amazing and inspiring / they're just blue jeans

ed norton

You will always be looking over your shoulder waiting for somebody to call you out and say, you’re a fraud, you’re an idiot. Like, this is not going to work. getting used to that sensation is a good thing. I’ve been acting professionally for 20 years and I still start things and basically wait for somebody to go, "Wow! You really don’t know what you’re doing. You really suck."

- - -

This is how everyone in advertising feels every day.

writing

So now that I have a way to put my own writing on Amazon, with the exact cover art the way I want and everything, I feel compelled to complete my next project: a collection of essays and stories, with some material from Roadside Attractions (which is new to Amazon).

But I honestly don't have the time and more importantly the energy. Work is great. Baby is great. Side projects are fun. But when I have a bit of free time, I feel drained. I'd rather just play games or watch football.

So I don't know when I'll get around to writing. It does give me a huge sense of fulfillment. And I guess there's no hurry. It's not like I'm going to make any real money off of it. It's just something that I'd like to do. Just a matter of when.

holy shit, is it 5772 already?

baseball is funny

Everyone's making such a big deal about the wild-card race, when you know one of the teams that squeaks in will get swept and get just one home playoff game, already down 0-2.

I mean, I'm certainly not wishing for more baseball games. I think 2400+ is enough for one year.

I just think it's all a little silly.

dave vs mark

The two hottest teams in fantasy! Head to head!

Of course, Mark is 3-0. The only undefeated team. So he'll crush me. When he has Vick, he's the greatest player ever. When I have Vick he blows. When I had Ray Rice last year, he was unimpressive. When Mark has him, he's on a tear.

When I have Welker he's a solid flex play. When Mac has Welker, he's the #1 WR.

Really I just wanted to point out that Mark and I are the only two teams to win both of the last two weeks.

another fantasy miracle!

So even though James Starks sucks and Michael Vick got hurt (and sucks a little too), I still had a good shot of winning my matchup thanks to Darren McFadden (the #1 RB in fantasy so far, 12th RB drafted). In fact, he has over 150% more points than Chris Johnson and Frank Gore combined--both were drafted ahead of him.

Anyways, so I needed 9.5 from Witten on MNF to win. He was the ESPN #1 ranked TE for week 3. No Austin. Romo's a little hurt and won't want to hold on to the ball too long. Witten's previous weeks were 14 and 13.5. So I wasn't worried.

Until halftime and Witten had 2 catches for 7 yards, 1 point.

I checked back in at the start of the 4th quarter. The live score was 79.5 to 81. Witten was up to 7.5 points = 5 catches for 53 yards. All I needed now was two more catches for a total of 7 yards. Only one more pass was thrown to Witten. He caught it. And got 7 yards. 9 points. And the final score for the week is 81-81. A tie.

I immediately think how stupid it was to bench Jordy Nelson for A.J. Green. I did it for upside. But Nelson scored 1.5 more points and that would have been the difference. But I was smart for picking up the Titans D instead of riding my Saints D. And I was super thankful for each and everyone one of Run DMC's 30.5 points.

So I came to work expecting to see that I was 1-1-1. But I wasn't.

The final score wasn't 81-81 anymore. It was 81-80. So I checked the stat corrections.

And 11 of Reggie Bush's rushing yard were reassigned to Chad Henne. I don't know what to make of that other than God wants me to win at fantasy football.

super weird amazing random

Today I was coming back from Loveland, CO from a work conference when I thought I would surprise Brittany and her mom with some cupcakes. I knew of two good cupcake places in Denver: Gigi's and Lovely Confections. But my Garmin search function couldn't come up with either one. I tried calling On*Star (Niraj) but he didn't pick up. So I tried Kirat, Missy and Charlie. No help. I thought that Lovely was near Colfax, so I thought I would exit there, pull over, and try to get the Garmin or On*Star to work again.

But I missed the Colfax exit. So I kept going, and got off at 6th East. I went until I was off the freeway part and pulled over. Here's where I ended up.

I figured I was roughly in the middle of Denver. No matter where it was I could get there in 10-15 minutes. So I tried some different search terms in the Garmin and called Niraj again. This time he picked up. I thought about asking for both stores, but just asked for Gigi's. He said he would text me the address in a minute. So I waited. And then I got the address and put it in the Garmin. Here is the address for Gigi's.

Let's zoom in for a closer look.

There you have it. I had absolutely no idea where Gigi's was. I even missed the exit of where I wanted to get off. And I basically pulled over right next to it. The Gigi's lot was full so I ended up parking on the street--it would have been faster if I had just walked from where I was originally pulled over.

you can't beat tom hanks

My Top 3 Hanks Performances:
Catch Me If You Can
A League Of Their Own
Apollo 13

(Not based on difficulty or even necessarily acting chops per se. More so, what Hanks performances if on TV would draw me in to watch the film the most.)

robin as justin bieber

my wife LOLed at this commercial

2011 Part Two: my fantasy season rides on nicks getting six tonight

Since the Chiefs season is unwatchable, there's even more pressure on my fantasy team. Last week only 3 (out of 11 possible) teams were better than me. I lost.

Tonight, I trail the defending champ by 5.5 and I've got Hakeem Nicks with a swollen knee.

I was sure that I was going to have the lead already. But Vick committed three turnovers and then left the game in the 3rd quarter.

Meanwhile, Matt Ryan throws for less than 200 yards, but somehow got four freaking touchdowns.

So I need 6 points. I could have easily started Pierre Thomas over Nicks. Thomas scored 6 yesterday.

Anyways, starting the season 0-2 with two divisional losses would be a killer. Especially when I've had good performances (law of averages). So come on Nicks.

2011 Part One: chiefs season over before it started

First off, even before the Berry and Charles injuries, I conceded the 2011 Chiefs season. First of all, they overachieved last year. They were probably a 7-9 team that, with an easy schedule and some lucky breaks including hardly any injurues, got to 10-6 and were exposed by the Raiders and Ravens at the end of the year.

Based on a harder schedule alone, I would have expected the 10-6 Chiefs to get no better than 8-8 this year. The loss of OC Weis was very underrated I think. Without him, I think their ceiling was 6-10. That was my mindset going into Calcutta.

Then for some reason, the lockout has affected them worse than other teams. Based on the coaching and player readiness, I would say they look like a 3 or 4 win team.

And then you take away 3 of their best players, when at most we have 6 best players. That's how I came up with a 2-14 record seeming optimistic.

worst nfl punt i've ever seen

No return. Atlanta just punted and it went out of bounds at their own 20. I don't think I've ever seen a team start in the red zone after a punt without a return.

Watch out Dwayne Bowe's ACL

Three consecutive games where one of the Chiefs' best players tears an ACL. We don't have that many good players left!

Watch out Bowe, Hali.

This feels like a bad Final Destination movie.

I mean, Charles tears his ACL stepping on THE FIRST DOWN MARKER. You can't make this stuff up.

Injuries aside the Chiefs look like the worst team in football. I just hope they win 1 game so they don't tie the Lions 0-16 mark. 2-14 seems optimistic.

But maybe with Andrew Luck and an upgraded training staff, the Chiefs could be contenders again in a few years.

i changed my mind, can we have the nfl lockout this year?

illini highlights!

ESPN
Illinois Football
Big Ten Network 
Big Ten Network (all Illinois videos page)

if you want to ruin your day

do a google image search of "thrush mouth"

big illini win!

No Big Ten Network so I had to follow a ESPN.com Gamecast with H in my arms.

3-0 with Western Michigan and Northwestern at home and at Indiana up next. Could easily be 6-0 by the time they host Ohio State.

The Big Ten schedule is pretty tough, but it seems like at least a 7 or 8 win season and a bowl berth is a likely possibility.

I'm not booking any hotels for the Big Ten Championship game in Indianapolis just yet, but nice to have a winning season (so far at least).

I can't wait to see the highlights. I'll post them here if I can.

actual conversation with my wife

Me: Well, the Chiefs season is over.
Wife: Yep.
Me: Hey, I haven't even told you why yet.
Wife: ...
Me: Today they lost another one of their best players out for the season.
Wife: They have a best player?
Me: ...
Wife: Well I guess it's all relative.

ah, yes

Now I remember why fantasy football infuriates me.

All day I thought I was going to win, figuring even if Brady matches Vick's 26, if McFadden gets in the endzone once I'm fine.

And then Brady gets 4 touchdowns and OVER 500 yards. Including a 99-yard touchdown. Seriously.

congrats to the lions for winning the 2011 burger bet

Edit: For the record, this post was made before I heard Berry was out for the season. 20 cents was too much to bid on Kansas City.

The best mexican food I've ever had

Looking for the best green chile in Denver, yelp led me to Santiago's. I ordered the enchilada dinner (1 chicken, 1 beef, 1 cheese) smothered in medium green chile. I ordered medium because yelp warned me that medium at Santiago's is already super hot.

The food was fine. The green chile was super hot, almost unnecessarily so, but at the same time there wasn't a lot of flavor from it, and there could have been more of it. Though as hot as it was, I couldn't really of handled anymore, if that makes sense. (I wish there had been more of a less burning my mouth green chile.) And surprisingly, the meats didn't taste that good--the cheese was my favorite of the three.

So I figured, if you want something done right...you have to do it yourself.

- - -

Last night my mom came into town, and I cooked for her some homemade mexican food, Denver style. I had a tub of the HOT pork-based Mark Schlereth's Stinkin' Good Green Chile. And after making myself a large soft taco with the green chile on the inside which was good, I thought I could take it up a notch. So this was my round two:

I started with a warmed flour tortilla and applied a foundation of sour cream. Then the meat was a mixture: half chorizo, half ground beef seasoned with chili powder, burger seasoning and Lowry's seasoned salt. Then I took a handful of shredded cheddar. Then, and this was key, I rolled it up and placed two bamboo skewers  through the overlap to keep it a tight roll, and then microwaved it for 20 seconds. Then I smothered it in my hot green chile, with plenty of chunks of pork sitting there, and microwaved it again for 20 seconds.

In one minute, I had the goodness of enchiladas, but done just the way I wanted. I really don't know how to brag this up any bigger than the title of the post. There was three different meats, the beef, chorizo, and the pork from the green chile. Melted cheddar. And the hotness of the green chile with the coolness of the sour cream. AMAZING. MORE PLEASE.

What more could anyone ever ask for?

I was driving home from the grocery store, listening to Incubus, with my arm out the window, when it hit me.

In two months I will turn 28. And today I have everything that I've ever wanted.

I'm married to the love of my life.
I'm living where I want to live, enjoying yet another day of perfect Colorado weather.
I've got a job that I enjoy and is professionally fulfilling.
And I've got a perfect little angel that's 5 days old.

When I list it all out, it sounds like I'm bragging. But I'm not trying to. I'm just so thankful and blessed. It's hard to believe that everything has worked out the way it has.

I don't know what the future holds, but I can't help but step into the sunshine, spread my arms wide and give life a big hug.

It's a whole new world, I'm just happy to be in it.

I got an email from a former coworker in Chicago that said, "Welcome to the other side of life."

And I was thinking about that, and it seems pretty true right now.

Growing up, you are dependent on your parents. Through high school, you study and work hard for your own future, but you're still living as child to your parents.

Then you go off to college and you're living on your own. In my case, that was the last ten years. You're independent making decisions for yourself.

And then, in an instant, you become a parent. And now you have a child dependent on you.

Now I suppose you could describe this as a three act play. But I like the description of "the other side of life." Being independent in my mind is just the bridge, or the fence, that you cross to get there.

Now I'm here. And loving it.