10-10

It’s another October 10th morning the 3rd of its kind that hasn’t been the same since that fateful day back in 2022… as I sit here in my chair that smells like last night’s chipotle staring at a blank screen on my tv, I can’t help but watch the memories scroll in head of a simpler time. They say time heals everything which it does most of the time, but it can never heal you waking up on your deceased buddy’s birthday with a handful of memories that bring a tear to your eye as you scrub the filith of your body in the shower… October 10th used to be a day of great joy. My friends and I would book a tee time for golf at one of his favorite courses. Plan on gorging our way through a mountain of wings from Bdubs, so much so it would lower my cars suspension by a couple of springs, and we would be rubbing the wheel wells all the way home. End up playing enough video games like Halo, Destiny, NHL, Call of Duty and Madden till our eyes bleed. It was always such a great day celebrating our buddy’s birthday… but that all change a couple of years ago when the world lost one of the great people to ever walk this earth to a car accident… It’s strange to think about how fast time really moves, one day your buddy is buying new clubs, and we are figuring out how to hit them and the next day you're surrounded by family friends at a funeral. I’m not here today to talk about sports in any way. I’m just here to give a little tribute to my best buddy 2 and some change years later after his death. This is the eulogy I wrote for his funeral with some minor changes to names… But read if you want but this is mostly for friends and family of Robby on what would have been another year around the sun. So, enjoy reliving some of the great memories in honor of a great friend.   

Robby

What is there to say about Robby (RAWHE) other than he was the greatest friend a guy could ever ask for. He had an amazing habit of making anyone and everyone feel like they were family. The joy that came out of that guy on a daily basis was staggering. I didn’t come from the tight nit pine wood family that a lot of his other friends here today are from I was from the outcast elementary school that is red pine, So when I landed in middle school I didn’t know a lot of people and there was this fluffy, smiling, joking gentlemen that I happen to meet his name was Robby you might know him and if you didn’t know him you definitely heard him. His roaring voice and laughter carried throughout the halls of the middle school. You couldn’t help but want to be around his energy like a fly to a bug zapper who couldn’t help but get sucked in. From that moment I knew I wanted to be friends with this charismatic human being so he introduced me to the pine wood clan which included the likes of AJ, Eric, Pat and Sam and too all their credit they took me in and made me feel included right off the get go and that was the kind of guy he was he didn’t care who you were, where you were from he made you feel included.

Then came meeting the rest of the Holmquist family and good god that was an experience right from the start I could see right away where he got his bubbly personality from. Dennis, Shanna, Christina and Bob were a cast of characters right out of your favorite reality tv show. One of the most incredible family’s I have ever met so loving, caring, funny… good golly miss molly they were funny so much laughter filled the walls of that house and just like Robby they made you feel like family the second you walked through that front door of the house and of their world famous van that Shan would drive us around everywhere we needed and didn’t need to go. I won’t bore you with details of the stupid stuff we did as high schoolers but let’s just say the bond grew as strong as a warlocks from destiny over those four years.  

That bond caried into early adulthood and just got stronger from our late-night Tuesday casino runs, which there were way too many to count and don’t even want to count but we were always up “300” by the end of the night… To the golf my gosh we played a lot of golf (when he could wake up of course) you would call 15 times and there would be no answer, so you had to go either bang on the front door or call one of his lovely sisters and they were always there to yank him out of a deep slumber. Once we finally got him awake, we seemed to always be ripping around the corner into the entrance of the countless golf courses we played together literally throwing the clubs in to the back of a rusted-out Yamaha golf cart (preferably number 44 it had no governor) and running every old person off the cart path just so we could get to our tee time at two in the afternoon!

To the late-night gaming sessions on Destiny trying to run Crota for the 19th time in the night and it usually ended up with me blowing it somehow and having to restart. Then there was Chel don’t get me started on Chel (EA sports NHL Video game for all you novice out there) The MN Chiefs were always chasing the coveted EASHL trophy with one Patches Cotton (Robby) as our left winger Peroxide Jesus (Shane) as our center, (yes the pastor read Peroxide Jesus during the funeral, I hope Robby got a kick out of that) Benny Bites ALot (Me-Brett) as the Goaltender with a smattering of other friends sprinkled in there Eric, Max, Andy and ooo we can’t forget good old Chubs Peterson (Robert) the enforcer of the team always there to make it 4 on 5 for the whole game by running other players off the ice for no other reason than I guess they looked at him funny? (Robby “really” enjoyed playing with Chubbs) Let’s just say Patches and Peroxide got really good at the Power Kill and I got good at making 90 saves a game. But the cup runs always seemed to end in heart ache because someone would always sabaroni cheese (ANDY) the game and would lose to teams like the Moldy Shower Curtains. But in the end, we did lift the shiny, pixilated EASHL cup a hand full of times and I think we all have it on our resume when we apply for jobs right next to our education.  

Now to the tradition unlike any other no not the Masters… The Bio Trip what’s the bio trip you may ask the bio trip is one of the most important things that we do every year over the last ten plus years it is an annual gathering of the “minds” with a lot of our high school friends and more at my parents’ house in northern Minnesota in the buzzing metropolis that is Biwabik, Minnesota off the shores of the red stained Wynn Lake. The stories that have come from that trip are countless but Robby was always the highlight from his giant fan which we would turn off to get him awake for you guessed it golf to his great jokes making fun of himself and everyone else that was there but he loved along with everyone to pick on Norbs the most! To his movie quotes that were always on point that had the whole place in stitches. But what makes it great is that it’s a time to catch up with old friends and laugh, talk about old memories, and make countless new ones. I think it’s safe to say that the Bio Trip will never ever be the same.

But what I’ll remember the most were our long road trips to Chicago, Florida, Michigan I am convinced that this kid has never seen the state of Wisconsin he was always so excited to head out on an adventure. He would say alright I’m going to stay up the whole way to our destination and I would hit him with a “yeah right dude” and “he would me with a alrighttttt dude” and sure enough crossing over the bridge from Stillwater into Hudson you would hear the faint noise of snoring which graduated to a full on symphony of snoring by the time we hit Eau Claire and when we got to our destination with a few detours along the way he would just say one thing every time “my bad dude sorry I knocked so hard” and then we would just laugh for a good five mins but I didn’t care it was the time we spent together that made it great I hope one day when we meet again that he will be just sleeping in that passenger seat of my Volkswagen next to me the whole way through Wisconsin onto our next adventure.

I just want to say this I haven’t lived a long life, but it has been fulfilling so far with knowing people like Robby’s family from the caring nature to their unmatched toughness for the things they have gotten through and all of my great family and friends. But take the time, make the time, do whatever you can to pick up those minicomputers in our pockets that we are all so addicted to by scrolling through Instagram, Facebook or even myspace to use it as an actual phone and give someone a call. Call a friend that works hvac as he’s climbing a ladder in heat of the day and talk about his fantasy team, call a special ed teacher who is working he’s butt off doing a job I know a lot of us could never do and see how his day is going, call a grid operator who keeps the power on for us and see how his hobby farm is doing, yes that means checking in on steve the donkey as well,  call a navy “seal” who lives out in California and for some reason drives down to San Diego from LA every weekend (have you seen gas prices) but I’m grateful he does because it gives us time to talk, call an actuary who lives in the “greatest city on planet earth” and talk about swing plain. Call a father who is doing an amazing job trying to raise a family and talk about how our stock portfolios are the dirt. Call A Pat just because he’s Pat and he’s the best to talk too. Call a Postal worker and see if he wants to go hit the tree on the first hole at our favorite golf club. Call a pair of brothers to see if they want to crash a boat off the shores of Lake Michigan during a wind advisory. Call a brother and see how his stress levels our from dealing with those two brothers who love to sail. Call the best parents in world who will support you know matter what you want to do in this world. And most importantly call the best friend any of us could ask for and see if he just wants to float in orbit on destiny, make a cross cress pass to a one timer on CHEL, see if he wants to throw a football around in the backyard, see if he wants to go hit a quick nine, see if he wants to come over and watch harry potter in the basement and before the first wingardium levious you both are passed out. But just call and talk because life is short, time is precious and the relationships we form while we are here are the most important and I am confident saying this that me and everyone in this room and even outside this room are so grateful for every moment they got to spend with…

Robby.

Thanks For Reading, Enjoy The Day, Hell Just Enjoy Every Day, Because We Never Know How Much Time We Actually Have On This Planet.

Jaded Egocentric Terrible Sardonic

What’s the definition of hope? Funny you ask I just have it sitting here on the top the head…

Hold on let me search through my brain files and pull it out…

“Guys? Guys… Guys! Brett needs our help, he doesn’t know anything about the definition of hope, he usually Google's this shit, why does he want to act smart now.”

“Got it! Hope is defined as, slamming your club into the ground because you missed a 2-foot putt…”

“This is no time for jokes Anger! I need you to get your shit together! Joy what do you have?”

“Ummm… Hope is defined as, a stroll through your favorite oceanside park on a crisp sunny fall morning while the birds chirp Bubbly by Colbie Caillat.”

“Ohhh wow doesn’t that sound nice… Shut Up! Shut The Hell Up! I don’t need your positivity right now Joy! I need actual answers!”

“Hope is defined as, not pissing your pants on stage during a choir residual…”

 “Real funny Anxiety! That was one time, it was the first time we tried cranberry juice, and we didn’t know how it was going to react with our blader… F-It you are all useless, I’ll just google it. Leave it up to Disgust to figure it out…”

Ok found it, I knew I had it up there somewhere. Hope is defined as, “A feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” There have been some bad run franchises over the years like The Minnesota Timberwolves, The Detroit Lions and The Pittsburgh Pirates who never had a reason to hope. But now with super stars all over the field and the court for each team, they are bringing back a reason to watch and believe in their franchises. But for some reason the other hopeless franchise, The Jets keep finding a way to screw up hope and I’m not going to lie, you hate to see it… Just kidding it’s pretty darn funny to see. New Yorkers sports tears are one of a kind.

The city of New York and its unforgiving Jets fan base was given that slight bit of hope when The Jets decided to make a splash move in 2023 by trading for Super Bowl Champion and 3-time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers from The Green Bay Packers. This trade allowed Aaron Rodgers to follow in the footsteps of his former Packer teammate Brett Farve and The Jets to follow in the footsteps of former organizational blunders. “Hey, our defense is good enough to win a championship let's grab the aging Green Bay quarterback because it went so well last time… Maybe he can have a dick pic scandal as well… or maybe he will talk about doing ayahuasca in a South American jungle and piss off the entire league… These are all great things our franchise needs. Get The Packers on the phone now and offer them anything they want…”

This time felt different though, it felt like The Jets were really on to something. They had a young ferocious defense, a young super star receiver in the making just waiting for his opportunity, a no-nonsense defensive minded head coach ready to prove himself and a bunch of Aaron's old teammates to make him feel at home. Everything just seemed right for Aaron Rodgers to lead this team to the promised land. Opening night 2023 came in louder than an F-16 flyover and left in stealth bomber stunned silence as Aaron decided to rupture his Achilles on the chopped up tire rubber field of MetLife stadium. Just like that the dreams of championship went down with their quarterback.

Fast forward to 2024 new season, new hope, same old Jets. This years Jets seemed to have more hype surrounding them than last year’s Jets even with a 41-year-old quarterback coming off major Achilles surgery. The 2023 Jets went 7-10 with Zach Wilson at the helm so even if Rodger's is just slightly better than Zach was, they should be without question playoff bound or at least that’s what I told myself when I may or may not of boughten into the hype and put a future on the Jets to win the super bowl… boy I’m regretting that decision as of right now…

“Where were you on that one Logic?”

“What the f*** did he say to me?”

The Jets are off to a shaky 2-3 start to the season none of which is the defenses’ fault. Which is why it was so surprising yesterday when they fired their defensive orientated head ball coach Robert Saleh five games into the season. They have the second ranked defense in the league, and you go and fire your defensive head coach? Yep, that seems like a Jets move to say the least… or there must be something else going on. You don’t just fire your head coach at the start of the season if there isn’t some sort of underlying meaning. Kind of like in the song Bubbly by Colbie Caillat when she is secretly talking about diabetes… think about it… “It starts in my toes, and I crinkle my nose. Wherever it goes, I always know.”  

If The Jets wanted to fire someone, they should have fired Nathaniel Hackett, but he is friends with Aaron and that will never happen because “every time he sees his bubbly face he gets tingles in a silly place.” The offense has been abysmal to start the year and this maybe the Denver Broncos hatred towards that man coming out in me but I’m not sure if Hackett knows the difference between a slant route and a curl. This is not all on Hackett though, Aaron has not been good. He can’t move like he used to, he is missing open guys he usually hits for touchdowns down the sideline, even the back shoulder throws aren’t working. It’s truly sad to see the greatest quarterback I’ve ever seen struggle this mightily.

 Do I think Aaron had something to do with Saleh getting fired? How can you not… It may not be true but something fishy is definitely going on that doesn’t have to do with coaching. Did Aaron and Saleh get along? Only they can answer that. Did the owner of the Jets Woody Johnson make a move because he got embarrassed by the former Jets quarterback Sam Darnold on an international stage? Did Saleh get fired for wearing a Lebanese flag on his sweatshirt. I’m sure we will never know the real reason why he got fired and Woody Johnson will just say they need a change… But I’m sure there was more than one factor that led to his termination.

The question isn’t about why Saleh got fired because that’s in the past. The question is where do the once AFC East favorites go from here? There is some good news for The Jets if you can believe it. The AFC East is so bad that the Bills and Jets play a game on Monday night for first place. With a win The Jets could be right back on track to making the playoffs. The interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich is a guy the players all like. The Defense is still playing well. There still might be some magic in the right arm of Aaron Rodgers. Oh yeah, I almost forgot… if The Jets wanted to make a change at coach there is an 8-time Super Bowl champion looking for a job other than talking over Eli and Peyton on Monday nights…

From questionable front office decisions to questionable on field play The Jets will always seem to be the Jets. Not even the legend Aaron Rodgers can help that. But I will say this even though hope is all but lost for The Jets fan base it is so much more fun when the bad New York teams are in the news. From The Mets in the MLB Playoffs to The Jets in the bad news cycle, New York sports fans have a way of making sports more interesting. The passion they have towards their teams is unlike anything in American sports and that’s what makes it great.

So, if they are going to sit around eating pizza complaining about how bad their teams are and how hopeless their franchises are, I will start a hope train that hopefully they get aboard and that’s not because I have a future on them… Well it maybe a little in part because I have a future on them... But that's besides the point, here’s to hoping The Jets get things turned around this year and they can crawl out of that metaphoric sports hole they are stuck in. Gone are the days of Sam Darnold seeing ghost. Gone are the days of Zach Wilson and his 7 win seasons. Gone are the days of Rex Ryan and his weird foot fetish. Gone are the days of the butt fumbling Mark Sanchez. Gone are the days of Tim Tebow being a franchise saving quarterback. But most importantly gone are the days of the decrepit New York J.E.T.S Jets Jets Jets...

What’s the definition of decrepit you ask? Ahhh I'm glad you asked...

“Ooooh Bleep not again….”

Thanks For Reading and Enjoy Those New York Tears.

Rook To Week 5!

My chess knowledge or lack thereof comes from two places, one being wizards’ chess from Harry Potter when Harry, Ron and Hermione had to battle life sized chess pieces in the deepest darkest parts of Hogwarts on their way to finding Voldemort. Ron taking a deep breath, grabbing the horses reins tightly and yelling out, “knight to H3” and then getting stabbed by the queen will forever be imprinted in my brain. What an unselfish move but that young wizard. No wonder he landed Hermione. You could see it in her eyes right then and there, she started to swoon over that young ginger. The second being the research I just did googling what is a rook in chess. On second thought I don’t want to toot my own horn by I guess you could say I very well versed in the subject of chess…

While doing my chess research I learned that a rook’s path can only travel in a straight line (see I know stuff) and this year’s NFL rookie quarterbacks have had more of a knight’s path. Left, right, forward, backwards, hoping over defenders, and getting crushed by the queens. These new faces of the league haven’t had anything close to a Magnus Carlsen chess match. It’s been more like when I used to play chess on the big blue bubble of a macintosh computer during study hall in 7th grade,

“This game is stupid; what do you mean I can’t move a pawn to the right… How the am I losing to some computer? Am I secretly playing some pone dexter from The London Chess Academy… Frick this I’m going to go color outside the lines in my George of The Jungle coloring book. At least then there’s no rules!”

Now I know what your thinking, “Brett you still used coloring books in the 7th grade and what do you mean the rookies are like knights in chess? Jayden Daniels is making it look pretty easy so far. He is already headed to the Hall of Fame next week.”

To answer your first question, yes… I did still use a color book in 7th grade. I had hard time staying in the lines… My teachers thought it would help keep me on track… I… I… I don’t need to explain myself to you!

To the second question let's pump the breaks in the metaphorical 2003 Ford Windstar on the Jayden Daniels packing up the kids and heading Canton, Ohio talk. Yes, he has played very well to start his career. We knew he has an athlete but good lord, his passing has been more accurate than Randy Johnson throwing a fastball at a bird passing through Tucson on his way to Mexico for a little spring get away. When you come out the gates leading the abominable Washington Commanders franchise to a 3-1 start including a win over the Joe Burrow lead Bangles while putting up 897 yards passing and 3 touchdowns with an 82% completion percentage through your first 4 games it’s going to get people talking and that’s not including the 218 yards rushing with 4 touchdowns which will really get people talking. Holy bleep maybe we should put this kid in Canton already… No, no, no, not yet. But he has without a doubt been the best rookie so far even though that’s not saying much at all…

First overall pick Caleb Williams has not had the start the whole world was thinking he was going to have. He did have a 363-yard passing game against The Colts in week 3 but besides that it has been a pretty disappointing start to his career. Everyone thought this kid would come out firing more than Rambo on a revenge killing spree. Especially with the weapons that The Bears added on offense including Keenan Allen, Deandre Swift and Rome Odunze but even with those high caliber weapons Caleb has been more like inflatable arm man on a revenge killing spree… a lot of unimpressed arm flailing… Through the first 4 weeks he has put up a whopping 787 yards passing with 3 touchdowns and 4 interceptions. But the big killer is that he is doing that with a completion percentage of 61.7%. Which wouldn’t be a bad start to a career if it wasn’t for the likes of C.J. Stroud and Jayden Daniels out here ruining normal rookie progression. I do think Caleb Williams will get there but it might take more time than we expected. Speaking of time, he hasn’t had that much time to get rid of the ball. Caleb has been sacked a staggering 16 times through the first four weeks of the season and if that wasn’t enough weight landing on his shoulders, he also has the weight of 2,746,388 deep dish pizza loving Chicagoans just dying for a championship run.

Can someone explain to me how the Broncos are 2-2 because I’m more clueless about how the Broncos are 2-2 more than what a bishop does on a chess board, does it go sideways, counterclockwise, up, down, I don’t know… At halftime of Sunday's game vs, The New York Jets, Bo Nix was 7-15 for -7 passing yards. That’s not a type-o he had -7 yards passing. Thankfully Bo Nix came out firing in the second half and The Broncos ended winning the game with Bo having 60 yards passing total. The field may have been sloppier than my dinner plate when the applesauce mixes with the cottage cheese but that still shouldn’t have affected the passing numbers that much. Aaron Rodgers managed to get over 200 yards passing somehow but still loss because Greg Zuerlein missed a game winning kick. No wonder Aaron Rodgers put a towel over his head at the end of the game, I would be ashamed I lost to that as well…

Bo Nix has had the most “knight to H3” ride out of any rookie so far this year. There are moments of greatness (mostly with his legs) that make you think this kid is something special and then he drops back, looks down the field for an open receiver, gets scared to throw it and then decides just to dump it off. His average pass attempt is 4.8 yards, he is the Magnus Carlsen of dump offs. But hey he is learning how to play the position, and we just have to give it time. The question is if Sean Payton can find some patience in the cranium of his to allow Bo time to develop. If he can figure out how to throw the ball down field a smidge better, combined with that athleticism we might have something special brewing in Colorado and I’m not talking about the Rocky Mountain refreshing Coors Light…

It's clear over the last few years that a couple of players have ruined the rookie development timeline. Because of the likes of Kyler Murray and C.J. Stroud if you’re not good by the end of year one your cut form the team to go sell insurance for Jake from State Farm. Can we find it in our A.D.D. society minds to give these guys a little time to figure out how this league works before we check mate them in the corner as busts. Peyton Manning didn’t get off to the best start to his career and look at him now hosting Monday Night Football games with his brother Eli and a doddering Bill Belichick. So, let’s give these rooks a little time to figure out the board because there is no straight path to playing quarterback in this league and who knows there might be a new king checkmating the league in this draft class…

Thanks For Reading and Enjoy The Day!