OFFTOP 08/31/10: Fall Days

I’m really excited to go watch the game at a viewing party this weekend. I love viewing parties, you feel “at home” once a week with a group of strangers who instantly become your best friends.

1. I have only ever attended a handful of college sporting events, even when I was in college. Almost none of them were memorable – none of them were bad, just nothing really special.

2. Don’t really have one of these, either – I never cared for school much so “back to school” conjures up mostly vague dread and annoyance.

3. When I was 13, my friends and I were bike racing down the hill on which we lived. I heard a car coming behind me, so I turned my head to look over my right shoulder and see where the car was, and in doing so I veered my bike into a curb. I flew over the curb, hit my head on a stop sign, and pretty much landed on my left wrist. Thankfully, due to the stop sign collision, I remember none of this – my first memory is being in the ER with my arm in traction, and having the doctor say “This is going to hurt” before he grabbed my arm and twisted the two bones that had swapped places back into place. The worst part, though, was that this particular injury happened on almost the first day of summer vacation, and there was a new neighborhood swimming pool that had just opened that I was really looking forward to spending all summer in.

4. I like fall in Portland, actually – Portland falls are very similar to Seattle summers, warmish during the day and cool at night. I also like fall in the Bay area.

1) I have attended two college sporting events. I took my nephew to a Husky basketball game, and thought I’d lost him when he decided it would be HI-larious to leave the men’s room by the other exit and sneak up on me. They won. I was once taken to a Husky football game. They lost.

2) Getting a plaid bookbag just like the one in my favorite book. Hey, I was 7, it was important.

3) Broke my finger tripping over a crack in the sidewalk. It is still bent. I did get a swell stitches/scar on my knee in first grade when I tripped on my shoelaces onto the asphalt, but it has faded so much, it hardly counts.

4) I still want to do the fall drive around the NE. The desire to go to hot places tends to hit me more around December/January.

-I do not have any good memories attending college sports because I am a Husky fan and most of the games that I’ve managed to see in person thus far took place in Pullman. Since every game that I have been to the team that I was rooting for has lost I will instead steal teej’s memory and say my favorite moment was the 2002 Apple Cup.

-These don’t exist for people that didn’t go to real college

-When I broke my elbow in a race around the world

-Qwest Field

1. I don’t think I’ve ever attended a college sporting event. At least that I can recall.

2. Back in the fifth grade, I spent the entire summer delivering papers so I could buy a pair of Reebok Pumps (the Dee Brown black/orange ones) and a pair of khaki Z Cavariccis to impress a girl that I liked. Come to find out she moved over the summer and was attending another elementary school. I was crushed. I remember feeling like I wasted the entire summer. I still looked good, though.

3. Tried jumping off a 4-foot brick wall with my bike, landed awkwardly on the front time and took the end of the handlebar right into my side leaving a huge bruise for about a month and a scar I have to this day.

4. Here in New England.

- I don’t have one. Never actually attended a major universities sporting event.

- I hated going back to school. I was always a nervous wreck the first few days.

- Going after a loose ball in a basketball game. Getting shoved in the back thus stepping on the ball while someone else was diving for it. Then landing on the side of my foot with all my pressure and tearing most of the ligaments in my ankle. (Luckily not the big ones)

- Anywhere in the NW next to water during a windstorm.

I tore my MCL laying out for a frisbee two years ago.

When I was 5 Fuzz and I were hitting golfballs in to the cornfield behind our house and I walked behind him and got hit with the golf club. On my eye socket. It resulted in 27 stitches and a concussion.

When I was seven I fell out of bed and cut open my elbow resulting in 17 stitches and a chipped bone.

I received a concussion from a friend slamming my girlfriend and I’s heads together when I was 16.

1.) The last college sporting event I attended was an Evergreen basketball game the year they were ranked #1 in NAIA Division II. I used to go to a lot of Memphis football and baseball games when I was a kid. None of them were particularly memorable. I guess I’d say my favorite was the year the Memphis baseball team all signed my hat.

2.) There’s no such thing as a good “first day back at school.”

3.) When I was 13 I was at Olympia ArtsWalk playing in the fountain downtown. I went running out of the fountain and onto the grass, slid about ten feet and caught my foot in a hole in the ground. Snapped my ankle right across the growth plate. That’s why one of my feet is almost a full size bigger than the other. I still went to watch Sleater-Kinney play that night, which in retrospect was still awesome.

4.) Somewhere where it is not raining.

I remember going to a WSU-Stanford basketball game when Stanford was undefeated and ranked #1 with 2 games left in the season and we were still bottomfeeders in the Pac-10. We led by something like 6 points with maybe :30 left. Led the whole game. Ready to rush the court for the first time in my life.
Lost.

I remember going to a WSU-UCLA football game when UCLA was ranked 13th or so and we dominated them in the first half. People were chanting “Overrated” as UCLA went into the locker room at halftime. My and my buddy were saying “You guys (the ones chanting) are idiots because it is only half time, I dont care how much we lead by”
Lost that one too.

I went to Wazzu for 3 years and probably attended a dozen football games and a dozen basketball games and can’t recall any “good” memories like I can the bad ones.

I like it because I came from a place without seasons. Especially the first few weeks of fall before it rains all the time and knocks all the leaves off into a mush on the ground.

I’ve never broken a bone or torn a ligament. Although I have almost died at least three times, so I’ve got that going for me.

but the best has to be my sophomore year of college in the fall of 1991 when we decided to go watch the Huskies play at USC. Beno Bryant ripped off a 50 yard touchdown run and we pounded those sorry Trojans. It was so much fun seeing those kids mope around campus after the game.

I am not sure I even have a back to school memory at this point.

Worst injury was easily my motorcycle accident when a 19 year old kid pulled out of a restaurant parking lot and froze up when he saw me at the last minute. He stopped his Bronco sideways across my lane and all I could do was ricochet off of the side of his SUV. I did not walk for five weeks after that accident. No broken bones, but damage to my knee and everything below it.

I don’t usually go anywhere in the fall. I save up my vacation for late winter when I am sick and tired of 5 months of gray.

I was thinking about starting up a semi-regular board/card game night with some Seattle area LLers. I’ve already converted a few to Bang!, and I’ve got Guillotine and Fluxx as well. And I’ve really been meaning to play Settlers of Catan.

Is anyone else interested in climbing to the top of Mount Nerdulon with your fellow LLers?

How did all of you survive adolescence? I’ve broken/injured/damaged a number of fingers and toes from doing many years of Martial Arts, but I’ve never injured anything else very seriously.

After saying this, I feel an irresistible urge to feverishly knock on wood.

1. Still being in college at UW, I have been waiting for college football to start. In my fan lifetime, there has been nothing better than the upset against USC last year. I could watch the last four minutes of the game over and over.

2. There’s no such thing as a good back to school memory.

3. When I was in little league, we had just finished practice and I was walking towards the chain link fence to my dad. When I got there, instead of walking around, I decided to toss my baseball bat over the fence to my dad. As it was flying, it caught the top and fell back towards me, end over end, and smashed me in the head. I wasn’t out for too long but that thing hurt for a while.

4. Call me a homer, but Seattle in Fall is fantastic. Thursday night Thanksgiving dinner with family, followed by the parade downtown all bundled up and drinking hot chocolate, and then Husky football on Saturday with the Seahawks on Sunday. Sign me up.

Crunkcore. Seriously? Mixing crunk and screamo? Is this a joke?

Sadly, no, it is not.

I hadn’t had one in forever but they put 2 of them in Lunchables now I guess. I am this close to buying an entire pack now.

I love it. I want to hug it. I dream about it all summer long. The clothes, the produce (the soup!), rainy days, foliage color explosions. I love it all.

- I don’t go to a big sports school, but my school is famous for squash (we’ve won 12 consecutive NCAA national championships and 224 consecutive matches). Last year I attended a match for the first time. It was really something trying to fit what seemed like 500 people behind one squash court.
- I have lots.
- I was a catcher in high school. In the the last game of my junior year season, I leaped to catch a throw, however the runner that was attempting to score trucked me right as I landed and I hyperextended my knee. I tore a ligament in my knee and thus was the end of my baseball playing career.
- I live in Princeton, New Jersey which is really quite scenic in the fall and winter.

But I must admit that fall annoys me a bit. What’s wrong with autumn?

http://mancationnation.com/

Thanks for the Rogue recommendation. I went the Rogue Public House in Newport this weekend and it was awesome. Their Hazelnut Brown Nectar is my new favorite beer of ever.

1. The run of 12 straight Humanitarian Bowls I went to with my Dad. From the inaugural one in 1997 until 2008 we went every single time, often watching teams neither of us cared about, often in bad weather. It was a great bonding experience.

2. First day of college. That was exciting- it was like an entirely new burrito- new life, new state, new place. Turned out well.

3. I was spring skiing in 2000 and was on an ungroomed run as the snow was starting to melt. Those of you who ski know that spring skiing and ungroomed runs aren’t the best combination. I fell and broke my tibia right in half. That was fun.

4. Lebanon, Kansas. Fall is highway driving season and that’s the geographic center of the lower 48. I have yet to spend more than 10 minutes there in the fall, however. Alternatively, McCall Idaho. All the tourists are gone and the weather is nice and you can finally enjoy the lake and the mountains without having to do it with 30,000 other people

I have a better fall. You know those grated bridges / stairs that look like giant cheese shredders? Well I was running full speed on one only to trip and fall completely ripping open both hands and knees. I still have the scares on my hands.

http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/

This is awesome!

http://myexwifesweddingdress.com/

1. [College sports memories] We’ll see when I accumulate at least one.

2. [Back to School memory] When I was entering Kindergarten, when I discovered some clever boy or girl had left an Easter egg in my Ghostbuster backpack around the time I left England, and that it had gone undiscovered for several months! That was a sulfurous day.

3. [Injury] Beyond a broken toe or two, I’ve never gotten injured a lot.

4. [Fall places] St. Edward’s Park on the eastside isn’t bad. Fall in New York isn’t bad either what with the park and all. I have not been, but on driving through in the summer, I imagine parts of Vermont are gorgeous.

Started out with an alley-oop to Heytvelt and the place was deafening. Blew the Huskies out. It was great.

Too bad UW backed out of the yearly match-up because they were sick of losing. Oh wait…I mean “they wanted to an opponent with a higher national profile.” Right.

Playing flag football on bad astroturf, I was sprinting at full speed going for a deep pass, and tripped over some other kid’s outstretched leg. I skidded and rolled no less than 15 yards, and was wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.

I swear I had rug burn over 50% of my body when that was done. My skin felt like swiss cheese.

Never been to a college sporting event

I don’t have a back to school memory, but today was supposed to be my son’s first day of 1st grade but the principal called at 7:30 last night and told us that he was un-enrolled due to some bullshit that I won’t bore anybody here with, so today was spent getting him enrolled into a different school so he gets to start tomorrow instead of today, meaning he gets to be the weird new kid tomorrow at a school full of kids he’s never seen before

I’ve had a lot of knee and ankle sprains. The knee ones were bad enough in my younger years that I am now convinced that my knees are made of wood. If I crouch down I need to grab something to pull myself up, which is awesome when you’re 25. Also, I broke my toe at footbaLL around last Christmas

As I said, I love the fall. It’s raining today and looks and feels (presumably, haven’t left the house yet) like fall today! Yippee!

Groz still wants Dusty Baker as a managerial candidate in Seattle.

Hmm I have quite a few in no order:

1. Being at the Cal game my freshman year when we blew out Cal (2001)
2. Being at the Notre Dame game even though we lost that year, simply because HOLY FUCK I WAS ON THE FIELD AT NOTRE DAME
3. Watching as we beat ucla at the coliseum that same year
4. The USC UW game in 2005 on my birthday with my dad (Reggie was awesome in this one)
5. The Fresno St Reggie Bush 500 yard game.

There’s some others in there but those are the ones that immediately stand out.

Why would you do this at the end of a season?