I don't usually post a whole lot about football around these parts, although in recent years, my Spartans have inspired me to wax rhapsodical from time to time. But this weekend was a kind of football-ish harmonic convergence around here. You would be very kind to indulge me. . .
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7M is a high-school junior, and a linebacker for his school's football team. He's pretty darn good (if I may say so myself), and is usually among the leading tacklers for his team. It never gets old, hearing your son's name called over the PA, I tell you.
His team has had a really good season so far, going undefeated, winning their league championship, and qualifying for the state playoffs, besides. This Friday night past, they played another undefeated, highly-ranked team, and won, 27-22. It was the only game all year that they won by less than 30 points. It was actually kinda fun to watch a game that wasn't played with a running clock for most of the second half. . .
The team is sufficiently highly ranked that it wouldn't be a surprise for them to be playing in the domed stadium in Detroit over Thanksgiving weekend (ie, for the state championship). There being four rounds of games to win before that comes to pass, I'll stop short of counting any unhatched chickens. But it's been a fun ride so far. . .
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8M played football for the first time in his life this fall. He hasn't been as athletically-inclined as his brothers, and I'm fine with that; he sure doesn't have to have athletic success in order to please me. He has his own really unique personality, and his own set of unique skills and proclivities that make him a really interesting and fun person in his own very estimable right; we're glad to have him in our family, no matter how stunned we were to find ourselves expecting our eighth child deep into our 40s, all those years ago. . .
Anyway, it's been a lot of fun, watching him learn to play the game, progressing from "Where am I? What am I supposed to be doing? I have no clue. . ." to understanding his assignments, and making plays. Last week, he got his name called over the PA for the first time (he made a tackle), and in today's game, he actually carried the ball a couple times. Mind you, I'm not so much living vicariously through the success he's had (such as it is), as I am proud of him making the effort, and learning to do something that he started out utterly clueless of. Very cool. . .
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And just for the sake of saying so, I have to mention the way my Spartans man-handled the hated Wolverines over the weekend, the sixth time we've beaten them in the last seven games. Truth to tell, I didn't think that the Spartans played all that well, certainly far short of their best. But even so, they dominated the blue-corn guys from start to finish. It's a sign of how strong our team is, I suppose, that they can dominate their rival while still not playing their best.
I'm still getting used to this whole rivalry-dominance thing. Our friends from down the road have had far more success against us, in my adult lifetime, than we've had against them (though we pretty much owned them in my childhood; just sayin'). I'm just glad (*shedding a small tear*) to have lived long enough to see the tables turned, at least for a while. . .
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And then this morning, the Lions played the Sunday Brunch Special from Wembley Stadium in London. That's London, in the UK, not Ontario. Five time zones to the east of here. NFL marketing-types, gotta love 'em. . .
The Leos started out terrible, trailing 21-0 at halftime. But they turned the tables in the second half and ended up pulling out a 22-21 victory on a last-second field goal (some real bizarre doings in those final seconds, which I'll decline to discuss in detail, but it did make things, um interesting).
I'm not quite ready to start calling them "MY Lions" just yet (6-2 and leading the division has gone down in flames too often, too recently, for me to jump on the bandwagon quite this soon). But this could yet turn into one of the better years of my own personal memory. . .
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So, lots of football this weekend, all the way from middle-school, to high school, to major-college, to the pros. And all of 'em went according to my own humble rooting interests, which was nice.
And the weather in these parts was spectacular this weekend - mid-60s, brilliant sunshine, cloudless azure skies. . . So I put another 32 miles on my bike, bringing me to 876 miles for the year. Barring any nasty weather wiping out entire weekends, I should just sneak past 1000 before the snow flies. But, we will see what we will see. . .
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Michigan Weather. . .
If you don't like it, goes the saying, wait five minutes. . . it'll change. . .
[This quote is actually attributed to Mark Twain, in reference to New England; I'm not sure Ol' Sam ever even set foot in the State of Michigan. I'm also reasonably sure that pretty much every state not named California has 'borrowed' this quote for itself.
The meteorologist-types of my acquaintance tell me that the Great Lakes actually have a 'moderating' effect on Michigan's climate. But the saying is common among my fellow-Michiganders (or are we Michiganians? I can never remember), whether justly or not. . .]
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My Tigers having finished their season early this year, I'm left to talk about . . . the weather.
No, not really. I'll just revert to my other favorite autumnal blogging topic: tracking my bicycling miles.
This has been a tough cycling season for me. First off, last winter was extraordinarily long and cold, and whereas I'm usually out on my bike in early March, this year the snow and ice and cold temperatures didn't abate, so as to allow me to get out on the road, until the very last weekend of March. So I lost nearly a full month at the beginning of the season.
Then in April, I came down with a nasty respiratory virus. My normal protocol in such instances is to get plenty of rest, and cut back on my miles (riding, say, 17 miles instead of 25 or 30; gotta keep the legs working, dontchaknow), and in the fullness of time, the virus runs its course, and I haven't lost too much of my conditioning edge (heck, sometimes, a ride can even have a 'blow-the-gunk-out' effect on my respiratory system). This time, though, every time I put on even very modest miles, my lungs responded by getting even sicker, and threatening to fling small chunks of themselves through the air. I finally went to see my doctor, who prescribed an oral steroid for me, and that, plus a couple weeks off the bike, finally brought me back to my normal, radiant good health. But by that time, it was early May, and I was basically starting over at building up my miles, two months behind schedule.
And so it went. My schedule seemed to conspire against me more than usual, as well. Events like funerals, or marriage-enrichment conferences (Jenn and I started working in marriage-prep classes for our parish this year) kept coming up, pushing my rides to a less-convenient time, and obliging me to ride fewer miles than I'd planned. And then I had a mild relapse of the respiratory virus in August, so I had to skip another ride or two again.
So now, here I am, in mid-October, when I'd normally have something like 1200 miles on my legs and lungs (a couple years ago, I was over 1600 by late October), and wondering how many hundred more I'd be able to get in before the snow flies and the shoulders of the roads are covered with ice, relegating me to the stationary bike for the winter. And I've got 811 miles in for the year.
My 'basic goal' every year is 1000 miles, and I've usually reached that by early/mid-September, so I can set my sights higher. In recent years, I've averaged about 1400 miles a year, give-or-take, but this year, I'll have to be pretty diligent just to make my 'basic goal'.
Which brings us back to the weather. Fall weather can be unpredictable in my part of Michigan, as the seasonal transition takes hold. It is more prone to be rainy and windy during this time of the year, and the temperatures are trending downward. For several years now, I've been blessed to have most of our 'Weather' happen during the week, while I'm at work, and can't get out on the road, anyway. This year, though, the 'weather' has come on the weekends to a greater extent than usual, forcing me to consult forecasts, trying to work my riding schedule around the particular 3 hours when the rain will be taking a break. And of course, that leaves me subject to the, uh, accuracy of the forecasts.
So, three or four times in the last few weeks, I've targeted a three-hour window in the rain pattern, and gotten out on the road at the first sign of non-threatening skies, only to find that, 15 miles out in the countryside, the weather had a different schedule. Riding in the rain is not my favorite thing to do, but once you're out on the road, you don't have much choice. One recent Saturday, I was a little late getting out on the road, when I knew I had about a three-hour rain-free window. So, when I was about five miles from home, the skies opened up, and the wind-machine turned on (20-25 mph, directly into my face, which seemed kinda over-the-top on Mother Nature's part). It only lasted for a mile or so, but you can get awfully cold and wet in a mile of downpour, against a stiff wind. Another time, I left the house under blue skies, with the promise of the weatherman that I had a good, solid three hours before the rain returned. Within three miles, I was being pelted with sleet (SLEET! add my normal 12-mph to the wind-borne velocity of the falling ice-needles against my face, and you have a distinctly unpleasant experience), all the while seeing blue skies off to the west. For the rest of the ride, I was mostly riding under sunny blue skies, but as I turned onto the final 7-mile run back toward home, there was a large, dark, ominous-looking cloud directly ahead of me. Nothing to do but keep riding, and by the time I was even with where the black cloud had been, it had moved off to the east, and I missed getting rained on, for once. Which, you know, was just fine with me.
So anyway, as things sit, I'll have to ride some pretty aggressive miles, and hope that the weather stays ride-able into December, if I hope to make 1000 miles for the season. Which is by no means given.
But then, in the last two weeks, the typically schizoid fall weather, driving rain alternating with bright sunshine, has meant that I've twice driven home at the end of a work day, under a stunningly brilliant double rainbow, so, you know, there's that. . .
[This quote is actually attributed to Mark Twain, in reference to New England; I'm not sure Ol' Sam ever even set foot in the State of Michigan. I'm also reasonably sure that pretty much every state not named California has 'borrowed' this quote for itself.
The meteorologist-types of my acquaintance tell me that the Great Lakes actually have a 'moderating' effect on Michigan's climate. But the saying is common among my fellow-Michiganders (or are we Michiganians? I can never remember), whether justly or not. . .]
-------------------------
My Tigers having finished their season early this year, I'm left to talk about . . . the weather.
No, not really. I'll just revert to my other favorite autumnal blogging topic: tracking my bicycling miles.
This has been a tough cycling season for me. First off, last winter was extraordinarily long and cold, and whereas I'm usually out on my bike in early March, this year the snow and ice and cold temperatures didn't abate, so as to allow me to get out on the road, until the very last weekend of March. So I lost nearly a full month at the beginning of the season.
Then in April, I came down with a nasty respiratory virus. My normal protocol in such instances is to get plenty of rest, and cut back on my miles (riding, say, 17 miles instead of 25 or 30; gotta keep the legs working, dontchaknow), and in the fullness of time, the virus runs its course, and I haven't lost too much of my conditioning edge (heck, sometimes, a ride can even have a 'blow-the-gunk-out' effect on my respiratory system). This time, though, every time I put on even very modest miles, my lungs responded by getting even sicker, and threatening to fling small chunks of themselves through the air. I finally went to see my doctor, who prescribed an oral steroid for me, and that, plus a couple weeks off the bike, finally brought me back to my normal, radiant good health. But by that time, it was early May, and I was basically starting over at building up my miles, two months behind schedule.
And so it went. My schedule seemed to conspire against me more than usual, as well. Events like funerals, or marriage-enrichment conferences (Jenn and I started working in marriage-prep classes for our parish this year) kept coming up, pushing my rides to a less-convenient time, and obliging me to ride fewer miles than I'd planned. And then I had a mild relapse of the respiratory virus in August, so I had to skip another ride or two again.
So now, here I am, in mid-October, when I'd normally have something like 1200 miles on my legs and lungs (a couple years ago, I was over 1600 by late October), and wondering how many hundred more I'd be able to get in before the snow flies and the shoulders of the roads are covered with ice, relegating me to the stationary bike for the winter. And I've got 811 miles in for the year.
My 'basic goal' every year is 1000 miles, and I've usually reached that by early/mid-September, so I can set my sights higher. In recent years, I've averaged about 1400 miles a year, give-or-take, but this year, I'll have to be pretty diligent just to make my 'basic goal'.
Which brings us back to the weather. Fall weather can be unpredictable in my part of Michigan, as the seasonal transition takes hold. It is more prone to be rainy and windy during this time of the year, and the temperatures are trending downward. For several years now, I've been blessed to have most of our 'Weather' happen during the week, while I'm at work, and can't get out on the road, anyway. This year, though, the 'weather' has come on the weekends to a greater extent than usual, forcing me to consult forecasts, trying to work my riding schedule around the particular 3 hours when the rain will be taking a break. And of course, that leaves me subject to the, uh, accuracy of the forecasts.
So, three or four times in the last few weeks, I've targeted a three-hour window in the rain pattern, and gotten out on the road at the first sign of non-threatening skies, only to find that, 15 miles out in the countryside, the weather had a different schedule. Riding in the rain is not my favorite thing to do, but once you're out on the road, you don't have much choice. One recent Saturday, I was a little late getting out on the road, when I knew I had about a three-hour rain-free window. So, when I was about five miles from home, the skies opened up, and the wind-machine turned on (20-25 mph, directly into my face, which seemed kinda over-the-top on Mother Nature's part). It only lasted for a mile or so, but you can get awfully cold and wet in a mile of downpour, against a stiff wind. Another time, I left the house under blue skies, with the promise of the weatherman that I had a good, solid three hours before the rain returned. Within three miles, I was being pelted with sleet (SLEET! add my normal 12-mph to the wind-borne velocity of the falling ice-needles against my face, and you have a distinctly unpleasant experience), all the while seeing blue skies off to the west. For the rest of the ride, I was mostly riding under sunny blue skies, but as I turned onto the final 7-mile run back toward home, there was a large, dark, ominous-looking cloud directly ahead of me. Nothing to do but keep riding, and by the time I was even with where the black cloud had been, it had moved off to the east, and I missed getting rained on, for once. Which, you know, was just fine with me.
So anyway, as things sit, I'll have to ride some pretty aggressive miles, and hope that the weather stays ride-able into December, if I hope to make 1000 miles for the season. Which is by no means given.
But then, in the last two weeks, the typically schizoid fall weather, driving rain alternating with bright sunshine, has meant that I've twice driven home at the end of a work day, under a stunningly brilliant double rainbow, so, you know, there's that. . .
Monday, October 6, 2014
Well, That Was Quick. . .
Recalling what I said in my previous post about frequency of posting during the baseball post-season month of October. . . Yeah, well, so much for that. My Tigers were unceremoniously swept out of the playoffs yesterday evening. It's not like I didn't see it coming, or anything, but, you know, we hoped for better. . .
Our three-game whirlwind tour (and I use the term 'whirlwind' both in the sense of 'brief and frenetic', and also 'getting slammed by a tornado') of the baseball post-season was really something of a microcosm of the entire season - the bullpen imploding, wasting creditable, if not spectacular starting pitching, and then the bats inexplicably disappearing when we did get solid pitching. I mean, 12 FREAKIN' RUNS OVER CONSECUTIVE 8TH INNINGS? Twelve!?! Seriously?!? But such was the quality of our bullpen this year; no lead was ever safe. I'd be listening to a game on the radio, and the starter would be through seven innings with 110 or so pitches, and a nine-run lead, and I'd be anxiously wringing my hands, wondering if a nine-run lead could hold up through two innings of relief pitching. (I don't recall if the bullpen ever actually blew a nine-run lead or not, but it had some atrocious meltdowns. I know we lost more than one lead of three runs or more in the 9th inning)
And, for all the all-star caliber hitters the Tigers have, they were prone to mystifying offensive droughts, making guys with career ERAs of 5.86 look like Sandy Freakin' Koufax. On paper, before the season, it looked like we should win our division by at least 10 games. Our starting rotation included two of the past three Cy Young Award winners (and we picked up the third one at the trade deadline), and Miguel Cabrera was the two-time defending Most Valuable Player. We even unloaded Prince Fielder's horrible contract and even more horrible defense; things were looking good. We had some injury problems, but nothing terribly our of the ordinary (although both Cabrera and Justin Verlander were coming off off-season surgeries, and both of them were mystifyingly un-dominant for long stretches of the season). We ended up squeaking out the division championship by one game, after looking up at the Kansas City Royals for a lot of the summer. It was a frustrating season, but it seemed like were starting to get our stuff together just in time for the playoffs. I guess not, huh?
But hey, the Los Angeles Angels, who by most all accounts were the best team in the American League, got similarly broomed out of the playoffs by the aforementioned Royals, and the Washington Nationals, who were likewise counted the best team in the National League, are on life support, having lost their first two games at home, and heading to San Francisco with no more losses 'to give'. Which goes to show, I suppose, that once you get into the playoffs, anything can happen. . .
The coming off-season promises to be tumultuous for my Tigers, in all sorts of ways. Max Scherzer, our best pitcher the past two seasons, is a free agent, and I can't imagine that the Tigers will be able to match the money that teams like the Yankees will be prepared to throw at him. Victor Martinez, who was our best hitter this year, is also a free agent, and it is not a given that we will be able to re-sign him, either. Torii Hunter has given the Tigers a couple of solid seasons, even at 39 years of age, and he's a free agent, too. We will see what we will see, of course (we always do), but there is a large sense that the Tigers' window of opportunity to win a World Series is about to slam shut. It's been a nice run for the past 5-6 seasons, but they haven't yet won it all, and it seems about to become less likely, not more.
(*sigh*)
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The Lions also lost ignominiously yesterday afternoon, making it a dismally lost weekend for Detroit professional sports teams. . .
But at least, on a somewhat happier note, my Spartans won their game Saturday night. Not, however, before they gave up most of a 24-point, end-of-the-3rd-quarter lead, having to intercept a pass on the 10-yard-line with 30 seconds left in order to hang on for a 5-point win. In the last four minutes of the game, they gave up a touchdown on a punt return, and bounced a short filed goal off the upright. I was seriously hyperventilating at that point. Credit to Nebraska, our opponent, for not getting the memo that the game was over at the end of the 3rd quarter. The mismatch in intensity between the two teams in the 4th quarter was glaring. My Spartans will have to play hard for all four quarters, if they hope to contend for the kind of honors they aspire to.
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At any rate, given the end of the Tigers' season, things might be a tad less sports-oriented around these parts than I'd hoped (or some of my readers might have feared) this month. So, who knows what stuff I might be posting about? With a sideways tip of the hat to my friend Suldog, I can't promise that my next post will be soon, and I sure can't promise that it'll be better. But, you know, eventually, with more stuff, of one sort or another. . .
Our three-game whirlwind tour (and I use the term 'whirlwind' both in the sense of 'brief and frenetic', and also 'getting slammed by a tornado') of the baseball post-season was really something of a microcosm of the entire season - the bullpen imploding, wasting creditable, if not spectacular starting pitching, and then the bats inexplicably disappearing when we did get solid pitching. I mean, 12 FREAKIN' RUNS OVER CONSECUTIVE 8TH INNINGS? Twelve!?! Seriously?!? But such was the quality of our bullpen this year; no lead was ever safe. I'd be listening to a game on the radio, and the starter would be through seven innings with 110 or so pitches, and a nine-run lead, and I'd be anxiously wringing my hands, wondering if a nine-run lead could hold up through two innings of relief pitching. (I don't recall if the bullpen ever actually blew a nine-run lead or not, but it had some atrocious meltdowns. I know we lost more than one lead of three runs or more in the 9th inning)
And, for all the all-star caliber hitters the Tigers have, they were prone to mystifying offensive droughts, making guys with career ERAs of 5.86 look like Sandy Freakin' Koufax. On paper, before the season, it looked like we should win our division by at least 10 games. Our starting rotation included two of the past three Cy Young Award winners (and we picked up the third one at the trade deadline), and Miguel Cabrera was the two-time defending Most Valuable Player. We even unloaded Prince Fielder's horrible contract and even more horrible defense; things were looking good. We had some injury problems, but nothing terribly our of the ordinary (although both Cabrera and Justin Verlander were coming off off-season surgeries, and both of them were mystifyingly un-dominant for long stretches of the season). We ended up squeaking out the division championship by one game, after looking up at the Kansas City Royals for a lot of the summer. It was a frustrating season, but it seemed like were starting to get our stuff together just in time for the playoffs. I guess not, huh?
But hey, the Los Angeles Angels, who by most all accounts were the best team in the American League, got similarly broomed out of the playoffs by the aforementioned Royals, and the Washington Nationals, who were likewise counted the best team in the National League, are on life support, having lost their first two games at home, and heading to San Francisco with no more losses 'to give'. Which goes to show, I suppose, that once you get into the playoffs, anything can happen. . .
The coming off-season promises to be tumultuous for my Tigers, in all sorts of ways. Max Scherzer, our best pitcher the past two seasons, is a free agent, and I can't imagine that the Tigers will be able to match the money that teams like the Yankees will be prepared to throw at him. Victor Martinez, who was our best hitter this year, is also a free agent, and it is not a given that we will be able to re-sign him, either. Torii Hunter has given the Tigers a couple of solid seasons, even at 39 years of age, and he's a free agent, too. We will see what we will see, of course (we always do), but there is a large sense that the Tigers' window of opportunity to win a World Series is about to slam shut. It's been a nice run for the past 5-6 seasons, but they haven't yet won it all, and it seems about to become less likely, not more.
(*sigh*)
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The Lions also lost ignominiously yesterday afternoon, making it a dismally lost weekend for Detroit professional sports teams. . .
But at least, on a somewhat happier note, my Spartans won their game Saturday night. Not, however, before they gave up most of a 24-point, end-of-the-3rd-quarter lead, having to intercept a pass on the 10-yard-line with 30 seconds left in order to hang on for a 5-point win. In the last four minutes of the game, they gave up a touchdown on a punt return, and bounced a short filed goal off the upright. I was seriously hyperventilating at that point. Credit to Nebraska, our opponent, for not getting the memo that the game was over at the end of the 3rd quarter. The mismatch in intensity between the two teams in the 4th quarter was glaring. My Spartans will have to play hard for all four quarters, if they hope to contend for the kind of honors they aspire to.
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At any rate, given the end of the Tigers' season, things might be a tad less sports-oriented around these parts than I'd hoped (or some of my readers might have feared) this month. So, who knows what stuff I might be posting about? With a sideways tip of the hat to my friend Suldog, I can't promise that my next post will be soon, and I sure can't promise that it'll be better. But, you know, eventually, with more stuff, of one sort or another. . .
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