Larry's Phat Page ver. 4.1
Welcome
Me
What's New
Site News
Daily Occurrences
Feedback
Photography
Links
Miscellaneous
Site Help
Contact Me
Highways
What's New in My Life

« PREV    NEXT »

Tue.Sep.14.2004

2:44 am EDT        68°F (20°C) in La Salle, IL

Calendar of Updates

I don't know how one follows a true stroke of genius. In my opinion, my last update here is one of the better ones I've ever made; I guess I've left myself a large pair of shoes to fill.

In any case, I've decided to make another quick update here before I go off to bed for the night. Since my last update, I have delivered one load in Missouri, picked up another one in Iowa bound for Ohio, and gone home for a few days. I managed to see my sister and my friend Marc a couple times each over the weekend; Marc and I caught the Miami-Florida State football game Friday night (a 16-10 'Canes win), and the Michigan-Notre Dame game on Saturday (won 28-20 by the Irish).

Michigan should have won that game, but a number of their own mistakes did the Wolverines in. True-freshman quarterback Chad Henne continued to look solid; he could have done a lot more had Lloyd Carr allowed him to do so. I place the blame for the offensive troubles squarely on Carr: he seems so concerned with protecting Henne's psyche that he won't call any pass plays over 10 yards. The strength of Michigan's team is its receivers (Braylon Edwards, Jason Avant, and Steve Breaston); Carr failed to game-plan to his strengths. Defensively, the secondary looks very good, but the front seven was suspect, particularly in the fourth quarter — it seemed that Notre Dame could gain 6-8 yards per rush almost at will. Special teams were downright horrible; Michigan couldn't protect the punter (a blocked punt gave the Irish possession at Michigan's 5-yard line, with a touchdown immediately to follow), stay out of their own punt returner's way (a blocker ran into Braylon Edwards as he tried to catch the punt, causing him to muff and fumble it, leading to another Irish touchdown), or cover punts (several 15-yard-plus returns by the Irish).

I also got to see my sister's new home in Ann Arbor. She had planned to live in campus housing, but an over-abundance of entering freshmen caused the university to require upperclassmen to either (a) accept university-owned "family housing" apartments instead of dorms, or (b) take a $1,000 buyout of their housing contract and seek off-campus housing. After deliberating with my parents, she selected the latter option, and found a top-floor room in a house not far from campus. It's a pretty nice place overall, I think, though some of the weird ceiling angles (since it is the top floor) would take some getting used to for me. In any case, she and her five housemates will be all set later this week, after they get all of the requisite utilities installed or turned on.

Finally, yesterday afternoon, I got my load headed back out of home. I'm headed for Nebraska with this one. Before long, I need to get into a shop for my regularly scheduled every-15,000-mile service, and I expect to get back home again in early October.