Benson Gets Bum's Rush

The Cedric Benson Era mercifully ended Monday with his release. The Bears now enter their 22nd season of looking for Walter Payton's replacement.

In 1986, Payton's last year as the every down starter for the Bears, he ran for 1333 yards. Since that time, only Thomas Jones has surpassed that total (1335 yards in 2005). That's not good when you are primarily a running team. Remember, the Bears are still looking for the second coming of Sid Luckman at QB.

Neal Anderson was the Bears leading rusher for the seven years beginning in 1987, but he only surpassed 1000 yards three times and failed to hit 750 in four of those years.

The Bears have used three first round draft choices on running backs since that time. Benson was a first round choice (4th overall) in 2005. Before that, Curtis Enis was picked 5th overall in 1998, which precipitated the release of Rashaan Salaam, who was the 21st overall pick in 1995.

Only Salaam ever did anything of note. He was the rookie of the year in 1995 with 1074 yards rushing. He only had 606 yards in the two years following.

Enis had 1497 yards in three seasons with the Bears. That was his entire NFL career. Benson finishes the Bear portion of his career with 1593 yards in three seasons.

Benson wasn't cut just for being unproductive though. He was cut for being stupid and unproductive. When you're job is hanging by a thread (the Bears took RB Matt Forte in the second round of this year's draft), you need to keep your nose clean, and Benson didn't do that.

He has been arrested twice in the last month for OWI-related offenses. The first came on his boat, and the second was last weekend in a car.

So, before we say good riddance, let's review some of the highlights of the Benson Era, thanks to the Chicago Tribune for helping to fill in some of the details.

April, 2005 - Bears pick him fourth overall. He cries, but not tears of joy. He's upset because pre-draft talks between his agent and the Bears were way off on contract basics, which meant a likely contentious negotiation.

August, 2005 - That turned out to be true, because he held out for 36 days before finally getting on board.

November, 2005 - Finally makes his first start against the 49ers, but blows his knee in the first half and his next appearance is in the final game of the season.

August, 2006 - Leaves the bench during an exhibition game, then misses a team meeting.

February, 2007 - Injured early in Super Bowl and misses the rest of the game. Finishes with -1 yard on 2 carries.

September, 2007 - Now the starter after Thomas Jones was traded in the offseason, he carries 24 times for 101 yards against KC, his only triple-digit rushing total of the season. Despite this game, he only has 538 yards on 177 carries (3.04 ypc) through the first nine games.

November, 2007 - After finally having another decent performance the week before, he injures his ankle against Denver and misses the rest of the season. It turns out to be his final game as a Bear.

May, 2008 - Legal troubles begin as he is arrested for OWI on a boat and resisting arrest.

June, 2008 - Arrested for DUI on last Saturday, cut by the Bears on Monday.

So, the Bears enter the new season with an offensive line in need of repair, a QB that is either unproven (Orton) or a proven disaster (Grossman), a rookie RB (Forte), and a receiving corps that is perhaps the biggest question mark of the unit - and obviously, that's saying something.

Hope that defense is really good.

We moved!

Last night, a series of tornadoes ripped through the area. The Chicago Tribune story details the damage, but also notes that Lake County is in now northeast Indiana. That must have been some storm if it picked up an entire county and moved it (Wizard of Oz-style) all the way to the eastern part of the state!

I was at a graduation party for the daughter of a friend of ours in St. John, IN when the sirens went off. We went outside to have a look and it looked very nasty just to our north and west. Where we were, it was just raining and it appeared to be clearing up.

I've lived in this area nearly all of my 44 years and have never seen a funnel cloud, let alone an actual tornado. I could go 44 more years without seeing one and wouldn't feel like I missed anything.

Two major political cogs go down

This was a tough week for local politicians in this area as two dealmakers were found guilty on corruption charges.

In Chicago, Tony Rezko was found guilty on 16 counts of fraud and corruption charges. He was guilty of taking kickbacks to funnel state teachers' pension fund money to certain brokerage houses. Rezko has been a rainmaker for both Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama, though both have tried to distance themselves from Rezko since his indictments. Yes, that's plural. He has at least two more trials coming.

This is the latest in the string of victories for US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago. Fitzgerald (not to be confused with Northwestern football coach of the same name) came to the Northern Illinois district in 2001 and has been taking down corrupt pols ever since, including former governor George Ryan. Many of us are waiting to see if he ever gets to the big fish, Blago and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

Rezko was also allegedly part of a group of local pols that included former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert that tried to get Fitzgerald pushed out of his job and this investigation killed, but that plan failed, obviously.

The Tribune's John Kass writes that Rezko may not just be trouble for Obama, but even some republicans.

Lake County, Indiana has a level of corruption that not only rivals, but surpasses what happens in Chicago. Our county's reputation for shenanigans was the reason local officials were the butt of a national joke on the day of our primaries when they couldn't promptly count and release vote totals.

One of the reasons why corruption goes on unfettered, and barely under the table, is because we don't have a Peter Fitzgerald willing to take on the politicians. Perhaps that is finally changing.

Yesterday, a key Lake County political dealmaker, Bob Cantrell, was convicted on 11 fraud and corruption related counts. Cantrell got kickbacks for arranging for local judges, including his daughter Julie, to send people to a friend's addiction counseling service company. He also got hit with tax fraud charges for not reporting that income.

The NW Indiana Times has a blog detailing the trial.

So, maybe the feds will use the momentum from this verdict and go after more local pols. It's a well that will never run dry.

Money can't buy you brains

Last week, Michel Fournier tried to set a world record for the highest and fastest free-fall. The plan was to float 25 miles high in a special balloon and jump. According to news reports, he spent two decades and $20M of his own money to make this happen.

Then, when the balloon was filling with helium, it took off by itself because it wasn't properly attached to the capsule.

I don't know anything about ballooning (I'm afraid of heights), but you would think "Attach balloon to capsule" would be near the top of the pre-flight checklist.

Indiana Palms and the Temple of Baseball

With much trepidation, I wanted to try to take the entire family to a Cubs game this year. It's a quest fraught with peril, because you have to first find tickets, then get to the game, keep the younger ones entertained so the rest can enjoy the game, and finally, you have to get the whole exhausted brood back home. Oh, and you have to finance the adventure, but fortunately, rates are reasonable right now.

The hardest part is the first one, finding the tickets. Finding five tickets together, either online or over the phone, is impossible for two reasons: the games are near sell-outs and the system for purchasing the tickets isn't really designed to be helpful.

Everything is based on the date of the game, which makes sense of course. Most people want to go on a specific day or, say, weekend. We had a lot of flexibility though. We wanted to go to just about any day game. To get tickets online, you first pick the date. Then a screen comes up to choose a pricing level (or best available) and the number you need. Then you are taken to another screen to enter one of those security codes, where they put numbers and letters in a box that has lines and stuff in it to make it hard to read. Then, you can finally get to the screen where you can buy the tickets - or in my case, find out that what you need is not available.

Not very useful. Now imagine doing that for every day game, for three or four different pricing levels, and you can see how frustrating that can be. I didn't do that of course. I eventually gave up and called the ticket folks.

That didn't work either. It appears that they have no better way to find tickets for you than you can do for yourself online.

So I turned to a friend who I had hoped might be able to put me in touch with the right person. One of the many people who regularly interview me during basketball season is David Kaplan of WGN in Chicago, which just happens to be the station that carries the Cubs. He did better than put me in touch with the right person. He found me tickets for some pretty nice seats.

When you have four kids, going anywhere, even places like the grocery store, is an adventure. Wrigley Field is tough to get to by yourself. You can drive, if you don't mind the traffic and paying $40-50 to park within walking distance of the park. The other option is to take the L (train), which is very crowded, but much cheaper and drops you a block from the park. That's the way to go, even for us. Our biggest problem is getting a double stroller on a crowded train, but we have always managed it so far. We also still have to pay to park downtown, but that is much cheaper than parking at Wrigley. And the kids, especially the younger ones, love riding the trains.

Another place the stroller can be an issue is the ballpark itself. Last year, when we went to a game, we sat upstairs and stashed the stroller in a corner by the bathroom entrance. That actually worked surprisingly well.

This year, as we walked in, the ticket taker said we could check the stroller for free at the customer relations office. That's a nice feature.

The ballpark staff was generally very nice, which includes the Octogenarian Ninja Ushers. If you have ever been to Wrigley, you will have undoubtedly noticed that the ushers in the seating area are all very senior citizens. I even saw one wearing one of those oxygen backpacks.

Don't let the grandmotherly (or grandfatherly) look fool you though. They are not pushovers and they'll get after you if they need to. If you go where you don't belong, they go right down there and grab you by the ear and take you away.

I wanted to get down by the wall to say hello to another media friend of mine who was on the field before the game, but the ONU wouldn't let me get there. I got out before I got the ear-pull though.

We saw the Padres when they were in town on May 15th, which is back before Spring started around here. Spring this year was from May 25-June 3. It's now Summer, but I digress.

The point is, it was cold. My wife and kids were all in their winter gear. I refuse to wear a winter coat in May, and especially to a baseball game.

The weather kept the crowd down a bit. There were a lot of no-shows around us, and a few of the people were clearly not interested in the game. Like, for example, the lady across the aisle from me who was there by herself and doing her knitting.

We also had the requisite loudmouth half a section behind us, but fortunately, he kept it clean. Even better, he ran out of hot air half way through the game.

Most people wear Cubs gear to the game, but one young lady in front of us must not have had anything, so she wore a blue Cub Scout neckerchief as a bandanna. I guess that's the best she could do.

We sat about 15 rows from the field, looking right up the first base line. We were just at the edge of the net, which was nice because with the kids, we can't spend every second watching for line drives to come back at us.

The game itself was pretty good. The Cubs won 4-0, getting all four runs in one inning off of former Cub Greg Maddux. He got a standing O as he left the field because many of his think it might be the last time he pitches at Wrigley. The game was played quickly (under 2:30), so we weren't out in the cold any longer than we needed to be.

Our younger kids were entertained by the two kids sitting in front of us that were about the same age. Although, I have to say, my two-year-old daughter liked the game itself. She still doesn't talk much, but one of the first words she ever said was "ball," and she loves playing and watching anything with a ball. She's the only two-year-old in America who would rather watch Big Ten Tonight than Teletubbies. At the game, when she would see someone swing the bat, she would swing her arm across her body to mimic that. Now, when ever she sees the Cubs logo, she yells "Ball!" and swings her arm.

After the game, we waited around for the crowds to die down so we were among the last ones out. Before we headed to the train, we walked over to check out the new Ernie Banks statue, just on the third base side of the entrance at Clark and Addison. The sculptor did a great job capturing Ernie. It's a great tribute to Mr. Cub.

Getting home was relatively easy, except for some rush hour traffic. The car was a lot quieter as some of us slept. A great time was had by all, and it was definitely worth the effort.

Thank you, sir! May I have another?

Gas around here shot up over $4 per gallon for the first time today. At the rate it's going, we'll see $5 before the 4th of July and $6 by Labor Day.

Don't spend it all in one place

Last week, I was among the many who received property tax rebate checks from the county as a result of a cap passed by the state legislature a few months ago. However, even something good like this provides another example of how inefficiently our local government operates.

Thousands of Lake County taxpayers received rebate checks for $0. The county spent whatever its postage rate is x however many people got those checks to let them know they got nothing. I wonder if anyone tried to cash them.

And speaking of incompetent customer service resulting in paltry rebates, I heard back from American Airlines. They supposedly sent me a check for my hotel for the extra night I spent in San Antonio. I should have stayed in a nicer place.

The e-mail I got announcing that my reimbursement was on the way said, they would work hard to prevent future schedule disruptions. Of course, that completely misses the point. Schedule disruptions happen. It's the insufficient response to those problems that needs to be prevented.

1...2...5 (3, sir!)

Lake County took a lot of national abuse for not getting ballots counted promptly on election night. It was well after 10 PM Central time before the county began reporting any numbers.

Many folks in the national media assumed some kind of shenanigans was going on. This is, after all, the most politically corrupt county in the nation. One CBS reporter contacted the Post-Tribune (a local paper) and asked if Lake was borrowing from Cook County (Chicago) politics, but really, the Cook County folks are jealous of what goes on here.

CNN and Fox News had a field day with Lake County also. Here is a link to a snippet of Wolf Blitzing Gary Mayor (and county Dem chair) Rudy Clay.

The official explanation was that the county decided not to release numbers until after the over 11,000 absentee ballots had been counted. Counting that many ballots takes a lot of time. After all, each counter only has 20 fingers and toes (in most cases).

I think they were just trying to get a little spotlight on themselves by reporting last, and by possibly changing a close presidential race. If that was the plan, it failed because the Clinton-Obama race wasn't that close.

However, the race between the democratic candidates for governor, Jim Schellenger and Jill Long-Thompson, was neck-and-neck all night, with Schellenger up by a slim margin before Lake County reported. The late Lake numbers were enough to put Long-Thompson past Schellenger for the win. Long-Thompson had been endorsed by the steelworkers union, so it was expected she would do well here.

The play for attention worked, though, but probably not the way they hoped. Now, the entire nation thinks our county is either run by idiots who can't even count, or is so corrupt that they'll try to fix an election even in the bright spotlight of the national media. Correct on both counts.

The best and most ironic comment on this was in the Times (another local paper) this morning. George Van Til, the county surveyor, said we (the county) look "stupid" because of all this. This comes from a guy who won reelection in spite of the fact that he stole gas from the county and let his teenage son drive his county-issued car around - until he got caught. It's not the inability to count votes that makes us look stupid. It's continuing to elect guys like him.

Former President visits

Last week, those of us in Schererville got a chance to see something we had never seen before. A former President of the United States came to visit.

Bill Clinton made an appearance to stump for votes for his wife, Hillary, in advance of Indiana's primary today.

Those of you who have read my profile know that I don't favor either party particularly. However, I always vote, and in the primary, I always vote in the Democratic. That is because Lake County, where I live, is so heavily Democratic that the primary is the only chance I have to vote for local officials. The Democratic primary is the de facto general election locally. The fact that I always vote in their primary means that the local Democrats think I'm one of them.

It also means I get to vote for Hillary or Barack Obama, the Senator from Next Door, so I thought it might be useful to hear what Bill had to say. I also thought it would be a good chance for my older boys (11 and 9) to see a former President and get a taste of the process.

But first, we had to hurry up and wait.

The doors to the little banquet hall that Clinton would be speaking at opened at 2:45. We were not told when Bill would actually speak, but we were prepared for a long wait.


The crowd waits breathlessly

We showed up right at 2:45 and had to wait in a little bit of a line to get in. Security was not as tight as I would have expected for a former President. Bags were checked, but that's about it. In fact, I went through a more thorough security check to get into the arenas for the NCAA tournament.

For the occasion, in honor of Hillary's drinking habits, I wore my most obnoxious Boilermakers shirt.

The place was standing room only, but not because it was overly crowded. There were no chairs, so all we could do was stand. The room was a little less than half full, maybe about 200 folks. It was almost all adults too. My kids were the only grade school age children there. There were a couple of babies and toddlers, and a few HS kids as well. There were also a few media types, and seemingly every Schererville cop. It would have been a good day to rob a bank.

I was about 40 feet from the podium, which meant I could see OK, but it would have been better if I'd worn heels. My kids had trouble seeing, but they could find an angle on occasion.

Clinton started around 3:30, so it was only a 45-minute wait. Bill has a reputation for being a charismatic speaker, and he did not disappoint. He was concise, by his standards, funny, and at times blunt. And his style wasn't typical of most politicians. Politicians generally speak as if they are talking to idiots. In many cases, they are. They'll pause. After. Every. Word. As if you need a few minutes to process each one. I can't stand that. Bill spoke like he had somewhere else to go (which he did), even though he went on for 40 minutes.

He was giving us some of the main points of Hillary's platform (jobs, energy, health care, education, balance the budget, get out of Iraq, etc), the details of which I'll leave out here. You can get that in other places.


Bill doing his thing

His speech didn't end until ten minutes after the doors opened at his next stop in Crown Point. Those folks undoubtedly had a longer wait than we did.

Even though he was campaigning for his wife ("I'm just here as a volunteer campaign worker."), I expected to see more presidential stuff. Perhaps this is against protocol - I certainly wouldn't know - but I thought the presidential seal would be on the podium, but it wasn't. He does have security, though. I saw four Secret Service guys total. There was one on each side of the stage when he spoke, and two others joined the party when Clinton shook hands afterwards.

My sons and I got close enough to shake his hand, so we did. He and I actually chatted a few seconds about No Child Left Behind, which I think is useless and which he said Hillary wants to do away with.

And then he was gone, off to Crown Point.

One strange thing about this event was that there was no handouts, which is a sign, I suppose, of how cash-strapped Hillary's campaign is. There were no buttons, stickers, pins or signs given away. They did have a place to sign up to help, but as you can see, they weren't getting much interest.


Little help? Please?

They did give us a black-and-white flier on the way out, but I wasn't sure what we were supposed to do with it. It wasn't any different than the one I received in the mail earlier that week.

Bill and Hillary hit this region hard. We hardly saw Obama in NW Indiana, but the Clintons were here at least once a week. We'll see today if that pays off.

Sports(wo)men of the year

The leaders in the clubhouse for the Sportsmen of the Year award should be the ladies of the Central Washington University softball team, who literally carried Western Oregon University's team to victory in a game last week. It wasn't just any loss for CWU either. It ended their postseason hopes.

Credit CWU first baseman Mallory Holtman for thinking of the idea to carry WOU's Sara Tucholsky around the bases. I would have never thought of that, not because I wouldn't have wanted to help, but because I would thought it would be illegal. She asked anyway, and found out it wasn't.

Kalama-Air Zoo

Last weekend, I took my two older boys to a Cub Scout overnighter at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo museum.

The itinerary for the event called for a night of building rockets, touring the old museum building, where we were sleeping that night, and watching a movie. The next day, we would shoot off the rockets and tour the new Air Zoo building.

The only problem with this schedule is that it didn't start until 7 PM, and once the rocket construction ended around midnight, that is when they would show the movie. That's fine if you have a bunch of HS kids, but these are all elementary schoolers. Most of these kids are usually in bed by 9, and now we're keeping many of them up until 1:30 or 2 AM to watch a movie.

For me, this kind of event means a night of next to no sleep. I do not sleep well away from home generally, and do particularly poorly when I sleep in a crowded room on an air mattress on the floor.

Still, I thought I'd try to take advantage of the relatively quiet time in our sleeping area during the movie and try to sleep then. That plan was foiled because the father and son camped out closest to me (about 10-15 feet away) happened to be the Fabulous Fartersons, and they chose that moment to launch and all-out Fart Fight.

The next 30 minutes - or perhaps it was a week, I don't know - went like this:

Father: RIPPPPPPPPPP!
Both: "heeheehee!"
Father: "SHHHHHHHHHH!"
Son: RIPPPPPPPPPP!
Both: "heeheehee!"
Father: "SHHHHHHHHHH!"

And so on. If that's not a special father-son bonding moment, I don't know what is. Just think of the stories the son will be able to proudly tell his children and grandchildren. With any luck, that particular skill will be hereditary so they can show it off at family reunions. Imagine, a four-generation fart-fight. A veritable choir of flatulence. This assumes, of course, any of them can overcome that overwhelming talent and successfully breed anyway.

After that, we learned that the father is also a world-class snorer, but he wasn't the only one in the room. So, I didn't so much sleep as pass out and come to a couple of hours later.

I did learn something in those wee hours of the morning though. I didn't realize Kalamazoo's airport, which the museum borders, has commercial flights, but two Northwest flights left there by 7:30 Sunday morning.

Before we launched the rockets on Sunday, we got to visit the hangar where the museum does its restorations. Among the equipment we saw was a Sopwith Camel, which is best known as the kind of plane Snoopy flied in his fantasy battles with the Red Baron. The real Red Baron was supposed shot down by a fighter in a Camel, but it was later learned that he was down by Australian ground fire.

The rocket launch was fun for the kids. It was a very windy day, so they traveled a long way. The new museum was also fun. It had more newer planes than the old one, including a Navy Tomcat and a Blackbird spy plane. They also have a flight simulator where you can control the flight and do things like barrel rolls. It got the better of my kids though. They got upside down and couldn't get out of it.

Still, it was a fun time for the kids. I hope someday to forget it.

We're so sorry, but go pound sand

That's the basic message I got back from American Airlines after I wrote them about their policy that assured that people who were stranded by the MD-80 inspections remained that way.

To review, my flight was one of the first ones canceled when the FAA ordered AA to inspect their entire fleet of MD-80s. When I called the airline to ask about getting home, all they were willing to do to me was rebook me on another of their flights the next day. That flight was also on a MD-80, which meant it had zero chance of leaving as scheduled, and we both knew it. It also meant that I would have to go through the same run around for yet another day. I believe it was four days before AA flew out of San Antonio again.

So, while the chairman of American was going on television telling everyone how American was getting people on their way, even if it meant rebooking on another carrier, I was left to fend for myself.

I eventually got home on Southwest the next day. Ironically, Southwest had a similar problem a couple weeks earlier.

American wrote to tell me that they were "sorry that you found our rebooking policy to be less than convenient," but that since I was unwilling to spend an indefinite period of time in beautiful San Antonio waiting for them to get their act together, all they would consider reimbursing me is my hotel cost for the extra night. They aren't even promising that, just that they'll consider it if I send in the proper documentation.

"Less than convenient." That's a big, steaming pile of something less than pleasant.

Oh, they did refund my ticket for the trip I never made. Big of them.

I will send in my documentation, and perhaps before my kids go to college, I'll get a refund for my hotel. You'll pardon me though if I don't hold my breath.

Wake me when the big one hits

After a pretty restless night of not much sleep, I was pretty surprised this morning to see that we had one of the bigger earthquakes on record here in the Midwest overnight.

The Chicago Tribune reported that this was a near-record event, but it must have happened during the little bit of time that I was sleeping because I didn't notice it. Folks closer to the epicenter experienced some damage, and even people around here got rattled around a bit. My mother-in-law, who lives near Indy, was shaken awake.

It also awakened my wife, who is a very light sleeper. At that time of the morning though, she's pretty groggy. She wasn't sure at first if it was a quake, a strong wind, or if I was shaking the bed. She finally concluded that since everything was rattling, it must be a quake. But she didn't try to wake me.

Nothing and no one else in my house was disturbed, although with four kids, the house is such a mess that shaking it up might actually make it cleaner.

Stuck in San Antonio

I came to San Antonio to cover the Final Four for CSTV.com, but like so many folks, I'm stuck here due to American Airlines being grounded. Actually, it's only their Super 80 planes that are grounded, but that's all they fly out of here.

The airport was very full yesterday with people trying to leave, but at 3:30, AA announced it was canceling all of its flights. All they were willing to do for me was was rebook on another of their flights the next day, but not only were many of those full, but they were on the same type of plane.

Some people waited hours (yes, plural) at the AA counter in the hopes of getting rebooked and perhaps a hotel room for the night. I wasn't going to wait hours, only to have to do the same thing again today. I did manage to get my flight refunded over the phone though.

So, my brother-in-law worked the internet at home (I had no access myself at SAT) and got me a reservation on Southwest and a hotel room here, so if everything goes well, I'll get home sometime tonight.

Meanwhile, here in San Antonio, internet access has been difficult to find. My hotel is near the airport, but in a light industrial area, so even finding food meant a long walk.

Today, while making that walk, I went about a mile and a half before finding a Denny's (as if I didn't have enough of that this week - our hotel was right next to a Denny's). I had no luck finding places with internet access.

After giving up, I started the long walk back to my hotel thinking one of my favorite phrases, "could be worse, could be raining," when - you probably guessed - it started raining.

Fortunately, there was a car dealer nearby, with a rental car company inside. It turned out to be relatively cheap to rent a car for a few hours and drop it at the airport, so I did. Now, I could check out of my hotel and search for internet access.

I drove a little ways before finally coming upon a McDonald's. That's perfect for me because I can access the internet there for free. However, it didn't like my id and password, so it took a half hour on tech support before we could figure it out and get me online.

So, to review, rating the degree of difficulty of some of the things I did this month while covering the tournament from easiest to hardest:

Getting into Canada without proper documentation

Getting my credential to get into the Final Four

Getting out of San Antonio (although this has not actually happened yet, so it could fall down the list)

Finding internet access in San Antonio

If you would like to read some of my other coverage from the NCAA tournament trail, you can go to CSTV.com's Hangtime blog for my off-day adventures, and the Posting Up blog for my in-game coverage.

Merry Christmas!

Normally, I write one of those Christmas letters and send them in the mail. This year, like a lot of things in my life, I didn't have time to do it. Honestly, there wasn't much to write about, and I'd just as soon forget the whole thing.

It wasn't all bad though. Here are some of the highlights.

* Mathew (10) is still being homeschooled and working about two years ahead in most things. He played soccer in the spring, and that's his only sport now. He is pretty involved in church activities, including children's chimes and choir. He's also an acolyte. His highlight of the year though was his first communion this fall. He had been looking forward to that for at least two years. He had a great deal of enthusiasm for his church activities. He is also in the last year of Cub Scouts. We'll see if he goes on to Boy Scouts.

* Erik (8) is the family athlete, by Palm standards, anyway. He plays soccer, football and basketball. After being one of the smallest kids on his football team last year, he got taller (if not wider) and played left offensive tackle this year. I think soccer is his best sport, but he has also played that the most. He is one of the best defensive players in his age group. I think he likes basketball the best, but that is also the current sport. He is also taking an interest in watching college and pro sports. Sometimes, he'll get up in the morning and instead of turning on cartoons, he'll turn on the Big Ten Network.

He is also working ahead of grade level at homes going reasonably well. He is at the Bear level of Cub Scouts and joins Mathew in the children's chimes group at church.

* #3 son, Karsten (4) is starting to do some pre-school work at home. He's reached the age where he wants to do everything his big brothers are doing, which includes schoolwork. He knows all the letters and can write most of them. He is now constantly asking us how to spell things. He also started Sunday School this year, which he just loves.

* The last but not least Palm child, Annika, will be 2 in March. She's adorable, of course, though I may not be the most objective observer. She's also wants to do everything the older kids do, but we haven't armed her with a pencil yet. Right now, she's into learning parts of the face, so whenever we hold her, she's poking our eyes, sticking her fingers in our ears, etc, wanting us to tell her what part that is while we also try to stop the bleeding.

She is also trying to talk and has a few words, mostly names for all of us. Mommy and Daddy she has down pretty well, although sometimes it's "mommies" and "daddies." I know I'm big, but I didn't think I was big enough to be plural. Mathew is "Momo," Erik is "Ay-yah" and Karsten, who was the first one to get a name from her, is "da-DEE", where the last syllable is kind of like a squeal.

This is such a cute age.

* The newest thing in my work is that I have been covering games instead of just writing about ratings. That actually started last fall, with Notre Dame football. I didn't cover them as much this year. :)

I also covered a lot of basketball games, including the Missouri Valley, Big East and NCAA Tournaments. All this game coverage is for CSTV.com, which is where I do most of my freelance writing.

* Cheri has been trying to keep the household from falling apart, and despite all our best efforts to thwart that, she succeeds. None of us function without her.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas! I started writing this before 5 AM, so naturally, Mathew and Erik are already up. We never see them this early the rest of the year.

Motor City Bowl live blog

I'm trying out some new live blogging software on the Motor City Bowl. Join in where you can.

Random Thoughts

Football season has been chaotic this year and consuming more of my time even than usual. Basketball is also getting underway, so this is the no-sleep time of year for me.

In fact, I'm covering the Chicago Challenge for CSTV.com. Follow the action on the Posting Up blog at CSTV.com.

Enough of the shameless plugs.

Meanwhile, I'm managing yet another fantasy football team right into the toilet. When it comes to fantasy baseball, I'm undefeated. Seven or eight seasons, seven or eight championships. The number is a little fuzzy because I haven't run a team for several years. It interferes too much with my real job.

But when I did play, I had the Midas touch. In fantasy football though, it's the Minus touch. Everybody I draft underperforms, gets hurt, gets arrested, etc. Drew Brees struggles this year? My fault. Travis Henry's drug problems? My fault. Robbie Gould's comedown year? My fault. For the record though, Rex Grossman's problems are his own. I'm not stupid enough to draft him for a fantasy team.

Is it Kyle Orton's turn yet?

Speaking of toilets, it's about time for the annual Thanksgiving plumbing disaster. Actually, a couple of things are bubbling up in that area, but until they actually blow, I'm not going to jinx things by writing about them.

Cubs President John McDonough resigned to take the same job with the Blackhawks, which is like going from the penthouse to the outhouse. McDonough is credited with marketing the Cubs so well that the stadium is full, win or, way too often, lose. Now, he needs to put lipstick on the pig that is the Blackhawks franchise, but there is hope. Now that Bill Wirtz has passed on and his son Rocky has taken over, changes are being made that indicate that the status quo is no longer acceptable. This is one of them, and a desire to put home games on TV is another. Putting a winning team on the ice is the most important thing, of course, but in the meantime, they need to try to rebuild their once-strong fan base.

That's it for now. Happy Thanksgiving to all! For me, I'll be thankful if I can get through the weekend without needing hip waders.

Cubs go down without a fight

Here's the entire list of things the Cubs did well in the playoff series with Arizona:

Show up on time for the game.
Bat in the correct order.

That's pretty much it. It was pretty embarrassing. No hitting. Little pitching, and when a pitcher was going well, Piniella got him out as quick as he could.

At least Zambrano was rested for game four.

Better luck next year. Again.

Pinella botches handing the pitchers

Maybe the desert heat got to Cubs manager Lou Piniella. I don't know. I can't think of any other explanation for how badly he has mismanaged his pitchers in the first two games of this series.

In game one, his ace, Carlos Zambrano is going strong after six innings and 85 pitches and Piniella pulled him. Why? He wanted to save him for game four.

What game four? There is no game four. Not yet, anyway, and there may never be one.

This is the playoffs. You never leave anything behind for a future that is not promised to you. But that's just what Piniella did.

Before you accuse me of second-guessing, I was yelling at my television when he came out. I didn't even like the bullpen being busy. One of my pet peeves in baseball is when a manager takes out a pitcher, especially a starter, who is doing perfectly well and who is strong, for a guy, who may or may not have his best stuff that day, just because he fills some role.

Piniella's reason for taking Zambrano out was actually dumber, and it backfired. He went with Carlos Marmol, not knowing if he'd be any good or not. Sure, he had reason to have some faith. Marmol had been about as good as anybody over the last month and a half of the season, but he was a kid playing in his first playoff game, and he gagged.

By the time he had any idea where he was throwing the ball, he'd given up two runs and the Cubs were done.

In game two, Piniella had the opposite problem. He stuck with his starter too long after it was clear he had nothing.

Ted Lilly struggled badly with his control in the first inning, walking two guys. He also struck out two (both on 3-2 counts), so he managed to escape with no damage.

The second inning, after Geovany Soto had given him the lead, was a disaster. The first two guys reached on a single and a walk. After a strikeout of Ojeda and a sacrifice by Davis, he faced Chris Young. Young is the biggest power threat on the team and first base was open, but they pitched to him anyway. When the count got to 3-2, the only thing that could go wrong would be if Lilly grooved one. Throw the ball anywhere out of the strike zone - it doesn't matter. Needless to say, Lilly grooved one and it was 3-2, Arizona.

Now, Piniella knows that Lilly has so little control that he can't miss the strike zone when he needs to. Now is the time to get the bullpen up, specifically Kerry Wood and Jason Marquis, a starter who is working out of the bullpen in this series. Now is the time to send the catcher out to stall. Send the pitching coach out to stall. Give Woody time to warm up.

The reason you get those two guys up is because Wood has playoff experience and is a strikeout pitcher, so he gives you the best chance to kill a rally. Then you bring in Marquis, who, if he's effective, can give you five or six innings because he's used to starting. If he's not, you're no worse off than if you left Lilly in because you know he's not effective.

When Lilly then gives up the single to Drew, you bring in Woody with the plan to go to Marquis the next inning of if Wood tanks.

But, NOOOOO! Piniella left Lilly in to give up a triple to make it 4-2. He got out of the inning because Connor Jackson was swinging 3-0 and grounded out.

The reason you don't worry about going to your bullpen in the second inning is because you have a day off the next day. Also, it's the playoffs. You can't afford to let your starter give up seven runs in an effort to right himself like you can in the regular season.

Lilly pitched the third and got away with it because the D-Backs brain-cramped and went up hacking. A first pitch single, a double play ball and a 1-0 popup to the catcher apparently fooled Piniella into thinking Lilly was OK. He even let Lilly bat with a man on and two outs in the top of the fourth.

But, Lilly was not OK. With one on and one out (on a failed sacrifice attempt), Lilly finally managed to walk Young, except this time he wasn't trying to walk him. Stephen Drew then tripled to drive home two more to make it 6-2.

Finally, Piniella got the message and Lilly got the hook. It was two innings too late, and the Cubs are now in a two-game hole. At least Zambrano should be nice and rested for game four. Or the season opener - whichever comes first.

Is this finally the year?

Now that the schedule is out and the Cubs are still on it, I feel like I can celebrate. The Cubs are in the playoffs!

Actually, when they clinched, it was more relief than excitement. How could a team with this much talent NOT win the worst division in baseball, but leave it to the Cubs to give it a great try.

Could be worse. Could be the Mets.

(pause for uproarious laughter)

Anyways, we (meaning the Cubs) have been here before. The Cubs won the division in 1984, 89 and 2003, as well as winning the wild card in 1998. All they have to show for it is one series win (the 2003 NLDS).

In 84 and 03, all the Cubs had to do was win once with three to play and blew it. Each time, something stupid happened. In 84, commissioner Peter Ueberroth took home field advantage away from the Cubs and gave it to the Padres because the Cubs couldn't play home games at night. He made some excuse about television requirements. The Cubs won the first two at home, but lost all three in SD to lose the series.

In 2003, there was the Moises Alou meltdown because he felt a fan interfered with his attempt to catch a foul ball in the stands.

I digress to report that as I write this, I'm listening to David Aldridge on TBS report about the whining that goes on in Philadelphia because the town hasn't won a major sports championship in 24 years. He's talking about all the pressure the players feel to fix that. Let me speak for Cub fans everywhere when I say, "BOO &$^@@*' HOO!"

Back to 2007. The time has come for the Cubs to make some noise. After all, the White Sox and Red Sox have ended their long championship droughts recently. Now, it's the Cubs' turn.

The Cubs have as good a chance as anybody in the NL playoffs to make the World Series because nobody is invincible. The most important thing for the Cubs will be for Carlos Zambrano to pitch well. When he does, he's unhittable, but when he's off, the Cubs are down 7-0 before they know it. In the series with Arizona, the Cubs have an advantage with their offense. Arizona is the only team in the playoffs without a .300 hitter, so they get by on pitching and defense.

One interesting strategy difference is that the Cubs will go with only three starters, opting to work Jason Marquis out of the bullpen. Arizona will use four starters, beginning with Cy Young candidate Brandon Webb. If the series goes five, he'll pitch that last game.

My pick is the Cubs in four. In fact, if it goes five, the Cubs are in trouble.

In the other series, I'm picking Philly in four. I think Colorado will have run out of gas just getting here.

In the AL, I'm rooting the Angels and Indians because I'm sick of the Yankees and Red Sox. You would think those were the only two teams in baseball.

I suppose if I have to pick objectively, I'd take Cleveland in four and Boston in three.

Michigan-App St finally get their due

The second week of the college football season received about as much coverage in the Chicago Tribune as the first week, but it was spread out a little differently. Teddy Greenstein had a report from the Michigan-Oregon game, and the AP story from the Appalachian St-Lenoir-Rhyne game was published. Combined, the two reports took half a page, which means Michigan and App St got about four times as much coverage in the Trib the week after their meeting than they did on the week they played each other.

Speaking Engagement

For those of you in the area, I will be speaking at the Purdue Club of Chicago event on Tuesday, September 11th at 7PM at Tommy Nevin's at 3032 English Rows in Naperville.

Chicago Tribune abandons college football

I opened my Sunday Chicago Tribune looking forward to catching up on the college football action around the country and was shocked to see that the Tribune is no longer covering it in any significant way.

You used to be able to read up on the action around the Big Ten and in the top 25. No more.

You used to be able to see news and notes from around the country. No more.

What we got on Sunday was a quarter of a page on the Northwestern game, a quarter of a page on the Illinois game, a quarter of a page on the Northern Illinois game, which was played in Chicago, a page and a half on the game at the University of Chicago at South Bend, better known to most people as Notre Dame, and a page of stats and box scores. That's it.

Oh, and we got three column inches on the Appalachian St-Michigan game. That was a quickie column from Teddy Greenstein, the Trib's excellent college football writer, suggesting it was time for Lloyd Carr to retire. No game story. No quotes. Not even a wrapup from the wire on one of the biggest upsets in recent history in the sport.

That's pretty disappointing, but I suspect it's a sign of the times. With more people going to the internet to get information, papers are getting more provincial. The Trib probably feels no need to cover schools outside the state because those fans are likely getting their info in other places. I do that too, but I'm old school enough that I still open the paper first. Now, I have no reason to rush.

Big Ten Network Review

As a Big Ten guy (Purdue '85), I was excited about the idea of a Big Ten Network. That idea came to life on August 30th when the network hit the air waves.

It began with a football preview edition of Big Ten Tonight hosted by the network's primary on-air talent, Dave Revsine, formerly of ESPN and a Northwestern grad. Revsine was joined by network analysts Gerry DiNardo, a former coach at Indiana, and former Illinois running back Howard Griffith.

The show went off without too many glitches. The worst was a technical problem during the Iowa preview, which got cut short. Revsine does a great job, of course. DiNardo adds good information, but watching him takes a little getting used to. He sits slumped and a little sideways and I find myself leaning in my chair a little when he's on. I think Griffith is new to TV because he's somewhat unpolished, but he does a decent job bringing the player's perspective. One thing he had trouble with was referring to his Illini in the first person, which is something I struggle with myself at times. 40-year habits are hard to break.

The network's biggest glitch occurred around 6 AM the next morning when it went off the air for just over an hour.

Friday night saw the debut of the Big Ten Tailgate Show, where they take a look at the games coming up the next day from the on-campus point of view. It's hosted by Mike Hall. At the open of the show, he went down the schedule of the next day's games and referred to Purdue as "Purdon't." I'm sure he thought that was clever, but Purdue people don't generally think of that as a term of endearment. Then, he threw it out to Wayne Larrivee and Chris Martin for a report from the "University of Indiana." It's not U of I, but Indiana University. So, he managed to offend the fans of 18% of the schools that pay his salary in his first minute on the air. Nice start.

The show also featured two correspondents who each spent time at one of the schools and took in some of the game week atmosphere. One attended Penn St and introduced us to things like the Creamery and the Friday night pep rally. The other was at Michigan and did things like work in the food service line and hang out with the band. They had reports interspersed within the show and sometimes talked with each other and Hall. The individual reports seemed OK, but there wasn't a lot of chemistry among them when they were on together. It could have been due to some technical trouble. It looked like the remote guys had problems hearing at times.

Game day was a big winner for the Big Ten Network because it had one of the biggest upsets in recent years, and it was the main game on the network at the time. Appalachian St stunned Michigan 34-32 in Ann Arbor in a game that may not have been on a TV screen at all if not for the BTN. (Note that all games have some sort of "television" coverage to accommodate replay, but some of those broadcasts are internet-based and not over the air).

For me, it meant that I got to watch the game, but I couldn't see it live. I was covering the Notre Dame-Georgia Tech game (speaking of disastrous home openers) that day, but when I came home, I watched the replay. The crew on that game was Thom Brennaman and Charles Davis, who did a pretty good job. They were as surprised as anyone else, but never disrespected or patronized ASU.

There were a couple of funny lines from that broadcast. During the open, we had the requisite shot of Michigan entering the stadium and Brennaman was talking about how Michigan had dreams of a National Championship. Those would be quashed four hours later. Late in the game, Davis noted that this was only the second game he and Brennaman had worked together, and that the first was the Boise State-Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl. Brennaman then said, "I bet Jim Tressel will be really glad to see us next week." They'll be doing the Akron-Ohio St game.

Also, Big Ten fans got to watch Tressel take on his old school, which certainly wouldn't have been on outside Columbus otherwise. And Indiana fans got full coverage of not only the Hoosiers' game with Indiana St, but all of the remembrances of their late coach, Terry Hoeppner.

There have been a few other minor things, like graphics misidentifying Oregon State as the Ducks (which would not be forgivable if it were the Pac 10 Network) and Michigan tackle Jake Long as a wide receiver. I also notice that sometimes the graphics on my TV are cut off on the left side.

And then there is the whole issue of distribution. DirecTV has it (and that's how I see it). Comcast does not, and it has a big chunk of the cable rights in Big Ten country. Negotiations have been public and acrimonious, so it doesn't look like Comcast or Dish Network, the other major satellite service, will be coming on board anytime soon. I think it will become more pressing as basketball approaches because the network will have more compelling matchups in basketball season than it gets in football.

All in all, the opening weekend was a pretty decent start for the Network. I don't know how many problems brand new networks typically have in their first few days on the air, but the BTN didn't seem to have too many and nothing that isn't fixable. I think the network is going to end up being a great thing for Big Ten fans, especially when they all have access to it.

Have I missed anything?

I was really hoping to be able to update this space more often this spring and summer, but things have conspired against me. The biggest of which was a major family medical emergency, which I'll write a lot more about if I have more time. Things are getting better there.

The good thing about all this is that I have missed the Keystone Kubs annual slide into oblivion. I've only watched maybe 5 innings of baseball since the last time I posted anything here. On April 25th, the day of my last post, the Cubs were 5 games back of Milwaukee after beating them. Today, they're 7 1/2 back after losing their 10th in 12 games. The Cubs have gone two weeks without beating anyone but themselves and they're only 7 1/2 back of the Brewers and one game out of second place. Man, does this division stink. Five of the six worst teams in the NL (based on current record) are in the Central. There are only five teams in the other divisions in baseball with a worse record than the second-place Pirates. It does give me some pleasure to see that the Yankees are on that list. Has Steinbrenner's head exploded yet?

But, I digress. So, the good news for the Cubs is that they aren't so far gone that they can't still win the division. The bad news is their ace pitcher is a better hitter, and especially a better boxer, than he is a pitcher, and the bullpen is only a relief to the opposition. Also, the outfielders catch fly balls like their gloves are made of flubber, and love the cutoff man too much to hit him. And finally, the Cubs must still be giving away free beer in the dugout because baserunners will do anything, no matter how stupid, to get back there as fast as they can. Alfonso Soriano has been picked off of first base three times that I know of - and I missed almost the entire month of May. The latest dumb play came yesterday, when a the would-be tying run got caught stealing at third in the eighth inning with no outs. The baserunning has been so bad that good baserunning would be news.

Has Lou Pinella's head exploded yet?

This is why the Cubs are the Cubs

The first Cub batter in today's game had the kind of thing happen to him that only happens to the Cubs. Ryan Theriot swung and hit the ball and it bounced initially behind the plate. The ball spun into fair territory as Theriot was starting toward first and bringing his bat back toward the plate in the motion of tossing it aside. While doing that, the ball hit his bat and rolled into foul territory. The umps called him out. That's the correct call, even though Theriot wasn't trying to hit the ball again.

The other day, the Cubs' Ronny Cedeno was called out trying to steal second on ball four because he overslid the base and was tagged after that. The walk only gives the runner second base and anything after that, he's on his own.

These kinds of things don't happen to other teams. Only the Cubs. That's how you go 100 years without winning a World Series.

Was that really necessary?

The day after the unfortunate tragedy of the shootings at Virginia Tech, a package shows up in the mailroom at NBC News containing a video "manifesto" (more like inane ramblings) from the lunatic who shot up the school. Naturally, they did what any news organization would do, which is play it into the ground without any regard for the feelings of those directly affected by the incident.

Soon, every news station was running it with the NBC News logo on it - as if it took some great reporting to get the scoop. That's an interesting image to associate with your brand. I can see the new marketing slogan now. "NBC News - the preferred network of homicidal maniacs." But, I digress.

My papers the next day ran a picture from the video. The Chicago Tribune went the relatively tasteful (meaning still revolting) route by printing a picture of the killer posing with his guns pointed at an angle away from the camera. The NW Indiana Times ran the picture of him with his gun pointed right at the camera. Right on the front page. Good Morning, NW Indiana! I had to throw away both front pages to keep them from my kids. That's not an image they need to see. For that matter, that's not an image I need to see.

I understand that the video is part of the story and it can't be ignored, but it also doesn't have to be rammed down our throats. Technology is such today that NBC News didn't have to run it at all. They could have summarized it and directed viewers to the NBC News website to see the video if they felt so inclined. The papers didn't have to print such provocative pictures from the video. We get the idea without the sensationalism.

Spare us, but more importantly, spare those directly affected.

It's snowing in Chicago...

and that can mean only one thing - it's opening day at Wrigley Field (technically, that was yesterday, but I messed up posting this, so it's a day late). Wrigley is the place where hope springs eternal, before landing awkwardly and breaking its neck.

The Cubs have hope this season, if only because they are in the worst division in baseball. They could just as easily finish 5th as 1st. Maybe only a few games will separate those teams.

They added Alfonso Soriano to the lineup, which means they have a better chance of out-scoring their pitching. It's a pretty imposing lineup with Soriano, Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez in it, but the Cubs probably can't afford too much DL time from any of their regular players because other than Cliff Floyd, there's not much behind them.

Mark Prior and Kerry Wood went from having a rotation built around them to having rotator cuffs rebuilt (along with the rest of their arms) and neither will see the mound for the Cubs this season. Now the Cubs are trying to find help for Carlos Zambrano. Lefty Rich Hill looks pretty promising. At least he's throwing strikes. Ted Lilly will be pretty reliable too after coming over from Toronto. The Cubs may end up going as far as Cardinal reject Jason Marquis and still-recovering Wade Miller can take them as 4th and 5th starters.

The Cubs bullpen didn't get much help in the offseason. Ryan Dempster is still the closer, and the setup guys are still Scott Eyre and Bobby Howry. Eyre has given up five runs in his two appearances and Howry has already coughed up two games, so the starters better have some endurance.

The biggest new face for the Cubs is manager Lou Pinella, and his presence guarantees that the Cubs will be entertaining, if not good. Maybe more entertaining if they're bad, although I'll take boring and good if being boring is what it takes to be good. I would expect the Cubs to be more fundamentally sound this year, although there have already been some boneheaded plays. Pinella will be less tolerant of that stuff than Dusty Baker was.

The other big piece of news with the Cubs probably won't actually take place until after the season, but the team is going to be sold. That came about because their parent company, the Tribune, is being sold to gazillionaire Sam Zell. It doesn't look like Wrigley Field will be sold with the team though, which could make negotiations for the Cubs interesting.

Time for the bold prediction: If the Cubs stay healthy (relatively speaking), I think they'll win the division, although like I said, that's not really much of an accomplishment this year. After that, anything can happen. With the Cubs, that's usually bad.

Diary from Atlanta

I'm in Atlanta covering the Final Four (TM) for CSTV.com. You can follow it all on the Hangtime Blog at CSTV.com.

It's been a while

I've been overwhelmingly busy this basketball season, so I haven't been able to write for quite a while. For example, it's time to congratulate the Colts on their Super Bowl win over the Bears. It was a much deserved win and I'm happy for my second favorite city, Indianapolis.

I've been very busy not just doing my own site, but doing a lot of writing for CSTV.com. You can see my coverage from the Big East and Missouri Valley tournaments, as well as from the NCAAs in Chicago this weekend, St. Louis and Atlanta coming up, on the Hangtime Blog at CSTV.com.

Hopefully, I can write more when hoops season ends.

Maybe she was saying "foooooood"

I'm in the Indy area this week helping out my mother-in-law as she recovers from surgery. As you might imagine, this part of the country is overwhelmed with Colts fever as they get ready to watch them get beat by the Bears 31-28 in the Super Bowl. In the spirit of the event, I've been wearing my Bears jersey around here this week.

Late last night, I went to the local Meijer (the Official Superstore of the Colts) to pick up some stuff. While I was looking at something on the end of one of the aisles, I heard this loud howling sound. I wasn't paying too much attention to it, but when it didn't stop, I glanced up to see that it was coming from some lady about 50 feet from me who was booing me and waving her arms with the thumbs down sign.

I suppose I should be grateful she didn't use any of her other fingers.

Fortunately, I'm not a sensitive guy. I'm used to getting booed. I umpired baseball for 16 years and reffed basketball for 8, so that's part of the job. I get "booed" for my bracket predictions, the RPI and BCS pretty routinely. I even get booed at home sometimes (you call that washing dishes??! BOO!). But getting booed in the grocery store is a new one.

Have you seen Wade Steffey?

Wade Steffey, a freshman at Purdue, has disappeared after a party on campus last weekend. Here's the story from the Purdue web site, with a picture of Steffey. Anyone with info should call Purdue Police at 765-494-8221.

NFL Playoff QB Quiz

A. Tom Brady
B. Drew Brees
C. Peyton Manning
D. Rex Grossman

Sing along now: "One of these things doesn't belong here. One of these things just isn't the same..."

I suppose if you can win a Super Bowl with Trent Dilfer, you can win with anybody, but still, it's hard to like the Bears chances.

NFL Playoffs

OK, here's my playoff picks. I skipped the first round because I was otherwise distracted.

AFC
Chargers over Patriots - New England is now a fading dynasty. They're dangerous to be sure, but the Chargers are too strong.

Colts over Ravens - Who were those guys playing defense for the Colts last week and where have they been all year? I'll be shocked if the Indy D is as good this week, but I think the Colts will score enough to win.

Chargers over Colts - LT runs wild. He'll set a playoff record for rushing yards. He'll score 4 times. San Diego goes to the Super Bowl.

NFC
Bears over Seahawks - It won't be as big as the last meeting (37-6 in week 4), but the Bears defense will shut the Seahawks down once again. Rex Grossman will prevent the Bears from reaching the Super Bowl, but this won't be the week that happens.

Saints over Eagles - New Orleans will go as far as Brees, Bush and McAlister take them, and that could be a long way. The Eagles have done well without McNabb, but the ride ends here.

Saints over Bears - Brees is the one QB best equipped to attack the Bears pressure defense because he's decisive and accurate. He'll also have a lot of short fields because here is where bad Rex shows up.

Super Bowl
Saints over Chargers - If you can have a Cinderella story in professional sports, it would be the New Orleans Saints. Each team scores in the 30s. Brees leads a 2-minute drill for the win.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Curious promotional idea

Since sponsors spend a big wad of money to put on bowl games, naturally, they like to promote it. Champs Sports, which is a sports apparel store that sponsors a bowl, has a window display with a caption saying "We love football so much, we have our own game, and everyone's invited." The display has a space for four shirts, so around here (NW Indiana), you would expect Purdue shirts in the display because Purdue's playing in the game. Of course, you would be wrong. At the store in the mall in Hobart, IN, the display has four Indiana shirts.

When I went to the counter to buy, ironically, a Champs Sports Bowl shirt as a gift (if the person I bought that for is reading this, please act surprised when you get it), I couldn't resist asking the clerk about the display.

Me: "Can I ask a stupid question?"

Her (clearly exasperated): "I put Indiana shirts in the display because the manager told me to."

Me: "I take it I'm not the first to almost ask about it."

Her: "No. The manager says that the Purdue stuff is selling better, so he wants it where people can get to it. We have extra Indiana stuff, so he said to use that."

Me: "Don't you think that's kind of a silly way to promote the company's bowl game?"

Her: "I just do what the manager tells me to do."

The manager was unavailable for comment.

My Thanksgiving tradition

Like many families, mine has traditions that are followed every Thanksgiving, and our traditions are probably very similar to yours. We start out with the ceremonial preparation and consumption of mass quantities of specific foods. After that, we waddle into the family room and watch large, padded men - men who were probably bigger than us before we ate dinner - play football. And we can do that even longer now because there are three NFL games on Thanksgiving instead of two. While we're watching football, we usually have a dessert or six, and then, mercifully, the games end. After that, we stumble upstairs in an effort to go to bed, but usually fall short and pass out on the stairs. The kitchen is covered in a layer of food shrapnel which will require power tools and about a week to clean up. My kids' hair is now orange because they tried to absorb the nutrients from sweet potatoes through the top of their heads instead of through their mouths.

I'm sure your family goes through the same things, but mine has started a new tradition that began a year ago, and that is that we have a piece of the plumbing system fail. Last year, it was a clogged pipe downline from the garbage disposal. That took about three hours to find and fix. This year, it was our brand new dishwasher deciding it was no longer going to drain water out of the tub. I thought we could just leave that to Friday, but my wife informed me that if I didn't fix it, I would get to do all the dishes by hand. Since I didn't want to pass out face-first into a sink full of dish water, I decided to try to fix the dishwasher. That too was successful (the drain hose was kinked because it was too long), so I was able to join the rest of the family in passing out on the stairs.

I can hardly wait for the surprise my plumbing has in store for me next year, but in the meantime, does anyone have a sander I can borrow? I have to clean the kitchen.

You make the call

I am sitting in a Panera in Bloomington (trying feebly to get some work done) and a woman at the table next to me told me that I look like Tim Robbins (Nuke Laloosh from Bull Durham, married to Susan Sarandon).

That's a new one. I've been told I look like other people before. I apparently have a long lost twin brother living around me because the folks at the grocery store are cosntantly confusing me with someone else.

The person I have been told I look like most often is my hero, Dave Barry. Even my own son has confused the two of us. One day, when he was about 3 years old, he came running up to me saying, "Daddy, Daddy, you're on a book!" When I asked him what he was talking about, he brought me "Dave Barry's Guide to Guys" which has a picture of Dave on the cover and said, "See. There you are."

So, you make the call. Do I look like Dave Barry? Tim Robbins? Someone else entirely? Or is it bad enough that one person has to look like me?

UPDATE: 11/14. In the comments, some said I look like Potsie from Happy Days. I don't think so, but that's probably closer than Tim Robbins. His pic is added.

Stuck in Hell

Or at least Bloomington, which for a Purdue guy, isn't much different.

I was on my way here to cover the Michigan-Indiana game on Saturday when my car quit running about 10 miles outside of town. Fortunately, my wife has some family in the area and they were able to rescue me, get me to the game, and give me a place to stay for a couple of days until I could get my car fixed (fuel pump - not cheap).

I probably should have known better. My last two trips to the Indiana campus did not go well either. The last time I was here was 20 years ago and my car (not the same one) was vandalized. The time before that, I was a senior at Purdue and we brought a pep band down for the Bucket game. We were sitting in temporary bleachers in front of a 20-foot wall, above which was the stands. Someone dropped a chunk of concrete, or perhaps limestone, about the size of my laptop down toward us. It just missed hitting us (which was probably the intent).

I think the next time I get a chance to come back here, I'll just pass.

Purdue-Penn St

Purdue coach Joe Tiller often refers to his offense as “basketball on grass.” To use basketball terms to describe how it’s been lately for Purdue, the Boilers are having trouble getting good shots and when they do, they’re shooting airballs.

That was evident again today in a 12-0 loss at home to Penn St. The biggest problem seems to be the inaccuracy of sophomore QB Curtis Painter. Today, Painter was 22-39 for 178 yards and two interceptions. One of those killed the Boilers’ best scoring chance of the day late in the first quarter. Shortly after threading the needle on a pass over the middle to Dustin Keller, Painter threw five yards behind Selwyn Lymon and right into the arms of Penn St LB Dan Conner at the Nittany Lions’ 18-yard line. If the pass would have been completed to Lymon, he would have scored. The Boilers would never seriously threaten again.

Like last week, Painter simply missed a lot of open receivers. He would typically overthrow them or lead them too far on out or crossing routes. He also didn’t get much help when he was on target, as there were several drops by the Boiler receivers.

Both teams struggled in the passing game with the high winds. Neither QB was able to do much throwing downfield. The difference was that the Penn St defense was more fundamentally sound, especially with tackling, than the Purdue defense was. If the Boilers had about ten more players who can tackle they would have a pretty good defense. Nittany Lion RB Tony Hunt alone broke a few dozen feeble Purdue tackle attempts.

The twelve points scored against the Boiler defense were a bit deceiving because of its inability to get off the field. It seemed that whenever Purdue had a favorable third down situation or make a good stop on a third down play, Penn St would end up converting anyway, often just by the length of the football. The Lions were 10-19 on third downs and converted a fourth down as well. That allowed PSU to dominate time of possession 35:22 to 24:48. Penn St had four drives of 12 plays or more, three of which led to scores. Purdue only had one drive all day of more than seven plays.

Player of the Game: Tony Hunt had 31 carries for 142 yards and the one touchdown scored in the game. Hunt was a battering ram against the Boiler defense, running through and over hapless Purdue defenders all day. It was never more evident on the touchdown drive to start the fourth quarter, on which Hunt had 8 carries for 55 yards.

Quote: Purdue coach Joe Tiller was asked whether he would consider switching quarterbacks. He said, “I have a lot of faith in Curtis. The guy who feels the worst about losing the game today is Curtis Painter. I’m going to have to do a little counseling this week to get him going and not feel like it’s just him. He’s got the weight of the entire team on his shoulders right now.”

Notes: Today was Penn State’s first shut out since 2002 against Northwestern…Purdue was shut out for the first time since Notre Dame beat the Boilers 35-0 in 1996, which was prior to Tiller taking over at Purdue. In fact, Tiller had never been shut out in 15 years as a head coach…Purdue had averaged 448 yards per game entering play, but has now been held below 300 yards two straight games.

What's their philosophy on free speech?

One of the "hazards" of Dave Barry's job as a humor writer is that often, people don't get the joke and become outrageously offended. This week, one of his more innoucuous quotes was removed from the door of Stuart Ditsler, a doctoral student in Philosophy at Marquette because the chairman of the department, James South, received a lot of complaints.

The highly offensive quote is, "As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful, and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government."

You would think that of all places, the Philosophy department would encourage free speech and the exchange of ideas, but apparently that is not the case at MU. In an AP wire story, South said, "If material is patently offensive and has no obvious academic import or university sanction, I have little choice but to take note." Fine, take notes, and then get back to something important.

Barry once wrote a column "advising" students on how to pick a major. He recommended majors that involve virtually no facts, and Philosophy was among them. Here's how he described it:

"Philosophy: Basically, this involves sitting in a room and deciding there is no such thing as reality and then going to lunch. You should major in philosophy if you plan to take a lot of drugs."

Perhaps Ditsler should post that on his door, and then help South find his prescription.

My first game story

Many of you know me from my websites, where I cover college football and basketball from the perspective of the postseason and the rankings used to select the teams for those games. In addition to that, CSTV.com has given me a chance to go out and actually cover games. Specifically, I'll be covering Notre Dame home games for them, and the first one was the Michigan game (we couldn't get the logistics worked out in time to go to the Penn St game).

Doing "real" game coverage is new for me. I've written blurbs and stories about games before, but I have rarely had access to the players and coaches and all my "deadlines" have been self-imposed. Here, I have a credential, sit in the press box and have to write something before I go home.

I'll write more about my press box experiences later, but for now, here's the story I wrote after the Michigan-ND game. There's a couple of sentences I'd like to have back to translate into English, but otherwise, I think it's not too bad. Feel free to disagree.

I'll be at the Purdue game this week, so check out CSTV.com to see that story. It's more than a little ironic that as a Purdue grad who has never wished ND well on the field, my first assignment is to cover the Irish. I don't think I'll have trouble being fair though. The first story was pretty negative on ND and Brady Quinn in particular, but that was a pretty negative game. I'm sure with a remaining home schedule of Purdue, Stanford, North Carolina, UCLA and Army, I'll have plenty of chances to be positive.

That's one way to move up the depth chart

This just in from the Tonya Harding School of Football

Let's see ESPN (un)cover this!

I can't imagine watching Poker on television and it bugs me that it takes up space on my sports page (Poker is no more of a sport than chess), but I might be convinced to watch this.

Wrong way to appeal

I'm sure many of us have felt like doing this, but until now, none of us were stupid enough to actually try it.

World cup final thoughts

This year’s World Cup was a fascinating tournament that may be remembered for many great plays and stories, but two major disappointments at the end will probably stick in our memories the longest.

The most obvious disappointment is how the career of Zinedine Zidane of France game to an inglorious end. When great athletes retire, their feats and their failures are fresh enough in our minds that we can recall them easily. As time passes, those failures tend to fade from our memories first. However, the greatness not only never fades, but magnifies because we no longer balance it against the failures. Zidane will likely be remembered as one of the game’s all-time great players, but his final act on the pitch will ensure that we never forget that his temper was as legendary as his skill.

In case you missed it, in the second overtime, Zidane viciously head-butted Marco Materazzi right in the chest and was red-carded, ending his career (he announced his retirement before the tournament). It was physically unprovoked, but we’ll never know what Materazzi said to Zidane that might have set him off. It doesn’t really matter what he said, though. You can’t allow mere words to provoke you, especially with so much at stake. You’re the captain, the team’s best player, the guy that everyone else is playing for, and with one act of churlishness, you abandon your team when they need you the most. It takes either supreme selfishness or a complete lack of self control to allow that to happen.

In spite of this, Zidane received the Golden Ball, which is the tournament MVP award. Does that stand for Most Vicious Punk? How could anyone in their right mind vote for him after that? Yes, Zidane was brilliant in the knockout stage of this tournament (he was non-existent in group play), but how do you reward a guy who suffered one of the biggest brain cramps in sports history? That’s like naming Bill Buckner the World Series MVP for letting a ball roll through his legs. For assaulting Materazzi, Zidane should get the Golden Ball-and-Chain.

Oh, and we still haven’t heard Zidane’s side of the story yet. The French, who worship this guy, deserve at least an explanation, if not an apology, but so far, he’s been silent.

Equally disappointing to me was the fact that the game was settled by penalty kicks. As much as I enjoy soccer, I hate deciding games by penalty kicks. It’s so arbitrary that you might as well flip a coin. It would be like baseball breaking ties with a home run derby, or football having an extra point kicking contest, or basketball coming down to a free throw contest. For the goalies, saving a penalty kick is 95% luck, 5% skill. If the player makes a good enough shot, the goalie has no chance. And it doesn’t have to be a great shot, just a good one.

I don’t understand why they can’t just keep playing until someone wins. Yes, players get tired, but that’s soccer. More than any other game, soccer is a game of attrition. Each team only gets three substitutions, so fitness is a significant factor in soccer. In the Italy-France game, France’s star striker Thierry Henry had to be subbed out in OT because of cramps. If the teams had kept playing, maybe other guys would have dropped out too. That’s fine with me. Just keep playing and may the fitter team win. That’s a heck of a lot better than having the luckier team win.

Off the topic, there is one thing soccer does that could spice up our professional sports some, and that’s relegation. In the European professional leagues, there are divisions, much like baseball has, and at the end of the year, the two or three worst teams in each division get relegated, which means that they have to play in a lower division next year, while the top teams from the lower division move up to take their place. Can you imagine that in baseball? You could have, for example, Tampa, KC and Pittsburgh playing in September to keep from being sent to AAA. Not the players, the entire franchise. Then, those teams could be replaced by, say, Toledo, Scranton-Wilkes Barre and Round Rock. How many people would fill the bleachers at Wrigley if the Cubs were actually playing at AAA instead of simply playing like they belong there? Do you think that would motivate the front office a little bit? It’ll never happen, of course, but it would be fun if it did.

World Cup picks, take 2

Before we move on, one more rant about the American's feeble World Cup performance.

The penalty kick call was ridiculous. If that's a penalty, then the refs in the other games have missed a couple of dozen PK calls. However, the play was set up by Bocanegro (I think) sending the ball blindly into the area right in front of his own net. We teach our U8 team not to do that. If he does even a bad job of clearing the ball, the PK opportunity doesn't exist.

Also, knowing that the possibility exists that you might need to win by as many as four goals to advance, why do you start only one forward? Why not start two, or even three. Take a couple of those useless defenders off the field.

Damarcus Beasley took a lot of well-deserved heat for performing poorly, but that play to set up Dempsey's goal was a thing of beauty, and it was one more good thing than US poster boy Landon Donovan did in this tournament.

After watching the Americans flame out against Ghana, and then watching Brazil smoke Japan, I came to the realization that Brazil's players make better passes with the backs of their feet than the Americans do with the front of theirs.

My group picks weren't too bad, but one commenter was quite correct in chastising my picks of the US and Poland. I also missed two others. I had the Czechs and Croatians moving on. Here's my new and hopefully improved knockout stage picks.

A1 Germany over B2 Sweden
C1 Argentina over D2 Mexico
E1 Italy over F2 Austrailia
G1 Switzerland over H2 Ukraine
B1 England over A2 Ecuador
C2 Holland over D1 Portugal
F1 Brazil over E2 Ghana
H1 Spain over G2 France

A1 Germany over C1 Argentina
E1 Italy over G1 Switzerland
C2 Holland over B1 England
F1 Brazil over H1 Spain

A1 Germany over E1 Italy
F1 Brazil over C2 Holland

A1 Germany over F1 Brazil (championship)
C2 Holland over E1 Italy (3rd place)

World chumps

Any hopes the US had of making a run in this World Cup were dashed with a shockingly wretched 3-0 loss to the Czech Republic in the first round.

What was shocking about it was not the loss (the Czechs are a very good team, albeit a little old), but that the US team did not compete. Getting beat is one thing, but just standing around and watching it happen was embarrassing. The US had a pretty good lead in time of possession, but nearly all of it was harmless. They had trouble stringing three or four passes together because there were so many passes that were poorly played or handled, which slowed down any momentum they might be trying to build upfield. As a result, the US ended up with about two or three decent runs at the goal in the entire game. Most of the game, Czech keeper Peter Cech was sitting in a lawn chair doing Sudoku puzzles. Late in the game, they showed a stat on TV showing that the US had not managed a corner kick or even an offside. That shows just how little aggressiveness they had on offense.

The part that wasn't shocking about the defeat was that the defense was terrible. The US has world-class players at every position except defense. The Czechs didn't have the ball a lot in this game, relatively speaking, but they had many more good scoring opportunities in part because the back line of the US either has no idea what they're doing or they don't have the ability to do it. Fifteen years ago, the US didn't have a world class player at all, so things are getting better, but until they get the better on defense, strong finishes in the World Cup will be based more on luck than anything else. As for this time around, they have to beat Italy on Saturday to have any chance of advancing to the knockout round.

The other team I picked for the third place game along with the US didn't look too hot in its opening game either. Poland was drilled by Ecuador 2-0 and is probably going to have to beat Germany now just to get out of its group.

Catch up/World Cup preview

It's amazing how little time I have now that we have another baby in the house. It's not so much the baby (she's doing great, BTW) that makes it difficult, but the fact that whoever isn't dealing with the baby (usually me) has to take care of the other three. That means writing for the blog has fallen down on the list of priorities.

Instead, I've been doing things like planting a garden, which is doomed to fail because I have a brown thumb. The only plants I can't kill are weeds. I'm the leading producer of dandelions in Lake County, despite attacking them with every form of chemical and home remedies known to man. Maybe if I let the big boys do most of the work, the garden has a chance.

I've also been trying to fix up a room so that we have a place for the baby to sleep when she outgrows the bassinet in our room. Whenever I attempt handyman-type stuff around the house, it always looks like vandals broke in and did it, so I have a friend who is a home builder helping me out and that's going much better than if I attempted it myself.

I'm also managing my two older sons' baseball team. It's a 7- and 8-year-old league, although my older son is nine. We held him back because he hasn't played much baseball and he isn't ready for the next league up. My team has four 7-year-olds and six 8-year-olds, plus my 9-year-old, which is roughly the age makeup of all the teams, but all my kids are about the same size, which is smaller than the average 8-year-old. Every team we play has at least one kid that looks like he's ready to start shaving, and all my guys are about the size of the bat. We're the only team in the league where the best player is a 7-year-old. That's not to say my 8-year-olds are bad players, but they aren't all-star caliber players. I'm really fortunate though that my kids do a good job playing hard and following instructions, and they're all getting better, which is the only goal anyway. It's a non-competitive league, so there's no score kept or standings. They are really good kids, so it's a fun team to coach, but it's a pretty time-consuming job.

So, today is the start of the World Cup and I'm excited to get to watch it this year without having to stay up until ridiculous hours of the night like I did four years ago when the tournament was in South Korea and Japan. I'm a fan of the game, although not as rabid as I am about more traditional American sports, but I watch some MLS games or some of the European league games on Fox Soccer Channel. I went to a World Cup game in Chicago in 1994 and saw Germany and Spain play to a 1-1 tie. I had my German jersey on and it turns out my ticket was in the top row of the Spanish cheering section. That was the only time I used all that Spanish I took in high school and college.

Anyway, Brazil is the big favorite in this year's tournament, and you'd have to be a blithering idiot to pick against them, so naturally, I will. I'm picking the host Germans. If you have a good enough team, and the Germans appear to have one, home field advantage is big and they'll use it to knock off Brazil in the final. Germany will be breaking in a new goalkeeper after the retirement of Oliver Kahn. They'll need a big tournament from his replacement Jens Lehmann.

I also like the US team to come out of a very difficult group E with the Czech Republic. They key for the US will be to get at least a draw with the Czechs in the first game. To be successful, the US have to be tight on defense, which occasionally lapses, and do a better job finishing its scoring chances. Italy is also in our group, but they've had some turmoil and look ready to be sent home. Ghana is probably not good enough to come out of this group, but is certainly good enough to be a spoiler for one of the other three.

Group A has Germany, Poland, Ecuador and Costa Rica, and it would be a huge upset if Germany didn't win the group and Poland didn't finish second.

England leads Group B and is the favorite despite the injury to Wayne Rooney. It looks like he will play in this tournament at some point, but Rooney's health will be a key to the Brits advancing much beyond the group stage. Sweden is a slight favorite to advance over Trinidad & Tobago and Paraguay, but both have puncher's chances to take out the Swedes.

Group C has a heavy favorite in Argentina, and I the rebuilding Dutch squad to come out of there as well. If the Netherlands struggle, then Serbia-Montenegro, which isn't a country anymore, will advance. The Ivory Coast is the other member of the group, and they'll leave with lovely parting gifts.

Mexico and Portugal will advance from Group D, but the order isn't as clear. I'll take Mexico, although they've not been sharp in recent friendlies. Expect an inspired performance from their keeper, Oswaldo Sanchez, whose father just died. The funeral may cause Sanchez to miss the opener with Iran. The others teams in this group are Iran and Angola, neither of which have much of a chance.

The Brazilians will win Group F and Croatia will finish second. The other two teams, Austrailia and Japan, could not compete with either even if they combined forces.

Group G is where we find France, which won the tournament as host in 1998. Zinedine Zidane was the star of that team, and he's still kicking around, but the new star is Thierry Henry. France should advance easily. South Korea, which did well in 2002 as host and has many of those starters back for 2006, will battle Switzerland for second. I'll take the Swiss, which were undefeated in qualifying. Togo will be satisfied to be a spoiler.

Spain and Ukraine figure to emerge from Group H, though neither look good enough to do much damage after the group stage. Tunisia has a chance to surprise, but Saudi Arabia looks overmatched.

Knockout stage picks:
A1 Germany over B2 Sweden
C1 Argentina over D2 Portugal
E1 US over F2 Croatia
G1 France over H2 Ukraine
A2 Poland over B1 England
D1 Mexico over C2 Netherlands
F1 Brazil over E2 Czech Rep
G2 Switzerland over H1 Spain

A1 Germany over C1 Argentina
E1 US over G1 France
A2 Poland over D1 Mexico
F1 Brazil over G2 Switzerland

A1 Germany over E1 US
F1 Brazil over A2 Poland

A1 Germany over F1 Brazil
E1 US over A2 Poland (3rd place)

Sox-Cubs more meaningless than usual

I've never gotten all wrapped up in the Cubs-Sox rivalry, perhaps because I'm one of those rare Cub fans that also roots for the Sox, but this year's six-game series is even more meaningless than usual because no matter what happens, the Sox can't lose. If the Cubs win all six games by football scores (say, 35-3), it's not going to take the rings off the fingers of the White Sox and it's not going to change the fact that the Cubs are Waiting For Next Year for the 98th year in a row.

Can anyone show me the way to go home?

It looks like the Cubs need a map to home plate, because they have had a lot of trouble finding it lately. In the eight games they have played since April 29th, they have scored a grand total of six runs and been shut out four times. By comparison, Florida SS Hanley Ramirez has scored six runs by himself in just the last three days. They had a 28-inning scoreless streak broken last night by an Aramis Ramirez solo home run. The Cubs actually managed to win a game in this anemic stretch, a 2-1 victory over Pittsburgh on May 1st.

If you are a Cub fan and haven't already started Waiting Until Next Year, now's the time.

Nashville Star

You would think someone with a seasonal job like mine would be able to write more once the season was over, but it hasn't worked out that way. I'm still catching up with all the stuff I let go during February and March.

During my late night downtime this spring, I did something I would have never imagined myself doing. I watched almost the entire season of Nashville Star, which is the country equivalent of American Idol. It would be an understatement to say that I don't much care for country music. Most of the time, I actively avoid it, but Nicole Jamrose was on the show, so I watched to see how she did. Jamrose, which is a great name for a country singer, is from Dyer and I had a chance to see her perform around here once a few years back, so it was pretty neat to see a local singer get that kind of chance. She did very well too, finishing third. The winner was a kid named Chris Young, who will soon be a superstar. He's unbelievably talented. In fact, the top five or six singers on Nashville Star were a lot better than anyone I saw on American Idol.

It will be interesting to see how her success on the show ends up affecting her career. Does she end up with a record deal and a shot at big-time success, or does she go back to playing the bars of NW Indiana? I suspect it'll be the former, but first, she goes on a tour with the other top four finishers on the show. If you're into that kind of thing, the tour is mostly in the southeast in July. Check your local listings.