Jay Littlepage: Life In Balance?

On sports With the summer solstice upon us it's fitting that the "winter" sports in the US have ended.  Hockey in Raleigh in the summer? Hard to get my brain wrapped around that...

Unlike some of my buddies who were rooting for the Dallas Cubans to win for non-basketball reasons, I was rooting for good games and good backstories (when you live in the Denver market that's what you are left with when it's not Broncos season).  While I can rarely sit through an entire game anymore what I did catch of this series was entertaining - other than when Shaq was at the free throw line (an astounding 37% for the postseason).  Dwayne Wade completes his ascendancy as he ownz0rs the Mavs.  With LeBron I think we have our Magic and Bird for the next decade.  And good backstories - Gary Payton gets his ring.  Zo sips well earned champagne, 6 years after a kidney transplant.  All in all, a good way to end the season.

Before you put away your NBA replica jerseys for the season and pull on your baseball caps, be sure to tune in to the World Cup.  While the US is not quite ready to challenge for the cup they have risen to a legitimate top 10 team in world rankings.  They laid an egg against the Czech Republic in their first game but followed with a great effort against the Italians, keeping their chances alive of making the knockout round despite losing 2 players to red cards.  Unless you've played the game it's difficult to fathom how hard it is to play with only 8 position players - it is a big pitch to cover.  But they salvaged a draw against one of the best teams on the planet. 

The refs in the US/Italy game had a bad day.  The red card against Eddie Pope was a yellow at best.  They continually called Italy offsides, and replays showed at least 3 of the calls to be bad.  My biggest annoyance was that no cards were pulled on the Italians for diving (melodramatically falling to the turf at the slightest bump) - an art form Italy is known for, and that FIFA swore to crack down on.  Oh well.  Thursday i'll be rooting hard for them, because an Italy win over the Czechs and a US win over Ghana puts the US is in the round of 16.  Go Azzuri!
Posted by jaylittlepage ( Jun 21 2006, 07:58:26 AM MDT ) Permalink

BolderBoulder

Age and cunning overcame youth for at least one more year.  That goes double for the boyfriend who was faced with a pride vs love choice as I started to pull away early in the race.  He made the right choice, and I promise not to remind him about the margin of victory too often...

Growing up with the Olympics

While growing up I played every sport I could, and followed them all avidly on TV and radio. The Olympics were a big deal - nothing that was going on in the world that couldn't wait for two weeks of competition and comraderie. Some of the innocence was gone forever after Munich, and with every positive drug test it's one more step away from the idealistic memories of my youth (particularly in my favorite sport, track and field - in which I unfortunately no longer believe anything I see or read).

But still - every 4 years the family was glued to the TV, and all talk at school, or at work, was about the previous day's events.

While I was a track guy I really got into the winter games as well. I've don't think i've missed a downhill final starting with Jean-Claude Killy in 1968. While i'd root for the USA some of my early heroes were speedburners like Killy and Franz Klammer. I also remember exactly where I was in 1980 when Al Michaels' made his "Do you believe in miracles" call. I was working as a bar attendant at Harold's Club in Reno, and as the game went on I spent more and more time in disbelief watching the little tv in the casino break room as history unfolded (just for the record, none of the bars I was working ran out of ice, booze, or condiments). I still get chills anytime I hear the call.

Last night was the Men's downhill. Even though I was disappointed that neither Bode Miller nor Darren Ralves came through (what was up with changing skis, then changing again right before the race?) watching Antoine Deneriaz (who?) toast the field by .72 seconds on the last run of the day was a real highlight.

But today in the office? No one is talking about the Olympics (except Hal Stern). And where was the next generation of Littlepage? She watched part of the games, but by the end of the downhill she was in another room, watching "Grey's Anatomy". Oh, well...

Blogging voyage of discovery

The good news about not running an organization at the moment is that i'm blogging because I want to - not because I have to. The bad news is that i'm on my own to figure out how exactly to do it and i'll be stubbing my toe as I go. (Sorry about yesterday's microscopic font - it sure didn't look that way in preview mode.). The truth is that enjoy figuring things out on my own when I have the time - i'm definitely a hands-on learner.

I'm trying a new blogging client today - ecto. I am a sunray zealot and have one at home - but it's saturday, it's february in Colorado and the sun is coming in the living room window so i'm in a comfy chair with my aging powerbook today. Hopefully the new client will be an improvement - at least I know what font i'm using!