Posts Tagged ‘playoffs’
Multitasking Indoors
It was a mostly cloudy, very windy, and generally cooler day yesterday, so the bulk of activity was indoors. Leisurely reading was the early pursuit, followed by a combination of watching memorials for Walk Off the Earth keyboardist, Mike ‘Beard Guy’ Taylor on YouTube, while the NFL playoffs were on in the background.
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Mental Preparation
This morning, I am kicked back in the recliner in front of the fire, enjoying the calm before the storm. We have been warned. Our region is about to experience a narrow band of snow with a huge gradient in amounts from 1 to 12 inches. As of now, our county still appears to be sitting dead center in the heaviest snow zone.
The predictions are regularly updated, and weather service computer models will present shifts to the north or south as the time-to-event shrinks, so I am excitedly refreshing the live updates in hopes of determining if the worst is to come. I like to be totally prepared.
This will be the second Sunday in a row when the Minnesota Vikings will be engaged in the high competition of this season’s NFL playoffs and we have a distraction interfering with my ability to give the game my undivided attention.
I’m framing that as a good thing.
What choice do I have?
The forecast is ominous enough that I am already thinking I will stay off the roads tomorrow and miss a day of work. That hurts double because we are so busy at the day-job that I worked on Saturday in attempt to make extra headway toward keeping up. Missing Monday is a stab in that plan.
The Federal Government is in a shutdown mess, so my local concerns feel a little petty in comparison. The President had the gall to claim the Women’s March was celebrating “unprecedented economic success and wealth creation.” Ouch. So much ugliness.
Thank goodness I can hug Cyndie, walk outside and toss hay, stack firewood, coo to our chickens and breathe in the scent of our horses hair.
It helps me to mentally prepare for whatever tomorrow is going to bring.
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Losing Effort
I imagine that watching Minnesota Vikings football is a little like having bought a ticket to the lottery, but I can’t say for sure, because I don’t buy lottery tickets. I would guess that a lottery ticket provides inspiration to dream of becoming independently wealthy. A Vikings fan can only hope for the possibility their team won’t come up short of a necessary victory.
I have suffered the psychological abuse of being a Vikings fan my entire life. It’s been hard, because the franchise has often fielded great teams of incredible athletes. When I was a kid, the team was respected by fans and foes for having a dominating defense. The Minnesota Vikings were good teams and won enough games to earn their way to 4 Superbowls, from which they came away losers, all 4 times.
It’s the repeated dashing of hopes that begins to feel like some kind of a mental endurance test.
Yesterday’s game was one of the worst kind. Leading for most of the playoff game, then falling behind late, and finally achieving a position on the field where they had a chance to win as time runs out. The field goal attempt was wide left. Game over.
Season over.
Hopes dashed.
I wonder what I would do with a billion dollar lottery win.
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Relative Something 