Actually the biggest sports news around here is Penn State’s upset of #6 Illinois on Saturday night. I went to the game Wednesday night against Michigan, which was a closer match-up than it should have been. I imagine I will be going to more games after this weekend’s performance. I spent my weekend at the theaters seeing Something New and Captoe, both very worthwhile. I think Phillip Seymore Hoffman should be getting an Oscar for his performance. Speaking of which, I am planning to put together my belated Best Films of 2005 list and Oscar picks soon when I get a chance. Also, I got tricked into watching Grey’s Anatomy after seeing the commercials – only to be left with a cliffhanger. It confirmed most of my worst suspicions about the show, including the fact that it couldn’t take Scrubs in a fight.

My real reason for writing tonight was just to get back to blogging again. I have been really slow about posting, though the posts I have written have gotten a lot of attention. It’s nice to take time and write a good post once in a while, but lately I have just only been doing long rants which don’t really reflect what I am thinking. So starting tomorrow I will go back to posting at least once a day, something I did when I started this blog. I am also pleased with the way I styled this post, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I do even more first person writing. Anyway, more posts are on the way in the future.

“There’s some tough — there’s so many people gravitating to these kids. He may not have even known what he was getting into, Nicholson. They knock on the door; somebody may knock on the door; a cute girl knocks on the door. What do you do?

Geez. I hope — thank God they don’t knock on my door because I’d refer them to a couple of other rooms

But that’s too bad. You hate to see that. I really do. You like to see a kid end up his football career. He’s a heck of a football player, by the way; he’s a really good football player. And it’s just too bad.”

This is murky water for anyone to get into, but I am going to play devil’s advocate here. While these comments appear to be insensitive on paper, I am pretty sure that was not his intent. I got the impression that Joe is just frustrated about the problems college football attracts and lamenting these situations in general. If it didn’t come out entirely PC, well that’s because he’s a 70-year-old guy and he doesn’t care what people think. He wouldn’t resign anyway, but I don’t think this situation warrants it. Still, Joe should apologize and let everyone move on.

What interests me is the evolution of this media mess. These comments came out of a January 2nd press conference, yet it took almost a week for NOW and the media to get onto this story. It seems to indicate to me that this wasn’t news on January 2nd and I wonder how it got to be this way. Centre Daily Times’ writer Walt Moody says today the quote wasn’t taken out of context. He said, “You could feel the room cringe,” when Paterno spoke.

Interestingly enough though, cringing doesn’t make noise, so its hard to tell whether Moody’s observation is true. Based on this video of the quote in a local news report all we can hear is Paterno’s words – and about a dozen writers laughing at his comments. Perhaps sportswriters are also insensitive about sexual assault? Don’t expect that to be making the headline of your local paper anytime soon.

Just as a disclaimer, I like Paterno a lot and that is why I wrote this. I am not endorsing Paterno’s comments – they were wrong. I just think they are also a bit misunderstood.

Since we were traveling on a budget and were late in planning our trip, we bought tickets to Miami from Dulles airport in Washington, with a stop in Atlanta. My mom drove us to our cousins’ house in Maryland and visited, while my uncle took us to Dulles. That part actually went pretty well. Uncle Joe travels a lot and was helpful in telling us what to expect and where to go. We got our tickets and got through security rather easily.

Unfortunately there was no rush. We arrived around noon and our 3:30 flight had been delayed until 5:30. Apparently everything in Atlanta got shut down. So we basically sat around listening to music and reading in Terminal B of Dulles. While on our flight, we were kind of nervous about whether we would miss our connecting flight due to the delay. No worries, though, because that had been delayed almost 2 hours as well. Unlike Dulles which had been quiet, Atlanta was a madhouse of people waiting for delayed flights and such. I got dinner while we waited for our second flight at the worst Burger King ever. We didn’t arrive in Miami until 1am.

We got a decent night’s sleep before starting our one day in Miami. We took a shuttle to Miami Beach and that was fun. The ride took us kind of around the city so I got a brief taste of the city. Miami seems to be characterized by small, colorful homes and big, expensive cars. The beach was fun, until we went back to catch our shuttle. Through some snafu the shuttle that was supposed to run until 3 stopped at 1:30. We were stuck with bunch of other Penn Staters waiting until the tour people told us to just get a taxi and they would reimburse us.

We got changed at the hotel and boarded our bus to the game at 4pm, which we thought was a little early for an 8pm game. It turned out there was good reason to – the normally 20 minute ride took 2 1/2 hours. We reckon that Miami’s citizens must buy nice cars since they spend most of the their life waiting in traffic. I suspect that our bus ride was longer than the others, since the driver decided to go on I-95 during rush hour. The game was fun until a missed kick led to what became a triple-overtime. This is probably dramatic for television viewers, but very stressful for fans who sunk a lot of cash into a game to see their team win. Fortunately that did happen, though the game did not end till 2:30.

The return flight ended up being most interesting. We flew from Miami to Orlando to Philadelphia. We had a nice 2 hour layover in Orlando, which I thought would allow time for a little lunch. No such luck. The way the airport is laid out we had to come out of the terminal, go to a crowded check-in desk to get our new boarding passes, and go through security. I was certain at this point that there must be no civil engineers in the state of Florida. We arrived just as they were boarding the flight. It turned out everyone was tied up in the same mess though, so we waited 20 minutes for the rest of the passengers. Everything went pretty smoothly from there fortunately.

I learned some lessons about travel. First of all, you get what you pay for and sometimes a little less. We booked cheap flights and therefore ran into some problems. I would probably avoid connecting flights if at all possible in the future. While these inconveniences were a hassle, they didn’t ruin the trip. I think the whole thing will be a memorable experience I’ll have the rest of my life.

I have a lot to say about my whirlwind trip, but I won’t get to it all now. Bottom line: Good trip and worth the trouble. I am going to focus on the positives tonight and talk about the problems and lessons learned later. Pat, Chris, and I arrived in Miami after midnight on Tuesday due to delays. In the morning we met with Jenna, Jess, Rob, and Cat and got breakfast in the hotel restaurant. It was a nice buffet, though the place was very empty. Afterwords we picked up our game tickets and got ready to go to the beach.

We took a shuttle from the hotel (which was by the airport) to Miami Beach. It was nice because the short drive seemed to cut through the town and give us an idea of what the city is like. Palm trees are everywhere and every building is pastel colored. It seems like there were patches of downtown mixed with residential areas throughout the city. It’s a neat city and very different from what I am used to. They let us off a block away from the beach in a pretty high-class shopping district. The weather was nice and the water was relatively warm, comparable to June in Ocean City, NJ. Except it was January. We figured it must be a cold day for Florida because we saw more Penn State fans out on the beach than Florida State fans.

We got lunch at Johnny Rockets, which is supposed to be a fifties-style hamburger shop, though I don’t think the open air street café really reflected that time period well. It was a good lunch and ended up being the last real meal I got on the trip. Some beach bums walked by making some comment about tourists, which kind of ticked me off a bit given they’re just rich and lazy.We got back to the hotel by taxi after some shuttle difficulties. We quickly got changed and boarded a bus to take us to Dolphins Stadium.

Even football stadiums have to have a lot of color in Miami, which set Dolphins Stadium apart from the multi-sport stadiums I have seen in the past. We were in a corner, but our seats were in Row 9, which meant we were really close to the field. The bowl games run longer than typical college games since there a lot of entertainment and stuff added in. There are also lots of commercial breaks that break up the action. Sharing the stadium with thousands of Florida State fans made the experience very different from my past experiences in Beaver Stadium.

I won’t recap the game too much, since you can find out about that elsewhere. Basically it was a good defensive football game, which digressed into a bizarre triple-overtime game. It made things very dramatic and very stressful. Fortunately we came out on top. I was glad Kevin Kelly was able to win it for them at the end, as redemption for his previous misses. Austin Scott also came out of nowhere to have a great game. I hope Posluszny will make a full and quick recovery.

The long game meant we didn’t get back to the hotel until early this morning. We had early flights which meant little sleep for us. I was happy to finally get home at 1pm today. I enjoyed the day in Miami a lot but the travel experience not so much. I’ll have more details later. You can see my pictures here on Flickr, I spent a couple hours updating a couple months worth of photos. That’s all for tonight. Go Longhorns!

I am a little nervous about committing so much money to this trip, but I think I would have been more disappointed if I hadn’t gone. It’s a chance to be a participant, rather than a mere television viewer. Anyhow, hopefully my finances will take care of themselves soon. So see you in Miami on Jan. 3!

Notre Dame is BCS worthy this year, but I am still a little unsure of why 9 wins gives them an automatic bid. I bet LSU or Virginia Tech would have liked that. Did I mention Notre Dame gets $1 million a year from the BCS even if they aren’t in a game? I am rooting hard for Ohio State to show the Irish what a real BCS conference team looks like. I won’t even waste my breath on pondering why the Big East is still in the BCS.

So I am working hard trying to organize a group of friends to go to Miami. Penn State has this stupid bracelet thing going on that means we only get a chance at tickets. And I will have to do that Thursday morning at 8, when I have a presentation at 9:45. Hopefully this will work out. If you have Orange Bowl tickets you would like to sell, be sure to contact me.

I don’t have a lot more to say about this other than congratulations to Joe Paterno and his team for not giving up. Obviously everyone thought this program was through last year and that is certainly not the case. Now we’re on top and Big Ten champions again.

They’re having a rally for the team when they fly back in and I’ll probably check that out. All in all, great day in Happy Valley.

This win is even more special for my dad since Strath Haven has not been a strong as they were in past years. Last year they missed the playoffs and this year they didn’t win the Central League. But they are District 1 AAA Champions and they’ll move into the state playoffs. Here’s a little piece from the always praiseful John Lohn:

Behind a 21-3 victory over Unionville, Strath Haven notched its ninth District One Class AAA title in the past 10 years and its 10th since 1993. More, the Panthers performance handed Clancy his 227th triumph, making the 51 year-old the winningest coach in Delaware County history. He moved one victory ahead of the legendary Joe McNicholas of Ridley.

By earning his milestone triumph, Clancy linked three decades of players, athletes who dressed under his watch at Archbishop Carroll (1982-90) and the players he’s guided at Strath Haven since his 1991 arrived.

“This one was for us, but was more for Coach Clancy,� said Steve Johnson, who spearheaded a stellar defensive effort from his linebacker position. “We all knew about this accomplishment. He’s a guy who goes out there every day and works so hard. He deserves this big time.�

Clancy, in accordance with his me-last demeanor, saw the win over Unionville in a vastly different light. It was about a group of teenagers pulling together and completing a journey to the top of Class AAA heap in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

Interestingly enough another coaching legend, Berwick’s George Curry, announced his retirement. He has coached for 35 years and has 387 wins. So my dad has plenty of football ahead of him. Anyway, just wanted to say congratulations Dad. I’m really proud of you.

To: Safra Catz; From: Larry
Safra: I’ve been thinking about our CFO situation since Maffei left, and I believe I have a solution. I think we should hire the former Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens for the position. Don’t get your back up; it makes sense for a lot of reasons. First, Owens is available right now, due to an unfortunate misunderstanding with his employer. Owens represents the Oracle mind-set in many ways: He’s an independent thinker, an aggressive go-getter, a win-at-any-cost player. Software and football have a lot in common: You have to have a quarterback (me), a strong running back (you), a receiver to pass to (Phillips), and linemen to block and run interference (you know, those other people). As CFO, Owens could be a ringer, in more ways than one. I suppose he doesn’t know much about corporate finance, but he can learn on the job. I have a feeling Owens and I have much in common, and I think we’ll get along very well. Besides, if we hire him now, I can hold onto him until I finally get my NFL franchise. Do you want to contact him, or do you want me to? Thanks. Let me know what he says.

I think hiring T.O. would be corporate cancer for Oracle. I hope they feel comfortable renegotiating his contract on a monthly basis. I assume this is just a joke, but the truth is T.O. might want to start looking at his options. I think he’s going to have a hard time finding good work in the National Football League.