The NFL Overtime Period is a Joke!

I have been saying this for years, and if you do not believe me that is fine, but the NCAA actually has the correct way for a football game to be decided in overtime. There is no need for a professional sport to not have a winner, much less in an unfair manner.

Granted ties do not happen very often, and when overtime does arise it comes down to the better team. For the Giants v. Panthers last night. The Giants wanted it more, and it broke my heart to watch my team fall in such a manner, but regardless they had their opportunities.

The NCAA has both teams start at the 20, and if one team scores the other team gets a chance to retaliate with a score of their own. In the NFL it is a first to score rule, so a team must have a stop in order to get a chance to win. It all comes down to a flip of the coin, that is entirely unfair in my personal humbled opinion. Before you get all upset, had the Panthers won I would still be saying the same thing. This is not the way a Professional Team Sport should end after such a hard fought game on both sides.

The NFL needs to fix this, there has already been one time this year and it can very easily happen again in the coming years with the diversity of the talent pool. Please, for the benefit of the fans, change this rule and make it more like the NCAA. After such a hard fought game, the teams and fans need to be rewarded to see a clear cut winner.

Finding Your Niche

Everyone always says you have to find your "Niche". Well what is that supposed to mean? What if I missed my Niche? What if I gave my Niche idea to someone else? What if I never figure out what my Niche is?

All legitimate and logical questions, but everyone does not have a Niche to focus on or find. Sure we all have our talents, and sure we all have our passions. But will we find a Niche in those? Doubtful. I love music, ask anyone who knows me, but I will not become the greatest Producer to ever walk the face of the earth. I can however use my passion and find something that I am great at, even if it is the Niche of someone else.

Now I am not saying we will all be bums living off of anothers dream, do not miss what I am trying to say. My point is that if we spend all of our time looking for our Niche, we will miss the opportunities to thrive in another position. If you have a Niche that you love and can corner a market, by all means run with it. I hope I find mine, but I do not think that spending our valuable time trying to find that Niche is smart.

My advice to you, if you cared, is to take the time you have and find something you love to do. Life is too short to waste it at a job you hate, or with people you do not get along with. Take the precious time you are given and utilize it with your family and friends, do not waste it looking for the Niche area that everyone tells you to find. You might just miss something much better.

Humbled...

So it is now going on just about two weeks without a job and I have to say that looking for a job is a very humbling experience. You find something you want to do, shoot out a resume and wait. Then you wait some more. Keep on waiting. Then finally you receive either an e-mail, or a letter from you employer of choice basically saying "You Suck", but thanks for applying. I call these "You Suck Letters".

Over the years I have built up quite a collection of these letters, but it never gets easy to have to look yourself in the mirror and say "I know I'm good enough, it's just not the right position at the right time". After a while you start wondering if you will every find another job, or if you are even qualified to find another job.

I have always told anyone that asks that I am constantly looking for jobs. This has and will always be true because you never know what might happen. For example, I was laid off for the second time in two months from two different companies. Both times it was economically related, but it still makes you want to scream. I know that I was qualified for both, but it just is not the time for me in those positions.

So what do you do next? What do you do when you feel like giving up? Keep on moving. You have to. If you get down on yourself and think you are not worth any position out there, then you will not get any job out there. Then what do you have? Unemployment for 26 weeks, trust me that will not do anything to help with the bills. My advice is to look hard at what you WANT to do, and only do what you HAVE to do when the time comes.

Keep your head up if you are like me and are humbled by looking, something is always right around the corner!

Christmas Time is Here Again!

Well now that the Turkey has been eaten, and we again celebrated stealing the land from the Native Americans. It's time to move on to my favorite holiday of the year, Christmas. Every year I battle, mentally not physically, the people who are too afraid state why they have this beloved time of year off. It is called CHRISTmas for a reason, not the "winter holiday".

Now I am all for supporting whoever you want to support or not support, but the reason for this holiday is because it was when Christ was born. I am not going to go off on a religous tangent, you guys are smart enough to believe whatever you choose to believe, all I am asking is recognition as to why we celebrate this time of year. You may not like Christianity, you might not celebrate it, but you definitely do enjoy your time off from work, or all the presents. If you are Jewish I'm sorry about the present thing, I did not create the rules.

If you do not celebrate this time of year, that is fine too. I am not someone to tell people what to do. I had a close friend in High School that did not celebrate it because of his religous beliefs, I did not judge him or his family. However he did enjoy the time off from school!

I am done ranting now and I will not bring this up again until next Christmas season. For those of you who celebrate it, do it for the right reasons. Not gifts of money, though they are nice, but for the time you get to spend with family and friends. That is the best gift of all. For those of you that do not celebrate the holiday, may you have a happy season anyways and I hope it is good for you and your family as well.

As that late great Crooner Bing Crosby would say, "Merry Christmas Everybody"!

Bedtime?

So here is where I stand right now. It is just after 11:00 pm on Sunday night. My 2 year old daughter had been up until 10:30 playing with some friends of the family and I got to thinking, scary I know, do we need a bed time if nothing is happening the next day?

Now I am one that sticks to a strict schedule when it comes to my daughter, she needs the structure to understand fully what is happening. Plus it makes parenting a lot easier when you know when your child gets tired or hungry. But tonight I veered off the schedule to let her play for a long time past her bedtime, and immediately it was evident she was over tired. Hoping that she will sleep in tomorrow, I let it slide tonight. I doubt she will sleep in tomorrow morning, but valid point none the less.

Once in a while is not a bad thing with leaving your child up past their bedtime, they need the interaction just as much as the adults do, I do think it is a bad thing to do it consistently. With that being said, I think it's my bed time.

Remember to be a parent, not a friend, to your kids. Friendship will come from solid parenting, parenting will not come from solid friendship.

Parenting During Stressful Times

With the economy the way it is here in the US, I have recently lost my job. The second job I have lost since September because of the upside down market. What I have experienced this time around is extreme uncertainty of where my next meal will come from as well as how to pay the bills. Now this would not be such an issue if it were just my wife and I, but with a 2 year old and a newborn to take care of it has grown extremely stressful trying to figure this out.

I have been known to have a short fuse to begin with, so when you add unwanted stress to the mix it can really create a tough situation on trying to parent. As I mentioned earlier I have a 2 year old, and we are in the midst of the "Terrible Two's", so I find my patience with her is growing increasingly shorter by the minute.

Is it the unwanted stress of not having a job? Could be, but the key to being a good parent is not letting your fears and stress fall onto your children's shoulders. I do my best to be a good father, not a friend, but a father to both of my kids. I realize it is my responsibility to raise them in a way that they will be able to survive in this world that can be the harshest of places at times. I know this because it has been brutal for me the last couple of months. However I must press on and show them that nothing can defeat a determined person.

Hopefully with this current situation I will be able to help better my children's future by overcoming the bad situations and showing them that anything is possible, even in tough times.

Above all you must remember that parenting is a job. You might make a lot of money in another job, but you will never find one more rewarding.