Week 14 - Legends

I think it might be my goal to use the word of the week in as many different contexts as possible. It's been one of those kind of weeks, where nothing ever happens as planned. Not a bunch of huge ups and downs, but definitely some serious variety.

Urban Meyer in a UWeekly Cartoon last year. The man lived up to everything expected of him this year.

For starters, let's hit up Thanksgiving. My wife and I got to share some big exciting news with the family this past week and each took it in their own way - but all just about as predicted. I burned a bunch of calories by running a 5 mile race in my PB 47:43. I know, that's not super fast, but I had gas left in the tank at the end and later rocked it up at family football while everyone else was groaning.

The day after Thanksgiving, a guy tried to peel out of the stop sign by our house, hit a wet spot, broke into a spin and went airborne off of the neighbor's driveway. I was the first person there, and my neighbor on the other side was second. Long story short, when you get in a single car wreck, it's apparently always a safe bet to claim you saw a deer. I hadn't witnessed the actually accident but only heard the peel, brakes and saw the mid-air spinning, so I wasn't a reliable witness to prove he was lying.

At my in-laws, there was a surprise in the brew that I've been holding my breath about for a long time. My mother-in-law was 1 of 7 and all of them came into town for Thanksgiving, one of which nobody else knew about. This made for an absolutely chaotic Thanksgiving meal during which I never actually ate dinner. By the time the "meal" was ready, I was full on crackers, cheese, beer, wine (everyone loved the pear wine and mead we had made), and these amazing mushrooms covered in sausage and cheese. Great food, but we left before the true meal. Betsy was run ragged by the kids and eventually hid under the porch, from whence the family got the impression she was stuck and convinced her of this same fact. Picture a dozen people all crowded around the deck trying to dig out a dog that is convinced by the urgency in their voices she must escape now or forever be trapped. Truly a pathetic scene on the dog's face, and the family was equally feared for her survival. Needless to say that she was super wiped out by the end of the day, and even the next day was absolutely exhausted.

Betsy eating while lying on the floor on Friday. She was so exhausted.

Occasionally I see a movie worth recommending, but before I do so, I should warn you about a few things. My idea of a good movie is one that leads you on an emotional rollercoaster complete with high thrill downhill moments, a few corkscrews in the plot along the way (I hate predictable movies), and tunnels of despair. For example, I know the movie is nothing like the book, but I thought Atonement was a huge accomplishment, even though it took me days to recover from it. No Country for Old Men was also a great book, but I'm ok with the occasional happy ending, too. Sometimes peace is the happier ending, regardless of what happens to the main character. So my movie recommendation of this week is "Legends of Fall". This movie stars Brad Pitt among others, in another crazy, wildman type of role with brute strength, killer instincts and unkempt hair. Typical. But the movie is an epic journey through the trials of a family - something I thought was a stupid description on the info box, but completely accurate. Watch it, and you won't regret it.

Speaking of Legends, Rutgers and Maryland are proposed to enter the already weak B1G conference, bumping Illinois over to the bad bracket. My alma mater did luckily qualify for a bowl game this past weekend as they capped what is hopefully their most disappointing season ever. I don't think the fan base will recover for a while. However, over in the other division, 3rd place Wisconsin suffered their 3rd straight OT loss, this time to PSU, and yet they will still travel to Indy next week. PSU's head coach had some fun things to say after the game, I think he was trying to express how hard his boys had worked and how proud he was of their dedication. But I couldn't get beyond the fact that ESPN missed a big-time bleepable moment.

The game of the week is always OSU vs. scUM. Students jumped into Mirror Lake as always, despite the canceling of classes earlier before Thanksgiving and the recommendations against the action by the university administration. Traditions will not be stopped. I wondered how the new football coach here at OSU would react to the rivalry, but it would seem that Urban Meyer has a good grasp on the situation, based on his statement at the Earle Bruce Michigan week event. As a Spartan, it felt good to sit in the stands and feel the mutual hate for a university known for being a bunch of rich, pretentious, self-entitled snobs. Of course, both schools hate scUM for different reasons, but the end-game is the same. Beat the $#!t out of Michigan!

And beat them we did. Great game, exciting to the ending and a great victory to send the seniors out with, even though they couldn't go the BCS games. Having Tressel and the 2002 boys back for recognition made the entire game that much bigger. Nostalgia can be such a rush.

For the lesson of the week, I refer you to the PSA being passed around on Facebook (using a sweet new insert video option on Blogger.com). Remember, these are what not to do... I'm off to make sure these kinds of accidents don't happen in our lab.