Today was 64 degrees and sunny in Washington D.C. A little further south, in Fredericksburg, VA it was 67 degrees. And it was a windy outside, but it’s also January 25 and I have been craving the outdoors, or at least the sun and warmth. This winter has sucked, frankly, and it’s only 1 month old technically. Riding in on the Metro this morning, I couldn’t help but think that it would have been so fun to have called out of work today, for the first time in my life to just enjoy an unexpected, non-sick day off, and gone for a long drive in my newly fixed (and clean) semi-beloved Ford Focus. Instead, I sat in a windowless office that averaged an unbearable 75 degrees.

I thought about where I would have driven to today: Chapel Hill (4 1/2 hours each way, but I love North Carolina and haven’t been in quite a while), Front Royal, VA (1 1/2 hours, great applewood smoked pulled pork sandwich place), Fredericksburg, VA (1 1/2 hours, they have a Sonic), New York City (4 hours, A city I constantly feel the need to conquer), and on and on.

What I really needed today and have needed for a while, is to get in the car, roll down the windows, and without a care in the world, rock out and drive alone. And keep driving. Nothing (non-human), whether it be football, food, or millions of dollars can make me as happy as a carefree and aimless sunny day drive.

Alas, my conscience is what it is and I continued riding the train into work. I went outside to buy a sandwich at lunchtime at the shop a block away. And it was beautiful outside. But I couldn’t help but think, sitting in that windowless office, that it would likely be two months before it was this nice again and how different my day could have been, how even life changing it could have been, had I just gotten in the car and drove. Windows down. Open road. Music loud. My constant.

Remember the “People I Admire” series? Remember when I actually blogged regularly (old Mid-Atlantic Bias)? Semi-regularly (new Mid-Atlantic Bias a few months ago)? Yeah, well, I’ve been slacking. Rather than explain why I’ve been slacking (laziness!!! apathy!!! winter doldrums!!!) lets just get back into finding out who I admire and why.

I admire Stefani Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga, or just “Gaga.” It wasn’t long ago (last year) when writing that sentence would have worried me, but alas, things change. The first time I was made aware of her was on VH1. I saw this video for some song about dancing and wondered what had happened to Christina Aguilera’s face. Once the video was over, I found out that it wasn’t actually Christina, but instead some idiot named Lady Gaga who would assuredly become some minor footnote in music history. Case closed. Right?

I find the video for “Just Dance” to be humorously ironic looking back, in that the Lady Gaga in that video is nothing like the Lady Gaga we see now in the blogs and the MTVs and the TMZs. Gaga in the “Just Dance” video, to me, is kind of just Stefani Germanotta: some blonde girl singing about having too much red wine and losing her phone.

Cut to the video for “Bad Romance” and we’ve got Lady Gaga. She’s a measured kind of crazy. I don’t actually think she’s insane, but she’s at the very least the right amount of insane to stay relevant. I feel that if Lady Gaga had continued to perform artistically in a fashion similar to that of the “Just Dance” video, she would have been that aforementioned footnote (much like that girl with the “Tik Tok” song on the radio will be in about 23 minutes).

I admire Lady Gaga because of how brilliantly she has managed her career. Whether this was planned or not, she has never been complacent. “The Fame (her debut album)” spawned 4 mega-hits: “Just Dance,” “Poker Face,” “LoveGame,” and “Paparazzi.” So, you know, she’d just take a year off, collaborate with Gucci Mane, Kid Cudi, and Lil Wayne, and release an album similar to “The Fame” and hope to strike gold again, right? No. Instead she took no time off, recorded a vastly different EP, called “The Fame Monster” and had another mega hit with its first single, “Bad Romance,” all the while touring constantly and always managing to be mentioned in the magazines and internets with her eccentric, crazy couture outfits. Like this one.

Oh, and there’s one other thing I forgot to mention about my admiration of Lady Gaga: Her music is great. Like, really great. Beyond being obsessively catchy, it has also developed into something that is musically, dare I say, profound? Okay, maybe not profound. But listen to the tracks “Alejandro” and “Teeth” from “The Fame Monster” and tell me that she’s a clone of the Pussycat Dolls or, I don’t know, Fergie. Whomever. Taylor Swift. Whatever. Lady Gaga is what would happen if Bjork and Madonna had a baby.

I don’t know if Lady Gaga truly has “staying power,” but I do know one thing, she comes off as being incredibly humble and grounded. In any serious interview I’ve ever seen with her, I’ve been struck by how thoughtful she has been in her responses and in the respect that she exhibits for the interviewer. I don’t see Gaga being a diva.

Time will tell if I will continue to admire Lady Gaga, but right now, when it comes to pop music, there is no one who I have more respect for and whose hard work and determination I admire more than Stefani Germanotta.

I’m in the midst of beginning the planning for a trip this summer to Oregon/Idaho. I’ve been to Idaho, but not Oregon. One of my life goals is to drive in all 50 states. I’m currently 11 away from seeing that mission become accomplished. With that, why wouldn’t I want to rank the 11 states that I haven’t seen by how much I want to see them.

So you’re not guessing, here’s the alphabetic list of states my feet have not touched: Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin.

11. North Dakota: North Dakota intrigues me if only because of how boring I think it would be. There’s no major college. It’s cold. No major monuments or national parks. The largest city is Fargo. Fargo. Like the movie. With a population under 100,000. This is Downtown Fargo. Sorry, North Dakota. I’m not going out of my way to get there.

10. Kansas: Like North Dakota, but at least with a real college town: Lawrence. Beyond that, there’s no major sports in the state, no intriguing or enjoyable cultural cuisine, and not a lot of diverse landscape. This is what Kansas looks like in my mind.

9. Wisconsin: I work with a very nice guy from Wisconsin. I joke with him that when he speaks, all I hear him say is, “Miller Lite, Cheese, Brett Favre, Miller Lite, Cheese, Brett Favre.” I can’t imagine that I’d fit in very well in Wisconsin. I like salads and vegetables and complex beer. I’m not so much a fan of this.

8. Minnesota: Like Wisconsin, except I’d have to imagine that Minneapolis is slightly more posh than Milwaukee and at least they have a lot of lakes. And those are pretty when they’re not frozen over because it’s 2 degrees outside.

7. South Dakota: See: North Dakota. Add in Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, and the Black Hills.

6. Missouri: Baseball and barbecue. Missouri might not have a lot of other appeal to me, but really, do I need more than baseball and bbq? Exactly.

(the top 5 is the real dividing line here)

5. Washington: This is primarily for Seattle. A few weeks back I said that if I had to go back to school (which I would have no difficulty doing) I would go to the University of Washington. There’s not a lot for me to say otherwise about Washington other than, “Seattle seems like a place I might like.”

4. Hawaii: Why is Hawaii in my Top 5? Because it’s in everyone’s Top 5. I can’t really explain what it is about Hawaii, besides providing you with this. And it’s like that all the time there. It is a very expensive place and I would eventually tire of the whole beach life thing (I know, I know. What’s wrong with me?). But to visit? Yeah. I’d have no problem with this. Any of it.

3. Alaska: Hawaii is an easy one. Alaska, probably not so much. I mean, it’s not often that I hear someone say they’re going to vacation in Fairbanks. But if I did, I’d think that person was pretty cool. Look, if Sarah Palin has taught us anything, it’s that Alaska isn’t too far off culturally from the American Deep South or Middle-America. Culturally, that doesn’t stimulate me very much. What does stimulate me is the road less traveled, not to get to Emersonian here. Ideally, I’d really enjoy traveling to a place like Barrow, Alaska, way up at the northernmost tip, above the Arctic Circle. That, to me, is cool. No pun intended.

2. Oregon: Progressive folks, mountains, ocean, rivers, good food, clean air. The only thing that could make me happier would be smoked pig and home runs. If I can find a place where the culture and the landscape both suit me, I’d be happy and I think that Oregon is my best chance for that here in the U.S. Despite that, it’s not my number 1.

1. Montana: Every picture I see of this place I fall in love with. There is in me, a strong desire to experience the rugged American life. I’m not strong enough to live it and I know that. Montanans are hard-working people. I might not be a hunter or a fisher, but I respect people who work for everything they have. When I think of Montanans, that’s exactly what I think of. Driving across Wyoming, I fell in love with the state. The same will hold true when I finally get to turn the pictures of Montana into actual visual sights. I know I will fall in love with it. How could you not fall in love with landscapes like this?

Yesterday, I covered the chances the teams in the AFC have of reaching the Super Bowl and as promised, today, I’ll discuss the NFC. If you missed yesterday’s post, don’t worry, you don’t need to read it before you read this. Before I get to the teams, I would like to make a comment about the NFC v. the AFC. For whatever reason (and I won’t get into which conference is better) any team from the NFC could reach the Super Bowl in my opinion. In the AFC, I would be utterly shocked to see the Bengals, Patriots, or Ravens in the Super Bowl. If my number six team in the NFC made the Super Bowl, I would not be surprised. At all.

6. Arizona Cardinals: I would have put them here even if Anquan Boldin was healthy. Of a strong pool, they’re the obvious weak link to me. The injury to Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie is far more detrimental to the Cardinals than is the injury to Boldin. With Boldin hurt, you can focus on Beanie Wells trying to pick up the load offensively by rushing and Steve Breaston by receiving. In the defensive secondary, no one can fill the hole left by Rodgers-Cromartie should he not be 100%. I expect him to play, but not at full capacity. The Cardinals are a true wild card (even if they’re a division champion). They could get blown out by the Packers in Round 1 or they could run through the Packers and Vikings/Saints/Cowboys/Eagles.

The 2009 NFL regular season has ended and with it, we have our first Mid-Atlantic Bias Picks Champion: James Buckless. Seen here. In the final week, Jim picked 10 games correctly. Meanwhile, his counterpart, Matthew Minton (who’s baseball prospect analysis you can read and listen to here) picked 8 games correctly. A very solid job done by both, I must say. I enjoyed this little feature on the blog and hope to continue it in some form or fashion next season, should I still be blogging/alive.

With the end of the 2009 regular season comes the 2010 NFL playoffs and with it, 12 teams have the opportunity to reach immortality, or in the case of the 2001 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, historical footnote status (I mean, Brad Johnson was their QB and the MVP of the Super Bowl was some guy named Dexter Jackson who is playing in the UFL right now.). You’re probably (not) asking yourself, “Jason, who’s going to win the Super Bowl.” Well, here’s a ranking for each conference of the teams with the best shot:

AFC:

6. Cincinnati Bengals: Frankly, the Houston Texans have just as good a shot as the Bengals of winning the Super Bowl. Find out where the Bengals are in Vegas today on odds to win the Super Bowl and then avoid that bet at all costs. I don’t care if they’re 1000:1 and you place a $10 bet. You’re going to lose that $10. Carson Palmer suddenly can’t throw the football anymore. They’re banged up defensively. Their receiving corp is thin with the injury to Chad Johnson/truck-falling of Chris Henry and they’re best offensive weapon, running back Cedric Benson, is also playing hurt. I don’t see them getting by the Jets on Saturday.

5. New England Patriots: Yes, they’re here because of the injury to Wes Welker and I don’t care what the other Wes Welker (who is only referred to as such because of his race. There, I said it.) did against Houston. The Ravens secondary, hurt or not, is not the Texans secondary and Ed Reed/Terrell Suggs/Ray Lewis will hit young Wes Welker II in the mouth the first time he comes across the middle. Edelman’s toughness has not been tested this year. It will be on Sunday. The Patriots have been a subpar defensive club all year long and they’ll be exposed by the Ravens running game on Sunday. Take a quick look at what Arian Foster did on Sunday to them. Exactly.

4. Baltimore Ravens: Beating the Patriots is their apex and gets them a date with the Colts. That won’t last long. Joe Flacco still doesn’t have the “it” that a quarterback needs to lead a team. You need to make a play or two in the playoffs to get your team by, unless you have a truly elite offensive line/running game, and I don’t think Flacco has that ability yet. I also don’t have much faith in their kicker, Man Who Isn’t Very Good.

3. San Diego Chargers: I know they’re the hottest team in all the land. I’m not here to argue against that point. This comes down to their constant inability to win a big game. They’re solid everywhere on the field, but not elite anywhere. The Jets have more elite segments of their game than do the Chargers. And they’re better coached. When the Chargers and Jets play, I envision San Diego committing at least 3 really stupid penalties. I’ll even be specific and call for a 15-yard person foul penalty on Shawne Merriman.

2. New York Jets: I’m a little high from their win last night, but find me an offensive line that protects/run blocks better, a defense that, well, defenses better, and a three-headed running back tandem that is more diverse (Thomas Jones, Bradley Smith, and Shonn Greene) and I’ll show you a Super Bowl contender. If they put Sanchez in no situations where he has to win the game, they’ll be alright. So alright that they’ll reach the Conference Championships. And if you think I’m crazy, well, that’s okay.

1. Indianapolis Colts: They’re on a mission from god. No one believes in them anymore, as though Curtis Painter is going to quarterback this team in the playoffs. He won’t be. They’ll be in Miami again.

Tomorrow, the NFC. Once again, congratulations to James!

We have reached Week 17 in the NFL season and that can mean only one (actually lots, but humor me) thing: The Inaugural 2009 Mid-Atlantic Bias NFL Picks Championship. Exclamation point.

This season has seen James and Matt dominate the competition picking against me. With Ryan unable to muster an 11 point victory last week (we’ll have the final standings next week) Buckton (as they’ll be known) square off for ultimate supremacy. The rules are simple:

-I set the lines for this week
-Locks of the Week rules apply
-Regular season scores are rendered irrelevant
-In the event of a tie, I’ll make something up on the fly

On to the picks. James finished with a better record, so he’ll go first.

James’s Picks
Indianapolis (+3) over Buffalo
Pittsburgh (-4.5) over Miami
New England (-5) over Houston
New Orleans (-3) over Carolina
Minnesota (-7.5) over New York Giants
Atlanta (-4.5) over Tampa Bay
San Francisco (-10) over St. Louis
Cleveland (+2.5) over Jacksonville
Chicago (-8) over Detroit
Philadelphia (-2) over Dallas
Kansas City (+9.5) over Denver
San Diego (-11.5) over Washington
Tennessee (-8.5) over Seattle
Baltimore (-5.5) over Oakland
Green Bay (+1) over Arizona *
New York Jets (+4.5) over Cincinnati

Matt’s Picks
Buffalo (-3) over Indianapolis
Miami (+4.5) over Pittsburgh
Houston (+5) over New England
Carolina (+3) over New Orleans *
Minnesota (-7.5) over New York Giants
Tampa Bay (+4.5) over Atlanta
St. Louis (+10) over San Francisco
Jacksonville (-2.5) over Cleveland
Chicago (-8) over Detroit
Dallas (+2) over Philadelphia
Denver (-9.5) over Kansas City
San Diego (-11.5) over Washington
Tennessee (-8.5) over Seattle
Baltimore (-5.5) over Oakland
Arizona (-1) over Green Bay
New York Jets (+4.5) over Cincinnati

With Matt and James agreeing on only 5 games this week, anything is possible. Should be fun. Thanks to all who participated this year! And best of luck to our championship participants.

Trips home always sort of set me back. There’s something for me about returning there that makes me feel trapped. When I’m home, I mostly want to leave. Especially in the winter. It’s about 10 degrees colder there than here, no matter what. It takes a lot of driving to get anywhere (I’ve become used to things taking a while here while driving, even though I’m not going far. Two weeks ago, it took me 30 minutes to drive 5 miles, to Wheaton, MD. The drive from my apartment to Georgetown is about 7 miles and takes roughly 30 minutes of my time. In Massachusetts, my best friend is 24 miles from my house and it takes the same amount of time. These numbers confound me.).

To understand my dislike for my home, you have to understand my home: Taunton, Massachusetts. Taunton is best described as the land time is forgetting. The city lacks culture. The city lacks hope. It’s an old factory/mill town that hasn’t reinvented itself and hasn’t shown any signs that it will. And that’s sad because there’s enough potential in the city, however hard to find as it may be. The downtown could be beautiful and prosperous. The infrastructure is there, but the businesses are not. They’re hanging out about 3 miles down the road in a strip of stores and restaurants that lead to a sizable 2-level shopping mall, the Silver City Galleria, a place where you can, without fail, run into someone you know and wish you hadn’t.

And that pretty much sums up Taunton. And if you think I’m being crass, well then, you’ve never been there. I could go into more detail, but that would be more ranting than writing. And I’m not really feeling ranty.

The thing about this particular trip home that made it less enjoyable besides the fact that it was Christmas, a holiday I have very little use for (I’m thinking of calling it Thanksgiving with Baby Jesus In Lieu of Pilgrims) was that I needed to pack up all of my belongings. When I moved 2 years ago, I didn’t take everything I wanted because I didn’t have the space for it and really, my house wasn’t going anywhere. My parents had bought it 7 years before and with my dad’s health, they weren’t going to be moving. Well, things happen when you move away from home. And the house has been for sale for 18 months. Three days before I came home, I found out that an offer had been made on it.

I dislike a lot of things (as anyone who reads this knows), but none more than packing. Packing is not fun for me. It’s never been. It never will be. This pack was probably the worst. 2 trips to U-Haul to buy boxes. 3 days in my bedroom. 4 hours in my closet. And way more than 5 moments of distraction. My favorite, or at least the most enjoyable, was my stumbling upon my notebook for my final semester of college. One notebook for five classes. Roughly 20% of the pages containing writing. Most of that writing being my rants or side comments.

Most of the packing, though, was not enjoyable. Deciding whether or not there are enough memories to save something is fine once or twice, but I’m far too nostalgic to do this dozens of times a day. It’s unnecessarily emotionally draining.

(Bear with me, I’m almost done)

Sitting here now, at my computer in Amanda and my apartment, typing away on a cold Saturday night while Amanda gets dinner with friends, I find myself more relaxed than I’ve been since my drive to Massachusetts on Christmas Eve. That morning, I walked out of Union Station about a half hour before the sun rose, on my way to work. Looking at the Capitol in all of it’s pre-dawn glory I felt lucky and thankful and excited and hopeful and relaxed. Being away from those feelings was not good for me. I missed work, I missed this city, and I missed my life here. It’s only now as I type that I feel like it’s hopefully starting to come back. And I like that.

Suggestions
Listen to: Dave Godowsky (aka John Shade). You can download his debut album (for free is you so choose) from his website, found here. Quirky, relaxing, folky, smart.

See: Up in the Air. I’ve seen it twice now and it’s only gotten better. Terrific acting. Great writing. Brilliantly shot.

Watch: Boise State/TCU in the Fiesta Bowl Monday. 8 p.m. on Fox.

Eat: Pad Thai from Nava Thai in Wheaton, MD.