Oh, The Irony

Roy Williams, Safety for the Dallas Cowboys, horsecollar tackled so many players that they made it a penalty in his honor. OK, not so much in honor, but because of him they made it a penalty. It is often called the Roy Williams penalty.

Earlier this year, he was fined and suspended for horsecollaring Donovan McNabb. Maybe that'll teach him to stop, they reasoned. It was his third infraction, after all.

I mean, they named the penalty after him for Pete's sake!

Which is why I find the following situation so extremely ironic. A referee breaking up a fight by horse collaring--guess who--Roy Williams.

Oh the irony!

Jealousy

My first black belt class after the holidays. We have a 12 year old ik-kyu in the dojo who will be testing for his junior black belt soon. The entire class last night was spent working with him, getting him ready. Sensei says that will be the focus of our black belt classes until he tests.

I must admit I feel more than a little bit of jealousy. Sensei is spending all this time working with him.

Last year, about this time, when two more of our students were getting ready to test, sensei would spend the entire class working with them, while the rest of the class worked kata by ourselves. He even brought in black belts from our parent dojo to evaluate them and work with them.

I would have killed to have been able to receive that kind of attention. What I got was, "Go over in the corner, on your own, and figure out, on your own, what you will need to know for your test."

This summer, I will be eligible to test for my second degree. Sensei has indicated that he will recommend me for promotion. I am no where near ready. Yet, all of our black belt classes will be spent getting this one child ready for a junior black belt, while I am neglected once again.

Makes it mighty hard to stay motivated.

Mighty hard.

One Good Thing

At least one good thing came out of the misery that was yesterday's football action. I finished the first Tidal Wave sock and cast on the second.


I am just one sock--less than one sock, in fact--from my own personal Super Bowl victory! When I finish the next sock, I will have no, I repeat no active WIPS!

It won't last long, though. Cody has requested a dark gray sock hat. I don't have any dark gray yarn in my stash, so I'll have to buy some. This is allowed in my destashing goals, since it is for a gift. It will, however, count as my free day for January/February, so I can't buy any more yarn until the end of April. I tried to get the boy to pick some yarn out of my stash, but he is determined that he wants dark gray.

As long as I've been knitting (8 years now), the kid has only gotten two scarves--and one of them I just finished.

It's his turn.

A Day For Upsets

The Chargers upset the Colts, and Cody is upset about that.

The Giants upset the Cowboys, and I'm upset about that.

That's enough. I'm going to bed.

Dear Mr. Romo

You are the starting quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys football team. Not just any football team, but the Dallas Cowboys football team. Not the Seattle Seahawks. Not the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Not the Tennessee Titans, nor the Houston Texans, nor the San Diego Chargers.

The Dallas Cowboys.

Do you know what that means?



That means it doesn't matter that you led your team to a record tying 13-3 regular season record. It doesn't matter that you hold nearly every franchise quarterback record there is. It doesn't matter that you led the team to their first division championship in years, nor that you won the bye, or the home field advantage. It doesn't matter that after far too long of a playoff drought, you have your team in the playoffs for the second year in a row.

None of that matters, because you are the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. Do you know what that means? It means that for you, good enough isn't good enough.

You must be perfect.


You must win the Big One, or none of your accomplishments will count for anything. If you don't, people will say Jerry Jones wasted his money on you. People will call you a flash in the pan. People will say you are an overpaid pretty boy.

You are the starting quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. No matter what you do, there will be people who hate you. Even worse than that, if you don't win the Big One, no one will remember you.

Remember that guy who held most of those records you broke this year? Danny White? Remember him?

Yeah.

Nobody else does either.
.
.

Saturday Sky

To counteract the effects of the plain blue square, I added some nekkid trees to the shot.

A Poem for You

Here I sit all broken hearted.
Came to blog but can't get started.

Mountains

One of my favorite quotes was attributed to him, though I've never been able to verify it.

You never conquer a mountain. You stand on the summit a few moments, then the wind blows your footprints away.

Sir Edmund Hillary passed into immortality today.

And the mountain is still there.

Saluting him.

What Else?

What else can happen to Katie? She's been run over--several times, shot, snake bit, bee stung, cut, been in fights, had bladder stones, got hit by a tractor (a tractor, of all things!) which opened her incision back up after she had her bladder stones removed. She had a cyst in her shoulder. We had it drained, and scar tissue began to grow out of her shoulder. It looked like she had a misplaced toenail. It seems like every time I turn around, she is bleeding again.

She is like a cat. So much stuff has happened to her, I thought I'd seen it all. Until today.

I was cruising the forums at Raverly, when I heard Cody start calling, "Katie, Katie, Katie...MOM! Katie's got a fish hook through her ear!"

I ran into the other room, and sure enough, there was a fish hook through her ear, complete with fishing line still attached.

Sorry, no pictures. I wasn't going to make her suffer while I ran and got the camera. I took this one later. You can still see a little bit of blood on her face. I'm going to clean that up in a minute. After she de-traumatizes.


The barb was all the way through, so Cody went and got J to come over with his cutters. He cut the eye off and we slipped the hook out that way. She didn't like that, but at least it's out now.

She's glad of that.

Now, I'm thinking, "What else can that dog get in to?"

If I Were A Painting

Click here to create your own painting.

Either blog fodder or imagination on my part is sorely lacking today. Even my knitting mojo is slack. I only got one pattern repeat completed on my sock. That's it.

But, I did get my brother and his family's Christmas presents in the mail. That counts for something, right?

Right?

Number Four

is coming along nicely.


and I'm going to bed early.

National Champions

2008 BCS National Champions
Louisiana State University

It's Halftime

in the BCS National Championship game. Ohio State jumped to an early lead, scoring 10 points in the first 7 or so minutes of the game. LSU responded with 24 unanswered points, and leads at halftime 24-10. Ought to be a good game.

I finished my Branching Out. Rylea is modeling the as yet unblocked scarf.

And here is a closeup of the stitch pattern.


My original plan was to knit until I ran out of yarn, but a couple of quick calculations revealed that if I did that, the scarf would end up being about 14' long. So, I didn't have to knit as much as I thought I did. Blocked, the scarf will end up being about 6'. Still a good length for a scarf.

Now I just have the socks to complete, and my challenge will be done.

Back to the ball game...

Wild Card Weekend Pt 2

is over, as is the football season for two more teams. The Seahawks thrashed the Redskins 35-14 and will play Green Bay next week. The Giants pretty much did the same to the Buccaneers and will travel to Dallas to play the Boys for the third time this season.

On the AFC side, the Jaguars knocked off the Steelers 31-29 with a last minute field goal. They will play New England next week. This afternoon, the Chargers ended any hopes the Titans may have had and will travel to Indianapolis to face the Colts.

That's about all I did today. I knit and watched football. Tomorrow will be another football and knitting day. LSU and OSU are playing for the BCS national championship.

Expect light blogging tomorrow, too.

Wild Card Weekend

The Seattle Seahawks have knocked the Washington Redskins out of the playoffs. The Jacksonville Jaguars and Pittsburgh Steelers are tied at 7 in the first quarter. Gonna go finish watching that game here in a bit.

My major chore today was to take down the Christmas decorations. It always breaks my heart to turn the tree off for the last time. The house just seems duller without it.

In the midst of all that, I did manage to finish the second of my four projects.

Now it gets tedious, though. The Branching Out, while not difficult, is not quite simple enough for mindless knitting. I'm wanting to save the socks as a reward to myself for getting the scarf done, but I may have to do a few rows on them now and again. Just to break up the monotony.

Now, on to the Saturday Sky for today.



The sky started out looking like this:


but later on in the day, it looked as if the clouds would break up

but it didn't. It clouded over again and it stormed. Perfect knitting weather.

I'm going to go watch the ball game, but before I do, I leave you with a couple of gratuitous cute puppy pictures:

December 31, 2007

January 1, 2008