The Inaugural Post

Good morning! So, I’m not sure how it came to be, but through a series of sexual promises and terrifying threats, I agreed to start up a blog. Let it be clear that I’m sort of anti-blog, so I’m not sure how long or how successful this will be, but here we go. While discussing the prospects of this project this morning, a friend made a really good point, informing me, “please don’t. No one cares what you think.” Well shit, I never thought of it that way. What if the angry little elf has a point? So, I decided I needed a purpose and direction in this little endeavor beyond filling the world with my wisdom. What can I offer my friends (since inevitably they’ll be the only ones reading this) that would help make their day better? After much debate, I could only think of one thing that I’m really exceptionally good at that I would feel comfortable passing on to the world – Procrastination! I am an absolutely masterful procrastinator, and in a new job where I have very little to do but need to appear busy from time to time, I’ve really started to finely tune these skills.


So there you have it – my raison d’etre for this little project. When you’re bored at work and need to kill a few minutes, you know damn right well that you’re gonna check this blog and see what I’m thinking. Whether you want to or not. You might even kill a few more minutes chiming in and giving your two cents on whatever the topic of the day is (except for you Zales – no one cares what you think). And it gives me something else to do that isn’t “real” work, thus making me look busy. Everyone wins!


Today’s Musing: Recent Cracked Out Athletes


Perusing ESPN.com today, I stumbled across three different stories about pro athletes in trouble because of drugs. I guess we’ve time-warped back to the Cowboys of the 90s or the 80s NBA and nobody told me. But anyway, since I DO work for Counter Drug, I figured this would be a nice jump off topic. Addressing these in order of complete ridiculousness…


1. Cocaine ban over, Richard Gasquet cleared to resume playing tennis – The #32 ranked Gasquet was suspended for the past 2.5 months for testing positive for cocaine. His defense was that he went to a night club in Canada after a tournament, made out with some random girl….and her coke somehow got into his system. Sounds like an absolutely ridiculous defense to me – however, tennis’s governing body apparently disagreed! They said that while the club was "notoriously associated with use of illegal recreational drugs including cocaine," the amount of coke found in his system was small enough to corroborate the likelihood of his story. Could you imagine being the defense lawyer going into the trial with that defense and winning? I probably would have offered my client my condolences before I realized that the verdict was actually a positive one. Ridiculous. Moral of the story: When you make an obscene amount of money to play a game, if you’re a reputable dude, don’t go to shady places! No good will come of it. Just ask Pacman Jones…


2. Former NFL Running back Travis Henry gets 3 years for being involved with a cocaine ring – Now, this may not seem too ridiculous until you learn why he got involved in said ring to begin with. Henry was a promising running back before he got released for “drug use and perceived lack of commitment.” Ok…nothing out of the ordinary there. But here’s where the unintentional comedy just flies off the charts. Being your typical inner-city kid turned pro athlete, Henry didn’t take care of his money, and when he lost his job he found that he couldn’t keep up with his child support payments. For nine kids. From nine different women. Well what better way to get back on your feet then to invest what little money you have left into a cocaine ring? I mean…with the struggling economy and all that….wow. His message after getting his sentence was, "If given the chance, I want to tell kids around the world that using drugs and abusing drugs isn't the way." With Henry’s history, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had to travel the world simply to tell his OWN kids that drugs aren’t the way. Moral of the story: wrap it up, stupid!


3. Jeremy Mayfield tests positive for meth….again! - Now, just to be clear, I dislike NASCAR. Watching cars drive around in a circle for hours in hopes of possibly seeing a crash is just not entertaining to me. However, I do appreciate the skill involved in driving 6752 mph around a track while trying to pass other people and not die. What I DON’T understand is why somebody would think it would be a good idea to take meth at any point during a career which requires extreme levels of coordination and reaction time. Drugabuse.gov writes, “Chronic methamphetamine abusers (Mayfield’s step mother says he’s been using at least since the mid 90’s) can also display a number of psychotic features, including paranoia, visual and auditory hallucinations, and delusions (for example, the sensation of insects crawling under the skin).” Oh yeah…those are problems I want to have while driving a race car at top speed. OK, so let’s play devil’s advocate and acknowledge that maybe the drug’s fun and, excuse Mayfield for indulging every once in a while. Questionable logic due to his profession? Sure. But we’re all human and we have trouble resisting our vices. But just DAYS after a court decided he could go back to racing because the evidence against him in the first case was indecisive – he tests positive again! Man, that must have been one hell of a party to celebrate the court’s decision. Moral of the story: Jeremy, you’re an idiot. Plain and simple. I hope there are no little Mayfields running around to continue the gene-pool.




I hope you’ve enjoyed the first post. Sorry it’s 1000 words – future posts should be shorter, but let’s be honest…if I have a rant, I’m just going to keep on rolling. I will not be censored!


Now get back to work, crazy.