To All My Friends Who Are Bears Fans...Sorry?

To all my friends who like the Chicago Bears...sorry, but I have to write this down.

Your team went and got rid of Rex Grossman. Probably the smartest thing the organization could have ever done in their history. The boy, while great at the college level, just never matured to the point of being a great Pro quarterback.

The year that the Bears managed to get to the Superbowl was purely on the backs of a stellar defensive squad. In fact, during the NFC Championship game that year, it was the efforts of the defense that managed to win the game against the New Orleans Saints. And it wasn't enough to win the SuperBowl. The only thing consistent about Grossman's playing was its inconsistency. One half, or one game he'd be great, and then as quickly as the next game he'd put on one of the most mediocre performances ever.

Now you have Jay Cutler. The Green Bay defense hassled him all the first half and he threw 3 interceptions, and they only scored a measly safety for 2 points, thanks to their stellar defensive efforts. Then, in the 2nd half, he showed more poise, completing more passes and avoiding turnovers. He managed to throw a touchdown pass to Devin Hester to make it a competitive game. Brian Urlacher and a couple other defensemen were out of the game due to injuries at this point, and Green Bay's Aaron Rogers took full advantage of this, running a slightly smoother offense and allowing them to win the game. Green Bay's defense kept up and managed to cause Cutler to go back to his uncertainty in the first half mode.

Now, many of you know I'm an avid 49ers fan. And it's been a few years since I've really been able to follow football with my work schedule. so you're asking yourself, "how in the world could Mookie even know what the heck he's talking about?" A- I'm a football nut, who knows a lot about the sport, and B- its mostly common sense.

We 49er fans were spoiled with the combination of Joe Montana and Steve Young over the years. Two of the leagues most prolific quarterbacks over the history of the NFL. And since Steve Young's departure, we have had a litany of QB's come and go, and none of them were really worth a damn. We kept bringing in promising defensive backs, who by the time we trained them up to a level considered more than adequate, we'd trade them to teams who would then beat us with great secondary players we'd developed for them. It's pretty bad to go from being a football dynasty to the farm team for the league we have been for almost a decade now. Part of it was coaching. Most coaches came to San Francisco thinking they could ride the wave of greatness, only to lose a lot of the old team members wo helped make the 49ers a great team. And those coaches weren't good enough to produce the same greatness out of a bunch of 'nobodies.' Luckily for us, Mike Singletary, the legendary Bears defensive player from the 80s is our new coach. He is a no nonsense, high caliber personality when it comes to performing in games and his expectations of players. He isn't going to put up with prima donnas, and allow that kind of drama to take away from our efforts to field a competitive team, so hopefully, our win over the defending NFC Champs, the Arizona Cardinals, will be a sign of whats to come. Albeit, we'd like more than 30 yards rushing per game out of Frank Gore.

So now, the Bears, while they basically have the defense down pretty well, really need to learn to put together an offense to boot. And that starts with the quarterback. Trading for QB's who came from teams with an odd assortment of palymakers to help him, isn't going to be the answer. Otherwise, you'll just end up seeing the repeat of Rex Grossman, over and over and over.

Which brings me to Bret Favre (I pronounce it FAV-RAY because that's how its spelled dammit!) Favre is a great quarterback, no doubt about it. All this retiring and unretiring has dominated the sports news the past couple of years. And it really is tiring to listen too. I've never liked Favre, and part of that is that his Packers kept beating up my 49ers, and I've never been a Packers fan anyways (I lump this hatred as being equal to that of my hatred for the Dallas Cowboys- is there a rule that both can lose the game when playing each other?). The one thing Bret had to add to his great performances were playmakers for running backs and receivers. And he has good leadership qualities about him, to help them out in return. He will be a Hall of Famer, no doubt about it. When he went to the Jets, though, their offense was pretty much all about Favre. His supporting cast wasn't strong enough to get him anywhere significant.
Now he is with the Vikings. They looked okay on Sunday. Running back Adrian Peterson was clearly the star of that game however, and made Favre's efforts and leadership seem that more imposing. It could be that Favre has added his experience to improve the Vikings, or the skill of enough Viking players that will add to Favre's status. Either way, they should have a decent team. Far better than the Bears season is looking, if Week 1 was any indicator. The NFC North Division will be between Green Bay and Minnesota, with the Bears and Lions competing for 3rd place in the division.

A bit on Announcers

I think that John Madden, ever in love with Bret Favre, should be forced to unretire himself since Favre did. Their careers with the football world should (if they weren't to a degree already) be inextricably linked. That way we can here drooling commentary from Madden, over Favre's play, abilities, talents, liekability, etc. Also, more teleprompter drawings accompanying "BOOM, and BAM" (John Madden is the audio equivalent of the old Batman flare words), and other exclamation being used while pointing out generally obvious things to anyone who actually knows anything about football.

And if he wasn't so old, and set in his ways, I'd love to see Mr. Whoa Nellie himself, Keith Jackson, back on the announcing scoop. In my mind he is the best sports commentator ever. Not too much chit-chat during the lulls of the game, and he had a way of really ratcheting up the history and importance of certain games, venues, rivalries, along with the right amount of excitement when necessary. He is truly missed by the old school true fans of sports, not unlike myself. His style is a lost art. He coined University of Michigan's stadium "The Big House", and most viewers of college football knew that if Keith Jackson was announcing the game, it was the big game for that week. You know, back when all the network television stations actually showed you games from all around the country. Then Cable stations stole Americans right to watch all those football games and left them with dumb games like Notre Dame Vs anybody. Ahh, the era of good days gone by...kind of like the Bears Football program.

Camping in the heart of Bear Country

Well, for your entertainment, you lucky few who got in on the ground floor of this blog....HEre I am, decked out in high fashion with Doggles. Yes, I said Doggles...when your dog rides on the back of your 4 wheeler, and he needs to keep all that dust and dirt out of his eyes, turn to Doggles, the optimum product for Canine recreation optical protection. With state of the art plastic lenses, some straps and a few other things made from aritificial materials, how can you go wrong? Doggles....available where ever they are sold. And now, back to Bob Barker with a message about spaying and neutering your pets...

Jay's mom and stepdad came out to the campsite for supper, along with a couple other friends of theirs. Oh yes...I was surrounded by America loving hatemongers. It really was such a horrible experience, having to surrounded by essentially like minded people. And then there was Jay's mom, Linda. Oh yes, the woman who was my 2nd mom, and had tanned my hide on more than just one occasion after getting caught messing up with her boys. (I swear, trouble found us and wouldn't leave us alone..but did SHE believe us...noooooo, its always, "you boy's are gonna knock this stuff off RIGHT now"...suuuure mom! we'll get right on that.) Besides my parents, Jay's parents also suffered from enjoying child abuse just a bit too much. Clearly we were innocent victims of their mental illness. Didn't clean your room... beating. Peed on your little brother or sister for fun and then got ratted out...beating. Ratted out little brother for peeing on you...called a tattle tale, and then beaten. Didn't eat all the stuff on your plate, or skipped the 'nasty stuff' to get to dessert...beating. Oh YES, dear Mama Linda apparently being a grandmother cures that abusive nature.
You see, Linda was sitting across the table from Buggy during supper that night. I noticed conspiracy goings-on from there section of our camp (all good hatemongers develop the ability to see conspiracies at every turn you know). I couldnt figure it out, but there was a long time between Buggy starting his hot dog and finishing it. I clearly spelled it out for him that he ate the HotDog, then Fran's famous pork and beans (now made without gas!), and then he could have the chips on his plate. Linda was looking pretty suspicious and guilty everytime I looked over at her. I didn't know what was going on, but something was definitely going on. LAter on, with my super detective skills (also read lucky happenstance), Linda confessed to the crime of feeding Cheetos to Buggy under the table. It really was almost hypocritic treason. This was the same lady who threatened no dessert if we didnt finish our plates, and here she is, 20some years later feeding snack food to my youngest, on demand. I really couldn't believe this, and as I instructed Buggy as to the nature of getting his food eaten, Linda looks right at me and tells me to stay out of it. WHAAAAAT? Just as I felt I was losing the parental battle of wills to the child and his surrogate grandmother, a hero comes to my rescue. Chad, Linda's husband immediately looked Linda dead int he eyes and says "exactly". He had told her to follow her own advice and did so without coming off overbearing or nasty about it. But the message was clear. When in the outdoors, MEN run this world! Thanks Chad!



And the rest of these are views from our camping area. Pretty nice area around Deer Creek. But dont let that fool you...we were clearly warned that we were in the heart of bear country, and were reminded of that by the big metal box in the middle of our campsite that was specifically for placing our stuff into for protection from any bears that might be dumb enough to wander into our campsite. Not that it matters, WE'd just wake up Josh and Buggy, and send them out armed with sticks and rocks to teach that dumb bear a lesson. If that didn't work, well, us adults would clearly have a head start on the kids...(I'M JUST KIDDING...now I know I'll be getting a phone call from my mother telling me just how 'not funny' that is..oh well).

You'll see, being rich elitists like we are, we got the mansion of all tents....yep, plenty of room, including a 'closet' and a little connected entry mat....I thought about taking some paint and painting "Welcome" on it, but then I realized I had a mental lapse in how the social order of things go, and that I hate people, especially those in the lower socio-economic levels, like my buddy Jay, who could only afford this little dinky tent, emblazoned with Hillary's political propoganda. But, I still associate with him, after all, he did save my life back in the Great Ravine Wars, so he squeezes through. Other than that, only rich country clubbers fit into my social circle. And of course even they don't get to just drop in unannounced. They have to call my secretary and schedule an appointment prior to even thinking about coming over. That includes during emergencies as well. Hell, I make my wife schedule her personal time with me, thats how important I am!


Now, to assure my manliness, let me tell you what happened that night. I was awoken my my keen sense of manliness which told me that I had to pee, and doing so inside the tent was probably not the best way to go. I may have come out to Wyoming to poke a bear, but irritating a wife by peeing on her is probably going to bring about a much worse fate. No matter how manly a guy is, this is a stupid idea, and any false sense of manliness would be exposed So I unzipped the entry and proceeded outside. WE had already been pestered by this random cat who spent most of the night yowling all over the place, looking for someone to pay attention to him or her. However, as I was outside watering a couple plants, I heard no cat, but many sticks snapping. My mind was messing with me hardcore. Had a bear come down out of the hills to see what's going to be his late night snack? I spent time divided convincing myself it was nothing, and wondering if I wasn't an idiot for dismissing the posssibility of a bear coming up behind me. Then the oddest thought came to my head. I have the canister of Bear Mace tucked under one arm while doing my business. Now, as any guy will attest, once we start, we like to finish uninterrupted. Cutting off the stream can be painful and is to be avoided at all costs. But what if a bear did show up behind me. Would I sacrifice my sense of relief watering-wise and turn on this bear with the mace? Would I use just one hand to mace the bear while finishing my business? Or would I turn around, drop the mace can and just pee on the bear? And would either of these options workout for the best?

Sure this seems like an awful lot of thinking to have been performed while merely taking a leak, but I assure you, I had been hydrating myself pretty well as of late. So, now that you have clear visions of me urinating while wearing Doggles, have a GREAT DAY!

Visit to Yellowstone

Here you will fidn the most modern of abodes where we spent the night during our entire trip, our friend Naomi's place. Her hubby, my buddy Jay also gets the privilege of living here. I'd say he definitely got the good end of the deal here...a beautiful wife and a nice place she allows him to stay in!! They were gracious enough to open up their house to us while we were in the area for a few days, and take us everywhere. Talk about good gas mileage. Sitting in the driveway for 4 days really makes the travel cheap! When we weren't out exploring, we played a new game to me called Cardbles (at least I think that's how you spell it). The first night, Jed and I thought we were pretty cool, defeating our wive's soundly. Our last night there, the wive's returned the favor. I'm pretty sure they cheated, as they took our color of marbles this time around, as well as other un-provable ways to cheat. So we stand at 2 wins and 2 losses. Now I have to go back so we can hash this out and find a clear victor.

Here you will find that the normally wide awake and on the go Buggy even found that 6am can be just a bit to early sometimes. Apparently full days of hiking and climbing on rocks to throw stones off took its toll on his body. His older brother on the otherhand, seemed rather ecstatic about being in the front seat of the truck with us men.

Well it took us about 12 hours of going all over Yellowstone, but it finally happened. While I was fully prepared to write a scathing letter to the Wyoming Board of Tourism and their role in hiding all the bears from me, we finally found one. Thanks to the keen eye of my buddy Jay, he spotted this grizzly about 100 yards up a wooded draw, digging in the ground for grubs. It was a dream come true for my vacation out here. As promised, I poked a bear! Not to be outdone, both my sons saddled up and rode the bears. SHOWOFFS!


Of course we saw Old Faithful. This was well before the "bear incident". At first we had to wait about an hour, then they started getting sketchy on the +/- ratio of when it might happen. Then it began, sputtered, and disappeared...repeatedly. Naomi looked over at me, and sympathetically apologized to me, as there had been no bears and now Old Faithful was appearing to be broken during my first ever visit. Clearly the State of Wyoming was conspiring against me. But, eventually Old Faithful erupted. I guess the valve release operator (come on, we all know the 'natural' process being so timely is one of many government funded conspiracies) took a little longer on his smoke break than initially anticipated. Maybe his buffalo burger was a bit undercooked and he was dealing with certain lower GI issues? I don't know for sure, but he finally cracked open the valve and we got to see the eruption.
We sawe a bunch of people parked alongside the road, and found out there were a couple elk hanging out underneath a couple trees on the hillside. My wife got a great picture of one of them here. They still have the felt on their antlers. Pretty cool. And colorful steampots are okay, but the smell....woof! You'll also see a picture of some buffalos roaming around some steampots on the opposite side of the river. Two things you wont see in this picture are somewhat amusing and disturbing at the same time. We had 3 buffalos downstream from us, and eventually they attempted to outflank us and trap us from escape to the truck, and keep us between them and the river. Buffalos, being about the size of a tank had apparently been doing some battlefield reading in their downtime. Rommel, you magnificent sonofabitch! I read your book!
And the other incident unphotoed of course was Buggy, who chucked a big rock into the stream. What he didn't realize was that 'big rock' was actually a nice pie left by the buffalo at an earlier time. YUCK!