The Annual Trip to Arizona

I don't really know what to blog about. The past few weeks have been pretty uneventful; got tickets to see Wicked (in June), went to the California Academy of Sciences, all fine and good, but not really blog worthy.

We're on our annual pilgrimage to Arizona now, I'm in Flagstaff as I write this, with a bunch of snow on the ground, and more falling from the sky.

Having a father born in Flagstaff (and very proud of it), snow in Arizona has never seemed odd to me. I know it can bug Lauren when people are shocked to hear that all of Arizona is not a desert, and it hit me over the summer, when I was talking about my bed and breakfast idea in my MBA capstone class. My business plan was to open a bed and breakfast in Flagstaff. I mentioned to people that Flagstaff appealed to skiers, and a couple of people looked at me like I was crazy. I wasn't, and I have pictures to prove it:

The view from the Lew house

The San Francisco Peaks...

...and me in front of them

From here, we head to Mesa, where we will visit my grandmother, as well as my parents, uncle, and aunt, who all make the pilgrimage to Mesa in December to pay homage to the Shirley matriarch, Shirley Shirley. Yes, her first name and last name are both Shirley.

After the Mesa visit, we're heading to Bisbee, to celebrate our 2nd anniversary. We are not sure what exactly there is to do is Bisbee, and its surroundings, but I'm sure we'll come up with something. We also plan to cross the border into Mexico while there, so I can keep my streak of years going, where I have spent some time (even if it's only a few hours) outside of the U.S.

We then go to Tucson, Lauren's old stomping grounds, then two days in L.A., then back to Mountain View.

Teaching starts soon after we get back, and I'm kind of nervous. Not about the teaching, but about my body. I'm worried about losing my voice during the first week, after such a long layoff from teaching, and my back holding up - it tends to hurt when I stand for a while, and I will be teaching for 4 1/2 hours straight, 4 days a week. I'm sure I'll be fine after a week or two, but I'm not looking forward to the first week of the quarter.

But now is not the time to worry about next month, so....

Happy Holidays!

My Fall of College Football

I went to a football school, Michigan State University. Sure the team has lived in the shadow of Michigan (until this year), Ohio State, and Penn State, but MSU is a football school. Spartan Stadium regularly packs in 75,000 fans on Saturdays, during the Fall semester, of that school that lies on the banks of the Red Cedar.

I, like many MSU students, followed Big 10 football (which actually has 11 teams, go figure) religiously, while I was there. In the 10 years since I graduated, that feeling kind of faded. I got more into MSU basketball, especially after they won the national championship. MSU football suffered for several seasons, and it was hard to find a place to catch a bad Big 10 team on TV, when you live in the heart of Pac-10 country.

This Fall though, I got into college football again. Maybe it was because I was on sabbatical and had a somewhat more flexible schedule; maybe it was because Lauren wasn't home much on the weekends, and I didn't know what else to do with my time; maybe it was because MSU had a better season (9-3) than they had had in years. Whatever the reason, I found myself following college football more than I had since I was in college.

It was different this time though; yes, I rooted for my team and wore my MSU t-shirt every time the team took the field. But it was more than that; I read about college football, followed the craziness that is the Big XII (this may mean nothing to you, but Texas was robbed), watched games on Saturday nights, and jumped out of my chair in shock when Texas Tech beat Texas. I felt more strongly that the BCS is a crock, and college football needs a playoff, like every other NCAA sport. I even went to a Stanford game, although the fact that we could sit just about anywhere we wanted, because of the lack of attendance, didn't do much for the college football spirit in me.

I write this now, because the college season is coming to an end. This weekend marks the end of the non-bowl season, and two teams will be chosen to play in a national championship game. I won't watch much football after this weekend. Bowl games have never done much for me, and I usually miss a lot of them, because they are not played on Saturdays, like college football games the rest of the season. I'm sure I'll try to see the bowl game MSU plays in (and wear my t-shirt), and probably watch a little bit of the championship game (although I'll probably be at work for the first 1/2 of the game). This was my Fall of college football. The cringing of watching my team lose, the joy of seeing them win, and the madness of college sports takes a break for me......until March Madness begins.