Generic Sentiments

This year's college football season kicked off with one. New Mexico women's soccer produced another. We see it all too often on SportsCenter, be it from the NCAA, NFL, NBA of MLB. The generic apology. The modern day athlete's get out of PR jail free card.

It's almost as if every media relations person for any given team or athletic program reads from the same manual. A player on your squad does something stupid? Have them issue a first-person mea culpa with the following baseline structure: "I (sincerely / whole-heartedly) regret my actions. I (lost my cool / got caught up in the heat of the moment / let my emotions get the best of me), and I apologize to (victim, fans, teammates, organization) for my behavior."

Even apologies from the coaches appear to be scripted. The remarks usually center on how that behavior is not condoned by the team, how the player is a good person who made a mistake, and how the situation will be addressed directly with the individual, usually internally. For once I would like to see a coach or manager come out and say, "That was stupid and reckless and I don't want that player on my team. We don't need fools like that on the field hurting others and impacting our ability to win."

Instead, we get cookie-cutter responses that come wrapped in a bright yellow box. It's the same apology and statement you heard last time and will hear again, probably sometime next week.

To be fair, in the cases of Oregon football and New Mexico soccer, the respective schools reacted firmly and decisively. Oregon's LaGarrette Blount was kicked off the team for punching a Boise State football player following a loss at the beginning of the season. New Mexico's Elizabeth Lambert was suspended indefinitely for her violent actions against BYU. In contrast, University of Florida's Urban Meyer gave player Brandon Spikes only a half game suspension after he purposefully and deliberately attempted to gouge the eyes of Georgia's Waushaun Ealey. Spikes imposed on himself a full game suspension, a move I doubt he would have chosen to make had their upcoming opponent been Alabama rather than Vanderbilt.

Still, the follow-up to all the 'regrettable' behavior is a statement made publicly by the players in question and their respective coaches. What is truly unfortunate is these individuals may indeed be sorry for their behavior. They may truly feel remorseful, as well as embarrassed, for how they acted and the results of those actions against another human being. Yet their feelings of contrition are painted over by the broad brush that results from us seeing this all too often, as is the case with this blog.

There is no solution for this problem. Individual players will continue to make individual mistakes. They, in turn, will issue yet another generic apology that will cause us to roll our eyes and think, "Yeah, whatever." That is what's truly regrettable.

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

Winston Groom, author of the novel 'Forrest Gump', introduced us all to the line of "Stupid Is as Stupid Does". This line may mean different things to different people, but it clearly speaks to the identification of stupid actions. This is not to say that someone who performs a stupid act is therefore a stupid person. Brilliant people make mistakes, stupid mistakes, all the time, and our only hope is that individuals will learn from that particular event and not repeat the stupidity in the future.

The story of Forrest Gump also allowed us to take a look at racism and the historical impact it had on our American culture. The character created by Winston Groom was immersed in real racial events, from school segregation to the KKK to the Black Panthers, and it was those events from the sixties and seventies that help mold the era of political correctness in which we live today.

Bob Griese was recently suspended by ESPN for one game for comments he made in the telecast of the Minnesota-Ohio State game. ESPN was promoting ABC's coverage (both networks are owned by Disney and often times cross-promote each other's programming) of the upcoming NASCAR Sprint Cup race in Martinsville. A graphic was shown listing the top five racers of this year's Sprint Cup chase. Fellow analyst Chris Spielman inquired as to the why NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya was not listed, to which Griese quipped, "he's out having a taco."

Griese apologized for the comment following the game and then again during ESPN's College Gameday Scoreboard show later that evening. Various media outlets, mostly blog sites, have ruled Griese's comments as racist. ESPN's decision to suspend Griese for a game can be considered as a necessity so as to show proper disciplinary action towards Griese and avoid any potential racial fallout as a result.

I agree with ESPN's decision to suspend Griese. Not because his comments were racist – they weren't and they were clearly meant in jest – but because they were stupid. When you're an on-air personality and you don't have the presence of mind to refrain from a comment involving race, you deserve to be suspended.

Griese is a Hall of Fame quarterback and is viewed in the context of NFL history as one of the smartest players to play that position. He's the "Thinking Man's" quarterback, and when you think about all-time, smartest QB's to have played in the NFL, his name is definitely in the conversation. That's what makes Griese's comments during the broadcast so incredulous. He knows better. Forget the comical error whereby Montoya is Colombian and not Mexican as the 'taco' comment would imply. That's Bob Griese having a blonde moment. The real stupidity lies in Griese thinking it's okay to joke about anything racial on national television.

We live in an age where political correctness rules all. The only way you're allowed to joke about race is if you're making fun of the minority group to which you belong. I am Hispanic of Mexican and Cuban descent, and I can joke all I want about stealing the rims off your car or being proficient at building makeshift rafts. However, I won't dare joke in public about African-Americans, Asians or any other minority groups; and I'm not even a public figure.

Griese and all sports broadcasters who are hired to do a job of providing analysis and insight to a game or particular matchup need to steer clear of any and all racial pitfalls. Regardless of how funny they think a comment may be, there will always be some watchdog group ready to pounce and make a mountain out of a mole hill comment. Griese's gaffe was not racially insensitive. Rather, it was simply stupid. Forrest Gump was on to something. Let's hope Griese remembers that going forward.

Read Dan LeBatard's column on the same topic.

Everything Happens For a Reason (Right?)

"No hay mal que por bien no venga." That's one of my mom's favorite phrases. Translated, it means: There is no bad from which good does not come. Now, regardless of how much it sounds like a Yoda quote, I feel it does hold true. The phrase we most commonly use is "Everything happens for a reason". It's a phrase that makes us feel better about a bad situation and has us seeking the proverbial silver lining in the cloud. I believe in it whole-heartedly, but I do feel it's often overused. Today, I've been over-using that phrase in my heads for hours.

Lee and I have been trying to buy a house, quite literally, all year. Our process began back in January when we decided to take a stab on a house that is exactly six doors down from the home we're currently renting. It's a gorgeous house with a three-car garage, open foyer area, wall-to-wall tile in the first floor, and a pool with a hot tub. It's almost too perfect. The house was available as a short sale and we knew the process could be time consuming. The principle lien holder accepted our offer and I thought we were all set. Then the secondary lien holder wanted an adjustment to their payout amount. The first lien holder agreed to the adjustment, the paperwork went back to be redone, and then the whole thing just died on the vine. After six weeks of 'WTF?' waiting, Lee and I decided to walk and look at buying a house the old-fashioned way. What makes it more frustrating is that lien holder one and lien holder two have since merged and are now the same bank. Thank you for that, WaMu and Chase!

We asked our Realtor to pull some listings and found two great houses we loved. The first one got an A+ ranking. The second house received an A++. We weren't even done seeing the second home when we turned to our Realtor and said, "This is the house. Let's do it. This is the house we want." We were giddy like kids on Christmas Eve. The excitement was palpable and we were already envisioning filling our home with friends and family for parties, get-togethers and cookouts. Thirty minutes later our Realtor called. Turns out the listing agent for the A++ house is also the owner and he'd just bought the house and was trying to flip it. Well, that's fine and dandy, except for the fact we were approved for an FHA loan and you can't use an FHA loan to buy a house that was purchased by someone else in the previous ninety days. Thanks for that, non-full-disclosure listing agent and government regulations!

We took in a deep breath and exhaled.

The good news was we still had the A+ house available, and we decided to make an offer on that one. A good friend of mine who is a home builder came out and did the inspection and said the house was basically flawless. We had our bank work up a new Good Faith Estimate for the property, and the sellers both accepted our offer and agreed to contribute money towards closing costs. The home appraisal came back slightly above the selling price, the bank underwriter formally approved our mortgage, and we were all set. Excellent!

Then came word our lender decided to run a corollary review of the houses in the same neighborhood and some houses sold for far less than the asking price of the house we were purchasing. Our lender decided to have a second appraisal performed and that one came in at $15k less than the first. The inability for both us and the sellers to make up this gap, not to mention mutual level of frustration directed at our lender, killed the deal. I can go on for pages on how I feel about the tactic employed by my lender, but I will spare you the rant. All I will say is; Thank you for that, SunTrust!

So here we are, back at square one, with no new home and our same month-to-month lease. Lee and I have decided to take a breather from the whole house purchase thing, regroup, and give it a go again early next year. I am, however, surprisingly not as upset or disappointed as I thought I would be. Yes, I was livid at first and I know I definitely burned bridges with the mortgage agent at SunTrust who was helping us (I basically killed the messenger, but I did so in a classically and poetically written flaming email, so I don't feel too bad about it). Still, I know there are worse things in life, and fretting over a house – or should I say houses – that never was is not tops on my priority list.

I know I will chalk this up as a learning experience, and I will be more confident as a consumer when we try this again next year. I look at the ups and downs of this roller coaster ride and I smile because I think about the many friends who lent an ear or gave their advice and guidance through the process. I am once again reminded of my beautiful circle for family and friends, and what a blessing it is to have them. I remind myself to put this all into perspective. There are thousands of individuals who will go to bed tonight on the streets because they have no home, rented, owned or otherwise. My children have a roof over their heads, my wife and I have a roof over our heads, and we're very comfortable – and blessed – with all we have.

To be upset about our house deal falling through today would be silly. After all, everything happens for a reason.

Scrubbed

Lee and I have a great relationship because we share a mutual passion for various things. In addition to our love for music, electronics and sharing time with friends, we also have an affinity for living our lives with a sense of adventure. There is something totally fulfilling about being able to just shrug your shoulders ans say, "Let's go. Let's do it."

So was the case Monday afternoon when we both ditched work a little early and drove from Tampa to Cape Canaveral in our hope to watch the Space Shuttle Discovery launch into space. STS-128 and it's mission to carry supplies to the International Space Station was scheduled to blast off from Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39-A at 01:36 ET the morning of August 25, and it was our goal to be there, up close and personal, to experience it.

We were fortunate enough to be able to purchase tickets to the causeway viewing area near KSC. We new traffic would be bad which is why we made the decision to leave early and head East to Florida's space coast. I am happy to admit we did not encounter any traffic problems getting to KSC, and we were quite early in arriving which left us with some time to kill at the space center.

After enjoying an amazingly riveting IMAX movie about the International Space Station, Lee and I proceeded to spend the next 90 minutes or so in line after line after line as we waited for the buses that would transport us to the causeway viewing center to arrive. It was 9:45 PM, it was a hot, August evening, and we still nearly four hours left before the event that would take our breath away.

As with most things that require you to stand and wait in line for extended periods of time (think Disney), the waiting and queuing came with its share of frustrations and aggravation. They were mostly brought on by the other people in line who were either too busy complaining about the wait and the process or were too clueless to have remembered to put on deodorant earlier in the day. Nonetheless, it was all part of the experience of witnessing history and continued progress in mankind's exploration of space.

After a relatively short bus ride over to the causeway, Lee and I found a perfect spot to set up our 'camp' – we each had folding camping chairs – and wait the three hours until launch. There in the distance, a mere three miles from where we sat, was the space shuttle Discovery, prepped and ready to force itself away from earth with over 7 million pounds of thrust. It was amazing to see it sitting there under the lights. It was awe inspiring.

We knew the lightning in the distance would be a problem. Lee and I had been checking our Black Berry's periodically, following both @NASA and @ExploreSpaceKSC on Twitter for up to the minute statuses on the launch preparation. The voice over the PA system confirmed there were no technical issues with the shuttle and the weather was the only item for concern. As we approached ninety minutes to launch, all weather parameters were in condition 'Red', and it was not looking good. Still, the approximately ten thousand people gathered on the strip of causeway three miles south of the launch pad remained optimistic the thunderstorms in the area would quickly pass.

As we reached forty-five minutes to launch, there was word the weather in the area was dissipating. The tweets from various sources following the launch came fast and furious, as did my status updates to Facebook and Twitter. It was on. This was going to happen. Lee and I were going to watch a shuttle launch. FINALLY!

The next half hour zoomed by. It was 1:15 in the morning and the energy level along the causeway was palpable. It felt like the last thirty seconds of a close Super Bowl or the bottom of the ninth in a tight World Series game 7, only more electric. There, off in the distance, seven astronauts had been waiting for hours while strapped into their seats, and we were minutes away from watching them take off into the night sky.

The voices on the PA continued with their final system checks as the countdown continued. On voice called out a series of acronyms, followed by another voice with an affirmative and responsive, "Check!" System after system, check after check. "Here we go" I thought. "This is going to be amazing."

"Weather?"

The voice that was supposed to respond with a loud and affirmative confirmation was instead replaced with a very hesitant pause. No one on the ground said a word.

With a sense of painful deliberateness, the responding voice almost quivered as you heard him say, "We really tried to push this as far as we could, but we are no-go for launch." My heart sank, as did those of the other ten-thousand spectators there. We were so close. So close.

And just like that, the launch of STS-128 for 08/25 was scrubbed, and with it, Lee's and my hopes of watching a live shuttle launch. With only a handful of STS mission on NASA's schedule before the program is retired, this was our one window of opportunity. Although it was feasible for us to return the following evening and try again, the nearly three hour drive and overall lack of sleep would simply not be a prudent thing to do. It was bad enough we did not get back home to Tampa until 5:30 AM. To try and duplicate that experience two nights in a row would be reckless and irresponsible.

Even though the level of disappointment weighs heavy on us, it was still an adventure Lee and I were able to share together. We pray for a successful and safe launch the morning of the 26^th, and Lee and I will step out into our lanai at 01:11 to hopefully see the flame trail in the distance left by Discovery taking off into space.

My Mission

Today at church, our pastor spoke about missions. God wants us all to take part in a mission in His name. Now, for most people, we hear the word mission and we think about traveling to a third world country and preaching to people that most likely do not speak the same language as we do. Growing up Catholic, I have a good understanding of missions, and my brother traveled to the Dominican Republic his last year in high school to take part in a mission effort. Missions are wonderful things, but they're also foreign concepts to many of us.

Today's message, however, was that we need to find a mission in our everyday lives. It's not only about making a commitment to travel to Africa or Central America. It's also not about taking only one hour per week to give to God. Living a mission for God is about making it part of our every day. It needs to be the cornerstone of what we do and who we are.

This got me thinking about something my dad once told me. I need to caveat what I am about to say with this: My dad was my hero. I loved my father with all that I had, and losing him in 2004 had a profound effect on me and my life. I lost a parent and a friend, and every memory I have of my father, most good and some bad, comes with a little life-lesson. He tried in everything he did to teach my brother and me something new, and he felt it was his obligation to better prepare us for the world.

Still, my father was not perfect. Not by a long shot. The one thing in particular about which I never saw eye-to-eye with my dad was his notion that you never get something for nothing. His life and his experiences lead him to believe that everyone had an agenda. He did not inherently trust people who performed kind gestures for him. What's ironic is that he was so giving and he instinctively gave of himself with no agenda at all. He just liked to help out whenever he could.

It pains me to say that my dad was wrong. Although we must be vigilant of others and not just blindly place our trust in strangers, I do believe that you can get something for nothing. I believe there does exist in people the ability to give to others without an expectation of reciprocation of any sort. Just as my dad always gave of himself to help others, there are others who also give of themselves every day. And it's possible someone who has chosen to live a giving life may interact with you and, as such, give to you something for nothing.

I believe my mission in God and with God is to live my life as best I can to be a giving person. To be someone who, every day, gives someone else something for nothing. I think it's ironic that in proving my father wrong I am able to prove my Father right. And I think my dad would be okay with that.

The Rita Recap

I struggled with how to begin this post. I literally did not know where to begin. So instead I decided to just list thoughts at random and with each one thank God for the blessing that it was.

Lee and I hosted a party on Friday, July 3, to celebrate our marriage in June. We knew we wanted to target about 100 people for the shindig, and we also knew that given the party was on a holiday weekend, many of the invited guests would likely have previous commitments or would not be able to afford travelling in from out of town. We thought we'd do well with about 50 - 65 people showing up for the party. There were actually over 90 individuals who attended our Rockin' Rita Celebration, and Lee and I are so blessed to have the friends and family that we do.

The party itself is a bit of a blur, not so much because of all the adult beverages that were consumed, although that does play a bit of a factor in the hazy memories, but mostly because it was one of those nights that were so much fun, time just zipped by. It was a sensory overload of music, laughter, great food and tequila shots. There was so much going on, it was hard to spend enough time on any one thing. Lee and I are so blessed to have had the opportunity to work with a great party planner and host such a fantastic event.

The night began with music by our friend Chris Glover. Not only was Chris gracious enough to perform at our party, he also provided the complete setup for the musical entertainment that evening. He lugged his equipment, including show lights, from his home in Orlando all the way to Treasure Island, Florida. That's at least a two hour drive, and the party would not have been the same without his help and participation. Lee and I are so blessed to have such talented and giving friends.

Lee and I then took part in our Unity Cocktail ceremony. Many of you have heard of unity candles and sand mixing ceremonies. Our Unity Cocktail was like that …. but only better. Our dear friend Matt Harrington performed the ceremony in which we took the ingredients of a margarita, each of which represented Lee, myself and our family and friends, mixed them together and produced, dare I say, one of the best margaritas I've ever had.

Matt then proceeded to surprise Lee and me with his gift. Now, I have to clarify that Matt is a talented musician – regardless of what he'll tell you – and he once had his own band back in the day. It had been over five years since Matt sat down and wrote a song, but that's exactly what he did for us as our gift. It was beautiful and heartfelt and completely amazing. I don't think there was a dry eye in the room. Lee and I are so blessed to have such creative and selfless friends.

The night progressed with a sunset toast outside of the venue on the soft sand of Sunset Beach. It was so amazing to look around and see so many people out there who traveled both near and far to share in that moment with us. We had visitors from New Hampshire, Alabama, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Miami, North Carolina, Tallahassee, the Orlando area, and one near miss from Brazil via New York (we really missed you at the party, Juli). It is so humbling to have so many individuals willing to travel to be with us, and Lee and I are again so very blessed to be surrounded by such loving people.

Following the festivities outside, we all moved inside for music by Dirty Shannon, photo booth fun by Elise Schreiner Photography, and continued joviality provided by our emcee and good friend Kurt. It was a whirlwind of fun and excitement and more shots of tequila, and the night was marred only by me forcing cats to commit suicide by singing along – on microphone, no less - to The Outfield's 'Lose Your Love'. Other than that, the night was perfect.

Lee then surprised me with my own groom's cake in the form of a bottle of Patron Silver Tequila. It was chocolate, it was awesome and ultimately it was very messy. Everything was just as we'd hoped it would be, with the exception that it all went by too fast and we didn't get a chance to spend quality time with everyone. (FYI. We registered on SeeYouThen.com so that those of you who attended can share your pictures from the event with everyone else. I tip my hat to the team at SeeYouThen.com for their fantastic work in putting together the template for our site: http://gilandlee.seeyouthen.com/)

Personally, I need to thank everyone once again for coming out and for making it one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I also want to apologize to you all for not getting around to sitting down with you, saying hi and just catching up. I guess with so many guests it was a nice problem to have, but still I feel that I missed so many of you, and for that I am truly sorry.

When I stop to think about and reflect on that wonderful evening, my heart feels like bursting from all the love you all have given Lee and me. I am also both graciously overjoyed and sincerely humbled by the many blessings that fill my life. Thank you, each and every one of you.

Associated Content -- Transformers 2 Movie Review

Please check out my movie review of Transformers 2 on Associated Content. More posts to this AC site to follow.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/danacreative