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Write your Senator. Stop SOPA!

2012-01-13T02:00:00.001-05:00

This is the letter that I wrote to both of the Senators from South Carolina. You guessed it, they are both Republicans, so I decided to pander a bit to their GOP line in my request that they not support SOPA.

Have you written or called your Senator yet?

Dear Senator Graham,
Dear Senator DeMint,

I am writing to request that you NOT support HR3261 or the SOPA Bill. Senator, this Bill is just another way for the government to grow larger and interject itself into our daily lives. It will hamper our economic growth by limiting online e-commerce in our nation and is a huge threat to web related businesses. In these tough economic times do we really want to waste millions on growing the government through more bureaucratic oversight and putting further restrictions on those who use the Internet to run small businesses?

Also, as an educator, I know that this Bill would restrict teacher’s ability to stream content into the classroom for both History and Science classes. Some web content is invaluable to teachers in the classroom and HR3261 would virtually eliminate the possibility of using this content as a resource. It could also threaten internal networking and sharing of information between teachers from different districts. Our educational system has enough problems without adding to them with the passing of the SOPA Bill.

Finally Senator, I would like to say that in America one of the things we value most is our Freedom of Speech. Don’t turn America into an Iran or China where the citizens are not allowed to grow the Marketplace of Ideas through free sharing of information. Please DO NOT support HR3261.

Thank you!

An Actual Update From Me

2012-01-12T04:40:00.012-05:00

Now that College Football is over I guess I should spend a few minutes typing out an update on all that has happened to me over the past few months. I can’t say that this will be all encompassing but I’ll try to get you up to date with a few stories.

So let’s see, I guess I’ll start back in November. The weather was really cold in November and I was really paranoid that this was going to be a very cold winter. We got a lot of snow during the month and it seemed like the sun was never going to return. Luckily, it did and so far this winter hasn’t been that bad. I am just so thankful to be living in a place with heat and hot water this year. Thanksgiving came and went without any real Thanksgiving feel to it. I did go out and meet up with all the Peace Corps volunteers and staff for their Thanksgiving feast and that was awesome. The volunteers did a great job of getting all the food prepared and it was a great meal.

Did a lot of ‘soul searching’ in November too. Just trying to figure out what it is that I want in life and where it is that I want to go. I feel better after doing that and I’m actually happy with where I am right now with myself and what I’m doing. There are some things I’d like to work on and improve on, but that will be a process that is going to take some time. No decisions on what will happen after the school year as of yet though. I’m leaving my options open and we’ll see what life brings my way.

By early November I was in full swing with my school and really getting to know how things were going to work there and how my students were going to pan out. I’ve got to say that I’m 50/50 on my students at this point. Most of them are great and really motivated to improve and learn. However, there are quite a few that just seem like they could give less than two shits about anything. I get it. I understand that school is not the most exciting thing in the world and a lot of kids have no desire to be there, but I really require the bare minimum from them as far as simple respect for me and their fellow students. I have a few kids who are not only learning nothing but are making it harder for their classmates to learn as well. That shit just pisses me off. When I was out in the village it was a given that every class was going to have a few kids that were going to be a problem. I guess I just expected more from a private school in Tbilisi. It’s not all bad though like I said. I have a lot of fun with some of my students and there are some of them that I feel can really go a long way if they stay motivated and focused.

I was also by this time settling into Tbilisi and getting into my routines. I’ve got to say that while Tbilisi is really nice and a decent place to live, the social scene sucks. A lot of that is just cultural in that people hang out with the people they went to school with or they are married by the time they are 20 and starting families and are not therefore out in the social scene as much. It’s just really hard to go out and meet new people that are interesting and that you’d want to hang out with on a regular basis. I went to this one party that was super cool and met a few people, but other than that it hasn’t been all that exciting. The expat parties suck and hanging around with other Americans here is just strange. A lot of them make a whole lot more money than I do since they work either at the Embassy or with banks and finance companies. And, with that it seems comes a completely alternate reality of what Georgia is. They live, work and shop in one district and have no idea about the realities of Georgia outside of their little bubble. They also have no interest in hearing about it either. And don’t get me started on the fraternity culture of some of the younger expats that are here including a small contingent of US Marines who are at times an embarrassment to their country. Overall, I’ve just been unimpressed with the social scene here; that’s my point.

December was a long month and it felt like school would never end. Luckily I got a nice break in the middle of the month and took a weekend trip to Armenia with a group of Georgians. It was a fun trip and I got to see a lot of really cool old churches and meet a few new and interesting people. I was really lucky to go and while it was a very long and tiring weekend, it was a lot of fun. Yerevan is a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be and it is a really well organized city too. I was really shocked at how easy it was to navigate on foot in a city that I’d never been in before. Armenia is the butt of a lot of jokes here in the region (it’s like the Alabama of the Caucuses) and I give you... Cigarette in a Pipe Man!

Like I said though, there were some awesome churches there...

I’ve got to say I was really impressed and overall I thought it was a really interesting place from what I saw.

My uncle (father’s brother) Richard died and that was some hard news to take for all of my family. He had been battling with cancer for a while and had been doing better but he took a fairly quick and dramatic slide before passing away. I was glad that, from what I heard, he was able to see everyone in the family before passing and get all of his affairs in order. He wasn’t old at all and it’s really sad that he wasn’t able to live a longer life. Also, both of my grandparents are having some medical problems as well and that is also very sad news because having a child die is hard enough without going through your own problems as well at the same time. Hopefully both of them will be able to recover as well as possible and be around for years to come.

But, as the Georgians like to say on the fourth or fifth toast, with death always comes new life. My friends Liz and Rett celebrated the birth of their third child this month. So congrats to them and hopefully Rett will be scheduling his vasectomy sometime soon. Hahaha. Sorry. Also, my cousin Jennifer had her second baby which was adopted by my other cousin Dayonna. Kind of strange but also really cool. But, for those of you that don’t know the Kendrick family, that phrase really sums them up; ‘a little strange, but super cool.’ I’m glad that all are well and healthy and I hope they both have long and wonderful lives.

Christmas was a lot better this year from the previous two here in Georgia. For one I didn’t have to once again explain what Christmas was and why it’s so awesome to my Muslim host-family and I was able to have brunch. I searched all over the city and finally found maple syrup so I made French Toast, sausages and mimosas for myself. I was amazed at how much maple syrup costs though. It’s so cheap in America I guess because we don’t import it but I got a tiny little bottle of it for about the equivalent of $9. Totally worth it though.

Thank you Maple Joe! You made Christmas Brunch awesome! Well, you and my cool gifts from Mom.

Also, at school I was able to do some Christmas projects with my kids for once. I had my 4th graders write Christmas poems since we’d been doing poetry a lot this semester and then make Christmas cards for their parents. It was fun. The younger kids are a lot of fun sometimes because some of the stuff they come up with while learning English is just hilarious. Anyway, here are some pictures of my 4th graders and their cards and one of my favorite card covers.

One of the girls in these pictures is named Nini and one day I was feeling a little low and not all that happy to be at school when she came up to me and gave me a card she had made for me. I'll type it out here exactly as it was written for full effect:

for Mr. andrew (picture of a heart) -Nini: I love you Mr. andrew. you are best ticher is the world. I love your leson. you are tiching wery interesting. I love you and your leson. you are my lovely ticher. (another heart) -x- :) Let's just say my day was a lot better after that. Too cute!

I did make a trip back out to Muganlo for my host-dad Akif’s 50th Birthday! There was boiled sheep to be had, but thankfully there were also other options as it was his birthday and there would be many guests. I think my count (could be unreliable as it did get hazy after midnight) was 25 people there for the festivities. And that is without my host-brother Aslan, his wife and their baby who were in Azerbaijan. Needless to say the night went on till the wee hours of the morning and the next morning picked right back up with my least favorite “breakfast supra” that lasted till after noon. I hate when a long night of drinking Georgian wine is followed up with a long morning of cha-cha and tequila. Oh, yeah. My host-dad decided to break out the bottle of tequila I had given him after we had put down two liters of cha-cha before noon. I warned him, but he didn’t listen. At least it tasted good on the way down. My drunky host-cousin got sick and had to leave after the tequila to the sounds of Akif and I laughing at him. So wrong on so many levels, but we were having a blast at this point. After a few hours I did manage to make my way back to Tbilisi and crash out for about 12 hours. Muganlo is like the Twilight Zone to me now. Every time I go back there my mind is spinning with thoughts of, ‘how in the hell did I live here for two years?’ But at the same time it has that nostalgic element to it as in when I see one of the kids beating on something with a stick I just think, ‘ah that little shit, he’s just the same as he always was; how cute.’ However I was not wax poetic about my trips to the outhouse. If you have the money, why not just build an indoor toilet?

So really I’ve got to say that this winter so far has been fairly uneventful. I did find a bar near my house that has a couple of Belgian beers on tap so that’s cool. Too bad the food there is Georgian. Oh well. I tried to convince the manager to get wi-fi in there but I don’t think he wants to turn it into a café style bar but keep it as a restaurant. I can’t blame him I guess because if you’re going to get Georgians in there you have to offer them what they want and that’s more of the same as every other place has. More Georgian food.

A couple of funny stories for you:

So there are people that will wander around the residential districts and sell random things such as fruit and vegetables. They will carry their products or have them in a car and just yell out whatever it is that they’re selling. When I’m out on my balcony I can sometimes here them and I don’t think much of it because it seems completely normal. I can even see that working in America to some extent. Have a mobile farmers market much like the ice-cream trucks come around and sell fresh produce. But the other day I was out in my balcony and I saw this woman down between the buildings with a cart loaded down just yelling out, “Brooms! Brooms! Brooms!” For some reasons I could not stop laughing at this. The absurdity of walking around all day yelling out “Brooms!” was enough but the idea of seeing that in America was something I could not imagine. You have to understand that a lot of Georgians use these crappy straw brooms that wear out in a few months so there is a need for them to be replaced, but all I could think of was seeing this scene in Anywhere, USA. As if I were sitting there one day reading a book or watching TV and hearing a lady yell out, “Brooms!” and immediately jumping up with the thought that, ‘you know what? I really could use a new broom about right now.’

Anyway, I had a stellar string of crap days this past week. One, my door has been broken for a few months now and I’ve repeatedly told my land-lady that it needed repair because the locking mechanism was busted and that the key would eventually break off in there. She is a rich lazy ass woman and never made so much as an attempt to do anything about it. So the other day as I was locking the door, sure enough the key snapped off in the lock preventing me from either latching the door or locking it. I called her and she asked if it could wait till tomorrow. I told her no, since I could not leave my apartment with a door that would not latch or lock. So she sent a man over to look at it. He got here at about 7pm, naturally too late to do anything about it that day. He said he would be back between 1 and 5 the next day. (I’m guessing “locksmiths” in Georgia are like the cable guy in America).

This was how I ended up securing my door while I waited on it to be repaired. Crack security that is.

He did eventually show up and get the door fixed telling me that it would cost 70 GEL ($45). I told him to take that up with my land-lady since it was her door and her problem as I had reported the problem to here over the past few months. He asked me to call her since they were friends and naturally could not discuss such matters of business and money. (???Georgians!!!). I called her and she told me that since I had broken the door, it was my problem. Naturally I paid the man. But, I hope she realizes that whenever I move out of this apartment, that I’ll be taking that lock with me. Why should I pay for an improvement to a place that will stay here after I’m gone? I think that since I paid for it, it’s mine. Now I know that I’ll have no use for that lock, but the satisfaction of throwing it in the dumpster on my way out will be worth the 70GEL.

After the lock fiasco, I was sitting around that night and started feeling really poorly. I don’t know if it was something I ate or what but my stomach was all cramped up and I was not feeling good at all. Needless to say I got zero sleep and was up and down all night visiting the toilet. I eventually just moved to the couch around 4am and laid there till about 9 when everything seemed to be over. Now you know how after you’re sick you just want to change out of your clothes, wash them and just be over the whole incident right? Well that’s what I did. And, after I had made my coffee I felt the need to have a smoke and just stand out on the balcony with my morning cup of Joe. Hold on. Where is my damned lighter? I looked everywhere for it. Couldn’t find it. Then I hear this loud clanking in the washing machine. Oh no!

You can see the lighter there trapped against the door next to where the water drains out getting blasted with warm soapy water for two hours.

But, being a BIC lighter (made in the USA via China) it of course survived a two hour wash cycle and lived on.

So I really can’t think of anything else to update you on at this point dear reader. We’re about to enter that dark period of the year between the Super Bowl in February and Opening Day of Baseball in April where the sports world goes dark. I hate Basketball, so I guess I’ll have to read those two or three books I’ve out off for the past few months. Not such a bad thing I guess.

I’ll try to make a better effort to update you more regularly on what’s going on with me on this side of the world over the next few months. Until then… Peace!

The 2011/2012 Bowls in Review

2012-01-11T01:36:00.003-05:00

Well here it is College Football fans; the last post of the year. It was a great Bowl Season and there were just so many good games and exciting matchups this year. Congrats to Alabama on winning another National Championship for the SEC (that’s 6 in a row now in case you weren’t counting).

But, before I run down each and every game (Oh yeah, this is a long one) let’s see how the conferences finished up this year:

6-3 SEC: One of those losses came in the National Championship Game, so really the SEC should, once again, have the highest Conference Bowl record.
6-2 Big-12: The Big-12 had a very good showing this year and were helped out by two wins from its departing members Missouri and Texas A&M who are moving over to… the SEC.
3-2 BigEast: The “big”East may have pulled out a winning record, but their only two good showings were from Cincy and West Virginia.
4-6 Big-10: Ouch. The Big-10 got rolled over on January 2nd and did not have a very impressive Bowl Season.
2-5 PAC-12: If you thought the Big-10 had a bad one, what can you say about the PAC-12? Only Oregon stood out and with 7 Bowl appearances, the PAC-12 looked a little overmatched this year.
2-6 ACC: Not to be outdone by those guys out west, the ACC went ahead and took the cake for lackluster Bowl performances this year. Two words can really sum it all up: Clemson’s Defense.

So who was winning if all the “Big Boys” had so many losses? Well both the MAC and C-USA went 4-1 in their Bowls while MWC went 2-3, the SunBelt 1-2 and the lowly WAC goose egged at 0-3. I went 23-12 in my picks for the Bowl Season, so I can’t say too much. That’s waaaay below my season average, but hey, it’s the Bowls. Anything can happen.

I love the conference debates. I really do and I think this year once again proves that the SEC is by far the best conference in College Football and that while the PAC-12 and Big-10 may be on the rise after their respective realignments, they aren’t there just yet. And, while the Big-12 may be on the downslide, they haven’t fallen completely out of the debate just yet either. While I like to poke fun at the little conferences (and the BigEast), the little guys had a good showing this year and I enjoyed that as you will see in some of these earlier recaps.

So while all the kicking, tackling, passing, rushing and fumbling may be over; let’s toss the coin one more time and finish off this year. Enjoy!

GILDAN NEW MEXICO BOWL –
Temple (MAC) over Wyoming (MWC) 37-15
Nothing says ‘Lets kick off Bowl Season’ like a stellar MAC v. MWC matchup that ends in a blowout. Not all Bowls are created equal and this was a prime example of that. However, the teams did draw almost 26,000 fans to NM and Temple finishes the year with a 9 win season. And, as you know, for Temple, that’s pretty damned good.

FAMOUS IDAHO POTATO BOWL –
Ohio (MAC) over Utah State (WAC) 24-23
There is so much to laugh at when it comes to the “Famous Potato Bowl.” It’s on a blue field, it features a MAC v. WAC matchup and it’s the other UO and the forgotten Utah team. But! The last 4 minutes of this game were entertaining as hell. In fact, the second half in general was really fun to watch. Utah State’s run vs. Ohio’s pass was just fun. No, defense was not that big of a factor. In the end, Ohio scored on a weird TD and gave Utah State no time to mount a comeback and the MAC is 2-0 in the Bowls.

R+L CARRIERS NEW ORLEANS BOWL –
La-Lafayette (SunBelt) over San Diego State (MWC) 32-30
Congrats to the Ragin’ Cajuns’ kicker Brett Baer for booting a 50-yard FG as time expired to give his team the Bowl win. The SDS Aztecs scored a TD with 35 seconds left (missed the two-point conversion) and thought they had this wrapped up. But no! The Cajuns were playing a home game of sorts and sent over 42,000 liquored up fans home happy getting their 9th win of the year in the Bowl game.

BEEF 'O' BRADY'S BOWL ST. PETERSBURG –
Marshall (C-USA) over Florida Int. (SunBelt) 20-10
Aside from this being one of the worst Bowl names out there and one of those Bowls that needs to be eliminated, this was a crappy matchup. 6-6 Marshall vs. 8-4 FIU? Really? Who cares? And, as expected, this Bowl was pretty much a snoozer. They only thing of interest is the fact that Marshall won and will finish with a winning record on the year and FIU proved that yes, indeed, they do suck!

SAN DIEGO COUNTY CREDIT UNION POINSETTIA BOWL –
#18 TCU (MWC) over Louisiana Tech (WAC) 31-24
Remember when Bowls didn’t need sponsors in order to operate? What a dumb name. And why does a credit union need to advertise nationally? Anyway, I was really surprised that LaTech made a game of this. I thought TCU and their #18 ranking would run over the Bulldogs. Guess not. But can you blame TCU for not getting up for the Poinsettia Bowl? I can’t. Apparently neither could the fans since only about 24,600 showed up. Kinda sad that TCU now finishes with an 11-2 record and the only thing they were able to show us in this game was that they have the ability to sleep in the first half and then comeback and beat an 8 win WAC school.

MAACO BOWL LAS VEGAS -
#7 Boise State (MWC) over Arizona State (Pac-12) 56-24
Oh Boise State. What a waste of time this bowl was for you. I guess getting a win over a Pac-12 school in a bowl game is good, but you were so close to a BCS Bowl and now you fell all the way to the Las Vegas Bowl on December 22nd. And what happened to the darlings of the first half of the season at Arizona State? Ouch. Anyway, Boise dominated this game. They ran the opening kickoff back 100 yards for a TD and then Kellen Moore did what he’s done for the past few years and just controlled a very productive offense. Zzz… Oh. Sorry. Yeah. Not the best match up and a huge disappointment for ASU who now finish with a 6-7 record.

SHERATON HAWAII BOWL -
#21 Southern Miss (C-USA) over Nevada (WAC) 24-17
No real surprise here. Southern Miss was riding high after beating Houston and winning the C-USA Championship and Nevada really was only playing for respect. Which they didn’t get. Southern Miss finishes the year with 12 wins and that is awesome. But, their coach is leaving and a lot of guys are graduating, so I wouldn’t expect the same from them next year. Nevada on the other hand is… well… Nevada so I would think their good for another 7-6 finish next year.

AdvoCare V100 INDEPENDENCE BOWL –
Missouri (Big-12) over North Carolina (ACC) 41-24
Ah yes. Welcome to the SEC Missouri. Congrats on your Bowl win over an ACC opponent. You must have gotten the memo that we like to beat ACC teams every time we play them. I also like the fact that Missouri got the job done by running the ball. Nice! The Tigers finish with an 8-5 record but I wouldn’t expect the same with them making the switch to the SEC next year. NC on the other hand finishes at 7-6 and needs to win more conference games next year if they hope to improve. 3-5 in ACC play this year? Wow.

LITTLE CAESARS BOWL –
Purdue (Big10) over Western Michigan (MAC) 37-32
Really? A Pizza Bowl? Really? Purdue struggled to beat WMU? I didn’t watch this one and I’m glad.

BELK BOWL –
North Carolina State (ACC) over Louisville (BigEast) 31-24
Well I guess if a pizza can sponsor a Bowl game then a discount clothing store can too. The only thing about this game that was satisfying was the fact that the BigEast school lost to an ACC school. What’s worse than losing to an ACC team that went 4-4 in conference play? Oh yeah. Playing in the BigEast.

MILITARY BOWL - PRESENTED BY NORTHROP GRUMMAN –
Toledo (MAC) over Air Force (MWC) 42-41
Now this is the most honest corporate sponsorship you will ever see. The Military Bowl presented by a defense contractor. Wow. Anyway, this was a pretty good game and strangely featured Toledo’s air attack vs. Air Force’s ground game. Air Force had a chance to tie it after scoring a TD with 52 seconds left but opted to go for the 2-point conversion and the win rather than playing for overtime. They missed it, and allowed Toledo to collect their 9th victory on the year and collect another win for the MAC. I guess in the end we learned that a rocket from Toledo can shoot down an Air Force jet. (Yeah, really bad pun there).

BRIDGEPOINT EDUCATION HOLIDAY BOWL -
#21 Texas (Big-12) over California (Pac-12) 21-10
Well, despite all the injuries and a sub-par season, Texas managed to finish the year 8-5 after taking out Cal in the Bowl game. Other than that, what is the story line for this game? Anybody? I guess you could say it was Texas showing some defense for a change. The Longhorns out rushed Cal 109 to 7. Yeah, you read that right. Cal managed 7 yards of rushing offense. They also turned the ball over 5 times!!! So did Texas win or did Cal yet again find a way to lose a game that they probably should have won?

CHAMPS SPORTS BOWL –
Florida State (ACC) over Notre Dame (ND) 18-14
Remember 1993 when this game was awesome? Remember when FSU started the season ranked #5 and had aspirations of winning a National Championship? It’s 2011 and both of these teams finished the regular season 8-4? Hmm… Regardless this was a cool matchup and actually featured defense. If you’re going to put together a bowl game featuring two teams that had ‘disappointing’ seasons, at least do it right like the Champs Sports Bowl did. I hate both of these teams, but I loved watching this game. FSU had a great second half and if they’re going to get a win, at least they beat the “fighting” Irish.

VALERO ALAMO BOWL -
#12 Baylor (Big-12) over Washington (Pac-12) 67-56
Whoa! Offense! Offense! Heisman Trophy winner RG III and the Baylor Bears just won a track meet! This was the highest scoring Bowl game in history and if you missed it, look up the runs by Baylor’s Terrence Ganaway. 21 carries for 200 yards and 5 TDs!!! Wow! 1,397 total yards in this game and it was amazing! Not the style of football I enjoy the most, but this was one hell of an entertaining game. I was really surprised that Washington was able to hold up as long as they did. Baylor finishes out their stellar season 10-3 and will have to rebuild next year if they hope to string together another season like this anytime soon.

NEW ERA PINSTRIPE BOWL –
Rutgers (BigEast) over Iowa State (Big12) 27-13
Um, the Pinstripe Bowl? I’ve got to admit, I’ve never heard of this one. No surprise with the outcome whatsoever seeing as Iowa State came in at 6-6 and already upset OKS for their “big win” of the year. Rutgers ran over them all game long and capitalized on 3 turnovers from the Cyclones.

BELL HELICOPTER ARMED FORCES BOWL –
BYU (Mormon) over Tulsa (C-USA) 24-21
Damn it! I so wanted to pull out the Mormon Girl one more time. I thought Tulsa’s offense would be able to put up more points and control the ball and the clock a little more but alas… BYU won. Congrats to them though for putting together another 10 win season. This was a pretty even game all the way through and BYU was just able to capitalize on their final drive and score with 11 seconds left to win their 6th Bowl in the past 7 years.

FRANKLIN AMERICAN MORTGAGE MUSIC CITY BOWL –
Mississippi State (SEC) over Wake Forrest (ACC) 23-17
A battle of two 6-6 teams in the Music City! Wooo! We need more Cow Bell. Another SEC over ACC matchup though, so that’s good. I was excited to see who would fuck up the most in this game and apparently that was Wake Forrest. Wake won the time of possession, passed for about 100 more yards and won the turnover battle 2-0. But… Miss State had scoring runs of 60 and 72 yards and a scoring pass of 31 yards. Big plays I guess make up for all the other 3 and outs. Miss State played crap football all season long and I was surprised they even made it to Bowl eligibility. However, this is two years in a row they’ve won a Bowl game and their 5th straight Bowl win. Better luck next year Miss State fans. It’s hard playing in the SEC we know. And poor Wake. They lost to Vandy to end the year and now Miss State? Ouch.

INSIGHT BOWL -
#14 Oklahoma (Big-12) over Iowa (Big-10) 31-14
OU almost let Iowa back into this game in the 4th quarter but put together 10 points in the final 3 minutes to ice the Insight. What a letdown year for the Sooners, but I guess they have to feel better now that they have a Bowl win and finish with 10 wins overall. All three of the Sooners’ losses came in Big-12 play this year hence why they were not in a bigger Bowl despite their #14 ranking. Iowa’s offense put up more total yards and controlled this game for the most part but just could not get it into the end zone. They didn’t even score till the 4th when they put together two drives that resulted in TDs. Oklahoma played the ‘bend but don’t break’ defense and ran the ball effectively enough to get a win.

MEINEKE CAR CARE BOWL OF TEXAS –
Texas A&M (Big-12) over Northwestern (Big-10) 33-22
Ah another future SEC team getting a Bowl win. Go Aggies! I was watching this game while waiting on midnight and the fireworks to start. Not too many fireworks during the game but it was entertaining. (For a matchup between two 6-6 teams) I liked that A&M’s new coach was on hand to watch them and “learn about his players.” A&M managed a fairly balanced attack and in the end I think they were the better team and good for them on finishing out their time in the Big-12 with a Bowl win.

AutoZone LIBERTY BOWL –
Cincinnati (BigEast) over Vanderbilt (SEC) 31-24
Damnit Vandy! Why do you always have to play like, well, Vandy? You let down the SEC by playing your typical style of screw up football. Vanderbilt went up 21-17 in the 4th and then let up a 90 yard TD return on the ensuing kick, then threw an INT that set up another TD to go down 31-21 all in a span of about 10 minutes. It’s bad enough that they are the whipping boys of the SEC and have to struggle every year to become Bowl eligible, but then to lose their Bowl game to a Big East school? Ouch. Now Cincinnati was a 9-3 team this year (now 10-3), but come on!

HYUNDAI SUN BOWL –
Utah (Pac-12) over Georgia Tech (ACC) 30-27 in OT
Now, when the Bowls were announced, I thought this would be one of the “can’t miss” games. Two totally different styles of offence; and not a whole lot of defense. I was right. Utah took a 10-7 lead into half before GT ripped off 17 unanswered points in the 3rd the last score coming on an awesome 74 yard INT return for a TD. Then the 4th quarter happened. Utah, down 14, scores twice and forces OT. GT kicks a FG, Utah scores a TD. Done. What an awesome game. Quote of the night came from Tech’s Head Coach Paul Johnson, "We couldn't block in the fourth quarter and the plays we needed to make just didn't happen," Johnson said. "It feels like somebody kicked you in the gut. When you are competitive, it really hurts.” So coach… now that your team has lost 7 STRAIGHT BOWL GAMES!!! When do you expect to really be competitive again?

KRAFT FIGHT HUNGER BOWL -
Illinois (Big10) over UCLA (Pac-12) 20-14
Zzzzzz… Huh? What? Yeah yeah. Hunger is bad. Donate. Zzzzz… A 6-6 Illinois team versus a 6-7 UCLA is not a matchup I care to waste time watching. But, a win for Illinois does give us a Bruin team that finishes off the year at 6-8 or most likely the worst finish by any team that has ever even been allowed to compete in a Bowl game. Zzzzz…

Chick-fil-A (Don’t call me Peach anymore) BOWL –
#25 Auburn (SEC) over Virginia (ACC) 43-24
Auburn has to feel a little better about their season after this one. After winning the National Title last year they knew this was going to be a rebuilding year. Auburn lost their leading rusher before the game due to a suspension and then their QB in the first quarter due to an ankle injury and still managed to lay a beat down on Virginia. The Tigers ripped off 21 unanswered in the 2nd quarter (led 28-17 at half) and then outscored Virginia 15-7 in the second half. Virginia didn’t look all that bad and I could see where some people had them as an upset pick, but come on. It’s Auburn in a Bowl game. And damn you Chick-fil-A. I love your chicken sandwich, but you need to put the Peach back into the Peach Bowl.

TICKETCITY BOWL -
#19 Houston (C-USA) over #22 Penn State (Big10) 30-14
Ouch. You could understand Houston falling to a lower Bowl game after their loss, but Penn State from the Big-10? Nobody wanted to touch them and so they found themselves in the TicketCity Bowl against one of the nation’s top offences. Oh, and QB Case Keenum is pretty good in case you didn’t know. He went 45/69 (eh) for 532 yards and 3TDs on the day. How sad was Penn State’s season? Not only the sex scandal but their starting QB missing the Bowl game because he got a concussion from a locker room fight when one of his wide receivers knocked him out. Then Houston rolls up 600 yards of offense on them in the Bowl game to send them home losers with more questions than answers leading into next season. Yeah. Penn State is on the slide and it may be a few years before we see them in contention again.

TAXSLAYER.com URBAN MYER GATOR BOWL –
Florida (SEC) over Ohio State (Big-10) 24-17
I thought I put up my new calendar and it said 2012 not 2006. What is this? Seriously though, if you’re going to have two teams that finish with disappointing seasons, you might as well put them together for a rematch to see which has fallen the farthest. I’ve always hated Urban Myer, now I hate him even more for going to OSU. Anyway, Florida’s speed finally paid off for them and they exposed what characterizes Big-10 football: slow, slow power, un-athletic linemen and a lack of depth overall in the conference. Florida played some amazing special teams in this game and that really was the difference when it came to these two 6-6 teams fighting it out to see which one could secure a winning season. The Gay Acorns of Ohio State dropped four straight to finish below .500 for the first time since 1988, and lost seven games for the first time since 1897. Ouch. Well Myer is tired of hanging out with his wife and kids, so maybe he can turn things around. Right…

NOW ON TO THE REAL BOWL GAMES!!!!
(Well, except for a few that slide in here on the timeline).

CAPITAL ONE BOWL -
#9 South Carolina (SEC) over #20 Nebraska (Big-10) 30-13
Congrats to the Gamecocks of South Carolina for their first ever 11 win season. Wow. Who would have ever thought the Ol’ Ball Coach would have been able to do it at SC? Anyway, South Carolina showed that SEC speed again and racked up 6 sacks on the day, held Nebraska to 250 yards on the day and shut them out after the first quarter. Conner Shaw had a great day for the Cocks and Alshon Jeffery was his typical awesome self. (Well except when he and a Nebraska CB got ejected for fighting in the 3rd quarter). When the Bowls were announced I was surprised that Michigan State wasn’t picked for this game seeing as they were ranked higher than Nebraska. Nevertheless, this was a good win for South Carolina and another good win for the SEC.

OUTBACK BOWL
#17 Michigan State (Big10) over #16 Georgia (SEC) 33-30 in 3OTs
What the FUCK!? Michigan State’s one strength on defense is the middle of their line. So why the fuck did Georgia try about 20 runs right up the middle? Georgia dominated this game in the first half (what else is new?) and lost for 3 main reasons: Mike Bobo’s play calling, Aaron Murray’s INTs and the lack of a run game (what else is new?). I think I’ll start two pages on Facebook and see if I can get a million likes on each. One will be ‘Fire Mike Bobo’ and the other will be ‘Cut Isaiah Crowell’. Georgia would be much better off without either of those two. Don’t blame the kicker or the defense for the OT loss. Blame Mike Bobo. Can I just say thank you to Brandon Boykin for his play on the day? When he caught that punt on the 8 yard line and ran backwards to the 5 my thought process was: NO, No, no… yes, Yes, YES as he went 98 yards for the TD. Wow. But alas, let all of Bulldog Nation stand and say… ‘Next year.’ Fandom aside, congrats to Michigan State’s Seniors for finally getting a Bowl win and finishing off their season with 11 wins and going out as the winningest class in school history.

ROSE BOWL GAME PRESENTED BY VIZIO -
#5 Oregon (Pac-12) over #10 Wisconsin (Big-10) 45-38
I love watching Oregon. High tempo offense, speed everywhere, and those uniforms are always entertaining. I was actually surprised that Wisconsin was able to hang with Oregon as well as they did. They were in it till about 4 minutes left when they fumbled the ball away and let Oregon go on to run out the clock. The Ducks racked up 621 total yards in this one and De’Anthony Thomas’ TD runs of 91 and 64 yards were just awesome. This was a very entertaining game and congrats to Oregon for finishing off a great season with 12 wins and their first Rose Bowl win in 95 years.

TOSTITOS FIESTA BOWL -
#3 Oklahoma State (Big-12) over #4 Stanford (Pac-12) 41-38 in OT
Woah! So if Alabama beats LSU in the National Championship Game did OSU make enough of a statement to say that they should be #1? Well, no. But, it does put them in position to finish in the #2 spot this year. Congrats. Motivation was a question for the Cowboys in this game after missing out on the BCS National Championship Game but they seemed ready to go and put on a pretty good show against Andrew ‘Draft me #1’ Luck. (I’m sorry, I know he’s good, but I’ve got a problem thinking he’s gonna be all that good in the NFL. We’ll see). Hey, Matt Millen likes him, so that should be enough to scare you off of the guy. Anyway, I know OSU is a passing team, but 13 total rushing yards? Stanford controlled the tempo of this game holding the ball for over 41 minutes!!! Guess it doesn’t matter though if all Oklahoma State needs to do is get the ball, score the ball. But in the end, it was the defense that actually won the game for them holding Stanford scoreless in the OT period. Really the end was a little bit of a letdown. I wanted some more scoring. Have all the points scored in these Bowl games changed my opinion on defense? No, but I do like point scoring bonanzas in Bowl games.

ALLSTATE SUGAR BOWL -
#13 Michigan (Big10) over #11 Virginia Tech (ACC) 23-20 in OT
A Sugar Bowl without an SEC team is just weird to me. This one was even weirder because the Sugar Bowl took Michigan from the Big10 instead of #6 Arkansas from the SEC. Anyway, both the Big10 and ACC are having crappy Bowl Seasons, so this was a “good” win for Michigan and the Big10. Virginia Teach in typical ACC style out gained Michigan 377 to 184 overall but still found a way to lose the game. This was a very good 4th quarter though with VT kicking a FG with 2 seconds left to send it to overtime. Michigan’s defense though held up in the OT period and got a big Sugar Bowl win to finish the year with 11 wins for only the 5th time in school history. Remember when Michigan was a joke a few years ago? Well, they’ve got a new coach and things may be turning around in the Brady Hoke era.

DISCOVER ORANGE BOWL -
#23 West Virginia (BigEast) over #15 Clemson (ACC) 70-33
Ah the BigEast’s one “bright spot” just embarrassed Clemson! Wow. 70 points? That should just speak for itself. Best tackle of the night goes to Obie the mascot after a 99 yard fumble return for a TD in the second quarter for WV. Go look it up. How about the numbers on WV’s QB Smith on the night: 31/42 for 401 yards and 6TDs with 0INTs. Wow. Anyway, like I said, the 70 points should just speak for themselves. Clemson: “We suck again!”

AT&T COTTON BOWL -
#6 Arkansas (SEC) over #8 Kansas State (Big-12) 29-16
Two of the big boys from both the SEC and Big-12 put on a really good show in this year’s Cotton Bowl. (By the way, some say the Big-12 is the second best conference in College Football and this was a huge game for conference bragging rights). If it weren’t for some great secondary play from Kansas State, this score could have been a lot worse. K-State’s defense really kept them in this game and played really well. But Arkansas to me was just the better team in every aspect of the game. Their only two losses this year were on the road to Alabama and LSU and with this win, they picked up 11 on the year and will defiantly finish in the top 5. And how exciting is Joe Adams for Arkansas? He’s like the Deven Hester of College Football. Anyway, this game was a really good one and really close throughout. K-State was within 3 late into the 3rd before Tyler Wilson and the Razorbacks just pulled away from them and played some shutdown defense.

BBVA COMPASS BOWL –
SMU (C-USA) over Pittsburgh (BigEast) 28-6
Really I hate these Bowls that they squeeze in between the BCS Bowls as a way to fill air time and sell more ad space. But, this one did give me yet another opportunity to laugh at the BigEast. To be somewhat fair, Pitt was without its head coach and the D-Coordinator who was coaching them was out the door as soon as the game was over too. But, they managed only 10 yards of rushing on the day and were out played in just about every aspect of the game. June Jones picked up his 100th collegiate win. So, that’s something. With this loss though, Pitt finishes with a losing record going 6-7 on the year.

GODADDY.com BOWL –
Northern Illinois (MAC) over Arkansas State (SunBelt) 38-20
Go Daddy! And go NIU to 11 wins on the year. Arkansas State committed 5 turnovers the last one a pick-6 that iced the game for the Huskies in the 4th quarter. Other than that, there isn’t anything of note from this game other than the fact that NIU trailed 13-0 early before mounting their comeback and Husky WR Martle Moore having the game of his life catching 8 balls for 225 yards and a TD.

ALLSTATE BCS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP -
#2 Alabama (SEC) over #1 LSU (SEC) 21-0
I thought it would take 21 points to win this game, and in a sense, I was right. Everyone knew this was going to be a game dominated by defense but not dominated by just one defense. Wow. Alabama’s defensive performance was one of the greatest I’ve ever seen. LSU didn’t even get across the 50 yard line until about midway through the 4th quarter and they were there for all total of one play. The Tigers managed only 92 total yards and 5 first downs with 2 turnovers. Alabama on the other hand controlled the field position, the clock, the tempo, and only committed one penalty and that came late on an off-sides call on a punt that didn’t even hurt them. Just a total dominating performance from the Tide and they certainly deserve to be this year’s National Champions. Say what you want about this rematch, but I think the best two teams were on the field on Monday night and the best team put on its best performance of the year. Just another year and another Championship for the SEC. Congrats to Alabama! (That kind of hurt typing that).

That’s it! See you all next year. I’m done! Now I can go back to typing actual Blogs about what’s up with me on this side of the world.

Championship Saturday!

2011-12-04T01:18:00.012-05:00

Go big or go home! It’s Championship Saturday and teams are either in or out of the BCS Championship Bowls while some teams will be off to the Nameyourcompany.com Bowl. It’s about reaching your season’s goals and going for the ultimate goal of a BCS Bowl win. Well, unless your Alabama and then you can take this week off and probably still get there.

I’m so happy that the Big-10 and PAC-12 are now finally playing Championship Games. Too bad the BigEast and Big-12 can’t but still get BCS bids. And, both of the new championship games were great despite the PAC-12 having to send UCLA to their game.

For those of you that are wondering, I finished this year at 93.8% accuracy on my college picks despite going 8-2 this week.

Toss a coin, grab a seat and let’s get on with this week…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:

The Big-10 Championship
#15 Wisconsin over #13 Michigan State 42-39
This was the best game of the weekend. Wow. If you didn’t get to see it, go watch it. The rematch was even better then the Hail Mary MSU win during the regular season. Wisconsin now will get to play Oregon in the Rose Bowl and that should be a really good game as well. I really think that is Michigan State hadn’t committed those two turnovers this game could have had a different outcome. Oh and that running into the kicker call at the end of the game was just heartbreaking for Sparty. The win was there, but so was the flag. But alas, the Badgers are now the Big-10 Champions for the second straight year. I’m really just happy it’s somebody other than Ohio State or Michigan.

The ACC Championship

#20 Clemson over #5 Virginia Tech 38-10
Who would have thought that the ACC would have put on such a good game. The final score doesn’t show just how close this game was. The score was tied at 10 in the 3rd before Clemson pulled away and will probably move on to the Orange Bowl. Clemson Head Coach Dabo Sweeney had some choice words for all those people “that quit on us” after the game. Can you really blame Clemson fans though? The team started off 8-0 and then lost two conference games and went into this game at 9-3. And, they’re Clemson fans, they know that traditionally their team sucks it up towards the end of the year. This is Clemson’s first conference championship in 20 years and it has to give that team a lot of satisfaction after falling apart late in the year. Whomever gets VT in the bowl game will have a tough test because that is a really good team too.

The PAC-12 Championship

#9 Oregon over UCLA 49-31
UCLA got in this game because USC was ineligible and surprisingly put on a good show pushing Oregon a bit. However, the Ducks were just waaaay too fast and UCLA just looked slow on both sides of the ball. The Bruins had a shot to make this a really good game in the 3rd, but stalled out and then LaMichael James closed it out. Oregon gets to go to the Rose Bowl after winning their 3rd straight PAC-12 title (the fist with an actual title game however) and UCLA gets to file an appeal with the NCAA to go to a bowl game with a losing record. Sad. Actually they were already granted approval by the NCAA, but really does it matter? They fired their coach last week, let him coach this game but he won’t coach the bowl game. Normally I hate FOX’s broadcasters, but the guy doing this game was awesome. He was so into it and very emotional on any big play. It was just fun to listen to him.

The SEC Championship

#1 LSU over #14 Georgia 42-10
Tale of two halves anyone? Wow. Georgia started out alright but LSU’s defense was just too good and Georgia’s special teams once again sucked it up. Three turnovers in the game by the Dawgs and all those dropped passes didn’t help out much either. Georgia left about 21 points off the board thanks to those dropped passes. I was not buying all that upset talk this week. Georgia hasn’t been able to run the ball for over a month now and if your hopes rely on Aaron Murray having a ‘huge’ day, then your hopes are lost. LSU on the other hand demonstrated how to win championships with great defense and a stable of guys who can run the ball. LSU is just too good and now will have about a month off before playing for the National Championship at 13-0. Will it be Bama? Will it be OKS? We’ll find out tonight. As a Georgia fan, I guess I’ve got to be happy with a 10 win season as long as the Dawgs can pull off a bowl win. The Outback Bowl?

Honorable Mentions:
#3 Oklahoma State wins the Big-12 over #10 Oklahoma 44-10
#17 Baylor winning the state over #22 Texas 48-24
#11 Kansas State winning Farmageddon over Iowa State 30-23

UPSET OF THE WEEK:

Conference USA Championship
#24 Southern Miss over #6 Houston 49-28
Oh No! Houston was just cruising along and looking for a BCS bid with an undefeated record. Guess Southern Miss had other plans. Some say Houston was distracted by all the talk surrounding their coach leaving next year. I don’t think that was the case with all that was on the line and with a chance to get into a BCS. Now both Southern Mississippi and Houston will finish with 11 wins (12 for Houston) but neither will go to a BCS game. Now while I think Conference USA has produced two very good teams this year, I just find it really funny (and sad) that neither will go to a BCS game while a crap BigEast team will. This will cost each school in the conference about $500,000 because of not getting to a BCS game. The Southern Miss coach may think his team deserves to go… they don’t.

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:

The MAC Championship
Northern Illinois over Ohio 23-20
There were some awesome plays in this game and NIU had to come from 20 points down to win it, so this was an impressive Friday night High School football game. Wait what? Oh the MAC is a college conference? Anyway, the MAC Champs hopefully will get to go play a BigEast school in a bowl game and destroy them. That would just be awesome. A total of 13,052 people were in attendance for this game. So that leads me to believe that the MAC fans had better things to do on a Friday night than watch their championship game. Ohio had a 20-0 lead at half and then just forgot how to play defense. There were 7 total turnovers in this game and NIU ended up winning it on a last second field goal. So, a classic Pillow Fight Championship game.

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:

#7 Boise State crushes New Mexico 45-0
Boise is 11-1, New Mexico is 1-11. So yeah this was a beat down before they even kicked off. Los Lobos managed only 197 total yards on the day and 8 first downs. By contrast, The Smurf’s QB Kellen Moore went 28/33 for 313 yards and 3 TDs by himself before he was pulled from the game in the second half. This was also Moore's 49th career win as a starting quarterback, the best in FBS history. He also has 137 career touchdown passes, second best behind Houston's QB C.K. While I’m not a huge fan of BSU, I do think they deserve an at large bid to a BCS Bowl. This is the third straight year that they’ll finish as a one loss team and I think it would be a lot more entertaining to see them than Houston. Which, shouldn’t be a problem now that Houston is also a one loss team. By the way, NM’s logo is waaaay more intimidating than their football team.

BIGGEST LOSER:

The BigEast!

Yeah it’s still the BigEast. West Virginia won A SHARE of the conference championship by beating South Florida. The other SHARE goes to Cincinnati who beat UConn. But, West Virginia will go to the conference’s automatic BCS Bowl since they will be the highest ranked team in the conference. (Right now they are 23rd). The Mountaineers will probably play Clemson in the Orange Bowl. And, Cincinnati will probably go play in some crap bowl.

Tune in next week when I talk about the Bowls and let you know which will be worth watching and which ones you can probably skip.

RIVALRY Week!

2011-11-27T07:10:00.019-05:00

Strap in College Football Fans, its RIVALRY WEEK!

Throw out the records, hang your season and all your hopes on the line, go out and play the guys that you hate the most and above all, feel free to commit a personal foul penalty from time to time just to spice things up. This week is all about the rivalries, trophies and pride.

Hey! The NBA is back. Oh, wait. I couldn’t care less. I was so hoping that their labor dispute would drag on so I could go a whole year without hearing about Kobe Bryant. Moving on…

Last week I said the BCS should look like this (1-10): LSU, Alabama, Arkansas, Virginia Tech, Stanford, Oklahoma State, Stanford, Oregon, Boise State, Oklahoma. (Guess nobody noticed that I had Stanford in there twice. I couldn’t make up my mind on them)

And instead it looked like this (1-10): LSU, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech, Stanford, Boise State, Houston, Oklahoma, Oregon.

Now, obviously the BCS computers don’t read this blog nor would they listen to me if they did, because I have NO love for Houston and I think Oregon is a way better team than either Oklahoma or Boise State. The computers LOVE Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. I don’t think VT is that good, but their record will keep them in the top 5. Anyway, this week and next week will tell us a lot about how these teams will end up come Bowl selection time.

How can you tell the female student who is a college football fan from the north from the female student who is a college football fan from the south?
The female student from the north is a physics major who understands Sylvia Plath.
The female student from the south is a Miss USA contestant and understands the west coast offense.

I’m altering the format this week and instead of ranking the games, I’ll just start at the top and work my way down the rankings. And, for those of you that care, going into the final week, my college picking accuracy is at 92.5% this year. Fail.

So with all that hate hanging in the air, let’s get on with this week’s games….

GAMES OF THE WEEK:

The Battle for the Golden Boot
#1 LSU over #3 Arkansas 41-17
This game was THE most important as far as the BCS went this weekend, but even more important to each of the schools. And, the score does not show just how close this game really was… for a half. It was all defense in the first quarter and felt like two boxers feeling each other out through the first round. But, Arkansas scored to start the second and was up 14-0 before LSU scored and then tied it on an awesome 92-yard punt return. The Tigers then scored again to take a 21-14 lead into the half. Arkansas got a field goal to start the 3rd and then… well then LSU just pulled away. However, the story here was LSU’s defense shutting the Razorbacks down. Arkansas managed 50 plays on offense (22 passing and 28 rushing) but for only 47 rushing yards (that’s a 1.7 yrd average) and 207 through the air.

LSU’s QB Jordan Jefferson had a good game and it looks like LSU is just going to cruse to a National Title this year. The Tigers are now 12-0 for the first time in the school’s history. They are the best team in college football AND they have awesome stuff like this…

The Iron Bowl
#2 Alabama over #24 Auburn 42-14
This is one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports. Every year is means something and love em’ or hate em’ the people of Alabama put on a great game. However, this one was never close.
The upset minded Tigers were just way over matched in this game and could do nothing to stop Alabama from making their case to meet LSU again in the National Championship Game. Really this was simple. Alabama played great defense and Trent Richardson went off for 203 yards on the ground but was amazingly held out of the end zone. Total yards? How about Alabama 407 to Auburn’s 157. Ouch. Guess this was a little pay back for last year.

The Battle for the Commonwealth (The Commonwealth Cup)
#4 Virginia Tech crushes Virginia 38-0
Now that’s a rivalry beat down type score. I’ve never thought this was one of the top rivalries but this one meant something to Tech since the win gives them the division championship and putting a beat down on your rival in their house is always nice especially since Virginia was riding a 4 game win streak in the series. This was also the first time that Virginia was shut out at home since 1984. How do you keep a Virginia football player out of your yard?
Put up a goalpost.

The Legends Trophy
#5 Stanford over #22 Notre Dame 28-14
Was I alone in NOT noticing that Notre Dame had moved back into the Top 25? They were 8-3 coming into this game, so, I guess that’s legit. Oh wait, no, it’s Notre Dame. This game was a tale of two halves since Stanford won the first 21-0 then Notre Dame tried to pull off a comeback wining the second 14-7. But the hot start by Luck and the Tree gives Stanford the Legends Trophy and a year’s worth of bragging rights. Ahhhh Notre Dame…. You SUCK!

The Civil War and the Platypus Trophy
#10 Oregon burns through Oregon State like Sherman through Atlanta 49-21
Great rivalry, but what a crappy trophy. Anyway, I love that in a rivalry you can put a beat down on and then pull your starters. Nothing says ‘I hate you, but you’re not even worth my time’ like pulling your starters. I get it. Oregon ‘rested’ their starters for next week’s championship game and knew they had this game won after they took a 28-7 lead into the half and a 42-7 lead early in the 4th. So, no need to run up the score and risk injury to your starters.

Battle of the Palmetto State
#12 South Carolina runs over #17 Clemson 34-13
It’s always a good day when the rednecks beat up on other rednecks. But it’s even better when the rednecks getting beaten are the rednecks from Clemson. This win is especially sweet for South Carolina since it gives them 10 wins for only the second time in school history. Even with that great season they won’t be playing for an SEC Championship because of the Dawgs having a slightly better season. "Historically, Clemson has owned this series," Gamecocks coach Steve Spurrier said. "They don't own us now." Amen Coach.

There is nothing worse than hearing a Clemson fan drone on about how good their team is year in and year out while watching them play sub-par ACC schools and then suck it up at the end of the year. This loss drops the Tigers to 9-3 and sends them to face Virginia Tech for the ACC Championship on a losing streak. The loss will also probably drop them to near the bottom of the Top 25. So, Clemson fans… SHUT THE HELL UP!

Clean, Old-Fashioned HATE
#13 Georgia craps on #23 Georgia Tech 31-17
This is not only one of my favorite rivalries but my ALL TIME favorite name for a rivalry. Nothing says ‘I Hate You’ like having the word Hate in the name of your rivalry game. I just love that it’s clean unadulterated, no bones about it, I HATE YOU!

Oh how sweet this win is too. Not only did Georgia lock up a 10 win season, they did it against the fags from Georgia Tech who were picked to win this game by all the ‘experts.’ They thought Georgia had nothing to play for and that Tech would ‘want’ it more. Not so fast my friend! Georgia had everything to play for; that everything being whippin’ Tech’s ass.

“Oh the spread option is so awesome and we are soooo prolific in our scoring.” Yeah, no. Fuck you. Go back to your calculators and add up all those yards you racked up in the second half. It shouldn’t take you too long since you only got 79.

"I don't like losing to nobody, but when it's in-state, when it's your rival," Tech linebacker Julian Burnett said, his voice trailing off. "We're tired of being the little brothers in the state." Um… maybe Burnett should talk to his coach then and get him to design a better offense and not throw in the towel in the 4th quarter. Well except for when Paul Johnson showed his class by spiking the ball with :08 on the clock down 31-17 in order to get another play in for his backup QB who was in the game, “getting some practice in.” Tech then gets a false start penalty and the game ends with the aforementioned backup scrambling around and then getting tackled after about a 5 yard gain. Douche Bag. Also, it should be "losing to anybody" not "nobody." I guess he was just trying to prove that he sucks at more than football.

I hope Aaron Murray laughed himself to sleep last night after burning Tech and exposing their God Awful secondary in this game. I hope all those people on all those pre-game shows are having fun pulling their feet out of their mouths after saying Georgia’s defense was going to get “exposed” by Tech. I know the UGA fans that dominated a whole corner of Tech’s stadium and could be heard on TV chanting and cheering over the Tech fans loved this one.
Hey Tech fans… FUCK YOU!!! Hahahahahahahahahahaha!
The Game
#15 Michigan gets a win over Ohio State for the first time in eight years 40-34
Worst name ever. Just too pretentious and self-assuming. Well, that’s the Big-10 for you. What with the ‘Leaders’ and ‘Legends’ divisions, did you expect anything else?

Denard Robinson had one hell of a game in this one though. 5 TDs on the day (3 passing 2 rushing). His performance was just icing on the Ohio State shit-cake that is the 2011 season that stands at 6-6 and what I hope will be another Bowl loss to a SEC team. Wouldn’t it be awesome if a team like Vandy beat OSU in a bowl game? I would just fall over laughing and then laugh some more. Anyway, this was one of the better games on Saturday since a lot of the other rivalries were simply blowouts this year. Congrats to the maize and blue for snapping OSU’s win streak in the rivalry and completing a 10 win season.

I thought Urban Myer was “tired” and “wants to spend more time with his family away from the stress of the college game.” So why was he commentating on games and now is pretty much a lock for the Ohio State job next year? His wife and kids must suck.

What do you get if you drag a $100 bill through the ghetto?
An Ohio State recruit.

Heroes Game
#21 Nebraska over Iowa 20-7
Another crap name from a crap Big-10 rivalry. This game used to be referred to as the ‘Zeroes Game’ around my house during the Thanksgiving Holidays because we’d rather have taken a nap than watch it. But, Nebraska isn’t that bad these days and well, they proved it by rolling over Iowa in this year’s snoozer.

The Lone Star Showdown
#25 Texas broke the hearts at Texas A&M 27-25
The lone ‘star’ in this game was Texas QB Case McCoy. That’s right, he’s Colt’s younger brother. Anyway, he broke off a long run on the final drive after what had to have been the WORST call I’ve seen all year by an official that gave Texas 15 free yards for a “personal foul” that wasn’t even contact. After that it was tick and pick for field goal position and the game was over. A&M played really hard in this one and deserved to win what may be the last time we see this rivalry for a while. They’ve been playing it since 1894 and now with A&M moving to the SEC it could be going away. I hope not though because this is a great game every year.

And now I would like to present this year’s...

PILLOW FIGHT RIVALRY GAMES

The Backyard Brawl
West Virginia over Pittsburgh 21-20
They brought the pillows out into the backyard this year as the Big East continues to try and convince us of its relevancy. But, this was a ‘good’ game. Down 20-7 WV dominated the second half and pulled out a win at home thanks to 10 sacks including one on the final Pitt drive as time expired; oh, and some really bad Pitt special teams play. Will an 8-3 West Virginia team get the automatic BCS bid? If they beat S. Florida next week, they just may.

The Victory Bell
North Carolina over Duke 37-21
I guess since one team would technically have to win the game, Victory Bell is an appropriate name. Wow. It’s not basketball but I assume that rivalry transfers to football as well. Blah. Blah. Balh. It’s the ACC and it’s Duke and North Carolina. Need I say more?

The Sunshine Showdown
Florida State gets out sucked by Florida 21-7
In a game that used to mean something every year… this year it was just about pride. Florida just sucks this year. Period. John Brantley had a horrible game and then got knocked out of it in the second quarter. Florida committed 4 turnovers and managed only 7 points on a meaningless TD with about 5 minutes left in the game. Florida State on the other hand somehow won this game despite racking up only 95 total yards of offense and 7 first downs. Since 2000, no team has EVER won a game with fewer than 100 yards of offense. Wow.

These teams may not be putting quality out on the field, but one thing is for sure, they do still continue to put quality in the seats.
The Egg Bowl
Mississippi State scrambles Ole Miss and Huston Nutt; 31-3
Get it? Egg Bowl. Scramble? Never mind. This game is not even worth typing about. It’s just a classic rivalry and Nutt’s last game at Ole Miss. Nutt ends with a 24-26 overall record at Ole Miss, including a 10-22 mark in conference games. The Rebels have lost 14 straight SEC games. Not Good.

The Battle for the Barrel
Kentucky beats Tennessee for the first time since 1984; 10-7

A Kentucky fan and a Tennessee fan, fighting side-by-side, were captured during World War II and sentenced to die by firing squad. The enemy commander asked the Tennessee fan if
he had any last requests. The Vol said, "I want to hear Rocky Top one last time."
The Kentucky fan was then asked if he had any last requests.
"Yes, shoot me first!"

Tennessee finishes the year at 5-7 and with their 6-7 finish last year, has ended seasons with consecutive losing records for the first time since 1910-11. I love this more than redneck Tennessee fans like camouflage, chewing tobacco and the color orange.

They should change this to ‘The Orange Pants Bowl’ since Derek Dooley continues to disgrace his last name by wearing those god awful pants week in a week out. If Tennessee wins, the UK coach has to wear orange pants for the next year’s game. If Kentucky wins, they get to strip Dooley straight out of his pants after the game and burn them on the 50 yard line. Dooley would then have to walk home in his tighty whities in shame.

TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR:
Part One of Championship Saturday and…
Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State in The Bedlam Series
Iowa State and Kansas State in Farmageddon!!!! (That’s really what it’s called. There is no way I could have made something that great up.)

Week 12: Upset Saturday!!!

2011-11-20T01:56:00.007-05:00

And we’ve reached… UPSET SATURDAY!!!

Well well well… the BCS just got a whole lot more interesting. With Oklahoma State, Oklahoma and Oregon falling out, all the other one loss teams can start lining up and making a case for why they should be able to play in the National Championship Game.

Speaking of the BCS, if you want to read an interesting article on how they whole system maybe getting changed check out: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7248953/bcs-proposes-only-handling-national-championship-game-sources-say

Next week is my favorite week of the year: Rivalry Week! So be sure to tune in because I’ll have all the trophy presentations and a few laughs as well. (A couple of rivalry games were played this week, so we’ll get to those in a minute). Also, this week I’m going to replace (for one week only) Biggest Loser with Biggest Winner.

But, before we get to this CRAZY week in college football, let me first be a fan for a second and congratulate my Georgia Bulldogs for ripping off 9 straight wins and clinching the SEC East title this weekend. It was an ugly win over KY but a win nonetheless. The Dawgs had to play with their third string RB, but it didn’t really matter since Georgia’s defense is, in a word, awesome!

Toss a coin, grab a seat and let’s get on with this week…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:

Unranked Iowa State UPSETS #2 Oklahoma State 37-31 in Double OT
I woke up on Saturday morning to watch the end of this game thinking I would just catch some stats and see what the games on Saturday were looking like. I turned on my ESPN player just in time to see Iowa State score to tie it at 24 and force OT. What? What? What? The first OT was normal enough but as OKS snapped the ball to start the second OT a linebacker flew in tipped the pass and got an INT. What? Iowa State then handed the ball off four times and from the 25, found themselves in the end zone. Game over, National Championship hopes over. Just an overall lack of defense and 5 turnovers killed the Cowboys on Friday night. Now next week’s OSU vs. OKS matchup isn’t quite as interesting. However, with all the one loss teams lining up for a shot at the National Championship game, Oklahoma State can stick a dagger in the heart’s of Oklahoma fans with a win. #22 Baylor over #5 Oklahoma 45-38
Bob Stoops got Greeeeedy! Oklahoma drove down and tied it up at 38 with 51 seconds left. They kicked off to Baylor who was content to let the clock run out and play in OT. Stoops saw the decent field position and took a timeout. Baylor thought, ‘well, ok, now that the clock has stopped, we’ve got some time here, so let’s see what we can do.’ Robert Griffin III (Baylor’s QB) is awesome and one of the better athletes in college football. 4 plays, 80 yards 43 seconds and a 34-yard TD pass put the Bears up 7. They kickoff and then recover the kick! Oklahoma stunned, out of any National Title shot and it was the first time OU has EVER lost to Baylor. EVER! By the way, Griffin went 21/34 for 479yds and 4TDs while also rushing for 72 yards in this game.

Unranked USC over #4 Oregon 38-35
If you have a legitimate claim at playing for the National Championship, why would you leave it up to your kicker to force OT in a game you should have won easily at home? Blame the coach here Ducks fans. USC was up 38-14 late in the 3rd before Oregon’s offense even woke up. It took a USC fumble inside the Oregon 10 for the Ducks to even have a shot. They drove down the field having all their timeouts and got to the 25 before stalling out. Now, they only used 1 of those timeouts and the play calling and execution were highly suspect. So, the kicker’s career long is 40. The attempt was about a 37-yard try. And, he hooked it wide right. Goodbye National Championship shot.

Honorable Mentions this week go to:

#8 Virginia Tech hangs on to beat Unranked North Carolina 24-21. Up 24-7 going into the 4th VT fell asleep and almost let this one get away from them.

#9 Stanford survives Cal 31-28 to win the Stanford Axe. Well, at least somebody won today. This was a close game and is HUGE for Stanford; especially this week.
UPSETS OF THE WEEK: (as if there weren’t enough already)

Unranked North Carolina State over #7 Clemson 37-13 and winner of The Textile Bowl Trophy
Oh Clemson. You were already going to the ACC Championship game, you had a chance to fly up the rankings with a win and all those teams ahead of you losing and then you got tripped up by the Wolfpack of NC State. Oops. This is the wrong time of the year for Clemson’s offense to go to sleep and their defensive holes to start showing up. Clemson turned the ball over 4 times and gave up 27 points in the 2nd quarter. This is the best the ACC has to offer? Wow.

Unranked UAB over #20 Southern Miss 34-31
I made a joke a few weeks ago about Southern Miss getting into the top 25 and was shocked when they climbed as high as 20 in the rankings this week. This game proves my point. Then 9-1 Southern Miss just got upset by then 2-8 UAB. Oh C-USA… who cares? Southern Miss is now 5-2 in conference play and will get either #11 Houston or Tulsa in the title game. I’m thinking I need my conspiracy hat here and promote the theory that Southern Miss was just a ‘little’ overrated in the hopes that Houston would get a ‘quality’ win the title game. Here’s hopping Tulsa upsets Houston at home on November 25th.

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK: (By request)

Tennessee over Vanderbilt 27-21 in OT
Oh Vandy. I know you wanted to become bowl eligible over the hated Volunteers of Tennessee, but… you’re Vandy. If you were something other than Vandy maybe you wouldn’t blow leads in the 4th quarter and then throw pick-6 INTs in overtime. Vandy was favored by 1 1/2 points in the game, but Tennessee has now won 28 of the last 29 in the series. The Commodores had a chance to become bowl eligible against Tennessee and now must beat Wake Forest next week for a chance to go bowling for just the fifth time in history. The Vols needed the win over Vanderbilt coupled with a victory at Kentucky next week to keep from missing out on a bowl for the second time in the past four seasons. Even the SEC can provide us with a pillow fight from time to time.

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:

#15 Michigan State over Indiana 55-3 and winner of The Old Brass Spittoon!
Love those Rivalry Trophies, but… Ouch. Indiana only has 1 win this year and that was all the way back in week 3 against South Carolina State. The Hoosiers managed just 236 total yards and threw two INTs. Michigan State was just toned up for this game and now has clinched the Big-10 “Legends” Division with Michigan beating Nebraska.

I wanted to put LSU here since they started taking knees inside the 10 with 5 minutes left in the game. 4th down? Knee. We’ll turn it over, who cares? Wow.

BIGGEST WINNER:

The SEC!!!
Yeah, so LSU, Alabama and Arkansas are all laughing their asses off right now. Next week will determine who will play (and probably beat) Georgia in the SEC Championship Game. However, whichever team doesn’t win will probably have a legitimate claim at still having a shot to play for the National Championship.

I’ve also got to put Virginia Tech and Stanford in this category as well. Here is how I think the
Top 10 should look this week:

1. LSU
2. Alabama
3. Arkansas
4. Virginia Tech
5. Stanford
6. Oklahoma State
7. Stanford
8. Oregon
9. Boise State
10. Oklahoma

Wow. Next week is going to be AWESOME!!!

Week 11/11/11/11...

2011-11-13T01:24:00.005-05:00

I sadly have to start this post with what you’ve all heard about all week; that being Joe Paterno and the Penn State “Incident.” I have never had any love for Penn State or Paterno, however, I do feel a little sad that his amazing career as a football coach came to an end like this. But, having said that, if he did in fact have anything to do with the cover up of those horrific crimes against children, I hope that the government prosecutes him and anyone involved to the fullest extent of the law. Child molesters and those who would cover up their crimes in order to save themselves should be shot. While Paterno may have brought Penn State to national prominence over the last several decades, nothing (not his name, the Penn State brand, college football, sports in general) is worth sacrificing our basic human decency. The man who committed those crimes should be stung up in those same showers and those who covered up his crimes should be forced to watch and then banished from our society.

You can read a timeline of just how far all this goes back (well over 10 years) with Penn State and Jerry Sandusky here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/09/penn-state-scandal-timeline-jerry-sandusky_n_1084204.html?ref=mostpopular

With heartfelt sorrow for those children, let’s get on with what was otherwise a great week…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:

#7 Oregon over #4 Stanford 53-30
Ka-Boom! If last week the big game was in the SEC this week it was the PAC-12’s turn to show the nation their top two teams and dream boy do all QB Andrew Luck versus an Oregon team that refuses to go away. Oregon is on fire after losing to back-to-back SEC opponents (Auburn in last year’s title game and LSU to start the year). Since then, they have been calm on the surface but paddling like hell underneath. Stanford’s last loss before this game? Yeah, it was against Oregon. Just too many missed tackles and too many turnovers (5) for Stanford on Saturday. Luck was in the driver’s seat for the Heisman Trophy but last night it was the LaMichael James show as he ran for 146yds and 3 TDs. Oregon can now go on to the PAC-12 Championship and Stanford can wonder how close they could have been to playing for a National Championship had they just been able to beat Oregon.

Unranked TCU over #5 Boise State 36-35
Potatoes, Potatoes, Potatoes!!! What’s purple and eats flies that get in the BCS ointment? A TCU horned frog. Remember last year when Boise lost to Nevada because of a missed kick? Yeah, it happened again. This time however, it happened on their home blue turf which means that the Nation’s longest home winning streak (35 games) is now over. BSU also hadn’t lost a home conference game since 1998. Wow. This was a great game though. TCU scored to cut the lead to 36-35 with just over a minute to go and coach Garry Patterson made a huge call to go for two and the lead rather than the tie. They made it and went up by one giving Kellen Moore the ball and a chance for immortality. Didn’t happen though. While Moore got them down the field, the last-second 39-yard FG attempt went wide right and with it a chance for any major Bowl appearance for Boise State.

#14 Kansas State SURVIVES Texas A&M 53-50 in 4 OTs!!!
Kansas State needed a win after back-to-back losses. Texas A&M wanted to get bowl eligible off a conference opponent and make some kind of statement. But, down 14-0 K-State tied it up at 14 before halftime. Then down 31-21 with under 6 minutes to go they came charging back overcoming turnovers and poor defense to tie it up at 31 with about 2 minutes to go. And, as we all know, anything can happen in overtime. (Hence why I believe TCU went for two). The four OTs in this one went: TD/TD, FG/FG, TD/TD, FG/TD. K-State winner winner.

Honorable Mentions this week go to:
#9 Clemson surviving Wake Forrest 31-28. Wake had one hell of a 3rd quarter, but got shut down in the 4th.

#13 South Carolina surviving Florida 17-12. Man, Florida with all that speed just can’t get it together this year.

#15 Georgia (winners of 8 straight now) laying a WHOPPIN’ on #20 Auburn 45-7. It’s ‘The Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry’ and it rarely disappoints. Georgia has the inside track to the SEC title game and is only a win over Kentucky away from playing in Atlanta in December. GO DAWGS!
UPSETS OF THE WEEK:

Unranked Missouri over #16 Texas 17-5
5? Really Texas? 5? Missouri (who was 4-5 coming into this game) lost their starting running back and all you managed was a field goal and a safety? You only had 247 total yards? This was the first time since 2004 that Texas hadn’t scored a touchdown. I know they have some injury concerns, but… Wow.

#19 Nebraska over #12 Penn State 17-14
After Nebraska’s loss to North Western last week, I thought they would probably pack it in and not have enough to beat PSU on the road this week. However, with all that’s gone on at PSU, you could kind of see this one coming. It’s wasn’t like the PSU players could get on a ‘win one for the coach’ type ride and they just didn’t have anything really to offer Nebraska this week despite a pretty good effort in the second half.

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:

Toledo over Western Michigan 66-63
Wait… How can two teams with a combined 11 wins be in a pillow fight? Well, one they only have a combined 11 wins and two they scored 129 points and didn’t play any defense! Oh, and three it’s a MAC game. A whopping 16,000 fans came out on a Tuesday to watch Toledo rebound after losing to N. Illinois last week 63-60. Toledo is now 8th in the nation in scoring but 96th in the nation in points allowed. I mean what is going on in the MAC? I get that nobody would watch their games on a Saturday so they move the marquee matchups to Tuesdays to get some TV time, but what their playing isn’t football. It’s like those old Madden games where you have 4 downs to get a touchdown or you turn the ball over. 1,439 total yards??? Really!? Just let the feathers fly in the ol’ MAC I guess.

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:

#2 Oklahoma State over Texas Tech 66-6
Um, yeah. I started watching this game and then I stopped. It was one of the early contests so I thought I’d look in to see if Texas Tech could possibly pull another upset or to see just how good OSU is since they may just end up playing for the National Championship. I think I turned it off about a minute into the 2nd quarter when OSU was up 21-0, kicked off, TT fumbled the kickoff and OSU scored. It was ugly. That ball laid there for about 10 seconds with two Tech players looking for it before an OSU gunner ran up, picked it up and walked into the end zone to put the Cowboys up 28-0 with over 14 minutes still left to play in the second. It’s down to Oklahoma in two weeks to stop the Cowboy’s run, but I really don’t see that happening right now.

BIGGEST LOSER:

No clear candidate this week aside from the obvious that I spoke of in the introduction. So, we’ll just give it to: Texas, Stanford, Boise State, Toledo and Texas Tech’s defenses, and this guy…
Have a good week everybody!

Week 10; Will they play it again?

2011-11-06T02:29:00.007-05:00

It was November 5th which means we finally got to see 1 vs. 2 on the field in a game we’ve all been waiting on for the past month. It wasn’t the game of the century but it was the best game so far this year, that’s for sure.

What is the deal with the Big 10? For the past 3 weeks the division titles have been there for the taking and it seems like nobody wants to step up and grab them. The ACC is a cluster of mid level teams and the Big East is well… we’ll get to them later.

Speaking of conferences, The SEC seems set to welcome both Texas A&M to the West and now Missouri to the East. (Announcement coming this week). I was hoping that the SEC would pick up a program a little better than Missouri, but whatever.

With a heartfelt welcome to the Top 25 for Southern Miss, let’s get on to this week…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:

#1 LSU over #2 Alabama 9-6 in OT
WOW! As a wise man said to me just yesterday, “Play some F-ing defense!” I picked Alabama in this one simply because they were playing at home. I thought this was going to be a low scoring and close game, but this was just great. I think had it not been for some key mistakes by Bama (also all those missed FG tries) the outcome would have been a lot different. But all credit to LSU, they went on the road, played a tough game and won. If you get a chance and didn’t see it, go look up the INT from LSU defensive back Eric Reid. He saved a touchdown that would have given Bama a lead and it was an awesome individual effort. Could this be the first time we see and all SEC National Championship Game with a rematch of this one? It’s too early to tell and there are still games to be played, but I can tell you that I would love to see this one played again. Now um… back to those kickers for Alabama. I hope that they and their families are safe this morning and no physical harm has come to them from the outraged Bama fans. A combined 2 for 6 in a game like this may just get you killed in Alabama. But, it’s a buyer’s market and I’m sure they can find nice housing in Louisiana.

#7 Arkansas over #9 South Carolina 44-28
Well well, Arkansas finally won a game that didn’t have to come down to the last play of the game. If the marquee matchup of the weekend featured defense, this one featured the offensive minded Razorbacks taking on a South Carolina team that is coming to the realization that without a Marcus Lattimore, they have no run game. (79 yards on the ground all day and only 207 total). They do still play good defense, but just not this week against a determined Arkansas team. If you like kick returns look up the 98-yard kickoff return in the 1st quarter by Arkansas. The guy ran untouched to the end zone and it was a big early momentum shifter. Really this game sets the table for the rest of the year in the SEC. South Carolina just opened the door for Georgia to win the East and Arkansas still has to play LSU and even though they’ve already lost to Alabama, they could still make a BCS bowl appearance and really make things interesting on November 25th.

#3 Oklahoma State over #14 Kansas State 52-45
Oklahoma State remains unbeaten and Kansas State (even with the loss) proved that they are a legit team this year; just not an elite team. It was a 27-24 game at half and K-State was actually playing some decent defense and hanging in there for most of the game. However, OKS’s passing game proved to be just too much for the Wildcats. The Cowboys have an inside track to the BCS Championship Game if they can get by a sneaky Texas Tech team next week on the road and then survive the Oklahoma game on December 3rd.

Honorable Mentions go to:

Unranked UCLA upsetting #19 Arizona State 29-28; again, missed kicks will kill you!

Northern Illinois over Toledo 63-60; 1,121 total yards in this game and a track meet broke out in the MAC.

UPSETS OF THE WEEK:

Let’s remember that last week it was Nebraska upsetting Michigan State and Ohio State taking out Wisconsin for a Big-10 upset week. This week it was…

Unranked Northwestern over #10 Nebraska 28-25
Really Nebraska? Northwestern? They were 3-5 coming into this game and 1-4 in the BigTen. Nebraska was there and had the division pretty much wrapped up. Northwestern had to go to their backup QB in the second half and their defense had been getting shredded all year long. So how is it that Nebraska couldn’t come up with a win here AT HOME!? Nebraska now becomes the third team in as many weeks to be upset at home by an unranked team: (Clemson/GT last week and Texas Tech/Oklahoma the week before).

Unranked Iowa over #15 Michigan 24-16
With the Nebraska loss, Michigan of all teams had a chance to take control of the “Legends” division of the Big-10. Oops! Michigan had FOUR shots at winning this game at the end and missed on all four chances despite the statistically awful Iowa Red Zone defense. Now really in this game Iowa’s Defense came up big (holding Michigan to half of their average rushing yards per game). There were some questionable calls in this game from the officials, but this game should have never been this close. But, Iowa has now won a few in a row against Michigan and may be the Wolverine’s kryptonite.

Hey college football fans; care to take a guess at which team is leading the Big-10 right now? Think of a team you haven’t heard about all year… yeah, it’s Penn State! Penn State is sitting at 8-1 overall and 5-0 in the conference. Now, they’ve cruised through an easy schedule, and they still have a shot at winning out with: Nebraska at home, AT Ohio State and AT Wisconsin to make this a very interesting end to the year. Now, I don’t think they will win out because it’s the Big-10 in 2011, but there’s a chance.

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:

Idaho over San Jose State 32-29
A classic WAC rivalry game. Idaho came in 1-7 (0-4) facing a San Jose State team that was sporting a beefy 3-5 (2-2) record. SJSU took a 22-10 lead into the 4th quarter and then just let it all slip away. Oh the dreams of a WAC championship may never come true for ol’ Sparty, Well unless Michigan State ever moves to this conference. Idaho’s only other win this year came against North Dakota in what I guess was their “fluff” game this year. Anyway, yeah, these were two crappy teams throwing feathers at one another in another Pillow Fight out west.

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:

#18 Georgia over New Mexico State 63-16
Score not indicative of the beating the Dawgs laid down this week. Georgia was without their top three running backs due to either injury or suspensions and had to go with two walk-ons in the backfield on Saturday. It didn’t matter. Georgia scored 42 points in the second quarter and then pulled the starters for the second half. To Georgia’s credit they did only attempt 10 passes in the second half and since it was homecoming, they let some of the alumni from the women’s soccer team come out on the field and play defense in the 4th quarter just so NMS could get a score or two. (Only one of those statements was intended to be a fact).

BIGGEST LOSER:

THE BIG EAST CONFERENCE!

What the hell? West Virginia lost to Syracuse earlier and then hung on to a Top 25 ranking before losing to Louisville this week 38-35. This should give us a poll this week without a Big East team in it. Now, there are no criteria for stripping a conference of its automatic BCS bid. In fact, even if the Big East finishes with no teams in the Top 25, they would still have a representative in one of the BCS Bowls. Why? Because they were given one at the formation of the BCS and there are no clear criteria for stripping a conference of its bid unless they fail to have at least 8 teams playing football. That’s it. In fact if the Big East were denied a bid this year, they could file a huge insider lawsuit against the BCS. So essentially this rule at the formation of the BCS a few years ago keeps the Big East from slipping into national irrelevancy (at least as far as bowls go). Now, contracts will be renewed at the end of the 2013 season and things could change after that, but until then, the Big East is here to stay.

Now, that last part is important because all the conferences should be done with all this realignment by the end of the 2013 season. Boise State should have chosen a conference by then and maybe just maybe Notre Dame will join up somewhere as well. (We all know about the Notre Dame clause in the BCS). So, while the current system will force us to watch a crappy Big East “Champion” in a BCS bowl for the next two seasons, things will surely change in two years. We could see conferences like the SEC, Big Ten, and PAC-10 getting 2 automatic spots and the bowls being expanded to include more non-automatic qualifiers. We can hope against hope that the BCS will establish a play off, but let’s not get started on that this week. I don’t have the energy.

Week 9; I'm feeling salty

2011-10-30T04:01:00.007-04:00

How awesome was that World Series huh? Game six was just great from the 6th inning on and game seven was just tense the whole time. Congrats to St. Louis for winning their 11th World Series Title and I can’t wait for Spring Training just five months away. Ahhhh baseball, you’re my number one. But, we’re here for college football so let’s get to that.

So, I’ve got a little egg on my face this week and I don’t mind admitting that. I went 6-4 on my picks this week so that dropped me back down to 91.5% accuracy on the season. I’m ok with that, but not ok with some of the results this week as you will see. Hey college football teams in contention, if you win a big game, the season isn’t over. You still have to play the next week.

Glory Glory to ol’ Georgia! It’s always a good season when you beat Florida. I don’t care what the rankings are (Georgia back in the top 25 by the way). The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party is always an event and it’s ever so sweet when Georgia walks away with a win. And this 24-20 win, while not pretty, was beautiful.

Also, I need to congratulate QB Casey Keenum from Houston on breaking the all-time NCAA touchdown record for passing. Congrats Casey, you and your 139 TD passes can now go on to be a backup in the NFL just like the guys who occupy the two, three, four and five spots on that list; Graham Harrell, Colt Brennan, Kellen Moore, and Ty Detmer.

(I’ve had my Hater-Aid this morning fans, this could get ugly)

While we wait on the LSU vs. Alabama game next week, let’s get on with this week’s trick or treating…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:

#6 Stanford SURVIVES Unranked USC (the one from California) 56-48 in 3 OTs.
Um, hey, Cardinal fans; that wasn’t supposed to be that close was it? Didn’t think so. I do have to give Stanford a lot of credit here though because this was billed as a trap game and USC was/is slightly underrated this year. They aren’t great by any means, but USC does have a decent team. This may just add to the legend of Andrew Luck though since he and the Cardinal took the ball with about 3 minutes to go in the 4th down by 7 and ended up tying the game with only 38 seconds to go just to get the game to overtime(s). Once you get a game like this to the 3rd overtime it’s anybody’s contest to win. I hated seeing the USC back fumble and the game end like that, but this was an instant classic and a great game all around. And, it doesn’t matter how many times I see it, that Stanford Tree is just creepy.

#9 Oklahoma over #8 Kansas State 58-17
How could this be a game of the week? Well there are two teams ranked in the top 10 and the score was 23-17 and competitive at the end of the first half. Now, nobody was drinking the purple kool-aid coming out of Kansas State this year, but after Oklahoma got beaten at home last week, the potential was there. And, it was there… for the first half. Then, OU just blew the doors off K-State. Also, I’m only giving this game half of a game of the week since only one half was actually good. The other half goes to…

Unranked Iowa State over #20 Texas Tech 41-7
Are you fucking kidding me Texas Tech? Really? Was that win over OU soooooo great that you didn’t even bother showing up this week? This was pathetic and you should be in my Biggest Loser section this week. What a piss poor performance and you should be ASHAMED of yourselves.

Honorable Mention goes to: #10 Arkansas surviving Vanderbilt 31-28. Can Arkansas not win a game normally anymore? This is three weeks in a row that their game has come down to the last second. This week it took Vandy missing a short field-goal to sew up the win for the Razorbacks.

UPSETS OF THE WEEK:

Where do I even begin with this? Does anyone want to win the Big 10 Conference? But first…

Unranked Georgia Tech over #8 Clemson 31-17
There is always one game every year that just pisses me off. Generally that game doesn’t come from the ACC since, who cares right? But all year I’ve been (to my disgust) high on Clemson. And, I guess nobody there watches film on Tech and therefore doesn’t know how to stop the option. What the hell? If you thought the Texas Tech performance was poor; look no farther than Clemson for this week’s biggest lie-down. Excuse me; I need to go puke…

#14 Nebraska over #11 Michigan State 24-3
Speaking of hangovers… Sparty must have thought they were going to cruise to the Championship Game after beating Wisconsin last week. Um, remember Nebraska? Yeah, they play defense there. Michigan State managed just 187 total yards this week and had more penalty yards (90) than passing yards (86).

Unranked Ohio State over #15 Wisconsin 33-29
Ugh. I don’t know what makes me more nauseous, Georgia Tech’s big win or Ohio State’s. Wisconsin had a chance to stay alive and still make a run and they got help from Nebraska in their cause. But, this was just sad. Two weeks in a row now they’ve been beaten on long passes at the end of the game. This one a 40 yard TD pass with only 20 seconds left.

Is it the play of these teams or the fact that I care about how the ACC and Big-10 are shaping up this year? Whatever it is, I’m going to need some antacids.

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:

Liberty over Presbyterian 27-20 in OT
We’re back in the BigSouth this week for another epic pillow fight. I’ve got to admit I have no idea what’s going on with this conference, but Liberty is now 4-0 in the conference and 6-3 overall. I think they may get my pillow fight powerhouse award this year. Liberty led 13-10 with 1:32 left in regulation. Presbyterian drove 50 yards on seven plays, capped by a 22-yard field goal to send it into overtime with 5 seconds left. Liberty scored, Presbyterian didn’t. Game over. Anyone have a guess on Presbyterian’s mascot? Hmm…? Yeah, the Blue Hose. I couldn’t make this shit up. Wow.

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:

See Iowa State over Texas Tech from earlier 41-7.

Stats?
Total Yards: ISU 512; TT 290
Rushing Yards: ISU 368; TT 99
Turnovers: ISU 1; TT 3
Time of Possession: ISU 40:09; TT 19:51

Quote of the week: "Pretty obvious we got beat on both sides of the ball, in the kicking game," (Texas Tech Head Coach) Tommy Tuberville said. "They came in ready to play and they took advantage of us not really focused, coaching or playing the first or second half. I take total blame for that. I saw a lot of it coming during the week."

Really Tommy? And you didn’t feel the need to stop practice on maybe Wednesday or Thursday to address that? Wow.

BIGGEST LOSER: (Fan Edition)

Florida!

This week’s Biggest Loser is going to the University of Florida. Because, well… Fuck em’!
Every Georgia fan knows from the first time they yell ‘GO DAWGS!’ that each and every season has just one goal: Beat Florida!

After that, it’s: To Hell with Georgia Tech, Screw Tennessee, Beat Auburn and please don’t lose to either Vandy or Kentucky. (Each fan has their own order, that’s just mine).

The game was one that would warm the heart of any Georgia fan who longs for the days when Georgia had a dominant defense. The Dawgs held Florida to -19 yards on the ground. -19! Love it. The offense didn’t do much, and the kicker sucked, but the defense was just great. Florida has now lost 4 straight and it looks like Mark Richt may have just saved his job. Georgia is now 6-2 on the year after starting out 0-2 and if they can get by Auburn in a few weeks, they may just get a chance to lose the SEC title game in December.

Enough about Georgia being awesome though, let’s focus on Florida’s 4 game skid. It’s the first 4 game losing streak for Florida since 1988. They are now 100th in the nation in passing yards per game, only 41st in the nation in rushing yards per game and 72nd in the nation in points per game at 26.9. In the last 4 weeks they’ve been outscored 120-47. Will Muschamp said, "Obviously, I didn't do a very good job of getting our team ready.” Obviously. You went 2-13 on 3rd downs, had 14 penalties for 106 yards and 2 lost fumbles. Oh, and did I mention that you’re team was held to -19 rushing yards? I did? Good!

Florida had one kick return for 99 yards as the sole highlight. They relied on the kicker who made field goals of 43 and 40 yards and other than that there was only the first quarter drive that gave them any points. Oh, and John Brantley, Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson may want to double team you and lick the sweat off your ass, but nobody else cares. You suck!

I don’t care that this game was more about Florida’s ineptitude. GO DAWGS!!!

OU Who? and the BCS. It's Week 8

2011-10-23T02:26:00.004-04:00

World Series World Series World Series! Sorry, but it’s better than any of the other Fall holidays. Forget Spring Break, it’s the Fall Classic that should get kids out of school. Well, at least me anyway. I’ve been downloading and watching as you’ll see later in this post.

But, you didn’t come here to hear me ramble about baseball you’re here for our beloved College Football. And what a week it was; oh, we’ve got games to discuss this week fans. The BCS is back and now we can debate who had what kind of win and how computers will score it. Say what you want, it’s the system we have.

But before I get on with that there are two other items that I need to let you in on. My College has, after 100+ years, decided to start a football program in D-III by 2013. Not only will this tarnish our undefeated record (never played, never lost) it will give the students something to do on Saturday. Everybody knows that Saturdays at Berry are for either going home, or spending all day catching up on all the work you didn’t do during the week. Not watching football on campus! But seriously, I am happy for them and I hope they do well. Maybe they can make an appearance in our Pillow Fight of the Week in a few years.

Second, I would be a bad person if I didn’t use some space here to say Happy Birthday to my most loyal reader, my Mom. Happy Birthday Mom!

Anyway, let’s flip a coin, choose sides and get on with this week…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:
#16 Michigan State over #6 Wisconsin 37-31
What a game! Anytime two top 25 teams play and the game ends on a Hail Mary, it’s going to be the top game of the week. Awesome. We learned this past Sunday that the computers hate Wisconsin and we learned on Saturday that now it really doesn’t matter. The Badgers took a 14-0 lead early and it looked as if that offense was going to roll over MSU. But, the second quarter belonged to Sparta and Michigan State ended up taking a 23-14 lead into halftime thanks to a safety and a blocked punt in the end zone for a score. With a 1:26 left in the game Wisconsin finally tied it back up with two good drives. But, it all came down to a wing and prayer! I don’t think I would do it justice to describe it to you so you’ll have to go look it up on the highlights, but that was an awesome pass that bounced around and had to go to replay to be confirmed (or overturned as was the case here). They guy was called down short and I can’t say that I saw enough to overturn the call, but I could understand them doing so. If MSU can get by Nebraska next week they can cruise to the finish line and if it weren’t for that Notre Dame game we’d be talking about them fighting for a National Championship.

Texas Tech UPSETS #3 Oklahoma 41-38
The Sooners may have blown by the Red River Rivalry but they just got ROCKED by the Red Raiders! “OOOOOOO-klahoma where the winds come sweeping down the plains, and the football defeat, sure smells sweet, when standings come out on Sundaaaay!” (Sorry, that was uncalled for and my musical references will stop from here on out). But seriously, how did Oklahoma let this one sneak up on them? They looked awful in the first half! Texas Tech was up 24-7 at half and 31-7 early in the 3rd. However, from about half way through the 3rd to the end Oklahoma outscored TT 31-10. A tale of two halves football fans. The only problem is, Oklahoma can’t afford to play that way this or any other year when they’re sitting in the Top 5 and just waiting on November 5th for either LSU or Alabama to knock the other out of title contention. It was there! All you had to do was take it! Tommy Tuberville (TT coach) tried to give it to Oklahoma with some suspect calls in the second half, as is his style, but even he couldn’t save Oklahoma’s 39 game home winning streak.
I’m thinking this game is going to be with the Oklahoma program for a while and may even come back to bite them later in the year. (See: Next week at still undefeated K-State, Nov. 5 vs. Texas A&M and oh yeah, December 3rd AT Oklahoma State.)

Honorable Mentions go to:
#9 Arkansas clawing back to beat Ol’ Miss 29-24
Purdue pretty much knocking #23 Illinois out of this and any conversation with a 21-14 win.

UPSETS OF THE WEEK:
Unranked Syracuse over #15 West Virginia 49-23
Um, yeah the score is not indicative of the beat down that Syracuse put on West Virginia. Up 35-16 Syracuse called a halfback pass in before going into the end zone 2 plays later. The Orangemen’s defense put all kinds of pressure on the W. Virginia QB and never allowed them to run the ball. Syracuse may have made a huge step with this win and I’m by no means getting on the Orange bandwagon (even though they did win 8 games last year), but they played a physical game and made a statement this week. On the flip side of this, the West Virginia loss is really bad for the BigEast. The Mountaineers were the conference’s only top 25 team and their biggest game before this was a loss to LSU where they “played well.” And this conference STILL gets an automatic BCS bid.

Unranked Miami over #22 Georgia Tech 24-7
Can people please stop talking about the triple option like it’s something special? Two weeks in a row now GT has been stuffed by sub-par ACC opponents. If you want to stop the option, attack the backfield. Don’t let them get to or past the line of scrimmage. Play a 4-4 and call it a day. Right Miami and Virginia? Oh and bad news Tech fans, next week you’re going to get your asses kicked by Clemson then you get Virginia Tech. Guess it’s a good thing you racked up all those stats and got bowl eligible off of those studs at Western Carolina, Middle Tennessee, North Carolina, NC State, Kansas and Maryland. God I hate Georgia Tech!

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:
Northern Illinois (5-3) Survives Buffalo (2-6) 31-30
The MAC is back!… in our Pillow Fight of the Week. Up 31-10 going into the 4th quarter NIU must have popped the champagne a little early and forgotten that a football game is 4 quarters not 3. Dozens of people were in the stands to see this comeback and it would have been amazing if it weren’t for the Bulls kicker MISSING the extra point to tie it with 14 seconds left. There was no pressure, there was no wind, that guy just shanked it. Ouch.

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:
#10 Oregon over Colorado 45-2
I just like that Colorado’s one highlight was tackling the punter in the end zone for a safety in the third quarter. The only story from this game is that Oregon has depth. They were without their starting QB and RB and still put up 29 points in the first quarter. Colorado on the other hand has so many injuries everywhere I think the male cheerleaders may be on the O-line next week. Oregon now sits at 6-1 (again another LSU victim) and has a chance, unlike Auburn, to make a run. However, they’ll need to get by Washington and Stanford (both games on the road) and get healthy again if they want to make a push for the BCS title.

BIGGEST LOSER: (Soap Box Edition)
Sorry but I’m going to have to step away from college football for a minute and give this week’s biggest loser award to Tim McCarver and the FOX broadcast of the World Series. Now, I get that you want to appeal to the lowest common denominator when you broadcast a sporting event so that everybody can “understand” what’s going on. You want to throw in some humor and human interest from time to time just to spice some stuff up and I get that baseball occasionally needs some spicing up while a pitcher stalks around the mound or we’re waiting on the next batter.
HOWEVER, people who watch the World Series fall into two categories: those who are fans of the teams that are in the Series or, like me, are just avid fans of baseball. Passive fans and those who either don’t like or don’t understand baseball don’t watch the World Series. So, FOX, understand this and tell Tim McCarver to shut the hell up! He has to be one of the worst color men of all times. I can put up with Joe Buck’s smug attitude but I cannot abide McCarver. This guy is the MASTER of the obvious and more likely than not is seconds away from saying something that is just plain dumb. McCarver is that little annoying kid you always just wanted to punch in the mouth every time he said something because it was either about as useful as tits on a nun, or just plain stupid.
FOX should be required to have a crawler at the bottom of the screen that reads “FOX broadcasting and its subsidiaries do not endorse or condone the words spoken by Tim McCarver and accept no responsibility for a loss of IQ suffered by those who listen to him.” Prime example: Game One: "It's a five letter word: S-T-R-I-K-E" –McCarver in the 5th. Dumbass!
Check out some of these nuggets of wisdom from Game Two:
- “There are more right handed pitchers in the game than left handers… so moms don’t let you babies grow up to be righties.” Really Tim? Not only is your cultural reference about 30 years behind your average viewer, you just made a factual statement that EVERY red-blooded American over the age of 6 knows. Where is the guy sitting at home asking his friend, ‘Really Bob? There are more right handed pitchers?’
- “When a batter is facing a pitcher for the first time, usually the advantage goes to the pitcher.” Again, who doesn’t know this? And, why he felt the need to over stress the word ‘usually’ I’ll never know.
There were a few more but I seriously think my brain just rejected them and now I can’t remember. But this guy has made a living of mispronouncing multi-syllable words and just saying things that are just plain stupid. Tim McCarever… SHUT UP!!!

Week 7 of College Pig Skin

2011-10-16T07:24:00.003-04:00

Week seven is the first time since December 6, 1982, no Sunshine State team is among the AP rankings, marking the end of 472 straight polls where either Florida, Florida State or Miami -- and usually all three -- were on the list. I’ve gotta say… I’m good with that.

I’m not going to touch too much on this Mountain West and C-USA merger. The MWC is already adding Fresno State, Hawaii and Nevada next year while TCU is already planning on leaving. Boise State, Air Force and Central Florida could all be leaving to go to the BigEast. So, what we know is that we know nothing at this point. And, Boise State in the BigEast? Really? That just sounds like an oxymoron already. Just wait college football fans, this new “mega” conference will be screaming for a BCS bid to be automatic. Sorry, I ain’t buyin’ it boys. Your conference would be big alright; a big pile of B-level football.

It was a ‘Road Trip Weekend’ for most of the teams in the Top 10 and for me as well. I had to go back out to Muganlo this weekend for a visit since they’d been calling me for about two weeks. I figured if I got it out of the way this weekend, I could avoid being out there in the cold weather later. Also, I decided to finally break down and spend the cash to get the ESPN package for my computer. No more of this reading box scores and watching 1 minute highlights. I’m watching any and every game anytime I want. Oh yeah, time to step it up a notch.

Anyway, let’s flip a coin, choose sides and get on with this week…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:
#21 Texas A&M over #20 Baylor 55-28
Before you freak out let me tell you why this was one of the better games of the weekend. Offense. Baylor put up 480 total yards with 430 of those coming through the air off the arm of Archie Griffin’s grandson. Not to be outdone, A&M put up 681 total yards. That’s right 681. Wow. They did all that with 415 yards of passing and 266 yards on the ground while going 10 for 13 on third downs conversions. The Aggies NEVER punted. I know it wasn’t exactly the marquee game from the Big-12 this weekend with Texas and Oklahoma State taking the spotlight, but this game was entertaining to be sure.

#23 Michigan State over #11 Michigan 28-14
Don’t call it an upset. Michigan State was hyped up for this and had Michigan’s offense all kinds of shutdown for most of the game. The interception return for a TD with under 5 minutes to go put the nail in the coffin and gave Sparty the win. Nobody can claim this was a trap game because, the Spartans have now won four straight against Michigan for the first time since 1959-62, equaling Michigan State's longest streak in the series. And, what the hell was up with those uniforms? What is this the year of fashion in college football? Which NCAA official’s wife has been watching too many of those awful design shows on TV?
Honorable Mentions this week go to: #6 Oklahoma State over #22 Texas 38-26 and #17 Kansas State over Texas Tech 41-34. What can I say? It was the week of the Big-12 I guess. A lot of close games and some nice matchups.

UPSETS OF THE WEEK:
Take your pick:

Virginia over #12 Georgia Tech 24-12 where Tech just got run over and their triple option just looked dead.
-or-
Ohio State over #16 Illinois 17-7 where Illinois proved they were way over ranked by just giving the game away to OSU with turnovers and a complete lack of passion.

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:
Virginia Military Academy (VMI) over Charleston Southern 21-17
This week it’s the BigSouth’s turn once again to show some muscle and provide us with another classic pillow fight. The VMI Keydets (yeah that’s right) defended the home turf and kept CSU winless dropping them to an 0-6 start while picking up their very first win of the year to run their record up to 1-5. The one highlight from this game would have been the 22 yard punt block return for a TD by CSU who then added a two-point conversion. After that I’m pretty sure all the excitement was in the fans enjoying a nice fall afternoon and watching the leaves change because not much of anything resembling competitive football was happening on Saturday on the VMI campus.

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:
#4 Wisconsin over Indiana 59-7
Um yeah. News flash: Wisconsin has a great offense. And, you know its bad Hoosier fans when the Badger QB is out there throwing AND catching TD passes. Wisconsin didn’t even need to throw the ball (they did anyway) since on Saturday they racked up 332 rushing yards and just blew the doors off Indiana. Here’s a piece of advice for the Indiana coaching staff: You can’t attempt just 20 passes in a game where you’re playing one of the best offenses in the country. You especially can’t attempt just 20 passes when you complete only 8 of those throws. Actually 10 of them were completions but the other 2 were INTs. It was ugly out there.

Oh, and sorry Alabama fans you only won you’re game 52-7 so Wisconsin has you beat this week. Wait, what am I apologizing for? Alabama fans can't read this anyway.

BIGGEST LOSER:
UAB! Sorry Blazer fans but your 0-6 start has you as this week’s biggest loser. But wait! UAB is not alone at 0-6 in “major” college football… Florida Atlantic is also a paltry 0-6 to start the year. So that gives both Conference USA and The SunBelt an 0-6 team. The only reason I bring up FAU and UAB is because I’m secretly hopping that they both stay winless so that on Saturday November 26, 2011 when they meet in Florida for the last game of the year we will have the Pillow Fight to end all Pillow Fights. Come on guys, just 5 more losses to go. You’re already over half way there.

Week Six in The Land of College Football

2011-10-09T02:08:00.006-04:00

Week six is behind us and I can’t say much about this week other than there were a lot of predictable outcomes and teams from the top 10 really just establishing who they are. I guess you could say this was a week where those in contention for the National Championship really had to prove they were for real and it appears that they all are. Trap games? I think not.

A few rivalries were on the slate but none of them will rate in our top games this week. (Sorry Red River fans, that was not even close. OU could have made that look a lot worse. Good thing Texas has that huge TV contract so everyone could see them get beat up this week). A couple of my favorite teams (this year anyway) also got wins this week including Arizona State and Kansas State, while Auburn once again showed their youthful inexperience. What did I tell you last week about Arkansas?

One NFL note, a sad day in football as Al Davis has died at the age of 82. Say what you want about how he ran his franchise but the man was a huge part of how the NFL got to where it is today and was a big part of the civil rights movement in California. He won't be missed by many of the higher ups in the NFL world; but should be.

Anyway, let’s flip a coin, choose sides and get on with this week…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:
#10 Arkansas over #15 Auburn 38-14
I know, I know. Not a great game but It had some great plays in it including a 92 yard run and a stellar performance by Arkansas QB Tyler Wilson who complete 19 straight passes at one point. How did Auburn go from unranked to #15 just by beating South Carolina last week? I was shocked when I saw this week’s rankings. Anyway, Arkansas proved they deserve to be the third best team in the SEC West behind Alabama and LSU and certainly a top 15 team in the nation. Defense looked good, offense looked great and we’ll just have to wait and see how they hold up through the rest of their SEC schedule.

#24 Texas A&M over Texas Tech 45-40
Offense! Offense! Don’t forget Tech came into this game undefeated at 4-0 and were playing at home. However, two blocked field goals by A&M (one returned for a TD in the 3rd quarter) made the difference on the day. Texas Tech as usual threw the ball all over the place and outgained A&M overall but the Aggies just played solid football and “it came down to the special teams.” Also, big thumbs down to the Tech fans for this little nugget: http://espn.go.com/dallas/ncf/story/_/id/7077711/texas-aggies-buses-vandalized-manure-texas-tech-red-raiders-logos

#14 Nebraska over Ohio State 34-27
I like to pick on both of these teams but this game warrants a spot in this week’s top games because of the comeback. OSU led 20-6 at halftime and 27-6 midway through the 3rd. This was Nebraska’s first Big-10 home game and their largest comeback in school history. Now, The Gay-Acorns did lose their starting QB in the 3rd and their offense did nothing after that, but you’ve got to think that a defense can hold a 21-point lead. Wow. Just another shining example of OSU sucking it up. Oh, and congrats Nebraska. (Yes this picture is what an actual Buckeye looks like… gay acorn).

Honorable Mention this week goes to: Georgia over Tennessee 20-12. The Dawgs got destroyed their last two trips to Knoxville but this week picked up a much needed win and got coach Richt his 100th win with the program. Georgia is now 3-1 in the SEC and tied with South Carolina for the East lead. There are still some tough matchups ahead, but with some amazing luck, they might just pull this off despite those two early losses.

UPSETS OF THE WEEK:
Unranked Wake Forrest over #23 Florida State 35-30
Again, this one was hard to call an upset (Wake came in at 3-1 to FSU’s 2-2) and FINALLY we’re going to be able to get FSU out of the top 25. From 5 to out in just a few short weeks. Awesome. Don’t look now Georgia Tech fans but Wake is 3-0 in the ACC and could be making their own appearance in the top 25 before too long. I know, they haven’t played anybody yet, but we’ll see. (They do host Virginia Tech next week and then travel to Clemson late in the year). Wake really just took the momentum in this game to start the second half and for the Seminoles it was too little too late and Wake sealed it when they recovered that onside kick attempt to end it.

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:
Western Kentucky over Middle Tennessee 36-33 in DOUBLE OT!!!
EPIC PILLOW FIGHT!!! Western Kentucky earns their first win of the year to go to 1-4 while the loss drops MT to 1-4. I demand a rematch! The SunBelt Conference is just too competitive! Wow. Feathers were-a-flyin’ in this one. What can I say about this game? MT kicked a field goal in the second OT and W. Kentucky scored a touchdown on a RB pass from 7 yards out. The Hilltoppers’ (that’s W. Kentucky btw) running back Bobby Rainey also ran for 146 yards on the day and scored a TD early. Wow. The SunBelt just keeps putting up quality matchups for our Pillow Fights. Where is their network on the TV dial?

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:
Every conference has their whipping boys and the SEC is no exception. So this week I’m calling it a tie between #2 Alabama’s 34-0 win over Vandy and #18 South Carolina’s 54-3 win over Kentucky.

Alabama’s QB A.J. MaCarron tossed 4TDs and went for 237yds on the day while their RB Trent Richardson put up his 5th straight 100 yard rushing performance with 107 yards and a TD.

South Carolina debuted their new offense and QB (see below) in a big bounce back win over Kentucky putting up huge yardage numbers (639). Somehow Marcus Lattimore was held out of the end zone but still managed 102 yards on the ground. Kentucky meanwhile had 96 total yards and committed SIX turnovers.

BIGGEST LOSER:
South Carolina QB Stephen Garcia (You know the guy who’s in his 5th year and has been suspended more times than the entire Miami defensive backfield).

This is either a picture of Garcia drunk again or right after another sack; I’m not sure.

Well well well; The Ol’ Ball Coach Steve Spurrier finally did it. I was wondering how long he would stick with that crapper of a QB after last week’s loss to Auburn which knocked them out of the top 10. This week Spurrier went back to what he’s good at and that’s putting up yards with an efficient QB. Granted it was Kentucky but Sophmore QB Conner Shaw really stepped up and basically ended the Stephen Garcia era at USC. Through 5 games this year Garcia put up these numbers: 61 of 118 (that’s a 51.7% completion rate) for 844 yards and 4TDs to go with his 9INTs which as of last week led all Div-I QBs in the INT category. Now, not to forget, he has rushed for 171yds on 34 attempts (5yd avg.) for 3TDs. But that’s Stephen Garcia. A 50/50 passer meaning he may complete every other throw and he makes a ton of bad decisions. In ONE GAME Conner Shaw went 26/39 for 311yds and 4TDS with 0INTs. He also rushed for 42yds. So, he has as many TDs in one game as Garcia has had in five and he didn’t turn the ball over. What more could that visor wearing mad scientist want? Stephen Garcia had better start packing his bags or pick up a clipboard because barring an injury this is Shaw’s team now. I like Spurrier’s quotes on the day: "It was just time to call some plays and see what happened," Spurrier said. "Gosh, we had over 600 yards,"

Thanks Coach! See ya’ next week!

Shoes, Guns and the French

2011-10-08T08:27:00.002-04:00

So I’m going to be super lazy and bullet point a blog post. I’ll even go so far as to not even bother using actual bullet points and just use the dashes. Deal with it dear reader.

- Started making my own sweet tea at home in the apartment this past week. I’m having to make it in a liter and a half bottle so the first couple of batches were a little too sweet. Yeah, I drank it anyway, but I think I’ve got the mix down now.

- Got the Internet up and running at the house so that’s nice.

- Why do they call is breaking in shoes when it should be called breaking in feet? I’ve had this one pair of dress shoes for a few years now and have never really had occasion to use them outside of weddings and funerals and the rare occasion that I wore a suit. With starting the new job I figured, hey, I need to wear these shoes because I’ve been hauling them all over the world and now I have a job where I wear slacks and a tie most days. Well, my feet are none too happy about it. Two of my small toes on my left foot and the heel of my right are blistered and sore. I thought only women had to endure foot pain for the sake of fashion.

- Downloaded and watched a documentary called “African Cats” just because it was narrated by Samuel L. Jackson. I thought for sure it would be awesome. It was ok, but I knew it would fall well below expectations when I saw it was produced by Disney. I was so hopping to hear Samuel L. Jackson drop a few F-Bombs while describing a lion chase or something. Oh well.

- My Georgian residency card expired this past week and I learned they want about a hundred bucks for a new one. I don’t need one to be here legally, but it was nice cause all my info was in Georgian on there. I just got my school to translate all the information for me and then photo copied my front passport page to the back of it. All will be well.

- I was walking down the street the other day and saw this guy literally selling an AK-47 out of its case. He had these two other guys around him and they were talking about it. I couldn’t resist. I had to stop and at least try to listen in. Of course they were speaking Georgian and using vocabulary that was way above my level, but I did get a good look at the thing. I was still in my school clothes and I guess looking like I had money because the guy who was selling it turned to me and asked me if I was interested. I was not. I just wanted to get a good look at the thing. It looked awesome and I totally wanted to take it up in the hills and squeeze off about 200 rounds. I just thought that this was a funny example of how even though Georgia has come a long way; it still serves as a giant army surplus store.

- Got my hours reduced at school by two. No big deal. I was pretty loaded down and this at least gives me a break now in what was quickly becoming ‘kill me now’ Thursdays. The Ministry of Education decided that my second graders needed more Georgian Literature so instead of having them every day, I now only have them three days a week. I could see reducing their hours, but for Georgian Literature? I mean how many times can one really read Rustavelli in a lifetime?

- Started teaching private lessons this week. My first student was late for his first lesson. He’s Georgian, I expected that. Surprisingly though he wanted to talk about how Westerners are always on time and how Georgians can work on that aspect of their culture. I wanted to congratulate him on completing the first step ‘admitting you have a problem.’

- Got my first surprise day off from school this week. (There will be many more for random Georgian holidays and events.) French President Nicholas Sarkozy visited Tbilisi on Friday and since a lot of the streets would be blocked off, all of the Tbilisi schools decided to take the day off as to not have people showing up three hours late. Love when Georgia does stuff like this. Mind you, Sarkozy spent Friday morning in Azerbaijan and didn’t get to Georgia until the late afternoon to make an outdoor speech at Freedom Square and then take off the same night back to Paris. How this would have affected school traffic I’m not sure. But, I’m not complaining. See article here: http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=24009 (Also: I’m glad he, “felt like” he was in Europe. Wish I could say the same thing.)

- I got a package from home in record time. Mom was the first to mail one off and it got from her post office to my hands in only 10 days!!! Amazing. I now have my winter coat and some awesome kitchen knives. Score!

- I’ve found my favorite brand of orange juice. It tastes the most like real OJ and says its 100% juice. But, and this goes back to my questions about Georgia and their customer service and pricing, the price of the OJ is kind of weird. For 1.5 liters of this OJ it costs you 4.75 Lari (not too bad) but for the 2 liter of the same brand it’s 6.75. What the hell is that? Two extra Lari for another half liter? No way!

- Just noticed that Monday is Columbus Day in America. As much as I like to make fun of random Georgian holidays, Columbus Day has to rank right up there on the list of most useless holidays. I for one think we should change it to Leif Ericson Day, (or [insert first Indian to cross the land bridge’s name here] Day) or just drop it all together. As if we don’t have enough holidays we stick this one in at the beginning of each October to show that we really don’t know who discovered America but that we’d all like a Monday off. And, by all, I mean those with government jobs because everybody else goes to work. I’d like to see us vote to strip the government of all of their holidays until they can prove that they actually do some work on the days when they are supposed to be there. (I’ll stop here because I feel a rant coming on).

Well, that was my week. I’ve got to run some random errands this weekend and then play our last softball game until spring. So sad that we’re preparing in advance for winter by shutting it down this early in October. But, it’ll start raining and getting cool here pretty soon as everyone rushes out to the fields to haul in their grapes.

Peace!

Observations on Tbilisi and Ranting

2011-10-03T08:49:00.002-04:00

Let’s just say that I’m having a crap week already and hopping that it gets better. As I’m typing this I’m waiting on a guy to come install my Internet that was supposed to be here on Saturday. It’s Monday. I’m still waiting. Due to a number of things my mood has gone from light to dark and I just hope that by sitting down and doing a little reflexive thinking I’ll be able to snap myself out of it. I hope to write some more about what’s going on here in Tbilisi and with my school, but that’ll have to wait for another day.

So there are a ton of advantages to living in Tbilisi rather than the village. Duh; Right? But I thought I would list a few of them just to show some contrast and hope for a few laughs along the way. However, not all is as it was in the village. There are a few disadvantages. Also, I would like to have a small rant about customer service (or lack thereof) here in The Republic of Georgia. So that’s pretty much what this blog post is about. Not to spoil anything for you, but that’s what it is. I’ll also drop a couple of pictures in here as well. Enjoy!

Advantages to living on my own in the city:
- When I shut the door I have no stress, no noise and no kids. It’s just me. Ahhh…
- I wake up to an alarm. Not an hour before my alarm to livestock and screaming kids, I wake up to an alarm. Never thought that would be an advantage to anything, but it is.
- When I’m hungry, I eat. When I’m not hungry, I don’t eat. Amazing!
- I walk to work on paved streets. I take the metro two stops then walk, but when I do I’ve yet to accidentally step in or even have to walk around any fecal matter.
- It doesn’t stink. There isn’t that constant mixture in the air of wood smoke, gasoline, blood (yes blood from slain animals) and shit.
- My school is insulated. In fact, it’s been a little warm in there. Good thing we have windows that open and aren’t nailed shut. Also, all of our windows have glass in them.
- I’m not forced to drink alcohol and toast to things I don’t care about; EVERY NIGHT!
- I sleep in a bed not held together with chicken wire.
- I can eat breakfast and have real coffee. Hell, I can even cook breakfast at night if I want.
- Toilet.
- Shower.
- Hot water.
- Lights.

Disadvantages:
- People on the sidewalks and in public transportation. What is so hard about walking either in a straight line or not knocking into someone when there is plenty of room to go around?
- I don’t have an army of women around to cook and clean up. That’s my job now. (Not really a bad thing, but they did come in handy from time to time).
- Lack of anything resembling a line anywhere.
- Lack of customer service (see below).
- No real sense of a community.

Well the rant that I’m about to go on should give you a small clue about some of my daily frustrations here. The main thing that I run into everyday is the complete and utter lack of anything resembling customer service. This summer I did a fair amount of shopping while I was home. The one thing that struck me every time I walked into a store was that it seemed like somebody was immediately up in my face trying to help me. Before I could even look around there was somebody there saying hello and asking what they could do for me. My initial response was, ‘nothing, now go away.’ Oh how I wish I could have those people back now.

On my way home from either the metro station or the bus stop there are about 10 shops that all sell pretty much the exact same products at the exact same price. How does one choose which to go into? Here it really just comes down to which shop keeper is the nicest to you. Because, you can walk in and either get the ‘eat shit and die’ look as if you have just disturbed the most important thing that person was doing in their entire life or you get a simple ‘I’m ignoring you’ glance. Now, none of them will just greet you right off the bat, but a few of them will return your greeting. That’s right you, as the customer, need to be nice to them if you plan on getting anything. (A lot of products are behind the counter here and you have to ask for them. It’s not just walking in, grabbing what you want and paying for it).

You see most of the people that work in these shops are not the shop owners and are paid pretty much next to nothing for sitting there all day so they really could care less how much business they do or whether or not you ever come back to their store. You as the customer have to literally ‘shop around’ for the shop you want to use. It’s not just a matter of location it’s a matter of who is going to treat you with some common courtesy and respect. I’ll walk at least five minutes out of my way to get to a shop with good people working there. And, five minutes may not sound like a lot but in that five minutes I’m liable to pass at least five other shops that have the product I’m looking to buy.

This is not news to anyone in Georgia. It just seems strange to me because of my Western viewpoint. If say there were 10 BestBuys in your town. They all have the same thing and all have the same prices. You would go to the one that has the best customer service or is simply closer to your house right? Sure. Even better you could shop for the items online and just have them shipped to your house and avoid the hassle all together right? Sure. That’s the main reason I shop at larger ‘super markets’ here in Tbilisi for my basic products. I can walk up and grab what I need, not have to ask anyone to get it for me from behind the counter and then just go to the checkout girl and pay her. No hassle.

I guess my main question is why, if all those small shops have the same products at pretty much the same price, don’t they try to distinguish themselves with something like customer service? It has to be more than the low wage of the worker because even when you do go into one with a store owner present, you still get sneers. It’s not even a foreign concept. Go to the fruit and vegetable section of any local bazaar and you’ll literally see 15-20 stalls lined up next to each other all selling the exact same things. They will shout out to you and smile even just to get you to come to their stall and buy their fruit. They’ll haggle prices with you and throw in extras just so that you’ll come back to them in the future. These people see firsthand everyday what a little kindness can do for them and their business. That’s why I don’t understand the small shop owners. Hell even the people working behind the counters in the supermarkets are nicer and I’m sure they aren’t making that much more than the small shops.

Don’t even get me started on some of the waiters and waitresses here. There are certain restaurants that I will not go in ever again.

I hate the idea that I as the customer have to be nice just to get things done. I’m all for being polite and admitting to them that my Georgian is awful and that I need their help sometimes, but I should not have to go out of my way for them to get up off their stool and give a man a hand. Take the Internet company for example, if I call up and complain that the guy is now not only two days late he’s well over an hour later than he said he would be when he called me earlier today, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t even get here today because I would have caused more ‘hassle’ for them.

They say a little kindness goes a long way, but that street goes both ways and I think the Georgian shop owners could use a little course in the art of kindness. I’m just sayin’.

Well, it’s only two hours later and the guy has me up and running, so I guess I’m good to go. Internet. How I love you.

College Football Week 5

2011-10-02T02:19:00.004-04:00

Couple of things before we get started this week college football fans: One, no I will not go on a 20 page rant about how pissed off I am that the Braves blew such a huge lead in September to miss the playoffs and two I really want to go on a huge 50 page rant about how the Braves blew such a huge lead in September to miss the playoffs.

(Deep Breaths) Ok, let’s move on to why we’re all here and that’s college football. Am I alone in thinking that LSU should have been ranked #1 maybe a little earlier in the season than coming into week 5? And, I really have to wonder how many media voters are getting paid off. Hear me out. FSU was ranked as high as 5 coming into that Oklahoma game. Where are they now? It’s been proven on the field that they are not a top 15 team (despite the defense) and maybe not even a top 20 team. So, when you look back at OU’s win over #5 FSU it looks a lot better right? (I’m talking casual fan here not my intelligent readers). Then see this week and #3 Alabama’s win over #12 Florida. (Both OU and ALA winning those games on the road mind you). I think we can all agree that Florida is ranked #12 based off of past success not present day performance on the field. So, are the media voters trying to boost their ratings for TV coverage or are they really trying to pick the National Championship matchups before the season starts, crossing their fingers and hopping it all works out? By over inflating the opponent’s rankings and getting more “quality wins” there could be more in the works here than we think. With the BCS “formula” not coming out till after week 8 it gives the media almost half the season to set up their picks and let it play out before it’s taken out of their hands. And, while I have a lot of issues with the BCS, I think it’s better than leaving it up to the media and coaches’ polls.

Ok, I’ll take off my conspiracy theory hat here and get on with this week’s games…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:
#18 Arkansas over #14 Texas A&M 42-38
To me this was THE matchup of the week and one that I was looking forward to on the schedule. Welcome to the SEC Texas A&M! Here we don’t just play one half of football and then start wondering what Texas or Oklahoma is doing that week. Here we play 4 quarters of football and every week have to wonder if you’re going to get beat by any opponent in conference play. See Arkansas. Always a tough game especially when you’re playing them at home (This game was in Arlington, TX though so what’s A&M’s excuse?). A&M was coming off a tough loss to Oklahoma State last week and fell from #8 to #14 in the rankings. This week they got a preview of what it’s like to play in the SEC. A&M built up a 35-17 lead at halftime but managed only a field goal in the second half. If they’re going to compete and be a representative of the SEC they are going to have to shore up that defense that allowed Arkansas to pass for 510yds on the day and they are going to have to learn how to protect 2nd half leads. Two weeks in a row now the Aggies have been caught and passed in the second half. Goodbye Top 25?

#7 Wisconsin over #8 Nebraska 48-17
Welcome to the Big-10 Cornholers! Oh, sorry Cornhuskers. You’re mascot is corn, what do you want? Again, this was another matchup I was looking forward to because unlike A&M this really was a conference game for Nebraska this year. What happened to that vaunted Nebraska defense? I did not think this would be that big of a spread but the Badgers ripped off 3 TDs in the final 10 minutes of the first half and then 2 more in the 3rd quarter without Nebraska so much as taking a field goal attempt. Nebraska’s Taylor Martinez will want to forget about this week as soon as possible after throwing 3 INTs and 0 TDs (even though he did run for one). Wisconsin is set up to make a run at this thing this year, but tough road games with Michigan State and Ohio State are ahead on back to back weeks so we’ll have to wait and see how they hold up.

#13 Clemson over #11 Virginia Tech 23-3
Don’t call it an upset. If you’ve been reading the blog this year you know that (even though it pains me to no extent) I’ve been high on Clemson this year. VT is generally overrated to start every year, but Clemson is starting to answer the question of Pretender or Contender with a positive this year. This was a dominant road win for the Tigers even with Tajh Boyd coming back to Earth a little bit with his pedestrian 13/30 204yds 1 TD 1 INT day. And, by pedestrian I mean a pedestrian that just got hit by a car. Now it is the ACC, but Clemson is already 5-0 and looking to cruise through with only Georgia Tech left as a “quality” conference opponent.

UPSETS OF THE WEEK:
Auburn over #10 South Carolina 16-13
Ouch. USC was going to lose a conference game this year. We all knew that. But if you’re going to beat Auburn, this is the year to do it. South Carolina still has to prove that it can contend and win in the SEC year in and year out and this week was not a good one for that campaign. Especially since USC came in ranked 10th and really needed not only to get a win but crush Auburn to make a point. (And get some measure of revenge from that SEC Championship game last year) Now, I’ll give you that 10 was waaaaaay too high of a ranking for South Carolina, but still. And really this one came down to that final Auburn drive of 12 plays and 57 yards against a Gamecock defense that was just worn out. Great game but a really tough loss for Carolina. What’s even worse is now the fans have to hear it from those obnoxious Clemson fans too. “Oh we beat Auburn, why can’t you?” Rednecks. Gotta Hate Em’.

Kansas State over #15 Baylor 36-35
Apparently Baylor people don’t read this blog. If they did they would have read last week’s post when I told them to watch out for Kansas State. Oh that’s right Big-12 (well 12 – 3 or 4 teams) fans, watch out for Kansas State. The Wildcats are now 4-0 and still have three games to figure out who they really are before getting to that brutal stretch of OU, OSU, A&M, and Texas before finishing the year against Iowa State. Will we see Kansas State in this week’s Top 25? Could be a possibility.

Honorable Mentions to SMU over #20 TCU 40-33 in Overtime and Pitt over #16 South Florida 44-17. Really South Florida was ranked #16??? Talk about an overhype. I am so tired of South Florida and Central Florida and Coastal Florida and wherever in Florida that’s not FSU or UF or even Miami for that matter. You’re not real football schools. And South Florida your mascot is a Bull. When was the last time anybody saw a bunch of bulls in south Florida other than on a Cuban Grill? Get lost!

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:
Lamar over SE Louisiana 48-38
Oh the Southland Conference. How do you put up such quality matchups week in and week out? Lamar is now 3-1 and this win drops conference rival SELA to 1-4 on the year. Ok, so how many of you actually knew that Lamar was a University? Really? Mascot? The Cardinal. And if South Florida Bulls aren’t strange enough when was the last time you saw a Lion on the loose in SE Louisiana? I would comment on this game, but I went to Lamar to find out more about the Cardinals. The 270-acre campus is in Beaumont, TX about 90 miles east of Houston and about 25 miles west of Louisiana. But… wait, this gets better. I wanted to make fun of Lamar, since it sounds like a body shop rather than a university until I looked at their football schedule and realized that last week they beat a team called Incarnate Word 45-35. That’s right, the University of Incarnate Word. You can’t even click on them from ESPN! I had to Google the thing. Here’s the link to IW’s athletics page: http://www.cardinalathletics.com/sports/2009/7/2/GEN_0702095708.aspx?tab=facilities You’re welcome.

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:
#2 Oklahoma over Ball State 62-6
Gotta give OU some credit for taking their foot off the gas here and only scoring 3 in the 4th quarter. They did throw for 447 yards which may have been a touch too much but whatever. If you’re going to lay a beat down and trot out your offense for the home fans you might as well right? Ball State represented the MAC conference as well as they could with their 4 turnovers and paltry 2.6 yards per pass but really what did you expect when this matchup was announced?

BIGGEST LOSER:
New Mexico! Congrats you’re the only team in major college football to be 0-5. I say ‘Major College Football’ but they do play in the Mountain West Conference. Hey I guess they can look forward to beating Boise State at the end of the year right? Right? Let’s just say that I don’t have high hopes for Los Lobos who give up an average of 43.3 points a game while only scoring 17.8. Ouch. They fired their head coach after last week’s loss to FCS Sam Houston State and oh yeah, he had let some 19 year old recruit drive around in his SUV who then got stopped for drunk driving. Oops! This after last year’s incident where he was suspended for a game after punching an assistant coach in the face. New Mexico went 1-11 last year and this year may be a letdown; if that is at all possible.

Seeya next week!

MuganloTV apartment tour video

2011-09-28T10:03:00.001-04:00

Here is the link to the video I tried to get uploaded the other day. I had to go to YouTube to get it done. Thanks to Christina for giving me that idea.
Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtKEUhA82iw

MTV has moved, I'm in The Big City now.

2011-09-26T06:54:00.007-04:00

Yes, I know I’ve only managed to write about college football since I’ve been back over here in Georgia. Well that and some other stuff but none of which goes on this blog. Sorry, some things go in private emails and some stuff goes on the blog.

First impressions were weird. It was very very surreal being back here and at first I didn’t know what to make of it at all. There were the minor culture shocks to be sure such as: no TV (read: SportsCenter), having to speak in a foreign language all the time and start thinking in a foreign language again, cooking and cleaning again (where did the army of Azeri women go?), taking public transportation and starting work again after three months off. All of these things started happening all at once and it was a lot to deal with in these first two weeks.

I did go back to Muganlo one night to visit the family and pick up all my things. I think the one dog was the happiest to see me. It was kind of funny too because normally those dogs are up and barking at anyone even walking by our house out there. I came up to the gate, opened it and just walked right in after not being there for six weeks. The dogs didn’t even so much as get up. Once the brown one did decide to get up, he wouldn't leave me alone the whole time and was under my feet begging for belly scratching. Freakin' dog. The family was happy to see me too and we had a good evening talking and of course drinking. I brought them some liquor from the States so we didn’t have to drink the local vodka… until the next morning. (Yes, we did have sheep for dinner but they 'grilled' it since my coming back was a 'special' occasion.) By the time I got back to my apartment the next day I was exhausted and stating to feel hung-over. I kept asking myself, how did I ever survive two years out there? It was SO weird being in Muganlo again. Outhouses, kids, sheep, livestock... wow.

I started playing softball and kickball again at the local field with the girls and other expats. I hit a monster homerun yesterday in softball that felt great! (For those of you that have played at that field, I hit it over the left field wall, not the fence, the wall; and had it bounce up and hit that house out there.) It was a legit homer and a moon-shot. It’s fun to get out there on Sundays and play and it’s also a great way to escape even the idea that you’re in Georgia. Well, except the birzah out in right field.

Everything seems to have settled down for me though and I’m starting to establish a few routines and norms. I should be getting really good Internet next month so I’ll be able to Skype and chat with you all. So, give me some time and I’ll get that done.

Let me show you a video and some pictures of my apartment first and then I’ll get on with my school. So, here are some pictures that I took and a ‘Cribs’ style video tour of the new apartment.

Um... Ok, video upload FAIL! Bummer. So, I'll try to load it up in the next post or just take a lot of pictures and get them up on here. Sorry, the file is really big and it was loading for well over an hour.

Let me say that I really like my apartment and my school continues to blow my mind. The opening ceremony on the 15th alone was enough to let me know that this isn’t your typical Georgian school. To start it was catered by the Marriott Hotel’s food service staff and it started on time. That’s right, I said it, a scheduled event in Georgia started on time. It was nice too. The students and parents toured the new building, there was one (believe it or not) quick speech and then everyone had snacks and drinks. It was amazing.

I got to meet several parents who were interested in talking to me. One was a Georgian diplomat to Denmark who has two children attending the school. She wanted to let me know that her youngest son spoke English better than Georgian because he had lived in Denmark for most of his life. This little guy is in my 2nd grade class and keeps telling me he knows English. I keep telling him I know but that he has to now learn to read and write; neither of which he has a grasp on now. Anyway, I met several parents and then had some cake and went home. We didn’t actually start class till Monday like every other Georgian school the only difference was that my school told the kids not to even bother showing up on Friday and to just come back Monday. Nice.

There is one similarity to the other Georgian schools though; we just got books today. This is not because the students hadn't gone and gotten them, it’s because they hadn't arrived from England yet. Chalk up yet another victory for the Georgian postal system. But, this gives me some time to do some pre-testing and assess my students levels before I have to start launching into curriculum.

One thing you should know is that my school went through a huge expansion this year. We have over three times the number of student they had last year. This is not to say that they are a big school by any means (with class sizes limited to 12) but there are a lot of new students. This means there are several groups that have quite a wide range of English competency. Not a huge deal at this point, but interesting. Also, this school is only about 90% Georgian students. We have kids from China, Iran, Russia, Turkey and a lot of kids who, while Georgian, have lived abroad for a few years. Very interesting and very nice. Everyone at my school speaks Russian and 95% of the staff speaks fluent English. So, I have NO issues with communications. My director and the Dean of Students are awesome and have been very supportive so far.

So here is a breakdown of what I’m teaching this year:

2nd grade; 5 times a week. Meaning, I’m with these guys every day. Normally I would hate being with little ones that much, but damn if this group of kids aren’t the cutest little buggers on the planet. You all know me and know I don’t normally say that about any group of kids, but wow. And they are so much fun. They constantly want to show me what they’ve done and as soon as they finish writing anything down they hold up their notebooks for me to see and squeak out, “Mr. Andrew, I finished!” By Wednesday one little guy had to start each lesson with giving me a hug. (See 7th grade below for why this saved me one day). By Friday we were starting each lesson with ‘class hug.’ They love me! And, I know it’s only week one, but damn it, I love them too.

4th grade; 6 times a week. This is a fairly large group so they are split up into two. I have them all together for back to back lessons on Monday (2 lessons) which is a little bit of a challenge but then split up on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So far so good with this grade. They are very bright and we are already flying through verb conjugations. There are a few rowdy ones in this grade, but I’ve got them under control and they actually did a little self policing this week as well which is nice.

5th grade; 4 times a week. This group is a little rowdy but I think we’ll be just fine once we get on to normal assignments and stop playing around so much. Very bright group overall but there are a few fairly new students to the language so I have a bit of a competency split to deal with. There are also two little girls in this group that think they run the school. I’m quickly helping them dispel that rumor. We had a little ‘issue’ with them on Friday when one of the girls wanted to pull that “he’s looking at me,” bit when a boy in the class was messing around in the back. I had to stop class to let them know there were two things I would not tolerate: playing around and interrupting my lessons. These middle grades to me are the toughest because I have both language and behavioral issues to deal with.

6th grade; 2 times a week. I have these kids in a two class block as well so really I only have them once a week but for two classes. There is one kid in this group that lived in America for several years and speaks perfect English. The only problem is that he feels the need to correct his classmates’ mistakes. I cut that off pretty quick. I told him that was my job and just how rude it is to yell out the correct pronunciation of a word while someone is speaking. I think he got it since he has a pretty good grasp of American culture and how serious I was when I said it. Overall though this seems like a pretty tame group.

7th grade; 2 times a week. What a hell of a class this was. Again, I have these kids in a two class block as well. I gave them an assignment to write 50-75 words about their summer break (I know lame) just to get a sense of their writing and reading ability to start. There was this one girl up front who I thought was writing due to her arm wrapped around her paper and pen on the paper, but I wasn’t paying that close of attention. After everyone had finished and when I got around to calling on her she just looked at me and started tearing up. The girl behind her quickly told me that she had never studied English before and didn’t understand. I just looked at this poor little girl and said (first in English then in Georgian), “Don’t worry about it. We’ll work on it. Don’t worry.” I said this in a very calm and slow voice so that hopefully she would understand me. However, apparently she was heartbroken. Her head went down into her arms on the desk and tears were a commin’. Now I’ve been teaching for a while now; I’ve seen children cry, laugh, yell, lose it completely, and outright hate doing assignments and try a mutiny. So normally things like this don’t get to me. But this little girl was just so tense and just so nervous that she had me all kinds of confused as to what to do. Luckily I was saved by the bell not too much longer after this and immediately sought out the Dean of Students.

She informed me that the girl was there on scholarship because she is an orphan who has had a history of epilepsy and in fact, “knows no English.” My first thought was, ‘why the hell didn’t you tell me this before?’ I just asked the Dean to go in there, tell the girl that everything would be just fine and to RELAX! Just RELAX! I asked her to make sure that the girl knew that I was in no way upset that she didn’t do the assignment and that everything would be just fine. So, I stood in the hall while she talked to the girl and during the second class she seemed much more relaxed. Thank God! I just smiled at her every time I looked in her direction and hopefully by next week I will have figured out what to do with her.

8th grade; two times a week. About half of this class is in the ‘too cool for school’ stage. I’ve already spoken to our Dean of Students about this group and she says that they had similar problems last year at the beginning of the year that she got straightened out and that she would speak to them again. I don’t think I’ll have too many issues here but we’ll see.

9th grade; two times a week. Very bright group and very responsive. A couple of goofball boys but hey, it’s 9th grade. There are a few students in this class that are near fluency already and I was nothing but impressed with them after the first week.

10th grade; two times a week. Again this class has a large split in competency. I have two students who are fluent and only have slightly perceptible accents and the rest of them are doing pretty well, just not on par with the two superstars of the class. One poor girl is new to our school and has only been studying English for three years. She has done very well in those three years, but had a lot of catching up to do.

11th grade; once a week. Ha! No issues here. I only have them for one 45 minute class a week. So this week I just told them how class was going to work. Every week they will turn in an assignment, I’ll present new material, we’ll discuss, I’ll give them new assignment and in general we’ll have a relaxed time together. They just need a lot of exam prep, so our class will consist of them reading articles or stories, discussing and then writing about it. Most of my feedback will come in written form on their assignments. Ah the joys of teaching upper level students. Let’s not make this stuffy and boring, let’s just relax and fine tune your language.

So that's it. That's my class schedule and my first impressions of it and the students I teach. And, that's pretty much all I've been up to. I'll try to keep y'all up to date on all the goings on here in Tbilisi as much as I can.

Peace!

Week 4 in the land of College Football

2011-09-25T02:10:00.006-04:00

For those of you wondering where my update is on me, well it’s coming. Check back on Monday and I should have it posted. I’m going to the café on Monday after school and they have really good Internet so I can load videos and whatnot from there.

But this post, as if you didn’t know, is all about the great game of college football. I’m sad to say that this week featured a lot of mismatches and predictable outcomes; a few bright spots aside. Of course I say that (full disclosure here) having missed 3 picks this week. I play the ESPN College Pick Em’ game and after missing those 3 this week my percentage dropped to 90%. Last year I finished at 95%. I’ll try to do better.

It’s a good day to be from South Carolina I guess. Well, everyday is a good day in SC, but I’m talking college football here. Normally South Carolina is the place where football hopes go to die, but this year seems to be different. USC is ranked #12 and won; Clemson is #21 and just won a huge game (see below). And yes, in case you aren’t familiar with this blog I refer to the University of South Carolina as USC not USC as in the University of Southern California. I can’t wait till I flip on Monday Night Football one day and see a South Carolina player refer to his university as THE USC. Hahaha. Anyway, looks like this year may pay off for SC, we’ll see.

Let’s not get a delay of game and get right to it…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:
#7 Oklahoma State over #8 Texas A&M 30-29
Yes Sir! Now this was one of the games I miss-picked because I just went with the home team. I figured with all that 12th man swaying back and forth A&M would ‘protect this house’ and all. Guess not. But what a great game! A&M was up 20-3 at half but this one was really back and forth. Total yardage almost even, time of possession almost even, it was A&M turning the ball over 4 times to OSU’s 1 that made the difference. Talk about having a day though; the Cowboy’s QB Brandon Weeden went 47/60 for 438yds!!! and 2TDs with 0 picks. With all that throwing though OSU only managed 46 yards on the ground at an anemic 1.3 yard average. Am I alone in wanting to see Oklahoma State play Navy? One team refusing to pass the other refusing to run. It would be like watching two separate football games at once.

#2 LSU over #16 West Virginia 47-21
Accuse me of being lazy if you want, but this was one of the few matchups this week featuring two teams in the top 25. Not a close game and not a pretty one either. But, LSU had to go on the road and prove themselves against a much hyped West Virginia team. There was one interesting thing here that has me a little concerned about LSU going forward. They got killed in the stat lines! WV had 533 total yards on offense compared to LSU’s 366. LSU is going to have to tighten up that defense a little this week in practice for sure. How then did LSU win by 26 points? Turnovers and special teams. We all hate to hear the commentator tell us every week, “It’s going to come down to turnovers and special teams Vern.” But, in this one that held true. LSU had a 99yd kick return and WV had 4 turnovers compared to LSU’s 0. Stats be damned!

Kansas State over Miami 28-24
Did I just put a game featuring two non top 25 teams in my games of the week? Yes I did. Miami only has one win this year and that was against the gay acorns of Ohio State last week. Remember? They got all those suspended criminals back and pulled it off. Well as far as I know nobody else got arrested this last week and they were playing at home against K-State. Now, I’m not knocking K-State here (well, not much) because they are now 3-0 and went to Miami to get this third win. K-State put up 265 yards on the ground and had a back go for 166 of those on only 18 carries. This was a very even game and watch out other Big-12 schools, the Wildcats may just be playing spoiler this year.

UPSETS OF THE WEEK:
#21 Clemson over #11 Florida State 35-30
Call this one the Hangover Bowl. FSU was coming off that home loss to Oklahoma and Clemson had just beaten Auburn. Productivity in the up state of South Carolina must be at 0 right now since the Redneck Clemson fans were probably hung over till Wednesday of this week after that win and now after pulling off this upset I’m sure more than a few fans will be calling in on Monday. I couldn’t believe FSU only had 15 rushing attempts on the day for only 29 yards. Ouch. They are not a passing team and need a balanced offense if they plan on winning too many more games this year. Remember the pundits picking them to win the ACC this year? Hmm… Good game though and Clemson’s Tajh Boyd is quickly establishing himself as one of the elite QBs in the ACC.

Honorable Mention to Unranked Arizona State over #23 University of Southern California 43-22
Um, what is up with Arizona State crushing my picks this year? One week they upset Mizzou then lay down against Illinois then they upset USC. What the hell?

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:
The Leigh Mountain Hawks over The Liberty Flames 27-24
That’s right, Leigh over Liberty 27-24. If you’ve got the time, go look up the box score for this one. The lines were virtually identical. The difference was Liberty’s kicker missed two field goals. I just think it’s strange that Leigh is in the Patriot conference while Liberty is in the Big South. Shouldn’t that be the other way around? And how many jokes can you make about Liberty going up in Flames? Really? Liberty Flames?

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:
As I’m having my coffee this fine Sunday morning and writing this blog, Hawaii is up on UC Davis 49-0 at HALFTIME! The Warriors have held the Aggies to only 1 first down and 51!!! total yards. Meanwhile Hawaii has racked up 486 total yards in the half. I don’t care what the final score of this one is. That’s a beat down!

BIGGEST LOSER:
Oregon State. Time to hit the panic button. The Beavers have started off 0-3 this year after losses to: Sacramento State, Wisconsin and now UCLA. Guess where they get to go next week? Arizona State! Now I’d like to make a thousand jokes revolving around Beavers but I’ll save it and try to keep this post PG-13 today. Everyone expected a little fall off from OSU (not Ohio State University; although you should always expect them to fall off) but an 0-3 start has them so far behind in the PAC-12 and looking up at teams like #5 Stanford and #10 Oregon in their own division. Spoiler may even be too high of a goal for this team this year. Sorry Beaver fans, but this year; you stink!

Week 3 was good for me

2011-09-18T02:02:00.003-04:00

Was this the week of matchups that used to matter 5 to 10 years ago? OU at FSU, Iowa and Pitt, OSU and Miami, UCF at Florida Int… oh wait that one never mattered. None the less a few of those will pop up here on the blog along with a few more matchups this week.

School starts on this side of the world tomorrow so I think I’ll get outside and enjoy some fresh air this afternoon with some kickball and beers. Hey, if I can’t have college football, at least give me some kind of foot on ball sport that isn’t called soccer where when some guy runs into you, you drop like Falcons fan’s hopes of making the playoffs.

So let’s not get a delay of game and get right to it…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:
#1 Oklahoma over #5 Florida State 23-13
This was certainly the most hyped and highest ranked matchup of the weekend and I’m actually surprised that it ended up living up to all that hype. To be honest, I didn’t think FSU stood a chance in this one and really if they would have been playing in Norman rather than Tallahassee I think the score would have been much different. FSU’s defense did a decent job holding the Sooners out of the end zone a few times and limiting them to FGs but something has got to be done about their QB situation. You could say that the defenses were on par with one another and the difference really was OU has an established QB in Landry Jones and FSU, well… doesn’t. And that’s not to say that Jones had all that great of a day but he lead the offense well and seems to have it going in the right direction. Oklahoma survived an early test here an may just be rolling towards a National Championship.

Unranked Clemson over #21 Auburn 38-24
(You know it pains me to put an ACC team over an SEC team in the top games) Again, don’t call it an upset. Remember last week when Auburn beat Miss St. to get into the top 25 and didn’t look all that good doing it? Well now they faced a tough road game and I saw this coming a mile away. Auburn stormed out and had the drunken rednecks of Clemson feeling early hangovers. But by the second half not only was Clemson’s offense rolling, Auburn had forgotten how to play football. Halftime score was tied at 21. By the end of the 3rd Clemson led by 11 and won it by 14. Give credit to Clemson’s defense for not letting Auburn get back into it and snapping the nation’s longest win streak. Love the line from Clemson’s QB Tajh Boyd: 30/42 386yds 4 TDs and 0 INTs. Screw BSU’s K. Moore; T. Boyd played a real defense.

#3 LSU over #25 Mississippi State 19-6
DEFENSE!!! DEFENSE!!! Some people didn’t even have MSU in the top 25 anymore and I thought that was a shame since they… ok yeah they probably didn’t deserve to be there. Anyway, I do love a good ol’ SEC defensive game. LSU’s defense held MSU to only 193 total yards and those six points while snagging 2 INTs. And give the Bulldog defense a little credit here as well holding LSU out of the end zone all but one time and the only real * to that is that LSU had 9 penalties for 83 yards! They’re going to have to clean that up a bit as the year goes on.

#10 South Carolina over Navy 24-21
I’m only giving this an honorable mention. USC should have beat Navy by a lot more, but this one gets in here because of the running stats. Navy, a running team, threw for only 61yds as per usual. They rushed for 274yds and 3 TDs. Marcus Lattimore of South Carolina had a line that looked like this: 37 carries, 246yds and 3 TDs! Heisman? Is he making a case? Whisper whisper whisper…

UPSETS OF THE WEEK:
Notre Dame over #15 Michigan State 31-13
Damn it. I was trying like hell not to mention ND this week at all. I figured I was safe with MSU coming into town. But, remember last week when I said Sparty was overrated? Yeah, they went ahead and proved that this week.

Miami over #17 Ohio State 24-6
Ok, I did not see this one coming. I knew OSU was havin’ “issues” at QB but you can’t go 4/18 for only 35yds 0 TDs and an INT and expect to win any game against any opponent. I think I’ll save my commentary since Buckeye coach Luke Fickell said it best with, "We've got to do a better job all around. They made a lot more plays than we did and ultimately that's what the game came down to." Really? That’s what it came down to? They made more plays? Too bad I don’t have a DUH award for the week.

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:
Wyoming over Bowling Green 28-27
An EPIC pillow fight! Wyoming is now 3-0 (when’s the last time you heard that?) and tried to find a way to lose this and start 2-1 but Bowling Green was having none of it. BG out gained the Cowboys 514 to 396 but committed 6! turnovers. Wyoming led 28-14 going into the 4th but somehow let BG score two TDs late to tie it at 28 with only :03 left on the clock… oh wait, no they didn’t because despite scoring the TD, BG had their game tying extra-point BLOCKED! Oh the hearts of northern Kentucky are aching tonight.

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:
Georgia over Coastal Carolina 59-0
Much like ND, I was trying like hell not to mention Georgia this week as well. But, when you put up 59 points and hold the opponent to only 112 total yards, you’re going to get in my beat down of the week. I know, I know; Georgia played the Carolina school for the blind and deaf and now everybody is going to talk about what a great QB Aaron Murray is, but I aint buyin’ it. Wake me up when the game is over next week after UGA has to go to Ol’ Miss.

BIGGEST LOSER:
Realignment. That’s it. I’m over this. Can these fat, overpaid college regents not handle their dirty business in the privacy of their board rooms? Why does it have to be out in public and headline snatching every week? Now the ACC is expanding? Big Fucking Deal! How about this… Let’s skip all the bullshit and just hurry up and get to 4 super conferences. Does anyone think that’s not where we’re going anyway? Let’s get it down to the PAC X, the ACC, SEC and BIG X and call it good. Split each one up into two regions and have the winner of each region enter an 8 team playoff for the National Championship. What about those teams left out in the cold? Well fine, make it a ten team playoff and get 2 more “at large” bids in there. Have all your other bowl games as filler and make nice with your TV networks. I’m over this expansion talk. Just do it or shut up! I’d rather be watching actual football!

Week Two of the College Football Fun

2011-09-12T05:01:00.002-04:00

I may be in (Rep. of) Georgia, but I got College Football on my mind.
An exciting weekend from the looks of it. Sorry that I’m late on this post football fans, but I had to move to the other side of the world this week, and well that takes some time. I’m downloading three games now, so I’ll be up to speed, but for this post I’ll just shoot from the box scores.
So let’s not delay and get right to it…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:
#12 South Carolina over Georgia 45-42
Was there really another game that was as good as this one? Sure, but being a Georgia fan, I’m going to give this one the game of the week. Turnovers! There’s your story. Turnovers killed Georgia last year and it looks like they’ve reared their ugly head again this week (3). Tied at 28 in the 4th this one was a shootout to the end with Georgia just coming up short. You can’t really blame this one on Mark Richt and it’s sad that he may just be coaching his final few games at Georgia. But, win or go home and he hasn’t been winning much as of late. Georgia was the only team to play back to back ranked opponents to start the year. Guess there’s something to be said about playing that cupcake warm-up huh? Now they are one of a few teams looking at an 0-2 start.

#15 Ohio State escapes Toledo 27-22
Toledo out gained OSU through the air but managed only 46 rushing yards in the game. 46! Still they led 22-21 up until the final four minutes. Too bad, I would have loved to see a MAC team go into Columbus and knockout the Buckeyes. Better luck next year Rocket fans.

#24 Texas sucked less than BYU 17-16
Apparently Texas coach Mac Brown thought his starting QB was going to be good. At least he realized he wasn’t early enough to allow everybody else a shot at throwing the ball before this one was over. 4 different Longhorns threw a pass in this game including the TE (who went 1/1 for 23yds. Texas only managed 123yds through the air all day). Each team had two INTs in this one, time of possession was almost equal, and Texas only had about 50 more total yards. Guess those 50yds were good enough for that one extra point. And, you know what that means… Cue the Mormon Girl!
UPSETS OF THE WEEK:
Unranked Auburn over #16 Mississippi State 41-34
Two things here: one, I don’t know that I’ve ever typed ‘unranked Auburn and #16 Mississippi State’ in the same year and two, I have a hard time calling this one an upset. I mean did anyone think that Miss State was going to go into Auburn and win? I didn’t. I guess the Bulldogs of Mississippi thought they would by putting up 333 rushing yards and out gaining Auburn by about 150 total yards. It took an Auburn defensive stand at the end to ice it and this one was probably really entertaining to watch.

Unranked Arizona State over #21 Missouri 37-30 in Overtime
Ouch. Missouri was looking for a nice road win and a climb in the rankings. Instead, they found themselves down 30-16 in the 4th. Give the Tigers credit for tying it up but this one had to hurt. ASU is now 2-0 and may find themselves in the top 25 before too long.
PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:
We’ll stick with a Bulldog theme here today and go with South Carolina State (1-1) over Bethune-Cookman (1-1) 26-18. Each team committed FIVE TURNOVERS in this game. Feathers flew and suckage was rampant in this pillow fight. The BC Wildcats blew a six point lead in the last 5 minutes then threw an INT to give the SCS Bulldogs an extra TD in the last 4 minutes. At one point the score of this game was 8-5 thanks to a safety. Wow. What can you say about this game that hasn’t already been said about genital warts? Ah the MEAC Conference. I expect we’ll be seeing you again at some point this year.

BEATDOWN OF THE WEEK:
#17 (and overrated) Michigan State over Florida Atlantic 44-0
Yes MSU is overrated, but putting a whippin’ on Florida “don’t call us Gulf Coast” Atlantic will only help their ranking. FAU had one, yes that’s right one first down during the ENTIRE GAME! Michigan State out gained them 434 to 48 total yards. Yep, you read that right 48 total yards and they held the ball for only 17 minutes. If you’re going to score, you’re going to need the ball at some point.

BIGGEST LOSER:
I know this is way too easy and I probably should look for a better one, but I’m giving this week’s biggest loser award to Notre Dame. After getting upset last week they went to Michigan and lost… again. When will sports broadcasters stop telling us that this game matters? But, I have to admit the fourth quarter of this one was great. Michigan led 28-24 with 1:12 left and then gave up a 29yd. TD pass giving ND a 31-28 lead. Not to be outsucked, and in the final 3 seconds, Notre Dame grabbed this week’s biggest loser award by giving up a 16yd. TD pass to lose the game 35-31.

The Eat More Chicken college football kickoff blog

2011-09-04T21:23:00.004-04:00

I was lucky enough to still be in America for the start of this college football season. So, I grabbed a spot in a nice recliner in Atlanta and a remote. I’ve got high expectations for this season and hope that you enjoy my posts throughout the year. Once again, I’ll break down the games that I thought were the best, let you in on some upsets, make fun of Mormons and Catholics, we’ll look at who got beat down, I’ll hate on the ACC and I’ll tell you about the matchup I’m sure you missed in our pillow fight of the week. Also, since it was requested by one loyal reader, this year I’ll bring back the biggest loser award for every week.

Disclaimer: I am a Georgia fan. And, I do live outside of the country so I don’t get as much information as I used to. But, I’ll still be sarcastic as hell and try to have some fun with this.

GAMES OF THE WEEK:
#23 Auburn over Utah St. 42-38
Um, Utah St. learn how to cover an onside kick and you’ll win more games. Auburn, that was embarrassing. Queue the Mormon girl!

ESPN told us that #5 Boise St. vs. #19 Georgia and #3 Oregon vs. #4 LSU were the marquee matchups of the week. They were right about one of them. Georgia came into their game losers of 7 of their last 8 games. They’ve now lost 8 of 9. If you look up the stats from the Georgia game you’ll see that the two teams were very even on across the board. On the field it didn’t really play out that way. UGA had one run for 80yds and a TD but had no run game outside of that. The defense was just bad and most of that blame goes to the defensive coordinator. Whatever you want to say about this game is probably true. It was just bad. And those uniforms… dear lord!
The LSU game was a lot better. Not just for the SEC, but for the entertainment value. Oregon, learn how to field a punt. 4 turnovers is not going to get it done Ducks. The 40-27 score in this game makes it look a lot closer than it appeared to be for me. LSU just came out and sowed that they were ready to play and ready to start the year as a top 5 team.

UPSETS OF THE WEEK:
Unranked South Florida over #14 Notre Dame 23-20
Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!! Oh man, this makes up for any wrongs that may have happened today. Notre Dame fans believed that they had a team this year. Skip Holtz’s SF Bulls proved them all wrong. Again. I was also happy to see NBC have to sit through all those delays.

Unranked Baylor over #14 TCU 50-48
TCU’s coach said at halftime (trailing 34-23), “We need to work on our defensive backs and get some stuff figured out back there.” Really? Ya think? In the first half, TCU gave up scoring tosses of 40, 35, 28, and 14 yards. I don’t know if it’s a good sign that they kept getting shorter, or a bad one that Baylor just kept getting closer before scoring. I guess coach’s half-time speech didn’t do much either since in the 3rd Baylor score 14 unanswered on TD passes of 64 and 42 yards as well. All in all Baylor’s QB Robert Griffin III had a line that looked like this: 21/27 359 yds. 5 TDs, 0 INTs. Hey, if your favorite team is playing TCU anytime soon, shoot an email to your head coach with three simple words: Throw The Rock!

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:
Florida International over North Texas 41-16
I know it’s early and no “true” candidates have had a chance to establish themselves, so for week one we go back to the ol’ faithful SunBelt Conference. North Texas once again brought a feather pillow to a foam pillow fight and lost… again. I’m sure we’ll hear more from them throughout the year.

BEATDOWN OF THE WEEK:
Cincinnati over Austin Peay 72-10
Ouch. A 62 point difference will get you into this category just about every week. AP had five turnovers to go with Cincinnati’s 561 total yards. Done. Oh, raise your hand if you know Austin Peay’s mascot. Now put your hand down you liar. It’s the Governors.
(Back by popular demand…)

BIGGEST LOSER:
Week one’s biggest loser goes to… Ol’ Miss Head Coach Houston Nutt. Up 13-0 in the 4th Nutt decided to make some bad decisions in the last few minutes that cost his team and gets the Rebels off to an 0-1 start. “Nutt had said that he hoped Saturday's game would be played in stifling heat and humidity since BYU comes from a more arid climate. But with Tropical Storm Lee looming, the weather was relatively pleasant, with highs in the 80s and overcast skies.” So, yeah, the head coach was hoping that the weather would play a factor. Enough said.

I may be late next week due to the move, but I’ll try to get it done for you guys. Hope you enjoy the college football season and of course your comments are welcome as always.

On the Road Again

2011-08-20T12:23:00.010-04:00

After not driving for two years I got in the car this week and hit the road. Not bad and I kinda’ missed those long road trips. This past week I headed off to Atlanta to catch some Braves games and then stop by the lake to visit with some more family and relax. The week started off well with the retiring of Bobby Cox’s number 6 at the Braves game on Friday night. A buddy of mine from college and I went and had a great time watching the Braves belt 5 homers, Carlos Zambrano loose his mind and the Braves win it 10-4. But, really the best part was the whole ceremony for Bobby Cox before the game. Really cool and here's a video from it:

Saturday night my old roommate from Charleston and I went to the game but the Braves stunk it up on defense and lost 8-4. My least favorite Braves pitcher Lowe was going that night, so not cool at all. But, we had some pretty good seats for the 1991 Team Reunion and saw Dan Uggla’s hitting streak come to an end just as icing on the cake. Look, he got really lucky during that streak and I wasn’t too upset to see him lose it.

Chipper Watches as Uggla Strikes Out

The next morning we went downtown Atlanta (which I have no idea where anything is any more) and made it to Underground Atlanta. Waste of time. And I don’t just mean Underground. There is nothing to do in Atlanta outside of the Georgia Aquarium, The World of Coke, Six Flags, and the sporting events. You can walk around Little 5 Points and Underground and the Capital building looking at homeless people or make your way all over town to The Highlands, but really? No, I am not a fan of Atlanta. Only the Falcons and Braves. The traffic is not worth it. Boo!
Anyway, we did find the one bright spot of Downtown: The Varsity. Yum! I had the Chili Cheese Dog, Chili Cheese Burger, Onion Rings and Frosted Orange combo. Yum! After that he headed back home and I went back to my Dad’s for the night.
Monday was Dad, Chase and me going to the game. And what a game it was! Braves were down 4-2 going into the 9th against Brain (The Beard) Wilson. They scored 3 in the bottom of the 9th to win in on a walk-off single by Freddie Freeman. It was Awesome! I had such a good time at that game and was glad Dad was there to see it with me.

Tuesday morning I headed off to the country to visit Elaine and Jeff and see my grandparents. Their lake house is in Little River, Georgia if you want to type it into Google Maps to see where that’s at. Anyway, it’s defiantly not the cabin in the woods type country. They have it all out there: quiet, a great view, Internet, birds, flowers, great showers (I’m still loving my daily shower even after being back for over two weeks), awesome places to hang out and chill, good food, boats, fishing, tubes, skiing… you name it. Oh and did I say skiing? Yes, yes I did.

Jeff asked me if I had ever skied and I had not. So, he gave me some quick pointers and off into the water I went to give it a try. I did get up on my first try but it took me a few goes to get up and really going. But, after a while I got the hang of it and really had a great time out on the water. We were out there all day on Wednesday and Thursday and I got a little sun burn, but it was worth it. I did leave my shirt on though because I did not feel like getting scorched on my chest and back since I haven’t been in the sun for really two years.

All of us had a great time and it was nice to spend some time with Elaine and Jeff down by the lake. Jeff is an awesome skier by the way. Really cool. So really that was my week. Car, Braves games, Car, Lake, Car, Home. Not bad.

Dateline: America; Week 2 Impressions

2011-08-08T15:59:00.004-04:00

Food Highlights:
- Smoked pork chops with homemade mac and cheese and rutabagas.
- Seared Wahoo with bacon risotto, squash and zucchini.
- South Carolina Peaches!
- Bacon egg and cheese on English muffin. (By the way, I love how the bacon package has to tell you that this is “not a low calorie food.” DUH! It’s bacon!
- Thai chicken tacos with cheese burger spring rolls.
- Corndog.
- Pan fried flounder with angel hair pasta and veggies.
- Pizza.
- Leftovers that don’t suck.
- Venison tenderloin wrapped in bacon. YUM!

Things I’ve noticed:
-Hey Hipster kids, if you all look the same, how are you different? I don’t get it.
-Americans sure do love their dogs. Wow.
-I still love SportsCenter and Linda Cohn.
-Example of the awesome side of America: http://en.zappinternet.com/video/MiTzWopWaw/Young-at-Heart-I-wanna-be-sedated
-I may be in love with Camille Ford; Host of Food Wars. (The show sucks, but she’s worth it).
-Seeing old friends is great.

I did make it back to downtown Charleston this week and walked around as much as I could. (It was hot hot hot that day.) Saw some old friends and caught up on the news on the streets as it were. Found out that not only has my favorite watering hole been bought and changed into a bar I would never enter, my local corner store was also bought up and now looks more like a sandwich shop rather than you corner bodega.
Mom and I met up with a lot of her friends that I’ve known for years and call family. They all seem to be about the same. Apparently, Mom talks about me a lot, but she’s a mom and that’s what they do. It’s ok anyway, I’m making her suffer through watching a few Braves games with me and she allows it despite her hatred for America’s game.

I also went out with some friends of mine and we’ve had a great time catching up and making up for some lost time. I’m going to

the local minor league baseball game tonight to cheer on the Riverdogs with two close friends (well, if

one of them doesn’t flake out as is his M.O.). Should be a good time anyway. Tomorrow Mom and I are making the drive to the middle of nowhere Georgia to visit my grandma. It’ll be good to see her but man that drive is long and Boring!

Later this week it’s off to Atlanta again for Braves games Friday, Saturday and Monday!

Hope everyone is staying cool. Peace!

Swine Beware!

2011-08-02T12:33:00.005-04:00

Week One Impressions:

- Americans are still fat and don’t care about anything going on outside of America. Hey, it’s the land of freedom do what you want.
- It’s weird seeing people again. Oh, it’s you, I know you. We like each other. No really, we are friends. This is not a fake relationship. You’ll have to give me a minute. I’m not used to this.
- Americans don’t like Georgian wine. Huh? But, it’s all natural. Interesting.
- I don’t have a large desire to go out and do everything. Weird, because I thought I would want to be out more. Hate large crowds!

- Showers! 30 mins. is more of a suggestion right? You can go over that.
- I still don’t sleep right but it is getting better.
- Pork is good.
- Internet fast. Me surf long time.
- Commercials both radio and television are annoying as hell!!! Get me back to a land where I can tune them out.
- Kids. Does everybody need two or three?
- I love baseball.
- My favorite round the corner bar in Charleston closed. =(
- You are all controlled by your smart phones! Give in to the power of phone.
- The Rep. of Georgia was more of a “dry” heat. This Charleston humidity is NUTS! It’s like sitting in a steam bath.
- I need to call more people to say hello.

Ah, back in the land of freedom.

America, what have you gone and got yourself into? I see you’ve been eating well and that’s good. Love all the products in your stores too by the way. I think I will try some of those bacon, cheddar stuffed crackers though, thank you for offering. And since when did you lower the price of your 48oz. fountain drink to the same low offer of $0.79 as the 24oz. size? You knew I was really wanting some Dr. Pepper didn’t you?

After not sleeping for 48 hours straight I arrived in Atlanta this past Tuesday night tired but so excited to be home. My Dad, Mom and Mom met me at the airport and we all chatted while waiting for my bags to come through. (That’s another blog post). Then, we headed off to a BBQ place where I consumed: 1/4lb. pulled pork with sauce, 1/4lb. pork ribs, a small tub of fried okra, Brunswick stew, 2 pieces of texas toast, some chicken and two large glasses of sweet tea. YFY!!! I was STUFFED! But, it was worth it.

Mom and I right after I got off the plane.

That night I slept pretty well to say the least. The next day was Mexican food and margaritas for lunch and then just snacked for dinner. I didn’t want to put my stomach in shock by giving it too much pork at one time. Better to ease back into it.

Thursday was an Arby’s sandwich for lunch. I know I know, not a “knock your socks off” type choice, but I had a craving. It was more for the sauce. That night was lasagna and garlic bread. But Friday brought hot dogs for lunch with plain ketchup and yellow mustard. Mmm… regular old mustard. (Again, it was a craving, not a must have.) But dinner was pork ribs (both boneless and regular) sauced up on the grill. Awesome! We also had some more okra. Love it.

Dad showing off his rib selection.

Saturday morning I had pancakes and bacon. Because, well, it was Saturday and what cha’ gonna do? I was however, leaving to go to Charleston. It was a good drive and it was fun to just get in a car and go. Go, drive 5 hours on nice paved roads with virtually no drunken drivers and places to stop to get massive amounts of Dr. Pepper. (Also, places to stop and pee and aren’t classified by their genus and species). Side note, I’m driving my other mother’s car for the summer that she was so awesome to lend me and it’s really fun to drive. Lots of toys.

Saturday night was another favorite: Mom’s meatloaf, mashed potatoes topped with English peas. Yum!

Then we had Sunday brunch where I met up with one of my aunts and a good friend of mine to consume a bacon, cheddar and ham omelet that was massive. Mimosas were had by all (except mom) and we had a few laughs. That night however, we feasted yet again on PORK! This time it was a pork roast that had been cooking all day in a pot with carrots, potatoes and onion. Yum. It fell apart on your plate and the meat was just awesome.

Onto Monday where I just sat around and rearranged the 48GB of music that I’ve collected over the past two years and got it all back into i-tunes. That night however two of my friends came over and we all had frogmorst stew (some call it Lowcountry Boil) and a few glasses of wine. Good times were had by all!

So that was my first week in America. Some would say it was based on the food I ate. I would agree with those people. I am eating like there is no tomorrow. But there is a tomorrow, and I’ve already planned what I’ll be eating then. (It’s pork chops, mac and cheese and rutabagas for dinner by the way.)

This is a test…

2011-07-11T13:41:00.002-04:00

A test of my mental and physical health.

Why oh why did Peace Corps decide to keep us here for well over a month after school was over? I still have two weeks to go and it is killing me! No, seriously. For the past month my house has been packed with visiting relatives and now we have 17 people there ALL THE TIME!!!

Let’s break this host-family situation down: Dad, Mom, 3 host-brothers (28, 26, and 16 yrs old), 2 sister-in-laws (26 and 24), 3 nephews (8, 6, and 2 yrs old), 2 host-aunts (55 and 60), host-cousin, his wife and their 9 year old boy and 4 year old daughter. Oh, and me. That’s 17.

That’s 17 people, one outdoor toilet, one table, one sink to wash out of (we haven’t had water for 6 out of the last 11 days), one heat wave in July and no air conditioning to be found for 30 miles.

What’s a typical day like you ask?

6:30 a.m. host-mom gets up to let all the chickens and turkeys out of the coup and likes to sing to them in the morning. This all happens in the courtyard below my open windows. (They have to be open because it’s too hot to sleep with them closed).

7:00 a.m. host-dad and brothers get up to get ready to go to work. They have no concept of standing near one another to talk in the morning so they like to yell across the complex to have conversations in the morning. This of course is intertwined with their hawking of loogies because they all have sinus problems due to the open window issue.

8:00 a.m. The kids get up to see the men off to work and have a good morning cry. That 2-year-old has one hell of a set of lungs on him.

From 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. it’s like living in a zoo. All the birds (turkeys, chickens, swallows, and finches) all have babies right now and the (human) kids just run wild SCREAMING at the top of their lungs all day. The women are just as bad because they are constantly yelling at the kids and then each other since one or the other will be in the back of the house while the others are in the front. Best way to carry on a conversation? YELL!

The men generally get home from work around 6 so this adds to the volume but seems to quiet the women down a bit. Not the kids though. Or the birds.

We usually eat around 7 or 8 but the food has decreased dramatically with the addition of 6 more people. The quality has stayed the same as well which means that I just eat less of the already small amounts of sheep fat and bread that I have been for the past two years.

With the heat being well over 90 these days everyone generally stays in the courtyard until around 1 a.m. (kids included) because it’s cooler out there than it is inside. Add on my insomnia and I’m getting around 3-4 hours of sleep a night these days.

I have a 15 minute period in the morning when my Internet works so I go down, get my (instant) coffee and go up to my room to drink it and check the baseball scores. (Go Braves!) This is the one time in the morning when the men are having their morning tea and the kids aren’t up yet so it is somewhat quiet. This past Saturday morning I was enjoying my 15 minutes when the 4-year-old girl who sleeps with her family across the balcony from me opens their door, comes out, and then right outside my door, drops her pants and takes a leak right there. It was already over 85 outside, I had not slept well in days and so I went through the roof! I went downstairs and in front of the whole family told her mother what had happened. Needless to say she was embarrassed, but not enough to be apologetic about the fact that the one area of the house that is mine now smelt like piss.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! (2 weeks man. 2 weeks!)

But, this is not to say all is bad in the world. I got to go with three of my friends to see Mt. Kazbegi this past week for a few days. It was a lot cooler up there and we had a good time. This week I’m going to visit another friend of mine for a few days to get a break from the family and the food so that’ll be good. A few of us went into the capital this weekend to play softball for the last time before we head out. (I went 3 for 3 with 2 singles, a ground rule double and 2 walks) Yeah, we score a lot of runs in the win.

So, I’m finding things to do to get me away from the house as much as possible. But, I can’t be gone everyday and I’m just hopping these last 2 weeks fly by.

Can’t wait to get home and see you all. (Well all of you that I can anyway).

Be well and do me a favor, go inside, turn the AC down an extra degree and enjoy it!

Peace!

School... OVER!

2011-06-16T05:05:00.001-04:00

So school is over. That’s cool. I wanted to write some profound blog post about how I feel about that but for some reason I am unable to do that. I’m sure this is going to take some time to register and maybe I’ll be able to look back on all my work over the past two years at a later date.

But today is the two year anniversary of me landing in the Republic of Georgia. Looking back, there were times I hated it and times I loved it. I’ve met a lot of great people, became a part of a family and made an impact on the community that I lived in.

Yesterday I celebrated the last day of school in Muganlo by opening a bottle of wine that my training host-family gave me on my first day I arrived at their home. I also lit up the Cuban cigar that I’d been saving for two years. Keeping it wrapped up and dry for two years was a challenge but well worth the wait. With my headphones on and music blaring I ended up sitting on my family’s porch for two and a half hours drinking, smoking and singing. Yes, I did have a smile on my face the whole time. But, rather than looking back, all I could think about was the future.

As many of you who read this blog know by now the title ‘What’s Next?’ is not random. All I could think about while I sat there yesterday was what I want to do this summer while I’m home, what I want to get accomplished next year when I come back at my new school and what I plan on doing after that. Asia? More Europe? More Georgia? Home?

I don’t think I’m doing myself a disservice at all by focusing on the future rather than reflecting on the past. The past is just that. Gone. Nothing I can do about it. The mistakes that were made were made and learned from and the successes built upon. That’s it. I can “reflect” when I’m old and no longer able to travel.

Anyway, after I had lunch and napped off my bottle of wine, I went down to the next town to meet the guy who will be replacing me in Muganlo. He is visiting for 3 days before returning to finish up his last month of training. I gave him my key to the English Room I built and talked with him for a few hours about what to expect. I thought I would come off as slightly negative, but I didn’t. Instead I focused on the opportunities that he has to improve the school and help the students. He has a huge job ahead of him and I feel bad in a way because as he said, “I have huge shoes to fill.” And, I kind of feel weird about that because even as we were sitting there my director kept talking about how popular I am at school and in Muganlo and all the work I’ve done over the past two years. Now I like to have an occasional ego stroke like everyone else, but not in front of the guy who has to come right after me.

Luckily this guy is real young (21) and has a lot of ambition and is really excited about his assignment. I wished him a ton of luck as I left him at this host-family for his first night with them and then walked with my director back to his house. Of course I had to give my director time to talk about his new volunteer with me. He seemed to like him but also seemed reluctant to accept him right away because we are so close and I think he realizes now that I am really leaving and that this new “kid” is the one that will take my place. I think he’ll do fine though and I look forward to checking in with him from time to time next year. I told him to contact me at any time with any questions and I’d be happy to help him out.

So that’s it really for this post. I’ve got an English camp in a few weeks, some travel plans, a final Russian test, some softball and some parties with friends still left on the schedule but other than that it’s just a countdown at this point until Peace Corps service number two is over and done with.

On other notes: I’ve been without water for 13 days now, had a bad case of the stomach flu last week that I’ve finally gotten over, and got to see an awesome 6 year old vs. 8 year old fist fight (between a host-nephew and host-cousin) at dinner the other night. On the subject of lack of water… as most of you know most people in my village only shower once a week. So, without water everyone missed bath night this past week as we conserve water for food preparation. This caused quite the smell in school on the last day. Imagine a hot room full of 30 people all of whom haven’t bathed in about 10 days or so. One of the teachers from the neighboring village asked me, “What’s that smell in here?” I told her, “It’s us!”

And on that note… Peace!

It’s just another step – or – The beat goes on

2011-05-31T05:41:00.001-04:00

Before I get started on this post here is the link to the news story that ran in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia on my life in Muganlo and Peace Corps in Georgia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OmjUiWi-rs&feature=player_embedded

It’s all in Russian, so you may not understand a thing, but oh well. And, no I don’t always sound that bad in Russian either, I was all nervous in front of the camera and the reporter kept asking me other questions in the middle of my responses. It looked good though.

On with the post!

This Peace Corps service has just about come and gone and I wanted to put up a post letting everyone know about my future plans.

My main goal was to come out of this Peace Corps service with not only more experience and a better understanding of this side of the world but also some kind of a plan for the future. Last time I finished up, went home and asked myself, now what? I didn’t want that to be the case this time around and really wanted to do something that would not only let me continue to travel but also use some of the skills that I’ve acquired over four years of service.

With that in mind, I would like to announce to all of you that I have been offered and accepted a position as an English teacher here in Georgia for the academic year of 2011-2012. However, I will not be living in any kind of village and will not be working on teaching the ABCs. I’ve taken a position at a prestigious private school in the capital of Tbilisi and will be teaching some of Georgia’s best, brightest and future leaders. You can check out their website at: http://www.britishconnection.ge/

Yes, it is a British school. No, I will not be teaching the Queen’s English. I decided to take this position because while I have enjoyed (on some level) working with some of the poorer and more disenfranchised people of Georgia, I feel that as far as making a greater impact, I can get a lot more accomplished working with motivated and driven students in the capital. After my second visit to the school I knew that it was the place for me. The students are so bright and so active and really gave me the impression that they will be the next generation of leaders in Georgia.

Why Georgia? I said it back in 2009, “I can think of no better place to be and no better time than now.” This country has a ton of problems to be sure. However, it has a ton of potential as well. Georgia is regionally important but could one day be a major player internationally as well. It’s unstable. True. It’s had a tough road since the fall of the Soviet Union and has not always done the right thing to correct those problems. But, I think Georgia is on the right path due to its current leadership and its willingness to integrate into the western world. Learning English is one of the government’s top priorities for the children of Georgia. They want every child to be proficient in English so that the entire economy can grow as more and more international business comes to Georgia.

I truly believe that the children at this school where I’ll be will be on the front lines of moving Georgia forward and I want to be a part of that. I put in my two years here working in a village and I haven’t seen as much progress in the academic culture in the villages as I would have liked to. However, I do see a lot of progress in the capital and major cities. So why not put my efforts into helping those who are willing and motivated to learn? I want to be a part of helping these children and I want them to be a part of helping Georgia.

Now, I do have selfish motivations as well. I won’t be doing this as a volunteer. I will be getting paid and should be able to put money back every month to grow my U.S. bank account as well. I’ll be living in the capital in a nice apartment with running water and lights and… a toilet and shower! I’ll have access to good food and be able to go out to eat from time to time. I’ll be able to make actual friends and go out and meet people that I might actually want to talk to. I’ll be able to take private students to make extra money and still have time to continue working with the softball team here in Georgia.

Before you all freak out. Fear not! I will still be coming home for the summer. I can’t hang out here all summer and not go home to see my family and friends. My tentative plan as of now is as follows:

I WILL BE LANDING IN ATLANTA ON JULY 26th AT 5:20 P.M.!!!

July 26 – 30; in Atlanta for Dad’s birthday and FOOD!
July 30 – August 11; in Charleston for beach time and FOOD!
August 12 – 14; in Atlanta for Braves games (Dave, if you read this get 5 tickets for Aug. 12th. Do it now! I’ll pay you back)
August 15 – 19; Georgia (location unknown) for time with Elaine and the family and FOOD!
August 20 – September 3; Charleston for more Mom time and FOOD!
September 3 – 6; Atlanta for Labor Day weekend and more Braves.
September 6th; Return to Tbilisi.

Now, this schedule is subject to change of course and I have to work out the transportation logistics. I need to beg, borrow or steal a car for that time so I can get back and forth I guess. So if anyone knows of somebody with a spare let me know!

So that’s it everybody. Sorry for the late notice, but I wanted to make sure this was all set and that it was something that I really wanted to do. It is, so… I’m doing it. I’m sure not all of you will be happy about it, but I’ve got to do what makes me happy and that’s keep moving. Coming back here will give me a lot more opportunities in the future and I think I’ll have a great time as well.

See you all in just a few more weeks!

Oh! A little P.S. here… I got my blood tests back from my final medical exams and I am disease free! Not that I was all that worried, but, better to be STD, TB, and whatever other acronyms there are for all those blood born viruses because you never know what you can pick in the village. Yea health!

Softball, Oil Rigs and I’m on TV… again.

2011-05-18T06:41:00.015-04:00

What a weekend! The weather was great, the food was good (I wasn’t in my site) and I had a lot of fun with some of my good friends.

One of my fellow volunteers took the initiative to work with the local softball federation and write a grant similar to the one that I did in order to build my English Room, but he used his funds to help them rebuild the one and only softball field here in Georgia. He’s also doing another great project at his organization and you can keep up with him at his blog: (http://bbamberger.blogspot.com).

As part of every USAID funded grant that we do through the Peace Corps, there has to be a training element involved. So, I and a few other volunteers agreed to help him this past weekend and we ran a softball clinic for around 30-40 boys and girls in the capital of Tbilisi. We all just had a lot of fun working with the kids and teaching them a game that we all love was just great. The girls here (and this is pretty much the case in just about every aspect of society) just don’t get as many opportunities but at the same time are just so much easier to work with. They were all about trying to learn new things and get better. The boys were more interested in showing you how much they already knew and not listening when you tried to explain things to them. But, overall we had a great time and I think this was a wonderful volunteer led initiative in cooperation with the local softball federation founder Gia Kemoklidze who is a wonderful man to work with and a credit to his country.

Every night after the trainings, we went back to my buddy’s house and cooked our own food and then made breakfast every morning before going back to the capital. We got our hands on some chicken breasts and real bacon, so… YUM!

We still have one more training to do at the end of this week and then the U.S. Ambassador to Georgia will come out to join some Peace Corps Staff members and other volunteers to play a ceremonial game and celebrate not only another great project but the Peace Corps’ 50th Anniversary. (I know the Peace Corps has been getting some bad press lately, but it’s still a great organization that does some great work around the world and for better or worse, I love it).

After the weekend I had a reporter come out to Muganlo from a Caucasian TV station (televised in Russian for Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia) and do a story about my work in an Azeri village and my life with a Muslim family. It was an ok experience and marked my 7th time being on television since I’ve been here. Ho-Hum. Really the story was more about me being an American and spending two years working in a rural village full of minorities that don’t share my same beliefs, culture or culinary habits. I talked about what I liked and disliked (diplomatically) and my host-family talked about what it was like to have me there for two years. I was bored with it for the most part until I heard my host-dad Akif talk about how much he loved having me around and how much he would miss me when I leave. While he was talking and I was preparing my reaction (since all the interviews were in Russian and I didn’t want to make a grammatical mistake on international TV) it really hit me that despite all the problems I have, I’ll really miss my family here once I leave.

Anyway, after the interview was over, Akif had to go back to work. He asked me to come along with him since he would be visiting several oil drilling sites that day and “maybe it’ll be interesting for you.” I thought, ‘Why not?’ I’ve got nothing else to do today. And in case you don’t’ know, Akif is the materials manager for a medium sized oil company here in Georgia and is well respected at his company because he’s known as a guy who gets stuff done.

So, first we went to this one rig way up in the mountains about a 45 minute drive from our village that was shut down for the Spring so they could clean it and repaint all the generators and whatnot. I’d never been on an oil rig so for me it was really interesting. One of my fellow volunteers said, “Isn’t that dangerous? I don’t know that I’d go on an oil rig in America. And we have regulations!” Hahahaha. True, but I had a hardhat. On this rig it was kind of funny since the core of the rig goes down 5 kilometers and has produced over $30 million in oil over the past 10 years using a combination of American, Russian and Chinese parts. While I’m standing on this thing all the generators are running as they are being tested and everything creeks and makes so much noise that it’s unbelievable. However, now I understand how Akif can put up with all the noise at home. Eleven people running around seems quiet compared to the rig.

After the visit there, we went to his main office where they separate the gas from the oil and then pump it out to trucks that then haul it off. This was also really cool because I got to see the oil that comes from the rigs get pumped into huge tanks and one tank that was being filled from oil directly from the ground. Akif let me stick my finger down in the oil to smell it and look at its color and tell him what I thought.
“Smells like kerosene,” I said.

“Yes, yes. Everything comes from this. But what about the color?” he asked to test what I had learned from the rig.

“Looks too light maybe? I think it should be darker,” I said.

“Good! This is the oil that we’ve only separated out the gas from. We still need to take out the water and some dirt. Good!” was my reward for paying attention on the rig.

This location is also the place where my oldest host-brother Levan works as a welder. We said hello to him quickly, Akif told him to get back to work and then we went on our way. Next was a trip to the workshop where my middle host-brother Aslan works basically tearing things that are broken apart, fixing them and then putting them back together. I watched him work on some pipe while Akif told him how he was doing it wrong. (Fathers are the same everywhere). Once they got the pipe all broken apart we all went home and had dinner with lots of vodka to celebrate a day of being on TV and me meeting about 100 of Akif’s coworkers. Some of them I had met before at Supras, but a lot of them I was meeting for the first time. Overall it was a fun day and I learned a lot about oil and what Akif really does.

This week I’m in the capital for my final medical exams so lots of poking, prodding and blood drawing. More updates on that and my future plans in next week’s blog post.

Moon Shining in Broad Daylight

2011-05-02T07:31:00.007-04:00

It’s that time of year; time to make the homemade vodka or ‘ChaCha’ here in Georgia. Now while those of you in America maybe thinking, isn’t making homemade liquor illegal? I say that here it’s not only legal; it’s a source of pride for most families.

I have run across several debates about how ChaCha is to be made. The consensus is that it is to be made from grapes and that only poor families and uneducated people would make it from things like apples and peaches or other fruits. I think it’s more of a pride in the Georgian grapes than anything, but grapes seem to be the preferred method. I tried to convince them to let me make a batch out of corn to show them the Appalachian method, but they weren’t going for it.

Let me walk you through the weekend’s events. On Saturday morning, I arrived at home to see that the still had already been set up. (See photo below). Now, what we needed to do was open the huge barrel that we had left all the grape stems, seeds, and skins in from the fall when we made our wine. My family finished that process in October, so those had been left in there to ferment for about six months. I could describe the smell inside this giant barrel but for fear that you may be having a snack while reading this, I’ll spare you.
Getting the rot from the garage to the back yard was simple enough. We got a shovel, a ladder and some buckets and the process was on. We simply dumped buckets into the cooker until it was just over half way full. Then, it’s build a fire and wait on the alcohol to drip through. Simple as that. Really, after you get the still set up the process isn’t very labor intensive. You really just need to make sure the pipes stay cool in order to help the condensation process. (See my host-dad Akif below).
Now comes the more “scientific” aspect of the job. Ideally, the first 3 liter bottle should come out at about 70% alcohol by volume. We measured this with what I thought was a thermometer at first but then realized was a float that depending on the level of alcohol in the bottle tells you where you’re at. After that your next bottle should be around 40% alcohol and then around 30% before you need to load in more grape sludge. So that’s 9 liters at 70, 40 and 30% or, when all mixed together a batch of around 47% alcohol. Just as a note here, your typical bottle of liquor in the states is around 40%.

At this point you have two options, you can either remove the grape sludge and start a new batch or poor all 9 liters back in and distill it for a second time. You will lose a little alcohol % here but the taste will get better. Or so I’m told. Our first batch came out at a total of 55% so we dumped it back and got a final first batch of 42%. “Very not strong,” said my host-dad. But that first batch still tasted like the grape sludge and burnt like fire so we had no choice.

Like I said this wasn’t too labor intensive, so while we waited for the goodness to drip from the pipes we also took the time to dump last fall’s wine that we had “aged” in plastic bottles into one large glass container as to get some oxygen into it and to balance out the alcohol there as well. The women watched the kids to make sure they didn’t burn themselves, they made lunch and all I really had to do was poor beer and haul wine bottles up from the cellar. Of course there was the testing that happened after ever 3 liter bottle was distilled. (Half shots only cause you never knew what you were going to get). By the end of the day I was not feeling so well and needless to say slept quite late on Sunday.

Sunday was the same process except we had to do everything in the rain. It rained all day and everything just turned to mud. Gross. But, one thing I can say about ChaCha, it’ll keep you warm even when you’re wet. I think we ended up with about 25-27 liters of ChaCha by the end of Sunday but we still have more to go. I hear the best grape sludge (and by best they mean the highest alc. %) is at the bottom of the barrel. So, we’ll see about that.

I’ve been drinking this stuff for about two years now and I can say that every batch and every home is different. Some taste ok. Some taste real bad. Some are high in alcohol. Some are really high in alcohol. I don’t recommend it and I can tell you I’ve never met anyone who has ever said they drink ChaCha for the taste.

I think later this week if we still have wood and the still is still set up, I’ll buy some corn and try to get them to let me make some corn liquor for them. It can’t be any worse and who knows, maybe they’ll like it. They sure loved Jack Daniels when they tried a bottle a few months ago. I was frightened at how quickly they fell in love with Tennessee whiskey. Even my one host-brother who rarely drinks was putting down shots of that.

Until next time, stay safe and avoid the cops if you’re planning a weekend Shine; unless you’re livin’ in The Republic of Georgia, in which case go for it!

A Peace Corps Project: The Building of an English Room

2011-02-25T02:45:00.004-05:00

So here it is. One of the hardest things I've ever had to do but also one of the most rewarding. I'll be posting up pictures of the opening event later but here are just a few of the videos to show you how this all went down. Enjoy.

Kickin' Chickens in the snow Do-Da Do-Da

2011-02-20T01:36:00.002-05:00

A 2 for of MTV

2011-01-11T04:10:00.002-05:00

A two for on the MTV this week. It was a lot better than last week that’s for sure. Well, a sharp stick to the eye would be better than last week.

I’m also including a picture of me that goes with the last post of me sleeping at 3 a.m. on New Year’s morning. Here it is:

In other news… Auburn won the National Championship last night. Awesome for the SEC who has now won FIVE National Championships in a row. I felt like writing up a whole post on the Bowls and what I thought about them, but then I thought… neh.

Anyway, this is a short post and here are the above promised MTV episodes.

A Stellar Start to the New Year

2011-01-05T04:10:00.007-05:00

3:48 a.m., January 1, 2011, Batumi, Georgia. In Russian: “Hey! Andrew! Wake up! We need to walk across town to where we’re going to sleep.” I snap awake not knowing where I am or how I got there but looking at a face I recognized. Being 3 sheets to the wind only 20 minutes earlier and sitting at a dining room table, I now found myself in a chair in the living room being shouted at in Russian by my host-brother.

Wait wait wait… Let’s back up here because that’s not how this whole story gets started. December 31, 2010 10:00 a.m. my phone rings and it’s my host-dad wondering where I am. Where I was was in another town house sitting for a friend who is in America for the holidays. He wants to know where I am because he doesn’t listen to anything I tell him like when I told him 3 days earlier that I would be home that afternoon to celebrate the New Year with them in Muganlo. Well, he informs me that I need to come quick because we’re going on a trip to visit some friends for the New Year. “Ok Ok! I just need to go to Tbilisi on my way and pick up two boxes my mom sent that are full of gifts for the family for New Year’s,” I tell him. “Ok. Ok. Just hurry up!” he says and hangs up.

So, I pack my things and take the hour and a half trip by mini-bus to the capital to pick up my boxes. They were both huge and there was no way I was going to get them and my bags back to Muganlo by mini-bus after having to take them on the metro across town first. I decided to bite the bullet and pay for a cab to take me back to Muganlo from the Peace Corps office at a 40 Lari price tag. Ouch. But, it could have been worse. The guy wanted to charge me 60, but I was having none of it. As soon as I get in the cab my host-dad calls again to see where I am. “I’m in Tbilisi, I’ll be there in about 45 minutes or so,” I tell him. “OK. OK. Hurry. We go!” is his response. I have no idea what he’s talking about or what the urgency is since it’s only one in the afternoon at this point with a full 11 hours to go till the New Year.

What do I discover when I get home? My host-dad isn’t even there! My host-brother is though and asks me why I’m late. “Where is Akif?” I ask. “He’s still at work, he’s coming soon,” he replies. So how am I late then, I think to myself. No matter, I’m home and all should soon be well. About 20 minutes later my host-dad shows up and is running around like his ass is on fire telling everyone to get ready to go. “Pack a bag, we come back tomorrow!” he tells me. “Where are we going?” I ask.

“Batumi!” Now Batumi is literally on the other side of the country in the semi-autonomous region of Adjara. It’s a favored spot for Georgians to celebrate the New Year and Akif’s friend that he spoke of is one that I met last year and who didn’t leave all that great of an impression on me. Oh, and, taking an overnight trip to the other side of the country without letting Peace Corps know about it is a no no. Problem one: It’s New Year’s Eve and the PC staff is out of the office and with their families. Problem two; my cell phone is dead and we are leaving with no time for me to charge it. Problem three: I can tell this is going to be one long car ride with my host-dad, 15-year-old host-brother, middle host-brother (Aslan), his wife and 18-month-old son and I all in one car.

Editor’s Note: If you are a Peace Corps Staff Member and are reading this; sorry, I didn’t call and report my whereabouts. I take full responsibility for that. And, if you keep reading you’ll probably find that some of the content may be offensive to Georgians. Sorry, it was a weekend from hell and I’ve got to let it out. If you are Georgian and reading this: Stop now! You probably won’t like it. Oh, and if any of you when reading the dialogue seem to find its content funny, it’s because it’s translated from Russian.

Let me start out by saying I did not want to go to Batumi and even told my host-dad as much. But, being where as he doesn’t listen when he has his mind set on something, I was ushered into the car and off we went. 3:00 p.m. December 31, 2010, we leave Muganlo all packed and ready to make the trip.

5:00 p.m. we near the city of Gori made famous because it’s where Stalin was born; and, it starts to rain. This is not a good thing because we are about to enter a very mountainous region and Georgians are some of if not the world’s worst drivers. My host-dad is no exception to this. Two lane roads here quickly turn into what NASCAR fans refer to as ‘4-wide.’ We’re driving up hills and down hills passing on blind curves all the while going 65+ miles an hour in the rain. Now, the roads in western Georgia (i.e. the roads to Batumi) are much better than they are in the east where I live. But still, they aren’t the greatest and while you’re driving around these curves on the side of the mountain there may or may not be a rail there to help stop you should you decided to plummet to your death. All this is going on with me sitting in the front seat trying to make noises to tell my host-dad when a car is coming that I can see from my side, my 15-year-old host-brother is in the back complaining that it’s either too hot or too cold, the middle host-brother is yelling over the god-awful music on the car stereo while talking on the phone but one positive was that somehow the baby managed to sleep through all of this.

6:30 p.m.; sunset; my host-dad makes the statement, “I wish we could have left earlier. I hate driving at night because I can’t see too well.” The car then accelerates towards another car that’s break lights are clearly lit. No problem, we just swerve around it. My grip on the passenger side door tightens to white knuckle capacity.

8:30 p.m.; Kobaleti, Georgia. We finally make a stop at a town about a half an hour’s drive outside of Batumi to buy more candy and some champagne for our hosts. As soon as the car stops, I jump out and light a cigarette and check to make sure I haven’t soiled myself on the trip down from the mountains. I had managed to get my phone somewhat charged in the car, so I called the Peace Corps volunteer that lives in that town to confirm our proximity to Batumi. Sure enough, we’re only a half an hour out. Thank God!

Around 9:15 or so we arrived at D’s house in Batumi. (We’ll call him D here in order to protect the name of the not so innocent.) My nerves are shot and I need a drink at this point. Luckily, I’ve come to the right place for that and we all sit down and start a small supra (Georgian word for table full of food, booze and lots of toasting). The wine is poured and I’ve got to say it was just ok. Not bad, but far from good. The food was not that much better either and consisted of reheated chicken and a lot of salads that were either mayonnaise concentrated or just loaded with oil. Pass the bread please!

After an hour and a half and more than a few toasts, the host-brothers and I with the sister-in-law and baby are ushered out of the apartment by our host’s son to go to the big Batumi New Year’s concert that is shown on TV here every year. Yes, the concert is outside. Yes, it is still raining. Yes, it is cold. We drive over to the venue, park and get out. The concert was supposed to start at 10:40 p.m. and it is now about 10:45 p.m. The line to get in is a mile long and after only a few seconds of contemplation we decide to not wait out in the rain but rather just walk around and see the lights of Batumi. They were actually pretty nice and Batumi is like a smaller version of Odessa, Ukraine.

We walked around for about 45 minutes or so before rushing back for… HAPPY NEW YEAR! Midnight came and was slightly anti-climatic since the host-dad and his friend D had been drinking the whole time, it was, for them, just another toast. But, we did pop a bottle of champagne and everyone had a glass for the New Year. The champagne was of course Georgian and consequently overly sugared and under cultured. Not dry, not wet, not… anything.
After the champagne toast we had to sit around and listen to D make all the long traditional toasts that accompany the New Year while drinking more wine. At least this time it was some of the wine that we had brought from our house which while not the world’s best is still a ton better than what we had been drinking when we first got there. These toast lasted about an hour and then everyone packed up to walk across town to D’s sister’s house. “Of course you have to visit somebody! It’s tradition! Visitors are gifts from God and your first of the New Year is very special,” D shouted as we were leaving to any and everyone within earshot. Of course he shouted everything since he lacks the ability to speak either in a whisper or in anything resembling a normal voice. Let me tell you dear reader, if this 300lbs+ guy showed up at your house, you’d think it was a plague from God and a gift that he should have kept the receipt for.

Once we arrived the hellos were said and the drinking continued. The food was better at the sister’s house but the wine was the worst that I have ever tasted. Imagine if you will Welch’s white grape juice mixed with champagne and normal Georgian wine. That’s what this sludge tasted like. Around 3:30 a.m. I excused myself from the table and headed off to find a spot to sit down and get away from D’s voice and his constant standing and sitting to make toasts that went on and on for 5-10 minutes at a time. I had had enough Georgian ‘culture’ for one night and was missing my village and the Azeris that inhabit it.

This brings us back to the start of my little story. At about 20 till 4 my host-dad, 15-year-old host brother, D, his wife, their son and I start the trek back across town to D’s house. The middle host-brother and his wife and baby stay at the sisters because there isn’t enough room at D’s for all of us. (Remember this for later) Yes, it is still raining and yes it is cold. Once we get there it’s a long toast from D, one shot of vodka and then I’m shown to my bed. Needless to say it takes me all total of 2 seconds to fall asleep. 4:30 a.m.

10:30 a.m. January 1, 2011; D’s house. I wake to the sound of D singing at the top of his lungs in the dining/living room. I lay there for about another half an hour while I listen to my host-dad and everyone else use the bathroom that is the next room over from where I was sleeping. Let’s just say after a long night of drinking and eating, they weren’t the most pleasant of sounds. Once I count up all the trips and realize that everyone has made their trip, I get up and lock myself in the bathroom for a good 15 minutes listening to D sing and make toasts. I get a good face washing in and brush my teeth. Strangely I didn’t hear anyone else do that. Hmmm….

Once I do get out of the bathroom I join everyone else at the table. D immediately hands me a shot of vodka before I can even get my ass in my chair. He says it will help with my hangover. I’m thinking the only thing I really want for my hangover is for him to shut the hell up for 5 seconds! My host-brother and his family show up at around 12 and we all sit down to “breakfast.” Breakfast consisted of the same salads we had been served the night before and the Belarusian vodka that D had been saving for just this occasion. Once D was satisfied that everyone had had enough, even if I hadn’t had my coffee that I asked for as soon as I sat down, we all packed ourselves into the car to go “see” Batumi. Yes it was still raining. No, you couldn’t “see” anything because we were all packed into the car and the windows kept fogging up. Yes, it was cold every time somebody rolled their window down to get a look at some building we passed. Luckily the drive was short lived and we returned to D’s to find him and his wife along with my host-dad ready to go. Thank God! Let’s get in the car and get the hell back to Muganlo. My host-brother told me to make sure to get my bag because we’d be heading home from D’s brother’s house. Wait. What? Yes, we had yet another stop to make before we could go home. Thankfully it was at least on the way out of town.

We arrived at the brother’s sometime around 1:30 p.m. or so to more hellos and congratulations on the New Year and a house full of people. My host-dad, D, my host-brother and I all sat down with our new host and yes started drinking more of the same crappy wine that we had been served the night before. Nothing helps a hangover like more of the same right? Ugh. Meanwhile, the host-sister-in-law, the baby and the 15-year-old host-brother were hanging out with D’s brother’s family and his wife. Being Azeri and from Baku, my host-sister-in-law doesn’t speak a word of Georgian which I noticed drew more than a few nasty looks from the Georgian women, and even some of the men, everywhere we went. But somehow it was ok for me to not be able to speak Georgian. They were more than happy to extend the toasts for a few more minutes to translate them for me. Thanks. One major upside to this visit was the food. The food at the brother’s place was awesome. Some really good beef stew type dish and some really good khachapuri (That’s Georgian cheese bread. Not the greatest thing on Earth as they would have you to believe but good).

At around 3:00 p.m. I start to wonder; shouldn’t we be getting on the road soon? The drinking sure hasn’t slowed down any and D is in full throttle mode at this point. I quietly get Aslan, my middle host-brother, to accompany me outside for a cigarette. “Hey, what’s the deal? Shouldn’t we be headed back soon?” I ask. “Yes. Very soon. We are leaving as soon as the other sister shows up,” Aslan said. Before we even finish our smoke two cars pull up and out pop a whole family full of people. This must be the other sister! And, sure enough it was. So, I headed back inside and we (the Muganlo crew) packed up our things in order to make room for the new arriving guests at the table. We then said our goodbyes, mingled around talking for a few minutes and then got in the car.

Thank God! As soon as the doors were closed I said to Aslan, “To Tbilisi my good man!” He didn’t reply. We drove down the hill to the main highway where we literally faced a sign that said Right to Tbilisi; Left to Batumi. The way that allowed us to turn right was clear of oncoming traffic and I breathed a sigh of relief. But wait. We weren’t turning right the car was going left! “Where are we going,” I half shouted. We’re going to visit Akif’s school friend who lives in Batumi. D is behind us and will come too,” Aslan replied. “But I thought we were going home!?” I said to him. “Tomorrow,” was the only thing he said.

“Oh this is an old friend of mine and D’s,” said my host-dad. “You’ll like him. I haven’t seen him in many years and we must visit him.” The only thing I heard though was the voice in my head screaming, “FFFUUUUUUCK!!!”

4:30 p.m. January 1, 2011; Batumi, Georgia. We arrive at the friend’s house. Let me just skip the run down here and get right to it. We sat down and D insists that I sit next to him. NOOOOOO! But, my host-dad joins in the campaign and I end up sitting right next to Tamada (toast-master) D. He is a very touchy individual. Hand on my shoulder, hand on my leg, leaning on me to make a toast to me. It was more than I could take and was ready to explode after about 5 minutes. The thing about this guy is he thinks he knows everything. “History? Got it. Politics? Right up my alley. Biology? No subject is too tough for D!”

Here is just a little piece of how D handles the table and this is pretty much typical of all of the places that we visited and were forced to listen to this guy who I swear must talk in his sleep because at no point during this trip did I ONCE witness him stay quiet for longer than a minute. At one point this ass asked me where my family was from; meaning my heritage. “Well, my mother’s family was German and my father’s family was Dutch,” I told him. He then proceeded to tell me the entire history of the great Dutch people. “Great adventurers the Dutch. They were the first in America the Dutch. Vikings the Dutch were and such were the first people to go many places. Many great Dutch people,” he went on and on. I was trying not to laugh at all the Dutch “facts” that this guy knew. After that was all over with he somehow managed between toasts to switch the subject to politics. He at one point made the claim that, “Nothing was good about the Soviet Union. Not one thing!” This drew not only an open mouth from me, but even refutations from the other guests. This was also the one and only time anyone had dared to interrupt the Great D when my host-dad made the simple but logical point that in fact there had been a few things about the USSR that were good. (its common knowledge that while bad, the Soviet Union did a lot of good for Georgia and there are still a lot of areas today where Georgia is in fact worse off than it was under the Union). Needless to say this debate went on for a while and evoked a whole new strain of toasts. Oh, the wine was a little better here but still not good but the food was good and I even got to have a few pieces of real ham!

Interesting side note. Our host had received a Red Diploma from Moscow State University in 1986. A Red Diploma meant that you graduated with the equivalent of a 4.0 and were pretty much at the top of your class. He even brought it out and showed it to me. After he graduated he went to work for the government as an engineer. Pretty impressive! His wife was also a senator in the Soviet Duma at one point for about 5 years and even let me see her credentials where on the back was printed her salary and all the benefits that she received as a senator. Really impressive! What do they do now you ask? Oh, he runs a small shop that sells bread; she is a house-wife and of course doesn’t receive a pension from a government that doesn’t exist anymore. Not one thing was good about the Soviet Union huh D?

After about an hour of sitting next to D I had had enough. But Fortuna doth shine every now and then. Since there is so much food to be laid out it took the wife and granny about an hour to set the table and granny popped in just as D was making a toast to our host’s family. He wanted the granny to come stand next to him. I saw Fortuna and struck! “Granny! Come here and take my seat next to the Tamada. I insist! I’ll move over here next to my host-father,” I literally shouted this. I had to in order to be heard over D and to make sure Granny got a move on. Now, giving up your seat is a big plus in the table culture. But, giving up the most treasured seat next to the Tamada is huge! I received many a ‘Good Job!’ from the other guests and was afterwards regarded as both considerate and well cultured. I’d have given my seat to Satan himself had he walked in that room, anything that would have gotten me away from that drunk, smelly and back slapping Georgian. D was literally about one more hand on my leg, one more shoulder grab or one more hug away from get slapped across the head.

So this whole feast goes on till well past 10 p.m. At this point we get ready to go. I have my coat and shoes on and am at the door waiting on the rest of our party to catch up. Aslan, the one person who was allowed not to drink because he was driving comes up to me and says, “You’re staying here.”

Yep. That’s right ladies and gentlemen no pre-warning just a notification that the 15-year-old host-brother and I will be staying at this guys house for the night and that the family would be by in the morning to get us. And off they went. I was pissed but didn’t see how making a scene right there to a bunch of drunks that probably wouldn’t have seen the problem with any of it would make any difference. I didn’t know this guy at all and contrary to the Georgian belief that once you drink together your friends, I do not subscribe to that line of thinking. He was kind of weird and wanted to talk; I just wanted to go to sleep. I thought it would be rude to just ask for a bed and duck out on the guy for the night so I agreed to have tea with him while his wife cleared off the table.

Like I said, I don’t speak Georgian all that well, but I understand a good bit of it. And while this guy took a break from our Russian conversation to make a phone call I understood a few words of it. It went something like this: Congratulations!... no… come… eat… drink… American… come. I looked at my host-brother and then tried to finish my tea as fast as possible. Too late. These three guys, who must have lived in the same building, show up and the guy’s wife starts resetting the table. I look at the clock and note that it is close to midnight.
Now these three guys and our host tried all the typical tricks to get me to sit down and eat and drink with them as they constantly stare at me like I’m some kind of exhibit they paid good money to get a look at. “Oh come join us please. Just one drink. Oh come on, just sit down then…” that’s how they try to suck you in. I politely as possible but probably not that politely declined and asked my host to show me where I would be sleeping. I was tired, annoyed and slightly drunk for the second day in a row. I’d have rather dropped than sit down with another group of drunken Georgians and have to listen to them talk about me in Georgian thinking that I didn’t understand them. So rude on so many levels. Eventually I got to bed and put on my i-pod to block out the sounds of the toasts coming from the next room that went on till sometime after 3 a.m.

9:00 a.m. January 2, 2011; Batumi, Georgia. My phone rings and wakes me up. Surprisingly I slept well. I think it had something to do with getting poor sleep the night before and having been semi-drunk for two straight days. On the phone was Aslan telling me that they would be there to pick us up in 15 minutes and that we would be going home. Sure enough, 15 minutes later the whole crew, D included show up. But, going home is out of the question at least until after we have breakfast and 2 liters of vodka. So, our host gets his wife to lay out the spread and then wakes one of the guys who showed up the night before off the couch so that everyone has a place to sit. He then brings out his home-vodka which is made from honey. I originally thought this would be a good thing since honey vodka is usually tasty. But no. This was made from wood honey which means it was slightly bitter honey to start with and doesn’t make for good drinking vodka. At least there was more ham. I even had a laugh with Aslan over the ham because he ate a piece and commented that it was good (beef) sausage. I told him it was ham and came from a pig. Being the good Muslim that he is (or at least wanting to appear that way), he then passed the rest of his piece over to me. Meanwhile, D, Akif, our host and I are making our way through the honey vodka. I thought we would stop after liter one, but when the host brought out liter two, I excused myself to the balcony under the auspice of taking photos of the mountains. Luckily, I stayed out there in the cold long enough to miss most of the second liter and only had to take a few “thank you” shots at the end.

11:45 a.m. January 2, 2011 Batumi, Georgia. We’re off! Everyone is packed in the car and we are moving. I’ve never been so happy to leave a place in my life. I’m so annoyed, slightly drunk and while I’m sitting in the front next to Aslan my host-dad wants to chat away and sing songs. I swear I just wanted to scream! This goes on for about two hours until we make one stop to get out and use a toilet while the host-sister-in-law also changes the baby’s diaper. After that, I move to the back because even my 15-year-old host-brother was getting annoyed sitting next to Akif in the back. I was more than happy to move to the back so I wouldn’t have him leaning up to the front talking to me. And, this way I could slip on my i-pod, zone out and try to finish sobering up.

2:30 p.m. we stop to buy some roadside souvenirs for the family. Clay pots for the women and… drums for the kids! Yeah! Drums! Akif even let the baby have one in the back with me so he could be entertained for the rest of the ride. I hate my life at this point. Thankfully, we stop not too long after for lunch. Akif insists that he will not sober up and buys another liter of vodka and two beers for he and I to consume with lunch. Since we’re the only two that can drink at this point it’s up to us to polish off all the booze. I was in no mood to drink, but figured if I’m going to make it back I had better do something to calm my nerves. Akif orders a ton of food and we eat and make merry. At this point he makes some concession to me and apologizes for the craziness of the weekend. I think he realized that I was not having a good time and was more than slightly miffed about the whole situation from the night before. I for some reason (I blame the vodka) tell him it was no big deal and thanks for bringing me along.

Editor’s note: I do plan on having quite the serious talk with him this week about letting me know in advance what’s going to happen and where. I don’t do well with going on long trips and being left in the dark about the plans.

Once lunch was over we continued on our way. The weather was awesome and the ride was really pretty. All the mountains had snow on top of them and some of the views were just awesome. We finally made it back to Tbilisi at around 5:30 p.m. after a long long ride and once again made an unannounced stop. This time we were at my host-mother’s sister’s house for yet another feast. And yes, there was more wine to be consumed. I was still slightly drunk and didn’t want to mix the local wine with the vodka that was still swimming in my stomach. But, tradition and ‘culture’ being what it is here, I found myself about six glasses in before I could get away from the table and then another two glasses at the end before we could get out of there.

8:15 p.m. January 2, 2011 Muganlo, Georgia. We’d made it. As soon as we turned on to the road that leads up to our village, my mom called me from America. I barely remember the conversation and just remember being really pissy about a bunch of different things and telling her that I’d have to talk to her later. I was just happy to be home. Once everyone got settled in I gave my host-family their New Year’s gifts that my mom sent them from America. This was a big hit and a positive to end what was a weekend form hell.

Dear reader, if you’ve made it this far, I’m sorry. I know that at times I banged out 5 or 6 paragraphs without taking my hands off the keys and I’m sure that there are sections that seem incoherent and rambling. But, that’s just what this weekend was rambling and incoherent.

Lessons learned: I would be remiss if I didn’t at least type out what I learned from this experience.
1. If I want my host-family to listen to me I’m going to have to be much clearer and less polite. There are times when “cultural sensitivity” is not the best course of action.
2. I’m so glad that, even with all their shortcomings, I live with Azeris and not Georgians. Sorry, but it’s true. Azeris are a lot less pushy and if you have something to say they will not simply dismiss you and then go on to proclaim to everyone the richness of their “culture.” Just because you talk about “culture” all the time doesn’t mean that you have it. I witnessed waaaaay too many Georgianisms (read: rude actions) this weekend to have a positive opinion about them right now.
3. If you’re going to be in a car with 5 other people none of whom brought a tooth brush with them for the weekend, bring gum and be sure to share it.
4. It is always better to know where you are and what the situation is before acting. I’m extremely proud of myself for not blowing up this weekend. I could have let out my frustration and probably made a scene, but what good would it have done other than embarrass my host-dad and make me look like an ass?
5. Drinking is only fun when it’s done with friends and in moderation. When you are forced to drink large amounts of alcohol and forced to endure bad company for long periods of time in the name of “culture” drinking is not fun.

That’s it. I’m spent. Once again let me apologize to anyone who may have read this post and been offended by it. This post and the people who are mentioned in it are not meant to represent all Georgians nor all experiences in Georgia. This was just one American and one weekend in one place with one host that made for one of the worst New Year’s ever.

Another Wedding; Another Experience

2010-12-28T03:30:00.002-05:00

In case you haven’t been keeping up with the blog and don’t know how weddings in my Azeri village work, let me give you a little update. There are a thousand little traditions and steps that need to be taken over the two-night affair. The first night takes place at the girl’s house; the second at the guy’s. The girl’s family hosts the guy’s family and friends the first night and after much music playing, dancing and of course drinking, everyone goes home.

Last night in Muganlo was night two of my host-family’s cousin’s wedding. This guy is pretty cool and has always been a friend to me ever since I got there. So night two was at his house which is right next door to our house and of course I had to be there. And being as where I am considered one of the cousins and being a younger guy, I actually had a role to play in night two.
Here’s how it works. All the males get together at his house at about 3:30 or 4 o’clock in the afternoon and start drinking. Thankfully it’s not that much since everybody knows we have a long night ahead of us. This is what we do to keep ourselves occupied while all the women of the family set up for the huge feast that is to come. Sure, every now and then we move a table or a bench here to there and back again, but for the most part we don’t do too much. That is until 5 o’clock. At five we load up with one last shot and start the procession to the girl’s house to “take” her. This is all traditional at this point and all we’re doing is taking her back to his house for night two of feasting and then she stays there for good.

But, half the fun of this is the procession. It is led by two boys who each carry a sheep around their shoulders. Behind them come all the guy’s male friends and relatives dancing, clapping and yelling. Behind the males is the band consisting of a drummer, accordion player and clarinetist. After the band come the female members of the family carrying gifts for the girl from them as a welcoming to the family. After the women come the cars all honking and flashing their lights. In the front car is the groom, his best-man and either parents or siblings. The cars behind them rank by family status or friendship. For example, one of my host-brothers was driving the second car since he is a cousin and close friend of the groom and he was carrying in his car some older female members of the family who couldn’t make the walk. The other two host-brothers were out in front dancing and marching with me.

Now this dancing procession takes as long as it takes to get from the guy’s to the girl’s house. In last night’s case it was about 30 minutes. This wasn’t the first time I’ve been in one of these, but it was the first time that I’ve ever been in one that has to pass a house that is currently hosting a funeral. Normally the goal of a wedding procession is to make as much noise as possible to draw people out of their homes to see them and congratulate the family. But, as we rounded one corner the groom’s brother yelled out and told the band in not so polite terms to, “shut the hell up!” He then proceeded to run back and yell at the women and then the cars holding his hand in the air.

So, for the next “block” (we don’t really have blocks, but it’s what I would call a section of the street) we all walked in silence. As we passed the home where the funeral was taking place, all the men removed their hats, the women lowered the gifts and the cars turned off their lights. But, as soon as we got off that street, the brother lowered his hand and yelled “Dance!” “Music now!”

After we had a few songs in I noticed he ran up and berated the boys up front with the sheep for taking us down that street. But, none the worse for wear, we made it to the girl’s house. Her father comes out, opens the gate and then the brother of the groom kills the first sheep at the entrance. After the thing is dead, we all go in. Here we (the males and females) must dance some more in the courtyard as if to say ‘we’re here and we’re here to party then take your daughter.’

At this point, as is the case in every culture, we’re just waiting on the girl to get ready. The female members of the male’s family all go upstairs to help get her things together while the men stand around and drink anything that was left over from the night before. This last for about another 30-45 minutes before eventually the groom’s mother or aunt calls down for he and his best man to come and ‘take’ the girl. This is also the cue for the procession to form up again and get ready for the march back.

This time the numbers grow just a bit as we take on more cars for the girl’s close family and a few friends will also join the marchers. This time our leader (the groom’s brother) insists that we take a different route as to not go by the funeral. The boy whose job it is to carry the second sheep back is not too enthused with this as it will add an additional few minutes to the march. But the brother was obviously not moved by his complaints since the boy received a swift kick to the back-side for his whining.

The march back is the same as the one on the way there just more people and cars. But, once we get there the family has strung a giant red ribbon over the entrance blocking our way. The only way to get in is for the bride and groom to walk up to the ribbon and cut it as the new happy couple. But where is the knife you ask? Well it’s here! being used to cut the throat of the second sheep. Here you go brother, use this bloody knife to cut this ribbon. Hurray! goes the crowd.

Once the bride and groom walk in everyone else follows and finds their places at two long tables set up for the feast. Men at one table women at the other of course. Thankfully last night I found a seat next to my host-dad, uncle and one of the male teachers from my school. Once you sit down at one of these things, there is no switching seats so seat selection is key. By this point its near 8 o’clock and time for the feast to begin. The groom’s father makes the first toast welcoming everyone and appointing a toast-master or ‘Tamada.”

Really after this there are no real points of interest. Music plays, the Tamada makes a toast, everybody drinks. Well, everyone except the women of course. They’re out of there after about the 5th or 6th toast in order to clear the table for other guests and to prepare more food. After that it’s loud music, toast, and drink; repeat. There is a whole set of dancing rules and in which order which people dance, but I’ve yet to develop an interest in figuring that one out. I just go when my host-brothers go or when my host-dad tells me to go in his place. It’s not that interesting trust me. And, dancing here is easy. You just move around in a circle with the other people with your arms in the air flicking your wrists back and forth yelling “O-Paa!”

All of this goes on till well after midnight and I really have to hand it to my host-dad because even after these long nights he is up at 7 in the morning and on his way to work. I can’t say the same for my host-brothers since they were still asleep when I left at 9 this morning.

But, that was a brief glance at what it’s like to take part in a wedding in Muganlo. Sorry, no pictures for this since I didn’t take my camera. All the dancing and marching can sometimes get a little rough so I decided to leave it at home. Also, you never know when a cousin from the bride’s family might have a problem with a brother or cousin from the groom’s family and start a fight. I’ve seen plenty of those and been involved in more than one unfortunately. But, when my host-brother start fighting, I’m there with them. Luckily, last night was not one of those type nights. Apparently everybody was friendly and in the New Year’s spirit.

Hope you all have big plans for New Year’s Eve and stay safe out there. I hear its cold in America these days. So far so good here this winter and it hast gotten too bad… yet.

The week leading up to Christmas

2010-12-24T04:26:00.004-05:00

I’m getting the best gift for Christmas. No school until January 20th! I’m only bummed that my mom’s packages didn’t get here in time for me to have them for Christmas. I was hoping to have them so that I could give my host-family gifts on Christmas, and so I could have stuff to stuff my stocking with for Christmas morning. But, I got word this morning that they are hung up in customs and I probably won’t be able to get them until next week. No big deal, my family is Muslim, so they’d probably rather have them on New Year’s anyway. That’s the big holiday here and everyone decorates for it like its Christmas anyway.

This week was a fun one. I was not sick for the first time in about two and a half weeks and I decided to forego trying to teach my kids anything since half of them weren’t showing up for the last week of school and my counterparts were more interested in finally getting around to filling out the grade books in order to get the final semester grades in by Friday afternoon. So instead, I just played review games with them and on the last day tried to teach two of my groups Jingle Bells. More on that later.

This past Sunday was interesting. I came home from a weekend away to find that nobody was home. Not one of the 15 people living in my house for the past 3 weeks was there. Never in my 18 months of living there has this happened. So, I call the host-dad. My 15-year-old host-brother answers and said they were all visiting relatives in another village and to “jump” over the fence. Now this is no easy task since that fence is 9 feet tall. But, I managed even with an old lady who was herding her turkeys watching me with a look on her face that said, ‘Crazy American.’ After I climbed over I just hung out in my room for a few hours since the entire house except for the kitchen was locked up. Around 7:30 that evening the host-brother calls back and in broken English tells me, “Car don’t work. We be home late, you need eating. Go chicken and make. We home late.” Now only because I’ve lived with him for this long did I understand that I needed to go to the kitchen and make myself some food since they would be home later that evening.

Problem number one: I never go in the kitchen. That is my host-mom’s territory and she does not let people in there. So, I have no idea where anything is or even how to turn on the stove. Luckily, I’m not a complete moron and was able to figure out how to get the gas balloon to filter gas to the stove and get it lit. The problem was the only available options to me were: re-heat the boiled sheep, re-heat the eggs from that morning, re-heat some cow’s stomach or starve. I thought about skipping the meal altogether. Then, if the situation wasn’t funny enough already, Mom calls from America. While laughing it up with her on my current situation I found some oatmeal in one of the cabinets and opted to eat that. Thankfully, Mom was able to tell me the water to oatmeal ratio for a bowl of warm goodness. I had to eyeball it since there are no measuring cups, but it turned out ok. Mom and I chatted it up while I was waiting on the water to boil and till I made it back to my room and ate. And wouldn’t you know it, as soon as I finished my bowl of oatmeal, the host-family gets back. They were concerned that I hadn’t eaten, but I showed them that I had and all were satisfied even if my host-mom was slightly skeptical.

Also this week my family decided to bring back the mid-week shower. So on Wednesday we all got a hot shower and cleaned up. When I first got there last year we took showers every Sunday and Wednesday, but that stopped last winter and we were restricted to Sundays only. While I hate the once a week bath, I had forgotten how nice it is to get that mid-week shower and shave. It was awesome! However, I have my doubts as to whether this will continue in future weeks.
So overall the not being sick, having a night to myself and the mid-week shower combined to make this a pretty good week. Well we still have the visiting relative and the 15 people in the house, but whatever.

Like I said, I spent most of Monday through Thursday just playing games with my kids and making up grades with my counterparts. They are so lax about marking down grades during the semester so on the last week they all make this mad rush to calculate up the grades that I’ve written down in the grade books and add in some of their own to make the final score come out the way they want it. “Let’s give her a 10 because she’s a good girl and him an 8 because he’s good and for the kid that never comes, a 6.” They won’t let me fail anyone no matter if the kid hasn’t shown up at all or even bothered to make any effort. I washed my hands of that last year and now I just laugh at them and make sure that my favorite kids who do semi-consistent work get either 9s or 10s.

As a treat, like I said I played games with the kids who showed up and then took class photos. You’ll see in the pictures below my 5th and 6th grade classes. I didn’t bother with my 9th or 10th graders; none of them were there. I also had 15 minutes left in the semester to teach them Jingle Bells. You’ll watch a shortened version of two groups trying it out below. Not bad for just 15-20 minutes, but one group just couldn’t quite get it. I’m also glad that I don’t have classes on Fridays so I got to miss today New Year’s concert at school. Last year’s was a train wreck and nearly blew my eardrums and bored me to death at the same time. Another Christmas gift. No concert for me this year.

Well I’m off to watch some football games I’ve got downloaded and try and get some sleep tonight. This week despite the fun was not a good sleep week. Ugh. Why is 4 a.m. my brain’s preferred wake-up time? And then again at 4:30, 5:15, 5:35,… and so on till I have to get up at 7:30. Send drugs! I’ve had enough!

Never mind that. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year’s! I miss you all and hope to hear from you soon.

6G (well, most of them)

6A (half of them)

6B (the only ones that matter anyway)

5B (with my Azeri counter-part)

Rumble and Grumble

2010-12-13T04:13:00.001-05:00

Another week has begun and my head-cold is still here. Sniff sniff sniff. Can’t breathe; can’t sleep; the only positive is that I can’t really taste either. Too bad this week we actually had some chicken and beef rather than the usual boiled sheep. They were also just boiled, so no big loss on not being able to taste them. I am feeling a little better today and hopefully by the end of the week I’ll be back to normal.

The not sleeping part is the worst at this point. I’ll sleep for about 3 hours and then it’s awake for 30 minutes, sleep for 30 until my alarm goes off in the morning. Talk about some crazy dreams too. Wow. Last night I had a dream about sitting down and eating a BBQ sandwich and drinking sweet tea. And, not just any sandwich, it was one of those on the plain buns served on paper with the sauce dripping out the sides. And, the tea was in a styrofoam cup with that crushed ice that sinks the lemon somewhere into the middle of the cup. Yum! But, then I just woke up to a dry mouth and needed more water before lying awake for a while thinking about how much I want a BBQ sandwich. There have been a ton of other weird dreams too, but none worth retyping here.

This week in Muganlo is some kind of Shia Muslim holiday. Not exactly sure which one, but it’s an all week Southern Baptist style revival a couple of streets over from my house. To me it just sounds like an extended call to prayer that lasts from 6-9 p.m. every night. It has something to do with the prophet Ali and him killing some Sunni from what I gathered, but don’t quote me on that one. Not a big deal and only one of my host-brothers is going to it. My host-dad says he doesn’t feel like it because he would have to show up late after he gets home from work. I think my host-dad Sunni anyway, (at least that’s what he’s told me) so I’m not sure why my host-brother is going. I need to ask more questions about that later.

While all this was going on, I spent Sunday installing the pecha or wood-burning stove in my room. It’s supposed to turn really cold here this week, so I figured I had better get that thing out of the shed, clean it off, test the pipes for leaks and get it in my room. Last night it was so nice and warm in my room but then I remembered that for the next several months all of my clothes are going to smell like I’ve been camping. Great. But, I’d rather smell like a campfire and be warm than smell like I normally do and be cold.

There really is nothing else to report. Only two weeks of school to go till the Winter break and then another six months after that. I hope everyone is well and getting ready for Christmas.

Happy Holidays!

Rugby, turkey and other foot and ball based sports

2010-11-28T03:14:00.005-05:00

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving I know I did. This year was so much better than last year simply because I got to spend it in the company of my friends here in Georgia. My toast was, “When you can’t be with your family, friends are the next best thing.” I went a couple of towns over and spent a great evening with 4 other volunteers and had some good food and tequila! Yes, tequila. It was great, but like every tequila night, I ended up with a black eye. Not a big deal, but let’s just say it was entertaining.

So this week is Rivalry Week in college football and you know I can’t keep my two cents out of that. But, on Saturday the U.S. National Rugby Team (#15 in the world) came to Georgia to play the 16th ranked Georgian squad. A friend of mine got us tickets and so we went into a hostile stadium to cheer on the boys in blue. By the time we got in and sat down the US was down 6-0. Not a problem, they ended up taking a 17-12 second half lead into the final minute of the game. Then, on some kind of fumble and miscue, the Georgians were able to pick it up and score to win 19-17. The place went nuts! It was a really cool game and it was fun to watch. The US team missed four kicks though and it got me wondering, with a nation full of High School kickers, we couldn’t find one that could make a 25 yard field goal? Really?

One of my favorite parts was the translation from the female announcer. Whenever Georgia took the lead she was all excited and upbeat in her announcements. Whenever America went up she just sounded all dead pan and depressed. You’ll notice in the videos below.

Anyway, on to the real foot and ball based sport. College Football’s Rivalry Week! I’m not even going to break it down by games of the week, just show you some scores that I enjoyed.

#2 Auburn over #11 Alabama 28-27
Wow. Alabama was up big early and then Cam Newton despite all the controversy came back and played one hell of a game. But the real story was the often questioned Auburn defense that just shut down Alabama in the second half. What a game. Auburn should be able to cruse next week against South Carolina in the SEC Championship and right into the National Title Game.

#19 Nevada upsets #4 Boise State 34-31 in Overtime
Ahhh. BSU had to play a decent opponent on the road and lost. Anyone surprised by this? Not me. Now, there is no way they should have lost this game and I’m pretty sure their kicker will never be able to live safely in the state of Idaho, but no big loss there in my opinion. Missing two kicks that were virtual chip shots at the end of the game to lose it is bad bad bad. No BCS Bowl for you Boise State. Better luck next year.

Who loves the Boise State loss more? #7 Wisconsin who blew out Northwestern 70-23; #8 Ohio State who beat Michigan 37-7 or maybe #10 Michigan State who beat Penn State 28-22. Certainly not #9 Oklahoma State who lost to #13 Oklahoma 47-41. And Definitely not #5 LSU who got tripped up by #12 Arkansas 31-23.

The point I’m trying to make here is that with the #4 team dropping out the Big-10 has a huge play at grabbing 2 BCS spots. The Big-12 is on the outside looking in and the SEC now only has one major contender since LSU isn’t headed to a BCS Bowl this year. Good for #3 TCU though who beat New Mexico 66-17 and should be headed to a major BCS spot.

Other great rivalries that I think deserve a mention here are:
#16 Virginia Tech over Virginia 37-7 gaining their 10th straight win in the rivalry.
#17 Texas A&M over Texas 24-17. Normally I don’t care about this game because Texas normally wins, but this is their first losing season since 1997. Wow.
#18 South Carolina over Clemson 29-7. Thank God. Clemson fans suck and are so obnoxious and I’d rather hear the redneck fans of USC have bragging rights over the redneck fans of Clemson.
#20 Utah over BYU 17-16. Ahhh Mormons.
#22 Florida State over Florida 31-7. YES! Man I hate Florida and with the win FSU gets to go play for the ACC Championship.
Notre Dame over USC 20-16. It’s the Irish’s first win in the series since 2001 and USC can’t go to a bowl game due to their cheating past.
Georgia over Georgia Tech 42-34. Glory! Glory! to ol’ Georgia! I never thought they’d make bowl eligibility this year after they way they started but low and behold a win over hated GT and we’re in.

Oh football. I love you.
Peace everybody!

The Week in Review

2010-11-19T03:40:00.002-05:00

And what a week it was. I should stop being surprised by things, but its part of the reason I love being a Peace Corps Volunteer. Every day is different and you never know what’s going to happen until you get up and get to it.

This week was one of the three Bayrams of the year. This one was Eid al-Adha or Kurban Bayram. No, this is not the one where we get beaten with sticks and forced to dance in the street; that’s in Spring. This one is known as The Festival of Sacrifice and closely resembles our Thanksgiving in that families who can afford it buy a sheep, kill it and then give half the meat away to families who cannot afford one. They all sit down on the second day and have a feast and in general give thanks for what they have while trying to help those who have not. There is no drinking during this holiday; however families can eat whatever they like. Guess what they like… sheep.

So Monday was a normal school day since the holiday ran from Tuesday to Thursday. Our School Director told us that we could have one of the three days off from school so we actually voted and chose to be off on Tuesday. Not too bad since Monday and Tuesday are my busiest days and I had no problem with missing both my classes and after school classes on Tuesday.

I did run into one funny thing on the way home Monday though. It always strikes me as funny when someone in my village doesn’t know who I am. I was walking home and gave my traditional Salam to one of the old guys who sits on the side of the road everyday watching life go buy. But on Monday there was a guy there with him that I did not recognize. They both returned my Salam and then the conversation in Azeri went something like this:

“Who is that?”
“Oh, that’s the English teacher.”
“Where is he from?”
“He’s from America.”
“He lives here?”
“Yes. He lives with the Mammedovs down the road there.”
“Oh.”

And generally that’s where the conversation stops. Or, at least that’s as much of it that I hear since I’m still walking as they chat away. I guess since we have such a transient population of migrant workers that there are people that don’t know me, but I hear that conversation at least once a month. And, 99% of the time its positive, because all the old men know me and always see me walking to work and back chatting with kids and have seen me at weddings and holidays not being all drunk and stupid. Big respect for drinking and not being a drunk who doesn’t go to work I guess.

Tuesday like I said was a day off and I didn’t do too much since my host-dad went to work and it wasn’t all that warm out. However, I did discover Tuesday morning that we were out of water. Nothing like brushing your teeth outside from a bucket of water drawn from the well while its 40 degrees out. Good morning!

Wednesday it was back to school. The kids were having a soccer tournament all day so a lot of the boys weren’t in class. Not a big loss there. However, I did have a great moment when I got to my last class of the day and all the girls were there with one of the boys who wasn’t playing in the tournament. Their classmates were playing at the time and I asked them, “Do you want to have English class or go watch your friends and then go home?” They voted unanimously to have class! I was like, Hot Damn! I gave them the best lesson I could and made sure we played a game before class was over. Love it when stuff like that happens!

My high was knocked down a bit though when I got home and realized I was too late to help in the sheep slaughter. The thing was not only already dead, but Akif (Host-dad) had already hung it up, given half of it away and was about 75% of the way through cutting up all the meat. (Hence, no pictures with this post.) And, there was a policeman at our house! Now, I’ve lived in Muganlo for over a year and have never seen a cop in our village. Not one. They just don’t come up there. He and Akif were having a very serious talk and I had to sit down with them and have tea. They were speaking Georgian, so I had only half an idea of what they were talking about. Once he finally left, I asked Akif what the deal was. He said, “Our region has a new police chief and he’s sending cops around to check people’s gun registrations. All mine are registered so I let him look.” Um. Okay. I then asked about other people in the village. Akif had a laugh and then said,”Don’t worry, everyone knows he’s here and walking around. If they have guns without registration, they’ll either hide them or pretend they aren’t home or not be able to speak Georgian. He won’t find anything.”

I had to laugh about that. Yes, we all have guns. No, you won’t find them if we don’t want you to. Anyway, we had a good dinner that night of boiled sheep and potatoes. I don’t know why I thought our diet would change just because it was a holiday.

Thursday was just a normal day of class and we closed out the holiday with more boiled meat. The only thing that was really bothering me was that we were still out of water and sanitation was starting to worry me. Not only were we all washing our hands out of a bucket, I’m not too sure that everyone was doing that with any regularity. There was a sheep slaughter, food prepared, food served, dished dirtied, the usual stuff; all without any regular water source. This is nothing new. I would say that in any given month we go without water for at least one week consecutively, and a few random days here and there. But, for some reason this week it was on my mind more than usual. I guess it was all the blood all over the place on Wednesday. Oh well. Hopefully we’ll have water back by Sunday for bath night. If not… well let’s just say it’s not going to be good.

Have a great weekend everyone and I hope you all had a good Kurban Bayram whether you knew you were supposed to or not.

Friday November 12, 2010

2010-11-12T04:52:00.004-05:00

Another week down. Yep, it’s only Friday, but my week is over. I love not having class on Friday.

Today I’m off to visit my friend Ben for the night and probably make some good food and watch a football game that I have downloaded. Andrew, what is this post about anyway? Well, I’ll tell you. It is about my day yesterday. On we go…

The day started off ‘normal’ enough. I got up, had some coffee and rushed off to work. I had to answer a thousand questions once I got there about why I had decided not to attend a wedding the night before. I told them I fell asleep while reading a book, but the truth was, I just didn’t want to go. It was one of the teacher’s sons that was getting married. He’s a guy I’ve never met and I’ve only spoken to his mom a handful of times anyway. The only reason I was invited is because they love having a foreigner on video attending their weddings. Like some kind of trophy. No thank you.

All of my classes went surprisingly well and I finished up the day with my little 5th graders. Love those little buggers. So much energy. Too bad not all of it is directed at learning. During one of my class breaks one of the male teachers challenged my to a 3-game set of backgammon. He was talking trash too like he was going, “to teach me how to play.” I beat him 3-0 to the delight of the other two teachers who were watching.

I got stopped on my way home by a drunken uncle asking me to relay a message to my host-dad. The message was, “Let’s drink tonight.” I told my host-dad once he got home, but he laughed it off telling me, “Oh, he’s been drunk for 3 days now. Better to let him sleep it off.” Right.

Besides, my host-dad had a ‘special’ treat prepared. “We’re going to have a great dinner. Nana is in there cooking it now. Go wash up!” Now I never like when he uses the words exotic, special or delicacy. But, I had my hopes up since for the three previous days all we’ve had to eat is bread and a soup that lacked anything anyone would call a flavor. And no, oil is neither a flavor nor a member of any food group. I didn’t smell anything like sheep wafting out of the kitchen so I was doubly happy. Be careful what you wish for when you wish for variety!

What came out was this giant bowl of… something. Grease was the main component I could tell right off the bat but the rest took some investigating. “Wait! NANA! Bring the Cha-Cha!” my host-father screamed. “We need to have a lot of cha-cha for this delicacy.” There was one of those key words again. And cha-cha for those of you that haven’t read about it here before is the home-made vodka. So as we munched on some bread waiting to make the first cha-cha toast my host-dad explained what we were about to eat. “Potatoes, and goat! Very young goat. Very best. Here is all insides. Very good for your health. Very exotic.” Now that he had covered all the key words that translate to gross and we had taken our first shot, it was time to dig in.

Now I hate liver of any kind or source. The taste is bad and I can never wrap my mind around the fact that I’m eating the filter of the animal who was eating God knows what. So naturally I scoop a piece of that on my plate first. To tell you the truth it all looked the same so I wasn’t sure what I was getting at first. There were also pieces of lung, heart and intestine. Lung; chewy but not bad. Heart; not as chewy and pretty tasteless. Intestine; not that bad of a taste but again there is the idea of what its function was. Not that I could have enjoyed it all that much anyway. Everything was coated in grease and the cha-cha has a tendency to overpower everything else anyway. Plus that damned liver taste. Now, was this the worst thing I’ve ever eaten? No. Not by a long shot. But it was bad. Good thing host-dad was in the mood to put back 7 shots of the home brew and have me there with him every step of the way.

Needless to say, we had a few laughs and I made it through the meal without any problems then went off and slept like a rock. However, this morning’s trip to the outhouse was a particularly bad one. I was about the 6th person to drag my hangover in there this morning and everyone had eaten what I had eaten… well we’ll just leave you there.

This morning one of my aunts was on the marshrutka to the capital with me and berated me as soon as I got on. “You look too thin! Are you not eating at home? Do they not feed you? What will your mother say when she sees you? You need to eat more!” I was laughing my ass off because all I could see was goat and home-made vodka and I was thinking, ‘amazing I eat at all.’

Today, like I said I’m going to visit a friend and am in the capital for just a few hours to pick up some documents from the office, take a shower and then head out. Have a good weekend everyone! And, eat something exotic would you?

November Update

2010-11-08T07:00:00.002-05:00

I noticed that I haven’t been writing this blog the way that I’d like to and it’s time to recommit to doing some more writing about my time here in Georgia and posting some more creative stuff as well. Meaning, the college football blog may be no more for this year at least. I have a hard time getting Internet on the weekends a lot of the time and to tell you the truth, I think I already know how it’s all going to play out based off of what we’ve seen this year so far. So, let me get that out of the way first before I move on to an update on what’s going on here in Muganlo and with me in general.

The BCS standing this week are as follows:
1. Oregon .9638
2. Auburn .9611
3. TCU .9259
4. Boise State .8662
5. LSU .8170
6. Stanford .7454
7. Wisconsin .7349
8. Nebraska .7298
9. Ohio State .6613
10. Oklahoma State .6211

Oregon should run the table and play for the National Championship. Auburn will lose a game, either by being upset by Georgia this week (yeah right) at Alabama in two weeks, or in the SEC Championship Game. That will knock them out of the Championship Game because no way does TCU or Boise State get locked out of playing if both are undefeated. LSU or Auburn will go to the Sugar Bowl, while Stanford will go to the Rose Bowl (since Oregon will be in the big game) and play either Wisconsin or Ohio State. Nebraska will end up playing either TCU or Boise State while Oklahoma State will get the loser of the SEC Championship Game (South Carolina or Florida). That’s just how I see it happening and I could be way off, but I just don’t see keeping up with it till Championship weekend cause there are too many possible upsets in the 10-20th ranked teams and the top 10 should remain solid till the Championship Games are played.

Now on with the news of me. This past week was spent at a compound outside of Tbilisi for what Peace Corps calls an All-Volunteer conference. Meaning not only was my group there but also the new group (all the volunteers). It was a good couple of days and we learned a little, laughed a little and had some fun. I taught two classes (one on stress management and one on teaching to multi-level classes) both of which were highly rated by those in attendance. So, that was good. Glad that the other volunteers thought that what I had to say was useful.

I also took an exam in Russian to see how I’m progressing in that. I scored an Advanced Low. That may sound good, but to me it just means that I haven’t gotten any better since I got here. And, while it may be hard to move up once you get into the advanced category, I thought I should have done better. In fact, my examiner said that while my fluency and confidence was way up, my accent was down and I was making a few too many grammatical mistakes. Basically what she said was that I’ve been living in a rural village for over a year and I’m starting to sound like them. What does that mean you ask? It means I’m speaking Redneck Russian! Ugh! So, I spent what Internet time I had this week downloading Russian tapes and dialogues so that I can spend some time this winter listening to real Russians speaking Russian. I’m also going to commit to spending at least 3 hours a week going over grammar and new vocabulary so that I can try to erase 18 months of bad habits.

At the end of the conference we all had a nice Thanksgiving dinner. It was only November 5th, but it was the last time that we would all be together, so why not? The turkeys were great (provided by the Radisson Hotel Group) and a group of volunteers also got together to cook all the side dishes. They worked really hard and it was very appreciated by everyone. I did none of the cooking by the way to make sure I still had the energy to eat my fill of non-boiled sheep based foods.

We also got together every night and played games (flag football, baseball tossing, Frisbee, monopoly, cards and other games). Football was fun and it was nice to have enough people to actually play a decent game. I and a volunteer from the new group won at Monopoly one night so that was fun. I forgot how much trash talking you can do during board games. “Pay up B#@*H!”

After the conference a small group of us went out and played fast-pitch softball with the local Georgian school in Tbilisi. The girls (with our help) are getting a lot better after what was our 5th or 6th game with them. We still won 14-4, but they are getting better. I spent some time with their catcher working on her stance this week so that she can improve her throws and do a better job of blocking balls in the dirt. My friend Ben is working on a grant right now to try and get them some money to improve their field and so we can go for a few weeks in the late Spring to run a camp for them on the fundamentals of the game. That should be a lot of fun and good for the girls to take the next step.

Speaking of grants, I finished writing the grant for my school and we should be getting a little over $2,000 sometime in December. At that point I will be spending a lot of time working with a few teachers to overhaul one of our classrooms and outfit it with new windows, a door, bookshelves, desks, chairs, install a light, paint the walls, patch the roof… Yeah, it’s going to be a lot of work. But, the end result will be a better learning environment and a place where I can put all those books that I had sent over. My kids will love it and it’ll be a source of pride for the school.

Speaking of school… There are 7 more weeks till the Winter Break. This conference was the half way point of the semester and a much needed rest. I still feel motivated and ready to go every day, but I’m just having problems motivating my students. It’s so hard and they are so unwilling to do anything outside of class. A lot of that blame goes on their parents, but part of that is my job as their teacher. I’m trying, but man is it tough. For example, one of my 9th grade girls (a 14-year-old) just got engaged this past weekend. She will finish out this year and then stay home getting ready to start a family. Now how am I supposed to motivate her to do a damned thing?
She didn’t even bother bringing a pen to school today much less a notebook or a book. I tried the ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’ thing as an overall motivational tool but what 6th grader thinks that far ahead? They all want to be soccer players or police men. Hard to be a police man in Georgia when you don’t speak Georgian. I don’t know. Like I said my motivation is still high and it’s year two; the year when you make that push to turn the corner and make a difference in your community.

I doubt I’ll be taking a winter vacation since I need to get this classroom built and I don’t have enough money to take both a winter trip and one for my birthday in March. I think it would be better if I just stayed here, got this project completed and saved my money so I and take a killer trip in the spring. Our COS conference should be in mid-March so I can go to that and then just jet out of here for two weeks. Amsterdam is looking like my destination of choice at this point with Budapest in a close second. I’ll just have to wait and see.

Well that’s all that I can really think of to update you on right now. Hopefully I’ll be able to do more of this and spend less of my Internet time on football. Congrats to the Giants by the way for winning the World Series and GO FALCONS!!!

Peace!

Bye Week

2010-10-31T05:10:00.002-04:00

I'm taking a bye week to muorn the loss of hope in Athens, Georgia. What a great 4th quarter. What a heart-breaking OT loss.
The sun will come up tomorrow.

Week 8 Looked Great!

2010-10-24T05:13:00.003-04:00

While Week eight did in fact look great, I have to say that I had a bad taste in my mouth leading up to it. I sat and wondered why that was for the longest time and then remembered that Week Eight is the Return of the BCS Standings!!!. Duhn Duhn Da Naaaah! Let the complaining begin! Computers and computer nerds will now tell us who the number one team in the land is. This week’s winner: Oklahoma! Not Oregon… Oklahoma! Forget it. I’m not even going to spend the 10 pages I need to explain this.

Instead, I’ll say Happy Birthday to my Mom! Happy Birthday Ma’! While she is a much bigger NFL fan and probably only reads this because I write it, she does follow the college football blog loyally. Thanks mom.

Let’s get on with…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:
#11 Missouri over #1 Oklahoma 36-27
Oklahoma turned the ball over 3 times and gave up 16 points in the 4th quarter. Hope they enjoyed being the #1 team for a week. Their defense also gave up 486 total yards. Wow. Not that I thought Oklahoma should have been ranked number one this week, but I did think they had a better defense than that. Congrats to Missouri who now sits at 7-0 and in control of the Big-12. They should also get a big push from the computers this week and could be sitting in the top 5 come Sunday afternoon. But, next week is going to be a big test on the road at Nebraska.

#4 Auburn over #6 LSU 24-17
I’ll admit I laughed a few weeks ago when somebody said they thought Cam Newton was the front runner for the Heisman. I’m not laughing any more. He is leading Auburn in every category. This week he only passed for 86yds and 0TDs going 10 for 16. But, he ran the ball 28 times for 217 yards and 2TDs. Auburn is now 8-0 and the SEC’s last remaining undefeated team thanks to Mr. Newton and should be able to cruise to the Iron Bowl matchup against Alabama at the end of the year. LSU has a top 10 defense and lives by that defense. However, in this back and forth game they just had no answer for Newton and Auburn’s run game.

#13 Wisconsin over #15 Iowa 31-30
What a game! Fake puts, 8 lead changes, a final drive to win it and positioning for bowl games for both teams. Ohio State has the Big-10 under control for the moment, but both of these teams were looking to make a claim on Saturday night. Did you know that with the Badger’s win this series is now all tied up at 42-42-2? They’ve played each other 86 times and this was a great one to tie it all up. Man I wish I could have seen this game.

#16 Nebraska over #14 Oklahoma State 51-41
What happens when Oklahoma State’s offense meets Nebraska’s defense? A low scoring game right? Nooooo. Offense! Offense! Offense! See below for our player of the week from this game. Nebraska to me got two wins this week. One they erased the loss to Texas last week and two they beat another top 15 team to help them get back up in the rankings. They also showed that they are a much better team than they were last week by going on the road and taking care of business. The Huskers are now 6-1 and have a chance to take back the Big-12 next week when Missouri comes to town. I hope they win so they can have a shot at leaving the Big-12 as Champs.

DON’T CALL THEM UPSETS OF THE WEEK:
Unranked Iowa State over #19 Texas 28-21
Unranked Syracuse over #20 W. Virginia 19-14
Unranked Baylor over #22 Kansas State 47-42

Don’t call them upsets! Anybody could have seen these coming. Listen, I’m not even going to justify each of these losses with a comment. Only K State was playing on the road and not even in a “tough” environment at Baylor. Texas just got back into the rankings by beating Nebraska last week and now they just lay down for Iowa State? W. Virginia hasn’t looked all that great all year, so no surprise that a 4-2 Syracuse came in and beat them. The 20-25 spots in the rankings should be a revolving door from here on out.

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:
#2 Oregon over UCLA 60-13
The Ducks are ready to be the Nation’s #1 team. They should have been this week, (yes, I know they were the AP #1, but we have to live with the system we’re given by the almighty BCS) but they weren’t. Oregon is really tough at home and this week was no exception. Tons of yards (582 total/312 passing/270 rushing), a backup running all over the place while the starter got some rest (Alston Jr. 8 carries for 75yds and 3TDs) and a QB that is damn good (Thomas 22/31 for 308yds and 3TDs and 5 carries for 48yds); Oregon’s offense is scary! This week they travel to USC (the one in California) and hopefully we won’t see them as the next #1 team to get knocked off.
Honorable Mention to #10 Ohio State putting up a 49-0 score on visiting Purdue.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK:
Nebraska QB Taylor Martinez. If you’re talking about the Heisman, this guy has got to be in the conversation. This week he led Nebraska to a great win after losing last week by going 23 for 35 for 323yds and 5TDs. That’s right 5TDs! He also ran for 112yds on 19 carries. Remember, this guy is a FRESHMAN! He may be just a freshman, but he is impressive. And, while he may be in the conversation, he’s just a second place candidate at this point.

Just to take a quick look here at the 2 QBs I talked about this week and their numbers so far:

Cam Newton; QB Auburn, 6’6” 250lbs. Junior: Passing: 90/138 for 1,364yds and 13TDs with 5INTs. Rushing: 157 carries for 1,077yds and 14TDs with 0 fumbles.

Taylor Martinez; QB Nebraska; 6’1” 205lbs. Freshman: Passing: 66/111 for 1,046yds and 8TDs with 3INTs. Rushing: 100 carries for 870yds and 12TDs with 0 fumbles.

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:

Thankfully I didn’t buy that plane ticket to Vegas that I was talking about. Last week I picked Akron over W. Michigan as my pillow fight. The Western Michigan Broncos beat the Zips 56-10 driving Akron’s record this year to 0-8 overall and 0-4 in the MAC. Ouch. It must suck to be an Akron fan in these dark times.

This week I’m going to try and rebound like Nebraska and make a trip to the Patriot conference. I’m going with the Bucknell Bison (1-6, 1-1) to defend their house against the visiting Lafayette Leopards (1-6, 0-1). What is the Patriot conference you ask? Why it’s the power house that includes: Lehigh (5-2), Georgetown (3-5), Colgate (4-3, but they have clean teeth), Holy Cross (4-4 but leading the Nation in Hail Marys), Bucknell (1-6), Fordam (3-5) and Lafayette (1-6).

Thank you for reading. This is the end.

Week 7 Smack Down

2010-10-17T04:50:00.004-04:00

How many upsets can college football produce in two weeks? A lot. When is a bye week a good week? This week. Is Boise State poised to get more first place votes than Oregon or TCU? We shall see. This week showed off some parody in college football which to me is a good thing and this year’s spots in the National Championship game are still up for grabs. I think Oregon has the best chance but also has a tough schedule coming up and could be the next number one team to get knocked off. The SEC west is about to get crazy as 2 undefeated teams (AUB and LSU) and once beaten Alabama are about to go round robin. But we’ll get to that later.

GAME OF THE WEEK:
#7 Auburn over #12 Arkansas 65-43
I can’t remember the last time a score shocked me as much as this one. I thought Auburn had a chance to win especially playing at home, I knew both offenses were much improved and I knew this was going to be a good game, but I didn’t expect both defenses to part like the Red Sea. Wow. 1,036 total yards in the game! Auburn ran for 330yds and Arkansas threw for 428. Really this came down to Arkansas’ 3 turnovers 2 of which were INTs and Ryan Mallet isn’t looking like the Heisman candidate that he was earlier in the year. Auburn is now sitting at 7-0 on the year and could be poised to make a play for the SEC West crown.
There were a few others of note, but this week, like last week, is about the upsets.

UPSETS OF THE WEEK:
Unranked Texas stings #5 Nebraska 20-13
Nebraska had so much to play for in this game. Ranked #5, leaving the Big-12 after this year, revenge for last year’s Big-12 Championship Game loss… the list goes on. Statistically this game was close but Texas just jumped out to a first half 17-3 lead and just managed to hang on in the second half thanks to a lethargic Nebraska offense. This win probably won’t salvage Texas’ season, but it must feel good to stick it to Nebraska one more time.

#18 Wisconsin over #1 Ohio State 31-18
The Big-10 is now Wisconsin’s to lose or Michigan State’s to win right? This marks the second straight week that the number one team in the land has fallen. Oregon the new number one by default? I think so. Ohio State looked way overrated in this game even if Wisconsin is one of the toughest places to play in the Big-10, they should have put up a better performance than this one. Again, this game was fairly statistically even, but The Badgers just scored early and then again late in the game when OSU probably thought that they would just cruise to a victory. It’s hard to call this one an upset and I really think Wisconsin can now make a play for the Rose Bowl depending on Michigan State’s next few weeks.

Unranked Kentucky defends their house and takes out #10 South Carolina 31-28
This had trap game written all over it. USC took out #1 Bama a week ago and then had to go on the road to play a tough Kentucky team. UK is better than their record indicates and now the SEC East is just one big mess. Kentucky owned the second half of this game after trailing 28-10 at the break. Kentucky QB Mike Hartline threw 3 of his 4 TDs in the second half the last one coming with just 1:15 left to go.

Honorable Mention to: Unranked Mississippi State taking out #22 Florida 10-7 in The Swamp! Where are you Tim Tebow? Oh that’s right; in Denver. Florida is looking rough right now and has fallen to 4-3 on the year with all 3 losses coming in SEC play. Also thank you to unranked Hawaii for knocking off #19 Nevada and getting rid of a pesky fly in the BCS ointment.

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:
#3 Boise State over San Jose State 48-0
Blah Blah Blah. Please somebody schedule these guys so they’ll have to play a real opponent. I give them credit for playing VT and Oregon State this year, but they need to get out of the WAC.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK:
I’m giving this to Auburn’s Cameron Newton. The QB is 6’6” and 250lbs. and can run. Saturday he threw for 140yds going 10 for 14 with a TD. Not a big deal. But he ran for 3 TDs and 188yds on 25 attempts. This guy is huge and can move. Expect more from him in the coming weeks and if he keeps playing like this he could take Auburn a long way.

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:
Florida International over North Texas was my pick for this week and once again I was MONEY! Fla. Int. 34 N. Texas 10. I’m going to test the power of my picks and this blog this week and go to a MAC matchup. W. Michigan (2-4, 1-1) at Akron (0-7, 0-3). I’m picking Akron! Go Zips!

It’ll be a Brave new World

2010-10-14T04:36:00.005-04:00

Well the Bobby Cox era came to a close this week and I have to say that while I am sad to see him go, I’m not all that disappointed with the Brave’s finish this year despite them losing in the first round. It was a good year for the Braves all things considering. They spent the better part of the summer overachieving and in first place and they made it to the playoffs as the NL wildcard team when a lot of people wrote them off after the loss of Chipper Jones late in the year.

Freddie Gonzalez will take over as Braves manager come spring training and he’ll have a lot of tough questions to answer. Who will play 3B? Who is going to be in the outfield? Who is going to close games out of the bullpen? Where are the runs going to come from in the lineup?

Surprisingly, the Braves finished the year 13th in runs scored, 14th in batting average, 18th in slugging percentage, and 4th in on base percentage. At no point did they ever look like that kind of offense to me. While those numbers are in the middle of the pack, I never saw this year’s team as any kind of offensive power. The strength of this year’s team was obviously in its pitching. (3rd in ERA, 5th in WHIP,, and 7th in BAA). Tm Hudson was a stud all year long and D. Lowe was awesome down the stretch. It’s no wonder that out playoff series was the first in history to have all the games decided by one run.

Next year has more questions than answers right now. While the starting pitching should be improved with the return of JJ and Tommy Hanson entering his third year, the offense needs to be overhauled. Only Brian McCann put up solid numbers throughout the year. Martin Prado should return fully healthy but can he put up those kind of numbers again? Will Derrick Lee be playing first base? Will Jason Heyward get it together and perform at a consistent level all year long? Who knows?

I do think that the Braves can contend next year. But, they are going to need to pick up some offense in the market because I just don’t see chipper Jones coming back and even if he does, you know he’s only good for about 80-90 games.

But, all that can wait till Spring. For now, it’s time to say goodbye to Bobby Cox. He’s been with the Braves since I was a little kid and I’ll miss seeing him get thrown out of games. I had to look it up, but Russ Nixon was the manager in Atlanta before Cox. Who the hell is Russ Nixon? Anyway, Cox managed 4,508 games (he won over 2,500 of those) and led the Braves to 14 straight Division Titles and that one World Series Championship. He won manager of the year 3 times in the National League and once in the AL with Toronto.

One of my favorite Bobby Cox quotes about being thrown out of games was this one:
"I’m like, ‘What do I do?’ He said, ‘Go have a couple cold beers and get in the cold tub or something and relax. And then you’ll probably have to write a $500 check. Or you can do what I do, write a $10,000 one and tell them when it runs out, let me know'."

Here’s to you Bobby! Atlanta will miss you!

Week 6 Rivalry Relevancy

2010-10-10T06:53:00.002-04:00

Let me not delay this beyond the first sentence; yes, Alabama did lose to South Carolina. There are also too many important upsets to even include an upset section so, I’ll just have an expanded games of the week section.

This week however is about the relevancy of rivalries once again. Michigan v. Michigan State, Miami v. Florida State; neither of those games has been interesting since the late 90’s. This week however all four teams face each other ranked and looking to move up the rankings. The SEC put up some good matchups this week and the ACC is trying to sort out their conference as well. Kansas State tried to make a play for the top 25 by upsetting Nebraska but that didn’t work out and Penn State tried to salvage the start of their season but failed when Illinois came to town and laid a beating on them 33-13.

Let’s not delay; on with…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:
#19 South Carolina upsets #1 Alabama 35-21
Alabama had won 19 straight games coming into Saturday’s visit to Columbia and South Carolina had never beaten a #1 ranked team. Didn’t matter when Spurrier, Stephen Garcia (17/20 201yds 3TDs) and Lattimore (93yds and 2TDs.) decide to put in their best efforts. And it’s not like Alabama killed themselves in this game. Both teams had 1 turnover and really it was just a story of USC’s run defense shutting down Alabama’s run game. Alabama couldn’t have expected to win when they only rushed for 36yds. Is this the year that South Carolina turns the corner? They’ve already beaten Georgia, Florida isn’t looking all that good this year and their only loss is to Arkansas who is going to end up in the top 25. I wish I could have watched this one.

Unranked Oregon State upsets #9 Arizona 29-27
All this game really means to me is that Oregon is in the fast lane to the Rose Bowl. The PAC-10 has some parody now and it’s not just the So. Cal show. (unranked USC lost to #16 Stanford 37-35 this week) With Alabama’s loss Oregon should be ranked #2 this week. But I will give Oregon State some credit here for playing in a back and forth game on the road and winning by 2. This is also a good win for the boys in blue Boise St. because one of their wins is over the Beavers who will move up in the rankings this week as well.

#17 Michigan State over #18 Michigan 34-17
Denard Robinson is human after all. He threw three picks in this game and despite his 301 total yards and 2TDs, Michigan State collected a huge win in the return of their head coach to the sidelines. Sparty exposed Michigan’s defense raking up 536 total yards and scoring 24 unanswered points in the second and third quarters. MSU is now 6-0 for the first time since 1999 and, like South Carolina, is looking to take advantage of a conference down year and claim a conference title. I’m just glad this rivalry meant something this year and I hope that despite my hatred for Michigan, that both teams continue this for the next few years.

#23 Florida State over #13 Miami 45-17
Remember when I said that if Florida State got blown out by Oklahoma a few weeks ago that it might just send them on a downward spiral? Well I guess I was wrong; since then they’ve won 4 straight and outscored opponents 144-58. This is a huge win for this program on the rebound after that nasty business with Bowden and in Fisher’s first year. It doesn’t hurt that Ponder is now a Senior and is playing his best football since coming to FSU. He’s already thrown for over 1,000yds and 10TDs this year and has FSU with the best record in the ACC. Again, I’m happy to see this rivalry relevant again and like Michigan v. Michigan State I hope it continues for the next few years.

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:
Louisville over Memphis 56-0
Memphis on the right, Louisville’s numbers on the right. That’s all that needs to be said.
1st Downs 13 22
3rd down efficiency 3-16 6-11
4th down efficiency 0-0 0-0
Total Yards 223 574
Passing 184 275
Comp-Att 16-30 17-22
Yards per pass 6.1 12.5
Rushing 39 299
Rushing Attempts 34 34
Yards per rush 1.1 8.8
Penalties 6-38 4-26
Turnovers 1 0
Fumbles lost 0 0
Interceptions thrown 1 0
Possession 33:14 26:46

PLAYER OF THE WEEK:
Remember last week when I thought 62 pass attempts was good enough for player of the week? Well I’m going to make that claim again. Except this week I’m going to go with Taylor Potts from Texas Tech who threw just slightly less and went 42 for 59 for 462 yards and 4TDs with only one INT.

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:
I am ON FIRE!!! Last week I picked New Mexico State to beat New Mexico while both teams were winless. And… they did. New Mexico State collected their first win by beating New Mexico 16-14 on a 4th quarter field goal. This week we’re going back to the SunBelt for Florida International’s (1-4) visit to North Texas (1-5). I’m going to go against my instinct to pick the home squad and go with FIU to win.

That’s it kids. Sorry for the rushed version this week, but I have no power and am running on battery. Thank the good Lord that the Dawgs got a win this week over UT 41-14.

Week 5

2010-10-03T04:35:00.003-04:00

Yet another week and not too many surprising outcomes. You’ll have to excuse me if this post seems a little disjointed because I’m distracted by the fact that my Atlanta Braves are unable to win one game and make it into the playoffs. Tonight is the last night of the season so its win and you’re in time for the Braves. Hopefully tomorrow I wake up a happier man and see my team headed for the first round of the playoffs.

But as far as college football goes there were a few good games on the slate but not too many that proved to be very surprising. I think that this week was just one of those weeks where the games just needed to be played to make sure that the teams that were supposed to win did. Did that make sense? I told you I’m distracted by baseball.

Some interesting facts that I saw this week: with Notre Dame’s loss to Stanford last week, they have now not beaten a ranked team since 2006. And, there are now 5 undefeated teams in the Big-12 with K-State, Missouri and Oklahoma State still unranked among those undefeated teams. But, Texas is still ranked with now two losses. We’ll get to that in a minute.

In other news apparently my mother went to her first college football game in her life yesterday. She attended the Citadel vs. Western Carolina game. Too bad the boys from Charleston’s military college lost 24-13. Don’t worry mom, with better teams come better games. Maybe in the comments section we’ll get a full report on this one.
On with the…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:
Sorry SEC fans, Alabama cruising by Florida 31-6 doesn’t count as a game of the week.

#4 Oregon takes out #9 Stanford 52-31
Big big big win for Oregon. This maybe the PAC-10’s year to challenge the SEC as the nation’s top conference and Oregon looks to be the conference’s best contender. Stanford has a good squad this year and I expect that they will rebound from this nicely, but Oregon was expected to win, needed to win and did win. Having Oregon’s RB James run for 257yds and 3TDs doesn’t hurt either. The only drawback to this game was the 3 turnovers by each team. They can’t continue to do that.

#8 Oklahoma over #21 Texas 28-20
The Red River Whatever is always good even if Texas just dropped 14 spots in the rankings after last week’s loss. Do they drop out of the top 25 after this one? We shall see. Oklahoma didn’t look great and played sloppy ball, but came out with a win and really just avoided being this week’s big upset.

#24 Michigan State upsets #11 Wisconsin 34-24
This game doesn’t belong in the upset of the week because both teams came in undefeated and this was what a lot of the pundits had predicted anyway. Plus, I love to see Wisconsin lose when they’re overrated anyway. MSU has now quietly started the year 5-0 and has the emotional wave of their coach having had a heart attack but still coaching the team. Big effort from MSU’s QB Cousins who went an amazing 20 for 29 for 269yds and 3TDs and he’s also quietly putting together a nice start to this year. Too early to say he’s an early candidate? Hmmm… You heard it here first.

#12 LSU survives Tennessee 16-14
Tennessee had this game won. The clock struck zero with Tennessee ahead 14-9. Game over right? Nope. The Vols had 12 men on the field and gave LSU one more play at the one-yard-line. LSU had screwed up the snap on that play and Tennessee should have had one of their biggest road wins in the past 10 years. Instead they gave LSU one more chance and they took advantage of it. This game just goes to show that good teams capitalize on mistakes and bad teams just keep making them. But, weird ending aside, this was a great defensive battle and deserves to get one of this week’s nods. By the way, LSU is 5-0 for the second straight year and the third time in the last four seasons.

UPSET OF THE WEEK:
Unranked Washington (2-2) goes to So. Cal and takes out #18 USC 32-31
Like I said earlier, this maybe the PAC-10’s year. Washington looked bad in their two losses (especially their phenom QB Jake Locker, who I’ve made fun of on this blog before) and had many thinking they were not going to come close in this game. Others thought that USC was ranked that high on name alone, but still thought that they would have no problem with Washington at home. But, this ended up being the second straight year that Washington has upset USC and Jake Locker passed for 310yds, 1TD and rushed for 110yds in this one. Locker had a great game and the kicker did his job as time expired. A lot could be said about this game, but I’ll just say it was huge for both teams and for drastically different reasons.

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:
#3 Boise State over unranked New Mexico 59-0
The Lobos were involved in one of our pillow fights a few weeks back and lost to UNLV. So what happens when they play Boise State? They make another appearance on the blog in the beat down section. Boise State, like I said plays nobody the rest of the year and this is just the start of that. New Mexico managed just 208 total yards but still won the time of possession. If that’s any consolidation to them.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK:
I should give this to Michigan’s Robinson again with his 494 yards of total offense, 3 passing TDs, and 2 rushing TDs in a win over Indiana. Not too early to say this guy is the front runner for the Heisman. But, I’m going to switch and give it to Jerrod Johnson from Texas A&M even though his team lost and he threw 4INTs. Just hang with me for a second. His defense sucks and he had to throw the ball all over the field to receivers that had a lot of busted routs. He just kept throwing and kept trying to win. He went 40 for 62 for 409yds and 5TDs with those 4INTs. 62 pass attempts!!! Damn.

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:
I should go to Vegas and start picking these games because I’m on fire this year. Last week I picked LA Lafayette to beat North Texas and they did 28-27 in a great pillow fight.
This week I’m going to keep picking on New Mexico. It’s a classic MWC at WAC instate smack down as New Mexico (0-5) goes to New Mexico State (0-4) to settle the argument over which New Mexico team is the worst. And, I’m going to ride my hot hand and say New Mexico State wins it.

That’s it kids. I’m out of here to go pray that the Braves figure out a way to back into the playoffs.

Week 4 is no more

2010-09-26T03:57:00.004-04:00

Ooooo… Ahhh… Lots of that going on in week four. There were some juicy matchups and a few that didn’t disappoint. A Biiigg upset to get to this week and an actual “test” for Boise State. For the Georgia Bulldogs (who won’t get another mention in this blog after this) it was another disappointing weekend falling to 0-3 in the SEC thanks to the other Bulldogs from Mississippi State. First time in my life I’ve seen a Georgia team this bad. Ouch. But not a game of the week. I should mention #5 Oregon’s win over Arizona St. 42-31 but I don’t feel like it because Oregon should have won by more and needs a defense. Good weekend for the SEC as you shall see in this week’s…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:
#1 Alabama goes to #10 Arkansas and wins it 24-20
I don’t want to think that Alabama was shocked during the first half of this game being where as it was their first real road test against a quality opponent, but Arkansas jumped on them early and took a 17-7 lead into the half and was up 20-7 through most of the 3rd. The game was the story of Alabama’s Heisman Trophy winner Ingram and Arkansas QB Mallett though as both determined the outcome for their teams. I don’t want to go too stat heavy here but: Ryan Mallett vs. Alabama 1st Half / 2nd Half Comp pct 68.2 (15-22) / 62.5 (10-16) Yards 250 / 107 TD-Int 1-1 / 0-2 Score Led 17-7 / Lost 24-20. Whereas Mark Ingram gained 80 of his 157 rushing yards (on 24 carries for 2TDs) against Arkansas after a defender made contact with him. Two competitors went out and played. One wanted it more than the other and his team won the game. That simple. Alabama has Florida visiting next week for another top 10 matchup. Can’t call this a soft spot in the schedule.

#3 Boise State over #24 Oregon State 37-24
Boise needed a bigger win than this to justify that #3 ranking. Sorry to say, but they don’t play anybody else the rest of the year and Oregon State to me was their last ‘quality’ opponent this year. But, they did win the game and that has to count for something. And Kellen Moore is one of the better QBs in the nation so they have that going for them. He threw for 288 yards and 3 TDs in this one and made Oregon State’s defense just look bad. And, Oregon State was playing on the road and seemed to be playing catch up for the whole game. But, I still don’t believe in this Boise State team.

#17 Auburn over #12 South Carolina 35-27
When the number one SEC rushing offense (AUB) meets the SEC’s number one rushing defense (USC) what happens? Auburn rushes for 334 yards. South Carolina just looked way overrated in this game. I know they deserve to be in the top 25, but top 15? Not so much. They proved it with 4 turnovers ALL IN THE 4th QUARTER!!! Auburn QB Cameron Newton rushed for 176 yards and 3TDs and passed for 158 yards and 2 more touchdowns. Looks like Auburn had better protect him this year. By the way anyone else notice that Auburn may be a year early on their projection to make a run at the SEC West? They are 4-0 now with 2 of those coming in the conference already. I think this year’s Iron Bowl should be a good one.

#14 Arizona escapes unranked California 10-9
Down 9-3 with 1:15 left to play, your offense hasn’t scored all night, you’re at home for your conference opener and you’re ranked in the top 15 about to lose to an unranked Cal team. What do you do? Throw a TD pass and win it 10-9. Arizona has got to feel like they truly escaped from this one. Not only did they overcome 3 turnovers and a late push from Cal but Arizona more importantly stayed undefeated and alive in the PAC-10 race. Not the prettiest game of the week, but one of the better ones.

Honorable mention this week to #16 LSU taking out #22 West Virginia 20-14.

UPSET OF THE WEEK:
#7 Texas loses badly AT HOME to UNRANKED UCLA 34-12
Wow. Not since the 1997 game against this same UCLA program (UCLA 66 Texas 3) has Texas pulled such a crapper at home. The score should speak for itself, but the Bruins forced four first-half turnovers and chewed up the nation's #2 rushing defense with 264 yards on the ground. UCLA isn’t even that good. And, 7 of Texas’s points came in garbage time. What you wanna’ bet Texas stops scheduling UCLA as a non-conference opponent? I have no words for this one. Only; wow!

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:
#11 Wisconsin over Austin Peay 70-3
What the hell? Really. You needed to score 70? You scheduled the Austin Peay Governors from Clarksville, Tennessee? (Yes, even I had to look that one up, and here is what downtown Clarksville looks like; pictured left) I know teams schedule crappy opponents to get easy wins, but Austin Peay? At least Wisconsin stopped passing once they racked up 3 touchdowns on 272 yards. Too bad they also rushed for 346yds for SEVEN! more touchdowns.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK:
Whatever. This week should go to Terrelle Pryor of Ohio State who accounted for 348 total yards and six touchdowns in a 73-20 rout of Eastern Michigan (0-4 from the MAC) but that would be like giving a game ball to Mike Vick if he played the West Virginia School for the Blind. So, I’m not giving it to Pryor. Like Reggie Bush’s Heisman Trophy, this week’s award shall be vacated. Ouch.

PILLOWFIGHT OF THE WEEK:
Last week I went with UNLV to beat New Mexico in their MWC slap-fest. And boy did I pick a winner. UNLV won it 45-10. Way to go Rebels from a state that wasn’t in the CSA; but whatever. New Mexico is now 0-4.
This week we’re taking a trip back to the SunBelt Conference for (1-2) LA Lafayette’s visit to conference opponent (1-3) North Texas. I’m going to go out on a limb and pick the road team this week and say the Ragin’ Cajuns take out the Mean Green. Yes, those are their actual mascot names.

Have a great week college fans and I’ll try to be back next week with more sarcasm and fewer stats.

Back at it for another exciting year

2010-09-22T04:30:00.005-04:00

Well this past week marked the start of year two in Muganlo’s fabulous public school. We technically started back on the 15th but that day there were absolutely no classes and the morning was spent out in the yard giving out certificates to the “good” students from the past year. I had to laugh about that too because as you moved farther and farther up the classes towards the 12th grade, the certificates became fewer and fewer. I think by the time we got to the 8th grade the criteria probably dropped to ‘did the student stay awake for at least half the year last year?’

Anyway, this year’s start was a lot more organized than last year that’s for sure. Last year after they made all the announcements and rang the bell, there was a bum rush style stampede for the doors as all the students ran to their classes. This year, I was prepared with my camera to record the chaos, but our assistant director actually managed to stop the herd and make them go in one grade at a time. She’s a tough woman and nobody is going to mess with her. See video below.

Like I said, there were no classes the first day since of course the schedule wasn’t written out yet. In fact today is one week into school and the schedule still hasn’t been finished. Our assistant director is taking it one day at a time, which means everyone has to show up for the first lesson to see if you actually have classes that day or not. For example on Tuesday I went in at 8:45am to find out that I didn’t have a class till around 11am. Oh well, such is school in Muganlo. I’m pretty sure this year I’m going to have Wednesdays off as I told my assistant director that I would not be the only one this year teaching all five days. Every teacher at my school has at least one day off every week and I’m doing my best to try and get the middle of the week off.

So far so good on my classes though. Despite the fact that my school has reduced rather than expand our English program and my director decided not to give me a room to use as an English cabinet, I’m finding some things to focus on. For example all three of my 6th grade groups whom I taught in 5th grade last year are doing just fine to start the year. One of the groups got split into two separate groups so they are a lot easier to handle and I got to be involved in splitting the groups (actually I stepped in and did it myself rather than having their home-teacher who knows nothing about their English ability do it). The other two groups seem to have some decent knowledge retention from last year. However, two of my star students from last year seemed to have fallen back to the pack and can’t even answer the simplest of questions. It’s really weird too. What is your name? My names she is Anvar. What?

Whatever, the school year has started and now it’s time to take it one day at a time and watch one lesson plan after another blow up in my face either due to lack of students, lack of teachers, random school cancelations or just lack of execution. But that’s why I like it. You never know what’s going to happen from one day to the next.

In other news, I am over my illness. For the two weeks leading up to school I was suffering from some food-born amebas that I picked up from somewhere. Fun times when you live with an outhouse. But, I was able to spend two nights in Tbilisi for the worst of it so I had showers, toilets and some peace and quiet. I was just happy that I recovered in time for school to start. Also, I had my teeth cleaned and my mid-service physical earlier this month. All is well and I am still in overall good health. Teeth cleaning here wasn’t as bad as it was in Kazakhstan, but it was interesting. Can’t wait to get home and have them properly cleaned.

Also, in celebration of the new school year… My family bought me a pig! That’s right; the Muslims bought me a pig. This is how it went down between me and my host-dad:
Me – Wait, that’s a pig.
Akif – Yeah a guy at my work has some and he gave me one, so I’m giving it to you.
Me – Can you eat it?
Akif – You want to eat it?
Me – Um yes.
Akif – You don’t want to keep it?
Me – No. I want to eat it.
Akif – Ok. I know a guy who can kill it and cook it for you. I can’t do that.
Me – But I can’t eat that thing by myself. I could try believe me, but I don’t think I could eat the whole thing.
Akif – We’ll help you eat it.
Me – You sure about that?
Akif – Oh yeah. Just don’t tell anybody around here.
Me – Ok. You bring back a cooked pig and I’ll be here ready to eat.

The next night, Akif sure enough shows up at around 7pm with this entire baby size pig cooked up. We’re talkin’ whole hog here. That skin was golden brown and delicious. And, in an effort to make the sacrifice to whatever, we cut the head off and with the feet, arranged them on a separate plate not to be eaten. I was cool with that. Head and feet are never some of my favorites. While I had some concerns for my family’s eternal damnation over their dietary slip, they were quickly washed away by the warm and greasy meat sliding from my hands into my mouth. Mmmm…

So that has been me these last few weeks. From amebas to good health and a teeth cleaning to school starting to pig picking. I know, it would sound strange anywhere but here.

Week 3 was Weak

2010-09-19T05:47:00.005-04:00

Yeah so week 3 didn’t look that exciting on paper and it really didn’t disappoint on the field either. There were just too many predictable outcomes and too many lopsided matchups. There were a few games that I thought would turn out to be close but other than our upcoming games of the week there wasn’t much to excite the college fan on Saturday. I thought TCU 45 – Baylor 10 would be better, Nebraska 56 – Washington 21 would be better, and no, just predictable outcomes with large point margins. In fact the only game that was a lot closer than it should have been was Michigan 42 – UMass 37. Michigan almost landed in this week’s upsets. Close.

GAMES OF THE WEEK:
#16 Auburn over Clemson 27-24 in Overtime
This was one of the few games I thought would be a good one this week and it didn’t disappoint. Clemson looked athletic and very fast to start this game and found themselves with a 17-0 lead early. But Auburn’s defense proved their toughness and had a ton of hard hitting tackles throughout the game. OT was interesting with neither team converting a TD but Auburn making a field goal and then watching Clemson miss their 31-yd attempt to lose. So the question is, did Auburn win or Clemson lose this game? I want to side with Auburn just based on their defense, but that’s a close call.

#7 Oklahoma over Air Force 27-24
This was a lot closer than I thought it would be. Tied up 10-10 in the 3rd quarter The Sooners pulled this one out after converting a crucial 3rd down on the last drive after AF pulled within 3. Oklahoma should be a little worried about their defense after giving up 458 yards of total offense with 351 of those coming from Air Force’s running game. Also, going 7-15 on 3rd downs is not all that great for an Oklahoma team that typically moves the ball well and can put together some long drives. A good win for Oklahoma though.

#11 Wisconsin over Arizona State 20-19
The Badgers of Wisconsin got a scare this week at home and it took a fabulous play to block an extra point to pull out the win. This game gave credence to the phrase ‘The all important extra point.’ Arizona’s line let a 5’9” safety get through the line and end their hope of an upset on the road. The game as a whole was good, but the ending here saved this one and maybe Wisconsin’s season.

#12 Arkansas over Georgia 31-24
Georgia did everything they could to try a pull an upset in Athens on Saturday. Well, everything except play pass defense. Granted Arkansas’ Ryan Mallett is one of the top QBs in the country but two of his touchdowns went to receivers that were wide open and he ended up passing for 380yds and 3TDs yesterday. Georgia while showing some guts this week (as opposed to last week) just doesn’t have enough offensive firepower without AJ Green to be a threat this year. But, all it would have taken for a win would have been a catch on the last play of the game. Georgia literally came within a finger tip of catching that Hail Mary pass and pulling out this upset. Well that and like I said pass defense.

UPSET OF THE WEEK:
#24 Arizona over #9 Iowa 34-27
I was not drinking the early season Kool-Aid on Iowa. I mean its Iowa. But they are good and this was sure to be a tough road test for them early in the season. That it was. Arizona played some good defense and Iowa just made too many mistakes. Missed extra points, interceptions, that just can’t happen when you’re playing a quality opponent and you’re supposed to be a top-ten team. This game really was just Arizona jumping on Iowa early and then playing good defense at the end to win it.

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:
#5 Oregon over Portland State 69-0
Ouch. Not only is Portland not a state but a city in Oregon, they also gave up 668 yards to the Ducks from Oregon. A real state. What can be said about this game that hasn’t already been said about Afghanistan? It was that bad.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK:
So last week I kind of snubbed Denard Robinson from Michigan and went with Bryce Beall instead. But this week he was the reason Michigan avoided the upset and pulled out a win. Robinson rushed for 258 yards on 28 carries and passed for 244yds for one touchdown. He had a better performance last week against Notre Dame and he should have been the player of the week. So cheers to you Denard! I still hate Michigan though.

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:
My pick was LA-Monroe at Arkansas State. And your winner is… Arkansas State 34-20 over LA-Monroe in an early SunBelt Conference matchup. Ask yourself; are Arkansas and Louisiana in the actual geographic Sun Belt? Just a thought.
This week I’m going to go with New Mexico (0-3) going to UNLV (0-3) in a MWC pillow fight of the ages. I think I’ll pick the home squad and go with UNLV. Who knows though. I had forgotten the MWC even existed any more.

That’s it college football fans. Week three is in the books and thank God for that. Week four promises a lot more quality games and I’m looking forward to it and your comments on this blog.