It's all about Class

Many of you've probably heard, by now, that Ricky Williams, after testing positive for illegal substances (again), has been suspended from the NFL for the upcoming season and has worked out a deal with the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League to play ball this year. Well, it just so happens, I spotted this article on ESPN.com. In the article, ex-Argonaut Joe Theismann berates Rikcy Williams and says that he's ashamed that he's associated with the Argonauts. Here's an excert:

I don't ever want to be mentioned in the same breath as Ricky Williams as a football player. He's a disgrace to the game. The man doesn't deserve to play football. He should go on with his life and treat his drug addictions or go do whatever he wants to do. He's been suspended from the National Football League on multiple occasions. Doesn't anybody have any class anywhere?

So, just to get this straight, this is the same Joe Theismann that can't stop talking about himself while doing the color commentary on ESPN, right? The same Joe Theismann that insists that he knows exactly what happened on the field, even if the replay shows conclusively that he's an idiot? The same Joe Theismann that appeared to be drunk on national television and hitting on sideline reporter Leslie Visser?

Indeed. Class abounds.

You're Missing Out

In case you haven't been watching the NHL playoffs (and I suspect none of you have been), you're really missing out. The last couple days have been absolutely amazing.

First, on Monday, Liz and I watched the Devils take on the Hurricanes. The game was 1-1 coming down to the wire and really had a blistering pace - lots of great action. Then, with only 20 seconds left to play, the Devils come into the zone and Scott Gomez fires off a shot that richochets off a stick and a goalpost and in. Game over, right? The fans in Carolina were absolutely shell-shocked. Carolina pulls their goaltender for the upcoming faceoff and the Devils center, John Madden, wins it so cleanly that he inadvertantly fires the puck all the way into their own defensive zone. 17 seconds and a cloud of dust later, the Hurricanes tie the puck with just 3 seconds left on the clock. The crowd went absolutely ballistic. So, after 59 minutes and 40 seconds, two goals had been scored in the game. Then, in the final 20 seconds, two more goals were scored. Carolina went on to win in overtime.

Then, last night, Liz and I were watching the Mighty Ducks take on the Avalanche. Great game, really - very back and forth in terms of momentum. Theodore was brilliant in net for the Avs, despite giving up three goals in regulation (he certainly could have given up more). Jim Dowd gave the Avs a 2-1 lead in the third period on a short-handed goal. But then Joffrey Lupul decided to put the Ducks on his back and scored two goals in a matter of 2 minutes, picking up the hat trick on the night and giving the Ducks a 3-2 lead. After a blast from Rob Blake to tie the game at 3 each, they were headed to overtime. Who better to finish it than Lupul, who netted his fourth goal of the night in overtime to win it for the Ducks.

Hockey playoffs are great.

Speaking of hockey, though, I live in Minnesota which is, supposedly, the "state of hockey" in the US. If that's the case, though, why doesn't anyone care? I mean, no one around here seems to follow it, except me. Liz and I were at the gym the other day and just doing some laps around the track. In front of all the exercise equipment are gobs of TV's, all tuned to various shows. Not one of them had a playoff hockey game on. The sad part is that I really wasn't that surprised. Hockey is great, but they sure screwed themselves over with that whole lockout thing, last season.

Idiots.

Flashback

So, Lizzy said something to me tonight (God only knows what) that reminded me of an absolutely hilarious post from Nate's blog. Of course, I needed to search through all of his archives until I found the relevant post and could recount the hilarity. So, as to not deprive all of you of laughter at Nate's expense, here's the relevant blurb:

I've been told I need to recount "the chicken-on-the floor" event, which occurred the weekend before last, when my entire family went out to celebrate my parents' 26th wedding anniversary. I agree, it is funny. I will recount it here, but be forewarned--this may be an one of those "you had to be there" stories...

I ordered chicken for my meal, so when it finally came, I was mowing it down like it was nobody's business. Everyone else was enjoying their steak or whatever. So, I had a piece of chicken I was forking into, and through brute force or want of eating the meat as fast as possible, I managed to accidentally bump the adjacent piece of chicken, enough so that the piece of chicken actually jettisoned off the plate and managed to fall off the left side of my lap, onto the floor. Scott was sitting to my left, and at first I assumed he saw or felt the chicken leave the eating area as it happened. He didn't, and after several seconds, as I sat in disbelief over the loss of my precious chicken, I felt the need to proclaim to Scott that some of my chicken fell on the floor. This, it turns out, was the funniest thing Scott (and my sis Sam, who was across from Scott) had ever heard of before, ever. Then, in a brilliant show of speaking through intense laughter, Scott proclaimed to the table "It flew the coop!!"

Needless to say, my humiliation was complete. I laughed with everyone at my loser-ness (and yet I cried a little inside). It was funny, good times. Still, I missed out on precious chicken, and for that I am sad. But in either case, was fun.

I hope you all enjoyed that as much as I did.

Yay for Hockey Playoffs

I know it's been a while since I've posted, but I've been busy watching hockey. ;) The playoffs are well underway and, as usual, I'm a happy camper because of it. Now, if I could just stop having to go to work everyday and sit around to watch hockey uninterrupted, by life would be complete...well, kinda complete, anyway.

Liz and I have been working entirely too much, lately (her more than me, really). I've been busy at the clinic and I've been doing a side project for the guys at Relion, too. That has kept be quite busy, but the work with Relion has slowed down a little (for now), so things are starting to get back to normal. Liz is working on a project with a team from India and a team from Israel. Apparently, no one outside the country is doing anything so she's been working extra time trying to get their work done for them. Huzzah. Basically, we've come to the conclusion that we need a vacation.

Speaking of vacations, we've got a few things in mind. For one, Liz's folks are planning a family vacation to Milwaukee in a couple months. Not very exotic, I know, but it'll be a chance for the family to get together and hang out for a while. Besides, it's been a while since I got to take in a Brewer game. Also, we've been talking about taking a trip to Chicago for a long weekend to see Nate and Nick. Now, if I could just get those guys to pick a weekend, we could set it up. And, aside from all of that, I think Liz and I are going to try to get away to Seattle some time this year. Why Seattle? I have no idea. We just like the idea. So, once we get these other things figured out, we'll plan that one, too. So, no huge vacations, just a few little ones, but it'll be nice to take some time off and get away for a bit.

In case you haven't noticed, the weater has been getting nicer. This last weekend was apparently yardwork weekend. I started off the weekend by pulling out an ugly juniper plant from our front yard. In case you're unfamiliar with these little beasties, they're ugly as sin and have horribly intertwined branches that all converge into a single taproot that is harder than stone. They're a joy to pull out of the ground, let me tell you. I've already broken two shovels trying to pull others - this one, though, cost me zero shovels - just some aching hands. We rented an electric shrub trimmer and used that on a bunch of our shrubs and hauled away the brush. Also, I got the oil in the lawn mower changed and the lawn mowed. So, all in all, I got a decent amount done around the house. Lizzy got to the nursery and picked up a bunch of flowers to start planting around the house, along with some vegetables in the garden. She doesn't have many veggies planted yet, just some onions, carrots, and spinach. But it'll get there.

Liz and I have been going to the gym pretty consistently, lately. We've been going probably 2-4 times a week. I'm on a weightlifting program in my 279th attempt in my life to put on some weight. Attempts 1-278 have all met with failure (even though half those attempts involved eating large amounts of very fatty food and sitting in front of a computer all day). So far, so good, on this one. I haven't put on a ton, but I'm up about 5 pounds in the last month or so. Not really noticeable, but I know. ;)

Softball season is ready to get underway. We've been practicing for a few weeks now and have our first game on Thursday. Here's hoping I can make it through another season without getting railed on the pitching mound.

So....yeah...I think that's about all that's going on. Maybe I'll post again, soon. Maybe.

Later daters.