Just to be clear

i wrote that little poem from yesterday, i stole it from no one. I also surprised a few folks and made them cry with it (the good kind)

I obviously dedicate it to my beautiful wife and daughter. No writing, no matter how beautiful, does them justice.

Life Begins with a look

it started with a look

two people deeply in love

a magical moment

becomes a heavenly gift

of innocence, purity, and love

I am a New Dad

Last night my wonderful wife gave birth at 9:01 pm to Abigail Grace Olsen. She weighed in at a healthy 8lbs 1oz and was 19 1/2 inches long. (thats right in the slot limit).

15 hours of labor and 9 months of waiting for the ultimate gift.

Welcome to the world Abigail.

Live from the Delivery Room

Well, my wife is currently IN LABOR. I am in the room at Queen of Peace Hospital in New Prague. Contractions are currently around every 3 minutes for a minute a piece. (not that i know, thats what i’m told)

Bethany conveniently waited until AFTER i was done with work, so i have been without sleep for a long while…and from what people tell me i will not get to have a good nights sleep for a long while.

It all seems so surreal. 9 months have come and gone and now its the big time. Its definitely real now.  It hit during the phone call when i was leaving work. I didn’t know the Stratus could do 90, but she can. Perhaps what i was actually waiting for was a police escort home, but instead…just arrived home.

I thought i was organized at home, but had to remember everything. I fell UP the stairs…do you know how hard it is to fall up the stairs. Bethany has already told me she won’t let me forget it.

I am trying to catnap a little as we have a long ways to go, but at the same time I don’t want to miss anything.   I realized that although the hospital gets Game Show Network and the History Channel, they do not get FSN…i will definitely follow the Twins somehow, but perhaps for the first time ever the outcome seems trivial.

Enough random thoughts for now. perhaps more to come.

The Official Start of Spring

The official start of spring comes when baseball is back and games matter. Many “professional” sources are saying the Twins will finish below terrible teams like the White Sox and the Royals. Ridiculous. Sorry, but the offense is better. Delmon Young is good enough to make even the casual fan say, “Torii WHO” after this season. We also improved by subtraction in relegating Nick Punto to the bench (where he belongs). The rotation is sketchy, but exciting. Anyway on to the game….

Surprises:

1. Livan Hernandez with a quality start…amazing!…..DO NOT GET USED TO IT.

2.Carlos Gomez took a walk…..all the reports say he has no patience. He could be the first person to steal 100 bases since Vince Coleman if the patience wasn’t a one time deal.

3. Carlos Gomez caught a ball (at chest height) that Torii Hunter would have had to dive for. Now thats speed.

4. Craig Monroe gets a start over Kubel (and against a right handed pitcher) this is the reason that Gardy is overrated as a manager. Monroe has nothing left in the tank and Kubel is a very bright piece of the future. Kubel should get all at bats against right handed pitchers and most against left handed pitchers.

THINGS I NOTICED BUT WAS NOT THE LEAST BIT SURPRISED

1. When Kubel entered the game he got a hit…monroe was an OFER.

2. Torii Hunter 0-4. He looked like a fool against Nathan. Oh he also let a ball drop he could have caught. that should go in the surprise section after playing so many seasons here.

3. People cheer Torii, but Boo Pierzynski….unbelievable. AJ netted us Nathan, Liriano, and Boof. He never made a single negative comment to the press about our team while he was here. Torii netted us negative comments towards the team in the press on a consistent basis. He also tried to punch Morneau and hit Punto. He also dove for a ball against Oakland in the playoff series that basically led to getting swept.

4. Carlos Gomez is fast…and I mean the fastest player to ever play the game.

Anyway, I’ll end it there. Perhaps I will post again tomorrow when Torii goes 0-4 again tonite.

4.

Baby Watch…

I am officially on baby watch. It is now under 3 weeks until our due date. This basically means outside of work we won’t go anywhere. We did escape for lunch on Saturday and a quick Cabela’s/Outlet Mall pit-stop.  However, I ended up turning down a weekend of ice fishing which I haven’t been able to do in years.  I will have to make up for it by having a few more fishing adventures this spring/summer.

In other news, its actually quite nice to have a lazy Sunday. It was nice to lay on the couch, watch the Twins game and then take Madi out for a walk.  Cap it off with a fantasy baseball keeper draft and Chili in the Crock-Pot and it pretty much is the perfect day.

A funny joke…Man’s Best Friend

A dog is truly a man’s best friend.

If you
don’t believe it, just try this experiment.

Put your dog and your wife in the trunk of the car
for an hour.

When you open the trunk, who is really
happy to see you!?

A Great Favre Article

note: entire state of wisconsin is still on suicide watch. you would be too if you had aaron rodgers as your starting qb.

Sal Paolantonio, respected ESPN employee, wrote this. It is pure and beautiful and true.

We interrupt the continued deification of Brett Favre — a first-ballot Hall of Famer and the most durable player in NFL history — with the following reality check.Yes, Favre played long enough to throw the most touchdown passes and collect the most wins by an NFL quarterback. But let’s examine the second half of No. 4’s career. The truth is, Favre did little over the past decade to earn the gushing praise heaped upon him by our fawning brethren in the media.

Best-Ever Debate

In his 17 seasons, Brett Favre set numerous NFL records, including most yards passing (61,655) and most touchdowns (442).

But do those numbers, combined with Favre’s three MVP awards and one Super Bowl victory, put him among the top 10 quarterbacks of all time?

Recently, ESPN.com’s Mike Sando and Football Outsiders’ Aaron Schatz examined the best-ever debate.

• Sando | Football Outsiders

After beating the San Francisco 49ers in the 1997 NFC Championship Game, Favre won just three of his last 10 playoff games. Eli Manning had more postseason wins in a 29-day span this past season than Favre had in his last decade with the Green Bay Packers.

Yes, Favre won a Super Bowl — 11 years ago! But as his career arc spiraled downward, the blind adulation only got worse.

Favre’s passer rating in his last 12 postseason games was a pedestrian 77.8. In his last five wild-card games, he went 2-3 with more interceptions (nine) than touchdown passes (seven). In his last three divisional playoff games, he went 1-2 with seven TDs and seven interceptions. That’s a 3-5 record with 14 touchdown passes and 16 picks.

In two of his last four postseason appearances, Favre threw two of the most unthinkable playoff interceptions in NFL history, both in overtime — to Brian Dawkins of the Philadelphia Eagles in 2003 and to Corey Webster of the New York Giants in January. In fact, Favre is the only quarterback in NFL history to throw overtime interceptions in two playoff games. In his last nine playoff games, Favre threw 18 interceptions.

[+] Enlarge

Brett Favre’s career playoff record was 12-10. Fellow Packer star quarterback Bart Starr was 9-1.

In the first 81 years of the Green Bay franchise, the most hallowed in all of pro football, the Packers were 13-0 at home in the postseason. But since 2002, the Packers have gone 2-3 in playoff games at Lambeau Field, with Favre losing to three not-quite Hall of Fame quarterbacks: Michael Vick, Daunte Culpepper and Manning.If Manning had a decade like that, he’d be run out of New York. If Philip Rivers kept chucking ridiculous overtime interceptions in the postseason, he would be branded a first-round bust. If Drew Brees came up short in three out of five home playoff games, he’d be mocked.

But no matter how many dumb passes he threw and how many playoff games he lost, Favre remains immune to criticism.

Favre isn’t even the greatest quarterback in the history of the Packers. It’s not even close. Bart Starr won five NFL championships — four more than Favre — and retired as the NFL’s most accurate passer.

Oh, you say Starr was surrounded by a Hall of Fame roster with a legendary coach. But Starr still is the NFL record holder with a 104.8 career playoff passer rating, nearly 20 points higher than Favre’s. That wasn’t Vince Lombardi or Ray Nitschke throwing those passes for Starr, whose career postseason passer rating, by the way, is 38 points higher than Johnny Unitas’.

Favre’s career playoff record was 12-10. Starr’s was 9-1 — without the benefit of wild-card games. Favre threw 28 interceptions in 22 playoff games. Starr threw three in 10. Think about that — just three picks in 213 postseason attempts.

But Bart Starr gets the Ringo Starr treatment — underappreciated and overlooked. Favre gets put on a pedestal. Yes, he had a Pro Bowl season in 2007 with the youngest roster in the NFL. But his final moment on Lambeau Field was a wildly errant pass that turned into the NFC title for the Giants.

Indeed, a decade after his last moments of glory, the football hype machine continues to paint Favre as a hallowed icon of Americana, a symbol of all that is right with sports, a Wild West gun-slinging good ol’ boy. There’s Brett on the farm! There’s Brett with his family! There’s Brett on the cover of Sports Illustrated! There’s Brett throwing another overtime interception!

Favre was among the best in the game, once upon a time. Those days are long gone. Only the idolatry remains.

coincidence that Favre has the same amount of letters as FRAUD?

Brett Favre Retires!

Good Bye, Betty. Take your vicodin addicted rear end and leave. The NFL’s biggest drama queen is gone. Only Brett would try to upstage Free Agency and even the Superbowl to get all the attention on his own prima-donna self. The entire state of Wisconsin is now on suicide watch. The NFL’s INT King is gone. Congratulations Vikings! We won the division next year! Brett has apparently chosen to retire because the Packers didn’t sign Randy Moss. Thats right, He pouted and quit. Beautiful. Good Riddance.

The NFL lost a drunk and a drug addict today.

Pet Diaries

Bethany got this is an email. I thought it was hilarious.

THE DOG’S DIARY:

8:00 am – Dog food! My favorite thing!
9:30 am – A car ride! My favorite thing!
9:40 am – A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
10:30 am – Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00 pm – Milk bones! My favorite thing!
1:00 pm – Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
3:00 pm – Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
5:00 pm – Dinner! My favorite thing!
7:00 pm – Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00 pm – Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favori te thi ng!
11:00 pm – Sleeping on my bed on the floor! My favorite thing!

THE CAT’S DIARY:

Day 983 of my captivity. My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects and some sort of powerful mind-altering drug that they have securely place into a small clothed thing they refer to as a “toy.” But I am strong and will resist to the bitter end if necessary, even though its deadly aroma truly drives me mad. The captors also dine lavishly on fresh meat while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations they feed me perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength.

The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit a hair ball on their precious white living room carpet. Today, I also decapitated a mouse and dropped its he adless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear in their hearts since it clearly demonstrates my superior capabilities. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a “good little hunter” I was.

Bastards! There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my untimely confinement was due to the power of “allergies.” I must learn what this means and how to use it to my advantage when I finally break out of this 2-legged run prison.

Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around her feet as she tried to walk by. I must try this again tomorrow, but this time at the top of the stairs. If that fails again, I will be forced to try another measure of attack by curling up around her breathing holes when she lays down on her comfortable sleeping platform at darkness. My success a few moons ago was unfortunately cut short due to my captor rising suddenly due to the dog voicing his concerns over a fellow feline who roams freely outside the prison walls and digs in our trash containers. I must find a way to silence the dog during the next darkness time.

I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges; he is regularly released and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded. The bird must be an informant. I observe him communicating with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move to them. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell so he is safe, but only for now.