World Cup « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

World Cup

Sport, sport, sport, steak, ice cream

We are watching the 1989 Iron Bowl, it is like giving an education, really. The Yankee, you see, was up north and not yet interested in football. When she moved to the South she said her allegiance was for sale. Whatever big time football game someone took her to first would be the team she’d cheer for.

I took her to an Auburn game, and she was hooked.

Here’s Carl Stephens with some of the best words in the world. I recorded that at the game that night. We sat in the upper deck, on the west side over the 20 yard line. As we’d only been dating a few short months by that time I was trying to play it cool and not sound too overwhelming, but there’s so many things you have to know about this place. How Auburn played that night wasn’t one of them, as the Tigers came out flat in their season opener. But that was 2005.

This is about 1989. For some lovely reason the local television stations have taken to filling weekend programming with old Auburn football games this summer. This is brilliant television, really, and there’s no better choice than the first Iron Bowl in Auburn. Pat Dye called it the most emotional moment in school history. David Housel, who’s never been shy about bad historical hyperbole, likened it to reaching the promised land. The players that played there that day said the place has never been louder or more crazed or desperately intense.

Take it away, Jim Nantz:

Is it football season yet?

So we’ve watched the first three quarters, and it is great to see Reggie Slack — who’s selling insurance these days after a cup of coffee in the NFL and a Grey Cup appearance in the CFL. The third play of the game:

It is nice to see Keith McCants again, who was just an incredibly talented, scary good football player.

He’s had some legal problems, but by all accounts is the guy you root for. And he’s lobbying, on his Facebook page, to be on the next season of Dances With the Stars. Seems that his career is now mostly Retired Star Football player, but becoming a star in the South may let you do that. The best part is just hearing the crowd and the marching bands, before the stadium was filled with piped in music. You can forget the original atmosphere if you aren’t careful.

Haven’t shown her this yet:

Seriously. Can it be football season now?

Rode 38.5 miles on the bike today. Felt very nice and the sun only came out late in the journey. Saw this:

It is like they are saying “A payphone! Use me!” This now costs $.50. I couldn’t tell you the last time I used a pay phone, so this $.15 increase was a novel surprise. Perhaps the calls should get cheaper as demand has gone down …

I would say pay phones, perhaps like pawn shops and check cashing stores, should be a status indicator, but that phone was at a nice gas station in a fine part of town. We got Gatorade there and pedaled on.

Great soccer game today. The U.S. women’s side was quite good, but not great. The Japanese played solid, but not spectacular. The Americans couldn’t close the deal and the Japanese ladies would not quit, coming from behind twice to force penalty kicks. And from there the sense of inevitability gave way to a little disbelief. But the Japanese were great and deserving winners.

More to the point, that was 120 minutes of great, clean sport, played well by two teams. It was wonderful see a contest about the game, not about some scandal or overwrought subtext — the healing of Japan thing got overplayed, but that was unavoidable. This was 11 a side playing hard and, for the most part, playing very well. Great experience, even if the other team won.

Now if only the spectators and media would be more interested prior to the Big Game, but perhaps one of these days. What was intriguing was how the narrative for the Americans was not about gender or equality, but about sport and competition. There’s a subtle shift that started taking place in the televised coverage that is worth noting.

Steaks on the grill tonight. We low-grilled the meat, baked potatoes and fried some okra. After dinner we commemoration National Ice Cream Day by buying a pint on a cone at Bruster’s. They close at 10. They aren’t really amused when you show up at 9:45, but we got the obligatory ice cream celebration in just under the gun.

It is a tough life, I tell you.

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10
Jul 11

Rapinoe to Wambach

The Americans had played down to 10 on their side for almost 60 minutes. The referees were calling an atrocious game, and while the U.S. had proven they could handle the 11 Brazilians, the officiating was too much to overcome. Until this unbelievable cross from Megan Rapinoe …

Abby Wambach, who’s been on a long odyssey for a World Cup goal, now has the latest score ever in a World Cup game. That sent the USA and Brazil to penalty kicks.

The American ladies won 5-3 on the PKs, advancing to meet France in the semifinals. Controversial game with an amazing finish, one of the more remarkable you’ll see on any level of the sport.

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12
Jul 10

Reaching out for Facetime

Just to catch up from yesterday: Watched the World Cup final, pitting a disappointing Netherlands versus an underwhelming Spain. Referee Howard Webb tied his hands early with cards and that hurt the game. Spain were the better team, so the outcome is neither a surprise nor upsetting, but the manner of the resolution was unfortunate. It is a shame, really. A game, no, the game was too easily swayed by one person who wasn’t even playing.

I’d rather have seen the two sides play, but Netherlands didn’t really oblige us of that either. The legendary Oranje temper came to play late after it was clear their game plan wasn’t going to work. Spain just kept moving until the opportunity presented itself, as they had the entire tournament. The resolution was unsatisfying for everyone not already a fan of La Roja. And now we have to wait four more years.

(I watched every game. Had a great time doing it.)

We visited Ann Taylor yesterday, marking my second time in almost as many days. The Yankee visited again today, but I declined. A third time in a week was just too much. I consoled myself at the Apple Store. I did not buy anything, but did play on the iPad. I’m no better at the air traffic controller game on a touch screen than I am with a mouse, making me believe I’ve made a good career choice there.

Played with the new iPhone, which has plenty of promise. The video is incredible. The speed is good, apps look strong and so on. Now they just have to convince everyone that antennae issue isn’t a flaw, but a feature. The first time someone calls that you don’t want to talk to? Finger over the antennae and disconnect. No more “I’m going through a tunnel!” That doesn’t work when the person on the other end knows there are no tunnels in your tri-state area.

And then there’s Facetime. It will, of course, catch on when there are enough phones in circulation. If the technology holds up there won’t even be any other way to look at this. (I’d like to be able to record Facetime, but that will come too.) So acknowledging the value and quality of the HD cameras and the opportunity that comes with Facetime I’d like to point out what is really important, the commercials.

These will be the most evocative commercials since the really good reach out and touch someone ads.

Is it a coincidence that both campaigns are for phones?

Upgraded WordPress tonight. The first step, the helpful tutorial says, is to back up your files and database. I’d assumed that WordPress was doing that for me and that all of these important messages I’ve been sharing with you were being preserved on some off-site, off-the-mainland island guarded by the mist from Lost, powered by the trees from some M. Night Shyamalan movie who were advised by aggressive ninjas amped on Red Bull and dozens of John Woo explosions.

These being important messages, and WordPress having been a free service I’d only assumed they went this extra mile. Turns out a guy named Earl, asleep in a rickety old chair leaned against a dingy wall next to the On/Off button has been serving as my backup. Earl, I read in the forums, doesn’t read none too good. But I don’t hold that against the guy. He’s got a lot of blogs to back up. It is only reasonable to expect reading comprehension to deteriorate over time and volume.

So I read on, now knowing that every moment I waited the threat to my data grew exponentially. There is no threat quite like the one you know you aren’t sure about.

The second step and the subsequent 15 steps became too much to consider this late into the evening. I found a widget that will back up my site automatically, so WordPress can do this, they just don’t offer outright. Safely backed up — I chose Email, offsite FTP, three Scandinavian children memorizing things in a limerick and a bird using a chisel and hammer — I could proceed to the next steps of the upgrade.

Which were, fortunately, incredibly easy steps. Click this, click that and you’re done.

I started playing around with the capability to host multiple blogs through 3.0, which kept me up late. Just to see if I could make it work I started an irregular snapshot photograph blog. (I back-dated a few posts, just to give it something to do.) The first few steps involved in starting that second blog using the new WordPress interface are a little more confusing than necessary, but once you get that figured out it the CMS is once again as you’ve come to know and love.

Elsewhere, there’s Tumblr, Twitter and the rest of the site. Tomorrow there will be … something. Be sure to come back and check it out.

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10
Jul 10

Saturday: World Cup, gym, being sore

Watched the World Cup consolation game this afternoon. Germany and Uruguay, two of the teams I’m less interested in, play in what is typically the most interesting game of the tournament. There’s less of a concession to strategy in the consolation game for obvious reasons. The battle for third place was not stuck at midfield. In fact, after the first few minutes the ball seldom lingered there.

Germany won, 3-2, but Uruguay, true to form made it a mystery until the very last kick. They could have tied it at the whistle, but the last freekick smacked the crossbar, and everyone was sent home from the rainy game.

Tomorrow’s game, the final, probably won’t be quite so entertaining. Both Spain and Netherlands are saying otherwise and we’d all like it if that comes to pass. Don’t be surprised if that isn’t the case.

Forgot to mention the estate sale story from yesterday. The woman was selling everything, house, contents and all. I talked the briefest little bit with her husband. The Yankee, talking with the woman, learned that her first husband had died and she later remarried. They have a home together in Atlanta and she was trying to get everything out of Birmingham.

She said she was having a real estate sale, having hired a company that does that type of work. But, she had fears that they wouldn’t take the job for all of her things. She once owned a used book store, you see — hence the massive collection — and she was now having an everything-must-go sale before she had the estate sale.

Big day at the gym. The Yankee gave me a new work out regimen to try. So I did legs and then back and then road 20 miles on the bike. I watched the rain fall. I watched the sun come blaze down into an excessively humid afternoon. I did not see a rainbow.

After that, the store, home, dinner, brownies, a lot of stretching and groaning from the gym and now this.

Site stuff: I’ve added a new page to the side of the blog after I updated the banners. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, and if I’d thought to do it from the beginning of this style I’d have a comprehensive list. But I think I have a big chunk of the photos that have graced the top and bottoms of the blog. This page will no doubt be more for me than you — but that’s probably always the case. If you’re interested, though, you can see a lot of old familiar scenes, with a little note for each image, on the new banners page.

Four new items made it to Tumblr today. Follow me there, if you like. Check me out on Twitter, too.

Tomorrow: The World Cup final and other adventures.

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7
Jul 10

If the swing is long and slow developing, I’m back in it.

The day didn’t seem to want to start. Oh it was going on out there. The world was moving. People, presumably, were moving either with or against the rotation of the earth. Or, perhaps the earth had stopped moving, gravity failed and everyone floated away. Maybe, I figured, I’m still here only because I was trapped in a snug blanket seal this morning. Being short-sheeted could have poss

More likely I couldn’t get to sleep last night, where the evening turned to morning and fatigue never found me. It took a while to adjust to a new day. Some time around noon the concept began to grow on me. Around 2 p.m. I found the strength for food. This was during the World Cup semifinal, and such a boring game too. It was disappointing, but not unexpected given the teams. Spain wins on a nice goal, which was one of the few opportunities of the game. At some point the people doing the scoring for television started inflated even the shots. No way Spain managed four in five minutes.

That was the fulcrum of the day, odd that the fulcrum happened so early, but such is a sunny summer day.

On the other hand, while I couldn’t sleep the last two nights I’ve created a survey to use next fall, so there’s something to be said for having a maladjusted sleep schedule.

Worked out late this evening. The Yankee swam while I rode the bike. She did almost a mile in the pool. I did 20 miles in the saddle. She burned more calories than I did. Not to get too detailed about this, but when I got home I discovered a blister from the toe bucket. A closer look shows a blister on a blister. That’s talent.

Tomorrow I’ll ride 30 or 40 miles, I hope. I’m ifnally back to riding hard (for me) and finding it invigorating (for me).

We picked up dinner at Chipotle. To go. I was still very sweaty and apparently offending the delicate sensibilities of one of the diners. Not that I wanted to be seen in that condition, but it was on the way home. As we discussed yesterday, there’s a certain order to these things. It just wouldn’t do to pass the burrito place, to go home, to turn around and go back to the burrito place.

Fussed with the site while watching American Pickers. Two guys drive all over and commit to television, and the inevitable History Channel DVD series, that old saw about one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. They seem like nice guys. They build a good rapport with people, hear their stories and buy their stuff. And then there’s the unfortunate part, where they show their projected profit. On the one hand that seems a bit cynical, but no one makes people sell to them. On the other hand, it seem like a great job, crawling through people’s stuff, making great discoveries. Maybe that can be my career in retirement.

Figured out the Tumblr import problem. There was an RSS feed that wasn’t doing anything. I found a widget that promises to do something. It is now in the rail to the right. I posted three images to Tumblr today. I scanned more this evening. You can follow that feed should you use the service, as there is a lot more to come. You’ll also be able to see the images as they appear on the site here. To be sure, you should check out both.

Tomorrow: I’ll be here. I’ll be at the gym. I’ll be donating old things I no longer need. There will be more on Twitter and on Tumblr, too. See you soon.