NYTO trip

"New York- TOronto trip" just in case you were wondering....

Last week, Michelle and I ventured up to New York since she had never been there.  We stayed in North Bergen, New Jersey, which turned out to be a pretty neat place!  New York is it's own world.  Michelle and I marched through Manhattan in the 100 degree heat that followed us up there. I wanted to go to Wall Street but Michelle said "I don't know how you will react in the presence of such evil.", so we vectored into Tribeca.  After surveying NYU and Columbia, we went west across the state of New York.  I had no idea that Western New York was so big!  After spending the night in Buffalo, where my Penguins shirt attracted a lot of attention, we crossed into Canada with no problem and headed straight for Toronto. 

Toronto has a lot of slums.

I was shocked.  I don't remember seeing so many the last time I was there.  We went to Greektown, ate some gyros and Hamilton was our next stop.

Hamilton never looked good but now it looks like Detroit. 

We went to Ivor Wynn Stadium where I played briefly as a Tiger-Cat and walked into and out of the Canadian Football League Hall of Fame without paying a dime.....no one was there to collect the admission fee, so.....there.  We drove around McMaster University and headed back to the US  border...and waited in line for nearly three hours.

When we got to the border, the patrolman basically waved us through and it was back across Western New York but on a more southern trajectory.  We spent the night in Towanda, PA and in the morning we saw lots of small, creepy little towns that looked like they belonged in an M.Night Shamalian movie.  Western Maryland is isolated and hilly and a good place to disappear in and we were in Virginia before we knew it---and saw the worst traffic jam ever on I-95.  We got out the map, and found VA-1 running parallel to it and off we went leaving all of that behind.  Into NC and after navigating through a thunderstorm, we were home.

The cats demanded to know where we had been all week but after some cold cuts, all seems forgiven...Michelle all ready wants to go back to New York and so do I. 

Did not get a chance to get on that subway!

In Memorial for Colorado victims...

Making friends and influencing people...

Today the US Secretary of State's motorcade was pelted with shoes and tomatoes in Cairo.  Hillary Clinton must of been cringing in the back seat because it is hard to believe that the Arab Spring has led to a Moslem Brotherhood state that takes $1.3 billion in US aid but clearly hates Americans.  The Libyan version of the Taliban is running things there and fortunatley Tunisa has always kept to itself.  Only in the Middle East can one try to help an turn things turn from bad to worse.....Of course, lecturing someone on how to run their country does not help relations.  If it makes anyone feel better, the Romans, Byzantines, Turks, and a number of Moslem caliphates have had the same problem.

The story for your consideration from Yahoo:

http://news.yahoo.com/clinton-talks-democracy-head-egypt-army-142600571.html

The future of football

Everyone who knows me knows I love football.  But I am worried about the future of the game.  The NFL is going to face a slew of lawsuits involving concussions over the years.  The best defense the league will have is something along the lines of "we were working with the knowledge and equipment of that time."  Seems true enough but it appears commissoner Roger Goodell, not that well liked by anyone apparently, appears to be hoping the issue disapears. 

It won't.

The wholesale change in the rules in the middle of the 2010 season indicates that the NFL knows something more about concussions and helmets that it says it does but that is another matter, perhaps involving a judge and jury.

The real problem is steriods and performance enhancing drugs.

Human beings are not supposed to be 350+ pounds.

This is what is causing injuries so catastrophic that many players won't let their sons play the game.

The answer is to not only ban steroids but actually enforce the ban.

Declare an amnesty for this year.  Have the players declare, freely and without penalty, what they have been taking and give them a year to clean themselves up.  Next year, enforce the rules with weekly drug tests and start handing out suspensions without pay and watch what happens.

Is this painful?  Certainly but it is better that what is coming down the pike.  If Roger Goodell and the NFL wants to stick its head in the sand, they are going to get hit by a truck.  It does not have to be that way.

Meanwhile, there might be more rule changes coming and I predict the NFL is going to look a lot like the CFL in a few years.  Would that be such a bad thing?

At least the players in those games are going to be able to remember their names the next day...

Happy Canada Day!

Happy 145th Birthday, Canada!