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Friday, January 2. 2009
A New Leaf
Happy New Year!
One of the things we can always count on for New Years Day is that there will be wall-to-wall college football on TV; five major games Thursday; The Outback Bowl, formerly know as the, held in Tampa, FL, the Tangerine-Citrus-Capital One Bowl held in Orlando, the Gator Bowl, held in Jacksonville, FL, the Granddaddy of bowl games, the Rose Bowl, held in Pasadena, CA and the last game of the day, the Orange Bowl, held in Miami, FL.
Significantly absent from the lineup: the Cotton Bowl, which had been held on the first day of the year for so many decades. Now, it gets played on January 2. Not to mention, this year’s game, between Texas Tech and Tennessee, will be the last Cotton Bowl Classic played in the Cotton Bowl. As of 2010, the Cotton Bowl will be played in the Dallas Cowboys’ new stadium. As far as I know, it doesn’t have a name yet, the new stadium, but I’m betting it has a corporate sponsor real quick and then it will have a name.
Here’s what I would suggest: Church & Dwight Co, Inc, the makers of Trojans prophylactics, become that corporate sponsor. Can you see it? “The Cotton Bowl, in the New Trojan Supra Lubricated Stadium!” They can have promos like “The Smooth Protection Offensive Play of the Game,” featuring the best blocking, or, instead of the Player of the Game, the “Always Prepared Player of the Game!”
Let the Free Market do its thing!
The Cotton Bowl, which was first built in 1932 and recently renovated in 2005-06, won’t be torn down since two of the Dallas area’s college football teams have signed contracts to play there through 2015.
Heritage, tradition, history — it all falls away when the topic turns to money. It’s all about the money. That’s why we have the “Outback” Bowl and the Capital One Bowl.
PSU sucked. USC … eh … actually, they were really good. Now I’m watching Virginia Tech and Cincinnati in the Orange Bowl. Got no dog in this fight so I’m just hoping it’s a good game.
That was my New Years Day.
New Year’s Resolution: to start having a positive attitude and be skeptical, not cynical. It’s tough though, cynical can be so entertaining!
So, I’m reading on the Internets a story about why risk-takers take risks. According to studies done at Vanderbilt University and Albert Einstein School of Medicine, it’s the neurotransmitter dopamine. Risk takers have fewer of the dopamine inhibitors that control the chemical and therefore risk takers’ brains are saturated with dopamine making them want to continue taking risks to satisfy that need.
They drive fast, go skydiving, pick fights with guys twice their size … and drink too much and take drugs. Sometimes, they drink too much, take drugs and go skydiving all at the same time!When a “normal” person jumps out of airplane, dopamine is released and we get the rush of excitement, but the inhibitors block some of it so you don’t get as big a thrill and of course, you still come close to shitting your pants with fear.
The people with fewer dopamine inhibitors get a bigger dose of the chemical. Dopamine isn’t just for exciting activity. It’s the chemical that tells your brain you feel good or are having a good time, so, when you dive into the 22 ounce Melbourne steak at Outback, dopamine is released telling your brain you feel so good. Dopamine makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over.
So, you couple that with the thrill of skydiving or free-diving without a cage amongst great white sharks, and it’s easy to understand why people keep taking risks well into the golden years.
I remember years ago when someone my age was considered to be approaching his or her “Golden Years.” My, how times have changed.
There isn’t much dopamine in my brain. When I go snorkeling in La Jolla Cove, for instance, I never venture out to the kelp beds. Let’s leave that for the fools in their 20’s. Also, if one is going to encounter a shark like the occasional great white, it’s going to be out by the kelp beds and beyond.
Once, at Pacific Beach, I heard a guy tell the woman he was with there aren’t any sharks in San Diego waters. Which is funny. Just about any day in the summer, someone fishing off the Crystal Pier in Pacific Beach catches a juvenile blue shark. They grow to be 12 feet and one won’t normally encounter them even in the kelp beds. They tend to stay farther out to sea.
But not always. Once in a while they choose to cruise the shallower waters. Ask any lifeguard.So, the lack of dopamine in my brain protects me from risking all and paddling out to the kelp beds and beyond. It’s actually not a big risk for most people. The people diving in the outer edges of the La Jolla Cove Preserve aren’t in any serious danger, but going in the ocean presents risks and most people who get in trouble while in the ocean do so because they are ignorant of the risks or they choose to flaunt those risks — in other words, risk-takers. My take on it, too bad for them. If you don’t know the risks, you should have and if you know the risks and do it anyway, too bad for you.
Taking risks isn’t my cup of tea anymore. My doctor says otherwise. She doesn’t think I should be pedaling up the 11% grade that is part of my ride to the bus stop every morning. It causes great strain on my heart, which has only three working chambers. The fourth is gone, never coming back.
It’s something to think about as yet another birthday approaches Sunday, January 4th. If I want to be morbid, I can read through the obits everyday and see people my age or younger dying of heart-related diseases, the same ones I have.
We all die and quite possibly the number of days left in my life are shorter, so my goal is to enjoy life more. Not in the sense of doing all the risk-taking adventures, but of accepting each day as it comes and enjoying the moment.
Being unhappy every day gets tiring. Maybe I could use a little more dopamine.
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