I remember watching the 2001 season Superbowl (so in early 2002.) It was still freshly post-9/11. I remember that it was the Patriots who were playing in it and Tom Brady came up as a back-up QB who was a 6th round draft pick. And he was from the Bay Area – a local boy (his high school is a couple blocks from our office!) Cinderella story. I remember being SO happy a team named the Patriots were there with such a story and screaming at every play and score and knew they were going to win the Super Bowl. It was just right. It was exactly what should have happened that year.
This was pre-fantasy football for me. so I was pretty much only a 49ers and Bucs fan. I thought Joe Montana was the only quarterback in the world :) So for me to care at all about a different team was a big deal.
I was never really a Patriots fan before or after that. Not really a fan of Belichick. And I way prefer Peyton Manning or Drew Brees. BUT, this year Brees was taken in the draft and Peyton is out with injury (hopefully not career-ending). So I took Brady.
10 years later I will root for Brady again. Still debating buying his jersey for the FF year. But I do still request he cut his dang hair. :)
I wasn’t in NYC, DC or Pennsylvania. I didn’t know anyone that died. I know people that were in NYC, and heard their stories. But that’s it.
But I am an American. And proud to be. Every single day.
Even though so many things happen here that disgust me, anger me, annoy me. We are still the best country in the world. If you don’t live here and you disagree with that. OK. Please stay away. No big deal. If you live here and disagree – feel free to leave right now. In fact – get the F out. Please. Now.
I am probably not going to watch many specials, or read a lot of stories. It does still make me sad. And angry. I get way too melancholy. I still remember that day very vividly. I remember the exact moment someone called us (quite early on the West Coast.) Turning on the TV and watching the news. Trying to call people we knew in NYC and not getting through. Walking on the beach with the huskies on a beautiful sunny day thinking what the heck just happened and how will it change the world forever. Our business suffered a big blow on 9/12 and we had to do a huge round of layoffs right then too. So a bad month. While certainly not the same type of tragedy in any way, still one that effected a lot of people around me. Bad time for sure.
But I cannot even begin to imagine what it is like for people that lived through it. I had nightmares for weeks (and still sometimes do) wondering to what extent the world has changed and worrying. And I was pretty far removed from it all. But I do stress about it fairly frequently. Which is why I understand the need for people like Dick Cheney and the role of the CIA and special forces. If you say you don’t, you are being naive, stupid or just lying to yourself.
So all the memorials and TV specials and politicians blathering on will never really make it better for the people who went through this. Or make me or you fully understand it. That’s the nature of trauma and disaster. No one can truly understand what any Nazi war prisoner went through. Or the servicemen and residents at Pearl Harbor.
We can only take the time to salute the heroes, honor the fallen, be thankful you were safe and always pray (to whoever or whatever that may be) for the safety of our military. They fight every day. And every single person living in this country, enjoying its vast freedoms, should do that.
This year I am in 2 fantasy leagues – my standard work one ($25 buy-in) and then a free one with some fellow FF lovers on twitter. I am the only girl in that league so I need to do well! I also think I am the only person a) on the West Coast and b) not working in finance (and probably running spreadsheets and charts on player stats!) I do however bring awesome huskies and Star Wars to the league – “Never Tell Me Odds! :)
I am the Commish of my work league even though I said I would not do it again. My excitement for football overtook the frustration of being the Commish. I banned Michael Vick from our league so no one was allowed to draft him unless they wanted to give me $100 per week to donate to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. Last year I made the mistake of only charging $5 per week thinking people would GET THE POINT and be smart enough to not use him. Wrong. Well, most people figured it out. Just not 1. That person was not invited back to the league this year. Extreme dog lover is the Commish. Michael Vick she hates and said not to use. Michael Vick you pick-up off the bench. Simple that math is.
My work team draft went OK. I really didn’t do enough football research this year. I think I say that every year though. But I basically went after people I already knew. I didn’t look for the “hot new rookie”. My team is the “Running Huskies”:)
QB: Tom Brady (Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees were already taken…I don’t think I can buy his jersey tho…cannot root for the PATS! ARGH! But maybe if he cuts his hair…)
WRs: DeSean Jackson, Dwayne Bowe, Stevie Johnson, Malcolm Floyd and Plaxico Burress. Yes, I can totally give Plax another chance since he only shot himself and hasn’t yet displayed sociopathic tendencies.
RBs: Arian Foster, Matt Forte, Pierre Thomas and Jonathan Stewart. Arian Foster was my 1st round draft pick. And he’s injured. Awesome. GAH!
TE: Dallas Clark (this is the jersey I should buy since I try and get him every year!)
K: Adam Vinatieri
DEF: Baltimore
My twitter team was an auction-style draft which I had never done before. That was a bit crazy and I am definitely not so sure about my team – yikes. Team name “Let the Wookiee Win”:
QBs (you use 2 each game! Wha??): Matt Schaub and Alex Smith (yeah…that’s what was left in my budget)
WRs: Larry Fitzgerald, Wes Welker, Danny Amendola, Johnny Knox and Robert Meachem. So 1 super star anyway.
RBs: Maurice Jones-Drew, Frank Gore, Beanie Wells and Pierre Thomas
TE: Dallas Clark (yes again!) and Brandon Pettigrew
K: David Akers
DEF: PIT and STL.
I need a back-up QB to play during the BYE weeks but I have a few weeks. I need to monitor the BYE weeks on that league for sure. Plus the scoring on that team is totally different than my league that I am used to so I hope I do OK there!!
Stressed about Arian Foster being injured, Matt Forte is grumpy about his contract and Dallas Clark will not have Peyton Manning throwing to him. Great. Sonof^%$&@^%#$@#$
I also have a 3rd team to manage. We needed a 10th in our work league and I had to fill the spot. So I am in for double I guess. I seriously need more football lovin’ friends. Maybe I’ll play that team like a “take lots of crazy chances” team. I named it Shadowtrooper. I had to create another email address and login for yahoo which is a PITA since I will now have to log out of Yahoo with my normal login to check and change that team.
PLUS, I took over the Survivor commish job since last year’s commish apparently forgot? But we have 6 people in that – winner take all. I took CLE for the 1st week. I hope that wasn’t stupid. First week is always supposed to be the safe “sure thing” pick which would have probably been NE (2 people took them) although I think SD had the biggest point spread. But SD never seems to be a sure thing. And NE playing MIA is a big rivalry so got crazy and picked CLE (playing CIN so…)
And this year I did not create a weekly picks pool. Being the commish of that sucks frankly. Too much work collecting and paying out and reminding people. A friend of mine in Florida invited me to join his and you pay the full amount for the year up front and then each week there is a pay out along with a final payout at the end of the year. So all I have to do is pay once and make my picks weekly. Done! Yay! Although this pool is a spread pool which I have never done so that is way, way harder!
So yay!! Football season is now here and I have a lot of games to play! I would really love having enough football friends where we do the draft together, order pizza, yell at our picks getting taken by each other – like they show on the ESPN commercials! I think that would be way more fun. But oh well.
My Sundays are officially booked! And no, I do not have a gambling problem… ;)
…behind a slow, idiot driver I sometime fantasize about ramming the back of their car demolition derby style.
Maybe THAT would shake them out of their daydreaming state that seems to be keeping their foot off the gas pedal (and on the brake pedal…as they go 10+ mph UNDER the speed limit…..UPhill!)
I know I get a little smile as I imagine it. But I don’t do it. And there is the difference between normal & crazy…impulse control.
Cannot wait to watch this again when my DVD gets here!!! One of my favorite recent movies for sure. And I think my favorite comic book movie so far. Of course, I’d have to re-watch them all to make sure :)
I just read the Kindle single “Comic-Con Strikes Again!” and I LOVED it! Super quick read. But if you are a Con attendee – you will giggle :) The writer hits it SPOT ON. The frustrations, the lines, the commercialism but also the pure fan joy :)
He also hits the nail on the the head with his note about Star Wars:
“Star Wars is the closest thing the culture of Comic-Con has to a single story that unites it: the myth that can support endless allusions that will be universally understood, at least here. Not a lot of us know who, say, minor Biblical characters were, as we might have a few centuries ago, but we know Jango Fett.”
So true… :)
If you have a Kindle, it’s $0.99. And short. If you’ve ever been to SDCC, you will laugh. If not, you will probably shake your head and wonder what is wrong with us attendees. Entertaining either way :)
Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life. Well….Duh. Of course it is.
I have been working more than full-time hours since I was 14. I finished school early and got a job working for a computer company in exchange for training on computers. This was waaaay back in the stone age when computers were kinda newfangled things :) I learned about networking, running cable, how to fix errors and customer service when users would call into the computer room with their many problems. In my opinion, a much better spent youth than prom, etc. But I worked or was learning all the time.
Then at 18 I got an entry-level job at a hedge fund. Ended up working for the Managing General Partner as his assistant, managing his personal life through 2 divorces and handling his personal finances along with learning trading commodities, the backroom mechanics of a trading room, HR/office management and then taking on the portfolio accounting of our various hedge funds. Again, a much better way to grow up than pledging a sorority and keg parties.
Then I helped my then boyfriend, turned fiancee (and then finally husband) co-found an internet start-up. Went through the ups and downs of the dot com boom and bust, made it through, kept the business alive and then it turned profitable and then finally we sold it in 2010 to a large (one of the largest?) Chinese companies. And we have another company now.
When we sold the company, I kept my FT job there. I think some people were surprised but it’s not like we made $20mil or something off the sale. But now, a year later, things are different. Plus during this same year, one of my beloved doggies got very sick and my little brother died. Then throw in my Dad being in a nursing home and a constant form of stress, plus then I broke my ankle which then caused a pinched nerve which has been a boatload amount of pain and suffering, and you have a girl who needs a break.
So a few weeks ago I told our new CEO that I want to go part-time. With the merger, parts of my job were given away to our parent company, and some just vanished over time all together as things were switched over. I still have plenty to do but certainly not like what I had before. And honestly, when you are working for yourself and have a small company where you know everyone and want everyone to be successful and happy, it is a LOT different than working for a big company and just having a job where all of a sudden there are office politics and crap that I have no patience for. I am not meant for the latter. At. All.
So today was my last day as a full-time employee. Hopefully for the rest of my life. I still have plenty of work to do for 2 companies. And I will go into the office 2 days per week. But now I can do some of my work while in my PJs on my sofa. Or after a long hike with the buds. Or whatever. Plus this means more time in Tahoe and I will be quite happy about that. As will the huskies! :) We just closed on a new house last Friday and will have tons of stuff to do for renovations. So I am not completely delusional about too much “free time”. But it will be nice to have a much more flexible schedule. This year has made me realize that I need to relax a bit more. Calm down. Stop stressing about things that simply are not worse the stress. Ferris Bueller was right. I have just not had this as an adult and I want to give it a try.
So today when I locked my office, loaded the huskies in the car and pulled away from the parking lot it was really, really weird. Can’t really explain the feeling. Sad. But happy. Melancholy. But content. I guess just weird.
Vader’s silence (and then action) is a WAY more powerful tool to relay to us ignorant audience members what is going on with Vader’s conscience (and soul…and midichlorians…and whatever else) than him saying anything. Grrrrrr….
I love ya George, but you REALLY NEED TO STOP MESSING WITH CLASSICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sigh…all I can say is good thing I still have the original original trilogy. WHERE HAN SHOT FIRST!
So Bernie Madoff steals (a lot of) money and is hated by everyone. People are happy when they think of him suffering in jail for the rest of his life. An old man in jail for the “rest” of his life. People spit on the thought of him an say ha!
Other “white collar” criminals get the same hatred. The same anger directed towards them For stealing money. Horrible = yes. But not the worst crime in the world.
Michael Vick and his new $100million dollar contract. PLUS endorsements. Applauded. “Yay – he triumphed and overcame hardship and troubles.” Hardship? Troubles caused by HIM. Scientific fact that purposeful animal cruelty leads to violence against humans. Other sports starts accused of assaulting, raping, whatever? Forgiven. As long as their team wins, the “masses” are placated.
Just got this poster! A friend bought it for me. It was created for a special screening of Fanboys by Austin Books and Comics at the Blue Starlite Drive-In. That would have been super fun to go to!
If you’ve seen Fanboys, you will understand it a bit more. But really all you need to know and understand is the Star Wars universe triumphing over the Star Trek universe :) I love the bits of bright red used for Han’s Corellian bloodstripe, the Imperial guard, Rebel flag, etc.
I much prefer this version since I’m generally against anything regarding the French Revolution :)
