Ed Icionsub

All the news channels are spreading the news about the scandal at Penn State. There are a lot of people coming forward to testify against the accused coach and there are many serious questions about how many top officials knew what was going on and how they all covered it up for over 10 years.

Although these circumstances are very disturbing, the underlying culture of winning college football games at any cost is what disturbs me. I have never been a fan of college football and now I am even less inclined to be a fan of any college and their corrupt sports programs.

Just when you think that reality shows can not get any worse, they put on a show called “Swamp People” on the History Channel. I don’t understand why the History Channel runs reality shows like this instead of shows about, well, gee, maybe some HISTORY???

Its not like we have a shortage of HISTORY.

But this show about swamp people is just chasing a couple of Cajun rednecks around the swam watching them kill things. This is not entertainment, people. This is disgusting butchering of alligators, snapping turtles, catfish and gar fish. It’s not hunting. It’s not sport. It is butchering animals in front of a camera crew. Big deal!

I watched this awful show just once to give it a chance. It is horrible and I doubt that I would ever watch it again unless tied to a chair in a torture chamber and my eyes held open with toothpicks. It won’t get another 1 minute of my time if I can help it and it actually bothers me thatanyone does watch it.

Although I don’t follow much college sports, I can’t help but know when there is a Vanderbilt home game. The downtown hotels are sold out for the family and fans of the visiting teams, and traffic becomes a nightmare for miles in every direction as people try to get to the downtown stadium and find a parking spot.

Looks like the Cardinals have a really good chance at going to the World Series this year. I hope they go and I hope they win. This may be the last year for Albert Pujols – I hope not, and MAYBE if they win the series with him they will find a way to renew his contract and keep him in St. Louis.

Our fancy office building down in Cool Springs has huge, classy entrance and lobby area. There is an open mezzanine from the second floor that overlooks the main lobby. There are two elevators, with a service elevator tucked around the corner and out of sight. That is all I usually see when I am coming and going to our suite on the fourth floor. But today I parked on a different side and walked in from the side entrance. In all this time, I never realized that there were two very well appointed bathroom down that hallway. And even better, there is a small workout room tucked in between the restrooms.

I didn’t realize that we had a workout room until I went into the men’s room and saw the lockers in there. It made me realize that there was a purpose for having a wall of small lockers with combination locks hanging from about half of them. Why would they be there in a relatively public restroom? For using the little workout room that is in there!

The workout room has two stationary bicycles, a stairmaster and a treadmill. Plus a little TV with DVD players mounted on the wall. It’s actually very nice and totally unexpected. I’ll probably pick up a combination lock at the hardware store and claim a locker for myself. There are plenty of mornings when I get to work early and could spend the 20 minute getting some exercise instead of just standing around in the break room drinking coffee and munching on a doughnut or muffin.