Would This Be Caveat Emptor? Or Must You Disclose The Paranormal?

As if the market isn’t enough of a problem:

A real estate agent showing a house in Gibson got to the basement and found about 100 human bones in a corner.

James Kenny, a forensic investigator with the Terrebonne Parish Coroner’s Office, says the bones found Saturday were so old that dirt had saturated the marrow inside them. He says they probably are remains of Native Americans buried long before the house was built.

Kenny says he learned that the previous residents would often find bones while mowing the lawn or doing yard work, and would put them in the basement.

Half of the split-level house is on top of a circular mound, which parish officials suggest may be an Indian burial mound.

There has to be an HGTV show here. Designed to Sell meets Ghost Hunters. “To get this house ready to  sell, we’re going to re-paint the living room in a neutral brown, and then help out the basement with an exorcism!”

 

 

Now That’s Fucking Brilliant

“School Board members, employees may get in trouble for cursing“

In case you ever doubted that the average school administrator has wayyyy to much time on his hands.

Don’t Fire Les Miles

Bill Simmons has a less expensive solution that lets LSU keep Miles’s recruiting skills but solves his biggest problem: Making decisions at the end of games. Simmons is talking about Eagles coach Andy Reid, but everything in this column applies equally to Miles and LSU.

First, an e-mail to Simmons suggests the idea:

“Andy Reid is a great coach for 3 and a half quarters. In baseball, most starting pitchers do their job really well for most of the game, then need a little help to finish it out. I think you see where I’m going with this. The Eagles need a closer. A coach that they can bring in at the end of close games when they’re trailing, or winning by a touchdown or less (save situations). As asinine as this sounds, tell me Eagles fans wouldn’t strongly consider it.”

How about it Tigers fans?

Now Simmons expands the idea:

Consider it? Are you kidding? They just broke their necks nodding violently. It’s a fascinating idea and I spent way too much time thinking about it. Every coach has a flaw or two. It’s impossible for them to be perfect. In Andy Reid’s case, he knows how to handle the media, build a roster, come up with game plans, delegate to assistants, get his players playing hard for him, keep them prepared and keep them motivated. It’s a eight-step job and he nailed seven of the steps. But he’s helpless with clock management — as we saw last Sunday in painful detail — and since he’s been doing this since the mid-90s, it sure seems like he will always be helpless. It’s his Achilles’ heel. So why not fix it? Either have the Clock Management Closer come in and stand next to him, or even better, just have Reid actually leave the sideline and head into the locker room like a baseball pitcher. He could even get a standing O on his way out. I would love this. Who wouldn’t love this?

As Miles leaves, they could even have a big ceremony for the closer. Like how Bevo precedes the Longhorns or Chief Osceola and Florida State, only it would be one guy, the fourth quarter and Mike the Tiger. Think Mariano Rivera and Enter Sandman, but with the LSU fight song and a 600 pound carnivore escorting the closer. Not only would we have someone who knows how to call the end of a game, but think of the intimidation factor! Especially if they could leave Mike on the field for the rest of the game. Genius, I say.

F**K

That’s all I have to say about the most ridiculous, stupid, unbelievable, f’d up ending to a football game I have ever seen.

Well, that and I wonder how many remote controls flew across rooms around this state at about 6:30 tonight.

O.K., and also how about benching Jefferson and Lee and playing without a quarterback? LSU couldn’t be any worse. How the hell you take a sack like Jefferson did in that last drive just blows the mind.

Running out of time, though, was all Les Miles.

The YMCA Half Marathon

I ran it this morning in a sort of disappointing 1:45.

I didn’t have to think real hard before deciding to run, even though I didn’t know about it until about three weeks ago. My marathon training plan had me running about 13 miles today anyway. With a race, I’d have a fresh environment instead of a plain old training run. Also got a nice t-shirt, and it was only fifteen bucks to register. So why not, I though.

Then I had to choose how to race it.

Normally, at this stage of training for the marathon, I’ll run about twenty miles during the week and then do a big run on Saturday. Right now that would be in the low to mid teens. Sundays I ride my bike anywhere from twenty five to fifty miles.

One option for the race was to simply fit it into my usual routine. The plus of that is I would still have a normal training week. The drawback is not having a very good time. I usually do speed work during the week, leaving my legs dead for anything other than steady distances on Saturdays. The other option was to recover during the week prior to the race and try for a really good time.

Initially I leaned towards recovery and racing, for two reasons. One, I wanted to see if I could hold my ideal race pace (7:30-7:40 per mile) for the whole thing. Two, plenty of people have told me about the advantages of walking through water stations during the marathon and I wanted to try it and see how it impacted my endurance and time during a real race.

I ended up splitting the difference. I cut out my ride last Sunday. I also cut out my run Thursday, giving me Thursday and Friday to rest for this morning’s run. In between, I did some hard running for five miles on Tuesday and then six miles with the kids in the jogger Wednesday.

With the easier week I was hoping to run anywhere from 1:40 to 1:45. In addition to doing that, I wanted to maintain a steady pace and finish strong. I’ve always had problems taking off too fast and then collapsing towards the end, so that latter goal really mattered to me.

And I met that one. The first mile – which felt like I-2o at five o’clock – was my slowest: 9:15. After that my three slowest were all miles when I walked through the aid stations and they averaged about 8:25. My last mile was 7:45. Also, only one person passed me, while I passed quite a few who were fading in the second half, which tells me I did a good job keeping a steady pace.

The time, however, bugs me. First, doubled, my time today would be exactly my “I’ll be thrilled” marathon time. But even if I can keep it close, I know I’ll lose some time in the second half. That would mean today’s run would equal a 3:40 or so for the marathon. I’d be “happy” with that, but not thrilled. Second, the time bugs me because two weeks ago, after a normal training week, I ran ten miles in 1:17. I felt strong doing it, too. That pace would have finished the half in five minutes less time than I did today. Most of the difference, I think, was due to the first mile and the walks.

Still, the slow first mile and the walks might end up saving time once I’m doing the whole 26.2. They cost time at first, yes. Long term, though, they should keep me fresher and thus faster. I’m hoping that over a full marathon the benefits will be more apparent. In other words, maybe doing those things will make the second half of the marathon the same as today’s. If that’s the case, not only will I be thrilled, but even today’s run will look great.

 

Is That Even Possible?

“Leesville man arrested third time for obscenity at Wal-Mart.”

Obscene at Wal-Mart?  Wouldn’t that be like disturbing the peace at an AC/DC concert? I mean, how can anything on aisle five be obscene when aisle six features this?

Not possible. No way anything could be out of place in that place.

The Most Complicated Decision Of My Entire Life

Not whether to keep blogging; it was relatively easy to choose to keep doing it. No, I’m talking about buying a new television.

I really don’t even want to buy one. We’ve been happily watching our twenty seven inch cathode ray tube Wal Mart television for the entire eight years of our marriage. And the wife watched it for seven years prior to that. It’s the one and only television we’ve ever owned and it lets me watch all the same stuff a new one would let me watch.

Granted a new one would provide a better picture. Still, this is an improvement of degree, not kind. I don’t need a new television to watch the Saints. I would need a new television if want to see the individual sweat beads on Drew Brees’s forehead during game. The question is whether I want to pay a grand for those sweat beads. The answer is no.

Such was my reasoning until the last few months when two things happened. One, our parish shared the Haynesville shale largess with its teachers. This means the value I place on the money it will take to buy a new television is no longer quite so high. Two, our old reliable television is starting to act funny. The picture sort of sways in and out at random times. To me, it looks like a sign of the end. This means I’m no longer paying for a slight improvement over a current television. Instead, I’m paying for television itself. In other words, I’m paying not just for Drew Brees’s sweat, but for Drew Brees himself.

Deciding to buy was the easy part. (Though the friends and family members who have spent years  mocking my old television and my reasoning might disagree). Choosing one is far worse. There’s just too much crap, and too many variations on all that crap. And when I think I’ve decided, I go to the store to see the one I’ve picked, and they all look the same. Then I go home confused, research some more, go look an another one, and find yet another I like. Then I go home confused . . . . .

I don’t know. I really like this Samsung LED LCD 1080p with 120hz refresh rate and all kinds of internets stuff on it. But then the experts all tell me that 1080 and LED and 120hz really don’t make much of a difference. So then I think I ought to save half the cost and go with a 720 model, especially because right now I can’t tell much of a difference in the pictures.

Then I compare it to when I first bought a road bike. Having never ridden one, I couldn’t tell much difference between good and excellent stuff. Now I can. Because I bought excellent stuff at the start, though, I have never had to upgrade my bike to meet my growing expectations. I think it might be the same here. Given what I’m watching now, all these new televisions are going to look great. What about after I’ve had one a few months? Will I regret buying a cheaper model? Or will it continue to please? Should I just buy the better one now?

I don’t know.

To make it even worse, we’ll probably mount it over the fire place in the family room. (That was another big debate). No big deal, right? Well, the current placement of the television makes our couch the prime viewing area. Mounting it will make the love seat the best spot. Problem: The love seat ain’t very comfy. We can’t move the couch because it won’t fit in that spot. That means we have to go buy a new love seat. For most people, probably not a major issue. I, however, spent more time shopping for our couch than I did for our house.

Maybe we can repair our current t.v.

Taking A Break

Maybe for good; if so, I’ll post an official goodbye. For now I need a week or so to make up my mind.

17% Of Americans Shouldn’t Have Kids

“17% of U.S. voters want their child to grow up to be a politician, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.”

Car salesman, stripper, the guy who cleans dead animals off the road: Any of those would be better than a politician.

It’s not so much the job itself; the idea of public service is noble enough. The problem is what kind of person wants to be a politician, and what kind of person you have to become to be a successful politician. I can’t think of any other career in which the practitioners are so uniformly small minded, self centered, arrogant, pompous and generally full of shit. But that’s what it takes to succeed.

So if one of my kids wanted to be the trash man, that’s fine. I could still enjoy spending time with them. But if they ran for office? My biggest fear would be that I’d lost my kid.

Do Symptoms Include Forgetting How To Spell?

According to KTBS, Centenary is hosting a “Demetia Lecture” on issues related to Alzheimer’s.