Life As It Comes

Chief Illiniwek Retires4 Comments

The University of Illinois will retire its mascot, Chief Illiniwek. Ostensibly, the idea of having a Native American mascot is offensive to some; however, I - like many - only have respectful and endearing memories of having “Chief” perform at the games. In my recollection, growing up near Champaign-Urbana, “Chief” would always do a dance as a way to fire up the team, etc. As far as I know, great care was taken to be very honorable, respectful, and authentic in the portrayal.

As a Boilermaker, I wish my conference-mates well and bid a fond farewell to Chief Illiniwek.

Uberball1 Comment

Dave invited me to sign up for a fantasy football league this year. Here are my results of the draft that took place last week:

P Manning, QB
R Bush, RB
W Dunn, RB
R White, WR
S Smith, WR
N Burleson, WR-TE
J Elam, K
D Chiefs, DST
B Roethlisberger, QB
C Benson, RB
M Alstott, RB
A Bryant, WR
A Gates, TE
D Vikings, DST

Texas Doesn’t Deserve the Rose BowlNo Comments

Cal got the shaft.

1) The Rose Bowl is traditionally Pac 10 vs Big 10.
2) “The only blemish on their [Cal's] record was a six-point loss at top-ranked USC. They beat 10 teams by an average of 23.9 points per game. They were the only school in the nation’s top six both in scoring offense and scoring defense.” - CNNSI
3) Texas has a one-dimensional offense.
4) Mack Brown lobbied for votes; Cal did not.

The BCS is just the flat-out wrong system when an 8-3 Pittsburgh, ranked 20th, can get into a BCS bowl just because they were conference champs.

On the subject of the Irish, here are two articles (1, 2) that spell out the problem at Notre Dame. My favorite quote? “Three years to break a decade-long string of mediocrity or I’m out? Thanks, but no thanks.”

Weekend Summation1 Comment

I had quite the weekend this weekend. Here’s a little play-by-play.

I had dinner Friday evening at Texadelphia with Danny and Sarah and invited Danny to come with me to the Austin High football game to watch Katie McGurk’s flag corps perform. Austin was playing an “away” game at Westlake High, right off of 360. Danny and I were amazed by the amount of money the Westlake High football program seems to have - huge bleachers (almost a stadium), astroturf instead of grass, and a large, color, high-resolution jumbotron. He and I kept saying things like “at my high school, we just have lightbulbs arranged in the shape of numbers for the scoreboard, and at least one or two were always burned out.”

We watched the first half and started watching the band at the halftime show. They were looking pretty good, when all of a sudden….. Two streakers ran out onto the field, in thongs and face masks, right through the middle of the marching band. They tried desparately not to get run over as the band continued in formation. When they reached the other end of the field, the more portly of the two tried to jump a 3 or 4 foot high section of fence and didn’t clear it. He landed on his back on the collapsed section of fence. The other didn’t quite no what to do. He looked a little panicked until they both got going again. This fence kept the hordes of Junior High kids behind it from being on the field, but the crowd of these kids coupled with the untimely fall cost the streakers their freedom. One was taken down NFL-style by a girl cop and the other ran for a little bit but was caught too.

Talking to Katie afterward, we told her that her girls did a good job. She said something to the effect of “Yeah, I heard people cheering, and I thought ‘Surely they aren’t cheering for the marching band. What’s going on?’”

Then Saturday was another day of football in which I watched Purdue Football take on Joe Paterno’s Nittany Lions. It was a close game and actually really stressed me out! Haha, but it was worth it. The Boilers emerged victorious. It’s my opinion that they didn’t quite play up to the level that they’ve been playing so far this season, but when you can still get a W when you’re not playing up-to-snuff, that says something good about your program. Kyle Orton threw 2 interceptions in back-to-back possessions. That definitely made me nervous, but to anyone that would cling to that fact, I ask how many other NCAA quarterbacks went without interceptions their first 4.75 games this season? Only Hawaii has yet to turn the ball over.

Purdue is now ranked 5th in the nation. Fifth! This is the highest rank the team has ever had under Tiller. I think 5th might be a little high, because we’ve got two big games the next two weeks to prove ourselves. Wisconsin and Michigan. Fortunately they are both at home, but they will be big, BIG games.

Sunday morning at 5:45, I woke up to go catch a bus to Dallas to watch the Cowboys play the Giants. I got some good pictures of Bill Parcells and Jerry Jones (Jerry owns the resort apartment community I live in) and of course the cheerleaders.

It was a really nice outing - Riata had two charter buses stocked with food and beverages and rented Blockbuster movies to watch on the way. The Giants won - to the disappointment of many Cowboys fans, but the Giants played the better game.

On our way home, we stopped in Waco for food, and Auston and I walked to Fazoli’s. While we were there, Auston kept asking me questions about Linux filesystems, and this girl overheard and commented that it was pretty nerdy to be talking about Linux in Fazoli’s. I tend to agree. I’ve never actually been called on being a nerd in a public place like that before, and I wasn’t too thrilled about tarnishing my record. But here’s the kicker… This girl, who was wearing a Harvard t-shirt, said “I can’t believe you’re talking about Linux - that’s pretty nerdy.” To which Auston replied, “At least I’m a nerd with a job.” Valid point. She does go to Baylor. She responded, “Well, I’ll just marry rich someday.” This from a girl with a Harvard shirt on. Oh the irony!

Anyway, that about sums things up. I got in both of my funny stories anyway. How was your weekend?

CongratsNo Comments

Congrats to Gary Hall (50m Freestyle), Amanda Beard (200m Breaststroke), and the women’s 4×200m Freestyle Relay team on outstanding races. Congratulations also to Michael Phelps for a 5th gold and graceful concession of his spot on the 4×100m Medley Relay to Ian Crocker.