follow me on twitter @okelleykevin


well, i did it. raise your hand if you're surprised.

...

me either.

almost two full years ago next month, i published this ignorant piece of bullshit. you see what i did with it? i played (by played, read: pretended to be) as nice and diplomatic as i could, but there wasn't anything in the tone of that post that said i was giving twitter an honest shot at being worth anyone's time. even in the comments that followed, i used the positive reinforcement that i got from a couple friends to feel better about just how ignorant i was being. and for almost two full years, i continued to feel the same. about it all. the 140 character limit, like my wasting my own time (and yours) on my relatively long-form blog posts somehow rendered a tweet irrelevant. the narcissistic angle. seriously, the moment i made the intentional decision to put this journal where "all the world" could see it, i struck that defense from any argument i could ever make about anything internet-related. the subject matter angle, which, really, i am bothered moreso by that than anything else as i re-read this again. in the post, i dug at comments that might alert followers to what someone may have done to their hair to what movie they felt like pimpin' in a given moment to random joe athlete pimping himself, shouting out to his fans mid-game. the reason this bothers me so much is because it's all freaking relative, right? of course it is. i say that all the time, because i believe it. what's not important to me could be EXTREMELY FUCKING important to the next person, so what right do i have to judge and gauge the importance of anything that is coming out of anyone's mouth at any given time? dammit, i hate being a moron. and i hate being a hypocrite even worse. but i am, with a capital "H".

thank god for personal growth and evolution.

a little over three weeks ago, i started warming to the world of twitter, and i published this slightly less than ignorant piece of bullshit. quickish opened my eyes to what twitter could do if someone harnessed its powers for good. each day, quickish gets more in tune with what they do, and i now visit it more often than any other site on the internet. what's funny, though, is that it has opened a canyon of interest in me that quickish alone can't seem to fill. i've asked myself, quickish is doing a masterful job of compiling and sharing with me what its editors have deemed relevant to the sports stories of the day, but what if i don't want quickish to be my editor? what if some of what they are filtering out would add quality to my sports experience or day? what if something that one of my favorite columnists says doesn't make their cut but would totally crack me up or lead me to a column that i'll chew on for days?

the more i asked myself the initial question and its obvious follow-ups, well, the answer came pretty easily and fairly quick. i didn't want quickish to be my editor. i will still lean on them to be my tipmaster and to point me in directions that i wouldn't have time to find myself (and therein lies the genius of that site), but i am going to start creating my own filter.

and so today, i opened up my brand spanking new twitter account, and i couldn't be happier.

so, are you going to tweet, too?

i'd like to tell you, honestly, that i won't. but that's every bit as ridiculous as my writing about how twitter was worthless two years ago.

what about "facebook is not twitter".

fuck that. it really bugged me on that day that i might have bugged one of my facebook friends with my quick-hit updates, but the sentiment doesn't hold water. i see many facebook friends having tied their twitter to their facebook anyway, and facebook does a good job, from what i've noticed, of grouping and consolidating multiple tweets into a ziplink that you can choose to click on or not if you are interested in looking to "see similar posts".

so, yeah, i'll probably tweet. i have no idea about what, and i have no idea how i'll differentiate between what's worth a tweet and what's worth a status update, but i am guessing i'll find my groove sooner rather than later.

thank god for personal growth and evolution, indeed.

and thank god for twitter.

running


about a month ago, i trotted out my personal resolutions for the year 2011.

at the time that i banged out that post, i had already committed and invested in the idea of number four on my list, which was to "run". at the time that i banged out that post, i had already been to academy with sarah and we had each purchased a new pair of running shoes. sarah got some pretty shape-ups. me, i got some fancy grey and green reezigs. if peyton manning says they are awesome, they've got to be pretty awesome. at the time that i banged out that post, i had already attempted running for the sake of running for the first time in my life. and, to my surprise, it was terrible. i was miserably out of shape.

i don't mind running. i am a running kind of guy. always have been. growing up, i couldn't wait to get outside and play imaginary games of basketball with myself in the role of jim farmer and my ghostmen his teammates at alabama. over several months of basketball season, i can't tell you how many games jim farmer won with his sharp-eyed long distance shooting, clutch free throws and uncanny ways of finding mark gottfried for an open jumper or mike davis underneath the basket for a clutch lay-up. jim i would run around in my back driveway for hours on end on saturday mornings, burning every calorie that i was going to take in over the course of the whole weekend. if it was football season, things were even better. pick up games on my street were fairly epic. our field would include my front yard and the neighbor's houses on either side of me, probably a good 50-60 yards in length. reminiscing with chris hicks yesterday, i remembered just how many kids, more importantly how many boys lived on pinebrook lane with me as a kid. again, we would play forever, usually til the sun went down, running around like we didn't know what it meant to be tired. add onto that soccer and hide and seek and water-balloon wars, i couldn't have been any closer to constant motion.

my physical activity became a little more structured through middle school and high school, but there was still a butt-load of running, all still attached to some sport. after a couple year lull in my early twenties, sports and the running that went along with them found their way back into my routine with the development and the sustaining of the men's softball and basketball teams at the church that continue to this day.

there isn't a period in my life that i look back on where sports and running and physical activity didn't play a huge role. but one thing i never did was just...

run.

if it wasn't attached to some goal, to some number of runs i was trying to achieve or prevent, to some defined end result, running, to me, seemed stupid. if i can stay in shape by playing flag-football, why would i just run? it didn't make any sense. i'd drive by people running in parks, around tracks or on the side of the road and think, how boring.

a funny thing happened, though, between my youth when all my cardio was attached to a stick or ball sport and when i turned 34.

my metabolism slowed down. come to find out, the amount of cardio you get from playing softball for 1-2 hours a week on my crappy diet doesn't actually prevent a normal person from being a fatty. who knew??? come to find out, i was just super lucky. my genetic make-up allowed me to eat what i wanted to eat, lift some weights, run on occasion doing something that i thought to be fun, and i'd never gain any significant pound-age. it was awesome.

after my surgery and recovery in the summer of 2009, i probably weighed less than i had in 10 years. the stress of the entire situation had drained me of most of my motivations, including the want to eat. who really needs to eat when you're worried about eyeball tumors, right? anyway, after i got some focus back, i recovered my same phycical routines and ate even more, trying to put weight back on my diminished frame. over about six months, the weight came back, but it wasn't all good weight. it wasn't all muscle. it wasn't that i was fat, but, like i said back in january, i could see that if i didn't change something, i could be.

and so, the resolution was made. it's nothing more than fact that the best all-around total body workout that you can have is to run. most people just don't do it, because it sucks ass. things like the shake-weight are invented, or that belt that you wear to work that electronically stimulates your abs for you. why run when i can eat fried chicken and have this belt do the crunches for me. running is for losers. i know this personally, because 7-8 times in the last three weeks i've run, and it's sucked ass every time. my lungs hurt. my legs feel heavy. my heart burns. i am sore the day after. there isn't anything fun about it...

until about 30 minutes after i've cooled down, and it's as if i've plugged myself into the wall and this wonderful jolt of energy makes me feels like i've been recharged, telling me that yes, in fact, this is good for me. it really is like nothing else that i've experienced in my lifetime of exercise. right now, the feeling doesn't last very long, but it lasts long enough to get me properly stoked about the next time i'll be able to get outside and just run again.

it's crazy. before i made my resolution, i didn't really know of or about anyone that ran for the sake of running. now, though, it's like everyone is doing it. just in limbo, meg, jacob, ben, vaughn, amy and katie are giving it a go or have been for some time. it feels like every other update on facebook is someone checking in with their stats from their last workout. i have a step-cousin that just ran the full mercedes marathon. others that are already running 10k's. it's nuts. but kind of fun.

'cuz here's the thing. i am nothing if not a little competitive. and if i see someone post a time off of their smartphone app., all i can think is give me a month and i'll have that beat. maybe i will and maybe i won't. to achieve my greater goals, which is not only running 5k's and 10k's but being competitive in them, i'm going to have to find more than three days a week to train.

listen to me. "to train". who woulda thought it? definitely not me.

sarah's probably rolling her eyes. she knows that as soon as i can get from the "sucks ass" stage to "this is kind of great", i am going to be completely annoying about it. i am not there yet.

but i will be.

not seeing the trees for the forest


it's trendy in the national sports media post-national signing day to bemoan the celebration/exploitation of high school football players. surely, these 17 year-olds don't deserve this type of attention, do they?

well, of course they do.

ivan maisel wrote this column last thursday. i won't waste your time and link to all of the like-minded articles that i've read in the past week because most of them share the same sentiment. that being, for all the stars and the hype and the faux-celebrity that is created for many of the high-profile football recruits, a very small percentage of them pan out to be something truly great. in his column, maisel cross-references espn's top 150 of 2006 prospects with the 2010 nfl draft and finds only 20 of that group had their name called by roger goodell or one of his underlings. you can't argue with the facts i suppose, but the thing is...

he totally misses the point.

do you know what a number one recruiting class looks like?

here, let me show you.

 how many of those names do you recognize? be honest. my guess is one, maybe two at the most. in this state, cyrus kouandjio became a household name over the course of three days, so he's a gimme. he's the guy that went on espnu and announced his intentions to play for auburn university with the most pained look i've ever seen on the face of somebody that was laying down his path for the next four years, the "best days of his life". about an hour after the announcement, a young lady from scout.com broke the story that auburn had yet to receive the lineman's letter of intent. by that time, facebook was aflutter, mainly because all of the recruiting "experts" had penned in cyrus to join his brother at alabama for weeks. so, the same auburn fans that on my facebook nation didn't announce/celebrate any other signings that day (not one!!!) made a point to welcome cyrus to auburn's "au"ll in family. a funny thing happened on cyrus' way to auburn, though, and he quietly faxed his scholarship papers to tuscaloosa saturday afternoon. those same facebook people never posted retractions. then again, most of them likely didn't even know who the big fella was until a friend of theirs told them he was "supposed" to go to alabama, but they still used his momentary brain-freeze to flip the proverbial bird in the faces of their alabama "friends". most of those folks probably will still assume that cyrus will be on the loveliest village come the fall. he won't. i digress. back to the names. if i give you cyrus, how many others do you recognize? maybe one? two at the most? and that's fine. completely normal even for you to not take off work for signing day the same way you would for, say, columbus day or something of much greater importance.

again, maisel and his ilk are nothing but right in the numbers they use to extrapolate what they see as a day that is full of sound and fury most often signifying nothing.

except, it does signify something.

what the national pundits miss when they try and mock the importance of the celebration of signing day is the idea that these names will be the ones that i (and fans across the nation) will emotionally invest in for the next four to five years of my (our) life. it makes zero difference if they go on to be drafted in 2015 or if they become all-americans or if they make all-sec. the important part is that they are now a part of my favorite football team. their journey will make up a part of my journey. i will celebrate their highs with them and poo-poo their lows at them.

four years ago, alabama signed another number one class. take a look at these names. if you are an alabama fan or even an sec fan, how many names do you recognize from this group? a helluva lot, right? to maisel's point, a lot of those starry-starred athletes didn't work out the way recruiting sites predicted. even for me, i remember being infatuated with burton (b.j.) scott when he signed. i was obviously already in love with julio, but i was happy to have burton be my mistress. he caught a pass in the first quarter of the clemson game his  true freshman year and then fell off the map or into nick saban's doghouse, rarely to be heard from again. after this year ended, he opted out of tuscaloosa and went to play at south alabama where he could play on the field his final year. how about tyler love? five stars just like cyrus and he has yet to see significant playing time.

to my point, though, 18 of those 32 names have played roles, if not key roles, to alabama's success and even the ones that didn't i have worried and wondered about.

why?

because they play for alabama, stupid.

when the national columnists call out those that spend time with and invest in recruiting, all it tells me is that they don't have a local rooting interest.

they would probably argue that they are trying to identify and represent the "bigger picture" of college athletics, and i get that. in many facets of my life, i make pained and concerted efforts to be a big picture guy. not with college football, though. i pay attention because these guys, these young men are going to be my boys for however long they roll with the tide.

that alone, is worth my attention.

the dark side of getting the most for your money


i am not a bargain shopper. to be honest, i am not a shopper. period. when sarah is lucky enough for me to pick up anything at the store/cvs/wherever, i am going to be in and out. my mission, if i have chosen to accept it, will be to march into the establishment with list in hand or in my head, get what i am there to get, and find the nearest express lane checkout. more often than not, these trips aren't even for the o'kelley house. they are for limbo. early on sunday mornings, i'll travel to the huffman wal-mart looking for something quick and easy for breakfast. i'll come up to the checkout line with a package of ground coffee (starbucks or dunkin' donuts), a few packages of pop-tarts (strawberry, blueberry, s'more), maybe some mini-doughnuts (powdered white) and two half gallons of something else to drink (orange juice, milk, chocolate milk...two of those three). i might throw in a package of gum or an impulse disney movie, and i am out. quick and easy. i couldn't tell you what brand of drink i bought. i can't tell you if i got the better deal on coffee or the one that was on sale that month. i just don't care. never have. if i am lucky, i never will.

sarah, on the other hand, is a coupon-er. she is not a freak about it, but she does clip some coupons. for everything. we'll be sitting down to a relatively nice and peaceful dinner out at ruby tuesday or some other kid-friendly joint and she'll exclaim, "ooh. i think i have a coupon." inevitably, i roll my eyes and ask her to stop searching for it.

"seriously, the waiter is coming right now! please...put. that. AWAY!"

saving money is great i am sure. sarah has taken over the lion's share of the money responsibilities in our home, main reason being i had a pretty gnarly habit, when single, of not paying a whole lot of attention to things like "due dates" and "amount owed." more often than not, i just paid attention to the "minimum amount" and would send it in around the same time the next month's bill came in. no problem, right? the only exception to that rule was my rent, and i am proud to say i was never a day late in my bachelor life with that check.

anyway, back to the point, saving money is great i am sure. but there are a few things in this world that are worth not skimping on. mind you, i haven't found many of these things. we'll be eating dinner and afterwards, sarah will say something like, "that was the off-brand this or that..." or "those chips were low-fat and on sale. could you tell a difference???", and i'll be like, "sonuvabitch!!!...no....but don't do that again!!!" she's sneaky like that.

most of the time, she coupons or buys healthy or goes low on stuff at the store and i never know the difference.

until a couple months ago.

when she bought the prison toilet paper.

i am sure the prison toilet paper purchase was my fault. i am all the time complaining/whining about how freaking quick she and the girls go through a roll of toilet paper.

"daddy. can you get me some toilet paper???", says one of the girls sitting on the pot.

"i got you some yesterday, baby."

"i know. it's gone."

"whatthef...gone??? how is it gone? i haven't even gone to the bathroom since i put it in there!!!!"

"i don't know." "can you bring some toilet paper, please?"

so, i am sure sarah heard these types of exchanges and thought to herself, "alright. i hear you. let's see what we can do about this."

at some point, she went to what had to have been wal-mart (there's no way publix would sell this abomination) and bought the prison toilet paper. maybe she was wowed by the fact that the package was guaranteed to "last seventeen times longer than average roll of toilet paper" or that 24 rolls cost 89¢, but she got it. and let me tell you, the last couple of month's worth of trips to the can have been unpleasant.

the paper, itself, is paper thin and rough all at the same time. you would think based purely on how thin it was that a roll would exhaust itself quickly. but, it must be wrapped around that cardboard cylinder tighter than the core of a baseball, and it doesn't. it doesn't exhaust itself quickly. it lasts for freaking ever. each trip to the toilet, i cringed. i'd finish my business, clean myself up and march out of the bathroom as fast as i could to bitch about the experience.

"PLEASE don't get the prison toilet paper anymore. what have i done to deserve this???"

"oh, it's not that bad."

right. my guess is that sarah was just doing her thing at work to avoid the prison toilet paper at home.

after what seemed like years, we finally were ready to buy a new package of toilet paper.

"seriously, please get the good stuff. please don't get the prison toilet paper."

"whatevs."

in spite of dismissing me, though, sarah did, in fact, get the good stuff. extra soft. very fluffy. wonderful to feel. after i finished this morning, i wished for more output, if only to savor the reward after.

saving money is great i am sure, and i am certain my wife does an excellent job, and i bet she even does it in part so that she doesn't have to bitch at me about going to subway three times a week while she is forcing down a lean cuisine. i love that she cares that much for me. and our family.

i do hope, moving forward, that she will never skimp and buy the prison toilet paper again. it was far too unkind to the area of my body that deserves a lotta love and a lotta concern.

excuse me. i am going to the bathroom. i don't even have to go. i am just going to wipe for fun.

ewwwww.