Narcissism and Me (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love parentheses)

This afternoon, I plan on going out to the UW-River Falls football field to watch the Kansas City Chiefs open up training camp. After matriculating, living, and working in River Falls for eight years, I've had the chance to watch a lot of training camp (two different summers I lived maybe 500 yards from the practice field). I don't have any great loyalty to the Chiefs, but when I was growing up in small towns in Minnesota, I would have killed for the chance to go for a short walk in order to watch an NFL team practice (I would rather watch practice than preseason--preseason football is the most dispicable thing in sports. And yes, last season I sat through an entire preseason game at the Metrodome, but that was largely because of my crazy step-father-in-law. How crazy is he? On the way to the stadium, he says to me, "Joe, are you a fighter?" "Uh, no..." I said. "Hmm," he replies, "Is your dad?" Anyway, I'm on a disasterously long parenthetical here, so let's just end it now). So I take what chances I can to catch the Chiefs practicing, and I've been very entertained over the years. Highlights, of course, are the times the Vikes came to town to scrimmage the Chiefs--the entire town feels overrun by crazy Viking fans. Uh, people like me, I guess, that just didn't live there.

Now, I don't have a rooting interest in the Chiefs at all (other than the two and a half years Priest Holmes was on my fantasy team). When the Chiefs played the Vikings a few seasons ago, there was not a shred of my being that rooted for the Chiefs (though when the Vikes got up by about three touchdowns, I didn't mind Priest Holmes getting his garbage TDs in). I don't have a big passion for them, but I now have a sorting of "following" interest in them. I watch their games on TV because I've watched them practice.

So today should be fun. There are rumors that Willie Roaf is retiring (how does that affect Larry Johnson's fantasy value?). There's a new regime in, so we'll get to see how Herm Edwards runs a camp. I'll get to see Larry Johnson run around (though at camp, my favorite thing to watch is the Wide Receivers).

See, this blog entry is pretty pointless, with no real insight or perspective. But today I get to spend the day in the air conditioned bliss of my office, spend lunch at the culinary bliss of China Moon, and spend the late afternoon watching professional football players perform various drills (so I'm happy, and I don't care what you think of my lousy blog today).