NFL Rant

I love watching NFL football games. My favorite team is the Washington Redskins and this year, they actually gave us fans something to cheer about. I detest the Ravens -well, not so much the team, but more so the fans... the stupid ones (which there seems to be a high percentage of) - I call them "Baltimorons". So, you can imagine my agony this year after the Ravens won the Super Bowl. I watched all the fans going nuts in the streets as if they had all just won the lottery. Hell, it would've been a similar scene in D.C. if the Redskins had won the Super Bowl. Every city has a big party for their NFL team if they win.

But it all got me to thinking what suckers all us fans really are. I mean, what do WE, the fans, actually gain from our NFL team winning the Super Bowl? Bragging rights. Nothing more (unless you placed a little side bet on the Super Bowl). Meanwhile, all the players on the winning team get a nice ring and an extra $88,000 in their pocket - now that's in addition to their regular salary, performance bonuses, and any side endorsement deals. Sure, Baltimore as a city will benefit financially from having a Super Bowl champion team, but I'm talking about the average fan. I know guys who make a lot less money than I do, but yet they have season tickets or manage to get to several games each year to root on their team. They have multiple "official team jerseys" and all kinds of officially NFL-license gear to show their support for their team. And all for what? I think it's cool to root on your home team, but it kinda pisses me off when I stop and think about how much frickin' money the NFL and all the teams are pulling in -all of which is support by us, the stupid fans who buy tickets and merchandise to make hundreds of millionaires in the NFL even richer. And what do we get out of the deal? Bragging rights. Wow. We're pretty stupid.


Let's throw out some numbers:

The average NFL player's Salary is currently around $1.9 Million. That's average. Some make less - (bare minimum salary is $225,000/yr.)- and many make more. MUCH more. Take for instance:

Adrian Peterson (RB Vikings) ― $11,150,000/yr.

Matt Ryan (QB Falcons)― $12,990,000/yr.

Larry Fitzgerald (WR Cardinals) ― $13,250,000/yr.

Trent Williams (OT Redskins) ― $14,000,000/yr.

Peyton Manning (QB Broncos) ― $18,000,000/yr.

Dwight Freeney ― (DE Colts) $19,035,000/yr.

Wow. Now throw in the money from endorsement deals for some of the standout players. For instance, Peyton Manning made $15 Million last year just in endorsement deals... so that's $33 Million he made last year. Not bad. For playing a game.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell didn't have to PLAY the game - he just served as top dog. How much did he earn? Well, he nearly tripled his compensation in 2011, earning just under $30 million.

For the 2011/12 season, the Redskins had a annual salary budget of $104,305,244 with which to pay all the coaches (Mike Shanahan makes $7Million/yr., by the way), support staff, and players.

Let that sink in. The team's budget was over ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR MILLION DOLLARS!!!

Now let this sink in: As a whole, revenue in the NFL reached an estimated $9.5 billion in 2011-12. That is up $500 million (5.6%) from the year before. That's BILLION -with a "B".

Where does all this money come from?! The STUPID FANS.

On average, a fan will pay $78 for a ticket to a game and another $27 to park the damn car. If you're lucky, you can get a fountain soda and a hotdog for around $10 or, if you want a beer, you can cough up at least $7 for 16-oz. draft.  Bottom line, the average cost for a family of four to attend a game is around $450. That's why you don't see me and my family at any games - because I have way better things to spend $450 on -especially when I can watch the game at home in the comfort of my own living room. Last year, I got a pair of pre-season tickets for $50 each and free parking pass and I still came away feeling as if I got screwed on the deal. By the time I bought a pizza, a soda, and a beer, I was out almost $30. That is insane!

Let's do some quick, simplified math. Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that every fan pays an average of $100 to attend a game at FedEx Field, home of the Redskins. Let's say they pack the place (79,000 people is the capacity)... That comes out to $7,900,000 in just ticket revenue. Now let's say everone spends only $10 on food and drink... $790,000. So that's a total of $8,690,000 revenue for ONE GAME. OK, so that example was overly simplied, but I'll bet it is coming in on the conservative side of what is actually raked in at each home Redskins game. We're stupid. And the NFL is laughing their collective asses off at us while they skip happily to the bank.

But wait! It gets better!

You may not know it, but the National Football League is a NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION. I'm sure it seems a little crazy that a collection of teams that generated at least $9 billion in revenue last season would be given tax-exempt status, but the NFL is technically classified as a 501(c)6 organization. Here’s how the IRS describes 501(c)6 tax-exempt status:

Section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code provides for the exemption of business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, boards of trade and professional football leagues, which are not organized for profit and no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.

Wow. You know what that means, right? Yeah, just like every other insanely rich corporation, bank, or person in this country, the NFL has come up with a way to get around paying their fair share of taxes.

Look, I'm not trying to say the NFL is evil or that I'm not ever going to root for the Redskins again, I'm simply pointing out one example (among thousands of others) of how far out of whack our priorities are. Why does the NFL exist and prosper? Because it can. There are thousands and thousands of people who believe that it's OK to get paid $18Million/year to play football games for 5 or 6 months out of the year. Yeah. Sure! Even though a large percentage of fans will earn nowhere close to $18Million in their entire lifetime. Doesn't matter. We like to root for our team, dammit! Whether it's baseball, football, hockey, or basketball... there seems to be something programmed within us that makes us enjoy rooting for professional athletes and teams and spend our hard-earned money making them richer.   I don't get it. I can understand supporting high school and college teams so fanatically -after all, those players aren't making millions of dollars. They're playing for the love of the game. But you don't see them receiving celebrations and parades anywhere near the magnitude of professional sports. Why?

You Get What You Pay For

There are two morals to the story I’m about to tell. The first is: You get what you pay for. The second: All-Inclusive isn’t.

Our family recently had the opportunity to take a one week vacation in Cancun, Mexico and stay at a so-called “All-Inclusive” resort. I was lucky enough to get four round-trip tickets (stand-by) to anywhere JetBlue flies in a barter exchange for DJing their holiday party. Those tickets saved us over $3K in airline tickets for our family of four. On top of that we found a great deal through Costco Travel where we could spend five nights and six days at an All-Inclusive Resort in Cancun for around $1K. Wow. What a deal, right? We were all excited since this would be our first official family vacation.

Flying stand-by was a little hairy. You’re the last to get on the plane and that only happens if there’s enough unsold available seats. Our friend at JetBlue was a big help and was able to check our flights and keep us posted on how the odds were looking for us. We flew from Dulles to Orlando and then Orlando to Cancun. In Orlando it was looking like we weren’t going to make the flight. Only three seats available. Lucky for us, a passenger holding a paid ticket never showed up, freeing up a fourth seat for us on the plane. We all breathed a sigh of relief. The flight was smooth and, before we knew it we were in Mexico. The lines for Customs and Immigration were horrible. It must’ve taken us about 90 minutes to get all that taken care of

Almost immediately after clearing Customs and getting our luggage, my family and I were bombarded with fast-talking hustlers out to glean from us some of our hard-earned American money. Everyone was so friendly, but you always had to keep your guard up. It was hard to tell whether folks were being genuinely nice and helpful or whether they had an ulterior motive to sell you something. I had already prepared myself for this type of 'hospitality' (I'd been to Tijuana once for a couple hours) but I really had no clue who was genuine and who was scamming me.

It started at the airport when this official-look guy in a nice white shirt and a name tag offered us help and direction on locating our complimentary hotel transportation. He pulled out a map and showed us where our hotel was located, gave us a brief rundown on the exchange rate of pesos to dollars, and even pointed out some of the wonder parks and tours available. And that's where the pitch came in. Turns out this guy worked for a competing hotel and, if we'd just agree to go there and take a tour (where they'd inevitably try to get us to buy into a vacation club) we'd get deeply discounted tickets for select attractions in Cancun. We politely declined but it still took a couple of firm No-thank-yous to part company with this guy.

We made our way outside of the airport, declining numerous ambitious offers from taxi drivers to take us to our hotel. Once we found our hotel transport (Best Day Travel), we sort of breathed a little sigh of relief. After a short wait, a Best Day Shuttle bus pulled up, a very courteous driver assisted us with our baggage, we climbed aboard and we were on our way to the hotel. I give high marks to the Best Day Travel representatives, by the way.

My wife was shocked at how fast our driver made the trip from airport to hotel. Folks definitely drive fast and aggressively in Cancun. I'm glad we weren't driving a rental car. We would've been a nervous wreck. Despite the break-neck speed of our transportation, we still got the chance to see some of the stunning beauty of Cancun -most notably, the white beaches and crystal blue/green water.

We had reservations at the Crown Club Paradise Hotel and, as we pulled up the driveway we could see how immense this place was. Two convex multi-tiered buildings made a kind of circle. Inside this circle was the main swimming pools and the main dining facility, La Palapa. The hotel had kind of an open floor plan on the main lobby level where you checked in. A cool breeze swept in from the beach area, through the courtyard (for lack of a better term) and right up into the main lobby. A lot of thought and design had obviously gone into the construction of this hotel. Our initial impression was two thumbs up -especially after we were greeted by mimosas as we stood in line to check in at the front desk (the kids got Shirley Temples served to them).

Our initial grand first impressions were quickly dashed as we stepped into our room and discovered it was rather warm in there. I couldn't be sure right off the bat whether that was due to the A/C being turned off or just plain broken. The latter turned out to be the case. I tried, in vain, to dial in a cooler temperature on the thermostat on the wall. When we finally inquired at the front desk, they admitted that they were having problems with the A/C and they were working to correct the problem.

Since we arrived at the hotel in the late afternoon, our hotel representative, Annie, informed us we'd be unable to make reservations at any of the 'exclusive' restaurants. However, the main dining facility - La Palapa - was available for our dining -ahem- pleasure. Now since we're talking food at this point, let's just dive into the whole topic and get it out of the way.

The food at Crown Club Paradise is 'OK' if you're talking strictly about La Palapa and the poolside tiki bar that serves hamburgers, hotdogs, and wings in the afternoons. The most accurate description of La Palapa is it's a dining hall or cafeteria. It has four or five different 'food stations' in addition to a salad & fresh fruit selection that is well-stocked with fresh selections. All the food there is of decent quality -nothing phenomenal- and all the selections seem to lean towards the Mexican cuisine side of the house which was OK with me since I like that kind of food. But the hotel's website and brochure go to great lengths to call attention to their "fine dining" options. Check it out for yourself: http://www.crownparadise.com/cancun/restaurants/index.cfm - Now, after reading about the fine Mexican, French, Italian, Japanese, seafood, and Steak restaurants available, it'd be hard not to get a little excited about the food choices. We certainly were. The problem is, it's really all the same food being served in the La Palapa cafeteria. It's just dressed up and presented a little differently.

We found this deception out the hard way by making reservations at the Italian restaurant our second night there. We were expecting some fine, expertly prepared Italian food. We got a failing attempt at a steak and calamari. This food wasn't even on par with Olive Garden back home. And I was looking forward to maybe a nice Italian wine or perhaps even an Italian beer. Nope. Same beer and wine choices that were available in the main hotel bar. Are you ready for this? If you wanted a beer at this hotel, you got a draft Corona -period. You had no other choice in beer except draft Corona. Now, on my list of preferred beers, Corona sits right at the bottom. There are at least a half dozen other Mexican beers to which I give high marks: Modelo, Dos Equis, Sol, Bohemia, Tecate... (you get the picture)- Corona is NOT one of them. And may I also point out that most of these beers are equivalent in price to Corona. I just couldn't understand why an all-inclusive resort would offer only ONE kind of beer. ONE! The disappointment didn't stop there. They only offered ONE red and ONE white wine selection; a Chilean variety. The white was OK, but we didn't like the red -and since we much prefer red wine to white wine, it was yet another disappointment.

This whole fine dining scheme really pissed me off. Especially since they made you go through the trouble of making reservations for these restaurants in the morning and some had a two-day wait list. Utter bullpucky! We decided after our Italian debacle to save ourselves some frustration and time and stick to La Palapa for dinner.

Now, the other food choice I was excited about was the Sushi! Ah, I loves me some good sushi! The hotel sushi was served in a little non-air-conditioned building; half of which was devoted to fried selections like shrimp, squid, chicken, and fried rice. I swear I lost 10 pounds in water weight from standing in line, sweating, waiting for my turn to order. Once you get to the counter, you are limited to two sushi selections (you can jump back in line as many times as you'd like -until you completely evaporate). It wasn't bad, but it wasn't worth waiting in line for. One trip through was enough for me. Another let-down. I really can't comment on any of the other restaurants because, like I said, we figured out early on that this whole idea of "different restaurants serving different cuisines" was a big charade. We felt cheated and suckered.

I really don't think I would've been so irked about the whole food situation if the hotel had just been truthful and clear from the get-go. I'm a firm believer in the saying "You Get What You Pay For" -and we certainly did get what we paid for; perhaps even more than we paid for. BUT- I was expecting to get what was advertised and we didn't -that was all a big fat deception. That's what made us mad. My wife and I are self-professed (admitted) "Foodies" -we love to cook and we love to try new things. Along with that, we're quick to criticize what we consider sub-standard and sometimes horrible food and service. I encourage you to keep that in mind when reading this.

OK, let's get off the whole subject of food. It's making me hungry and angry at the same time!

One more major inconvenience on our first day: the towel situation. The hotel give you towel cards when you check in. You take the towel card to the towel both by the main pool and, in exchange, you get a freshly laundered beach towel to use. Likewise, you can trade in a wet, dirty towel for a fresh one at any time -or get your towel card back (which you need to check out). If you lose a towel or a card, it's $35. So, our first day there, after checking in and basking in the warmth of our hotel room, we decided it was time for a swim. Only problem was there were no fresh towels for us to trade for our towel cards. That situation continued for an hour. Now that's just plain annoying. Enough said.

Now let's talk about the staff at this hotel. Two words: Top Notch. Really. What, you were expecting more complaining? Nope. No complaints -only high marks. The highest of which go to the gals in charge of Kid's Club. These ladies worked from 8:45am to 4:45pm at the main kids pool/water park. You could drop off your kids in the morning and not see them again till that evening. They even took the kids to lunch at La Palapa for you. Then, at 7pm, you could drop your kids back off for evening activities until 9pm. The entire staff was great with children and really took a proactive role in keeping the kids entertained and busy. The kids' waterpark alone was awesome... three different pool areas with waterfalls, slides, and squirting thingees all over the place. In addition to that, they had a little basketball court and a shaded activities area with tables and chairs. Our kids had a blast. I couldn't imagine any place doing a better job in this department. We were thoroughly impressed.

And the rest of the staff was attentive and friendly whether you're talking about the maids, the bus-boy/servers in La Palapa, the bartenders, or the waitresses. The only time I questioned the genuineness of this niceness was when dealing with the hotel guest services staff. They were super friendly when we first checked in because they wanted us to agree to their 90-minute tour/sales pitch to buy into their Gold Vacation Club. We agreed to the tour because we wanted the free 500 pesos ($45) they were offering. It was also a good opportunity to tell them exactly why we'd NEVER even consider buying into such a package based on our experiences with the room, food, and drinks. So, after we shot down any hopes they had of us joining the Gold Club, and we got our goodies and free pesos, the friendly level of the guest services folks was ratcheted down quite a few notches. OK by us. They were still helpful and responsive when we need them.

A lot of the staff pulled double duty. Some were busy during the day running activities (bingo, dance contests, etc.) by the pool, others in charge of kids club. Then at night they'd come together and put on Broadway-type shows in the run-down theater. We were shocked and pleasantly surprised at how great these people were at dancing, singing, and acting! The shows were one of the highlights of our vacation. We saw a tradition Mexican Folklore show, a Grease show, and a Circus-type show complete with performing poodles. They also put on a Michael Jackson tribute show which we missed because of a very tired son.

In short, the staff was definitely this hotel's greatest asset. It made me wonder how underpaid they were. My wife found out that the gals from Kid's Club worked 14-hour days, six days a week. Judging from the extremely attractive low rates they were offering guests (remember, we paid around $1,000 for our family of four for five nights/six days), and the amount of staff they had (a lot!), it's hard to imagine these folks making anywhere near decent salaries. Welcome to Mexico, I guess.

Now, allow me to complain some more. I do it well, don't I!? Let's talk about the drinking water. Everyone knows you're not supposed to drink the tap water in Mexico unless you want to have all sorts of stomach and intestinal maladies. This can be solved by drinking bottled water. Yes, bottled water, one of the numerous things NOT included in the "ALL-INCLUSIVE" resort. If you wanted a bottled water you had two options: either pay $5 for one or order it from room service. We quickly caught on and were ordering 6 to 8 bottles of water every night from room service. Yes, we had room service! But it took at least an hour from the time you called to receive your order and the room service menu wasn't all that impressive -and neither was the food that arrived. You get what you pay for.

And sometimes you get less than you pay for. Take our little hotel-sponsored excursion to Señor Frogs (a chain restaurant/bar with locations throughout Mexico as well as Aruba, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and even Myrtle Beach! -they also have their own clothing line). Now the deal was the hotel would spring for transportation to the joint and dinner for you and your family (a choice of 4 menu items) and all you had to do was pay for your own drinks and transportation back to the hotel. Splendid! My wife and I had the chicken fajitas and the kids settled on corn dogs and chicken fingers. The food was good. For drinks we decided to get the plastic souvenir "Yard" cups filled with virgin piña coladas for the kids and tasty Dos Equis Beer for us! We were having a great time until the check came. 500 Pesos - $45 for 2 virgin piña coladas and 2 large draft Dos Equis beers. After a screwing like that, I would've hoped for a few kisses and hugs from the staff. We left in utter disbelief, again feeling majorly duped.

Needless to say, my whole definition of "all-inclusive" has changed. I'm certain that it all depends where you go too. I've heard some people say nice things about the Sandals All-Inclusive Resorts -perhaps we'll give that a shot next time. We won't be returning the Crown Club Paradise any time soon. And not because our overall stay was that horrible; it's the deceptiveness of their brochures and website and what they advertise compared to what you actually get. That's what really left a bitter taste in our mouths. If we could've gone into the whole deal with all the cards on the table, I think our overall attitude would have been better. Instead, we just felt like we'd been suckered the whole time we were there. Was it worth the money we paid? Yes. I'd have to say it was. Just do the math. A family of four stays for six days/five nights in an 'OK' hotel where they have access to 'OK' food and even alcoholic beverages (even though the selection sucked) pretty much any time of the day. Their kids get to play all day in an adult supervised area with plenty to do. They enjoy great (but HOT) weather and stunning beach and ocean views and even get to take in some entertaining live shows free of charge. All that for around $1000. Yeah, it was worth it. That's like $50 a day per person. Not bad. BUT- had I paid an additional $3K+ for the airline tickets, I think I'd have a different opinion. I didn't though, so I can't complain. Much.

From a scenic perspective, Cancun -the island tourist zone, not downtown- is beautiful with plenty to do and see. But for my wife and I, the whole place was just too touristy. It was a tourist trap. There was very little true cultural things to take in. It was like being in Ocean City with better views. And everyone who lived there seemed focused on getting as much of our tourist money as possible. You want your picture taken with my donkey or my parrot? Pay up, gringo! You wanna swim with the dolphins? $100 por favor. How about taking a tour of ancient Mayan ruins? Cha-ching! Get your wallet out! It was just all too cheesy for me. Cheaply made "authentic" souvenirs were everywhere you looked and vendors would start out high and haggle with you to get the best price they could. Now, I know some enjoy that type of bargaining. I don't. Gimme a decent price, I'll pay it; no haggling necessary. But in Mexico, you just don't know what a fair price is. You always have your guard up because there's 50 Mexicans trying to swindle you while giving you a sincere smile. It was stressful for me. Not at all enjoyable. And no matter where you went, you'd run into these people. In short, don't go to Cancun expecting to gain any sort of appreciation or understanding of Mexican culture or ecology. The highlights of our trip were some chance encounters with some local iguanas and a rare opportunity to see a 300-pound mama sea turtle digging a large hole in the sand to bury her eggs in the dead of night (truly awesome!). Both of those cost us absolutely nothing but were valuable memories for us and our children. Oh, and Cancun is teaming with these birds called Great Tailed Grackles (the locals incorrectly refer to them as "Cuervos"). They were all around the courtyard/common areas of the hotel. The black males are quite large (crow-sized) while the brown females are smaller and have almost-neon yellow eyes. They make several distinctive screech-like noises -one sounds like a dolphin squeal- and they are bold and intelligent when it comes to snatching french fries, chips, and other food items off the plates of distracted guests. I'm not an avid bird watcher but I did enjoy watching these birds maneuver around and scavenge for food. One of the hotel staff told a story about how these birds would steal chunks of bread and drop them in the water to lure fish to the surface. They'd then grab the fish and eat them. That's pretty crafty for a bird. I saw one take a hard piece of bread and dip it in a water fountain to soften it up before proceeding to eat it. Pretty smart, if you ask me.

Lastly let me say I'm not a lay-by-the-pool type of guy. I enjoy a dip in the pool every now and then, but I don't consider laying on the beach or by the pool all afternoon/day that much fun. In fact, it bores me. So for me to go on a vacation featuring seven swimming pools and endless beaches was a bit of a stretch -and I certainly realized that before going. If you like that sort of sun and water worship stuff, Cancun is a great place to do it and the Crown Club Paradise Hotel is an affordable place for you to check out if you're not looking for gourmet food and premium drink selections. It's even more attractive if you have young kids that you want to keep occupied while you and the spouse just relax. For us, we were just expecting more and that's because the hotel does such a great (but deceptive) job of marketing. I think if I had more realistic expectations going in, I wouldn't have been so annoyed at a lot of the stuff. While a small portion of the blame falls on me for being so naive, I still think the hotel is blatantly running a false advertising campaign and if I had more free time and motivation to take my complaints higher, I would.

I do feel better though laying this all out in a blog for others to read. I hope it helps those who may be considering an "all-inclusive" vacation and I also welcome others who have been on such vacations to share your experiences. It may help us plan a future vacation!

It's Not the End of the World...

To all those followers of Mr. Camping who sold all their worldly possessions, cashed in their retirement accounts to rent billboard space, and devoted the last few months to traveling around the United States to warn of the imminent second coming of Christ -only to realize last Saturday that their dear Mr. Camping was, uh, mistaken... to you poor misguided fools I give my sincerest best wishes for the future. You're obviously gonna need plenty of well wishes and luck to make up for the stunning deficiency of common sense with which you've been afflicted.

From a purely Biblical standpoint, Matthew 24:36 clearly states (depending on your version of the Bible) "But of that day and hour knoweth no [man], no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."

Yeah, you can't get much clearer than that. To in any way buy into the notion that some loony 89 year old self-professed Holy man with a civil engineering degree has the inside scoop on the second coming of Christ is pretty ridiculous. Even more so when you take into consideration that ol' Harold's been wrong TWICE before!

And herein lies my biggest problem with any form of organized religion. I don't care if we're talking about the Roman Catholic Church or the Westboro Baptist Church, these 'organizations' tend to rally around one central figure and take all their cues from that one person. For the Catholics it's the Pope, for the Westboro idiots, it's some guy named Fred Phelps, and for all the rapture retards, its Mr. Harold Camping. Somehow, magically, when you organize a couple people into a 'religious group' they're suddenly better and holier than everyone else and they gain all sorts of special powers, abilities, and insight into what God is thinking. In the process of such enlightenment, those fools relinquish of any and all common sense in exchange for a firm belief and adherence to anything their dear leader tells them. It's sad and it's pitiful that there are so many people in this world that are unable to think and do for themselves and fall to religion as a crutch and compass.

I take no issue with believing in God or a higher power. Please, by all means, believe what you believe! But, please, make sure your beliefs are YOUR OWN and not those of someone else who claims to be closer to God or that higher power than you are. Don't let anyone with a title or a large congregation or following try to tell you what to do. It doesn't take a genius to figure out the difference between wrong and right; good and evil. I have a hard time believing there are any hard and fast rules that you must follow in order to get to heaven or the next happy level of the afterlife. I think it can be whittled down to simply doing all you can to help your fellow man and try your best to leave this world in a better condition than when you entered it. Approach all things with love and understanding and there's not much chance of you doing the wrong thing. And whether it's God or Allah or Thor you believe in, you gotta expect that this deity is giving us all a little room for error and expecting us to screw up sometimes. It's in our nature. But I believe when you die, you'll stand before God or whatever higher power you believe in and be judged on your own merits. In other words what you did with the life you were given. If you spent it stealing, lying, cheating, and killing you can't logically expect much of a break in the afterlife. But if you led a good life, tried to be truthful and honest and helped make the world a better place I really don't think you have anything to worry about. Maybe I'm wrong, but it makes a whole lot more sense to me than the majority of the nonsensical rules and regulations put forth by the majority of the organized religions out there.

Quite frankly, I don't want a heads up when the world is about to end. But if it happens in my lifetime, I'm not going to lose any sleep worrying about. I'm confident that whatever the afterlife holds, I've scored enough atta-boys to enjoy it.

Father & Son

One of the greatest parts about having kids is getting to do things with them that you never got to do as a kid. My dad died when I was 2 years old, so I missed out on all those father-son experiences. My mom did an awesome job of being there for me, but I always wondered what it would've been like to have a male role-model in my life during those early, pre-teen years. I pretty much did all the same things that other boys did, but I had to do them without dad by my side. You can't really miss what you never had, but there were a few times I was jealous of other kids having a dad to do stuff with. Like tossing a football or playing catch or even mowing the grass.

This past weekend I got the opportunity to camp with my son; just me and him -along with his Cub Scout group. It was the first time for him sleeping in a tent and really "roughing it" and it was the first time in a long time for me getting that close to nature.


Sometimes you have to "get away from it all" to really be able to take a breath, step back, and gain a clearer perspective on life. That's what I got to do this weekend. I saw my son as a smart, witty (wonder where he gets that from?), resourceful young man of 8 years; not just my little boy.


Lucas spent the majority of the weekend in non-stop play with all his Cub Scout buddies but there were some really nice me-and-him moments where we got to chat and just share each other's company. So now I get more of a feeling of what I missed by not having my dad around and I feel proud to able able to spend that kind of time with my son. I hope it's something that he'll always be able to look back on fondly; but even if he doesn't, I certainly will.

What Victory?!

I want to know what half-witted moron came up with this STUPID Facebook post that seems to be appearing everywhere the last day or two. It reads as follows:

"Let's be clear on this: OBAMA did NOT kill Bin Laden. An American Military Service Member, who Obama just a few weeks ago was debating on whether or not to PAY, did. Obama just happened to be the one in office when our soldiers finally found OBL and took him out. This is NOT an Obama victory, but an AMERICAN victory!! REPOST IF YOU AGREE!!!"

Now before I tear this utterly ridiculous piece-of-crap statement apart using nothing more than logic, let me go on record as saying I'm a proud supporter of our military and a veteran myself.

Now, let's get started, shall we?

First off, who in their right mind would ever come to the conclusion that President Obama can or would claim sole credit for the killing of Osama Bin Laden? He never made that claim. How could he? Anyone with even a half ounce of gray matter in their head has to come to the conclusion that this operation was a team effort and this team was HUGE... players we don't even know about and never will.

Next, identifying President Obama as the one person who was debating whether or not to pay our service men and women during the budget dilemma is just senseless on so many levels. The blame for budget problems and the resulting threat of a Government shutdown can be placed equally among all members of Congress -both Republicans and Democrats- as well as the president and his administration. I guess I'm the only one who can clearly see we're being governed by a bunch of incompetent,childish, greedy bureaucrats. The only way to fix that is to clear them all out, revise the constitution and update the way our Government is run. Nobody gets that and I don't understand why.

The other thing I don't understand is how folks immediately started arguing over who should get the credit for killing Osama Bin Laden. Sorry guys, that should be the LEAST of your worries. My immediate reaction was "Wow! We got him!" followed very quickly by "Uh-oh, now what?!". While everyone's running around celebrating the "victory", you can be assured that Al Qaida is planning a response -on a grand level. They need to show that the death of Bin Laden does not spell the death of Al Qaida. Osama Bin Laden was a crazy sinister guy but he was also smart -and always surrounded by smart people. Why do you think it took us -with all our military and Intelligence resources- nearly TEN years to catch the dude?! Don't you think Osama saw the day coming when he would be found and killed? Don't you think he and all of Al Qaida already planned what to do when it did happen?

Remember this kiddies, killing doesn't bring about peace, it brings about more killing. The only exception to this rule would have to be the nuking of Japan during WWII, but that was a unique situation in an era where our enemies where contained within strict borders and victory wasn't based on the idea of annihilating an entire religious population like Al Qaida wants to do.

Am I happy Osama Bin Laden is dead? Hell yeah! It is indeed a small moral victory for all Americans who witnessed the events of 9/11 first-hand. We humans are programmed with a need for revenge (we call it justice, but let's not split hairs here) so to hear that the guy who was behind the entire plot -as well as hundreds of other terrorist operations in the last decade- was finally killed by American operatives gave most of us -me included- a small sense of closure and satisfaction; but if you think this is somehow going to kill the entire Al Qaida organization, you're sadly mistaken. We should all be looking over our shoulder because Al Qaida will answer this in a big way. They'll be around long after all the Republican and Democratic finger-pointers have turned blue in the face trying to lay blame or take credit for Bin Laden's death.

C'mon. Give the president credit where credit is due: he had the balls to say "go ahead and do it, boys!" -a hundred things could've gone wrong with this operation; the biggest being that Osama Bin Laden wasn't even there! And while we're handing out pats on the back, let's give one to the previous Bush administration. W and his boys started all this forward progress -despite more than a few innocent people being waterboarded- so the Obama administration had a good headstart from the get-go. But neither president nor their administrations get to claim credit for this. Neither have tried. But yet some MORON came up with that STUPID Facebook post and a bunch of people jumped on board. It was -no doubt- put out there by some Republican dipshit who's all worried now that the killing of Osama Bin Laden will guarantee Mr. Obama another term as president. I am neither Republican nor Democrat and I'm not particularly worried about who wins the presidency because NOTHING WILL CHANGE MUCH - it never does! Nothing will change until the ENTIRE Government is reformed. So instead of trying to shift the blame or take the credit of this so-called "AMERICAN victory", I'll be looking over my shoulder for Al Qaida's response.

God Bless Our Military
God Bless Our Country
And God Bless all the Morons that live here and have Facebook accounts.
Too bad Facebook can't come up with some sort of "common sense" filter for posts.

Royal Pain

Everybody's all abuzz about the royal wedding. Millions of people will be glued to their TV sets watching the whole thing live as it happens. Not me.

I just don't get the whole idea of "royalty" -just like I don't get how this pope guy is any holier or closer to God than I am. Kings, queens, princes, and popes all share one thing in common: they're human beings underneath it all. None of these people have any special powers or abilities above and beyond what the general population possesses. Let's face it; their claim to fame -what sets them apart- is privilege. That's it.

So why do so many people think these people are special? Is it some sort of basic human need to have a couple superhero figures to look up to? If so, can't we all do better with our role models? For hundreds of years, in hundreds of countries, royal families have led the life of luxury while most of the common people around them paid their way while struggling themselves to survive. Why?

Kick all the royals out of their palaces and castles and make them earn a living like everyone else! And stop listening to the pope and the Vatican for your religious guidance and start talking to God more and doing your own work when it comes to learning the Bible!

Nuff said.

There's no "X" in CHRISTMAS!

It's bad enough that we've managed to almost completely remove the true meaning of Christmas from the holiday, do we also have to change the name of it?!

How the hell did we come up with "XMAS"?! Are we that lazy, inconsiderate, and illiterate as a society that, for the sake of brevity, we completely remove the name of the person for whom the holiday was created? Now I know what you're thinking... but I'm not making this argument perched atop my religious high ground. I haven't been to church in years and I don't go around spewing Bible verses at folks. But I do believe that there once lived a man named Jesus Christ who many millions of people throughout history -and right up to current day- believe is the Son of God. This Jesus Christ dude had such a profound affect on folks that his teachings and stories of his life, death, and resurrection are the foundation of no less than a dozen different religions all over the world including the various denominations associated with Christianity. Even those who didn't believe he was the Son of God (the Jews for one), still don't refute the fact that he existed. He was a real person and his birth is celebrated all over the world during CHRISTMAS - the birth of Christ. Not the birth of "X".

Of course, there are many who will tell you that it's quite likely Christ was not born on December 25th. Fine. But December 25th has been designated as the day we celebrate his birth... the birth of CHRIST.... Christ's Mass... Christmas. There's no X in there, people. Not even close!

Even though Christmas is the biggest, most-celebrated holiday in the United States -and many other parts of the world- there's a sizable portion of the population that doesn't know or truly appreciate the REAL story and meaning behind Christmas. Instead of hearing about Jesus, kids are indoctrinated into the big myth of Santa Claus. A fat magical guy dressed in a red suit who brings you toys if you've been good. Wow. Not that I see anything wrong with Santa, I just think kids ought to also know about the guy for whom the holiday is named. It's not Santa Claus Day, it's CHRISTMAS. Again, no X in there.

Just for the sake of being objective, let's totally eliminate the religious point of view from this discussion. Let's instead approach it from an English language point of view. First of all, the fact is English is a trampled on language. Very few people these days have a firm grasp of the language and they continually bastardize it and misuse it. They get away with it because those of us who know better, don't or can't really do anything about it. This alarms and saddens me beyond words. It makes us (Americans) look stupid, lazy, and uneducated. Every day there are major print and visual media publications using bad English in their ads. Misspellings, mispronunciations, bad grammar, and made-up words. It's embarrassing to me. Really. And we're fooling ourselves if we think other countries and cultures aren't noticing. They are.

So, let's get back to the holiday... XMAS, pronounced as it is written, sounds nothing like "Christmas". Of course, folks will tell you the "X" is short for "Criss" -as in "Criss-Cross"- but even that doesn't hold much water for me. There are established signs for Railroad Crossings were "crossing" is abbreviated "Xing"; so if we apply that same logic to "XMAS", we'd have to pronounce it "CROSSMAS". Doesn't make sense!

You don't have to be an English professor to apply some basic logic to abbreviations. It's stupid. Doesn't make any sense! And why don't we do the same with other holidays if it's just a matter of saving letters and being lazy? Why isn't Valentine's Day just "VDay" or even "Love Day"? Why don't we just say "Happy Thanks Day" instead of spelling out that long word, "Thanksgiving"? Why isn't Halloween just "Boo Day"? Why don't we receive invitations for our nephew's "Xning" instead of spelling out "Christening"? Why? Because they were given those names/titles for a reason; to commemorate or honor someone or something. If you rename it or bastardize the spelling of a holiday, I believe you take something away from its significance. And no example is more prime than CHRISTMAS. Named after Jesus Christ; they guy who launched dozen of religions with millions of faithful followers. You take his name out of the holiday and you lose the significance. Unless, of course, you're like every retailer in the country who believes the significance is in SALES FIGURES.

I can remember the excitement of Christmas as a kid. Yes, I bought into that whole Santa Claus myth, but my mom also made sure I knew the reason behind the season. In addition to hearing "Twas the Night Before Christmas", I also heard the story of Mary and Joseph, the immaculate conception of their son, Jesus, and his birth in a lowly stable. And I heard about the wise men traveling from afar after being told by an angel that a very special person, the Son of God, had been born in the city of Bethlehem. It only added to the magic and awe of the season for me.

That magic fades a little as you get older - at least it has for me. Especially when you figure out there's no actual Santa Claus. But if you have a little faith and optimism, you can still let yourself believe that this Jesus guy was the real deal and everything about his life is true. If only during the holiday season, indulge yourself and maybe grow a little hope and love in your soul. Devout Christians would call it faith, but you can just refer to it as Christmas Spirit. Nothing wrong with that.

You don't have to be a Christian to take part in the magic of Christmas. Use it as a time to get closer to those you love and to go a little farther out of your way to help those less fortunate than you. In the process, you'll realize how lucky/blessed you are to be where you are and have what you have. And even if you're not a Christian, you should still respect the sanctity of the holiday and call it what it is; CHRISTMAS, not XMAS. Spread the word. There's no X in CHRISTMAS!

Best wishes for a happy and blessed holiday season and a very merry CHRISTMAS!