I hate being sick

Wednesday I woke up feeling strange. Went to work and tried to do all my normal things, but by noon it became clear that something was wrong. So I came home and tried to sleep. By the evening I was feeling even more sick and most of the pain was in my intestines. Somehow I got a bad case of diarrhea and have been suffering from it the whole week. I think I may have gotten the parasite that went around to all the pools last summer. I swim a mile each week and so have plenty of opportunity to catch anything that would be found in a public pool.

It was a total bummer too as I wanted to do a few things this week and could not. I wanted to help a sister in law move, mow the rain forest in my from yard and help pass out door hangers for a candidate I would love to see elected. But all will have to wait for future days.

At least my football team and fantasy football teams were victorious this weekend. My Utes are now leading the BCS pack of the non-BCS schools. If they keep winning they will go to a BCS bowl. If they lose one game, I will not feel terrible about it. Their season is already a great success.

BYU fans need to learn from the chicken

To the BYU Football Players: Don't get down my friends. You are still a very good football team who will continue to have a great season and will enjoy a well deserved bowl. 1 loss does not ruin a season. So pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back to it. There is plenty of football to play and you are still a MWC powerhouse. You should also remain nationally ranked and deservedly so.

To the BYU Football Fans: HAHA. I really enjoy a quote from Abraham Lincoln. "The chicken is the wisest of all the animals. She only cackles, after the egg has been laid." You guys have been so cocky this season. "We are the best, we will be perfect this season, we will bust the BCS, etc." It appears that you spoke way to soon. Starting a season wearing T-shirts haughtily declaring your team is perfect and unbeatable. How goes that quest for perfection now?

May I point you to a example of how to bust the BCS. In 2004 a certain team from Utah start the season with a plan. Take each game 1 at a time and strive to win that game. Once that game is won, then move on to the next game and strive to win that one. Do not start looking to a game that is not the next game until it arrives. You keep that up, you will find yourself undefeated at the end of the season, with all your fans rushing the field. You will also find your self with a BCS bowl berth. That my friends is how you do it.

Good luck next year with being that year's Utah.

Loving football season!

The summer time is a depressing time for me, sports wise. I am not a baseball fan and nothing else, with the exception of the Olympics, catches my eye during the summer months. But when fall arrives, I am in sports heaven with both college and NFL fantasy football. I am cursed to have Dish network for my satellite provider, so I do not get 2/3 of all the mountain west football games. But my Dad has those games on his TV. So under the disguise of saying that I wanted to attend their local temple, I was able to infiltrate my parents place this Saturday and enjoyed both the Utah & BYU games. (Yes I did go to the temple, but was out in time to watch most of the football games.)

I really enjoyed seeing the Ute defense score more touchdowns than Wyoming did in all of its MWC games this season. The Ute offense did score 20 points, but need to improve by November when they face conference contenders TCU & BYU.

BYU finally had some good competition this week. New Mexico kept the game surprising close for most of the game. Their defense did a good job holding BYU to only 1 touchdown in the first half. But BYU's defense was much better by stopping the Lobos multiple times in the red zone. (Sorry cougar fans, just like you can't redefine marriage to include same sex couples, you cannot redefine the red zone into the blue zone.)

I am thrilled to see both Utah & BYU undefeated and nationally ranked. I hope they both continue their winning ways until Nov 22nd when Utah repeats as the MWC BCS buster. This is the season I had hoped would happen in 2004 with their undefeated season. The only way that season could have been perfect was if BYU had a better season and we were able to soundly defeat a good BYU team, rather than beating a rebuilding BYU team of the 2004 season.

The only sad part of this season is the rankings. Both teams win, but move nowhere in the polls. 3 of the top 4 teams lose this weekend and we don't see the Utes or Cougars advance in the polls. Have we hit the glass ceiling already?

I just had to laugh

So the election is in full swing and we have many local candidates seeking office in our area. There is a home that is located on the corner of two busy streets and so has many political signs displayed on it. I drive past the home everyday on the way to work. Whoever lives at this home gave me a chuckle today. Very early in the campaign season they put up a sign for a candidate . Then last week they had another sign posted next to the first sign. This one was for that candidate's opponent.

I always get a chuckle when I see a house showing signs for both candidates seeking the same office. It shows that the home is either really undecided or do not know enough about the people they are endorsing. I would assume that when you endorse someone, you had compared them to their opponents and then decided on endorsing one of them. But if you do not even know who the people are who are seeking political office, are you informed enough to start advising others on who to vote for?

Some one from the candidate's camp who had the first sign up must have approached the home owner and pointed out that they have a sign for their opponent and they then took it down. So I guess that proves that the owner of this home was one of those uneducated voters who did not look at or compare the candidates before they started encouraging us to vote for someone. The funniest thing about this is that this home is not even in the district for the office that these candidates are running for. So not only does this uneducated home owner try to tell me who to vote for, they don't even have a vote in this contest. They should be worrying about their own candidates rather than telling me how to vote with mine.

Is it done yet?

Been very busy . But after watching Washington flip flop on the bailout and the market still fall like a rock. All I can say is, Is the election done yet? Another month of this!? Dang it.

What is going to happen now!?

Due to extremely bad choices by many of our nations largest financial institutions, we are stuck in a very uncomfortable economic situation. There is no doubt that the major cause of this problem was institutions lending money to people or businesses that could not pay it back. But now the cause is not the major issue, but what to do about the problem. Do we do nothing or something. The bailout seemed like the only logical step to take. I did not like it but doing nothing seem to be a worse option. So our government got together, worked out a compromise and then promptly voted it down and began the blame game.

At a time when we need true leadership and bipartisan cooperation, we only have partisan games being played. As soon as the bailout failed to pass, Nancy Pelosi ran to the press and promptly blamed everything on the GOP. Even though her party holds the majority in the house and if she had all the democrats vote for it, it would have passed. But 90 democrats did not vote for it. I wonder who Nancy will blame next year when she has control of congress and a new president? According to the news, she gave a very partisan speech just before the vote, that swayed many GOP to not vote for it.

The GOP are not off the hook either. If they say we should not provide the bailout, then what should we do? I would love to find any option that does not require tax payers to spend 700 billion. But if no other option is provided, then why vote against the bailout? However they may be right. What if they do not pass the bailout and we turn out to be OK economically? If a bank fails, doesn't a different bank come in and buy up that bank and keep it in business. Like what happened with Washington Mutual bank? So we may not need the bailout. But if that is true, where is the leadership that is calming our fears and leading us on a safe path?

I really am scared about the next 4 years. At least I can sell my blood for income.

Presidential Debates- How to say something without saying anything

First off, check out my wife's blog for a report on a family outing we had this week to the circus. It was very enjoyable for all of us and I'm very glad the circus only comes once a year. (Very tiring taking the family to an event like this.)

Last night I watched the first debate between McCain & Obama. I did not hear anything that has caused me to change my vote. But I did appreciate hearing what both candidates would do so I can know what to expect from the next president, regardless of who it will be.

I had to laugh at Obama when he said that he listens to and believes the words of the military commanders in Afghanistan. But he refuses to listen to the commanders in Iraq and insists on following his own agenda, oops, I mean plans, concerning Iraq. I wonder why he will listen to one and not the others?

I also liked the comment that McCain said about Obama. "You cannot reach across the isle when you are that far left." That is the same problem I have with Janice Fisher, who is my house representative in the Utah legislature. She is the 5th most liberal member of the house and so is ineffective in working with anyone on the other side of the isle. Which in Utah is the conservatives who hold a 2/3 majority in the house. So she cannot work with anyone and cannot get anything done. I surly don't what that in a president. But if Obama is elected, we will certainly have someone who only works with people on the left and never the moderates or people on the right.

The Moderator correctly pointed out that the bail out that is being worked on, will prevent many planned programs from being funded by the next president and ask both of them what they would give up for the bailout. But neither of them would say what they would give up and only what they would pay for. That is a major problem with all politicians. None of them are willing to stop spending money, even if it is the only option. McCain does say that we need to cut spending, but I don't think either of them will do it enough to make a difference.

I don't think either McCain or Obama won the debate or gave the other a knock out punch. I would be surprised if any voter changed their vote based on this debate. At least we can watch Saturday Night Live to laugh at their interpretation of the debate. Plus we have 2 more presidential & 1 VP debate to watch. Maybe we will see a difference from those.