Michael Vick signs with the Philadelphia Eagles

Like most Eagles fans, I'm trying to sort this out in my head, so I thought I would put some thoughts down on paper. I welcome your feedback and opinions on this.

OK, so while I don't condone anything that Michael Vick did, he was prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for the crimes he committed. Vick served his time without incident and has done everything asked of him along the way.

I think we need to look at this as a football signing. From that standpoint, this could be great for the Eagles. Vick was a superstar talent when he last played in the NFL. It seems that Vick paid his dues, is remorseful for his actions, and is ready to return as a public figure.

The endorsement of Tony Dungy was a huge reason for me thinking this way. Dungy's reputation in the league is that of a man of God who treats every living creature as his equal. Not to mention he's an excellent football coach! I don't think that Dungy would put his reputation on the line for Michael Vick if he wasn't completely sure that Vick was reformed in some capacity.

Just a few thoughts of mine, and granted it's very early since this news broke. I'm anxious to hear your thoughts. For myself, 2 more things this weekend will continue to help form my opinion. 1) The Eagles press conference on Friday morning at 11. I hope they will talk about how they plan to use Vick on the field, and what support they will have for him off of it. 2) The 60 minutes interview on Sunday night with Vick and James Brown (The football analyst, not the Godfather of Soul).

I just want to reiterate that what Vick did to those dogs was a repulsive act and he deserved every bit of the punishment he received. But, the American legal system is there for a reason and with him serving the time he was given, does he deserve a 2nd chance? I'll leave that up to you.

A-Fraud

After watching Alex Rodriguez's press conference yesterday, I stopped feeling so bad for him and started getting mad.

10 days ago Rodriguez was mentioned in a Sports Illustrated story on steroids and was accused of using during the 2001-2003 seasons. The following Monday, he held an "interview" with Peter Gammons of ESPN and admitted to using some sort of Performance Enhancing Drug (PED). Gammons failed to push anything but basically let Rodriguez talk about his reasons for taking this PED the amount of pressure that he felt when signing the largest contract (at the time) that any MLB player had ever signed. He proceeded to talk about the reporter from SI, Selina Roberts, and how she "stalked" him and his family and that the Miami police had arrested her and forced her off of his property on multiple occasions. Rodriguez did what he wanted to do. He started pulling on the heartstrings of and Americans who had their hearts broken time and time again by their baseball heroes. He made Americans, myself included, start to wonder f the steroid era was ever going to end.

It will not end until MLB implements drug testing to the highest level - blood. Without testing blood, players can still use such drugs as HGH to enhance their level of play. How much do these drugs help? I don't think we'll ever have an answer to that.

Alex Rodriguez was supposed to be the savior of baseball. After Barry Bonds "broke" the career Homerun record, those who thought he cheated said "Don't worry! A-Rod is coming! He's going to break that record and leave no doubt as to who the true HR champ is!"

Now how are we supposed to feel?

After his initial chat with Gammons, more and more facts started coming out about Rodriguez's lies. Selena Roberts was never arrested on his property. He used a substance from 2001-2003 that he KNEW was illegal.

A-Rod died yesterday with his phony accusations and apologies. His "cousin" supposedly provided him with a PED called "Bole" which is sold over the counter in the Dominican Republic, but illegal in the United States......

Let me repeat that.

but illegal in the United States......

Wouldn't that tip you off?

A-Rod is no more. A-Rod was the savior of baseball. He was going to pull us out of the dark days of the steroid era and into a new time of clean baseball. All that remains is a mere shell of the "greatest player who ever played the game."

A-Fraud - Alex Rodriguez - 3rd basemen for the New York Yankees

MIKE ARENA thinks facebook is taking over the universe.

Facebook is a juggernaut. Every time I jump on this behemoth they try and pass off as a "laptop," Facebook is usually my primary destination. It is a central point for me to catch up with old friends from high school and college AND see who has recently been recruited as a pirate or a vampire. It is an easy way to make people aware of fundraisers the band is doing or make them aware of my 25 greatest random moments (even if I haven't filled out that survey yet).

Facebook is slowly making any and all social interaction mute. There is no need for formal emails or phone calls, just post on my wall! Thinking about going to the bar and hanging out? Don't bother, you can buy me a drink on here! When my birthday rolls around it can really help you out. You don't have to go buy a card - just post a friendly "happy bday" on my wall. Now you don't have to interact with the person at the card shop or grocery store. PLUS you can buy me a present through Facebook. This saves you from any interaction with the clerk at whatever store you were going to buy me something from!

This is just one frightening example as to how Facebook is taking over the universe. I'm on board and if you're reading this, you probably are too. The succubus that is Facebook continues to grow with every friend request. But don't worry people. In a world of text messaging and email there always has to be another level. What could possibly be the next tier of descent for our society? Only time will tell.... unless someone has already posted that update! I better go check...

Update to end all updates!

Wow - this got away from me a bit! I haven't had a good update since February....2008! A lot has happened over the last year and some has been pretty significant.

In April of last year we were living in Malvern with Chia and Meaghan. On April fools day - of all days - we hear yelling outside the apt, but figure it was just the usual loud kids that come through there. Then a girl comes up on our porch yelling that there's a fire in our building and to get out. Heather gets up and looks out and sees flames coming from the 3rd story window and freaks out. She runs off to find the cat who can be any number of places and bangs on Meaghan's door to get her out. I poke my head out the window, kind of confused and not really convinced of what is going on (keep in mind it was April Fools Day and things were happening much faster than I am describing them). Then I saw the window above my head blow out and the flames shooting out. That was convincing. Heather got the cat out and we put her in one of the cars then tried to get the rest of the people out of our building. There was no master alarm for the whole building so most people had no clue what was going on. Over the next couple of hours we watched as our apartment building burn. The fire fighters did a great job as soon as they got there and contained the fire to our half of the building. The 3rd floor was lost, but the 2nd had mostly water and smoke damage and our floor was only water damage. LOTS of water, but we still got really lucky. After the fire, we moved into my parent's for a couple of weeks and then moved into our new apartment in Exton where we currently reside.

In May we got married! May 24th was a pretty sweet day! Not a whole lot to describe, but the ceremony and reception were at Downingtown Country Club in Downingtown, PA. We had an outdoor ceremony, which was amazing and presided(?) over by Heather's family's pastor Rev. Iski. It was really cool to have someone who knew us and our family so well perform the ceremony and make it so personal. It was a great day with family and friends followed by a crazy night of drinking and dancing and Heather's grandfather drinking a bottle of Jack. Somehow his being ill later on was blamed on the spinach salad... suspect at best... After the wedding it was off to Ft Meyers, Florida for the week. That was awesome! A week of hanging on the beach sipping cold drinks and enjoying doing absolutely nothing.

On the marching band front - Ruch retired at the end of the school year and was succeeded by Lorraine Huddy, an East alumni and former classmate! This season was very different for all of us not having him around to guide us through, but it was a good experience. The kids responded really well to Huddy and her ideas and approach. We quickly put together a show that we felt would be competitive and headed into the season. I got the opportunity to write the show for us this year which was a lot of fun. Despite it being my first competitive show, I think it ended up going well. We finished in 6th place at finals out of the 18ish bands in our division. It was just nice not to finish last and top 6 is always respectable. Now we're just getting going on indoor percussion/guard season and have our first show tomorrow at Archbishop Wood. Robart decided that it was time for him to focus on other things and we brought in Pierson from Kingsway to help us out with the indoor season. So far so good and its been great to work with him finally!

Work is going well. I am still with Music and Arts and still in NJ. Still hating the commute every day, but what can you do? It's a job and in this economy its hard to complain about that.

Back on the political front - Barack Obama became President of the United States! If you've read this before, you know that I was a supporter of Obama and am excited/optimistic about his plans for the country. You never know how it will shake out (and if you ask my Dad we're heading into the fires of Hell) but good luck to all of us over the next couple of years. We're not out of the woods yet.

OH! And the Phillies won the WORLD SERIES!!! It was one of the most memorable events of the year (after the wedding of course Heather) and has only gotten more exciting as time has gone on. A group of us went into Philly for the parade and ceremony on the Friday after they won and had a great time with a million or two of our closest friends.

I think that's about it for this year. If I forgot something , you'll have to let me know. Hopefully I'll blog more often. I really do enjoy it. We'll see.

The Phillies are STILL world champions!

Bluecoats

I just had to throw this out there - yes that is "Rocky"

Amazing PTI Moment

When Will Chris Berman Learn?

Chris Berman strikes again

STOP TALKING WHEN YOU ARE IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA!!!!!