TGIF!

It's Friday afternoon! For me, this usually means - two days that I don't have to get up way to early or go to work. Being unemployed means that those two days aren't all that different for me than the rest of the week. If I won the lottery that would be great, but I'd have to start buying tickets to do so.
Any way, the point of this post is to say that I have a fun weekend ahead of me!
Tonight, my friends and I are going downtown to eat dinner. At the company Christmas party, the employee and guest were each given a $75 gift certificate to one of the nicest restaurants in town. This brings the price down to a semi-reasonable amount. We are going to go down and use the last one we will have. However, we have decided that we will still go down occaisonally and try some nice restaurants downtown. It's fun, and I know that my one friend, who lives on the opposite side of town from the rest of us, finds this to be a little more convenient than to always be driving out to our houses.
Tomorrow is the home opener for the Miami RedHawks, and I have season tickets. In the past few years, we have quite frankly sucked. Last week for our first game, we played Florida. They had problems adjusting to a time after Tim Tebow, however we beat the line without any major injuries and looked good doing it. They are the #3/4 team in the country. Tomorrow, we are playing a team that didn't win any games last year. I'm liking our chances. As it's 9/11, the school is having a tribute to the military. I remember the game against Kent being the first game after. It was very moving. You could feel a sense of unity between the teams and all the fans as the band played. Several times, we have had fly-overs. High speed ones are fun, but the one low speed one with a carrier was awesome. On the third anniversary, we played U.C., the bands did a tribute. I don't know if it was simply inspiring or that week, I had visited the Flight 93 crash site and found it so moving. If you haven't visited it, I suggest you do.
Sunday is the fall kick-off for youth group. I'm excited by it. It's really the start of how Nicole and I want youth group to be. The kids are great. The room looks great. I think it's going to be a fantastic year!
What are your plans for the weekend?

Hockey Night

First - I have a follower. Yay!!! Thank you so much!
Hockey Night I am borrowing as a title. I believe it's a Saturday night tv show in Canada comparable to our Monday night football. I am not a hockey fan. I cannot understand how the game works. O.K. I know the goal is to get the little black disk into the net, but strategy, plays I can't see them. However, I spent last evening watching hockey on tv at a half empty pizza place. Moreover watching a hockey team lose 7-1. I am, however, a huge fan of my college.
I knew in high school that I'd ended up at a business school, and was considering Marketing. I was leaning towards one about 45 minutes from my house. It had a reputation as a preppy party school that half my class would end up attending, but I was, also, finding out that it had one of the best business schools in the country. I was sold. My parents noticed that it was the most expensive of the state schools. We went to the Northeast on vacation that summer and took a tour of Boston. I loved all the brick and brass in the homes that we passed. We passed Harvard. It's, um, eclectic. My Mom's comment was that she was disappointed she expected Harvard to look like Miami, not some random buildings plunked down in the middle of the city. I was invited to Red Carpet Days. I went up on a college visit to check out the school. I stayed with my Sunday School teacher's girlfriend. I think I was really there to check out Campus Crusade for Christ. I enjoyed myself there and met people who were welcoming. I applied early decision and only there. It never occured to me that they wouldn't accept me. And they did. I have since found out that there are many people that they don't and that it's quite the competitive school.
Once there - well I could say I loved every minute of it, but that's not true classes and roommates stressed me completely out at times. But I loved the campus. The women I now consider my best friends are the girls I lived with. We may not have all been roommates, but we were in the same dorm for most of the time, and truly lived together.
Basketball was big stuff at my high school, college basketball especially. I found that most students weren't into sports unless the teams were really winning. However, I became a fan. In the past couple of years, I've made it up to a basketball game a year. Excitement for basketball was the campus buzz my senior year with Wally Szerbiak leading the team to the Sweet 16. I went to one hockey game in four years, but have now been to three Frozen Four game watches. At this time, no one can buy a ticket to a game. And as long as we are talking ice, I have to brag that Miami's synchronized skating teams are next to none. In 2006, we did better internationally than any Americans except Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto. Yes, that is comparing them to Sasha Cohen and Evan Lysachek. So they are keeping very good company.
And now we come to football. I have been to almost every game for the past 15 years. While I was there, we were decent. We beat a Northwestern team that one the Rose Bowl that year and whose only loss was to us. Junior year we read in the papers that Randy Moss was going to run all over us. His Heisman dreams died at Yager Stadium as he spent most of the time on his back being tackled. Senior year we went 10-1, but didn't go to a bowl game though 3 teams we beat did. (My feelings on bowl games may be a post for much later). Soon after graduation, we watched "Touchdown Travis" Prentice break the college scoring record. It was maybe the next year that my best friend, her parents, and I started getting season tickets. What a time. We had a redshirt freshman become quarterback. Perhaps you have heard of Ben Roethlisberger? It was a high. I can almost pick myself out in this video with only a few fans remaining. I will point out that the Monday afterwards I emailed my friends and said that since the play is called Big Ben, and we don't have any players with nicknames, I think shortly you'll be hearing the quarterback called Big Ben. Just wish I could have cashed in on that.

Since then, the team has spiraled downhill winning 4 games in the last three season, but we will remain faithfull, if not sarcastic. And of course, Ben is not helping our name right now. (Ben if you are reading this I have advice for you. Take the girl to dinner first, and don't have sex in a restroom. Just saying that might help you some.)
At one point, I answered an email. I became a member of the local chapter board. At one point, I became the social chair. It was a learning experience. And somehow I ended up planning the event for the largest chapter for the bicentennial celebration. It was tough, but I made it through.
I had to share this with you as part of introducing myself because knowing me means knowing that "Miami was a university while Florida still belonged to the Spanish." I'm going to add some photos in so that you can appreciate Robert Frost's line that "Miami is the prettiest campus that ever there was"