What a great list! They pretty much capture the spirit of being a college football fan but, as the article says, they are looking for 43 more to round out the list. Please post your suggestions on our “Bark Like a Dog” bulletin board: http://artemis.ess.ucla.edu/~bmoore/cgi-bin/dogs/bb.pl
Second, what a great weekend of college football! As I looked over the picks this week, I saw a handful of potential upsets jump out at me. Some weeks are like that: a dog lover’s paradise. The challenge, of course, is finding the rose among the thorns and getting the picks right. Most of us (and many radio talk show hosts) were proved wrong by Texas when they overcame a 10 – 0 halftime deficit and stomped the TCU Horned Frogs 34 -10. But other gems came to fruition: Oregon driving the nails into Lloyd Carr’s coffin, Washington ending the longest winning streak in the nation and proving what I’ve been saying all summer (they’re the dark horse in the Pac-10), Spurrier sticking to UGA between the hedges (if you know what I mean), and South Florida shocking Auburn (only the genius of Tom Barbour managed to see that last one coming). Also, I think we should give credit to Wake Forest almost catching Nebraska looking ahead to USC and Miami (OH) almost proving that Minnesota can’t play the MAC.
The games yesterday helped answer some questions about the course of the year. Should LSU really be number 1 over USC? Is Oklahoma as good as everyone thinks? Is the ACC as bad as everyone thinks? Did Michigan and Notre Dame suffer fluke losses in the first week? Who besides Cal and UCLA will challenge USC this year in the Pac-10? (The answers, in case you’re keeping track at home, are yes, yes, yes, no and Washington). I’ll save you a trip to the schedule page: “U-dub” plays host to USC on September 29th and Cal will visit the stadium on the shores of Lake Washington on November 17th.
Finally, I feel compelled to let you all in on an amusing anecdote that occurred Friday evening even though it is only peripherally related to football. I was attending the Iowa Medical Society board meeting in Des Moines and was unsure of the proper attire. Hedging my bets, I showed up in nice jeans, a dress shirt with French cuffs (and my lucky Frank Lloyd Wright cufflinks), and a sport coat. Seeing that the other attendees were dressed rather casual, I removed the sport coat and fit right in. The meeting agenda listed dinner off site, at a place in Des Moines called “Terrace Hill”. Sounds like a decent restaurant, I thought, and maintained my outfit of jeans and a dress shirt. After all, that was better than what most people were wearing.
When I arrived at Terrace Hill, I immediately sensed something was not right. It was an old mansion, one of those house museums that Babs likes so much. As I walked up to the house, not sure how to get in and being unable to locate the tent with the catered dinner I was expecting, I noticed some children’s toys in the backyard. It’s odd for a house museum to have small kids. At that moment, a state trooper appeared out of nowhere and asked me, “May I help you, sir?” He said it in that tone of voice that was both helpful and friendly as well as full of authority that clearly said, “I’ll kick your ass from here to the state capitol if you don’t answer immediately.” It’s that tone of voice that only highway patrolmen and bouncers can really achieve correctly. I responded that I was lost and looking for a dinner party, so he quickly and pleasantly showed me to the side door of the mansion.
Ushered inside, I found a delectable spread of appetizers and alcoholic beverages waiting for me. Also present was my fellow physicians from the meeting, except they had all changed into suits! Oops. Sorry- I didn’t get the memo. When I go out in Vegas with Geodg, khous
e, and GoBlue!, I always get the memo about khaki slacks and a blue collared shirt. But this time I wasn’t clued into the dress code. No problem. I just attached myself to an appropriate accessory- Jack Daniels on the rocks- and my outfit suddenly all made sense and flowed together. It said, “cool, outdoorsy ER doc that doesn’t care what other people think”. Which is mostly true.Fascinated by the spectacular décor of the house, I struck up a conversation with the curator. He explained some of the brief history of this “most famous residence in Iowa” (DING! uh-oh, there is something here that all the Hawkeyes understand but the clueless outsider from Southern Cal hasn’t figured out yet). “Built in 1869, this 18,000 square foot. . . BLAH . . . BLAH . . . BLAH . . .and since 1971 has served as the Governor’s residence.” DING! Uh-oh, that’s why everyone got dressed up. Oh well, no problem, I’ll just keep playing the “cool, outdoorsy ER doc” card and roll with it. It’s not like governor is going to show up just because we’re having a party at his house.
At that moment, one of the conference organizers said, “Hey, everyone, here’s the guy whose place we’re crashing!” DING! Uh-oh. Governor Culver walked his 6’4” frame into the room. His impressive size reminded us that he played football for Virginia Tech in the 1990’s (see, I said this story was peripherally related to football). It turns out he’s a very nice and hospitable person- definitely the kind of guy you would want to go out for a beer with. Just the perfect personality to the lead the Hawkeye state. We talked about access to health care, about th
e Hawkeye game with Syracuse (35 – 0, Iowa played awesome!), but mostly about his 5 year old son’s birthday planned for Sunday. The family, along with several “Uncle State Troopers”, is headed for “Jumping Jack’s”, a sort of Chuck E. Cheese’s for fans of inflatable bouncy houses. We posed for photos to document our meeting and my flagrant fashion faux pas.Ok, so I’m a cool outdoorsy ER doc. Sue me. I don’t care what other people think. . . mostly.
Fight On,
Hans
http://www.terracehill.org/
1 comment:
Hans, you failed to mention one of the best games of the week, which went perilously close to tipping the balance of the Dogs. That would be Louisiana Tech's loss to Hawaii in OT as 28-point Dogs.
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