Super Bowl But Not for Me

I'll make no excuses. There's just been no time to update the website lately.  In fact, there's no time right now.

There were so many things to get done in January, and none of them were accomplished.  There's still a car engine sitting out in the shop waiting to be fixed.  There's still numerous projects around the house waiting to be completed.  There's an incredible number of projects at work that need managing, and it's a struggle to keep up with them.

There's FIRST Robotics, which is entering the final two weeks of panic-time.  We have to finish our design and test it and then seal up the robot by the 19th.  And there's an incredible amount of work left to do.  Followed by a few weeks of competition (ick).

There's a pile of writing which was supposed to be done and submitted by the end of January.  A story a month is what I committed to, submitted.  But with all the things that have come up this past month, that schedule kind of slipped.  The story is only half-written.  And, so far, it's on the fifth draft with no end in sight.

The new job (I still think of it as "new" though it started way back in November) is stressing me out because there's so much to learn and so much to keep track of, and it still isn't one of those ideal jobs where my talents (??) are being applied in right measure, but it pays a lot better than straight engineering and, at this point, the money is more important than the satisfaction because there are kids to get through college.

The car thing is stressing me a bit, too, because there's no time to do anything about it; it feels like we're just slapping band-aids on things to keep the cars running, hoping they don't fall apart in the middle of winter, leaving us stranded.

There's a million other little things happening day to day that simply add to the feeling of being overwhelmed; hairballs from cats, broken windshield wipers, tousles with the kids over homework and dinner and chores, an inability to keep track of the priorities on all the little fix-it jobs around the house.

And let's not even get started on the finances.  I am the luckiest man in the world to have a woman like Cheryl who is willing to handle that aspect of our life.  And though things don't always go the way she'd like, she does such a superior job to the one I would do, I thank God every day for her.  If that was on my head along with all the other things, they'd have to carry me off in a padded paddy-wagon!

But it's tax season, and you know how stressful that can be.  I'll be glad when it's all over.

Like the Super Bowl.  Which I've been trying to ignore.


I've never been one to get into the spirit of national sports events, especially something as completely overblown as the Super Bowl. Even in the days of my youth when the Dallas Cowboys were "the team" and I had one of those bizarre electronic football games (the kind where the field vibrated and the players moved across the field following some random pattern set by the thin plastic feelers which extended from beneath them) and I spent hours and hours drawing up plays and dreaming the results in my head, the televised game meant nothing to me.

Playing it was the point.  Who'd want to sit around watching it?

We played it during recess at school.  We played it in our backyards after school.  We played it in the parks.  We played it in the streets.  We kicked, we threw, we caught passes, we ran, we blocked, we tackled.  It was so incredibly fun.

But watching it?  Could there possibly be anything more inane than that?

Well, yes, actually there is.  Pretending that you, as an observer, have anything to do with a particular team.

(Here I must define a caveat: those involved in high school sports, as boosters, sponsors, volunteers, parents, and (possibly) alumni are involved. You have a vested interest in the outcome of a game.  You have spent time and money supporting it.  You have an obvious connection.  Your obsession is justified.  Mostly.)

As an excuse to get together with friends and family, have fun, eat snacks, build the bonds of relationship, the televised game is a wonderful opportunity.   That doesn't bother me at all.

What bothers me is the people who talk about the game as if they are actually part of the one of the teams when they are obviously not. Who talk of the players as if they know them personally.  Who act as if the team's performance on the field has some effect on their lives.  As if they were
going to suffer physical or psychological trauma if their team doesn't win.
 My mind cannot comprehend this.

In truth, it infuriates me.  Because it puts a barrier between myself and most other men of my acquaintance. Especially at church.  The one place where there is the most pressure to develop strong relationships with other men in order to strengthen one another (as iron sharpens iron). The one place where it is most obvious that I'm not like them.

We had a Men's Seminar (although that's not what they call them nowadays) at the church just yesterday, and although there were other reasons I couldn't attend (i.e. FIRST Robotics), my strong inclination was to disregard it because most of the advertisements (posters, trailers, etc.) were aimed at men to whom sports is a major part of their lives.

Sometimes I'm having a wonderful conversation with one of the guys from church, talking about deep spiritual subjects and real life experiences, and someone walks by and casually makes a comment about some sports event or team -- and suddenly it's like the IQ level in the room drops to the floor.  Names, scores, stats, plays, gaffes all come tumbling out in a torrential rush of testosterone, and all hope for intelligent conversation vanishes.  Generally, I'll abandon them to their fate.  There's no point in competing with that.

Competition.  My antithesis. My opposite.  The one thing that will cause me to flee a room at top speed. I.  Don't. Compete.