‘Tis raining out there. Not hard, not nasty, just a gentle, chilly gray day. It makes me happy that I have a warm house, a good wife, hot cocoa and popcorn. Soon I’ll have to think about taking the bike to Champion Cycle in South Sioux for storage. (I always try to get that done before it snows if possible. I’m not a cold-weather rider.)

Dagmar is snoozing in the other room (she’s not feeling well) and Fruitloop is dozing on the couch. So, I’m trying to type quietly. It’s amazing to me how much different songs sound through headphones rather than through the twelve-dollar computer speakers I have… I just heard “Crazy On You” by Heart – I didn’t know there were flutes in that song! And some of the drum fills are in stereo… Cool!

A buddy of mine wrote me an e-mail this weekend. “I’ve been reading your blog,” he said. “You have a lot of woes, don’t you?” (I’m paraphrasing, actually, but it’s close.) I do have woes, but honestly, I don’t think I have any more woes than anyone else – and a lot less than many people have! I’m just vocal about my particular woes. That’s all. I’m truly pretty happy with life. I just wish my wife were healthy, we weren’t in debt, the government wasn’t crumbling and the neighbors didn’t scare me. I suppose if I made a million dollars we could take Dagmar to more specialists and move out of our neighborhood, but I’m not gonna hold my breath. We’ll get by.

If anyone knows how I can make a million dollars, please let me know! I’d certainly appreciate it…

I’m worried about my beloved bride, Dagmar. She’s been in bed all day. “I have horrible cramps,” she told me. “And it feels like things in my belly are ripping apart.” Dagmar has a very high tolerance for pain; when she complains, it worries me mightily. Especially when there’s nothing I can do for her.

The Thugs of the Northland

My beloved Green Bay Packers are taking their mighty 1-4 record to Minneapolis this weekend to battle the Vikings, who have a lousy, terrible 1-4 record. At the beginning of the season I was pretty excited. Brett Favre decided to stay on as quarterback for the Packers, and the Vikings got rid of their main thug, Randy Moss. “Yay,” I said. “Yay.”

Mr. Moss getting traded to the Raiders did several things for me. First, I could now watch the Vikings play without feeling ill. The Vikings had for years been my second favorite team. Until they picked up Mr. Moss… He brought the morals of the team down to new lows, in my opinion. As an example, he once tried to run over a Minneapolis policewoman in his SUV. That shows class. So I was happy to see him out of the NFC North division. The second thing the trade accomplished was exactly what the Vikings feared – it weakened the their team. That’s good for me, as the Packers are in the same division.

So, I was happy at the beginning.

Then the Packers lost to the Lions. Thus started the Pack’s slide to their current position of being tied for last place in the division with the Vikings. While this bothers me, as a long-time Packer fan I’ve been expecting it. You see, in the 1970s and 80s the Packers were really, really bad. Then Reggie White joined the team, followed by Favre (who was supposed to be the backup quarterback) and a few trips to the Superbowl. Now it’s time for the cycle to continue…

What bother me more, though, is the Viking’s latest fiasco. While the Packers are nearest and dearest to my heart, I have a very big soft spot for the entire NFC North – Green Bay, Minneapolis, Detroit and Chicago. I like to see those teams do well, and conduct themselves admirably, and they usually do. However… It seems that the Vikings didn’t get the memo. Not only are they not playing well, but they have managed to conduct themselves atrociously off the field, bringing shame to themselves, the league, and the entire state of Minnesota. Fans are mailing their season tickets back to the owner of the team.

Why? Well, it seems that the team wanted to go on a three-hour cruise on a Minnesota lake. The cruise lasted under an hour, as the captain of the boat found out about the booze and the hookers from Georgia and turned around. From what I hear, there were women on the boat actually hiding in fear from the Vikings – they found ladies cowering in closets and such.

So far, the league hasn’t taken much action against the team. The team’s new owner hollered at them for a while, and the coach did a fair share of bellowing at people, but so far no one’s been indicted, arrested, fined, or punished in any way (as far as I know). It’s my humble opinion as a fan of the game, a fan of the team, and a fan of Minnesota in general, that ALL the players who were on the boat in question should be benched (without pay) as punishment for a breach of contract – it’s in their contract to conduct themselves as gentlemen. “But what if some of them were on the boat but didn’t participate in the nasty acts?” you may ask. Well, they should have stood up for what they knew to be right and informed the captain and crew as to what was going on. This may well have happened; I don’t know. My point is that I don’t feel the league or the team is taking this nearly seriously enough.

‘Nuff said.

The Goddaughter…

A buddy of mine read my blog recently and said that our little goddaughter, Maddy, is a doll. Couldn’t agree more, personally. That deserves another picture of Maddy, doesn’t it? You can never see enough pictures of cute goddaughters… Especially when they’re strangling pink lawn ornaments.