The blog is back after some technical difficulties and some serious slacking, and so much has happened that it could take months to fully catch up. First off, my brother got married, which is awesome. Mostly because it was him and not me. That’s not the only reason it was awesome, but the most important. So happy for him. For both of us, really.

Seriously, though, it was a big deal our family. There are just two of us, my brother Tony and I. We are both in our early 30s now and my mother was threatening to go Kramer vs. Kramer on us if someone didn’t get his life in order, stop being STUPID, stop living like COLLEGE STUDENTS, and get married as the Lord had intended five to six years ago.

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Oscar De La Hoya retired this week, his dad on stage with him in Los Angeles as he made the announcement. He took months making the decision. It is tough, as he said, for the great ones to know when to quit. I suspect it is the same in other professions as it is for athletes. Architects. Supreme court judges. Columnists. A lot of us hold on a little too long*. The skills slip with age, at least for everyone who isn’t Clint Eastwood. We notice it most in sports, though, probably because we care so much and the end comes so quickly.

*Remind me sometime to do an entire blog about my hometown dentist, an aging man who died while still practicing. My family had to switch dentists, obviously, and on the first visit, the new guy said I had 10 cavities that needed to be filled. It might have been 12. I can’t remember. It was not a fun two weeks. Point being, Willie Mays wasn’t the only one who hung on to long. It’s hard for all of us to move on from what we love and what we know.

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