Answer the Universe

This past weekend the NFL regular season came to a close, and for the first time since 2008, the Miami Dolphins have made the playoffs (apparently “next year” was this year). Aside from being happy to actually have someone to seriously cheer for this coming weekend, it got me a little reflective. I’ve watched nearly a decade worth of games where my team might have been in the mix only to fall short or, and this is more likely, they haven’t been in the mix at all.

Miami_Dolphins_2013

That’s a lot of football. Actually that’s a lot of mediocre football.

Strange then that I suddenly am thinking of all that “bad” time to be a fan when this is the time to enjoy the ride we’re currently on. I think back to J Edward Neill‘s post from last Fall where he swore off the NFL in order to regain the most precious of commodities: TIME.

(I know he slipped at least once…)

Every team comes into the season with a list of things they want to accomplish. It may start with:

Improve upon last year’s team.

Win the division.

Get a first round Bye.

Be the overall #1 seed in the playoffs.

Win your conference.

And at the top of the list is win the Superbowl.

That’s not to say that they actually are able to even compete for such an honor, but it is still there. Heck, there are a bunch of the above which are probably above and beyond a team’s LEGITIMATE goals. The key is that they still write them down. And it isn’t because they want to set themselves up for failure if things don’t go their way. No. They do it so that there is something to aspire to.

target-bullseye

Last week I put up my annual look back/look ahead blog post. Here’s the thing, that post is like 98% for me, 1% for my family (in case they might be wondering what it was I actually do during these late nights), and maybe 1% for anyone else reading the blog. I use it in order to get a grip on what the previous year might have had in store for me (or not). The look ahead is about setting goals for myself.

Maybe setting too many goals?

That’s fundamentally OK to do. If the NFL teams only set their goal on getting 1 more win next year, well that’s probably doable, but then what? You get that additional win and stop? Or do you shoot for the moon on the off-chance you can actually get there?

This is what I’m trying to get to. This is the type of work output, the type of word count I need to get to in order to have the level of success I want to have. So you get a list of things which either seem like they haven’t been accomplished or there are just too many things on the LIST to possibly get done.

There is some truth to that. Like so many other people I have various levels of responsibilities in work and life. Sometimes there just isn’t enough time. Then again, maybe I just didn’t use all that free time as wisely as I could/should.

Regardless, I want to say YES to things. Can I write the 1st draft to this novel? Yes! Can I edit this 2nd draft of a different novel? Yes! Can I write this comic script? Yes!

yes

I want to say YES to myself.

Think about the whole idea of Resolutions in conjunction with the birth of a new year. Right now if I were to do a search on New Year’s Resolutions I bet I’d get a ton of blog hits where it was describing potential goals or perhaps telling you how to accomplish your proposed goals. But also think you’d find some people who want to mock the very idea of the goals. They might consider it a waste of time to even bother. “Everyone puts all this nonsense out there and within a week or a month or 6 months it will all revert back to who you were before the pledge.” Yet, I’d say we’re all doing it on some level even if we don’t say it aloud or write it down. There is something you want to accomplish this year, right? You may not want to call it a Resolution, but it probably is.

And it’s OK.

The kicker to all of this is that sometimes you set the bar impossibly high and you get there. Sometimes the ball bounces your way. So put it out there. Put it into the universe! Have 50 projects. Have a plan.

There’s nothing wrong with striving for more.

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!

And has two shorts in the Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows anthology! Check it out!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Sometimes I Know… Sometimes I Don’t

Why do I even bother watching sports? That was the question I posed to myself this past Sunday. It is the question I think every person who has ever been a fan of some team activity has asked themselves. Why do I even bother?

Miami_Dolphins_2013

I mean, I’m a nerdy guy, into nerdy things. My Dad isn’t really a kick back and watch football type guy. Somehow I managed to claim that part of “being a guy” (whereas I don’t know anything about a car’s engine or how to build something with my hands or why you need a Phillips Head screwdriver). I gravitated towards it, and now…

Ugh…

It seems like every year MY TEAMS are the ones who cannot quite “get over the hump”. We (because it is always “we” even if “I” only sit on my couch yelling at the TV) scuffle and struggle to gain some small measure of mediocrity and then fall on our faces any way. And all the while those teams whom you hate… well, they are having the season of seasons.

This is where those of you reading it begin to go through the mental Rolodex of your own teams. You haven’t won anything in 20 years, 50 years… over 100 years. And I hear you.

But I’m lamenting me right now. 🙂

Braves

In Poker there is something players try to call on: “One Time”. It is their own personal plea to the “Poker gods” to either help better their own hand or keep their opponent from beating them. However, the key to this, so the superstition goes, is that you only get ONE “one time” during a tournament. So you better pick your spot, as you’ll be swiftly punished for not obeying the rules.

Well that thought colors my watching baseball, basketball, and football. And time and time again I’m considering calling for my team’s “one time” to dig deep and find a way to pull it out. But the small bit of magic you wished for your own team was wasted in week 2. Yet, those other guys (your rivals, i.e. the “bad guys”), they rely on their skills until the absolute last second. Never wasting the magic until ever other option has been extinguished.

So instead I suffer defeat after defeat while other fans continue to find ways to celebrate their team’s successes. I hold onto the one Championship I can claim (1995 Atlanta Braves), but also lament that may be the one season I watched the least amount of the team. The one year I did not live and die with every pitch. In my defense I was still figuring out this whole college/co-op thing, but a true fan would have made time. We won and I was happy, but didn’t get that… well, what I have to believe is an all-consuming, unrelenting joy from the victory. I’m pretty sure I still don’t know what feeling I should have gotten, but it doesn’t taste the same… of that I’m sure.

At the end of every season there is one fan base ecstatic and 31 others who think “well, maybe next year”. But as we’re fond of saying in my house:

When do I get to see the god-damn sailboat?

When Do I Get To See The Sailboat?

When Do I Get To See The Sailboat?

I complain and bitch and threaten to break things and wonder if someone is cheating and can’t understand how the ref missed another call and of course they want the other team to win and why is my team always being picked to lose in the big games and do we need a new coach and do we need a new quarterback (the answer to those is almost always YES unless you cheer for about one of 5 teams – across all sports).

When? Just let me know… when?

Maybe next year…

 

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

True Horror

I want to write about things which go bump in the night. I want to embrace that certain time of year where we all yearn to be scared for some primal reason that we might not ever understand. I want to discover the next horror movie or book or comic or tv show I should be watching in order to get my fix during this month.

I want to talk about all of those things, but I am forced to focus on a different sort of horror this year. The sort of horror that haunts you as it unfolds, but then sticks with you for the remainder of the week… only to happen again and again. The truest horror for any sports fan.

The horror of the wasted season.

Miami_Dolphins_2013

That’s what I’m dealing with 4 weeks into the football season this year. The Miami Dolphins have already fired their coach. This was a team some people thought would not only go to the playoffs, but could/would compete for some glory. A team that was 8-8 last year and whose personnel had gotten better (in theory at least).

Instead it has become the dysfunctional party we all know and love for the better part of a decade. And I can take a team being bad IF (and that’s a big IF) there is a chance for light at the end of the tunnel. IF there is a way for this to be a temporary measure. In fact, that’s basically what this last Baseball Season was for me. For the first time I don’t think I watched a full Atlanta Braves game. Oh, I still kept up with them on a near daily basis, still read the articles, read the blogs, watched at the trade deadline to see what moves they made.

But I knew this season was going to be bad. I knew there was almost 0% chance of them being in any race other than one of the poorer records in all of baseball. And I can deal with that. Next year needs to be better, and then the year after they should be in the hunt for a playoff spot (if the powers that be are to be believed).

Here’s the difference with the Dolphins, I go through this every 3 or 4 years with them. They either get a new coach or a new system or a new “something” and suddenly they are the vogue pre-season pick to do grand things. You’d think that after falling for this multiple times over the better part of a decade I would have steeled myself from such stupidity, but NOOOOOO, I am clearly a glutton for punishment. I buy in. “This is going to be the thing that pushes us up to the top, just you wait and see.”

Only to watch it all crumble and die on the vine.

I mean, our head coach was fired on Monday. And as much as I think that was the right move for the team at this point, what do I honestly think is going to come of this season? We’re 1-3 with a schedule that I thought we could be at least 5-1 after 6 games. Our next two opponents are weak (compared to us though they might be world-beaters). So what is realistic? 4 wins? 5 wins over the course of a season?

And don’t think me “fair-weathered” here. I watched every game of our 1-15 season. I will watch every game of this season. I’m just tired of the same things happening over and over and over again.

Sigh.

And the worst part is that I’ve dragged my wife down on this ship with me. She could have found a nice guy who liked deflated balls and won Super Bowls, but she got someone who liked the team from south Florida.

When Do I Get To See The Sailboat?

When Do I Get To See The Sailboat?

We joke in the house about when will we get to see the sailboat – meaning, when will one of our teams win the big one. But right now we are still like Wilhem from Mallrats…

Still looking for that damn boat.

 

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!

He also has a short story in the recently released anthology Beyond the Gate, which is free on most platforms!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.

Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful

This cold has got me discombobulated, scattered, wondering if I’m getting sick or just need more sleep (like a bear).

I’m not a fan of winter. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind the actual time of year in and of itself. I like the holidays, having time off, spending some of it with family, and using it as a good time to simply recharge.

But the cold… ugh. I cannot stand the cold. And yet I know that some people love it so that they can drink their hot chocolate and snuggle in front of the fire. It allows them to wear jackets and scarves and layer up until they don’t even know what to do with themselves.

1532_Randy_ICPMAD_40

And I live in Atlanta, so it pretty much never gets as bad as those in the north have it (seriously, why do you do that to yourselves… move south). But even a little bit of it where we are touching freezing at night is more than enough for me.

However, thanks to a wonderful wife, I spent this last weekend in warmth. I was able to wear shorts in December. A cool breeze whistled past me and I didn’t run for shelter from it, but embraced it as an old friend.

The benefits of being in Miami, apparently.

miami

On the list of items on my personal bucket list, if I actually took the time to write it out like Mr. Neill did a few weeks ago, would be to see a Miami Dolphins game in their home stadium. At 38 years old I finally got my chance to do just that.

I’ve been a Dolphins fan my entire life, yet it seems odd when people ask me if I am from Florida… as if I’d have to be from the place that the team resides to root for them. My old college roommate harassed me about that very thing many a weekend. Regardless, I always end up telling them the same thing. That when you live in south Georgia for much of your early life the one AFC team you get to see was the Dolphins. This was well before Jacksonville ever had a team, so week in and week out those were the games I got to see. Almost the same time I started watching the NFL, Dan Marino became the quarterback of the Dolphins which meant that most years they were in the playoffs – easy to root for. And the Atlanta Falcons were mostly awful during this time, so why bother with the team that was going to lose most of their games. I mean, today the NFL is the most popular it has ever been and much of that is due to the passing game – Marino was doing all of this 20 years ago.

Miami_Dolphins_2013

But that wasn’t the only story.

You see, in a parallel world to this one there is a version of me typing up this exact same blog, but with one startling difference – that version of me is a (hated) NY Jets fan.

How do I know that is happening in this other world? Because the very first game that I ever remember watching took place on January 23, 1983 when the Miami Dolphins placed the New York Jets in the AFC Championship game. In my world, the Dolphins won the game 14-0 and became MY team. A silly decision made over the course of a few hours one afternoon when I was 1 week before turning 8.

So I know that in the parallel world the Jets ended up winning. And I have nothing but sympathy for that version of me, because the Jets are a train wreck and pretty much have been since that day. They’ve made a couple of runs here or there, but it always seems they quickly slide back to being awful. And while I was watching Marino break records, that version probably couldn’t have watched very many of the Jets games in the first place – needing to be content with the small blurbs in the local papers to figure out who was even on the team.

Another little thing, another weird decision by a younger me, that caused me to fly south for the winter, even if only for a weekend.

Sadly the game didn’t turn out the way I would have liked it (with a Dolphins’ win), but I sat there in the stadium among my fellow Dolphin fans, yelling and even singing a little of the Dolphins song (a terrible thing that once you have it in your head can never be extracted). So I thank my wife for the gift.

Even if it did add another item to the old list: to see them Win at home.

 

***

John McGuire

John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.

His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. Each episode is only $0.99. But you can go ahead and purchase the full novel (all 6 episodes) right now for $4.99 with the above link!

He also has a short story in the recently released anthology Beyond the Gate, which is free on most platforms!

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.