Month: July 2015

The Spotlight On The Last 48 hours for the New York Mets

Tom Lynch Sports, The Spotlight On Today's Sports , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’d like to start off by mentioning that I like the New York Mets.  I’ve never been a fan per say of the Mets, being raised a Yankees fan and then adoptiong the Nationals as my new team in 2009, I actually had every reason to dislike them but I’ve just never been able to root against them.  I’ve always rooted for them to do well and fondly remember going to the Mets pepsi picnic area on Wednesdays in exchange for Pepsi can, in 2006 I remember setting up a small television as the register I worked at while working at a local grocery to watch game seven of the NLCS, and in 2008 I interned for the Mets and have kept a strong working relationship with the Mets ever since.  My respect for the team makes a bit more sense when you consider that my favorite football team is the often times pathetic New York Jets and my favorite basketball team is the often disappointing, New York Knicks, so of course I have a soft sport for the underdog Mets.

Now  that I’ve gotten my respect for the organization out of the way, I’m going to put this as bluntly as possible…These last 48 hours for a Mets fan have had to be some of the most frustrating that any fanbase has had to endure in quite some time.  Now it would be silly for me to talk about my thoughts on all of the matters with the Mets over the last 48 hours because like I said I’m not really a Met fan.  Thankfully though, I have really good friends who are Mets fans, like my buddy Bryan.  Bryan isn’t only a friend but he’s also a talented writer for http://metsinaround.com/ .  Despite, again being a Nationals fan, I gladly subscirbe to Bryan’s site and think he does a great job covering the team from a die hard fan’s perspective.  Thus, without any further ado, let me take you through the last 48 hours through a Mets fans eyes, recalling phone conversations and texts I had with Bryan throughout this time period.

7/28/2015 5:00PM- Bryan called me on the way home from work to talk about the Mets recent trade for Tyler Clippard.  He seemed pretty ecstatic and mentioned how the Mets were now set with a bullpen consisting of four closers, Bobby Parnell, Jenrry Mejia, the newly acquired Clippard and the breakout current closer Jeurys Familia, now a part of the team.  I couldn’t help but agree with Bryan…the Mets looked like they were finally going for it, but I had to be the bearer of bad news as I quickly voiced my displeasure with Mejia.  I explained how it really didn’t have to work out so well for the Mets since Mejia, the team’s opening day closer, really let down his teammates by taking PEDS, missing half of the season in the process and is now ineligible for the postseason.  Bryan, often a Mets apologist, as any true die hard fan is, was quick to say that everyone makes mistakes, stating that perhaps he really didn’t know what he was putting into his body.

7/28/2015 6:30PM– I received a text from Bryan that said “MEJIA!!!!!”.  I immeidately sprang up as quick as I could and jumped on twitter assuming that the Mets had done a smart move in shipping Mejia to a team who has no chance this year now that they already got Clippard, instead I saw this…

https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/626156278151290880%20

That’s right Jenrry Mejia had been suspended a second time, for the same exact performance enhancing drugs that he used the first time.  It’s time that the Mets cut Mr Mejia as quick as possible, you just can’t unteach stupid.

7/29/2015 8:00PM  A new day and new possibilities, the Mets fell behind early as 103 year old Bartolo Colon continued to fall apart, but it didn’t matter to Bryan who texted me this….”The Mets just got Carlos Gomez for Zach Wheeler and Wilmer Flores, Juan Lagares wasn’t even included in the deal….I think I just busted in my pants!”. Though I hoped Bryan didn’t really have to ask his wife to get him a new pair of pants, I couldn’t blame him for being excited, not at all.  The Mets have always been known for their frugality and now it appeared that they were finally going all in as they just acquired a legit all star center fielder.  For the next two hours, Bryan and I went back and forth over the possibilities for Gomez in the Mets lineup and how much he would help the team.  Yet, as the game went on something strange happened as Wilmer Flores, remained in the game.  Bryan was quick to point out that with the Mets luck, Flores would end up getting hurt and ruing the deal.  It turned out that over the course of three innings, while revewing game tape, Flores saw the report that he had been traded and proceeded to have quite the difficult time with the news.

I’ll admit, I felt awful for the kid, who has been with the Mets since he was just 16 years old, watching him openly weep on the field as Terry Collins left him in the game for only reasons he knows (hindsight being what it is, even if Terry Collins didn’t know about the deal, the Mets were down 7-1 in the game, would it have killed him to pull his distraught shortshop with Ruben Tejada on the bench?).

7/29/2015 10:30PM- ” No deal apparently the Mets weren’t happy with Carlos Gomez’s medical results…only this team!” That text from, a now frustrated, Bryan said it all, after all of that craziness, the deal for Carlos Gomez was apparently off.  It was back to the drawing board for the Mets.  No all star center fielder and now they had a shortstop in Wilmer Flores on the tea who just spent the last two hours crying his eyes out over his team not wanting him.  Onlythe mets indeed.!

7/30/2015 !2:00-3:00PM-  Bryan and I spent portions of the afternoon texting one another about both the Mets and Nationals games going on simultaneously.  It appeared the Mets had their game under control as Jon Niese was cruising.  With 2 outs in the top of the 9th, there was a rain delay and the Mets were now up 7-5 with Jeurys Familia on the mound.

7/30/2015 3:30PM- “Why didn’t you tell me the Mets gave up the lead?”  Bryan texted this to me after seeing that Familia had somehow blown the lead and the Mets were suddenly trailing 8-7.  The answer was because I figured the poor guy needed a break, the Mets had probably caused Bryan enough Angina over the last two days that I didn’t want to add salt to the wounds so I kept the news to myself.  The Mets went on to lose the game, blowing their first 6 run lead at home since 1970!

7/30/2015 5:00PM-  Exactly 48 hours after all of this downward spiral happened for the Mets, a team who had looked to be really turning a corner for their desperate fans, I received one last text from Bryan.  The text read: “Astros just traded for Carlos Gomez, I guess his medical records were good enough for them.” It seems the Mets were back to their frugal ways after all and money was at the root of the Gomez no trade debacle.

So yes that was a 48 hour period that no fan base should ever have to endure. If there is a bit of a silver lining for Mets fans, it’s this: the trade deadline still hasn’t happened. The Mets can still go out and add that much needed bat before 3 pm today. While Gomez is off the board and he would have been great, the Mets can still go for a guy like a Justin Upton or a Jay Bruce. The other bit of good news is that, even though today’s loss was one of the worst losses ever, the Mets are still just three games out of the NL East lead behind my Washington Nationals. Even better news? The Nats are on their way to New York for a three game series at Citi Field this weekend! Thus, after a horrendous 48 hours of being a Mets fan, the next 72 may see the Mets get their big bat they’ve been craving and end up tied for first in the NL East. As the old saying goes, that’s baseball Suzyn!

Advertisement

The Spotlight On Wrestling Podcasts- The Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast with Daniel Bryan 

Tom Lynch The Spotlight On Wrestling Podcasts, Wrestling , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  
Hello everyone and thank you for checking out this week’s spotlight on wrestling podcasts where today we’ll take a look at a podcast that actually aired this morning and I was able to listen to it on the way to work, Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast with Daniel Bryan. I was going to hold this off until I finished Bryan’s book and release the review during my planned Daniel Bryan weekend (8/7-8/9) but I figured since it was timely and topical, I would release it today. The past week has actually been pretty tough to be a wrestling fan with all of the awful comments made by Hulk Hogan being released, as Hogan was one of the faces of WWE history. Well, over the past week, one of the few bright spots has been that Daniel Bryan has been making the rounds across media outlets around the world to promote the release of his new book, which was released just last Tuesday. Bryan has a likability to him that can’t be taught and I’ve gone out of my way to listen to a number of his appearances from Cheap Heat to Boomer and Carton in the morning to Busted Open Radio on sirius xm radio. Thus, this morning, i was really happy to see Daniel Bryan’s name pop up on the Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast. I’ve been a fan of Sam’s podcast since it started, subscribing on itunes along the way. I like Sam’s podcast because he seems like a true fan and often has some cool stories during his “state of wrestling” portion of the program including different wrestling road trips he takes. While Sam is a fan, he’s able to get pretty big names on his podcast and manages to have a good rapport with his guests while not shying away from the “hard-hitting” questions. Let’s get into some of the highlights from the show. 
 Highlights:

  

Daniel Bryan’s Plans for the Intercontinental Title: For me one of the big things i got out of the podcast was hearing that Bryan actually wanted the intercontinental title for quite some time. His plan for the title was that it would be defended every week but it would only be defended on smackdown and pay per views. His idea was that it would give people a reason to tune into Smackdown and give the intercontinental title the profile that it deserves. He went on to say that he much preferred the brand split, feeling that if it wasn’t for the two separate world titles, he would have never had the chance to be world champion. Bryan also went on to state that he felt that the separate brands really do a good job in allowing guys to be featured that may otherwise get lost in the shuffle despite their talent such a Cesaro and Heath Slater.  

  

The Future For Daniel Bryan: Bryan was very honest during this interview, flat out saying that he had a concussion and while he’s been cleared by his own doctor, he’s waiting on WWE’s doctors to clear him. Sam asked a good question to Bryan in asking if he planned on wrestling until he could no longer do so. Bryan responded that Brie’s plan has always been to have her first child by the age of 32-33 (she’s 31 now) and that he expects that she will likely be ready to have the couple’s first child when her contract with WWE is up. Bryan went on to say that he’s ready to be a father and, while he didn’t say that he was going to stop wrestling once he became a father, he did note that when Ted Dibiase Jr had a child, he continued on the road and Bryan noticed how miserable Ted looked. Sam and Bryan then both agreed that it becomes harder to deal with some of the hardships associated with being a wrestler (the travel, the politics, etc) when you know you can be at home being a father.    

The Summerslam Match that never was?– One of the things that I found pretty interesting was when Bryan talked about his Summerslam 2012 match that was set up between he and Charlie Sheen. He explained how at the time Bryan was a heel but he was getting cheered against everyone other than CM Punk, who he had already wrestled a few times. Thus, WWE didn’t really know what else to do with Bryan as a heel. He went on to explain that he wanted the match to happen so bad because he felt that if it happened the idea was for Bryan to be the heel and for Sheen to be the face but Bryan had no doubt that Sheen was going to be booed out of the building had the match happened. Of course, from all of this, we got Team Hell No, so it wasn’t all a waste,  

Closing Thoughts:

  

In the end, I really enjoyed this interview. I felt Sam did a good job in really going out of his way not to ask the same questions that everyone else did about Bryan’s book (even citing an article out there listing 10 things learned from Bryan’s book and then asking questions based only off of those 10 things because they really didn’t know too much about Bryan or WWE). Other topics covered in the over 30 minute interview included Bryan’s thoughts on his time in the original NXT, the struggles of avoiding overexposure when you’re featured on 12 segments in one week of television, why he feels that WWE doesn’t view him as marketable even to this day and whether or not he and Sheamus will ever get their WrestleMania match. The main thing I noticed form this discussion, and other appearance from Bryan throughout the week, is just how positive Bryan is despite the tough times he’s gone through over the past couple of years. 

If you’re interested in hearing Daniel Bryan’s full appearance on the Sam Robert’s Wrestling Podcast, as well as Sam’s past podcasts, you can do so by clicking here http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/sam-roberts-wrestling-podcast . I’d love to know your thoughts on the show and as always some of your wrestling podcast suggestions for me to review right here. Until next time, take care.   

The Spotlight Tough Enough Power Rankings for Week 5

Tom Lynch Spotlight On The WWE Network, Wrestling , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Last week’s Tough Enough saw the surprising elimination of Patrick Clark who had been number one on our power rankings for quite some time after proving to be passionate about the business and also winning a string of competitions.  Patrick seemed to be the front-runner of this season’s Tough Enough.  So what happened?  Well, Patrick became everything that he hated from the Tanner in the beginning of the show.  In the beginning of the show, Patrick was the likable, humble kid who knew everything about the wrestling business and showed the most respect for the history of the WWE product in general.  He was also quite critical of Tanner for coming across cocky and not having any sense of humility after winning a few of the challenges.  Well, fast forward a few weeks and now Patrick is the alpha dog of the Tough Enough male contestants and he, in essence, became Tanner.  Patrick started to become less humble with each victory as the show went on and he started getting fights with, literally, all of the other male contestants, even ZZ.  To make matters worse, Patrick also started to show a bit of disrespect towards the history of the business by stating that the big guys’ time in WWE was over, referencing that the Ultimate Warrior was gone and Hulk Hogan had retired (Does he not know that Brock Lesnar and the Undertaker are headlining Summerslam this year and, more to the point that Hulk Hogan was a judge on the show?).  Lastly, to bring it back full circle, Just how Tanner motivated Patrick so much so that he eventually did beat him, Patrick got everyone else in the competition motivated by his attitude that he started to lose challenges. In the end, it’s a shame that Patrick got voted off the show last week but Patrick is just 19 years old and has plenty of time to grow as a performer and mature as a person.  I do expect that he’ll get a chance again.

Tonight is a new night for the final 8 of the show and actually for the show in general.  Obviously due to all of the controversy surrounding Hulk Hogan (I’ll get to him later in the week, don’t think I forgot about the Hulkster) in his personal life, there will be a new judge called on to take Hulk Hogan’s spot tonight.  Everyone from Ric Flair, to Mick Foley, to Bret Hart to the trainers rotating into the judge role has been rumored.  If I had to choose though, I would say that it’s either going to beTough Talk host, The Miz (who’s been the breakout star of tough enough, for me, thus far) or the actual host of the show, Chris Jericho, will make the easy transition into the role of judge.  I’m actually curious to see if WWE even makes mention of Hogan’s disappearance from the show, though I honestly wouldn’t blame them if they completely ignored him after his terrible comments.  With all of that out of the way, let’s get into this week’s power rankings.

1) Mada Abdelhamid (Last Week #5)

IMG_4061

A really tough week for the power rankings this week because honestly each one of the contestants has there faults and there is no clear breakout performer, now that Patrick is gone.  Mada is the one guy who I will say has been on the rise since day one and has continued to get better each week.  Mada has a unique look and also cuts a good promo in being able to throw some Arabic in with his English from time to time.  It’s also come out that Mada used to play professional basketball, so he’s obviously an athletic guy, he seems to be everything WWE would want.  The one thing about Mada is that he lost his biggest supporter in the competition with Hulk Hogan being gone so it’ll be interesting to see if he can win over Daniel Bryan and Paige.  Mada is the only male contestant never to be in the bottom three.

2) Sara Lee ( Last week #8)

IMG_4050

I will admit a bit of bias here as Sara Lee is my favorite of the remaining women in the competition.  Sara remains the favorite amongst the majority of fans and last week she showed a bit of fire getting right into the faces of both Giorgia and Amanda, showing that she isn’t going to stand for getting pushed around any longer.  The other thing with Sara is that she’s also getting better in the competitions.  While she hasn’t passed Giorgia yet, getting better proves that she is more trainable than originally thought.  The thing with her would be for her to stay out of the drama.  Patrick let Tanner pull him into the drama and Sara is now letting Giorgia and Amanda pull her into it.

3) Joshua Bredl (Last Week #7)

IMG_4063

I’m finally starting not to look so silly for picking Joshua as my number one pick to start the series off as Joshua is really starting to come into his own.  I know Joshua was in the bottom three last week, but that was an aberration as I don’t think anyone other than Hulk Hogan though Josh deserved to be in the bottom three.  Joshua has started winning challenges and has really improved his conditioning, dropping 35 pounds since the series began.  Last week, we even saw Joshua’s softer side as he facetimed with his daughter.  Joshua can still improve in the personality department but he’s getting there.

4) Tanner Saraceno ( Last Week #2)

IMG_4056

After one or two weeks where it looked like Tanner was just letting his reputation from the first week carry him through, Tanner really upped his game last week.  To me, he came across really arrogant during the first few weeks and that was ok when he was dominating competitions but once he started to show his weaknesses, Tanner lost his only redeeming quality.  Well, last week Tanner showed that he is a pretty good guy as after he dominated the obstacle competition, he went back to try and help all of his peers.  After that, Tanner also went to the doctor with Chelsea to continue to show this selflessness.  Tanner biggest thing is whether he can do it in the ring and also improve some of his promos.

5) Giorgia Priscina (Last Week #3)

IMG_4057

I don’t understand why every time a contestant on this show starts winning competitions, they have to become arrogant.  I really liked Giorgia prior to last week but she came off just as bitchy as Gabi was last week.  She really started having a big head and also ratted out Chelsea for not being able to compete.  She came off bad there and worse when she started fake crying about it right after this.  She may be the best in challenges but if this how she acts now imagine if she wins the $250,000 contract?

6) ZZ Loupe (Last Week #4)

IMG_4055

ZZ has the most personality amongst anyone left on the show and if he got voted out, I’d be pretty bummed to lose my favorite character on the show.  That said, ZZ really isn’t doing well in many of the physical competitions and his lack of conditioning is starting to become a problem for the judges.  The thing that rubbed me the wrong way was when ZZ said that he’s been trying to step it up over the past few days.  He really should have made conditioning a priority right when he made the show, like Joshua did.  ZZ is even losing some of the fan support as last week he ended up getting less votes than Josh in the vote to send Patrick home.  I hope ZZ finds a way to improve because I think he’d make a great addition to WWE in some role.

7) Chelsea Green (Last Week #9)

IMG_4267

Chelsea started out in this competition doing really well and even seemed to have a leg up on the competition due to her past training and brief stint in WWE.  Then last week she got hurt and had to skip out on the in ring competition.  If her injury continues to hinder her, there is no way she’ll be able to last in this competition.

8) Amanda Sacaranato (Last Week #6)

IMG_4060

Mark my words: Amanda is the next to go from this season’s tough enough.  As a matter of fact, I think she would have went home last week had she been put in the bottom three.  How this girl has escaped the bottom three every week is baffling to me.  She is the one contestant who really hasn’t showed anything throughout the whole completion.  She’s pretty and has a good look but she hasn’t looked good in the ring, she hasn’t showed the personality and, last week, she didn’t even finish the obstacle course.  I think Amanda is on borrowed time, and you know I’ve been a fan of hers since the beginning.

Well that’s going to do it for me today but make sure to tune into a brand new live Tough Enough tonight on the USA Network at 8PM EST! Do you agree with my ratings?  Let me know why or why not.  Please be sure to also hit the subscribe button so you can get these Tough Enough updates delivered to your email every week.

The Spotlight on Raw for 7/27/2015

Tom Lynch Spotlight On Raw, Wrestling , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Monday Night Raw just went off the air and emanated live from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma tonight.  I think Raw did a good job in continuing down the road to Summerslam but before we get into some of the highlights on the show, there were some news bits that came out of Raw that set us up for the weeks to come in WWE that I’ll briefly touch on.  At the top of the show the Authority announced that WWE Summerslam will now be four hours long.  I know this was announced earlier in the day but I think it’s a great idea as it makes Summerslam a big deal and almost like the Wrestlemania of the summer.  I really think WWE can move Summerslam to a stadium show soon enough and wouldn’t be surprised to see Summerslam held at the Red Bull arena next year, or hell, maybe even Metlife Stadium.  Also on Raw it was announced that Stone Cold Steve Austin’s WWE Network Podcast will be returning after a one month hiatus.  His guest will be none other than Paige! I saw some stuff on Twitter surprised it wasn’t Sting or Undertaker (would have been a good time for Taker with Summerslam a few weeks away) but I think Paige is a really unique guest and I’m interested to see the chemistry between her and Austin.  If Austin is going to do these podcasts more frequently, it can’t be a top guy every time and with the give divas a chance initiative, I’m glad to see Paige as the choice here.  Truth be told, I believe that f4wonline reported that Hulk Hogan was supposed to be the guest this time around, and obviously that isn’t going to happen.  Let’s get into Raw!

Highlights

John Cena is Beyond Tough- First things first, I thought that Seth Rollins and John Cena had one helluva match and if this is the direction that they’re headed for Summerslam, then I for one can’t wait.  I wasn’t crazy about Seth Rollins tapping out but if the story is that Cena beat Seth when defending his title so he deserves a shot at Seth’s World Title, well then it made sense.  With that out of the way, kudos to John Cena for wrestling the last ten minutes of the match with a brutal looking broken nose.  His nose looked contorted with blood gushing everywhere from his nose after an errant knee to the face from Rollins.  Say what you will about Cena but he’s as tough as they come and showed that old school “the match must go on” mentality last night.  Even if Cena requires surgery, and I assume he’s going to, I don’t expect that anything is going to keep John Cena off of the Summerslam card.

The Opening Segment–  I loved the way that they did the opening segment last night as it reminded me of segments from back in the attitude era.  Having Triple H and Stephanie come out to set up the entire night full of matches (I believe they listed the four matches for the night) was a great idea as it gave the viewer a reason to remain tuned in and a lot to look forward to over the course of the show.  Say what you will about the Authority but when they’re on the screen, it does bring an extra added level of importance.

The Divas Revolution Is In Full Effect- Other than the main event between John Cena and Seth Rollins, the match of the night belonged to the Divas as Paige took on Sasha Banks.  I thought the match was very good and they ladies got about 14 minutes to really let their match unfold and the story develop.  It made sense for Sasha to get the win as it continues to establish her and doesn’t hurt the more established Paige to take the loss.  I also thought the tag match was very good in that Becky Lynch was profiled, I believe for the first time on Raw since being called up.  It was also cool to see Lynch (again no relation, sadly) get the win and then moments later WWE put up a graphic for a one on one match between Nikki Bella and Becky Lynch for this week’s Smackdown.  This made the whole room of people I was watching the show with go “oh wow set the DVR for Smackdown”, which has to be what WWE was going for.  All in all, the divas got about a half an hour of Raw and two matches again this week.  The divas division continues to have a renewed focus and I’m excited to see where it goes from here.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, i really enjoyed Raw this week as they continue to focus a good portion of Raw on more of the in ring product which is nice to see.  We also saw many of the stories going into Summerslam progress with Bray Wyatt cutting a promo reestablishing the Wyatt Family, the continued tease that perhaps Arrow will get involved in the Stardust and Neville feud, the buildup of the tag team division, the Kevin Owens-Cesaro feud and the Randy Orton and Sheamus feud.  I like the focus that WWE is putting on every match heading into Summerslam, it makes the show feel like the Wrestlemania of the summer.  I honestly had no problem with the Undertaker and Brock Lesnar not being on the show this week as the brawl from last week was so good that I feel it was OK to have a week reliving the brawl.  At the end of the day, Brock Lesnar and the Undertaker were both taken out of the building in handcuffs last week, so having them return this week would have been too much.  Besides, WWE already did a good job in promoting that Brock will be back next week, then you have Taker return the week after that and have both of them return the week before Summerslam.

That’s going to do it for me today but what did you think of Raw?  Are you excited for Summerslam?  I’ll be back later today with the Tough Enough Power Rankings.  Tough Enough airs tonight on the USA Network and it’s being promoted that Sasha Banks, Tamina Snuka and Naomi will all be on hand.

The Daily Spotlight for 7/27/2015

Tom Lynch Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

Hello Everyone I hope you’re doing well.  It’s been a very busy few weeks for me, which is why I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus.  But I plan on being back on here much more over the next week with a bunch of different things going on.  I hope to provide you guys with a daily spotlight each day and, hopefully, a few more fun pieces throughout the week.  Let’s get into some of the reasons as to why I’ve been away as well as some of the fun pieces you can expect to see in the coming days, this….is the daily spotlight.

About ten days ago I had a bit of health scare in which I felt pretty under the weather.  I’m not sure where it stemmed from but I’m the type of person that generally can keep going with a ton on my plate and with very little sleep for long periods of time.  Once in a while this does catch up to me and it requires me to really then refuel on sleep for a few days.  Well there was a stretch of about three weeks at the end of June/ beginning of July where I was going very hard in that I was squeezing in physical therapy sessions before work (I’m recovering from a back injury after being rear ended and I should point out I have your standard 9-5 job so my sessions were at 7AM) and then I got a few side projects that took up a good amount of my time after work.  I was also doing some reviews for this website (Which I’m not complaining about at all, many businesses have been nothing but accomodating when I explain what we’re doing over here and I couldn’t be more thankful) and my girlfriend and I had plans thrown into my schedule which included babysitting our goddaughter a few nights per week as well.   I just don’t have any idea about what my limits are and I’ve always been a “work now, sleep later” kind of guy.

Well this really caught up to me about three weeks ago.  It came to a head when I was at a work conference for two days in the Bronx.  The meeting room we had was set for about 16 people in a tiny room and the air conditioning broke which made the two days pretty unbearable.  It was so bad in this room, in fact, that one of the invited speakers who traveled from Louisiana decided not to return for the second day.  To make matters worse the food that was served at this ordeal was brutal.  In particular, there was this basket of fruit that was being served that I thought tasted weird.  I noticed one of my co workers trying to get my attention but waved and thought nothing of it.  I continued to eat the fruit, as I was hungry, and the rest of the food was bad anyway.  Well, during our break my co worker came over to me and told me that the fruit was totally spoiled and that’s why he was trying to get my attention.  The rest of the day, I was sick as a dog.  I went home and immediately cancelled a camping trip with my girlfriend and her friends (for me to cancel a summer weekend trip is so rare everyone knew I was absolutely out of it).  Furthermore, I spent the rest of the weekend in bed, thankful that this happened on a Friday so that I’d be able to recover all weekend and not miss any time at work.

I don’t really mind missing time at work, especially not at my job as I’m afforded a good amount of paid time off.  I feel if paid time off is provided by the company, then it should be used however the employee wants to use their time, provided they give proper notice of course.  At my old job there were two banks of time off that I received.  The first bank was for vacation time and the second bank was for sick time.  Thus, having 12 days a year specifically for sick time, I wouldn’t mind taking a day or two if I was feeling under the weather.  Well at my current job, there’s just one pool.  We get a good amount of time off but it can either be used for vacation or for sick/personal days. With as much traveling as I do, I vowed when I started my job not to use any of my time for sick days.  This plan lasted for 18 months before I took my first sick day two weeks ago.  It pained me to do it but I really had no choice, I was just a wreck.  The worse part was that even when I returned to work I was so out of it the whole week.  I felt disoriented and couldn’t wait to go back home so I can sleep. I even ended up cancelling a whole week of physical therapy because I had no energy.  Eventually, I felt better and I’m not even sure what I had.  Part of me thinks it was a mild case of vertigo as I’ve been known to get that but whatever it was, it took it’s toll.

That’s going to do it for me today but I’m glad to be back and feel pretty reenergized after a good two weeks.  I’m planning a big Daniel Bryan inspired weekend here on the Daily Spotlight as I’ve recently finished up his blu ray set entitled “Yes, Yes, Yes” and am working on getting through his new book “Yes-my improbable journey to the main event of Wrestlemania”.  So far it has been a really easy read that I would suggest any fan of WWE or wrestling in general should go out and get it.  Regardless, when I finish that up I will have reviews of both of those, so keep your eyes peeled for that.  Until, then stay locked in for more fun stuff right here on thedailyspotlight.com