The SoapBoxers

Although I’m not much of a rah-rah political person, I do enjoy following things from an analytical viewpoint.  Here are my thoughts on what will happen on election day and beyond.

Christine O’Donnell will lose the race for the Senate in Delaware and return to her coven.  (That’s a joke – I don’t really think she is a witch).  There is some speculation that she may also cost the GOP the Pennsylvania race.  The logic is that O’Donnell has been quite visible in the Philadelphia market (grab a map, for those who aren’t familiar with the area) and that Democrats may be playing a winning game by saying that Pat Toomey is another Tea Party candidate … with the implied message that Toomey = O’Donnell.  It’s possible that this is not the reason that Joe Sestak has been making up substantial ground … Evan, any thoughts?

Marco Rubio leads a three way race in the Florida Senate race.  Former governor Charlie Crist is in the race as an independent.  You’d think Crist would be in a unique position to paint his opponents (Rubio and Democrat Kendrick Meek) as being the anti-Crist  …

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid continues his battle royale with Sharron Angle.  The compact nature of Nevada’s media market make it fairly inexpensive to run ads that reach a high percentage of constituents.  A loss by Reid would force the Democrats to choose a new leader.

In Alaska, incumbent Lisa Murkowski (a Republican) is running as an independent and has been polling roughly even with GOP candidate  Joe Miller (with both candidates comfortable ahead of Democrat Scott McAdams).  With Alaska lagging several hours behind Iowa,  I’ll be going to bed about the time the polls close up north.  At some point in the evening, the number of write-in votes that were cast (i.e. that someone marked the circle for write-in) will be known … but not who they were cast for.  If the write-in totals are high enough to put the winner in doubt, then the write-in votes will be tallied – and wrangled over in court.  The Democrats will probably laugh all the way to the bank, as they see Republicans spend millions of dollars deciding which conservative should represent Alaska.

In South Carolina, Republican Jim DeMint will score a decisive win over Democrate Alvin Greene.  Greene scored a stunning victory in the Democratic primary, despite having done negligible campaigning – leading to some accusations of fraud.  Greene was later indicted on a felony obscenity charge.  The real question to me – why didn’t another Democrat jump into the race and make it a three way contest?  As it stands, Greene is getting roughly 20% support in the polls.

In the governor’s races, Jerry Brown is starting to distance himself from former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who has spent around $150 million (wow!) of her own money into her campaign.  Whitman’s campaign has been sidetracked by the revelation that she once employed an illegal alien as a made (and the allegations that the Whitman family were aware of this and did nothing). 

In Illinois, my former landlord (Bill Brady) is running a close race with incumbent Pat Quinn, who got his gig when Blago was forced out in the midst of a corruption scandal.  I don’t know Brady personally. but we had (legal) free cable when his management company got the rent checks, and had to pay for cable when another company replaced them.  Sure, it was only $17 (around 2000) and only a couple dozen channels, but nonetheless was a pretty sweet deal.

What do I see happening on the grand scale?  I see the GOP taking back the House and the Democrats probably retaining  slim majority in the Senate – quite possibly 51-49.  I also see the end of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s tenure on the Supreme Court.  Ginsburg doesn’t want to be replaced by a conservative, and will likely retire while Obama is still choosing justices rather than risk dying in office and having President Palin choose her replacement.  What’s one likely characteristic of the Justice that will replace Ginsburg?  Youth.

Speaking of Ginsburg … time for a bit of trivia. Whom did she replace on the Supreme Court?  Byron “Whizzer” White, the former NFL star.  White took the term student-athlete to the highest level – leading the NFL in rushing in 1938 and 1940 being awarded two bronze stars for his service in World War II – and then embarking upon a legal career which took him to the peak of his profession.  You may agree or disagree with his opinions, but it’s hard to argue that he didn’t live an amazing life.  Whizzer died in 2002 at the age of 84.

What a bad time to be a top ranked team. First the tide does not roll. Then thuh Ohio State gets housed by the cheesy road graders from Wisconsin. MIZ-ZOU buries the Sooners at home. What next?

And the end all of end all is Texas gets smoked at home by THE IOWA STATE CYCLONES. How the heck did my beloved Huskers get beat by THAT team….Can’t wait to hear the presser from Coach Brown this week after Baylor knocks them off in Austin.

Thursday

Florida State (-4.5) @ North Carolina State – Free Shoes U!. FSU 27- NC St 20

Saturday

Oklahoma State (-4.5) @ Kansas State – Aggies are boiling after losing high scoring homecoming against the cornshuckers. OSU – 44- K St. 28

Clemson (-7.5) @ Boston College – Uncle Clem gets er done again. Clem – 28- BC -17

Tennessee @ South Carolina (-17.5) – Vols are bad. Nothing else to say. SC- 28- Tenn 14

Kansas @ Iowa State (-14.5) – Let down game for the cyclones…maybe but Kansas is worse than Tennessee. ISU 31- Kansas 7

Tulsa @ Notre Dame (-10.5) – Irish got whooped by Navy last week. Welcome home touchdown Jesus. ND- 28- Tulsa – 20

Arizona (-8.5) @ UCLA – yuk, and I suppose this is the late game of the week on Fox Sports Rocky Mountain. AZ – 28- UCLA – 17

California @ Oregon State (-3.5) – Cal is rolling, but Corvallis is tough to play at…..Ore St 24- Cal 21

Texas Tech @ Texas A&M (-6.5) – New QB in place at College Station. A&M 28- TT- 21

Michigan State @ Iowa (-4.5) – Hawkeyes are due! Iowa – 21- Mich St – 20

Missouri @ Nebraska (-6.5) – I hate to pick against Nebs but….Mizzzzzzzz- 31- Neb – 28

Auburn (-7.5) @ Mississippi – Masoli should be in jail. Auburn – 31- Ole Miss 14

Stanford (-7.5) @ Washington – Jake Locker the great disappearing quarterback get smoked again this week. Stan – 35- Wash – 17

Baylor @ Texas (-9.5) – R.G.III! Texas loses again at home. Withdraws from Union! State Fair Moved to Abilene! Baylor 24- Texas 21

Utah (-5.5) @ Air Force – Frogs beat up the Cadets last week, Utah just piles on more. Utah – 35- AF – 21

Oregon (-7.5) @ USC – Two Words…Playstation Football. Ore 52- USC – 21

Michigan (-3.5) @ Penn State – The Dennard Robinson show starts back up this week…if he is healthy! Meeeeeeechigan – 35- JoPa’s Warriors – 14

It is almost November, and we all know what that means, National Novel Writing Month. I guess you thought I was going to writes something about the election. I figure with all of the writers on this site (except Johnny and Bob, thank you both so much) having voiced their political opinions over the last few weeks, enough had been said already. I want to focus on writing.

I started this column last year as I embarked on my first attempt at writing a complete novel. The fine people at NaNoWriMo.org help me with a challenge and various on line support activities. There are also local gatherings at coffee shops to put real faces and bodies on the messages. I was successful last year for many reasons, none more important than that I was on a significant amount of travel, two weeks at a time away from my family. When I try this year, I will have the challenges of every day life impacting my ability to perform.

The goal of National Novel Writing Month is not actually to write a compete novel, although that may be a happy outcome. The goal is to write down 5000 words that are conceivably part of a larger story or novel. The challenge is to achieve this goal in a single month, November 1 through November 30. No fair grabbing an old story that you already had several thousand word complete on. The reward is writing, and if you succeed, some nice icon gifts for your book, your facebook page and a certificate to always remember your achievement.

As with last year, I plan on tracking my progress here at TheSoapBoxers.com. I will encourage all of our readers to write, and maybe even share some of their effort. Unlike last year, I will focus on what I am doing to write, not a blow by blow of the story line.

So the question is, will you “elect” to join me on this adventure? You do not have to write, but I always encourage people to do so. You can just ride the journey with me and anyone else who is willing to share in the odyssey.

A few months ago, I pledged to embark on a different journey. I was going to set up my computer on a treadmill table so that I could walk my way across this great land of ours as I wrote this column or watched television. Although I did set up the table for a short while, my progress was so slow that I never had enough success to write about it. The treadmill and table took up so much room in out family room that my wife asked me to move it to the basement. Out of sight, out of mind, and the experiment came to an end. This writing pledge will not suffer the same fate. I may succeed or I may fail, but I will undertake the effort for the full month.

When I made the cross country treadmill pledge, I had several helpful exchanges with Evan about ways of adding physical activity to our otherwise stationary work lives. As a result of those discussions, I will be investing in an under desk peddle systems. I will cycle my way through the day as I sit at my desk, reading, writing, phoning, texting and doing all the things we do at work that cause the day to pass with little or no physical motion.

So, go to NaNoWriMo.org tonight and join up and in seven days let your ideas flow. Catch them all, sting them together and who knows what you will end up with.

My alma mater notched their biggest win of the season on Saturday, as Iowa State held off Texas for a 28-21 win in Austin, Texas.  Longhorns quarterback Garrett Gilbert threw three interceptions, and Cyclone defenders had their hands on several other passes.  A guy who really caught my attention was ISU punter Kirby Van Der Kamp, who blasted a 74 yard punt and had several other good efforts.

After a surprisingly good 7-6 season in Paul Rhoads’ first season as coach last year, there were plenty of reasons for pessimism going into this year.  The 2010 season featured some great opponents that were missing from the 2009 schedule – conference games against Oklahoma and Texas and the non-conference tilt against Utah.  The game against in-state rival Iowa would be in Iowa City instead of Ames.

Eight games into the season, the squad stands at 4-4.  In addition to losses to big guns Iowa, Oklahoma, and Utah, the Cyclones lost a heartbreaker against a good Kansas State team.  On the plus side, Iowa State also knocked off  Texas Tech 52-38.

At the beginning of the season, I was hard pressed to find a scenario that would lead to a bowl for Iowa State.  I’m a pretty optimistic person, but generally temper things with a bit of realism, and my scenarios kept topping out at 5-7.  However, with four games left in the season, a bowl game is a real possibility.  We have games left against Kansas and Colorado, who have combined for zero conference wins this year.  The two toughest games – Nebraska and Missouri – are both home games.  Running the table is probably out of the question, but the Cyclones should definitely get to six games if they continue to “hit that line and hit it hard”.

Who sits atop the Big 12 South standings at the moment?  Yeah, you guessed it.  Baylor.

Another happy result from Saturday was Navy’s 35-17 win over the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.  I have no real reason to cheer for Navy, but I do like to see Notre Dame take a beating.  The 4-4 Irish will face tough tests in at least two of their remaining games, against Utah and USC.  The Notre Dame – USC game always puts me in the awkward position of wanting both teams to lose.

In the “where the #$*^ did that come from” department, the Oakland Raiders put the smack down on longtime rivals the Denver Broncos, 59-14.  For at least a day, fans had to stop bashing Al Davis and stand in awe of that which the Raiders wrought.

Flipping the page to baseball … The Texas Rangers knocked off the “best” team that money could buy, sending the Yankees packing.  The Rangers raced out to a 3 games to 1 lead before finishing off the Yankees in six games.  On the opposite side of the bracket, the Giants put an end to the Phillies reign of terror, halting their run of NL pennants at three.  The NLCS was the only series I have picked incorrectly in my pool, but it ended up clinching a victory for me.  I have Texas picked to win it all, and my other guy had the Phillies.

An interesting note … the Rangers scored at least six runs in all four of their wins against the Yankees.  The Giants scored no more than six runs in any of the NLCS games.  What to expect in the World Series?  Some really good starting pitching.

One of the most important aspects of any story is character development.  There’s a reason why you see may writers develop an entire series for a character – because people come to identify with characters and want to see what comes next.

The trick is to build characters that people can identify with and care about.  How can you do this?

Use the first person perspective

There are two major perspectives to use in fiction writing – first and third person (in theory, you could write in second person, but this is rare outside of the “choose-your-adventure” sort of novels).

Writing in the first person perspective lets the reader see the world through the eyes of the main character.  Since the reader is going to be force fed just the one perspective,they’ll tend to identify with the character and be sympathetic to the character’s struggle.  The reader will see the character’s biased view as reality.

The downside to the first person perspective is that the reader will be privy only to details that the main character knows about.  When you write in the third person, you can have the narrator be omniscient and know everything that is going on.

Writing in the first person can also be difficult if you have more of an ensemble cast.  Whose viewpoint do you use in this case?

Some successful writers use first person, while others do quite well with third person.  Play around with it and see what suits you.  I typically write in the third person (probably to subconsciously distance myself from the nasty nature of some of my characters), but I’ll be experimenting with the first person in my Halloween story (coming on October 29).

The quest

Many stories feature the main character on a noble quest. I tend to read a lot of mysteries, so my characters are often trying to bring bad guys to justice. I can easily see how the character is doing important work – catching a serial killer benefits society. The quests aren’t always quite so cut-and-dried, but a protagonist is usually engaged in some sort of meaningful work. It’s unlikely that a character who repeatedly tilts at windmills is going to garner a huge number of fans – unless he happens to be Don Quixote.

“Everyman” attributes

Let’s say your main character is tall, rich, handsome, enjoys opera, and has no personal problems at all – living the perfect life.  How can I identify with this character – we have nothing in common!  (Well, maybe the handsome part …)  Developing some traits that the character shares with “real” people will help make the character seem more real.  This can be something as mundane as a distrust of politicians or  a dislike of pet owners who refuse to clean up after their animals (I absolutely hate the people who let their dog poop on my lawn and then don’t clean it up – they give all pet owners a bad name).

Warts and all

If you find yourself developing characters who are absolutely perfect, this is a problem.  People are not perfect, and the most believable characters have some flaws.  Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr is a thief, while his Matt Scudder characters battles with an alcohol addiction as well as a slightly nonstandard concept of justice.  Jeffery Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme (brought to the silver screen in the motion picture The Bone Collector) has a body that is flawed, and can be a bit of a jerk at time.  In the long run, all of these characters are good guys, but in the short run, they can do some bad things.

The best characters aren’t necessarily ones that you could hang out with 24/7.  The most believable characters are people who could get on your nerves from time to time.

[Editor’s note: In addition to her work here, Crunchy has picked up freelance gigs at Suite101 and Associated Content.  Check out her articles on those sites.]

I’m just waiting for that political ad. You know, the one that states their opponent eats small children or kicks kittens in the face. In Iowa, where I live, the ads are getting really, really dirty. What’s interesting is it is mostly Liberals (or groups that side with Liberals) slamming the Conservatives. The Conservatives, even those going against incumbents, are not getting that dirty…it’s the incumbent Liberals going after the challenging Conservatives. And if you watch any National news, you’ll see this is a trend nationwide.

The Liberals have gone on a literal witch hunt. Literal witch hunt. It’s not in Salem this time and it’s not the Puritans, but in Delaware and Liberals. The Liberals are scared–no, terrified. To bring out that Christine O’Donnell is a witch? Come on. Who hasn’t done something in high school or college that they’re not proud of? But witch? It’s not 1692.

The truth is, no matter how much I hate negative ads, I do know why they air. Six years ago, while working as a Communications Director for a Senatorial Campaign, we didn’t go negative. We didn’t have to. My boss wasn’t and isn’t that kind of a Senator. But working in politics, I did see more than my share of negative ads. It was Bush versus Kerry after all. In expressing my disgust for negative ads, one of our advisers said to me, “Sarah, do you know why they run negative ads? Because they work.”

Sadly, he was right. They do work. Not on those who seek out the truth, not on those who research the candidates for themselves, but they work on those who catch the 30 seconds, believe it and vote. Thankfully, uninformed people rarely vote in a midterm election. The polls show Conservatives winning many races. But the polls who questioned likely voters show the Conservatives WAY ahead. Which is why the Liberals are scared. They don’t have their base energized like they did in 2008. Maybe they ran out of kool-aid, maybe no one who voted for Obama got their mortgage paid or a $20,000 check like they were promised (I’m not kidding, I know of a voter who actually believed this) or maybe no one could think of a better slogan than “Yes we can”.

Liberals, it’s time to face it. You failed. You got the power you’ve been whining and begging for years for and you failed. You’ve taken over health care, given Wall Street bail outs, gave “cash for clunkers”, bailed out the failing auto industry, continued to lose more and more jobs and seem to think the only way to solve the problem is to throw money at it—er, I mean, economic stimulus…yeah, that’s it.

Liberals are a broken record. “Stimulus, stimulus, stimulus.” In a time where families are living on one income due to a lost job, prices of everything going up and pay increases have been frozen due to the economy we’re all having to tighten our belts. All we hear is “stimulus, stimulus, stimulus”. And that, to the working American sounds like, “spend, spend, spend.” As Ronald Reagan once said, “We could say [Democrats] spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors. It would be unfair, because the sailors are spending their own money.”

It’s time to take back OUR country. It’s OUR money they’re spending; not theirs. Watch “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, something I love to do every two years and then vote. Learn about the candidates. Really research the issues. View everything without looking at their party affiliation and then vote. Vote for the candidate, not the party. Whether it be Democrat, Republican or Tea.

And if you plan to vote for those who voted for the bailouts, Obamacare and all of the stimulus spending, don’t forget to vote on November 3rd.

Election day is looming – and with it, the decision of whom to vote for. 

For the majority of Americans, this won’t be a difficult choice.  As devoted members of the Democratic, Republicans, or Toga party, they will simply vote for the candidate with a D, R, or T next to their name.

However, millions of unaffiliated voters will face a choice when they stare at the ballot.  Conventional wisdom suggests that voters should cast a vote for the candidate whom they have the most in common with.  But is this a time to turn conventional wisdom on its head?

There are hundreds of issues that you can take a stance on, but the vast majority are irrelevant for one of three reasons:

• You don’t have particularly strong views on the issue
• Nearly everyone agrees with you
• Nearly everyone disagrees with you

By definition, an issue that you don’t care about very much shouldn’t sway your vote.  It really doesn’t matter if you vote for someone who agrees or disagrees with you – it won’t have much of an impact on your life.

If an issue has widespread support, it’s also irrelevant.  For example, I favor sustained peaceful relations with Canada (despite the fact that they have soiled the good name of bacon by releasing their own, inferior version).  Of course, so does nearly everyone else.  Regardless of whether I vote for a pro-Canada or anti-Canada candidate, I don’t see a war against Canada in the near future.

How about the flip side of this – an issue where nearly everyone disagrees with you.  Let’s say I support the deportation of all Nebraska residents to a colony on the moon (I’m fairly sure that I’m not in favor of this).    While this idea would likely get some support from people in other Big 12 states, it’s not likely to get more than token support in congress.  So even if I vote for the Nebraska-Moon party candidate, it’s not going to happen.

(Yes, these examples are both pretty contrived)

What does that leave us with?  Issues that are both:

• Important to you
• Competitive

I’ll quantify “competitive” as some with between about 43% of 57% support (among people who have an opinion on the issue).  This is an arbitrary range, but “feels right”.  These are issues where you can actually make a difference – if you and like-minded people elect a few people to congress who share your views, you may push support from minority to majority (or vice versa) and get new legislation enacted.

This year, two issues are front and center for me.

The first is gay marriage.  I have not friends that are openly gay, but I have become a strong proponent of allowing gay couples to get married (not just civil unions, but actual marriage).  I’ve written on this a number of times, and am not going to rehash everything I have said in the past.  Suffice it to say that it’s an issue that I feel strongly about.

The supreme court of Iowa (where I live) has deemed that a ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.  Opponents of the rule would like to enact a constitutional amendment to trump this ruling … but state law dictates that such a proposal must pay in two separate state general assemblies, at which point it would be placed on the ballot.  The current makeup of the state legislature doesn’t have enough support to get the ball rolling – and I’ll do my part to ensure that this remains true.

On the judicial side, three of the justices (the only three up for renewal this November) who joined in the unanimous opinion are under attack by groups opposing the ruling, who are running ads asking voters to throw them out of office.  In Iowa, voters simply vote to retain a judge or not retain them.  It’s not common for this to become politicized.  The judges, of course, can’t simply have fund-raisers to run their own ads – as this would be a major conflict of interest.  A group siding with the judges has recently begun to run ads.

I’ll be voting “retain”.  If the justices are thrown out because of this decision, what sort of message is this sending to the court?  A pretty clear one – don’t make decisions that could be unpopular, even if the decision is correct.  That’s a disturbing thought.  I have no problem throwing out justices who engage is judicial misconduct – but not for simply making a controversial decision. 

The second issue is the privatization of social security.  This falls completely on the other side of the political spectrum from gay marriage – being supported only by conservatives.

I’m very puzzled by the politicization of this issue.  Groups who oppose privatization point to downturns in the stock market and suggest that turning over Social Security to Wall Street would be very risky.

Of course, nobody has ever suggested that people take the contributions that currently go to Social Security (12.4% of wages) and throw them into penny stocks.  In my particular situation, I can beat the return of Social Security by putting your money into 30 year treasuries (this is not an exaggeration – my rate of return on Social Security is projected to be slightly over 2%).  Your mileage may vary a bit, but the reality is that you don’t need to take on a lot of risk to beat the return of social security (in my case, no additional risk).

This issue is probably a bit outside my range, as I don’t know that it has 43%.  However, I do feel that the issue would have considerably more support if it were properly explained on a bigger stage.

I doubt that these are the two issues that you care most about.  However, I suspect that you have a number of issues that are important to you and also competitive  – make sure your view is represented on these issues.

Thursday

UCLA @ Oregon (-21.5) – Oregon…each and every week until proven otherwise. Ore 52- UCLA 21

Friday

South Florida @ Cincinnati (-8.5) – Da Bulls, Da Bulls, Da Bulls, Da Bulls. Natti – 28 – SFU – 21

Saturday

Purdue @ Ohio State (-27.5) – It’s good to be home again, but no energy this week. OSU – 31- Purdon’t – 17

Michigan State (-8.5) @ Northwestern – Northwestern catches em on a sleeper. Mich St 24- NW – 21

Rutgers @ Pittsburgh (-8.5) – Rutgers is playing better. Pitt 17- Rutgers – 14

Notre Dame (-4.5) @ Navy – the Middies streak ends this year. ND – 28- Navy 21

Maryland @ Boston College (-4.5) – BC will conquer the turtles. BC- 28- Maryland- 20

Nebraska (-3.5) @ Oklahoma State– Huskers won’t drop 9 passes this week. Corn 35- OSU 28

LSU @ Auburn (-4.5) – War Eagle! Auburn 21- LSU – 10

Wisconsin @ Iowa (-6.5) – Wisconsin cannot get the karma going again on the road this week but will cover. IA – 24- Wisco – 21

Arizona State @ California (-1.5) – Who Cares? ASU – 35- Cal -31

Georgia Tech @ Clemson (-5.5) – Clem gets back on track this week…Dabo..dabo Doooooooo!. Clem – 31- Ga tech – 21

North Carolina @ Miami (-7.5) – The gangsters are better at home. Miami – 28- NC – 14

Air Force @ TCU (-16.5) – The Cadets stinging after last week, not a good week to make up for it. Frogs- 35- Fliers – 14

Oklahoma (-6.5) @ Missouri – Mizzou gets a taste of what it is like to finally play someone good. OU – 42- Mizzou – 21

Washington @ Arizona (-4.5) Jake Locker looking like a Heisman candidate again? AZ- 28 – Wash – 27

We are in that time of year where you can have overload of sports. College and Professional Football are in full swing, Basketball and Hockey are in preseason, Major League baseball is approaching the World Series and auto racing is in the final lap. It is quite easy to overload or get in trouble with your spouse this time of year.

Many people around the country live and die with their teams or heroes. I am partial to college and pro football and wear that allegiance on my sleeve. I have a bar that caters to my pro team even though we are hundreds of miles from the home city. My college team is nationally known, so I have many opportunities to see them on TV, but when I can’t, enter the internet.

These events bring people together, most of the time for camaraderie, sometimes in competition. These are opportunities for all of us to show our own sportsmanship. The results of each contest result in week long discussions. Conspiracy theories come and go, complaints are registered, wins are celebrated, loses are mourned. The true benefit this year is that we get distracted from the politics that have overwhelmed our entertainment options. Politics are not bad in general, but who is elected dog catcher is not an end of the world decision. Sports just gives us a break, possibly giving us a chance to breath and look at the political landscape with a fresh attitude after a weekend of sheering on the home team.

Unfortunately, the full sports story is not on the field. I am a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. My team had to play the first four games of the season without their star quarterback. This absence was due to the personal conduct of that player. He seems to have trouble making good choices when in comes to behavior off the field. He has been accused of rape. He has driven his motor cycle into the side of a panel van during the early hours of a morning. He has exposed himself to a woman in a bar with probable sexual contact in a public place. If he can get the team into the playoffs, most fans will forgive him, some will always condemn him.

So what does all of our sports addiction do for us? It gives us an escape. We can claim to be part of an activity that most of us do not have the physical qualifications to perform. It allows us to ignore the rest of the world for a few hours. It allows us to argue about something that is not politics or religion. In the end, we are less active and eat poorly while watching people exercise and having well maintained bodies (except for some of the linemen in football and designated hitters in baseball). As in all things in life, some good and some bad results come from sporting events. My advice is to get as much enjoyment as you can from any source. And just to complete my affiliation confession – Go Texas Longhorns

Last week I made my triumphant return as the weekly entertainment contributor after many months off. I know this will make all of my regular readers sad, but I’m going to contribute from a different angle this week.

Let me say beforehand, I’m not trying to prove anything, and I’m definitely not trying to preach to anybody, so please don’t take it that way. I’m simply going to write from the heart, and am only doing so as a way to help myself – whether that be to grieve or to mourn I do not know. You’ll understand more once you’re finished reading.

I’ll start off by saying my dad wasn’t the healthiest guy in the world, having suffered from several heart attacks, a quadruple bypass open heart surgery, and a leg amputation in the last 10 years or so. Since his heart failure and leg amputation in 2006, he’s had monthly checkups, just to make sure everything is still running ok.

Fast forward to the day before Thanksgiving, 2009. After going to a local VA clinic for his blood work, they noticed that his blood was nearly 5 times thinner than it should have been, and they also noticed that his skin had a yellow “tint” to it. His doctor urged him to go across the street to the ER to get checked out because something was clearly not right.

After a few tests and some medicines, the doctors concluded that he had either gall stones, which are very painful, or he had a tumor, which was blocking some liquids in the gall bladder / pancreas / liver area. He had absolutely no pain, so the diagnosis was a tumor. Since it was the holiday, they wouldn’t be able to go in and do a biopsy until the following Monday, but that would give them a very clear picture of what was going on.

After taking the biopsy, the doctor informed me that it was obviously cancerous and had spread to the lymph nodes. We need to meet with an Oncologist to discuss our options.

So, we met with a surgeon at the VA hospital in Indianapolis (my dad received all of his medical care from the VA). The tumor was surrounding the blood vessels of the pancreas, making surgery to remove the tumor impossible. The only other option was Chemotherapy. He would get started on Chemo ASAP, as pancreatic cancer is one of, if not the most aggressive form of cancer. His Chemo option was to do 1 treatment per week through an IV, along with taking a pill form twice a day. We’d do that for 6 weeks, do another CT scan, and see if it was eliminating any of the cancer, stopping it from spreading, or doing nothing at all.

Those first few treatments were extremely rough. He got very sick, just like most Chemo patients do. But, through it all, he stayed as strong as ever. When we went back for the 6 week scan, the doctor explained that they cancer had spread to his liver, and the Chemo treatments were doing nothing at all.

Now it was time for plan B. Another Chemo. This time it would be in the form of pills only – 4 in the morning and 4 at night. Do this for 6 weeks and then do CT scan #2, with a 3 week checkup in between. The first 3 weeks went just fine. Dad did lose some weight, but that’s normal. At his 3 week checkup, the doctors decided that he was still healthy enough to do another 3 weeks of Chemo treatments, so he did. That’s when everything started to change. He just started getting “weird”. Kinda like he was just not really there.

The bottom dropped out on Sunday, July 11th. In my daily trip down to his house, I found him lying in bed, like a zombie. He had no idea what was going on or even where he was. I eventually called 911, and the EMT’s talked him into going to the hospital to get checked out. Once there, the nurses said his blood pressure was extremely low, something like 50/20. He hadn’t eaten in a few days. Wasn’t really going to bathroom. Deep down, I knew that none of this was a good sign.

They eventually moved him to a room in the ICU. The plan was going to be to run some tests, then possibly put him on kidney dialysis to try to regain some function. When my wife and I left Sunday night, he seemed ok. He was still responding to everybody. We left around midnight and would come back up the next morning.

When we got there Monday morning he seemed a little worse than the night before. He was still responding, but not as often and he seemed extremely irritated. After sticking around for a little while, the docs were going to run some more tests so we left and were going to come back later in the afternoon. Around 5 that night, I got a call from the nurse that we needed to get to the hospital ASAP. Dad was no longer responding and was not doing well at all. After seeing him when we got there, I knew he was in bad shape. The nurse explained to me that they could still do the kidney dialysis, but at this point that would be a form of life support. She also explained the kidney doctor didn’t think that was the best option for him.

Now came the hardest, yet easiest decision I’ve ever had to make. Knowing how the last week had been, how much pain he had been in and how miserable his life was becoming, why drag it out for no reason, when he would have no good quality of life. I made the decision to not do dialysis, and to take him off the medicines that he was on for his heart, liver, etc. She informed Shana and I that it wouldn’t be long without those medicines, and it wasn’t. I’d say no more than 30 minutes.

I couldn’t have been more thankful that the nurse called us, because I got to be there with him during his last few moments, and that’s something I’ll never forget. It was July 12, and it’s been more than 3 months, but I still remember it like it was yesterday.

I lost not only my dad, but my best friend. He chose to raise me from the time I was born as he and my mother got divorced soon after I was born. To this day, I have no relationship with her. But I couldn’t be more thankful that he was willing to raise me as a single dad without blinking an eye. He was always the coach on whatever sports team I played on and he was my sports watching buddy. We saw each other nearly every day, whether it be just going to each others’ house to hang out or going to Menards to walk around mindlessly and look at stuff. When he wanted to do that, it drove me crazy. I’d just think how can you keep coming to the same place and keep looking at the same stuff for hours. Yet, I want nothing more than to do that now.

I don’t know that I have a “goal” from this article, but I do know that the cheesy saying “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone” could not be more true. Finding out that my dad had pancreatic cancer, I knew that the odds were against him. And you try to prepare yourself for something like this, but as I found out, there is absolutely no way to prepare. When you lose somebody who is not only a parent but a best friend, it hits you like a ton of bricks.

I think about him every minute of every day. Growing up, I was always too embarrassed to give him a hug, or to tell him that I love him. I’m thankful that in the last few years, I got over that. Every time I saw him, I made sure to give him a hug and to tell him that I love him. Who cares what people think! We had a lot of talks during our trips to Indianapolis for Chemo treatments, but to this day I still feel like I never had closure with him. I always avoided sitting down and actually having that GOOD talk with him. When I say I’d do anything just to talk to him one more time, I really would. I’d just want to thank him for everything he did for me. For raising me like a lot of fathers would not have done. For instilling in me the qualities that I have today and am proud of. Without him, I don’t know that I’d have any of those qualities and have no idea where I’d be in today’s world.

I don’t know that I’ve ever gone through the grieving process before his death. I’ve lost other people that were extremely close to me, like my Grandmother and an Aunt. But ironically, my dad was the person I went to for support. To listen to me or to spend time with me to take my mind off of it. In this situation, he’s the person I would’ve gone to, but he’s not there. So I guess I just have that feeling of being lost. Don’t get me wrong, I have a wonderful wife who has been there for me for the past 3 months and has been wonderful with listening and helping me with everything. But that doesn’t take away the pain from his passing.

I’ve tried different ways to “deal” with it, or to grieve, and I’ve been unsuccessful so far. I guess I’m hoping that this article will help, if only in a small way. I’ve been told that getting feelings down on paper will help, so we’ll see.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! Next week we’ll get back to the fun and exciting entertainment article!