Home Alone, Part 2

Katie's taking off for the weekend once again, this time back to Mad-Town for her best friend's wedding.

Meaning, shit -- like what the hell I'm going to do?

1. High school football game here versus a conference rival.
2. Sleep in.
3. Michigan vs. Michigan State on Saturday (for the Paul Bunyan Trophy).
4. Sleep in some more.
5. "Chase" Race #3 from Talladega.
6. Vikings vs. Falcons.
7. Maybe have a few.
8. Stressing out over Fantasy Football.
9. Grades!

I've been harassed by my students about getting them in -- hopefully the damn grading program will be up and running this weekend so I can get that done. I'm a little behind -- like a whole month's worth -- but I'm not lazy. I'm just taking 'er easy.

The Weather Takes A Turn

I didn't even know how cold it got until I had to go outside from school yesterday. All of the other football coaches were all bundling up, putting on coats and huge sweatshirts and here I am, just in a t-shirt.

I just love how people consider 60 degrees as being cold. It's probably because we were all used to 80-90 degree weather for the most part of September. Then next spring -- 60 degrees is considered to be "warm."

All of my players were already complaining about how cold it was -- then came the excuses. "Coach, since it's Wednesday, we've got Confirmation at church..." and so on. They wanted to get out early, but I threw the bullshit flag on that one.

I'm out there on the practice field, jumping up and down, yelling "Now this is Minnesota weather! Wooo!" After I settled down just a bit, the blowing wind kind of got to me, then I got pretty cold.

Today, I brought warmer clothes -- as it looks outside, it's pretty windy again.

Another coach told me yesterday that he had heard that it's going to hit in the 80's again on Friday. Typical.

But I welcome the cooler weather -- it's football weather, as I like to call it. It brings back the fond memories of playing football back in the day, either for high school or playing backyard ball with The Boys. The crops are harvested, the trees change colors and lose their leaves, and deer and pheasant season roll around.

Time flies when you're having fun, especially in the Fall.

Get A Load Out Of This Guy!

Jake "The Snake" Plummer. Quarterback for the Broncos.

Looks like somebody straight out of "Boogie Nights."

He looks like the guy that Thomas Jane (Todd Parker) played, the cocaine-addict with that ridiculous mustache.

Hey, whatever turns ya on ... I guess.

Fantasy Football, Week 3 -- (Hands In The Air)

I just don't know what to do.

Again, in both leagues (MN and SD), I fell to my opponents. I just cannot get any consistency out of anybody.

Same goes with some of my old players that I had dropped previous to Week 3 because of poor performances, then they turn right around and have career days in Week 3, like Brandon Lloyd.

In the Minnesota league, I had a solid lead going into Monday night. My opponent still had two players, Rod Smith and Mike Anderson for the Broncos and I had Larry Johnson for the Chiefs. In the end, Smith and Anderson both scored for big points and Johnson gave me -1 point for his outstanding performance. I ended up losing by like 13 points.

I'm making some changes, as we can finally see who's actually consistent -- points-wise.

And I'm getting sick of ESPN's Fantasy Football, a person cannot add or drop any players until Wednesday. I think it should be first-come, first-serve, right after the Monday night game.

Toliet Paper-ed

I got hit last night.

I'm just laying back, playing NASCAR 06, suckin' down a few brews and all of a sudden, out of the corner of eye, is a streak of white past our large picture window.

It gave me quite the scare, but immediately, I knew what it was. I was getting toliet paper-ed.

A few of my girls in my classes have been talking about it. Apparently, a few already know where I live (which is just WONDERFUL! [sarcastic]) and they had said that there were going to hit me up pretty good.

"I don't know," I replied. "You'll have to answer to my wife."

Katie has already expressed her displeasure in the idea of some kids "vandalizing" our house. I think just as long as it's toliet paper, it's fine by me.

But I did give them the ultimate warning: I'll be waiting, hiding in the bushes with my GARDEN HOSE!

One Weekend of Rest

Finally -- something that I've been dying for -- a day to sleep in.

The last few weeks have killed me. It's not just work, but it's other things (not to put the blame on), like a bachelor party and a wedding.

Katie's gone for the weekend -- she's back in Mad-Town for the college's homecoming. Whoop-dee-doo. Basically, all of my friends have graduated and are long gone, even though there are a few folks to manage to come back to Mad-Town for a good time. Those days are long-gone for me -- I'm content with my situation in life.

Also, that means that Katie is gone for the entire weekend, as she left yesterday with some of her "new friends" that she's met at school. It ended up being that I slept like ass last night -- losing the extra body heat to keep me warm. I froze my ass off last night as the tempuratures are slowly starting to creep down during the overnights, as I was too lazy and too tired to get up out of bed to find some warmer layers to cover myelf.

Teaching's stressful. I've already gotten the reputation at school of being a "great teacher, plus a fun guy" -- so I've got that going for me. Good press gets around, even the prinicpal says that she's heard good things. But the prinicpal's been on my case about getting licensed -- in fact, I sent the stuff a long time ago, but due to some mix-up in how much I was supposed to actually pay the fee for the application process, it got sent back -- to South Dakota. I've finally gotten that all sorted out -- getting things signed by the ol' college, putting in more money for the application process, etc. Yeah, just a big ol' pain in the ass.

The problem of being a "fun guy" is that the students usually take advantage of that. Sure, I'm new, I'm the rookie -- and getting me off-task is pretty easy. I've even been labeled a "pushover", meaning that I usually let the students get away with a few things, like missed assignments (I'll give them the next day, but without full credit). I've soft of dug myself into a hole, which is pretty hard to get out of. I'm lowering the boom ever so slightly now -- meaning that if they don't do what they're expected of, they'll get no credit.

It all comes in time, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Interesting day at school today, though. The middle school sponsored a hat day in which students and staff could pay a dollar to wear a hat. On top of that, the staff can also wear jeans, just as long as you wear a "school-spirited" shirt. So, I wore a school's football shirt and my black Vikings hat.

You should have seen the looks on my student's faces as they saw me. They all thought I was the new guy in school -- yep, all 5'6" of me. I don't know what the hell I was doing -- but they sure didn't see me as their teacher. "Oh, shit..." I thought to myself. This was going to be a long day.

In fact, I was invited to some my students' homes to play poker. I'm not sure if they were serious or not, but I declined.

Football practice was a joke. The other coach had to take off early today to go back to his home town, so it was all me. Yesterday, we had a film day on our lousy game on Tuesday. We had our meeting, let our concerns all out on the line. That was pretty successful. But when it came to a Friday practice, I decided to make it an optional one. BIG MISTAKE.

One of the players said that they should just run all day; that was fine by me. We didn't practice on Wednesday due to a meeting, Thursday was film day -- so you'd figure that everybody should have showed up on Friday. Out of the 25-some players we've got, about half showed up. I got excuse after excuse from the players that showed up trying to explain to me why the others weren't there. It got to the point that I just told them all to shut up -- they were just excuses; they didn't want to be at practice. Some "team" I've got.

But now, I'm hangin' back, drinking some beer, taking it easy. I'm bored out of my mind of things to do. I could start grading some homework, since my students are on my case about that -- but that can wait until LATE Sunday ... haha.

I guess all I can do is see if Ryan Newman can win two in a row in the Chase (at Dover this week) and pray for a Vikings victory over the Saints.

Mike and Lacey's Wedding

One hell of a day!

I think back to last weekend and I get a little emotional. It always seems to bring a smile to my face when I think about The Boys -- our little group we had back in the days of high school. Mike got married to probably one of the sweetest, hip-hip ladies around, Lacey. The Boys are now spoken for, married, hooked-up, except for Jarrod -- who's already engaged, so you can say that's close enough.

On top of that, Sean and his wife Tami had a baby daughter last Thursday. Talk about one great event after another -- and yes, another sign that we are getting old (and hopefully mature)!

Last Saturday was the big day, as Mike and Lacey have been planning an outdoor wedding for quite some time, to be held at the parents of Mike's farm. Everybody prayed for that day to be perfect. As it turned out, the prayers were answered on that day.

Early that morning, things looked gloomy, as the skies over southwest Minnesota was covered in clouds with a slight breeze. Rain was in the forecast. But that didn't stop Mr. Mike at all. I had to drop Katie off at the farm at 9:30 in the morning to she could help out the ladies with their hair and make-up ... and wouldn't you know it: Mike was all ready to go, tuxedo and all, when I dropped Katie off. Nervous?! Probably!

But you've got to hand it to the guy. Mike was on the ball, making sure everything was good-to-go, things were set up, and people had everything. It's a classic sign of nervousness, maybe a little neurotic, but it's normal, especially when it is somebody's wedding day.

By the time the actual wedding rolled around, the clouds started to part and out popped the sun, like it was some sort of sign or something. Wearing a black, polyester tuxedo really turned up the ol' body tempurature as I started to sweat profusely. Lucky for us groomsmen, there was still that slight breeze, which made it bearable. A funny moment when Kevin (Mike's brother and best man) and I stood at the "altar", the cameraman was in the background in the pine trees behind the minister taking pictures. It startled me, to say the least -- but I had to make a joke out of it.

"What is that? We've got the paparazzi here?"

The farm was fabulous. Everything was green, there were enough chairs, everybody could hear (through a pretty good sound system), everything was perfect.

Afterwards, as far as the reception went -- damn, the food was good! I ate a little too much though, as it kind of put a damper on the drinking for the rest of the night. Every drink I had, my gut would hurt ever so little, so I had to space them out. With all that food in my gut, I didn't get completely bombed out of my gourd (like I did at my wedding), but just enough for me to loosen up a little bit.

Mike was in pretty good shape -- since he probably learned from my own mistakes and decided to pace himself by skipping straight-up shots of Jim Beam. Good man ... at least he won't have a wife will hold that against him until he dies!

We danced, we drank, we sang. I ended up spending LOTS of money that night, especially when I had to get new drinks because they kept on getting knocked out of my hands. As the night wore on, I began to get a little tired (since I'm now based on school-time) and others started to make their way to the chairs on the sides of the dance floor. Deep down, I found a second- and third-winds, so I grabbed a few people back out on the dance floor. My God, I still have the moves!

Another funny part was that I tried to dance with Lacey's youngest sister Heidi, who was a junior bridesmaid in the wedding. Heidi would have nothing to do with me.

"Yeah, typical. The ladies, young or old, just don't care about me!" I said.

All-in-all, a great party. Things went well, there were no fights, at least. I gotta wish the newlywed couple all the best.

I am without speech!

Fantasy Football, Week 2 -- Fiasco!

It was a terrible weekend for me as far as Fantasy Football went for Week 2.

As I've stated before, I'm depending on Daunte Culpepper to be my mainstay points-go-getter for this season. After two terrible performances that includes 8 interceptions, do I stick with him?

As far as I'm concerned, I'm giving him another chance. Culpepper knows he's messin' up (and it's not because of Moss' absence), so I'm sure he and other members of the Vikings are really going to step it up in Week 3 as they host the New Orleans Saints.

In the Minnesota league -- I was pitted against Sean. From Day One after Week 1 ended, Sean started to play his "games", putting in a lot of his back-ups just so he would think that I would win. Plus, other owners in the league can vote on who's-going-to-beat-who, so I had an early advantage, making Sean the underdog. Trash talk insued, including Sean proposing to me again with unbelievable trade opportunities.

Nobody on my team had a solid game in them. We all know about Culpepper -- but even my wide receivers, like Marvin Harrison and Brandon Stokley -- who would have known that Peyton Manning would have one of the worse starts in his career THAT week?! My other quarterback, Byron Leftwich, also did not have a solid game (he actually had less points than Culpepper). In the end, I fell to 0-2, losing to Sean 136 to 90.

After that, I didn't really make any drastic changes. I just made some roster moves, like benching Leftwich for Ben Roethlisberger, who's been solid through two weeks. I'm putting back in Mushin Muhammad -- who really made me look bad in Week 2 from benching him -- and picked up Miami's D since Washington is having a bye week. I'm up against Sean's brother Troy this week, who currently sits at a 1-1 record.

Players that I have to worry about? He's got Tom Brady and Donovan McNabb at his QB spots -- what more can I say? It'll come down to the Monday night game, that's for sure.

In the South Dakota league, things looked good for me until the Monday night game. My opponent had Aaron Brooks and Joe Horn, both of the Saints. I ended up losing 114 to 87. What really screwed me over is that J.J. Arrington didn't even start (which I didn't even know about), so I got the big 0 points from him. Again, just like in the Minnesota league, I started players who thought who could step up, but they ended up poorly and the benched players ended up getting more points.

This time, I made huge roster changes. I dropped some poor players, like Arrington and Brandon Lloyd and picked up some better, mediore players, like Terry Glenn and T.J. Duckett.

For Week 3, I'm up against a pretty good opponent who managed to put up 186 points in Week 2. He's currently 2-0, but hopefully I can drop him to 2-1.

Downright Depressing

Football. It's a killer.

Watching the Vikings stumble through their first two weeks of football is almost unbearable. Daunte Culpepper just isn't having the season that we'd all thought he'd have -- 8 interceptions and a few fumbles -- with the only TD of the season so far coming in on a Daunte run late versus the Bengals.

Who's the scapegoat? Ex-owner Red McCombs, who approved the trade of Randy Moss to Oakland? How about Mike Tice while we're at it? He's only got one year left in his contract, and right now, I really do not see him back next year. Changes in the coaching staff? The Vikings have a new offensive coordinator. Seems like Mr. Loney isn't getting it done.

What I cannot figure out is why the first-team offense looked so sharp during pre-season (sure, yes, it was only pre-season), then now during the regular season -- absolute pucky. Maybe Tice should have kept the first-team 'O' in for a few series longer.

Then, there's fantasy football. More will be broken down in another post for my Week 2 update, but again, I've got Culpepper for my main-stay quarterback. You can probably figure out how well I did last weekend.

Lastly, there's my 8th grade team. I really do not know what to say -- I'm literally at a loss for words. We lost our first game BIG, lost our second game close -- but I'm must say that it was that second game that I thought we were turning the corner. We played very aggressive on the line, but our pass defense was suspect. While I was away for a wedding on Saturday, our team went out to South Dakota (ol' Mad-Town, to be specific) to participate in a jamboree, or scrimmage. After playing 2 games out there, apparently we did not score one touchdown and gave up a bunch.

We had a game yesterday, getting ready to play a poe-dunk town. I already had it in my head that we were going to roll over these guys. I mean, we have these solid practices, everything looks sharp, then when it comes to game time, all things go to shit. I just cannot figure it out.

Anyway, the smaller opposing team rolled over us. We managed to score one touchdown. Too many blocking mistakes, too many turnovers. We just may have to go back to the fundamentals.

Can I blame myself? Probably -- I'm a first-year coach. It's my philosophy that at the 8th grade level, everybody should have the opportunity to play. If we would have our "super-team", in which our best players would play both sides of the ball, maybe we'd have the opportunity to win some games. But in that case, we just might get some angry parents, and that's something that I do not want to deal with.

It finally got to the point at the end of the game that our own players started to blame each other, you know, pointing the fingers. The quarterback was complaining that the line was not blocking on pass plays, so the other coach put him on the line. All hell broke loose -- it seemed like I didn't have any control. Then it seemed like they were questioning my play calling, so I just turned it to them.

Their first play without me was a pitch-right, screen pass back to the QB which got us about 35 yards. We scored a couple of plays later on a QB sneak, but after that, it was interception after interception. I could make a long list about the things that went wrong, but I won't list them here.

It's getting to the point where we have a lot of dissention amongst the players. I decided that on Thursday that we're just going to have a team meeting, get it all out in the open and discuss the problems. Maybe it's us, the coaching staff, maybe it's the bickering players, who knows. Like the other coach and I were talking after the game yesterday, we just do not know what we can do to get these kids' minds into the game.

MMORPG

It's pretty nice that since I now have a broadband connection, a kick-ass video card and a lots of RAM, I can finally try out a few things that I have wanted to in the past.

Last weekend I picked up Star Wars Galaxies: The Total Experience and Final Fantasy XI: The Vana'diel Collection.

First off, I'm lucky that I picked these games up WAY past their actual release dates, since servers and bugs are at least "up to snuff" and they are actually playable for an enjoyable experience. Second, just diving into Star Wars and pimpin' out on Tatooine -- it's freakin' huge. It's so huge, that you basically have to save your money just to fly to certain points. You could just run, or take your landspeeder -- but that would take a good hour of your time. Right now I'm hanging out at Mos Eisley, doing simple jobs, saving money, learning skills. Then, I got cocky and flew out to Fort Tusken, where I basically got my ass handed to me by some stealthy Sand People. Rat bastards!

And that's not it. Since I got expansion packs, I can fly in outer space (go to other planets as well, like Naboo and Corellia) and battle with the Wookies on their home planet of Kashyyyk. I've obviously got lots to do.

But the whole idea of a MMORPG (massive multi-player on-line role-playing game) is to hook up with other gamers and form groups for a mutual advantage on the game. Right now, I really haven't "talked" to any other users -- I'm still getting used to my controls and the surroundings.

I installed Final Fantasy XI last night. This is probably the most difficult game yet, control-wise. I'm still getting used to what I have to do, although I really haven't gone anywhere. I'm just spending my time talking to actual computer characters for "normal" FF information about the world I'm in.

What sucks is that I have to pay for this, like a subscription. It can be a monthly fee, about $12. Is it worth it? As long as I have the time for it, and right now, that's pretty little. But overall, a hell of an experience.

Fantasy Football Update -- Week 1

Since I'm participating in two leagues this fall, I'm a pretty busy person. Keeping up to date on how my players are doing, any major (or minor) injuries to be aware of, who are my players next opponents, etc., are all things that I have to keep in mind.

I've stated before, the Minnesota league is through Yahoo!, the South Dakota league is through ESPN. Right now, ESPN's server blows. I like it's set-ups (the whole three-division option) and it's accessibility to information regarding a player, but it's so bogged down that even right now, it's down. Already on our ESPN message board within our league, there have been a couple of complaints. Maybe next year, the South Dakota league will switch back to Yahoo!

Let's start with the Minnesota league.

I fell Week 1 to Eric, who right away has a pretty solid team. Eric's got both Randy Moss and Corey Dillon, who put up big points on that Thursday night game. Already, I was in a hole, but it wouldn't have mattered. Daunte Culpepper played like absolute poop as the Vikings offense couldn't get anything going at all. Either way, if Culpepper had a solid game, I probably wouldn't have won it due to a lack of consistency amongst my players.

Next week for Week 2, I've got Sean, who beat his brother Troy last week. Sean offered up to me a ridiculous trade offer before the start of Week 1. I cannot remember the players, but his reason was that my running backs (with the exception of Deuce McAllister) were back-ups. My back-ups, like T.J. Duckett and Tatum Bell did perform well, with Duckett scoring a TD against the Eagles. Sean, on paper, doesn't look like he's got an impressive team, but he can be surprising behind some of his superstars like Terrell Owens and Tony Gonzales.

I've noticed this week he's trying to be funny -- for a new feature within Yahoo! Fantasy Football, you can make your own picks for who's going to win against who. Sean is dumping all of his back-ups into the starting line-up, probably hoping so that others will brag up my team, making him the underdog. If Sean wins (assuming that he'll move his starters back in), he'll act all big. What a weiner.

In the ESPN (SD) league, I actually did win my first game from strong performances from Larry Johnson and Tom Brady. I wish I could provide more insight -- but the ESPN server is down!

Onto Week 2!

"I Live On The Gravel!"

Mike's bachelor party was last Saturday. Oh, my dear Lord.

We didn't go all out, like your conventional bachelor parties. We just hung out at Mike's place, played a little bocce ball (all the meanwhile we were getting pretty loaded), then we decided to head uptown to get something to eat at the bar.

Mike's younger brother Kevin took off before we did, but we managed to get to the bar before him. How? Well, instead of your typical 20 mph speed limit within city limits, we hit 70 mph. We passed Kevin, but then stopped just in time for a stop sign. Then, we almost jumped the curb next to the bar -- Sean was pretty startled from the sudden stop as he almost choked on a pretzel stick.

Just as soon as we entered the bar, the NASCAR race at Richmond just started. My boy Ryan Newman was racing his way in the Chase for the Cup, so I was pretty interested. But I took some pretty good razzing from Mike and others at the other end of the bar.

"Which way do we turn?"

"I think left."

"And after that?"

"Another left ... and maybe another left after that."

"Are you sure? How 'bout a right turn?"

"Nope, keep hangin' lefts!"

(Newman eventually made the Chase, clinching the 10th and final spot.)

After a few eats at the bar, we made our way back to Mike's house and met up with some of the ladies who were celebrating Lacey's bachelorette party. They were just leaving, as we were, as we began our classic road trip through the country side. Yes, Mike continued to drive.

We headed east out of town, then north on gravel, when Mike all of a sudden started driving like a wild-man, like he was driving a 410 Sprint car on dirt. Even though his Ford Probe was a front-wheel drive, he had his back end sliding this way and that. Scary, to say the least, as I buckled up just in case if we went into the ditch.

After we crossed a river, we parked and switched a few passengers -- with stories being traded amongst Mike's and Kevin's vehicles that Mike was absolutely crazy behind the wheel. Now I was in the front passenger seat next to Mike and we continued to head north on the gravel.

Mike's speed continued to increase. I'll admit, my heart started to pump a little faster as the needle once again edged near 70 mph. I felt responsible to tell Mike that we were exceeding the speed limit on a gravel road.

"I live on the gravel!" Mike exclaimed.

Okay ... Mike's now delirious.

We turned east at a T-intersection at which I thought for sure we were going to lose it into the ditch, but luck was on Mike's side as his left rear wheel brushed the top of the ditch and the front-wheel drive found enough grip to keep the vehicle on the road. After traveling about a mile, we turned south on an old driveway to a farmstead that we used to affectionately call "The Abandoned Place." It's a nice little secluded farm site next to the river, with an old farmhouse that's completely condemned and a huge barn that's still in pretty good shape. But in between the farm site and river is rolling pasture. Mike and Kevin both collectively decided to head for the pasture for a "little fun," hitting large potholes and bumps alike as us passengers smashed our heads into the ceilings of the vehicles.

After that, it got a little blurry (brain damage, perhaps), but we drove back to town in one piece and continued to have our fun.

(Later on that night, Mike did hit a deer with his Probe. Apparently, Mike literally scared the shit out of the animal as feces shot up the side of the car and some of the contents hit a few of the passengers. NICE.)

Being the old gents that we are, a lot of people started to fall off (or just left) as the night wore on. It probably wasn't until just after midnight when all who was left was Mike, Kevin, and myself and sooner or later, we dozed off.

It was about 3:00 in the morming when the ladies came home to wake us up -- Katie and Lacey laughing (probably out of sheer drunkeness) with Lacey sucking on a penis-shaped lollipop. Again, NICE.

There you have it -- a wonderful, drunked weekend before the storm next Saturday. Mike and Lacey are going to be a married couple, but I'm already scared poop-less about remembering anything after the wedding!

"I Would Like To Begin By Saying 'Thank You...'"

To quote Mike from a recent e-mail: "NCAA is the sweetest game, ever."

Damn right it is. I've been saying it for years, first playing it on the PSOne when I bought NCAA Football 2001. Madden's not even a blip on my radar.

My created player just recently won the Heisman Trophy after his senior year, with an impressive 136 receptions, 2492 receiving yards, and 35 touchdowns. This was a pretty good follow up season from the junior year, in which I finished 2nd in the Heisman Trophy balloting.

My character started out slow, due to a hugely impressive rushing attack that seen one running back gain over 7,500 yards in two seasons. After he left after his junior year (thank God!), the passing attack was in full bloom.

My team (obviously), the University of Michigan Wolverines, made 4 straight bowl appearances with 4 straight wins, including 2 National Championships during my junior and senior seasons. The junior year, the victim was USC, while the senior year, Nebraska fell to defeat.

But my dude's trophy case is an impressive one -- leaving without a doubt that he'd be the #1 overall draft pick if I had decided to send him to the NFL (I instead signed a 3-year deal to coach the Wolverines). Some of my characters awards are as follows:

• 2005: Freshman All-American
• 2005: 2nd Team All-Big Ten
• 2007: 1st Team All-American
• 2007: 1st Team All-Big Ten
• 2007: Maxwell Award (best offensive player)
• 2007: Best WR
• 2008: 1st Team All-American
• 2008: 1st Team All-Big Ten
• 2008: Heisman Trophy
• 2008: Maxwell Award
• 2008: Best WR

Besides setting records, my created player also dominated the receiving record books.

Dynasty Records -- Season

• Receiving yards: 2492 yards, set in 2008.
• Receiving touchdowns: 35, set in 2008.

Dynasty Records -- Career

• Receptions: 401, (2005-2008).
• Receiving yards: 6494, (2005-2008).
• Receiving touchdowns: 84 (2005-2008).

School Records

• Receptions, Game: 16.
• Receptions, Season, 136.
• Receptions, Career, 401.
• Receiving yards, Game: 308.
• Receiving yards, Season: 2492.
• Receiving yards, Career: 6494.
• Receiving touchdowns, Game: 5.
• Receiving touchdowns, Season: 35.
• Receiving touchdowns, Career: 84.

The only real receiving record that I did not break was receptions in a single season, which sit at 143 receptions. Oh, well. Still dominant, I might say!

Now, my career is focused on my coaching career at Michigan. Without a doubt, I'll probably win 3 straight National Championships, then probably move on to some dumpy ol' team and bring them out of oblivion.

Tired As A MoFo

Am I ready for this?

The first day of my teaching career comes and goes. I just cannot believe how tired I am.

The day itself went pretty well. It flew by, I got to know my students pretty well, since I really didn't have anythink planned for the first day. I got a mixture of high schoolers for my 2nd and 3rd periods for Word Processing, juniors and seniors for Personal Law (which, by the way, I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing), and middle school students for keyboarding 5th and 7th periods.

It's like night and day between the high schoolers and the middle schoolers. The high schoolers are so laid back, so lethargic, seeming like they don't care. At first, they were pretty apprehensive of me, but I just came out, "Are you freakin' scared of me or something?" I explained that although at times I can be a hard-ass, I'm going to make the class fun.

What really ticks me off is that I'm stuck with a lot of paper-based material. I thought this was a computer class! My predecessor was old-school. He knew his material, but it's a little outdated. Plus, this stuff really does not explain very well the HOW and WHY certain applications are used with Microsoft Office. I've already stated my complaints to the high school prinicpal, and hopefully next year I can get the students on a new curriculum.

Another thing that's upsetting is that the computer classes are NOT REQUIRED. They're electives and students see them as slack classes. I just cannot believe a school district of this size "frowns" on technology. I've already told my students that they are in for a rude awakening once they hit college. I just might have to bring up my concerns to the school board.

I had the 6th graders right after lunch ... and man, they were completely off the walls. Even after I discussed with them my classroom management plan, they still would not keep their hands off each other. It was constant gabbing, which really drove me nuts. I actually had to holler a few times. The teacher in the room next to mine is also a football coach and that man has got one voice when it comes to yelling. Later on in the locker room, he complimented me on my "hollering" techniques and said that I could possibly rival him!

But after school and such, I went back to my regular routine of coaching my 8th graders. We're in preparation of our first game on Thursday. But after that and when I returned home, I could have just fell down and went to sleep. I had to stay awake though and prepare for tomorrow's classes.

Ah, the life of a teacher. And I'm diggin' it right now.

Froehlich: Don't Quit Yer Day Job

First, we got Jewett on video tape.

Now, we got Froehlich on ... an answering machine.

Lil' Troy sends me this e-mail tonight with three attachments: one picture of William Hung (the American Idol semi-star "She Bangs, She Bangs") and one of Froehlich from when we lived back in The Shoebox. The other attachment was a mp3 file -- and "oh, my dear Lord!"

The file itself is about a minute long, but it's for the first 40 seconds ... it's ... uh ... Froehlich jammin' out. It's just random for a while, then it's Gwen Stefani ... then:

"Hey, I had a steak sandwich from Burger King; it's fucking good. Have a nice day, bye!"

Classic.

NASCAR 06: Total Team Control

I picked up NASCAR 06: Total Team Control yesterday for $40, which I thought was pretty reasonable. Being the NASCAR fan that I am, I just had to pick it up -- not only it's a newer, rehashed version of last year's game -- but this year, it's got voice recognition technology in which you can "ask" your crew chief about the race your in, or "speak" commands to your teammates on the racetrack.

As of right now, I don't have a USB headset, but I'll probably pick one of these up later. Instead, a player can use the right analog stick to order your commands to your teammates.

What I like about this game is the whole teamwork aspect. Everybody who knows NASCAR knows that there is no such thing as a single-car team (with a few exceptions). Teams in NASCAR now consist of 2, 3, 4, and even 5 car teams. So while you're on the track, you can switch between your teammate's cars. If you run one guy up to the front, you can select another car ("car-swapping") and charge him to the front. It's pretty cool, especially once you get your pack of teammates in one spot on the track and you start barking out orders to block, "follow me", "work with me", "move over", and so on.

The interface is basically the same as last year's, so there is not much improvement there. The big set-back is the graphics. It looks a lot more "grain-ier" this year, or maybe they're just out-dated (plus the fact that I've been playing NASCAR SimRacing on the PC more and more).

At first, the controls were a little difficult. The car is a lot more responsive than in past year's versions, plus they've switched the buttons around a little bit. I can see the reason in this, because the programmers were probably thinking that us players would need our right thumbs freed up a bit, due to the commands that we would be barking out.

If I were to make a great NASCAR game on the PS2: take the R&D aspects of '04, the Grudge and Alliance system, the graphics of '05, and the teamwork aspects of '06. Simple as that.

What Can You Say?

It was a fairly interesting day today.

This morning, we had our 8th grade football practice for 2 hours. After we finished and kicked back in the coaches room, we got a phone call from the athletic director at our school. He told us to tell the head varsity coach to call him right away as soon as the varsity was done with practice.

Let me build you up a little bit to know where this story is going. Some of you may already know what has happened, since it's already starting to appear on regional and state news web sites.

Anyway, the varsity has been going all out this week, watching tapes, lifting those extra weights -- so on and so forth -- for their first game of the season on Friday night. The kids were so pumped up for their first game of the season, but all of a sudden it all came crashing back down to earth.

The head varsity coach, once he got in, called the athletic director. As it turns out, the opposing team suspended roughly 17 of their players due to the fact that they got caught partying. I'm sure they were against team rules, like staying out past a curfew, but from what I've heard, there was alcohol involved. In high school sports, plus the fact that it is against the law, is a huge no-no.

The opposing team were forced to forfeit the game. Sure, us coaches had a hearty laugh about it, but it was kind of a downer to realize that we were not going to have a football game on Friday night.

I have to commend the opposing team for doing this and this is the reason: there are so many other schools that when they are stuck in a similar situation, they try all means by covering it up. It's probably happened at almost every school district in the area -- and I know for a fact that it's happened back in South Dakota. Administrators, staff, teachers, and coaches -- just for a slight second -- think that once athletics prove to be more important than academics and the safety of the students, thus the cover-up. I'm sure that there are things on the line, like post-secondary scholarship opportunities, booster clubs, fund raising, saving face in the community, etc., are possibly other reasons why school districts play it down in case if their students get in trouble (this is just an opinion -- I'm not an expert on this subject).

Think of it at another angle, taking in perspective of the above things listed. What if this would have happened towards the end of the season? What if this team had probably a legitimate shot of making the state tournament? What if there were a few stand-out players that could possibly play D-I or D-II ball in college? It seems a lot easier to deal with the problem now, especially when the team hasn't even played yet, compared to a game later on in the regular season.

But either way, the opposing team did the right thing. The administration stepped up and are taking the embarrassment that these players have brought upon the school, like they should. They are serving a suspension -- and who knows if it'll last another week.

As an educator, I'm starting to realize the importance of the profession -- whether it's having morals, professional ethics, your personal philosophy, whatever -- things or situations should be done the right way in which it benefits the community (or the school district), not just have a small group of people be the voice of a larger group of people.