Its complicated, really.
It has been five years since I was able to say Happy Mother's Day to my Mom. I was fortunate, really, in that I spent the last one of her life with her. We spent most of the evening arguing about religion and about her decision to leave her fourth husband, move down the street (literally) from him, but not divorce him because she didn't want to live with the associated stigma.
Like I said, complicated.
Two months later, she was dead. She'd been sick for a long time, but no matter how well prepared she was for death, it still hit me hard. I remember everything very vividly after I got the call from my step-father, telling me she was in the hospital, but not why. Hell, he couldn't even tell me what hospital she was in. I drove home from a business dinner with two cell phones going, getting my wife working the phones to find my Mom, calling my Dad, calling my step-father, my wife finally finding her so I called her room, only to talk to her priest, chain smoking one Marlboro Light 100 after another as I drove as fast as I could, knowing, that there was nothing I could do except wait until the next day to get on the first plane we could find.
Mostly though I remember the moment I knew she was going to die. They had given her morphine, you see, for the pain. But she had a chronic liver disease called Primary Biliary Cirrhosis that meant she couldn't process toxins from her body at all, and that morphine was most certainly going to kill her. The look on my wife's face when I finally understood said it all; she'd put it together, but had let me process it for myself.
I remember seeing her in the ICU; fighting blindly against the restraints that held her, probably fighting to be able to die, to have them stop treating her, pumping her full of medicine, actually. But for a very brief moment I was able to get her to hear my voice. She opened one green eye and saw me, just for a moment. A few tears trickled down her cheek. Then she closed her eye again and continued to fight until her final breath left her body.
My Mom always wanted me to write the story of her life. She thought that I had the ability to do it, and she thought that it would make one hell of a story. She said this with a certain mixture of pride and of wistfulness, which I don't think I will ever fully understand. And what I think maybe she didn't get was that I'd tell it from my point of view, from my memories, which more often than not were very very different than hers.
My Mother was Codependent. I know this because when she gave me the wedding ring that my Dad had given her so that I could propose to my then girlfriend and then subsequently made my Dad and Stepfather Number 1 call me to tell me that she couldn't give it up and I had to give it back and I immediately cut off all ties to all of them she had a shrink send me a letter telling me of her diagnosis. If you don't know what codependency is, here's a brief synopsis. Codependent people have an unnatural and unhealthy need for external approval of others. They will do almost anything to obtain that approval and will do so without thought of the consequences to themselves. They are often involved in intense and unstable relationships. Exhibit A: my Mom, married four times.
I think back on it now, and I wish that I could have helped her more with her Codependency. The problem was that she was so forceful, so insistent, so damn stubborn and, hell, she was my Mother. All I could do was to try to fight back when she tried to drag me into her condition. After we reunited, largely because of her terminal condition, I could really only be around her for about 2 days before I needed to leave. My poor wife took up the slack a lot and kept us from killing one another during our visits.
The hell of it is that her codependency made me the love of her life, maybe more so than the "typical" love that a mother would have for her son. I was her best friend, her confidant. Her memories of me were almost exclusively joyous and adoring. And yet they all seemed to be of a time that I could not remember, for reasons I shant go into in this particular rumination, before I was five. And the memories that she had after five that I could remember just never really jived with my own.
One thing that I will never ever question is that my Mom loved me. And I loved her. She was my Mom. We just didn't get along all that well.
There was a childlike innocence to her that contrasted sharply with a dogged determination and stubbornness that I see in myself from time to time. There was a twinkle in her eye and a glow to her cheeks more often than not. She had so much happiness in a life that by all rights really should not have made her all that happy.
I used to be able to put the phone down, go and take a leak, stop in the kitchen, pop open a beer, grab a smoke and light it, then pick the phone back up to hear her talking away, completely oblivious to the fact that I'd been gone for 3-4 minutes. Sadly, I did this more than once. She talked a lot, what can I say?
And I will never hear her voice again. I would give anything to be able to, even if after 45 minutes I had to walk away for a few to gather myself. That's what I've taken away from this day, and from the time that I've taken to write this post.
Having started this, I think maybe I will try to write her story after all. But the reality is that it will be my story, with my Mom as the central character. I guess the best that I can do if I do write it is try to do it with her voice, a glint in my eye, and a damned stubbornness that'll keep me up all hours of the night to get it right.
Cause, really, its complicated.
Monday, May 11, 2015
Thursday, February 26, 2015
On deciding that enough is enough and buckling down to create a Digital Media Server- One Man's Journey
The tactile sensation of opening a new Record, or Cassette in my formative years or eventually a CD, popping it into a player and reading the liner has always held a tremendous pleasure for me. But I find more and more that I just don't do it any longer. Its easier to go on iTunes for the latest song or two that I want and we go out to Netflix or Amazon Prime or OnDemand for movies. I've maintained a sizable collection of CDs (500+) and DVDs (100+) for years now and they mostly take up space and gather dust. Some of the CDs are in my iTunes library, but if we want to watch a DVD we have go all the way into the office, find the DVD we want, go and put in the player, pray that the DVD makes it back in to its case and goes back in to the office again (with my wife, this is a 50/50 proposition at best), and let it sit until we want it again. Rough life, no?
I've kept these collections intact because of the simple pleasure of having them for years now. But as I look at my life, where its going, and some changes that I'd like to make in the next couple of years, reducing Stuff is towards the top of my list.
That's not to say that I'm willing to just toss everything. Its just time to go digital with my collection. I free up space, I make my collections on demand, and hopefully I can actually make a little cash in the process.
My criteria was fairly simple. I wanted to be able to stream my DVDs and CDs from a PC onto my Sharp LED 70" Flat Screen. I further wanted to be able to copy movies from my collection onto our iPads and my Windows Surface Tablet That Has Replaced My PC as desired for plane rides and other situations where we were offline (honestly, it was the latter that really proved to be the catalyst for this little project- we were heading to Florida and I wanted some entertainment to pass the red eye flight). And as an added bonus, I wanted to figure out how to stream to the master and guest bedroom TVs.
What I discovered is that my criteria is fairly simply met with additional capabilities that I hadn't anticipated. Here's what I learned during my journey through 100 DVDs.
This kind of goes without saying, but you'll need a PC for this project. Mine is an older HP- AMD Dual Core Processor, 4GB RAM, 500 GB Hard Drive- and I'm doing just fine so far with running the requisite application and copying the data over.
Its going to be best if the PC you use is dedicated or at least partially dedicated to its new life as a media server. This is also true when doing the copying- it is a resource intensive exercise and if you're streaming YouTube simultaneously with running half a dozen spreadsheets and Photoshop you're in for a crash methinks.
Count on about 1GB per DVD, 3-5GB per Blu-Ray. CDs will generally go about 500-750MB a pop. So in other words, for my entire library I'm probably going to end up being in the 750GB range give or take. That's a lot of dedicated space. Nowadays hard drives are bigger and bigger, so this is less of a problem than it once was, but just understand that all those files have to go somewhere...
Right now I have the DVDs going to my local hard drive while my iTunes sits on an external 500GB hard drive. I'll probably keep this configuration for a bit and see how it goes- I'm a bit concerned with latency with iTunes, but it may not be as much of a problem with music as it would be with movies.
There are three key functions that you need software to help you with:
The UI is fairly intuitive; within a few minutes after installation I was scanning my first DVD and copying it over. 15 minutes later it was done!
At which point I found that Handbrake had copied exactly nothing.
Looking through the logs, I found the following error: Device E:\ inaccessible, CSS authentication not available.
Back to Google we go, where I found out about the second function that you need software for:
The article is actually a bit outdated as the software that they recommend, XBMC is called Kodi now. But the remainder is actually, well, awesome. In short, you can add a DLL to from Kodi to Handbrake and POOF! Handbrake will decrypt DVDs. Sounds difficult? It isn't. If you can use the Search, Copy, and Paste functions in Windows Explorer, you can add that DLL.
How To Geek does a great job of explaining the process on how to do this, so I'm not going to recreate it here. But, here is the updated URL to go to to download Kodi:
https://kodi.tv/
And here is an updated screenshot showing you where the DLL is:
Bottom line is by following the instructions you'll be able to get Handbrake to serve as an all in one application that decrypts and transcodes the DVDs into a more digestible format.
My second attempt at copying a disk with Handbrake was immediately successful. It pulled right up in Windows Media Player and I was watching it right on my desktop. Now to get it to other devices, which leads us to...
After some digging, I came across Plex. My initial criteria to copy movies to the iPads and Surface had been satisfied just by transferring the content to my PC- from there, its basically drag and drop to networked/connected devices. In order to get my movies onto the other non smart TVs in my house though, I needed another solution. Plex is the answer, combined with Chromestick. Let's start with Plex.
For the PC, Plex is freeware. You download it, point it to the paths where your content resides, and create an account for authentication. Plex then reads the data in the specified paths, and populates it UI with content in a matter of minutes:
Once its setup, you can then download the Plex App for your iPads, iPhones, and and Android devices. For the Apple products, the App is $4.99, well worth it in my opinion. You now have a similar interface on you devices, you can stream your music and movies to your devices, and you can pause a movie on one device and pick it up right where you left off on another. Slick, huh?
The Chromestick works similarly, using the Plex App and aforementioned authentication you setup, you can now stream to "dumb" TVs provided they have an open HDMI port (I think I've read that you can get an HDMI to USB adaptor, but I didn't need it). Same deal- watch a movie on your dumb TV, pause it, fire it right back up on your iPhone.
I'm also using Plex on my Smart TV now. While it picked up the DLNA server that I'd turned my PC into, I find that Plex is more responsive and that streaming is more seamless with it.
Take a Blu-Ray movie and place it in a DVD player. What happens? Chances are very good that it spins and spins, but no movie ever appears on your screen.
It's the same with PCs. Unless you have a Blu-Ray drive in your PC, you won't be able to copy Blu-Ray movies to your digital library. Since you're in the process of migrating your library to your PC, it may not make a lot of sense to buy a new drive just for this purpose, but I'll let you make that call. For me, my Blu-Ray collection is currently out of scope until I can find someone with a drive they're letting go for uber-cheap or that they will let me borrow; thankfully I only have about 20 titles so I'm not too worried about it.
Plan on each title taking anywhere from 30-120 minutes to complete; an hour on average is probably a good guide.
But that's just for the movie.
If you want all the special features on the disk or on additional disks, you need to load them separately. This could greatly increase the amount of time you need for your project. For me, I've never seen a special feature that I couldn't live without so I omitted them entirely.
Knowing this, I decided to see what would happen if I wanted to load up the 8 seasons of Entourage I have lying around.
Sure enough, one 30 minute episode took about 50 minutes to copy over. Kind of a pain, no?
Not to fear Special Feature or TV aficionados. Handbrake offers a Queue feature. This allows you to select multiple items off of a disk, (and indeed presumably multiple disks), click start, and let 'er rip. Much more efficient way to move multiple files from a single disk. In order for this to work, you have to allow Handbrake to Auto Name the files copied and set a default directory to copy to. Handbrake will tell you this and point you to Preferences to make the change; I actually found the appropriate settings at Tools->Options.
When I was looking at the files in Windows Explorer, I notices that a couple of the titles had generic "AV File" icons instead of the traditional icon showing a snippet of the movie. When I tried to play these titles from Windows Explorer via Windows Media Player, I received errors; same with Plex. I ended up having to rerun those titles through Handbrake. Second time was a charm- could be any number of things that caused them to fail. 2 titles out of 114 was an acceptable fail rate to me.
Are there other solutions? You bet. But I've been very happy with the applications that I chose for this project and definitely recommend them to anyone looking to go digital.
I've copied 114 DVDs so far which I put on Craigslist yesterday for $114. I got an offer this morning of $100, which I will likely accept.
So I'm in $4.99 for Plex, $29.99 for a Chromestick so far. I have two dumb TVs but for now I am content moving the stick from TV to TV if I need to. So call it 40 bucks with tax and whatnot. If I clear $100 on the DVDs I'll have made $60 on this project, cleared space, got rid of Stuff, and created an OnDemand environment in my house. As a Project Manager, it doesn't get any better than that ROI!
I bought a bourgeois house in the Hollywood hills
With a truckload of hundred thousand dollar bills
Man came by to hook up my cable TV
We settled in for the night my baby and me
We switched 'round and 'round 'til half-past dawn
There was fifty-seven channels and nothin' on
Fifty-seven channels and nothin' on
Fifty-seven channels and nothin' on
Well now home entertainment was my baby's wish
So I hopped into town for a satellite dish
I tied it to the top of my Japanese car
I came home and I pointed it out into the stars
A message came back from the great beyond
There's fifty-seven channels and nothin' on
Fifty-seven channels and nothin' on
Fifty-seven channels and nothin' on
-Bruce Springsteen, 57 Channels (And Nothin' On)
The Boss wrote 57 Channels for the Human Touch album, released in 1992. Really, I think you just add a 0 to that number and you have an accurate reflection of the Cable situation in my house these days. With my own On Demand collection now though I have one more option to choose from when I tire of Big Bang Theory reruns on four different channels.
One last note- my record collection, which ironically takes up the same amount of space as the DVDs and CDs combined, ain't going anywhere. We'll get into the great debate of digitizing vinyl some other day, but for now suffice it to say that in my opinion there's just no substitute for hot stax of wax for the true audiophile and it satisfies my need to get hands on with my music.
I've kept these collections intact because of the simple pleasure of having them for years now. But as I look at my life, where its going, and some changes that I'd like to make in the next couple of years, reducing Stuff is towards the top of my list.
That's not to say that I'm willing to just toss everything. Its just time to go digital with my collection. I free up space, I make my collections on demand, and hopefully I can actually make a little cash in the process.
My criteria was fairly simple. I wanted to be able to stream my DVDs and CDs from a PC onto my Sharp LED 70" Flat Screen. I further wanted to be able to copy movies from my collection onto our iPads and my Windows Surface Tablet That Has Replaced My PC as desired for plane rides and other situations where we were offline (honestly, it was the latter that really proved to be the catalyst for this little project- we were heading to Florida and I wanted some entertainment to pass the red eye flight). And as an added bonus, I wanted to figure out how to stream to the master and guest bedroom TVs.
What I discovered is that my criteria is fairly simply met with additional capabilities that I hadn't anticipated. Here's what I learned during my journey through 100 DVDs.
You'll need a PC
This kind of goes without saying, but you'll need a PC for this project. Mine is an older HP- AMD Dual Core Processor, 4GB RAM, 500 GB Hard Drive- and I'm doing just fine so far with running the requisite application and copying the data over.
Its going to be best if the PC you use is dedicated or at least partially dedicated to its new life as a media server. This is also true when doing the copying- it is a resource intensive exercise and if you're streaming YouTube simultaneously with running half a dozen spreadsheets and Photoshop you're in for a crash methinks.
You'll need a lot of Hard Drive space
Count on about 1GB per DVD, 3-5GB per Blu-Ray. CDs will generally go about 500-750MB a pop. So in other words, for my entire library I'm probably going to end up being in the 750GB range give or take. That's a lot of dedicated space. Nowadays hard drives are bigger and bigger, so this is less of a problem than it once was, but just understand that all those files have to go somewhere...
Right now I have the DVDs going to my local hard drive while my iTunes sits on an external 500GB hard drive. I'll probably keep this configuration for a bit and see how it goes- I'm a bit concerned with latency with iTunes, but it may not be as much of a problem with music as it would be with movies.
You'll need some software
There are three key functions that you need software to help you with:
1. Transcoding the disk
You need to convert the DVD format into a more universal format for streaming- usually MP4 or M4V. For Transcoding, after a few clicks on Google, I quickly settled on Handbrake. Its freeware, which for me was an added bonus. |
| Handbrake is intuitive and the default options are pretty much good to go out of the box |
The UI is fairly intuitive; within a few minutes after installation I was scanning my first DVD and copying it over. 15 minutes later it was done!
At which point I found that Handbrake had copied exactly nothing.
Looking through the logs, I found the following error: Device E:\ inaccessible, CSS authentication not available.
 |
| After all the anticipation, a single line in a log spelled doom for my first copy |
Back to Google we go, where I found out about the second function that you need software for:
2. Decrypting the disk
Most DVDs are protected. You need to decrypt the DVD in order for it to be transferred. There are a number of applications out there that do this for you, most in the $50 range. At this point I was ready to reconsider this project as I was looking to keep it as inexpensive as possible. Then I found this article: http://www.howtogeek.com/102886/how-to-decrypt-dvds-with-hardbrake-so-you-can-rip-them/The article is actually a bit outdated as the software that they recommend, XBMC is called Kodi now. But the remainder is actually, well, awesome. In short, you can add a DLL to from Kodi to Handbrake and POOF! Handbrake will decrypt DVDs. Sounds difficult? It isn't. If you can use the Search, Copy, and Paste functions in Windows Explorer, you can add that DLL.
How To Geek does a great job of explaining the process on how to do this, so I'm not going to recreate it here. But, here is the updated URL to go to to download Kodi:
https://kodi.tv/
And here is an updated screenshot showing you where the DLL is:
 |
| Updated screenshot of Kodi |
Bottom line is by following the instructions you'll be able to get Handbrake to serve as an all in one application that decrypts and transcodes the DVDs into a more digestible format.
My second attempt at copying a disk with Handbrake was immediately successful. It pulled right up in Windows Media Player and I was watching it right on my desktop. Now to get it to other devices, which leads us to...
3. Streaming the media
For most devices you need a media server to organize and present your content for viewing/playing That said, you can turn your PC into a media server and stream to compatible devices; my TV will actually pick up my PC as a media server and would play home movies, etc from the paths that I specified. But that only served to stream to one device. I wanted something that I could stream to others. Back to Google, Robin!After some digging, I came across Plex. My initial criteria to copy movies to the iPads and Surface had been satisfied just by transferring the content to my PC- from there, its basically drag and drop to networked/connected devices. In order to get my movies onto the other non smart TVs in my house though, I needed another solution. Plex is the answer, combined with Chromestick. Let's start with Plex.
For the PC, Plex is freeware. You download it, point it to the paths where your content resides, and create an account for authentication. Plex then reads the data in the specified paths, and populates it UI with content in a matter of minutes:
 |
| Plex even adds metadata to give you cool icons for most of your titles. The UI is intuitive and looks great |
The Chromestick works similarly, using the Plex App and aforementioned authentication you setup, you can now stream to "dumb" TVs provided they have an open HDMI port (I think I've read that you can get an HDMI to USB adaptor, but I didn't need it). Same deal- watch a movie on your dumb TV, pause it, fire it right back up on your iPhone.
I'm also using Plex on my Smart TV now. While it picked up the DLNA server that I'd turned my PC into, I find that Plex is more responsive and that streaming is more seamless with it.
Your Blu-Ray movies might be out of scope
Take a Blu-Ray movie and place it in a DVD player. What happens? Chances are very good that it spins and spins, but no movie ever appears on your screen.
It's the same with PCs. Unless you have a Blu-Ray drive in your PC, you won't be able to copy Blu-Ray movies to your digital library. Since you're in the process of migrating your library to your PC, it may not make a lot of sense to buy a new drive just for this purpose, but I'll let you make that call. For me, my Blu-Ray collection is currently out of scope until I can find someone with a drive they're letting go for uber-cheap or that they will let me borrow; thankfully I only have about 20 titles so I'm not too worried about it.
You'll need patience
Plan on each title taking anywhere from 30-120 minutes to complete; an hour on average is probably a good guide.
But that's just for the movie.
If you want all the special features on the disk or on additional disks, you need to load them separately. This could greatly increase the amount of time you need for your project. For me, I've never seen a special feature that I couldn't live without so I omitted them entirely.
Knowing this, I decided to see what would happen if I wanted to load up the 8 seasons of Entourage I have lying around.
Sure enough, one 30 minute episode took about 50 minutes to copy over. Kind of a pain, no?
Not to fear Special Feature or TV aficionados. Handbrake offers a Queue feature. This allows you to select multiple items off of a disk, (and indeed presumably multiple disks), click start, and let 'er rip. Much more efficient way to move multiple files from a single disk. In order for this to work, you have to allow Handbrake to Auto Name the files copied and set a default directory to copy to. Handbrake will tell you this and point you to Preferences to make the change; I actually found the appropriate settings at Tools->Options.
 |
| With the Queue option in Handbrake, I can load multiple episodes with one job; this also works to load Special Features |
You'll need to check your work periodically
When I was looking at the files in Windows Explorer, I notices that a couple of the titles had generic "AV File" icons instead of the traditional icon showing a snippet of the movie. When I tried to play these titles from Windows Explorer via Windows Media Player, I received errors; same with Plex. I ended up having to rerun those titles through Handbrake. Second time was a charm- could be any number of things that caused them to fail. 2 titles out of 114 was an acceptable fail rate to me.
 |
| See how one of the Star Trek and The Princess Bride files have different icons? These threw errors when played |
Epilogue
With some elbow grease, patience, and perseverance, you can setup your home as a digital empire the envy of all the neighbors. I haven't found an all in one guide anywhere; hopefully this will serve as getting the Internet one step closer to that.Are there other solutions? You bet. But I've been very happy with the applications that I chose for this project and definitely recommend them to anyone looking to go digital.
I've copied 114 DVDs so far which I put on Craigslist yesterday for $114. I got an offer this morning of $100, which I will likely accept.
So I'm in $4.99 for Plex, $29.99 for a Chromestick so far. I have two dumb TVs but for now I am content moving the stick from TV to TV if I need to. So call it 40 bucks with tax and whatnot. If I clear $100 on the DVDs I'll have made $60 on this project, cleared space, got rid of Stuff, and created an OnDemand environment in my house. As a Project Manager, it doesn't get any better than that ROI!
I bought a bourgeois house in the Hollywood hills
With a truckload of hundred thousand dollar bills
Man came by to hook up my cable TV
We settled in for the night my baby and me
We switched 'round and 'round 'til half-past dawn
There was fifty-seven channels and nothin' on
Fifty-seven channels and nothin' on
Fifty-seven channels and nothin' on
Well now home entertainment was my baby's wish
So I hopped into town for a satellite dish
I tied it to the top of my Japanese car
I came home and I pointed it out into the stars
A message came back from the great beyond
There's fifty-seven channels and nothin' on
Fifty-seven channels and nothin' on
Fifty-seven channels and nothin' on
-Bruce Springsteen, 57 Channels (And Nothin' On)
The Boss wrote 57 Channels for the Human Touch album, released in 1992. Really, I think you just add a 0 to that number and you have an accurate reflection of the Cable situation in my house these days. With my own On Demand collection now though I have one more option to choose from when I tire of Big Bang Theory reruns on four different channels.
Monday, January 12, 2015
On Being a Broncos Fan
I woke up this morning with a bit of a heavy heart as I do on a few Mondays every winter. There's an emptiness, a feeling of being unfulfilled in the air; I know from experience that it will dissipate, but it will take a little while.
You see, I am a Denver Broncos fan.
I go to my closet to get dressed. Inside, along side the rest of my clothes, I see three Tshirts, two jerseys, one polo shirt, and three hats- all adorned with that glorious logo, that white stallion that is so prominent back home in Denver. Its a significant part of my wardrobe and it spawns the same question quite often:
"Broncos fan, huh?" A few years ago this was always followed by, "Are you a Tebow fan?", thank goodness that's over! I always respond in the affirmative, the gusto varying depending on how the team is doing. I wear these colors with pride, even when things go wrong.
You see, being a Denver Broncos fan often means that you are left with a broken heart.
I'm 40 this year, and I've followed the Broncos for as long as I can remember. It started on a little black and white TV in the kitchen with my Dad. He'd putz around the house, walk up to the TV, stare at it for a few minutes, shake his head, mutter something unintelligible, and then walk away for awhile. These days, Dad doesn't even watch, just waits for the highlights in the aftermath. He has high blood pressure, and he knows that they'll get him all riled up if he let's them. What I remember most from those early days of watching the team was wondering why they kept running it up the middle. I was too young to understand that that was Dan Reeves' M.O. Winder up the middle for 2, Winder up the middle for 3, Winder up the middle for 2, punt.
Then Elway came to town
He looked like a gunfighter, straight out of the Wild West, walking with a swagger and hurling the football like a bullet from a gun. He owned that town from the moment he rolled in, and to say that John and Janet Elway were the Charles and Di of Denver is by no means an exaggeration. "I love Elway", sung to the tune of "I Love L.A.", was on the radio constantly back then.
The Three Amigos- Jackson, Johnson and Nattiel followed a few years later. Mecklenberg and Atwater and Rulon Jones and Dennis Smith and the bare footed kicker Karlis and my favorite player of all Steve Watson rounded out a roster that was on my bedroom wall each and every year. This was my team.
The Drive was something that I will never forget for a million different reasons, not the least of which was that Dad didn't move from the TV. Yesterday was the 28th anniversary of The Drive, and did I hope just a bit that a little of that magic would find its way to present day? I'd be lying if I said I didn't. I was hooked.
It all came falling back to earth in with the Super Bowl losses in 87, 88, and 1990. We'd get oh so close and then just watch the wheels fall off. We'd walk away stunned, in disbelief, and in shock. Those Monday mornings were rough, I tell ya. Our hearts were broken, but our spirits would never be.
Then came the 90's. Reeves' was sent packing. Wade Phillips came and went. Shanahan and Elway reunited at last! TD came rushing into town and didn't stop until he hit 2000. Atwater absolutely blew up Okoye. Zone blocking became a smash with Zim leading the way. Shannon Sharpe's mouth wrote checks that his play easily cashed. Eddy Mac and Rod seemingly caught every pass that came their way. Treadwell proved to be more than an adequate replacement at kicker. Oh, we were a force to be reckoned with. Yes, there were the moments to be forgotten- Jacksonville broke our hearts- but then it all came together. I still get chills and teary eyed when I think of Elway leaping over the Packer defenders, sacrificing himself for his team and ultimately for his legacy, spinning like a helicopter after being hit in midair, and falling for the first down. He popped back up with a look that said, bring it! And they did. There were no broken hearts for Broncos fans for the 97 and 98 season, I assure you of that.
All things must end of course, and soon enough Elway rode out of the stadium if not the town. He cried at his retirement announcement, and so did my wife and I. We were left with Brian Griese and hope- hey, at least it wasn't Tommy Maddox! The heir apparent was found to be lacking , and Jake Plummer came to town, and seemed destined to restore us to glory. We destroyed the New England Patriots! On a sunny Sunday in January though it all came crashing down at the hands of the Steelers. There is nothing worse for a brokenhearted Broncos fan than to watch them lose an AFC championship game to Pittsburgh in what turns out to be a Steelers bar in the middle of Orlando, no matter how many $1.00 Miller Lites are consumed (and there were many). Jake The Snake was cast aside for Jay Cutler. Brandon Marshall was drafted. Jay was diagnosed with diabetes. Now that that's under control, we'll be fine!
Shanahan's era came to an end. Josh McDaniels took the reins and promptly went about trading the entire offense to the Chicago Bears and putting all of his chips on something named Tim Tebow. Tebowmania, for better or worse, swept the town and indeed the nation. I screamed, "throw the f*(king ball, Tim!" more than I ever had before and (God I hope) ever will again in my life. Then, what's this? A spark? An 80 yard strike in OT to beat the Steelers in the playoffs! Maybe Tebow was the real deal? Reality struck the following week.
Then Elway came back!
I like to believe that McDaniels' feet never hit the ground, that John picked him up by the neck and threw him out of Dove Valley. I like to think that he struggled not to chuckle just a bit when Tebow pled for another shot before being rode out of town for Kyle Orton. And I like to hope that Elway knew all along that returning was his destiny.
Manning chose us! He could have gone anywhere, and he chose us! The Thomases came to town, Decker came and went, Sanders took his place. Talib and Ware and Pot Roast were added to actually give us a defense. Records were shattered. We were a force to be reckoned with once again. Yet I knew deep down the second that Ray Lewis announced he was retiring that 2012 wasn't going to be our year. And yes, I knew the millisecond the ball sailed over Peyton's head that the next four hours of my life to end the 2013 season were going to be terrible. Both years brought heartbreak and heartache.
After 35 years of active Broncomania, being United In Orange, wearing predominately orange jerseys, naming fantasy football teams the Orange Crush, using 7 as a lucky number, and slowly, steadily getting my wife to not only care about football, but love the Broncos as well, I've developed a bit of a sixth sense around the team. I don't usually have a feeling about when they will win, but I do seem to know the games that they will lose (the Rams notwithstanding; anyone that says they saw that coming is a filthy liar). I tried all last week to talk myself out of that feeling, but deep down I knew. 2014 was not our year either.
I feel for the Cubs of the world, the Red Sox of yesteryear, the Jaguars, the Timberwolves and Twins here locally, but not the Raiders. Never the Raiders. No self serving Broncos fan will ever feel anything but contempt and hatred of the Raiders. I don't however try to equate our torment with what they must feel. We've had more than our share of success, and we win far more than we lose. But those losses go deep. They twist your soul, they nag at you, they burn and burn and burn. But we get up. We dust ourselves off. We believe in John. We grab our cap on our way out the door. And we wait for next year and whatever it may bring us.
For you see, we are Broncos fans.
You see, I am a Denver Broncos fan.
I go to my closet to get dressed. Inside, along side the rest of my clothes, I see three Tshirts, two jerseys, one polo shirt, and three hats- all adorned with that glorious logo, that white stallion that is so prominent back home in Denver. Its a significant part of my wardrobe and it spawns the same question quite often:
"Broncos fan, huh?" A few years ago this was always followed by, "Are you a Tebow fan?", thank goodness that's over! I always respond in the affirmative, the gusto varying depending on how the team is doing. I wear these colors with pride, even when things go wrong.
Washed and ready for next year
You see, being a Denver Broncos fan often means that you are left with a broken heart.
I'm 40 this year, and I've followed the Broncos for as long as I can remember. It started on a little black and white TV in the kitchen with my Dad. He'd putz around the house, walk up to the TV, stare at it for a few minutes, shake his head, mutter something unintelligible, and then walk away for awhile. These days, Dad doesn't even watch, just waits for the highlights in the aftermath. He has high blood pressure, and he knows that they'll get him all riled up if he let's them. What I remember most from those early days of watching the team was wondering why they kept running it up the middle. I was too young to understand that that was Dan Reeves' M.O. Winder up the middle for 2, Winder up the middle for 3, Winder up the middle for 2, punt.
Then Elway came to town
He looked like a gunfighter, straight out of the Wild West, walking with a swagger and hurling the football like a bullet from a gun. He owned that town from the moment he rolled in, and to say that John and Janet Elway were the Charles and Di of Denver is by no means an exaggeration. "I love Elway", sung to the tune of "I Love L.A.", was on the radio constantly back then.
The Three Amigos- Jackson, Johnson and Nattiel followed a few years later. Mecklenberg and Atwater and Rulon Jones and Dennis Smith and the bare footed kicker Karlis and my favorite player of all Steve Watson rounded out a roster that was on my bedroom wall each and every year. This was my team.
The Drive was something that I will never forget for a million different reasons, not the least of which was that Dad didn't move from the TV. Yesterday was the 28th anniversary of The Drive, and did I hope just a bit that a little of that magic would find its way to present day? I'd be lying if I said I didn't. I was hooked.
It all came falling back to earth in with the Super Bowl losses in 87, 88, and 1990. We'd get oh so close and then just watch the wheels fall off. We'd walk away stunned, in disbelief, and in shock. Those Monday mornings were rough, I tell ya. Our hearts were broken, but our spirits would never be.
Then came the 90's. Reeves' was sent packing. Wade Phillips came and went. Shanahan and Elway reunited at last! TD came rushing into town and didn't stop until he hit 2000. Atwater absolutely blew up Okoye. Zone blocking became a smash with Zim leading the way. Shannon Sharpe's mouth wrote checks that his play easily cashed. Eddy Mac and Rod seemingly caught every pass that came their way. Treadwell proved to be more than an adequate replacement at kicker. Oh, we were a force to be reckoned with. Yes, there were the moments to be forgotten- Jacksonville broke our hearts- but then it all came together. I still get chills and teary eyed when I think of Elway leaping over the Packer defenders, sacrificing himself for his team and ultimately for his legacy, spinning like a helicopter after being hit in midair, and falling for the first down. He popped back up with a look that said, bring it! And they did. There were no broken hearts for Broncos fans for the 97 and 98 season, I assure you of that.
All things must end of course, and soon enough Elway rode out of the stadium if not the town. He cried at his retirement announcement, and so did my wife and I. We were left with Brian Griese and hope- hey, at least it wasn't Tommy Maddox! The heir apparent was found to be lacking , and Jake Plummer came to town, and seemed destined to restore us to glory. We destroyed the New England Patriots! On a sunny Sunday in January though it all came crashing down at the hands of the Steelers. There is nothing worse for a brokenhearted Broncos fan than to watch them lose an AFC championship game to Pittsburgh in what turns out to be a Steelers bar in the middle of Orlando, no matter how many $1.00 Miller Lites are consumed (and there were many). Jake The Snake was cast aside for Jay Cutler. Brandon Marshall was drafted. Jay was diagnosed with diabetes. Now that that's under control, we'll be fine!
Shanahan's era came to an end. Josh McDaniels took the reins and promptly went about trading the entire offense to the Chicago Bears and putting all of his chips on something named Tim Tebow. Tebowmania, for better or worse, swept the town and indeed the nation. I screamed, "throw the f*(king ball, Tim!" more than I ever had before and (God I hope) ever will again in my life. Then, what's this? A spark? An 80 yard strike in OT to beat the Steelers in the playoffs! Maybe Tebow was the real deal? Reality struck the following week.
Then Elway came back!
I like to believe that McDaniels' feet never hit the ground, that John picked him up by the neck and threw him out of Dove Valley. I like to think that he struggled not to chuckle just a bit when Tebow pled for another shot before being rode out of town for Kyle Orton. And I like to hope that Elway knew all along that returning was his destiny.
Manning chose us! He could have gone anywhere, and he chose us! The Thomases came to town, Decker came and went, Sanders took his place. Talib and Ware and Pot Roast were added to actually give us a defense. Records were shattered. We were a force to be reckoned with once again. Yet I knew deep down the second that Ray Lewis announced he was retiring that 2012 wasn't going to be our year. And yes, I knew the millisecond the ball sailed over Peyton's head that the next four hours of my life to end the 2013 season were going to be terrible. Both years brought heartbreak and heartache.
After 35 years of active Broncomania, being United In Orange, wearing predominately orange jerseys, naming fantasy football teams the Orange Crush, using 7 as a lucky number, and slowly, steadily getting my wife to not only care about football, but love the Broncos as well, I've developed a bit of a sixth sense around the team. I don't usually have a feeling about when they will win, but I do seem to know the games that they will lose (the Rams notwithstanding; anyone that says they saw that coming is a filthy liar). I tried all last week to talk myself out of that feeling, but deep down I knew. 2014 was not our year either.
I feel for the Cubs of the world, the Red Sox of yesteryear, the Jaguars, the Timberwolves and Twins here locally, but not the Raiders. Never the Raiders. No self serving Broncos fan will ever feel anything but contempt and hatred of the Raiders. I don't however try to equate our torment with what they must feel. We've had more than our share of success, and we win far more than we lose. But those losses go deep. They twist your soul, they nag at you, they burn and burn and burn. But we get up. We dust ourselves off. We believe in John. We grab our cap on our way out the door. And we wait for next year and whatever it may bring us.
For you see, we are Broncos fans.
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