Horse Manure Park

Time to take a short break from writing about football to update my "other" blog... which would be this one. I've been writing like Wordsworth lately, busy trying to establish myself on Twitter and the World Wide Web (do they even call it that anymore?) as a fantasy football personality.   It's a perfect marriage to me.  I love writing and I love fantasy football.  I've played fantasy football since 1991, which makes me an old timer compared to a lot of writers out there.  So I figured, "why not?"  These self-proclaimed "experts" and "gurus" don't know anything more about the hobby than me. So I paid for a web domain, www.thelonepylon.com  , and I am cross-posting everything to Twitter using the (in)famous hashtags ### to generate more traffic. My official logo.  I designed it myself and it turned out far better than I was expecting. I have also applied to cross-post to  www.pro-football-reference.com , which ...

Seems appropriate today.  Even though James Garner was the leading man in many movies, I grew up with The Rockford Files and I best remember him for that.  My parents loved the show too. Godspeed.

Sometimes you just have to take off the training wheels. Literally. One of the goals of summer 2014 was to free the Girl of the bondage of training wheels.  And for a while, I didn't think it was going to happen. Back in May, the Girl decided it would be a good idea to wait until her "half birthday" (six months after her birthday), which would be in August. That was fine, said I.  We'll do it when you're ready.  But once the training wheels come off, they aren't going back on . That was the deal. So yesterday, the Girl and I enjoyed a "father/daughter" day.  We went to Applebee's (her favorite restaurant) for lunch and spent some quality time together. The Girl and her dad at Applebee's, 14 July 2014 After a feast of mozzarella sticks and cheeseburgers (and a blue ribbon brownie, of course) we waddled home.  Soon, the Girl decided she wanted to ride her bike and she asked me to help her. I told her she really didn't ...

We just returned from Fargo after a whirlwind 24 hours of music and fun... and I just have to write about it.  [ ed. note: you don't have to read it... but if you do, that's great, too! ] Our evening with Sir Paul started with a celebratory drink (and pizza) at Old Chicago.  July 12th also happened to be my in-laws' 46th wedding anniversary, which made the evening even more special. My attempt at a group selfie.  Old Chicago in Fargo, 12 July 2014, before the show. The Wife and myself, ready for Sir Paul! We got to the Fargodome relatively early, but there were already hundreds of people lined up to get in. Waiting in line with a bunch of other McCartney maniacs. The show started at precisely 8:00 p.m. (I guess it's that English punctuality).  Paul's appearance was preceded by a 30 minute video montage of his life/career accompanied with a funky Beatles/McCartney music mix. By the time the video was finished, the audience was getting restless -...

So I tweeted Paul McCartney's band today... and Abe Laboriel, Jr., the drummer of his band, favorited my tweet!!   This is, like, the best day EVER!

We spent the Fourth of July holiday deep in the heart of North Dakota.  The five days we spent there as guests of the Baumann's reminded me why North Dakota was recently crowned the beer drinking capital of the United States. Too much of a good thing is never a bad thing, however. Even though the start of the vacation was met with a bit of bad news - the Independence Day parade was cancelled in Mandan due to lightening - we rallied and had a great time anyway. Good food, cold beer and great company.  Can't beat it. Here are a few pictures of our adventure west.  I know not many will be interested in these, but just to mark time, I am posting them. I think the highlight for the kids (other than taking the pontoon on the Missouri river and swimming on a sandbar for the day... and getting a bit too much sun along the way) was a visit to the North Dakota State Heritage Center at the state capitol. The Center had a very impressive display of Native American an...

I am a cynical person.  Or perhaps skeptical is a better description? Regardless, I do not trust easily.  I do not readily embrace the unfamiliar.  I am leery; always suspicious of the sincerity in almost anything. I'm not saying this is a healthy attitude and I'm not saying I'm proud of it.  It's just how I am. So no one surprised me more than me when I decided to buy Paul McCartney tickets back in April and I was presented with the unknown.  Uncharacteristically, I took a leap of faith. Since I am a member of McCartney's fan club, I was able to get an early pre-sale of the concert in Fargo.  I went to McCartney.com and sure enough, I quickly grabbed terrific seats.  But when I went to purchase the tickets, I was redirected to a web site which I had never heard of before: Crowd Surge. Immediately the skeptic in me said, "Whoa, wait a minute.  What is this?"  Was I redirected to some rogue site looking to steal my credit card num...