Springtime in the Rockies

Tomorrow is the last day of ski season for many Colorado resorts, but this year they probably could have favorable conditions well into May, as yet one more major spring storm has come into the area.

This is my backyard this morning


And it is still snowing! The good news is that it will be back in the 70's by Tuesday, and stay there until the end of the week, so this snow will become free moisture for my lawn over the next few days.

In the twelve years I've lived out here, I cannot ever remember having constant precipitation for 3 days in a row. This storm started out as rain on Thursday Morning, turned to snow overnight Thursday night, became rain yesterday afternoon, stopped for a little bit last night and now is a kind of a fine wet snow, probably changing to rain again before it stops. Right now there is lots of slush on the roads and sidewalks, but I expect everything to be dry again by tomorrow afternoon.

Hopefully this is the last major snow storm of the season, we will still get some snow in May and maybe June, but usually it's a couple of inches that lasts for minutes after the storm ends.

So from the Winter Wonderland that is my house, have a Totally Gruntled Day.

Death of "The Voice of the Phillies"

When I was growing up the voice of the Phillies was By Saam, longtime Philadelphia Broadcaster who teamed with Bill Campbell and Richie Ashburn to bring Phillies games to life on the radio, and occasionally on TV. The three of them worked all the games with Richie doing Color on TV Broadcasts on Sundays, and the other two rotating in out of the TV and Radio booths every couple of innings as the play-by-play men.

As a kid, to me this was the way it always was and always would be.

Until 1971.

That was the year, a young broadcaster who had spent 6 years with the Houston Astros became the 3rd man in the booth replacing veteran Bill Campbell.

His name--Harry Kalas.

For the next 38 years Harry would broadcast Phillies games becoming the longest continuous broadcaster in Phillies History, surpassing Richie "Whitey" Ashburn, who broadcast for the Phils from 1963 until his death in 1997 while on the road covering games in New York.

Ironically Harry would also die doing what he did best--working a Phillies game. Harry died Monday morning after collapsing in the broadcasting booth at Nationals Park in Washington D.C. He was 73.

Harry's death will not only leave a void in the Phillies broadcasting booth, but in other broadcasting ventures as well. He was the voice of NFL Films (replacing another Philadelphia Legend, John Facenda) as well as the radio voice of NFL games in the baseball offseason, college football. He also did voiceovers on the Chunky Soup commercials.

It has been a bad opening week for baseball. Last Thursday morning Angel's Rookie Pitcher Nick Adenhart and two friends were killed in a hit and run drunk driving accident in LA. Later that day, Giants' pitcher Joe Martinez was hit in the head by a line drive suffering a concussion and 3 hairline fractures.

And also on Monday, Mark "The Bird" Fidrych who was a refreshing rookie in 1976 was found dead after an accident while working on a truck at his home. The only time I ever saw him pitch in person was the 1976 All-Star game in Philadelphia, and he was a joy to watch with his antics on the mound. Unfortunately his career was cut short by injuries, but he will always be rememberered for his antics on the mound, and the fact that he never seemed to let stardom go to his head.

We will miss Harry, Mark and Nick, and best wishes to a speedy recovery to Joe.

The ex-Bronco

The disgruntled Jay Cutler has left Denver.

I'll use Cutler's own words

“I’m just not that big of a fan of the guy. I don’t like how he carries himself. I don’t like some of the stuff he does on the field.”

He was referring to San Diego QB Phillip Rivers, but his comments apply as to my opinion of Cutler. I also don't like some of the stuff he does off the field.

Jay Cutler seemed to get a chip on his shoulder when Jeremy Bates (the QB coach) left for USC in January. He was apparently assured by Broncos owner Pat Bowlen that Bates would not be let go. The Matt Cassel trade was just something he used to manifest his immaturity about the matter.

Granted the Broncos haven't done themselves any favors in playing it out in the press either (thank goodness there's only one newspaper left in Denver to hype all the crap over the past month.)

All you have to look at is the phone calls that Jay didn't return, to show you how immature he is (or is he just being used by his own agent?)

McDaniels won't last here very long--I say max 3 years, but I've never been impressed with Cutler--sure he gets the yards, but he makes way too many mistakes still. Remember the San Diego game? No, not the fumble/non-fumble but the interception on the drive before that where he fell down after throwing it.

Then look at the 3 straight games that the Broncos lost at the end, needing only 1 win. Cutler passed for 850 yards but only had 2 TD's and 4 INT's. Maybe he will mature, but right now, he's not anywhere near a franchise QB. That's not to say that he won't turn out to be a good to great QB, it's just that he's not there yet. And until he actually proves it on the field, he needs to quit the Prima Donna Act.

Good luck and good riddance! Maybe the local newspapers--er newspaper can start following the Rockies now!

The Sun-Warmth Factor

Part of the premise of this blog is to occasionally come up with things that should be but aren't usually the opposite of something else. As an example, Gruntled is the opposite form of disgruntled, but we have never been actually provided the word.

So Friday, my wife and I were sitting on a chair lift at the old ski resort, when we noticed that unlike two days before, when the air temperature was warmer, and we felt colder because of something called the Wind-Chill Factor. The wind chill factor apparently didn't exist before the 1970's which meant we were ignorant about how cold it really was, until some smarty pants guy came up with a way to make -7 degrees to psychologically feel a lot colder!

Fortunately, in 2001 someone figured out an error with the old formula and came up with a new formula, which actually made it warmer than the old wind chill factors as seen in this pretty picture:



You'll notice that the combination of the red line and the blue line kind of form a little smirky smile that seems to tell us the joke has been on us, because for thirty years they fooled us into believing we were colder than we actually were.

So anyway, back to the chair lift. We were noticing that it was much warmer feeling on Friday, than it was on Wednesday even though the actual air temperature was about 20 degrees cooler than on Wednesday, because like 299 other days a year in Colorado, the sun was shining.

So it is our opinion that the Weather Scientists who unleashed the cruel joke of Wind-Chill Factor on us, have been withholding the corresponding opposite, which we immediately dubbed the Sun-Warmth Factor, which either partially or fully negates the wind-chill factor when the sun is shining, or even substantially warms us when there is little or no wind.

We demand that the US Weather Service start providing us with the Sun-Warmth Factor as a regular part of their forecasts, and stop trying to cover up the Sun's warmth on us.

And if no one has actually laid claim on something called the Sun-Warmth Factor, then we call DIBS!

Stay Gruntled AND Warm!

An Example of The Way Things Should Work!

Without going all political and everything, one thing that bothers me is how the various governments decide to raise taxes "for the public good" on things that maybe the "public" really doesn't want. I think all levels of government overreach into things that maybe they shouldn't be getting into, and certainly private enterprise can do better in general. Especially when government sponsored programs tend to have cost overruns, 75% rate increases AND then require a doubling of the tax, all while increasing the pay of the ones that run it.--See Denver's RTD as an example.

That is why I was impressed with this story that I read this morning: Supporting cast steps up to save live theater in Trinidad

The recession, fueled by increased regulation and decreased gas prices, hit principal sponsors of the theater hard, mostly from the gas, tourist and manufacturing sectors. Canceling seemed inevitable.

"But first we felt we needed to at least take it to the town and give them the opportunity to rise to the occasion," executive director Brad Askew said.

Rise they did. The citizenry rustled up nearly $90,000, not only saving the upcoming season, Askew said, but maybe even offering a blueprint for the way communities can come together to help solve economic problems in hard times.

"This is a town that basically said, 'We're going to opt out of the recession,' " Askew said. "We know that recovery starts at the grassroots level. How much easier would it be for this country to recover if everybody personally got involved?"

It's really a pretty simple concept--if you really want it and it's necessary everyone will help pay for it. One of the statistics listed in the article, is that 60% of the contributors had never been to one of the theater's productions.

Here's sending some Gruntlement the way of Trinidad, CO!

Opportunity Hunt Month 3

Sunday marked the two month mark for when I was notified that I was being laid off. Time kind of flies doesn't it? As I've continued to look for work in a down economy, I also formed a new company partnering with my wife and her ventures. My venture is to work as an independent consultant or what they call Corp to Corp contracting, and hers is to write as a freelancer and publish books.

We have also started our own Home-Based Travel Agency which we've been investigating for a while and finally affiliated with a Host Company to offer travel options. We are still in training mode at this point, but it looks pretty exciting.

The consulting search has been going fairly slowly, but I have been keeping tabs on many people in my network. It's my opinion that many companies have been a little hesitant to hire new people, mainly because of some of the uncertainties in the economy and with the new Presidential Administration moving in.

Over the last two weeks, however, I've seen a rather dramatic improvement in activity. Last Friday, I had my first interview for a specific position. And on Monday, I had some serious discussions about specific jobs who didn't chuckle when I gave them my rate.

And although there is nothing definite yet, I have tried to maintain a positive attitude about the hunt, and feel very strongly that something is going to come along that fits me very soon.

Happy Pi Day

Today is Pi day. And what is Pi Day you ask?

Well, for all you math whizzes out there, Pi is a greek letter that is also the symbol for the ratio of a circle's circumference divided by it's diameter or approximately 3.1415926535 (rounded) or further rounded becomes 3.14 or 3/14 which is March 14th which is today.

The US Congress has even deemed it officially National Pi Day!

So Happy Pi Day--Celebrate with the Pi of your choice!

Preparing to be a Great-Dad

Got some great news last night. My son called and told us that he and his wife were expecting. They have been looking to adopt a child for well over a year, and it looks like they will be graced with a baby girl in July.

Of course, Mrs. Blind and I are especially gruntled over the news, and have spent much of last night and today calling family and friends with the news. And we are so happy for our son and daughter-in-law, the happy parents-to-be. We know that they will be wonderful parents.

In the meantime, I have four months to prepare to be a Great-Dad. I'm already a Great-Uncle to a wonderful little girl who is now 2 1/2 years old, so the equivalent of my children's children would be a Great-Dad to them. Besides Grand Dad sounds so old and I'm certainly not old! Am I?

Change For Time

A few rants on the time change this weekend.

If you are finding yourself running late today, check your clocks. According to the new law passed by congress a few years ago, Daylight Savings Time goes into effect on the 2nd Sunday in March and ends on the 1st Sunday in November. (Unless you live in Arizona, Hawaii, or parts of Indiana, where they sell clocks without mechanisms to change them). This has been a public service message from Totally Gruntled!

Okay, so why the change, why do we change and why do we need change? If I were king of the world, we would always have daylight until at least 7 or 8 PM. It gets extremely dreary in the winter when it starts getting dark before 5.

Now I've always lived around the same latitude (~40 N), even though I've changed my latitude a few times, but the time changes always mess me up. My days of daylight always seem to go from about 9 hours around Christmas to 15 hours on July 4th, which come to think of it is pretty ideal. Those poor folks on the top of the world, get all their daylight at once about 6 months of it, followed by 6 months of near dark, (I would love to experience near 24 hours of light just once in my life sometime). Those people of middle earth, also known as being on the equator, pretty much get 12 hours of daylight followed by 12 hours of night every day. Can you say B-O-R-I-N-G?

I've been in Montana and Minnesota around the summer solstice and it's weird but cool to have the sun still out at 9:30 or 10:00 PM. I've also been in Minnesota at the Winter Solstice, and it's not cool to have less than a full workday of sun. Literally driving to and from work in the dark is downright depressing. In fact the first time I worked in Minnesota, I drove the same route to work for about 5 months before I realized I was passing some tall buildings on the way, until DST went into effect and I could actually see them in daylight!

Well, that's enough time spent on the time change. Check your clocks, some of them may have moved automatically ahead, because they know about the time change, and others won't. Still others will think they are supposed to move ahead an hour on April 5th, because that used to be the law, so just remember you may have to check them again, or you could be different and just run an hour ahead of everyone else.

Stay Gruntled and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Let the Madness Begin!

I'm not sure when or where the term actually began, but March Madness has come to symbolize the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament held annually in mid to late March until early April.

But the battle for the slots in the tournament starts two weeks earlier as 30 of the 31 Conferences hold a qualifying tournament involving their teams, in which the lone survivor is given an Automatic Bid to the tournament. A committee of 10 people will lock themselves in a hotel room in Indianapolis in the middle of next week to select the remaining 35 entrants, as well as seed and pair all 65 teams into the tournament field.



Then the fun begins as 64 games are played in 21 days to determine the national champion in Detroit, Michigan on April 6th.

A corresponding tournament is also played with the Women's Teams culminating in a National Champion also with finals being played in St. Louis, MO.



The qualifying starts today as the Big South and Ohio Valley Conferences start their tournaments.

This is one of my favorite times of the year, and in most cases I will root for the dark shirts (or underdogs) in the games. Who knows what great moments will come out of this year's tournaments, but it will certainly be a gruntling experience to watch.