Wednesday Thoughts...

--Some serious props are in order for my great friend B, who officially received her doctorate in Physical Therapy this week. Welcome to the three degree club-- although I have a hunch that yours are more practical than mine. :) In any event, I couldn't be prouder of you, Dr. S!! Brava!

-- Hootie and the Blowfish actually have a new song out. On the radio!! I know, you'd think that the BK commercial would have dashed any hopes of a comeback, but apparently, they're still releasing new tunes. Good for Hootie, I guess. BTW, in the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I did in fact attend a Hootie concert up at Breslin w/ Jen & K in early college or late high school. (Yes, I am hanging my head in shame...)

-- After watching the season premiere of "Desperate Housewives" with my mom the other night, I can officially say I have no idea what the fuss is about that show. It's poorly written, over-acted, and boring. Maybe you have to be desperate or a housewife to get it? Not sure, but it and its "stars" have definitely worn out its welcome as far as I'm concerned.

-- In Supreme Court news, I read today that it has grated cerrorari (ie. it has agreed to hear the case) in Anna Nicole Smith's appeal of her husband's will. Apparently, poor Anna Nicole was left out of her hubby's will and trust, and (in her view) should inherit close to $89 Million dollars. Too bad the appeal is based on the boring "lack of jurisdiction" theory... it'd be a much funnier case if it involved her testimony.

-- This was the first week I had a loss in the FFL that was not due to my own poor coaching decisions, but rather to some lackluster performances by almost all of my team (except Shaun Alexander). I suppose the fact that Brian had 3 players that scored over 20 points didn't help me either. As I decided the other night, apparently, I'm the new Roger.... with only AC to keep me company in the 0-3 club. Keep your fingers crossed that my team, "More Cowbell" can put together something this weekend or I might consider just packing it in this season.

-- A Belated Birthday shot-out to one of my oldest friends, Sv (Literally!!). Here's hoping that turning 30 makes you feel 28 again. :) Looking forward to your birthday celebration on Friday!

-- Song of the Day: Pictures of You- The Cure.

--ry

The only football-related thing I can say today...

This is the email I sent to Michigan AD, Bill Martin this morning... I'll let you know if I get a response.
-------------------
Dear Mr. Martin,
I am writing to express my dismay at the recent turn of events with respect to our football program.

As a recent alumna of the University, this is my first year as a season ticket holder. Last year, I paid to have two tickets transferred into my name, and also purchased four new sets of season tickets. All total, I spent close to$3,500 on my Michigan tickets for this season, which is not an insignificant amount of money to a young professional such as myself. However, Michigan and Michigan football mean a great deal to me, and I was willing to do whatever it took to make sure my friends and I were in the Big House on Saturdays, cheering on our team.

Going into this season, in addition to renewing my season tickets and paying the PSLs for those seats, I had plans to donate more money to the athletic department, in the hopes of improving the location of my four season tickets. However, given the state of our program, I no longer have any desire to do so unless there are some serious changes made.

Additionally, in past years, along with my friends, I enjoyed attending at leastone away game per season. We viewed it not only as an opportunity to see some great football and but also to represent Michigan fans in the best light possible, even in hostile environments like the Horseshoe and Spartan Stadium. We've also attended the Rose Bowl, and considered going to several other Bowl games. However, given our recent lackluster and dismal performances on the road, we have decided not to attend an away game or a bowl game, until we know that our money and time will not be spent in vein. A simple look at Michigan's record in road-openers in the last eight years (1-7) should illustrate this point clearly.

While I appreciate what Coach Carr has done for our program and respect him as an individual, I am saddened to say that I think it is time for some wholesale changes in our coaching staff. This is our opportunity to stop the downward spiral that our team has been in for several years. If the Athletic Department acts quickly and swiftly, it can prevent us from hitting the kind of rock bottom that many major programs have experienced over the years. A program like Michigan is too important to college football and too worthy of having to endure that kind of embarrassment. We owe it to the generations of Michigan football fans and players to carry on the Michigan tradition of excellence.

More than anything, our team is missing a "killer instinct;" that "Michigan attitude" that makes us all proud to be Wolverines. Our team plays flat, especially on the road, a problem which, I believe, comes from the top down. I urge you to take a hard look at programs like USC and Florida for a fine example of teams who play hard, produce results, and also look like they're enjoying themselves out on the field. Games are actually fun for their fans and team, not just something they merely get through until the following week. Those teams and their coaches show the kind of spark that Michigan football teams and coaches haven't shown in more years than I can remember.

I still consider Michigan the best school in the country. We should expect nothing less of our football team. I appreciate your time and consideration.
Respectfully,
r

So. Freakin. Tired.

Okay, so I only got about 4 hours of sleep last night, which is about the least amount of sleep I've gotten in an extremely long time!! Currently, I'm about to either 1) Get loopy and start giggling for no apparent reason, 2) Fall asleep at my desk, or 3) Some combination of the two. Why was I up so early, you ask? My good friend P went into labor last night, so I (being a crazy person) volunteered to stay with their other 2 kids while she and her husband went to the hospital. No biggie, right? I get over to their house about 4:30 this moring, and after going over all of the schedule highlights and all of the "Sam's diapers are over here" and "Hannah gets hot lunch" info, it was about 5. They left for the hospital, and I was just about to lie down and go to sleep when Hannah came in the room and informed me that she "wasn't even a little tired" and asked if she could watch TV. Being that she's almost 11, I figured it was cool and just told her to come get me if she needed anything. I had just closed my eyes (it was about 5:15) and the dog started flipping out and barking, which in turn woke up Sam. If you've never heard a kid wake up screaming through a baby moniter, I don't recommend it. In fact, try to avoid it if possible. We got through the morning, and I got the kids off to school/daycare, but not without a little crying (Sam, not me), some PBS kids, numerous requests for candy and gum (denied), some clever lawyering to convince Hannah that 7:15 is not the appropriate time to be practing her piano recital piece, and driving a mini-van. (My rant on mini-vans is best saved for another time, but be assured that it's not my first choice of a mode of transportation... I felt like such a "mom").

Some other thoughts--

- Apparently, there's this new thing called "baby sign language" that parents teach kids before they can actually speak. I couldn't figure it out at first because while we were eating breakfast, Sam kept pointing to his palm. After a while, I'm like, "What is he doing?" and Hannah goes, "Oh, that means 'more'." Cool. A one year old baby is smarter than I am. Awesome.

- I put iTunes on random shuffle this AM when I got to work and guess what was the first song to pop up? "Who Needs Sleep" by Barenaked Ladies. Great. Now, iTunes is mocking me.

Going to try to get some work done now... I hope you are all more rested than I am. :)

-ry

Playing Favorites

I got this as an email and I figured I'd post it here because I'm too lazy to think of a more interesting post... :)

- Movie: This is almost impossible to answer, so I'll give you a few faves: "Swingers," "A Few Good Men," "The Usual Suspects," "When Harry Met Sally," "Hoop Dreams," "Dead Poets Society"

- Reality TV Show: "Extreme Makeover- Home Edition," "America's Next Top Model," "Laguna Beach."

- Childhood TV Show: "The Cosby Show," "Family Ties," "The Wonder Years." Honorable mention to my other favorite 80's show "The Golden Girls," even though I wasn't really a kid when I started watching it.

- Love Song: "Let's Stay Together"- Al Green, "Someone Like You"- Van Morrison, "The Scientist,"- Coldplay.

- Book: The Great Gatsby, A Separate Peace. As a kid, The Secret Garden.

- News Source: Guess it depends on what kind of news we're talkin about... if it's "What did Jennifer Garner wear to the Emmys?" then probably E! or IMDB. It's it's Michigan sports related, MGoBlog. For real news, I'd say MSNBC (sorry, Jen... If I got ABC/Channel 13, that would be my answer).

- Government Leader: President Clinton. Not even a contest there. I'm proud that he was the first (and only, if you want to get techincal) President that I ever voted for.

- Car: Anything other than the '97 Chevy Cavalier... Seriously, I like the Jaguar S-Type or XK or if I lived in a different climate, the Ford Thunderbird convertable.

- Sport to Watch: This is sort of like making "Sophie's Choice," but I have to say college football...

- Board Game: Trivial Pursuit. I also have a feeling I would like Risk, but because of the "Risk Incident" from a couple of years ago I'll never know for sure. Thanks a lot, Jess. ;)

- Soft Drink: Vernors, Cherry Coke.

- Item of Clothing: My red plaid shirt that I've had since HS... I never wear it anymore, but I still have it in the closet, also the blue Michigan t-shirt I bought in 7th grade. It's still my lucky shirt and I wore it to the Bar Exam!!

- City: Boston, Madrid, Fripp Island, SC; Empire, MI.

- Fruit: cherries, strawberries

- Time of Year: Fall... leaves crunching under your feet, crisp weather, apple orchards, football... what could be better?

- Candy Bar: Butterfinger, regular Twix.

- Time of Day: Late night... that is when I don't have to get up for work the next day.

- Breakfast food: French toast or hash browns.

- Cocktail: Vodka & Cranberry or the VVV (vanila vodka & Vernors)

More soon...
-ry

(In)sincerest apology...

The following is an email I (along with thousands of other FFL owners, I assume) received last night from the Senior VP of ESPN (My notes are in italics):

Dear Ryan,
I want to let you know that everyone at ESPN.com shares your frustration with the early season technical problems with our Fantasy Football application. [Translation: We are tired of getting complaint emails so we decided to sack up and admit to all of you that we know we suck.] I appreciate very much that you have chosen to play Fantasy Football with us and we value our relationship with you - fan to fan.

I want to apologize to you for the problems we've had and assure you that we are doing everything in our power to solve them and provide an experience that the best, most passionate sports fans on the Web deserve. Our aim is to have our Fantasy Football application operating normally for this Sunday's games. [Thanks, ESPN, I'm sure I won't need to check up on my team before the games on Sunday... oh , wait, I will...awesome. Thanks again. That means I'll be playing "Father Time" Farve as my starting QB again...]

Ryan, again we appreciate that you are playing Fantasy Football with us and we will do everything possible to make this a terrific experience for you this season. [The only way the experience will be "terrific" is if I win, so can you get to work on that?]

Sincerely, John Kosner Senior Vice President and General Manager
--
I like how he uses your name the second time, just to ensure that you understand that the apology is heart-felt and meant only for you. ;)

More later... lots to do on my first day back.
-ry

Sick and Tired... Tired and Sick...

Since I'm home sick today, so I'm back by popular (uh, I mean, T-Diddy's) demand... A few quick hits before I fall back to sleep...

- I've been taking it for a few days now, and I can't tell if Tylenol Cold actually works. Any suggestions on a better cold/flu medicine?

- Any chance that President Bartlet's administration from "The West Wing" could pick the new supreme court justices instead of "President" Bush's?

- I had cinnimon toast for breakfast today for the first time in years. Good stuff.

- My 87 year old grandma has decided that she NEEDS a cell phone. This is coming from the woman who can barely work her VCR! I guess she's worried that she might need a phone on the 1/2 mile jaunt to the beauty shop or the 2 block ride to the grocery store. ;)

- Not mentioning any sporting events that may or may not have happened over the weekend. All I'll say is that life would be easier if I weren't a Michigan fan, or if I'd gone with my gut and taken Matt Hasslebeck and Willie Parker off my fantasy bench...

Back to the couch...
-ry

Fire Up! It's Saturday (almost)!

Hey Guys-

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. Things have been kinda busy at work (ie. had to do some research prior to the fantasy football draft last weekend)... Some thoughts:

1. The in-person, live fantasy football draft is a fantastic. I don't ever want to participate in an auto-draft again!! Even though things got a little stressful there for a while when some un-invited guests dropped by to our AOL Buddy Chat (Jen- you did a great job getting rid of them!) and we had to sort through the treatise written by an owner who couldn't be there in person, it was great. (For the record, in the future, I think that people who are completely in-communicado during the draft should not be able to submit instructions like "I would prefer..." or "Use your judgment..." it makes it just too damn hard to figure out who to draft for them, especially when you're competiting with them...) I know that the guys in the real NFL war-rooms would have been jealous of the draft board I made and our supply of homemade chex mix!

2. Am I the only Michigan football fan who is more cautious than cautiously optimistic going into this season? It's not that I forsee a terrible season or anything, I'm just tired of going into the year like, "We're going to go undefeated!!," so that the first "loss-to-a-crappy-team-who-has-no-business-beating-us-but-because-we-don't-play-defense-they-made-us-look-like-high-schoolers" is a real punch in the gut. Here's hoping that Jim Herrmann either gets his head out of his ass or that our defensive players play well, despite his less than average play calling.

3. How excited am I that my A-Train jersey can now also be a Mister Simpson jersey? Seriously, that must be one of the cooler football names...

4. Apparently, the Michigan "dance team" is having auditions in a couple of weeks. YES!!! On the website they say: "Because this is a sport, each member is not only expected to be a dancer, but an athlete as well." Uh, I didn't realize that looking kind of slutty and completely disinterested with sports was actually a sport. Also, I liked this comment on their site: "Remember, we’re always willing to do different performances too, so don’t hesitate to ask!" Do you think "sit down and shut up" would qualify as a "performance"? If so, I'm going to email in my request...

5. We stopped by MMB practice the other night and they looked and sounded pretty good. Gotta respect Jamie for bringing out the 80's classic songs like "Summer of '69"

-- Song of the Day: "Don't Lie"- Black Eyed Peas. Watch it though- that catchy beat will get in your head all day. Trust me.

- ry