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.

This is why I hire an accountant

Now that we have all given to Caesar that which is Caesar's for another year (except possibly for George Ryan), it's time once again to share with you my all-time favorite editorial cartoon, which won Jeff MacNelly a Pulitzer Prize in 1978.

First swim lesson

We baptized our baby girl on Sunday, and things did not go swimmingly. We needed to do an emergency diaper change about five minutes before the baptism, and most of that time was spent trying to find a suitable place to do that. I'll spare you the details, but I will say I could have really used a hose. As a result, she was slightly late for her own baptism (takes after her mother). This apparently did not make her happy, because she wailed during the whole ceremony, stopping only to catch her breath. The cops showed up because the neighbors called to complain about the noise.

OK, I made that last bit up.

I guess she was trying to make up for her brothers, who were no trouble at all during their baptisms.

Bucky not lucky

On the hour-long American Idol results show, which was at least 30 minutes too long, we learned that the voters kicked off Bucky Covington, who did about the lamest version of Fat Bottom Girls imaginable. I would have booted Ace Young, who turned We Will Rock You into a lullaby, but Bucky was certainly a worthy choice as well. Ace must have a bigger family.

Ace and Bucky reprised their sorry efforts on the show, I guess to remind us why we disliked them so much, although Ace did manage to get the words right this time. They were joined in the "bottom three" by Elliott Yamin, who fought his way through Somebody to Love. He was also forced to sing it again, and seemed surprised to be asked to do so. The others were all deemed "safe" (imagine Ryan Seacrest channeling Dutch Rennert) and didn't have to sing again.

The group of eight opened the show with a medley of Queen hits that they didn't perform the other night. Each singer got to do a bit of a solo. Ace sang Killer Queen, and did a nice job on that. He should have done that one the night before. Elliott also sang a better song for him when he did You're My Best Friend. Bucky was still weak in a duet with Chris Daughtry on Under Pressure and we learned that Katharine's choice to change from Don't Stop Me Now was a really good decision.

During the time-wasting part of the results show, they had video clips from each singer's family wishing them well. Elliott's mom said, "We're praying for you, Elliott. Give 'em hell!" I missed a couple of clips while I pondered the theological significance of that.

I also almost missed the Secret deodorant ad with Danica Patrick, which ends with "Secret - strong enough for Danica Patrick, strong enough for a woman." Have I missed another memo? Is she not a woman?

Next week, the Idol singers take a shot at some old standards that Rod Stewart has sung (man, what a wild change his career has taken), but I won't be there to see it. I return now to my peaceful, non-American Idol existence, already in progress.

Queen Karaoke

I am probably the only American who has never watched a minute of American Idol. That changed tonight. That's because the eight finalists were required to sing songs by my favorite band, Queen.

The good thing for the singers is that Queen's catalog is large and diverse enough that finding an appropriate song that fits each singer's style should be easy. The bad news is that when you sing it, you will be compared to Freddie Mercury.

That's one of the things working against Paul Rodgers during his current tour fronting Queen. I saw them in Chicago a few weeks ago and I thought the concert was great. They only did songs that worked with Paul's style and skipped those that didn't. Roger Taylor (drummer and underrated singer) took over lead singer duties on three songs as well. During those, Rodgers was not on stage. Queen performed Bohemian Rhapsody, the signature "Freddie" song, with a video of Freddie for the first part, the usual video for the opera section, and Rodgers singing the hard rock part at the end. My only disappointment was that they didn't perform two songs that were written after Queen's last US tour in the mid-80s (which I also saw), One Vision and I Want it All.

The American Idol contestants were hit and miss, and so were the judges. It seemed like the judges were unfamiliar with some of the songs. I should have been a guest judge (he says modestly). I'm not a singer, but I know good when I hear it and I know these particular songs well. Also, I had never seen any of these singers previous performances, so I was judging them just on how they did that one song and not whether I liked them going in. Here are my critiques in the order in which they performed:

1. Bucky Covington - Fat Bottomed Girls
Bucky has a very polished voice, but this is a raunchy song, and he sang it like he was in a HS choir. He hit all the notes, but had no idea how it was supposed to sound. Totally the wrong song for him. He should have sung one of the ballads, like Love of my Life or Save Me, which nobody sang.

2. Ace Young - We Will Rock You
If I were to kick one person off for this week's performance, it would be him. He had the same problem Bucky did - his voice was too "perfect" for this us-against-the-world rock anthem and he didn't convey the right feeling at all. Judge Simon Bar Sinister (SBS) was right on when he called it "We Will Rock You Gently". On top of that, he botched the lyrics. He should have sung one of the ballads also, perhaps Who Wants to Live Forever, which someone else butchered later. Primarily though, he should have sang a song that he could remember the words to.

3. Kellie Pickler - Bohemian Rhapsody
Singers only get a minute and a half and BoRhap is about a 6-minute song, so she had to do some serious editing. She had the best "production". Her costume, makeup and lighting harkened back to the video, and she sang it well. She must be a country singer, because I detected a bit of an annoying twang slipping in occasionally, but she did a pretty good job of suppressing that for the most part.

The judges agreed with Brian May, who said she was brave to take on this song. There's some truth to that because it's such a standard and because of how much editing you have to do, but another contestant was even more courageous. I guess someone else did BoRhap last year as well and did a good job on it, but I didn't hear it, of course.

4. Chris Daughtry - Innuendo
Innuendo is a song that Queen has never performed live (and not because it's not a good song, as SBS said, because they never toured after it was written), so it was interesting to hear him do it. He did a nice job, considering that, like BoRhap, it's about six minutes long and had to be severely edited. He is clearly the rock singer in the bunch. He has no stage presence whatsoever, but among the first four, he did the best job singing his chosen song the way it should be sung.

SBS complained that he should have chosen a more popular song, and there's something to that. Stone Cold Crazy would have worked well, or he could have done Tie Your Mother Down.

5. Katharine McPhee - Who Wants to Live Forever
Katharine has a beautiful voice and she wasted it on this song. This is a melancholy and powerful song, and she sang it weak and syrupy sweet. My wife said it was "Mariah Carey does Queen" except Carey would have at least sung it powerfully. McPhee either doesn't have the pipes to do it or chose not to. She was originally going to sing Don't Stop Me Now, and I'm glad she didn't, although this didn't work either. Something like Killer Queen would have been better suited to her.

The judges liked her, by the way, which is an indication that they just didn't know this song or they have the hots for her.

6. Elliott Yamin - Somebody to Love
Roger Taylor said in the intro that this is the toughest song to sing in their entire repertoire and I couldn't agree more. I've always felt that if you think you're a good singer, sing this and we'll see. Yamin took a risk by trying to tackle this and he was in over his head. He did a good job with the desperate feel of the song, but the singing was all over the place. He had the good sense not to try to hit the falsetto at the end, which was clearly out of his range, but he just didn't seem comfortable with the song. I would suggest a week of practice isn't enough to do a proper job on it.

The judges liked him, but I'm not really sure why. Maybe they appreciated the effort.

7. Taylor Hicks - Crazy Little Thing Called Love
He said he chose this song (he had originally picked something else, which now escapes me) because it was something he could move around and dance to. I think I can safely say I've never seen anybody so uncomfortable and unnatural on stage. I didn't know whether to cringe or laugh when he was doing whatever it was he was doing. At least his convulsions didn't affect his singing. He was the best of the night at singing his chosen song. Next time though, I'd just as soon see him sing standing still. Maybe I'll just close my eyes.

8. Paris Bennett - Show Must Go On
After seven more-or-less mediocre performances of my favorite band's songs, I was not looking forward to someone tackling this one, which is one of my personal favorites. However, if anyone "nailed it" tonight, it was Paris. She's a little stiff on stage, but her voice was powerful enough to handle the song and she sang it well. I can see why Brian and Roger liked her.

So, I would have rated them in order: Paris, Kellie, Chris, Taylor, Elliott, Katharine, Bucky and Ace.

What I got out of this show though was just how good Freddie Mercury was. Nobody in this group was anywhere close, and they only had to do one of his songs in a style that hopefully suited them. I also learned that only five seasons into the show, America has run out of super-talented, but undiscovered singers. I would have thought we would have had more than four seasons worth.

It's BEEEEEEEER!!!!

Now, if they can just get the carbonation issues worked out.

Company Expansion

Palm Sports Resources announced today the hiring of Annika Eliese Palm as a Special Assistant to the President. When asked what role Annika would have in the organization, President Jerry Palm said, “We plan to start her off slowly so she can learn the ropes. Since she’s only 20 1/4” long and 7 lbs, 13.5 oz, we’ll probably limit her activities to eating, sleeping and pooping initially. We will also put her in charge of ensuring that we have the proper amount of sleep deprivation in the Executive Suite.”

Palm added, “If she is able to do those things successfully, we will be expanding her responsibilities into other areas to be decided upon at a later date.”

The EEOC began an investigation into the company’s hiring practices last summer when rumors surfaced that the company had only hired males so far, but Palm was quick to point out that the investigation had nothing to do with Annika Palm’s appointment.

“Obviously, it’s no fun when the government shows up at your door and starts rifling through your drawers, muttering things like ‘Title IX’, ‘gender bias’ and ‘federal lawsuit’, but Annika isn’t the token female around here. She has impressive credentials and we’re committed to her for the long term. We expect big things from her. It probably won’t be too long before she’s running the place. Of course, if hiring her gets the feds off my back, so much the better.”

Palm wasn’t kidding when he talked about a long term commitment. While terms of the deal were not disclosed, a well placed source says Ms. Palm signed an 18-year, no-cut contract.

Mr. Palm also got a little defensive when pressed about the fact that this looks like a patronage hire. “Hey, this is Lake County, Indiana,” Palm said, adding, “Every job in this county is a patronage job. This isn’t like Chicago, where patronage hiring is illegal.”

Ain't over yet!

For years, I've been watching sports, and one thing that is uniquely American that bugs me is showboating. OK, athletes in other countries may do it as well, especially soccer players, but nobody touches the Americans when it comes self-aggrandizement.

Americans are so good at it that they often start patting themselves on the back before anything has actually been accomplished. This is especially true in football, where you rarely watch a game without at least one player starting to celebrate a touchdown well before he gets to the end zone. I've always thought it would be great if one of those guys dropped the ball or otherwise messed it up while they were busy patting themselves on the back.

There was one famous incident in the Super Bowl years ago when Dallas DL Leon Lett started strutting his way into the end zone at around the 10-yard-line, only to have a Buffalo player strip the ball before he got there. Unfortunately, Dallas won anyway.

In the Olympics today, someone finally got indigestion from putting too much mustard on her hot dog. Leslie Jacobellis had the Snowboard Cross gold medal sewn up. She had a huge lead thanks to crashes behind her, so on the second-to-last jump on the course, she grabbed her board to do some silly x-games-style trick, they called it a “backside method grab", which sounds more like a dance move than an athletic one, and she landed wrong and crashed on her backside. By the time she got up, the only other competitor still standing had passed her and took the gold medal.

I will give her a little credit for how she handled her mistake. Immediately after the race, she gave some weak excuse about grabbing the board to "stabilize", but later dropped that. She didn't duck the media and didn't treat it like the end of her world.

However, she has earned herself a measure of immortality. Now, instead of seeing some poor guy go head-over-heels off the end of a ski jump ramp, we'll be watching her showing us the proper "method" for turning gold into silver.

Typical February weather

I'm sitting here watching the Olympics (which I am watching much less of than usual) and the warning sirens went off. The only time that happens is when we have a tornado warning or an air raid. Since it's mid-February, naturally I assumed we must have done something to annoy Canada, or perhaps Michigan, and were under attack. It turns out that was incorrect, but that we actually had a tornado warning. I've lived around here most of my 42 years and I don't ever remember a tornado in February. I guess that's more fodder for you global warming types.

Baby update

As many of you know, my wife is due to deliver child number four on or about March 1st. Obviously, I'm very good with numbers, but I seem to have trouble with a calendar, since that is the busiest time of the year for me with my work. I was very worried that this baby would be fashionably late and arrive on March 12th, which is selection Sunday.

For us, that kind of thing is very predictable. All of our major pregnancy events happen on or very close to special occasions.

Child #1 was due on Mother's Day, but my wife's water broke on April Fools' Day (which also happened to be the day after the national championship game that year) and he was born the next day.

My wife started going into labor two months before #2 was due, but she spent a day in the hospital and they were able to stop the labor before it really got going. That day was my birthday. #2 son ended up being born about four hours short of Groundhog Day.

Pregnancy #3 ended in a miscarriage on Halloween.

When they told us child #3 was due in late October, a Halloween baby never occurred to us. We were thinking more along the lines of Labor Day, or optimistically, Columbus Day. It turns out that this one was late. He was born on Election Day.

So, with a due date of March 1st (Ash Wednesday), we started planning for a new addition on New Year's Day, MLK Day, our anniversary (Jan 17), Groundhog Day, Presidents Day, Valentine's Day, selection Sunday, the Ides of March (which also happens to be my wife's birthday) and St. Patrick's Day.

My wife's doctor says we can cross the last few off the list though. He's leaving for vacation on March 3rd, so he wants to make sure that baby is out and my wife is well on her way to recovery before he takes off. That means that March 1st isn't just a due date, it's a maximum due date.

Maybe it'll be Fat Tuesday (Feb 28), which considering how skinny my first three kids are, would be quite ironic.

Super Bowl

I can't really put my finger on why, but I'm not all that excited about the Super Bowl this year. Maybe it's the teams involved. Maybe not. All in all, I'd rather see the Colts and/or Bears out there, but it's not like the Steelers and Seahawks are particularly boring.

Maybe it's a lack of anticipation over the ads. The last few years, the ads have generally been pretty mediocre, nowhere near living up to the hype.

Actually, it's probably that I'm already numb from the hype. News outlets ran out of things to talk about ten days ago, but that doesn't mean they stopped talking. I'm so sick of hearing about the game that it dulls my anticipation of it. Two weeks is way too long between the conference championships and the Super Bowl.

I'll watch anyway, of course, while I work on my bracket for tomorrow. I'm picking the Seahawks, primarily because they are being ignored. At least as much as possible for a Super Bowl team.

Pinewood Derby

We had our first experience with the Cub Scouts' Pinewood Derby last weekend and things went amazingly well. #1 Son is a Bear (3rd graders) and his car won three of his four heats and finished second in all four finals races for second place in the Bear group. The only car that beat his is the one that finished first. More on that in a minute.

#2 Son is a Tiger (1st graders) and his car did even better. He won all four of his heats to finish first in the preliminaries. The second place car was creatively designed. It was called "Fast Food" because it was a thin block of wood with a plastic cheeseburger, french fry box and shake cup glued on it. That was one of my favorites, along with the one that was an aquarium (no water, of course) done by one of the Webeloes (4th-5th grades). But, I digress.

In the heats, #2 son's car beat Fast Food twice by about a car length each time. His car also won the first race of the finals, but by a nose. Fast Food won the other three races in dead heats (too close to call without a computer, which it's a good thing they had), so Fast Food ended up being the winner of the Tiger class.

Fast Food then went on to be Grand Champion, winning the four finals races convincingly. That means #2 son probably had the second fastest car there, but only got second in class. That's racing, though!

Pinewood Derby is kind of funny to watch off the track. It's different from family to family, but it's really more about the dads than the kids. This is the kind of project that adults have to be involved in at some level because we’re not going to let the kids use power tools at age 8, but some cars clearly looked like the kids had nothing to do with them. There was one dad that was so anal that he brought the car to the race in a one-foot cube steel box which had been lined with foam that had a car-shaped cut-out in it.

When I kind of off-handedly suggested to our (Bear) den leader that it would be cool of one of our kids won, he said it wouldn’t happen. He told me who would win and said the same dad wins every year because he starts working on the car the day after the previous race ends. It shows too, because he has the most professional looking car there. I wonder if the kid even sees the car before race day.

The cars the kids in our den made looked like amateur hack-jobs by comparison, which they were, since they were mostly done by amateurs. The only thing the adults did for the kids in our den was cut the car and make sure the wheels were on straight. Our goal was for the cars to get all the way down the track without catching fire, blowing an engine or having a tire fall off.

As it turns out, our den leader was right and worked-on-it-for-a-year car won, but some of our den’s hack-jobs finished second, third and fourth. I’m sure the dad that spent a year making his car was shocked not only not to be Grand Champion, but to lose to a car that could have mostly been made by a six-year-old.

So, while there is a TON of information out there about how to make a winning Pinewood Derby car, what we learned is what #1 son already knew before we raced. In the car on the way to the race, he blurted out, “winning the race is mostly luck.” We more or less proved that.

So, which is it?

The Cubs signed a minor league outfield who parents clearly had a sense of humor. His name is Angel Pagan.

Bears-Panthers

I may end up eating these words tomorrow, but I don't think Rex Grossman is The Savior. In fact, I don't think he's anything beyond mediocre and never will be, whether he gets hurt again or not. I am in the minority with that opinion. OK, I'm the only one with that opinion. Everyone else around here is drooling with optimism, but the reality is, he was only marginally better than Kyle Orton in the six quarters he played this year, and that's not a step down from previous years. He doesn't make great decisions and he's not particularly accurate. Come to think of it, that's what they say about Orton too, but Orton's a rookie. However, Grossman's the best the Bears have right now, so he has to play, but because he's not nearly as good as Jake Delhomme (now there's an indictment for you), the Bears are going down today. It won't be a blowout because the defenses are too good. Something like 13-6. Carolina didn't show up when the two teams played before. They will this time.

BTW, this isn't an opinion born out of a bias for Orton because of I'm a Purdue guy. I didn't like it when the Bears drafted Grossman. I didn't like his game in college.

No respect

QB Kyle Orton had one of the best seasons ever for a rookie QB in the NFL, helping to guide the Bears to a 10-5 record and the #2 seed in the NFC. So you will not be surprised to learn that RB Cadillac Williams of the Tampa Bay Bucs was named the AP offensive rookie of the year. Orton was tied for fifth with zero votes.

Do not adjust your monitor. You read that correctly. Zero votes. Nada. Zippo.

Williams got 47 of the 50 votes and the other three went to Miami RB Ronnie Brown, NE OL Logan Mankins and Pittsburgh TE Heath Miller.