Thoughts of a Common Man

It's truly rare these days that a football game gets played without some sort of controversy due to a poor call by a ref. The same old words are spoken. "We shouldn't be in a position where one call costs us the game." "The NFL is issuing an apology." "The play is not reviewable." Blah, blah, blah, blah. The team that loses the game bellyaches that they would have won had the refs got this right or that right. The team that wins says, 'Stop your bitching it's a tough game to call.' So. Let me chime in. 1). It is a difficult game to call. The players are moving at breakneck speed on the field. The refs are middle-aged men. The cameras can slow everything down for the fan at home. Therefore you have men, on the field, making a split-second decision that a viewer sees eleven times from twelve different angles. The refs actually have no chance there. 2). The rules suck. No one actually knows the rules. Quick: ...

There's a great temptation, when we are all together, to go through the greatest hits of the Fazzolari family. I told the story of meeting a women with Tourette's at the doctor's office. The poor lady. We laughed at how startled I was when she screamed in mid-sentence. Jim told the story about Dad removing a turkey from the oven. The turkey and the pan came flying out and Dad slipped in the grease and hit the ground. "I broke my ass cooking it," Dad said. We laugh at the memory of it all. And it's funny, but you never know when the next big laugh is coming. We are all big personalities and there's a lot of back and forth. John told a joke that had all of us shaking our heads and laughing. Then Jim stole the show with a unique performance that had the people around him in tears of laughter. And yet. There was a new entrant. Jake's line: "It's a Thanksgiving miracle," brought the house down. (Jim will have to t...

Visited the state of Iowa this past week. It's funny but the response I get when I mention that is: Why? or How bad is it? Well. There's not a lot going on there. I took a trip from Kansas City to Ankeny which is about 3 hours by rental car. I added satellite radio to my car charge because I didn't want to be scanning from station to station and I figured that the drive might be a tad boring. It is. Miles of endless nothing. A few cows. Watch out for deer signs and just field after field after field with the farmer's daughter type homes about a half mile from the road. "You should try a loose meat sandwich," my buddy texted me. I thought of the old Roseanne show and Tom Arnold (a famous guy from Iowa) talking about how great they are. I don't normally scan the area too closely when I'm in an unfamiliar state and since my drinking days are over I'm no longer looking for the best bar when I'm on the road. But loose mea...

Hanging around in an airport has always been somewhat torturous as the chairs are hard plastic, the food is of the fast variety, there's a lot of walking involved and there are freaking people everywhere! Freaking people!! And now that most of them are looking down as they walk, or talking on phones, they can be a tad irritating. But on a recent trip I was seated in one of the chairs in an isolated area. I had the i-pod on and therefore I couldn't hear any of the irritating sounds. I could only watch. People come in all sorts of interesting shapes and sizes. Big ones. Little ones. Tall ones and short ones. They are a variety of colors as well. White, black, brown, beige, off-white, off-brown, red. They all dress wildly differently. There's the sweatpants and tee-shirt crowd (of which I am a proud member). Then there are the business guys. (They are strangely irritating to me...they talk into their ear pieces, they seem too dolled up to be real ...

Stumbled across this message that was written for Thanksgiving Day: Easy to forget. Hard to remember. A Thanksgiving Remembrance - Submitted by Anonymous My paternal grandmother lived with us. She would sit in the porch swing and I would stand behind her and brush her beautiful long gray hair. As I brushed her hair she would tell me her two favorite stories from the Bible. The only thing better was when she would have me snuggle up close to her in the swing as she read to me. As I child, I surmised that they were just good stories but now as a mother and grandmother I realize she had an ulterior motive - she was teaching me a most valuable lesson - a lesson about kindness and thankfulness. She often added to the story of the Good Samaritan, "You never pass someone in need even if their skin is not the color of yours." And, "You should never pick and choose who you will be kind to, you just be kind," she would enumerate over and over. This same ...

I love going to breakfast with my Mom. I've been to hundreds of breakfast outings with my mother and much like going to breakfast with my wife...I could probably order for her. And then we talk about everything. Books we've read, people in and around North Collins, kids, siblings, Dad, the dogs... ...anything and everything. We catch up on everything over coffee and eggs. Today is Mom's birthday, and if you see her, make sure she knows how special you want her day to be. If you don't see her today...give her a call. Because she's one amazing lady. Mom has seen it all through the years. Kids who drove her crazy. A husband who loved her like mad...and left way too early. Grand kids who think she's really funny. What amazes me the most as we share breakfast or as she eats pasta, or lobster or steak... ...is that she always searches for the best in someone... ...or the funny in the story. I've said it before... ...no one I've ...

I have to be out of my freaking mind to even attempt to make sense of this topic. In fact, I kind of think that it should be out of my hands... ...and your hands... We elect officials to make these sorts of decisions and eventually that decision will be made. And one side or the other will bitch about it. But since everyone is bitching about it... ...Off we go! There are people in Syria who are running for their lives. That can't really be disputed. They no longer have homes. Some have children. A parent trying to keep a child safe is desperate. If they stay in the country that they lived in... ...they may starve, meet a violent end, or worse, be tortured before either of the first two things happens. Other nations are making the decision to allow these fleeing refugees into their country... ...or not. Here in the United States we have often been a place that is a safe haven in such circumstances. A lot of people are now saying: F%^K That Noise! We hav...