Day 222

Weird, am I still doing this at post 222? Crazy. Its such a routine now on Mondays and Thursdays. Well anyways, I continue to look out my window at a ground full of snow. Gotta love those C-Town winters. Growing up here, you are raised to think snow is no big deal. Other cities shut down, but we know how to plow here. But I digress. I hope you all watched the magnificent Patriots/Colts AFC Championship game last night. What a second half. You know when The Patriots got the ball back with a minute to go and two timeouts left, you thought they were going to go down and rip out the Colts heart once again. Belichick and Brady have owned the Colts for years. But like MJ's Bulls with the Pistons Bad Boys, and those same Pistons with Larry Bird's Celtics, the Colts finally got passed their nemesis. You have to feel good for Peyton Manning. The Colts QB will no longer have to be dogged by the question of never getting to the big game. They were down 21-3 early in the second quarter and had zero momentum. But Manning continued to persevere and drove the Colts down the field several times to tie and eventually win the game. There is probably no more respectful and deserving guy in all of football than Manning. Congrats to him and to coach Tony Dungy who like Manning, is well respected and liked by everyone. A year after losing his son to suicide a week before the playoffs, he has gotten passed all of it and is now playing for the Lombardi Trophy.

The Colts will meet the Chicago Bears in the Super Bowl in Miami two weeks from yesterday. While I am not a Bears hater really, I was clearly rooting for the Saints. After that game, I was in full bitterman mode. I was talking to Ags about how the Bears may be the worst Super Bowl team i've ever seen, how can Rex Grossman lead a team into the Super Bowl, they get all the lucky breaks, etc. He brought me back to reality. I am just a bitter Cleveland sports fan who sometimes cannot see the forest for the trees. You know what else I am? Jealous. Wouldn't it have been nice to grow up in Chicago? A city that had the 85 Bears, perhaps the greatest defensive team of all time who won a Super Bowl 46-10. That same year, the Browns blew an 18 point halftime lead in the divisional playoffs to Miami in a 24-21 loss. Chicago was also lucky enough to be graced with the greatest athlete that has ever lived to play in their city. I'm of course speaking of Michael Jordan. MJ came along during my formidable growing up loving sports years. MJ's Bulls won six titles in 8 years. My Cavaliers had their best teams ever during the MJ era. In fact, I was there for MJ's first defining moment "The Shot," that eliminated the Cavs in the 89. Those same Bulls knocked the Cavs out of the playoffs three different times on their way to titles. Then you have the White Sox who two years ago came out of nowhere to lead the pack for most of the season in the AL Central. Then they began to fade and who was the hottest team in baseball? The Tribe. Guess what happened. With a week left, all the Tribe had to do was go 3-4 and they would have made the playoffs. Of course, our bats went silent, the White Sox swept us to close the season out, the Tribe missed the playoffs by one game and the Sox took that momentum into October and won the World Series. So scorecard since 1985: Chicago 8 Cleveland 0. I think my friends there take it for granted. You can never know what its like to be in our shoes. When the Cubs choked a few years ago, I didn't feel bad for their fans one bit - you had MJ. Saturday night, we were out with our friends the Lurie's. Steve and I were talking about his son and said "have you ever thought we should just raise our sons to be Yankee fans?" My response to that was "of course not. Our children must suffer the same way we have suffered. Its on our blood as Clevelanders." As Ags said to me yesterday "Its a right of passage - passed down from generation to generation."

So you are going to hear for the next two weeks how for the first time in history, two African-American coaches will be facing each other in the Super Bowl. Both are great guys and well respected by their peers and the media. They also happen to be best friends who essentially cut their teeth coaching together in Tampa Bay. So whom do you root for? I would say Indy for Peyton Manning, but all of that changed in a few short moments after the Colts accepted the AFC championship trophy. Colts Owner Robert Irsay in front of 60,000 fans said "none of this would be possible without the lord, so we must praise him!" Then Tony Dungy "The Lord gave us the strength to get this done and without him, we couldn't have done so." They lost me right there - Lets Go Bears.

In related story, my man Mark P had quite the Sunday. Yesterday was his niece's 6th b-day party. Yes, the same day as the NFC title game in the same city. The party was held at Fuddruckers which DOES NOT have TV's. His brother in law and father were furious and his sister wouldn't change the party. He watched the first 3 quarters at his sister's house and went to the party. I have to say that I was very disappointed I'm him for going to the party before the game was over. But according to his mom "Its just a game." He was texting me for info and by the time he left, the game was a blowout, but that doesn't change the fact that he had to go to this party. Ok, so my priorities are way out of whack when it comes to sports sometimes, but his sister could have given him a hall pass on this one right? Would it have killed her to have him show up a little late? P is a better man than I am. I probably wouldn't even have shown at all.

Speaking of P, today is his 31st birthday. The photo above makes me laugh everytime I look at it. It was taken last February in Lawrence at Sean's bachelor party. P is the best. I don't know many people who make me laugh more. The best part about it is we were randoms roommates when I first moved to Chicago and we hit it off pretty right away. The kid is as legit as they come. Happy Birthday, P.

I am glad to report that after a pretty horrific car accident my cousin Debbie and two of her kids, Mitch and Emma, are now ok and recovering at home after their car was hit head-on by a pickup truck and then a telephone pole Saturday. Mitch walked away mostly unscathed, though the airbag went off in his face, but poor Debbie has two broken hands and cannot do anything. Emma has a broken arm, sore neck and stomach. They toughed it out though and are now at home. Really makes you think of how fragile we really all are. This could happen to any of us while driving. The truck was making a turn and skid on some ice and rammed right into them. I'm just glad everyone is ok for the most part.

I failed to mention this last Thursday, but our condo was finally closed. I can now talk about it since the money (which was extremely welcomed by the way) is now in the bank. I cannot tell you how thrilled we are to be rid of the double mortgage. We burned money of bills, assessments, and mortgages for 5 full months without living there. It was pretty depressing, but the bottom line is that we are out. If you know of anyone who is in need of a realtor in Chicago, my guy Phil Byers is a gem. Also, I have to thank Gregg who took care of everything as my lawyer. We couldn't have done it without either of these two.

Song of the Day: "En Focus" by De La Soul