Favre-palooza

Well, since the whole of the national sports media has been "All Favre, all the time" since Brett Favre's game winning touchdown pass in yesterday's Vikings/49er game, I thought I would join the parade. And so, allow me to share my personal favorite Brett Favre moment.

It was the 2003 NFC Divisional playoff game between Favre's Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles. A very exciting game had led to overtime. The Eagles won the toss and elected to receive, but after a 3 and out, the ball, and thus, the game, was in Brett Favre's hand. On the first play of the series, Favre dropped back, looked down the field, and gave the ball a mighty heave. It soared majestically down the field, until it came down, into the waiting arms of... Eagles safety Brian Dawkins - with no Packer within 20 yards of him and the ball. Dawkins ran the ball back 35 yards to the Packer 35, the Eagles drove 20 more yards and then kicked the game winning field goal to advance to the NFC title game.

If you remember that game, or are aware of my affinity for Philadelphia sports teams, you probably saw that coming. I bring it up for two reasons: First, because it really is a fun memory, and second, because I've been wondering for the last 24 hours plus when exactly it was that the media at large lost all sense of perspective on Favre.

Now, I am not a Favre-hater. In fact, there was a period in Favre's career where I would probably have ranked him as one of my favorite players that didn't play for my favorite team. I get why people liked him. He was an immense talent, had a seemingly very "every man", down to earth demeanor, and he played the game with passion and with a gunslinger's mentality that everyone who has dreamed of NFL glory while playing in a pick up game in the backyard can relate to. He was an excellent quarterback, one of the absolute best in the game in his prime, and enjoyed a good deal of success. He merited attention.

At some point, however, this thing got way out of control. I'd love to blame the president of the media's Favre fanboy club, John Madden, but he was only the most obvious culprit. At some point Favre almost became bigger than the game, and his flaws as a player (which certainly existed) were routinely whitewashed while his successes were overemphasized. The story I started with is a perfect example - in addition to making a lot of incredibly positive game-changing plays, it wasn't that uncommon for him to hurt his team's chances with an unnecessary risk or poor decision. That was the downside of having his talent and his mentality - he always believed he could make a throw. There's a reason he's the NFL's all-time leader in touchdown passes, and also interceptions. He did cutdown on the latter in his prime, but not at all entirely.

At this point in his career, and after all the years of "will he/won't he" around his retirement status, Favre is still being assigned a place in the game, that, in my opinion, he doesn't deserve and never really did. The man was great, in all but the strictest definitions of the term, but let's not get crazy. He played a substantial portion of his career alongside 3 quarterbacks who I wouldn't hestitate to rank ahead of him in the NFL pantheonon of greatness in Elway, Brady, and Peyton Manning, and alongside several others (Young, Aikman quickly come to mind) who certainly are in the same neighborhood as he. At present, he has to show for his efforts exactly one Super Bowl win, ranking him alongside such lumanaries of the game as Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson, and one loss to Elway. He also has, alongside those, a few catastrophic meltdowns like the one I opened this thread with that sent his teams to the golf course.

And yet, one game-winning TD pass, in the 3rd game of the season, and it's wall to wall Brett-mania on ESPN. Almost completely lost in the euphoria has been the fact that Favre's pass would have been for naught had the less than Pro Bowl caliber wideout Greg Lewis not made one of the better catches you'll ever see in the very back of the end zone. In fact (and I chastise people all the time for building arguments around "if" statements that really can't be proven wrong, so I apologize for this), I'm guessing that if all but 2 other active quarterbacks (Brady and P. Manning being the other) had thrown the ball, the headlines would have been talking about a game-winning catch, rather than a game winning pass. However, as a point of support, when referencing the end of last year's Super Bowl, do people more often refer to Ben Roethlisberger's winning pass, or Santonio Holmes' winning catch?

Anyhow, I wish Brett Favre the best, and he has been excellent this season by any reasonable measure. I just wish that the media would allow us all to appreciate Favre for what he is and was, without the need to hyperbolize and hero worship.

It was an accident, I swear

So, something happened to me recently - something that I very much did not plan on. In fact, as the title suggests, I would go so far as to say it happened by accident. After years and years of avoiding it like the plague, I woke up and realized that I, in fact, am leading an all-around healthy lifestyle. How could this possibly happen "by accident", you ask? Well, let me break it down for you, in chronological order of the several, mostly unconnected events.

#1 - Dramatically cutting back on soda consumption: I had, over the last several months, gotten to the point where I was consuming far more soda than I would prefer. It was easy for me to think this was not the case, because I rarely buy and keep a supply of soda at home. The issue was the trips to the vending machine at work. I was pretty much always having a soda with lunch, and quite often would have another at some point in the day. One day in early August, a co-worker made a point of saying how she could always count on seeing a Mt. Dew at my desk when she came by (she was not meaning anything by it, she's apparently the same way). That was a "Wow" moment, for one thing. Also, the vending machines at my work aren't exactly value price, and while a dollar or two every day doesn't seem like much, it adds up and I was looking at ways to save money. Also about this same time, I noticed the existance of G2 powder packets for use in a bottle of water. I've gone all water at work several times before, but I always slip up because I just need some flavor. G2 has enough flavor to keep me from running to the vending machine, has considerably less sugar, and actually has some positive health value to it, and at about 35 cents for a 500 ml bottle as opposed to 75 cents for a 12 ounce can of soda, the price is right. So, pretty quickly, I dropped from 1 or 2 sodas a day to 1, maybe 2 a week.

#2 - Actually cooking for myself more, less fast food, frozen pizza and Hot Pockets: The thing about this one is, I like to cook, and I like to eat actual cooking even more :) Ever since I've been on my own, I've gone in and out of spells where I am doing a lot of cooking. Around the same time as I cut down on soda, I decided it was time to get serious about cooking again. This was also aided by the end of church softball season, which is an all-consuming sort of thing over the summer (or at least it has been, but I don't intend for it to be again) which gave me a more regular, relaxed schedule. Cooking for myself really isn't that much of a time/effort thing. I have a (now increasing number) of recipes that I really like and that are fairly minimal in their preparation, and since it's just me, I typically only have to actually cook once every 4 days or so. It's funny, when I was a kid living at home, and my mom was doing the cooking leftovers were a drag. Now, given the alternative, having leftovers of a nice recipe for dinner is something of a treat. This one was also a cost saver as well.

#3 - Regular morning exercise - You'll recall my Half Dome story - how I talked about how out of shape I was, how I didn't make it to the top, and how I have designs on going back someday and making it all the way. Now, I personally believe that, even in the condition that I was in, knowing what I know now and actually having the internal desire to complete the hike, I could go back and make it to the top. However, I have no designs on leaving that assumption to chance. So, even though I have no formal plans at this point to head back up Half Dome any time soon, the edict was out there to get in better shape. There was also a cost issue here - I was reaching the limits of the waistlines on some of my pants, and really didn't want to lay out the cash for bigger replacements :) Anyhow, I have an elliptical and had tried to get into an exercise routine right after I got home from California, but I was doing it in the evenings and with softball, it was just difficult to get into any kind of plan. So, a few weeks after softball ended, I was trying to figure out how I was going to stay with an exercise routine. I had had a similar problem with spending daily time with God a few months ago. My solution: Get up early and do it first thing in the morning. That had worked really well, so, I bit the bullet and decided to get up an additional 30 minutes early each morning and hop on the elliptical. This had an unintended side benefit: making me much more awake and alert for my time with God! Ever since the move to the morning, I had struggled with nodding off from time to time. Not an issue after 30 minutes on the elliptical!

#4 - Better hydration, more balanced diet: Okay, the first 3 were pretty much unconnected, but this one was pretty much a case of, well, I've come this far, might as well go all the way. The hydration thing came first - I was already drinking the G2 at work, and of course I wanted to make sure I was drinking with my morning workouts. So, getting into a much better routine of taking in water during the evening just seemed to follow. And, while I was pretty sure I wouldn't have to do anything with my diet to lose weight once I started exercising, there was this sense "I'm getting up at 5:00 am to do this exercise thing, why would I want to completely work against myself when I'm eating". Now, let's be clear - I'm not "on a diet". There's nothing that I've cut out or won't eat now. I'm not counting calories, carbs, etc. Rather than trying to cut out "bad" things, my focus as been on eating more "good" things THAT I LIKE - having the morning OJ, packing carrots and fruit with my lunches, taking a granola/fiber bar along for a snack at work (heading off another vending machine expense), eating apples (honeycrisp apples MIGHT be the greatest snack ever), having more fruits and vegetables with my meals at home. So, while the intent hasn't necessarily been to eat less, cut down on calories, I'm pretty sure I have (I've been snacking less due to fuller meals), and I'm certainly eating better.

#5 - Evening walks - This was another one that kind of followed from everything else, and also from the fact that I have a dog that certainly isn't hurt by taking long walks. I wanted to get in some extra, low intensity activity in the evenings, I'd been thinking for a while that I should be walking Chaser more, and there you go. I've been trying to get at least a 15 minute walk in with Chaser for the last couple weeks, longer when there's no threat of rain.

So there it is - that's how I started living healthy "by accident". Now, I could obviously fall out of this all tomorrow, but I've been at most of this for several weeks now, and quite honestly, am really enjoying it. The end results: Losing weight (about 4 pounds since I started tracking about 2 weeks ago, and likely an additional pound or two between when I started exercising and when I started tracking), seeing my overall, day to day energy level rise dramatically (especially in situations where I'm going on less sleep than I'd prefer), and being able to play an hour and a half of flag football on Sunday afternoon without dying of exhaustion :) I can deal with that!