Friday, January 22, 2016

Permit me a small sports rant:

I've been a sports fan since 7. I've been a Cleveland sports fan since I first moved to NorthEast Ohio at 14. I've seen the Drive, the Fumble, Jose Mesa. The Greatest Coach in the NFL couldn't win here.  Carlos Boozer- the second banana people were saying young LeBron needed- stabbed the team in the back.  
Worst of all, I saw the Browns move to Baltimore- and turn around to become the EXACT type of excellent team, complete with 2 Super Bowls, that Cleveland had been begging for.  Meanwhile, the current Browns' franchise is a joke until proven otherwise.
LeBron leaving and winning two titles for Miami? A distant second in terms of misery. But it still sucked.
Right before LeBron returned, I really was liking the Cavs team that was being assembled. Kyrie, Tristan, Dion, and now add Andrew Wiggins? Everything I heard about Blatt was promising. They were young, they were all on good contracts.... I was really looking forward to watch them. Hell, I still thought Andrew Bennett could bounce back (I still think so, dammit...)
Then LeBron returned. And Wiggins was traded for Kevin Love (nothing against Love; I just liked Wiggins' youth and athleticism). And we were in 'Win Now' mode, because LeBron was still in his prime.
And I said, several times, "If THIS Cavs team- with LeBron still in his prime- can't win a title, then Cleveland will never win one in my lifetime." After all, there had been so much bad luck regarding sports in Cleveland that there HAD to be a payoff, right?
Right?
I don't think that way today. Not after another reset.
I don't think it's going to happen. Not in my lifetime. And I need to accept it and move on.
Good luck to the Cavs. I hope they succeed. And I'd like to be wrong.
Rant over.

Friday, January 1, 2016

Closing out 2015

2015- It was a year.

On a personal level, it was a good year.  My parents moved back to Cleveland.  Katie joined the Angry Ladies of Improv .  I've started taking guitar lessons- after 25 years of teaching myself, there's some bad habits I need to unlearn.  We celebrated our tenth anniversary with a trip to Toronto and an appearance in a Rush Concert video.

It wasn't all great- I lost one of my oldest friends early in the year.  My weight crept up to the point that I'm now on a diet and starting up the YRG program.  

On a global level, 2015 just feels like a year where the people who were supposed to act like adults stopped doing so.  Both parties seem to embrace people that didn't belong to the parties- Bernie Sanders for the Democrats (because he considered himself a Socialist instead of a Democrat) and Donald Trump for the Republicans (because... I still don't get this one myself).

The first votes in the Primaries begin in February.  We'll see if the voters are just blowing off steam or are serious about the candidates.

And the people who were already elected didn't act like adults, either.  Terrorism is a growing threat, there is a growing divide between the police and the people they are supposed to elect, the economy looks great in the stock market yet most people think we're still in a recession... and the people in charge are busy rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  The only thing both parties agree on is that they like to spend money that someone else will have to pay back.

Here's hoping 2016 is a better year for everyone.