Skip to main content

Better Luck Next Time

Last weekend was wonderful, going back to Ohio with Wendy, seeing the parents, and just chilling out. All good feelings - except for the UCLA football game. Now, I am not a sports fanatic, but I have a rooting interest in college football for Penn State (my father's tried-and-true alma mater) and UCLA (ah, so many years ago in Westwood now...). When Saturdays roll around in the fall, I keep my mobile phone close at hand - if I'm not in front of the television at some point - to keep tabs on game results. What happened over the last weekend was a cock-up of mammoth proportions, as UCLA went down to the wire and lost in stunning fashion to Notre Dame.

I also have to admit another thing - there is something about Notre Dame that really gets on my nerves. Maybe it is the rabid adoration of their fans and alumni. Maybe it is the "holier-than-thou" feeling that emanates from Touchdown Jesus and the lore of their football team. Maybe it is just plain frustration at not having a few more interesting football stories to tell about days gone way past (Notre Dame was America's team back in the 1950's, a legacy that seems to linger even when modern-day realities suggest differently). But that feeling is there, which compounded my feelings about last weekend's game.

In short, UCLA lost on a last-minute drive consisting of three Notre Dame plays culminating in a touchdown pass that found an elusive receiver shirking tackles like Donald Rumsfeld takes responsibility for the Iraq debacle. But that is beside the point. What I do know is that 20-odd seconds was all it took to wipe out 59 minutes of glorious football where UCLA was able to play convincingly well as to think it has a shot to win out the rest of its games and get into a very good bowl game. The reality is that I'll have to wait another year to feel like we've got a shot at the Pac-10 title.

Oh well, it's all in good fun anyway - better luck next time...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sunny Day Bay

There is a certain energy that winds through the office near happy hour on Friday late afternoon, like the feeling of the last few minutes of school before summer break. The work is done for the week, the bags start to pack with computers and pens and notebooks, and people start to smile again. Sometimes, there is actual laughter in the office. Outside, the sun is shining in San Francisco today. The bay sparkles something special, if one can avoid the snarled traffic painting the bridges. For me, this is no worry - I walk home, through the Financial District and down Columbus Street through the middle of North Beach. I know I am close to home when I hear the Powell-Taylor cable car clanking down the hill, last stop headed for Fisherman's Wharf at the base of Bay Street. Now, it is Friday late afternoon; my bag is packing with its own pens and notebooks (soon, computer too). I am smiling as well. I can feel happiness soon to think of the sun at my back walking past Vesuvio ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spring Cleaning (better late than never)

Memorial Day weekend came and went like the thunderstorms that rumbled on Sunday evening here in the DC area. I thought that a three-day weekend would be just the cure for a crazy-busy schedule the past month (work projects blowing up all over the mainstream news, wedding planning, homeownership nicks & nacks, getting my personal affairs in order, travels, and stealing a moment for reflection), but it turned out that the only salvation was that the next weekend was now only 4 days away. Oh yeah, and a great friend was going to be in town in the upcoming week but that is the topic of another post. Still, I tried to make the best of the extra out-of-work time - which got funneled right back into homeowner activities (and what else does a homeowner do except spend free time keeping up with whatever is going on around and inside the home?). To be more specific, I took to cleaning up the "jungle", Wendy's vividly wonderful description of our backyard's overgrowth. I...
1 comment
Read more

Musical Nostalgia

I had a bout of musical nostalgia this afternoon as I was listening to Rufus Wainwright and compiling a powerpoint presentation for work. Two years ago, I remember the CD's of this self-styled (and modish) modern-day troubador. He was (and, I presume, continues to be) an "inside" kind of star with celebrities and hipsters (they like what is "hot" before us mortals do) for classical and dramatically-infused pop melodies. Those style-makers viewed him as "getting" pop like not many other contemporaries did; I just happened to like the songs, even if some were adopted as funkified dance anthems in gay clubs (convenient that Rufus is also gay, so he did not mind the mixing). Anyhow, I remember Rufus for his musical companionship in some turbulent NYC days, dealing as he did in his album "Want One" with regrettably lost loves and solemnness for the life he led on the road; I felt the same in those days as a consultant traversing the US between NYC...
Post a Comment
Read more