Come on down!!!

Let's make one thing clear ... 320mgs of caffeine cause thoughts to bounce around my head like a chimpanzee after a keg of Red Bull. Thoughts flit in and out of my head at shooting star speed so it helps to get them down as quick as possible. So buckle in and get up on the wheel .. this is gonna be fun.

What will I write about? Great question ... in a nutshell everything. I consider myself somewhat of a Renaissance man, a jack of all trades who masters none. I prefer civil discourse so I can follow Socrates advice and examine my life. One thing I do not examine is Pinterest .. sorry. You'll hear a lot about basketball and sports, a heap of politics and a smidgen of popular culture. I'm sure my kids will make an appearance. My 'friends' stories are true, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Spelling, capitalization and punctuation is subject to George W. Bush's English - pronunciation subject to change.

Quick bio: father, teacher, coach, friend, music/movie aficionado, reppin 1972 and southwest Ohio, carefree until basketball gets involved, socially liberal - fiscally conservative, American, equalitarian (GWB's English remember!), and Ken Cosgrove/Ben Hargrove/Dave Algonquin wannabe (hence the blog).

And we're off .... First up, Mitt Romney's 'hot mic' incident. Ummm .. it's not an incident. We should eliminate several cabinet departments. The federal government was never intended to be as large as it has grown today. The federal government's rapid expansion in the early 1900's (when first the Progressives - think Woodrow Wilson, a Republican - and then the Democrats -when FDR co-opted all the Republican ideas into the Democratic Party and beat Hoover in the election because the economy hadn't recovered from the 1929 Stock Market Crash even though FDR basically used Hoover's policies to enact the New Deal) has created the modern behemoth. But more troubling is the redundant nature of some departments. Several could be consolidated or eliminated, among them the Dept of Education could merge with the Dept of Health & Human Services, Dept of Energy could merge into the Dept of Commerce (along with the EPA, the Small Business Administration, the US Trade Representative and the Council of Economic Advisors),  and the Dept of Transportation into the Dept of Housing & Urban Development. Of course, the President has a better chance of winning the Powerball than contracting Cabinet-level departments even though the Cabinet is nowhere to be found in the U.S. Constitution. The Wholly Mammoth couldn't survive a warming planet, and the U.S. Cabinet should face a similar fate in the face of an ever growing federal deficit/debt.

The current weather conditions in Cupertino concern me as much as the lives of the Kardasians, Brangelina, Snooki, the Situation, and the rest. End of discussion ... and reality TV.

Mad Men/The Killing/AMC Drama is to Reality TV as wildebeast is to spotted tree frog. I wait for Sunday nights like an unemployed alcoholic waits for the first of the month. The aura of relaxation begins at the shows start time, and by the time the first strains of the theme song hit my eardrum I've released enough dopamine to be fully lifted into a high def trance. If only I could get hired at Sterling, Cooper, Draper & Pryce, I too could use Pete Campbell's face like Rocky used a side of beef in 1976. The best tv shows remind us of important human characteristics. Everybody has warts if you look close enough, and digging around in the dirt only gets you dirty. Personal morals are a sliding scale gray which other people tend to look at in black and white. I am ready for the Killing to be solved, and still am trying to put together what happened on Rubicon. Breaking Bad isn't on my DVR list, but I hear it's pretty good tool.

Can someone at Time Warner please get the online DVR manager fixed by 2:00 PM so I can record the Arsenal v. Wigan match today??? A win today and the Gunners are all but assured of Champions League football next season .. which considering the start to the season is amazing. Hey Silent Stan!! Get Arsene to invest some money in the squad so the Gunners can compete for the BPL title again!! Drop the dead weight (Almunia, Squillaci, Diaby, Arshavin, Vela, Mannone, Denilson & Bendtner), pay RvP, and improve the squad!!

The Reds are 4-6 after 10, 3 games back of the Cardinals with a 3 game set starting tomorrow in St. Lou. Reason for concern?? Here's my three pennies worth (btw .. did you know it costs about 2 & a half cents to make & ship a penny? The government loses money coining the penny!!! Super inefficient government at its best!!!). 1. Tractor-trailers travel up the cut in the hill faster than Scott Rolen's bat moves toward fastballs. He might as well walk an invitation out to the mound inviting teams to pitch around Votto - who in my opinion is the best hitter in the MLB. 2. Drew Kingman ... errrr Dave Stubbs ... uhhh Drew Stubbs is in a mental labyrinth Daedalus couldn't design. Unless Dusty Baker or Brook Jacoby can channel their inner Theseus, Stubbs will remain a minotaur with all the tools to be a terror quietly locked away in centerfield. 3. Aroldis Chapman is the best pitcher on the Reds staff.

Basketball workouts start again today. If I could, I would coach basketball full-time. Independent wealth has escaped me, I enjoy teaching, and my bills are mostly paid right now ... so you gotta do what you gotta do to do the things you really love doing. I guess I should mention that I'm a basketball coach since the blog is just called Coach Kerr. Creativity escaped me at that moment with all the other marbles rolling around inside my head. I'm looking forward to seeing what this team can accomplish in the 2012-2013 season. We've had some success the past couple years, but that team is gone and we're building up from the groundfloor again. Time to get on it.

Hey Janice ... great talk!!