**
Linebacker Manny Lawson is one game away from putting "rookie" behind him. Although he'll still be providing his columns this off-season, here's his last one of the 2006 season.**
We'll call this Six-no-teenth and we are talking about snow, because apparently there's a lot of it in Denver.
Let's actually talk about the places snow gets in when you are playing in it. Snow seems to find some way to get underneath your sleeve and into your glove, right to the fingertips, making them hurt.
Snow in socks. How does snow get in socks? It's like it talks to your shoes or your snow boots and pants and the snow says, "please, open up and pants please pull yourself out of the sock so I can get in the sock and near the toes."
By far having snow inside your socks is one of the worst feelings in the world. Let's see, where else does snow get? Underneath your sleeves, the waist lining of your pants, underneath your shirt even when it's tucked in. Snow is worse than rain. Rain will at least fall and seep in places, but you'll know it's there. Snow takes a minute to hit, gets cold and then realizes it's there and turns into liquid and seeps somewhere else. Snow is like a double whammy.
As you can tell, I'm looking forward to playing in snow in Denver. I'm fully prepared. I plan on wearing four layers underneath my shoulder pads and everything needs to be sealed off. I'm not wearing cleats. I'm wearing snow boots. And the gloves with spikes on them so I can grip better. I'll have hand warmers for everyone, and pants and leg warmers and elbow warmers. I need to find something to go around my neck. I'll have to think on that. Everything else is covered. I'm wearing a ski mask. Then I have ear muffs shaped and formed to my ears so don't try to steal them with my initials on them. That's really it. Could you imagine if I actually wore all of that for a game?
I'm sad the season is coming to an end. I caught my second wind and I was just feeling like I was finally catching on and now it's over after this game. That's got me depressed.
My Christmas was good. I was right. Santa Claus got me everything I wanted for Christmas and then some. That's what happens when you pick out your own gifts! I couldn't find a Charlie Brown Christmas tree to save my life.
My family didn't end up making it out. They all got together in South Carolina and had one huge family Christmas party. Let's talk about this. They know how much I like food so they enjoy calling me and telling me everything they could about all the delicious food there and that they were going to send something to me in the mail, like that was going to make me feel good. You can't just tease me like that. That's unconstitutional.
Other things that should be unconstitutional - if you don't have peanut butter for one. It should be against the law if you don't like peanut butter and jelly. I'd make a fine president one day as you can tell.
I haven't bowled since last Monday. I didn't bowl good at all that time either. I spent most of the time dancing. They called me Crazy Legs. I was really doing more dancing than bowling and everything I was doing, Marcus Hudson's son copied. We had a good time. We did speed bowl where we didn't care how many pins we hit, it was just how fast we could go through a game.
We might have to go Monday or Tuesday for our next outing.
I'm thinking about a couple of trips for this off-season. I really want to go on a cruise. I really want to play shuffleboard in my shorts and slippers and act like I know what I'm doing and drink some sparking white grape juice in a wine glass and get those sunscreen strips you put across your nose. I think that would be fun.
I'm going home too at some point. I also want to do some sightseeing in California. I really want to see, I don't the name of it, but the place where they have the redwood trees. I've heard that's real nice.
Besides training, that's it for my off-season I think. I'll check in with everyone so no one has to miss out on my ramblings.
Thanks for checking these out all season. They tell me people actually read these. I'm not sure why, but I appreciate it!
