Tom Brookshier.....

....was a heck of guy. For someone with fame and fortune, he was a normal, down to earth person. I remember meeting him one time in the mid -1980's. I was working for an insurance company and he stopped into our department to complete an insurance purchase. Everyone remembered him as an ex-Eagle player and a high-profile TV analyst for NFL games.He had played at the University of Colorado, played for the Eagles for 7-8 years then settled down to make his life in the Philly area.

Anyway, Brookie came into our department, sat down in the cube of someone who was at lunch and pulled out a checkbook just like an average person. The difference [between him and Joe Average] was he stroked a check for something like $300,000 to purchase a single premium deferred annuity [according to my memory]. Bloggers' note - for point of reference, not long before that I purchased a nice, twin home in Philly with three bedrooms and 2 and 1/2 baths for $52,500! Is this a great country or what?

But back to my main point : May God bless & keep Tom Brookshier and my condolences to his family and friends.

Conference Title Game Predictions.......

......the Colts will eke out a win vs. a tough Jets defense [Ryan family bloodline is incredible]. But I see rookie QB, Mark Sanchez, making enough mistakes and Peyton Manning and the Colts will outscore the Jets in a low-scoring game.

......something about the Saints is fraudulent to me. Who'd they beat this year? So I am picking the Vikings to beat the Aints with the Minnesota defense getting a few big turnovers to help Favre and his offense win the game.

• New Orleans played four playoff teams in the regular season. They beat three [Philly, Jets and Patriots] and lost to one[Dallas].
• Minnesota played five games in the regular season vs. playoff teams. They won four [two vs.Green Bay, one each vs. Bengals and Ravens]. They lost one to Arizona.
  
  Super Bowl will be Vikings vs. Colts.

Grant Desme Retires From Baseball....

.......to play in the really big leagues. Neat story about a pretty good and maybe promising minor league baseball player who decided to quit baseball to enter the seminary and become a priest.

If you read the story, it mentions another baseball player, Al Travers, who also went on to be a priest [FYI - Aloysius "Buzzy" Travers was my religion teacher in 1967-68 when I was a sophmore in high schoo].

At one time, Buzzy Travers held the all-time record for most runs given up by a pitcher in one game. He gave up about 26 runs [I am going from memory here ] in his only major league appearaance in like 1918. It was complicated- Father Travers was one of a group of college players who were paid to play in a major league game in Philadelphia vs. The A's. They were replacement players for the Detroit Tigers who had gone on strike to protest the suspension of their teammate, Ty Cobb.

I do not make this stuff up! [Click on the post title above to read the ESPN story].

Did 21 Million People Leave the Work force ....

......or did the Associated Press simply make an error in its report this week. That report claimed the folllowing figure for the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed. I calculated the total work force using the AP numbers:

• In January 2009, unemployment rate was 7.7% and there were 13, 000,000 unemployed. That equates to a total workforce pool of 168 million [13 million / 7.7% x 100% = 168 million].
  
• In December 2009, the unemployment rate was 10.0% and there were 14,700,000 unemployed. That equates to a total workforce of 147 million [14.7 million / 10% x 100% = 147 million].
  
• Note the difference in total workforce is 168 million vs. 147 million. Did we lose 21 million people? Or did the AP simply mis-report the numbers?

Here is the link to the AP story. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2010808897_apusobamasyearbythenumbers.html

Pundits Tend To.....

......get it backwards. Today, liberal pundit Eugene Robinson claimed Republicans are winning because they are better at framing the issues to the voters. In his mind, the pols [and pundits of course] have all the good ideas aka winning issues and the two parties compete with each other to see who can best "frame the issues" to attract voters and get the most votes.

IMO, Robinson has it exactly backwards. The times are changing. Today, it is the little people aka voters who have the big bold ideas.And lately the Republicans have "borrowed" the little people's ideas and used them to run winning campaigns.

In actuality, it was that CNBC reporter, Rick Santelli, who started all this Tea Party / small government stuff and he should get way more credit for it!

Playoff Predictions

• Cardinals beat New Orleans.
• Minnesota beats Dallas.
• San Diego squeaks by the NY Jets.
• Indy beats Baltimore.

Agricola.....

......That’s Latin for farmer according to my [then] eighty-five year old father. So what you say?

Well, is it important to fill your life with good memories? Especially the childhood variety. Here’s the story. My 15 year-old nephew [he is now 22 year-old college senior] is cramming for a Latin exam and he is stumped by a few of the 100 words assigned by his teacher for an upcoming quiz. I am able, with the help of an enormous dictionary, to help him out with all but one and that is the word agricola. I guess it has something to do with agriculture (am I a genius or what?). I next suggest he call Pop-Pop who is a retired math and science teacher, lifelong voracious reader, and trivia whiz. Instead, I make the call. It goes like this. What’s agricola mean in Latin? The unhesitating response is farmer. I tell him to call his grandson with that information. He does.

Fast forward a couple days and I ask the nephew how the quiz went. He says the quiz had 20 words and one was agricola. And he was the only one in the class who got that right. I suggest he will never forget the meaning for agricola and who he got it from.

Is this a first.......

........when an NFL team could not get to its game so a high school team plays in its place? Because the New York Football Petunias aka Giants obviously did not show up to play against the Vikings today. The score so far is Vikes 44 and the Petunias zero! Heh. Maybe the Giants' plan is to go for a higher slot in this year's college draft. If so, that plan is working!

Body of Lies......

.........watched this 2008 movie last night. It was about a CIA agent stationed in the Middle East including Iraq, Jordan, Syria.

Even though the movie, in many ways, tried to blame "the evil Americans" for the Mideast strife [big surprise there from Hollywood liberals] but I came away with this thought.

Al Quaeda and its terrorists are like cockroaches or rats who have already infested many places in Europe and are desperate to do the same in America. There is only one answer and that is is to change our immigration and visa policies to keep Muslims out with damn, few exceptions. At least until the murderous members of Al Quaeda have been wiped off the face of the earth.

Blue Jays Are Easier ........

......to catch on film when it's freezing outside? I had been trying to get a good picture of the Blue Jay in the back yard for a while. This morning, it landed on a bush just outside the kitchen window. Go figure?

One Last......

......Christmas picture.

Separated at Birth......

......James Gandolfini and a drugged up drunk driver, Jesse Maiden,who killed two people in a crash New Years morning on I-95 in Philly.

New Traditions Are Rare........

.....don't you agree? But the NHL Winter Classic is a gem. I am not a hockey fan but I watched the whole game today when the Flyers played the Boston Bruins in an OUTDOOR game at Fenway Park. And I watched the whole game last year and the year before.

Here is what hockey great Bobby Orr had to say about an outdoor game........."You'd leave home in the morning and your parents would say, 'Be home before dark,' and we'd come home if we were cold or hungry," said Orr, who skated to centre ice before Friday's game with [Bobby]Clarke as honorary captains. "That's how we learned to play the game. We had lots of fun, just our friends. We might go to the school rink or any place that we could put a puck down or any [surface] that was cleaned off, we would play."

How many other celebratory, lasting traditions have humans created in the last 10 or 20 years? Not many IMHO. Most of our traditions are over 100 years old.It's nice to see a new tradition begin! Just think, it will only be about 95 years old in the year 2100.