Random Picture Dump and Stream of Consciousness Thoughts

Sorry, folks, I just haven't been in blog writing mode recently. Maybe it has something to do with my football teams being pummeled week in and week out, maybe it has to do with busy times at work, maybe it just has to do with being out and out lazy.

So in the meantime, until I get motivated to write more, here are a few pictures:

Thalia and Nelson, watching TV:


Pearl, who just, by sheer coincidence, happened to be walking by the stove while there was a leftover chicken nugget lying around. She swears she had no idea that it was up there.


OK, what the hey, I've started a blog post, so here's what else is on my mind:

• Coming home from Target yesterday we were listening to (what else?) the Rolling Stones. "Let it Bleed" came on. Abra piped up "there's a Glee version of this song!" uh, really? Now I don't know the first thing about Glee, other than it seems like some up-with-people pop soap opera thingie. And I can't imagine them doing "Let it Bleed". So we went back and forth on this for a while, and finally worked out that Abra was thinking of "Lean on Me", not "Let It Bleed". Too bad -- I was looking forward to seeng how are they were going to work in lines such as "oh that jaded, faded, junkie nurse // what pleasant company!".

• Wacko is in desperate need of a haircut, but has gotten too old to deal with the groomer. So the poor dog is going to have to deal with Brenna and I being his groomer. Pictures when we're done, but I am reminded of my kindergarten picture, where my father literally had given me a bowl haircut the day before.... The good news out of this is that as near as I can tell, the grooming clippers are close enough to the ones the haircut place uses on me, so when I'm done with the dog, I'll just start in on myself.

• RichRod.... sigh. Yeah, it's time, Michigan, time to let him go. I'm fine with the progress made on the offense, but watching the defense take backwards steps each year has gotten me at the end of my rope. I'd live with a coaching change on defense, but we've already had that, and still things go worse. I'm not going to beat this issue to death -- volumes are being written online right now about this (and here's one I mostly agree with). But suffice to say: while I'm not a card carrying member of Ann Arbor Torch & Pitchfork, I'm going to advocate cutting our losses on this one.

• The Redskins -- was there anyone on God's green Earth that didn't know the Redskins were gonna lose to the Vikings last weekend once Minnesota got rid of Brad Childress?

• Thursday Lebron comes back to Cleveland. This is going to be interesting, to say the least. I'm not above enjoying watching the Heat struggle so far this season.

OK, that's it for now. Hopefully next time I'll be more interesting....

1980 Redskins Photos

When I was 15, I spent a lot of time on photography. We also had pretty regular tickets to Redskins games. So here is the convergence of those two activities: a set of shots I took of various Redskins games in the 1980 season (a rather awful 6-10 season that got Jack Pardee fired and ushered in the era of Joe Gibbs.) They are rather pedestrian shots, and clearly I didn't leave them in the fixer long enough when printing them, since they have gone unintentionally sepia in places. I think most of the soft focus is due to how much I had to enlarge the images when printing....

Anyway, here are a few from the Nov 16th game against Eagles, which the Redskins lost 24-0. First, Coy Bacon (79) attempting to chase down Ron Jaworski:

While Jaworski was no spring chicken by this time, neither was Coy Bacon, so I'm guessing this resulted in something like a 5 yard gain.

And then one of Carl Hairston leading the Eagle in a massive gang tackle of the ever-forgettable Wilbur Jackson (40):

Jackson led the Redskins with only 57 yards rushing that day, and I think you can see why. Jeff Williams (73) looks on, probably pondering the block that he missed. I can't quite tell who that Eagle is that is airborne-- maybe it was Herm Edwards...

And finally, a shot of Mike Connell punting against the St. Louis Cardinals in the Oct 19th game, won by the Redskins 23-0 (the Cardinals obviously stunk worse than the Redskins):



I like that last one, I've caught Connell at maximum extension, with the ball caught in midair, having just come off his foot and about to cross the scoreboard clock. That's Clarence Harmon (38) back blocking for Connell, and Ken Stone (23) trying to block the punt.

Thanks, of course, go to Dear Old Dad, for taking me to the games and supporting my photography habit with cameras, lenses, and a darkroom...

Sigh

(thanks to DHamm for passing this along...)

Picture Dump #34512

So postings have been slow lately, due to a variety of factors including a house undergoing rehab, the learning of a new operating system, and work in general. While I don't have anything exciting to say, I'll at least update folks with some pictures.

Several weeks back, we went to the Case-Oberlin football game (I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that it was the first time I've been to a Case home football game). The girls made signs:

and off we went to the game.


Thalia certainly enjoyed vamping for the crowd along the front


Case won 41-6, although we left after the halftime show. My favorite part of the game was Case's 42 yard bomb for a touchdown with 10 seconds left in the half, which was called back for a false start. What do you call after that? You guessed it: "OK, guys, same play." Which resulted in a 47 yard bomb for a touchdown.

I should say at this point that Case is playing a lot better than any of my other teams. Right now, they are riding a 26 game regular season winning streak, and ranked 10th in Division III football. Nice job, "Good Spartans" (as Thalia calls them, so as not to confuse them with the "Bad Spartans" of Michigan State).

Other things going on? Well, Thalia has started soccer, which she seems to enjoy. And is pretty good at, I think. I love this shot of her with a friend waiting to go into the game:


We also picked apples at Patterson's Fruit Farm last weekend. The girls enjoyed being able to reach the apples high in the trees, with a little help:


And here is Thalia doing her best audition for a commercial for the Apple Growers of America:


Mmmm, apples:


And finally, the living and dining rooms remain torn up while we rehab and paint. This has resulted in ample messes for the cats to get into. Nelson seems to enjoy burying himself in the plastic drop cloths:


Money back guarantee, indeed.

Weekend Schedule

Here's my weekend:

Thursday night: lay on couch, watch Titans @ Steelers
Friday morning: teach class (gotta earn my salary somehow)
Friday afternoon: drive to Michigan
Friday night: attend high school football game
Saturday morning: tailgate @ Michigan Stadium
Saturday 3:30pm: attend Michigan - Notre Dame
Saturday night: lay on couch, watch USC @ Ohio State
Sunday morning: drive to Cleveland
Sunday 1pm: lay on couch, watch Vikings @ Browns
Sunday 4pm: lay on couch, watch Redskins @ Giants
Sunday 8pm: lay on couch, watch Bears @ Packers

God, I love football season!

Top 10 Football Moments

A few friends have been posting their top ten football moments, and in honor of the kickoff of football season, I thought I'd post mine. These will be top ten moments involving games I've actually been to in person, so not surprisingly most of them involve Michigan football.

Since the joy of the game is as much about who you are with and where you are, I've also included the people I was with and the stadium we were at.

So here we go (note that the ranking is only approximate. For example #1 and #2 are actually #1a and #1b):

1. 1983: Super Bowl XVII. John Riggins breaks away on fourth and one to score the game winning touchdown for the Redskins over the Miami Dolphins. (Dad; Rose Bowl)
   
2. 1997: #1 ranked Michigan beats #4 Ohio State 20-14 on their way to a perfect season. Charles Woodson's punt return for a touchdown happened right in front of me (as did Brian Griese's fumble, which was probably the longest 2 seconds in my life until he fell on the ball). (Mark; Michigan Stadium)
   
3. 2005: Michigan beats #8 Penn State 27-25 on a pass from Chad Henne to Mario Manningham as time expires. (Mark, Matt, Hans; Michigan Stadium)
   
4. 2003: #5 Michigan beats #4 OSU 35-21 in the 100th game of the rivalry. (Mark, Matt, Anne, Stacy, Rodney; Michigan Stadium)
5. early-mid 1970s: Redskins-Eagles. I don't remember exactly the game, but it was snowing and Roman Gabriel was QB'ing for the Eagles. I'm guessing it was the Dec 21, 1975 game which the Redskins lost 26-3. Anyway, it was my first live football game, and it obviously made a big impression. (Dad, RFK Stadium)
6. 2001: #11 Michigan beats Wisconsin 20-17 in a game where Michigan blocked two punts and also recovered a muffed punt in the final minutes which allowed them to kick the game winning FG with seconds left. (Mark, Rodney, Brenna, Abra [in utero]; Camp Randall Stadium)
7. 2000: #10 Michigan beats #19 Illinois 35-31 after staging a furious rally to score 21 points in the fourth quarter. (Mark, Walt, Brenna, Rodney; Memorial Stadium)
8. 2002: #15 Michigan beats Michigan State 49-3 as payback for the cheatenous win the Sparties stole the previous year in East Lansing. Michigan State coach Bobby Williams was fired the next day. aka "The Woodshed Game" (Mark, Matt, Stacy; Michigan Stadium)
9. 2003: #5 Michigan beats down #15 Notre Dame 38-0. ND QB Carlyle Holiday had a total of 1 yard passing at half time. (Mark, Matt; Michigan Stadium)
10. 2008: Redskins Art Monk and Darrell Green get inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH. (Dave, Mike, Mark; Fawcett Stadium)

The Misery Index

I have made a football misery index. Well, in principle it could be a happiness index, but right now it's not. It's definitely a misery index. So as most of you people reading this blog know, my happiness in the fall hinges largely on the success of the Washington Redskins and Michigan Wolverines. If my teams do well, I'm happy; if not, I'm crabby. Yes, this probably makes me a shallow and limited individual, but it is what it is.

This year has been rough for Michigan. Abysmally bad. No-bowl bad. Most-losses-ever bad. They've lost 5 in a row to Ohio State, and they've lost the last four games I've gone to. So naturally I've been cranky.

So I sat down to devise a way to measure my misery. Being a scientist and a numbers geek, this is what passes as an interesting diversion to me.

I started by simply averaging the winning percentages of the two teams. That's about as basic as you can get. But that doesn't quite capture things -- most importantly it doesn't quite capture expectation -- if a team has been consistently good, then a fall to 0.500 is bad; conversely, if a team has repeatedly stunk, winning half your games suddenly looks like a success.

So I revised it as follows: for each year, I calculate a running 10 year average and standard deviation of each team's record. Then I calculate the team's normalized deviation from the average, ie:

normdev = (win pct - average win pct)/stddev

For example, +1 is a one sigma good year, while -2 is a two sigma bad year (yes, yes, calculating a stddev from 10 data points which are almost certainly not distributed normally is a statistical no-no. Sue me. This isn't one of my scientific papers, this is a self-pity party.).

And then I average the two team's normalized deviation to get my net misery index.

So here it is, tabulated from 1987 (the year I got to Michigan) to today (click the image for a bigger view):

(if you think this is bad, you should see the other stupid charts that sit on my laptop...)

So what do we see?

1) THIS YEAR HAS BEEN MISERABLE! Yes, the misery index is at its lowest value in 21 years. I'm cranky. Michigan is off the charts (literally) bad, having a 6 sigma bad season.

2) The only time that things were close to this bad was in the early 90s, when the Redskins were suffering through back-to-back 3 and 4 win seasons. Ugh. That was awful, and got us the Heath Shuler era in Washington. The football gods truly hated the Redskins at that point.

3) I got out of that early 90s misery not by the Redskins becoming good again, but by them being consistently mediocre. "Consistently" being the key word here. After a while, you get used to being mediocre and the misery index isn't so bad. I would like that not to be Michigan's solution to the present misery issue.

4) There are good times there, too. In 1991, the Redskins won the Super Bowl and Michigan went to the Rose Bowl (and lost, of course. It was the next year that they won it). In 1997, Michigan had their undefeated season and won a share of the national championship.

5) Interestingly enough, the past few seasons Michigan and the Redskins have been see-sawing, keeping the misery index kind of flat. In 2005, Michigan had the (now superceded) "Year of Infinite Pain", but the Redskins returned to the playoffs for the first time in a while. The next year the Redskins collapsed again, while Michigan had a good season (with a lousy ending, but hey, it's Michigan). The year after that (i.e., last year), Michigan went through the Horror, and stumbled its way through through another down year, but the Redskins returned (briefly) to the playoffs.

6) Now, however, even though the Redskins are competing for a playoff spot, nothing can overcome Michigan's abysmal year. Sigh.

I hate football.

Why I Love My Wife: Reason #441531

So Abra is having a sleepover tonight. We have a total of five, count'em, five young girls upstairs screaming and hollering right now. The decibel level is truly amazing. It's a constant stream of "we want more popcorn!" "abra's bossing me!" "emma wants the light on but i want it off" "waaah!" "i want to go home" "i'm thirsty" "can we have some juice" "can we put on our pajamas" "screeech" "i need a nightlight" "abra's mom!" "abra's mom!"

And Brenna, bless her heart, is dealing with all of this while Healy and I are cowering in the TV room watching LSU-Auburn.

My Diabolical Plot

(Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Between travel, beginning of the semester, and a nasty bug, I've been buried. I've got a backlog of things to post, will try and catch up over the next week or two. And if you didn't see in the comments to the missing cat post, Pearl did in fact come home. --Chris)

Like all children raised in the electronic era, the girls like to watch TV and play on the computer. If left to their own devices, they would plug themselves in from breakfast to bedtime. Not that I ever did that. ("Here's the story... of a man named Brady...", "Juuust sit right back and you'll hear a tale...", "Here we come.... walkin' down the street..." Naah, I never watched TV as a kid.) And when we tell them to shut off the TV or log out, then we get a lot of "can we watch TV now?" or "can we play on the computer now?" And I'm getting a bit tired of saying "NO!".

So we're trying a third party regulator: a digital "screen time" timer. In the morning, I set it to the total daily allotment of TV/computer time. (I'm not telling the world what it is. It's embarrassingly long. But good for my sanity.) Then, while they are on TV/computer, it ticks down. They can pause it while not watching, but if they start again, the timer goes back on. And when it hits zero, that's it for the day.

I explained the rules this morning, and hit start on the timer, and they were off like Usain Bolt to run up to the TV so that they didn't miss precious seconds of TV time while the timer was going.

So here's where the diabolical plot kicks in: if they are watching SPORTS with me or mom, that is "off-timer" -- they get that for free. My hope is that this will provide incentive for them to watch sports and continue molding them into die-hard sports fans.

I am even considering instituting a rule that says if they are watching Michigan football, the timer runs backwards.

We'll see if this works. It should be good for some comedy if nothing else.

Diabolical plan update:

Two comments from Abra while watching football today:

- "Why does he have to turn to watch the ball?" (which led to a discussion of cornerback play)

- "So Notre Dame is bad?" (which needed no discussion)

Hall of Famers

Last Saturday I went to Canton and met up with my buddies Dave and Mike and Dave's cousin Mark to see the Pro Football Hall of Fame induct two of the all-time Redskins greats, Art Monk and Darrell Green.

Now, see, I'm getting old. Because I remember when the Redskins drafted these guys, and now some 25 years later, they're going into the Hall of Fame. In 1980, Art Monk was the Redskins' first first round pick since, well, Methuselah. Three years later, Darrell Green was this little guy I'd never heard of from a little school that I'd never heard of (no, it wasn't Texas A&M) that we drafted while I was still recovering from the Redskins first Super Bowl win.

They both turned out to be pretty good pickups for the Redskins. That Bobby Beathard knew what he was doing.

Anyway, so I drove down to Canton and met up with Mark, Dave, and Mike at the Hall. Here they are, with Murno wearing his special Joe Theismann home jersey. (As Murno will gladly tell you, anyone can get a burgandy Theismann away jersey, but you dont see many in the home whites....)

As it turns out, we weren't the only Redskins fans there. Not by a long shot. I'd say maybe 90% of the people there were Redskins fans, and I'm not exaggerating. It was like a home game at RFK Stadium. We had planned on maybe picking up a shirt or cap, but by the time we got there two hours before the ceremony, everything Redskins-related had long since sold out. Well not everything. There was quite a sale on Brad Johnson autographed helmets:

(You buy a helmet like this, I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh?)

Ahh, Brad. I'm sorry guy, I know it wasn't really your fault, but if you had managed to control that errant snap on the field goal attempt back in 1999, maybe your autographed Redskin helmet would be worth more than $29.00.

So after wandering around a bit, we went on up to the stadium for the ceremony. The stadium was decked out with big banners of the inductees:



And when we got to our seats, here was our view:


Uh, yeah. Not exactly the front row. But the Joe Montana guy in the visor in front of us notwithstanding, it really was a totally pro-Redskins crowd; look at all this burgandy and gold (and white):


So they started things off by introducing a bunch of Hall of Famers that had come for the ceremony, including Redskins greats like Bobby Mitchell and, of course, Joe Gibbs. And among those Hall of Famers was none other than Michael Irvin. The whole stadium erupted in boos when he was announced, it was the longest, loudest booing I'd ever heard (and you bet your sweet bippy I was booing along with the rest of the crowd). When the booing finally died down, Chris Berman -- who was MC'ing the event -- turned to Irvin and said "Oh, they're just booing because they love you" and in the now-quiet stadium you could hear some guy yell out "No, we really don't." Heh, classic.

Then it was time to introduce the inductees. The first Redskin announced was Darrell Green, and just to give you a flavor of what it was like in the stands, here's a (rather low quality) videoclip:

Yeah, the place went bonkers. Now, I saw some ESPN clips of the ceremony, and I can tell you it was much louder in the stands than it sounds like on TV. And then the place went even more bananas when Art Monk was announced:

And here's Murno when Monk was announced:


And then it was time for all the speeches. Three-and-a-half hours of speeches can get pretty boring, Redskins or not. One amusing moment was when Eddie DeBartolo Jr introduced Fred Dean, at one point in his introduction speech he said "In his first game with the 49ers, Fred sacked Dallas Cowboys quarterback Danny White three times..." and then you couldn't hear anything else but the entire stadium cheering madly for about 30 seconds. Heh, Redskins fans do not like the Cowboys.

Now, people were pretty loud cheering for Darrell when he got up to give his speech, but it was amazing when Monk got up. The place went nuts. It was a four minute standing ovation (timed at 4:04, I read later) which, when you think about it, is a pretty long time. There was clearly some pent up frustration on the part of Redskins fans that it took so long for Monk to be inducted. Heck, even my Mom was mad about that...

Anyway, I'm glad I went. As Murno said, it was kind of closure on that era of the Redskins for us. We watched them get drafted, we watched them lead the Redskins to three Super Bowl wins, we watched them retire, and we watched them go into the Hall of Fame. Now we can get on with the business of rooting for our now-rather-mediocre team, heh.

Oh, and a postscript: at breakfast the next morning back home in my neighborhood, we walked out the door of the diner and nearly walked smack into none other than Tony Dungy. I thought Murno was going to walk straight into a telephone pole, he was so flabbergasted...

The TV is on again

So tonight I turned on the TV for the first time in six weeks. There is football on. Redskins football. Life is that much better tonight.


(is it just me, or does that look like Dave and Mike?)

Uh oh

Thalia just asked me how to spell "Notre Dame".

No good can come of this.

Two Coaches

So this season both head coaches for my football teams have retired. Last month, Lloyd Carr announced he was stepping down after 13 years as the head coach at Michigan, where he won a national championship and five Big 10 titles. Today, Joe Gibbs retired from his second stint as the head of the Washington Redskins; after winning three Super Bowls the first time around, he came back to lead the team into the playoffs twice in four years.

There are similarities, I think, to both situations. Both Carr and Gibbs were larger-than-life coaches who achieved the top success with nationally prominent teams, and then in later years had to deal with charges that the game had passed them by. In both cases, there may have been some truth to that, but what I'll always remember from both men is they way they represented their school/team. I always knew, no matter what, that the Wolverines and Redskins would come to play. Sure, they didn't always win, but I never questioned the heart of a Gibbs team or a Carr team.

And both coaches went out with a final statement. Everyone expected Michigan to get waxed by Florida this year in their bowl game; instead, Lloyd Carr led the Wolverines to a wild, wonderfully improbable 41-35 win over the Gators. Meanwhile, Joe Gibbs, faced with four straight must-win games to get into the playoffs, coached the team to wins in all of them, and then played the Seahawks tough until the final few minutes. All of this with a team dealing with the horrible death of Sean Taylor.

In sports today, there seems to be way to much of a "win it all or else..." attitude among fans that I really can't stand. Teams that don't win championships every year are called losers, coaches that don't win championships every year are called incompetent. Nonsense. Give me the teams these men fielded any day of the week. Always competitive, always classy, and often winners. That's what I want out of the teams I root for.

So whether it's Lloyd Carr talking about another "tremendous" effort by the Michigan team, or Joe Gibbs saying "Well, I'll tell ya'..." at the start of every interview, I'll miss them both. Thanks, Coach Carr; thanks, Coach Gibbs.

Next fall is going to be interesting indeed....

Buckeye's is good spelers!

Yes, it's Ohio State - Michigan week again. Time for the battle for the Rose Bowl, played in lovely Pasadena. Or, if you are the Ohio State Buckeyes, I guess it's played in "Pasedena", at least according to this article in the local paper. Is that Pasedena, North Dakota, maybe?

This reminds me of the episode of Cheers where Norm and Cliff go out for dinner at the Hungry Heifer:

Norm: Yeah, Cliffy had himself the "Ton O' T-Bone". For less than four bucks you get 24 ounces of USDA Choice "bef".

Cliff: Bef? No, you mean beef.

Norm: Beef? Don't be ridiculous, Cliffy. That stuff is "bef". You see it's a Hungry Heifer trademark for a processed, synthetic – what – meat-like substance.

Cliff: Ah, no.

Norm: What do you expect for four bucks? You see me complainin' about the "loobster"?

Maybe that's what's gonna happen to the Buckeyes. They'll go to the Rows Bowl in Pasedena, while Michigan will get to go to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

And how much do you want to bet that Doug Lesmerises has an English degree from Ohio State?

Dear Sparty

28-24 Michigan

Nine Straight

OK, so this was a tense day. Let's start with the good part:



14-9 Michigan over Penn State. That's nine in a row, you nitty kitties!

OK, now the frustrating part. That game was supposed to be a nationally televised game. But here in the lovely nuclear wasteland we call "Buckeye Nation," the game got pre-empted on ABC, who showed the ever-competitive Ohio State - Northwestern game.

Now when this happens, ESPN is supposed to pick up the national game, ie the Michigan game. When I saw on Thursday that that was the situation, I figured I had a 50-50 chance of actually seeing the game. I was being optimistic, as it turns out.

Sure enough, come kickoff, both ESPN and ABC are showing the OSU game. Which, by the way, ends up a 58-7 blowout which I can see on two, count 'em two, channels.

Bless my lovely wife, who, upon seeing my anguish, actually called the cable company to chew them out. No dummy she, she complained that we were unable to watch the Penn State game -- had she complained about missing the Michigan game here in Ohio, no doubt the nose-picking third-grade dropout OSU fan on the other end of the line would have gleefully cackled through his missing teeth at her....

Anyway, so I have to listen to Michigan on internet radio. Not good for my blood pressure. So for three-and-a-half quarters, I'm pinned to my laptop, staring at but not actually cognizant of the Michigan State - Notre Dame game on the TV (although I will point out that Notre Dame is now 0-4, heh!).

As it turns out, the cable company was showing the Michigan game, but in the non-high-def channels (non-high-def? do people watch that anymore?). I only figured that out with four minutes left in the game. I flip over in time watch Michigan move the ball downfield and then punt with 1:30 left. So Penn State now has the ball back, and is only down by 4. Dancing through my head are visions of Penn State returning the last-second game-winning touchdown misery that Mich bestowed upon them in 2005. And now I can't watch any more.

I can't.

I just can't.

So I went to the backyard and sat here:



Yes, I am sitting on a plastic picnic bench, nursing my Nosferatu, and trying to keep from throwing up.

(Have I mentioned my love-hate relationship with football?)

Anyway, the most amusing part is that while I am sitting on a playschool picnic bench and drinking beer, I hear -- simultaneously -- both my wife and my neighbor yelling out to me from the two houses "it's okay, Chris/Honey, it's over."

And with that, Michigan's ninth straight win over Joe Paterno's Nittany Lions is in the books. I can now exhale.


(Sorry, Joe...)

Our Long National Nightmare is Over...

...at least for this week.



38-0 Michigan over Notre Dame. Thank you, Notre Dame, for being worse than us.

Peaks and Valleys

And so college football has kicked off.

Yesterday we took the girls to their very first football game ever, Case at Oberlin. (Yes, both schools have a football team; they're in DIII.) Free admission, 50-yard lines seats, all that fun stuff.



The girls managed to sit through a half before being bored silly, so that's probably all one can ask for their first game. The indoctrination process will be slow but steady.


(Case won, by the way...)

Now, I hope they will grow up to be more like their mother than like me when it comes to football. She loves football, enjoys the games, rides the highs and the lows, but then seems to have this ability to (figuratively) walk away from the stress of it all.

I, on the other hand, will probably die of ulcers from watching the game. I love it, but I am edgy and stressed watching games, and it kills me a little bit each time when Michigan inevitably implodes a few times each season.

Which makes yesterday a classic example of my love/hate relationship with the game. While it was tons of fun taking the girls to a game and explaining what a punt is, a few hours north of us this was happening:



(Thanks to the boys at MZone for this perfect visual description of the Michigan game...)

sigh.

I love football.

I hate football.

I'm going to go throw up now.

*sigh*....

Well, there you have it.

When you score 39 points and lose, that just ain't good. Particularly when you have what is supposed to be one of the best defenses in the country.

That was not the game I expected. I thought it would be an uphill battle for Michigan to win the game, but I certainly didn't expect two stout defenses to let the scoreboard light up like a defective pachinko machine. HELLO, SAFETIES???

My predictions? Not so good. My mood? Even worse. But you have to give the credit to the Buckeyes and, particularly, to Troy Smith. He can't graduate fast enough for my taste.

Yes, there's talk of a rematch. And if the BCS shakes out that way, Michigan has another shot. But I don't think that's right. Ohio State shouldn't have to beat Michigan twice in a row for the championship; or, put another way, Michigan shouldn't have to simply earn the split to be crowned champion. That just doesn't seem right. But maybe we're going there -- who knows? In any case, Ohio State won yesterday and I've gotta tip my hat to them.

Doesn't make me happy, though. Grrrr...

Bo

i've never been one for "heroes" that i don't know. my heroes have always been family, friends, the people who i know, the people who i have seen firsthand reaching out to others, doing things to make the world better, etc. so i can't call Bo a hero. but I will call him an icon, an image of many of the things that i love about michigan football, and a symbol that invokes many special memories and thoughts.

and i'm really feeling a bit sad about this now as it hits. i will always have the memories of bo beating Woody Hayes (yes, I followed Michigan that long ago), winning big 10 championships, firing Bill Frieder, and repeatedly kicking off to rocket ishmael BECAUSE DAMMIT HE CANT RETURN IT THREE TIMES IN A ROW, CAN HE? those memories won't go away, will never go away. but i will miss him the next time I drive up to A2 for a game, and won't be able to tune in and hear the crusty old bastard on the radio hollering about Notre Dame, or OSU, or some other something that he needed to rail against. The man bled maize and blue, and was a michigan man until the end.

I'm gonna miss Bo. Go kick Woody's ass up in the big Big House in the sky, my man.