Griffey Jr. Released by the White Sox

I saw this news item today, and it makes me sad. For one, Griffey Jr. will no longer be a quick car ride up to Chicago away for me to see him play again. I've been fortunate to see him play numerous times, in many different circumstances, including playing for the Mariners at the KC Royals, at the old Kingdome in Seattle, and for my beloved Reds at Enron Field [when it was still Enron Field!] in Houston. Junior was always a class act, and I saw him flip his $100 Oakley sunglasses to a kid sitting in the first row at Houston after the sun no longer made them necessary.

I do worry that Junior will struggle to catch on with another team next year, although that might be unfounded. I do like what the White Sox GM, Ken Williams, had to say about Junior in that article above. I have to believe that another American League team will pick up Junior as a free agent and make him the DH, if nothing else.

But he is coming off another season shortened by injuries, which have plagued him ever since leaving Seattle. He's just not as durable as he once was, and even Sports Illustrated commented on how Junior, not Barry Bonds, could be the all-time HR king these days if it weren't for all the games he's missed due to injuries. Here's hoping that Junior can continue his magnificent career with some team, and that he can continue hitting home runs the right way, sans performance-enhancing drugs.

Candidates for Rookie of the Year - Mid-Season Report

We are now just about half-way through the NFL season, and rookies already made a significant impact on this season. This is especially true in Atlanta and Baltimore, where two rookie QBs are leading their teams to 4-3 records. That's not too shabby, considering Hall of Famer Troy Aikman was 0-11 as a rookie in games he started for Dallas in 1989.

Here's Aikman's stat line from his rookie season, just for comparison:

Season	Team	Pos	Comp	Att	Pct	Yds	Avg	Yds/G	TD	Int	Sck	Rate
1989	DAL	QB	155	293	52.9	1,749	6.0	159.0	9	18	19	55.7

Contrast those stats to those of Matt Ryan, QB ATL, and Joe Flacco, QB BAL:

Rk	Player	Team	Pos	Comp	Att	Pct	Att/G	Yds	Avg	Yds/G	TD	Int	1st	1st%	Lng	20+	40+	Sck	Rate
1	Matt Ryan	ATL	QB	116	205	56.6	29.3	1,441	7.0	205.9	7	5	65	31.7	70T	20	5	9	79.7
2	Joe Flacco	BAL	QB	119	191	62.3	27.3	1,216	6.4	173.7	3	7	62	32.5	70T	10	3	12	70.5

To me, if the Rookie of the Year (RotY) is the player who comes in to the NFL and has the biggest impact on his team, Ryan would have to be the runaway leader at this point of the season. Last year, the Falcons were 4-12, so they already matched their win total from all of last season. Baltimore was 5-11, so they were at least one win better than Atlanta. Plus, Flacco is still experiencing growing pains, as evidenced by his 3 TD - 7 INT ratio.

I did wonder if perhaps some other rookie might challenge Ryan for RotY honors. The next most obvious place to look is at RB, and here are the top rookie stats at that position:

Rk	Player	Team	Pos	Att	Att/G	Yds	Avg	Yds/G	TD	Lng	1st	1st%	20+	40+	FUM
1	Chris Johnson	TEN	RB	122	17.4	626	5.1	89.4	4	66T	26	21.3	3	2	0
2	Matt Forte	CHI	RB	147	21.0	515	3.5	73.6	4	50T	25	17.0	2	1	0
3	Steve Slaton	HOU	RB	104	14.9	476	4.6	68.0	5	50	25	24.0	6	2	0
4	Darren McFadden	OAK	RB	67	11.2	341	5.1	56.8	1	50	13	19.4	4	1	2
5	Jonathan Stewart	CAR	RB	96	12.0	362	3.8	45.2	5	24	20	20.8	2	0	1
6	Felix Jones	DAL	RB	30	5.0	266	8.9	44.3	3	60T	12	40.0	3	1	0

All of these rookies have had a huge impact on the NFL this year, so a strong argument could be made for RotY for any of them. I haven't yet seen any pundit compare this batch of rookie RBs to the fabled 1983 QB draft class, but a solid comparison could be made there, too. I realize that none of the top six backs listed above are averaging over 100 Yds/game, but given that only one, Matt Forte in Chicago, is the featured back in his offense, that should be expected. McFadden in Oakland is still in a RB by Committee (RBBC) situation with Justin Fargas and Michael Bush, which hurts his overall numbers. Almost all the RBs listed here are near or above the 4.0 Yds/carry benchmark for RB success in the NFL, and Felix Jones of Dallas has that ridiculous 8.9 Yds/carry average.

Just to be thorough, I also looked at the top receiving rookies, but the relative impact a WR can have is very limited. Here are the top two rookies who had any stats to really speak of here:

Rk	Player	Team	Pos	Rec	Yds	Avg	Yds/G	Lng	TD	20+	40+	1st	1st%	FUM
1	Eddie Royal	DEN	WR	39	392	10.1	65.3	29	2	4	0	19	48.7	1
2	DeSean Jackson	PHI	WR	32	505	15.8	72.1	60	1	11	2	20	62.5	1

It could be that Donnie Avery, WR in St. Louis, could join this list by the end of the season. He has come on strong in just the last two games for the Rams, but he still ranks sixth on the list, after these two WRs and three rookie RBs.

There's the quick list of NFL rookies that should be considered for RotY honors. As I said previously, if voting were to end today, my money would be on Ryan in Atlanta. I'm sure he is giving owner Arthur Blank a great deal of relief these days.

Who Says Politics and Football Don't Mix?

I just came across this news item from Mark Maske's NFL News Feed (previously known as the NFL Insider), an excellent blog courtesy of the Washington Post:

Obama, McCain on 'Monday Night Football'

Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain will make election-eve appearances on the "Monday Night Football" telecast on ESPN, the network has announced.

According to ESPN's announcement, the candidates have agreed to tape interviews Monday that will air at halftime of the Pittsburgh Steelers-Washington Redskins game. The candidates are to be interviewed separately via satellite by Chris Berman, who will be at the network's studios in Bristol, Conn.

"We worked with our partners at the NFL to schedule a 'Monday Night Football' game in Washington on this special night, and this presents a unique opportunity for John McCain and Barack Obama to reflect upon the last few months and address a large primetime audience on the final day of the campaigns," Norby Williamson, ESPN's executive vice president of production, said in a written statement.

By Mark Maske | October 30, 2008; 11:02 AM ET

So for those of you who: 1) Love politics; 2) Love watching MNF; and 3) Have ESPN, you'll be all set! Unless you happen to be one of those people who dislike Chris "Ethel Merman" Berman. I wonder if he has his own pet nicknames for McCain and Obama?! I also wonder if Berman will take this opportunity to delve into hard-hitting questions about the economy, tax plans, and healthcare plans from the two campaigns?

Naaaahhh... I'm sure it will be fluff on how much each man loves to watch MNF on ESPN.

World Class Entertainment on the Prairie

When I first told my beautiful bride that I found a new job in Champaign, IL, the first word out of her mouth was, "Where?!" Neither one of us is from Illinois originally, and I'd applied to the open position in Champaign only because the decision makers for the position I really wanted at Scott AFB (also in IL, but much closer to St. Louis) were taking so long to make a hire decision. When we were driving down from Chicago on our house-hunting trip a few weeks later, passing nothing but miles and miles of corn fields, her reaction was, "Where are you taking me?!"

I am very happy to report that we absolutely LOVE living in Champaign-Urbana!! It's home to the University of Illinois' main campus, properly titled the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, or UIUC (the main administration buildings are actually located in Urbana, which is why the smaller of the two cities comes first in the name). We've been here for a little over three years now, and we have so many incredibly neat neighbors and friends, most of whom have some tie to the university. It's a great place to raise children, too.

The other reason why we love living here is that we do get exposure to truly world-class entertainment, thanks to UIUC. Last year, I helped my Rotary club put on a concert by Sherban Lupu on violin and Ian Hobson on piano; both men are professors at UIUC, and both are renowned musicians who travel the globe giving concerts.

Last night, my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to see Nathan Gunn perform live. Gunn, I'm learning, is one of the absolute top Baritones in the world. He has his own Wikipedia page, and there's a one-on-one interview with him at this link. The performance last night was at a smaller venue, and he performed selections from various Broadway shows, Camelot, and The Magic Flute (in German!) with his wife and another world-class opera singer. There's another nice piece on him and his wife from the U of I alumni magazine here.

Left: Here's a beefcake photo for the ladies of Nathan Gunn.

We're just incredibly blessed to have these types of opportunities to experience and enjoy the high arts, living where we do. I remarked last night that we are actually very lucky to catch live performances from these artists here in Champaign simply because they do travel the world so much; many people living here had to watch The Met's opera simulcasts at local movie theaters to see Gunn perform live. My wife and I tend to skew the age demographic younger any time we attend events like this, but that's OK with us.

The only thing that makes us scratch our heads is why other couples from our generation don't also attend these performances. I know that Gunn is not Britney Spears, The Killers, Death Cab for Cutie, or any other music act that might be popular with our friends these days. Still, if you have the opportunity to see a world-class musician perform live without traveling to Chicago, NYC, or Washington, DC, wouldn't you take it?! I should add that I am no opera buff by any means. I don't like the Andrew Lloyd Webber style of music or musicals all the rage on Broadway. But I do appreciate talent in many different forms, and Gunn sings spectacularly well!

The Darndest Thing

Wouldn't you say this is the darndest thing? MLB and Bud Selig adjusted the start time of a possible game six in the World Series to accommodate a half-hour ad buy from the Obama campaign.

Forget for a minute that not many World Series' have made it to six games recently, as that article pointed out. Also forget that since game five was suspended last night due to rain, they will take an extra day in Philly tonight to determine the outcome of that game. There's more rain in the forecast for tonight, so there's no telling if they will actually play a game six on Thursday this week, even if game six becomes necessary. (And weren't they wishing for the indoor comfort of Tropicana Field last night?!)

What really makes me scratch my head is the fact that Obama still feels the ad buy is necessary, with less than a week to go until polls close. What more could he say to the American people that he hasn't already said through campaign stops, town halls during the primary season, his speech at the DNC, and during the Presidential debates with John McCain? Does Obama feel a little desperation creeping in, even though the MSM already crowned him the presumptive next POTUS?

NPR yesterday spoke with some voters in Missouri, a state that traditionally picks the next POTUS. I think they said that the only time (maybe it was the only time since 1900... ?) that the residents of Missouri didn't vote for the next President was in the 1956 election. Missouri this year is split in pre-election polling, almost exactly 50-50 between McCain and Obama.

It just makes me wonder... even with the issues of the crumbling national economy, the meltdown on Wall Street, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and with people's worries about the advancing age of McCain -- even with all of that! -- Obama still hasn't sealed the deal. He still feels the need to make one last pitch to the American populace. Which makes me scratch my head, just a little bit.

Attention to Detail

If you've watched any NFL football games over the past several years, you'll have seen the Coors Light "ex-coach" ads. You know the ones -- they feature past NFL head coaches like Denny Green, Jim Mora, and Mike Ditka, and they usually intersperse real postgame press conference footage of the coach with a couple of guys asking questions that have nothing at all to do with the game. Usually, the postgame press conference in question is one in which the coach blew up and went on a rant in response to some question.

As slightly humorous as that premise was to begin with, Coors remarkably stuck with this ad campaign for several years, allowing for Mora's rant about the playoffs and Green's rant about "They are who we thought they are!" to live on in infamy. Here's the one with Mora about the playoffs:



And then here's a newer one, also of Mora, artfully described as the commercial about the random triangles on his shirt:



OK, so did you notice the difference in the two commercials? You might have to look closely to see it.

Stumped?

During the off-season between the 2007 and 2008 NFL seasons, the current Commissioner, Roger Goodell, chose to update the NFL logo. They replaced the old logo, which featured 25 stars behind the football in the top of the logo, with one that has just eight stars and a slightly rotated football. They also slightly adjusted the lettering of the red NFL, but that was very minor. Here's a picture of the two logos side-by-side:


What I find most interesting is that someone at the ad agency hired by Coors to produce these ads went back and updated the logos in the background behind Mora. Computer-generated graphics really are amazing these days, aren't they? But that attention to detail certainly produced a nice touch for this ad campaign, making sure the ads keep up with current events.

Why Can't I Watch the College Football Game I Want?

Coming from an Ohio State fan, this might seem a bit strange. In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that my wife and most of her family graduated from Oklahoma State University. One of her favorite lines is that my family accepted her because she graduated from "an OSU" if not "THE OSU."

Checking out the coverage maps (and sorry if the link doesn't work past today) on the ABC Sports website, I see that we live in the small part of the country that will receive the U Michigan vs. Michigan State game at 2:30 Central today. Given that Michigan isn't all that good this year, I expect that game to be a clunker, even if it is a rivalry game. I would MUCH rather watch the U Texas vs. OK State game, also being played at 2:30 Central, and which the majority of the country will get to see. It's a matchup of #1 vs. #6, and should be a high scoring affair. Big 12 teams (including Texas and OK State) occupy four of the top five spots in the list of highest scoring offenses this year.

In fact, a very good argument could be made (and probably should be made) that the Texas-OK State game should have been the prime time 7 pm Central matchup, since #1 vs. #6 is a better matchup than Ohio State (#9) vs. Penn State (#3). It used to be not all that long ago, ABC would show a college football game of national interest at Noon Eastern, 11 am Central, before switching to regional coverage at the 2:30 Central time slot. They no longer do that, perhaps because not enough people were watching at 11 am Central. Now, the only way to get college football games being played at 11 am is to subscribe to a provider that carries ESPN, ESPN2, and/or ESPNU.

I am, of course, being a little selfish here. I assume that if ABC chose instead to carry the Texas-OK State game in prime time, they would then move the OSU-PSU game to the 2:30 Central regional coverage slot. In that case, I would get to see both games, since we live in the Midwest and almost always receive the Big 10 coverage that is available (like we are getting today, for example).

What counts against the Texas-OK State game is that OK State is not known as a football powerhouse. They have always been overshadowed in their own state by the team from Norman, OK. Yes, they produced the legendary Barry Sanders, and there are plenty of current NFL players who hail from the Stillwater campus. But the simple fact that they reached #6 in the rankings is pretty incredible in and of itself. Personally, I would love to see them win all their games (requiring knocking off #1 Texas and #4 Oklahoma), which should put them into the BCS National Title Championship game. How cool would that be?!

My real beef with ABC's segmenting the coverage map is this: even if I wanted to pay for coverage of the game, I have only one option for getting it. The game is not going to be carried on ESPN, ESPN2, or ESPNU, since ABC has the game (yes, I know all those channels are controlled by the same parent company). So subscribing to cable would not help one iota. The cable company in our area, Comcast, also does not provide the ESPN360.com service to its subscribers, so that isn't an option.

The only way to get the Texas-OK State game today is to instead subscribe to DirecTV, and to then pay the extra fee to get the ESPN GamePlan package of college football games. The current October GamePlan lineup is here, and you have to scroll down to get the 25 Oct lineup. I haven't actually had a DirecTV sales guy come out to our house to check our sight lines to their satellite, but with the high trees all around our house, we might not even be able to get DirecTV's signal.

Which goes to a much bigger beef of mine with the current state of affairs with regards to TV providers. You already know that we don't subscribe to cable or DirecTV. Even if we did get cable, there have been numerous examples recently of cable companies refusing to carry channels that provide content I would want to see. The recent rollouts of the BigTen Network and the NFL Network, and the subsequent court battles between those entities and cable companies to fight over how much to charge subscribers and on what tier to carry them, only serve to prove the point. In too many cases, the cable subscribers (and there are still large numbers of U.S. households that simply can't get a good feed from a DirecTV satellite) are frozen out of being able to watch the content they want.

It's gotten so that in America, the land of the free and the home of market based economics, even people who are willing to pay to receive certain content are not able to receive that content. Why? It's because the already wealthy fat cats in charge of incredibly prosperous private companies fight over which one of them is going to line their pockets even more. Frankly, I'm disgusted by all of it! Which is just one more reason why I get my TV signals over the air. I'm not giving any more money to those fat cats.

"Choice, man!"

Wang Dang Rock 'n' Roll

Seeing Brian Setzer and his Orchestra in all their faux leopard printed glory last night on ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" made me think of that 1991 Nothing Beats a Bud commercial where Setzer gets served by some old granny.

Thanks to the power of the Internet, I can not only show the ad (which someone conveniently uploaded to YouTube):



I can also link to a music website that provided the granny's name and background. Her name was Cordell Jackson, and I just LOVE that quote at the top!!! Nothing beats a true American original like Cordell Jackson.

Living in the '90s

My wife and I discussed getting a TiVO recently. We don't watch many TV shows, but there are some we would like to watch if our schedules allowed it. "My Name is Earl" on NBC pops to mind. The 7-8 pm Central time slot is a dead zone for us, because that is always when at least one of us is doing the "B" routine with our two kids: bath, brush, books, and bed.

A TiVO might also help us to keep track of our favorite shows -- the ones we do want to watch if available -- as the networks randomly move them into different time slots from week to week. Maybe it just seems random, and different from week to week. Either way, it can be incredibly annoying!

I should explain a little about our current TV setup, which in some ways is very advanced and in some ways resembles TV before cable. You see, we don't subscribe to cable, Dish Network, DirecTV, or any other expanded lineup of channels. I know, it's shocking that people who still watch TV (not those crazies who completely avoid TV altogether) have decided to do without cable. My wife and I realized several years ago that we were watching too much TV with all the options available on standard cable (70-some-odd channels), so we first downsized to the basic package (about 12 channels). We then went to only over-the-air antenna reception after we moved to Illinois in 2005.

How can an over-the-air antenna setup possibly be advanced? First, I purchased a Sony HDTV, one with a built-in HD tuner, not one that said "HD ready." So the TV itself can decode the HD signals that all TV stations are required to broadcast, and I don't need any cable or satellite set-top box to be an intermediary. I researched what type of antenna I needed to receive HD signals through the ever-handy AntennaWeb.org website. I bought an omnidirectional powered antenna from Radio Shack, plus what I needed to mount that sucker on a five-foot pole on my roof. After that, it was a simple matter to connect the antenna feed via a standard coax cable into the back of my TV, turn it on, and start watching HD programming on the digital stations.

We currently receive several options on each traditional broadcast network. CBS, the last local affiliate to go digital, shows its usual lineup on 3.1 and another broadcast called MyCFN on 3.2. Our local PBS station usually shows different broadcasts on its three digital channels, 12.1, 12.2, and 12.3. WILL uses 12.3 as their version of a home & garden network. ABC just has 15.1, but they used to show a startup music video channel on 15.2. That was awesome, but failed because they didn't carry ads. NBC has its usual programming on 17.1 and an all-weather channel on 17.2. The same is true for the CW, Fox, and we even get some version of the Home Shopping Network over the air.

We also added what I now call "the brains" of our home entertainment center, a Mac Mini. The Mini allows us to connect to the Internet from the living room, using the Sony HDTV as the monitor (had to get a DVI-to-HDMI converter cable to make the connection work). We store our music, pictures, videos, etc. on the Mini, and can download movie purchases from iTunes and watch them right through the TV. The Mini is also hooked into the surround sound system I already had, so movie sound comes through the surround speakers in the living room. We watch DVDs using the Mini's SuperDrive, and the only drawback there is that sometimes the discs we get from Netflix are scratched beyond what the Mini can handle. Oh, and the Mini is connected to the Internet via a home wireless network, plus it has the wireless keyboard and mouse. It's a pretty sweet setup, really.

The only thing we're really missing is a way to record live TV for viewing when our schedule allows, which is why we thought about getting a TiVO. I've always been interested in TiVO for several reasons. The first and foremost is how everyone who has TiVO completely raves about it, even after other DVRs hit the market. TiVO users can't stop talking about how easy it is to use, and how they can't live without the service after they tried it.

I'm also intrigued by the possibility that a brand name that became synonymous with a product (think Kleenex for facial tissues or Xerox for copies) could some day fail to exist. TiVO's market penetration remains desperately small, on the order of only 4-6 million households in America. Given that America now has over 300 million people living in roughly (very rough!) 200 million households, that's a pretty small number. It's not inconceivable to think that the company, TiVO, could cease to exist while people still talk of TiVOing their favorite shows on their cable- or satellite-provided DVR machine.

However, after considering how much TiVO wants for a HD version of their DVR box ($299.99), plus adding a $59.99 wireless Internet adapter, plus the thought of having to pay roughly $10-12 per month for the service as an ongoing subscription fee, we're going to pass on getting a TiVO. Call me cheap, but I still think that is quite a lot of money to spend just so I can watch "Earl."

***John Cusack movie reference alert!*** To paraphrase the movie Say Anything: So, if we know so much about TV, why are we sitting alone on a Saturday night watching over-the-air broadcasts?

"Choice, man!"

*Edited on 10/23* As an addendum to my previous post, I just may have to bite the bullet on the TiVO. Last night, for the first time, I was able to catch the last 15 minutes of ABC's "Pushing Daisies." I love shows with quirky humor, so Scrubs, Eli Stone, and even Ally McBeal in the late '90s all caught my eye. Pushing Daisies seems to be another of those type of shows, but it's on during that 7-8 pm dead zone for us. And didn't Pushing Daisies used to be on HBO or Showtime? It seems like something they would produce.

Quick Hit

Holy crap. How does someone with such a thin resume come loaded down with so much baggage? This on top of Troopergate and whatever other junk the Democrats previously dug up on her. Sad to see. I still like her as a person, and would love to watch some football with her family and have a beer with her and the First Dude. You Betcha!

The Myth of Work-Life Balance

Have you heard people, usually those who are near or have reached the end of their careers, deliver the trite old saying, "No one on their deathbed ever said, 'I wish I'd spent more time at work.'" As true as that statement might be, it nonetheless rubs me the wrong way. This is going to be a long post, so hang on and stay with me.

People talk all the time about finding the right work-life balance, a concept that was probably relatively unknown before the 1970s. The entire idea is to moderate the demands of work and spend precious time with loved ones, hobbies, or in stress relieving activities. When both parents work full-time jobs, finding the right work-life balance becomes ever more important. I still remember the news media picking up on the concept of "latchkey kids" when I was growing up in the 1980s, and of spending "quality time" with the family in the 1990s.

To get a fuller flavor of the type of hypocritical advice people love to dispense, here are WebMD's tips on securing a better work-life balance. That list is chock-full of a bunch of advice that sounds good on the surface, but which is incredibly difficult to implement in real life.

There is no doubt that men want to spend more time with their families. While women traditionally sacrifice their careers to stay home and raise children, more and more men are choosing the stay-at-home-dad route instead. As odd as it might seem at first, our generally closed-minded society is slowly accepting that men can be decent, responsible caregivers as well. It's true!

There is also no doubt that Americans are working harder than ever these days. Americans take less time off from work, work more hours per work week, and are more productive than any other nation on Earth. We're certainly working harder than Old Europe, what with their labor union-imposed work week restrictions and guaranteed vacations. When's the last time you or a person you knew actually took a two-week or longer family vacation during the summer? We just don't do that these days, instead taking vacation time in smaller chunks in the form of long weekends. We might still get some family time, but everything seems so incredibly busy and rushed these days.

In my own experience, I can say I'm incredibly fortunate to have what amounts to a regular 40-45 hour per week, 8-to-5, white collar, salaried "exempt" employee type of job. Believe me, I didn't know what an exempt* employee was during my time on active duty with the Air Force. For all the benefits the military gives its service members (free gym, discount groceries, free healthcare, subsidized housing, etc.), the pay was set based on your rank and years in service and/or time in grade. How productive you were didn't make a difference in pay, and there certainly weren't any bonuses. While some jobs on active duty are more like normal offices, with standard office hours, what it really meant is that they owned you and could ask you to come in at any time, day or night, often for an exercise and not even a real-world crisis. Even the "normal" office jobs usually had people arrive for work no later than 7:30 am and leave not before 5:30 pm or later, depending on what "emergency" the LtCol had going on.

*Exempt from what? The overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). No overtime for you, pal, you're exempt!

For all the talk (lip service) the Air Force leadership gave to providing a stable work environment and solid support network for service members and their families, the mission always came first. Seriously, the Air Force rated its officers on personality traits to determine whether a leader was more a "mission" or a "people" person. Even those leaders who saw themselves as people focused still spent the majority of their time getting the mission done.

Ah, but I digress. After leaving active duty, I had to find a real job. Yes, civilian jobs usually require real performance to justify the base salary, and if you do a really good job, maybe -- just maybe -- you'll get a bonus at the end of the year. Sadly, even as an exempt employee, sometimes the work requires that extra time at the office to get 'er done.

I constantly struggle on a daily basis with the demands of work and family, and I am certainly not alone. The WSJ has a great blog simply called "The Juggle," and they cover a wide variety of work-life balance issues. They've often mentioned the "walk of shame," and no, we're not talking about college-age women walking back across campus on early Saturday morning, still in their clothes from Friday night. What the Juggle writers refer to as their walk of shame is an employee leaving work at 5:30 pm to spend time with the family. What ever happened to "bankers' hours" being an acceptable work day? They weren't talking about investment bankers, that's for sure.

I do know that I remain incredibly fortunate to have a job that pays well, challenges me to lead and to be creative in problem solving, and which allows me to see my family pretty much on a daily basis. I don't travel that much, I don't have to spend nights and weekends at the office (usually), I don't work the third shift at the hospital or factory, and I get to spend lots of quality time with my family. I'm almost always home in time for us to sit down together as a family for dinner, and how many people can say that these days?

What got me thinking about all of this is not just the quote mentioned above about no one wishing they spent more time at work on their deathbed. In yesterday's WSJ, they had a book excerpt from one of the Journal's contributing editors, Ron Alsop. Here's a block quote from that article titled "The 'Trophy Kids Go to Work":

When Gretchen Neels, a Boston-based consultant, was coaching a group of college students for job interviews, she asked them how they believe employers view them. She gave them a clue, telling them that the word she was looking for begins with the letter "e." One young man shouted out, "excellent." Other students chimed in with "enthusiastic" and "energetic." Not even close. The correct answer, she said, is "entitled." "Huh?" the students responded, surprised and even hurt to think that managers are offended by their highfalutin opinions of themselves.

The article goes into great depth talking about the Millennials (creatively defined as the generation born between 1980 and 2001), and how they have such high expectations for themselves and their work places. One common refrain from corporate recruiters apparently is that these kids, just out of college, want to be CEO of the company tomorrow. These kids were raised during the whole self-esteem movement, which awarded participation trophies to every kid who showed up, not just the Little League champions. Of course these kids are special; they've been told how special they are their whole lives; why wouldn't they be special at work?!

The article wraps up by touching the surface of why these high expectations are so ironic:

In the final analysis, the generational tension is a bit ironic. After all, the grumbling baby-boomer managers are the same indulgent parents who produced the millennial generation. Ms. Barry of Merrill Lynch sees the irony. She is teaching her teenage daughter to value her own opinions and to challenge things. Now she sees many of those challenging millennials at her company and wonders how she and other managers can expect the kids they raised to suddenly behave differently at work. "It doesn't mean we can be as indulgent as managers as we are as parents," she says. "But as parents of young people just like them, we can treat them with respect."

For me, it all boils down to this: The Boomer generation wants to forget how hard they had to work to get to where they are today. They preach all this "work to live, don't live to work" mantra, and we begin to hope that our bosses could actually be somewhat enlightened in achieving a proper work-life balance. But then they are the ones currently in positions of authority who layer on the work and expect it to get done today. They are the ones who think younger workers who don't pull 60 hour plus work weeks are lazy. They are the ones who shove the message of "Cats in the Cradle" down your throat with one hand while simultaneously squeezing every last ounce of productivity out of a person with the other.

The other thing that falls into this same category is finding work you love, work you're passionate about -- that's what will make you happy working 80 hour+ weeks!!! Almost all the career coaches out there start with a personality profile to decipher what type of work a person really should be doing with their life. I get the idea that a person shouldn't dread coming to work every day, but Mark Twain succinctly said: "Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do."

Think about it. Pay is what our employers have to give us in order to perform activities we'd rather not be doing. If every person in the world only did what he or she wanted to do with their lives, things they were really passionate about, who would be the waiters, janitors, or insurance adjusters? That's not meant as a dig on people who fill those needed roles in our society. The bigger picture is that most people, myself included, find ourselves in hard jobs that pay the bills. If we work with people we like, all the better. We find a vocation that we can stand to do, and is something we're good at doing, and we simply do it to put food on the table, a roof over our family's heads, and clothes on our backs. It's probably not the first love of our life, but that is why we have hobbies and activities (a life!) away from work.

Plus, if we all had the jobs that we absolutely loved in this life, we wouldn't get any enjoyment from fantasizing about those jobs we think we'd rather have. C'mon, who hasn't talked over cocktails about the one job a person would love to have? The other day, I discovered my CEO would rather do wood working in his shop, building furniture or all sorts of things. Me? I would be a race car driver.

Just don't lie to me and say that work-life balance, or that finding your niche in life, is all that important in one breath, and come right back and ask for that TPS report in the next. You'll get your damn TPS report.

The Madden Curse is Lurking

It's too early to say that Brett Favre is suffering from the EA Sports Madden NFL curse, which was covered in a previous post. Go back to that post, though, and I guessed correctly that the Billy Goat curse was in full force on the 2008 Chicago Cubbies!

What is readily apparent is that Favre's stats have really fallen off the cliff since the NY Jets had their bye in week 5. Here are Brett's official stats from NFL.com:

Regular Season				Games		Passing										Rushing				Fumbles
WK	Game Date	Opp	Result	G	GS	Comp	Att	Pct	Yds	Avg	TD	Int	Sck	SckY	Rate	Att	Yds	Avg	TD	FUM	Lost
1	09/07	@ MIA	W 20-14	1	1	15	22	68.2	194	8.8	2	0	3	13	125.9	3	2	0.7	0	2	1
2	09/14	NE	L 10-19	1	1	18	26	69.2	181	7.0	1	1	2	29	85.6	2	6	3.0	0	--	--
3	09/22	@ SD	L 29-48	1	1	30	42	71.4	271	6.5	3	2	3	30	92.5	2	5	2.5	0	--	--
4	09/28	ARI	W 56-35	1	1	24	34	70.6	289	8.5	6	1	2	5	123.7	--	--	--	--	--	--
5	Bye			--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	0.0	--	--	--	--	--	--
6	10/12	CIN	W 26-14	1	1	25	33	75.8	189	5.7	1	2	2	23	73.9	1	-1	-1.0	0	1	1
7	10/19	@ OAK	L 13-16	1	1	21	38	55.3	197	5.2	0	2	3	21	47.8	2	5	2.5	0	3	0
TOTAL				6	6	133	195	68.2	1,321	6.8	13	8	15	121	92.3	10	17	1.7	0	6	2

Through the first four games, Favre had passer ratings no lower than 85, 12 TDs versus 4 INTs, and was completing over 70.1% of his passes. For a guy who is slightly older than I am, those were awesome numbers! Forget the statistical anomally of throwing 6 TDs in one game; who does that?! Favre definitely still had it through those first four games of the season, even if the Jets were only 2-2.

However, the last two games since the bye are a different story, as you can see above. The passer rating has fallen off the table. Favre completed just 55% of his throws in an ugly West Coast loss to Oakland. He has 4 INTs to just 1 TD in two games. He also continues to average 2.5 sacks per game, which could increase the wear and tear on the ol' QB. While they didn't lose the 3 fumbles Favre had against Oakland, those have to be a concern, as well.

Again, it's too early to tell if the Oakland game was the start of the drop-off in production associated with the Madden curse, or if it was just a one-game blip on an otherwise very solid year. We'll keep an eye on it...