Christmas: Savoring the Memories

It was a quiet Christmas here in Salinas. There was no tree. There were no lights. Christmas dinner was cioppino, a fish stew originated by Italian fishermen sailing from the Monterey and San Francisco wharves in the early 1800’s.

I hadn’t recovered enough from Jeannie’s passing to shop, and there was none of that while she was in the hospital. It was the same with Christmas cards. We had plans to make our own again this year.

Still, it wasn’t as gloomy around here as all that sounds. There were calls from family and friends, and every day there were the Christmas and sympathy cards together in the mail box. My mother packed up krumkakke, sandbakkelse, and lefse – even threw in a stick of butter and some brown sugar – and overnighted the traditional Norwegian pastries to arrive Christmas eve. It did. All intact, too.

Before that I’d already decided that I was doing Jeannie no honor by ignoring Christmas, so I dug into the place where the season’s decor is stored. There, clamoring to get out, were her Christmas elves, little creatures that annually have helped us bake, straighten, and clean in preparation for the holiday. Well, I had to let them out, of course, along with the plush reindeer riding in the wooden sleigh and the mousie with the antlers tied to her head.

With our little elf friends scattered through the apartment, and the cards a few gifts arranged on the dining room table, it was almost festive. The cioppino was excellent (Murphy’s got the recipe). With the lefse...and sandbakkelse...and krumkakke, it became a quiet night in which some wonderful memories could be savored.

Christmas Day was consumed with work on a gift from Jeannie to those who loved her. After that’s done I’ll get to the cards of thanks for the kind thoughts and memorials so many of you sent.

I deeply appreciate the support of family and so many friends, and wish each and every one a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

Someone Had a Clue

In spite of considerable effort to give it away, the Vikings won that game against the Bears. I was on the right track, but wrong again (even if I didn't predict an outright loss, I was getting ready for that outcome, wasn't I?) My son reminded me that he had a different - far more accurate, as it turns out - pre-season view of the Vikings prospects. So I dug out his August e-mail. He tells me he's available if ESPN calls.

In an idle moment today (August 30) I came across the ESPN NFL power rankings. Naturally, I scrolled down to find the Vikings. And scrolled and scrolled, until foundthem at 27. I know they're not exactly Walsh's Niners but what the Heck? Below the Chiefs, the Lions? Dolphins, Bills, Redskins? I was stunned. What were they thinking? Well, here it is:

"Vikes: Whew! The Kelly Holcomb Sweepstakes are over, and the Vikings are the big winners. And their prize? A journeyman quarterback with 21 starts who'll provide backup for Tavaris Jackson."

Never mind that Johnny Unitas couldn't win throwing to Dennis Northcutt and Steve Heiden, but who cares about Kelly Holcomb? Defining a team solely by a backup quarterback is pretty thin, and in this case, way off the mark.

The Vikes have the strongest offensive left side of the line in all of football, and two very capable runners to pound behind it. That, coupled with a top ten defense (top 5 against the run) should merit them more respect the 27th spot.

Of those listed ahead of the Vikings, let’s start with the Chiefs. You want to talk QB problems? Damon Huard won some games last year, but apparently has had such a bad camp that he was one dropped pass away from losing his job to Brodie Croyle. Ok, they do have Larry Johnson and, well, that's it. The line is depleted, the defense sucks and Tony Gonzales is so far from his glory days he's getting mistaken for Carlos Mencia at the local Bi-Lo.

The Lions make me sick really. Everyone in the country must have Alzheimer's and be sun-downing at the same time. "Jon Kitna must be pinching himself. Roy Williams? Calvin Johnson? Any quarterback would love to have that combination," This could easily read "Charles Rogers? Mike Williams?" Why is this year so different? They did nothing in the off-season about the O-line or lousy defense.

I’m not sure if sports writers that think this is Detroit's year remind me of more the Heaven's Gate people trying to hitch a ride on Hale Bop, or the old woman in The Notebook who can't remember 5 minutes ago.

The Dolphins are marching out an opening day roster that has an offense led by Trent Green, and a defense led by Zach Thomas and Jason Taylor. Combinedage? 103. These guys still turn-on MTV and expect to see music videos. They remember when cameras just took pictures and phones just took calls.

Minny gets no love. They'll just have to earn it on the field.

Ashley Thomas

Been There, Done That

I’ve been notoriously bad as a football prognosticator, including that “sure fire” Las Vegas parlay of last year’s bowl games. Mercifully, we didn’t pay much for the humiliation.

At the beginning of the season, I derided the Packers for not retiring Brett Favre. I poked fun at the Motor City Kitties (who started strong, but have come back to earth), and I had nothing good to say about Vikings coaching or quarterbacking. The Bears were the defending NFC champs, so you have to give me some slack for being on their bandwagon.

My picks for the NFC North were the Bears, followed – distantly – by the Packers, with the Lions and Vikings contending for the league’s futility trophy. (The Dolphins have that wrapped up now, though the Raiders and 49ers have made them work for it.) I was pretty sure that the collection of teams once known as the Black and Blue division was now the worst in the league.

How wrong can you be? OK, there’s that parley card.... But this is pretty bad. The Bears are at the Humphrey Metrodome tonight to play the perhaps playoff-bound Vikings. The Monsters of the Midway are out of the running. The cheezeheads are celebrating the Pack’s tied-for-best NFC record. And the Lions? They’re still Kitties, but six wins is a modern era high water mark. The Black and Blue is a not-too-shabby 21-15 against the rest of the league. For perspective, the formerly much-feared AFC West is a putrid 13-23 playing outside their division.

So that brings us to tonight’s tilt in the Hump. The Chicago press is dismissive of the Bears, and despairing of any but a Vikings romp. Sun Times columnist and ESPN contributor Jay Mariotti wrote today,

“ ‘RRRRRRR-UUUUUUU!!!' the trumpet echoes in all its Nordic power, followed by an equally maddening fight song (``Skol Vikings, let's win this game! Skol Vikings, honor your name!'') when they score a touchdown or field goal.”

The Bears will be hearing the toot all night.”

Then he and five of his Sun Times colleagues unanimously picked the Viking winners in a walk.

Which is why I’m prepared for a Scandinavian loss. Call it contrarian. Call it “been there, done that.” Whatever. I remember the 1998 NFC championship game, the 1961 Rose Bowl, four Super Bowls, recent Twins playoff “runs.” Well, you get the picture. “Sure things” are too often like my prediction for the NFC North, or that parley card. Bring ‘em on. I’m ready. For anything.

A Personal History of Computing - Part 3

(This was written on Wednesday, November 28. I thought it was now time to get on with the story.)

I was headed off to the United States Army when we left Part 2. The army of the sixties and early seventies wasn’t much into computing power. Of course there wasn’t much computing power any place else, either. Perspective? We went to the moon with less data processing and storage than a cell phone. Heck, the space shuttle’s computers – all together – don’t have the power to run a good photo processing application.

The sixties were a different era in every way, including computing. I don’t know what NORAD was doing inside Cheyenne mountain, but the Army was using plotting boards to compute the trajectory of an artillery shell over its twenty clicks of distance. They (and I) were pretty good at it, too. But I’m getting ahead of myself – that artillery phase was a few years later, in the Guard. In the sixties, in Vietnam, the Army was into communications. Not cell phones, but secure radio with scrambling devices set every day with a different code key via a plunger of seventy-two different length rods. The Air Force in Vietnam dropped small listening devices, into the jungles of the Ho Chi Minh trail. In the 1st Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, from OP Phantom in I Corps we listened, then called those artillery rounds, the ones plotted on a table, computed on a purpose-built slide rule. Then we listened to the result. Entertaining stuff.

After those GI days, the United States paid for more college, and as much as I loved history, I had bigger aspirations than teaching. (Not sure how I could have been that stupid. That’s exactly what I should have done. Taught history.) I returned to the University of Minnesota, to the school of business. That’s where I ran into the FORTRAN thing I mentioned.

There was a super-computer at Lauderdale, a postage-stamp inner-ring suburb between the two U campuses. Control Data? Not sure. It was a Sperry Univac in Blegen Hall, (also known as “Classroom Building”) between the Business Tower and the Social Science Tower that I was concerned with. That computer was downstairs behind a glass wall next to a lunch room filled with studying business and social science (yes, including history) majors drinking coffee and studying, talking, eating. I was sometimes waiting for a computer program to run. In FORTRAN.

It wasn’t that simple, and it sure wasn’t foolproof. After you decided what you wanted to do, say a linear regression analysis of something or other, you had to flow chart the logic of it. If A ---> then B -----> Is B > C? Yes ----> then....well, you get the idea.

After the flow chart confirmed (or seemed to confirm) that logic, punch card the statements. Punch cards. Sometimes called IBM cards. I can still hear, feel the clunk of those heavy metal machines making chads. long before that word entered our cultural lexicon. Logic (program) cards, and data cards, all checked and rechecked and arranged just right, then put into cubby holes, where the computer operator could grab then from the other side and “run” the program

Then off to drink coffee, and wait for the result to come back. One hour, two. There it is – in a cubby hole – and immediately I can see it’s trouble. The card pack, and one thin sheet of greenbar paper just enough to ID a dreaded error, card punch, logic...something. More than once the beginning of a long night, running the damn thing until it worked. Back to the coffee, pencil, flow chart, cards. Find the error, re-punch the cards that (I thought) were wrong. Run it again – and again – until that thick bundle of green bar came back with results, pages of data, and a crude graph.

Such was computing in the early seventies. In 1973 I was on my way to work for a big corporation, a first home, and a baby. In Bettendorf, Iowa.

Eulogy

Jeannie was many things – manager, technician, traveler, photographer...one of the information age’s early adopters.

Over a decade ago, I was on the internet, before it was just “on-line,” and got a note from PeachesH. The topic was trivial, Broncos football, but we soon were corresponding. It was Jeannie, of course, a long time before there was a match.com.

She made Pueblo Blue Print a document technology leader, the first in southern Colorado to scan, plot, archive to digital media, and work with vector drawing tools. She installed a sophisticated network that ran reliably for a decade.

A local big business got a proposal to scan and archive deteriorating prints. They had no idea why they’d want to do that – then. Jeannie was ahead of them all.

Hard words never came to her. If someone or something hurt her, they just weren’t again mentioned.

Jeannie pitched a tent in Holland, took a train to Moscow, slept on the dirt floor of a hovel in Afghanistan, stood on the Acropolis. She shot lions in Africa – with a camera, of course. She spent three days in Paris without a change of clothes, never complained. Such trivia shouldn’t distract her from enjoying. Much of the travel she enjoyed so much was with her mother, Irma Jean.

She was playfully humorous, in an endearing way. Whimsical.

Everything had a personality, a story, a soul, a name. Of course pets did, and Jeannie had those, including Peaches the Elkhound, and Morris the neurotic cat.

Zeus was the undersized Hyundai that struggled over the mountains to visit a friend in New Mexico. After that there was Snobal, then Prancer.

The cows grazing the Monterey hills have their stories. On Friday, they’re waiting for the bulls to show up for a night out. Naturally, our partner and alter ego is a stuffed bear named Murphy. He was in our room on a trip to Sonoma. There was no doubt she’d have to adopt him.

She became a recognized photographer in auto racing. She counted many in the sport amongst her friends. Her peers were her biggest fans, one writing that Jeannie “...quietly went about taking the most wonderful pictures of life in the ALMS and on the road...”

I began a letter to Jeannie while flying here Sunday. Within its pages I wrote, “You’re so deep in my life, in my memories, in all the things around me, that you’ll never really be gone. You’re everywhere, in everything – but you’re not there. I’m not alone – but I am lonely. Does that make sense?”

It does. Reverend Calhoun read a verse noted in Jeannie’s confirmation bible. I got it out of her nightstand the night before she passed away. I turned to the presentation inscription, but was drawn rather to this, written in her hand on the opposite leaf at a very difficult time, when her father took his own life.

God, give me sympathy and sense
And help to keep my courage high.
God, give me calm and confidence
And please, a twinkle in my eye.

The sun shows after every storm,
There is a solution for everyProblem,
and the soul’sHighest duty is to be of
Good cheer.

Through the beauties of
Nature and growing things one
Sees the everlasting
Presence of God.

She never lost that twinkle, or the ability to see that everlasting presence. Nor should we. Go with God, Jeannie.

Services for Jeannie in Pueblo Wednesday

Jeannie Kjos, 60, passed away peacefully after a short illness at Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, California. She was born Jean Marie DeWitt in Albuquerque, N.M., September 18, 1947, was confirmed at Tabor Lutheran Church in Pueblo, Colorado, graduated from Pueblo Central High School and from the University of Southern Colorado (now Colorado State, Pueblo). She majored in English and taught second grade, then worked in special education.

Jeannie Kjos (then Hutchens) returned to Pueblo after the death of her father, John DeWitt, in 1978 and toook over the ownership and operation of Pueblo Blue Print with her mother, Irma Jean DeWitt, until 2003. She was an accomplished photographer with hundreds of auto racing credits.

She loved traveling, including Russia, Afghanistan, Europe and the Mediterranean, and Hawaii. Jeannie was a loving daughter, companion, best friend, and wife. She was a light in every life she touched.

She is survived by her mother, Irma Jean DeWitt, of Pueblo; husband Tom Kjos of Salinas; uncles and aunts, Carl and Olga Petersen of Florence, Colo., and Pat DeWitt of LaGrange, Ill.; and cousins, Cindy DeWitt of Aurora, Ill, and Cathy DeWitt of Albuquerque. She was preceded in death by her father, John C. DeWitt; and grandparents, Bert and Mary Petersen.

Service 2 p.m. Wednesday, Montgomery & Steward Chapel with the Rev. Dr. Rick Calhoun officiating. Internment will follow at Imperial Memorial Gardens. The family will greet friends at Pueblo Blue Print, 2nd and Court following the internment. On line condolences montgomerysteward.com.

Flowers and remembrances to Montgomery & Steward, 1317 N. Main St., Pueblo, CO, 81003. (719) 542-1552, and/or a donation to your favorite charity.

Jean Marie Kjos 1947 - 2007

Jean Marie Kjos passed away peacefully on November 29, 2007 in Salinas, California.
She was born Jean Marie De Witt in Albuquerque, New Mexico, September 18, 1947, was confirmed at Tabor Lutheran Church in Pueblo, Colorado, graduated from Pueblo Central High School in 1965, and from the University of Southern Colorado in 1969.

She majored in English and taught second grade, then in special education, before taking over her father’s business, Pueblo Blue Print, after his death. She owned and operated that business until 2003.

She was an accomplished auto racing photographer with hundreds of credits in sports car racing publications. She loved travel, counting amongst others, visits to Russia, Afghanistan, Europe and the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and Hawaii.

She was companion, best friend, and wife. The light of my life, and a light in every life she touched.

And please, a twinkle in my eye

I got the well-worn, leather-bound Bible out of the nightstand. On the cover, embossed in gold, Jean Marie De Witt. Inside, inscribed, a presentation for Confirmation at Tabor Lutheran Church, Pueblo, Colorado, October 29, 1961.

It’s the leaf facing that inscription that gets my attention, though, in Jeannie’s own hand – recognizable even many years ago – is this poem, so much better today than anything I could write.

God, give me sympathy and sense
And help to keep my courage high.
God, give me calm and confidence
And please, a twinkle in my eye.

The sun shows after every storm,
There is a solution for every
Problem, and the soul’s
Highest duty is to be of
Good cheer.

Through the beauties of
Nature and growing things one
Sees the everlasting
Presence of God.

I’m hoping and praying for improvement this morning.

Hope and Prayer

Jeannie is ill. She was hospitalized on November 5 for very high blood sugar. So she is (newly) diabetic. It was frightening indeed while she was in intensive care over that first week, but in the following week plus – through last Wednesday – she was seemingly on the mend. On Thanksgiving day, though, there was a turn for the worse, as some swelling returned where it had improved, and she was less responsive, but aware and communicating. Heather and Courtney saw her that day.

The diabetes complicates chronic liver disease. That’s the problem now. Treatment started two days ago includes a steroid along with increased insulin (the steroid pushes up the blood sugar). We’re still hoping for a positive response from this treatment. The past two days have not been good. Jeannie was unresponsive enough that she was not able to eat at noon today. Medications continue via a GI tube. We’re unfortunately having to prepare ourselves for the worst while still hoping – and praying – for the best.

Veterans Day 2007

World War I ended in an armistace signed on November 11, 1918. The day that ended "the war to end all wars" was celebrated as Armistace Day on November 11, until World War II and Korea proved that naivete tragically flawed. So the holiday was changed to Veterans Day making room for new and future heroes by this proclamation.

Now, Therefore, I, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States of America , do hereby call upon all of our citizens to observe Thursday, November 11, 1954 , as Veterans Day. On that day let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.

Here's a summary of those who have served, were wounded, and died in battle in America's wars.

Revolutionary War - 217,000 served, 6,188 wounded, 4,435 battle deaths.

War of 1812 - 286,730 served, 4,505 wounded, 2,260 battle deaths.

Mexican War - 78,718 served, 4,152, wounded 1,733 battle deaths.

Civil War (both sides) - 3,213,363 served, 354,805 wounded, 191,963 battle deaths.

Spanish American War - 306,760 served, 1,662 wounded, 385 battle deaths.

World War I - 4,734,991 served, 204,002 wounded, 53,402 battle deaths.

World War II - 16,112,566 served, 671,846 wounded, 291,557 battle deaths.

Korean War - 5,720,000 served, 103,284 wounded, 33,741 battle deaths.

Vietnam War - 8,744,000 served, 153,303 wounded, 47,424 battle deaths.

Persian Gulf War - 2,225,000, served, 467 wounded, 147 battle deaths.

Iraq & Afghanistan - 1,048,884 served, 13,820 wounded, 3,434 battle deaths

United States of America - 42,688,012 served, 1,518,034 wounded, 630,481 battle deaths.

*Juneau Mentor Johnson World War II - 1942*

*Brian E. Tierney Vietnam - 1968*

*Randolph Murph Korea – 2001*

Take to heart for those you loved – as I will for Juneau, Brian, and Randolph – these words(1) penned at Dak To, Republic of Vietnam, January 1, 1970, by a young man soon to become one of “those gentle heroes...left behind.”

If you are able, save for them a place inside of you
and save one backward glance when you are leaving
for the places they can no longer go.

Be not ashamed to say you loved them,
though you may or may not have always.
Take what they have taught you with their dying
and keep it with your own.

And in that time when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane, take one moment
to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind.

Michael Davis O'Donnell
Panel 12W Line 40
KIA March 24, 1970

(1) This same poem used on Memorial Day here.

The Passing of the Age of Writing

Norman Mailer died today. Does his passing mark the end of the age of literature? There are seemingly uncountable bloggers and romance novelists, but are there writers?

Mailer wrote his first – and best – novel, The Naked and the Dead in 1948 while studying in Paris after World War II. He was just 25. He later won two Pulitzer Prizes – one for literature – Executioner’s Song, the not-really-fictional story about Gary Gilmore, executed by firing squad in Utah in 1977. He never wrote "the great american novel" that was his stated aspiration.

Mailer lived hard and in our face for over half a century. He recited obscene poetry in a YWCA. He ran for Mayor of New York, flew gliders, drank, and partied – a one-man Rat Pack. He fought in bars and fought in six marriages (he stabbed his second wife at a party – she didn’t press charges, even though she nearly died of the wound).

Mailer decried technology as dehumanizing and accused feminists of wanting to remove the mystery, romance and "blind, goat-kicking lust" from sex.

But he still wrote, with a pen, American Dream, and Armies of the Night, and countless magazine articles and stories. He wrote with style and depth, even in works not well received by critics or readers.

What a stark contrast Mailer and the likes of J.D. Salinger, Sylvia Plath, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Flannery O’Connor, and Toni Morrison are to this list of the New York Times fiction top ten.

PROTECT AND DEFEND, Vince Flynn.
BOOK OF THE DEAD, Patricia Cornwell.
HOME TO HOLLY SPRINGS, Jan Karon.
PLAYING FOR PIZZA, John Grisham.
AMAZING GRACE, Danielle Steel.
WORLD WITHOUT END, Ken Follett.
A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS, Khaled Hosseini.
THE CHOICE, Nicholas Sparks.
LICK OF FROST, Laurell K. Hamilton.
THE ALMOST MOON, Alice Sebold.

I’ve read and like John Grisham and Ken Follett, but it’s light stuff, isn’t it? In those ten, perhaps only Khaled Hosseini pursues themes worthy of being called literature. Mailer – the writer and the character – will be missed.

Post script: Further comment on today’s quality of writing, literature, and journalism was serendipitously provided by this evening’s news report from a San Francisco television station. All they could be bothered to say about Mailer was, “Author Norman Mailer died today. He was married six times and was a foe of women’s liberation. Now, for the football scores...”

A Personal History of Computing - Part 2

At the end of Part 1, we left our Barefoot Boy with Cheek (me – I suspect Max Shulman stole my life for Asa Hearthrug even before I lived it, or having read Barefoot Boy, my subliminal psyche doomed me to live it) in the midst of an awkward puberty, still before the dawning of the computer age...But not a long time before.

Nobody had yet described anything more substantial than Andy Warhol art as “pop culture,” but IBM was – just under our consciousness – already dominating it. the Tornados became the first Brit band to reach number one in the U.S. – bet you thought it was the Beatles – with the instrumental Telstar in 1962. The electronic-sounding record (yes, record, as in vinyl, with grooves) was released not long after the AT&T communication satellite was launched. (Satellites had a “wow” factor back then.) Unbeknownst to me (who was paying attention to such things?) IBM was using Telstar to send information between New York and France. The same year, IBM launched the first airline reservation system, for American Airlines.

Of course, IBM had been producing far more insidious things; they introduced an algebraic computer language called FORTRAN (FORmula TRANSlation) in 1957, when I was an unsuspecting sixth-grader. Little did I know what a pain in the butt it would be to me more than a decade later.

We children of the Cold War knew about NORAD, of course, and that computers were the basis for the ability to intercept whatever the Soviet Union (before and since, that’s Russia, of course) might throw our way. Oh, in case you haven't heard that acronym latetly, that was the North American Air (not Aerospace) Defense Command (see War Games). IBM made that computer network operational in 1958.

The Mercury sub-orbital space flights (yes, those were a big deal back then, too) were tracked on computers. So yes, computers were in our lives, but they didn’t really reach out and touch us, if you know what I mean. The kind of gee-whiz thing that actually found daily use was IBM’s “Selectric” typewriter. Cool, but most definitely not a computer.

IBM was the real “big blue.” Long before Duke.

Actually, I was a sophomore at the University of Minnesota (like Asa) in 1964 when the first “tech stock,” intruded on my consciousness. A local company, Control Data Corporation (CDC) became one of the big go-go stocks of the sixties. It was much discussed around the fraternity. Not that I had any money to do anything about it. Some of the brothers did, of course.

Seymour Cray led a CDC spin-off in the sticks of central Wisconsin into gee whiz territory with stuff like vector and parallel processing, and to accommodate it, we heard about MegaFLOPS (Million Floating Point Operations Per Second).

About then I was off into the service of Uncle Sam, who had a little contretemps going in Southeast Asia. He needed me.

The Real Deal

I haven’t become of a fan of Viking coach Brad Childress, but he certainly knew what he was doing when he drafted running back Adrian (All Day) Peterson after his junior year at Oklahoma.

Peterson had a hell of a day today, rushing for an NFL-record 296 yards and three touchdowns. Peterson's season total of 1,036 yards represents the best eight-game performance by a rookie in NFL history and is tied for fifth-best among all players. A little simple math will tell you that Peterson could be on the way to a 2,000 yard season.

In just eight career games – not even starts, since he’s been working in relief of (former) starter Chester Taylor – Peterson has the two best rushing games in Vikings history (296 Sunday and 224 against the Bears), the most rushing touchdowns and rushing yards for a Vikings rookie in a season and the most runs of 50 yards or more in a season, rookie or not.

In perspective, Peterson’s day was better than Jim Brown, Walter Payton, Eric Dickerson, or O.J. Simpson ever had. (Though O.J.’s not recently been having good days at all, has he?)

What’s wrong with Denver? Actually, what’s wrong with the AFC West? San Diego is 4-4 now, as is Kansas City. Denver’s 3-5, and Oakland, is well, Oakland. Actually, what happened - today, anyway - to last year’s “toughest division” is the NFC North, where a resurgent Detroit (is “surgent” a word? There’s no “re” applicable to the Motor City Kitties) is 6-2 and headed for that ten-win season that Kittie’s QB Jon Kitna predicted - to widespread derision. The Old Man at Green Bay has the Packers flying – to the league’s second best record. Even the Vikings looked pretty good today (we’ll have to hope that QB training Jackson stays hurt this time). The Bears are the defending NFC champions, and might just get back on track now that they’re no longer starting stiff Rex Grossman at quarterback.

The “big game” was New England at Indianapolis. It looked like – was – the Colts most of the way, but it was the Pats at the end when it counted. Old home week for me, having watched quarterback Tony Dungy, tight end Ben Utecht, and running back Lawrence Maroney play for my Rodents. Disaffected Minnesota fans convinced themselves that his subtraction was an addition for the Norsemen. Nonsense. Anyway, it was pretty clear that those teams in the RCA Dome are the real thing. They’ll meet again, next time probably to determine the NFL crown – even though only one of them can actually reach the Super Bowl.

The Peter Principle

We were sitting in section two-oh-something the last time the Illini showed up for a Gopher homecoming game, in 2004, when the Rodents sent Chief Illiniwek packing 55-0. That was in the midst of a string of seven straight homecoming wins. Game-after-home game, we sat in that section, with people we got to know, at least casually. We were the ones who saw the glass half full.

“Fire the coach, fire the coach,” they said, game after game. That was Glen Mason. We weren’t big Mason fans – the Rodents were mediocre, delivering just a few more wins than losses, sometimes upsetting Penn State, Michigan, even Ohio State once. There was a minor bowl nearly every year, and about as many bowl wins as losses. Minor bowls match mediocre teams.
But my retort was simple, “Fine, replace him. Now, who is it that you’re going to hire?” Until last December in Tempe, Arizona. The 44-40 overtime loss to Texas Tech wasn’t the first inexplicable collapse by a Mason-coached Gopher team, just the most humiliating. I’d finally had it, so when the firing came, I was all for it. I’d forgotten my mantra. Worse, it seems the Rodent’s Athletic Director had never even considered it.

So now we’ve got Brewster. Brewski. Punky. A loser. Dismantled by the Chief in the Metrodome. They couldn’t see this coming? Certainly, Punky’s coaching record... What’s that you say? There is no coaching record? Surely...

Yes, incredulously, the head Rodent hired someone who had been head coach at Central Catholic High School in Lafayette, Indiana, for two years in the 80’s and nowhere else, at any other time, at any other level. He hadn’t even been a coordinator, offense or defense. He talked a good game, though. If this wasn’t so sad, it would be laughable.

The Rodents play bad defense, bad offense, they suck on the kicking and receiving teams. They drop passes, miss tackles, jump offside, fumble, throw interceptions, leave too many players on the field, hold...well, they just do all that stuff that loses football games.

Today, homecoming, third quarter, behind 37-10, record 1-8, 4th and inches. Brewski kicks. Punky is clearly frightened. He knows he’s in over his head. Early in the fourth, Illinois goes for it on fourth and inches. They make the first down. A play later they make it 44-10. A garbage time TD and it ends 44-17. Has no one at the University of Minnesota heard of the Peter Principle? It’s real, and it lives in your football program.

Undisciplined. Clueless. Hapless. It’s not going to get any better, either. Brewster should be paying his dues running a middle school team somewhere, not coaching a Big Ten football team.

The Ducks (football’s most horrendous uniforms) dropped Arizona State from the thin ranks of major college unbeatens. Alabama fumbled away an upset of LSU. The Gators took the week off (Ok, they beat Vanderbilt, same thing). Nebraska was embarrassed again, by Kansas 76-39. The Jayhawks remained unbeaten, and should move up in the polls. (If Nebraska was 8-0, would it be 8th?) Is there a worse defense in the country than the Cornhuskers? A worse team name?

And then there were two (unless you count Hawaii, which I don’t). The Seminoles knocked No. 2 Boston College from that lofty perch, leaving only Ohio State and Kansas with unblemished records. Ohio State beat Wisconsin to put a stranglehold on the top ranking.

The Buffs had a little run – actually made it back from hapless to mediocre – but today Missouri brought them back to reality 55-10. Georgia hung on to beat Troy.

South Florida’s dropped its third in a row. The air up there in the top five was a bit rarified for the geography-challenged team. Tampa is south Florida?

There it is, another week on the gridiron. There have been better.

A Personal History of Computing - Part 1

Once upon a time there was a small boy. He lived in a small town on the prairie, where his father and his grandfather had an office suite (he didn’t know then it was a suite, or even what a suite was) above the Five and Dime on main street. They managed farms, sold real estate and insurance, and with them was the small boy’s uncle Bud, who was a lawyer, with row on row of beautiful books. There was a dentist down the hall in the upstairs of that brick storefront building, and it was a forbidding place, what with lawyers, and dentists, a busy father, and a dour grandfather.

But there was one object that seemed magic. It sat on a stand high enough to be majestic, low enough to be a visual feast of little mechanical pieces masterfully arranged to some rule not understood by the boy. It said Burroughs on it, it was a 100-key adding machine, and you could see its innards. Tiny little parts and pieces that were positioned by setting the keys to represent numbers, then all moved together when a great handle on the side of the machine was pulled. The small boy couldn’t pull it himself – it was too high and too hard – and of course he wouldn’t dare, in that very serious place.

That was the boy’s first computer, an adding machine invented by French mathematician Blaise Pascal in 1642, but more specifically the improvement patented by William Burroughs in 1888. His company was the American Arithmometer Company which became the Burroughs Corporation, which later built big (we called them mainframe) computers, and finally merged with Sperry to become Unisys, one of the computer giants of the second half of the last century (before IBM ate them all for lunch, of course).

That magic machine was more to be admired than used. A few year after that, there was ninth grade typing class on Royal electric typewriters, while Univac was “inventing” the first computer for the US Navy to build its nuclear submarines. (At least that’s how I remember that story.) The boy wasn’t really affected by all that, since there were other far more pressing interests. Their names were Carol, and Elaine, and Janet.

Those are stories of a different kind. Of unrequited love. Stories shared by all pubescent boys.

Anyway, there’s Chapter 1 of A Personal History of Computing.

Economic Ruminating

Oil price up today. Duh!. Yesterday the Fed cut interest rates, so investments flowed to the Euro and other currencies of countries holding interest rates high. Of course the value of the dollar against those currencies fell, and since crude oil is priced in dollars. Well, duh! (Of course crude oil just got cheaper in all those other currencies.

Meanwhile, the corn from which we make Corn Flakes is at record highs. Cows eat it, too, of course, meaning steak is also at record highs. Is someone going to explain to me why using our food for fuel is a good thing? I didn’t think so.

Some fool on television was arguing that consumer spending will be strong – carry the economy – through the quarter, meaning Christmas. Well... The currency is inflating. (How is devaluation against other currencies in a “global economy” not inflation?) Real estate has cratered, mortgages are in default, debt is at historic highs, there’s no more “home equity” to convert to cash, and the consumer is going on a spending spree?

It reminds me of the time I heard an analyst say “We don’t pay any attention to PEs anymore.” That was right before the so-called “dot-com” crash.

On a more positive note – well, maybe not so positive – that crude market is going to crater. Along as there’s not a war, that is. I mean another war. It will go down to the inflated currency equivalent of wherever it would be without about a 30% “fear factor,” say, about fifty or so.

This internet’s a cool thing. Courtney wrote another Hawaii blog the other day, and about Tar Heel basketball. I’m doing this Pen-Pen thing, and a couple more. Almost anything I want to look up (like the currency markets) I can, quickly and easily. I was thinking about the first time I became aware that computers could make things different – really different. It was 1978, I think. That’s a whole other story. Perhaps tomorrow.

Rall's Reality (What they Really think)

The first congressional Medal of Honor in the War on Terror, Lt. Michael Murphy of Long Island, New York, a Navy SEAL who was killed in a fierce gun battle in Afghanistan in June of 2005, was honored in a ceremony at the White House on Monday that the media mostly ignored.

Just being ignored might be considered a good thing once you've become acquanted with mainstream liberal pundit Ted Rall, who recently said he cheers the deaths of American soldiers because that improves America’s average IQ.

I didn’t know much about Rall until I heard his name mentioned the other day and did a little research. Hardly a marginalized freak, it seems he’s a very popular, well regarded and well paid freak.

Rall won the 1995 and 2000 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards and the Society of Professional Journalists Deadline Club Award. He won the 2002 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Graphics. His Orwell parody "2024" was named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon.com, and his graphic travelogue To Afghanistan and Back was named as one of the American Library Association's Best Books of the Year. Rall was a 1996 Pulitzer Prize finalist. His cartoons appear in approximately 100 newspapers.

Rall attended Columbia University in engineering, but failed, returning later to graduate with a history BA.

Here’s Rall, just a few days ago, “...I flip the page past the same old '2 Dead, 7 Wounded in IED Blast' headline. But hey, soldier, you volunteered. If not for you, there wouldn't be a war in the first place.

“...It's bad enough that a majority of soldiers voted for Bush in 2004. Over and over since the war began, American troops have been seen on television applauding Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice and others whose cynical recklessness have sent their buddies to their graves.

“Even after soldiers get killed, their parents promote the war so their dead kids won't be lonely in heaven,” says Rall.

Writing about the president’s frequent meetings with relatives of American troops who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, Rall observes that, “Few Gold Star mothers tell him off. Those who do are polite to the man who murdered their children as surely and as viciously as if he'd shot them himself. Why don't they spit at him?”

Rall’s suggestion? “Soldiers who want antiwar Americans to march to demand that they be brought home should take a cue from Vietnam veterans. They marched with peace protesters and threw their medals at the Capitol. Soldiers serving on the front refused orders.

“Some fragged their officers,” he tells us, obviously impressed with such a principled act.

His comparison of wars is in every way specious, but then he was barely out of diapers when I first landed at Than Son Nut. Apparently his history degree studies didn't included Southeast Asia.

You want to know what he really thinks of those of you who serve in the United States armed forces? Read this column, titled An Army of Scum.

Here’s a taste:

"Now it's official: American troops occupying Iraq have become virtually indistinguishable from the SS. Like the Germans during World War II, they cordon off and bomb civilian villages to retaliate for guerilla attacks on their convoys. Like the blackshirts who terrorized Europe, America's victims disappear into hellish prisons ruled by sadists and murderers. The U.S. military is short just one item to achieve moral parity with the Nazis: gas chambers."

Lest you want to dismiss Rall as a kook, remember that he’s a Pulitzer Prize finalist, syndicated kook.

I learned during another war long ago and far away that the Ralls of this world very much speak for their more “respectable” fellow travelers. You know, the ones running for president who won’t disavow the “Patreaus, Betray Us” ad. Oh, they and others who smirk at you behind their hands will claim he doesn't speak for them, but just who is it that gives him that list of awards? Yeah, right.

Tenuous Connections

Christina, my niece – and family – are fine. In Malibu, but west of the fire. The coast in Malibu runs east and west. Their church burned, and the castle. The castle was on television – seemed familiar, and was. It was one of the places the Dolphin Ball, an annual charity event for cystic fibrosis, was held. We’ve attended, not when at the castle, but still, that’s why it was familiar.

I have two nieces. The other one, Ann, was also near a fire, which was a surprise, since she lives in Philadelphia. Only a momentary surprise, because my brother had told me she was going to be in Diego for a conference at about this time. Oddly, the conference went ahead, started on Monday, over by Wednesday. On reflection, why not? San Diego isn’t entirely engulfed. Life, business – and conferences – go on.

It hadn’t immediately occurred to me that I had connections to the fires. Tenuous, it turns out, and thankfully so.

Pigskin Baffoons

The Vikings played Dallas today. We don’t often get television coverage out here, but it was instructive.

1. Adrian Peterson is the real deal. Big, strong, fast, elusive.
2. The Vikings defense, Iikewise, is for real. Unless the other team throws the ball. Then it’s “Johnny bar the door...”
3. Troy Aikman said today about Tavaris Jackson, “You won’t win many games completing five passes,” and, “accuracy is important in an NFL quarterback, and I’m not seeing a lot of it.”
4. The Norskies fit the profile of a poorly coached football team. Trying to pick up loose balls rather than covering them (even if it works out), egregious penalties (a “hold” that qualifies as a tackle), inane challenges of on-field calls. It goes on and on.
5. As much as the running game is praised, the real test of that is whether you can do it when you have to, and when they know that you have to, when you can’t – or won’t – throw. The purple’s running game doesn’t meet that standard.
6. Losers do things like have sideline altercations between players and coaches. The Vikequeens are losers, no doubt about it.

Except. well, I have to give them this: They haven’t lost to the Thundering Herd. The Rodents have. North Dakota anything (especially State) for gawd’s sake. Ridiculous. There’s not much of any value in NoDak. Ok, they can play hockey, but when there’s nothing else to do. How does the same AD that hired Tubby Smith hire this bozo running the pigskin program? Don’t you suppose there’s been a reason no one (before the geniuses at the U of M, that is) ever hired ole Brewski as a head coach? I mean the Brew isn’t been the head guy of so much as a Pop Warner team. It’s starting to be quite clear why.

Bad Boy

The Monterey Sports Car Championships were kicked off at the Mucky Duck. I call the Mucky Duck, a British Pub in downtown Monterey (Murphy wrote about the Duck in 2005) the ultimate culinary oxymoron: British haute cuisine.

Bad Boy Vettes and Corvette Racing unveiled the Bad Boy C6.R. Ollie Gavin kicked life into the big V8, and brought No. 4 team car with “Jake the Skull” livery around to the Duck’s rear parking lot/beer grotto/rock bandstand.

Murphy’s was there – he’ll write about it in his next Paddock Poop. Here’s Casey and Murphy with that Bad Boy Vette.

Mindless

President Bush is fond of justifying his management of the Iraq war by saying, “I listen to my commanders.” That’s ridiculous from the Commander in Chief.

Similarly, I found the “General Betray us,” move on.org ad not only offensive, but mindless, and wrote as much.

The popular media has degenerated into irrelevance. Any opportunity there might be for intelligent discourse is lost when Sean Hannity can’t get past Al Gore’s private jet in a discussion of global warming. Likewise, Alan Combes excuses any attack on the military because “those boat guys did it to Kerry.” Dancing with the Stars is far more intellectually stimulating.

The real world is gray, not black and white, and though many may agree, few seem to understand what that implies. It means that rhetorically boiling a debate on health care in the US down to the pejorative phrase “socialized medicine,” is mindless. Similarly, a contrived presentation of Cuba as a medical nirvana is mindless – and worse. Somewhere in the middle of all that, there’s a place for intelligent discussion, but I’ll be damned if I can find it.

About that Bush statement. Anyone with a modicum of sense knows there are good generals and bad. “Just listening” to them begs the question, doesn’t it?

Is he listening to a McClellan or a Grant? Publius Quinctilius Varus or Arminius? Constable of France Charles d’Albret or Henry V?

We don’t know, and neither does he. The whole faulty line of reasoning passes the buck downward to subordinates, doesn’t it?

A Tale of Two Teams

Then there were two. The Patriots dismantled previously unbeaten Dallas. The Pats are just plain “scary good,” a team that might not yet have played its best football. This is a completely different team than the pretty good one that settled for second best in the AFC last season. Anybody out there want to rag on Randy Moss? Overated? A Loafer? Bull Roar.

So the Bears thought that they might get a little offense this year to go with a very good defense and go back to win the Super Bowl they lost to the Colts. The trouble is, their “plan” to do so was a healthy Rex Grossman. Hello? Is anybody home? Ol’ Rex was nothing to write home about on his best days, and by the time it dawned on the Bear brass that plan was a non-starter, they had a dispirited team on their hands. Witness the loss at home to the hapless Vikings. Yes, the Norskies got a career day (so far) from rookie running back Adrian Peterson’ but there’s no way to confuse the Purple’s offense with that of a real NFL team. Thirty-four points on the (formerly) vaunted Bears’ defense. Stick a fork in them, they’re done.

The inability of the front office to improve the NFC Champion Bears stands in stark contrast to the Patriots, who made major upgrades to already good offensive team off-season. The Pats’ brass was aggressive in the off-season, the Bears’, ah...disinterested?

College Football: Curious-er and Curious-er

The college football weekend started on Thursday night with Florida State losing to Wake Forest. It ended late Saturday when number 1 Cal was beaten by Oregon State. “What?” you ask. “When was Cal No. 1?” There was no vote, but I figure they reached that exalted spot for a couple of hours, from the time former top dog (cat?) LSU was dumped in overtime by those other Cats – the ones better known for their round ball skills.

Once again, the football gods have demonstrated that mortal scribes have no clue about this game, the ink barely dry on their coronation of the latest emperor before he’s found to have on no clothes. (How many metaphors did I manage to mix there? Is it a record, do you suppose?)

We really didn’t need the demise of USC, LSU, and Cal to prove the idiocy of the polls. In both the AP and USA Today, Nebraska got votes. I rest my case.

The Rodents booted a 21 point lead to lose to Northwestern. I figure Brewster’s boyz go oh-for-the-rest-of-the-schedule.

You be the Coach department. It’s early in fourth quarter and you’re nursing a 6-3 lead. The other guys come up short on third down, so it will be fourth and a bunch in their own end of the field. When they commit an infraction on the play, you turn down the penalty so they’ll have to punt, don’t you? Illinois coach Ron Zook didn’t. He accepted the penalty, making it third and a bigger bunch. Iowa used that third down to gain twenty-nine yards, then drove down the field for the winning touchdown. They pay those guys to think that deeply. Honest.

That loss on Thursday was Florida State’s second. Miami lost its third game today, Florida has two losses. That’s seven between them halfway through the season. And South Florida is a top five unbeaten. Who? Has it happened? Has Hell frozen over on the very day that some fool got the Peace Prize for pushing global warming?

Auburn lost to Arkansas in the last two minutes when the Hawgs scored their only points, a touchdown for the 7-6 win. Doesn’t get my sympathy, though. You should have to score a touchdown to win; if you don’t you should lose. If I were in charge, I’d make it a rule.

Happy Birthday Heather

Heather was the first. She was born on October 13. Happy Birthday, Heather. She was a performer from the start, dress-up, dance, song. Heather was always all girl, in the most traditional way. That never meant she wasn’t assertive, her own person, and out to find her own way in the world.

Her first public performance – a dance in a department store at about three – became a photo feature in the local paper. Then it was on the stage in “A Christmas Carol” at a local High School, almost countless summer and high school musical and dramatic productions, and professional theater at the Guthrie in Minneapolis. Her vocal talent was validated by a rare two year’s selection to the Minnesota All State Choir.

She graduated from the University of Minnesota with majors in theater and history, then was off to Los Angeles and Hollywood. There was a leading role in a feature movie, and some small ones, along with many stage roles at recognized companies, including originating the leading role in the popular repertory theater play A Summer with Hemingway’s Twin. After five years, she returned to the Twin Cities, where she was once again immediately in demand in that vibrant theater community while she worked for a law firm. That new world of the law sent Heather next to Chicago, to one of the world's leading intellectual property law firms and where she did post-graduate work at Loyola University that certified her as a paralegal in intellectual property.

Those challenges and recognition by others – and Heather – of her interest and skills in the law have now brought her to the next big adventure, law school at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, the alma mater of US Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger.

You’re a light of our lives. Happy Birthday, Heather

Big Day in La La Land: USC Grabs a Dissie, UCLA the Happie

The Dissie was no contest this week. USC lost to a really, really bad football team (the Cardinal, singular) and slid all the way to – as was often said in a galaxy long ago and far away – Numba Ten!

Poor Kentucky was handed its first loss by a better-than-average South Carolina team, and for a reward they get to go to LSU. The fact that they probably booted the game with the Cocks will be lost after the Tigers chew on them a while. This is how a program on the rise gets slapped down.

Notre Dame finally won a game – against UCLA, which wins our Happie for losing to the even more hapless Irish – and their reward is number 4 Boston College.

Meanwhile, since we’re talking about long ago and far away, how about the impending Massacre II at Kent State?

At Petit Dawg was worried about watching UGA play Tennessee, “Don’t do it,” I said. “If they lose it’ll just ruin your day. If they win, you won’t feel good because Tennessee isn’t very good.” The Dawgs lost. That’s two in what’s going to be a long season. Anyway, Georgia can beat Vandy this week. Can’t they?

Meanwhile, the Rodents were pasted by Indiana, and face Northwestern on Saturday looking for one of the few wins still possible in their schedule. That won’t be the case when 1-AA No. 1 North Dakota State University from Fargo (yes, that Fargo) comes to town the following week. Last year’s squeek-into-a-bowl-gophers just squeeked by the Bison 10-9 last season. These were supposed to be “soft” games, scheduled as a “favor to a neighbor.” That's become a joke! Is there another Happie in the Rodent’s future?

Amongst the mercenaries, the Motor City Kitties were brought down to earth by the Skins, as were the Packers by the Bears. That really big thud you heard was Denver losing 41-3 to the Chargers, their worst beating at home since 1966. Much was expected of the now 2-3 Broncos. There are just three unbeatens left, and that will be two after Dallas and New England play Sunday.

At Petit Le Mans

Daughter Courtney joined us at Petit Le Mans, a 10 hour race at Road Atlanta in the foothills of the Great Smokies in Northwest Georgia. We had a great time together (with 100,000 others) watching the race, shopping for souvenirs, and meeting friends. Courtney also found a killer set-up for Dave's Forza2 game. All that's required are three big HD screens, hot speakers, three xbox units (one for each screen), a racing seat with pedals, a racing steering wheel with paddle shifters... (She took a picture of that set-up on the hill during the race...of course they were driving Road Atlanta.)

In the media center to cool off and check on race data. Brett Harrington, a friend and associate in rennsport-beraten is next to Courtney.

Courtney and Jeannie on the spectator terraces above 10B

Guy Smith in the Porsche RS Spyder in which he partners Chris Dyson in the 10 hour race; leading a Tafel 911 GT3 RSR through Turn 10B.

At Turn 10

Flag Girl on the Grid

The Little Le Mans

I wrote my last Peninsula Pen entry last Wednesday from Atlanta, on the way to Road Atlanta for the tenth annual Petit Le Mans. Already a classic, “Petit” is a race of ten hours or 1,000 miles run with the same cars and rules of the great 24 Hours of Le Mans (in my opinion, the world’s greatest motor sport event). That was the fortieth Pen – I hadn’t missed an entry since launching this blog – but I warned the trip might cause a miss or two. It did. There’s much to tell – too much to try in this missive. If you want to know what the race was like, you can head over to The Last Turn Clubhouse, where I write about such things. Later this week, my friend Murphy the Bear will also weigh in on the race, trip, friends, and stories.

We hoped that two kids would join us, son Ashley from Columbia SC, and daughter Courtney from Chapel Hill, NC. Unfortunately a weekend work schedule kept Ash away. We were disappointed, but of course very happy to see Courtney for the first time since Christmas 2005.
She seemed to really enjoy it all, found it much more exciting than Mosport, where she and husband Dave were only able to be on hand for practice and qualifying due to other obligations – something about an anniversary visit to Niagara Falls. We did the grid walk, such a swarm of people this time that is was sometimes nearly impossible to get near the cars. From there we headed down into turn one for the start...fast, clean, exciting. From there we were off on a tour of the track in our golf cart. The traffic around the facility was horrific – that’s good, indicating a huge crowd, announced later was over 100,000. We had lunch with Fred and Leonard in the turn 10 woods. Later we spent time with Tom, Barry, Brett, Mike, Janos, Martin and many, many more friends, new and old.

We watched into the dark in the terraced seating above 10B. The flashing lights, flaming exhausts and glowing brakes in the night are a special experience unique to this kind of racing. Some long-time fans who had seen many races, but not one into the night were mightily impressed.

We met Courtney on Friday night at Paddy’s, the Chateau Elan Irish pub that’s our favorite PLM watering hole. Paddy served us Shepard's Pie, Jameson Salmon, Jameson Bread Pudding, and and Chocolate Mouse. After the race it was off to Jeffery’s for football on TV. Albert the Alligator was there with Murphy. Poor Albert saw his beloved Gators drop their second of the season to the Tigers.

On Sunday we said farewell to Courtney over lunch at Café Élan in the chateau’s winery, over great soups – lentil and French onion. Here’s hoping it isn’t again nearly two years.

More to come. Check back for photos and more about our trip to Petit Le Mans.

Enroute

Atlanta. Finally we’re into the hotel a bit after midnight. We were on the road to San Jose (we know the way) by 0900. It was a 55 minute drive up 101 (then a bit of 85 and 87) to long term parking at SJC, then a Continental flight to Houston, and on to Atlanta. It was raining when we arrived. I guess they need it, but we’re hoping for a dry weekend at Road Atlanta.

Today was test day, and most everyone got on the track. Audi led the way, besting the record set by McNish (the wee Scot) way back in 2000. Average speed around the 12 turn circuit is already 132 miles per hour on today’s times. The new pavement is responsible for no small amount of the improvement.

We agreed to wait here to give a writer friend from Toronto a ride up to the track. That’s fine, I didn’t want to make the drive up to Braselton late tonight anyway, and since that flight gets in at noon tomorrow we can sleep in. We need the rest. Travel seems to be harder on us than it used to be.

Ash, too?

I got an email from daughter Courtney this evening.

Subject: GA this weekend

Ash might be able to come too! :)

I sure hope so. Here’s a little sketch in case you run across us in Georgia and he’s along.

Ash, that’s son Ashley Thomas, Captain, Field Artillery. Currently at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. He’s the youngest of three, 25. This won’t be new to him, though it’s been a while; he was at the 24 Hours of Daytona when he was nine.

Like his siblings he was on Twin Cities stages. He graduated from a suburban Minneapolis-St. Paul High School – active there in song, dance, drama…and running. He graduated from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, then served in Korea. Golf has become a passion, but he’s also still a troubadour, likely as not to be picking up a guitar or writing a verse. What comes next we don’t know. It probably won’t be military. But it should be interesting.

Short and Shallow

It was a day for odds and ends. We’re out of here to Petit Le Mans in Georgia on Wednesday morning, so there were the inevitable errands ahead of the errands.

You know, things that have to get done but aren’t the ones directly concerned with trip prep. Like a lab visit to get my Protime - that’s the monthly clotting test for those of us on rat poison (warfarin or Coumidin). We picked up some ladybugs for the plants, the Oleander in particular (ladybugs eat bad things, like mites).

I wrote the prototype preview for the Saturday’s race today, and got that posted on The Last Turn Clubhouse. Tomorrow I’ll have to finish the one for the GT entrants. I’ve been paying attention to the likely weather. There’s something called Invest 90, (don’t ask, because I have no idea) a low pressure just east of Florida that could affect northeast Georgia later in the week. Then again it could go to Texas. It’s a crap shoot, but it affects what we’ll have to pack.

With our travel and the work involved in covering the event, it’s unlikely I’ll be able to keep up the daily entries here. If I do, expect them to be like this one. Short and shallow.

Unhappy Bears

We’ve got some unhappy Bears around here. Their Chicago heroes dropped one to the Kitties. Rex is out. Brian is in – and threw his own three interceptions. This time, though, it was a collapsing “D” that gave up 34 points in the fourth quarter. Next week the defending NFC champs go to Green Bay, where the old grizzled QB just set the all time TD record. They’ll probably fall to 1-4. Murphy, Charles, and Lovey are having a tough season indeed. Murphy will be busy in Georgia next weekend; perhaps that will help his mood.

Pittsburgh lost in Phoenix, so the unbeatens are now only four. Green Bay, Dallas, and Indianapolis have won four, New England three, with a game at 1-2 Cincinnati Monday.

The Colts trampled the Broncos. After Denver went up 10-0 it was 28-3 over the next two quarters before Denver finally put up its second – and final – TD.

We watched Dante Culpepper dominate games before a catastrophic knee injury in Minnesota. The only thing between him and an all time NFL record passing year in 2004 was Payton Manning (who moved the goal post). If he ever got healthy again… Well, he just might be. Three rushing and two throwing TDs today for Oakland. There’s a fantasy league day for you.

Quiz of the day. What University has a new 64,000 seat football stadium but no football team?

Football Fraud

Oklahoma, Florida, West Virginia, Texas, Rutgers, all top 10 losers. Colorado, Auburn, South Florida, Kansas State, Maryland, the teams that beat them, four of five unranked. Again, please. Explain why the bowl match-ups (and by extension the national champion) should be largely determined by the idiots who vote in these things?

Kirk Herbstreit, on tonight’s USC-Washington broad cast, said, “I’ll vote Oregon No. 5.” Huh? No. 11 loses – albeit to No. 6 Cal – and moves up six places? Is anything further required to prove this whole system is a monumental joke? The fact is we’re five games into a twelve game schedule – almost half way. More games won’t make it good enough to accurately chose the best two, but might help draw a line after the top 16. Will that necessarily be fair to 17? No, it won’t. But perhaps that distinction is less important than between two and three.

What about the whining about “academics,” and “extending the season?” It’s poppycock. Next year the national championship game will played January 7th. That’s six weeks after most teams will have ended their schedules. Lose bowl revenues? Oddly, there are 32 bowls, one more than the number of games required to play down from 32 teams to 1 team. More than one of those 32 is a money losing joke that should be put out of its misery. That playoff would only take five weeks. From sixteen teams to a champion is only four weeks.

Number of games? Teams with bowl games (that’s currently 64, more than half of the 119 Division 1-A football schools) play at least 13 already. Those with a conference championship game play 14. Cut two off the schedule (and that extra conference game), and dump the games with the Little Sisters of the Poor U. Then send the top sixteen to a playoff using the best fifteen bowls and match-up the next thirty-four teams in a “bowl season” during December using the seventeen remaining bowls. Those teams – plus the eight losers in the first playoff round – get 11 games, just as was the case before an extra game was added just last year.

Eight first round winners will play 12 games, four semi-finalists 13, and only the participants in the national championship game will play as long a the current bowl season and play more games – just one more – than most of the 64 bowl teams do now.

In fact, a sixteen team playoff takes less games and is a shorter season than is played now. So is a 32 team playoff.

It’s easy, and all the excuses to the contrary, it’s the only sensible, fair, and rational thing to do. Which means it will never happen.

Have you seen my...?

Here comes the blog equivalent of opening the wallet. “Have you seen my pictures of the kids?” You should be surprised you’ve been spared this ritual for thirty-four installments, but now there’s a proximate cause for the first (yes, I’m going to get to all three). Courtney, second of two daughters and the middle child, plans to join us at Petit Le Mans next weekend, so for those who read this and will see us there, here’s a bio.

Courtney Aimee is married to David Short. Both are Captains in the United States Army, Air Defense Artillery, Patriot Missiles. Dave is in Okinawa, commanding a Patriot battery. Courtney is in the second year of a Master’s program (concurrently with a PhD, ex dissertation) in history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Courtney, born in 1977, was interested in history, writing, dance, and theater from an early age. She published poetry, appeared on high school and community theater stages, and also in the professional theater in Minneapolis-St. Paul – Actor’s Theater and the nationally-known Guthrie Theater. She was cast in Rachel River, an American Playhouse production released to a theatrical run in 1989. Courtney graduated from Eagan High School in Eagan Minnesota, having long since decided - in middle school - she’d go to Columbia University, which she did, earning a degree in history while commuting by subway for ROTC (they were paying the bills) at Fordham University (Columbia is happy to host tyrants and terrorists, but not so much ROTC students). At Columbia, she played intercollegiate rugby in the Ivy League.

Assignment to Korea was marked by personal tragedy, which she wrote about in Columbia College Today. After Korea she was assigned to Ft. Bliss, Texas, where she completed branch schooling, then taught at the Air Defense School, earned a Masters in Management from Webster University, commanded a Patriot battery, wrote articles for El Paso Magazine, and got married. She was selected for advanced civil schooling preparatory to an appointment to the United States Military Academy (West Point) faculty (beginning fall 2008), and started at UNC fall, 2006.

Cold, Hornets, and Denny

It was damn cold today. Sixty-two at noon and went straight down from there, to a low of 53 tonight. That doesn’t sound so bad, but yesterday it got to eighty-something. The usual nice breeze, so comfortable, but warm. Then straight down. It might not have been worth a mention in the Midwest, but here, it’s radical, at least if you’re staying in one place. If we get in the car and drive, we can easily go up or down a dozen degrees or so – Gilroy 80, Salinas 70, Pacific Grove 60.

Something else unusual this afternoon fighters, low and in formation, a pair, or pairs, this afternoon. It’s the annual California International Air Show this weekend in Salinas. Practice, I suppose. On checking it seems they’re F/A 18F Super Hornets, the "Flying Eagles" of Strike Fighter Squadron 122 (VFA-122) based at Naval Air Station Lemoore, CA.

Daughter Courtney and Son-in-law Dave wrote in their blog that they've added to their active duty Army contracts. Both Captains, there are new incentives. "Why not take advantage," Courtney wrote me, "we're staying anyway."

Boston Legal got 10 million viewers following Dancing, which got 18 mil. House took the night’s ratings with 20 million. We liked Legal, with “new sheriff” Karl Sack (John Larroquette) in a senior partner’s chair and sacking in with Shirley (pun most certainly intended?). Clarice does a stage number, Alan Shore has elevator liaisons with sexy litigator Lorraine Weller, Denny gets arrested in a prostitution sting, and well, on it goes for a fourth season. Shatner and Spader have each won two Emmys, for actors in a drama – demonstrating that even the industry doesn’t know how to classify this show. Personally, I’d call it a comedy, but, well, I’m not sure of that either.

Helio, and Stuff that's Fifty

Helio. That’s El-e-o, not Hell-e-o, or Heel-e-o. It is cool-e-o. So here I am an old goat who said he’d watch contests, sports, anything, but competitive dancing, “that’s ridiculous.” That’s what I said. Exactly what I said, for at least the past two seasons. We didn’t bother watching the first night, with the women celebrities dancing, because, well, I just wanted to see Helio Castroneves. But geez, there I was cheering and clapping for competitive dancing, for cripes sakes. (Photo abc television)

Rationalizing? Well if Helio thinks it’s cool – and he obviously does, then why shouldn’t I? Mark Cuban’s hanging it all out there. The Mark Cuban, who’s got billions (a “b”), owns the Mavericks, and is NBA Commissioner David Stern’s number one chronic pain in the butt. Which is ironic since Cuban started practicing for this just seven weeks after a big time major butt pain – hip replacement surgery. (There ya go, Jim.)

Marie Osmond is dancing. Marie Osmond is almost fifty. How did all those young babes get so old? I googled “50 year old stars,” and similar phrases. I got Victoria Principal. No. Can’t be. I missed a couple of fiftieths last year – Play Doh, artificial intelligence, the federal interstate highway system. I had no idea 2006 was such a big year. Fluoridation is fifty years old – found an article calling it a fifty-year-old blunder. I can remember it was a hot topic when I was a kid. Regardless of that article, it’s probably the one thing that’s not poisoning us. Here’s something I found, 50 year old woman decides to pursue a career in the porn industry. At some earlier age, I would have stopped right there, but…

Fifty isn’t what it used to be, though. Want proof? Google Amparo Grisales.

So, where was I? Being fifty? No, Helio. He won’t likely be at Petit Le Mans, Roger Penske is listing other drivers. Too bad. We’d like to say. “Good job.”

A Mediocre Monday

We settled in for the first night of the new fall season last night. Forget PBS’ Sunday debut of Ken Burn’s The War, we did not – and will not – get that on our local nearly-full-time-fund-raising-rip-off public television station, KQET. (We previously wrote about that sorry operation.)

Anyway, last night we thought we’d give Chuck a try over on NBC before going to CBS for Two and a Half Men. That one didn’t fly for the scheduled one-hour duration. Contrived. That’s acceptable if it’s funny. It was not. So we switched early to CBS for the debut of Big Bang Theory. That turned out to be a half-hour of overworked nerd jokes – but funny, so forgiven all that. This season’s launch of Two and a Half Men wasn’t actually the best episode of the series, but it delivered enough to stay on our list of favorites. That being a half-hour show, we’re almost obligated to watch the following Rules of Engagement.

From there it was back to NBC with high hopes. That’s because we find CSI Miami a nauseating formula show with its episodes devoid of any hint of a plot. Splash a bit of overly-saturated colors around with the blood and you’ve almost got it. Too bad David Caruso postures his way through every episode. His imitation of acting is indescribably awful. Sadly, we made it through Journeyman only because it was the only option. That’s an hour to do some reading, I guess.

Tonight we’ll have to pass on House. It overlaps Dancing with the Stars in the early slot, and Boston Legal in the second. What’s with Dancing? It’s not what, but who. Helio Castroneves, the two-time Indy 500 winner who’s genuine, friendly and funny. The public persona is the same as the private one we found in the pits at Sebring in March.

Boston Legal debuts with a 90-minute episode. It’s the best program on television, hands down, bar none.

Fruitcake

According to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranians do not believe in war. Israel is an invader and it cannot continue its life. Iran wants "peace and friendship for all (except Israel and the Great Satan, of course).

Ahmadinejad proudly described the reaction to his speech in September of last year to the useless debating society on the Hudson, “one of our group told me that when I started to say ‘In the name of God the almighty and merciful,’ he saw a light around me, and I was placed inside this aura. I felt it myself. I felt the atmosphere suddenly change, and for those 27 or 28 minutes, the leaders of the world did not blink. … And they were rapt.” Mahmoud concluded that speaking engagement by praying for the return of the Mahdi, "O mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the Promised One, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace." How delusional is that?

Today at Columbia this loony tune rambled on about the divine, god, physics, and scientists doing the enlightened work of the book of the prophet. It was beyond nonsensical.

Ahmadinejad would remind me of Randle Patrick McMurphy, but Randall usually knew what the hell he was talking about – like when he said, “I'm talking about my life, I can't seem to get that through to you. I'm not just talking about one person, I'm talking about everybody. I'm talking about form. I'm talking about content. I'm talking about interrelationships. I'm talking about God, the devil, Hell, Heaven.”

Of course ol’ Randall was entirely sane. Mahmoud is beyond fruitcake. And he’s about to get his finger on the big trigger. Unless we find the guts to get him first.

Some Unhappy Bears

Murphy, Charles, Lovey, Jeannie and I settled onto the couch tonight to watch the Bears (the ones in Chicago) play the Cowboys (the ones from Dallas).

Sad. Very sad. Are Bears’ coach Lovey Smith and GM Jerry Angelo the only humans watching this game who think Rex Grossman should be playing quarterback in Chicago? It’s not as if they don’t have a better QB on their bench, because they do. You can look it up. They’re even worse off up the road in Minneapolis, of course, where Kelly Holcomb (like injured regular Tarvaris Jackson) was also not adequate. The Vikings are another NFC North team wasting a solid defense with an offensive offense. Lest they get too damned proud of the rookie running back, who rushed for 102 in 25 carries, the purple should be reminded that the two Rodent running backs who shared a backfield in the same building turned 34 rushes into 205 yards, 6 yards a pop.

Earlier, the Broncos finally fell off the high wire they’ve been on; they came from behind to win their first two, but not this time. And the Packers are off to a 3-0 start? Well, so the old man gets one more shot – as weak as the NFC is, this would be the year. Lovey needs to can Grossman or it’s over for the dispirited Bears. In Philadelphia, the Motor City Kitties got shown up for what they are – a bad football team. Without a quick change in the Windy City, the NFC North will finish: Packers, Bears, Kitties, Norwegians. In fact the whole NFL ain’t all that tough to figure out: Pats, Colts, Steelers, Cowboys, Packers. Those are the contenders. There are three that could yet right the ship: the Bears, Panthers, and Jaguars. The rest are pretenders.

Dissies and Happies

Welcome to the announcement of two new football awards. The Dissie (short for disappointing) is awarded to the team and game that most clearly fall short of expectation, hype, or promise. The Happie is awarded for any exceptionally hapless performance. The jury (a secret cabal) can make as many – or few – awards in either of the categories. Deliberations are secret and decisions are final. The awards will be made whenever the awards jury feels like it. Here are this week’s winners:

The Dissie

South Carolina – LSU This game was supposed to be better than this, wasn’t it? Or did I just underestimate LSU? It started well enough. I got a text from my son in Columbia, “Go Cocks,” when South Carolina scored first. “Game on,” I thought. Then the Tigers scored. And scored. And scored again. And scored one more time, making it 28-7 at three quarters. The Gamecocks put up a touchdown in garbage time. Thoroughly disappointing for the featured afternoon game, the winner of our Dissie in the game category.

Penn State Joe Pa said last year this would be “the year.” So Penn State won three, including one at Notre Dame, and rolled into Michigan with the nation’s number ten rank. In a putrid, poorly played game, Michigan made less mistakes and hung one on the Nittany Lions. Maybe next year, Joe? Penn State wins our team Dissie

The Happie

Notre Dame The Irish dropped a game at home to Michigan State. That makes the leprechaun zero and four for the first time in history. This was their best showing in four games, but they get a Happie – and will keep getting it – on the strength of continuing lousy performance.

Nebraska The Cornhuskers get a Happie even though they won – a squeaker over powerhouse Ball State – yes, that’s Ball State – in Lincoln. After getting flattened by USC last week, they stink up their own joint 41-40 over a school known as the alma mater of David Letterman – and little else.

My very own Golden Rodents get a special Happie for fielding most hapless defense in the nation for the fourth straight week.

Florida made themselves a strong contender for either of our awards by almost booting their season at Mississippi.

In the Worthwhile Watching Department (WWD) this week was Georgia-Alabama, the Bulldawgs taking a well-played overtime game in Tuscaloosa with as pretty a touchdown throw and catch as you ever want to see.

Politics by Abraham

I’ve been reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s bestselling political history of the Lincoln administration, Team of Rivals. Most would tag Lincoln as the emancipator, the war leader, the orator. Kearns rather casts Lincoln as the politician – the master politician. Examining Lincoln’s correspondence and conversations within the inner circles of his government, Kearns uncovers the sixteenth president’s ability to formulate effective policy by shrewdly manipulating a cabinet of strong men and political rivals – of each other and of the president.

Politician has become a bad word, hasn’t it? Along with its root, politics. It’s not, of course. Politics and politicians are the foundation of democracy; there is none of the last without the first two.

Politicians do nothing more – or less – than represent us. I mean that in both ways, being both our constitutional representatives, and representative of who we are, how we are. We’re venal. So are they. We’re narrow. So are they. We are willing to subordinate reasoned discourse to score points. So of course are they.

But politics can be – and should be – an honorable pursuit. Only a few sully it. Many more simply lack the intellect required of statecraft.

A politician barely elected. In fact, not expected to be elected – or re-elected. Hated by many. Reviled by most of the press. Believed by many to have deviously dragged the nation into a ruinous war. Ran a war policy criticized by serving and retired generals, two of whom who ran for president against him. Riots against the war, the military, and the draft that had to be put down by military force. Criticized for his lack of social graces, and manners, and intellect. Abraham Lincoln. Master politician.

Mired in Good Stories

I was working today on a story about Canepa Design, a Scotts Valley, California company that among other things restores historic racing sports cars. Though Jeannie and I have covered sports car racing for many years, I have never been very interested in historic racing. It is, after all, not real racing, but a weekend endeavor of the very wealthy serving little purpose beyond their own entertainment.

In writing about Canepa Design, and about Bruce Canepa, who we met at Laguna Seca Raceway earlier this summer, it’s become clear to me that there are many levels on which this abstruse activity might be understood. One I shouldn’t have missed is the stories. Not just because I write, but because these stories are histories, not just of mechanical objects, but of people, undertakings, success, and failure. After all, my first college major was history, and my avocational interests have never strayed far from that. That may or may not have contributed to the fact I have three children with degrees in history, but it can’t have hurt, can it? Anyway, this assignment for The Last Turn Clubhouse took me deeply into many of those stories, those bits of history. In fact, one of the problems I’m having with this article is cutting off the research. We saw scores of cars in Scotts Valley, and heard many stories. My notes and Jeannie’s photos keep sending me to the web or to my own book shelf and friend Janos Wimpffen’s monumental history, Time and Two Seats – Five Decades of Long Distance Racing.

Here’s Roger Penske conspiring to improve the brakes on the AMC Javelin – by “borrowing” them from Porsche’s 917. Bill France, who had a plan to win Le Mans – with a stock car. There’s the quintessential Southern California Ford “flathead” powered hot rod that set land speed records at Bonneville salt flats. How special federal legislation “sprung” Porsche’s famous 959 super car.

So, for tonight, I’m mired in research, little of it necessary for the article I’ll finish tomorrow. That’s if I can resist the urge to look up still more information on a Trust 962, or on John Paul’s Greenwood GT Supervette.

Dick

They finally figured it out – the loser house guests on Big Brother 8. It never was a question of being likable, Christian, or a good person. That realization finally came (to the surprise of some) when the “jury” of the last seven to be evicted voted Dick Donato the winner. By then it was too late and Dick had the half mil.

At every turn since we started watching in Wisconsin, you could see the rest of the house was helpless against the Donatos. They were praying, complaining, crying (way too much), trying to obtain promises of support, to and forge alliances that could never work.

We’d been able to avoid Big Brother 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. This time we were captured, admittedly Tom more than Jeannie. I’m perverse enough to derive pleasure from watching the naive go down in flames. Only Eric had a clue, and his game was (oddly) improved by audience votes that directed his actions. In the end all the cash went to the three who combined brains, toughness, and yes, malevolence. As it should be.

Happy Birthday Jeannie

September 18 is Jeannie’s birthday. She got gifts from her mother, from cousin Cindi, and from friend Jo. We went out to dinner.

Stokes’ Restaurant is on Monterey’s Path of History, in an adobe built in 1833, just twelve years after Mexico’s independence from Spain, when Monterey was the capital of Mexican California. The house was a center of Monterey society in the years following its purchase by James Stokes, an English sailor, later a doctor, druggist, mayor of Monterey and landowner in Monterey and San Jose. There were other owners after the middle of the century, then the adobe was bought in 1890 by Mortimer and Hattie Gragg, and once again its parlor and living rooms played an important role in Monterey’s social life.

In 1950, the property became Gallitan’s, a restaurant with a national reputation. Employees report numerous sightings of a nineteenth century man believed to be Dr. Stokes, and in an upstairs bedroom his beautiful and beloved wife Josefa Soto de Cano, who died in 1855. Hattie Gragg has also often been seen – even to this day – by staff and guests.

Anyway, it’s our first time at Stokes, a rare restaurant with more Mobil stars (3) than dollar signs (2). They didn’t have our first wine choice, a Fumé Blanc, but we ended up with Talbott Vinyard’s Kali Hart Chardonnay, grown in the Santa Lucia Highlands of Monterey County, on the eastern slope of the coastal Santa Lucia mountains.

For a first course Jeannie had fried green tomatoes with horseradish rémoulade; it was excellent. Not much so my crispy potatoes with aioli. I expected a crisp, hard exterior with a soft, hot center (think a good French baguette). I got warm limp lumps of potato that were anything but crisp. It got better with the main course. Jeannie’s crêpes with spinach béchamel, summer vegetables and Gruyère cheese were excellent again, and I did as well with a free range herbed chicken breast on polenta with Dijon jus. First courses were around $4, and main courses $18 and $19. The wine was $8 a glass, not much less than you’d pay for a full bottle of the Kali Hart, but that’s typical for restaurants, isn’t it?

It was a quiet, memorable evening together. Happy birthday, Jeannie.

Browns, Bengals Blow, other Football Follies

That was a real disaster in Cleveland – if you really appreciate football – you understand and appreciate that defense is a part of it. Otherwise, you appreciate all the so-called “excitement,” of scoring nearly 100 points. Both teams – the Browns and the Bengals – gained over 500 yards. Fifty-six first downs. Cleveland averaged 7 ½ yards per rush. Surprisingly the turn over total was only four – not unusual. It was high scoring, it was close, but a “good game?” No, that’s something else.

Jeannie’s Horsies hosted a lousy Raiders team at Mile High. They almost blew it. Last week, they had to come from behind to win in Buffalo. The Bills were beaten 26-3 this week by Pittsburgh. Anyway, of note was a demonstration of sideline management by Broncos coach Mike Shanahan. In overtime, Oakland had apparently kicked the winning field goal from 52 yards. But they didn’t. It seems Shanahan had called a time out just before the kick. Legally, but too late to stop the play on the field. The Raider’s kicker would have to make a tough one again. He couldn’t, and the Broncos drove down the field to win.

The Patriots were caught cheating last week, gaining an unfair advantage. What they did to the Chargers – a team expected to be a factor in the playoffs – was truly unfair. It was 24-0 at half as Brady, Moss, and Maroney beat San Diego “to a pulp,” according to one sportswriter.
The Purple went to Detroit and gifted the Motor City Kitties their first win in eleven years. The chief Santa was quarterback Tavaris Jackson, an Arkansas drop out (feeling unwanted in the “bigs,” he took off for Alabama State, where he was a “find” for rookie head coach Brad Childress. For the game Jackson was 17-for-33 for 166 yards, four interceptions and a quarterback rating of 26.4. Throw in the opener, won by the Vikings in spite Tavaris, and his rating remains an anemic 40. I can’t say for sure that Jackson won’t be a good one someday. It’s just that there’s nothing to suggest he will.

Elsewhere in the Noxious North, a young Packers team (except the quarterback) whipped the Giants. Good, perhaps they’ll get smart in New York and sack a really, really bad coach. The Bears won, but coach Lovie Smith seems to be getting tired of the team having to carry it’s quarterback. They’re saying in Chicago that Rex Grossman might be on a short tether. A Chicago cousin sent us a Bear named Lovie today. Murphy and Charles are exited to get another “garage buddy.” Heidi’s a little worried about “the boys” behaving themselves.