After reading about Brett below, Make sure to learn about Randy Pausch. Click on Pausch's Last Lecture to hear the whole lecture (it's an hour long, so get cozy), ....or, to go to Randy's Web Page ....for a shorter version of his lecture (from the Oprah Show--only 12 minutes long), click HERE. Why? Because he's dying and giving his last lecture as a professor......

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”
--Randy Pausch

A lot of professors give talks titled “The Last Lecture.” Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can’t help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn’t have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—“Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”—wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because “time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

Thanks 4 the Memories

If you don't watch or like football or if you are a true, die-hard Bears fan, you are probably pretty sick of hearing about Brett Favre. It gets to be a bit much and who wants to read blog after blog about it in the Addiverse?

But, indulge me, won't you? After all, the wife and her family are devastated by this whole ordeal and need time to heal.

First, there is denial. ("No. No this can't be happening.") This is where the wife started and probably wished she could stay. Of course she knew the day would come sooner than later, but when it arrived, denial as they say no longer remained just a river in Egypt anymore.

Then, there is anger ("How could you DO this to US? How can you be so SELFISH? Why can't you play just ONE-MORE-YEAR?). The wife feels so many emotions, with anger being just one of them. Why, why, why not one more year? WHY!?!?!!

BREATHE! BREATHE!

.....followed by some bargaining. ("Please don't let this be happening. I'll go to church every week if you just convince him to play one more year.")

Now, the depression is settling in. This is the stage most packer fans are now in. Depressed. Down-trodden. Too sad to even breathe. It hurts to blink an eye they are so depressed.

I tell them, in a professional counselor voice: "This too shall pass." For good measure, I tell them acceptance is just down the road.

This is where I run quickly away, as there is no Packer Fan on earth that at this moment believes the pain will pass.

If you have an hour and don't mind watching a grown man cry and look down at the table a lot, go to Brett's Retirement Press Conference
(From Packers.com).

Brett's crying within the first thirty seconds. I'm sure the Packer fans of the world were crying the minute he stepped onto the stage.

In a moment of honesty, I must admit I did not watch the entire 66 minutes of the press conference. I listened a bit, skipped forward, listened a bit, went and got a Dove Dark Chocolate, skipped forward, listened, skipped to the end. I probably watched about 3 minutes total, but I can always go back and watch some other day.....

Tomorrow will be a day of mourning at the wife's family party. There won't be a dry eye in the house. (Okay, so my eye will be dry but don't tell them. Maybe I could poke myself really hard so I look teary. Maybe I'll think about meeting Lucy Lawless and having her put her arm around me for the photo op--that'll bring a tear.) They will relive the glory days, they will discuss the pros and cons of the decision to retire, they will talk about the uncertain future without Number Four.

Football IS a way of life in the Cheddarlands. You will never meet a more devout group of fans as you will in the Cheesed-dipped state of Wisconsin. (This is meant as a compliment.)

While the wife and her family are talking about all this, I'll be sneaking out to the garage to eat the chocolate "haystacks" the wife's sister makes. Yum! No one will even notice. I will then sneak into the refrigerator and get some of those delicious chocolate desserts that will be stuffed in there. While I am sad to see the man go, I'm much more about ME and the securing of home-made chocolate treats than talking about him or his career or his life or his records, amazing as the whole thing truly is.

My professional advice to Packer Fans: Find your peeps and drown your sorrow in some Wisconsin-brewed beer. Get a bratwurst and some string cheese and talk about the olden days. Put on your Packer Jersey. Make me some chocolate desserts so I can eat them while I'm listening to you.

I care. I do care. I get it. I understand. But, some chocolate will help me be much more empathetic....