Wasted Youth

George Bernard Shaw is credited with saying "Youth is wasted on the young".  Oftentimes I think about this when I am seeing another episode of Scorned: Love Kills or Unusual Suspects and see some 20 year old go to jail for the rest of their lives for doing something stupid.  Or watching the evening news on the rare occasion I don't turn it off.  I've thought about this some during the week, thinking of my own wasted youth.  Not to say it was all wasted, in fact it wasn't terrible at all, but there are so many other things I could have done to have made my future better.  So I wasted some of my youth for sure. 

Still feeling the way I have all week with my back issues has casued me to reflect some on when I was a younger man.  I have also been comparing myself to some of my coworkers most of whom are 20-25 years my junior.  I'm afraid youth is wasted on most of them.  Not because they are a bunch of party animals or anything like that. On the contrary, most of them seem to be living rather sober lives.  And I am greatly disappointed.  After all, how do I live vicariously through them when my weekends (outside of the last two) are generally more exciting than theirs?  Some of them ask me how poker or sports betting went over the weekend because they are living vicariously through me.  Yeah that's right, I'm the life of the party.  Yeah got my own lampshade and everything.  So the last few weeks I have been letting them down.  And they are wasting their youth working hard and saving money for their retirements. 

This was a difficult week at work, after a difficult partial week the previous one.  I only worked 3 days last week after the New Years holiday and put in 36 hours in that time.  I was tired from not sleeping well at night - I'm still so uncomfortable I can't sleep in bed as my back just aches.  Sleeping upright in my recliner is easier on my back but not that conducive to sleeping particularly well or deeply.  This week I managed to work all 5 days but every day was painful and I gimp around like an old man whenever I get up from my desk.  I could barely use my right arm as it hurt everytime I lifted even something as light as my coffee cup.  Now that sucks.  It improved a bit on Thursday and Friday enough that I could carry a cup of coffee and even unzip my own pants without pain.  More than that is anywhere from discomfort to outright pain.  Sucks to be me huh?   Could be worse, my cough is almost gone at least. 

So today is just a sit back and watch football kinda day.  I actually put some money down on the Ravens getting 10 points in Denver.  At first I wasn't going to but really cold weather seems to be hard on old quarterbacks.  I figured Peyton Manning would not be his usual awesome self and the Ravens would have a chance.  Or Joe Flacco would throw a few picks and my bet would die a quick death by halftime.  With 11 minutes left in the game I'm looking ok.  Manning has not been great and in fact has almost given up on throwing anything but short stuff.  Flacco has been good actually.  If it wasn't for a punt and kickoff TD for Denver, they would be down 14.  So I'm liking my chances so far. 

Rest of my picks this weekend are GB over SF, Seattle over Atlanta, and NE over Houston.  We'll see how they go.  Not sure if NE covers tomorrow so I won't play that one but I am playing GB tonight.  Hope everyone has a great weekend.