It's Way Too Early For This, Part 2

First of all, even though this is to be a column discussing pro football picks, I need to say something about the labor deal reached today in baseball: OKAY, SO I WAS WRONG!!! SO THERE'S NOT GOING TO BE A STRIKE!!! I WAS WRONG, IT HAPPENS!!!

Thank you.

Now, on to the NFL picks, and we'll start in the NFC East. Why the NFC East? Because that's where Steve Spurrier is. You've certainly heard about all the fireworks he's caused this preseason, throwing on 4th and 1 with a big lead against the Niners, taking shots at other coaches, being accused of only being good against second-stringers. The point is, he's the focus, and as long as he's the focus, the players have the pressure off, and that may be the best thing for them. They need a little time to jell, but they could make a playoff run However, they will not win the division, that spot has already been reserved for the Philadelphia Eagles. Their offense, as usual, is suspect, but never count out Donovan McNabb and his ability to create offense. The wild card out of this division is a race between the resurgent Giants and Spurrier's Redskins. Dallas, meanwhile, is probably mad that Arizona is no longer in their division, so they will finish last.

Now we have a brand-new division setup this year in the NFL: 4 divisions of 4 teams each, which means that you only have to be better than three teams to make the playoffs as division champion. Keep that in mind as we go to the NFC South, where 9-7 may win you the division. This is because between New Orleans, Atlanta, Carolina, and Tampa Bay, none of these teams scream Super Bowl contender. Sure the Saints have Aaron Brooks at QB and the Bucs have a potentially good offense with Brad Johnson and Keyshawn Johnson, but now they have no running back (except maybe Alstott, but he's a fullback by trade), and a new head coach. History tells us when a coach is whacked after a good season, the team goes down before it goes up. The Saints, therefore, win the division with a 9-7 record. The Bucs finish second, unless Jon Gruden suddenly decides to make former Bills QB Rob Johnson the starter, then they finish last. Atlanta will improve in Michael Vick's first year at QB, but he can't play defense for them, so the best they will do is .500, and Carolina, of course, is Carolina. They'll end that 15-game losing streak eventually, but I honestly can't think of an exact date or game when it will happen.

In the NFC North, the rest of the former Central teams go at it, but Green Bay has regained its championship form of years past, and they will give Chicago a run. Whether or not the Bears repeat as division champs depends on whether or not last year's top rookies, Anthony Thomas and David Terrell, can avoid a sophomore slump. If they falter, the Packers are right there. Detroit will be much improved this season on offense with a healthy James Stewart and rookie Joey Harrington eventually ascending to the starting role at QB, and that will help them avoid last year's 0-13 start and also the North cellar. Minnesota jettisoned their head coach for one bad year; Mike Tice has to pick up the pieces, and it won't be easy without the leadership of now-retired Cris Carter.

The NFC West will come down to two games: Niners at Rams and Rams at Niners. All else is moot, because these two teams can beat everyone else. It's a shame only one can win the division, and the other will have to be the 5-seed as the top wild card. Meanwhile, you also have the transplanted Seattle Seahawks in a new stadium and the Arizona Cardinals. That's really all I can say about those two teams, they'll be there; they have no shot at the division, probably no shot at a wild card because they have 4 automatic losses to the Rams and Niners, and they haven't been able to prove to be any better than mediocre in recent years. As for the Seahawks, losing Trent Dilfer for a while hurts big.

Over to the AFC, where the Patriots chances of repeating as East champs were greatly enhanced the Colts getting shifted to the new AFC South (Indy in the South and Miami in the East? Oh, that NFL geography...) That leaves the competition from the Jets, who will be 9-7 every season forever more, a weak Miami team (even with Ricky Williams), and the joke that is the Buffalo Bills. That gives the Pats the division by default. For all of you who think that the Bills will be the miracle team of the season because they now have Drew Bledsoe, I will remind you that the eventual champion Patriots started 0-2 with Bledsoe at QB, after 6-10 the year before. 'Nuff said.

Switching the Colts to the AFC South gives them a whole new division to go with their new coach, Tony Dungy. We know Dungy is a good coach (too bad Tampa Bay didn't), and with the offense set in stone, that gives a defensive-minded coach a chance to focus on fixing the Colts D. The combination is a formula to not only give Indy the division easily, but also home field throughout the playoffs. The Titans will be back; you know Eddie George will not allow himself to have 2 sub-1000 yard rushing seasons in a row, and they have rebuilt their defense back into the stellar unit that got them to the Super Bowl in '99. Jacksonville still has some rebuilding to do, Mark Brunell's not getting any younger, and time may be running out on Tom Coughlin. Houston is an expansion team, David Carr is a rookie, and he doesn't have much of an offensive line. Every preseason highlight I saw of him was him either getting sacked or running for his life. It's not going to be pretty at Reliant Stadium this year.

In the North, Pittsburgh has a pretty open road to the division title. Now things could go wrong; Jerome Bettis could get hurt, Kordell Stewart could turn into the Kordell of pre-2001, the D may suffer from having to replace too many good players too many years in a row, but I don't see that happening enough to keep them out of first. Meanwhile, forget what you've heard about Baltimore. I know there are some people who think that a team with 19 rookies as part of a salry cap-overhauled roster cannot be that good. Baltimore Sun columnist Mike Preston said that the Ravens would only win 4 or 5 games this year, but that of course is because Preston has it in for Brian Billick and would love to see nothing less than a godawful season that gets Billick fired. Sorry, Mike, I still think they're a playoff contender, especially with a healthy Jamal Lewis and Ray Lewis and Peter Boulware still anchoring the D. Cleveland is improving, no doubt, but I still don't think they have enough for a playoff run. The Bengals are, well, the Bengals; you can have all the optimism you want out in Cincy, it ain't gonna make any difference.

Finally, the West: Denver is loaded on offense. Terrell Davis retires, just bring in Clinton Portis, although Portis does have some fumblitis he needs to shake off. Brian Griese should bounce back and prove he's worth the big contract he got last year. Oakland lost Gruden, and its success with him. Kansas City is still mediocre, and the Chargers will improve a little with Drew Brees at QB, but they still have a year or two to go to be contenders.

So, here's the Reader's Digest version...

NFC East- Philadelphia 11-5, Washington 9-7, NY Giants 9-7, Dallas 4-12
NFC South- New Orleans 9-7, Tampa Bay 8-8, Atlanta 8-8, Carolina 2-14
NFC North- Green Bay 12-4, Chicago 11-5, Detroit 6-10, Minnesota 4-12
NFC West- St. Louis 14-2, San Francisco 13-3, Seattle 6-10, Arizona 3-13

AFC East- New England 11-5, NY Jets 9-7, Miami 8-8, Buffalo 5-11
AFC South- Indianapolis 12-4, Tennessee 10-6, Jacksonville 6-10, Houston 3-13
AFC North- Pittsburgh 11-5, Baltimore 9-7, Cleveland 8-8, Cincinnati 4-12
AFC West- Denver 10-6, Oakland 8-8, Kansas City 7-9, San Diego 6-10

It's Way Too Early For This, Part 1

The college football season kicked off last night.

Yup, on August 22, a Thursday night, no less. Something called the "Jim Thorpe Classic", between Colorado State and Virginia. A pretty exciting game, down to the wire, but come on! August 22? Most schools don't even start classes until this Monday, and even that seems too early. Blame it on the fact that Labor Day falls on the earliest possible date this year, September 2. That throws everything out of whack, as the college football gods decided, hey, let's put an extra game on the schedule this year! Hence, your super-early start, and the fact that the first full weekend of college football starts on Thursday, the 29th of August, so in many cases, there will be teams whose national championship chances will be dead before the first of September, yet they'll still have 11 more games to play, plus, more than likely, a bowl game. However, they have good timing from this standpoint: the 29th of August is also the last night of the baseball season (if you agree with me and believe that there will be a strike that wipes out the rest of the season and World Series). Therefore, you have a perfect segue, and more proof that when (not if) the players do go on strike, nobody will miss them. But then, as Barry Bonds recently said, "It's not my fault you don't play baseball."

Now that Thursday night game matches BYU against my Syracuse Orangemen, and let me tell you, there's no better way I can think of to start a season than a Thursday night in Provo, Utah. Now excuse me while I mop up all the dripping sarcasm from that last line. If you know me and have read this column, you'll know that about this time every year, I attempt to predict the fortunes of not only Syracuse, but also my college alma mater Susquehanna and my high school alma mater West Genesee. However, as I am now in Chambersburg, Pah, I am further out of the loop than ever. I have, however, bought and skimmed a copy of Street and Smith's College Football Preview, so therefore, I think I am now qualified to get at least the college part done, so here we go...

Last year, I said Syracuse would go 4-8, and Paul Pasqualoni would be on the unemployment line by mid-January. Oops. After starting in that direction with a woeful 0-2 start, Coach P put RJ Anderson behing the controls of the SU offense, and despite the ever-thinning crowds at the Carrier Dome all season, RJ got the job done, and SU ran off 9 straight wins. Then they went out and lost 59-0 to Miami, and to OrangeFan, it was suddenly as if those previous 9 wins had never happened. Despite SU's impressive destruction of Kansas State in the WhoCares.com Bowl last year, many of the SU faithful still want Pasqualoni whacked as soon as possible, and the number of season ticket-holders are down again this year. I dare say that anything short of an improbable national title run may lead to yet another fall of all-out warfare between SU fans, other SU fans, AD Jake Crouthamel, and maybe even Chancellor Buzz ("Get a life") Shaw again. It's sad, it's unfortunate, but knowing the SU fans like I do, it's inevitable, because there will not be an improbably national title run this year. The schedule is there; if they can somehow upset BYU in the Land of 3.2 Beer, they may not get seriously tested again until November 9 against Virginia Tech. On the other hand, they do play North Carolina and Auburn during that span, and we know Pasqualoni's good for at least one September brain-fart a year, so pencil them in at 7-2 going into Vah Tech at what will probably be a half-empty Dome due to the level of fan infighting by that point.

And I say this without knowing who the hell they have on offense besides RJ. Well, OK, I know they have Walter Reyes at tailback, Joe Donnelly at tight end, and Johnnie Morant at wideout. Morant had a big game at the Why Are We Playing a Football Game in the Diamondbacks' Home Stadium.com Bowl, but that's pretty much the only big game he's had in two years on the Hill. At the very least, he gives RJ a big, tall target to throw to a lot, the rest is up to him. However, I don't really need to know who is at a lot of the skill positions, because for better or worse, we all know that the Orangemen will run the option, and run between the tackles, and RJ will run bootlegs. That sometimes is the problem for us; everyone knows what's coming, but if you're good enough to beat somebody when they know what you're throwing at them, then that makes all the difference. Meanwhile, the D is solid despite losing Dwight Freeney. Clifton Smith could win the Butkus Award this year, he's that good, and he also is the leader of a solid unit whose only real letdown was the Miami game last year.

In all, this will be a fun team to watch, if for no other reason than it's Syracuse. You never know what they're going to do each year. They could conceivably run off to an 11-0 start going into the Miami game, or they could lose to Division I-AA Rhode Island. You never know. You just close your eyes, throw at the dartboard and come up with a prediction in between the two extremes. I say 9-4. It's a good pick, it's par for the course under the Pasqualoni regime, which of course the P-haters think is why he needs to go; 9 wins a year is not good enough. You know what? If SU never wins a national championship in football, I won't be upset, because they're a fun team to watch. Too bad only 30-35,000 people agree with me enough to buy tickets to this team week in and week out.

On to Susquehanna, who I believe I said would go 7-3, because I wanted to keep my expectations low. Apparently, they weren't low enough. Right about when The College Formerly Known As Western Maryland went up 21-0 in the first quarter of the first game, I threw 7-3 out the window. Instead, the Crusaders started 0-5, and yet they managed to save head coach Steve Briggs' job by winning 4 of their last 5, mostly without starting QB Mike Bowman. Bowman's back and healthy, once again he has Mark Bartosic to throw to, and the defense is one year older, not to mention the fact that they finally seemed to put it together after the first few weeks, holding Widener's all-world offense to a touchdown in the first half at Homecoming. The biggest problem, once again, is the schedule. Flipping open my copy of Street and Smith's, I can tell you that SU has four opponents ranked in their top 25, including the first two. Once again, the Crusaders open with newly-rechristened McDaniel College, only this time in Selinsgrove. Once again, the biggest game of the season, the battle for Stagg's Old Hat against Lycoming, will be the second game of the season, which I still think is a joke. Add in the fact that the Crusaders have to face the other two ranked opponents (King's and Widener) on the road, and it may not be pretty again this season. But hey, they got lights at Lopardo Stadium now. I say 6-4.

Finally, West Genesee, and may I say that it is truly a unique feeling and somewhat bizarre to be going into a season with everyone saying we are a postseason LOCK. We went 13 years between postseason appearances, but the Wildcats put it together last year, and were one late-game choke job against Auburn away from a 5-2 regular season, and one final minute from hell away from a huge sectionals upset of the eventual Section 3 champs. In the end, they went 4-4, just as I said they would (another unique and bizarre feeling, that of actually being RIGHT on one of these predictions). Now comes the next step. Eric Cizenski is back for one more year as the starting QB, and if he continues to improve, he'll give the defense more chances to practice holding leads. It's the same schedule as last year, except this year, the non-leaguer brings Binghamton to town. SInce F-M isn't as good as they were last year without Damien Rhodes, the Wildcats have a shot at a 3-0 start. Then, they travel to RFA to face a hungry Black Knights squad who not only had a rare bad year in '01, they lost to WG for the first time since the 1988 sectional final. If West Genny plays up to form, they could be 5-1 going into a Homecoming showdown with Corcoran for the league title. And they now have playoff experience, and a bitter taste in their mouths from that experience. It's all about how hungry they are and how bad they want it. If they want it bad enough, they could go to the Dome. I'll say 5-2 in the regular season, then let the chips fall where they may in sectionals. Now can I please get back to my summer?

Dino-palooza

Sometimes the greatest ideas are born at parties. Give a bunch of guys a few beers, get them talking about stuff, and they can become regular Einsteins, or in this case Bill Grahams. This particular concept was created and blossomed at a friend's birthday party a couple weeks ago back in Syracuse (on the timeline of recent events in my life, put it on the night before the wedding that I chronicled in the last column).

Actually, this story starts back at the radio station I currently work for. I saw that a bunch of 90s alternative rock bands had gotten together to form something called the "New World Disorder Tour". We're talking about the Gin Blossoms, Sponge, the Spin Doctors, and Seven Mary Three; four bands whose best days came during Bill Clinton's first term as president, and only Seven Mary Three has put out anything approaching a hit record in recent years. So, I started mockingly referring to their cross-country jaunt as the "Dinosaurs of Modern Rock Tour", a concept that both amuses me and also makes me feel really OLD. Think about it, alternative/grunge/modern rock/whatever you want to call it has been around for so long now, that we actually have DINOSAUR bands. We can no longer mock Styx and REO Speedwagon or Sammy Hagar and David Lee Roth (OK, we can still mock those two guys) when they go out on tour and call them dinosaurs out for one big cash grab, because our generation now has its own dinosaurs. We call out Journey and Night Ranger, they can counter with Cracker and Live.

So there I am at this party a couple weeks back, and I brought up this whole "Dinosaurs of Modern Rock Tour" concept, and suddenly everyone at the party started running with it. They started coming up with band after band that deserved to be on this bill, and the next thing you know, we had to make this into a traveling festival. Fittingly enough, we dubbed it "Dino-palooza".

So what does it take to become a part of "Dino-palooza"? Well, in order to get on the main stage, when you hear the name of the band, the first thing you have to think is "what the hell ever happened to them?" In other words, their last album (or more) have to have passed so far below the radar that you didn't even realize they had put one out. Or, in the case of Sponge and the Spin Doctors, and the Gin Blossoms, they have to have split up about five or so years ago and recently gotten back together (for no other reason I can see than the inevitable cash grab). However, they do have to be together, so if you want Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, or Hole on "Dino-palooza", you're going to have to go track down Chris Cornell, Billy Corgan and Courtney Love and tell them to get their bands back together. And while you're at it, tell Courtney that she is not entitled to own everything Nirvana ever did; she wasn't in the band, she didn't write any of the songs, the only reason she's in the picture is she was lucky enough to land Kurt Cobain as a husband, and for that she should be thrilled with her one-third. If she's not the Yoko Ono of this generation, I don't know who is.

Anyway, back to the obvious choices. Gin Blossoms, Spin Doctors, Seven Mary Three, and Sponge are a good start, they all get the main stage. Also Cracker and Live (sorry Ed, the last couple albums were OK, but you really haven't done anything big since "Throwing Copper"). While we're at it, you can plug in The Cranberries, The Cure, and Soul Asylum. Add Better Than Ezra for no other reason than the fact that they had to be the "College Gameday Band" on ESPN to draw attention to their last album. INXS would not have been on this tour if they hadn't decided to grab some random guy to replace the late Michael Hutchence and hit the road this year, so they're certainly in. While you're taking notes here, you should also take note that I have pretty much proven that I don't just take shots at has-been teen-pop stars.

Okay, now for the painful ones, the bands that I have to regret the fact that they belong here, because I like them all, and I will still buy their new albums if I think they're good enough. Blues Traveler, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and R.E.M. would apply here. Then there are the borderline decisions, the tough ones that could go either way. The Offspring are edging closer to "Dino-palooza"; if they put out another "Americana" knock-off like their last album, they're in. If Green Day's next album sucks, they may be a candidate (and "Shenanigans" doesn't count, it's a B-side album, of course it's not going to be the next "Dookie"). Collective Soul is close too. Suffice it to say that as the years go by, the lineup for "Dino-palooza" will only grow bigger.

I think it should be noted that some alternative bands managed to save themselves from landing on this tour. Counting Crows put out "Hard Candy", and while the Coca-Cola ads put them very close to having to hire roadies for our little mega-festival, "American Girls" has done well enough to keep them off for now. Our Lady Peace redeemed themselves big time with the album "Gravity", which had a hit with "Somewhere Out There" and another potential one with "Innocent". But the biggest save came from Weezer. Before the "Green Album" came out, what made anyone think these guys had a destiny other than "Dino-palooza"? Now, they're the biggest thing going.

At first I would not accept one hit wonders, because when's the last time you saw a one hit wonder playing any major rock festival? One hit wonders don't do that; one hit wonders throw car alternators through pub windows and threaten to "pistol whip" people with starters pistols. In case you think I just pulled that completely out of my you-know-where, I'm not; that's exactly what Adam Ant (yes, ADAM ANT) just pleaded guilty to doing. Anyway, I finally decided that since we're making this "Dino-palooza" a pretty big deal, we have to get as many bands on this thing as possible, so if it's a well-known one hit wonder, yeah, we can throw them on the second stage. That would cover the Screaming Trees, the Breeders, Faith No More, and two-hit wonders like Matthew Sweet, Rancid, and Candlebox.

Then of course, you need a headliner, someone to finish the night on the main stage with a big rockin' show to send everyone home happy. I think only one band can fill this role: Jane's Addiction. Hell, it makes sense; if it wasn't for Jane's and Perry Farrell, we wouldn't have a Lollapalooza to model this after. Also, they are back together now, playing festivals in Mexico and working on a new album, so they certainly qualify for the tour, so why not headline it, and while we're at it, we should probably put Perry at the controls and let him run this thing, since he knows what he's doing, and all this is just too taxing for a bunch of Joe Averages from Syracuse to handle.

Maybe when this traveling road show is over, they can all set up shop in one town, open up their own theatres, and rake in the tourist bucks. Yup, that's right; the Generation X version of Branson, Missouri. But where would we have it? No, not Seattle, Seattle is too good to deserve such a fate, so may I humbly suggest Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. It's far enough out of the way, but still close to major cities (much like Branson), and there is something about this place that screams "future hokie resort town". Let's make this happen, both for the bands' sake and the 'Burg!

A Wedding Story

I am now reaching that stage of my life where my friends are starting to get married and settle down (or at the very least, they're getting married). Recently, I was invited to the wedding of a close friend of mine who is a very avid reader of this column (yes, they DO exist), so in order to protect her privacy and that of her new husband, let's just refer to the happy couple as "Stephanie" and "Collin".

Anyhoo, the wedding was back in Central New York, which just like the rest of the country was going through a severe heat wave the first weekend of August. It hit 98 on Friday in Syracuse, and while it wasn't as bad on Saturday, it did call the appropriate dress for the occasion into question, as the wedding was to be held outdoors. I don't own a suit, and with the heat index hovering around the 90s on this afternoon, I wasn't about to get one. So, I opted for a short-sleeved dress shirt and a tie with old baseball cards on it. And sneakers. OK, maybe that's a little tacky for a normally formal occasion such as a wedding, and I do own dress shoes, the only problem is that I wear them so rarely, I can never remember to pack them for any trip that includes dressing up. Besides, what's the first complaint you hear from people at a wedding? The fact that their feet hurt from the shoes they're wearing. Or maybe it's just the ladies that complain about that, I dunno...

Then, I arrived at the site of the wedding and realized that Stephanie and Collin were to be getting married in Renaissance-era costumes and that the bride's brother was wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Suddenly, I no longer worried about being underdressed for the occasion. In fact, the only guys who really made the effort of wearing a full suit were the minister and Collin's best man, who looked like a Secret Service agent in his black suit and dark sunglasses.

Let me set the scene for you at this point: the wedding is taking place in the beautiful village of Skaneateles, NY, and the locals would prefer you say it SKANNY-atlas, not SKINNY-atlas. Skaneateles is the closest thing Central New York has to a real tourist destination, at least not until DestiNY USA finally gets built (which won't happen in MY lifetime the way things are going...) There are nice little shops along the main street, the lake is beautiful, the Clintons stayed here a couple times, and may do so again this month before the State Fair. The wedding is to take place in a gazebo beside the lake, and not only is this a pretty good-sized gazebo, but the first one I've ever seen that has RESTROOMS below it.

Now as this wedding is to take place in an outdoor gazebo and not a normal church setting, the plan appears to be that when Stephanie's limo pulls up, we'll all filter up into the gazebo and start the procession. Except her limo pulled up and then left to circle the block one more time. At this point, the first thing that pops in to my mind is that, knowing Stephanie like I do, she told the driver, "Go around the block another time, make him sweat a little more!" Well, no, the real reason, we discover when the limo pulls up the second time, is that Stephanie was of the belief that we would all be sitting up in the gazebo waiting for her, rather than milling around the park like ducks looking for bread crumbs. So, with a nervous glance at each other that said, "Okay, which one of you wants to go up first?", we all walked up the stairs into the gazebo and tried to arrange ourselves so that all of Collin's friends and family were on one side and all of Stephanie's were on the other side. Except when Stephanie emerged from the limo, everyone with a camera rushed to the one side of the gazebo to take pictures and that promptly ended any notion of "assigned seating".

The bride, naturally, looked fantastic. The groom, naturally, was shaking nervously, until the bride tripped over her dress as she hit the top step of the gazebo. And so the first words of this wedding were not, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...", they were, "I knew that was gonna happen..."

And so, the wedding got underway right around its scheduled start time of 5:00. Vows and rings were exchanged, the minister said, "I now pronounce you husband and wife," and then we all looked at our watches and said, "WOW! It's only 5:10. That was a quick wedding!" Which brought up an interesting dilemma: the reception was to be held on a dinner cruise on the lake; the boat was scheduled to leave at 6, we would board at about a quarter to 6. So, what the heck were we going to do for the next half-hour until we got on the boat? Well, the immediate solution was to spend the bulk of the time emptying rolls of film to take pictures of the happy couple; by themselves, with family members, with their 8-month old son, with the best man and maid of honor.

Eventually, after more milling around the park like, well, like a bunch of confused wedding guests, it was finally time to get on the boat for the reception. A three-hour cruise on the lake, a lot of food, and a general good time to be had by all; a wonderful idea (Stephanie's, by the way). Things got off to an unfortunate start when the ship's captain accidentally called the new husband "Mike". After that, though, everything went great, everyone enjoyed the bounty of food and drink, so much so that at one point, we pulled up next to another boat... in order to get a shipment of more Pepsi, the bride's beverage of choice.

Then, when we got back into port, things just kinda broke up on their own; the bouquet was thrown, but no rice, no limo ride to the airport for the honeymoon, in fact, there would be a barbeque the next day before the newlyweds left for their honeymoon. In all, pretty uncoventional, but these two people, Stephanie and Collin, are to put it best, uncoventional. And so the day served as testament to the fact that even the uncoventional amongst us can find everlasting love. And who among us can't find that infinitely heartwarming?

What's So Wrong With Taking a Vacation?

So, the first thing I did after celebrating the two-year anniversary of this column is I took a week off. I'm allowed to do that. Everyone should be allowed to take some time off from time to time, regardless of their profession or activity. We need to get away from it all sometimes, go home for a while, see loved ones and relax a little. Is that too much to ask? I think not, and I'm sure most of you would agree with that assertion. Whatever your beliefs, whatever your station in life, everyone needs to take time off from time to time.

So why is it that a lot of op-ed columnists and letter-writers keep throwing tantrums every year about this time when President Bush goes to his Texas ranch to kick back for a couple weeks? It's okay for your congressional representatives to take a month off and do nothing while major issues, like prescription drug benefits and homeland security are still on the table, but it's not okay for the president to sit on the sidelines while the Congress is in recess?

George W. Bush has the hardest job in the world, and I'm not just parroting some line that Ari Fleischer or Karl Rove or Rush Limbaugh uses when referring to Bush. I mean the President of the United States is the hardest job in the world. Think about all the struggle that goes into just getting the gig: You first have to run for a national election where everyone over the age of 18 can vote (not that they register or actually do vote), and you have to get everyone's attention in order to have any real chance of winning. And you also have to have made something of your life, usually 50-60 years of something; law school, congressman, senator, business owner, governor, it doesn't matter, just so long as it is something, and something big and important. Then you have to raise a ton of money, and you have to know people and have people who believe in you and will go to the mat for you. Then there's campaigning, and TV commercials, and debates, and in the case of the most recent presidential election, there's recounts and litigation and arguing before the Supreme Court.

Then when you get the job, you are expected to make good on your campaign promises, and you need to fill your Cabinet with people who have as spotless a record as yours had to be to get in the White House. Then you need to work with Congress, where often times, at least one of the two houses is controlled by a party that wants to see you fail miserably. If the economy tanks, it's your fault. If something important to somebody doesn't get passed, it's your fault. Columnists and political cartoonists lionize you one day, the next day they think you're an idiot. Now take all that and add everything that has happened since 8:45am on September 11. I'll tell you one thing for sure; there's no way I could have handled all that, I'd be on my third nervous breakdown by now if I had to deal with all that.

So if you have to go through all that 24-7-365, don't you deserve a vacation? Even a "working vacation", as Bush's Crawford trips often are? According to many pundits, including Jules Witcover of the Baltimore Sun, you don't deserve a vacation. Witcover devoted part of a column to attacking Bush for taking a vacation rather than doing something about our current economic unease. This also happened last year; sure the circumstances were different, we were in an actual recession rather than a feared recession, 9-11 had not happened yet, but the attacks were the same. Quoting Witcover: "The president is getting ready to fly the White House coop for most of August, vacationing at his Texas ranch, and Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to be back home in Wyoming for the month. While it is certainly true that the superb White House communications system can keep them in touch with breaking developments anywhere, their summer travel plans don't radiate vibes of urgency about dealing with the nation's agenda."

Oh, and Congress being on a month-long hiatus so they can go around campaigning and attacking their election challengers does? In case Mr. Witcover has forgotten, the way it works in Washington is the president proposes, the Congress disposes. Well, if Congress isn't around to dispose, what's the point in proposing anything? Is President Bush just supposed to talk up what he's going to push Congress to do when they get back for a few weeks just so Americans can feel good about what he's doing? It's not going to make the economy any better, and it's already been proven that a president can say anything about fixing what's wrong with the economy and it won't cause a sudden jump on Wall Street. In fact, people were criticizing Bush at one point for his every other day's reassurances that corporate reforms would be passed, because when Bush talked, the stock market would drop. Then, Bush wouldn't talk the next day, the Dow would plunge again, and people would start saying Bush wasn't doing enough to reassure investors! Witcover is of the belief that talking up the economy is ineffective without Bush actually doing something about it. While I don't know his political affiliation, I would have to guess Democrat, so I should note that the Democrats are the same people who claimed that part of the reason for the recession right after Bush took office was that he "talked down the economy" in order to get ripe conditions for his tax cut. So, apparently you can't talk up an economy, but you can talk down an economy.

I could be wrong, and maybe Mr. Witcover could correct me on this, because as he brags about in his ads in the Sun, he's been covering politics since the Eisenhower administration, but other presidents have taken vacations. Clinton was always going to Martha's Vineyard or Skaneateles or on various golf outings, Bush 41 had Kennebunkport; heck, as long as we're talking about Eisenhower, people criticized him all the time for his preference of tee times over Cabinet meetings. This isn't exactly a new thing for a president to take time off, and he deserves it, and he still is meeting with corporate leaders and the president of Mexico, and he still will talk to the nation when and if it is required. A president sitting in the White House doing nothing because he can't do anything with Congress out of session is pointless. Let the guy have his time off, he has more than earned it.