It’s over folks. Favre is through. He’s done. And the controversy of which I speak is not just here in Green Bay, but also in New York.

Last summer, the Favre saga split us Packer fans down the middle. Were you for him or against him? Were you a Favre fan or a Rodgers fan? Did you like Ted Thompson or did you want him fired? Half of us felt that Brett Favre should stay in Green Bay. The other half felt that no one player is bigger than the Green Bay Packers, not even Brett Favre.

The issue even split sports commentators, and I want to focus on one so-called “expert” for a minute. Did you hear Terry Bradshaw’s rant on the FOX NFL pre-game show on November 16? He made an absolute ass of himself. In his blind support for Favre, he says, “Aaron Rodgers over Brett Favre? Please.” As if there’s no contest, and no way anyone should choose Rodgers over Favre.

Bradshaw is supposed to know the game of football. He, like all the other Favre bandwagoners, quotes Favre’s stats from last year. Last year folks. And this is where Bradshaw and all his followers fall short. If Ted Thompson, or any GM for that matter, made his player decisions based solely on last year’s performance, they should be fired. Every March, it’s the GM’s job to figure out what’s going to work for his team this season and in the future.

Bradshaw blames the Packers losing season solely on their quarterback. He says that if the Packers had Favre instead of Rodgers, they’d be “running away with the division.” This is why Ted Thompson is a genius. He has to look at the big picture, not just how things are going after 11 weeks.

And now that the season is over, let’s look at that big picture. But first, let’s be honest. The Packers with Rodgers lost 4 of their last 5 games and missed the playoffs. So did the Jets with Favre. So neither camp is happy. Therefore let’s just look at the two quarterbacks and see how they stacked up in 2008:

I don’t know what else to say, except that the numbers speak for themselves. “Aaron Rodgers over Brett Favre? Please.”

Bradshaw continued with a statement directed at Thompson, “If you thought he (Favre) was so bad, why didn’t you just let him go where ever he wanted to go?” Are you kidding me? Again, if a GM does that, he should be fired. Which gives me the perfect segway to go 994 miles east from Green Bay to East Rutherford.

What the hell happened in New York this year? Mike Tannenbaum, the Jets GM, saw the prospect of bringing a name like “Brett Favre” to town. He promptly put on the blinders, cut Chad Pennington, signed Favre, and started the circus. Mayor Bloomberg even gave Brett Favre a key to the city for Pete’s sake. It was a zoo, an absolute zoo.

Meanwhile, Jeff Ireland, the Dolphins GM, saw an opportunity. After going 1-15 in 2007, he saw a top talent available at quarterback, and from a division foe no less. He signed Pennington and immediately began their run to an 11-5 season and an AFC East division championship. And to add salt to the wound, the Dolphins with Pennington won the division in the last game of the season, at the Meadowlands, against the Jets and Brett Favre.

But, I digress. As I said earlier, let’s just look at the two quarterbacks and see how they stacked up in 2008:

I don’t want you to misunderstand me though. I’m not saying for a moment that Brett Favre was not a good quarterback this season. All I’m saying is that Ted Thomson made the right move for the Green Bay Packers in going with Rodgers. That’s his job. He doesn’t care how good or bad any player is. Instead, he cares what that player can do for the Green Bay Packers. Period.

Favre retired. Thompson went with Rodgers. Done.

And if you agree with Bradshaw and think Thompson should have succumbed to Favre’s request to release him, allowing him to go to any team he chooses, just look at how well that worked when the Jets did that with Pennington.

Aaron Rodgers over Brett Favre? Please.

I’ve had my new iPod Touch for a week now, and I love it. It’s small and has tons of great applications available. But I’m up against a problem that I’ve had for years. I’m a Windows user and I hate Outlook.

First, I’ll explain that last sentence, since people frequently ask me about it. I use Windows for many reasons. I know and fully understand all the arguments about using a Mac, and I don’t necessarily disagree with them. All I can say is that I need to keep using Windows for many reasons. As for Outlook, it’s made for a corporate enterprise environment, not a small-town geek from Wisconsin. I just need to keep track of my calendar and my contacts. I don’t need to invite people to meetings. I don’t need to keep track of attendees. I don’t need to sync with a corporate e-mail server. And I don’t need all the extra bloat that comes with Outlook, which makes it much slower than it needs to be. I just need to keep track of my calendar and address book.

So, here I am with my iPod Touch, and I need to sync it with a calendar/contacts application on my PC. For now, I am indeed using Outlook, via the built-in sync capabilities of iTunes. But I need to get out of this overkill mode, and find a new Windows calendar application that I can sync with my iPod Touch.

I do have a couple of ideas that I’m looking into.

One is using Thunderbird/Lightning on my PC, and syncing that to Google Calendar. Then use something like Goosync to sync that data to my Touch (The Goosync app is also available in the iTunes Store). One thing I like about this arrangement is that it’s all wireless. Everything is sync’d over the network. No need to plug my Touch into the PC to sync it. The drawbacks though are that Lightning is still quite young (v0.9) and has a few bugs. Plus the Google contacts capabilities are quite lacking (it’s mostly just an e-mail address book).

Another idea is one that doesn’t actually exist yet. Agendus is a pretty cool Calendar/Contacts application for Windows by Iambic. I used it for a couple years as it syncs very well with Palm devices. Iambic is just getting started in the iPhone/iPod Touch market, so I’m hoping that they’ll soon offer a way to sync a Windows calendar with the iPod.

In the mean time, if you have any ideas on how to sync the iPod Touch Calendar/Contacts with a native Windows application, please leave your comments here.

I used to ski quite a bit in my younger days. When I was 20, I kept my skis locked in the rack on the roof of my Buick Skyhawk all winter. It was easier that way, since I used them at least once or twice a week.

But as a married father of three, I just don’t get to the slopes very often…once every few years I suppose. But tomorrow I’m taking two of my daugthers skiing. We’ve been to Norway Mountain which is quite nice, but tomorrow we’re going to Hidden Valley. Though it’s much smaller than Norway, we’ve got a tight time schedule and it’s only a half hour away.

So as I was thinking about my younger skiing days, I thought I’d check the web to see what I could find out about three ski-related staples from the 1970s:

First, Pink Panther Ski Hill was a small ski hill right here in De Pere. I have no idea exactly where it was, but I do remember going there. My search turned up the most interesting web page. A local guy named Eric Elfner was recently wondering the same thing. So he set out with his 8-year-old son to find it. And that he did. He documented his story and findings on his web page “Return To Pink Panther.” My memory is vague, but it’s still great to see his photos.

The second staple from that time was the Green Bay Press-Gazette Ski School. The local newspaper sponsored this ski school every year at Pink Panther. Anyone I knew who skied learned to do so at Pink Panther. I wish I had photos from back then. I did look through my stuff and I found my patch. I’m guessing I got it around 1977.

The third institution I was thinking of was the annual YMCA Ski Sale. This was an event where the Y would invite the public to bring in their used skis, boot, poles, etc to sell. I don’t recall how much of each sale went to the Y, but it was indeed a fundraiser. Local ski shops would also bring in their used equipment and sell some new stuff too. It was a great annual event to get all ready for the upcoming ski season. I remember buying used stuff there, then selling it there the following year and getting more used stuff. Interestingly enough, I found that the sale is still alive and well, in it’s 38th season. You can visit the Green Bay YMCA Ski & Sport Sale web site yourself.

So, it was quite enjoyable skiing down memory lane tonight.

I am so tired if hearing people complain about weather. What kind of lives do you live that you have to constantly complain to other people about weather?

I see this happening in two areas. First, friends and acquaintances are always complaining. And second, even TV and radio personalities have decided that snow is a bad thing. Don’t be such idiots!

On the WBAY local news tonight, weatherman Brad Spakowitz used the phrase “so far so good” when talking about the fact that a snow storm has not hit yet. Since when is snow not good? Yesterday, a local guy on the radio used the phrase “to add insult to injury” when referring to the fact that not only is it cold outside, but snow is coming.

THIS IS WISCONSIN PEOPLE! IT’S SUPPOSED TO SNOW! IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE COLD!

Geez, this is so idiotic. I lived in southern California for 12 years, and I never heard anyone complain, “it’s going to be warm today, and to add insult to injury, the sun will be shining too.”

Listen folks, this isn’t China. This is America. Not only are you free to live wherever you want, but there are thousands of wonderful cities in this country with the widest variety of weather. Since you complain about weather so much, you’ve made it obvious that weather is very important to you. Therefore, find a city that has weather you like, and go there. Really! Just leave Wisconsin and be happy.

Life’s too short to live in a place that makes you feel so miserable. Stop complaining about something that’s completely in your power to fix. And if you choose not to fix it, fine. But don’t try so hard to make everyone around you miserable.

Many of us enjoy snow and the winter sports that come with it. Many of us enjoy a cold day at Lambeau Field. Some of us even depend on the snow and cold weather for our livelihood. Many of us are happy here in Wisconsin and have made the choice to be here. You should too. Make the choice and be happy.

Alright, I can’t claim authorship of that title. I stole it from Joel Stein’s article “And the Winner is…” in the Dec 22 issue of Time. And I’ll also admit that I pulled it out of context. But I do believe it.

In the article, Stein discusses the senate vote recount happening in Minnesota. But I’m writing about a completely different angle on this whole recount problem. And these are feelings I’ve had since the debacle in Florida during the 2000 U.S. presidential election.

Here’s the deal. Recounts themselves don’t need to be difficult. After all, counting is one of the basic skills we all learned on Seseme Street as a toddler. So why are these recounts so messy? I’ll tell you way. Because the people doing the counting are trying to figure out the intent of the voter, and that’s the wrong approach. It sure sounds good. It even sounds politically correct. But it’s wrong. It should not be left up to some official to figure out your intent. It should be up to you, the voter, to make your intent clear, by filling out the ballot properly. If you can’t figure out how to fill out a ballot, you shouldn’t be in the booth.

Ooooh. I can picture a few friends of mine right now saying, “Scott, you’re a Christian man, how can you be so insensitive? How can you say such a thing?”

Well, let me first be clear and make sure you read that correctly. I’ll say it again, “If you can’t figure out how to fill out a ballot, you shouldn’t be in the booth.”

Let’s just be real about this. We first need to make sure our voting process is simple. One thing I’ll never understand is why we have so many different voting methods in this country. Punch cards, fill in the circle, draw a black line, electronic, levers, etc. We have a lot of experience voting, we should look at the results, choose the most reliable method and use it nationwide. And of course we can offer official help for the elderly, absentee ballots, etc. But everyone should be under the same rules. And if I move to a new municipality, I shouldn’t have to learn a new way to vote.

But regardless of what method we use, we have to expect our fellow citizens to know how to vote. It’s your responsibility to know how to vote in your municipality. And if you don’t do it right, your vote should not count. If the instruction is to fill in an oval, and you complete your ballot like those shown in the image (real ballots from the Minnesota senate race), your entire ballot should be thrown away. It’s simple folks. Fill in the oval. Don’t put an ‘x’ or a check. Don’t mark two candidates. Just follow the instructions.

If you don’t know how to drive a car, then you can’t get a license. It doesn’t matter why you don’t know how, all that matters is that you don’t and that it’s your responsibility. If you fail your drivers test and your state does not give you a license, it’s not because the state is being insenstive. It’s because you don’t know how to drive. Period.

Voting is just as important, if not more. We should hold ourselves to a high standard. Learn how to vote, and do it right. Then counting ballots will be as easy as it is on Seseme Street.

Time Magazine is about to announce their Person of the Year for 2008. In each of the past several issues, they’ve asked four “prominent individuals” whom they would choose for Person of the Year. Here are the 16 choices from the four December issues of the magazine:

1 Kathleen Parker
1 U.S. Military
7 Barack Obama
2 Sarah Palin
1 billions of poor and disenfranchised
1 single mothers and grandmothers
1 American people
1 Ludwig von Mises
1 Oprah Winfrey

I just don’t understand the fascination with naming Barack Obama person of the year for 2008. What has he done? He’s done nothing for me. He’s done nothing for you. Sure, he’s got a lot of ideas for solving America’s problems (ideas that I believe will be very difficult to implement). Sure, he ran a long and successful presidential campaign. Sure he was elected president. But so were dozens of other men before him. Big deal.

I would agree that President-elect Obama is one of the more prominent and influential personalities in the United States in 2008. But let’s give him a chance to lead before we crown him Person of the Year.  And while I’m at it, I don’t understand why Sarah Palin is up there either. If you read me often, you know how much I like Governor Palin. But Person of the Year? Come on folks.

Listen, I know the arguments. People are saying that Obama (and Palin for that matter) electrified the American people. He fostered hope for those who were hopeless. He “galvanized the people of the U.S. and inspired a whole world.” He showed how far a black man can go in this country. I say fine. However, I have no more hope today than I had a year ago. I guess I’m always hopeful for a bright future. I’m always hopeful that tomorrow will be better than today. I’ve always believed that any person, man or woman, black or white, has the power to go as far as he or she wants. And I just don’t need any politician to tell me that. And that’s why I say Obama has done nothing for me, yet.

But don’t get me wrong. Barack Obama will be my president next month. Though I did not vote for him, I have high hopes for our country under his leadership. But let’s get him sworn in first. Let’s see what he can accomplish. Let’s see how he can navigate the waters of Washington to get things done. And if next December we all feel we’re better off than we are today, then how about Person of the Year for 2009?

Note: Time has said that they will announce the 2008 TIME Person of the Year on NBC’s Today Show on Wednesday, December 17, 2008.

I’ve been watching the story about GM, Ford and Chrysler closely for the past few weeks. All three automobile companies are experiencing some serious financial problems, and as such, are trying to convince the U.S. congress to bail them out. It looks like the companies are indeed going to receive some kind of help, though as I write this, the actual bail out plan is still quite fluid and it’s not clear how it will pan out.

As a regular American citizen, I’ve been trying to make sense of it all while trying to figure out where I stand. Based on everything I know to date, I say “no” to a bail out. And the reason I say this is simple: I haven’t yet heard a good reason to do so.

There are a lot of people sharing their opinions on this: UAW, congressmen, lawyers, economists, reporters. And there are two key reasons for a bailout that keep cropping up:

1. Jobs: According to most reports, if the three auto makers fail, it will affect anywhere between 2.4 million and 3 million American jobs. This of course includes employees of the companies as well as suppliers and many other businesses who depend on the auto industry for their livelihood.
2. Wall Street: Many people say that we’re giving $700 billion to Wall Street, why not give $30 billion to the auto makers.

The above two reasons, while they may be accurate, are certainly not reasons that our government should invest in these companies. Here’s the way I look it at. Let’s boil this down to a simple concept. Why does anyone invest money in any company? Again, it’s simple. Because that company has a good track record. Because that company has a good leadership team that makes smart decisions. Because when you compare that company to their competitors, they look good; they are more successful, they have a good business plan, and they have good prospects for earning a profit. Because that company knows their customers well and makes products that are in demand. Because they’ve got a good history.

But no one, not one single person I’ve heard from or read about, is talking about any of these reasons. Not a single one of them. They’re all focusing on saving jobs. If saving jobs is the only reason you have to invest in a company, you’d better not count on your investment paying off.

This is definitely one of those issues I’m watching closely. I’ll find out how my own congressmen vote on this one, and it’ll make a difference the next time I hit the polls.

I’ve had a problem receiving text messages for a month or so now. I only receive some, and others just never make it. Specifically, I stopped receiving any tweets from Twitter 4-5 weeks ago. And when I send a message to 4INFO, I no longer get a reply. And some automated alerts I get from Yahoo just don’t show up any more.

Finally, a possible solution! After all the hoops I can possibly jump through as a customer, Ryan at Cellcom tells me that he can see that there’s some kind of problem on the server side. The system is receiving messages for me but some kind of error is happening. So it’s not me, it’s not Twitter, and it’s not my phone.

I’m told it may still be a few days before it’s resolved, but at least there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I can’t wait to hear my cell phone tweet again.

About 90 minutes ago, all major news networks called the U.S. presidential election, affirming that Sen. Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States.

Well, I did not vote for President-Elect Barack Obama. I simply disagree with his position on many issues, and I question whether he’ll be able to do many of the things he promised in the campaign. But he’s now my president, he commands my respect, and I look forward to 4 great years of coming together and making this country a better place for all.

I write a lot about politics, and race is not an issue that I dwell on. But I’m now going to dwell on it a bit. I’ve been watching live scenes on TV from locations around the country, including the big celebration in Chicago’s Grant Park. I find it inspiring to see the great majority of Obama supporters, white and black, with tears in their eyes. I’m not a black man. There is no way for me to know what this election means to a black man. My initial feeling is that it doesn’t matter; it shouldn’t matter. My core belief is that the way rid this country of racism is to stop talking about it, don’t consider it. Race cannot and should not be an issue.

But I sense something a bit bigger tonight. I sense a coming together in this country. I sense that many wounds that are still open and raw, wounds that were caused by the deep belief here in the United States that all men are not created equal, just might have started to heal tonight. I certainly hope that we did not elect Barack Obama because he is black. But we did elect him. And if the fact that he has broken a barrier, that he has realized a dream set forth by another black man 45 years ago, helps us to take a significant leap forward in coming together in this country, then I am grateful.

I just listened to my new president deliver his victory speech. If you heard it like I did, with an open mind and more importantly an open heart, then you’re hopeful for a bright future here in America. President-Elect Obama and Sen. McCain both believe that we now need to work together and make this a better place. I agree.

I’m a Republican. I always have been. I usually vote Republican, though I do break that mold when my heart tells me otherwise. But regardless of my political affiliation, I expect all Americans now to rally behind our new president. Let’s tackle the difficult issues, let’s improve our lives and the lives of those less fortunate than us, and let’s leave a better country for our children, and for their children.

Twice this week now, I come downstairs to my office before going to work, and find that my computer rebooted overnight. So I just went into the Automatic Update settings in the control panel, and found that something changed my settings to “Bend Over.” Yeah yeah, Microsoft calls it “Automatic”, but the better name for it is “Bend Over.” I don’t see why anyone would use that setting.

I’m assuming my update to SP3 changed that automatically, I don’t know for sure. I just know that I NEVER EVER set it to “Bend Over” myself.

So, for the second time this week, I lost all my windows that showed me right where I left off while working on stuff. Not a happy geek today.

My daughter, Randy, and I built our duct tape camper two months ago. It was a fun little project that we worked on together. We took it camping and had a lot of fun. Of course a duct tape camper gets a bit of attention in any campground, so we enjoyed showing it off to the other campers.

But then we came home from camping that weekend, put away the camper, and went on. And then…the camper started getting a bit of attention, including a brief story on national TV. And all the fun seemed to start all over again. Even the web site traffic at DuctTapeCamper.com has skyrocketed!

It has been a blast.

I just realized this morning that my favorite bible passage explains my position on taxes in America. There seems to always be an argument about whose taxes will go up and whose taxes will go down in any particular economic plan. Sen. Barack Obama has a plan that supposedly provides tax relief to the middle class, while putting more taxes on corporations and the rich. And he passes it off as if that’s okay! Even Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, said that the middle class is where it’s at, and that’s where we need to focus our tax cuts.

Folks, this is all crap. You can’t tell me that you’re going to reduce my taxes, and to pay for it you’re going to increase taxes on the rich. You can’t tell me that you’re going to reduce my taxes, and to pay for it you’re going to increase corporate taxes. This idea obviously works for the ignorant, but not for those of us who are wise to the plan. When you tax my neighbor, you tax me. Who do you think the corporations are?

The bible passage I’m referring to is Matthew 25:40:

Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.

It’s that simple. If you tax my neighbor simply because he’s richer than me, then he’ll have less money keep up his yard. He’ll have less money to contribute to our tax base. He’ll have less money to donate to our neighborhood church. If you tax corporations as if they are some obscure entity out there, you forget that many Americans work for these corporations, and many Americans buy goods and services from these corporations. Tax a corporation more, and that corporation has to pay for it somehow. They’ll cut benefits to their employees. They’ll increase prices on their products and services.

So, if you’re one of those Americans who sits in front of your TV listening to Sen. Barack Obama say, “my plan only increases taxes on people making more than $250,000,” and you pump your fists and say back to the TV, “go get ‘em Barack, tax the rich, give me some relief, I’m the one who deserves,” then you’ve got it all wrong.

The next time you go in to work, ask your boss or the owner of the company what they think about a possible increase in corporate taxes.

When you tax my neighbor, you tax me.