Beeeep…FIRST DOWN!!!

Ah yes! Its that time of year again. The smell of fresh cut grass. The sound of whistles being blown in the crisp autumn air. Football season is once again upon us. Giving everyone something in common to talk about at the water cooler during the work week. And something to yell about on the weekend.
As I sit here watching high school football on ESPN cheering for teams I have no real connection with. Except one local team out of spartanburg, Byrnes. I’m torn between feelings here. On one hand I’m excited about football being back and having something other than trash TV to watch. On the other I feel like these high school kids are being exploited by the sports over academics mentality of today.
I’ve heard of families moving across country so their son can go to one of these nationally ranked schools and get noticed by a university. Where they will be offered a scholarship.
Which leads me to my point here. These players are offered a life time opportunity to attend nationally, well known universities with all expenses paid.
Over the past several years the question has been raised, “Should college football players be paid for playing?”
There are those that believe, “No, they should not be paid to play. They are already getting essentially a free education.”
Fifteen years ago I would have said the same thing. However, I have done extensive research and have a better understanding of how college football operates.
Allow me to give you an analogy to put this in perspective.
Let’s pretend you are a server at a national restaurant chain. And this restaurant chain has a server competition. You are one of the top ten servers in the country. People all over come to your restaurant so they can have you wait on them.
You are not allowed to accept tips from these patrons or you will be fired. You do not collect a pay check. But you get all your meals for free.
Meanwhile, the restaurant is raking in some serious cash from your image on advertisements. Bringing in more customers for you to serve. Is this fair?
This is a small analogy of how college football works. In this regard, I say the players should be paid for playing.
Right now under the current standard operating procedure the players are little more than indentured servants.
The universities rake in millions of dollars on their images and jersey number. All the while punishing you if you try to capitalize on your fame.

That’s the PoWeR of The Home Depot!

As a consumer I’m susceptible to advertising. I admit it. However, I’m really annoyed that EVERYTHING today is an ad.
Can’t build a building without it having some companies name on it. Every sports stadium/arena has a company name on it. Lucas Oil stadium, met life stadium, Gillette stadium, etc to name a few.
The phone lines to the radio stations are even sponsored by some company. As well as, the traffic, weather and sports reports.
I mean, Geezus! How many more things can we sponsor/advertise on? I’m getting whiplash and nauseous from looking and hearing all these sponsored ads.
You could fund a small government with all those advertising dollars.
Can we say enough is enough already? Before we have to hear, “Your air is being brought to you by Lysol today! Lysol, making breathing smell better!”

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Directions in the South!

As I listen to the traffic report on the radio I get confused a little. The person reading the report is trying to tell everyone listening where traffic accidents have occurred and which areas to avoid. For example: “There is an accident in the 1400 block of Anderson road with injuries. You should avoid that area.”
“We have reports of an accident on old buncombe and Rutherford streets with blockage. Major delays!”
I’m thinking to myself, “Now where is the 1400 block of Anderson road? Where does old buncombe and Rutherford street cross? How many people know the 1400 block of Anderson road?” It would be much easier if they gave directions like southerners do instead.
“There has been an accident on hwy 81 next to the big ol’ oak tree and McDonalds.”
“We have a report of a collision at the fork in the road and the double pine tree on Rutherford road.”

The rise of technology! Fall of common sense!

Technology has increased exponentially over the last decade.
We now have cars that park themselves. Robots to clean our house. Smart phones that tell us…well  everything. Even 3D television.
We have sent robots to other planets and dozens of satellites through the vastness of space.
Why do I mention this you ask? Good question!
I mention this because with all this high tech, state of the art innovations. Why on earth did we use this to create the first ever “smellivision” series, Honey boo boo?
I mean, WTF??
I would have thought The Food network would have been a good start for this technology.

Pure imagination!

For the last several times the kids have come to visit they have been crafting. One week they made soap. The next Valentine cards, St Patrick’s day decorations, double ninja stars made from construction paper, etc. Mostly because it is cost effective since anything “fun” and outside the house costs an arm and a leg nowadays! They ask me to make something with them. However, I find that i have no imagination. I mean, double ninja stars made from construction paper! I can’t compete with that, right! Who thinks up these things? So, I began to think of the last time I had an original idea. It has to be back in my single digit years. Back before I was in school and was at home by “myself”, aside from my mom of course. Before the days of video games and the internet. I used to have to entertain myself. Like all 8-10 year old boys I would engineer elaborate forts out of sticks and twigs just to pretend to be a Navy seal. Or build the largest ramp I could, out of scrap 2×4s and plywood to see how high I could jump my bike. I even played football by myself. Played quarterback, receiver, kicker and coach! I know I was exhausted afterwards. So I would lie in the grass and stare at the clouds and make images out of them then fall asleep in the sun and pretend to be dead. My point is, I don’t seem to have that since of imagination anymore. I can’t even decorate my house due to lack of creativity. Asking myself, “Where did my imagination go?” Watching those AT&T commercials with the kids and how they can ramble on about more for less is both funny and intriguing. Watching how the mind of a 5 year old goes on a wild imagination journey sparked from a few words. Makes me question, “Is there a certain age you stop imagining?” “Have I matured beyond imagination?”

Dilemma!?

A buddy of mine recently started a new job driving a truck with double trailers. He says it pays $85,000-$90,000 a year. Possibly even over $100,000. So he’s trying to talk me into coming over there. But I like my job now. Its easy work in a relaxed atmosphere. So I’m torn between yet another career change.

What time is it?

Albert Einstein was one of the first physicist to say time travel is possible with his famous equation E=mc2. Stephen Hawking also agrees that time travel is possible. One can only travel into the future however. Since traveling back in time would create a paradox. http://wikipedia.org/wiki/twin_paradox.com
Hawking states that heavy objects slow time. Even the great pyramid of Giza slows time as it weighs some 42 thousand tons. We can prove this theory. The global positioning system is made up of 31 satellites that orbit the earth. Each one has the most accurate clock in the world. Due to their orbit these clocks gain 1/3 of a billionth of a second every year. Now That does not sound like much however, if it were left unaccounted for the GPS system would be off by 6 miles. Find an object heavy enough and the scale would be enhanced. The heaviest object in the universe is a supermassive black hole that lies at the center of our galaxy. Let’s say we can build a space ship to travel to this black hole. I know, crazy right? Flying toward an object so heavy light can not escape. However, if we were to establish an orbit along the event horizon. We could use its own gravity to maintain an orbit. Now this black hole is 17 million miles in diameter. It would take our ship 8 minutes to make an orbit. Now if we, here on earth were to observe this, we would see that it took 16 minutes to orbit once. Let’s imagine that our ship orbits the black hole for 5 years. Here on earth it would 10 years would have passed based on our earlier deduction. And if our ship would return to earth. They would be returning 5 years into the future. Thus making time travel to the future possible. This is one of three possible time travel theories. The next one I will save for a later post. Give you time to let this sink in.

Squirrel!!!

There was a time when I was into paintballing. My circle of friends and I would get together almost every weekend and play capture the fort and such. This story is about the time my cousin and I had recently purchased new paintball guns and were goofing off on the fence yard we worked at one day. Originally I has brought my paintball gun to the yard to shoot the many cats that roamed around. I caught one sleeping in the side of the ribs and watched it leap three feet into the air and take off running like a bat out of Hell. After ten minutes of uncontrollable laughter subsided my cousin Lance noticed a squirrel prancing across the asphalt. He gets my attention saying, “Hey Erik, a squirrel!” He then proceeds to slowly walk around the squirrels left flank as I stay put in order to catch him in a cross fire. Upon reaching his position and signalling he’s ready, we open fire. This squirrel had No idea what was going on. After making contact atleast twice he is scrambling around looking for the closes tree to shimmy up for safety. Unfortunately he is out in the open on a paved parking lot withe the nearest tree a over a hundred feet away. As he dances around saying, “Oh SHIT! I’m under attack!! What Do I do? Where do I run?” In his little squirrel voice of squeaks. He takes off running to his right and sees a pole thinking he found his refuge and shimmys up this utility pole that goes no where. All the while Lance and I are firing rapidly in pursuit. Upon reaching the top of the pole he soon realizes that he is trapped. As the pole is not attached to anything there is no where else to go. The squirrel is trapped, with no cover at the top of an 6-8 inch diameter pole. While being trapped in Lance and my cross fire he is thinking. “Oh FUCK!! Fake tree! No where to go! What Now?” In a desperate attempt for survival he makes the decision to leap for it and makes the thirty feet plunge to the ground. Bounces twice making a thud thud sound and scrurries across the pavement then across the road to the woods on the other side. Lance and I could not stop laughing for twenty minutes. And this was as close to squirrel hunting I ever came.

Happy Valentine’s day!

I have a confession to make. From the very early days of my relationship with Amanda, I have kept things on the down low. We dated for months before I told my parents. Now I would like to share a little insight to our relationship. Amanda is known as polyamorous. http://wikipedia.org/wiki/polyamory
Amanda and I have been together now for seven years. For the last three she has been in another relationship and the three of us have lived together now for two of those years. I accepted her as she was all those years ago and I’m still madly in love with her since that day. Because of her lifestyle is not well received in the public eye we don’t make it known as much. Yes, it leads to some awkward social issues. However, we work together and over come them. She has given me permission to pursue another relationship on my own, I have even given it some thought. Then I realize I Don’t want anyone else but her.

Shhh! Big brother is listening!

Recently I have heard accounts of criminal investigations taking place due to social media. Several stories of people being fired from their jobs for a photo or remark posted on Facebook for starters. Social media is increasingly being used by employers and law enforcement to monitor employees and hunt for criminal activity. Violation of personal privacy you ask? Not at all. Due to the lack of cyber laws/rights. Should your internet life be protected as your real life is? Or is it? There is no privacy anymore. You are on camera atleast twenty five times a day. And that is a conservative estimate. There are tracking devices in our cell phones. People checking in on foursquare. All this technology may seem new to us. But it’s not actually. The military has had this capability thirty years ago or more. Developed during the cold war to spy on the Russians. Navy seals were used to place listening and recording devices next to phone lines on the bottom of the Barents sea in 1982. I read all about it in a book called The Blind Man’s Bluff. If big brother had this type of technology thirty years ago. Imagine what they have today. Movie’s like, Enemy of the State and Eagle Eye are not that far from the truth. Big Brother is here…and he is watching!