Career Change

I'm thinking I need one. It occurred to me the other day when I was listening to Colin Cowherd on the way to work. (What a nimrod, by the way. And couldn't he have changed his stage name at some point? I cringe every time I hear it.) Anyway, he and Doug Gottlieb (now there's a name) were talking about the NCAA tournament. It got me thinking.

I've given a couple of careers a got shot: I've worked for more than ten years now as a Computer Technician/Network Administrator/IT Guy and have learned a great deal. I know how to reset passwords, plug things in properly, and believe someone when they say they had nothing to do with what is currently the problem. But can I say I love what I do? Not really.

I worked for a few years in Texas as a long-haul truck dispatcher, too. That was an education unto itself. I listened to gravelly voices on the phone say, "Come on, man, I don't get paid to sit. I get paid to roll." Or "Gimme something with lotsa miles and not a lot of drops." I even heard more than I cared to about the goings on of some seedy truck stop somewhere. But aside from the pager going off in the middle of the night and the stress I carried around wondering if all the loads where going to be delivered on time (for some reason, I was responsible to Sales whenever a driver was delayed or if our Shipping department was behind), it was the trip out to our scales to see why a truck was overweight on his tandem axle that told me to get out of there. I sat and watched as the driver locked up his rear brakes while his buddy crouched under the trailer to remove the locking pin for his sliding axles. He stood under there holding the pin out as the driver gassed it gently (if eighty-thousand pounds can be moved gently) to slide the trailer forward. That was enough. Let's get back to Idaho, I said.

So what do I want to do? I am not certain, but I know this: I bet I am in the vast minority of people who watched all four games from the WAC men's basketball tournament yesterday. Yes, all of them. I will allow that my willingness to watch the games, in and of itself, is not qualification for a job. But I am, I daresay, able to speak intelligently on what I see--more intelligently than some of the wingnuts I hear on the radio (or those broadcasting the WAC tournament. Is 'fustrated' a word? Is a Mack truck the only object that can be used to describe the space between an open player and his defender?)

And I wouldn't be a complete homer, either. I live in Boise and graduated from BSU, and although I want them to win, I don't see how they can beat Utah State tonight. A few reasons why: Have you seen Jaycee Carroll shoot? My man is nasty. He appears to have only two offensive shortcomings: He cannot make a basket if he is (a) punched in the face or (b) kicking the ball toward the goal with his left foot. USU's bench seems to be far superior, as well. BSU has guys like Greene (or as I like to call him, 'No Right Hand'), Cunningham (well, he takes up a lot of space), and Sanchez (Spazzy). BSU's starting five is good, but it takes more than that to win.

One more piece of evidence I'm not a homer: I went to BYU and I would love to see them do well. But although they are a 'lock' to go to the NCAA tournament, you can pencil them down for a first round exit. Count on it. I will watch the game and root for them and get excited when they get ahead, but I am not deceived. They will lose.

I had to type this quickly--you know before the game starts. But I also gotta go, gotta focus on my job, my career. But someday I will have a job that has something to do with sports. Count on that, too.

[Rest assured that if either of my "predictions" fails to come true, I will come back and edit this post to make it look like they did.]