Frequent Citations

Victory Wreaths All Around

I've been watching the Olympics here and there with the rest of the world. Mostly I've been watching swimming, which has always been one of my favorite sports to watch. At these Olympics, that means mostly watching that American freak of nature break one record after another and making it look easy (except for that astonishing 4x100 relay).

What gives away his status as an athlete with no equals is not the comparisons to other athletes with slews of gold medals, or to other swimmers with phenomenal speed. No human seems up to the task of putting his dominance in context. So the NYT went with Secretariat for a comparison. The horse won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths. And won the Triple Crown. If you're compared to Secretariat, well, I don't think you can ask for better.

Being Irresponsible

Maybe it's being a 3L, maybe it's being so swamped there's no hope of recovery, maybe it's innate laziness. Whatever the cause, I am ditching my responsibilities and going to watch some swimming with LL and Squirmy!

And if that's not enough, I watched two movies this week: Stranger than Fiction (fantastic--something I never thought I'd say about a movie with Will Farrell in it) and Secondhand Lions.

I know, it's all wildly out of character. If it makes you feel any better, I've almost completed the enormous pile of reading I had to do for this weekend's LR event. Sadly, said event is at my house which means tomorrow is going to be one long cleaning and cooking frenzy--mostly cleaning. Ugh.

Part 2 of 7: The Sports Fan

I am extraordinarily close to my mother. We are much alike, to the extent that we can often read each other's mind.

But three of my favorite activities were ones I shared exclusively with my father when I was growing up: fishing, card-playing, and being a sports fan. These activities turn out to have a common thread. They require a happy willingness to take whatever comes along, good and bad, knowing it will never be all one or the other.

My father taught me to sit still and enjoy the water and the breeze as I waited for a tug on the line. He taught me to count cards and analyze opponents' likely strategies when we played Euchre or Pinochle. And by moving the family to Ann Arbor when I was young he turned me into a Michigan fan.

We didn't have a television. I remember listening to games--baseball, basketball, football--on the radio. It's still my preference for baseball and basketball, but I've come to love watching football games on tv (or, better, in person). Dad would get mildly riled up sometimes as we listened, expressing disgust at a particularly bone-headed play or delight at a great score. Occasionally he would haul some of us over to a friend's house to watch a particularly big game. I learned then that it's poor form to root for a team from the state you were born in over the team from your current locale. Or so they told me.

I don't recall him ever expounding at length about sports in general or any philosophy of being a sports fan. But Dad is a bit of a fatalist at heart, and a classic gesture of his is a shrug combined with a short shake of the head and a sad little smile. Meh, that's the way it goes. Sometime you catch a fish, a flush, a winning game--sometimes you don't. Really, it's beside the point.

Yesterday's loss hurt, I'll not lie. To see the Wolverines lose The Game again is heartrending and maddening and yes, I want the coach's head on a platter. Again. But I love the game, the rivalry, the war. I love watching the players excel (when they do) and their grit when the game turns against them. I love knowing that there will be next year, that sooner or later there will be revenge (and a new coach).

I prefer winning to losing. But man, I do love the game.

So there you go, a second thing about me. McPan, I know you're a hockey fan (no better place to watch hockey than Yost, by the way). What are 7 things we should know about you?

Fun And Games: Or, Go Illinois!

Last night was lots of fun. It was great to see people relaxing and laughing, enjoying their food and each other's company. We even had a smidgen of pizza , a wedge of pie, and a smallish pile of brownies left at the end of the evening, and a shelf of beer in the fridge. (It was the miraculous never-empty shelf, as it kept getting restocked during the course of the evening with beer off the back porch. Clever, huh?)

I'm just hoping someone's cleaned the kitchen by now. Most of it got done last night, but it was still semi-disastrous when I left to go back to school today, after working at home and listening to Michigan lose to Wisconsin. It's always painful when they lose, but it's just insulting when they lose on a combination of bad calls and idiot plays. But wow, how about Illinois? I want to give every player on that team a hug for beating OSU today, bless their hearts. Now if Michigan could, finally--no, I can't even say it.

Suffice it to say, the game next weekend will be as dramatic as any in the series. Go Blue! Meantime, I'm going back to my endless reading.

Golf: Or, I Am Not A Sweet Young Thing

I attended a golf clinic today. Learning how to play golf at least well enough to play a round with others is one of my goals in life. So I went to this clinic in order to get started. TFL had taken me to the driving range once or twice, but aside from knowing that you hit (or try to hit) the ball with the fat end of the stick I really didn't know anything.

Now I (sort of) know how to hold it and know a few of the things I'm doing wrong, one or two things I'm doing right, and that I need tons of practice. I picked most of this up from the general words the instructor said at the beginning of the session. He spent most of his time with the various pretty girls in attendance, sparing me a few desultory (and blatantly inaccurate) "nice swings." But he also told me I was turning my wrists wrong. Maybe that will help.

Anyway, I liked hitting the balls, and a few times I actually got some distance on them. (They got up in the air and went more than 20 yards--that counts.)

Happy Days

Bears won! Whooooot!

Good thing I already had Superbowl Sunday marked off on my calendar!

It's Game Day!

We're going to the big game today -- state championships at the university stadium. Whoot!

Send waves, everyone. This is going to be a big game. Yay for good weather.

Football Ups and Downs

Now can we fire Lloyd Carr? Yeesh. The agony is really too much to bear.

And then there are indignities such as this, up with which we do not wish to put. I'm going to have to go find me something equally abysmal to post about that little school down in the fascist police state of Ohio.

However, Saturday night TFL and I and more than 10,000 (I kid you not. They were expecting 12,000, but it was freaking cold out and apparently about 1,500 people came to their senses while the rest of us froze our patooties off.) other people watched Boy's team beat an undefeated team to win the State semi-finals. It was a great game for the defense, and went down to the final minute. Whee! Beat the other team on their home turf, too, which is always fun. I do feel a touch sorry for the seniors on the other team --  this was the first game they ever lost. But hey, losing to Boy's school is nothing to be ashamed of; not at all.

State championship! Top bracket this year! A biggish deal, although Boy says they are massive underdogs this year, not supposed to win. We'll see...

Next weekend will be insane. We'll have to leave for the championship sometime around Ungodly o'clock Saturday morning. I thought about going down on Friday instead, but the hotels are all sold out. Still, it's going to be tons of fun, and we'll have my nephew (and godson! hee!) with us which will make it even more fun. He'll be able to quiz me on my UCC while we tailgate -- I'm sure he'll enjoy the heck out of that.

And the Bears, how about that? After all those crummy years under awful coaches, it sure is fun to see them win. Or, as the case may be, catch the headline that they won.

Bo: Victor Valiant

Bo Schembechler died today.

He died the day before The Game. The Game that he, better than anybody, knew how to win.

Go, Bo, but don't rest in peace. Stay on the sideline, pacing and raging and inspiring and guiding.

Go Blue! Also: Ow.

It was so nice to see Michigan do what Michigan is supposed to do: thrash Notre Dame. However, I still say that if Carr wants to keep his job he better beat Ohio State!

I just ordered my books for this quarter. Two classes (the third has no books listed) -- $333 dollars. The pain, oh the pain.