A Brighter Look...BACK!

After a long delay, the ABL is back. I'm sure your life lacked without my shallow, sports-obsessed thoughts, but I hope this blog provides a little ray of sunshine for your day (See what I did there? Sunshine? "Brighter Look?")

Anyway, I'm quite excited to get back to writing, and as many of you know, I'm not shy about sharing details of my life with anyone. I'd be happy to tell you my life story, but I know that you really don't care. You want my take on sports. And that is absolutely fine, I like it that way. What I would like to do though, mostly to get me back in the writing groove, is to re-acclimate you to Grant Burkhardt the writer, the person, and the sports fanatic. So here are a few things about me.

1. I am, without a doubt, the worst text-messager in the history of cell phones. If I'm texting you and you go hours without getting a response, it's not because I don't like you...I just get sidetracked and forget. So, in advance, I'm sorry.

2. I think there are very few things better than the post-cereal drink of milk. Seriously, eat a bowl of cereal and tell me you weren't just ecstatic to get to the milk, which tastes remotely like the type of cereal you were chowing down.

2a. Favorite cereal: Special K

2b. Favorite post-cereal milk taste: Cheerios

3. Is there anything more demoralizing than your team having a bad start to the baseball season? As a baseball fan, there's nothing worse than your team losing 14 of its first 20 and leaving you saying, "oh gosh, we have to play 140 more of these wretched games? You're KIDDING ME!" I love baseball, but something has to be done to avoid the season being essentially over for Pirates fans before May even begins.

3a. Just saw Dodgers pitcher Hiroki Kuroda give up a bomb to left-center field...random MLB salary figure of the day - Kuroda is making $15,400,000 this season...and he's 19-17 as a starter in the majors. Like I said, something needs to be done here.

4. For the first time in my life, I have the ability to stand up straight, bend at the waist and touch the ground. Thank you Tony Horton and p90x.

5. I've learned that when Tiger Woods says he's changing his life, he doesn't mean the way he deals with reporters. Tiger's post-round interview on Sunday at Augusta revealed that to me. The reporter asked Woods to put this week into perspective...you know, LIFE perspective. And Tiger's response was "I came in fourth."

Yeesh. Yup, he's still a robot.

6. 43 days until the World Cup. USA! USA! USA!

7. Sometimes, my friends and I will have entire conversations that are made up of movie quotes. Don't feel bad...no one besides us can understand what we're talking about, which, most times, is absolutely nothing. I wish I could give you an example, but I fear you'd just stop reading my writing forever.

8. There is no bigger compliment you can give me than to say, "I can hear you talking when I read your writing."

9. I had dinner the other day with a die-hard Cleveland sports fan and I posed this question for him: If you could have all the players who have plagued Cleveland sports in the last 30-plus years together at one press conference (John Elway, Tim Couch, Michael Jordan, etc.) with their intention being to apologize to you for having wronged your city and deprived you of championships, would that make you feel better?

His response: "NO! Because then all anyone would have to do to antagonize us is to hold up a picture of that table of Cleveland anti-Christ's and we'd have no response."

My thought: "I'd have that picture framed and hanging in three different places in my house."

10. Ever wonder what happened with the Walrusman column I wrote back in the fall? I've had people ask, so here's the fallout:

-Somehow, Walrusman found the blog post, printed a bunch of copies, and called me out during class about it. No joke. There was a split second where I was legitimately frightened, but then I realized that I had become a member of the journalistic organization of "Writers Who Have Ticked Off Their Subjects" and then I thought the situation was hilarious.

-He made me sit in the front of the classroom (5th grade style) for the rest of the quarter and made an extra-special final exam (with my name already typed in at the top and on different color paper) for me to take.

-As I made the Walk of Shame to the front of the room, he read off some of my not-so-subtle haymakers aimed in his direction, and then threatened to sue me for "Defamation of Character."

-Then, in a hilarious, not-so-fluid verbal gesture, he mentioned that his tested IQ was 175, turned to me, and said "Grant, what's yours?"

-Then at the end of that particular class period, he offered to pass out copies of my column to the roughly 60-person classroom. My thought? More hits for my site. Is that bad? Ha! No!

11. Writing letters is a passion of mine. I don't get to do it a lot, but there's something about the tradition of it that lures me in, sort of like how black-and-white movies or radio broadcasters or Frank Sinatra will never get old.

12. Speaking of the radio, I'm going to be starting a podcast/online radio show for the Champs Sports Network, and I need some help from you. As of now, the show will be called "A Brighter Look with Grant Burkhardt" and it will be broadcast live weekly on CSN with segment ideas like "Today in Craig Sager's Wardrobe" among others.

What I'd like to hear from you is what ideas you have for show segments and for the title of the show. Don't like "A Brighter Look?" Tell me what you'd rather have the show called. I only get a limited number of views on this site (except, of course, when i talk about Walrusman), but I do value your opinions.

As always, thanks for reading.

"25 Things" about me

Yes, I know, I missed the memo for doing this when it was "hip," or whatever you kids are calling it these days, but I had a reason for waiting: now ALL the attention is on me! Muahahaha. Oh, I kid. Take it easy. This column poses a huge test to me, seeing as how I tell everyone everything about me. So, I'm going to try to make "25 things" full of things that I haven't told everyone. I apologize if I've already told most of these to a few select people.

1. At my core, I am a truly happy person. I'm thankful for everything I have.

2. All biases aside, I think "The Best Day" by Taylor Swift is one of the most beautiful, uplifting songs I've ever heard, and it always puts me in a purely magnificent mood.

3. You know those buzzers that places like Olive Garden give you to let you know when your table is ready? Well, every time I have one in my hands, I try to figure out how to make it go off. "Now, if I put pressure on the back right side and the front 'button' at the same time, do you think we'll get seated?"

4. If I think badly of something I've written that you may find great, it's not because I'm fishing for compliments. I have extremely high standards for myself.

5. Just because I cover sports doesn't mean I don't want to (or can't) play them. In fact, I miss competition an unhealthy amount. I've actually been perfecting my pitching windup and a curveball in my backyard to feel like an athlete again.

6. I am "crushed" very easily (see: my history in high school), but don't mistake that for legitimate liking. To get to that level takes much more.

7. On that note, I think having ridiculous crushes is healthy (if not only for me) and I think you should try it sometime.

8. I love sitting on my roof, looking at the stars, and listening to "Split Screen Sadness," especially when my favorite lyric comes up.

9. Stone Harbor '08 and Cle'cago '09 are the best trips of my life, and I'll be pleasantly surprised if anything comes near.

10. If you haven't watched or read the "Secret" yet, you should. It changed my life, it could do the same to you.

11. If I could come back as one person, I'd probably choose Jon Bon Jovi, circa 1980. The guy's got everything.

12. I hate that "Sportscenter" is becoming the CNN of sports. Instead of simply sports and great anchors (Dan Patrick, Charlie Steiner), ESPN has become just another "Breaking News Network." It's depressing.

13. I have a theory about the "One" theory, and it goes something like this: There is no "One," there are six. Go ahead, hold up six fingers. Put two down right away, you won't ever meet these two people (in reality, that number could be anywhere from 2 - 2,000, but I don't have endless fingers). Of the remaining four, you will date three people at the wrong age, under the wrong circumstance, and in the wrong setting. You could see yourself ending up with that person, but if only you had met, say, 5 years later. And that one finger left? Well, that's just perfect.

14. I'm a sucker for a great pair of eyes and a voluptuous smile. Perverts.

15. The Eagles are my favorite band, as they just surpassed the Beatles. Now that MJ is gone, Bruce is the greatest living entertainer/singer/songwriter. Hopefully I'll be seeing him live in a few months.

16. Looking back on it, playing high school golf was a mistake. If I had to do it again, I would stick with basketball.

17. I partially credit country music for making me the person I am today. I was once wound extremely tight, but now, I'm just glad "I'm Alive."

18. My family and friends get the rest of the credit.

19. No offense to Lou, but I may be the luckiest man alive. Or I at least have amazingly impeccable timing. I'm even in the wrong place at the right time sometimes. Ask my family. Bad things just don't happen around me.

20. If you ever want to know, for some reason, how to find the Audubon to the "Friend Zone," just ask me. They call that the "Grant Burkhardt Expressway."

21. "Bigger Than My Body" is about me.

22. I was once seriously asked if my name was short for something, like "Grantholomew."

23. If you turned an X-ray of my spine on its' side, you would see a question mark.

24. I'm very rarely visibly upset. I take the saying, "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" and turn it on its' head. I take the good little things and let them get me happily through the day. For example, as I was pulling into a parking lot today, I circled around looking for a space, and, voila, someone was leaving one right as I pulled into that row. Kept me smilin' for a while.

25. I'm surrounded by amazing women. From my wonderful mother to my aunts to my grandma to a brunette to a certain redhead, they make me a better person everyday.

And isn't that all you can ask of someone? Just to try to be a better human?