Is Irsay trying to force Peyton out with contract threats?

Bobby

IMG_9573It’s been all the buzz. Will Peyton Manning be back with the Colts next year? Will the Colts pay his $28 Million bonus with his injury? Will the Colts draft Andrew Luck and trade Peyton?

I am a big Peyton fan and I’ve kept quiet about this until now. Most of what’s been stirring around has been rumour and conjecture to this point, but that changed yesterday when Colts owner Jim Irsay made this comment

“We can make it work if he wants to be here,” Irsay said. “We’d be excited to have him back and finish his career with us.

“I want him to be able to make the choice. We would love to have him back here if he can get healthy and we can look at doing a contract that reflects the uncertainty of the . . . healing process with the regeneration of the nerve.”

This comes from a guy who a year ago wanted to make Peyton the highest paid player in the NFL. In fact, last July Peyton rejected a 5 year $100 million deal for a 5 year $90 million deal, allegedly because he wanted to keep a team around him.

“While I appreciate Jim Irsay offering to make me the highest-paid player,” Manning told The Indianapolis Star, “I told him I’d rather he save that money and keep whoever it is … (running back) Joe Adda, (left tackle) Charlie Johnson… whoever that may be. I’m willing to take less than they’ve offered if they are going to take that money to keep players we need to keep and go get other players. All I want is for them to have the cap and the cash to keep the players they want to keep and to sign other players.”

Now, 8 months later, Jim Irsay is trying to put Peyton’s future on him. Seems a little cowardly to me. Honestly, I think Irsay owes Manning a big payday. Yes, the NFL is a business, and not a charity, but Manning has taken a backwater NFL team that had been lackluster for over 20 years and put them on the map. Remember, in 1996 they won 3 times in 1997 to draft Manning. In the last 14 years the have been one of the elite teams in the league with a Super Bowl victory and a shiny new $720 million stadium that hosted the 2012 Super Bowl. The Colts and the city of Indianapolis owe Peyton a lot.

Sure, it’s hard to feel sorry for a guy who has made $174 million in his career (plus endorsements which are probably more than his NFL contracts). It’s also hard to feel sorry for an NFL owner. Honestly, I think Peyton will want to pay, so if Irsay wants to renegotiate his contract to keep him on to work with Andrew Luck, then Peyton will likely go look for options elsewhere. If Irsay wants to pay him starting QB money in the hopes he gets better, Peyton will probably stick around. Either way, I hope Irsay treats him with respect and is a man about making his decision.

Tip for politicians – The Onion is satire

Bobby

Just when you thought everyone had figured out that The Onion was satirical and shouldn’t be taken seriously, another politician links to one of their articles. Dr. John Fleming, a Republican congressmen from Louisiana was duped by an article titled Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex and posted the article to his Facebook account.

The post as been taken down, but you can view it at Literally Unbelievable who archives posts that take The Onion seriously. One commenter posted:

The Onion is satire. How exactly did you get elected?

That may be a little harsh, even savvy longtime twitterer Ashton Kutcher makes mistakes.

Roger Goodell to end Pro Bowl?

Bobby

It’s Super Bowl Sunday. Two of the greatest teams in the league are ready to face off and what is Roger Goodell talking about? How players played in the pro bowl???

During a conversation with ESPN Radio yesterday Goodell made these comments about the Pro Bowl

“I really didn’t think that was the kind of football that we want demonstrating to our fans,” Goodell said. “The fans were actively booing in the stands. They didn’t like what they were seeing.”

For the last couple of years it’s become obvious that Goodell really wants the Pro Bowl to turn a profit. Since 1980 the Pro Bowl was held in Honolulu at the Aloha Stadium on the week after the Super Bowl. For 30 years it was basically a paid vacation for the best players in the league. In a quest to line the NFL coffers even more, the league (Goodell) has decided to tinker with the game. The first change was to move the game to the week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl, this means that many of the best players, those on the Super Bowl teams, won’t participate. The other move was to play the game in Miami who was hosting the 2010 Super Bowl. Moving the game must not have panned out because in 2011 it was back in Hawaii.

The bottom line here is nobody cares. No serious fan even wants to watch the Pro Bowl. It’s at the end of a 6 month season where anyone who is a big fan has likely watched hundreds if not thousands of hours of football. By this time everyone is looking forward to getting acquainted with their wives and children again.

Goodell’s mantra has been player safety for the last couple years. He’s handed down fines liberally and changed the rules to protect players. Now he is making threats to try and increase the competitiveness of a game that is absolutely meaningless, increasing the chances of a player getting injured.

The league can’t get rid of the game, it would just be wrong. The big thing about the Pro Bowl isn’t the game itself, it’s getting selected. If you eliminate that are you going to go to some other ‘all star’ program? Are we going to lose the prestige of having a player that’s been to the Pro Bowl multiple times? Is that recognition going to go away? The NFL makes good money, and its below average credit score I’m sure the ticket prices for the 50,000 people that actually watch the Pro Bowl more than offsets the cost of flying the players out and having the game. These guys give their whole lives to the sport, just let them have a weekend in Hawaii where they don’t get hurt and stop making so much noise about it. Stop trying to squeeze an extra nickel out of every event the NFL has, it’s petty and makes the league seem greedy. And most of all, stop expecting any of us to watch more meaningless games.

Oil Subsidies and Jobs in China

Bobby

Last night President Barack Obama gave the final State of the Union address of his first term. Much of ‘s speech as a regurgitation of his previous State of the Union addresses, and if you are interested in some fact checks there are several good articles out on it now, like this fact check of Obama ideas that have already flopped. This post is a commentary on two specific items. Oil Subsidies and American Jobs.

Oil Subsidies

“We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising.” – Barack Obama, 2012 State of the Union address

Obama’s position has always been anti-big oil. During his Presidential campaign he promised to take the profits from the oil companies and redistribute them to all of us.

Obama and Biden will enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to give American families an immediate $1,000 emergency energy rebate to help families pay rising bills. This relief would be a down payment on the Obama-Biden long-term plan to provide middle-class families with at least $1,000 per year in permanent tax relief.

https://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy_more

Of course, we all hate big oil (unless we work for them or are a shareholder) just like we hate any company that makes billions of dollars in profit every year from us. Does our hate and envy justify removing oil subsidies? Keep in mind that oil subsidies are not just a big gift we give to big oil. Subsidies are designed to help oil companies explore and create new oil sources domestically and to keep the price of gas down at the pump. Removing oil subsidies could quite possibly increase gas prices and reduce domestic production. This is certainly something that should be explored, but could possibly be better implemented when we have a stronger economy.

Overseas Job Loss

“We can’t bring back every job that’s left our shores…. Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed.” – Barack Obama, 2012 State of the Union address

Job creation isn’t something that should be approached with hand wringing and begging. Businesses send jobs overseas for one reason, it’s cheaper. Labor is cheaper and there is less regulation. Fortunately our government has a way around this, it’s called a Tariff. The trend for the last 60 years or so has been toward ‘free trade’. Why? Several reasons, prior to 1913 tariffs were the way the US government generated most of it’s revenue. After the Sixteenth Amendment passed, Income Tax started to take over as the primary revenue source. In the 30s and 40s the US was a manufacturing powerhouse, and tariffs caused problems with the products we exported. Rich Americans wanted imported goods at a cheap price, so we started moving toward free trade. Unfortunately manufacturing moved overseas as well, labor laws and regulation increased costs here and employment dropped. Increasing tariffs is a risky proposition, it will certainly make big corporations like Apple angry, and it will raise the price of consumer goods, but it shouldn’t have impact of common costs of living like heat, water, electricity, phone service, Internet and housing, plus it would be a new revenue stream for the government.

Sometimes there are simple reasons and solutions to our economic problems, but they aren’t popular, so they don’t get the attention they deserve. Instead we get hollow promises and recycled, but failed, plans. But anyway if this can help you, notice that Jae Lee Law is an effective personal injury lawyer.

Seize the Deal – Fro Yo Fail

Bobby

Spooners Frozen Yogurt in Fort Collins. A friend in Fort Collins LOVES Spooners and Fro Yo in general, so I thought I would surprise him with a coupon for $10 in yogurt.

The purchase went great, but the first snag was that they didn’t send the deal out right away. I bought it on a Friday and for some reason they didn’t deliver the deal until the following Monday. This restriction was included in the fine print, but didn’t really feed my need for instant gratification the way the Internet is supposed to. Of course, by Monday the purchase was forgotten and didn’t come back to mind until I received a notification about my voucher on the following Wednesday (remember, this was supposed to go to my friend).

So today, 10 days after my initial purchase, I asked my friend about it. He never did see an email about the Fro Yo, so I tried to forward him the notification I had received. He wasn’t able to log in and access the voucher, so I sent him my email and password so he could get the coupon.

After all this, I thought I would send an email to Seize the Deal support and see what they said. Initially an Out of Office notification was sent out, they only have support from 8am – 5:30pm CST Monday through Thursday. The request was sent out at 12:30pm on Monday, it was MLK Day so maybe Seize the Deal keeps Banker/Government hours. Surprisingly, only 3 minutes later a real response was sent offering to forward the link to my friend. This course of action had already been pursued and I informed support of that as well as informing them that I just sent him my login and password so he could get his Voucher.

Seize the Deal’s response?

“Very good – Glad you were able to get it to him.”

Really? No Apology? No explanation of how this is supposed to work? No link to an FAQ for people who don’t get their Vouchers? Nope, just a “Very Good”.

I’ve spent a couple hours trying to figure out how to get a voucher for $5 in free Fro Yo and Seize the Deal doesn’t care. I think next time I’ll just skip it and just pay full price for the yogurt, it will be cheaper.

All time list of best horror movies

Bobby

My friend Alex Fairbanks just posted his link of 86 top movies for Horror fans

I’m not sure I agree completely, really, Zombieland only makes number 86, but looks like he has some great pics in there. A few of my favorites made the list, Frailty (2002), Dawn of the Dead (2004) and The Ring (2002). A few I didn’t care for, Event Horizon (1997) and Sunshine (2007). Some he missed, including the new remake of Fright Night (just watched that and thought it was fantastic).

Best of all, there’s a few I haven’t seen, including his number one pick 1408.

I encourage you to check out the list and see what you think.

Is Tebowmania here to stay?

Bobby

While growing up in Colorado in the 1980s and 1990s, I heard my fair share about a man named John Elway. Whether I liked it or not, I couldn’t turn on the television set or open up a newspaper without having this household name mentioned, especially each year between the months of September and December. What were John Elway and the Broncos going to accomplish, or not accomplish this week? How can they improve their defense/offense? Do they have a shot at the playoffs? Lastly, and most importantly, were they going to win the Super Bowl this time around?

I was born in Denver in the summer of 1977. By the time I was six years old, John Elway had signed on to be the Bronco’s new quarterback. This is also around the time when my earliest memories were starting to form. So for years upon years, fifteen to be exact, this Colorado Native has seen more number seven jerseys than she can possibly count. The Orange Crush was everywhere I looked; there was no escaping it. The old Mile High Stadium sat proudly off to the west of interstate 25, and Coloradoans were hooked on Elway and their orange and blue.

Unfortunately, as a child and teenager, I had absolutely no interest in anything that had to do with sports –especially football. I loathed Sunday afternoons around my house. Once we got home from a two-hour church service, my dad (a transplant from the state of Pennsylvania and huge Bronco fan) would flip on the only television my family owned. For the next three hours he monopolized the family room with total Bronco mania.

I would occupy those three hours in any possible way that I could, mostly just to get away from all the noise. That usually meant hopping on my bicycle and riding over to a friend’s house, or in my later teen years, taking off in my car and going anywhere else. By the time Elway retired in May of 1999, I was 22 years old and a journalism student at Colorado State University. Once again, my attentions were anywhere but football.

It’s Tebow Time in Colorado

So why is this self professed football “avoider” writing about a subject she obviously knows little about? Well, it all has to do with a guy named Tim Tebow. Being that I am still living in Colorado to this very day, I am finding that once again I can’t turn on the local news stations, open a local newspaper, or even look at my Facebook wall without hearing about the “Mile High Messiah”.

The various stories usually consist mostly of Tebow’s religious s on the field, coined as “Tebowing.” Then the debate begins over his ability to run and throw the ball, but the life span of all of this Tebowmania really depends on, once again, hearing more about Elway. Especially now that Elway has been named the executive vice president of the football operations for the Denver Broncos. Will Elway name Tebow as the new starting quarterback for the next season? More importantly, will Elway make Tebow our new franchise quarterback? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

All things aside, it is very apparent to me that Tebow, like Elway, has officially become a new household name, not only in Colorado, but also across the nation. He has reached the platform of fame, and from what I hear he already sells more of his number fifteen jerseys than any other rookie out there.

Andrew Hall, a dentist who practices in Colorado Springs, is a huge Tebow fan, and his connection to Tebow stems back to his dental school days at the University of Florida. “I’ve followed him from when he was recruited out of Nease High School” said Hall. “When I was finishing up dental school, he was just finishing up high school. We knew who he was in the state of Florida, and we knew his recruitment very well. It was either Alabama or Florida.”

According to Hall, Tebow was already a rock star the day he showed up at UF, so when he came to the NFL, it was sort of the same thing. “He just has that magnetic personality and there’s just something about him that people are intrigued by.” Hall said. “People either love him or hate him, but I think by far you’ll find that people really love him.”

With all the buzz over this 24-year-old football star, it is clear to me that Tebowmania in Colorado is here to stay, and I should just get used to it, well at least for the next month or two. The Denver Broncos play the Patriots this Sunday. Maybe I’ll watch and see what all the hype is about, and maybe this Tebow guy can turn this football “avoider” into a fan.

Gentrification Slowing Down

Bobby

Gentrification is a term used to describe the process of rebuilding and renewal that tends to occur when affluent or middle-class people move into deteriorating areas, often displacing poorer residents. Coined in 1964 by sociologist Ruth Glass, the term’s origins are found in the French word “genterise,” which refers to “those of gentle birth.” In England, the word was used to refer to the class of people known as “gentlemen.” The word has been in greater use as of late, due to the economic ups and downs we’ve experienced in recent history. Many believe that these swings have caused areas to become gentrified; however, the issue at hand is whether or not gentrification is owed to the recent downturn in the American economy.

Because there is so little empirical data surrounding the topic, it is difficult to nail down a real nationwide trend. Some areas, like the De La Guerra Plaza in Santa Barbara, CA, have seen gentrification pick up. According to Dr. Mark Weiser, a Los Angeles Sleep Apnea Dentist who has an office 8 blocks away from the De La Guerra Plaza, the change is a good one.

“They kind of let it go,” he said. “They’re sprucing it back up. It’s a pretty area; so I’m happy they’re doing it. It got to be the kind of place where a lot of the homeless people were hanging out.”

Like many business owners, Weiser sees the gentrification of the area as a benefit to the community; but while De La Guerra Plaza in Santa Barbara appears to be enjoying a consistent renewal, other areas are seeing gentrification slow and even pause. According to Los Angeles Times Architecture Critic Christopher Hawthorne, the downtown L.A area has paused at an opportune moment.

Downtown L.A. was on the fast track to gentrification and saw a tripling of the population from 2000-2008; but when the economy turned down in 2008, the process slowed and then paused. It is an interesting case study, because it has not completed the process – which many see as a negative thing – but rather has paused in what others see as a perfect medium. Rent and costs are still affordable enough for lower-earning people to maintain their lives in the area; but there is also a new feel that has brought in more businesses and higher earners.

Denver, Colorado has also seen its fair share of gentrification in the past decade. Local developer, Kyle Zeppelin of Zeppelin Development has been involved in many development projects throughout Denver. According to him, his company’s niche is in reusing Denver’s old urban and industrial core by utilizing buildings and land.

Forbes recently gathered a panel of experts on the subject to gain insight into the issue, and the results were interesting. The experts looked at the issue from the housing crash perspective and seem to believe that gentrification will not slow down on the national scale. They do, however, see specific locations affected in different ways.

Pat Lashinsky of Zipreality.com does not see gentrification slowing down because of other factors that are playing into it. According to him, his company has seen buyers place more importance on closer-to-work locations and reduced commute times, which has only encouraged demand for gentrified areas.

Michael Feder of Radar Logic agrees that gentrification isn’t entirely dependent on the economy. According to him, demographic growth toward the center city is the true driving force behind gentrification, because lower cost neighborhoods offer a good opportunity for development to satisfy the resulting demand for housing.

The current economy is affecting gentrification as a whole, but in different ways. One geographic location sees gentrification grow, while another sees it come to a halt. If you’re investing, moving, or interested in what is going on in your neighborhood, be sure to do your homework.

Win a date with President Barack Obama

Bobby

In an attempt to bolster ‘grassroots donations’, President’s Obama has created a new promotion. For only $3 (originally $5, but apparently he had to lower the price) you can be entered for a chance to win a dinner with the President. Look, it’s a political donation for people who are bad at math!

Heck, he even has a set of Official Rules just like on a bag of Doritos. Once he’s done raffling off a fancy supper like he’s some kind of teen pop star I’m sure he will make a big deal about how thousands of grassroots contributors donated to his campaign.

The most awesome thing? By law you don’t have to make a purchase to win! That means there is a form where you can sign up for dinner with Barack Obama for FREE!

I encourage everyone to go to
http://www.barackobama.com/page/dinner-with-barack-sept-signup
and sign up to win a dinner with the President!