Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Fantasy

I've been playing fantasy sports since, well, since before I actually even started playing fantasy sports. In 3rd grade, a friend and I would draft teams. There was never any tracking of stats, so no winner or loser. You won, or lost, just from looking at the rosters. I finally went “professional” in 6th grade, and I've had either a football, baseball or basketball team every year since. 

 But the newest idea for a league that I see in my minds’ eye is a throwback to 3rd grade. Simply because it is pure fantasy. No, I don’t mean that kind of fantasy. It can never be tracked. If you have ever watched a football game, you may have noticed that there were 11 guys from each team on the field. In baseball, there’s nine and in basketball you have five players. My idea is to draft a team of 11 guys, from all three sports. The catch: everyone has to play a position in every sport. Tom Brady can be your quarterback, but you also have to find a position for him on the diamond and a spot for him on the hardwood, as well as a defensive position for him to play in football. 

 If, for example, you do draft Tom Brady, he has to be your QB. But then you can pick what positions he’ll play in the other sports. For the baseball team, you draft two starting pitchers and one relief pitcher to go along with your eight position players. For the basketball roster, there’s your starting five made up of a point guard, shooting guard, small forward and a center. The bench should have a back-up for every position plus one extra player, and the team owner can select what position they play. As for your football team, you have a little more flexibility. The owner can decide if they have three wide receivers or two. A two back set or a single back. There has to be a quarterback, at least one running back and two wide receivers, but the other three offensive positions are flexible, but every player has to have their position determined upon drafting. 

 Below are examples using current players, and an all-time team:


Monday, August 12, 2013

Fall & Winter Flicks

After summer filled with meh-vies more than movies, here are the trailers of the movies I am most looking forward to seeing in the fall and winter:

American Hustle, December 25th


The Monuments Men, December 18th


The Counselor, October 25th


Inside Llewyn Davis, December 6th


Runner Runner, October 4th


The Wolf of Wall Street, November 15th


Don Jon, September 27th


Thor: The Dark World, November 8th


Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, December 20th



Tuesday, August 6, 2013

50 Years

I knew when we took on the challenge, of organizing a weekend to honor my parents for their 50 years of marriage that the payoff would be well worth it. But I never really spent much time thinking about how much it could mean. Because you know, arranging for temperatures under 100 degrees in August in Kansas City, is really pretty time consuming. But my wise uncle put it all in perspective for me, in a single sentence. “You've given them, what might be, the greatest memory of their lives.”

A great weekend was the original goal, but now I would have to consider anything short of their greatest memory ever to be a failure. And with as much confidence as I can muster, mission complete. But giving them a great weekend, or the greatest weekend, wouldn't come close to evening things out.

I’m pretty hard on myself in most areas of my life, but I know this much: I’m a damn good husband with a fantastic marriage. Both facts being a result of the parents I have and the examples they set for me. In 50 years, no matter what life threw at them, they faced it all as a team.  What they say is true, “imitation is the highest form of flattery,” and I can’t think of any better way to compliment my parents, than to imitate them. Minus dad’s walk.