Today I decided to change my computer’s wallpaper from a raven flying over the moon to a crow flying over a gate. It reminded me of “the D to an F, and I want a fume instead of a storm cloud.” “This is too busy, this is all too busy.” “You’re the one who’s in trouble, not him.”
This is what I went with:
I finished my 4th draft tonight and wanted to share my thoughts. I don’t claim to be the best manager but I pay attention every week and have developed various strategies over the years. I want to start with a recap of the 4 drafts and ideas that used I throughout. My main resources are rotoworld (if you don’t use this you shouldn’t be playing), Nathan Zegura from CBS on Twitter, and random articles from Yahoo and Google. The new Yahoo interface isn’t a great improvement but it’s still better than ESPN.
Round 1 Draft Thoughts
The top 9 picks of the draft weren’t all that challenging because aside from A-Pete, all the RB’s have proven themselves to a certain extent. Wasting a pick on a QB at any of these picks is ludicrous. At 10 you jump into the Alfred Morris / Matt Forte area where things start becoming hazy. The obvious part of fantasy football is getting as many running backs who touch the ball as possible. I wouldn’t draft Alfred Morris because he doesn’t have break out speed and he has 1 season of proven football behind him. I’d rather chance Forte, Steven Jackson, or David Wilson who are all guaranteed to get carries on decent teams. Guys like Gore, MJD, and CJ2k and older backs who will see touches but you know what you are going to get from them (1,000 yards and 7 TDs). A guy like Steven Ridley isn’t someone I want because he’s had 1 breakout season. The season before he was primarily used as a goal line back. So with all of those guys being thrown out there, if I drafted late into the first round, I was coming back with an RB2 who I wasn’t ecstatic about (unless I could get Wilson).
Round 2
I see Calvin go at the end of Round 1 and I think that’s fine. I wouldn’t get him earlier because good RB’s are too hard to come by. I’m still not wasting my QB pick in RD2 on anyone. I also saw Dez being drafted at the beginning of 2 and that was a bit high for my tastes. I absolutely love Dez Bryant but I wasn’t using my high round 2 pick on him because the value just isn’t there. I also saw Jimmy Graham being picked up around this area and I don’t think there was anything wrong with that but his season last year wasn’t worthy of a 2nd round pick (982 yards and 7 tds). I would 100% rather have Gronk in the 4th round than Graham in the 2nd. The idea of passing on an elite WR1 (Bryant, Green, Julio, or Marshall) didn’t make sense to me to warrant a Graham pick. A Steven Jackson or David Wilson pick in rd 2 was an ideal spot for me here.
Round 3
I don’t like picking backs who have never played in the 3nd round like Lamar Miller, Lacy, and Bernard. I’m not a fan of Demarco Murray after the way he treated me last year and would rather have guys like Reggie Bush, Darren Sproles, or Darren McFadden. Most people won’t roll the dice on McFadden because he’s made of glass but I’ll take potential with chance of injury over steady any day of the week. The strategy in 3 is still get that 2nd RB if you haven’t already or try to land a guy like Fitz, A Johnson, or Randall Cobb. More than likely it’d be closer to Bowe, Cruz, Roddy, or V Jack. I don’t want D. Thomas because he’s competing for targets now with 2 other good receivers. Colston, Wayne, and Amendola don’t thrill me either. I”m still passing on a QB.
Round 4
At this point I’m thinking about a QB but still not taking one unless I have to. Most likely Rodgers, Brees, Brady, Peyton are off the board at this point. I’m jumping on Cam if I can because he has something other QB’s don’t and that’s durability and a proven track record. He doesn’t throw many passing TD’s and plays on an improving team but he uses his legs to get points and that’s big. I’m staying away from Kapernick and R. Wilson because they aren’t proven. Their ceiling may be high but just last season I remember saying the Wilson was the worst QB statistically and you’d have to be moron to play him early on. It was only until the end that he lit it up and that’s not a big enough sample size with no receivers surrounding him. The sample size of Kap is also too small to instill confidence. If I thought I could wait until round 5 to get a Stafford or Ryan I would, otherwise I’d try to nail Romo in 6. I would stay away from RGNoKnee and Andrew Luck for reasons of a perhaps “lucky” rookie season.
Round 5-8
Simplest key to fantasy football, get players who touch the ball a lot. I’d much prefer a guy like Chris Ivory over Shane Vereen. Shane Vereen is better but his touches are dependent on whether Tom Brady is throwing the ball his way. Ivory will get 15 hand offs which all lead to opportunity. Daryl Richardson is a perfect example of getting touches as their starting RB. If he sucks Isiah Pead will step in but at least he has the opportunity. I wonder why people draft the Denver RB’s so early? There are 3 of them and none are better than the other. A guy like Ahmad Bradshaw is what you want in these rounds. Mark Ingram isn’t shit unless the Saints change their way of doing things. Also, why would I draft backups unless I need them as a handcuff? They are just going to sit on my bench and it essentially means I didn’t do my job in the earlier rounds drafting running backs. It translates to passing too. Would I rather have DeSean Jackson or Chris Givens? Givens! Why? He gets targets. Would you rather have a guy who gets 5 targets a game or 10? It’s simple math. I check the target report after every week to make sure my guys are seeing the ball. If they don’t, cut em. Guys like Josh Gordon, T.Y Hilton, and Cecil Shorts kill at this spot. You don’t want guys like Stevie Johnson who have no QB. I assume the same case could be made for Cecil but he somehow did it last year. If I haven’t gotten a TE yet I’ll try to grab a guy like Jared Cook, Jermikes, or Greg Olsen. Vernon Davis would be ideal but that’s reaching.
The Final Rounds
I see people draft defenses early and I understand the logic behind not having to worry about changing a good defense, and it does work out, but I’m not sure you give up such an edge that it’s worth giving up your 9th round pick or so. Am I willing to take the Bears in place of Rueben Randle or Kendrell Thompkins? No chance in hell. I’ll reiterate that fantasy football is all about potential. You know what you get from a Lance Moore type guy but have no idea what DeAndre Hopkins could give you. I’d rather take flyers in the later rounds instead of use my picks on defenses and kickers.
My basic principals are draft guys who get the touches. I’d rather have the best player on a bad team than a good player on a great team. This goes against trying to pick players from the strongest teams but they are the strongest teams because they have the strongest players which means they spread the ball around. I’m not drafting Jordy Nelson or James Jones when I know Randall Cobb is the new #1. Thomas, Decker, and Welker are going to be a crap shoot. Give me Mike Wallace from Miami, Garcon from Washington or Torrey Smith from Baltimore. They are THE GUY.
Draft RB’s early and get the go to guys who touch the ball. I also am in a few auction type waiver wire situations and I only think it will only help my cause. I’m the most active person on the waiver wire each year but I only pick up free agents. My goal is to get that waiver priority to #1 and scoop the back up when a starter goes down. My point is that I’m not going to use my money until the later parts of the season. Any veteran player knows that the only part of the regular season is making it to the playoffs. The beginning means very little compared to the end.
Eminem’s newest single is called Berzerk. Notice that berserk is spelled with an “z” which I suppose makes it have street cred. To all the people who are born in 1990 and above, the back song that is used to rhyme to is Billy Squire’s The Stroke. The lyrics of the song are especially tight (a word I’d never use in person but did because it’s appropriate) and well written. This page from vibe does a nice job of transcribing them. I’m not particularly blown away by the song but Eminem has always been at the top in terms of lyrics. This one is hysterical “That’s why my pen needs a pad cause my rhymes on the ra-hag”. There is another one though that I’d like to address which will become the topic of this post.
“All I know is I fell asleep and woke up in that Monte Carlo- With the ugly Kardashian—Lamar, oh sorry yo/we done both set the bar low”. This was pointed out on the Morning Mash Up and how they felt bad that Khole was being picked on by Eminem as the ugly Kardashian. They went on how rough of a time it was for poor Khole and how she also has to deal with what she’s now going through with Lamar Odom and the wacky shit he’s doing. This immediately popped into my mind as “people actually feel bad for Khloe Kardashian”?
She’s not that ugly
First off, Eminem calling her the ugly sister is like saying Chris Gronkowski sucks. It’s not that she’s completely ugly, she’s just not as fine in comparison. Now to feel bad for her because Lamar is going through a DUI and being a complete asshole is another story but guess what, millions of people go through the same thing with guys who didn’t make 8.3 million dollars last year. It’s such a moronic thing to feel bad for these people. I know my heart doesn’t tick like other emotional people in this world but we have seriously become such a huge nation of pussies. Things that make me feel bad are little kids in Syria who are going to get rockets aimed at their country for nothing they’ve ever done. Those are situations where you should feel bad.
1,2,3. I used to have it as 2,1,3 but Kim blew up her ranking.
August produced my lowest post total since December 09′. This doesn’t come as much as surprise since I spent a large part of it outside of my “home”. I put the home part in quotes because I’ve been being a nomad as of late. Starting in the middle of August I went from the shore, to Lake Placid, to OCMD in perpetual vacation mode. Today though will mark the changing of the seasons. This is apropos considering I’m listening to The Changing of the Seasons by Two Door Cinema Club. I moved back in with parents at the ripe age of 29 to wait 27 days for my settlement date to arrive for the house I purchased. I have mixed feelings but I think this time will come and go quickly.
I’m fairly happy that the summer is over which sounds crazy I know. It marks another period in my life that comes to a close. I’ve wrote before how life comes in periods of time and this was another one. My living situation is changing, my money is disappearing, and life is starting with a clean slate and a challenge that I’ve not had before. I’m moving out of my comfort zone and I think when that happens it makes you try harder. As I continue to age I think it’s important to add new responsibilities. Nice and cozy is bullshit. The people who get complacent aren’t the ones who accomplish what they are meant to. Even if this house purchase blows up in my face and the entire thing was a terrible decision, I’ll come out of the situation with an experience. This wasn’t happening in my current situation of renting. If you don’t take risks you don’t achieve that next level.
I see my brother reading the 7 Principals of Highly Effective People and when I read it a few years ago I was captivated by the ideas. It’s funny how you can act while reading the book and then 2 years after. It’s not that I forgot the principals but it’s unrealistic to act how a book tells you. I remember when the Shee was reading “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, it was like he turned into a different person trying to implement the ideas. During this phase of his, I kept thinking how much I liked the old, “real” Shee better than the formed one. My point is that everyone needs to be themselves. It’s important to know and learn all of the golden rule, be positive, how to talk to people appropriately but at the end of the day, you are you. Everyone has a different way of living their life and that’s a-ok. I’m beginning another stage of mine.
Today I was on a run and I hit Kelly drive with my watch timing my progress. Every half mile there is a mark along this trail and when I hit the first one I hit my split button. Immediately as I did this I thought to myself, “do I really care about my splits?” Then I thought, “no, I don’t care that much but I want to know.” This got me to thinking that is wanting to know essentially the same as caring.
Know – to perceive or understand as fact or truth; to apprehend clearly and with certainty:
Care – to be concerned or solicitous; have thought or regard.
When I think about caring about something it means that I have some emotional attachment. That I’m concerned about it’s outcome or well being. When I want to know something, I’m interested in the truth. There is a fine line between being interested in something and being concerned about it. Take the splits for instance. The time that a split shows tells me how good of shape I’m in. I want to know this because I care about how good of shape my body is in, but I don’t care about the actual split. When I’m running multiple miles and split every half, I don’t care about each split but I want to know each one. So it would seem that knowing and caring would be the same by the transitive property.
The problem is that just because I know something doesn’t mean I care about. I’m constantly being surrounded by information that I like to know but don’t necessarily care at all about. The whole Syria “massive use of banned weapons” is something that I like to be aware of so I’m not completely ignorant to the world but I don’t really care about it because it doesn’t affect my life. So this idea that unless something influences you primarily, there really is no reason to care about it. This idea is something to consider carefully because 95% of people are like this.
I tend to do more knowing than caring. I actually care more about knowing without the actual caring part. It’s difficult for me to care about things. Caring causes unwanted emotion and stress that clouds decision making. Perhaps a bleak outlook but I think a pragmatic one. This doesn’t mean that I don’t care about anything at all I have to pick and choose which proves tougher than it sounds.
I’ve been bogged down with life events and it’s detracting from this site. I’m backed up about 6 hours on television that I want to watch, (Breaking Bad, Dexter, Ray Donovan, and Orange is the New Black) and work, and this home buying thing are taking my free time. The house is a pain in the ass with the detail and constant back and forth between people who want my money. It constantly feels like I’m opening up my wallet for every Tom, Dick, and Harry (I wanted to write that expression so that you can use it in your everyday life). Combine this with the moving out of 444 that has to be finished up by the end of August and I’m in motion. I also have plans to head down to OCMD this weekend and that shortens things up even further. It’s all good stuff but the relaxing is far and few between.
The origins of my posts come from my abstract (a good word for idiotic) thinking and I haven’t had time for it lately. I do feel like I’m on point mentally and have been honing in on good decisions and behavior. I know this is a scary thought but I would almost say I’m growing up. As in I see people my own age or younger and know that I’ve seen and have more experience that allows me to work certain conversations or situations to my advantage. I could probably write an entire post about this next point but I’ll keep it short. During my interactions with people I’m basically bullshitting the entire time. That’s not all true but you have to understand that an element of knowing how to act comes from not being yourself but being who someone wants you to be. As long as you realize this, than I’m not sure any of it is bullshitting. Take business for instance, I’ve talked to so many people on the phone in terms of getting them the right tools for the job that I’ve learned how to put myself in their position and tell them what they want to hear. I truly do care about getting them the right tools for the job but I also care about making sales. Now I consider if one of our customers read that last comment and he’d think I’m a completely phony but he’d be incorrect because I’m providing value and will bend over backward to make it right. I’ve gotten good at dealing with people. I’m not a sycophant (a person who acts obsequiously toward someone important in order to gain advantage.), but I also feel like I can be manipulative without any mean intentions. I hope somebody understands what I’m trying to get across because I know it’s not clear but it’s important. To sum it up in a sentence, I’m fake by being totally real. Or real by being totally fake.
No picture for the post because there wasn’t 1 thing I could think of to put.
I’m pushing this post through production in rapid pace so I’m going to miss some important things. It’s 11pm now and I’m waking up tomorrow at 6 to start a drive to Pittsburgh to attend a party of a friend who is getting married. This aside, I spent the past week in Lake Placid for our annual family vacation and it more than met our expectations. I started last week at a Ck4 bachelor party but that’s going to have to take the back burner while this trip is fresh in my mind. I’ll try to document that party and Pittsburgh in a post on Sunday.
I staggered out of the Golden Inn in Avalon at 9am on Sunday prepared to make a 6+ hour drive to Lake Placid. I wasn’t feeling 100% but that wasn’t going to stop me from making killer time. I ate a Chicken Carbonara at Quizno’s along the way and enjoyed the solitude and music for what seemed like a long time. I arrived at around 4pm with my family just hanging out. In hindsight I wish I took a few pictures of our cabin because it was quite unique. There were horseshoes and a fire pit in the backyard and a stuffed moose, bears, and wilds cats hanging from the inside. It was quite luxurious actually and a perfect set up for us. When I first got there we killed some time playing Guess Who and Sam and I noticed the (hopefully) not resemblance to our characters in the game.
Guess Who Brotherly Studs
Since it was almost dinner time we headed out to a place that didn’t serve alcohol which was a pleasant surprise (this would be symbolism to how it started compared to how it ended) and the dinner went quite well. I ate a trout with its head attached. We spent late night sitting around the fire and shooting the shit. We were brainstorming ideas to revolutionize the world and a spinning upside down toilet held the top of the list. This was a joke obviously but imagine the shit storm.
JC was raving about the Legends of the Oval (a group of 5 speed skaters who took many medals in Olympics) and the Olympic Training facility of Lake Placid (it held the 1932 and 1980 winter Olympics) so we took a tour of the area. In 1980, the now Herb Brooks arena was the setting for the famous “miracle on ice” when the USA beat the USSR. They now use the arena as an ice rink for tourists. We also saw some young female figure skating hopefuls in a different part of the arena. Watching these girls in person was dangerous.
Herb Brooks Ice Hockey Arena – home of the Miracle on Ice
Actual Medals from the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Games
Lake Placid is an awesome setting and is first class all the way. The main strip is filled with bars and shopping that everyone can enjoy. There is also a lake right next to Lake Placid called Mirror Lake and we went paddleboarding and kayaking on one of the days. It was quite peaceful and enjoyable until I had to take a shit and realized I was stranded in a lake. Jeff and Sam also picked up some 16? year old females along the way. We also went on some family hikes and enjoyed good meals. I thought the running environment was top notch with this summer atmosphere having nearly no humidity. There was plenty to do and even though we didn’t really hit the night life the way I would have liked to, it was certainly enjoyable and relaxing.
On Thursday, Jeff, Sam, and I decided to challenge ourselves on a 13+ mile hike along a trail called the Gothics. I am a pretty novice hiker and have never thought that hiking was much of a challenge. I’ve reconsidered that position. We set off at about 9am without a map, 6 bottles of water, 3 sandwiches, some triscuits, and 2 peanut butter bars. Jeff assured us we’d be fine. The group was in high spirits and we came across this awesome falls within about an hour of our hike.
Beaver Meadow Falls in the Adirondacks
At this point we made an error. I saw a path, pointed it out to the guys and we took it. This proved to be the wrong way as we completely missed the other entry point to another trail (I’ll take the blame here). What ended up happening is that, without our knowledge, we starting taking a longer, less direct route up the mountain without knowing it. What we thought was going to be a 6 miles hike one way, turned into somewhere closer to 8. This might not sound like a big deal but this was some of the most physically exhausting work I’ve ever put in. There were multiple times where my heart was beating out of my chest like I’ve never felt before. Combine this with having insufficient water and you had yourself a bit of a problem. After 3.5 hours of hiking, we reached our actual destination and were granted with this incredible view from the top of the Gothics.
Awesome view from the top of the Gothics, a 4,734 ft elevation
Getting to the top was the first part of our journey which we did successfully, the ride back down wasn’t so easy. Getting to the top had my legs built with so much lactic acid that any uphill made them tired. This mountain isn’t exactly a straight shot so even when you are descending thousands of feet, there are still series of uphills. Combine this with the fact that we didn’t know where we were going exactly and you had a hell of a situation. The last two hours of the trail I hate to say were not enjoyable. It started to rain in huge amounts and we were soaked head to toe but didn’t care at that point. At the falls on the way back, Sam and I were so dehydrated that we were scooping out handfuls of water from the lake not caring if diarrhea was going to be the end result. We eventually got back to our car but this was easily one of the hardest physical challenges I’ve undertaking in quite a while. I was full sweat multiple times and felt unprepared more than that. Nevertheless though, it makes for a great experience and view.
That pretty much summed up the vacation and I would go on with more details but I really have to get some shut eye. I’ll post back in a few days.
Today was one of those days where the action never stopped. I was out of the office yesterday on a sales trip trying to sell our paint scrapers. We have a new idea for a replaceable blade scraper that I was pitching to stores around the Philadelphia area. The trip was a moderate success as I was able to produce a few orders from the day. Since I will be off on Friday for the CK4 bonanza party, I had to squeeze everything I could into today.
I started the day buying new tires for the Acura because I’m running hot on the miles and it looks like I might get stuck with it. Considering I will be driving 1,000 miles over the next few days, I think it’s a good investment. Next I had to discuss the golf arrangement with CK4 for tomorrow which was more challenging than you’d think because everything is so damn expensive in Jersey. After that I went to see a house with the realtor that I actually made an offer on the same day I saw it. Talk about a quick decision. So I handled all the paper work that came with that decision and just cross my fingers I didn’t sign my life away. Combine that with all the final prep work for leaving for a week and I was busy all day. Amazingly I still find the time to write a blog about it but I think these are the best types of days. Days where you are constantly moving and always thinking and making things happen. Sitting and doing nothing doesn’t compare to this.
Anyway, this will be the last post for a while unless I have post from my Kindle which isn’t that much fun. I’m looking forward to a week off and will probably post some updates and entertaining news to my Twitter account @rnningfool. If you use twitter and don’t follow me AND follow the blog, this would be a good time to do so. I’ve said it many times before but vacations are the reason you go to work each day. It’s time to relax and enjoy life instead of slaving away at the meaningless bullshit that seems to important. Until 8/26, enjoy life.
It’s hard to say I’m slumping when I think I post gold and still get no response. I’ve been doing various activities and haven’t put forth the effort to come up with good topics. If you read Sam’s blog you’ll know that we’ll be away for a week but I’m not sure how he knows there’s no internet considering everywhere on the planet seems to have it nowadays. Even so, vacation will curtail most desire to post so prepare for not much of this site. I have a lot going on in these last few weeks of summer that this blog will take a back seat to life. Hopefully though it will give me plenty of material come September when school starts and we enter a new stage of the Earth’s rotation. On a side note, I’ve been listening to Imagine Dragons CD on the reg and I’m quite impressed. I knew it produced some hits but didn’t realize every song was good.
I don’t care what anyone says about Lady Gaga, her sound and voice are loud. I apologize for the weak back to back pop artist posts which go against my general philosophy but both of the biggest stars in the music industry released songs on the same day. Keeping up to date on pop culture is something this blog does.
