Cant Beat Them

Reporting from Palo Alto, CA

Many of our long term readers know that I love San Francisco and eagerly look forward to USC's annual road trip to the bay area. This year, we got to play Stanford and were humbled by losing to them for the 4th year in a row. More on that later. I'm here at the game with my dad (mouse), brother (khouse), and Kurt's father-in-law Jon Colton (jcman00). The game is unusually early in the season so the weather is absolutely perfect- sunny with an expected high of 80.

For the second year in a row, we are in Apple's backyard the same weekend they unveil the newest model of iPhone. My wife, sick and tired of AT&T's awful service and spotty (at best) coverage, was very happy to pre-order it in the early hours of yesterday morning. When the site opened, the ship date was one week later. After just one hour, the ship date was pushed back to 2 weeks. After 18 hours, it will take 3 weeks to get your phone. Although the critique that Apple has yet to introduce something totally new is valid, their continued refinement of this revolutionary device is clearly wildly successful when it comes to sales.

I thank Steve Jobs just about everyday for bringing us the future. When I travel I just bring my iPhone and iPad and I have all I need for entertainment, productivity and logistics. For example, in the first 24 hours of this trip, I utilized this technology by:

• Using the American Airlines app and checking into my flight
• Sending the boarding passes that I downloaded to my iPad to my air printer
• Checking the status of my flight and the weather at the destination airport to project for possible delays including watching live Doppler radar from Texas as thunderstorms rolled across the state.
• Using the AA app for my connecting gate information as I arrived at the AA hub in Dallas
• Using Airport Maps app to locate food and the Admirals Club in the Dallas terminal
• Connected to the Internet while on board my flight from Dallas to San Francisco and followed the progress of the plane across a map of the United States.
• Send a text to my dad from the plane to let him know we were to be late
• Watched movie on my iPad, rented and downloaded the night before
• Kept track of my caloric intake with the My Fitness Pal app
• Used Google maps to locate Smuggler's Cove, my favorite bar in San Francisco
• "Checked in" on Facebook and posted a picture of the world's greatest cocktail, the Parisian Blonde
• Ordered a limousine from the Über app to take us to dinner (this is a GREAT service. Check it out if you don't know about it.  https://www.uber.com/)
• As we walked through the Fairmont Hotel, I pulled up a copy of one of my old blogs so my dad Could read about the history of the place and it's famous Tonga room. (http://underdogcontest.blogspot.com/2008/07/coldest-winter.html)
• Determined the calories burned from a walk around Union Square with Workout app
• Located sushi restaurants that may are open late for a post-game meal and read their reviews with Yelp
• Reserved a table with Open Table
• And, of course, kept track of the scores and upsets that make this contest great!

As you all know, there was one upset that was not so great. Stanford beat USC. . . again. For suffering Trojan fans this is becoming an increasingly annoying occurrence. Stanford is successful because they focus on winning the trenches; their teams over the last 6 years have been characterized by dominant O and D line play. Before they had Luck airing it out, the Cardinal ground out gritty wins with ball-control offense and relentless rushing attack. They lack the speed and flash of Oregon but as far as USC concerned, it's worse. USC's offensive line looked non-existent and Matt Barkley will be nursing his bruises for a long time to come, right up until the Heisman ceremony when he isn't invited to New York.

As you may know, my wife Kristi is a very proud alum of the Leland Stanford Jr University. She has been enjoying their run of 5 wins in the last 6 years. The proverb "If you can't beat them, join them" is traced to an American Senator in 1932. Sounds like good advice. Maybe Barkley should find a nice young lady from Stanford and settle down. It worked for me.

This was a rough weekend. I'm ready for Hawaii in 57 days, 7 hours, 47 minutes.

Fight on,
Hans

PS: here's a great slideshow of the best college football bars in the country, including the Dixie Chicken I mentioned 2 weeks ago.
http://www.thedailymeal.com/best-college-football-bars-0?utm_source=yahoo%2Bpostgame&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=college%2Bfootball%2Bbars&RM_Exclude=Welcome