This was the day before the day before Labor Day. Centreville has been a real joy to us since we have family connections to the one of many local pools. This video shows the great improvement and confidence in E1’s swimming (or use of floatation devices). We were able to grab friends from church out to swim with us…
can’t wait till next summer.
This year’s super bowl was probably one of the most exciting ones in history, especially the last quarter. Here’s a rundown of my commentary:
Commercials were below average. Sign of recession and lack of interest. Not sure why there were so many commercials about “sales leads” but I guess someone had to buy the 30 second slots.
As for Eli Manning, he was asked by one of the commentators something to the extent “at what point in the season did he think he could win it all?” Eli responded that he always had confidence he could do it, even when they were losing, the only difference was that everything else just worked out together in the end. That was surprising to me. He always seemed like a guy who was unsure, young, and green, but I guess he knew internally who he was and what he could do. Kudos to the Giants!
As for the Patriots, I was surprised with 39 seconds and 3 timeouts they didn’t try to go for a tie and win it in overtime. My guess is that Belichick had to deal more with his own ego and his pride than defeating the Giants.
It reminded me of the episode of TNG where Data challenged this alien to some futuristic video game. The alien was the master, the best, and there were instances where Data could have gone for the obvious win, but instead he changed his strategy and went for a draw. This exasperated his opponent to the point where the game lasted longer than he cared to play. In the end, Data won by forfeit because the alien’s ego was frustrated by Data’s “delay tactic.”
My guess is that Belichick wanted to win big. He wanted to show the world how great his team was and how great of a coach he was. So instead of going for the obvious and safe field goal, he went for the bomb and looked for a touchdown. He went all in. If he won, he would have won big, if he lost, he would lose on his terms… So in the end, it wasn’t the Giants that defeated Belichick, it was his own ego. Here’s a link to CJ Mahaney’s critique of Super Bowl XLII.
Was in the office today and someone left a copy of the sports section so I picked it up to read.
Michael Wilbon, sports writer for the Washington Post, wrote an interesting story today after recovering from a heart attack. It’s a story about forgiveness and about character. It’s also a story about life and the surprises of life. Read it if you get a chance!
“The lesson learned is probably that a bad pass on third and 12, a missed jump shot at the buzzer or even a prolonged disagreement with a teammate doesn’t make that the dominant theme of a man’s life. It’s not like I won’t make a critical observation about Kobe in the playoffs, if necessary, just that such comments ought to be expressed in context and not cavalierly used to form larger judgments about a person’s life. At the very least there ought to be an acknowledgment of a sense of compassion and humanity that aren’t to be taken for granted.”
This year has been a year of ups and downs. Painful losses and exuberant victories. Well, we made it to the playoffs. We’ll see what happens, one game at a time, right? I’m no football expert, but there’s always that hope that they can make it to the superbowl. Just look. If they can defeat the seahawks, they’ll face the cowboys. As always, that match up is a 50/50 chance of winning. Then they’ll face the winner of the packer and the giants/bucs. Again a 50/50 chance of winning. They lost to the packers in the regular season due to a fumble by Santana Moss, but other than that they should have won. They dominated the Bucs and should have won, again due to turn overs. And they handedly defeated the Giants in their most recent matchup. So as the Redskins head the to playoffs, if they can continue with the reduced turnovers, they have a very, very good chance of making it to the superbowl.
Let’s hope the momentum continues. Onward HO!
