One ends, another begins

The weekend brings change in our weather.  How about some snow?  And colder temperatures?  It also brings in a change in years as 2011 travels into the past while 2012 is set to bring us some much needed improvement in the nation's economy.  I hope it brings you a Most Happy New Year!

The Iowa caucuses will be held next Tuesday.  At last!  Was it during the last century that the battle for the Republican presidential nomination began?  It’ll be over very quickly.

My Fearless Friend has joined me in garaging an ICD, an Implanted Cardioverter Defibrillator.  That’s a device I wear to more or less regulate my heartbeat.  I’ve had mine for a couple of years.  I periodically transmit via telephone a record of its performance.  I’ve never felt it do anything and I’m not sure I ever do want to feel the electrical jolt.  The doc has told me I’ve been paced a couple of times, though.  I didn’t know when that happened, either.  If his is anything like mine, FF’s experience will be that he’ll be wondering for the next several days just when that jolt will happen.  He’ll never know he has the device after that wait which probably be in vain.

This is the weekend for college football lovers, except New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday this year.  That means the normal Sunday Bowl Games will be played Monday.

Unfortunately, the Bowl Season has changed during the last few years.  There was a time when all the major bowl games were played on New Year’s Day.  Remember how we used to spend much of the afternoon and evening switching among the channels while watching mostly the game that most interested us.

But like most things, the Bowls have gone through a huge change.  The Bowl Season actually began last week and will continue into the second week of January.  Although not every night produced a game, most did and some even had two of them except the two games were at different times, and another day has  four scheduled.  Of course that means the number of games has grown and I think that makes most of the additional Bowls irrelevant, except for the two teams playing and their fans.  It also has opened the Bowl doors to any team that wins a paltry six games during the season.  (That includes the Florida Gators.)

The Gators take their impressive record (not a single win against a top team) into the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, FL.  There is no relationship between the Gator Bowl and the Florida Gators.  They’ll play Ohio State Monday at one o’clock.  One, probably the only, spark for the game is a coach.  Last year, Urban Meyer coached the Gators.  Next year, he’ll coach OSU.

I hope your weekend will be super; it certainly will be for the Gator Congregation.  (BTW:  a bunch of gators in a single place is called a “congregation.”  The name doesn’t truly fit my situation as my clan only has one Gator, me.)

Gator