Whenever there is a free concert by a band with more than five Top Ten singles within 60 miles of Omaha, one of my rules is I have to go. And while concerts at the Nebraska State Fair aren’t technically “free”, because you pay $6 to get into the fair, its close enough to count. So with that in mind, we drove down to Lincoln to see Joan Jett and the Blackhearts perform at the open air amphitheater.

With or without Continental, it was a rockin’ show. Dick and Nicole accompanied me on the trip, and we braved a twenty-degree temperature drop from the time we exited my car until the time we got to the amphitheater.

Last week, I indicated that I was a bad golfer who hadn’t played in over two years. I was worried about embarrassing myself at this weekend’s tournament. Those fears were unfounded; In fact, our team won the damn tournament.

I have the trophy to prove it. How the hell did this happen? After the jump, I’ll explain.

Saturday morning, I had to wake up at 5:30 AM to get ready and be on the road by 6:15. Harlan Iowa is just over an hour from Omaha, and I didn’t want to be late for the pre-tournament breakfast at 7:30. I got running late, and didn’t get out of Omaha until 6:31 — driving the speed limit would have gotten me there at 7:49 according to the navigation system in my car. I got there at 7:28…you do the math as to how fast I was driving.

There are certain things that just seem “right”. Ordering a greasy bacon and cheese omelet from a small-town diner just seems right. Actually, most places in Omaha don’t even have a straight bacon and cheese omelet on the menu. Oh, you can get one with 900 vegetable pieces in it, but I’ve never seen just a straight-up bacon and cheese omelet on any menus. Needless to say, I enjoyed it immensely. 32 people sitting around tables in a small-town diner, eating greasy food. That’s good times.

I started writing this blog in June of 2004. In that time, I’ve had my golf clubs out exactly once. One time. Once upon a time, I used to play golf quite a bit, though I was never very good. I could usually hit a good tee shot, 175-225 yards pretty consistently, and straight. My fairway game was on the bad side of not good, my short game was awful, and my putting was criminally heinous. On the whole, I was a lock to shoot 95-100 on a consistent basis. In other words, I wasn’t good.

Ah, putting. Son of a bitch, I can’t putt to save my life. Never have been able to. When I was 8, my mom stopped going on our family golf outings because it was too frustrating to watch me hit a great tee shot (for my age) and then putt six times. Miniature golf is hell to me. I can remember dates in high school where miniature golf was involved and…never mind.

Growing up in Fort Dodge, I never played the nice courses in town, because the nicer the course, the snootier the players. Municipal city courses are where real people golf. Country clubs and private courses are where people who are serious about their game play. I’ve golfed a fair share of those courses, and I can’t say I’ve ever had a good time. I’ve played a TON of public courses, and I have a million stories from them.

The course we grew up playing in Dodge was called Sunkissed Meadows, a Par 3 course built along the banks of the Des Moines River on the site of what used to be a ghetto-esque neighborhood. I bet I played that course hundreds of times in my youth.

I’m not going to say that you shouldn’t allow some people to be in your Fantasy Football league. I’m not going to say that. I will say that someone took Michael Pittman, the 54th ranked wide receiver, in the second round. There’s stretches, there’s sleepers, there’s bad picks, and then there’s picking the 171st best player with the 24th pick.

Her reasoning? He looks hot in those bronze jersey pants that Tampa Bay wears. Like I said, I’m not going to say you shouldn’t allow certain people in your league. I’m not going there. I’ll just say that a guy would not make that pick, or at the very least, if he did, he wouldn’t use that reasoning. Just sayin’.

As for me, I had the 10th pick overall. But you don’t win your league in the first round, you win it in the 12th and 13th rounds. Any moron can draw the first pick and take LaDainian Tomlinson or Stephen Jackson. But can you pick value late in the draft?

I took Deuce McAllister and Drew Brees with my first two picks. Then I went running back heavy with Marion Barber III, Michael Turner and Mike Bell. T.J. Houshmanzadeh, Lee Evans, Northern Iowa alum Mike Furrey, and Matt Jones round out my receiving corps. Jeff Garcia is the backup QB. Jason Witten of the Cowboys is my TE. And my second Bronco pick, tight end Tony Scheffler, was a steal in the last round. I do have the Vikings defense.

In a 16-team league, that’s a surprisingly decent team. I couldn’t believe the number of mistakes other people were making, including taking kickers in the third round. The difference between the best kicker and the 18th was just 30 points — 2 points a game. And you turn down a running back or a receiver to take a completely interchangeable part like a kicker? Nice. I’ll just take your money now, because you won’t be winning.

You bet.

As I mentioned earlier this week, Loverboy put on a good free concert at the Iowa State Fair on Saturday. As Paul Harvey says, Now the rest of the story.

Our pal Continental Frutiger had been excited for this concert for a while. Unfortunately, Hurricane Dean and its desire to destroy their Cayman Island house put a kink in those plans. No matter why he wasn’t there, we had to give him a bad time, of course. So after the show, we got permission (read: we took it) to take the “Loverboy” placard from the “Who’s on Stage” sign. This, coupled with a “Stu Stavies for President” button that we’d made at the CNN booth and a Loverboy notebook we’d made during our last batch of hand-made 33-1/3 Notebooks, made for a nice busting of chops gift.

We left all three items in the mailbox of his office on Sunday. It took until Wednesday for him to respond, and when he did, it was one of thanks, not the snark I’d expected. But that’s not the best part of the story.

I talked to Nicole, whose floor we were supposed to crash on before she got sick from the heat, and whose dad was working security for Switchfoot. He told us it was a great gig, because not only did he get $7 an hour and get a free t-shirt, he got to hang out backstage. There was to be a party that night with kegs of beer, and he’d brought a bag of pretzels to contribute. He has a great 8-to-5 job, and just works fair security for something to do…and to bring pretzels to a keg party backstage. As you can tell, he’s a helluva good guy.

It seems Loverboy outdrew Switchfoot 2 to 1, probably because it cost $28 to see Switchfoot at the grandstand and it was free to see Loverboy…and also because nobody can name that one song that Switchfoot has. So when the fair realized the huge crowd that was gathering at the Loverboy concert, they pulled some of the force off grandstand duty and moved them to Loverboy duty. Her dad was one of them, and he was Mike Reno’s personal security guy after the show.

This is where I get upset. After a few minutes to allow the crowd to disburse, Reno came back out and signed autographs. I’ll let Nicole take the story from here.