The Eleventy Billionth Blog

It'll Be A Cold Day in Hell

So begins day 2 of our Laura Ingalls Hobo Experience. You see, during Dallas's 12. A BILLION inch snowfall, we lost power. And, as we all know, snow = cold, or in many cases, very, very cold. We tried mightily to brave it Friday, even heading to a movie and an unnecessarily long trip to Target. But when we arrived home after sark and there was STILL no power, we conceded defeat and bunked with friends. this morning, still no power. But a couple blocks in any direction from our abode and there are lights a plenty. This does make me wonder what exactly our local transformer is made of. If the power goes out in our neighborhood, you can be gauranteed we'll be the last ones to get it restored. Last summer, that meant 4 days of no electricity. I try to comfort myself by thinking that surely the people already being helped were just as cold as me, but still - it rankles to literally watch a transformer blow in Preston Hollow and then see two Oncor trucks head in that direction within seconds.

New Year Resolve

I'm sitting in the office today, watching footage of this horrible, 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti, a country that frankly needed another disaster like it needed the proverbial hole in the head.

It's a country that survived multiple hurricanes in the span of three weeks in 2008. It has one of the highest unemployment rates on this side of the globe, if not the highest. Housing is built out of what can be afforded, not what is safest. More than 80% of its population lives in poverty.

And all of this reminded me of a blog post I meant to write over the weekend, but for various and sundry reasons opted to let it marinate a while.

As 2009 ended and 2010 began, I saw a lot of grousing about the previous year. A lot of it, granted, is warranted. By all accounts, 2009 took most of us out of our financial, emotional and mental comfort zones in many, many ways. 

But three little letters many people used in 2009 set me on edge. Every time. FML. Fuck My Life.

"I have to get all the kids fed and finish up a project before 10 p.m. FML." "My tire was flat this morning. FML."

To this, I have to ask - really? Your life is that bad? You have no friends? You have no family? You do not have moments of joy? Let's dissect the whole phrase, shall we? Fuck My Life. I hate my life. I want to chuck it. I abhor everything about it, and if I could find a new one right this very minute, I would. 

Is that what everyone means when they tack on FML after a complaint? Because imagine this: Right now, there's a mother in Haiti worried about the fact that her husband hasn't come home from his now demolished workplace, trying to reassure her children that everything will be OK when she does not in fact know if it will be. She may very well be a widow, and possibly facing a lifestyle that will downgrade from impoverished to really impoverished.

If anyone deserves to say FML, it's her. Not me, or anyone who just woke up to an intact home, a fridge full of food, running water, and a job. No, we have it pretty good. 

So while I know I'll complain this year, I can promise you this (and here comes Resolution No. 1): I will not be tacking FML on to any of my complaints. 

And now that I've mentioned resolutions, I have one more: I'm going to accept help, and quit railing at karma. Yes, I do nice things for people. I'm thoughtful. But I got to thinking the other day that perhaps some of us are just not letting karma pay us back because it's not from an  expected source.

My lovelies, karma is a bitch, and she always calls the shots. She chooses her way to pay you back, and it's not going to always be by conventional methods, or by your same close group of friends. If it always happened that way, you'd not respect and appreciate karma. You'd only do nice things for you friends, and they'd only do nice things for you. That's friendship, not karma. The two sometimes intersect, but they're not conjoined twins.

So be open minded to the myriad of ways karma may be trying to pay you back. I know I am going to try to do this more. 

Rant over. Carry on. And be nice to each other today. It's rough out there.

Dear Kay Bailey Hutchison:

Are you trying to lose this, or do you really want to know if we'd like government-issued GPS units in our cars that can not only record "taxable miles" (whatever the what that is), but also give the state a whole lot of other information it doesn't need?

Please tell us your Facebook account got hacked. Because this? This makes Rick Perry look smart and snuggly.

 

Being a Leach Means Never Having to Say Sorry

 Mike Leach. Where to start? I could start with the hairstyle that even Vince Gill, the originator, gave up several years ago. I could start with the insane pirate thing he came up with, or the "fat little girlfriends" comment.

But all that is quirky and harmless. But it's this new stuff that has everyone up in a tizzy, and has me aching to point out the heart of the matter:

Mike Leach is a bad example to his players, and other players on other college teams.

It's not just that he allegedly pooh-poohed medical advice and sought to humiliate Craig James, although Leach says he was doing him a favor. Putting him in a dark shed/electrical closet/media room/Hanoi Hilton/luxury suite/outhouse/hen house/dog house may have been his way of keeping him out of the sun he said he needed to avoid as part of his treatment for a slight concussion, but that wasn't how he and his family perceived it.

And that is the point where Leach, as a coach, should be checking his ego. After all, isn't that what teamwork is about? Last I checked, a coach is part of the team as well. If this is still the case, a whole lot of this could've been mitigated by a simple apology.

Leach says that the school wouldn't tell you who complained. How many athletes get sent to solitary when they are injured, Leach? He couldn't maybe remember on your own that he sent Craig James' kid to the hole one time when he came to practice with sunglasses on and complaining of a concussion? Were there that many that he's just a blur in a long line?

So let's say we give Leach the benefit of the doubt, though, and say maybe he couldn't remember which one of his players had a concussion this season and was sent to a dark shed/electrical closet/media room/Hanoi Hilton/luxury suite/outhouse/hen house/dog house. He had no clue who it was, so he couldn't apologize directly.

That still doesn't mean he couldn't say, "Please tell the family I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, and find out if there's some way we can work this out." 

Instead, he lawyers up and has the guy give the media a tour of the dark shed/electrical closet/media room/Hanoi Hilton/luxury suite/outhouse/hen house/dog house, and then proceed to slander the student athlete who levied the complaint to begin with.

Maybe Craig James is a helicopter parent. Maybe Adam James just isn't that good, and is inconsequential to the program in the grand scheme of things. 

But none of that really matters. What matters is that Leach began looking out for himself, and not his team. Some might argue that by fighting to coach the Alamo Bowl game, he is looking out for his team. Maybe so.

But it also sends a message to his players. Suspensions can be circumvented. Punishment and apologies are for people who can't figure out how to throw someone under the bus and move on. If someone tells you that you're suspended for your actions, don't man up - lawyer up. You'll be back on the field by morning.

Football - from the NFL right down to the high school level - has been a case study in medical negligence when it comes to head trauma. It took a lot of time and convincing to make the NFL take concussions seriously, and that's hopefully trickling down to the collegiate level. Even just two concussions in a short span of time can do grievous harm, possibly even death. 

So this was Leach's opportunity to do something good. He could've easily said to the family, "I'm sorry there was this misunderstanding about the injury. When I did what I did, I thought I was helping. Why don't we work together to promote some awareness of concussions and what coaches SHOULD do in response to one?" 

That would've been a response that would have made all of this a non-story. It would have been a story with a productive ending. 

But instead, we have a mess. And ultimately, Tech's program will suffer the most. If Leach stays, there will always be those parents that steer their kids to other schools, other programs, because they're unsure of the well being of their child. That seed of doubt has been planted. 

If he goes, the program loses the one coach who can make that quirky Lubbock situation work and draw decent talent over to that corner of the world, and then coax out offensive wonderment.

And all because being a Leach means never having to say you're sorry.

Update: Local Texas sources are now reporting that  Texas Tech fired Mike Leach this morning.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Dallas ABC affilate WFAA verified that this video, shot by Adam James, is real. What do you think?

I'll Get Off My Lazy Ass, Soon ...

I promise. But in the meantime, I give you this picture of Pete Delkus and the Wintry Apocalypse. Presented without - ahem - comment. 

Tell me what you think it looks like.