Packers v. Cowboys

So, I just finished watching the Packer Cowboy game in a span of about two hours thanks to TiVo, and I've got a few things to say about it.

The Packers do not look to be a Super bowl bound team.  I don't think anyone expected them to be though.  On offense, most things look pretty good.  Rogers looks like he know the offense backwards and forwards, and has a good command of the passing game.  What stinks is the pass blocking.  Oi.  The Packers would keep 7 to block for Rogers, and the Cowboys would only send four.  And they'd still get to Rogers.  Good lord.  That was terrible.  I also question the playing of Ryan Grant.  I know he's supposed to be the feature back, but two weeks in a row, he looks slow and easily taken down.  I know it's because he's got a bad hamstring, but doesn't anyone else think that might be enough to rest him, maybe just one week?  It seems Lumpkin and Jackson can pick up the slack.  Why not let him rest a little more.  Finally on offense, I'd like to salute Donald Driver.  I know some might be mad about that late game lateral, but at least he was out there trying to make something happen.  The game was going down fast, and if nothing else, it created a little excitement.  It's not as if the Packers were going to win before that play anyway.

The defense on the other hand, that was something terrible.  I'll give the Packers brain trust credit, they took away Owens, taking away the early big play, and that kept the game theoretically close into the third quarter, but the Cowboys came out running.  And the Packers did nothing to stop it.  I hoped to see some adjustments made at the half, maybe sending 5 guys into the line or something, but I didn't see it.  It seems to me stopping the run in the second half may have been more important then stopping it in the first.  Dallas already had the lead and established that they were going to run.  Yet, it seems no adjustments were made.  Oh well.  I guess I'm no expert on coaching right?

Finally, to pick at scabs, lets talk about could Brett Favre have won that game for the Packers?  This time I'm going to say no.  Rogers played relatively safe with the ball, did the best he could with the plays as called.  I didn't see a play where I thought if Brett Favre was throwing that ball, it would've been a completion.  The second level of that question is would Brett have needed the 7 man protection package?  I think he would've.  Hands down, the Cowboys have the better personnel then Green Bay.  Favre would've been sacked, pressured to make bad throws, and fumble it more or less like Rogers.  Any other opinion?  Feel free to comment.

TAMU v. Miami

You may think the fans of your favorite college football team are the best, but they are not.  Don't get me wrong.  You might be the biggest fan of your team, supported them through think and thin, championships and years where the wins were few or absent, but your co-fans have nothing on Aggie fans.

Dawn and I went to see the Fightin' Texas Aggies take on the Miami Hurricanes.  One one piece of pre-game showmanship that I missed was the F-14 fly over, but we were in a tunnel and were deafened as they did pass overhead.  Unlike certain schools we've been at to see games, the student section was filled before the game.  Hell, the whole stadium was filled for the game.  When the band struck up the fight song, the whole stadium sang along, and even joined shoulder to shoulder at the appropriate time.  The fans did their best to rock the stadium supporting the defense, and follow the signals of the yell leaders and cheer in unison.  Unlike certain schools we've been to, the amount of drunken annoyance seemed to be at a minimum, and for the most part people seemed to watch their language.

The same cannot be said about the fans of the visiting team.  Really, is there any fan worse then the Miami fan though?  I challenge anyone to tell me who.  The all seem to be jerks.  Brash and brassy, know it all and smug, often drunk, often odious, either of sweat, alcohol, cheap cologne or tobacco.

As big of jerks as the Miami fans were during the game, the TAMU fans couldn't have been more polite to them as they exited the stadium early wishing them good luck, and asking if they enjoyed their trip to Aggieland.

Even well into the fourth quarter, when the game was out of hand, the student stood by their team, maybe not cheering as loud as at the start, but there none the less.  When the game was over, and the Aggies racked up another loss, the student section stayed for post game Yell Practice, after which the fans are allowed onto the field.  Anyone who wants to.  We even saw some Miami fans out on the field.  It was so cool.  Families running around with footballs, taking group pictures, showing their children a little something about where they went to school.

So you may be the best fan of your team, and you might think your group of fans is the best in the world., but your group of fans has nothing on the Aggies.  And really, if you know there's a group of fans out there more supportive then yours, how strong is your dedication to your team?

HEB complaint and Dawn's Birthday

So, I know not too long ago, I was singing the praises of HEB, and of course there are still many things I really dig about the store, but here are my first three complaints:

In a store that seems to stock everything, why can't I find non-pareils?  Fruits and vegitables I've never heard of, but no non-pareils?  Hardly any sprinkles at all from what I've seen.

Cart collection.  It seems that they don't do any cart collection until there are no carts in the store, and a swear I've seen those boys wrangling a cart train that was 1/3 the length of the parking isle.  Certainly nothing bad could come of that.

My next complaint, HEB can't really do anything about, but consider this an open letter to you customers:

A.)  Why can't you put your carts in the cart corral?  I can't tell you the number of times I've pulled away from a parking space because though I think it's open, it really isn't, and it's because some customer just left the cart in a space.  There are plenty of cart corrals people, use them!

B.)  Can you, the customer count to 10?  How about 20?  Then why are you constantly going to the ten and twenty item of less lanes with more then ten or twenty items?  You completely throw off the nice even flow of me getting out of the store in a reasonable amount of time every time you do that.  Oh wait, I forget.  You can count to ten and twenty so therefore you just don't care about the people standing in line behind you.  What's that?  There's two of you so really your 40 items count as 20 per person?  Doesn't fly with me, flapjack.  It's not like the mother of three gets to bring 100 items through the twenty item or less lane.  Oh wait, this is HEB, so yes.  Yes they do.

I'll be getting help at work starting next week, an undergrad from a time before I arrived is returning to help out.  While I am glad he's coming back, I have to say I'm surprised.  If I was him, I'd I've looked to a new lab to do research, just so as to get some continuity in my studies.  (Of course, I claim to be the worst undergraduate researcher ever, so what do I know?)  But, in short I'm glad to have the help, it frees me up to get started on other projects, as frankly, I was feeling bogged down a little by the one project I'm actively moving forward on.

For Dawn's Birthday, we went to Sodolak's Original Country Inn and had the Chicken fried bacon.    Dawn ordered a small steak, it ended up covering a 12" plate.  Even I only managed to eat about half my meal.  Saturday, to finish off Dawn's Birthday celebration, we are going to see the fightin' Texas Aggies take on the Miami Hurricanes.  Fight Farmer Fight!

One final thing, I've added Skype to my applications, so if you use that for instant messaging, let me know, and I'll add you to my contact list.

The end of a decade...

So today is my last day of my 20s and I'm not really sure why this birthday is bothering me so much. I guess it is the number or maybe its the idea of 30 being a grown-up birthday. It seems weird to me that I'm going to be 30 anyway. It seems like only a year or so ago I was at JU and now here I am with a PhD and have a sorta kinda maybe getting closer to a real job. I mean 30 doesn't mean I can't get a little tipsy on occasion right? Or that I can't play MarioKart to all hours of the night, correct? I don't know. I just didn't expect 10 years, 5 years or heck even last year to be where I am today and all the change is just a tad overwhelming. Add in a decade birthday and you have one frazzled, questioning her future chick. Maybe I need some goals or something for this year. I had some last year that I wanted to do before I was 30 and some of them were accomplished (graduating, the brazilian) but going abroad and running a 5k didn't happen. Maybe that will be my 30th year's exciting time.

BTW one of my bestest friends Angela and her hubby have purposefully gotten pregnant! It is such an exciting time for the both of them and I can not wait to see the incredible mom that Angela is going to be. Plus I'm ready to be Auntie Dawn :) I see spoilage in this child's future.

Sunday

Today, we managed to get out of the house to watch the Packer game.  I pointed out to Dawn that we'd been indoors since Friday afternoon, and the house is only so big.  So we got up, and went to the Fox and Hound, the same place where I saw the Packers take on the Dallas Cowboys.  We were a bit late, and I expected that we'd have to sit at the bar, but when we got there, there were whole open sections.  So much so, we got to dictate what games we wanted to see.  So, we sat, facing each other, looking over the other ones shoulders at our respective football games.  Because I know that I cannot describe the events of the football games without the express written consent of the NFL, I'll just say I'm in a good mood after watching the Packers, Dawn is not in such a good mood after watching the Jaguars.

The F&H was okay.  I don't know what they expected, but there wasn't enough waitstaff by the end of the first round of games.  I overheard the waitress tell another table it was going to be an hour wait for food and we easily went more than twenty minutes without seeing our waitress.  After we got our $50 bill, four beers, two appetizers, two burgers, Dawn reminded me again about the price of Satellite TV.

You know, I was always disturbed by the bathrooms in Athens.  Even in the nicest places, the bathrooms could always be a little sketchy.  I would joke that I was going to start a journal that reviews bathrooms.

The F&H bathrooms are well appointed, clean, looks as if they can handle four at a time, which is good for a restaurant of it's size.  the floors, sinks, urinals were clean.  They did have newspapers up in front of the urinals.  This may be a personal thing, but I don't get that.  I'm usually standing closer than I would hold a paper to read, and I'm not standing there long enough to read the whole thing.  Overall though, I would give the bathrooms 4 out of five stars.  

I've been experimenting some with dinners lately.  This week I made Risotto for the first time.  It's not a great challenge to do this, but it definitely is not something I would've been able to make two years ago.  I even did it with HEB bag-o-risotto.  worked my arm out, but a good meal came of it.  I also made Jessica Alba's enchiladas.  (That is not an innuendo.)  They were good, worth keeping the recipe, and making again.  But I wold like to know what's in canned chili sauces.  Is that something I could make myself?  Is it worth the effort?  I know, for example, boxed mac-n-cheese is cheap and easy, but i think the mac-n-cheese I make is much better.  So, if anyone knows, let me know.

John

Ike is Leaving

So, the worst of the hurricane is over for us.  We lost power somewhere around 8 am, but it was back on before noon.  We also got lucky, because though the path of the storm was predicted, at times to pass right over B/CS, the eye of the storm passed about 30 miles to our east, and was a category 1 storm at the time.  Dawn says being on the west side of the hurricane is better then the east because the east side has much more of the rain.  We had some pretty good wind gusts starting early in the morning.  We both woke up well before the morning before drifting off to sleep again, and really waking up to no power.  This is my closest experience with a hurricane, and for me it's enough.

At work, we prepared ourselves on Friday by moving equipment out of the basement.  It was not as hard as I imagined the equipment was on carts.  And now, though it looks like it might not have been as necessary, I'm glad we did it, because the storm could've been a lot worse.  And then we would've been sad if we hadn't.  If the basement had flooded, and the equipment ruined, it would've been many thousands of dollars to replace them, and the moving didn't really in-connivence anyone.

One nice thing about having cultures that take five days to grow, is that you can start stuff and walk away from it for awhile and not feel guilty about it.  So, even though I've plates and tubes and flasks growing (presuming the power is still on at the building) If we don't get out of the house until this evening (the weather, though improving, is intermittently rain and wind, not enough to force us inside but enough that if we don't want to get out we won't.  And right now I think we're both content to stay on the couch.)

My work stuff, such as it is, is going well.  It seems like every few days, a new project pops up, so there's been a lot or reading.

We also need to complete a plan for moving so, that's the next thing to do now, Dawn's on Craigslist, so I think it's time to get work.

John

Oh, as Dawn says, we've mario cart, my license number, if you want to be mario cart buddies is: 1461-8645-9975   

Ike is coming

But, really, I don't feel like talking about that yet, really, because nothing has happened that's unusual yet, around here.

So, let's see some of the photos of things that We've been up to lately.  These all should be links to my facebook photo albums:

Dawn is a Doctor

Chandra is a Doctor

James and Emily are Doctors

At the ARCH

John is a Doctor

Pre-graduation party

Just Before the Ceremony

The Ceremony

After Party

Sebastian Summer

Road Trip!  Athens to Bryan!

Our Rental House

Neha and Steve's Wedding in Chicago Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Around Chicago

And the thing I really want to talk about right now, First Yell and Midnight Yell practice.

There's a lot of tradition at TAMU.  One of them is midnight yell paractice, where today, the student body gathers at Kyle Field at midnight before home games to practice the school cheers, and school songs.  It's a pep rally, really, but hear that's a big deal 25000 people big deal.  There are no traditional cheerleaders at TAMU either, but Yell Leaders.  Cadets voted to lead the students in cheering.  There's also other traditions, like a torch lit parade from the quad to the stadium, the ceremonial guarding of the field, and the junior class doing push-ups..  In the first video, you can see a Yell Leader giving hand signals to the crowd to lead the cheers.  The students learn the cheers, songs, and hand signals are all taught to the students during orientation.  I apologize for the camera shakiness at the end of the video, I'm rocking back and forth arm in arm with the rest of the students

Cheer 1

In this next video, you will hear one of the speeches the students give to fire up the crowd.  Now, a few notes, Rock and Rockette are mythical A&M students.  Every time the leader says a number, it corresponds to a class number:  (20)09, (20)10, and so on.  The tone of the speech was set by the previous speaker, where he made certain insinuation of the dating habits of people who go to Ark State.

Cheer 2

so, yea, we drank the Kool Aid, really got into it, sang the songs, cheered the cheers, whooped.  The Fightin' Texas Aggies ran out of time against the Red Wolves, but we did have fun.

Wii Fit makes my sides hurt YEA!

So I haven't kept up with the blogging as much basically because I was lazy with writing about First Yell.  I will need to include pictures with that one so right now I'm just going to update on our newest toys - WiiFit and Mario Kart for the Wii.

So as a child I didn't have a video game system (unless you count Big Bird's Egg Catch on the Atari).  I took the back seat to watching other people play because my gamer thumb was sorely unused.  I do enjoy watching other people play although watching John play occasionally makes me nauseous :)  In college, Angela's boyfriend had a playstation which she and I would play Crash Bandicoot on but I still was pretty lame in my skills.  However, I was really pumped to get the Wii and although we haven't used it everyday since we bought it, I definitely think that I'm getting better.  Recently we purchased Mario Kart and I finally have beat John at a game.  I don't win all the time BUT I am winning so either the game is easier or I gots skills :)  I actually want to play and have yet to throw a controller when I lose.  I need to do better at the online play because I rarely come in the top 3 (unless there are only 3 people playing).  Overall it is fun and it is a game that John and I can play together as long as we don't play against one another (me and my crazy competitiveness).

We picked up WiiFit this weekend.  Now I've been eyeing it up since it came out but it has been sold out pretty much everywhere and I've even tried ebay a few times (with little success).  However this weekend when we checked out the Post Oak mall (imagine Georgia Square mall slightly bigger) we walked into the GameStop and low and behold they had the game.  Well we bought it and immediately went home to try it out.  After 3 days I can say that it is super fun and makes my abs sore.  It is not the same as taking a weight lifting or step aerobics class at a gym but it is fun.  Since leaving Athens, I have not been doing anything to work out at all and my pants are definitely feeling a slight bit tighter then they should (and it can't be that the washer/dryer are shrinking all of our clothes, John).  So far I've been doing 30 minutes a day and am hoping to keep it up.  I'm not expecting to lose a lot of weight but as long as I'm active I might be able to eat what I want and not feel bad about it.  Plus hopefully it will help with my recent bout of insomnia.

On the work front, all is going well.  I am not used to cultures taking 5 days to grow up and need to work on planning a lot further ahead.  We are in a countdown for the move to San Diego.  Unfortunately we don't yet know what day that is except that JG and SG have to be at work on Nov. 1st.  So 55 days and counting them!  It still is pretty surreal that we are going to be moving again in such a short period of time.  Everyone knows that I am super planner and love to have everything planned out to a tee but now I'm kind of flying by the seat of my pants it seems.  I guess first priority is finding a place to live which we haven't done yet.  Another round of the Buchner/Adin house hunt 2008 is almost upon us.  Are you ready?  Because I don't know if we are :)