Taking a Pie in the Face for Prostate Cancer

Some of you may recall my post in the aftermath of the great hashtag battle of 'ought-10. In it, I said I would donate my estimated contribution of $100 had I attended the battle to a charity. I even hinted that a donation to prostate cancer research might be in line given that Movember was coming up.

Well, it's happening. Today, in fact.

My workplace today held a bake sale and as part of it, you could by a pie and deliver it to someone. Sounds nice, right? Until you hear the next part.

That person then had the choice of either doubling what was previously paid and sending it to someone else or taking that pie right in the face. There was no "eat it" option.

I had gone home for lunch today rather than eating at the office. I thought an unintended benefit would be avoiding a presence which could lead to me taking a pie in the face. As I arrived back at work after a long lunch, I headed up to my office and was greeted with an option of paying $80 for a pie or taking it in the face.

Since I had just finished lunch I didn't really like the thought of more food near my face. So I sent it right back to the person who sent it to me, thinking there's no way they would pay $160 for a pie. Turns out, I was wrong.

She sent it right back to me and since there's no way I'm paying $320 for a pie - even for a good cause - I decided that I'll take it in the face.

I have no idea when it's going down but I promise to share pictures when it's done. And though $80 is less than $100, I think the karma of taking a pie in the face while doing so balances out.

Call it even?

A time to admit the obvious

I suppose while the Avalanche are playing like crap, it's not a bad time to distract ourselves with some fun and excitement. Enter the Avalanche blog-off at The NHL Arena.

I received an email this evening letting me know that I was among the folks in the running to be declared the official Avalanche blog and the first thought that came to my head was "Who would vote for me?"

My immediate thought right after that was "Damn, that's a harsh realization." Granted it isn't out of line with my thoughts on my blogging performance of late, but it was still a bit of a slap in the face. And when you deliver a slap in the face to yourself, it hurts all the more.

I'm going to come clean on a few things here in what became a bit of a manifesto. It began as I drove home tonight from a bar where I was trying to forget about the Avs blowing a 2-0 lead. It wasn't the greatest plan since I don't drink anymore but the important part is that I tried, right?

First, as some of the long-time readers may remember, I struggled with health issues over the last couple years which were bad enough to cause me to cancel a trip to Denver. I still remember the day I decided to call off the trip. It was a gut-wrenching decision and one that I still question to this day.

While I'm well on the road to recovery and have figured out the cause - no thanks to any of my "doctors" - there are still lingering issues I'm battling with, most notably fatigue and head clarity.

Second, I work hard and take my job very seriously. I don't consider myself a workaholic any more but I exhaust a lot of energy at the office, energy that I sometimes don't have thanks to the aforementioned health issues.

Given that I hadn't taken a vacation completely away from work in years, you've got the recipes for a case of burnout. And the best part about my personality is that I'm stubborn as hell and proud as hell so I didn't want to admit to myself that I'd had enough until it was too late.

And so we arrive to this post where I'm admitting the obvious - for the past three months my heart just hasn't been in it. When I say "it", I'm referring to life on a whole but more specifically to blogging.

It started to feel like a job with a standard script: write a preview, write a recap, be snarky yet insightful, call out bad reporting, forget to praise good reporting, rinse, lather, repeat.

I sat by as new blogs popped up and other blogs expanded in coverage. And it was hard to see that all happening while my blog slid downhill. I felt a little bit like Fat Bastard. I was unhappy because I wasn't blogging, and I wasn't blogging because I was unhappy.

In fact, on more than one occasion I toyed with the idea of simply shutting it down. I didn't feel it fair to myself or to the Avalanche fan base to be putting in a half-baked effort. You all deserve the best coverage and commentary possible and I wasn't contributing to it.

Of course, that's an extreme measure and one I don't want to take. I enjoy writing, I love the Avalanche and it just makes sense to combine the two. That I've gotten a lot of recognition for my work has been rewarding as well. I'm not an attention-whore by any means but being involved in things like a CBC live-chat provide a large source of personal pride which everybody needs to have.

I'd love to end this post with a simple statement of "I'm back!" but I'm just not there yet. I've gone through a lot of moments where I felt I was back to 100% only to realize I was kidding myself, my friends and my fans.

But I am coming back. I'm nothing if not competitive and I feel the fire building up again. I won't declare the flame lit until I'm confident I can back it up though. I will continue to write and the level will improve, but it won't be the extensive coverage and commentary I used to churn out on a daily basis.

I'll end this by saying thanks to everyone who reads this blog with an extra special thanks to the ones who take the time to brave Blogger's arcane commenting system to add additional insight to it. And if you didn't want to brave it and ended up firing me an email, it's gold stars for you too.

In the meantime, you can't go wrong with any Avalanche blog out there and you really should be reading them all and not limiting yourself to one or two.

Coming back soon...

The trip to Denver had to be cancelled due to illness (thank you travel insurance) but the blog will be starting back up soon. I'm still watching the games but not with enough energy left to expend in putting up my lengthy posts once the game is done.

Stay tuned and you'll be subject to my "triple R's" soon enough (ramblings, rantings and ravings)...