BP Oil Spill: More required reading and useful links

As you well know by now, if you follow this blog, I am one of the many people that are incredibly angry over the BP Oil Spill, and I'll be damned if I ever refer to it as "Gulf Oil Spill," because that is too generic and semantically removes BP's accountability.

Anyway, if you want to help out or donate to organizations that are trying to do something, or would like some useful insights, then feed your mind a little with the following:

HealthyGulf.org - This is the leading Web-site for all things Gulf of Mexico. Pretty much anything you would ever want to know, need to know and so forth can be found there.

Daily KO's: DKo's Booming School - This is a very interesting insight on the process of booming oil, and why the cleanup thus far has been an enormous mess, and done incredibly wrong. However, I will warn you that DKo uses a lot of very strong language, so be warned.

Mobile Bay National Estuary Program - another useful resource, centered around the continuing preservation and upkeep of the world's (yes, the WORLD) second largest estuary, right here in Alabama.

Louisiana Gulf Coast Response - Need information on where to volunteer or send money to help Louisiana? This is the place for it.

National Wildlife Federation - Yet another all-around, valuable resource. Lots of good information to be found, and more ways to help.

True Majority - Political activism Web site that provides up to date news and information relative to BP's mess. They also provide links and information to help you locate and write to your representatives in the Senate.

Alternatively...

BP Care t-shirts - The shirts are $25 a piece, but all proceeds go to HealthyGulf.org. The shirts are satirical in nature, if you couldn't tell.

So knock yourself out. Read up. Feed your mind. And most importantly? If there is even the slightest, most unlikely chance that anything we can do can stick it to BP and make them totally accountable for their carelessness and wanton destruction, then it is a chance worth taking.

Have a happy Memorial Day!

Dumb clichés: Why I can't stand them

You know you have heard them. Idiotic phrases or tag lines that people used because they are trying to sound witty, or to feign real-life experience by assigning color to a subject. First off, let us examine the meaning of the word, from Merriam-Webster:

"Etymology: French, literally, printer's stereotype, from past participle of clicher to stereotype, of imitative origin

Date: 1892

1 : a trite phrase or expression; also : the idea expressed by it 2 : a hackneyed theme, characterization, or situation 3 : something (as a menu item) that has become overly familiar or commonplace

— cliché adjective"

The all-time, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe world champions of using clichés are probably athletic coaches, and television talking heads who usually have little, to no idea what they are talking about to begin with. More often than not, when a phrase becomes cliché, it basically loses its meaning and becomes somewhat grating to listen to or read.

This is Tim Brewster, Minnesota Golden Gophers head coach, and public enemy #1 in using corny puns and clichés in his press conferences. So bad, I used a cliché to describe his status in this category.

One example that especially annoys me is "Give it 110%." Right off the bat, you, as a person, are the sum of what you are, and nothing more. Sorry if you feel special, but that's the grim reality of life. That being said, if you are demanding that everyone give more than 100%, and lets assume this is possible, then wouldn't the law of averages make "giving it 110%" average? It would. Furthermore, imagine if you went into the bathroom and filled your tub up with 110% of water, better yet, go try that out. Then have fun cleaning up the enormous mess you just made. It's really a nonsense statement, and ought to be avoided. The only time "110%" should ever be described in any way is when you are discussing interest on a loan, profits, degrees of angles and breast augmentations. That's it.

Another cliché I can't stand is "It's just like [insert noun], ON STEROIDS!" This one, in my experience, is probably the most annoying. Perhaps it's on account of my experience in the fitness industry, but nevertheless, it really is a ridiculous statement. Culturally, steroids are pretty widely regarded as a bad thing. So when you exclaim that your product, idea or concept is just like something else, only "on steroids," it denotes a positive connotation. Uh oh! Now we have a double standard. So if the idea of steroids is such a terrible thing, why would you compliment something by describing it as being on steroids? For example, if I described former Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis as, "He's just like John Riggins, on steroids!" The intention of the statement is positive, because I am indicating he is better than John Riggins. However, taken literally, I have indicated that Bettis is better than Riggins because he is on steroids. The meaning becomes debased and I have slandered Mr. Bettis. For the record, I am not indicating in any way whatsoever Bettis took anything other than other people's pride when he ran over them. Even when describing a product or concept, what are you really saying? A more effective way of saying the same thing is, "We took the concept of the cheeseburger, and made it better than it was before!" Now you have made a more poignant literal statement, and managed to sneak in a very subtle 6-Million Dollar Man reference.

Now these are just two clichés that I really dislike. There are many more just like them, and equally silly. The real danger in a cliché as a writer, is that if you are not careful, one really bad usage of a cliché or idiom can ruin your artistic effort, or in business setting, just make you seem disingenuous or uncreative. So be on the lookout for bad writing in the form of tired and worn out phrases.

This will probably end up being a series as I think of more items I can rant about. That being said, I am going to go give 100% on my thesis introduction in its third revision, and try to make it like the older one, only improved in key areas.

The Bleeding Gulf

Unless you have been living in a cave, or have had your blinders on, you are probably aware of the massive oil spill infecting the Gulf of Mexico.

This tragedy has effected me on a very deep, and personal level. I was born and raised on the Alabama Gulf Coast, and I am very proud of that. I started life in Bayou La Batre, before moving to Dauphin Island. My roots, and the very fabric of my existence run adrift in the peaceful Gulf. My grandfather was a fisherman, and my family made its living from shrimping, before switching to the business of operating offshore oilfield service vessels.

My experiences growing up almost entirely took place right on the water's edge. It was a charmed upbringing in many respects.

And then on April 20, 2010, a nightmare came to life. The DeepWater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded, and for over a month has been dumping millions of gallons of crude oil into my beloved Gulf.

From day-to-day, minute-to-minute, I cannot decide whether to be enraged, or to weep.

Every day is another message from the collective horses' asses of British Petroleum (BP) and Transocean trying to pass the blame. They assure us they are at least trying to do something to stop the hemorrhaging oil. In that time, I have awakened to a non-stop stream of images of a rotting and decrepit coastline. Wetlands are dying. Industries are dying. However, all I see are more and more images of my home being killed; slowly suffocating.

Honestly, I think I worry the most about Louisiana. When Hurricane Katrina struck in August of 2005, Louisiana was arguably the hardest hit. Interestingly, they did not take the worst of the wind gusts, but the storm surge did untold billions of dollars worth of damage. I'm sure if you're reading this, you feel like you have heard all of this before. The reason Katrina, as a Category 3 storm was able to cause damage where other storms failed, was because at the time it hit, the Louisiana wetlands had been depleted to their lowest level as long as anyone has been taking records. The wetlands are eroding and losing an amount of land approximately equal to a football field every single day.

Now you are probably wondering what the devastated wetlands have to do with this oil spill. Well it is simple, the oil is annihilating everything that is left. The marshes, the swamps; all of it. The wetlands are the only barrier protecting millions of people from catastrophe in the face of a natural disaster, and now the wetlands are being killed off, wholesale, by circumstances that were completely avoidable. An entire ecosystem, and even a culture that thrives along the wetlands are being ruined. And nobody is really doing anything about it.

Has BP really done everything they possibly can? I don't think so. The amount of money they have spent in the cleanup is hardly a drop in their financial bucket. Has Transocean done everything they could? Obviously not. I truly believe that they failed to do their due diligence on the job which caused this problem in the first place.

So who is doing anything? Apparently, nobody. Worse yet, the ones that are doing everything that they can do not have the resources to do remotely enough. The federal government has not been proactive about the situation. Some politicians have even defended BP and are trying to protect their liability.

So those of us from along the Coast are left out to dry. When the Exxon-Valdez tipped over, spilling an entire ship full of oil off of Alaska's coast, I thought it was the awakening everyone needed to realize that oil dependence was a dangerous gambit, and that strict regulation was required to make sure those mistakes were not repeated. Yet here we are again. I guess with enough lobbying dollars, you can get just about anything you want.

With Hurricane Season on the horizon, due to begin next month, we can only hope and pray that another major storm does not enter the Gulf. If it does? You just think New Orleans' Ninth Ward was bad after Katrina. Well, as much as I hate clichés, you ain't seen nothing yet. A hurricane in the Gulf this year could send all those billions and billions of barrels of crude onto land, and cause an amount of damage that a Hollywood movie could never portray. The number of peoples' deaths, livestock and pets, not to mention the amount of damage to local industries. If the oil slick keeps growing at its current rate, absolutely no parcel of land on the coast is safe from being drowned in oil if a hurricane hits. So just because you are reading this from Texas, Mississippi, Alabama or Florida does not mean you are in the clear.

I could go on all day and night about how bad this oil spill and all of it's implications are. If you are reading this, I urge you to write to your senators, write to your congressmen, do anything and everything you can. Even if you think it is pointless, do it anyway. Be proactive. Try to make a difference!

The Gulf Coast, it's inhabitants, the wildlife, the ecology... they are all at stake. We need you. Please help in any way you can.

As you can tell, I am very distressed over the whole issue. So here are some worthwhile articles you can read, from across the political spectrum to make up your own mind.

Required Reading:

BP Oil Spill, 7 Secrets BP doesn't want you to know (with Photos)

Why doesn't Obama 'take charge' of the oil spill?

Florida beaches being forced out of Top 10 lists (Christian Science Monitor)

Of Politics and Oil (Wall Street Journal)

There are many other articles and blogs you can read about the BP Oil Spill. I only hope that my two cents on this issue have sparked something inside of you. Anything, so that you go out and do anything you can to help in the recovery.

Gym etiquette: The final entry!

I had an ambitious plan to write a series of small articles highlighting behavior that you should avoid in a gym. I created one entry talking about how cell phones can ruin just about any fitness environment. After that, I thought of many more things that people should not do. The only problem is that none of them merited their own update, even if it would have kept a stream of activity. So I decided that I am just going to do a Top-4 of bad behaviors, and call it a day on gym etiquette. Without further ado, I give you 4 behaviors you should consciously avoid (not including cell phones obviously).

4. Standing in between people and the mirror: Some people probably think that staring into the mirror during an exercise is narcissistic, and many times it is just that. On the other hand, the majority of the time people use the mirror to watch themselves to make sure they are performing an exercise correctly so that they do not injure themselves, or more importantly, so they do not waste their time. So you want to know what's incredibly annoying? When you stand around blocking someone's view. Mentally, it can ruin someone else's rhythm and is discourteous. It's not the worst thing you can do, but it definitely rates as something you should avoid if possible.

3. Absurd rest periods. First of all, there is absolutely nothing wrong with resting for short periods of time during a workout. Where a problem occurs is when that rest period ends up becoming an endless chat session of people congregated around a single piece of equipment, occupying it indefinitely and then copping an attitude when someone asks to work in. If you want to take a 5 minute break in between your rigorous forearm workout in the squat rack (something else you should never do), oblige others by letting them take turns until you or them are finished. This is especially bad among high school kids and college underclassmen. Few things are worse than having 3 or 4 tools standing around the only bench press, and watching them never lift any weight while they talk and talk and talk and talk. This becomes exponentially worse if an attractive girl is anywhere nearby to disturb their brainwaves.

2. Dropping weights. I am referring to the jerk who just finished doing their twelfth set of curls, and to show off how awesome they think they are, throw the weight to the ground when they could have otherwise set it back gently. This really drives me crazy because there is no point to it, and it only ever succeeds in breaking dumbbells, snapping cables or bending barbells. Unless you are a serious powerlifter, bodybuilder or athlete, and have to consistently attempt enormous feats of strength, you really have no business dropping weights. Remember: If you can't control it, don't lift it.

1. Screaming during sets. Have you ever watched "My New Haircut" (warning: very NSFW) on YouTube? Well, fast forward to the 1:55 mark and watch him. Obviously, the video is satire, but people really do that. What I'm telling you, is never do that. It makes you look idiotic, and really upsets everyone around you. There are a few exceptions as to when it's okay to let out a yell or a grunt, but to make as much as noise as possible to create an illusion of effort? You deserve the worst.

This list is based on my observations of more than 10 years of being a gym rat, and more than half of that having worked as a personal trainer. Of course, this is purely my opinion. If you know of something worse than what I listed, or disagree with me, leave a comment. I am interested to see how others feel on this.

The latest holdups

"A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers - and this is the basis of all human morality." - JFK

So lately, I have been absent. Again.

Where have I been you ask? Well it's not a very long story, just an incredibly frustrating one.

I have been bogged down with thesis research and preparation, trying to gain approval to study the organizational structure of communications in a Division I football program. The school I am studying has been on board for about 8 months, yet I have not even started my research. The reason I cannot begin is because there are miles of red tape one must get through before being allowed to study something. I have to get cleared by the Institutional Review Board first. Then I have to orally defend my proposal in front of my research committee to earn clearance by department. Only none of this can occur until I finish an ungodly amount of edits and revisions on my work.

In the meantime, when I am not working on this beast, I have been job hunting. Now let me tell you how much fun I have trying to find work as a communications expert right now. According to some pie chart I saw in the Birmingham News while I was at Starbucks, only about 2.9% of all new hires among college graduates are in communications. Most of the new hires are people with a medical background, particularly nurses. So relative to a job, where does it leave me? Well, I'll be 27 in June, with exceptional experience in fitness club sales and customer service. However, I don't have the giant portfolio of communication work that many 22 year old undergraduates are graduating with. Not to mention, I'm only a master's candidate, and at the rate I am going with this nonsensical tap-dance of futility, it is yet to be determined if I ever finish. I know I'm good. I can be the best. Unfortunately, no matter how good you are, or think you are, you have to have something to validate it. I would be thrilled to have a chance to just earn any experience to prove my worth. I have even started applying jobs in the middle of nowhere, hoping for a bite.

Then in between these two daunting headaches, I decided to take one last class. I was never required to take it, but I did anyway. I am taking a basic design class to learn Adobe InDesign and Photoshop. It is actually a fun class. I enjoy it, and I have been sharpening up my skills. Plus, I get to at least have a tiny portfolio of one of my projects finally. So it will be one more bullet in the clip for me when I go into an interview. At least this is something I look forward to on a daily basis.

Oh, and my car is starting to get dementia, the car version of osteoporosis, or something in its old age. After 10 and a half years, it seems like everything on it is just taking turns tearing up and breaking. In 17 months, I have replaced the $730 heater core twice, and am about to be stuck replacing the $1300 AC compressor. At the very least, my gas guzzling Mustang GT is still pretty damn fast. It still has that going for it.

So isn't life just peachy? Man-oh-man. Maybe all this mess is my repayment for seeing my two favorite football teams win championships in the same year, and set a personal best on bench press (320-pounds, suck on that!).

It looks like collections have begun on whatever Faustian deal I failed to realize I entered.

On the plus side, I have an amazing girlfriend that puts up with me, my health, friends who care about me, the family and relatives that I continue to claim and big arms. These are the things that keep me sane.

Nevertheless, I do have some blog entries upcoming. I started writing my ideas down as they come up.

NFL Draft and Twitter: Who I'm following

If you use Twitter (and you can follow me @jhesfellerIV), you may be interested in following some people or organizations for some additional draft perspective, so here are a few I think are worth following, for various reasons.

Want some fantastic perspective from someone who plays the game, has a father who is an NFL executive for a very high profile team and is incredibly intelligent? Then you have to add Greg McElroy, Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback. He is pretty unbiased and will teach you a lot of neat little things and anecdotes along the way. Follow: GVMcElroy

If you want perspective and commentary from industry professionals: Brian McCarthy (@NFLPRguy), Bruce Feldman of ESPN (@BFeldmanESPN)

However, if you just want a comedic, hilarious perspective, my two favorites this year: LSUFreek, and Ole Miss defensive end Kentrell Lockett (@OleForty).

So that is who I'm following for the draft. Just thought I would pass that along.

NFL Draft, Day 2

So I have to eat some crow less than 24 hours later. I am willing to own up to when I am wrong. Especially with how wrong I was with the draft thoughts I published on here yesterday.

With that said, time to update how I feel.

• I still think the Tampa Bay Buccaneers should have taken Eric Berry. Either way, they still really needed a defensive tackle desperately so they answered a need and took, arguably, best player available depending on how you graded McCoy.
• So I was dead wrong about Oakland making a terrible pick. They truly surprised me by taking Alabama's middle linebacker Rolando McClain. They not only scooped up a legitimate Top 10 talent, it answers a major need with their recent switch to the 3-4 defense.
• Finally, I am actually happy with New Orleans' selection of Florida State's cornerback Patrick Robinson. He has great measurables, and is a veteran player for the now retired defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews, whose track record of producing great NFL talent is unquestionable. This is a very low risk, high upside pick for the Saints. I still wanted Jerry Hughes, but I guess the Colts just had to mess that up.

As for individual franchises...

• Denver, have you lost your collective minds? They began the night looking like geniuses by trading down repeatedly. I even remarked, "looks like they are going for the Bill Walsh method." And then what did they do? Take a wide receiver that "reminds them of Brandon Marshall," their franchise wide receiver they just traded to Miami, and drafted Tim Tebow in one of the biggest non-Oakland-related first round reaches of the past decade. I had a feeling Tebow would sneak into the first, but not that soon. So I hope head coach Josh McDaniel has a brilliant press release ready to go.
• Way to go San Francisco! You needed some offensive linemen, and hit a home run. Great picks with one of the top rated tackles and guards to lead off their draft. They had the best draft of the first round, to Denver's worst .

I really do not have a lot to say about Round 1. Honestly, it went really smoothly and there were not all that many big surprises other than Tim Tebow getting selected where he did. Other than Denver, I do not think you can rationally label any team with a first round selection a "loser" since all but one team probably helped themselves.

The NFL Draft continues with Rounds 2-4 tonight from Radio City Music Hall, with coverage beginning at 7:30 pm EST on NFL Network and ESPN.