Then there’s here. Oddly enough the fact that I haven’t had much to say here bugs me more than at ScalpEm.com. Why? Maybe because I don’t have much to say or because I just don’t want to say it here. I’ve had a distaste for social media lately. Twitter, Facebook and my blogs. Me. Me. Me. Blah, blah, blah. The last few mornings I haven’t bothered to turn on the television while I was cooking breakfast or getting ready for work. The silence is nice. What I’m starting to wonder is if that silence needs to spill over into my social media life more often.

Back then there the “characters” were still around NASCAR too, because it hadn’t become corporate. It was easy for me to root for a guy like Darryl Waltrip, because he was still winning a couple of races each year. He had that awesome Western Auto Chevy running around (after the Tide #17 which I thought was great too). There were tons of Dale Earnhardt fans around. There were names like Sterling Marlin and even Dick Trickle that made the whole experience a lot of fun. But, as I grew up, so did NASCAR and it became more and more corporate.

When I went to Talladega for the first time, there was still a June race and July race. It was perfect to head up there since I was on summer vacation from school and my Dad could take the time off. It was easy to make a week of the trip when leaving from Naples. We’d meet up with some of my father’s police friends from CT, and head to the middle of nowhere Alabama for the races. We’d hit up Zinn Park for some autographs, and the awful Courthouse Cafe in Anniston, where’d they’d be out of whatever I tried to order. At the end of the day it was always a fun time. However, the last time I went to a race (Daytona 500 about 5 years ago), it was obviously corporate, obvious about product promotion and most obviously no longer about the common fan.

I always respected NASCAR because they were about consistency and not about the most wins. What other major sport could have a champion with the best “average” but not the most wins? None. It was refreshing. The cars looked like cars (sort of) and the fans were normal. Then NASCAR got the hair brained idea to change some things to keep fans interested when the NFL returns in the fall. What a horrible idea. They threatened the characters with fines and point reductions. They changes the cars too much. They changed point system. They sold out to major networks that don’t cover the races as well. They started having 3 hour “pregame” shows.

I might start watching it again, if they deliver on what’s promised. Supposedly, the drivers are allowed to have some personality again, and we’ll see how the new / old spoiler works out on the Car of Tomorrow. But so far, I haven’t seen enough of it to judge if the new OLD NASCAR is worth my time.

To win back my time they’d have to accomplish everything on this list:

• Change the point system back to the old one, where consistency is rewarded over the entire season.
• Let the characters be “characters” within reason. I’m not asking for Days of Thunder, but there was a reason why Dale Earnhardt was so popular, you loved him or hated him. There was no in between. I need guys that I can both root for during a race AND root against if my driver is out.
• Stop trying to compete with the NFL. Racing is racing, the NFL is America’s most popular sport. NASCAR should be happy with its niche.
• Go back to racing on a lot of southern short tracks. Remember North Wilkesboro? Races like that are where NASCAR was at it’s most popular and best. The short tracks make for fun, and relatively safe bump and grind racing.
• Make Sprint Cup the Majors, and Nationwide the Minors. That’s it, you get to be in one of them, not both on the same weekend. It’s not like a baseball player in Triple A can play in the majors at the same time too.
• Get rid of the green / white / checker crap. The race is 400 / 500 /600 miles long. Not 502. Not 504. Fans of the sport understand if a race finishes under caution.

What a nice early 6th birthday present from Mom & Dad.

There were only two people texting and only 1 yapping through the movie.

Oh the movie was really good, don’t get me wrong. It’s not a typical zombie movie (although I like those) and I really enjoyed it. But it was even MORE enjoyable because the weekday crowd wasn’t completely rude, loud and generally annoying. I can tolerate a texter or two when the weekday price is only $4.75. Kudos to the crowd last week, only a couple of you were once removed from some manners.

Then I met my wife Pam and she showed me the ways of saving money by shopping at Walmart. I understand that there are those out there that hate Walmart. I’m sure I don’t agree with all of their business practices, but then again I don’t agree with all of Publix’s either. As the consumer, in tough economic times and as a person just trying to get the best value I can at all times, I feel free to shop at either place. All of this frugality makes me smile, especially when I compare prices for certain items between the stores like candy or bread. And no, Walmart isn’t always the cheapest for an individual item, but for a total bill it’s ALWAYS the winner.

Now thanks to Coupons.com life has come full circle. My scissors have a blue handle, not red like Mom & Dad’s, but they accomplish the same thing. $1.00 off of Nestle Water, $2.00 two Right Guard deodorants, you get the picture. The list goes on and on. For 10 minutes of my week, Pam and I will probably save $300 this year without any effort. I’m not a “coupon gamer” by any means. I don’t want to invest a lot of time in finding $1 off certain items, or trying to time my purchases to magically make a $200 bill be $30. But, I am thankful that thanks to Pam we’re saving more money every week, and thanks to saving more money I remembered something nifty about those old green couches, the sunshine through the big windows and my parents sifting through a Sunday paper to save us some money.

Thanks to all three of you! You make my life special, wonderful and frugal.

Oh how I love thee! One more payment and you’re all mine!

Oh I miss minor league hockey in the capital city.

I love your network. I do. It works pretty much everywhere, unless I’m in a concrete bunker, and even then I usually have 1 bar in certain spots. But your latest plans are a killer for me, and I’m tired of being nickel and dimed. You see, you went basically told me that my plan doesn’t mean much to you. I only have 700 minutes for two lines. So when you revamped yourself, you didn’t save us any money on those plans. You only saved those that love you the “most” with the unlimited plans.

Well sorta, right you sly dog? You went and ditched my beloved Premium Plan, which I was happy to pay for because it was so useful and made me brag about greatness of Verizon Wireless. How can anyone beat the network, unlimited texting and navigation (I don’t even care about VCast)? Nobody could beat it. And so, I was a very happy customer.

Then these new plans come out and now you’re telling me that if I want the exact same items, with the exact same types of phones under a new contract it would be $60 more per month? But why Verizon, what did I do to deserve this? Even your CSRs told me flat out to not leave my current plan because, “There is no migration path for your type of plan at this time.” So now I’m stuck. I’m stuck with an EnV Touch that I like, but don’t love. My wife is stuck with her Alias (although I think she’s fine with that). But if I ever need to switch contracts, I’m paying for data AND VZ Navigator, etc.

I get it. You want the world to switch to Smartphones. I just don’t have a need for them though. Sure, they’re cool and I can use them, but I don’t NEED them. Especially for a giant ETF fee, or a giant jump in charges for data. So, for the first time in a very long time, I’m going to at least check out the competition. :-\

The keys to making great homemade ice cream that I’ve found so far:

• Spend the money on the KitchenAid Ice Cream Attachment for your mixer. It’s well worth it.
• Use 2 cups of heavy cream and 1 cup of 1% milk. That’s my favorite texture so far.
• 2% milk works in a pinch, anything fattier than that makes my mouth feel sticky after eating the ice cream.
• Stick the container you are going to store the ice cream in, in the freezer while you are making the ice cream.
• Make sure all of your add-ins, like cookies or candy are in the freezer while you make the ice cream.
• Let the ice cream ripen for a few hours in the freezer. It’s better, trust me.

Their points:

1. FSU Football gets X amount of dollars from the Boosters
2. FSU Academics doesn’t get that money from the Boosters / Alumni
3. FSU Academics isn’t getting that from the Florida Legislature either
4. Professors making $80,000 aren’t getting raises, so they leave for greener pastures
5. The only way to facilitate change is for everyone to push money towards FSU

The arguments are horribly, horribly flawed.

First and foremost the football team has nothing to do with FSU Academics. I bet that most people don’t worry about donating back to FSU Academic programs because of a few reasons. Either they don’t use their degree so they don’t donate back to a program that hasn’t done much for their career, they choose to put their charity money elsewhere or as in my case their program disappeared (MIS was merged into Management at the College of Business). The football team is completely outside of whether or not FSU Academics are up to par.

Looking at point #4, it’s rather hard for me to be sympathetic to professors that make $80,000 here in Tallahassee. Boo hoo for you. One of my favorite professor in college could be considered a victim of the brain drain at FSU. He chose to leave for the University of Michigan after I graduated. He chose to make more money there, but he also chose to live in Ann Arbor and deal with those winters. Money isn’t the only reason to teach or not teach at FSU. It’s only part of a problem.

On top of that, the Democrat’s editorial missed the biggest point in it’s argument that FSU Academics needs money like FSU Football. Look at the numbers folks, FSU Football does MORE with LESS than most highly competitive Division I football teams in the nation. While $1.8 million to Jimbo Fisher might look like a lot, it’s a whole lot less than Urban Meyer gets paid at the University of Florida. Sure we can all argue about HOW the Booster money is spent at FSU and if it could be used more efficiently, but the point still remains that it’s unrelated to the Academic money.

If change is to happen at FSU, there needs to be a clear vision of the future. That is the ultimate problem. There’s been growth at FSU for the last decade, expansion, divergent ideas, but as an alumnus I have no idea about the final vision for FSU. Perhaps the new FSU president will accomplish that. Maybe FSU is happy being a good undergraduate value, or maybe it wants to be a new Harvard. I have no idea, but it’s up to the “Academics” there to figure that out, promote that to the alumni and push the local and state government to help them achieve that vision. Bringing the FSU Athletic programs into the argument wastes time and energy that would be better used getting Tallahassee to accept controlled growth (much like Austin, TX) and move on from being a solely government based economy. Leadership is always the problem at most institutions and companies, if FSU solves that THEN we can have a “better” FSU.