I suck as a Blogger

So it has been over 6 months since my last post... I'm not good at this thing.

A lot has happened in that 6 months.

With the Family

We took our son on his first airplane ride. At the age of 10.5 months, we took him down to Florida to see his aunt Katie. He did surprisingly well. We were so terrified that he was going to be one of those kids that screamed for the whole flight. He wasn't. He had fun on the way down, and was very well behaved. On the way home, he slept.

He also turned 1 in December and got to celebrate his first Christmas. That was probably more fun for his mother and I than him.

With Sports

Browns fell short of the playoffs. Great season in that they won 10 games (2 better than I predicted). Rough, because we lost to Pittsburgh 2x and Cincinnati at the end of the season. There are 4 games of the 6 they lost that they should have won. But who would have picked them to go 14 -2? The second Pittsburgh loss hurt. Their off season moves have been good. I look forward to this season, although it will be tough to duplicate what they did.

The Indians fell one game short of the World Series. The ALCS was far better than the actual WS. We gave Boston everything they could handle, but just couldn't pull it out. Again, I hope for a WS championship, but it will be tough, as I think we are in one of the most competitive, if not the most competitive divisions in baseball.

The Cavs - make a huge trade just before the trade deadline... will it be enough? They have to get healthy and gel in a hurry for it to work. We'll see.

Politics
What a mess. The democrats chose the republican candidate in early open primaries, and the republicans (and a very stubborn woman) are preventing the Dems from naming their candidate. It is going to be an ugly political season, well, it already is. It is unfortunate that we don't have the option the Russians do in their elections: D) None of the above. Make them do it all over again, but none of the existing candidates can enter.

What I find hilarious, is that in the first Presidential election I could vote in, the media basically forced Bob Dole to retire from the Senate, asking him how could he possibly run for President and still fulfill his duties as a Senator. This year, we have 3 senators running, and this question has never been raised. Yet, the three of them only seem to get back to vote on high visibility votes, such as Iraq. If they were my senator, I'd be a little pissed about not having representation.

I happen to agree with the question. If you are going to run for President, commit to it. All or nothing. I sure as hell couldn't keep my job and hop around the country for 18 months spending 10's of millions of dollars, hoping to get a job that pays $400k. If I did this, I sure as hell wouldn't get my old job back, let alone, keep benefits for life.

Bottom line, our political system is F-d up. It is time for some BIG Change, and NONE of this candidates offer it.

I'm out. I may write before another 6 months passes.

I'm still pissed

The loss to the Raiders is still burning me. I think having everyone at work know that I am a loyal fan to the Browns doesn't help. It is now 8:18 as I write this and countless people have already come by to take their jabs at me. Bunch of band wagon hopping a-holes. I guess I wasn't as loyal of a guy as I am. It would make things easier.

As I look back on that game, I still place 95% of the blame on the players. The one coaching move I didn't understand at the time, and I still don't, is on our second to last drive. There was approximately 4 minutes left in the game, and we are down by two scores. Why were we not in a hurry-up offense? In the end, it worked out that we had enough time to drive down for a makeable fieldgoal for the win... however, it is a big risk when we hadn't had good luck stopping them all day. I would think you would want as much time on the clock as possible. That is the one coaching move I did not get.

More rants on the players...

I picked on D.A. quite a bit yesterday, and he deserved every bit if not more. He did lead a pretty nice 2 minute drill at the end of the game, I'll give him that. However, for 3-1/2 quarters he was the pre-season D.A. that cost him the starting job in the first place. He made some real nice throws to the Raiders. Hit them right in the numbers. The first one, Oakland's LB took two steps back after the snap and D.A. put it square between the numbers. Nice throw, MORON!

I'm getting tired of seening Andra Davis and our other DB's getting run over. Yesterday, I thought the gravy boat (Ted Washington) did a good job of keeping the linemen off of the linebackers yesterday. I saw many occasions where they were free to hit Jordan at or behind the line of scrimmage. However, they would carry our LB's, especially Davis 3-5 yards down the field. His TD run was a prime example. Davis hit him about a yard behind the line of scrimmage, promptly buckled and let him in for the score. Why do opponents LB's run through the tackle but we seem to enjoy getting rolled over. MORONS!

This game should not have been close. It should not have come down to a last second field goal attempt by Dawson. Speaking of which... we acted surprised that Oakland called a timeout. Hello! Did anyone realize they had TO's available, or what happened to them the week before? Then on the actual kick, Dawson may or may not have left it too low, it was hard to tell. However, who ever #68 is, I believe it to be Seth McKinney, got blown up. Pontbriand did a better job of blocking with his head between his knees than McKinney did. The defense got up under him, stood him up, pushed him back and had a nice clear lane to jump and block that kick from. It was so bad that he was turned around and looking Dawson in the eyes when he kicked the ball. That is not good. Morons!

I even called Braylon Edwards a Moron at one point yesterday. However, he made up for his bone-headed drop on 3rd down. Edwards made excellent catches the rest of the day, including an unbelievable catch down around the 5 yard line where he out jumped the defender and came down in bounds. It was a nice grab.

One note of awesomeness from the game.... our Punter. Not only did he punt well... eh hem, Mr. Ernster, but he wore the single bar face mask, pulled down around his chin. Awesome. Then he had the Hulk Hogan blond moustache. That rocked.

Everyone else on the team is a Moron.

And now after coming in to work and listening to the radio, I now understand how teams that are bad stay bad for so long, i.e. the Cardinals, the Bengals, the Saints, and now the Browns. Unless a coach comes in and has immediate success (i.e. Sean Peyton or Marvin Lewis), they are run out the door. Then they whole cycle starts again. I am very depressed to think that we are going to blow this up again. Get a new coach... have to wait 2-3 years for him to get his players, implement his schemes... then do it all over again, because he hasn't had any success either. The teams with the most success have some stability. The Patriots have had Bill Beli-cheater there for a while. Coordinaters have changed, but the scheme hasn't. The Steelers keep their coaches longer than a decade at a time. And when they bring in a new coach, they keep as much the same as possible, especially things that work, like a Dick Lebeau defense. If the fricking Ravens... yuck, gag, puke. Brian Dickhead has been there since '99.

Speaking of the Ravens. I am not looking forward to this week. I almost don't want to go or even watch the game. The fans will be chanting for Quinn within the first two minutes of the game. I'll be surrounded by Baltimore fans in the stands. I'll have to watch a defense that can tackle and intimidate people. And I'll watch a crappy offense look like the Niners of the 80's against our defense. How depressing.

With that all of that said... here is some positive spin.

As bad as we played, we had a chance to win that game yesterday. They seemed to get their crap together for the most part after the 1st quarter and compete, taking a lead at one point 17-16.

There are signs of hope. We have to put it all together, and in a hurry, to keep this season alive.

Baltimore is a beatable team. Hell, the Bengals beat them. I want to see someone break Ray Lewis. Kick him in the groin or something.

If we don't act like Morons, we can beat them. If we give the Raven defense any boost by playing like Morons, it will snowball and we're done.

Watch the film today of the Raiders game... take notes, fix the problems... and forget about it. Start getting ready for the Ravens.

PS> Quinn starts against Miami.

Jubilation to Anger and frustration

I was joyous today at about 4:00. The Indians clinched the Central Division against the Oakland A's. They were the first team to clinch a division this year. They were tied (at the time) for the best record in baseball. All things were good.

The Browns were about to start in a game I thought they should win. They were coming off a big performance against the Bengals.

However, things got ugly quick. They are a bunch of morons playing... I swear it to be true. Most of the problems the Browns had were bad mental mistakes.

There is no excuse for Wright getting toasted for that TD on 3rd and short. He bit hard on the play action, and his guy ran right by him.

Giving up a 3rd and 26 is inexcusable. This lead to the field goal that would be the difference in the game.

Then giving up a 3rd and 10 to allow Oakland to burn more time off the clock.

The real Derrek Anderson came out today. He was off target and made bad decisions.

In reality, this game shouldn't have been close. If Anderson hits a couple passes most NFL QB's hit 99% of the time, the game really isn't close.

I was disgusted and frustrated with this game. This loss is right on the players. I thought the coaches put together a good game plan, but the execution was horrible. Good play calling, bad execution. Good defenses called, bad tackling and coverage. MORONS!

The Browns turn me into a person I do not like being, and I really don't like my son seeing me act that way. Right after this game I took his little Browns 'one-sie' off and threw it away. He does not need to go through this torture... I'm not sure why I subject myself to it.

A day to remember...

I owe an update on my thoughts on the current state of the Browns, especially after the pathetic outing that was the Steelers game this past weekend, however, that is not appropriate for today.

Today was the 6th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks on our country.

I could use this as a diatribe for/against the current war or the way the government and country are harshly divided. But I won't. It isn't worth it.

I spent a lot of today thinking about that day. As most Americans do, I vividly recall where and what I was doing. I was working in Ravenna Lamp Plant. I remember the first reports were "a plane" hit the trade center, described as a little Cesna. Then more and more information came in. It was clear that his was no Cesna, and probably was not an accident. In the cafeteria of the plant, they turned on a TV. I saw the second plane hit the the tower live, this was no accident. It was a state of disbelief. I remember people openly crying and were just in a state of shock. It was very surreal.

It is hard to explain all the emotion that goes through me when thinking back on these events; anger, sadness, desire for vengeance, fear and even pride. I don't ever remember a time, albeit brief, when the entire country pulled together like that. In that respect, it was wonderful; just horrible that it took such a tragedy to do it.

Even today, six years after the fact, I still found myself with a tear in my eye and a little choked up when thinking about it. I think about families losing loved ones; or the fear people had to have if they were trapped in the Towers. For someone to jump from higher than 80 stories up, had to indicate the horrors that were happening in that building. I reflect that back into my own life and think about losing one of my parents, my wife, my son, a friend or leaving them behind because something happened to me, and it is hard to deal with the thought. My thoughts and prayers go out to all of the victims, survivors and their families. I have a hard time imagining that happening to my family, let alone actually having to go through it.

My thoughts and prayers are also for our country as a whole. We need it. We need a bold leader to provide some inspiration, ignite new hope and dreams, aspirations of greatness. We, as Americans, are looking for this, can anyone provide it?

9/11/01 - We'll never forget.

God Bless the USA.

Two Rants before I go to bed

#1 Rant = Michael Vick.

First of all I am sick of this story. What he is accused of is disgusting. I cannot fathom such acts or getting a kick out of watching such cruelty. I think Vick should be thanking his lucky stars that he is only going to get what he pleads to, because it could have been a lot worse.

Now, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. He is still proclaiming his innocense. This as he agrees to a plea deal in which he is goign to enter a guilty plea. I think they have approximately 5-7 witnesses lined up against him. It doesn't look good for him, but we'll see what the plea deal is. If it is ony for interstate commerce violations, the federal case against him probably wasn't as strong as the media made it out to be. If it was that strong, then there is no way a federal prosecutor would let this go.

Also, this is not a race issue. IF some other high profile QB in the NFL was accused of the same things, they'd be all over him, white, black, green or purple. It wouldn't matter. I cannot stand the supporters of Vick, i.e. the NAACP, saying this is a witch hunt just because he is black. No, if you really want to advance your race, you would not defend this guy, but say, yes, make an example out of him. Here is a guy that had everything given to him once he was recognized as a talent. However, instead of using his talent to escape the drudgery and the low life surrounding him in the ghetto, he brought the ghetto with him. It cost him dearly. It didn't take very long for the thugs he hung out with to turn on him forcing him into the plea deal.

If the NAACP, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, et. al. wanted to do some good, they'd be out promoting the other 98-99% of the good guys around the league. Guys like Steve Sanders on the Browns, who came from a rough neighborhood. But he's worked hard and he's raised himself up. He's graduated from college and is competing for a spot on the team. He has not forgotten where he comes from, no, he still goes back to the neighborhood and tries to help out. See this article in the Pain Dealer.

In addition, I cannot stand the people that say Michael Vick Deserves a second shot at the NFL when he gets out of prison... WHAT?!! Horsesh*t! Playing in the NFL is a privilege, not a right. They guy had the opportunity and he squandered it. In my opinion he'd be out of the league for good. He has God given talent that is undeniable, and could be an extremely exciting player to watch. But, in my opinion, he should be out.... good bye. However, as soon as he's out of prison, there will be about 20 NFL teams fighting over the chance to sign him. Ugh.... If he does get a second chance, he better show remorse and "get it" this time.

#2 Rant = Negativity in Cleveland

I'm a life long Cleveland fan, and it is very easy to get sucked into this. However, I've had enough. I will not be part of the negativity that surrounds our sports teams... I've heard enough of it on the radio. Kenny Roda and Kevin Keane are by far the worst as of recently. I can't stand listening to them.

I hear fans talking about it. Even they guys I tailgate with are pretty negative and some of them have been season ticket holders for more than 20 years. It is depressing. Enough already.

Negativity breeds negativity... self-fulfilling prophecy.

I will continue to try and be optimistic. I expected the Browns preseason to be bad. Game #1 is where I thought they'd be... granted Game #2 was a step back for the starters, but I think Quinn could ignite something in this town. I don't want him to start, so I'm hoping it ignites a fire under Frye or Anderson. I think we will win on Sept. 9th against the Steelers, but we'll see where it goes.

The Indians just finished taking 2 out of 3 from the Tigers building their lead to 2.5 games as they go into a series with KC and the Tigers have to go play the Yankees. It looks good for us. So I am believing it will be. I expect us to win the Central... period.

Go Cleveland. Stay positive. A winning attitude will help bread a winner.

My Weekend, the Browns, and the Indians

We had some nasty weather come through NE Ohio last week. In fact, a Tornado touched down in Lodi. Lodi is not horribly far from my house, but it is much closer to my in-laws house. My in-laws happen to be in Florida as we speak, so my wife and I spend Friday and Saturday cleaning up their farm. The weather took off a top of a tree, broke a bunch of branches, including one that was bout 5" in diameter and sent it flying about 15 -20 feet. This clean-up also allowed me to step on a Bee's nest, which they did not like. They let me know by stinging me multiple times. Not good times...

I went to the Browns' first preseason game against the KC Chiefs on Saturday with my Dad. I didn't ride up in the the "Ugly Dawg" (our 1969 Dodge Camper painted up in Browns Colors), because of my cleanup efforts.

The game was pretty lack-luster. Charlie Frye did not look good, but he was the best quarterback on the field. That isn't good for the Browns or the Chiefs. I did see that Charlie was more comfortable in the pocket, probably because he had time. He didn't finish every play on his back. He still made some dumb ass decisions though (his first pass that the LB for KC dropped, and trying to scramble into the end-zone with less than 10 seconds in the half).

The best part of the game had nothing to do with on-the-field activities. About midway through the 2nd quarter all of a sudden there was this loud standing ovation coming from behind me. It made no sense, we were on a TV timeout or something, nothing was happening on the field. I turned around and about 30 guys in the back rows were standing up and applauding. I looked down the aisle and coming up the stairs was a very VERY fine looking young lady that was either gifted by God, or bought her gifts from her friendly neighborhood plastic surgeon. She was sitting in row 44, which is second to last. It was a long walk for her. It was a wonderful moment... then she also had to go down the steps after the game, another fine site to see.

In all, the game was OK. I had a good time and I was entertained. I saw some potential on Offense as they get the new offense down and understand the ins and outs of its execution. Joe Thomas did pretty well. He had a couple holds, which I blame on the number since it was Dieken's old number. Eric Wright had a couple nice plays and didn't look out of place. The defense overall looked pretty good, but we have to cover the guys in the flats much better. I look for Brady to get in against Detroit, but he won't be pushing for a starting job until after the bye week.

As for the Indians, I don't have much to say after a weekend sweep by the Yankees. All I can say is, get your head out of your asses and lets get going. You are gonig to have to win the AL Central to get in, so lets get to it.

There is so much else going on right now, but I'm just out of time...

Maybe I'll always be quiet.

So the Indians lost on Wednesday to the rangers, after having a 6-4 lead. I was pretty pissed. If time would have let me, I would have gotten on here and ranted. I would have ranted about their horrible offensive showing and the bullpen sucking hind-tit.

However, they went out on Thursday and put together a very good outing. Jake pitched well for the second straight game, getting his first win since April. The bullpen held the lead and the offense put some more runs on the board.

Then last night, they went out and beat Johan Santana in Minnesota, giving CC his 14th win this season. Oh, they stay a game ahead in the wild card and more importantly, move into 1st place in the Central.

Hmm. I guess I'll just shut up...

Carry on tribe.

Side note> Ryan Tucker suspended for 4 games... at least this year we have depth. Did I mention how glad I am we didn't trade Shaffer? Oh and Brady.. enough is enough. Get your ass in camp.