100 Posts

Back on May 7, 2006 my blog reached a huge milestone, 100 posts. There's been some good ones and some not so good ones. In celebration of this milestone here's a look back at some of favorites.

The Ultimate Solution for College Football- This was my very first post, also check out my related posts. Round 1, Round 2, Round 3 and The Championship.

My Year in Review: Part I, Part II

Go Seahawks

Soccer

Dennis Goes National- My email that was read on the Jim Rome Show. Here's the audio of it.

Relics from Chesterfield Lane

Nothing in Particular

I got to work a few minutes early today so I figured I'd do a quick blog entry. I've been kind of a slacker lately, it's been a week since I've done a meaningful blog entry. I know that blog is titled Dennis' Daily Rant but I just don't have the time anymore to do a blog entry on a daily basis, therefore I'm thinking it may be time for a title change. I want the title of my blog to represent what this blog is about and I just don't think that the current title does that. If you have any suggestions for a new title please leave a comment, if your suggestion is used you will win absolutely nothing. He's a couple of things going on.

Saturday morning at 7:00 AM I will be running a Marathon. My training is essentially done, I just have one short training run left on Wednesday and then a short jog Friday morning. I've put a lot of work into this thing in the last couple of months and now race day is almost here. I'm both excited and a little aprehensive about this. I'll be running 4.2 miles more than I've ran in my life that may not seem like a lot but it really is. I'm sure I'll do fine but if any of you are thinking about it Saturday morning between 7:00 and 11:00 AM please say a quick prayer for me, it would be greatly appreciated.

It was a good three day weekend. I went up to Portland and helped Justin with his kitchen project. I'll let Justin blog about his own kitchen but it might be awhile since he's pretty busy with it. The was a lot more to my weekend but I'll save that for another time.

All in all life is good right now, I can't complain.

Amerecan Idol Prediction

Not that I care or anything but tonight is the finally of American Idol. I think I may have watched a total of 45 minutes of American Idol this season. I won't be tuning in tonight because I have better things to do, but I do feel compelled to talk about it. From what I heard from my coworkers, Taylor Hicks outperformed Katharine McPhee last night. Despite all of that, I am predicting that Katharine McPhee will be next "American Idol".

40 Things That I Would Change if I Was in Charge of All Sports

Recently a friend of mine posted a comment in response to a comment that I posted on her husband's blog. She said "I think Dennis shoud be the god of sports", while I prefer the title "commisioner of everything sports" over "god of sports" it got me thinking of some changes that I would make if I was in charge. So here is a list of 40 things not in any particular order except the number one change.

40. Ban Soccer in the United States
39. Make the day after the Super Bowl a national holiday (yes this gives me that authority)
38. Replace the college football overtime system with a sudden death system
37. Get rid of the Designated Hitter in the American league
36. Move the three point line back in college basketball
35. Require the ESPN networks to show only sports programing (no poker, no competetive eating)
34. No Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday Nigh College Football games
33. Reduce the number of NBA playoff teams from 16 to 8
32. Move the Seahawks out Seattle (I don't care where but I want them out of the Northwest)
31. Fire every single Pac 10 football and Basketball official
30. Ban metal bats in all levels of baseball
29. Shorten the Major League Baseball season from 162 to 140 games
28. Dissolve the NHL
27. Shorten the shot clock in college basketball to 30 seconds
26. Ban lame sponsorship on televised sporting events such as first and ten presented by Visa, the dodge keys to the game and the Old spice red zone report
25. Require a basic knowledge test for anyone attending a live sporting event
24. Require NBA refs to call traveling
23. Ban Bill Walton from NBA TV broadcasts
22. Contract the Florida Marlins, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Kansas City Royals and Pittsburgh Pirates
21. Ban stupid arena music such as "we will rock you" and "Rock and Roll Part II"
20. Make an official declaration that Football is now our national pastime
19. Not allow teams with losing records play in the NCAA Basketball Tournament
18. Remove the two man luge, ice dancing and biathalon from the Winter Olympics
17. Remove rythmic gymnastics, trampoline and synchronized swimming from the Summer Olympics
16. Put "Shoeless" Joe Jackson in the baseball hall of fame
15. Force Barry Bonds to retire
14. Move a Baseball franchise to be determined to Portland
13. Abolish the NCAA, college sports will be governed by me!
12. Any player caught using performance enhancing drugs will be suspended for a minimum of two years.
11. Require a player in college football to get both feet in bounds to catch a ball
10. Put Gonzaga Basketball on 3 years probation
9. Relax some of the rules that make it impossible to play defense in the NFL
8. No more annoying TV timeouts for sporting events
7. Get rid of the stupid play in game for the NCAA tournament
6. Make the first two days of the NCAA tounament federal holidays
5. Ban fantasy sports
4. Limit Notre Dame to three national televised football games a year
3. Allow touchdown celebrations in college football
2. Move the Texans out of Houston for making the dumbest draft day decision ever
1. Abolish the BCS and replace it with a 16 team tournament ending on New Years Day.

Soccer Update

It's been a while since I've given you all a soccer update so here it is for you. Barcelona beat Arsenal 2-1 in the champions league final today. I'm sure Justin probably letf work early today to watch it, which is an incredible waste of time.

In other news the soccer tournament that I refuse to mention by name is only 23 days away, I can't wait!

Injured Reserve

As some of you may know, I am a two sport athlete. Not only am I marathon runner but I'm a first baseman on the company softball team. The problem with being a multi sport star like myself is that I suffer from more injuries than all those one sport slackers. In recent months I've had problems with my ankles, knees, shins, feet, back, groin and hamstring. I've been able to push through all those injuries and continue my marathon training. In the last couple weeks I've had problems with my right shoulder, it is getting worse every single week. Last night during our final softball scrimage, I discovered that it's so bad that I can no longer throw a ball. After fielding a routine grounder all I had to do was toss the ball to second base for a force out, however I threw the ball straight into to the ground. After the inning I removed myself from the game and tried throwing to someone else, I threw threw three balls right into the ground and one about ten feet over the guy's head. Because of the shoulder injury I've decided to start the softball season on the injured reserve, I have my return tentatively scheduled for June 5, two days after the marathon. So for the next two weeks my sole focus athletically is training for the marathon and the only throwing I might be doing there is throwing up.

Socks With Sandals

As the weather is getting nicer more and more people are wearing shorts, which is perfectly ok. Here in Eugene, I'm seeing a very disturbing trend though. I have seen way too many people wearing socks with sandals. Under no circumstances should anyone wear socks with sandals! If any of my readers are doing this please stop. If you see someone on the street doing this please tell them to stop. If we all work together on this we can stop this!!

Another Week in the Life of Dennis

Since I really have nothing better to blog about, I've decided to do another week in review. So here it is I hope that you enjoy it.

Monday- I woke up at about 7:40, showered, got dressed and brushed my teeth. I packed a lunch that consisted of a turkey sandwich on wheat bread, and orange and nonfat rasberry yogurt. This was the day of the day of the infamous wrinkled slacks. Along with the khaki pants I was wearing a black button down dress shirt. I arrived to work at about 8:27 filled my favorite coffee cup and got to work. Nothing exciting happened between and 8:30 and 5:30 that's worth mentioning. Imediatley after work I changed into shorts and a T-shirt and headed off to softball practice. We scrimmaged against another team and I went 3-5 all three hits were singles. In the field I played first base, which is my natural position. After softball practice I changed shorts and shoes and went for a five mile run. After my run I barbecued a piece of chicken and had a cold Corona. After a couple of hours of doing nothing I went to bed.

Tuesday- My morning was the same with the exception of my attire. I wore black dress pants, a blue shirt and a yellow tie. It was another uneventful day at work. After work I headed to my parents for dinner and we celebrated my nephews second birthday. For dinner I had spaghetti and desert was chocolate cake. After dinner I went home and changed into my running clothes and went for a four mile run (I was supposed to go 7). This was my first run in my brand new Nike Shox Turbo III running shoes. After my run I went home and showered and changed. At 8:30 PM I met a friend at the campus starbucks, I ordered an iced grande caramel macchiato. We were there until about 11:30 after that I went home and went to bed.

Wednesday- Morning was the same, I wore a gray dress shirt and black slacks. I had two meetings to start my day off. After that it was a pretty uneventful day. After I work I headed home and went for a six mile run. Beacause I chose to run after work I was late for youth group. On my way to youth group I stopped at 7-11 and got an orange slurpee. After youth group I went home and did nothing for a couple hours and then went to bed.

Thursday- Nothing different in the morning. I wore black slacks abd a white dress shirt. At about 11:45 I headed over to the DAC for monthly lane county creditors association luncheon. I might of been the only person under 40 there. The rest of the work day was filled with phone calls. After work I went home went home, updated my I pod and went for a six mile run. It was a nice easy run. I got home from my run barbecued a piece of chicken and made some angel hair pasta. At about 9:30 I went McMenamin's North Bank with a friend. We were there for about two and a half hours. During that time I consumed two hammerheads and a couple glasses of water. Afterwards I went home and went to bed.

Friday- I wore a black T-Shirt with the company logo, staright leg boot cut jeans from old navy and my new Nike Shox Turbo III running shoes. It was someones birthday so there was birthday cake at work. Unlike Milton from Office Space I actually got a piece of cake. Work was typical for a Friday, vey long, very boring. After work I went grocery shopping, I purchased diet pepsi, beer, cheese, tortillias, oatmeal, angel hair pasta, gatorade, parmesean cheese and a few other things that I can't remember. After eating some spaghetti for dinner, I changed clothes and went out with some friends. I consumed one Widmer Heffeweizen all night. I got home at about 12:30 and went to bed.

Saturday- I woke up about 8:00 for my run, I only had to run about fourteen miles. After my run I got cleaned up and headed off to Old Navy. I purchased a pair of shorts and a couple shirts. I then headed off to my parents for a family get together. Before lunch I washed my extremely dirty car. The entire Cook family including grandma and some non Cooks were presents. I had two cheeseburgers, one Mike's Hard lemonade, two Widmer 06 Reds and one Drop Top Amber. Enough beer and cheeseburgers to rival fat Dennis. After everything settled I went home and did my laundry. While doing laundry I turned on the Nascar race because nothing else was on. Greg Biffle won the race if anyone cares. Feeling the effects of my springtime allergies I decided to stay home the rest of the night. After the race I watched about three hours of mythbusters and then headed to bed.

There you have it another uneventful week in my life!

A Bizzare Story From the World of Sports

A Los Angeles Pshychologist has filed a class action claim against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for sex and age discrimination. Why? Because he did not recieve a red nylon tote bage during a mothers day promotion last season. After reading the story I think that maybe this Psychologist needs to go see a Psycholigist himself.

Man Denied Bag Says Angels Discriminated

A Follow Up to my Last Post

The pants that I wore today were wrinkle free with stain defender. I have decided that wrinkle free pants with stain defender is a huge scam. Not only were my pants wrinkled today but I spilled a small amount of coffee on them and now there's a stain! If they were truely wrinkle free with stain defender then how can they possibly be wrinkled with a coffee stain? The good news is that I pulled a neatly pressed pair of black dress slacks out of my closet that I'm going to wear the next three days.

Wrinkled Slacks

The slacks that I wore to work today have a few wrinkles in them. All my coworkers are making fun of me becasue of a few wrinkles. This is ridiculous, it's a few wrinkles! You can barely notice it! I guess I'll have to pull out my iron before I go to work tommorrow.

22 Miles: The Day After

I feel like I was hit by a truck after running 22 miles yesterday. Every part of me aches, knees, ankles, back, neck, shoulder (that's from softball not running), etc. I did everything I was supposed to after my run yesrterday, I stretched, took a long COLD shower and sat in a chair with bags of ice on the various injuries that are piling up. I'm sure this is just a little preview of how my body is going to feel four weeks from today.

A New Mountain to Climb

Lance Armstrong is an athlete that I have always admired. He came back from cancer and then went on to dominate the worlds most grueling sporting event seven years in a row. He made people like me care about the sport of cycling, the last few years I would get early many a day just to watch Armstrong compete in the Tour de France.

I have even greater admiration for Armstrong for what he is doing now that he has retired from cycling. While some athletes spend their retirement out on the golf course, Armstrong is putting just as much or even more work into his new career as he did cycling. He's out leading the charge in the fight against cancer. Armstrong is becoming in the fight against cancer what Bono has become in the fight against poverty.

There is a great story about Armstrong in this week's Sports Illustrated. I encourage you all to take a moment and read the story and post your thoughts. Here's the link to the story and surprisingly SI did not make this premium content.
The Next Stage

Marathon Training Update

I'm four weeks away from my first Marathon. After celebrating Cinco de Mayo with a huge plate of Spaghetti (I know spaghetti isn't Mexican but it's good training food) and two bottles of Corona, I woke up 6:30 AM for a 22 mile run. Unless you're training for a Marathon I don't reccomend that you ever go on a 22 mile run, it's really not that enjoyable. I finished in a very solid 2:44, if I can hold that pace for another 4.2 miles (and that's a big IF!) my marathon time would be aproximately 3 Hours 15 minutes and 17 seconds! That would put me only five minutes short of a Boston Marathon Qualifying time. I'll be estactic with a time under 3:30, I think I'll try for Boston next time.

Back in Black

After several changes to my blog, I've decided to go back to the original look. I'm sure I'll get bored in a couple months and change it again but for now my blog is "Back in Black".

Relics From Chesterfield Lane

Six years ago, after graduating from the University of Oregon, I packed my bags and headed north to the Portland Area. I moved into a large house with seven other guys Dustin, Justin, Brad, The Duck, Jon, Aaron and Anthony. About a month after I moved in Justin got married and left the house, I believe him and Jessica will be celebrating their sixth wedding anniversary this weekend. I have many fond and not so fond memories from the Chesterfield house including the alpine slide, trying to wrestle The Duck, Anthony asking a girl out that I brought over, Chris Hale (now Steele) using our laundry facilities, late night trips to Safeway with Aaron and sitting on a glass table in the basement. When we we vacated the residence in the fall of 2002 many things were thrown away, some followed me, Aaron, The Duck and Dustin to the Delaney residence and then onto to the Vermont residence with Aaron and I. Three items from the Chesterfield house followed me back to Eugene and have survived two moves since I came back. They are, a brown recliner chair, a poster and "the coke fund" jar.

The brown recliner was one of two matching recliners that sat in the front room at Chesterfield, I don't know what happened (sorry to interupt this blog but I need to mention that there is an annoying ant crawling across my keyboard right now and it's really starting to piss me off) to the other one, I think maybe The Duck took it. I never really used it much in Portland (I'm happy to announce that the ant is DEAD!!!) but since I moved back to Eugene (crap!! another one) it has become a personal favorite of mine. Many days after a long run I will sit in that chair with a bag of ice on one of my knees watching whatever is on TV. Sometimes I'll fall asleep in that chair after a long hard day of work. It's a great chair and I'll probably cry the day that I have to get rid of it.

(before I begin this paragraph I need to interupt one final time to inform you that the second ant is dead!!) The "Coke Fund" jar sat atop the mini fridge in the living room. When Justin moved out and took his fridge, the jar moved to the kitchen where it sat mostly unused for the remaining time. I really have no clue how I ended up with it but I have it now and don't plan on getting rid of it. It sits in a box in my closet now, I've thought about putting it out and renaming it "The Beer Fund" so whenever a friend comes over and drinks a beer they could contribute but I think I'll just leave it in a box never to be brought out again.

The final relic is my favorite of them all, the poster. I believe Justin found the poster at a garage sale, it has a picture of a rack of ball on a pool table and it reads "You don't need luck, you just need balls and a few good breaks". It sat in the basement at Chesterfield, it never got the prominant spot that it deserved. I think some roomates didn't find it appropriate. It finally got a prime spot on the wall when Aaron, Jared and I moved to Shadow Hills. I displayed it in my first apartment down here but since then it has sat in my closet. I'm contemplating wether or not to put it up at my new place.

While Chesterfield may be gone it is not forgotten. These three items will keep the memories alive for me for years to come.