charms that seem to work, and a few photographs that serve to

PITTSBURGH -- The training wheels are off for Bud Dupree. Finally.The Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker heads into Sundays game against the New York Giants without any limitations, ending a patience-testing stretch in which the 2015 first-round pick missed training camp then underwent sports hernia surgery before beginning the arduous process of getting back into what coach Mike Tomlin calls football shape.The initial step came against Cleveland two weeks ago, when Dupree made it on the field for a single snap. The next came on Thanksgiving in Indianapolis, where Dupree picked up his first two tackles in nearly 11 months in a 28-7 victory. Dupree was in the huddle for 20 plays against the Colts, enough to unleash weeks of pent up adrenaline. And almost enough for Dupree to start lobbying defensive coordinator Keith Butler and outside linebackers coach Joey Porter for more playing time.I will but I try not to because I dont want to get on their nerves, Dupree said with a laugh. Some people do it. Some people dont. I just dont get into it. Im right beside (the coaches). If they put me in, they put me in.And theyre most certainly going to put Dupree in against the surging Giants (8-3), who have only surrendered 13 sacks all season. Pittsburgh needs to make Eli Manning uncomfortable if it wants to end New Yorks six-game winning streak, something the Steelers have struggled to do against good teams this season. Only nine of Pittsburghs 24 sacks have come against teams with winning records.We want to get to the quarterback, Dupree said.Duprees return should help. He finished with four sacks as a rookie last fall, though all of them came over the first half of the season. He trimmed 20 pounds off his 6-foot-4 frame last spring and while he believes the hernia wasnt a result of trying to cut weight, he admits he was diagnosed after working out too much.Whatever the cause, Dupree insists its behind him and in a way, hes relieved. Doctors told him the injury was bound to happen at some point. By taking care of it now, hes optimistic it wont come back to haunt him in the future. Either way, hes encouraged with the added explosiveness. Hes not the only one.Hes moving good, Butler said. Is he moving faster? How fast you are only matters when youre playing on the field. So how fast does he play? He played at a pretty good pace the other night. So well see if he continues to get better.Tomlin saw enough to lock Dupree into the four-man rotation at outside linebacker alongside seemingly ageless James Harrison, leaving Jarvis Jones, Anthony Chickillo or Arthur Moats as the odd man out.As Bud gets up to speed, somebodys going to win, somebodys going to lose, Tomlin said. I dont care who wins. I think we all win if we play the hot hand and those are our intentions.Its a spot Dupree is thankful to be in after being placed on injured reserve at the end of training camp and enduring a setback early in his rehab that threatened his entire season. It was the first time in his football life hed been forced to sit and watch for an extended period of time. And it wasnt fun.I just tried to stay positive, he said. But was it easy? No, it wasnt.Dupree buried himself in the film room, and Butler believes the mental reps have allowed Dupree to quickly rise back up the depth chart. The goal now is to stay there. The way the Steelers move guys in and out of the lineup, he doesnt need to be ready for 60 snaps. If hes fresh for 40 or so, he thinks that will be enough to make an impact. Hes not as big as he was a year ago. Thats not necessarily a bad thing.Its not about that, Dupree said. Its about being flexible, being bendable, being loose. I just want to go out there and ball.Game notes G David DeCastro (ill), WR Darrius Heyward-Bey (foot) and RB D. Williams (knee) did not practice Wednesday. ... TE Xavier Grimble (quadriceps), S Shamarko Thomas (groin) were full participants.---For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP-NFL Darius Bazley Jersey . At a Manhattan federal court hearing, attorney Jordan Siev said his law office has gotten more evidence nearly every day to support its lawsuit accusing MLB and Selig of going on a "witch hunt" to ruin Rodriguezs reputation and career. He said the defendants went "way over the line. Abdel Nader Thunder Jersey . After the whistle, Thornton skated the length of the ice, pulled Orpik to the ice from behind and punched him in the face several times. https://www.thunderrookiesshop.com/Kyle-Singler-City-Edition-Jersey/ . It says Pocklingtons lawyer filed the appeal Friday in a California court. CTV Edmonton also says Pocklington gave a $100,000 cash deposit as part of the conditions of his bail, and that he will be out on bail until his appeal is heard. Nerlens Noel Jersey . Blackwood, 28, has played the last three seasons in the San Diego Padres system, including the past two summers with Class AA San Antonio of the Texas League. Shawn Kemp Thunder Jersey . After the whistle, Thornton skated the length of the ice, pulled Orpik to the ice from behind and punched him in the face several times. If you write, people want to visit your office. It doesnt matter if youre immortal or middling; the immortal may get lines of tourists, and the middling curious friends and straggling fumigators, but the impulse is the same -- people want to see where the mystery happens, if only to make the mystery less mysterious. They want to see the talismans rubbed smooth and the voodoo dolls stuck with pins; they want to admire the view that somehow produces the point of view; most of all, they want not only to spy where the magician stashes his hat, but also to make sure he feeds the rabbits. The work may revel in disarray; but the office should be nothing less than a vision of order, evidence that a story well-written should lead to a life well-lived.In this, my office is no different from the haunt of any other scribbler: It attracts visitors. Its only distinction is that also repels them. Time and again, Ive lead the hopeful up the stairs to the little bedroom that serves as my atelier, only to see the reality snuff the hope -- and the fantasy that my office might be charming enough to warrant description en fran?ais -- from their eyes. It is a sobering experience, for them and for me; for I have seen kindly family members literally recoil from the sight of my workshop, and well-meaning acquaintances let out an involuntary Oh under their breath, before turning on their heels and getting the hell out, as if they have seen something they werent meant to see. I have had many people come to visit; I have never had anyone stay very long, including my wife, my daughter and my dog.?I do not know why this is, exactly. My office is on the second floor of my house, with a pleasing view of a wooded backyard; its loaded with knick-knacks and personal mementoes; it is bursting -- barnacled -- with books. Though small and cramped, it is, in short, as well-appointed as many another writers domicile, and I am nothing if not friendly. Come and visit, and I will not only show you around; I will make sure the unsteady stack of literary magazines tottering in the corner doesnt fall on you. Come and visit, and I will explain why taped to my window frame is not only a succession of wallet photos of my daughter Nia, but also postcards of Hans Hobleins portraits of Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, angrily squaring off. Come and visit, and I will show you not only the first book I ever bought -- The Portable Faulkner, kept within easy reach -- but also, like, the four-thousandth.?And yet nobody visits; or, put another way, everybody by now knows better than to come up the stairs. Hell, I know better. When I come home from traveling, my office is often the first place I stop and visit; it also the first place I flee, even when I have to write. This is not a bad thing; more and more, I have stripped myself of rituals, and have made offices of wherever I happen to sit myself down. I write on the couch; I write in bed; I write, like everybody else, at Starbucks; I write, as I am writing now, in a cubicle at the local public library. My office is often where I start; some impersonal place, barren of everything but necessity, is generally wheree I, and whatever it is I am writing, end up.ddddddddddddMy wife would offer a simple explanation for the failure of my office to be an office: its a mess. I disagree. Not that its messy, or that the accumulated water glasses and coffee cups tend to overwhelm the meaning of the carefully curated personal arcana; it is, and they do. But even on those occasions when Ive tidied up, there is something about my office that keeps visitors at bay, something that goes to the heart of the whole idea that the best place to find a writer is where he or she happens to work. A scribblers haunt is always haunted by the unscribbled, and so it is with mine. It hardly matters that I keep, within arms length of the plastic core-building accordion that now serves as my chair, a chronological collection of every magazine in which Ive published a story. It matters even less that, since Ive been at this a while, the collection can be measured by the yard, for on the shelves above are the yards of uniform slipcased masterpieces published by the Library of America, to which Ive dutifully and nerdily subscribed for 35 years. The discrepancy is intentional; so is the comment cast upon my output by the complete works of H.L Mencken and Mark Twain. My office, then, is where my motivation melds with my masochism, and where as a result I can neither stay nor stay away from very long.?Of course, unless youre Philip Roth -- unless youre in the Library of America -- I cant imagine that many writers feel differently about their offices than I do. I cant imagine that they find their offices places of refuge, as anything indeed but places of trial, which is why Ive come to believe that admiring a writers work enough to seek out the place where it was written is akin to liking a steak enough to seek out where it was slaughtered. Its interesting, if you can ignore the blood on the walls. Ive never been able to, especially when it comes to my own little abattoir, though thats not to say that Im not still beguiled by the promise of writing in the comfort of my own home, surrounded by books, magazines, and photographs of those I love. I even have a few good luck charms that seem to work, and a few photographs that serve to inspire me when all seems lost, such as those of me finally starting a football game at the end of my senior year in high school, after what seemed a lifetime of ignominiously riding the bench. It was not only the first success of my life; it was a success of endurance over talent, and so pertinent to my eventual life as a writer. The only problem is that when I look at those photos, what they have to teach seems small, compared to what I often see through the window right next to them. There, the red-tailed hawk that haunts my backyard has chosen as his perch a branch not more than 10 feet away, and directly in my line of sight; and so the greatest inspiration of my office is watching him go dutifully to his, where he tends to his wriggling prey, and then flies off, leaving nothing but bones behind. ' ' '