Tennessee Football–What I’d Do

Actually, it’s what I’d do in just about any situation. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know much about football at all. I mean, I played for 10 years, but most of the teams I played on weren’t very good, so it’s safe to assume that most of what I learned was wrong anyway. On top of that, I don’t really care if Tennessee decides to fire Phil Fulmer. I love hearing the drama on local talk radio, so if he stays that’s fine with me.

But if I were tasked with the difficult job of recruiting and coaching in a state that’s not really known to produce a huge amount of talent out of high school, I would adjust my strategy and get the top talent in the region by doing something no one else in the league is doing.

I’d do what no one else in the league is doing.

I’d take the same contrarian approach to football that people take to investing–do what no one else is doing while it’s cheap and easy to get in. Wait until that’s the fad, then get out and do something else.

No one in the league is running the option? Sweet–that means I should have no problem recruiting the best option quarterback in the region. Yeah, some of those guys would choose to go to another school to play a different position, but in most cases quarterbacks want to play quarterback. Why not give them the opportunity?

It could be–and this is just speculation–that the coaching staff can’t do anything else, so they are forced to compete for the top talent to fit them in to the only system they know.

The Phillip Fulmer Show

I didn’t see much of the game yesterday, but I’m sitting here now enjoying Phil Fulmer’s stoicism on his show. It’s amusing. You know, when you use the phrase “Chad had a fantastic second half”, and Chad is your punter, things can’t be too good on offense. Punters on good teams don’t have the opportunity to measure their success by halves.

No matter, this was a defensive battle. It was epic–one for the ages.

Right.

And Fulmer remains 7 games away from his guaranteed contract extension. That reminds me, there are some guys locally who’ve designed a t-shirt in honor of this beautifully negotiated deal. It’s the Coacho Ocho limited edition T.

Eight is enough to line your pockets with dough!

It’s Halftime. Can Fulmer be Fired Midgame?

I’m admittedly only halfway watching the Tennessee/Florida game, but what I’ve seen is atrocious. It looks like I stopped caring about college football a few years too early. I should have waited until this year to jump off the bandwagon. Every fan deserves at least one season of pure agony, right? I’m not talking about the agony of losing close games either…I’m talking about going out and getting abused by good teams and squeaking out wins (or losses) against bad ones.

If I were UT Athletic Director Mike Hamilton, I’d be worried about my own job if I don’t get a football coach that can meet the expectation of fans who are being charged more and more for tickets.

Beat the rush…fire Phil Fulmer at halftime. Of course, sports talk radio isn’t nearly as entertaining when the Vols or winning, so for personal reasons I hope he stays around.

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Fire Fulmer! Redux

Here that?  That’s the muffled sound of cars running in closed garages all over East Tennessee.  There are big problems in the area.  Well, big problems unless you advertise on sports radio here and want your ad heard in between the “Fire Fulmer” calls.  It seems like I wrote this exact post exactly one year ago.  Oh yeah, I did.

After the stats about how long it’s been since the Vols won an SEC Championship, coasting since 1998, and how good Florida is every year, we’ll be asked that age old question…

“When are we gonna get somebody in here that can get it done?”

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Community Standards

First of all, a few housekeeping items…

Thanks to all of the new readers I’ve picked up in the past couple of days for subscribing. Nothing like a naked chick in a public park to boost readership, huh? And thanks to all of my readers who were with me long before this latest bit of urgent news hit Tennessee. Sorry if you guys were locked out yesterday–we had a little bandwidth issue while people were flooding the gate.

Something that came up in the discussion about the naked woman on the playground in Barlett was whether or not this woman had actually done anything wrong. Lots of folks were throwing up the fact that there are nude beaches in city A or this had been challenged in city B and that the Baptist minister should get a life. Others were saying that she’s unequivocally wrong and damn her to hell. So who’s right? I think it really comes down to community standards.

Yeah, this is the United States where we take everything to the Supreme Court that may involve free speech, but let’s just step back for a minute and look at this calmly. What’s wrong with a community setting its own standards of decency, and what’s wrong with respecting that standard? It’s not as if the fine folks in Bartlett want to outlaw bumper stickers or women showing their wrists. They just don’t want hot naked chicks playing in their parks.

I know you may be thinking, “why would you want to limit the presence of hot naked chicks anywhere?” Well, if you’ve ever been to a topless beach, you are well aware that for every hot topless French chick there are about 15 disgusting old German women who are topless as well. All of your hopes and dreams about a topless beach are quickly vanquished. All of a sudden, you are perfectly ok with everyone just putting their top back on. That becomes the standard you wish that community would set. But you don’t get to change the standard. You just have to stare directly at the sun until you have not only burned your eyeballs out, but hopefully the image of that herd of beasts you just saw thundering down the beach collecting shells as well.

Here’s another example–If you’re like me, there are certain words that you use around your friends that you don’t use around your parents. Actually, if you’re like me, there are lots of these words. I call it “parent vocabulary”. You may have a “kids are around” vocabulary that is similar. Do I think it’s a little silly that these words offend them? Sure. But it’s not big deal for me to refrain from using those words around them, even when we are on my turf…nothing lost.

In fact, that’s why I rarely curse when writing on this site. It’s not because cursing offends me at all. It’s because I’d rather set a standard here of saying what you want to say without cursing. There are times when that’s really the only way to get your point across, and in these times the use of naughty words makes the post more effective, at least in my opinion. I don’t have to explicitly state that–it’s implied, and most people with half a brain pick up on it.

And by the way, I really appreciate the fact that most of the people who comment here are respectful of that standard, even if the standards on their own sites are different.

I’m not personally offended by, well, anything. However, there was some stuff posted yesterday that I had to chop out of the comments. For my community standards, language isn’t the ultimate determining factor, it’s whether or not anything is being added to to the discussion. So yesterday I ended up deleting comments that were nothing more than links to the girl’s site and a couple that were just curse word laden without saying anything. Those would probably have been deleted even without the cursing. No one will miss them anyway.

But I’m perfectly ok letting a comment like, “all these prudes wouldn’t be here with out perverted thought from their horny dads muttered to their whore moms” from a commenter named “dickinyourdaughterdown” stand. Why? Because it is funny. My community standard (at least for that post) is that if I was amused, it’s a good comment. In this case, the post wouldn’t have been nearly as good if he hadn’t used the phrases “horny dads” and “whore moms”.

So summing all this up (I’m sure you couldn’t wait for that), I’d bet most people in sleepy ol’ Bartlett probably wouldn’t have cared if she’d shot this video in her house, or her backyard, or behind a WalMart at 3:30 am. Their problem with it was the fact that it was on a kids’ playground in broad daylight. A little prudish? Maybe by your standards, but you aren’t being loaded onto a truck and forced to live there either.

What would I think if this happened in the park where we take our kid? I doubt I’d think much of it if my kid wasn’t there to see it–no harm, no foul. And if we were there? I’ll give these folks the benefit of the doubt and say that they probably wouldn’t have shot the video in that situation anyway. Besides, I have enough to keep me occupied to bother getting upset over something that hasn’t even happened.

From Bartlett Grove Park–Another Naked Idiot

I’ve commented here before about how stupid you must be to allow someone to film you naked and not keep the one and only copy for yourself. Common sense risk management should tell you that it may end up on the internet. But letting someone photograph or film your privates in a public place with the intent of posting it on the web is even dumber–especially when that place is a playground. That’s what these geniuses did in Bartlett Tennessee.

Action News 5 was unable to locate the “model.” She writes on the web-site that the pornographic shoot took place just last week.

Give it, I don’t know, 2 hours or so and someone will identify her and post something on their blog or a message board about it. Probably no jail time involved, but I’d bet a heavy fine will come out of this.

Seriously, on a playground? And you’re stupid enough to say which playground? I guess there’s a reason why you are, ahem, “modeling” and not practicing medicine.

The news report calls this video “porn”. I don’t think a naked skank on a slide really qualifies as porn, but I guess community standards are what apply here.

Best Post About Running…EVER!

I don’t know why, but the other day I thought about a post I read on a running message board a few years ago. When I read this post I immediately copied it and pasted it into an email to myself because: (1) It is one of the funniest and most insane things I’ve ever read, and (2) I (correctly) assumed it would soon be deleted off of the message board.

Crazy people–I love them. Especially when they have no idea how crazy they are. In this case, I made a smart ass response to the original post sarcastically agreeing with the author, and she quickly replied with a sincere “thanks for the understanding”. She really had no clue that I was just making fun of her.

Beware--Fast Runner Training
Beware--Fast Runner Training

I’ve protected the author’s name to save her further embarrassment, but this just has to be posted publicly somewhere. No, it’s not my original content, but she obviously wanted to be heard. Here’s her chance…

From: S******* C******
Category: Places to Run
Date: 29 Jan 2004
Time: 19:52:27
Remote Name: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

WARNING- DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RUN AT THE INDOOR TRACK AT THE PIGEON FORGE RECREATIONAL CENTER IN PIGEON FORGE TENNESSEE!I joined the center in October and paid my yearly membership fund so that I could utilize their advertised indoor “running track.” I have been running for 14 years and have placed in every race I have entered in the past few
years.

The first rule of persuasive writing–establish authority. In this case I’m not sure if she was trying to build credibility or just tell us all how fast she is. “Real” runners shouldn’t have to put up with the abuse she endured as described below.

I generally try to run outside if it is 40 degrees or above because that is what I enjoy. However sometimes it is impossible to run outdoors, which leads me to my warning… Since being a member at the Rec Center I have had to dodge unattended children playing on the track, even though employees were in full witness of the event and doing nothing to prevent it. I almost ran head on into one that was running the wrong direction so I finally went and complained. The kids were removed from the track. Since that date I have constantly had to slow down (sometimes to a dead stop) to get around walkers that are taking up the full track four abreast.

Kids playing? People walking? At a rec center? Just who the hell do they think they are?!

On Wednesday of this week I attempted to pass two overweight ladies who were utilizing the entire track while talking and paying no attention to their surroundings.

Hold the phone. Not paying attention is one thing, but being overweight is quite another. See how she coaxes the audience (all readers of a running message board) to her side of the argument by emphasizing the fact that the walkers and talkers were overweight?

It says, “they’re not like us” without actually saying it.

I yelled out “track” twice and they finally looked behind them and moved over in the nick of time.

It is well known in the walking community that “track” means to move.

I went around the track several times, each time having to slow down and ask them to move over to the right. Once they didn’t move over in time and it resulted in a large bruise on my left elbow from scraping the wall as I tried to pass them without hitting them.

The first fallacy of this essay–no bruise on any elbow can be very large.

I went back around the track, still hoping that they may eventually start to follow the posted track rules (walkers to the right, runners on the outside lane).

Pay attention here. The “rules” are an integral part of the rest of this post.

As I came around the corner I realized that once again I was going to hit the wall because they weren’t getting out of the way. To prevent from hitting the wall (or running over her) I reached over and gently pushed her over to the right by her arm. I went on around the track and thought that would be the end of it.

“Gently” pushed her–that’s key. She didn’t slap the lady or trip her. She just pushed her…gently.

As I passed her again she yelled out something that I could hear over my headphones. I slowed to a stop and turned around and asked her what she had said. She said “Don’t touch me. Just ask me to get out of the way.” I told her that I had repeatedly tried to do just that, and would she rather that I had just run over her? I explained that it is very hard to stop when you are training and running a 6.5 minute mile.

Actually, I bet she would have preferred that. Any woman I’ve seen who does training runs at 6.5 minute miles on an 1/8 mile indoor track must be pretty low on total body mass. I bet this overweight walker would have gotten a real kick out of you trying to run over her.

I told her to please just stay on her side of the track (as the posted rules stated) or I would have to go complain at the front desk.

The Rules.

I continued to run again. Everytime I would pass her she would then stop, face me and make remarks. I tried to ignore her realizing that she would probably soon tire and leave the track.

She must tire out soon…she is overweight…remember?

She finally did. I didn’t complain on her when I left because I didn’t won’t to start any trouble. The next evening I was working out in the weight room minding my own business when I was approached by the Rec Center manager (S**** B*******)who told me that he had received a complaint on me last night that I had “shoved” a lady on the track. I attempted to tell him that it was totally untrue and tried to tell my side of the story.

Uh…I thought you shoving her was your side of the story? Oh, wait. You didn’t shove, you “gently pushed.” It was nice of you not to start any trouble by complaining on her though.

He didn’t wish to hear my side of the story, or see the bruise on my arm, or acknowledge that I was in full complaince of the posted Rec Center track rules.

Full compliance of the rules–because there isn’t a rule posted that says you can’t gently push people.

He did not wish to give me the name of the lady that complained. I told him that in addition to this episode, other runners had complained about similar incidents. I told him that other incidents had occurred in which individuals refused to comply to the posted track rules.

Complained to him, or complained to her? Were these real runners, or just voices in her head? How can we be sure?

I told him the night before there was also a toddler (2-3 years of age) that was also wandering the track. The manager told me that he didn’t have enough employees to monitor the track (even though they have cameras on every corner of the track). I asked him if he was telling me I couldn’t run there anymore. He responded that the track was actually a jogging/walking track, not for running and that it was perfectly okay for people to be walking the way they were (even though posted #3 rule stated “Please Limit Walking Patterns To 2 Wide).

The rule says it plain and simple!

He told me that I run “too fast” , even though I usually interval with 8 minute miles!

In other words, “You don’t know what fast is! This stuff I do in your rec center is Mickey Mouse compared to the times I clock when a wooden plaque and gift certificate to Smoothie King are on the line.”

I told him that the Rec Center advertised it as a running track when I joined and reminded him that Rule #4 stated “Walkers please stay on the inside of the track, RUNNERS on the outside.”

The rule says it!

He continued to argue with me and tell me that during January and February I should probably just run elsewhere or during early morning hours.

Wait. I’m confused. Was he arguing with her or was she arguing with him?

I told him that I wanted my money back if I couldn’t utilize the track when I needed it. He said okay “let’s go downstairs and get your money”.

Sounds like we have an agreement.

By then I was beginning to lose my cool. After all I had obeyed the rules and done nothing wrong.

This is where she lost her cool…not before. And because there isn’t a no shoving pushing rule, she obviously hadn’t broken any.

I looked at him and calmly said “Just keep my fucking money.I don’t need it and I won’t be back.” (I probably shouldn’t have said it, but he had pushed all my buttons by this point.I said it only in the presence of him.)

At least she remained calm. And by the way…she still hasn’t broken a rule at this point. It’s not posted anywhere that you can’t curse at the staff. The only part I don’t understand is why you would second guess yourself at this point. She asked for her money back, and he agreed to give it to her. It only makes sense to start dropping F-bombs and refuse the money.

He looked at me and said “That’s it! Your out of here right now or I am calling the Police.” I couldn’t believe it. I was in shock. I told him to go ahead and call the police because I had done nothing wrong and obeyed the rules.

The rules. Again.

I also told him I would be getting a lawyer. He did call the police and had me escorted out. I did not receive my membership fee back and it was a great embarrassment to me (especially
since I did not violate the rules).

I thought she told him to keep her f-ing membership fee? Was she embarrassed by his actions, or hers? Did I mention that she didn’t break any rules?

I intend on getting a lawyer and was hoping one of my fellow runners could suggest a good one since I will be going up against the City of Pigeon Forge. Thanks for listening to my story and any input you may have would be appreciated. In the mean time, please choose your running tracks carefully, if you are really into fitness training.

I wish I’d pursued law, just so I could offer up my services and meet this mental specimen. I’m left with only following her advice carefully because I am really into fitness training.

TRACK!!!!

Irony–Labor Day Nixed By a Union

The blogosphere is abuzz about Tyson Chicken’s new contract with its labor union that eliminates Labor Day as a paid holiday and replaces it with a Muslim holiday, Eid al-Fitr for the plant in Shelbyville, TN.

How ironic that a union eliminated a union holiday!  On one hand, I have to cheer the fact that an employer will not be giving their people the day off in celebration of the labor movement.  On the other hand, I’m disheartened by the fact that they were pushed into this situation by a union.  I guess they could have negotiated this issue if they’d wanted, but then again, a day is a day to the bottom line…why should they care which day the plant is shut down.

As for the people that are outraged by this change in policy, Blue Collar Muse makes a great point:

Every business in America was forced by the government to spend money to comply with the ADA a few years back. The government is implementing “No Smoking” practices against the will of many businesses around the country. These are great examples of behavior we should be outraged with.

As for me, I’m far from a Muslim, and even further from a socialist, so I’ll be working on both Eid al-Fitr and Labor Day.

AdMobile No Longer Mobile

But it still exists. Now, however, it’s called The Billboard Truck.

About four years ago, the Admobile took Knoxville by storm. Everybody was talking about it. This was long before diesel prices skyrocketed to unsightly heights.  This was before the scare tactic formerly known as Global Warming decided it wanted to be called Climate Change.  The people that were talking about it were cussing it for the most part.

The earth was in a warming phase.

Back when it was called AdMobile, it actually moved. It could be seen cruising up and down Kingston Pike every day.  In fact, my sources tell me that if a driver parked it for more than a couple of minutes the frugal owner, who was constantly refreshing the GPS position, would call them on a AdMobile cell phone and tell them to put it in gear.

As you can see by the video, the AdMobile is now parked in the Target parking lot in Maryville, and the name has been changed to protect the guilty. The ads no longer rotate, and only the ads on the side are sold, but mobile outdoor advertising lives in East Tennessee, making us all proud.

Without Being Told (or Forced)

I drove up to the boonies to help a friend move today.  Actually, I drove up through hell Gatlinburg to get to his new place on top of the mountain.  On the way back I took the backroads in order to avoid the traffic and enjoy the scenic drive.  Something really cool happened on the way back, and it didn’t really strike me as strange until a half hour or so afterwards.

A large tree had fallen across Highway 416, blocking the road in both directions.  I was about 5 or 6 cars deep in one of the stuck lanes, but several of us got out of our cars and started disassembling the tree and moving the branches out of the way.  Then a couple of guys (presumably locals) pulled up with their chainsaws and started cutting pieces for us to drag off.  We had the road cleared in less than 10 minutes, jumped in our cars, and kept going.

This is a great example of why people work and government doesn’t.  Sure, there were some people who sat in their cars and watched as everyone else cleared the road for them (“It’s not my job” types).  But there were plenty of people who would rather roll up their sleeves and do some work to get where they want to go instead of waiting around on someone else.  The guys who had chainsaws did the cutting.  The rest of us did the moving.  We didn’t have to have someone coordinate it, and we didn’t have to be forced into doing the work.

How long would it have taken for the road to be cleared if we’d all sat in our cars and waited for some gov’ment agency to take care of something we were perfectly able to handle ourselves?

We all saw a benefit in cooperating and working together to achieve a goal.  Those of us who were moving limbs sure were happy some people had chainsaws, and I’m sure the guys with the chainsaws were happy they didn’t have to drag big pieces of tree–all they had to do was run the saw.

Notice how everyone, even the people who weren’t willing to help, benefited from the fact that each of us was acting out of 100% pure selfishness? We just wanted to get where we wanted to go.