebody, I want to emulate people who have been successful in their lives and have set a good example for others to follow...like my parents, or my sister, or some of the educational and professional influences I've been blessed with. They aren't perfect by a long shot, but they've set some pretty high bars for others to reach, and those of us who have taken advantage of their talents and wisdom to excel in our own lives look up to them much more often than we'd even consider looking up to some overpaid, drug-riddled pro athlete or some other notable dingbat who is famous only for being famous.

And now, if you'll excuse me...I need to get back to watching our alleged representatives in Congress permanently screw up our nation's economy. This is important stuff we're talking about here...

That's it and that's all...until next time.

***

P.S. - Thanks to all who have offered prayers, words of encouragement and nice thoughts during our recent family situation, which delayed my restarting of this blog.

The good news is that everybody is fine and fit as a fiddle. Adjustments in medication have been made, promises of actual physical exertion have been offered, and my mom is back in top form (well, she's not getting any more dizzy than normal, anyway).

There will be some more additions to this blog, including some official Mikey C video entries, coming soon. And as always...if you like what you see, tell a friend, and if you don't like what you see, tell an enemy.

Now quit screwing around on the Internet and get back to work...

Relaunch delayed

2009-01-14T20:03:00.000-08:00

Due to unexpected family situation, the relaunch is delayed. Will update as conditions warrant.

First phase of move an interesting one

2008-11-12T18:37:00.001-08:00

Well, phase one of "Mikey C -- Westward Ho" has been completed, and to say that it was a rather interesting experience would be a slight understatement of the obvious.

With a full carload of stuff to get me through my first week on the job, I made the trek out to Ogallala and unloaded things into my new apartment. It was as I was unloading that it became quite apparent that this move was off to something of a rocky start.

The first clue came when I was unloading things in the bathroom. When I had first looked at the apartment, I could have sworn there was a shower door in the bathtub, which meant I wouldn't need to worry about buying a shower curtain -- but when I got there, either the previous tenants had taken the door with them, or I had a momentary lapse of consciousness and forgot that the bathtub needed a shower curtain.

The second note came a little later when it dawned on me that the apartment was cold. And not just cold, mind you, but "Hey, Harry, let's hang those sides of beef here in the bedroom" cold. And it was then that it dawned me that I had forgotten to call the gas company to tell them to turn on the gas.

The room temperature when I had this moment of realization? A very balmy, strip-down-to-your-skivvies-and-party-like-you're-on-the-frickin'-beach 51 degrees.

Fortunately, I did have ENOUGH foresight to have at least let the folks running the city's electricity that I'd be moving in that weekend, and they were good enough to leave the lights on. Never have I been so happy to have an open oven, heated to 400 degrees, sitting in the middle of my kitchen.

The morning after also provided its share of hilarity (for everybody BUT me, obviously) when I determined that I could take a bath instead of a shower, although it would be somewhat brisk in the bathroom because of the heat issue. As I brushed my teeth, I looked into the bathtub to discover that there was no stopper in the bathtub. This left me with two choices -- no shower, or a shower that potentially floods the entire bathroom.

Well, you know me . . . gotta have a shower in the morning, or I'm just not looking, feeling or -- more important -- smelling right. Somehow, I managed to get something that resembled a shower and got dried off without catching pneumonia OR leaving a scaled-down version of Lake McConaughy on my bathroom floor. After work Monday, the gas company came by to turn on the heat, and I now have a new shower curtain in the bathroom (which, my mother and sister will be happy to hear, actually matches the decor of the bathroom -- no purple and red polka dots on the curtain this time, ladies).

Fortunately, the start of work at the Keith County News has gone a lot smoother than my first night and morning in my new apartment. I'm slowly getting acclimated to things and have a great staff to work with, which is a welcome change from my LAST situation (which, from here on out, we'll avoid discussing altogether and simply refer to it from here on out as "that time").

I'm slowly learning the names and faces of the people I'll be working with on a frequent basis, and hopefully by the end of the week I'll have everything moved from Omaha to Ogallala and can get down to some serious unpacking and getting back to my normal blogging schedule.

Sometimes it's all in your attitude

2008-11-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

I was back in the old digs the other day, getting some last-minute upkeep done on my car, when I was given an unexpected treat.

There is a small mom-and-pop restaurant in Gretna that I used to visit on a rather frequent basis when I was working for the local paper. It was a meeting place for the local Optimists Club every Thursday morning, and there was a young lady who served us that is one of those people you just never forget.

This young woman was the daughter of the restaurant owner, and if you spent more than five seconds around her and didn't come away feeling better about life, then there really wasn't any hope for you. She has such a warm, engaging personality, can talk to anybody about anything and can flirt in a friendly manner with the old farmers just as easily as she talks about whatever it is old ladies talk about.

Shortly before I moved from the community for that ill-fated gig in South Sioux City, this young lady had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She had just turned 21 only months earlier, and the prognosis didn't sound very good at the time. As I recall, she was being given months to live and the cancer had spread into her lymph nodes.

In the aftermath of what was happening in my personal life at the time, I had forgotten about this young lady. I would be reminded of her on occasion when I drove by the restaurant on my way to play poker at a local bar, but considering what her diagnosis was the last I had heard, I wondered if she was even alive at this point.

So you can imagine my surprise when I stopped in the other day for a late breakfast while waiting for my car to be finished to hear her giving instructions on an order to a cook in the back. I didn't see her, but the voice was unmistakable. "That CAN'T be her, can it?" I asked myself.

In the middle of my bacon and eggs, she strolled out of the back to talk with another customer, sitting across from him to see how he was doing and how business was going. She got up from that booth and turned in my direction, and it was like time had reversed back to before her diagnosis -- the same cheery face, bright smile and big dark eyes that showed no effects of what she had experienced over the past few years.

We hugged and caught up with each other's lives briefly. She was surprised and happy to hear I was getting back in the newspaper business, and was all smiles as she talked about how she was beating the cancer that had ravaged her body. She celebrated one year of remission last month, said almost all her hair was back (she had it pulled in a ponytail under a baseball cap) and she felt great.

Once I finished breakfast, I decided not to wait for the guy who was working on my car to pick me up. Although it was cold and breezy -- and I was wearing shorts -- it was the most uplifting walk I had taken in some time. Just knowing this young lady was still around and not only beating cancer, but doing it with the same spirit and attitude she has always exhibited, made the $250 bill I had waiting for me at the auto shop and all the challenges that lie ahead for me seem like nothing.

There have been numerous studies done on people who have been through the hell that this young lady has gone through, and a lot of the studies have shown that people who have upbeat, positive attitudes are more likely to get through physical battles such as this than those who paint the gloom-and-doom picture and look at things from a negative perspective.

I've been listening to and reading works from James Arthur Ray and Esther and Jerry Hicks lately, and their words of wisdom have been a key component in the change in attitude I've undergone during the past 12 months. One thing Ray repeats often in his book "Harmonic Wealth" is the phrase "Energy flows where attention goes" -- if you believe good things are going to happen in your life, they will. Conversely, if you believe bad things will happen, they certainly will.

I've experienced a number of events in recent months that would testify to this truth, from my relationship with my daughter to my success in playing poker. Even during my most recent situation where I lost my job, I took a proactive, positive approach to how I was going to deal with the situation. It would have been easy for me to sit at home, self-medicate myself with the woe-is-me attitude and blame others for my current status. Instead, I recognized that change was coming, positioned myself to respond to that change and am now looking forward to my first day in my new position in Ogallala.

We didn't talk much about how she handled her situation, but my guess is that she mentally attacked this in much the same way, and continues to do so today. Even when her insurance would no longer help pay for her treatment, she found part-time work with a reputable company that offered an insurance plan that would take care of her. She has a tremendous outlook on life and I have no doubt she is going to live a long, healthy and happy life -- mainly because of her attitude.

We all have issues to deal with in our life, be they personal, physical, financial, spiritual, emotional or professional. Many times we put the focus on what we don't want, but we can be most successful in these areas merely by focusing our efforts in the direction of getting what we DO want. Sometimes a simple change in focus is all it takes to turn things around.

Republicans, Democrats are the problem

2008-11-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

When we go to the polls to vote for our leaders in public office, we usually go in with our minds made up that we have selected the right candidate for the job.

We've heard the speeches, suffered through the non-stop political ads, researched the candidates' facts and figures, and we ultimately hope that our selections have helped that candidate win the race for public office.

More often than not, those who go to the polls vote their party affiliation. Many of us consider ourselves Republicans or Democrats and vote accordingly. Some will step away from the party line on occasion and vote for a candidate on "the other side."

I've been registered as an independent for most of my life, which allowed me to vote my conscience without regard to political party. While most of my votes over the years have been for Republican candidates, I felt that I ultimately chose the individual I felt was the best person for the job, regardless of whether or not that individual was Republican or Democrat.

This time, though, I made a change in my voting patterns. Some would call it radical. Others might call it worthless. Still others wonder if people like me should be allowed inside a voting booth.

Tuesday morning, I walked into my voting precinct, signed my name in the register, took my ballots into the voting booth and, without a moment's hesitation, avoided voting for any Republican or Democrat in the federal and state multi-party elections.

Johanns or Kleeb for Senate? I voted for neither.

Terry or Esch in the House? Neither guy got my vote.

Obama or McCain for President? Please . . .

The fact of the matter is, there is a common thread in the tapestry that is what is wrong with America in 2008. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out, really. Hell, if THIS GUY can figure it out, certainly SOMEBODY would have picked up on it by now.

The common thread is that Republicans AND Democrats are screwing up our nation, spending our tax dollars uncontrollably and whoring themselves out to special interests like there's no tomorrow. And it's time BOTH parties be neutralized by a third party or independent representation that is not beholden to the whims of the powers that be within the Democrat and Republican parties.

But you're wasting your vote by not voting for a Republican or Democrat, some have told me.

Really? I'm the one wasting my vote here? Not voting for a Republican or Democrat is throwing a vote away?

Au contraire -- if I see the problem, I'm not about to contribute to the perpetuation of said problem with my votes. If there's a fire in my backyard and I have a garden hose and a hose connected to a gas pump to douse the fire with, which one do you suggest I use?

With all that ails this great nation right now, and with all the problems that have come before it, the only thing I've seen is the two parties spending every constructive minute bitching about what the other side is doing to create the problem. The Republicans are spending too much. The Democrats want to tax us into oblivion. And we're stuck in the middle waiting for SOMEBODY to do SOMETHING.

So I've actually DONE something about it -- by not voting for a Republican or Democrat.

Now I'm not delusional in thinking that my vote is going to bring about change. Unfortunately, there are about 100 million people in this country who continue to act like cattle headed to the slaughterhouse and continue to vote for Republican or Democrat candidates, thinking THIS group will be the one that turns it around.

Guess what? It's the same sad song, with a brand new verse. And four years from now, we're not going to be anywhere closer to a solution because one party is going to control things and we will reap that which we sow because of the decisions made yesterday. And just so you remember where you read it first -- the harvest is not going to be a bountiful one.

Maybe the decision I made today is one that will open the eyes of enough people to make them realize just where the problems lie. Once we see the end result of Tuesday's election, it will make people realize what I've already figured out -- the Republican and Democrat parties do not represent the wishes of the American people.

Nebraska's safe haven law needs work

2008-11-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

"Give me your tired, your poor, 
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, 
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

This is from the poem "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus, and is part of an inscription on the interior of the pedestal on the Statue of Liberty in New York City.

A paraphrasing of it might as well be inscribed on top of the dome at the state capitol in my home state of Nebraska:

"Give me your teens, your preteens, 
Your misguided children yearning to be free of you, 
The wretched result of your incapability as a parent. 
Send these, the homeless, angst-ridden to me, 
I lift my flashlight beside the hospital door!"

Earlier this year, the Nebraska Legislature created its version of the "safe haven" law that other states have used to give parents who can't take care of their young children a chance to leave them somewhere so that the children can be turned over to social services without parents getting into trouble with the law.

The law has been discussed in previous years in Nebraska, but it took a series of incidents where several newborns were left for dead in Omaha by mothers who either didn't want the babies or were unable to care for them. The law was meant to give newborns and infants in this state a chance at being cared for and loved by adults who are capable of doing what their birth parents were unable, or unwilling, to do.

Since the law's introduction this summer, though, Nebraska has become more of a foster parenting drop-off point for people who are incapable of doing their job and taking care of their teenage children. Since the law came into play, 25 children have been left at hospitals in the state. The number of infants left behind: zero.

Most of the children that have been dropped off in the state have been from in-state adults (I hesitate to refer to them as "parents"), but lately it seems other states have residents who have heard about Nebraska's lack of restriction on leaving children at hospitals in the state. Children from Georgia, Michigan and Arizona have been dropped off at hospitals in the state since the law took effect in July.

The state legislature made a terrible error when writing this law. It may not have seemed like a glaring omission at the time, but not placing an age restriction on this law has opened the door for what I feel are some inexcusable acts by people who are not doing their jobs as parents.

When the law was written, I'm sure those involved couldn't have conceived of an adult leaving his or her 16-year-old son or daughter at a hospital and claim safe haven status. My guess is that they simply ASSUMED the law would be used only by those adults who were no longer ABLE to care for their young children.

Being a parent is no easy task. It's even more difficult when things like illness or unemployment make it difficult, if not impossible, for people to care for their children. In those cases, it's sometimes best for the child to be left with someone who will see to it that they are taken care of in a manner that will help the kids achieve some kind of good life that they would not have otherwise.

But when teenage children are being brought across state lines and left off at hospitals in Omaha, Lincoln or anywhere else in the state, I have a problem with that. In most cases, the problem is not that the adult CAN'T take care of the child -- it's that the parent no longer WANTS to do the job they are SUPPOSED to do.

Parenting is not an easy gig. I was unbelievably blessed with my daughter, who is now in college. We had some tough times those first few years -- we relied on government assistance for a couple of years, and it became more of a challenge when my wife and I separated. Our parents, friends and family helped out more often than we can count, but ultimately it was up to US as parents to make sure our daughter's needs were taken care of.

Most adults, though, don't want the responsibility of being a parent. They don't want to say "no" to their child when the child so desperately needs it. They don't want to discipline the child when the child obviously needs it. Many adults out there are more interested in being their child's buddy, rather than being their parent.

I'm not saying that parents shouldn't do buddy-type things with their kids. My daughter and I used to spend a lot of time at local arcades or putt-putt golf courses doing the kinds of things buddies do. But when it came down to being a parent, it was clear what hat I was wearing at the time, and that's a problem many of today's youth seem to have -- no parent willing to lay down the law when it needs to be laid down.

Later this month, the Nebraska Legislature is going to go into a rare special session to address this issue and place restrictions on the state's "safe haven" law. But the restriction being tossed around in the media is one that I feel is TOO restrictive.

The proposed change is going to limit drop-offs to children age 3 DAYS or younger, which is far too little time for parents to make a rational determination as to whether or not they can raise and properly care for a child. Granted, there are some cases (particularly among teenage mothers) where the sooner a newborn is turned over to social services, the better. Some teenage mothers are simply incapable of understanding what they need to do to properly raise a child and lack the kind of family support they would need to have around them to get that job done.

For others, though, it might take some time for them. They might think they can do it now, but may become overwhelmed by all the new challenges and feel they can't give the child what it needs. I think if such a situation were give a three-month window, it would still be good for both the unwanted children and the parents who recognize that what someone else can give their child is better than what they are capable of.

I'm happy to see the representatives of my state's governing system actually do the job entrusted to them (something we'd never see out of Washington D.C.), and I hope they go beyond the proposed three-day limit to one that is more consistent with the restrictions that most states currently have. It will not only give those who are new to the planet a fighting chance at a good life -- it will take away a sick and convenient avenue some of these rotten parents have for skirting their responsibilities and leaving their emotional train wrecks at our door for us to unscramble.

More from the "Bits And Pieces" file

2008-10-31T00:00:00.000-07:00

More odds and ends from the inner workings of the "Bits And Pieces" file:

-- I'm not one to go out and get gussied up for Halloween. I've never been much for costumes and all the hoo-hah that goes into getting myself made up to be someone or something for one night of debauchery.

This year, though, I kind of broke with tradition and actually took the time and effort to come up with a Halloween costume, which you see here on the right. If you look closely, you will see a bunch of baby chickens attached to my body, and I know the first thing that will come to your mind will be something along the lines of "Is he back in therapy yet?"

The costume I created -- with the help of the fine sewing talents of a good friend of mine -- is a "chick magnet." It's an offshoot of an idea I saw on the Townie News website run by Paul "Fitzy" Fitzgerald -- the idea on his website showed a guy with Barbie Dolls attached to his shirt.

Not having any Barbie Dolls around the house (since I no longer have a daughter in the house), I had to come up with an alternative. Originally, I had planned on going to a costume store to find a bunch of plastic chicks, but could find nothing but ducks. Fortunately, I have about a million graphic art pieces at home from my creative sources and was able to find a chick I could copy and print out about 40 times.

The costume was a hit at my poker league's Halloween bash (even if the cards did not cooperate). The only question I had was -- were they laughing at me because of the funny take on the phrase, or were they laughing because of the thought that I might consider myself to be attractive to the opposite sex?

Considering my recent track record with the opposite sex . . . my money would be on the latter.

-- This weekend my mom's side of the family is getting together to take family pictures.

It seems that every time there's a new addition to the family, there is a sudden urge to take pictures. The last time we got together for family photos, my youngest nephew was a toddler. Now that my niece has reached that stage, the time has come again to gather the family together, dress up and smile for the camera.

Thankfully, the family has not been waiting on me to add another twig to the family tree before doing the picture thing. If that were the case, the wait would be an extremely long one, and a lot of photographers would go hungry as a result.

-- One of the frustrating things about getting ready to move is trying to prioritize the things on your to-do list.

The other day, I found myself with about 10 things that needed to be done that day. Being the world-class procrastinator that I am, I found myself walking around in circles saying the following (to myself, of course):

"OK, first I need to take a shower, but the bills need to be paid so I should do that. Wait a minute, I need to organize my closet and get all the clothes I want to take to Goodwill out of there. I'll do that, BUT FIRST I need to do the dishes. Well, the dishes have been there long enough, one more day won't kill them, so let's get the cable box out and take that back to the cable company. Before I do THAT, though, I need to go through some boxes in storage and get out what I don't need. I'll get that done, but before THAT gets done . . . I need to play some poker."

So at least the day wasn't a TOTAL waste . . .

-- The weekend is going to be a good one, and I hope you enjoy yours. We'll be taking the first odd-numbered day of November off, and the next edition of DGMS will be up Monday morning.

Give props to the advertisers on the blog, and don't forget to forward this website to a friend, have them forward it to a friend, and have those friends forward it to their friends. What the heck -- just forward it to everybody in your e-mail address book, and let them sort it out from there.

Have a good weekend . . .

Happy Republicans, Angry Democrats?

2008-10-29T00:00:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process of getting organized for next month's move, so if you don't mind I need to lighten the box known as "Bits And Pieces" today . . .

-- Are you happy with your life, or does it just suck?

Are things going well for you, or does it seem to be one problem after another?

Is the glass half full with more water one the way, or half empty with a leak in the bottom?

The Pew Research Center has done a study on people's attitudes toward life and their political leanings, and what they have found is the following:

** Republicans are happy and optimistic

** Democrats are angry and pessimistic

According to a story in the Washington Post, people were polled about their outlook on life, and they found that 37 percent of Republicans are "very happy," compared with 25 percent of Democrats. In fact, 88 percent of Republicans were either "very happy" or "pretty happy," compared to 77 percent of Democrats. Only 9 percent of Republicans are "not too happy," compared to 20 percent of Democrats.

The happiness gap between the two major political affiliations was first discovered in 1972 through government-funded research. This year, there are a very huge number of happy Republicans and pissed-off Democrats, which might explain some of the negative advertising that's going on in politics these days.

The study also found that Republicans think success is determined by one's own efforts, while Democrats think success is determined by outside forces. This might also explain why McCain wants to give tax breaks to the rich, while Obama wants us to dive head-first into Socialism by "spreading the wealth around."

The study did not determine whether independent-thinking individuals, such as myself, were either happy OR sad. I can't speak for others, but I'm just happy I'm neither Republican NOR Democrat . . . and sad that I'm probably going to have to put up with another four years of crap from these morons representing both parties in Washington.

-- Remember when gas shot up over $3 a gallon?

Doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but it was about 6-8 months ago that the price of a gallon of gas soared above $3 and flirted with $4 in some parts of the Midwest.

I remember hearing some talking bobblehead on the Idiot Box saying, at that time, that we'd probably never see gas under $3 a gallon again. This afternoon, however, I saw one area gas station advertising gas at $2.21 per gallon.

The price of a gallon of gas dipped under $3 about a month ago, and it's been falling like a stone ever since. Not that long ago, it cost me $58 to fill up my car. The cost to fill it up a few days ago? Less than $40.

The price of a gallon of crude oil was up in the stratosphere earlier this year, reaching well over $120 a gallon. It's now half that, and the godfathers at OPEC are going to cut production in an effort to try and drive prices back up again.

The lesson I hope we all learned from earlier this year is to cut back on the consumption of gasoline, taking better care of our vehicles and getting more done in fewer trips around town. Until our government decides that we shouldn't be subsidizing foreign countries who'd like to see us crumble into oblivion, and instead work on alternative fuel sources that would lessen -- or even eliminate -- our dependence on foreign oil, it's going to be up to us to keep the price of gas in check.

-- You never realize how much you use your back until you hurt it.

I've had back troubles for the last several years, starting with the time I tried to lug a box full of T-shirts up a flight of stairs back in the early days of my web publishing ventures.

It doesn't take a whole lot of effort now to send my back into oblivion. A couple of weeks ago, I tried carrying my overnight bag, a computer bag and camera bag on my shoulders while lugging a garbage bag full of trash down the stairs prior to a trip to visit family.

It's taken two full weeks and numerous trips to the chiropractor for me to be able to move around without any pain. Sitting, standing, or even getting adjusted in bed felt like somebody had jammed a knife in my back.

It was even worse last fall when I lost a wrestling match with a full keg of beer when I was part-timing it as a bartender. That back injury led to some bigger problems, which ultimately led to the discovery of the testicular cyst I had removed about a year ago. I'm generally one of those guys who just grinds it out and counts on the pain eventually going away -- sort of like an annoying acquaintance who overstays their welcome. That pain, though, was so bad that it had me crying on the way to the doctor.

With a move coming up, I'm going to be relying quite a bit on the backs of those who are younger and less apt to go out of whack than mine . . . or make fast friends with the local chiropractor in my new home town.

That's all for now, folks . . . more thoughts and observations on the Halloween edition of DGMS coming up Friday.

If you enjoyed what you've read here, forward this website to a friend.

And if you didn't enjoy it . . . forward it to some jerkwad you don't like.

Differences abound between urban, rural life

2008-10-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

I have lived in an urban setting for most of the last 15 years, but I spent the vast majority of my youth growing up in rural communities in Nebraska.

In the weeks ahead, I am moving out of the urban setting and back into a rural community, and my mother reminded me -- as all wise mothers will do -- that I need to be careful as I adjust from the city life to the country way of doing things.

Now if you've never lived in one area or the other, it can be a real challenge to move into a new setting. People who grew up in small towns generally have a tough time getting adjusted to things when they move to the city. Conversely, those who grew up in the city find themselves going absolutely nuts when they spend more than 20 minutes in a rural area. It's the classic fish-out-of-water syndrome, and it can be difficult to get used to.

With that in mind, I have constructed a list of 20 differences between urban and rural communities. I've done a lot of research on this over the years, and I think you'll find it's a pretty accurate comparison between the two ways of life.

So without further adieu, here are Mikey C's 20 comparisons of urban and rural life:

1. Lead news story in the local paper

Urban -- Somebody was shot, murdered, stabbed or robbed
Rural -- Somebody got locked out of their house

2. Time it takes to drive across town

Urban -- 20-30 minutes
Rural -- 20-30 seconds

3. Number of vehicles involved in the typical rush-hour traffic jam

Urban -- Several hundred, with more coming each second
Rural -- Five, one of which is some type of large John Deere vehicle

4. Finger used when acknowledging an oncoming or passing driver

Rural -- Index
Urban -- Middle

5. Your neighbor's name

Urban -- Is a complete mystery unless your kids happen to go to the same school
Rural -- You know not only their names, but the names of their spouses, children, and a good portion of their extended families

6. Number of neighbors you've had conversations with in the past seven days

Rural -- Pretty much everybody in a two-block radius
Urban -- Less than five

7. Focus of conversations you've had with those neighbors

Rural -- The weather, family, other neighbors' lawns, the local football team
Urban -- Next time you turn your music up that loud, I'm calling the cops

8. Of those neighbors, the number you would invite over for beer and to watch football on TV

Urban -- Let me hide all the valuables first, then maybe two
Rural -- Pretty much all of them, unless they're Colorado fans

9. A night out on the town

Urban -- Drinking, dancing, concerts, movies, sports -- you name it, they've got it
Rural -- Go to the urban areas for any or all of the above

10. Dial a wrong number

Urban -- Get threatened with bodily harm if you EVER call this number again
Rural -- Talk to the other party for 20 minutes to catch up on what's happening in their lives

11. The out-of-control neighbor kids

Urban -- Have criminal records and are making meth in their mother's bathroom
Rural -- Have played ring-and-run at their neighbor's house at least once

12. Kids' biggest complaint

Urban -- There's nothing to dooooo
Rural -- There's nothing to dooooo

13. A typical criminal act

Urban -- Anything gun-related
Rural -- Forgot to settle your tab at the local tavern the night before

14. Concept of gun violence

Urban -- An everyday occurrence in our neighborhood
Rural -- Something that happens during deer, turkey and pheasant seasons

15. How your parents find out you've broken the law

Urban -- They see your mugshot during the 10 p.m. news, complete with details about the crime you committed
Rural -- The whole neighborhood knows everything before you get home to tell your side of the story, which is usually nowhere near the truth

16. Home security system

Urban -- Call company to come in and install system that costs several thousand dollars, to say nothing of the monthly system charges
Rural -- Ask your next-door neighbor to keep an eye on the house while you're on vacation, water the flowers, pick up the mail, feed the goldfish and let the dog out

17. Your local state legislator

Urban -- Some guy you've only seen on TV and wouldn't recognize if he knocked on your door in a non-election year
Rural -- Shops in your local grocery store and you know each other on a first-name basis

18. The newspaper publisher

Urban -- Probably never actually worked in a real newsroom, couldn't operate a camera if the fate of the free world depended on it and is only seen in public when the newspaper is donating money to high-profile charities
Rural -- Grew up in a newsroom, still actively contributes to every aspect of the business and is as likely to be seen taking pictures at a local ball game as he is presenting a check to the local Pee Wee baseball organization

19. Biggest complaint about Washington D.C.

Urban -- They're screwing up our economy with more taxes and wasteful spending
Rural -- They're REALLY screwing up our economy with more taxes and wasteful spending

20. Rush Limbaugh is . . .

Urban -- The Anti-Christ
Rural -- God

Parting with stuff you don't need

2008-10-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

Do you realize just how much crap you have stored away that you have no use for, yet can't seem to part company with?

When I was growing up, we used to laugh at how my dad's mother couldn't throw ANYTHING away. Soup labels, coffee cans, ice cream pails, the plastic Easter eggs we used to hunt every spring on the family farm -- if she determined it had some kind of value, she was hanging on to it and was not about to throw it away.

The stairway to the second floor of their house had always been the place where these things were stored. For as long as I could remember, we'd always have to maneuver around piles of newspaper clippings, plastic buckets and about anything else you could think of, all in an effort to get to the upstairs bedroom.

It seems we are a nation of packrats. I'm sure that you could walk in anybody's house and find a room where there is nothing but unopened boxes full of stuff that had been packed away with the idea that the individuals involved would get around to sorting out, but have long since forgotten.

As it turns out, this annoying trait is one that is passed down through the generations. My dad's house and shop and my mom's house are fast becoming glorified storage units for anything and everything you can possibly think of. Old kids clothes, stereo equipment, rarely-used exercise equipment, knick-knacks of all shapes and sizes . . . if a fire started in either of their houses, it would burn for a solid week.

My sister has a room just like this in the basement of her house. She and her husband have more boxes of stuff in there than you can count, and I'm sure if they spent a weekend going through those boxes they would discover a bunch of stuff that they have no use for, but can't seem to find it in their hearts to part company with.

And now that trait has been passed on to me, as I've found during the last few weeks that I'm in possession of a lot of stuff that I had completely forgotten about.

I made this discovery in beginning the efforts to move to another city. I was looking for some old computer discs to transfer files to my computer when I happened upon a big box full of old bank statements, paid bills and other paperwork.

We're not talking a file folder full of paper here, folks -- When piled on the floor, the pile reached up well past my lower desk drawer. The paper shredder I recently bought to take care of a box of paperwork I had discovered earlier is getting one whale of a workout these last few days. I've filled at least three garbage bags full of shredded paper in the last month, and the pile of paper remaining is going to be good for at least that many more.

I feed it in between hands while playing poker online, feed it some more while I'm eating dinner and give it another good feeding before I go to bed at night. If paper was high in cholesterol, this shredder would have had a massive heart attack several times over by now. With over 20 years worth of paperwork to chew up, it wouldn't surprise me if this shredder keels over from exhaustion -- it's already overheated more times than I care to count.

The good thing in all of this is that it has inspired me to dig deep into my closets and into the boxes of stuff I have stored at my dad's shop. With a move coming in the next few weeks, I have enough time to go through all of this stuff, determine what is of REAL personal or financial value to me and either repackage it for the move, send it to the trash or sell it on Ebay.

My goal is to actually have fewer boxes to load for this move than I did for the last one. If I can get that accomplished, I'm sure there will be more room left in the U-Haul for the REALLY important stuff.

Now what box did I put the remote control to the TV in? I know it's here somwhere . . .

Will the younger generation get it now? Or when it's too late?

2008-10-23T08:00:00.001-07:00

It's often been said that life is lived forward and understood backward -- we move through our daily lives doing certain things, but we don't understand the impact on the decisions we have made until after the fact.

It's something that is really beginning to bother me as I continue on into my fifth decade of life. I've spent some time over the past few years looking back on some of the decisions I have made in my life, wondering where my life would be if I had made them differently.

I've also tried to utilize these experiences in an effort to communicate with the generations behind me in an effort to steer them away from some of the dumber moves I've made in my life (and, yes, there have been a few -- more than I care to mention in specific detail here). And the question I'm always left with is -- do the younger generations even get it? And by the time they do, will it be too late?

I'm sure this is something that was, and still is, of concern to those who are older than I am. Between my parents and some of the wonderful personal and professional mentors I have who are getting up there in years, there is a TON of experience there that not only is being lost on the younger generations, but will soon be gone forever.

You never think about your own mortality when you're younger. Mom and Dad are taking care of the roof over your head, the clothes on your back and the food in your belly. More often than not, they even succumb to your unceasing desire to have the best toys, the trendiest clothes and whatever bell or whistle is required for you to be a part of the "it" group.

It is during those years when you can most benefit from the experience of those who have come before you. In the vast majority of cases, whatever challenge the younger generation faces has been experienced by those who have come before them. And yet, it seems that the younger generation is missing out on a golden opportunity to learn from those who have paved the road they now travel on.

My parents never did drugs when they were in college, and while I heard stories about some of my dad's exploits in college, I never really got much information on how to "live the college life." I learned it all on my own and made some mistakes that, looking back, were really stupid. I first smoked pot and experimented with other drugs in college. I drank a TON of alcohol in college. On occasion, I actually studied in college (which, supposedly, is what you are SUPPOSED to do -- but nobody mentioned anything about that to me).

Now, 20 years later, my daughter is in college and is making a move from a private, specialized school to a public university. The reason -- to "live the college life."

Her mother never really got to experience living on campus and doing all the crazy things college kids do, so she really doesn't have much of a personal reference to draw on when talking to my daughter about what she's about to encounter. Therefore, it's up to me to relay this information -- some of which is the kind of stuff no parent wants to see their kid involved in.

I'm very concerned about what "the college life" is all about in this day and age. When my parents were in their college-age years, about the only thing their parents had to worry about was excessive alcohol consumption. Drugs like LSD were just starting to find their way on college campuses during that time, and I'm sure there was a lot of concern about the effects those drugs would have on kids during that time.

Nowadays, it's a bigger, badder and scarier world. Alcohol and LSD are kids' stuff now. There are all kinds of drugs -- including methamphetamine -- that are out there now. Additionally, there are untold numbers of losers out there who seem to take a perverse pleasure in slipping something in the drink of an unsuspecting college girl, with the ultimate goal being to take her somewhere and rape her in her drugged-out state.

We never had these drugs around when we were in college, but having read and written enough about the topics over the years, I know what's out there and I know what kind of damage one of these scumbags can do on another human being -- like my own child.

As I said, life is lived forward and understood backward. The mistakes I've made in living my life are ones that I am able to understand years later, and I hope that somehow I can share those experiences -- much the same way as those older than me have done in sharing theirs -- and help today's younger generation avoid falling into the same traps I did when I was their age.

But will they get it now? Or will they wish they had later?

Failure can't define us -- but it can help us succeed

2008-10-21T07:29:00.000-07:00

Nobody likes a loser.

Have you ever noticed how we, as a society, make so much out of the winners in life, while at the same time trip over ourselves to avoid the losers?

Everybody loves a winner, the old saying goes. If you are a winner at whatever you do, people love you. They want to be like you. They want to know what it takes for you to be the winner that you are.

But if you're a loser -- you might as well be dead in the eyes of some. Nobody wants to know what you're doing right, because they just assume everything you do is wrong. You can't get a phone call returned if you're a loser -- nobody wants to talk to you, maybe out of fear that your lack of success is somehow going to rub off on them.

The media, especially, loves a winner. How many times, during this past summer's Olympic Games, did we read, hear and watch stories about swimmer Michael Phelps, who set seven world records and won an Olympic-record eight gold medals in the pool? We heard about everything you could possibly want to know about Phelps, from his upbringing (he has attention-deficit disorder and was told by his school counselors that he wouldn't amount to much of anything), his family and even his amazing diet (which consists of so many calories that it would send most of us mere mortals into obesity faster than you can say "hardening of the arteries.").

Then there was the U.S. Olympic basketball team, a team of NBA athletes we already knew quite a lot about (if we actually pay attention to the NBA during the regular season). Players like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwight Howard and Jason Kidd have had their life stories told over and over again before the Olympics, and we heard even more in the days leading up to their gold-medal win over Spain in the finals.

There were many more stories of winners told throughout the games, but we didn't hear much about those who didn't win the gold, and even less about those who didn't perform well enough to earn even a bronze medal. Is that lazy journalism? Are we exerting so much energy covering the winners that the losers are cast aside and not worthy of our time?

Unfortunately, it comes down to a simple fact of life -- we love to know about the winners, and really aren't all that interested in the losers. But have you ever thought about those people who aren't successful on the world stage -- whether it's the Olympics or some other arena in life -- who are still winners in the game of life?

Many times, it's how an individual responds to defeat that ultimately defines whether or not that person is a winner in the ultimate game -- the game of life. It's how we bounce back from a losing effort that ultimately determines whether or not we are a success -- not in the eyes of the media, but in our own mind.

One Olympic athlete who I am quite sure fits this mold is a young man by the name of Brad Vering. Vering is a wrestler from the small town of Howells, Neb. He was a three-time state champion who went on to become a national champion in college while wrestling at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and was a two-time member of the U.S. Olympic team in Greco-Roman wrestling.

I've had a number of opportunities over the years to meet and talk with Vering. When I was publishing an online wrestling website, I was able to feature Vering and had the chance to talk with him personally about his successes and failures in the sport.

Vering has worked incredibly hard to earn the chance to compete in two Olympics during his life. He has had a lot of success, but has also failed on numerous occasions. In fact, after his defeat in the 2004 Olympics, Vering struggled to keep his status as one of the best in his weight class. He tasted defeat on numerous occasions and almost didn't get a second chance at competing in the Olympics.

This summer, Vering was winning his first match when he was suddenly turned in the final 10 seconds. The two points he gave up was enough for his opponent to earn the victory and, in essence, kill Vering's hopes of winning a gold medal.

Does this make Vering a loser? Certainly not -- this young man has achieved more success than most of his critics could ever hope to achieve. I haven't had the chance to talk with Vering about his future plans, but I'm going to bet that whatever it is he decides to do with his life beyond wrestling is going to be a huge success. The lessons he has learned in victory -- and, more important, in defeat -- are lessons he will carry into whatever he does with his life from here on out. He may not have been a winner in his sport's ultimate arena -- but he is a winner in the ultimate game and will be throughout his life because of those lessons.

A number of years ago, the shoe company Nike created a commercial centering around basketball legend Michael Jordan. The commercial showed Jordan, in slow motion, getting off a bus and making his way through the bowels of an unknown arena.

As he walked, you could hear his voice talking about all the failures he has had as a basketball player. Many times he was part of a team that went down to defeat. He went many years without winning an NBA title. He was called upon to take the game winning shot and missed several times.

The commercial highlighted all the failures Jordan has experienced in his life as a professional basketball player. This man is arguably the greatest basketball player of all time, won six NBA titles and numerous Most Valuable Player awards, scoring titles and nominations to All-NBA teams, and yet all this commercial focused on was the failures he experienced. But it was how the commercial ended that brought home the importance of experiencing failure -- "I have failed numerous times in my life," Jordan says in the video. "And it is because I have failed, that I succeed."

Nobody likes losing, and nobody goes out and tries to lose in the game of life. And as much as we hope we can be successful in everything we do, failure (or the fear of it) should not define who we are -- it should drive us to learn from the mistakes that we made and help us succeed, no matter what we do in our lives. It is from losing that we can be a winner, and if we can be a winner in our own minds, it really doesn't matter what the rest of the world thinks of us.

Why waste your votes this November?

2008-10-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

About 230 years ago, our Founding Fathers were knee deep in what we now know as the Revolutionary War, fighting for our nation's independence from England. It was a revolution that forged the greatest form of government ever, a government that was of the people, by the people and for the people.

Today, that government is no longer of, by OR for the people who must live under its laws. We the people are being screwed, time and again, by individuals who are elected BY us, but do not REPRESENT us in Washington, D.C. Instead, these individuals represent and fight only for Big Money, Big Entertainment and Big Government. And in less than three weeks, we will be asked to go to the polls and vote for our representatives in local, state and federal offices.

Most of you will vote the same way you have always voted, basing your decision on who you feel best represents you. Some vote strictly because of party affiliation -- Democrat or Republican -- while others will vote for the best person for the job, regardless of political leaning.

I've been alive for 42 years and had the opportunity to vote in all but one of the last six presidential elections (the exception being 1996, when I moved late in the election cycle and didn't get registered in time to vote). During that time, I voted for the candidate I felt best represented my interests, and I will carry that same qualification with me when I go to the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 4.

And while I won't say here who I WILL vote for this November, I can safely tell you who I WON'T vote for this November:

1. Any Democrat, and

2. Any Republican

I say this because I have found a direct connection between what ails our great nation and the cause. And in each and every incident that I have seen, I have found a common thread: Democrats and Republicans.

Let's face it -- both political parties are going out of their way to tell you how BAD the other candidate's party is, how they're going to raise taxes, hurt the economy, screw up our schools, give tax breaks to the rich -- if you wait long enough, they're going to start running ads blaming the Chicago Cubs' 100-year World Series dry spell on the other party's lack of leadership.

And you want to know something? They're BOTH right.

The Republicans have had a leader in the White House for the last eight years who, to be kind, isn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier. From the needed, but misguided, War on Terror to the inability to respond to disasters like Hurricane Katrina, this is easily the worst Republican-led administration in history.

But before the Democrats start throwing stones in glass houses, let's not forget a Congress that laid out all sorts of promises that they would clean up Washington when they were elected in 2006. To this point, the 100-day agenda they set forth is nearing day 700, and they have not come close to fulfilling the promises made to voters two years ago.

The problem we have, as voters, is that both parties are going to continue to contribute to the stench that is our political system, because the vast majority of Americans are going to vote for representatives of one -- or both -- parties when they go to the polls.

I will be among the exceptions to that rule -- because I will not vote for a single Republican or Democrat when I go to the polls on Nov. 4. I will vote ONLY for third-party and/or independent candidates for each and every office that I possibly can. And if an independent or third-party candidate is not available, I will write myself in as a candidate.

Now the challenge with doing something like this is that I have to do my own research on the independent and third-party candidates that are out there. The mainstream media is such a pathetic lot that it spends much of its time telling us about the two main political parties that it is in bed with (mainly the Democrats, except for the Republican-leaning Fox network) and spends no time informing its readers and/or viewers about the alternative candidates that do exist and are options in almost every state.

But isn't voting strictly independent or third-party a wasted vote, you ask? And I'll answer that with a question of my own -- considering the garbage we now have representing us in Washington, and our desire for true change in the way we are represented in Congress, isn't the wasted vote REALLY the one in which a Republican or Democrat selected?

You want REAL change this November? Are you looking to start a REAL revolution toward true representative governance in our nation's capital? If so, then why waste your votes this November on two political parties who are part of the problem and DO NOT represent real change?

Feb. 5 -- A special day in history

2008-02-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

February 5th is a special day in history. Two people who are very near and dear to my heart were born on this day, and I think this is as good a time as any to not only with them a happy birthday, but thank them for the influence they have had on my life.

The first, of course, is Hank Aaron.

Now I know you've just read that paragraph and are thinking to yourself: Mike, are we tipping the bottle a little too hard again? Are we well on our way to turning into a replica of Jeff Bridges on "Celebrity Rehab" very soon?

Well, not really . . . you see, Hank Aaron was the man who first piqued my interest in sports. It was in 1974 when I bought my first pack of Topps baseball cards (10 cents for 15 cards, plus a stick of bubble gum . . . best deal in sports ever). The first card in the very first pack I opened was the first card in the series, and the card honored Aaron as baseball's new all-time home run king.

That baseball card really got me interested in the game of baseball and, to a greater extent, sports in general. I remember watching Aaron hit No. 715 on April 8, 1974, as the Atlanta Braves played the Los Angeles Dodgers. He took a 2-0 pitch from Al Downing over the wall into the bullpen in left-center field. Atlanta relief pitcher Tom House caught the ball in the bullpen as Aaron circled the bases, and as two fans rushed from the stands to pat him on the back and congratulate him, he circled the bases and came home to history. Not long after that, I started scouring the sports pages and driving my parents nuts with statistical data of every baseball, football, basketball and hockey player whose name I could pronounce (try saying the name Otis Sistrunk without any front teeth sometime).

Over the years, I was able to read more about Aaron's career and the sheer hell he went through as he, a black man, creeped closer and closer to a record held by a beloved, iconic white man. The death threats and the garbage he went through while pursuing this record and playing for a team located in the Deep South (where enlightened, intelligent, unbiased thinking, even in 2008, is still somewhat elusive) was beyond belief. Reading and learning about his life and career made me really appreciate that first baseball card -- and the man who was the subject of that card -- all the more.

But it was something that happened on Hank Aaron's 56th birthday -- Feb. 5, 1990 -- that I will never, ever forget. Someone came into my world on that day whose impact has been so awesome that words can not describe.

It was around 12:20 p.m. that afternoon that we received word that a baby girl was born. And what's even more awesome is the fact that -- believe it or not -- it was my daughter.

We had long settled on the name Kylie Kay if our new arrival was a girl (it was either Jordan Michael or Derrick Michael for a boy, depending on who won the argument over the first name -- I had considered Michael James II, but I would be doing time in prison the first time somebody called him Mike Jr.). I was really hoping for a boy, and for a very brief second I was disappointed when the doctor said I was the proud father of a baby girl (The disappointment, for what it's worth, was VERY brief. It might have been half a millisecond -- significantly shorter than the amount of time her mother disappointed me, but that's another story entirely).

I can't begin to tell you -- even 18 years later -- how it felt at that time to be known as somebody's daddy. Everybody was calling me daddy, and all I could think about was not dropping this wonderfully fragile little bundle in my arms (I was going to strike a Heisman pose with her in my arm and run down the hallway screaming "TOUCHDOWN NEBRASKA," but decided not to after determining that my mother, sister and still-recovering wife may all jump me right there in the room and bludgeon me to death with a catheter).

From day one, she rocked my world like no other human being has even come close to achieving. I remember watching this three-month old infant lying on the floor and rolling toward the TV when the opening credits to M*A*S*H blared from the TV -- and all I could think was, "Ohmigawd, she's a M*A*S*H fan just like her daddy. Isn't that GREAT???"

And it wasn't long before we found out whose attitude she had. One day after coming home from work, we wrestled around in the living room before I told her to go play while I made dinner. And from the mouth of a five-year-old child, I heard this response: "Daddy, I'm going to KICK YOUR ASS!"

Yep, that's my kid.

Then there was the time I took her to her first Nebraska football game. She was excited because she was going to see Eric Crouch play, and Crouch attended her elementary school. By the time Nebraska had built a 52-0 halftime lead against Baylor, my daughter turned to me and said, "Geez, dad -- these guys SUCK!" She slept in my lap the entire second half, but I never had more fun at a Husker football game since the day my dad took me to my first game in 1977.

I remember the first photo she ever took with a camera. She wanted to help her dad out while I was trying to get Nebraska Wrestling Illustrated off the ground, so I let her take pictures at a Nebraska wrestling dual. The VERY FIRST photo she snapped was a photo of a wrestler on his back, with everything from the shoulders down going straight up in the air, and the photo was as crisp as a brand new dollar bill. My fellow newspaper friends saw the photo and said I should fire the photographer I've got (me) and hire her instead. I'm not sure which of us was more proud of her work that day.

Not that long ago, a boy that she was dating broke up with her, and it seemed like the end of the world was approaching. She was beside herself and crying like a baby, and it was up to me to inform her that boys are idiots and they're going to break your heart (I left out the part that girls were a big pain in the ass, figuring that would probably do more harm than good at that particular point in the situation). My initial thought was to hunt down the offending young man, slice him into jerky-sized strips and ship him via FedEx to a remote location west of Butte, Mont., to rot in hell, but I figured getting her heart broke -- as hard as it was on both of us -- was the only way she was going to learn about life.

(For the record, it should be noted that she has made a rather significant upgrade with her new boyfriend -- but as far as he knows, he's just one slippery step away from me hog-tying him, strapping him to the hood of my car and rolling it off a steep embankment. As long as he doesn't know any different, I think he's going to continue treating my daughter as well as he has so far.)

For all the interesting and fun times we've had, though, there has been a lot of regret that I've carried around when it comes to my daughter.

I spent a good chunk of her formative years being more committed to my career than I was to her. Rare was the night during those first few years where a game, a meeting or some other news story did not take precedence over an evening with my family. There were many reasons why this was why it was -- some personal, some professional -- but I missed out on a lot of things in my daughter's life that, sadly, I will never get back.

Her first words and first steps are something her mother saw alone -- daddy was working. A lot of bedtime stories were told in mommy's voice, hardly ever in her daddy's (although we do have "The Monster At The End Of This Book," a Sesame Street story that, to this day, still makes her laugh uncontrollably, but only if I read it in Grover's voice).

I had moved closer to her in 2001, leaving a daily newspaper position to take over a weekly paper in Gretna. Five years later, I moved again, this time two hours away from my daughter for another newspaper job. It was around this time that God was telling me that I had a choice -- either the career or my daughter. I was going to lose one, and I needed to decide which I was willing to give up. Considering the choices being presented, and the fact that I finally had something of a clear head to assess the situation, the choice was easy.

During this past year, my daughter and I have connected in a way that has been missing for some time. She drops by more often than she used to (of course, she has her own car now) and we hang out more -- and have fun doing it -- than we have for some time. I have enjoyed watching her as a leader on the Millard West flag corps and seeing her beam with pride and joy as she performed and played to the crowd, knowing daddy was up there watching (and her mom and step-dad, too).

And we have spent more time talking about the future than I'd ever thought we'd do. And unlike her father back when he was that age, she actually APPEARS to be taking in this valuable information and looking to apply it in her life (something her father is, only recently, learning to do with the advice he's received from those who came before HIM).

She's also discovered that dad's music -- old, outdated and worthless, in her mind, not that long ago -- is actually some pretty awesome stuff. Most of her friends have Britney Spears or some other hip-hop or techno garbage filling up their iPods. Her playlist includes Rush, Loverboy, Van Halen and Night Ranger. A specially-constructed five-CD set made up entirely of music from her dad's voluminous rockin' library of songs is all that is playing in her car's CD player (did I raise her right or what???).

Up until recently, I worried a lot about how my daughter's adult life was going to turn out. She's so bright and beautiful, yet so fragile and naive about the real world that I worry that there is some loser out there who is going to screw her life up in some way, shape or form and her dad will have to spend the rest of his days on death row after hunting down and exterminating the scumbag in retaliation.

I worried until the other day, when I got a phone call from my daughter. Seems there was a bully in her school who was picking on a physically-disadvantage young man. Not only did my daughter tell the jerk to buzz off, but when he didn't seem interested in hearing what she had to say, she arm-barred his worthless ass and pushed him face-first into a table, suggesting that either he knock it off or she was going to get the school resource officer (police officer on patrol at the school) involved.

I'm not worried anymore -- at least, for her (God help whoever screws with her, physically or otherwise).

What I am, though, is indescribably proud of somebody who has hit more home runs in my life than Hank Aaron and every other home-run hitter in the world combined. To quote a verse from the Stevie Wonder classic, "Isn't She Lovely":

"Isn't she pretty -- truly the angels' best -- I am so happy -- we have been Heaven blessed . . ."

I have been blessed, more than I can even begin to count, by somebody who turns 18 years old today.

Happy birthday, punkin'. Daddy loves you more than you'll ever know.

Pilates -- the new word for pain

2008-01-21T16:09:00.001-08:00

I want to apologize to everybody for not having updated this blog for the past 2 1/2 weeks, but I have been in a lot of pain lately.

After the start of the new year, I decided that I would set a goal to lose 30 pounds. In doing so, I thought I'd set a target date as well, and I've called it the "152 by 152" plan -- losing 30 pounds would get me to 152 pounds, and the 152nd day of the year is May 31, the day my daughter graduates from high school.

I'm working out, trying to change my diet and things are going a little slow right now, but I'm hoping to start seeing results soon (I'm holding off on switching to the Nicole Ritchie diet until April, if at all possible).

Recently, my local church began offering a Sunday evening pi-yo class, which combines pilates (pronounced pih-LAH-tees) and yoga in a 60-minute weekly workout.

What I didn't realize is that pilates is actually something that has its teachings in Hindu religions and has a specific English-translated meaning. That meaning is -- this is going to hurt like hell in the morning.

When you hear people talk about pilates and see it done on those commercials promoting so-and-so's new system for improved health, it seems like a good opportunity to burn calories, tone muscles and get you in better shape.

What it actually does, however, is stretch muscle groups you had no idea existed, put your body in positions God never planned on you being in and leaving you hot, sweaty and wondering if you have the chiropractor's number on speed dial.

Early in the first class, I realized that something was wrong when the instructor told us to stand on one leg, lift the other leg up to our knee, rotate the lifted leg 90 degrees, place our hands behind our back and bend forward.

"And don't forget to breathe," she reminded us in that soft, relaxing voice.

I stood on one leg, lifted the other leg about halfway up and fell on my ass. On my second attempt, I managed to balance myself long enough to get the second leg up, rotate it 90 degrees and somehow got my hands behind my back.

But, as I started bending forward, I began feeling light-headed. Soon, I was seeing stars. A few seconds later, I passed out and fell like an unbalanced handful of Jenga blocks.

I forgot to breathe.

After regaining consciousness, the instructor had us place our hands on our mats and assume a push-up position. We were supposed to hold that position for 10-15 seconds, then do a push-up and drop our hips so our spine looked like an inverted banana.

I used to be able to bench-press 1 1/2 times my weight, so I figured this shouldn't be much of a problem. I held the push-up position for approximately eight seconds when, without warning, my biceps and elbows decided they were going into business for themselves. Only the soft rubber mat below my body saved me from adding a visit to the plastic surgeon to repair a broken nose.

I positioned myself a second time, this time using the girls' push-up position (and I know right now what you're thinking . . . good God, I am such a wuss). I did the push-up and assumed the inverted banana position, feeling a small sense of pride that I was actually able to complete a move. What I wasn't prepared for, though, was the response my lower back would have for me when I was done with this specific exercise.

To put it in polite terms -- my lower back is not speaking to me right now. I REALLY wish I had the chiropractor's number on speed dial, even as I type this one day after class.

At the end of class, there are a group of "warm-down" exercises that are meant to help ease the stress and strain of the previous 45 minutes. There are some yoga exercises that are supposed to help bring a sense of peace and calm to your inner soul, leaving you feeling good physically, mentally and spiritually.

But as I lay there in the darkness, all I can think about is the throbbing in my back, the screaming pain in my legs and the knives that seem to be sticking out of every other joint in my body. Mentally, all I can do is question whether or not this is worth losing 30 pounds over, or if I'm better off with being satisfied with the way things are now. Spiritually -- I'm wondering what Jesus WOULD do . . . continue with the class, or beat the pilates instructor to death with a frozen chalupa.

The well-worn phrase for getting better physically is "no pain, no gain." I guess that, in order for me to get down to that desired weight by my daughter's graduation, I'm going to have to suffer in an effort to get myself down to 152 pounds by the end of May.

And I'm optimistic that I'll reach that goal -- provided, of course, that the chiropractor's office is open Sunday nights.

A good woman is much harder to find

2007-12-17T17:13:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure who coined the phrase, "A good man is hard to find" -- but it had to have been a woman who was as frustrated with finding the love of her life as I am in locating "Miss Right."

As most of you know, I've been able to avoid making a second trip to the altar for over 13 years now. There have been a few close calls and some potential shots that came up short, but another year is about to come and go with me somehow being unable to find "Miss Right."

Over the years since my divorce, there have been a few ladies that had potential -- and some that were great for sowing the ol' oats, so to speak. Some were part of some great moments in my life. Others . . . well, let's just say they had their moments.

Somehow, though, the lady who would be my "Miss Right" seems to not know of my whereabouts. And those that I have been out with recently, some of whom look like they might have potential, turn out to be yet another flake-job dingbat that seems more intent on playing games with my heart rather than trying to win it outright.

Recently, I have had a profile up on a matchmaking website. The profile has a few pictures of me, information about my physical profile, my likes and dislikes, and an honest (if not hilariously long-winded) description of who I am and what I'm looking for.

In the time I have had profiles on different matchmaking websites, I have had the opportunity to meet -- and go out with -- a number of women in the area. And to be quite honest, I'm still trying to find one that doesn't have at least one screw loose somewhere.

I met one a few years ago that lived near Lincoln. We met at a karaoke bar in Lincoln one night and really hit it off. We went out on 2-3 dates (one with our kids to a local pumpkin patch, which was a blast), and everything seemed to be going well.

That is until one day when she broke up with me -- by instant messenger. No phone call. No handwritten note. No court-approved protection order served by a member of law enforcement. She did it through the Internet, from the comfort of her home computer.

Welcome to dating in the 21st century.

The reason she wanted to split up was that, in her words, she wasn't ready for a relationship. I was a nice guy and all, but she just wasn't ready to settle down.

I was fine with that, until she instant messaged me three months later -- to let me know she was engaged to be married.

Huh?

Then there was the woman who thought I was really hot and, from the moment I walked into her apartment, could not keep her hands off me. I usually wouldn't have a problem with that, but there was just one thing -- the gray-haired, slightly-overweight woman who was practically fondling me at the front door was nowhere close to being the thin, blonde-maned dame that was pictured in her profile.

Talk about "buyer's remorse."

A couple of years ago, I actually met someone through one of these matchmaking websites who appeared to be as good as advertised. She had a little drawl in her voice, was blonde and mind-numbingly attractive with a smile that I couldn't stop thinking about. The fact that she had three kids and had recently lost her job was a concern, but I was willing to help her get back on her feet.

Less than two months later, she suddenly moved out after we had a brief discussion about her struggle to find a job. She had temporarily moved into my apartment and, while I wasn't expecting her to help with rent at that time, it seemed she had a lot on her mind and was unwilling to discuss it or let me help her out.

She moved out and, less than six months later, was MARRIED -- to a guy she moved in with in Illinois only a few weeks after she moved out of my home.

Most recently, I met a woman who -- like me -- had dealt with some rough patches in her life. A couple of messy divorces, some health issues and two teenage children (one now in college). It looked like one of those "opposites attract" kind of thing, with her guarded pessimism clashing with my "glass half full and more water on the way" sense of optimism.

Not surprisingly, this one has also ended before it began after I got an e-mail the other day saying that she was interested in another man -- one that she had verbally trashed during our one face-to-face encounter over barbecue ribs at a local restaurant.

Now I know what you're thinking. You're wanting to e-mail me and say, "Mike, ditch the online matchmaking nonsense and do it the old-fashioned way. These online broads are nothing but a hard drive full of nutjobs."

In theory, that's a good idea. Recent history suggests, however, that this approach hasn't worked out so well either.

There was the one woman I met at my dad's 50th birthday party -- and eventually was actually engaged to -- who became power-hungry and was all but moving me out of state when she got a new job. The sex was great, being told what to do, how to do it and where to do it . . . ehh . . . not so much.

Then there was the one that I met through my job and actually ended up having a baby with (and subsequently giving up for adoption). She was a great person but much too shy (and, in retrospect, too young) when it came to dealing with life's issues head-on. It also put a big road block in my world when it came to inter-office dating. I won't say I'll never "dip the pen in the company inkwell" again -- let's just say that the temptation to do such a thing was greatly reduced by this particular experience.

And, of course, there was the wild-and-crazy chick who -- while mind-numbingly amazing under the sheets -- was too much of a party animal and seemed more intent on getting drunk than wanting to establish a solid long-term relationship.

Yeah, I know how to pick 'em, don't I?

I've asked close friends of mine -- on numerous occasions -- to set me up with any single friends they might have. As of this writing, I'm still waiting on one of my friends to follow through on that. I don't know if it's that they value their friendships too much to want to take that risk -- or they just don't have any friends good enough for me (or vice versa).

Now that I'm in the 40-something stage of life, the days of looking for someone to "fool around" with are really not a high priority. Don't get me wrong -- I enjoy "foolin' around" with a member of the female gender (as would most of the guys reading this particular blog). But personal history has taught me that using the ol' fashioned hook-up as the basis for a long-term relationship is like building a mansion in the middle of a beach -- not much of a foundation to work with, and it'll crumble the first time the foundation shifts.

Friends and family keep saying, "Don't worry -- she'll find you someday. The right one will come along when you least expect it."

Funny, but there have been numerous times when the LAST thing I was expecting was for Miss Right to knock on my door, crash into my car, bump into me in the produce line at the grocery store or knock me unconscious with a wayward tee shot on the fifth hole at the local country club, and at last report . . .

SHE STILL HASN'T SHOWN HERSELF!!!

It's reached the point where, in the absence of Miss Right, I seem to have two viable options remaining. Those options are:

1. Becoming a homosexual, orrrr,

2. Becoming a monk.

Now the first option, in all honesty, is not one I intend on entertaining. No offense to anybody in the audience who flies that particular airline, but I was wired by God to be attracted to one gender, and one gender only. And as frustrating as they are to deal with -- I'm not going to be batting from the other side of the plate in the game of life anytime soon, if you know what I mean (and I'm pretty sure you do).

That leaves the option of becoming a monk. In some respects, it wouldn't be that difficult. My head is almost bald already. I sometimes speak in unintelligible tongues. I have little in the way of worldly possessions. Hell -- I'm already halfway there. Then again . . . I'm not sure a monastery would want somebody as tightly-wound and prone to practical jokes as I am hanging around. One whoopie cushion before the morning chant could throw the whole place into a state of chaos.

And so, since these aren't good options, I guess I have no other choice than to continue the search for the seemingly unattainable. Somehow, some way, I'll continue in the hope that I might find that one thing that seems to be missing in my life right now, the one person who can somehow fill in the blanks of my perpertually-broken heart.

Someone who can laugh. Someone who has been kicked in the mouth by life (figuratively speaking, of course) and gets up to kick it right back. Someone who is warm, caring, intelligent and can put up with my quirks the same way I'm willing to do with hers. Someone who isn't some flake-job that runs at the first sign of affection. Someone who gives as good as she gets. Someone truly willing to be a part of something (and someone) special -- not the same old song and dance she's become accustomed to and would like to get away from, but doesn't seem to think she has an opportunity to.

All I need is one good woman. Can she be THAT hard to find?

"It couldn't happen here" no longer true

2007-12-06T17:11:00.000-08:00

I took a late lunch Wednesday, and just before 2 p.m. I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket. It was a text message from a local TV station and it said the following:

"Shooting at Westroads Mall -- complete coverage . . ."

Considering the number of shootings that have taken place in Omaha during 2007 (somewhere in the neighborhood of 89,274, although I've lost count), this -- in my opinion -- was not news. I deleted the message and headed back up to the office to resume afternoon duties.

A few minutes later, I get a text message from my sister in Norfolk:

"Is everybody in Omaha all right?"

A couple of minutes after that, another message from the TV station:

"Two dead in mall shooting at Westroads . . ."

Soon after, there is a buzz going around the New Business division at Pacific Life -- there is a gunman on the loose inside the Von Maur store.

Oh my God, I thought to myself . . . it's not a shooting, it's a freaking massacre.

Different reports were buzzing on any number of cell phones throughout the office. Some said five were dead, others had it at two. Then it was 14 shot and nine dead.

And, all of a sudden, the phrase "That could never happen here" wasn't true anymore -- senseless, horrible mass violence had found its way into the Heartland of America.

Before the afternoon was over, I was communicating with my sister, ex-wife and daughter via text messaging. I was sneaking a peek on the Internet at the office to see if any information was available. Nobody really knew what to say at that point, because some people had connections with people working or shopping at Westroads Mall that day.

This morning, one co-worker arrived late with a look on his face that needed no explanation. Before coming to work, he had to pick up a friend at the airport who flew in due to a death in the family -- one of the victims at Von Maur. Another talked of her plans to interview the day of the shooting for a job a friend had lined up for her at a store not far away from Von Maur. That, obviously, is on hold for a while.

Wednesday night, I went to my Gretna Poker League game at Jackson's Pub and sat down to a table that had one empty seat. The seat was eventually filled by a young man who, not less than an hour earlier, was still locked down in a store near Von Maur. He had met his mother, sister and niece at Von Maur to help pick out some Christmas presents for his brother-in-law. When he heard the shots two floors above him, he grabbed his niece, turned to his mother and sister and said, "Get the hell out of here, somebody's shooting." How he was able to play cards after experiencing what he went through just hours earlier is beyond my comprehension.

In the end, a mentally whacked-out 19-year-old from Bellevue was found to be the one who created the mayhem and murder in the west Omaha mall. He had lost a job at McDonald's earlier that day, wrote three suicide notes saying he was "going to be famous," took an AK-47 that he had stolen from his stepfather, drove across town and unleashed the bloodiest mass killing in our state's history.

There is no explanation for something like this. All the local media have been tripping over themselves trying to make sense of the senseless, bringing logic to a place where it doesn't fit. Eight innocent civilians who were doing nothing more than living their day-to-day lives were gunned down in cold blood by a horrible individual who wanted to, in his own words, "go out in style."

Why, then, did he have to take so many innocent lives with him? Why did he drive all the way across town to a mall he would -- those who knew him claim -- otherwise never set foot in? Why did he do this? They're all questions we will probably never get answers to.

We've seen situations like this before, and until yesterday we had somehow been able to find a certain peace in knowing that something like that would never happen in Nebraska.

The shootings at the school in Columbine, Colo., hit close to home -- but not in Nebraska.

The horrible one-man rampage at Virginia Tech last year was big news -- but that would never happen here in Nebraska.

Mall shootings in Kansas City, Georgia and Utah were terrible and tragic -- but we'll never see that in Nebraska.

Right?

Yesterday -- it DID happen in Nebraska. And whatever lingering sense of utopia we had about our home and our state are no longer available for us to fall back on when senseless tragedy strikes elsewhere in our world.

The fact that it happened at all is something that will take some time for us to recover from. That it happened less than three weeks before Christmas is something that will be extremely hard for the families of those whose lives were forever touched by this horrible incident. The holidays will never be the same for them because of the outrageous, cold-blooded act of an extremely disturbed young man.

We will carry on as Nebraskans, one way or another. This is still a great place to live, work and love.

But Wednesday's events have shown us that, as great a place as our little corner of the world is, the unthinkable can happen -- HAS happened -- right here. And knowing that now makes the world a much different place for us to live in.

Huskers are back with Pelini on board

2007-12-03T19:53:00.001-08:00

The long national nightmare is over.

OK, so it's not a NATIONAL nightmare, but the four-year abortion known as the Pederson-Callahan Carnage came to a conclusion Sunday when Tom Osborne brought a familiar face back to Nebraska to lead the Husker football team.

Granted, Bo Pelini wasn't around long -- he was the defensive coordinator during Frank Solich's final season as the head Husker back in 2003 -- but he made one hell of an impact on Husker fans in his short tenure in Lincoln, turning around a pathetic defense that became one of the nation's best and putting some fire and "badness" back in the Blackshirts.

During Sunday's news conference, Osborne -- the architect of three national titles and over 250 wins in 25 years in Pelini's position back in the day -- said defense was his biggest concern when he went looking for Bill Callahan's replacement last week. And after talking with Pelini in an Atlanta hotel, he pretty much knew he had the guy that best fit the bill.

But it isn't just defense that Pelini had to sell Osborne on. The big thing was whether or not Pelini "gets it" when it comes to Nebraska's history and tradition. We're a one-pony town in these parts -- no pro sports teams within miles of our borders -- so Nebraska football is something the entire state rallies around. Entire generations grew up watching the Huskers. Local kids walked on, got some playing time and some even developed into superstars and legends.

Bo knows -- he understands what the walk-on program means to the people who support this program. He knows what this team means to the people of this state, and he's ready to get to work to build a program that is, in his words, "where everybody in the state is proud of what we have going here."

It would certainly be a turnaround from what we've got going now.

This past season was, in a word, pathetic. The defense, once among the meanest and baddest in the land, couldn't stop a powder-puff girls football team. Opponents scored more often than the homecoming king and the prom king put together. Records were obliterated thanks to a defense that couldn't stop a soft summer breeze if their collective lives depended on it.

Think about it -- in 40 years under Devaney, Osborne and Solich, opposing teams scored 40 or more points against Nebraska FIVE TIMES. That's five times in over 400 games.

This year? The Nebraska defense gave up 40-plus . . . brace yourselves . . . SIX times. Teams put up 60-plus TWICE. Kansas set a record by scoring SEVENTY-SIX points, and had more than a full quarter left in the game before they actually called the dogs off.

Had KU coach Mark Mangino REALLY wanted to pay Nebraska back for all those decades worth of bitch-slappings, the Jayhawks could have hung 100 on the Huskers that day. Easily. And there is no way this year's BlackSKIRTS defense could have stopped them from doing it.

Those days, thankfully, are over now that the nation's best defensive mind is in charge.

Pelini turned Nebraska's defense into one of the best in the nation in one season. At LSU, the Tigers have had one of the nation's best defenses three years running, and will be playing for a national championship this January, thanks in no small part to that defensive scheme concocted by one Bo Pelini.

There had been talk all week that Pelini and former Husker quarterback Turner Gill were the leading candidates. Either way, I felt Nebraska was going to come out ahead on this, and I'm thrilled that Osborne went with Pelini for several reasons:

-- Foremost in mind is the defense, not only from the execution standpoint, but the fact that Pelini is a very passionate and fiery personality. I can't guarantee how many wins the Huskers will have next year or in the years ahead, but one thing I can guarantee is that there won't be a more fired up, passionate team than a Pelini-led Nebraska team. He will have these boys spitting nails and breathing fire, and those who don't simply won't be on the team. That's something that was missing in vast quantities during the Callahan era.

-- Pelini is putting together a very strong team of assistant coaches, many of whom have past ties to Nebraska. People like Ron Brown are going to not only bring the Husker Way back, but are going to also bring a tremendous reputation and sense of class to this program. Pelini is hiring not only some tremendous football talent, but some people of very strong character who will bring so much more than X's and O's to the program.

-- Pelini has a great shoulder to lean on in Osborne, and he's made no secret to the fact that he will bounce things off the legendary coach. Osborne will be a tremendous asset in helping Pelini develop as a head coach -- we all know Pelini is a little rough around the edges in the diplomacy department after seeing him light up Kansas State coach Bill Snyder for running up the score -- and drawing on that knowledge is going to be huge for Pelini.

As far as Turner Gill is concerned, I know there are a lot of people who wonder why he wasn't selected. After all, he's a Nebraska boy, a very close friend of Osborne and -- unlike Pelini -- has head coaching experience.

It's a question that the media -- in its zeal to trip over each other to get "breaking news" -- dropped the ball on. They failed miserably in asking some hard questions of Osborne in this regard, but my guess is one of two things happened in relation to Gill:

1. Osborne was very impressed with Pelini and felt he was just a better fit considering the current situation.

2. Gill is either happy at Buffalo and feels he has unfinished business, or has an opportunity on the horizon (he has been mentioned as a candidate at Washington State) that might be an even better fit for him.

Anybody who says race had anything to do with Gill not getting the job (and, yes, there are those morons out there chirping those very words) are 110 percent delusional. If you know anything about Osborne, you know that he's a man of impeccable character in that regard. Gill is one of his closest friends in the UNL football family and was the best man at Gill's wedding. I think the bottom line with Gill is that Osborne feels Pelini is the better fit considering the current situation, and that Gill is going to come out of this with a bigger and better opportunity for him down the road.

There are still nine months until Pelini debuts as the full-time head coach at Nebraska, and as a lifelong Husker fan I am beyond excited to see what this team does in the years ahead. One thing is for certain -- the legendary Blackshirts are back, and they're going to be "badder" than ever with Pelini in charge.

And when I mean "badder" -- I'm not talking about somebody hanging half-a-hundred on us. Kansas, Colorado and everybody else standing in our way had better realize that they've had their shot -- those days are ohhhhhh-vahhhh.

Urethral spasms -- a good conversation killer

2007-11-15T22:05:00.000-08:00

Need a good catch phrase to redirect a topic of discussion that you're not comfortable with? Want to get that pain-in-the-ass guy in the next cubicle to stop poking his head over the wall every five minutes to borrow your one remaining good pen? Would you like to get your overbearing bitch of a mother-in-law to stop calling to complain about the crappy bed you've got in the guest bedroom that's giving her a backache every time she comes to visit?

I got a guaranteed conversation killer for ya', folks -- just throw out these two words and watch people suddenly realize they've got someplace better to be than to stand there talking to you. And those words are (cue the music):

Urethral spasm.

Now for those that have forgotten completely about recent events in my world, allow me to say that last week's surgery to remove a cyst from my testicle, for the most part, went quite well. They got the cyst out, but also had to take the left epididymis because the cyst had basically taken that bad boy hostage and the doctor, thankfully, didn't want to try and play cut-along-the-dotted-line with it. (And, just so you know, the epididymis sits on top of the testicle and serves as, for lack of a better phrase, a holding tank for your sperm before they are ejaculated -- not that I have had reason to DO such a thing lately, but now I've only got one holding tank, instead of two, to work with.)

Unfortunately, the fine medical staff at Emmanuel Hospital in Omaha forgot to cross one thing off the "Things Mikey C MUST do before we can release him back into the general population" list, and that thing was -- to take a leak. Normally, they make sure all the plumbing is workin' before they turn you loose, but I guess they figured, "Hey, the guy just got part of his package hacked off, so there's no need to see if all his junk's workin' or not. We'll just assume he's O.K. Besides, hasn't he had enough pain down there for one day?"

Well, it wasn't working well Friday night. In fact, I'm not sure which level of frustration was higher -- my ongoing drought in the pursuit of carnal relations with the female gender (over two years and counting, thank you very little), or the fact that I couldn't pee to save my soul (and isn't it odd that both of the major frustrating events in my life had something to do with my penis? Oh wait, I'm a guy -- that sort of thing is just natural).

By Saturday, I was in really bad shape. No kidding -- I was in a lot of pain, I was constipated, I couldn't focus on the TV, the laptop or anything else without lapsing in and out of consciousness. Strangely enough, this was a remarkable re-enactment of most of my 20's, only it wasn't nearly as much fun (from what I have been told, anyway).

Eventually, my sister -- who, evidently, drew the shortest straw in the contest to see which family member would have the unfortunate honor of trying to get me to take my meds and not move around so much, per the doctor's orders -- suggested we go to the emergency room. I wanted to go home (we were staying at my dad's in Plattsmouth). In fact, I wanted to go anywhere where I could be alone and suffer in peace and quiet -- like the middle of Interstate 80 during Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic. But, under protest, I went to the emergency room.

And it was there, boys and girls, that I got to experience a "urethral spasm" firsthand. And to make a long story short (although I will make it much longer after this paragraph, don't you worry), if the pain of several hours of childbirth is ANYTHING like the 60-90 seconds I went through during the course of that "urethral spasm" -- I have a completely new and unshakeable respect for any woman out there who has given birth. That was the kind of pain I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Hell, I wouldn't even wish it on my ex-wife (then again, she was married to me for over five years, so she's already suffered enough).

When I went into the emergency room, my daughter and sister were sitting in the room with me. As we were waiting for someone -- a doctor, a nurse, the janitor, a long-lost uncle, the town drunk -- to show up, my sister got a text message from her husband, who was at the Nebraska-Kansas State game with my dad and his two sons. Jenni remarked that Nebraska was winning 31-10 -- and I was sure that the urine buildup had entered my nervous system and made me start hallucinating. In fact, she had to SHOW the text message to me to keep me from losing my mind.

Eventually, the doctor came in and, after evaluating the situation, said he was going to insert a catheter into my penis. Normally, my response would have been something along the lines of, "Only if you want your epitaph to say, 'I was bludgeoned to death by an irate patient with a broken catheter.'" Instead, I was about a step away from offering to have catheters stuck in every possible orifice -- whatever it took to take care of the problem.

Once the catheter went in, the discomfort began. Any time you have something going in a door that God has marked "Exit Only," it's not fun. It's about as comforting as listening to Hillary Clinton tell us how things are going to be when she is President. So there was that discomfort, followed by a momentary feeling as if the pressure of holding enough liquid to water Grandma's petunias for an entire summer was beginning to subside.

That's when the ol' "urethral spasm" made its appearance.

How does it feel, you are probably asking yourself. I'm going to tell you EXACTLY how it feels, and I encourage you to follow these instructions to get a REALLY GOOD IDEA of what it feels like:

1. Take any kind of metal wire that is connected to an electrical source. The more volts, the better (I recommend 10,000 -- I could've handled more, really).

2. Now take that wire and, without a moment's hesitation, jam it up that special place where your bladder empties out.

3. Leave it there until you come to the realization that, when they announce your death on the local news that night, it will include the words "catheter", "urethral spasm" and "he screamed 'IT (EXPLETIVE) HURTS!!!!' 37 times before he was bludgeoned to death by an ER nurse with a German accent."

And if a family member hears you laughing hysterically as you read this, offer him or her the opportunity to try it for himself or herself. No, really, I insist -- why should I have all the freakin' fun here?

The whole situation lasted, and this is a guess on my part, about 30-60 seconds. It FELT as if it lasted as long as the Clinton and Carter presidencies put together. But once the pain peaked and began subsiding, I actually felt pretty good. And when you drain 1,900cc of urine from your kidney -- is there REALLY a better feeling in the world? (For the record, the doctor told me that, "When you can pee so bad you can taste it, there is about 400cc of fluid in your bladder." Obviously, I had gone well past tasting it -- I could actually SEE it.)

The good news is that, after about 48 hours with a bag strapped to my leg, I went in to see the doctor on Monday morning. He was surprised and disappointed to see the catheter in place ("I'm going to have a talk with some nurses about that," I recall him saying during my visit -- and I'm hoping he passes their names on to me so I can stop by in six months for my checkup and give THEM a "urethral spasm" as a thank-you gift), but was happy to report that everything looked good (which may be the ONLY time I have ever had ANYBODY -- male or female -- tell me my scrotal region looked good) and that I should be dancing within a week or so.

If there has been any good to come out of the insanity of the past week, though, it's in the fact that I've had the opportunity to really educate people about the dangers of "urethral spasms" and what it feels like to live with such an affliction.

It's also made from some very quiet, uninterrupted days at the office -- which is just fine for what's left of me.

Surprise Bible verse determining next move

2007-11-03T18:16:00.000-07:00

A year ago at this time, I was dealing with the aftermath of what I thought was my departure from the journalism industry.

For those of you who witnessed it firsthand, it was not a particularly sunny chapter in my life. There was a lot of resentment, a healthy dose of anger, an abundance of frustration and a ton of uncertainty as to what was next for me.

This past winter, I landed a job at Pacific Life. To say there has been a steep learning curve trying to figure out 401K's, IRA's and the difference between non-qualified and qualified money (don't ask . . . I've been there nine months and I'm still not sure) would be an understatement of epic proportions.

In spite of the unfamiliarity with things, I have learned a lot and feel like I'm getting more comfortable with what I am doing now. I had some opportunities to get back into the media field this spring and summer, but didn't give them more than the cursory glance because I felt that this was where I was supposed to be at this point in my life.

I joined a new church near my apartment this summer, and they have a Tuesday evening "class" that talks a lot about God's purpose and how we can use His guidance in our lives. The group meets for dinner at the church every Tuesday, we have a lecture and some discussion time, and recently we had an overnight retreat that was equal parts informative and relaxing.

During that retreat, I was thumbing through the back part of my Bible and came upon a section that cross-referenced certain verses with certain attributes such as dependability, kindness and patience.

There was one, though, that caught my eye. It was one for creativity, and it referred to 1 Timothy 4:14, which states:

"Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on the hands of presbytery."

I read this sentence, and it stopped me in my tracks. I read it again. I read it a third time. And then I closed the Bible and asked myself, "What does this mean?"

I began to think about the 20-plus years I've been involved in the media, both print and broadcast. I thought about the Friday nights walking the sidelines taking football pictures, and the weekday afternoons at WJAG when I did my sports talk show. I thought about Nebraska Wrestling Illustrated, and I thought about the long hours and the time on the road and all the things that made the job a real pain in the backside.

And for most of that weekend, I couldn't stop thinking about 1 Timothy 4:14 and what it said. I prayed about it and asked God to give me a sign as to whether or not this is leading somewhere. And, if so, where are we going with this? I continued to think about this and pray about it and talked with one of my pastors at church about it.

Then, the other day, something really strange happened. I was sitting at lunch talking with a co-worker about nothing in particular, when the idea jumped into my head that I needed to call a friend of mine who is a newspaper publisher here in Nebraska. No specific reason to talk to him, other than that I hadn't talked with him in over a year. So I called him and we chatted for about 15 minutes. I caught him up on what was going on with me, and he caught me up with what was going on with his newspaper. During the course of the conversation, he mentioned that his sports editor had left (which is a story in and of itself) and he was trying to piece things together with a photographer and some interns.

I didn't ask anything more about the situation, but when we said our good-byes I wondered if this wasn't God's way of telling me that I need to follow the words of 1 Timothy 4:14. I've asked Him to guide me on what I should do with this, and I'm going to let that be what determines where we go from here. I don't know if it means somebody is going to come to me with a chance to be a sports editor or an on-air radio personality or something else, but I think it's an avenue that is coming around the bend.

Until then, though, I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing with Pacific Life and my freelancing and wait for God to tell me what's on deck for me. As I look back on the past several years of my life, I know there have been opportunities that have come up where I was either in the right place at the right time or had the right people making the right recommendations to those who were able to get the most out of my creative abilities. Wherever this next step goes, I feel I'll be ready for it.

Making fun of mortality

2007-09-30T16:01:00.001-07:00

Facing your own mortality is nothing to make fun of -- but I'm going to do it, anyway.

As you may very well know, I've been less than 100 percent physically for the last several months (and less than 100 percent mentally for several years). A recent trip to the doctor led to the discovery of a small cyst on one of my testicles -- which, of course, has resulted in a near-constant stream of "three-ball" jokes from some of my poker buddies.

Whenever a member of the medical profession uses words like "cyst," they generally results in the individual they are examining to start asking a variety of questions. In my case, these questions have included the following:

-- Am I going to die before I see my daughter graduate from high school?

-- Should I make out a last will and testament now, and can I do it with a sentence that goes something like, "My daughter gets everything, and anybody I owe money to can just kiss my ass"?

-- How many more people are going to feel me up without me getting some enjoyment -- or at least a cigarette and 10 minutes of cuddling -- out of it?

Now I'm pretty sure answers to those questions are "no," "probably not" and "everybody with medical training in the greater Omaha area, if you're really lucky" -- but it has given me an opportunity to come to the realization that, eventually, the expiration date God stamped on the inside of my forehead is going to come around and that I need to make the most out of the time I have left, whether it's 24 hours, 24 weeks or 24 (or more) years.

I'm not concerned about the cyst itself. The radiologist I spoke with last week said that he's 99.9 percent sure it is benign, which means that I'll have one more unused spherical object hanging in my scrotal region until such time as the doctor feels it would be a good idea to remove it (and we'll be chatting later this week on how long it will be before she moves that idea to "right about now" stage).

The concern right now is what the radiologist called "unusual activity" in one of my testicles. He couldn't give me a definitive description of what the "unusual activity" is all about (although I would say, with some degree of expertise, that it's due to a complete absence of quality sexual activity with any good-looking single woman within a 200-mile radius of my apartment). That's why I'll be having an MRI done sometime in the very near future to get some more details about what kind of disturbance is going on in my testicular region.

In the meantime, I'm staying positive about the whole thing. First, I'm positive that the pain that this particular situation is causing is nothing short of sister-running-fingernails-on-chalkboard-while-you-watch-NFL annoying, at best, and excruciating can-I-just-jump-off-a-bridge-now-and-dive-headfirst-into-a-dry-creek-bed-to-make-it-go-away pain at worst.

Second, I know that things are in place -- physically, financially and spiritually -- to take care of the situation. I realize that with age comes more medical concerns, and that the number of people who deal with this sort of thing, in each area, know what they're doing and will make it better.

If God says it's time to go, then it's time to go and I'll go willingly (soon after I stop screaming and dragging my feet as they try and pull me away from this earth). Until that time, I'm going to enjoy myself, get caught up on life and have a little fun along the way so that, when it does come, I don't leave anything behind except a lot of laughs.

And my estate, which my daughter already has sewn up, of course . . . and what she does with $17.93 is her business.

* * * * *

Speaking of my daughter, she had her first competition performance of the year as the Millard West band competed in Starfest at Morningside College in Sioux City (which, when translated from its Latin originations, means, "depressing, smelly craphole of a town").

There was a lot of concern going into Saturday's performance. Kylie is a leader in the color guard, and she had expressed several times that the team just wasn't getting the routine down. She had always said this in previous years, but after watching them perform a dress rehearsal of it during halftime of a football game Thursday night, even I was concerned that this was not going to look good when they took the field Saturday.

I chatted with her Thursday and tried to keep her positive, offering her suggestions to help keep the troops from coming apart at the seams. As I drove up Saturday, I wondered if this was going to be a quick trip to watch the train wreck, followed by a quick trip home with a bawling 17-year-old sitting in the back of the band bus and in need of serious psychological counseling to concern myself with.

Those concerns were erased, though, when the band came out and performed quite well in the preliminaries. They finished fifth out of 14 teams and advanced to the finals, where they ended up fifth with an even better performance under the lights that night.

Kylie called with the news as I drove into Omaha late Saturday night, then called back a couple of moments later with some even better news -- the color guard, which looked like a Chinese fire drill on Thursday night -- finished second among color guards that performed at the festival. I'm not sure who was happier -- me, my daughter or the 20 or so over-excited teenage kids screaming in the background during Kylie's call.

The team performs at a competition this weekend in Sioux Falls, then has two competitions the following two weeks on their home field at Millard South, including the State Bandmasters competition. If Saturday's performance was any indication, we should be excited about the band's chances the next three weekends.

* * * * *

A final side note to Saturday -- during some down time between the prelims and finals, I made the short journey across the river to South Sioux City to pick up a copy of the paper I used to work at . . . and to unknowingly put myself through a quick re-hashing of the hell I went through there last summer.

It took one glance of the front page for me to realize that whatever changes I had made to the quality of the paper's design were no longer in place, returning it to the pathetic layout and design that was its signature before my arrival. The one full-time writer that was a big pain in my ass -- and one the publisher was hoping to get rid of -- is still there (and, yes, I think there's a connection between these two notes).

And a quick drive through downtown reminded me of just how depressing the area was to me. Suffice to say that I could not get out of the Sioux City area fast enough.

After her last performance, I went to have a last word with Kylie before heading home, and I found her walking toward the bus and crying like she'd lost her dog. When I asked her what the problem was, she said between sobs, "This is the last time I'm going to march in this competition" -- to which I thought to myself, "THANK GOD!!!" If it's the last time I'm ever in Sioux City (and, outside of a Sammy Hagar concert coming up in November, I don't see any real need to return), the only tears I'd be able to generate would be tears of joy.

That's my show. You've been a great audience. Stay tuned for Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reyonlds. That's it and that's all . . .

Spending $310 million just too much work

2007-08-27T04:55:00.000-07:00

Don't you hate it when you make life-changing plans, only to have somebody come along and screw them up?

Late last week, I bought a Powerball lottery ticket. I got a computer-generated series of numbers that, I assumed, was going to be worth over $300 million in annuity -- or $140 million in cash, depending on which way I wanted to go.

As I drove home with the winning numbers in my back pocket, the question suddenly leaped to the front of my mind -- what am I going to do with all this damn money? After all, I'm going to be going from living paycheck to paycheck to having a lot of extra cash floating around.

When I got home, I began putting together a list of how the money would be spent. Obviously, once somebody wins the lottery, there are going to be all kinds of dreamers, schemers and leeches trying to figure out how they are going to get to my newfound riches, so I need to protect myself.

Here's how things break down (and I'm working with the cash amount, because once you get past a certain amount, does it really matter HOW MANY millions you are worth?) . . .

Taxes -- about $50 million. That leaves me with $90 million to play with.

Invest half of what's left -- $45 million off the top, and my month-to-month expenses can be taken care of using the interest. That leaves me with $45 million to take care of the rest of my agenda.

Pay off all outstanding debts -- about $25,000, including loans from family, leaving me with $44,975,000.

Finance my daughter's education -- $100,000 should cover it, which brings me to $44,875,000.

Upgrade my personal situation -- A new car, house and furniture would come in at around $300,000. Amount left: $44,575,000.

Take care of "my circle" -- Set aside $25 million for family and my closest group of friends for them to do whatever tripped their trigger (and if you have to inquire as to whether or not you're in that circle, the answer is no). That leaves $19,575,000.

Spend a week playing poker in Las Vegas, because now I can -- $1 million, bringing the balance available down to $18,575,000.

Donate money to local churches -- A good $5 million will bring me down to $13,575,000.

Hire a lawyer to take care of all the paperwork regarding these transactions -- let's round it off at $75,000 to bring the balance down to an even $13.5 million.

Now here is where the trouble starts . . . what does a guy do with $13.5 million when he's done everything he needs to do?

I'd get bored going on vacations all the time, so that idea is out. I could buy new golf equipment and spend my days playing golf all the time, but that would get boring after a while. I could set up an RV in the parking lot of the Horseshoe Casino and do nothing but play poker, but even Phil Hellmuth has to spend some time away from the felt.

Some past Powerball winners blew their money on bad business decisions, shady characters and a never-ending mix of booze and broads. A guy can get bored really easy when he's got all that money and all that time to work with, creating more problems than he'd have had he not won the big prize.

Unfortunately, these are problems I'm not going to have to worry about, because I found out late Saturday night that some schmuck in Indiana wound up winning the $310 million Powerball jackpot. I'm sure he's frantically running around trying to figure out what he's going to do with all that damned extra cash he's got lying around.

So while he does that, I'm forced to roll out of the rack, hit the showers and get ready for another day on the job at $12.50 an hour, the way I have been every day for all these years. It's another month of living within a tight budget, making the next car payment and waiting for the ship to come in.

And, boy, does that take a lot of pressure off of me -- spending $140 million is just too much work compared to the 8-to-5 gig.

Expressing love to parents no longer taken for granted

2007-07-20T19:04:00.000-07:00

As a kid, the thought of going a day without having my parents in my life never dawned on me.

I never even entertained it as a possibility -- although there were many times when my youthful stubbornness could have done just fine without them. If I had a dollar for every time an escalation of emotions ended with me wishing mayhem upon one -- or both -- of my parents, I'd probably be able to enter the $10,000 Main Event at the World Series of Poker every year between now and, oh, 2031.

There are those who grow up without one of their parents. When she was a teenager, my ex-wife lost her mother to cancer. My brother-in-law lost his father when he was young as well.

Earlier this week, my dad entered the hospital to have a lap band tied around his stomach, a rather serious procedure designed to help him do something he's been trying to do for a good chunk of the last 20 years -- lose weight.

It was during the agonizing three hours waiting to hear how things went, though, that I faced the reality that the day may come soon when I will be without one of my parents.

Dad has been battling his weight for a long, long time. When I was growing up, he was never FAT, per se -- but you could tell it had been a while since he'd missed a meal.

My parents divorced in 1986, and it was soon after that he went on this health kick that left me asking one question -- who was this guy and what the hell did he do with my dad?

Dad was eating right. He stopped drinking. He was walking somewhere close to the equivalent of a round-trip journey from Omaha to Sioux City -- EVERY FREAKING DAY. He went through so many pair of tennis shoes, he got thank-you cards from the folks at Nike for years on end.

By the time I got married, dad was in probably the best shape of his life. He weighed the same weight that he was at in high school. Seeing the two of us standing together the day of my wedding, it was really hard to tell which one of us was the best-looking member of the Carnes family.

Then came the 90's. My dad stopped doing the things he had been doing to take care of himself.

He and I didn't speak to one another -- civilly, anyway -- for three years due to a family argument run amok. When I did finally call him to mend fences, we met at a Wendy's in Lincoln that had been a favorite family place to go and eat on our trips to the big city. And I will never forget the day he pulled into the restaurant and got out of his car. Had he not had his "CARNES" vanity license plate attached to the 1988 black Baretta he was driving at the time, I'd have never known it was him.

He was easily twice as big as he was the last time I'd seen him -- and he's been like that ever since.

It hasn't been for lack of effort, though. Diets, exercise, divine intervention -- he tried about everything you could think of, but to no avail. He'd lose 20 or 30 pounds, but it would just come back. Up until just before his recent surgery, he wouldn't tell anybody what he weighed, but my conservative guess was somewhere on the wrong end of 300 pounds.

There were many times when he and I would be engaged in something requiring physical activity (moving me from town to town, mostly). Many was the time when I all but had to hog-tie dad to keep him from overdoing it. The mind was going where the body wasn't about to go, and I could just see him dropping dead while trying to pick up a box.

A couple of months ago, he told me that he was going to have surgery to have a lap band tied to his stomach, which would effectively shrink the space in his stomach, making him "feel full" faster and -- as logic goes -- eat less.

His surgery earlier this week went well -- although the delay in the start of the procedure was enough to almost drive me to the point where my DAUGHTER was going to be without one of her parents.

"No news is good news" was one of the remarks a co-worker said in an effort to try and talk me off the ledge, so to speak. That did little to curb my growing concern and the sudden barrage of "what if?" questions that were creeping into my mind as I tried to work through some annuity contracts at Pacific Life.

What really troubled me, though, was the fact that I had talked to my dad earlier that morning. We talked for about five minutes, and we joked about what was about to take place and how he was going to be good as new -- but not once did I tell him that I loved him.

When Kylie and I are together or talk on the phone, the conversation always ends with her saying, "I love you, Daddy" and "I love you too, Kylie." Even when the topic of discussion isn't a pleasant one, it always ends the same.

My parents and I don't share that greeting often enough. It's not that they don't love me (and vice versa). Far from it -- but for some strange and inexplicable reason, we seem to end conversations ASSUMING that the love is there. It is, of course -- but it's almost always implied and almost never expressed.

It really bothered me, as I stood two steps short of a full-scale meltdown, that the last thing I said to my dad wasn't that expression of love. "See you after surgery," I believe, was my closing remark.

What if I was wrong? What if, perish the thought, something dreadful happened and he died right there on the table? How do you walk around the rest of your life knowing that you had a WIDE OPEN chance to tell your dad how much you cared about him, and all you could muster was a lame, see-you-on-the-other-side remark?

I made it a point, as we left the hospital that night and I hugged him in his bed, to let my dad know that I do love him. That it took telling him as he laid in a half-groggy state in a hospital bed -- I suppose -- beats telling it to his lifeless body after he's gone to the afterlife, but you can bet that the next time I let ALL of my family know how much I love them all won't be so long in coming.

I've tried not to think about it, but I'm fully aware now that the day will come when all the older adult influences in my life will have passed on. It's a guarantee, though, that they won't leave without knowing how much they mean to me.