- As you can tell by now, the look and feel of the blog has changed. Gone are the dark colors and black background. I guess you could say it was time for DJRT to come out of the darkness and come into the light (yes, you can groan now). It's been a slow-coming change starting with the adoption of the blue & red DJRT logo and culminating in what you see now with the lighter color scheme. The current grey background pic is a transitional background for the time being until I can find or create one of my own. The biggest change to the blog in my opinion is the top section of the blog. That section has been a work in progress for several months and I finally got it to look the way I want it to generally. It required a lot of messing around with coding, picture rendering & link placement to get it just right. Along with reorganizing the new page menu and DJRT social media links, I moved the "Like" button for the DJRT Facebook page to the very top along with adding a Twitter "Follow" button next to it for those of you who want to follow DJ's Random Thoughts on Twitter. I think the lighter color scheme will make for a better and more pleasant reading experience. I am making one more change to the blog starting with this edition: SLP will now be known as simply Shoutouts from here on out. SLP stood for "Shoutouts, Love, and Props" but having to explain that to people was getting to be a chore. Since my shoutouts usually include recognition, respect, love and/or props anyway, I'm going with the simpler Shoutouts section title from now on.
- There have been two words that could best describe me over the past month and a half: "busy" and "discombobulated". Sometimes it was one or the other and sometimes it was both at the same time which was very disconcerting for me. In August alone I went to six separate events of some type. Over the past two to three weeks alone, there has been a lot of stuff going on around me that has changed or happened (nothing personal or life-changing, thank the Lord) that threw me for a loop or distracted me from doing some things (like missing out on the last two MCW shows). Things are finally starting to calm down now so hopefully I won't be so discombobulated with stuff going forward, but it has been rather hectic for me recently. That along with the change in the look of DJRT is why I haven't posted in a while.
- A few weeks ago, the matirarch of my mom's side of the family, my great-aunt Eve, passed away. She was one of the nicest people I knew and she is going to be missed (rest in peace, Eve). The memorial for her passing took place on the west side of Akron. While I was there, it hit me how many events in my life took place on that side of town, hence the "west side" edition. Before she moved to Tallmadge years ago, Eve and her husband Dick lived on that side of town and one time when I was a teen they let me watch the NWA Main Event wrestling show at their place and, since they were a Nielsen family, it would count in Nielsen ratings...I thought that was so cool at the time, that what I was watching would actually be counted. Aside from that, some of my earliest childhood memories that I actually remember came from that side of town. When I was 4, a kid who lived next door pushed me off a porch and I broke my left wrist. I had to wear a cast for a month and I had regular checkups at a building at the corner of West Market St. & Hopkins Ave. When I was 5, I attended a summer pre-school at an old school on West Market St. near Sand Run Parkway. When I was 10 or 11, I remember visiting my great-grandmother with my other cousins on that side of town (on a side note, I think she lived to be 100 years old but I'm not sure of that so someone may have to correct me there). I remember one time as a young kid that I apparently knew the west side better than my father who was a captain in the Akron Fire Department at the time and actually guiding him to someplace on that side of town he couldn't find (despite my years I still seem to have a good visual memory of layouts and such things). It amazes me how many childhood memories I remember just from being on that side of town.
- Back in late August I attended an MCW wrestling show that also served as the first taping of MCW Riot Television for cable television. The show will be airing on several cable systems around Northeast Ohio starting in early October Wednesdays at 9 PM, so check your local listings...if it's not on your cable system, Riot TV will still air on it's website MCWpro.com. Wrestling fans, keep your eye out for that. The next show is in November and Goldust is scheduled to be there (I think). When info for that show comes, I'll post that here. I'm telling you, I've been to four MCW shows this past year and each one has been great to go to. This is simply a great wrestling promotion where you will get your money's worth from attending, watching and following the wrestlers, the show, and the promotion overall. I don't say that about too many things but it's a no-brainer here.
- I got to go to the last Browns preseason game against the Chicago Bears. I went with one of my best friends Bob and his dad and son. We had club seats that were near the middle of the field and we had a great view. During the game, I posted a tweet about the game while I was there and it showed up on the scoreboard at halftime. To say I was excited about seeing that was an understatement. It flashed too quickly for me to get a pic of it on the scoreboard and I was kicking myself for not being ready to take one. I do have to remind myself in the event something like this happens again that I'll have to do a better job of spelling words in my tweets. I took some pics of my time there which you can find in this DJRT Google+ photo album here: 08-30-12 - Cleveland Browns vs. Chicago Bears preseason game - Cleveland, OH (Browns Stadium).
- Football: it has been an interesting start for both the OSU Buckeyes and the Cleveland Browns. Regarding the Buckeyes, they looked pretty impressive in their opener and okay in the last two contests against Central Florida and Cal. There is a lot of room for improvement though, but since there is no post-season games for them they can work on getting things going for next year. As far as the Browns go I will say this...if they took the defense from the first game, the offense from the second game, and use both in the rest of their games going forward, they will be a dominant team. They may have lost their first two games, but there are obvious signs that they could potentially become very dangerous if those two facets come together regularly.
- I think I have come up with an option for dealing with physical junk mail that comes in our mailboxes...they should make a law where recipients of unsolicited junk mail should be able to "return to sender" without postage. In other words, send that stuff back to the people who sent it in the first place and let them deal with their own junk. Solicitors might think twice about sending that stuff if it's just going to come back to them and end up piled up in their offices. Maybe it'd save a few trees...who knows?
- Song on Repeat: "Let The Beat Hit Em" by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam. This was the jam back in the day. It could get me on my feet and dancing all the way back when I started college. I can assure you that, yes, it was the jam. Lest anybody doubts this fact, I can assure you for certain that it was the jam.
- Shoutouts: Tom R., Zach, Cory, Dave, Micah, Cheryl, Ron, Ernest W., Aunt Sue, Mike L., Aunt Sandi, Shasta & MCW, the MCW Riot Zone, Griff, Justin Mane, Daryl, Betsy & Paul, Debbie, Christian Vaughn, Bob, Lynn, Tony C., Mindy, Scotty, Damian, Holly, Renee, Jenny K, Diane, Isaiah, and Todd.
That's it for this edition. Before I go, let me remind you one more time that, yes, it was the jam. Until next time, folks. Take care and God Bless.
DJ
