Countdown to Glory: 15 to go

THE COUNTDOWN CONTINUES. 15 DAYS TO GLORY!!!

How come I end up where I started?
How come I end up where I went wrong?
Won't take my eyes off the ball again.
You reel me out and you cut the string.
- "15 Step", Radiohead

Yes, I took my eye off the ball. And now, I've ended up back where I started. We have less than 2 weeks to get to the goal. Less than 2 weeks to prove to the skeptics that TEAM 33 is every bit as great as we all know it is. I took a deep breath over the weekend, but now I'm ready for the sprint to the end.

Fifteen. I'm having some trouble with this number, because every single result that pops up in a google search for Fifteen refers me to some Taylor Swift song. Since I am old and decrepit, I do not know much about this song, so I cannot use it as a segue into other things I'd rather write about. So on that note, a non sequitur...

Yo ho, yo ho a pirate's life for me. 15 men on a dead man's chest begins that shanty. Nobody really knows what it originally meant, because it first showed up in Stevenson's Treasure Island only in partial form. Still it sounds cool. In the pirate comic subplot of "Watchmen", Alan Moore made it one man using 15 dead men as a raft.

Fifteen is the name of Naked Chef Jamie Oliver's interesting London restaurant. You may know Oliver as the Brit who yells at middle America for being fat and eating purple ketchup. He also started this restaurant (opened in conjunction with a reality TV show called "Jamie's Kitchen") where the chefs would be disadvantaged youths apprenticing.

The fifteenth president may very well have been the worst in our nation's history. James Buchanan thoroughly mishandled the economy (Panic of 1857), the west (Utah War, known as "Buchanan's Blunder"), and even foreign policy (Ostend Manifesto - attempting to buy Cuba from Spain). But his great failure was over slavery. He was believed to have played a role in the crafting of the Dred Scott decision, he massively fouled up Kansas by twisting arms in congress to accept the territory as a slave state when the residents themselves opposed such, and he couldn't find another position to take on secession other than "secession is illegal, but so is fighting to prevent it." Great leadership there, moron. Be sure you take note that it was not Lincoln sitting in the White House when South Carolina seceded - it was Bachelor Jim Buchanan. What a failure.

On a related historical note, the 15th Amendment provided the right to vote for all citizens, regardless of race, color or previous servitude (nothing about women, though).

Jersey numbers for 15 include Bart Starr, Thurman Munson, Carmelo Anthony and, of course, the object of every college football announcer's love and devotion, Tim Tebow. Let's all hope that that #15 leads to another fifteen - Andy Warhol's famous statement about how everyone will be famous for 15 minutes - being up very soon.

Well, there's 15. Tim Tebow and James Buchanan. Need I say any more about how much better 33 is than 15?

Join TEAM 33. If you can join us for the Walk at Atlantic Station on May 22, please do! Bring your friends and family, including dogs. If you can't come, you can still join TEAM 33 or contribute in any way you'd like. For more information on joining TEAM 33 or contributing, please follow the link below:

http://www.kintera.org/faf/r.asp?t=4&i=312420&u=312420-211716341

Join TEAM 33. Sign up. Spread the word to your friends and family. Join us at the walk. Give a few bucks for a great cause. Apply eyeblack tape with the bible verse "DEUT 23:1" written on it. And we'll have cake.

Just join. Seriously. I'm about to get even more ridiculous here. Do you really want that to happen? JOIN TEAM 33!

If you have any questions about how incredibly awesome TEAM 33 is, give me a call or send me an email. Thanks again!