Go (AZ) Cardinals

At 3:00 PM or so on Thursday I got an email from my boss telling all employees to support the Arizona Cardinals by showing up for work the next day in Cardinal gear, so long as you didn't have to make an appearance in court. Not wanting to pass up an opportunity to show up in a t-shirt and jeans, I was totally in. But there was one problem - I didn't have any Cardinal gear.

Teri and I set off right after work to rectify that situation but found out that it was going to be pretty hard to do. The sporting goods store had nothing, the mall's cheapest t-shirt was $30, and Wal-Mart after Wal-Mart was sold out. What did we do? We went to the not so local pharmacy store and found an Arizona Cardinals T-shirt stuffed into a mug. Total Cost - $10.

Of course, there was a reason I found the shirt for such a low price. It was light blue. (Like this only without Woody Woodpecker and with the team name and logo in white) You have to figure that these shirts were probably the result of some mistake along the way where the factory completed a several thousand shirt run of blue shirts rather than the red ones ordered. But things like that happen all the time.


Showing up Friday in a t-shirt was great, mainly because no one else did and they were a little jealous that I was able to work in comfort. Having the Cardinals win on Sunday and go to the Super Bowl was even better because I am almost certain to have at least one more "Cardinal Pride" day at work. So here's to you light blue Arizona Cardinal shirt. And go Cardinals! Maybe if you win the big game we might get a chance to show our support in victory parade day. One can always hope.

Those Darn Promises

I was saddened when I read about President-elect Obama's speech earlier this week about how some of his campaign promises weren't actually feasible. Poor guy. Looks like being a rookie at the whole leadership/campaigning thing kind of got to him.

You know how that goes. You're in the moment and you think hey wouldn't it be great if we could get a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage? Next thing you know your thought accidentally slips out of your mouth and you find yourself saying something you never meant to say. And now people actually expect you to do something that you know you really can't do. It's a terrible predicament.

But I think he's handled it well. Rather than disappoint people by saying that he made some stuff up about what his plans are, he's deftly put the blame on everyone's least favorite thing right now - the economy. Here's his quote to reporters.

“I want to be realistic here, not everything that we talked about during the campaign are we going to be able to do on the pace we had hoped,” Obama said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” program broadcast this morning. “Everybody’s going to have to give.” (See the full article here.)

In four years when he's going through this process again, I hope then President Obama will learn from this experience. I know of at least one example of a guy who ran for President who was able to say that he lived up to all the promises he made.



Besides, it may work out for the better that President-elect Obama can't quite give us the "change" he so easily promised. As another former president said in his inaugural address, "Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the achievement, in the thrill of creative effort." Here's hoping we don't stray too far from that ideal.