Sunday, October 18, 2009

I’m Pretty Sure I Just had an Aneurism!

So very seldom in life do we appreciate how unique are our experiences.  We get into a rut, thinking that everything we do, think, eat, read, watch has been done before.  Or at least a lot of it.  Well, maybe you don’t, but I tend to do so, and I am always glad of it when something unexpected and novel reminds me that I am constantly experiencing the unique, it is just that I forget to pay attention. 

Earlier this week, I came across a perfect little reminder of just how unexpected life really is.  Before you look closely at the photo below, I am going to make a prediction about you that will be 100% accurate.  100%.  If you are honest, you will be forced to admit that without even knowing you, or at least without knowing you well at all, I have been able to tell you something about yourself.  Something undeniable.  And at the same time, I am going to prove that we will have shared a unique experience, one that every last one of us will be forced to admit was both singular AND  unpredictable.  How can I make this claim?  How can it be true in every case?

Start by examining this photo:

2009 Public Health prize demonstration

(photo by Alexey Eliseev and caption from Improbable Research)

I know that in looking at the photo, there is something odd that trips a little alarm in the brain, alerting us to possible funny business.  Who are these people and what are they doing?  To set the scene, allow me to tell you how I came across the photo.  On a message board I frequently read and occasionally pollute with my own posts, I was reading a discussion of the Nobel committee’s decision honoring President Obama with the Peace Prize for this year.  As was the case in the papers, at water coolers around the country and on the television news programs, opinions were mixed about the committee’s decision.  I commented on it in an earlier entry here at the Bully Pulpit (The Bully Pulpit  - Obama-wins-Nobel-peace-prize), and at the message board most of the posts expressed either surprise or gratification.  One of my favorite members of the board, known there by the handle Seagull, added a very simple post.  It contained a link to a website called Improbable Research, and it was there that I first saw the photo shown above.  I nearly skipped the caption of the photo  and simply moved on to the article, but something in my subconscious caught the oddness of the picture and made me take another look.

Seconds later I was laughing and wiping coffee off of my chin, and being reminded that  I don’t care how many of us there are on this planet, there is no way that anyone woke up the morning of October 11, 2009 and thought they would see this, or anything like this.  The photo at the top of the website linked by Seagull makes my all-time list of INWHGIWIWU events (I-never-would-have-guessed-it-when-I-woke-up).   No, no way someone woke up thinking, ‘uh, I foresee three - no four - Nobel Laureates, several women removing their bras, dividing them in two and...now the women are giving everyone a cup to breathe through.’  Now take another close look at the photo and you will see that at the 2009 Nobel Prize ceremony, Public Health Prize winner Dr. Elena Bodnar demonstrates her invention — a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander. She is assisted by Nobel laureates Wolfgang Ketterle (left), Orhan Pamuk, and Paul Krugman (right).

Tell the truth, now, there is not a person among us that could possibly have awakened that morning thinking, ‘I bet I see four Nobel Prize winners at this year’s ceremony wearing bra cups on their faces to demonstrate a patent-pending invention meant to equip all (unliberated anyway) women with life-saving emergency equipment as well as life-enhancing comfort and support.’ So you see,our lives are not so very predictable at all. 

Insert gratuitous remarks HERE.   

Oh, and so what does the title have to do with the rest of this mess?  Well, think of it as a sort of Public Service Announcement to warn you not to do what I did.  Whether you have a mouthful of coffee or not, when you need to laugh, and laugh hard, DO NOT HOLD IT IN!  Nothing good will come of it, with results ranging from ruptured ear drum, to aneurism, to an (hopefully small) unintended deposit in the shorts, to, well…I think you get the idea. 

Seahawks Injuries

Seattle Seahawks Coach Jim Mora spoke to reporters last week, and the topic right off the top was injuries.  Just as it has been through most of the last two seasons.  Mora began his press conference with a nearly five minute long monologue outlining the injuries and likeliness of each player to be available for today’s game with the Cardinals.  It was a mildly humorous opening for a press conference, but for Seahawks fans, players, coaches and management, it is bitter humor.  The injury situation had become so bad that Mora called it the worst he’s seen in his twenty-six years in football.  At times in recent weeks Mora has had eight, nine, even ten starters injured and possibly unable to play.  He’s commented more than once that the Seahawks might not be able to field 45 players due to injuries. 

All of this follows on a situation last year which saw entire positions on the depth chart virtually wiped out.  In 2008 Matt Hasselbeck was forced to throw to a group of receivers, not a one of whom had been on the roster in training camp.  Injuries hit many other positions as well, and most of us probably thought that we were seeing the sort of once-in-a-blue-moon kind of event, one we wouldn’t expect to have to face again for many years of Seahawks play.  And then this season began, and almost immediately it felt familiar and unwelcome.  This year, instead of a receiver corps (though nearly all of the receivers have had some injury that has kept them out of practice or a game to this point in the season), the entire left side of the offensive line has been wracked.  Not only has perpetual Pro-Bowler Walter Jones been injured, but for this week’s game the left guard and tackle protecting Hasselbeck’s broken ribs on the blind side included a player signed two weeks ago and another brought in off the Seahawk practice squad.  In today’s loss to the Cardinals, the Hawks lost the defensive quarterback, All-Pro Lofa Tatupu.  The defense’s signal caller will not be able to return in a couple of weeks to play through the pain, as Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck has done.  Tatupu is lost for the season.  Below is a list of players who have missed time this season (off the top of my head, so I am betting there are even more football quarters lost to injury than those listed here):

1. Lofa Tatupu

2. Matt Hasselbeck

3. Leon Hill

4. Sean Locklear

5. Walter Jones

6. Chris Spenser

7. Marcus Trufant

8. Deon Branch

9. Brandon Mebane

10. Ken Lucas

11. Kelly Jennings

12. Rob Sims

13. Mansfield Wrotto

14. C.J. Wallace

15. Josh Wilson

16. Patrick Kearney

17. Brandon Frye

18. Jordan Babineaux

19. T.J. Houshmandzadeh

20. Derek Walker

It is a tough task to turn a team around from a season like last year.  How much more difficult is it when trying to make the turnaround with half the starting players missing from week to week?  It is amazing to hear an NFL coach muse about the possibility of not being able to find 45 healthy players for a game.  I suppose I’d have to say that a 2-4 record is disappointing, but I am not sure how disappointing it is.  In some ways I have a feeling that Mora is doing a pretty fine job at ad-libbing through a nearly crippling set of injuries.  The real question that keeps coming to my mind is why does Mora find himself having to manage through another year of catastrophic injuries?  Why are the ‘Hawks getting hurt so much, and so often?  Why is the moon blue yet again? 

NFL Update – Blowouts Galore

Though I may never again be nearly as addicted to football as I was when I was a single and childless young man, I do still geek out on football sometimes.  When I can – meaning when I have time and no one else is using our television – I watch the Seahawks, and somewhat less often I watch other NFL or college games.  Most often I record the game and watch it later.  My favorite way to watch now includes both the television and my laptop.  I like to see the action live as well as use the CBS game channel to give me up-to-the play statistics.  This year I’ve also gotten used to watching baseball games this way.  The user interface with baseball is nice because it shows the strike zone and a 3D graphic of each pitch as it approaches the batter. 

The Seahawks played like they were down to a practice-squad left tackle on the offensive line (the first three guys at that position on the depth chart having been injured in prior weeks).  That left me with a lot of time when I’d normally be flinching or cussing, but now could use the time more gratifyingly by checking in on other games in progress.  There were a couple that stood out, but none more than the absolute pounding that the Patriots gave the Titans.  With just under eight minutes remaining in the 3rd quarter, New England was leading 59 to zip.  Tom Brady threw for 5 touchdowns in the second quarter alone.  Just look at the scoring plays from the Pats up to the middle of the 3rd quarter:


TD
Laurence Maroney, 45 Yd run (Stephen Gostkowski kick is good), 5:51. Drive: 5 plays, 79 yards in 2:27.

FG
Stephen Gostkowski 33 Yd, 0:47. Drive: 7 plays, 63 yards in 4:10.

2nd Quarter
TD
Randy Moss, 40 Yd pass from Tom Brady (Stephen Gostkowski kick is good), 9:56. Drive: 6 plays, 65 yards in 3:11.

TD
Randy Moss, 28 Yd pass from Tom Brady (Stephen Gostkowski kick is good), 8:59. Drive: 2 plays, 31 yards in 0:44.

TD
Kevin Faulk, 38 Yd pass from Tom Brady (Stephen Gostkowski kick is good), 6:20. Drive: 4 plays, 65 yards in 1:34.

TD
Wes Welker, 30 Yd pass from Tom Brady (Stephen Gostkowski kick is good), 1:53. Drive: 5 plays, 76 yards in 2:49.

TD
Wes Welker, 5 Yd pass from Tom Brady (Stephen Gostkowski kick is good), 0:12. Drive: 10 plays, 49 yards in 1:04.

3rd Quarter

TD
Randy Moss, 9 Yd pass from Tom Brady (Stephen Gostkowski kick is good), 10:13. Drive: 9 plays, 65 yards in 4:47.

TD
Brian Hoyer, 1 Yd run (Stephen Gostkowski kick is good), 0:11. Drive: 12 plays, 61 yards in 7:42.

Brady threw for six touchdowns and over 380 yards in just over a half of football.  The 13-3 record posted by last year’s Titans seems much more distant than just a season, with the hapless Titans now winless in week six.

Not to be outgunned, the league’s hottest quarterback thus far in this season also threw for over 350 yards and four touchdowns against the top-ranked pass defense in the Saints 48-27 win over the previously undefeated Giants.  Drew Brees has been unbelievable all year, and today was nothing short of amazing.

I kept an eye on the Redskins progress against the Chiefs, and continued to feel badly for Jim Zorn – thrust into a position he just shouldn’t have allowed himself to accept.  I’ve liked Zorn since the Seahawks first season – Dad got our family season tickets and we went to see the expansion team with the unconventional head coach (Jack Patera), the mobile and exciting left-handed quarterback (Zorn) and the great Steve Largent.  Zorn is funny, quirky, genuine and I can see why his players asked Redskins owner Dan Snyder to give their coach a vote of confidence.  It is tough to watch the disheveled and disorganized ‘Skins lose to a previously winless team (again), and it is hard to see how Zorn could keep his job after this.  I am sure he’s a good QB coach (Mike Holmgren is as good a teacher as can be found at developing QB talent, and Zorn worked for Holmgren in Seattle these past five or six years), and I was looking forward to seeing how he did as the offensive coordinator.  It was likely an offer he couldn’t refuse when Snyder decided to make Zorn the Head Coach as well as offensive coordinator, but I sure wish Zorn had done so.  The team looks horrible, and seems to be regressing week to week.  Zorn is doing not just one, not just two, but three jobs he has never held before:  offensive coordinator, head coach and offensive play-caller. 

I do enjoy having a control panel that lets’ me keep real-time track of the game I am watching as well as all the other action around the league at the same time.  If you want to try it out, on most sports, just follow the link below:

NFL GameTracker - CBSSports.com

Sunshine on Discovery Bay

Sunshine on Discovery Bay
As always, the photos we use are either my own, or in the public domain. Please let me know if there are any errors and I'll correct them immediately.