Vick Pleads Guilty and Misc

We'll start with the miscellaneous. The HB is off to his first overnight camping trip without me today through his day camp. He's going to have a great time. The mom of a friend of his is totally freaking out, as in, "We can't carpool on Tuesday...I want to see my son get on the bus that morning." Nice way to teach him to be independent of mommy. He gets on the fucking bus without you EVERY morning (the other dad usually drives the boys and me or my wife picks them up). Fortunately, not my problem. It'll be a great night to camp because we are not having the usual evening/morning fog so the skies are clear. Well, as clear as they get in LA during the summer. We have been seeing a lot of stars at our house, so I'm sure they'll see tons more with some elevation away from the city lights.

So, after the perfunctory, "I want to clear my name in court! I'm innocent!" declarations, Michael Vick will plead guilty to something on Monday. Whether it will be to conspiracy, gambling, dog killing or something else, we just don't know. He'll probably get a year or so in the federal pokey and perhaps, though I doubt it, more from the state of Virginia (I don't think they have the same goods on him as the feds).

The thing that strikes me about this, and other athletes getting in trouble with the dudes they grew up with, is why is it the newly rich athlete who tries to keep it real with his hommies by trying to prove that the big money doesn't change him (which it clearly must) instead of him saying, "Look, I've got more money than I'll ever be able to spend in my life. Instead of us doing this stupid shit, how about I send you guys to school to learn how to manage and invest it so we'll all get rich?" It's always the player trying to stay in the street instead of trying get his buddies out of there. Maybe a lot do and it doesn't get the same run in the papers/internet. If you know of any of those, post a comment.