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In the lion’s den

I’m finally getting around to it, but here is the recap of our adventure last week in Utah.

George and I made the call long ago that we were going to travel down to Salt Lake City for the Boise State vs. University of Utah football game. Perparations were made and tickets bought.

Utah is the easiset away game there is for us as far as travel goes. Just hop on the freeway and in a few hours you’re there. Specifically, 4.5 hours. Living in the west, we’re used to having NOTHING close. Those of you back east don’t realize the distances involved out here. There are no D1 schools closer than Utah and Utah State and they’re 5 hours away. My buddy John lives south of Atlanta, and has about a dozen HUGE schools within 5 hours drive.

So, the plan was to rent some sort of luxury car for a cushy drive down. Since its so close, we’re down and back all in one day, piece of cake.

We rented a Chrysler 300 for the trip. I have to say, I liked it. Then again, I drive a 11 year old car, so at this point, anything less than a couple years old is a serious upgrade. Amazing how far cars have come in that time.

George showed up at the door just after 5 am. We were on the road at 5:30. All things being equal, we might have gotten a little too early a start. But, we made terrific time. Took us right at 4 and a half hours to get down there. I thought we would see a whole caravan of Bronco fans heading down there, but I think we were actually leading that vanguard, so we didn’t see many. However, once we got to Salt Lake City, there was orange EVERYWHERE. Apparently, some 8,000 to 10,000 Boise State fans made the trip down. I believe it.

We found a parking place on campus before 11am, and had a couple hours to kill before game time. So, George had never been downtown (ye olde Temple Square) so we hopped the light rail and rode down there.

We immediately knew something was amis. As we approach the temple, we hear some sort of preaching being played over loud speakers. The whole place was literally crawling with hundreds of guys in shirts and ties and women in skirts. It was downright creepy. We decided to boogie after a short 4 minute visit. Overwhelming. The only saving grace was there was a guy in a kilt playing the bagpipes on the corner. It helped push back the incidious feeling.

George, being the history nerd that he is, said he felt like Saladin. I had to agree.

It got worse. We went into the nearby mall food court to get some food before the game. In said food court, were multiple big screen tv’s also showing some sort of preaching thing. We were well and truly bugged out. (Note, it wasn’t until later that we found out the LDS national conference was happening… at least that helps put everything into context).

Leaving the smiling horde behind us, we head to the game. For those of you who haven’t heard the result, Boise State went in there and took Utah out behind the woodshed for a 36-3 whipping. We were 5.5 point UNDERDOGS in this game. Utah scored the first 3 points of the game (well, after our first three points)… then never scored again. It was quite amusing. Our fans 8,000 fans were louder than their 37,000.

I have to say, when you go into someone else’s house and they’re booing their own team and leaving the game early, you know you’ve really humiliated them.

The downside was our seats in the stadium were in full sun for the whole game. I got absolutely torched. Somehow, I didn’t think about bringing sun screen. The lesson is, as always, I’m a moron.

We were back on the road home at 5pm. Again, I thought we would see a bunch of broncos on the road, but we didn’t. We must have been ahead of everyone. And, just like the trip down, we got home in exactly 4.5 hours.

It was a long day, but was sure worth it. It was ever so amusing to read the columnists from Salt Lake absolutely KILLING their team the next week. Hillarious. That loss of theirs was so bad, the headline of the Associate Press article of their win over TCU mentioned it:Utah shakes off Boise State blowout, steamrolls TCU

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Couple things

Just a couple random things I’ve come across here…

First, Segway has announced a recall of 23,000 scooters for a software malfunction. Now, I understand recalls… shit happens. But what astounded me was that they have sold TWENTY THREE THOUSAND of those damn things! How in the hell did that happen?! I mean, in the right applications, they make sense. Large warehouses, private security patrols, etc. But 23,000? Really? Wow. I’ve still never seen one live.

This past weekend there was a mini controversy in college football. Oklahoma was playing at Oregon (they of the hideous uniforms) and Oklahoma got jobbed at the end of the game by a shitty call. Not only did they get robbed by a shitty call, they got doubly robbed because the shitty call in question was reviewed by video replay, AND UPHELD! Not only did these refs blow it on the field, they blew it in video review as well. Now, these refs have been suspended by the league (they were Pac-10 refs) for a game and an official appology has been issued.

Now, I know Oklahoma’s pain. 3 years ago, Boise State was in the same situation at Oregon State. Boise State fans remember this. Minute and a half left. Boise down by 2. OSU ball at the Bronco 22. 4th and 1. Oregon State gets the first down, they can kill the clock. They don’t, we have a chance to get into field goal range to win. Well, they run a quarterback sneak and their quarterback extends the ball in front of him. A defender pushes the ball back into his helmet and he dropps it. OSU falls on it 5 yards behind the line of scrimage! Boise State ball with a chance to win! Ohhh… I’m sorry… the refs said the quarterback’s forward momentum was stopped and he had the first down… despite the fact that not a single defender had a hand on him. No replay at this point. Oregon State retains possesion. First down. Game over. What did we get for our trouble? An official appology. “Gee… sorry we screwed your chance to win. Our bad.” I wonder if it was the same crew that screwed Oklahoma over as well.

Beware home refs in the Pac-10. If there is any doubt, you won’t get the call. Ever.

Of course, now, Oklahoma is whining and crying saying that the game shouldn’t count in the standings, blah blah blah. Listen OU. Everyone gets screwed by bad calls. There is nothing you can do. Crying about it just makes it worse. You lost. It sucks, but move on. There is no other option.

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CableOne Comes Through

Well, they pulled it off. The impossible. Boise State v. Wyoming is now going to be on digital cable. What an amazing turn of events. I was resigned to not seeing the game at all and living with the radio call.
The good thing is that CableOne is not going to increase rates just for adding this one channel. If I had to pay more per month to watch one game, when the other 364 days of the year this channel will be showing the Colorado State diving team or something, I might be less enthusiastic.

So, the party is at my apartment. Get there early, cause there sure ain’t much seating. There ain’t much food either… ok… NO food… so if you want something, bring it with, plus a little something for the host, huh?

In other news, someone is walking around the office today whistling ‘Jingle Bells’. If I find them, I will strangle them to death with my bare hands. There is no other option.

Speaking of my office, it is actually quiet in here today. See, that large open staging area I’ve mentioned in past posts (where they’ve alternately stored crap and had product faires) has been holding all of the printers being moved in and moved out of the entire site. They have been doing this big printer roll out program latetly, taking all of the personal printers off peoples’ desks and replacing them with the big multi-function laserjets a couple for each team. Well, guess where they were storing all of said printers… 20 feet from my cube.

Well, this week, they had piles and piles of personal printers. Then, for some reason, they removed the walls surrounding their operation which knocked down a little of the noise. From my cube door, I could see clear across the expanse of printers, as well as hear every conversation, every crash, every scrape, everything. My personal favorite was the guy who was pulling the toner cartridges from the printers and literally tossing them into a big container. Just a lovely amout of noise, to which this guy was oblivious that less than 5 yards away were people actually trying to do office business. It was so bad, I had to eject at 10am and spend the day working from home.

Fortunately, today, all is gone. No printers. No workers. No distractions. It’s nice. Of course, a guy came by my cube asking if we had wireless network connection in the building because his team is moving in. I ask him what team that was, and he said it was the PET team (whatever the hell that means) but then threw in this little gem, “Hope you’re prepared, its going to be noisy.”

Oh goody… I can’t wait.

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Hold the Phone!

Now here is a twist for the ages. According to the Idaho Statesman website, CableOne is in negotiations with ‘billy-bob’s homebrew cable football network’ in order to actually carry the Boise State at Wyoming game on Saturday. I’m sorry, but this has got to be the first time in recorded history that a cable company has actually done ANYTHING worth rooting for. I mean, suppose they pull this off, how could I ever bad mouth them again? Honestly, I don’t think I could. They might have earned a customer for life. And, of course, by “life” I mean, “until they piss me off far enough in the future that I forgot the gave me the BSU game.” Obviously.

Here is the article

Of course, this is by no means a done deal. More than likely, this will just get my hopes up just enough so that they can really crush me come Saturday. Of course, when that happens, the natrual order will be restored, and we can resume or regularly scheduled cable company bitching already in progress.

I guess I had better whip my place into shape just in case. I’m the only one in the family (at least as far as I know) that has the full on CableOne package that would be required to view this, provided they come through. I suppose I could expect to see everyone over for a few good hours of football on Saturday. The place is small, but there is lots of floor. You’re more than welcome to come by.

If the game is indeed on CableOne, my place will be the place to be. I’ll figure out refreshments when the time comes.

Keep your fingers crossed.

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Urge to kill… rising

So, right now is probaby not exactly the time for me to be complaining about not getting MORE football on TV, but dammit, I’m going to do it anyway.

Here is the background. Boise State is playing this weekend at the University of Wyoming. Being a member of the Mountain West Conference, they have the brodcast rights. Well, in their infinite brilliance, that conference has signed their TV rights over to ‘cooter’s fancy backyard college football television channel’ that is available in about 7 homes nationwide.

So, needless to say, nary a customer in the entire state of Idaho, apart from a few cow towns that are so pathetic that regular cable & satellite companies ignore them, are going to receive the game.

First off, let me say, that nobody in their right mind is taking a road trip to Laramie Wyoming. Not exactly the excitement capital of the world.

Now, I’m no marketing genius. I realize that ESPN is the 800 lb. gorilla who can dictate terms to the conferences and perahps you don’t want to play by their rules. But you’re really going to hitch your wagon to the TV equivalent of 3 legged horse with spina bifida? Is that really how you want your league portrayed? When millions upon millions are tuning into ESPN GameDay every Saturday, you really want your product shown on some channel which when not playing your games is showing the local farm report? You’re the Mountain West for christ sake. We’re not talking SEC here. The Big 10 can start their own cable channel. Mountain West, you are a road apple in college football, just like the WAC, MAC, and C-USA (although, at least we’re not the Sun Belt).

Even worse, the local NBC affiliate who has the Boise State broadcast rights has offered to rebroadcast the game locally. Free of charge. WITH their commercials intact. Asked 3 separate times, in fact. Their answer has always been ‘No’. Ok, now I can even see their logic with this move, to a point. They are thinking, that if we refuse, then enough people will call their cable/satellite providers and demand our product! It’s perfect! Well, not really. Boise is not exactly New York City. The actual number of people calling to request this new channel of their provider will mean exactly squat to these companies. Especially when compared to the amount of effort it takes for them to add a new channel.

Face it. You people suck. Your channel sucks. Your TV deal sucks. Your league sucks. Your suck sucks. You rotten pig-headed bastards are keeping me from seeing an away football game for the first time in 10 years. Last time I checked, this was 2006. How the game can’t be on here is beyond me. I totally feel a Clark Griswold level of blow up coming (“hallelujah, where’s the tylenol“). Nearing ‘homicidal rampage’ areas of disturbance.

I’m so pissed, I can’t even think straight. We can go from one week being in High Definition on ESPN with over 1,000,000 people watching to some channel where 6 guys on a tractor could watch, but won’t because, like everyone else, they will be watching ESPN.

AAAARRRRRGGGHHHHH!

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Overdose

I didn’t think it was possible, but I pulled it off. I think I have actually overdosed on football. Many times I have tried, yet could never reach that saturation point where you just couldn’t take in any more information but this weekend was the clincher. Here’s how it happened.

It all began Thursday evening. As I left work at 3:30 to head down to the Boise State v. Oregon State game on the blue. Granted, I wasn’t technically watching football the entire time, but it is part of the process, so I’m including it. So, from my arrival on campus about 4pm (for a 5:30 kick off) until the game ended at 9:30, it was 5.5 hours of some of the most fun I’ve had in a while. Boise State looked terrific. Ian Johnson was unbelievable. So great was the game, I made the mistake of starting to watch my recording of the game once I got home. I had planned on watching just the first quarter before going to bed, but that didn’t last. So, 3 and a half hours later, I watched the entire game again. That puts me at 9 hours of football, and it wasn’t even Friday yet.

Friday was strangely football free. I had other plans so I didn’t see any of Pittsburgh v. Cincinnatti. If Thrusday was the appetizer, then Friday was the palate-cleansing sorbet before the hearty meal of Saturday and Sunday. A football free day in the middle here might just have saved my sanity.

I awoke early Saturday morning and flipped on ESPN College GameDay before I even put my feet onto the floor. The first games started at 10am local. After an hour of GameDay I was set. I parked on the couch and flipped around between Rutgers killing Illinois, and Va Tech v. NC in high def. As an aside, I can’t wait until that point in the future where EVERY sporting event is in Hi Def. There is nothing worse than wanting to watch a game that is being broadcast in hi def, but you don’t receieve the channel (CableOne & ESPN2HD, I’m looking at you). I simply want every single sporting event, specifically football, in hi def. I will take nothing less. Is that too much to ask?

Anyway, the early games were simply a warmup for the real games to follow. Notre Dame v. Penn State was a huge matchp that I had been looking forward to. Plus, at the same time we had the battle of the Palouse in Idaho v. Wazzu. After last weekend, I thought Idaho might keep this one interesting. Well, they didn’t. In fact, they looked WAY worse than they did last week. Perhaps their heads got a little big after almost beating MSU. Plus, Notre Dame blew out Penn State. I rode through those 2 games going with the ‘picture in picture’ feature on the tube to watch both at the same time. Neither game was close, but I enjoyed each one immensely since I love ND and… uh… Idaho… um… not so much.

Another thing I love doing is watching the ‘crawl’ at the bottom of the screen of scores from around the country. There are always some surprising nuggets in there. Such as San Jose State beating Stanford (I always root for WAC teams vs. other conferences) or even funnier is Colorado losing to Colorado State. Oooo… Coach Hawk. You have some SERIOUS work to do there. Oh for two. Colorado has scored a total of 20 points this season. Worse than that, they have a TOTAL of 363 total yards in 2 games. Mind you, this was at home against a 1-AA team and at a neutral site against a middle of the road Mountain West arch rival. When he was here, we would regularaly roll up 20 points in less than a quarter. It might take an entire half to get to 363 yards. For the record, Ian Johnson alone had 261 total yards and 30 points vs. Oregon State. Any second thoughts there, Hawk?

Following the Notre Dame and Idaho thrashings, it was another flip fest until the big game came around, Ohio State at Texas. Although, a quick dinner trip to Red Robin was thrown in there, there were still multiple TVs showing OSU/TX and LSU/Arizona, so other than the 10 minute drive, I was still mainlining football.

The day didn’t end until Fresno ran out of chances vs. Oregon at about 11:30pm local. If you’re counting, that is 13.5 straight hours of football. Running total of 22.5 hours of football with Opening Sunday of NFL still to come.

The Sunday plan was for George and I to hit somewhere to watch multiple games. We chose Busters, a local sports bar. We arrived just after the first games kickoffs at 11am. We proceded to eat finger steaks and watch 8 games at once. Our heads were on a swivel, always catching events on all the separate games. It’s a skill. Finger steaks, 2 pitchers of beer, countless cokes, a plate of ulitmate nachos, twelve games and 6 hours later, we retired back to my apartment. What did we do? You guessed it, turned on Sunday Night Football and spent the next 3.5 hours watching Giants v. Colts. For the day, thats another 9.5 hours and a grand total of 32 total hours of football. I think I’ve developed a football shaped brain tumor.

However, I’M NOT FINISHED! What is the perfect dessert to such a weekend football meal? That’s right… TWO Monday Night Football games. Might as well finish it off with another 7 or so hours of football. If anyone out there knows of a good doctor to surgically remove the couch from my ass, send them my way. For those of you needing help with the math, that would be damn near 40 hours of football in 5 days, or a full 1 of every 3 hours was spent watching football. even worse, if you remove time spent sleeping, I spent 45% of my last 5 days watching football. And, 3 of those are work days, so if you were to remove those 24 hours from the mix, I actually spent THREE FULL DAYS doing nothing but watching games. I think I might need to seek professional help. I can totally feel my brain turning to a tapioca like consistency and dripping from my ears.
Not to mention, I won my fantasy game as well (unless Lamont Jordan goes off for 30+ points tonight… ain’t gonna happen).

Some of you might be wondering (like one in my office asked), yes, I am single, with no kids, living in an apartment. aka. zero prior commitments of any type. I suppose there are some advantages. I wonder how many of you guys out there would give their right arms to live that weekend. However, I might be willing to concede that that might have been a little too much, even for me. I think the only way I could have ingested more football was if I could have some how jacked a satellite signal directly into my cerebral cortex.

If it came in High Def, I might just concider it.

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The city’s excited

I have to determine that the city is quite excited this morning. Last nights game vs. Oregon State was unbelievable… specifically Ian Johnson (22 carries 240 yards and 5 TDs) was the most unbelievable. My gage for the mood of the city is admittedly rudimentary. I had to take my car into the mechanic this morning. I have interacted with exactly 3 strangers this morning, all before 9:30 am. The mechanic, he didn’t mention anything about the game. But I dropped my car off and went to get a newspaper at the Cheveron station and wait for the taxi. I bought a newspaper, and the lady behind the counter was very excited. We discussed Johnson’s performance and how good the game was. Then, the cab driver was listening to sports radio and we were talking about the game the whole 15 minute trip back to my apartment.

I’m no math major, but I would think that if 66% of the people you see today are talking about the game, then thats a pretty good percentage.

I got home from the game last night, and I made the mistake of firing up my DVR to watch the game. I thought, “I’ll just until Ian’s first touchdown…” Well, that didn’t last. I ended up watching the whole thing. The High Def was beautiful. The announcers were great. Sometimes when we get national guys when we’re playing a bigger opponent, they spend the whole time talking about the opponent and shafting us. But, Fowler and Herbstreit were terrific. And, seeing Johnson’s runs again were just amazing. He (and the O-line) made that Pac-10 defense look silly.

I think running the table could be a real option. I’m very excited.

Car update again…

Just got the call from the mechanic. Apparently the radiator is shot and needs to be replaced. $310 parts and labor. *sigh* What can ya do? At least I have the peace of mind knowing that this guy is not screwing me. If it were anyone else, I might get a second opinion, but I know this guy is legit. Speaking of which, if any of you out there live in the Treasure Valley and own a Honda/Acura, you will find no better mechanic than Dietz Automotive at 24th and Fairview.

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Car Update

Finally got a hold of the last honest mechanic in the valley. He can’t get me in until Friday morning. *sigh* What can ya do? Yes, for the record I’m still driving the damn thing. Roll the dice. Go for the gusto. No guts no glory. Damn the torpedeoes. Etc. Etc.

I’ll just carry extra coolant and a oven mitt. What’s life without a little gambling, right?

Hopefully, it will just be a leaky hose or something. But, I really can’t complain. The car is 10 years old (only 91k miles though) and has pretty much been bullet proof for the 7 years I’ve owned it. *knock on wood*

Site update… I’ve had renewed problems with the database. I’ve lost posts and comments when they for some reason re-restored my site from backup about 48 hours after they did it before. Anyway, I think it has re-solidified. No guarantees, but we’ll see what happens.

More football tomorrow. According to USAToday, BSU is favored by 8. I don’t know if I’d agree with that. Seems a little high. But then again, I would be supremely pleased with another 40 point blow out.

My team here at work is having a potluck tomorrow. Actually, the whole call center is (even though we aren’t even in the same building as the call center anymore, we’re doing it too). They’re calling it a ‘Tailgate Potluck’ for the BSU/OSU game. They’re encouraging everyone to wear their blue and orange, giving out prizes and crap like that. I can say with all sincerity that I have no doubt that I am the biggest bronco fan on our team. Just because I don’t paint my face or wear an orange fright wig doesn’t mean I’m not passionate about it. On the other hand, part of me just hates potlucks. I don’t know why.

Site update… I realize I haven’t written a “feature” piece in a while. Mostly been riding on the everyday minutiae of my rather boring life. That will change. I have a couple of ideas I want to get done.

So keep checking back. There will be more to read, I promise.

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Game one in the books

Well, game one of the back-to-being-single era is done. Boise State won big, which was good. But I would be completely lying if I said I wasn’t a little sad. I’ve told everyone a thousand times (and written it here) just how much I loved tailgating. Frankly, I really do miss it. While the game is going, it is easy to be distracted and enjoy it. But as I was walking to the stadium (and walking back to my car after), I was bummed out. I knew football season would be hard, so I was expecting it, but that doesn’t make it fun.

I had a thought, I guess I kinda equate tailgating to my form of camping. I enjoyed everything about it. From cooking the day before, to loading up the car. Setting up when you get there and tearing down when you leave. I looked at none of it as a hassle. I like to think I brought something to the table with those events, but now I can’t be sure. Who knows. Maybe I was just a pain all the way around.

I do kinda wish my seats were somewhere else. I’m directly across the stadium from where I used, and they still all sit. As much as I didn’t want too, I did take a peek at them occasionally. Even if it was from 80 yards away through binoculars. I would also be lying if I said I didn’t miss all of them. Even her. Especially her, I guess I should say. Those were just some really good times. And to have it all gone in the blink of an eye is still tough to deal with. I frankly think that home football games will be harder than the actual impending holidays. Just hard to describe.

And yes, as I entered the stadium, I did glance over at the tailgate spot. Granted, I was a ways away, but it looked like business as usual. Not sure what I expected it to look like, but still… Of course, my mind was working on ways to fix my situation and unfortunately, there aren’t many options. Unless I meet some people who are already doing it up, I won’t be able to put something together myself. Even if I could get a parking pass in the stadium, it would be a paltry knockoff. I guess I’ll just have to live with the disappointment for a while.

It was nice to sit with family. I do enjoy them. But its just not the same as sitting with your wife. I guess thats the bottom line. Perhaps the football deal is just a symptom of the actual problem. Walking back to the car alone just sort of drove that home.
Oh well… onward and upward I suppose…