Avalanche season opening notes

These are just going to be short posts about how the Avs season goes in the 48-game sprint...

Fine job tonight (alright last night by now) by Avalanche goaltender Semyon Varlamov against the Wild.  Got tagged with the L, only cause the skaters couldn't stay out of the box in the second period.  Not really sure who played worse, the Aztecs or the Avs in the 2nd period...

AVALANCHE - 1  0  1 = 2
WILD - 0 3 1 = 4
PIM's: COL - 19 (12 in the 2nd period alone), MIN - 11
SOG's: COL - 27, MIN - 35 (18 in the 2nd period)

What a weekend

Greetings welcome to bog 1.011. So what did you do this weekend? I bet it wasn't as exciting as mine (unless you went to all 5 of Garth's concerts in LA)!

Friday - Nothing special, it was the calm before the storm!!!! I did watch the CBS 1 hr broadcast of GB's concert (live on the East Coast). Two things here, 1) why only an hour CBS? You could have bumped the other show and shown all 2 hours of the concert. and 2) Why is everything always "Live on the East Coast". It seems that nothing is ever live on the west coast.

Saturday - What a day!!!!!! First I went to go see the Aztecs basketball team take on UNLV. UNLV ended up wining the game by a final of 72-69. Fine job Rebels, but even you have to admit the officials were horrible in the game against BOTH teams.

After the game, I headed up the 5 to Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. Normally, I avoid downtown LA like the plague, because everything in LA (please notice I'm differentiating between LA & Orange County) sucks!!!!!! Except for Staples Center! Staples is the second largest arena I have been in (behind Pepsi Center in Denver). I have been there three times now for three different types of events (Clippers BBall, Avengers, and now a concert (the first concert outside of San Diego County)). The drive wasn't that bad, as I went through some wonderful points of interest like Camp Pendelton (Thanks guys for what you do, but can't you spruce up the view alittle???), San Clemente, Sa-na-ta-a-na (Jeff Dunham reference), the 91 freeway, and downtown LA.

Then come the moment I've been waiting for since my mom gave me the tickets for Christmas, GARTH BROOKS!!!!!!!!!! I saw him in concert in June of 1996 as a HS graduation gift for myself. Once I saw that he was coming to LA, I was trying to figure out how I could get tickets. I figured I would just have to wait, as it ended up, mom got them for me. I have also made a vow, if Garth comes within 6 hours of San Diego, I will find a way to go!!! That man can entertain the shit out of a crowd. I will even forgive him for starting 30 minutes late. NO WORRIES GB!!! The only thing that disappointed me was the fact that he didn't sing my favorite song, Learning to Live Again. It was a minor hit, so I can't exactly blame him.

After the concert, what could have been the worst ride of my life. I meant to take the 110 to the 405 all the way home. What actually happened was I hopped onto the 10. I took the 10 to the 5 south, great idea, two freeways and your done, WRONG! I get on the 5 and then I find out that all lanes are closed at Trigg street. Well, thankfully, 1/2 mile before Trigg is the 710, so I take the 710 and I'm thinking ok, either the 91 or the 405. Well, I hear that the 405 had a bunch of accidents, so I am planning on taking the 91, well before I get to the 91 the 710 comes to a complete stop. All lanes, I'm thinking, well hell I might as well have stayed on the 5. After about 25 minutes traffic starts to move again. What had happened was 3 cars got into an incident, and two of the cars were blocking lanes. After they were cleared, traffic started moving again. So I got to the 91, got back on the 5, and made my way thru the traffic and rain and wind. Finally getting home around 3:30 Sunday morning.

Sunday - Well after getting about 4 1/2 hours of sleep, it was back out we go. This time to meet up with Matty at his house so that my dad & I could get to the Buick Invitational to see how bad Tiger Woods could kill the field. He ended up winning by 8 shots. So we went to Torrey Pines site of the US Open this year to watch the tourney. I was about 5-10 feet away from Stuart Appelby after he hit his drive on the 7th hole into the left rough. I had taken a great shot of Tiger Woods latter on the 16th tee, but the same idiots (SDPD) that pulled me over for my headlights a couple of weks ago, told me I'd have to erase the picture or I would have to wait until 3 hours after the tournament to get my cell phone back. So even thou, I didn't want to, I erased the picture, and turned off my cell phone, only to turn it back on about 5 minutes later. I ended up being about 5 feet away from Tiger when he went into the media tent for his post-tourney comments. And then again when he came back out and before he was taken away, he signed a program book for a kid that is 7 yrs old, that is cool Tiger!!!!

Anyways, so that was the weekend from heaven, and now I start back to regular spring semester over at "Harvard on the Hill". BTW, with all of the rain that was falling here in So Cal this past weekend, was anyone building an arc? Oh and one final comment from the Garth Brooks concert. I had a bunch of people laughing when as I was leaving Staples Center, I was saying "Aw, can someone please turn off the sprinklers, the ground is wet enough already!" They thought it was funny!!!

What a wild & crazy ride

Welcome to todays episode of The Bog. In this episode, I'll write about stuff that I found intersting surrounding the Aztecs women's basketball team taking on the 2/2 Conneticut women's Huskeys.

The whole crazy ride began on Tuesday after the Navy game (which I discussed in bog version 1.004).

Wednesday, SDSU had the weekly press conference to go over all the basketball games this weekend (both men's & women's). Beth Burns (HC), Temeka Ledford, & Shanna Demus were the designated coach & players to talk to the media (3 cameras, 2 newspaper, & me). When the SDSU media realations department took questions and put them on the website for the quotes from the conference, they chose three questions that I asked (woohoo!!!!!!!).

Thursday was a special luncheon at the Hall of Champions with Geno Auriemma, Charde Houston (player on UConn from San Diego), Beth Burns, & Paris Johnson (teammate of Houston's in HS). During the question & answer portion of the luncheon Beth quoted a question that I asked during the weekly conference (another first for me).

Friday was the big day, I was able to go and watch about the first 10 minutes of the game. All of the hoopla, talk, pre-concieved notions were correct. When looking at the team from UConn, they are not all that tall (I was taller than all but 2 of the players), they were not shooting well during the pre-game warm ups, but let me tell you something. Once that ball went up for the tip-off all bets were off. UConn were really playing sloppy compared to what I've seen them play on TV, but even playing sloppy (for them) they scored 49 in the opening half.

"At halftime we talked about the fact that we scored 49 points in the first half and I do not know if we executed anything other then our fast break. I thought (SDSU) made it really hard for us and they wanted to speed up the game. It was an unusual game, it did not seem like we were up by as many points as we were." - Geno Auriemma

If I was the SDSU Aztecs I would take that as a compliment as they were able to get "the mighty UConn train" off thier track.

So now the Aztecs start looking to improve as they have a couple of days to "lick thier wounds" before the Surf 'n Slam begins on the 28th. From what I saw, and have seen so far this season, the entire MWC is in for a real wakeup call as the Aztecs were the preseason pick to finish 7th in a conference of 9. The Aztecs I believe will finish in the top 5 (top half) and it wouldn't surprize me if they get into a post-season tournament.

As far as humor in this episode, lets look at the news of the weird.........

Courtesy of the folks at the Portland Press Herald

In November the Food and Drug Administration told Smiling Hill Farm of Westbrook, Maine, that it would have to recall all of its egg nog because it did not list "egg" as an ingredient on the label. Federal law requires the listing to protect people with egg allergies from inadvertently consuming foods that they might not have realized contain egg (even products called "egg nog").

Now let me see if I got this right....if someone is allergic to EGG, and they are drinking EGGnog, I think the term DUH comes to mind. What the hell are these people thiking, "oh gee, I'm allergic to egg, but I don't see egg in the ingredients of eggnog, I guess there isn't any egg in there." These are the some people that the makers of everything have to put directions on products. Or to put it another way, it probably are the idiots that sue say McDonald's because they spilled coffee on themselves and gee, it is hot, DUH!!!!!!!!

That is going to do it for bog episode 1.005, if I don't bog before, MERRY CHRISTMAS (please notice that I'm not afraid to say Merry Christmas, if the PC police are out there, you can find me in Las Vegas for Christmas, I'll be staying at the Riviera!).

Wow, what a couple of days

Greetings and welcome to bog 1.004, this bog will be on press conferences, games, and traffic.

First press conferences, I have been to a boat load in the last couple of days. First we had the post-game conference at the SDSU men's game against Navy, then the post-game at the SDSU women's game (interesting note coming on that), and then today with the Poinsettia Bowl conference this morning, and the weekly Aztecs conference at Cox Arena (I kind of feel like I have been living there the last few days).

The note on the SDSU women's game is this. The Naval academy women's basketball team got into San Diego on Sunday. For dinner on Sunday they went to a Mexican restaurant in Mission Valley (I will not say which one on here as it would get me into trouble). The entire team, including the coaches, got food poisoning. So with that in mind, the entire team ran into the locker room after the game. For those who don't know the traditions with any service academy they always stay after the game to hear the alma mater played by the band. I had the EXTREME honor of being asked by the Capt. of the basketball team to stand in for the team during the alma mater. At the conclusion of the alma mater, I yelled as loud as I could the final two words of the song, "BEAT ARMY"! I personally went through the entire band, and thanked them for their service to the country, and they all thanked me for doing so.

The games that I have been to in the last few days includes both sides of the Aztecs vs. Navy battle (both games went to SDSU, BTW).

Traffic, say, has anyone in San Diego ever thought about oh, I don't know, BEING COURTIOUS????????? I would have to say no from what I can see here lately. If the driver in front of you needs to get in, let them, who knows, maybe the next time that you need to get in you will be able to do so.

Until I type again, this is Chris signing off of bog 1.004

SDSU Vs. Navy Basetball game

Well, win 100 @ Cox Arena for the Aztecs Men's Basketball arena came against the US Naval Academy before some 5500 folks. For the record, it was a 86-76 final in favor of SDSU. That is not what I'm going to be writing about however, what I'm writing about is (and I'm pretty leaniant when it comes to student sections) the poor sportsmanship from "The Show".

"The Show" for those who don't already know is the SDSU student section. You may have seen them when the Aztecs have been on TV, they are the ones that put up all of the face cut-outs surign the second half in an attempt to make the opponents miss thier free throws.

So, one of teh things that "The Show" does that I find actually really humorus is when Bryan Main is introducing the opponents, they are acting like they are reading the Daily Aztec. Then when Bryan is done announcing the opponents, they throw the copies of the DA in the air and start to cheer for the Aztecs. I have no problem with this, the problem that I had with "The Show" tonight was the fact that they were actually booing the Midshipman (don't call us the Middies) during the intros.

How can you boo the military?

I understand that it was the opponent for the evening, and all, but come on, its the Navy. If you really want to look at the city of San Diego, if it wasn't for the Navy & all the stuff this city does for the military in general, there wouldn't be a San Diego. And this one point to the SDSU Athletics dept. You are playing the US NAVAL academy, don't have the ARMY ROTC present the colors!!!!! That is just wrong!

So that will do it for bog post 1.003, Round two of the two round fight between SDSU & the US Naval Academy. The women will tip-off @ 7.