Jumping Up and Down in The Puddle Of Life

Solving The Vikings Front Office Problems

2011-12-05T14:41:00.001-08:00

To say this season for The Minnesota Vikings has not met expectations is like saying the venom from a cobra has a chance of being lethal. NFL strike impact aside, the public was told by multiple persons on this team that "we have the talent to go to The Super Bowl this year (2011 season)"

By now it should be obvious that the Minnesota Vikings do not have the talent to get off the bottom of the NFC North division and thus do not have the talent to go to this season's Super Bowl. I have to apologize to Adrian Peterson, Jared Allen, Chad Greenway and Percy Harvin because their veteran leadership was driven on to the rocks of despair thanks to a sound bite spewing management type. That is where the problem lies, the Vikings management and that is where the problem will be solved.

How do you solve this Front Office problem? It is simple. First you gather together every management person who spouted the phrase "we have the talent to win the Super Bowl this year" or a slight variation that maintains the key element of having the talent to win the Super Bowl this season. These people assemble in a conference room at Winter Park. Once everyone is there, security locks the room and allows no one in or out.

The first order of business is to determine who first said that the Vikings have the talent to win the Super Bowl this season (2011). Once this person is determined, said person is escorted out of the conference room to the owner's office, where he is told that his services are no longer required and has thirty minutes to gather their personal effects, leave their team identification, access, security and team issued credit cards on the owners desk and leave.

While this is happening, the remaining occupants in the conference room, are determining the identity of first person to repeat the phrase "we have the talent to win the Super Bowl this year." Once this is determined, that person is then taken to the office of the Head of Security, where he is told that his services are no longer required, to turn over his team identification, access, security and team issued credit cards, wait while his personal effects are brought to him and then leave.

The remaining occupants are then charged with determining the identities of the next four persons who repeated the phrase. Once determined, these people are then taken to the press room where the team owner strips them of their credentials et al.

The team owner then returns to the conference room and escorts them out to a press conference in front of the building. The owner then holds a press conference about cleaning house and asks the remaining personnel from the conference room to hand over all team issued items and their personal effects will be delivered to their cars within the hour.

Then you establish an organizational structure of responsibility and accountability filling those positions with people who actually know something about football and evaluating talent.

Oh Superman

2011-11-10T07:57:00.001-08:00

If we think of Jesus Christ as Superman, we are still presented with a problem. We do not know if the book of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John is the Siegel & Schuster origin story.

We have to take it on faith that the essence of the story remains the same whether it is told by Binder & Boring, Weissinger & Swan, Byrne, Wolfman & Ordway or Johns & Lee.

For Your Consideration: Entitled Observers

2011-09-28T17:52:00.001-07:00

A while back a friend and I were discussing "transparency" and hit upon something I called entitled observers. Entitled Observers are people who essentially go looking for stuff, ideas, topics in real life and online so that they can pass judgement or give their opinions where they have little or no vested interest. The extreme Entitled Observers end up being moralists, bigots and reactionaries. More subtle Entitled Observers are the nosy busy bodies who have to be "in" on all the cool stuff, secrets and/or gossip. The problem is that many of these people do not realize is that not everyone values their opinions as highly as they do nor should people be expected to change their behaviors just because others are uncomfortable or misunderstanding what they are doing. Live and Let Live, I say.

DC does market research.

2011-09-28T09:36:00.001-07:00

DC decides to do some market reasearch — let them know how you feel | The Beat

That's so real

2011-09-15T07:03:00.001-07:00

"She's not so much a trophy wife as she is a participation ribbon wife:" - Mike Gelfand (b. 195?); Radio personality; regarding Michaela Salahi, KQ Morning Show (KQRS-FM, 92.5 FM Minneapolis/St.Paul, MN), Sept 15, 2011, ~8:56am

DCpU Reboot: The Flash

2011-07-04T21:33:00.001-07:00

The god Mercury, having offended both Hera and Zeus, is banished to Earth. He assumes the identity of Barry Allen, police forensics investigator and fights crime as.... The Flash! (Coming when monkeys fly out my butt.)

An Open Letter to Bill Smith, Ron Gardenhire and Rick Anderson.

2011-05-24T07:40:00.001-07:00

I would like to offer my services to the Minnesota Twins bullpen. I can throw pitches that result in hitters making in-play contact AND I am cheaper than any bullpen pitcher you have. I will take the abuse for losing games which we should have won for league minimum.

I figure using me this season should save you enough money to sign a backup catcher who can call a ballgame half as good as the one with "bilateral leg weakness."

Think about it, because this season is over. Harmon Killebrew must be spinning in his grave as this season begins to resemble the Twins' seasons from 1973 to 1981. C'mon Cuddy, hit a touchdown!

Bummer about The Rapture, Dude.

2011-05-22T21:55:00.001-07:00

Well.... it looks like "Christians" have to go back to turning the other cheek and loving thy neighbor as thyself. What a bummer for all the moral bullies.

Dear Ziggy Wilf:

2010-11-21T21:23:00.001-08:00

How can you salvage the rest of this year? Well, I have a four step plan.

1. Fire Brad Childress. This guy who poses as the Vikings head coach has questionable judgement at best. He insisted that he could make an NFL quarterback out of Tavaris Jackson in 2006, then in 2009 he stated that Tavaris needed more work and brought in Brett Favre. Now in 2010, he lost the best liason between him and Brett Favre when Sage Rosenfels was traded. Now we have not one, but two backup QBs on the team who he is "developing" in to NFL quarterbacks: Tavaris Jackson and rookie Joe Webb. See a pattern here? He is destroying the quarterback position through experimentation.

2. Make Darryl Bevel interim head coach. Why? Why not. Somebody's gotta do it. You also have an abundance of want-to-be offensive play callers, so one less of these egos micromanaging play calling during a game can't cause any more harm now that we have hit rock bottom.

3. Waive Bryant McKinnie. Your left offensive tackle run blocks on passing plays and pass blocks on running plays. Defenses can line up two players on him and have a 65% certainty that one of them will make the tackle. In my opinion, he has provided a detrimental influence on your second year right offensive tackle, Phil Loadholt. Need I remind you of McKinnie's immature behavior at last year's Pro Bowl?

4. Fire your VP - Player Personnel. Bringing back Randy Moss rests on the head of this "genius." That little act of desperation crushed any respect that existed between the coaching staff and the players. He also spearheaded trading Sage Rosenfels to the Giants. Rosenfels was the tenuous tethercord between Childress, Bevel and Favre. Look at this year and see how well that has worked without Rosenfels.

The Demon Sugar

2010-10-08T10:59:00.001-07:00

So NYC mayor Bloomberg wants to remove soft drinks from the list of acceptable foods that you can buy with food stamps. Really?

I have many conflicting sentiments about this. First, government telling you what to eat or drink seems like a really bad idea, but we do have warnings on cigarettes and alcohol. However cigs and booze are considered adult-only consumptives. You have to be eighteen and twenty-one years of age, respectively, to legally purchase them. Do we need to make soft drinks age restrictive for purchasing as well?

Second, if they are banned from the food stamp program, then what sugar laden beverage would buyers choose? Fruit juice? So-called juice beverages? There will be a replacement that will not help reduce obesity. Mark my words.

Third, how much more liberty are people willing to give up? Do we need to have people give up choices because they are poor or impoverished?

Fourth, this is a government subsidy program. The government does have the right to set requirements for being part of the program. Is it right that the government asks people to give up choices to be part of a subsidy program? Do they require dietary behavior modification for inclusion now? What behavioral modification would be next, religious modification? Sexual behavior modification? Consumer spending behavior modification? How does getting someone to give up their legal rights, protected in the United States Constitution, align with the government's duty to protect the United States Constitution?

I don't have any concrete answers, but I do have plenty of questions to consider. Maybe we need to be encouraging people to be responsible with their exercise of their rights rather than holding them hostage in an all or nothing negotiation?

Cyber Bullying vs. Breakdown in Communication

2010-10-07T13:06:00.000-07:00

The whole bullying thing is sadly a breakdown in communication between people. On one side is the subject of the bullying who doesn't deserve to be a target and doesn't understand the context of what is being said about them. On the other side are the people who are saying things for suspicious reasons and have attempted to use the person they are subjecting taunts to as a way to connect.

If you want to know something about another person, ask them if they will share with you. Do it in the context of respect and privacy. Recognize that you don't have the right to know things that other people don't want to share and you can't force them to share. It is frustrating, but that is the reality. The best perspective is to put yourself in their position and see how you would react. You can't expect to be perfect, but it is a better place to start from rather than make random speculative statements about that person.

Don't let bad communication turn your intentional concern and inquiry in to an attack on a person's character.

Life... neglected blog. Blog... neglected life.

2010-10-05T21:39:00.000-07:00

Does anyone read my blog?

I am faaaarrrr too self-conscious to do this for attention and to self-centered to do this and be ignored.

It's political season. Time for the Republicans to try to attack the Democrats and how they have handled things in the last two years. Like Dubya needed only two years to have a referendum on his policies.

I am so tired of hearing the phrases "Job-killing taxes", "Typical politician" and "Bringing New Ideas" that I want to scream at the god-damned TV.

I have opinions and am not afraid to state them, nor change them.

God Bless You, Travis

2010-04-14T20:51:00.001-07:00

My wife's cousin died yesterday. I is believed that he had meningitis.

http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2010/apr/meningitis

The thing about it is....

2010-04-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

Depression sucks. You can try to fight through it. You can try to strategize around it. You can even try to plan around and manage it. However, it will thwart your best intentions and stymie your most resolved intentions, so all you can do is flow with it. It's not the best way to handle it in this modern organized, planned, processed world, but it is the only thing that works.

I am convinced that trying to force your willpower on to it to make it change results in making it resist that change more. However coming to the watershed of the ride is very liberating. Pent up energy is released and you can focus it on that which you love.

Good day!!

2009-06-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

Billboards

Written by Clifford Meth with Illustrations by Dave Gutierrez

IDW Publishing $14.99, ISBN: 978-1-60010422-0

Reviewed by Paul Ewert

Billboards is a satiric short story collection from Clifford Meth. This quirky set of speculative fiction stories reminds us that the winds of popularity, politics and commerce are dangerous ways to orient one’s moral compass.

The title story, Billboards, gives us the tale of two people who are making money effortlessly by being physical advertisements for corporations thanks to biometric tattooing. It latches on to the vain attention-getting behaviors used to attract mass media interest like a rabid pit bull. The main characters are enjoyable and caught in contradiction after contradiction. They use carefully crafted laissez-faire methods and attitudes to get an unsuspecting public to notice them and by default their corporate brands. Yet their true laissez-faire relationship creates a situation that drops opposing corporate objectives between them. Their efforts to resolve this conflict draw a very stark and unorthodox resolution.

Dave Gutierrez provides illustrations for Billboards. Each of his illustrations helps underscore an element of Meth’s story, thus adding the visual depth to the world of Billboards.

Queers is another fine story in the collection. In it Meth takes the stereotypical American family and turns it upside down then turns it inside out. This short story could be described as an American version of Gerd Bratenberg’s Egalia’s Daughters with a coming of age twist. It is a wonderful reminder of the battle between popular morality and being true to your own self.

Other stories in the collection introduce us to the hyper-cerebral billionaire CEO Jonah Zwillman, a coming out story as written by the Olympian gods, an encounter with an angelic succubus and a writer drunk on power he has over a devoted fan.

This is the kind of book that takes you away from your daily worries and brings you in the back door of the looking glass. You find yourself thinking your know how Meth will resolve the story, but he surprises you with thoughtful resolve.

Getting Started

2009-05-06T12:49:00.000-07:00

What is the Puddle of Life? It's Life and it is like a puddle. You try to avoid it, but you step in it despite your best efforts to avoid it. It gets splashed on you when you aren't looking. It's the things you end up thinking about or dwelling on even though you want to forget them. It the thing that intrudes in to your life like water that you thought you had dammed up. You wonder if it is deeper than it looks and when you step in it the depth is not what you expected. It's renewed by the events going on around it. It dries out when neglected or isolated. It's the map and the landscape. It's contradiction and validation. Oh... and it was the title of a letter column that I wrote for a couple issues of Entropy Tales, a comic book that I was involved in during the mid-1980's.

Welcome.