Son: Dad, wanna go outside and play some catch?
Me: Sure, get your shoes on.
Son: Dad, you can be thrower #7 –> The Viking’s new rookie QB Christian Ponder..
Me: Thanks! Who are you?
Son: Me? I’m Ahmad Rashad.
Me: Wiping away a tear.
Son: Daddy…? What’s wrong?
Me: Nothing son, nothing at all.
I’m Dad to two young kids. A boy and a girl, both younger than 10. There are several things that I think I’d like to improve on, but then again, there are a number of things I excel at.
With that said, I wanna relate a story that came un-summened to my mind just now as I’m working at organizing mind bendingly boring numbers.
I grew up in Minnesota; land of 10,000 lakes. Literally, there are more than 10,000 lakes in that place; it’s crazy. Anyway, we often would visit these lakes in the summer, camp and stuff. Our weekends were FILLED with camping and fishing and turtle catching and fires and …. and stuff.
I remember going to a lake that I hadn’t remembered being at before. Of course, later it would come to be a favorite spot of ours. But that day, THAT day, it was new. Anyway, so, dad and my brother and I drove to this lake, what, 30 minutes from home, and we just kinda looked around. Great location, easy to get to, close to a store and fed by a creek. A creek.
We walked down to that creek and walked over a bridge. A small bridge to be sure, no more than 8 feet across and but a yard high. A foot bridge only, nothing but people and bikes could cross. And as we walked over that bridge we saw a creek that fed that lake FULL of fish. And when I say full, I mean full. Fish were fishing. The amount of fish in that water was amazing. And we didn’t have our poles.
I begged dad to drive all the way home, pick ’em up and drive back. It would be SO awesome to fish that creek!
I could see it in his eyes. He wanted too, I KNOW he did. But he just couldn’t justify the 30 minute drive home followed by another 30 minute drive back just to fish. Those fish lived for another day and I was left fishless.
We didn’t do anything that day. e just drove home later and ….. and hung out. Shit, we may have been LOOKING for stuff to do when we got back, I don’t know. I think that whole day stuck with me.
I’ll go wildly out of my way just to let the kids “fish”.
It won’t make sense. I’ve driven back home, 20 minutes each way, just so that my kid would have his “lovie” at day care. I’ve made that same drive to bring in a valentine day card for a teacher.
That’s the thing about being a parent. My folks did things and I turned out like I am. I am happy with me. Should I change what they did? And if I do, do I risk raising my kids so they grow up to be not like me?
Huh.
To say the least, there’s been a lot of attention on the Penn State football program. Joe Pa, one of the greatest coaches in any sport, was forced out in disgrace as reports became public of wide spread child abuse in the program.
But I’m not here to talk about Joe today. I wanna mention a guy with more wins and less attention. His name is John Gagliardi. And he coaches in Minnesota at St. John’s University located in Collegeville. He’s a legend:
At the age of 22, with six years of high school coaching, Gagliardi was hired at Carroll College in Helena, Montana. In four seasons as head coach at Carroll, Gagliardi compiled a 24–6–1 record, winning three Montana Collegiate Conference championships. After the 1952 season, Gagliardi left Carroll for the Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota
Did’ja get that? At the ripe old age of 22, John had 6 years of high school coaching under his belt.
John Gagliardi began coaching football in 1943 at the age of 16 when his high school coach was called into service during World War II. He was a player-coach his senior year of high school and continued to coach high school football while obtaining his college degree at Colorado College.
At 16 he is a player/coach in high school and continues to coach while attending college. This guy is a stud.
He is currently the head football coach at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, a position he has held since 1953. From 1949 to 1952, he was the head football coach at Carroll College in Helena, Montana. With a career record of 483–133–11, Gagliardi has the most wins of any coach in college football history. His Saint John’s Johnnies teams have won four national titles: the NAIA National Football Championship in 1963 and 1965, and the NCAA Division III National Football Championship in 1976 and 2003. Gagliardi was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2006. With Chris Ault, he is one of two active coaches in the Hall of Fame.
John is the winningest coach in college history. Joe Pa sits at 409; 74 behind John. Seventy ‘effin four.
And he’s comin’ back for more:
St. John’s coach John Gagliardi — college football’s winningest coach — has decided to return for his 60th season directing the Johnnies. St. John’s finished 6-4 thanks to a season-ending four-game winning streak that helped convince Gagliardi to return.
“For awhile there, I thought maybe I had lost it,” Gagliardi told Frank Rajkowski of the St. Cloud Times. “But we came back and started playing good football. That helped a lot.”
John is 85 years old. He’s been coaching football for damn near 70 years. When asked what he’d do if he gave up the game?
“I don’t know anything else,” said Gagliardi, 85. “What else should I be doing? Am I going to take a trip to Italy or go climbing the Himalayas? I don’t want to do any of those things. There are days I don’t even like going into St. Cloud.”
Classic.
When I was young, I was all about the macro brew. I was into Miller Genuine Draft. For years. Then I moved to Seattle and the world was tipped on it’s head. I’ve gone through the various stages beginning with the gentle hefeweizen, a soft unfiltered wheat beer. After that I moved into the Ambers and some of the Octoberfests. At each stage I was getting darker and a little bolder.
The next stage would have been the deep porters and stouts. But I never made it there. For some reason I stopped going darker and went towards the IPA.
And so it is that I find myself on a never ending quest for a better IPA. I try to rank ’em. Not so much against each other, but against a common standby. So, tonight I’ll introduce that standby and every now and then I’ll introduce a new favorite.
The IPA that I use as my measuring stick is Red Hook’s Long Hammer:
Here’s what Red Hook has to say:
The generous addition of hops both during and at the end of the fermentation process (dry-hopping) gives our India Pale Ale its characteristic bitterness and piney citrus aroma and flavor. The medium body, crisp finish, and moderate alcohol and IBU levels makes this one of America’s most drinkable and best-selling IPAs.
I don’t know what that means, really. All I know is that for an everyday back, Long Hammer is about as solid as you can get. And when looking for an everyday beer, I look for:
Long Hammer is exactly that. All of the above. It’s widely available tastes good.
There ya have it.
I just thought of this. If you wanna fix public schools, or at least improve them dramatically AND increase the pay of teachers, just follow these simple three rules:
If you object to this, you are more interested in keeping shitty teachers in jobs than you are seriously worried about kids getting a good education.
Education should not be a “Make Work Pay” program.
I know.
I KNOW that a professional used to making North of 80k isn’t interested in hearing this. Hell, someone making 30k doesn’t wanna hear this either. But the fact is, there are jobs out there. The problem is, the government is making it impossible to fill ’em.
When a potential worker is faced with working 40 hours a week in order earn 8-9 bucks an hour [$320-$360 a week] vs. not working at all and making $310 in unemployment, it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out what’s gonna happen.
By the way, McDonalds is offering 401k, insurance, cheap food and scholarships.
There are jobs. That doesn’t seem to be the problem. We need people willing to work.
Last night I made a move to defend Paterno. I’ve seen some other arguments thatkinda don’t agree with me; and that’s fine. I like the push, the challenge. So, I’ve thought about it some more.
From what I understand, the crime was witnessed by a graduate student. This grad student then reported it to Paterno. It’s here, in my mind, that the critical decision takes place. Where I work, if I hear, HEAR, of a possible crime being committed by an employee or on corporate property, I’m to report that information to internal HR or security. At this point, I am NOT to call 9-1-1. Rather, I will have my statement taken and then I’ll be directed to do the appropriate.
If that’s too call the authorities, then I will. If it’s to watch or listen for further information I will.
Whatever else I might think about what happened, should happen or will happen, my role is to report and do what I’m told.
Now, with that said, given the nature of the allegations, I might have acted not like that. Be that as it may. In fact, it might turn out that if I HAD acted like my gut told me, I would be or could be sued, I might do it anyway. However, Joe didn’t. He did what the book said.
I slide a little more towards the “support Joe”: camp the more I think about it.
Protecting Americans since before they were Americans.
Listen to this version of TAPS in Honor of Semper Fidelis
The United States Marine Corps traces its institutional roots to the Continental Marines of the American Revolutionary War, formed at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, by a resolution of the Second Continental Congress on 10 November 1775, to raise 2 battalions of Marines.
I think the man is gifted. He is mad funny.
But I seriously think that a significant proportion of young people get their news from him.
And that’s scary!
I openly mock people who pursue degrees and careers in the soft sciences the Liberal Arts. And Music and Art is no exception. However, in no other discipline, Mathematics excepted, am I moved to tears as I am by music.
I am simply stunned and aware when I encounter grace such as this:
I wept.