Hello. My name is Tuna Helper and I'm a Dallas Cowboys Addict...

I consider myself a pretty rational person.

But my love for the Dallas Cowboys isn't.

I've followed games on ESPN during class when I should've been paying attention. I've booked flights at a moments notice to witness Emmitt Smith break the rushing record. I've sat at a bar studying for a final, while watching the Dallas Cowboys pummel Brett Favre. I yell at the TV, as if Brian Stewart can hear me. I get into arguments with my fiancée after losses. I spent an hour inside my parked car drowning my sorrows into a bottle while screaming obscenities at the steering wheel. As if the steering wheel somehow understands the pain of watching the ridiculously slow Amani Toomer break three tackles and darn near walk 50 yards for a touchdown in the biggest game of the season.

This love affair with the Dallas Cowboys is embedded deep in my soul. It started at a young age. My parents were young newlyweds living in a Texas-New Mexico border town with two kids and a newborn son. On Jan. 15, 1978, barely 11-months old, I was caught in a Civil War.

Super Bowl XII. My mother's favorite team was the Dallas Cowboys. My father's? The Denver Broncos.

I was asked to take sides.

I did.

That's all you really need to know about me, but I'll fill in some blanks.
I was born in Texas. West Texas. The part most people turn their nose up in disgust when I mention it. A small town called Andrews, near Odessa/Midland, where my family is from. My family moved to California when I was four. We moved to Bakersfield, which, ironically, is the part of California most people turn their nose up in disgust when I mention it. There were some advantages though. There were a lot of displaced people from Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas. So there's a huge contingency of Dallas Cowboy fans there. I went to Florida A&M where Bob "Bullet" Hayes was an Olympian before he brought his game-changing speed to the NFL. This is also where an affable and chubby Nate Newton would hone his skills as a Pro-Bowl caliber lineman. This is also where he receives the most grief about his short career as a bumbling criminal. I spent 10 years in the South working as a journalist covering entertainment, before returning to the West Coast to go to law school.

I'm a fan of sports generally, but the Los Angeles Lakers is only other team that rivals my insane infatuation with the Dallas Cowboys. Pau Gasol baby!

I associate the happiest time of my life with the triumphs of my favorite team. I was in San Francisco in 1993 when Alvin Harper switched with Michael Irvin, caught the slant and raced down the field to help seal that Super Bowl birth. I ran out of my dorm screaming and yelling when I learned Jerry Jones signed Deion Sanders in 1995. A Super Bowl ring would soon follow. I watched grown men cry when Emmitt Smith broke the rushing record on that October afternoon in 2002.

And then one glorious day in 2005, I saw this blog. And soon, my work, my school work, my social life, and, sometimes unfortunately, my love life, would take a backseat to checking the blog for updates.

I'm humbled by this experience and I'd like to help Grizz as much as I can. I'll reiterate that I can't hold a candle to his writing and analysis. The same goes for the members of this blog. I didn't have the foresight or optimism that Terry had to see how better our life would be once Antonio Ramiro Romo entered our lives. I also couldn't see the pragmatism in Deke's arguments about our unbelievable season, but they proved true.

I appreciate the comments and suggestions and I'll jump on them as soon as possible. I'm inspired by this blog because we have a lot of diverse opinions here. I'll try and do right by Grizz and do justice to the blog.