Another reason to eat Cheetos and sit on the couch...

A man died today while participating in the Chicago marathon. It was very hot and humid, and according to the report I read online tonight, Chad Schieber's heart stopped and he died right there on the race course. That sucks, and I don't say that lightly.

I figure Mr. Schieber probably fit into one of three categories of runners: first, perhaps he was an extremely fit man who ran marathons on a regular basis. Second, perhaps he was an old jock who ran to try to stay in shape and stave off the ravages of middle age. Third, perhaps he was a man who had gotten way out of shape and decided to set a major goal that would require him to get back in shape and get his life back onto a healthy course. I have a friend like that. The Chief used to run all the time, and he was even training for a marathon about 20 years ago or so until he fell on his head and suffered a major injury, which threw his training right out the window. He decided to get back out on the road and wound up setting a goal to run in the Little Rock marathon, and he did it. The Chief earned the biggest finisher's medal in the world.

Inaway, there is some irony in a guy dying while running a marathon. Unless he was way too lumpy to be running that far when it's 88 degrees (26.2 miles...are you serious?), Chad Schieber is evidence of this fact: when it's your time to go, it's your time. The Bible says that no one can add any length to their life by worrying, and I would submit that the same is true of running, eating brussel sprouts, and driving a Toyota Prius. People like to euphamistically say something like, "The Big Guy upstairs had another plan." Folks, just for the record, let's be clear here. The Big Guy upstairs is God, and what He says goes... there ain't no fountain of youth and there ain't no arguing.

By the way, I'm watching the Beloved as I type this thing, and brother, do they stink. How can it be that you can't find even an average quarterback in twenty years? My nephew JD runs harder than Cedric Benson, my son Drew makes better decisions than Griese/Grossman, and The Octopus (Braden, our 19-month-old) drops fewer passes than Bernard Berrien. Oh well, at least the Cubs got knocked out of the playoffs.

On that note, which of these two scenarios is more desirable? Scenario #1: finish 25 games out of the division lead like the Sox and have plenty of time to lick your wounds in private, or Scenario #2: win the division by virtue of being the least bad team in a dogcrap division like the Cubs, then proceed to the national stage and get beat as fast as possible in humiliating fashion. Cub fans take heart: next year is the 100th anniversary of your last championship, so the odds are getting better and better all the time. I was cracked up hard core by Lou Pinella's post-game conference. His team just picked up the soap and got prison-shower raped by the Diamondbacks, then Old Blou had the gumption to go on the talkbox and say, "We made a lot of progress this year, and next year we'll do better." Hey Lou, seven of the eight teams who made the playoffs in '06 did not make it in '07, and your team isn't the Yankees. Year after year less than half the teams who make the playoffs do not make it back the following year. In fact, each of the last three World Series champs has failed to make the playoffs the following year. But Lou has the gall to say that they're just getting started. The Cubs managed 85 wins this year in a division that is, bar none, the worst in baseball. The Sox only had 13 fewer wins (granted, that's a lot), and they had an unbelievably bad year. Go, Cubs, Go...go away.

For all those of you who are Cubs fans and are itching to post a comment, take heart...next year will be here in five months, and you can begin the process of dying slowly all over again!

Thank you for reading my rant, and enjoy the mushrooms.

Hang on...

I took this picture at Queechee Gorge, Vermont, and it was one of the few pictures out of the hundreds I took that had a specific purpose. Queechee Gorge advertises itself as "the Grand Canyon of the East." I'd say...not quite...but even so, it was beautiful. We took a trail to the bottom of the gorge, and as we walked along the way we came to the spot in the picture. There was a series of small rapids, and the water was battered around as it made its way toward the Atlantic Ocean. As the water cleared the rapids, there were a few small rocks and such in the stream bed that disturbed the surface of the water, causing a few small ripples. After that, though, it was smooth sailing, and you can see in the picture that the water became as smooth as glass.

As soon as I saw it, I tried to get myself in a position to shoot down through the rapids, to enable the viewer to see the rough water, the water beginning to smooth out, and eventually the glassy water all in the same shot. My thinking follows thus, and you all know how profound I can be.

Life happens. Things come up, and often we wish our circumstances were different. It just seems like too much to bear, you know? Here's what I think we learn as we go through life. Hang on...right now you're going through the rapids, but eventually things will smooth out. It may not happen soon, and it may not happen the way you think, but smooth water lies ahead. I think I'll take that picture and have a big poster-type thing made out of it with this caption, "And it came to pass..." Christian comedian Mark Lowry talks about that. That comes from the first verse of Luke 2, which says, "And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered." Good or bad, it came to pass.

Whew, all this profundity is taxing! It's easier for me to be silly.

I'm going to Jacksonville for a few days tomorrow...unfortunately, that's Illinois, not Florida. In our insurance business we work with Diversified Services, and they are based in Jacksonville. I'm going down to meet with a few successful agents to get some ideas, some training, and so forth. My hope is that I can incorporate some of what they do that makes them successful into my business practices, unlike my time at The Valley. Our goal there was to take Best Practices (which is to say those things that are making good schools good) and perform plastic surgery so it worked...or rather didn't work...for our particular situation. The plastic surgery we performed commonly at The Valley was the type of surgery where you take a beautiful model and attempt to tweak her nose, but instead she comes out looking like Jerry Stiller. Oi. Anyway, I'll be gone for a couple of days, so if there are any bad people out there reading this blog, stay away from my house until I get back.

Early archery season starts today, and while I'm not taking time to go out today, I do have a goal for this hunting season. It's tempered a bit from last year's goal, which was to harvest a nice buck. My new goal is this: I'd just like to see a dadgum deer while I'm sitting out there with a bow in my hand! I've only been hunting (or, more accurately, taking my bow and sitting in a tree in the woods looking at the leaves, getting excited if a squirrel walks by) for two years, and thus far I have yet to see anything. That might lead you to think that there aren't any deer where I go, but I say to you that evidence points to the fact that our woods is Grand Central Station for the local whitetail population. Scrapes, prints, bedding areas...it's all there. I just have to be in the right spot at the right time. So, this year, a new goal: I just hope to see something!

My advice: enjoy a corndog today. Dip it in mustard.