I took the day off of work today. Just a small cold, nothing major, but enough that I didn’t feel like concentrating too hard today. I took and nap, and then Matt and I went to the Rushville courthouse to get married! Joking…I helped Matt drop off his passport application.

Knock on the proverbial wood…my ear has not been acting up all week. The other night I actually got a decent amount of sleep, for the first time in a week and a half.

The kids are all running in cross country meets now. Elsa didn’t run her best yesterday but Jack did great in Rushville. Emma is still behind her usual pace.

The NFL season has started. On a work call today the guys spent 10 minutes trash talking everyone’s team. I still don’t have a favorite NFL team and I doubt I ever will. I don’t care much for football except for the postseason, then I’m down to watch some games.

Ever since the Rams left St. Louis back in 2016 (the shit year) I haven’t followed football at all. Funny thing is that I listen to enough sports talk radio that I could carry on a good conversation with someone about football, while simultaneously not caring.

Growing up I didn’t root for the St. Louis football Cardinals because they were awful. I liked the Bears when they went and won the Super Bowl. I even had the 45 record of The Super Bowl shuffle. But then the Cardinals fled to Arizona and I didn’t follow football until the Rams moved from L.A. in 1995. They were terrible the first couple of years. But in 1999 they started winning every game. Trent Green, their stating QB, got injured and then a rando World Football League guy (and grocery store clerk) named Kurt Warner started and the rest was history, leading the Rams to win the Super Bowl in 2000.

This is such a great story that they made a movie out of it. It was also hard to continue being a lukewarm NFL fan after this, because what else could be better than this? This was the best NFL story and one of the best Super Bowls ever. I followed the team when they went to the SB again in 2001 but lost to the Patriots and some guy named Tom Brady. Then after that the dreaded owner (Stan Kroenke) let the team die on the vine. Attendance waned, and it was all but inevitable that the team would move back to L.A.

I’ve tried to find a team that I could root for again, but let’s see what the options are:

• Falcons, Ravens, Panthers, Lions, Texans, Colts, Raiders, Chargers, Vikings, Giants, Jets, Eagles, Titans, Commanders (really the Redskins, but don’t call them that out loud lol). – Pass on all of these.
• Arizona Cardinals – do I root for the team that used to be in St Louis. Nope.
• Buffalo Bills – here’s a good team and a good small market town that would love to see the Bills finally win the Super Bowl more than anything. I feel for this team/town, after losing four straight Super Bowls before. Four! Straight! WTF!
• Chicago Bears – eh, maybe. I would like to see them do well. Maybe I’ll bandwagon on this one.
• Cincinnati Bengals – This team could be a contender for my love. The Bengals owner was the only one to veto the Rams moving to L.A. He thought that the team should stay in St. Louis. What a good guy. Plus I already have Bengals gear by default (It’s the same logo as our high school).
• Cleveland Browns – Like Buffalo, another good city that deserves to have a good team. They’ve suffered enough.
• Dallas Cowboys – the Yankees of the NFL. Hard pass.
• Denver Broncos – I like the city of Denver and I like John Elway. Maybe I’ll root for them.
• Green Bay Packers – one of those teams that has fans everywhere. We’ll see how good they do now that the Rodgers era is over.
• Jacksonville Jaguars – owned by a guy that went to the U of I. Maybe I’ll start rooting for this team before they move to London lol.
• Kansas City Chiefs – I’d like to root for them but it’s bittersweet rooting for a Missouri team that’s not in St. Louis.
• Los Angeles Rams – I could root for them but they would have to get a new owner first.
• Miami Dolphins – When I was little I liked Dan Marino. I actually had a Dolphins jersey with his name and number on it. Who doesn’t like the Dolphins? And a great logo to boot.
• New England Patriots – a couple of cool logos, but pass
• New Orleans Saints – I had a fleur-de-lis shirt once, people thought I was a Saint’s fan. I just like the logo. Pass.
• Pittsburgh Steelers – maybe I could like this team. I like Pittsburgh. But they have enough fans already.
• San Francisco 49ers – I like Joe Montana. Could be an easy team to root for.
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers – This team was awful forever and then they weren’t for a while. But Tom Brady retired again.

If I really had to choose I’d go with the Seattle Seahawks. I like Seattle, Ted likes the Seahawks, I like the color scheme and the logo, I like Pete Carroll. My second choice would be the Dolphins.

On another note, I went to my uncle Jack’s (my dad’s brother) visitation on Wednesday. Mom and I ran over to Springfield that afternoon to see him. It was just his daugher, his grand-daughter and two of my cousins that showed up. I guess not many people show up for your funeral/visitation when you outlive everyone!

Jack was a great guy. I very very rarely saw my relatives from either side of my family, especially Jack. I don’t really remember meeting him until my dad had a stroke when I was in high school. Dad lay in the hospital bed, mostly sleeping due to the drugs they gave him. Jack showed up and I was amazed! He was like a bigger version of dad, like Super Dad. And he was so well versed in technology. I was frankly amazed that I was related to him. I could really relate to him (pun intended). He had the first digital camera I’d ever seen. I took one of those 3.25 inch floppy disks. He did all this computer and photoshop work, and even traced our genealogy back to ancestors in Holland. For everything dad didn’t know about technology, Jack did know.

When the wife was pregnant with our son we were picking out names. “Jack” was thrown around and I immediately latched onto it, because I have three Uncle Jack’s that have all left impression on my life. I’m glad that I took the kids to see this particular Uncle Jack a couple of years ago so they’ll at least have a small memory of him. He was a role model that I didn’t even know I needed at the time.