A couple more minutes to brag, please

A 62-year-old man in Michigan bowled a 300 game and then dropped dead of a heart attack.
"He looked fine, reached across the table and gave me a high-five and he fell over," a friend said.
His friends say they think the pressure of a perfect game was too much for his heart.
I think it's cliche to say "he died doing what he loved" especially when someone is talking about a shark attack victim. But isn't this the ideal way to go?

Don't spoil it for me

Yes, my columns have been delinquent in the Blade between babies (child birth) and babies (election season). Hope you can catch up here.
Behold the power to pause live television.
If you ever need a God-complex, stop Katie Couric in mid-sentence.
For many years, television controlled us. Got to be home to see “I Love Lucy,” need to wait all summer to find out who shot J.R. or can’t go to the bathroom until this four-overtime playoff football game is over.
The ability to record television shows with a VCR cut into television’s power somewhat. But there was still a sense that we needed to ask our television for permission to leave the house, sort of like a 16-year-old girl asking her parents if she could go on a date.
But, with the advent of being able to pause live television via a digital video recorder, we gained supremacy over our televisions. If we want the people on CSI to stop solving a crime while we take out the trash, then they have no choice.
This ability is great for someone with a life full of starts and stops like myself. With two young children and a wife who normally finds me most valuable during the third period of a pivotal hockey game, I need to be able to take breaks at the drop of a hat.
And I have. Many times. This is the problem. I’m way behind.
“How much?” you ask.
Try six months, 20 days and 14 hours. That puts me in early March. Clearly it creates social problems for me. I have to cover my ears every time somebody talks about the election. After all, in my world, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are still slugging it out even after Super Tuesday. People look at me weird when I suggest New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer might find himself on a presidential party ticket in 2012.
Business transactions are awkward. My stockbroker laughed me out of his office the other day when I told him “The heck with diversification, let’s put all my money in Lehman Bros.”
I’m still coming to grips with Brett Favre retiring from football. I just wish him luck with finding a new career.
The only thing that keeps me going is what is still ahead.
• The Avalanche should be close to clinching the Stanley Cup by Christmas. Bringing back Peter Forsberg was genius.
• Don’t bother me next March. First, it’s the Bejing Olympic,s and then we’ll see how Denver handles the Democratic National Convention. Yep, I should know who the next president is by next summer.
• Either way, it will be quite an inauguration come August.
I have only one request, Keep the queso at the Super Bowl party warm. I might be a bit late.

I've got a better idea

Oh, I'm so hard on those Denver TV news stations and those pretty people they call reporters but this is funny. CBS-4 decided it would be great to actually have an Aurora couple (undecided on their votes for the local U.S. Senate Race) have Mark Udall and Bob Schaffer over for dinner. The only thing CBS-4 could have done to make this more entertaining was have them there at the same time and made it crab night. Could you imagine those two jousting with their little crab pliers. Schaffer showed up with flowers and Udall showed up in a McCain Halloween mask (I'm just kidding).
It's a terrific idea and with both these candidates having spent millions on nasty advertising, I'm sure they're starved. Can you imagine Udall complaining that the baked potato is tough (I'm just kidding).
But if any candidates are coming to my house to sway me, they'd better be ready to change some diapers, mow the lawn and pay my energy bill.

You're done here, Obama

Apparently, Barack Obama made a surprise visit to Brighton yesterday without so much as a call to the Brighton Blade. Unbelievable, you'll never work in this town again, Obama. On the other hand, Jessica Simpson will be in town on Halloween. We'll take her.

Puke, gag!

As a local reporter, there is nothing more grating than our local government's fascination with larger media. Here in Brighton, city officials quiver when 9News parachutes in from the news chopper or the Denver Post deigns to recognize our community and in Fort Lupton, we bow at the presence of the Holy Tribune. It makes me a little defensive when our city leaders and citizens gush over out-of-town media, it's kind of like your prom date spending the whole evening with another girl. And when they make us look like backwater buffoons, it makes me wonder what all the gushing is about. In a story the other night about Vestas,a 9news reporter, with a backdrop of an equally gushing Jan Pawlowski stomping on an ant hill, referred to Brighton as "the sleepy town that time forgot." Such poetry, such B.S. How long since that has been true, was that ever true? And do we really want it as a moniker? Then the reporter pointed out the site of the new library had been vacant since the old theater burned down 50 years ago. Yeah, except for that lumber yard that we bulldozed.
I guessing having the spotlight of the Denver media, even with erroneous information, is still worth it.

But why

I'm really sick of people criticizing MetroWest as a liberal bastion. I had a woman scold me a couple weeks ago with threats of Brighton Blade owners past for putting an article about Obama in the paper. My answer: If John McCain gets within a 20 mile-radius of Brighton, we'll go visit him too. We had Mary Hodge's opponent blasting her as a "party-line pushover" on the front of the paper a couple weeks ago. Then, I go to Gene Sears' blog and read a comment, "The most biased paper in the world is metrowest. The new owners will clean house."
Put up or shut up time, kids. What makes us so biased.
And if I don't get any comments. I'm assuming it's an unsubstaniated argument.

Powell for Obama

Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama has riled the GOP. But, as a fellow African-American, how damaging do you think it would have it been to Obama's campaign to not get that endorsement?

You're not approved

It's time to get rid of candidates tagging on to the end of their political advertisements "I'm such and such and I approved this message." The point of requiring that was to make candidates more responsible for their words. It has failed. Candidates have found a way around it and now it's just a funny office catchphrase like when I get a soda out of the pop machine and say, "I'm Kevin Denke and I approved this Mountain Dew." I will say my favorite is the Markey/Musgrave mudslinging. Cue Marylin Musgrave tortuing a second grader in a Greeley back alley and then cut to Betsy Markey happily filling out postcards in her office. What is it about Musgrave that brings out the worst in all of us? Are you listening, Angie Paccione?

Dog eat dog

Just a note, we're proud parents of a new baby girl (Oct. 8) Thanks for all your thoughts.

The other night I came back through my front door from taking out the trash to find my dog making wet, sloppy love to my trash can.

So I chucked our small, plastic recycling container a good 15 feet in the vicinity of the dog, not to hurt him but to get him to stop licking the trash can. I got the desired effect and the dog dashed around the dining room table towards the living room. I followed him in hot pursuit so I could put him outside. My dog, knowing this, ducked into his kennel.

Like a police officer demanding for a criminal to drop a weapon, I hollared once for him to exit the cage. When he didn’t, I picked up the cage because I knew he would instinctively jump out.

He then dashed toward his pillow on the opposite side of the room. I dove after him and, when he saw me coming, he performed a quick end around past me and headed back safely to his kennel.

Gathering my thoughts and composure, I closed the kennel door, picked it up with my 30-pound dog inside, and carried it outside.

There was a time when my dog didn’t drive me crazy. It was before I had kids. Until then, I had no idea there was such a thing as progressive knowledge.

My dog’s traits – like wiping his butt on the carpet, eating his own feces and old, snotty tissues – were charming, even morbidly endearing.

But when my daughter came, I realized these things were not common. She never wiped her butt on the carpet and, despite being compelled to stick everything in her mouth, was never particularly drawn to poop and tissues.

And I’ve also noticed my daughter has gotten smarter as time has gone on. She’ll get a finger stuck in the door, it will hurt and she won’t do that again. My dog, on the other hand, will continue to stick his head under a roaring barbecue grill and risk singeing his hair on the back of his head, all for some errant grease drippings.

And, the frustrating thing, is, unlike my daughter (who tried this once and decided she didn’t like the taste and messiness of grease drippings), my dog will continue to do this any chance he gets, no matter how I yell at him.

My dog is as smart as he will get. Perhaps it’s annoying because he remains a few steps ahead of me. I’m sure my neighbors have (more than once) caught the sight of me chasing my dog around the backyard in my boxers. I’m not saying it’s a bad sight. This physique comes from six years of deskwork and a lifetime of pizza eating.

Still, its unnerving when I risk freezing to death to clean up my dog’s poop before he eats it, get back in the warmth of my house and look outside to find him pooping again.

Through our group therapy sessions, I’m learning to let my dog be himself. I’m learning about what makes him tick. It’s been a revelation. I can’t change my dog. So I must change.

And you know what I’ve found.

This rubbing your butt on the carpet isn’t half-bad.

See you soon.

I'm going to be out of the office for the next couple weeks as my wife and I welcome our second child so I won't be blogging everyday. But check back every now and then. In spite of my sleep deprivation, I'll probably find my way on here once or twice.

We keep kicking him and nothing

Even as a Medianite, I'm not afraid to poke fun at our business now and then. There are phrases that occasionally we like to use that on the surface really don't make any sense. I came across one this morning that I've even been guilty of:
DENVER – It appears at least one person is dead.
"He is hanging outside the car window, several people have gone over and shook him – still nothing. Yes, indeed, it would appear he is dead."
Are we reporting news or setting up a scary scene in a horror movies.
"Watch your back, Officer McGrady, he might still be alive."
Dead or not dead, folks. Make a decision.
Or else we could say, "he appears to not be living."