A few observations on the game last night:
1) Was impressed w/ Rutgers in every way. I think the final margin was closer than the game really was. And I thought they played w/ real class (helping people up from the pile, no over-the-top gesturing, no personal fouls (except the roughing the punter)). Schiano seemed like a really decent guy as well. And they were able to get their fans off the field after they rushed it w/ one second left. After seeing the way some of the SEC fans & coaches behaved this week, I wonder if how much class a program has is proportional to how long you've been a major player on the CFB scene. I'll be cheering for Rutgers the rest of the way (unless there's still some way UL can get into a BCS game). I think they deserve to be in the argument for the NC game & if they beat WVU in Morgantown, would argue that they should get a chance.
2) Am interested in Petrino's breakdown after looking at film. His early statements seemed to place the blame on Brohm, but it seemed to me that there was NO time to throw. The playcalling seemed odd to me. No plays to the TE for the 2nd game. The only play that seemed to have any traction was the "power sweep" looking play to Kolby Smith, but it didn't work as a deep pitch, which we tried three times. Obviously, getting 2nd and 16 every possession screws up the playbook. I've never seem UL take so many careless penalties (motion, offsides).
3) Excuses: Every team in every sport can make excuses after every loss. It doesn't take away from the Rutgers win, but the WV (home) / RU (away) combo seven days later made for great TV, but it would have been tough for anyone to sweep that DH. And how heartbreaking was it to watch Bush leaving the field as Rutgers drove down for the winning score. Ahhh, what could've been had he not gotten hurt ....
Anyway, am off work, it's supposed to get to 78 degrees here in full sun today, and the glorious Billikens have beaten their two D2 preseason opponents by a combined 81 points, so life goes on.
Showing posts with label disappointment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label disappointment. Show all posts
Friday, November 10, 2006
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Worst ending to softball season ever
Monday: Law Office #3 loses 18-3 in less than 4 innings vs. #2 Fossils. Dolberry only bats once in the slaughter & pops out to LF. Also had an E5.
Tuesday: TarHeel Mortgage #5 loses to #1 seed (24-13), then immediately falls in loser's bracket game (21-14). Dolberry had his best game of the week in G1 when didn't bat & only played catcher for a few innings. In G2, I went 0 for 2, inc. a few embarrasing fouls where I almost missed the ball. (Good "d" at 2B, though, for a change.)
Wednesday: Law Office loses to #4 seed 21-11 after being tied at 11 thru 5 innings. Dolberry exited game for ER after a needless, shoulder dislocating, diving stop on an IF single from the 2nd batter of game.
Recap: 4 games, all loses, no hits. I need to get better at this, if I'm going to keep doing it.
(Got a ride to the ER. Shoulder spasmed a few times, but not as bad as usual, then while registering at the hospital, it popped back into place, saving us some $. I was able to get back to the game before it ended. Fine now. Hard to sleep, though ... achy & stiff.)
Tuesday: TarHeel Mortgage #5 loses to #1 seed (24-13), then immediately falls in loser's bracket game (21-14). Dolberry had his best game of the week in G1 when didn't bat & only played catcher for a few innings. In G2, I went 0 for 2, inc. a few embarrasing fouls where I almost missed the ball. (Good "d" at 2B, though, for a change.)
Wednesday: Law Office loses to #4 seed 21-11 after being tied at 11 thru 5 innings. Dolberry exited game for ER after a needless, shoulder dislocating, diving stop on an IF single from the 2nd batter of game.
Recap: 4 games, all loses, no hits. I need to get better at this, if I'm going to keep doing it.
(Got a ride to the ER. Shoulder spasmed a few times, but not as bad as usual, then while registering at the hospital, it popped back into place, saving us some $. I was able to get back to the game before it ended. Fine now. Hard to sleep, though ... achy & stiff.)
Friday, October 13, 2006
Dolberry's Top 20 Songs (Week of 10/13)
I'm a longtime countdown geek. In high school, I would tape Sunday morning countdowns off the radio while we were at church & keep detailed logs of the results. On Sunday nights, while doing my homework, I'd dial in a often static-strained WLS out of Chicago to listen to their Top 10. Then I'd merge all the countdowns I had tabulated w/ my own personal Top 20 to create a composite countdown using some needlessly complex weighting formula. On Monday I'd bring my results in and let my friends know the results. (I imagine there was a lot of breathless anticipation.) Believe it or not, there was one other guy who did the same thing. (Pablo, hope all is well.) Yep, it was a real American high school. Presumably, there was a different, larger, cooler crowd that traveled in orbits different from mine.
Anyway, those were great memories.
One year, the local radio station had a contest to guess the year's Top 3 songs. Ha. Guess? Dude, I wrote them all down. Every single week. Even though my musical tastes had matured somewhat & the station had shifted to Adult Contemporary. I'd spent the better part of a year listening to that hideous Kenny Rogers / Dolly Parton duet, but now it was all going to be worth it. OK, so the prize was only a $500 gift certificate to a local jeweler, which I had no use for. I was going to give it to my mom & hope I could get like 10 cents to the dollar in real money. Even bigger, was the winning. I was going to win a major local contest. There was very little doubt. The only question was how they would assign points to the songs for various weeks. While I enjoyed the creation and calculation of obtuse formulae, I suspected, rightly, that the radio station would keep it simple. I mailed in about 5-6 "guesses" based on various scoring schemes & then waited for New Year's Eve for the annual year-end Top 100 ... and glory.
I'd gone ahead & calculated the Top 100 (assuming a simple #1 = 30 points, #2 = 29, ..., #30 = 1) and for the first few songs, everything was great.
#100 - some lousy Little River Band song. Yeah! I knew that.
#99 Sheena Easton. Check. (turn radio volume way down)
#98 The fourth single of that Hall and Oates album. Heh. Heh. Easy money.
But then somewhere early on, in the 90s, a song was off by a place or two. Then I'd get back on track, or more appropriately the countdown got back on track w/ my results. In the long hours of that New Year's Eve (12/31/82?), probably alone in my room, I figured out the discrepancy. The jerks at W-whatever had defined the year differently than I had. I'd guessed the scoring system, but I hadn't figured on the first countdown of 1982 being the one from the last week of December 1981. Of course, most years it wouldn't even matter. As long as the Top 3 songs were safely in the middle of the year, or just not in that "first" week, I'd've been ok.
Well, as you've certainly guessed by now, that wasn't how it worked out that year. My entry of 1-2-3 was actually 1-2-4. My alternate guesses based on alternate scoring systems were like 1-3-4, 1-2-5, 2-3-4, etc.
As it approached midnight when they were to name the lucky winner my only hope was that no one guessed the Top 3 and that they'd award the prize to whoever came the closest; that is, me. At the time, I was pretty sure my entire 1983 was riding on this moment.
So, before the #1 song the DJ says ... "nobody guessed the Top 3 songs of the year." (yeah!) "So, we had a blind drawing from all the entries and the winner was ..." It was somebody other than me.
This put me off countdowns for a long time.
Actually, until right now. Here's my Top 20 for the week of 10/13/06. (Special thanks to APD for his help w/ this.)
Anyway, those were great memories.
One year, the local radio station had a contest to guess the year's Top 3 songs. Ha. Guess? Dude, I wrote them all down. Every single week. Even though my musical tastes had matured somewhat & the station had shifted to Adult Contemporary. I'd spent the better part of a year listening to that hideous Kenny Rogers / Dolly Parton duet, but now it was all going to be worth it. OK, so the prize was only a $500 gift certificate to a local jeweler, which I had no use for. I was going to give it to my mom & hope I could get like 10 cents to the dollar in real money. Even bigger, was the winning. I was going to win a major local contest. There was very little doubt. The only question was how they would assign points to the songs for various weeks. While I enjoyed the creation and calculation of obtuse formulae, I suspected, rightly, that the radio station would keep it simple. I mailed in about 5-6 "guesses" based on various scoring schemes & then waited for New Year's Eve for the annual year-end Top 100 ... and glory.
I'd gone ahead & calculated the Top 100 (assuming a simple #1 = 30 points, #2 = 29, ..., #30 = 1) and for the first few songs, everything was great.
#100 - some lousy Little River Band song. Yeah! I knew that.
#99 Sheena Easton. Check. (turn radio volume way down)
#98 The fourth single of that Hall and Oates album. Heh. Heh. Easy money.
But then somewhere early on, in the 90s, a song was off by a place or two. Then I'd get back on track, or more appropriately the countdown got back on track w/ my results. In the long hours of that New Year's Eve (12/31/82?), probably alone in my room, I figured out the discrepancy. The jerks at W-whatever had defined the year differently than I had. I'd guessed the scoring system, but I hadn't figured on the first countdown of 1982 being the one from the last week of December 1981. Of course, most years it wouldn't even matter. As long as the Top 3 songs were safely in the middle of the year, or just not in that "first" week, I'd've been ok.
Well, as you've certainly guessed by now, that wasn't how it worked out that year. My entry of 1-2-3 was actually 1-2-4. My alternate guesses based on alternate scoring systems were like 1-3-4, 1-2-5, 2-3-4, etc.
As it approached midnight when they were to name the lucky winner my only hope was that no one guessed the Top 3 and that they'd award the prize to whoever came the closest; that is, me. At the time, I was pretty sure my entire 1983 was riding on this moment.
So, before the #1 song the DJ says ... "nobody guessed the Top 3 songs of the year." (yeah!) "So, we had a blind drawing from all the entries and the winner was ..." It was somebody other than me.
This put me off countdowns for a long time.
Actually, until right now. Here's my Top 20 for the week of 10/13/06. (Special thanks to APD for his help w/ this.)
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