I Prefer to Think of Him as the Guy Who Was Good to a Child

So apparently former Bronco Mike Anderson has been suspended from the NFL for at least a year for a repeat violation of the league's substance abuse policy. It's unfortunate for a guy who had such a great story -- plays drums in his high school marching band, doesn't start playing football until after he joins the Marines, sets school records at the University of Utah, gets drafted in the sixth round of the 2000 draft by the Broncos, then goes on to win Offensive Rookie of the Year.

The guy was a tremendous team player while he was in Denver, willing to do whatever was asked of him on the field. Sadly, he was suspended for four games in 2003 for substance abuse issues and now he seems to have succumbed to drug problems again. He was already without a team since the Ravens released him in February, and at the age of 34 his NFL career is likely over.

I remember escorting a VIP group of corporate sponsors at training camp in 2001. There was one kid in the group who was very excited to get player autographs on a football he'd brought, and got several as the players headed to the locker room after practice was over.

I then took the group to eat in the lunch room where the players also ate. The rule in the lunch room was no autographs, which I explained to the kid and his dad. Lunch was supposed to be a time for the players to relax.

We sat right next to the tray return, and as we were eating Mike Anderson walked by. After he'd returned his tray he noticed the kid with his football, and asked with a smile if the kid would like an autograph.

Before the kid could respond I hastily thanked Mike, told him we appreciated the offer but that we knew the rules in the lunch room. Some folks in Football Operations were very touchy about that stuff, and I didn't want there to be any misunderstanding about how it all had come down and the kid or me getting into any trouble.

But Mike insisted. Even reached into his bag and pulled out his own Sharpie to sign the ball with.

The kid was smiling from ear to ear as he handed Mike his ball, which Mike signed and handed back to him. As the kid looked at Mike's autograph, though, his smile faded. He looked up at Mike and asked, "Do you know where Terrell Davis is?"

This could have easily gone south from here, but Mike just laughed and said he wasn't sure -- thought maybe Terrell was getting some treatment and would be in for lunch later. He waved and went on his way and we finished up our lunch.

I think the kid's dad was mortified. I was just grateful that Mike didn't make an issue of it. I'd seen other players go bananas over lesser slights. It impressed me that he was able to succeed in maintaining his humility when so many athletes struggle to do so. Too bad that he doesn't appear to have been able to avoid another common pitfall of professional athletes.

Best wishes getting clean and staying clean and in whatever else the future holds for you, Mike. Hopefully there's at least one kid and one dad out there who appreciate the time you took to make a visit to training camp even more special.

At Least Boxers Get Paid To Do It

I saw something so unexpected during yesterday's Euro 2008 quarterfinal match between Germany and Portugal that I had to rewind the broadcast and watch it again to make sure. A soccer player was fouled and drew a free kick without writhing around the ground like he'd been hit on the knee with a club.

The player was Germany's Michael Ballack, who drew a foul early in the match. He didn't let out an anguished scream like he was auditioning for the role of Stanley Kowalski. His face didn't contort into a grotesque grimace as if he'd done a stunt on Jackass. He just got up off the ground and went about his business, and let the officials go about theirs.

Of all the reasons why Americans have supposedly failed to embrace the world's game, the one that resonates the most with me is distaste for all the "diving" that goes on -- exaggerating the effect of contact with another player in the hopes of getting the refs to call a foul on that player. Participants in the major U.S. professional sports tend to go out of their way to look like they're NOT in pain, yet their footballing counterparts seem to be polar opposites.

In the NBA they have a similar practice known as "flopping," and fans dislike it so much that the league is taking steps to eliminate it. Is it just a coincidence that some of the players most closely associated with this tactic are natives of Europe (Vlade Divac) or South America (Manu Ginobili, Anderson Varejao), where soccer is the number one sport?

What's really mystifying to me is how inconsistent diving is with other attributes commonly asssociated with soccer players like toughness and stamina. I've seen guys take free kicks right in the face from point-blank range and shake them off without missing a beat. One of the stats I've enjoyed seeing during the UEFA broadcasts is the amount of distance covered by players during the course of a match, which regularly exceeds six miles. These guys can do that stuff, but if someone breathes on them they act like they've been shot in the stomach with a cannonball?

I have to wonder if the refs aren't somewhat culpable in this practice. Players probably wouldn't do it if it didn't yield the desired outcome, right? Maybe the size of the pitch makes players feel they have to embellish to a Shatner-esque degree to get the attention of an official who may be 50 yards away. It's amazing how quickly they spring back up when their histrionics DON'T get the desired results and play moves quickly past them, though.

So here's the deal, soccer players. As long as a golfer is regarded as tougher than the lot of you, accept your status on the same tier as bass fishing and bowling in this country's sports heirarchy. Get some guys with the stoicism of Patrick Swayze getting stitched up in Roadhouse, and you may earn a little more respect from the American viewing public.

ARRGHHH! Typing cramp! I don't think I can fini

I Don't Think Any Of These Would Even Get Me On "Stupid Human Tricks"

Being in the throes of a job search, I've spent a lot of time focusing on what my "marketable skills" are. Things that use impressive-sounding words like "communication campaign management" and "brand marketing." Things that look good on resumes and sound good in interviews, but are ultimately meaningless without some real roll-up-your-sleeves, get-your-hands-dirty abilities to go along with them.

Danelle and I don't talk about our marketable skills with each other much. They're typically not very romantic, fun or all that interesting outside of professional settings. We enjoy our UNMARKETABLE skills much more. The things you can't really quantify, transfer or develop. The things they don't teach in business school. The things nobody will ever pay you to do, but that you're darn glad you can.

Danelle has a terrific one -- she gets good parking spaces. No matter how crowded the lot, something desirable is conveniently available when she drives by. The skill fades a little when she's a passenger, but doesn't dissipate completely. We've gotten to the point that we just call unexpectedly good parking spots "Danelle spots" and accept that that's what they are.

I've got three that I can think of, one being the ability to order something good in a restaurant I've never been to before. Not just in a self-fulfilling, I-have-to-eat-it-so-I-might-as-well-act-like-I-like-it way. My prowess is generally validated by my dining companions' vocal approval of my selections. Danelle, alas, is not blessed with this gift and generally ends up bemoaning the fact that she didn't order whatever I did. She used to just eat off my plate, but we've matured beyond that. Now she waits for me to offer.

I used to be pretty OCD about ordering in restaurants, to the point of having to order last because I'd get upset if someone else ordered the same item I did. I finally had to get over it after going out to enough meals with my old friend and co-worker Lynn Rosen because she was my polar opposite. She could never decide what to order, and needed to hear what everyone else was having before choosing something. At least our idiosyncracies complemented each other.

Another is that I can tell you the co-stars and usually a few of the supporting cast from a ton of movies I've never seen. It's not something I research or study -- I don't know if I pick it up from commercials or what. And I don't know why it stays in my head when I can't even remember to tell Danelle when her best friend calls. But for whatever reason it does.

"Do you remember French Kiss?"

"Um...Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline, right?"

"Right. Did you like it?"

"Dunno. Never saw it."

My final such skill is really more of a blessing -- I can sleep. Anywhere, anytime, I can just sleep. I've slept in moving cars during hurricanes. I sleep regularly on airplanes. I can fall asleep when Danelle has the light, television and her laptop all on in the bedroom at night.

If I'm not asleep within 10 minutes of going to bed, I get frustrated and complain about how much trouble I'm having getting to sleep. This infuriates Danelle (and probably many of you) to no end, since she typically plans on being in bed for well over an hour before drifting off if she's lucky. Frankly, I have no idea how she can function on how little sleep she gets. If I go more than a few nights without my standard seven hours, it's not going to end well.

None of these things will likely come up in my next interview, but I'll probably get more out of that last one in particular over the course of my life than my expertise in "promotion and media placement." No matter what my LinkedIn profile says.

If It Has Cheerleaders, That's Just A Bonus

The Celtics' beatdown of the Lakers last night to clinch their 17th NBA Championship has been all but drowned out in the sports media by the continued dumbfounded amazement over Tiger Woods' U.S. Open victory on Monday. I even got in on the act of singing his praises, which is sort of the blogging equivalent of pouring a bottle of water into the Pacific Ocean.

Tiger's accomplishment seems all the more remarkable now that's its been revealed that he was playing with two stress factures in his left shin and is going to miss the rest of the season to have reconstructive surgery on his left knee. My buddy Derek Thomas actually got to see Friday and Saturday's rounds in person as his Father's Day present and could only come up with the world "unbelievable" to describe what Tiger did. Until we invent a better word I guess that will have to do, but it certainly seems woefully inadequate.

As an aside, I got a bike pack and a kitchen garbage can for Father's Day. But Danelle astutely pointed out that it's not like I wanted to go to the U.S. Open anyway. And it is a really nice garbage can.

Something else that's been brought up a few times in the wake of Tiger's triumph is the always lively debate about whether or not golf is a sport. There's no denying Tiger is an athlete, but if you can do something for five days on one leg (or with the benefit of a cart), is it really a sport?

I'm always amazed at how fans of almost every competitive endeavor seem to desperately crave being acknowledged as a sport, like it somehow makes the activity more important or worthwhile. At the same time, people who think something SHOULDN'T be considered a sport are often just as passionate about their stances. As if its going to personally cost them something to let another pursuit into the exclusive "sport" club.

I had a boss once who had been a competitive figure skater, and we had a number of spirited debates about its inclusion in the "sports" category. Thanks to her, I was able to graduate beyond the compelling assertion that "it just doesn't seem like a sport" to something a little more concrete -- a set of criteria for making this important determination.

Without further ado, here's how to definitively determine whether a particular diversion or pastime qualifies as a sport. Well, as definitive as most things on the interwebz.

1. The outcome has to be determined significantly more by objective factors than subjective ones. Granted, there's a level of subjectivity in everything -- Was that holding? Is the ump's strike zone a little wide today? Block or charge? But at the end of the day, the outcome of something like a football, baseball or basketball game is decided by who has the most points (or runs). A completely objective measurement.

But things like figure skating and gymnastics have judges who employ fairly subjective criteria to make their evaluations. How "artistic" was that performance? Basketball teams don't win games if one of their players has the prettiest jumpest shot, nor does a baseball team if its player has the sweetest swing. So my boss' activity was knocked out of the debate right out of the gate.

Note that professional boxing also fails this test. How "well" did someone box? What the heck does that mean? Amateur boxing, however, gets it right. You land a punch -- which is well-defined -- you get a point. You have the most points, you win the match. How well judges adhere to the established criteria is another debate entirely.

2. The amount of energy expended has to exceed a certain threshold. I don't know exactly what that threshold is. But I've decided in my own head that bowling and golf don't make the cut, let alone things like chess and tiddly winks. They can be competitions, contests, even battles. But not sports. I'm willing to bet that if anyone who feels differently about golf ever saw specimens like John Daly or Phil Mickelson naked (not that I ever have, but I'm just saying), they'd be forced to agree that there's no WAY these people can be said to play a sport for a living.

So take the case of an outfielder who's pitcher throws a no-hitter, never allowing a ball out of the infield. Said outfielder comes to bat three times in the game and strikes out looking all three times. His physical activity consisted of jogging from the dugout to his position and back nine times, and walking from the dugout to home plate and back three more. Sorry, John Kruk. No sport for you today.

3. The human involved has to do most of the work in order for it to be a sport for the human. I'll buy the argument that race car drivers have to be in good physical condition to do what they do. But other than Fred Flintstone, nobody propels a car by his or her own power. The internal combustion engine is doing a lot more work. Ditto for horse racing and the horses, but bicycle racing meets this requirement.

4. There has to be the intention of having a winner and a loser when the activity begins. So a hockey or soccer game (or even a baseball all-star game) that ends in a tie works, because someone was supposed to win going in. But hiking, mountain biking, swimming and so on miss the mark, unless there's a race involved. If it's just you, it's not a sport. However physically exhausting, the lack of competition takes you out of the sports discussion.

I actually went for years with just these four benchmarks, until my friend Bobby Mestas pointed out that a barroom brawl fit the bill. Since he was right and I didn't feel that a barroom brawl should qualify, a new standard had to be added.

5. There has to be a governing body or mutually agreed upon set of rules. The rules don't even have to be explicit, they can be understood. Three-Mississippi rush. No tag backs. Ghost men advance one base on a single. Whatever they are, everyone involved has to agree upon them for the most part. The guy who brings a gun to a knife fight (to paraphrase Sean Connery in The Untouchables) may win, but he wasn't exactly sporting about it.

So there you have it. Yes, I've clearly spent far too much time thinking about this topic in my life. But at least it's made for some fun debates.

Wonderful exercise, debating. See item #2 above for why it's not a sport, though.

Meridian Trail

Hike day moved up to Tuesday this week. With warm temperatures, no wind and clear skies in the forecast, I decided to head up to the foothills and try Meridian Trail. Here's the photo recap:

Nice view of Mount Bierstadt and Mount Evans from Park County Road 43.

This washout on the road to the trailhead made me hesitate, but since there were other tire tracks I figured it would be all right to drive over. It was.

I was surprised at how many butterflies there were along the entire length of the trail -- little white ones, big orange ones, soaring yellow and black ones, black ones with white spots and a lot of what I think were Boisduval's Blues. Most were pretty uncooperative subjects, but this guy wasn't camera-shy.

The trail started off as a constant and pretty straight uphill alongside Elk Creek. Along with the running water, the sound of hummingbirds also filled the air. Given my challenges just getting pictures of butterflies don't expect to see any hummingbird photos.

The view to the south -- maybe Grouse Mountain and Split Rock on the left, Shawnee Peak on the right?

After the trail turned to the northeast it went through some very thick and very quiet aspen groves. When the wind was still and the birds weren't singing there didn't seem to be any sound at all. You can't even get that in your own home, with the constant hum of electric appliances and the muffled sounds of cars on the nearest road.

Probably the best variety of wildflowers I've seen yet this season, including this Scarlet Paintbrush.

There was a little meadow just off the trail that should have had a "Scenic Overlook" sign pointing to it. I'm guessing that's Crooked Top Mountain on the right.

No matter where you go, it seems there are always ants. I'm not exactly sure what they were trying to do with this piece of wood. Whatever it was, I'll bet they eventually got it done.

The border between aspen grove and coniferous forest was very sharply defined, as if God had put down his light green crayon and picked up a dark green one when he was coloring the landscape from Heaven.

It was nice to see wildflowers that weren't either yellow or white, like these Lanceleaf Chiming Bells.

Black Mountain in the middle distance, I believe.

One more butterfly was kind enough to pose for me -- this Chryxus Arctic.

There was no sign to mark where the trail ended at its intersection with the Cub Creek Trail. Just these two rock cairns.

Three hours up and down. I've clearly lost most of the driving-around-wildlife skills I gained during the seven years we lived in Conifer, nearly hitting a deer on the way out (eight pointer -- could have at least mounted him on my wall) and a squirrel on the way back. But fortunately, no animals were harmed in the writing of this blog.

UPDATE: I sent the two butterfly pics to Mike Fisher, Colorado coordinator for the Butterflies and Moths of North America database. He sent back the following response/clarification on the species:
The blue is a Greenish Blue - Plebejus saepiolus gertschi (=whitmeri Brown) and the arctic is most likely correctly identified. Recently, two sibling species have been recognized which look nearly alike - chryxus and calais. They do not commonly occur in the same location, calais is most often found higher - at or above timberline in excess of 10500 Ft. while chryxus is found most often below that level. Calais (Ka-lay-is) flies in both even and odd year, being perhaps more common in the odd years while chryxus is found only in even years.
Thanks for preserving the scientific accuracy of my blog, Mike!

In Other News, Water is Wet

I tried to take up golf. My boss gave me the old line of how it would be good for my career. Danelle's mom let me use her dad's old set of clubs, and I made a few trips to the driving range and played about four rounds over the course of a couple of years.

What I eventually decided was that I didn't have enough free time at this point in my life to spend it doing something I suck at. So the clubs went on a hook in the garage and I went back to things like tennis and volleyball that I'd played with some success and considerably more enjoyment when I was younger.

I share all that to establish that I really have no credentials for commenting on how good Tiger Woods is. But great googly moogly, the man is simply a force of nature and probably the greatest athlete of our generation whether you believe golf is actually a sport or not.

He just won his 14th major championship in a 19-hole playoff after forcing said playoff on the final hole yesterday of the first tournament he'd played in since having knee surgery eight weeks earlier.

The only hole of the tournament I actually watched in its entirety was the final one, but I couldn't get away from knowing what was going on throughout the weekend. ESPN Radio talked about nothing else Saturday night the whole way to and from my friend Rick's gig. Today the playoff was on the televisions at the Morrison Inn when I had lunch and Tipsy's Liquor World when I stopped to pick up a bottle of wine for Danelle. And as I drove home ESPN Radio was once again all over it, giving stroke-by-stroke recaps. So I knew that Tiger was behind going in to what was supposed to be the final hole today but again had a chance to forge a tie as I pulled in to my garage. And I turned on the TV in my family room just in time to see him do exactly that.

Then I settled in to witness what was, quite frankly, almost inevitable. After all, the first time this man played in The Masters as a professional he won it by 12 strokes. He won the British Open in 2006 just two months after his father and mentor passed away from cancer. He married a Swedish model, for Pete's sake. He wasn't supposed to lose to some guy named "Rocco," and he didn't.

I read once that rooting for the New York Yankees in baseball is like rooting for the house in blackjack. I suppose on some level cheering for Tiger is comparable. It's widely regarded as more fun to root for the underdog, a sentiment which makes the early rounds of the NCAA men's basketball tournament so compelling.

But there's something awe-inspiring to me about watching something or someone whose whole existence is focused on one purpose achieve that purpose. Do what they were built to do. I don't know Tiger personally, although I did eat at the table next to him in a Morton's Steakhouse in Orlando once. He may very well be a loving father, a devoted husband, help old ladies across the street and all that. All I really know about him is what I see on TV and read online about his professional side -- the red shirt on Sundays, the fist pump, the incomparable "mental toughness." Every ounce of it is devoted to winning golf tournaments. If he had lost today, it would have been exactly that. Him losing, not the other guy winning.

But that didn't happen, and Tiger now gets one major victory closer to the all-time record holder, Jack Nicklaus with 18, and removing the final flimsy argument from those who still refuse to acknowledge him as the greatest golfer ever. Tiger will turn 33 years old this December. Nicklaus won his final major when he was 46. If Woods can play 91 holes on a bum leg to win a major, I like his chances of somehow pulling out five more.

I may not know much about golf, but like Justice Potter Stewart and pornography I know greatness when I see it. So congratulations for making it to the end of probably my biggest waste of words in a post to date. I could have saved you and me both a lot of time if I'd just written, "Tiger Woods is quite skilled at golf" and left it at that.

But seriously, the internet would be a much more boring place if people didn't feel the need to state the obvious so much.

It Was Probably A Lot Warmer In There, Too

Whenever my dad came to my high school soccer games, he wouldn't sit in the stands with the other parents. He'd stay in his car and do paperwork.

That used to really bug me. Being different wasn't cool in high school, and that included my folks being different. Why couldn't he just sit in the stands like everybody else?

It never occurred to me that if he didn't multitask by doing his paperwork at the game he wouldn't have had time to come at all. My dad started his own business selling and servicing industrial scales when I was in second grade. He HAD to make sure things like the paperwork got done.

He wanted to name the company Yankee Scale, but someone advised him that you wanted to show up early in the Yellow Pages listings so Action Scale it was. My mom worked with him, too. That provided flexibility for her to be home when we finished school each day and over summer vacation -- something else I just sort of took for granted.

He'd sometimes take me along with him on business trips. Not glamorous golf outings in warm locales -- 4 1/2-hour drives to places like Ogdensburg and Massena in the dead of winter for repair calls. But it was a chance for us to spend time together.

He never pressured me to take over the family business, but there was always work I could do if I needed to earn some extra money. From cleaning the bathrooms to organizing the parts lab to crawling around cleaning truck scale pits. Action Scale put food on our table and a roof over our heads, not to mention putting Dawn and I both through college.

Like I've written before, my dad passed away back in 1998. My mom eventually sold the business. All that's probably left of Action Scale now is a polo shirt and a couple of screwdrivers she sent me when she moved away from Albany a few years later.

I don't believe he enjoyed trying to do paperwork on a clipboard propped up on his steering wheel while he watched us get pummeled by Shenendahowa. And I don't believe I ever thanked him enough for doing it.

Happy Father's Day, dad. And thanks for being there.

Nobody Gets Hungry in Louisville After 10 P.M.

I went to see my buddy Rick Fisher play with his band Panhandle Daddyz last night. They performed at a place called the Waterloo Icehouse in Louisville, which touts "Real Food - Real Music - Real Friends" on its home page. I checked out the menu and saw that they had chicken and apple sausages with beer cheese sauce, which sounded like a step up from normal bar fare. So I was looking forward to both some good music and some good food.

I got there about 9:15, got a beer and chatted with Rick and some of his other buddies before they went on about 9:45. A couple of songs into their set I decided it was time for the sausages so I tried to get the waitress' attention, which ended up taking about 10 minutes before I succeeded. I wasn't in any particular hurry, though,

I told her I'd like to try the sausages and she gave me a sympathetic little pout, "Sorry, hon. The kitchen closes at 10:00." I quickly checked the time on my cell phone -- it was 10:03. "I can get you some chips and salsa, though."

I was too taken aback to respond intelligently, so I just politely declined. But I felt a little like Michael Douglas' character in Falling Down when he got to Whammy Burger at 11:34 and was told he couldn't order breakfast because they didn't serve it after 11:30. Without the psychotic rage and automatic weapons, of course.

The Daddyz ended up playing two sets and I didn't leave until about 12:45, and I finally did break down and grudgingly order some chips and salsa. Waterloo Icehouse certainly isn't the only restaurant/bar to close their kitchen early. But the whole thing got me wondering if this practice really makes sense.

Could it have to do with paying the kitchen staff for those extra two or three hours? You've got be operating on a razor-thin margin if that's the case. A lot of McDonald's franchises are able to serve food 24 hours a day charging two bucks for a burger, and the Icehouse charges $10 for theirs. It doesn't seem like you would need too many food orders during those final few hours to cover your expenses.

Is the profit on alcohol sales so much greater that there's a concern about cannibalizing those revenues with lower-margin items like food? Frankly, I'm likely to drink MORE when I'm eating than when I'm not. Besides, can you imagine The Gap cutting off sales of jeans two hours before they close because they make more money on belts?

Couldn't there at least be more of an effort made to set appropriate expectations? There's some small text on the bottom of the Waterloo Icehouse home page that says "kitchen closes after dinner," but I didn't see any similar notice in the actual establishment (never mind that "dinner" isn't an actual time). The waitress never said anything, either. If I'd known, I would have just ordered the sausages earlier.

I'm not a restaurateur or a bar owner, and those who are must have a reason for this. But I am a customer, and I'm pretty sure whatever that reason is it doesn't have much to do with me.

Ah, well. At least the Icehouse lived up to its music and friends billing, so Meat Loaf would have been satisfied.