This past weekend saw a feat never before accomplished by an Ohio State University football team.  The Buckeyes successfully defeated the dreaded “Team from the North” for the fifth year in a row (42-7).  How many rivalries can actually attest to the fact that a coach’s career seemingly hinges upon one game year after year.  Coaches are booed or cheered, lauded or fired on the outcome of the traditional regular season finale for OSU and UofM.  I had the thrill of sitting in the south stands of Ohio Stadium in the Block O section in November 1992.  What I remember most came at the closing moments of halftime.  A man decided to have his brief moment of fame by running across the field wearing absolutely nothing.  Although what is name actually is is anyone’s guess (so much for his fifteen minutes).  The streaker was subsequently given an overcoat and apprehended by officers following his run for the goal posts.  Incidentally, the game ended in a 13-13 tie much to the dismay of the OSU seniors who had never defeated their archrivals.

remember your recipe for gravy.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Usually a time to spend eating too much and watching football. I’m kind of wondering about that this year. The two games played on Thanksgiving usually feature the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys. This year is no exception. I realize that nobody was saying the Lions would be 0 and 8, or that Dallas would be 5 and 4, but isn’t it time for the NFL to give these two prime football slots to different teams? What kind of deal did the Lions and Cowboys make? Kind of wondering is there a college game on? How about the NBA? NHL? I don’t think I’ll be watching the Lions. Maybe the Cowboys, we’ll see if they start playing football again when Romo gets back in. The Lions haven’t played much football this year, I don’t expect them to start any time soon.

Unless someone else does it first I’m going to try to find out about the NFL Lions Cowboys deal.

I did something to my shoulder to re-aggravate an old injury. For the first three days of this work week, I was unable to lift my left hand over my head without pain. Back to starting the old rehab exercises. Turn my head one way then the next, lifting up that ol’ soup can (1 1b weight to start). Keep stretching and moving…. Not too much weight, you can re-injure that thing. Trouble was I forgot them.

Yep, all that stuff used to be in my head. There was a sheet of exercises that I was supposed to do to keep the shoulder in shape. Me, I stopped doing them when the shoulder felt better. I kept up with a couple of the stretching routines, because they helped with headaches too. I did the ones I remembered, but I know there were another couple on the routine. Oh well, I guess I can try to find the list again. Maybe the rehab place has a website? Or I can just stop in and ask for another sheet…

Anyway with a bit of patience, lots of heat applied, and a few exercises, I was able to function at around 90% today. I was able to pull on a shirt, brush my hair with my left hand, type all day at work. and my shoulder is only starting to complain. I think before dinner, I’ll apply a bit of heat again.

I would say that this is a getting old problem, but mostly it is an out-of-shape problem. I move wrong, or sleep wrong and I put the shoulder out of whack. I am hoping that my trips to the “Y” will help with this, but I haven’t been able to get much exercise in since I joined. Just after I joined, I pulled some leg muscles that kept me from doing a lot there, and now this. I know I can’t push myself on exercise equipment, when it just hurts (like crazy) to move. I can’t say the “Y” did it either, I wasn’t there both times I was injured…. Just plain dumb luck and my body trying to move like it was in better shape than it is….

Maybe next week….

And this was the reason why there hasn’t been a post since the weekend. I have one more post started, but never finished it. I’m not a one handed typist.

Since I joined the YMCA (Anyone Feel like dancing here???, not me thanks!), Thursdays has been one of the days I stop after work to get a little exercise in. Today I just could not see dropping in. It was just too nice out. Still I needed to get a little exercise in and still enjoy the fall evening.

My youngest and I took a quick trip to Harrison Lake State Park and took a stroll around the lake. Roughly 3.5 miles of hiking. Not a bad way to spend the afternoon. There was a cross-country meet going on, so we had to find an out of the way spot to finally park. We were able to avoid most of the runners (not get in their way) and we had a good time walking.

The walk around the lake reminded me of the last time I took the full trip around the lake. It was quite a few years ago. My daughters always liked picnics at the park for birthdays and such. Since 3 out of 4 were born in months when picnics are in season, we did it quite often. Harrison Lake was one of the many parks we went to (They have swimming there). My wife and I made the trip around that lake once. That was some 15 or 16 years ago. I’m not sure why we never made the walk again, but we didn’t. I remember that walk because I had 1 of my daughters in a baby carrier on my back. One of the best ways ever devised to carry children (except for the hair pulling). When the 2 in the middle were young enough, I remember having one in the back pack and one in a front carrier. That actually made it easier to walk. More balance.

Anyway back to the first walk some years ago. I remember we didn’t know the park very well, and at one point we thought we were going through peoples’ back yards. At the time we may have been, but as of today, the park seems to own most of the trail around the lake. There were two stretches of the walk when we had to walk on the roads around the park. Slight safety issue for those trying this walk with children, but it is minimized.

One more thing on the runners, that will never be me…

I am still a Cubs fan; I will admit it.  Even after the 2003 Steve Bartman episode, after the 100+ (now it’s officially time to add the + to 100) year World Series drought, and the disasterous playoffs of the 2007 and now 2008 seasons.

I just cannot believe the season is over.  The season started off so promising this year, and picked up momentum all summer, only to leave us bewildered and disgusted in October once again.  So what happened that made them look so terrible during all the playoff games?!?

You know what?  I don’t even want to talk about it.  At least I don’t have to worry about missing the World Series while I’m in Florida!  Frickin’ Cubs.  Maybe next year…  UGH!

My youngest is in the High School’s Show Choir, and they had a Chili sale during the Homecoming game to raise money for the group. I ‘volunteered’ to help sell some of the chili. My first official chore was to help set up the tables needed to put the many crock pots of chili on. The next was to taste all of the different chili to make be able to tell all the customers/donation specialists if a specific chili was too spicy or something like that.

I can say that all of the chili was very good, but there wasn’t a lot of spice in any of them. On my grading scale of chili they all would have been a zero. On the normal people scale, (those who don’t tolerate the spice as well as I do) I guess there would have been a 1 in the group. There were not a 5 alarm chili in the group.

The number of different chili recipes is astounding. I was amazed that each chili had a specific flavor. It would appear that each cook had their own secret ingredient. I didn’t have the time to be able to cook a chili for this event, so I just brought the shredded cheese and crackers. Not sure on the money raised, but the chili was gone before half-time. And there was a lot of chili.

Now for a quick and easy (and not bad tasting) chili recipe.

1 1/2 lbs ground beef browned with 2 cloves of garlic (drained)
4 – 16 oz cans of Brooks Chili Beans ( I like the 16 oz cans for this so I can use different ‘heats’ if desired — I like the HOT)
1 can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup (Progresso is good too)
2 tbls chili powder.
Hot sauce to taste at table.

Combine browned meat, soup and beans and chili powder. Heat through. Done that’s it. Told you it was quick and easy.

The best bean chili I’ve had starts with tomatoes and dried beans. I’m surprised the recipe didn’t call for you to butcher your own cow. I think I supplied a version of a beanless chili to the WCCT cookbook. I can’t remember….

Well, I joined the local YMCA recently (they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse…), and I’m really wondering if it will be good for me. Extra exercise is appreciated, but have you ever really looked at some of the exercise equipment they have now.

My guess is that if you put that stuff in a dungeon in the middle ages, the people would look at it as they would any other ‘equipment’ they had. They have things that contort your body into weird shapes just to exercise certain muscle groups. (or so they say) Done another way, these devices could really hurt someone.

I am glad that they are willing to give all members a summary of all the weight equipment. I hadn’t worked on anything like that since college. They machines have changed a bit since the early 80’s. They still do the same things, but it looks like they’ve isolated the muscle groups more than they did before. I’m sure that they are safer than the ones I worked on too.

I’ll write more on my experience with the weight machines when I use them for more than 5 minutes. I don’t see myself getting overly fond of any of them…

I was going to put a link in for torture devices, but I found them to be too disturbing. I guess the exercise equipment doesn’t look that bad now….. So here is a link to one of the pieces of equipment I used…
Leg Press

During halftime festivities of the Bears-Eagles game (Da Bears up 21-14), the announcement of the halftime performer for Super Bowl XLIII was announced. Live from Tampa Bay on 2-1-09, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will be rocking the house. My personal favorite performance of the past few years was Paul McCartney during Super Bowl XXXIX. There were no wardrobe malfunctions. However, there were totally distinguishable words, good songs, the whole package. OOOPS… interception by the Bears… ok, commercial. I’m not sure how memorable the Boss’ performance will be. He has not had a hit song in quite a few years and his career has not been as distinguished as Sir Paul’s. Perhaps, the producers are still being overly cautious about whom they choose to entertain. And the Eagles pick off a pass in the end zone… oops (have to be fair). Of course, I am old enough to remember Springsteen in his hey day with Born in the USA. So, we will see if Bruce is still Born to Run on February 1.

UPDATE; BEARS 24, EAGLES 20 FINAL

The final game at Yankee Stadium had an effect on this true Yankee Hater…. For years I’ve rooted for any team but the Yankees. If the Tigers weren’t playing, my favorite team of the day was whoever was playing the Yankees. That said, Yankee stadium was one of the last great baseball parks. So much history will be lost.

In the American league only Fenway remains as one of the “Old” parks. In the National league, only Wrigley field (home of the cubs) remains as one of the old parks. 1912 and 1914 respectively these two ball fields are the last to stand up to the Test of Time. From the Green Monster to the Ivy covered walls, baseball is just a bit different at these two parks.

These are not the cookie cutter parks from the 60’s and 70’s with their artificial turf and half circle outfield walls. The old parks do have some home field advantage. These are not the parks from the 80’s and 90’s that had closer to little league dimensions (ok, I’m stretching it a little), but check out the dimensions of Camden Yards and Jacobs Field (excuse me Progressive Field). The old parks, Yankee Stadium, the old Tiger Stadium, even Cominsky park and Cleveland’s Municipal park had character.

They have tried to do that with some of the recent ball fields, but only time will tell if they made good decisions. Ballparks that were new in the early 70’s are now gone too.. Why didn’t fields in Houston, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh last more than few decades.

I’m not sure of the future of the two oldest ballparks in the major leagues, but I would love to see both last until at least their 100th anniversary. I’m sure there are plans in the works, if not already in development for these cities, but wouldn’t it be something if they could hold off until 2012 and 2014. We need more things that can pass the test of time…

As you’ve probably heard by now, the Chicago Cubs have clinched their division.  They WILL be going to the playoffs in 2008!!!!  YAY!  It’s been a great year; even though with my busy schedule I only got to see less than 10 games.  But that’s ok – I always said I won’t plan my life around baseball.  Tempting, but I won’t do it, at least not until my kids are grown and I have nothing better to do.  A prime example of this is the fact that we’ve planned a trip to Florida during the playoffs and world series.  If the Cubs make it to the world series, I won’t get to see that either.  Luckily, we’ll be home in time for game 4 of the world series, so I’ll at least be able to see one game, possibly more if they need to play them.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  First the Cubs have to make it to the world series.  Given the way the team has played all year, I think there’s a pretty good chance, but all we can do is wait and see.  For now, it’s comforting to know that they’ve already clinched their playoff spot and I got to watch that happen!  GO CUBBIES!!!!!