New Shoes in the Rain

....about a number of different, unrelated things.  Here's a sampling: I've been wondering why we're all asked to help the homeless and the needy during the holidays.  Don't those people need help all year? I've been wondering why University of Kentucky sports fans are so frequently among the most loyal yet the most fickle known to the sporting world?  A new football coach takes a team with a talented offense, yet a largely inexperienced defense, makes changes in several key coaching positions, and still comes out with a record equal to last year's, and he's considered a failure by many?  Or a basketball coach, in only his second year leading the program, and finding it necessary to replace just about all of the all-universe talent he recruited before last season, is now being roundly criticized for having lost ONE game...in November? C'mon, people, please.  Give these guys a chance. I've been wondering how the Republican party leaders and pr...

I know, it's just the start of the "cold and flu" season, but I am already tired of not feeling 100 percent.  Permit me to vent for a moment (they say it's good for your health, you know) on the reasons..... Ongoing business travel....I spend six to twelve nights away from home each month for my job, and that doesn't even begin to account for how many days I'm out of the confines of our humble abode. Lots of contact with the public.....honestly, I don't know where you've been, or if you've EVER washed your hands, yet, here I am, with my hand extended to shake yours.  And vice versa. Eating strange things at strange times.....now, there's a recipe for disaster just waiting to happen. Oh, and I travel a lot by plane.  Yessir, nothing worse than an airplane cabin full of others who are in various stages of distress of one kind or another. What I have right now are the last vestiges of your garden-variety cold.  Started with some back-of-...

Here's an entry that very nearly defies description, as indicated by the riveting title of this post..... Clint Hurdle will be named manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the next day or two.  Wish him and the team well, but this organization has been mailing it in for so long they have a longer futility streak than my beloved Cincinnati Reds broke this past season.  Hurdle's a good baseball man and I thought he'd get another shot at managing. Are you as puzzled by the Dallas Cowboys' strong play yesterday under their new interim coach (and former offensive coordinator), Jason Garrett?  Where was all of this wide open offensive creativity when Garrett was working under Phillips?  Why are the players playing better for him?  Will it continue?  Who knows? And in the "who cares?" department, we have Brett Favre, who threw three interceptions in the Vikings' loss to the Chicago Bears yesterday.  And then told the press he had no regrets in coming back...

Busy few days in sports, if you've not been paying attention. The Dallas Cowboys, who were thought to have at least a shot of being the first professional football team to play the Super Bowl in their home stadium (this season's version will take place in the mega-Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, TX), instead have posted a 1-7 record and yesterday bade farewell to Wade Phillips as their head coach.  Phillips' pedigree indicates that he's a talented football coach, having successfully coordinated defensive units in Denver, San Diego and elsewhere.  But he's never translated that to head coaching success, at least not to the extent that he's one of those coaches who everyone reveres.  One sports pundit observed some time ago that he resembles "the guy who delivers your mail," but being an ordinary-looking and, by all reports, an exceedingly nice guy didn't serve him well trying to form a team of the players acquired by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.  The ...

George "Sparky" Anderson, former manager of the Cincinnati Reds and Detroit Tigers, died yesterday at his home in California at the age of 76.  He was a more important figure in my adolescence than I thought at the time, as he managed the "Big Red Machine" edition of the Reds from 1970 through 1978 and was unceremoniously fired after finishing second to the Los Angeles Dodgers for the second straight year in 1978. Prior to that, though, he presided over the single best period of any Reds team (and likely any National League team at that) in history, winning two World Series, four National League pennants, and five National League Western Division championships.  But, at the time, "the Main Spark" didn't impress me all that much, as I had no clue about how difficult it often is to manage people (I know now, from professional but non-baseball experience) and thought that the great players on that team would have been equally successful without Sparky. ...

After a weekend trip to visit family out of state and a day trip to Charlotte, I watched the local, state and national election returns with some interest last night.  Changes are coming, whether I/we voted for them or not! In our home area of Lexington, KY, an openly gay man was elected mayor, ousting a first-term incumbent who had previously not run for anything.  Turns out that your record is your record, good or bad, and the outgoing mayor had some items in his term that must have led voters to choose otherwise. Our local congressional district will apparently continue to be represented by Ben Chandler, grandson of the late and hyper-popular former Governor A.B. "Happy" Chandler.  The younger Chandler really had problems defeating his opponent, who at this writing was just a few hundred votes behind.  Needless to say, he's not conceded. And now we know that in Washington, the House of Representatives will be Republican-controlled and a new speaker, John Boe...