I'm surprised at how much Derrick Thomas's death is upsetting me. For those of you who are generally out of the loop as far as sports are concerned, he played for the Kansas City Chiefs for 11 years and is generally considered to be one of the best linebackers that ever played. He was paralyzed in a car accident about two weeks ago, and died suddenly this morning as he was getting ready for rehab. He was 33.

Not that it's not sad whenever anyone dies, but what makes this sadder than it is already is that he was actually one of the good guys. He was always very involved in the Kansas City community, especially with underprivileged kids. He was never arrested or had any problems with drugs. He didn't have six kids with four ex-girlfriends.

The only dumb thing he ever did was not wear his seat belt on an icy highway, rushing to make a flight.

Anyway, I was watching ESPN tonight during dinner, but I finally had to turn it off. Somehow they always find the footage that has the person answering the "How do you want to be remembered?" question. It got to be too much.

Watched "SportsNight" tonight when I got home from trial practice and was having a little cereal (Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, for those of you keeping score at home).

Sadly, the show appears to have gone a little downhill. I used to laugh out loud at it, and they usually incorporate a serious storyline with the funny one, but tonight, the serious one was weak and the funny one was not funny.

See, Casey got his eyes dilated and couldn't see until right before the show. Maybe it was just because I had my eyes dilated yesterday and it doesn't take six to eight hours to wear off, more like two. I couldn't suspend my disbelief.

Or it could just be that I was too tired to laugh. It's been a long day, and week, and month and year and millennium.

All I can say is that I'm damned excited that in ten days I'll be in New York City with my girls for the weekend. It's a nice, bright, shining light at the end of the tunnel.