Do we really need any more sports channels?

I remember how it used to be, back when we had ABC Wide World of Sports and the "agony of defeat", a few college football games on Saturday, a few NFL games on Sunday, and Monday Night Football. Now, we have ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN U, ESPN Classic, ESPNews, FOX Sports Net, The Golf Channel, MLB Extra Innings, NBA TV, NFL Network, and others. We have Monday Night Football on Mondays AND Thursdays. You can watch an entire season of NASCAR races (right turns not included). Baseball, cycling, hockey, moto-cross, skateboarding, and surfing are all televised.

Do I like all the sports channels? Of course, but I think we're running out of sports to televise. ESPN is broadcasting their own movies. ESPN Classic shows old sports movies. And for some reason, you can watch fat, sweaty guys playing poker. Well, unless it's celebrity poker, and then you can watch thinner B-list celebrities playing poker. Badly.

I was prompted to ask whether or not we needed more sports channels when I was channel surfing last week. First, I stumbled across the National Paintball Championship. I've played paintball before, and I'll be the first to admit that it's fun, but I sure wouldn't watch my game on TV. I imagine it would be like watching paint dry. Literally.

And second, after switching off of the riveting paintball match, I ended up watching the World Dart Championship. There were player bios, the exciting dart-cam (where you could see the shot from just behind the dart in super slo-mo), and actual fans in attendance. I imagine most were family and friends, but who knows, maybe there are dart groupies out there.

Right now, I'm trying to negotiate a contract with ESPN 8 (The Ocho) to televise my church-league softball games, but they're balking at my stipulation that they only show games in which I play well.

They've determined that only amounts to one game every three years.

The physics of weed-eaters

A couple of weeks ago, after I mowed both the front yard and back yard, I wanted to run the weed-eater around the driveway, the sidewalk, the house, and the fence. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it started. Since this was the first time this spring that I had used my gas-powered weed-eater, I figured it might need a new spark plug. After all, it was three years old, and a bad spark plug would explain why it wouldn't turn over.

So this evening when it finally cooled down, I mowed the front. I decided to try the weed-eater again, because I didn't think I would have enough time to mow the back before it got dark. But after 20 minutes, I still couldn't get it started. I took a look at the spark plug, but it looked OK to my untrained eye.

At that point, I realized it was out of gas. I guess that would explain the whole "not starting" thing.

Crisis Averted

My icemaker no longer worked. Actually, it stopped working a several weeks ago, but since the warranty had expired long ago, I didn't want to spend the money to get it fixed. Within a week of it breaking, I got a card in the mail from Sears (where I had bought the refrigerator) asking if I wanted to purchase the extended warranty at a cost that was probably cheaper than a service call. Of course I did.

I didn't want to make it too obvious that the broken icemaker was a preexisting condition, so I waited a few weeks before I called to schedule the repair job. The nice people at Sears gave me a small 8:00am to 5:00pm service window for yesterday, so I planned on spending the day waiting for the repair guy to show up. Fortunately, he showed up in the morning, fixed the icemaker, and was out the door within an hour.

After the repair, an unrelated crisis occurred. While getting ready for work, I was taking off my shirt to put on a clean one, and I got it caught on one of my earrings, sending it flying across the closet. I know what you're thinking: why do bad things happen to good people?

Since I had already wasted the morning waiting for the repair guy, I couldn't spend time looking for it. Instead, I trudged into work, feeling slightly naked. After work, I had soccer practice so it wasn't until late last night that I was able to resume the search.

But this story has a happy ending. After several minutes spent searching CSI-style using a flashlight with the lights out, I did find my earring. America's long nightmare was over. Thank you and good night.

Mama's Big Fat Non-Greek Birthday

This past weekend my grandmother, Mama Vada, celebrated her 90th birthday. Since this event doesn't happen very often, the entire family gathered in West Virginia for the party. All of her children and all but two of her grandkids were in attendance for the momentous occasion.

On Friday, I flew from Austin to Charleston via Atlanta, and a couple of things stood out. First, on the flight to Atlanta, a man a few rows in front of me was playing Spider Solitaire on his laptop. He played the same game for over 45 minutes and never finished it. I wanted to smack him upside the head, take his laptop, and finish his game for him.

Second, on the Atlanta to Charleston leg, I noticed a woman checking me out in the airport and on the flight. Ok, so maybe I imagined it, a point driven home by the fact that her boyfriend was waiting to pick her up. Oh well, at least I didn't have a dryer sheet stuck to my butt like last time. (See I Thought I Still Had It for details).

The party itself was on Saturday, and it was attended by well over 50 people, several of whom I didn't know. One older woman came up to me and Ron and asked if we remembered her. We told her we didn't, and she replied, "Oh, I haven't seen you two since you were in diapers." I responded, "Well, that's probably why we don't remember you."

At the party, gifts were opened, cake was eaten, and pictures were taken. Although this picture of me, Mama, and Ron caught Mama with her eyes closed, she still looks mighty good for a nonagenarian.

On Sunday, I flew back to Austin via Cincinnati. And although I didn't suffer any delusions of women checking me out, the flight did endure some roller coaster-like turbulence for almost 30 minutes. Fortunately, I was in the very last row next to the lavatory, so if I was going to get sick, I didn't have far to go. And on the plus side, I got to reach over and open the lavatory door for a couple of people because they couldn't figure out how to pull the handle that said "Pull" on it.

I have one final note. Apparently, giving directions isn't a forte for some of the residents. I (or my brother) called a restaurant and a department store asking for directions since we weren't from the area. On both occasions, we told the person that we were coming from the airport area, which is where our hotel was. And on both occasions, the directions were wrong. Maybe they just don't know where their airport is.

A celebrity in the house

There's a celebrity in my house. No, I'm not talking about the time I was on that episode of Cops. I'm talking about my boy Spartacus.

After I sent the pictures of my new puppy Spartacus, a friend of mine who is a volunteer on the board of directors for the Humane Society of Williamson County asked if she could submit one of the photos to be on their 2006 calendar. And Spartacus made the cut.

The picture of Spartacus appears on July 2006 of the calendar. Unfortunately, the slots for the big pictures were already taken, but he didn't seem to mind. He said he simply wanted to be on a month with at least thirty days so that people would get to enjoy his picture longer. His exact words were, "Anything but February!"

The calendars can be ordered from their website at http://hswc.net/. You can either use Paypal to order it online, or you can download their order form and send that in. Also, the calendars will be sold at any of their offsite adoption days. (See their event calendar for a time and place near you.)

P.S. No, I wasn't really on an episode of Cops. My face would have been pixelated anyway.

It has to be the coaching

For the past few years, I've coached a boys soccer team with the help of my friend Gary. This was our tenth season to coach, and there have been some good ones and some not-so-good ones. One season, we had five boys on the team who had never played soccer before, out of eight total players. We didn't win a single game that season.

This past season was one of the good ones. The team (pictured here) ended the season in first place of our soccer association, which made us eligible for the CAYSA (Central Austin Youth Soccer Association) Fall Champions Tournament. There were twelve teams from the greater Austin area in our division, divided into three groups of four. The winner of each group plus the runner-up with the most points moved on to the semi-finals.

We finished group play with one win, one loss, and one tie. We didn't get enough points to move on to the semi-finals so our tournament ended after group play. Kudos go to the boys for a job well done.

The Inner Don

For Halloween this year, I wanted to choose a costume that spoke of the inner Don: the peacefulness, the thoughtfulness, the joy. A costume that would inspire. A costume that was Don, only moreso.

• http://donyoung.us/images/halloween_2005.jpg

And on the plus side, unlike the pimp costume I wore last year, I didn't have to explain to little kids what I was. Last year, I just told them I was a happy cowboy.

I, Spartacus

After my dog Dylan passed away last month (see Dylan: 1995-2005), several of you inquired as to whether I'd be getting another dog. Since I still had Boo, my cat who doesn't handle change very well, I'd decided that I wasn't going to get another dog. Instead, I would let Boo live out his last few years as the only pet. Well, that was my intention anyway.

Earlier today, a friend who shall remain nameless (her name starts with the letter Sinde) e-mailed me about a couple of abandoned puppies that had been found at her work. If no one stepped up to take them home, the puppies were going to be taken to a shelter. So she asked if I could take one or both of them as a last resort. Actually, she sent me SEVERAL e-mails. Plus, she sent a video to my cell phone showing me how adorable the puppies were. One of her coworkers took one of the dogs, but no one stepped up to take the other one.

So, this evening I picked up my new puppy Spartacus. I was going to name him Peeve, because I always wanted to say I had a pet Peeve, but that seems more like a cat name. So I chose the name Spartacus instead. We took Spartacus to a groomer to get him cleaned up and dipped, and then I brought him home. Here are a few pictures of the new addition:

• http://donyoung.us/images/pets/spartacus_booty.jpg
• http://donyoung.us/images/pets/spartacus_looking_cute.jpg
• http://donyoung.us/images/pets/spartacus_running.jpg
• http://donyoung.us/images/pets/spartacus_sitting.jpg
• http://donyoung.us/images/pets/spartacus_sleeping.jpg

Maturity is knowing when you can be immature

Where I work, my coworkers and I had offices in two buildings. Our main building had a lot of empty space, so the people on my floor are being moved over to the main building this weekend. At the close of business today, we had to have our offices packed up and ready. I took the day off today (after all, it is my birthday ... hint, hint), so I had to pack my office yesterday.

Some plastic crates were provided by the moving company to be used for packing. They could be stacked together and placed on top of some rollers to make it easy to move them to the other building. However, as shown in the picture linked below, they also made it easy to play:

• http://donyoung.us/images/don_sledding.jpg

The people in their offices were surprised to see me go speeding by, but one of my coworkers was able to get a picture with his camera phone. I ran into the wall once or twice, but luckily I only hit my head.

Dylan: 1995-2005

Earlier this week, my dog Dylan was feeling lethargic and not eating, so I took him to the vet. After the initial tests, they had me bring him back in last night so that they could put some fluids in him overnight and run some more tests today. Unfortunately, while at the clinic Dylan passed away this afternoon. Since he was 10 years old, they believe his kidneys just finally gave out.


Dylan was given to me by my friend Wayne a couple of years ago. He was a good boy (Dylan, not Wayne), he got along well with my cat Boo (eventually), and he was an expert at getting out of the backyard. In fact, on a couple of occasions he got out of a locked house, which worried me, because if he had figured out how to open doors, then I was never going to keep him in the house. Luckily, he had only figured out how to nudge open the windows, push out the screens, and jump into the yard. Still, pretty impressive for a dog.


One time, Dylan got out of the house while my friend Tom was housesitting. Tom told me that Dylan was a very smart boy, because he just walked out the garage door that Tom had left open. To which I replied, "Well Tom, apparently Dylan doesn't have to be very smart. He just has to be smarter than you."