Robbie got a treat this evening, as his doggie friends Brady (left), a lab-chow mix, and Ollie (right), a puggle, were out when I took him for a walk. I let him run around with them, which is always entertaining. Robbie doesn’t seem to understand that he’s faster than them, so he’ll run away and then turn around, waiting for them to catch up, seemingly confused about why they can’t keep up with him. Heh. Dumb dog. :)
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Categories: Pets, Animals & Stuffies
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It's a gorgeous first day of my favorite month at Notre Dame. Some of the trees are just starting to change colors.
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Categories: Mobile Blog (Moblog)
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Man, I remember when a headline like “Gas prices break the $2 mark” (hat tip: InstaPundit) would have meant that prices were shockingly moving above $2.00, causing waves of consternation in a populace accustomed to paying around $1.40 per gallon or thereabouts.
Heck, I remember taking a cross-country road trip with Becky in May 2001, when gas seemed really expensive because it was spiking toward $2.00 (see here: “gas prices soared 31 cents in April and early May of 2001, reaching $1.71 per gallon”). I even specifically remember seeing an alarmist USA Today story during our road trip, right at the top of the front page, highlighting the utterly unimaginable possibility that gas might cost $3 per gallon — THREE DOLLARS!!! — later that summer if then-current trends continued. (They didn’t.) Anyway, even at just under $2.00, I was so amazed by the prices, I specifically made of a point of taking pictures of gas-station signs in Los Angeles and Chicago:
Now we hear “two dollars a gallon” and we think, “Wow, that’s cheap!” Heh.
In a related story, having written this post, reminiscing about how inexpensive gas was when I was younger, I am now officially an old man. Soon I’ll be talking about walking from Trojan Hall to VKC uphill both ways, and complaining about how those kids today are always listening to that loud rock ‘n roll music. Now, pardon me while I go get my Metamucil…
Today, for the third time this year and the sixteenth time since I became an “Irish Trojan,” USC and Notre Dame both won. I watched the Irish beat Purdue at Notre Dame Stadium, then walked home, turned on the TV, and watched the Trojans beat Wazzu in Pullman. It was, for me, a perfect day.
Well, maybe “perfect” is a bit strong. The USC-Washington State game was quite stressful to watch, right down to the final play, thanks to a distinctly subpar performance from the Trojans and an excellent effort by the Cougars. Kirk Herbstreit, who picked Wazzu to pull the upset, almost nailed this one. As for the ND-Purdue game, although it appeared comfortably in hand for pretty much the entire second half, I must admit that I was quite nervous right up until the end, when the Irish managed to stick the absolute nail in the coffin in the final minute. However improbable a Boilermaker comeback seemed, I kept thinking how improbable the Irish comeback last week had seemed, and wondering whether fate might just be so cruel as to send Notre Dame down to a crushing, Sparty-like collapse just one week after what happened in East Lansing — an event that would have forever cemented the Curse of Becky. :) Suffice it to say, I was very happy when the clock hit 0:00.
In terms of the game-watching experience as a fan, I thought the neatest part of the ND game was, perhaps counterintuitively, the rain.
Insofar as I can remember, this was the first time I’d attended a football game is a real rainstorm since the Thanksgiving game against Wethersfield my senior year in high school… and although this wasn’t the sort of ridiculously cold, drenching monsoon that those who attended the Michigan State game last Saturday had to deal with, it did rain pretty hard for a while — and I thought it was great. The moment when it really started pouring coincided with Purdue having the ball on the student section’s side of the field, which naturally means we’d be quite loud, but I swear we were especially loud when that rain really picked up. It was like the students were yelling to the heavens, “BRING IT ON!!!” Maybe that was just my warped weather-nerd perception of things, but either way, it was cool.
And, if nothing else, the rain made for some photo opportunities that are different than what I usually get at football games. (It also made taking photos interesting, as I had to keep the camera dry as best I could while still trying to get the shots.) Watching everything, and everyone (myself included), go from dry and sunny to soaking wet was entertaining, and watching the stadium turn from its usual colors to more bold hues (mostly blue, but also some red and yellow and other miscellaneous colors) as people put on raincoats was also cool. And of course, there were lots of opportunities of photos of people looking silly and/or cute in their raincoats, hoodies, ponchos, garbage bags, etc.:
There were also lots of cool cloud patterns over the stadium throughout the game, both before and after the rainstorm. If you browse through my full photo gallery of the game, you’ll see a whole bunch of cloud photos mixed in with everything else.
Naturally, as the rain approached — with talk of possible severe thunderstorms and stadium evacuations — I became chief meteorologist for our little area of the student section. :) In between blog posts and watching the game, I was checking the radar on my cell phone…
…and updating my friends on the situation. I can see why the stadium folks were initially worried about severe weather, given how nasty things looked at 3:50 PM. But the northern part of the squall line had weakened by 4:35 PM, so by the time it started raining, it was clear to me that we weren’t going to get clobbered too badly. And indeed, we just got a burst of heavy rain, no lightning or thunder. Which is just as well, because if an act of God had forced the evacuation of the stadium just to prevent the Curse of Becky from finally being broken, I would have been quite annoyed. :)
Anyway, a few other highlights from the photo gallery:
• Big drum, big coach
• Irish flag guy
• The 1966 national championship team
• The ‘66ers get props from the student section
• Darius Walker scores (if only I’d been holding the camera more steady!)
• Meg doing pushups
• Kevin doing pushups (alas, blurry)
• Me and Joel
• Lifting the big guy
• Their golden helmets shining in the sun…
Again, full gallery here.
P.S. Back to USC for a second. Stewart Mandel writes:
If Oregon were to play USC on a neutral field right now, I’d take the Ducks. Seriously. While the Trojans are still finding themselves offensively, the Ducks look like a well-oiled machine. They put up nearly 600 yards on Arizona State in a 48-13 victory, with RB Jonathan Stewart (12 carries, 142 yards) and WR Jaison Williams (10 catches, 137 yards, two TDs) once again strutting their stuff. Of course, Oregon plays USC at the Coliseum, and not until November, when the Trojans will presumably be much improved.
I also think Andrew’s comment on the Trojans’ struggles against Wazzu is worth reading.
P.P.S. After the jump, three more video clips from the Notre Dame game: first a clip of everybody singing the fight song, then a clip of Tim McCarthy’s latest punny safety message, and finally a clip of the moment where Notre Dame absolutely secured victory and ended the Curse of Becky once and for all. :)
