There’s never a good time to get a cold period, but one would have to admit if you get it in the summer, the misery is at a heightened level.
This past weekend, that’s what I got. No, not allergies, but a full-blown cold. I don’t get them that often, in fact it was last September and before that it was nearly two years. So when I get it, it comes at me like a ton of bricks. I can’t tell which is worse though, the body aches or just the stuffy dome.
But when it hits in the summer, you sweat. You sweat outside of course, you sweat inside, Heck I even sweat in my pool – if that’s possible.
I did some of that Internet research and there’s all kinds of inkings about summer colds. One will tell you feel miserable because of the nice weather. Obviously this woman has never been to Florida in August – that may be the worst month for weather in the nation.
Then there’s the sites that boast natural remedies. Natural remedies are all well and good for most people and the way I kinda adhere to healthy eating and exercise you would think I would too. Not with a cold. A colleague of mine once asked years ago, “Mike you’re in pretty good health, I’ll bet you take a lot of natural stuff for a cold.” My response was simple, “No Joe, when I get a cold, throw as many working drugs into me – I want that thing gone.” You see it’s easy to WRITE about natural remedies when you don’t have a cold, but when you’re miserable, you actually think that stuff is going to work?
Here’s a site for dummies (literally) that will tell you how to take care of a summer cold. This is astonishing news. How to take care of a summer cold. WOW!!! A breakthrough in medical science. Ummm, it’s quite the same as taking care of a winter cold, fall cold, spring cold, Presidents Day cold … whatever. Note: New Year’s colds are different however as medication still calls for champagne.
And when you want to sit up while resting off your cold, here’s a Web site geared specifically on colds. You’re kidding right?
It’s a cold and no matter what THEY BLOW … your nose.
While lounging this past weekend with a cold beverage poolside at the International Palms Hotel on Cocoa Beach, this thought entered my mind – There’s not a child under the age of 15 anywhere in the world that does NOT like a swimming pool. A family who were on vacation from Switzerland confirmed that.
Over the weekend, at Comic Con, this guy made an appearance: Only a short time before Captain Jack is back. Wanted to put the teaser up, but everything is blocked.
The Leesburg Lightning collegiate baseball team ended their regular season at 19-23, they still made the playoffs. Why do I get the feeling they’ll rise up and win the whole shabang again.
Oh great, just what we need, another oil spill. First the British and BP and now Canada. I thought these countries were friendly toward us? Maybe the Brits are still sore about the U.S. bailing them out in WWII and Canada is still sore because the country hasn’t won a Stanley Cup in 18 years.
While in Cocoa at the Dog N’ Bone British Pub, another thought came to mind: Is there a British Pub ANYWHERE in the United States that doesn’t have a reference to these guys?
Irish Pubs are different, most likely, not all, have a reference to these guys.
Although I’ve been to an Irish Pub in St. Cloud that has many references to these guys. Go Irish!
Speaking of the Irish, the countdown to college football season is just 34 days away. Thank Goodness, now the talking bozos on National sports shows will talk about a real sport and not endlessly about “The Decision.”
No, I don’t care about LeBron and where he signed and no, I never watched one single second of his insipid TV special announcing where he’s going. I just don’t care. If I had watched one single second, it would be a single second of my life I would NEVER get back. In fact, the mere fact I have spent two minutes typing this and the line above, its two wasted minutes of my life I will never get back.
I don’t like soccer either, can’t stand it, but you know looking back and all the Irish notations above, I should have at least spent some time here or here watching a World Cup game, match, fixture or whatever its called.
And now we have Yogi Bear? With Dan Akroyd and Justin Timberlake?
And finally, to take your mind off the heat, I’ll leave you with this dream, which was a brief reality this year. But hey for a few days this August, would anyone mind?
Graig Nettles, that’s who was the toughest Yankee of them all, George Steinbrenner told me in an interview I did with the Yankees owner in 2002.
George Steinbrenner, the icon of the New York Yankees and loved and hated by Yankees fans throughout his ownership, passed away this morning at the age of 80.
Eight years ago, I was an assistant sports editor at The Tampa Tribune and my area of coverage was high school sports and boxing.
On April 19th, with a fight between China Smith and Saul Montana about to start at the SunDome at USF, I approached Howard Grossworth, one of George Steinbrenner’s assistants with the Yankees. I asked if I could do an interview with Mr. Steinbrenner and chat with him about boxing.
It took Mr. Steinbrenner all of about a second to wave me over to his table. We talked about boxing and I said “I’m sorry Mr. Steinbrenner, but my sports editor Duke Maas wants me to ask this question. Who would win in a fight? Reggie Jackson or Billy Martin (the two two were known to have fought in the dugout)” Mr. Steinbrenner replied with not really any answer, but stated that Nettles – the third baseman – on that team was the toughest Yankee he’s ever had. We would go on talking and I asked what was the best boxing match he had seen and he told me.
We would go on to discuss a couple other things, in fact he admitted to me that he tried to buy the Cleveland Indians before the Yankees.
After I left his table it was about five minutes later I was talking to someone and my boxing writer, Anwar Richardson, came up to me and said “Mr. Steinbrenner would like to speak with you.” I went over and Mr. Steinbrenner corrected himself, “No, No Ali-Frazier I that was the best fight I ever saw – I was there.”
Mr. Steinbrenner was very big in Tampa and well-loved, especially by the high school community. One of my writers, Eddie Daniels, did a story on how Tampa Bay Tech had a shortage of football equipment for the junior varsity teams. Two days after the story appeared – an anonymous donor – bought ALL of Hillsborough County high schools brand new equipment for the varsity and junior varsity teams. We, at the Tribune, knew who the donor was and I’m sure many in Hillsborough County knew too.
Every year, Mr. Steinbrenner would host a dinner and dance for all of the Hillsborough County coaches and with it he would give away trips to places like San Francisco and Hawaii as well as a trip to New York to see the Yankees. And for any coach that coached more than 20 years – their name was put in a drum and drawn at the end of the night and that coach would win a brand new car.
Last year, a high school opened and was named Steinbrenner High in his honor.
Mr. Steinbrenner always gave back to the Hillsborough high school coaches and high school community. He will be missed in Tampa.
You know it always brings a smile to my face when I get recognized with this line: “Hey didn’t you write sports for The Daily Commercial back when?” Then when I find out who’s asking the question I always say “Yes, I remember you.”
It happened again last week when I ran into Ashley Hunt, the former behemoth tight end for Leesburg High school back in the mid 90s. Ashley went on to play football at the University of Cincinnati and was a starter for a time. Most importantly, Hunt won the Academics and Athletic Excellence award from UC. Who says football players aren’t smart?
So it’s no wonder Ashley went on in his education and became a lawyer at the Rohe Law firm.
Funny, but a couple months ago another lawyer recognized me and yes, he was a former athlete as well. Bret Jones was a star baseball player at South Lake High and now he has his own law firm.
Great to see past athletes I’ve covered doing well in life.
If you read my column in LAKE Magazine you know the story of Blue, the little pooch we found in San Antonio in April. When we found Blue he was a stray and San Antonio Animal Control did NOTHING to help us or Blue. We set out on our own to find Blue a home and through the help of Bree and Gabriel at the Blue Star Coffee House, Blue was adopted by Sergio at the Blue Star Bike Shop.
Here's Blue taking a nap at the condo in San An
Blue was a conked out pup and he slept throughout the night.
The Chacago Blackhawks begin the Stanley Cup final against Philadelphia on Saturday.
The year before I was born in 1962 it last happened. The Chicago Blackhawks won the most coveted trophy in all of sports – The Stanley Cup.
Since then I have seen everyone of my pro sports teams win a championship. In college football I’ve seen Notre Dame win several times. When I first started knowing what a football was, the Green Bay Packers ruled and then again in 1996. The Chicago Bulls won six times and the last one was the Chicago White Sox, the ONLY major league baseball team in Chicago, win in 2005.
But never the Hawks. They went to the final in 1992, but lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins. This one would mean more to me than any of them.
When I was small and growing up in Chicago, my parents wouldn’t tell me a bedtime story, they’d let me listen to the Blackhawks game on the radio. Jack Drees was the announcer and he’d tell the play-by-play of some of the greats like Bobby Hull, Dennis Hull, Stan Mikita, Eric Nesterenko and goalies Glenn Hall and Tony Esposito.
The Hawks were never a terrible team throughout the years, in fact, they were always one of the better teams of mine. But never won it. The worst was letting the great Bobby Hull go to the WHA. It was a sad day in Chicago.
Now many of the non-Chicagoians feel the Bulls or the Cubs are more important. But for many years, the Hawks were Chicago’s team. They always had that lunchpail mentality of play that signifies Chicago. Even the greats who played on the Hawks were not really the fan favorites. When Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita were there, Hawks fans were more prone to admire guys like Keith Magnuson, Whitey Stapleton or Chico Maki.
In the 1980s, Denis Savard was the outstanding finesse player on the team, however Al Secord was everyone’s favorite – including mine. For me, Secord was my all-time sports idol growing up. He played left wing like I did, played without a helmet like I did and you have to admire a guy that scored 52 goals in a season and had more than 350 minutes in penalties in the same year. Think about that. Not many have scored 50 goals in a season and guys like Wayne Gretzky did it with about 20 minutes in penalties over a season. Secord missed six games, basically sitting in the penalty box.
In the 90s, guys like Chris Chelios and Jeremy Roenick were the tough-as-nails guys. In fact, I once saw Roenick, then with the Flyers, playing against Tampa and he took a shot to the mouth. Broke his jaw. It was only the first period. In the second period, Roenick was back on the ice.
Now you have these guys like Duncan Keith, who last Sunday in the game against San Jose take a puck to the teeth – lost seven of them and continued on. Dustin Byfuglien has been the hero for the Hawks this year with several game-winning goals in the playoffs. The man stands 6-foot-6 and is 257 pounds – that’s immense for a hockey player. One San Francisco writer called him a “freezer” of a man.
Then there’s the goaltending of rookie Antti Niemi who has been huge in the playoffs. One church in Chicago has a sign out front “Jesus Saves and so does Niemi.”
Go Hawks, let’s see your names on the Cup. By the way, what other trophy in all of professional sports – NBA, NFL or MLB, puts the entire names of the teams who win on the trophy? Only the Stanley Cup.
Been awhile since I wrote some litter and scattered it about, so here goes:
For everyone and anyone thinking banishing prayer in school is wrong, take what my former co-worker at the Tampa Tribune, Bob D’Angelo, says: “As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in school.”
Seattle’s Best coffee is about to go out of business. New logos can do that to a company and Seattle’s Best new mark is really bad. What was wrong with the old one? Of course, perhaps the reason they changed to the very Euro-looking design was because the head honchos who own Seattle’s Best WANT’S to put them out of business. The owner of Seattle’s Best is these guys.
There’s still 105 days until the drought ends and starts with this group and this group. As always it can’t get here quick enough.
Now, strangely enough, both of the above stories didn’t happen in Florida – KING of strange news. Don’t worry folks, Florida is not left out of the odd female news. This is a stunner from the other day.
My vote for best song in a commercial is by The Heavy:
… And The worst song in a a commercial is by … well Willy Wonka of course:
The next big event on the LAKE Magazine circuit following the Hottest Husband contest is Fit For A Change – watch for the winner in the August issue.
Tis I, who does the poll questions each month on www.thelakemagazine.net and on this month’s poll I asked which summer blockbuster you plan on seeing. (Note: if you view the questions – yes, I planned on having all of the answers supplied with a Shrek retort.)
Of course many will go see Shrek, but aren’t we tired of this series?
Wellllllll, lemme tell you another movie series that seems to crank off production EVERY year is the Twilight series. This year we get Eclipse, next year we get Breaking Dawn, the year after that … Stephenie Meyer hasn’t written a fifth one yet. If there’s one thing worse than Shrek – it’s cutesy, crappy horror movies aimed at teens and tweens. Personally, I like this one as the best vampire movie or this one. Ironically, they both came out about the same time.
Adam Sandler is trying again with Grown Ups, which looks on par with his most recent movies. What has happened to Adam Sandler? At least this has Kevin James in it sooooo it may have some potential.
Predators is the continuining saga of the alien who landed here and blah blah blah. Actually this may turn out Ok since Robert Rodriguez is directing. Rodriguez is the one who directed this movie. But let’s face it, will it be ANY better than when the Governator squared off with the Predator? One of the best lines in the original was when one of the guys said to Jesse Ventura “Hey, you’re bleeding.” Jesse’s response: “I don’t have time to bleed.”
Here’s a cool idea for movies this year. Reemember Alien vs. Predator? How about Predator vs. Shrek?
Do we need another Cats and Dogs movie? Nine years after the first one? Although, as like the first one, I hope the Dogs win. Bette Midler as an evil cat may be halfways decent.
Samuel L., The Rock, Mark Wahlberg, Michael Keaton, Eva Mendes – Hey, here’s a comedy that’s looking promising – The Other Guys. A funny cop movie – yeah they’ve been done – but Samuel L and The Rock? Michael Keaton? Great. I have found a movie to spend my $8 on. OH WAIT! the flick is absolutely dragged into the gutter and will be completely insipid. Will Ferrell is one of the stars. (putting the $8 BACK in the wallet.)
Ok, maybe, maybe I can take the $8 out of the wallet for The Expendables. If you’re in your 40s you know the reason why. It spawns back to the shoot-until-the-last-one-stands films of the 80s and 90s. But it has the classic action trio. Slyvester Stallone (Yes, he’s still alive.), Arnold (Yes, he and Sly are in a movie TOGETHER) and Bruce Willis (If only he plays the part of John McClane this will be a classic.) Throw in flavor-of-the-month Mickey Rourke, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren and Stone Cold Steve Austin and it has some bite. (Wait, what happened to Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude and Wesley Snipes? Why aren’t they in it? Where’s Nicholas Cage and Travolta? No Ving Rhames?)
Actually this summer, I’m thinking I’ll stay close to home and watch another tyrant:
Why must the Winter Olympics end? Although one case the Winter Olympics can end is NBC’s coverage. Figure skating channel anyone? Even on days when they don’t HAVE figure skating they subject us to it.
As long as I’m throwing questions about, can we always have the South Lake Chamber breakfast at the City of Minneola hall?
This little fued between U.S. skiers Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso is getting intriguing. For the record, I’m on Julia’s side. Lindsey Vonn’s act is getting tiring, Mancuso is the better skier, like it or not.
Somebody says Tijuana Flats in Leesburg closed. Great, another half-ways decent affordable-for-lunch restaurant in Leesburg closes. That pretty much leaves … I’m bringing lunch in.
I’m not the biggest University of Tennessee fan, but this is funny.
Former South Lake High star Jeff Demps was named the SEC Male Freshman of the Week.
Former South Lake High and current University of Florida football and track star, Jeff Demps, was named the SEC Male Freshman of the Week.
From the University of Florida press release:
In the first collegiate indoor meet of his career, Demps placed second in the finals of the men’s 60-meter dash at the Virginia Tech Elite Meet with the second-fastest time in school history at 6.61, just off the NCAA automatic-qualifying standard of 6.60.
Demps charted the fastest time of any competitor in the preliminary round at 6.64, which at the time was the fourth-fastest time in school history. He ranks second in the nation so far this season in the men’s 60-meter dash.
You can read the full press release on the University of Florida’s Web site here.
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