Happy Halloween!

Apparently, I am a monster.

Halloween Monster Name Your Halloween Monster Name is Bill the Bloody Web Footed Attorney Get Your Halloween Monster Name at Quizopolis.com

Four letter word!!!!

Four letter word!!! Four letter word!!! Four letter word!!!

Hats off to the team from Clarke County. That was the most fire I've seen in a Richt-coached team. Ever. Richt is a guy who exudes milktoast. While I liked the idea of taking the 15-yard team celebration after the first TD, I thought that it might create a situation that the players could not handle and all of the subsequent penalties seemed to confirm that. What I saw tonight was what I saw when I was in Gainesville in early September to watch the Troy game. UF's secondary can't cover. And UF's safeties can't tackle. I've seen 9-year-olds take better angles.

I'm not going to make excuses about injured Gators costing us this game because on offense, I still think we have enough weapons to win just about any game. And I think we had enough to win this game. I knew the game was lost after 2 plays. A drop by Cornelius Ingram in the second half (on the first ball thrown to him) and a catch by a Georgia TE on a key 4th quarter drive. Over the last 18 years -- especially in the 2000s -- this game has been epitomized by Georgia WRs and TEs dropping the easiest of passes. Not tonight. They even caught somewhat difficult passes.

And yet again, I witnessed UF's in ability to run a hurry up offense. In this game, I got the opportunity to watch it twice -- at the end of both halves. Lucky me! I don't like it when the check at the line occurs at the sideline. I cannot tell you how many times I have screamed at the TV or into a throw pillow when Tebow and Co. turn -- in unison -- to look at the sideline for the new play. You can't run a hurry up offense when the team looks to the sideline for the audible.
And what coach, not named Mumme, thinks an inside reverse is the best play for a 4th and 2 call late in the game? The answer to that question is Mullen -- Dan Mullen, UF's offensive coordinator. Brain fart is too kind.

15 of 18 is no relief on this evening -- even if it is true. If there is anything good that could come from this result -- and that's a big IF -- it's that it may quiet all the chatter from the Bulldogs about how this game shouldn't be played in Jacksonville. Fairly certain that's not the topic of conversation as the red and black fans celebrate at The Landing tonight.

Seniors Only

I needed to put something funny on the blog. Enough of the death and dying.

And yes, I identify with this comic. Although I was never hip.

Moses 1998-2007

Well that was not easy, but we did the right thing.

I had a moment at home with Moses before we left for the vet. He's been such a good dog even though he was a complete nut. Never wanted to do anything but hang out with us or play with us. It was hard to know that and know that he was not going to be around in another hour.

Jen had spent the day with Moses and Murphy. Took them down to Piedmont Park to walk and play. Moses started strong -- looking like the excitable one that he'd always been -- but his strength gave out fairly quickly. They went to Chastain Park to walk around there too, but Moses didn't have much more strength for that.

Keegan spent the day and night with some friends so we could devote our attention and energy to the task at hand. That was a great gesture on their part to help us with that.

At the vet was tough too. We went in, and they had a room set up for us. They laid out some blankets on the floor and a pillow. Jen and I went in with him; Murphy stayed out in the lobby with another friend of ours. We took Moses off the leash and let him walk the room a little. He enjoyed the smells on the blankets and in the room. We gave him a treat -- couldn't hurt anything at this point, right? The vet came in and just checked him out again. He could feel where one of the tumors felt bigger than just the day before. He said there were sounds in his lungs that sounded like it was spreading into there as well. It was just confirming our decision. He'd lost 6 pounds in the last three weeks. He'd lost muscle tone in his shoulders, his hind quarters, down his spine. You could put your fist through his collar he'd lost so much muscle in the neck and shoulders. Things were going south for him in a hurry, and he was the type of dog who would suffer quietly with it. We couldn't let that happen.

So first they started with a sedative -- Ketamine (or Special K as the kids like to call it) -- the drug that addicts steal out of vet offices all the time. We didn't break out any glow sticks though. It took about 10-15 seconds for Moses to feel the effects of that. He was completely calm. One of the few times we could ever say that about him! He was slowly licking the blanket and then completely relaxed and left his tongue just hanging out of his mouth. He got the vet's pant leg all wet. Then the vet tried to find a vein on his front leg but couldn't find one (another effect he thought of the advancing cancer). He moved to the back legs where there are larger veins. Even that took a couple of pokes to find one (Moses was feeling nothing when he poked him each time thankfully). Then he gave him the injection. Jen was holding his face. It was peaceful but it was gut-wrenching all at once. To know that this was the moment he was leaving us. The vet was pretty broken up too because he'd been seeing Moses now for at least 5 years, and he worked with Jen when she worked there. The vet tech made a paw print for us on a card which was very nice. Then they left us alone with him again. I lost it a bit at this point as I rubbed his side and head and face. It was good though. We always knew that it was the right thing to do for him, so that was a constant comfort even while the waterworks were flowing.

Then we let Murphy come in. She sniffed his butt and then wanted nothing more to do with him. (That's right Eli, I said "butt.") She wouldn't look him in the eyes at all (which were still open by the way -- dogs eyes don't close when they're under anesthesia or when they die. I guess they're constantly on watch like the loyal friends they are.). She just paced around the room. Then we met the guy who was there from the cremation service. I signed a consent form. He handed us some information. And we left with Murphy. We decided not to watch the guy put Moses in the van. We had said our goodbyes. The service took him last night and will call us Monday to pick up the box o' Moses that they will have for us. (Pardon the gallows humor.)

It was a hard night, but it was good. It was hard to write this, but it's good to get it down to get the experience on paper so to speak and to get more closure on it. Jen said when she let Murphy out this morning, she left the door open after Murphy came in out of habit waiting for Moses to trail in after. I suspect that will happen a couple more times.

Thanks for thinking about us last night. We've appreciated all the thoughts and prayers from everyone.

Our wonderful, crazy dog Moses

As some of you know, Moses has been having some health issues this summer and fall. Over the last couple of weeks we had narrowed it down to what we thought to be cancer. After a seizure this morning, he was diagnosed with one of two kinds of cancer. Chemotherapy isn't an option for us because of his advanced age and how hard it would be on him. Cortizone was an option, and he did have one shot of that this morning, but as the day has gone on Jen has felt that buying more time with the cortizone is just for us . . . for us to have more time with him. We've already had the very best times with him and feel that keeping him here longer would just be selfish. Even though it shatters our hearts over and over, we are going to have him euthanized tomorrow night around 7:30 p.m. A friend will be keeping Keegan, and Jen and I will be there together to say goodbye to him, along with Murphy. We appreciate all of your prayers. As the realization begins to set in, every fiber in our being fights against it. We know it's the very best final gift we can give to such a wonderful dog who has given us so much over the last nine years. Thanks for your love and prayers.

Moses and Murphy on our old couch.

Murphy and Moses guarding the porch on Halloween 2004.

20th High School Reunion

Last Saturday night, Jen and I went to my 20th high school reunion. That's right, in June 1987, I graduated from high school. How long ago was that? During the fall of my senior year, Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet debuted! These were the top 10 television shows during my senior year:

1) The Cosby Show

2) Family Ties

3) Cheers

4) Murder, She Wrote

5) The Golden Girls

6) 60 Minutes

7) Night Court

8) Growing Pains

9) Moonlighting

10) Who's the Boss?

And No. 11? Dallas (I don't remember if that was the Bobby Ewing dream sequence in the shower lost season.)

1987 was so long ago that between McEachern and North Cobb High Schools, there were no other high schools. When I left Pine Mountain Middle School in 1983, half of us went to North Cobb and half of us went to McEachern. Which brings me to my first observation about the reunion. As we were walking down the hallway of the hotel to the room where my fellow Warriors were reconnecting, we passed a wedding reception and then I noticed a woman that I went to middle school with talking with someone else who I didn't recognize. I took another 3 steps and recalled that that woman didn't go to North Cobb when we left middle school; she went to McEachern. Then, I passed the registration table for the 20th high school reunion for McEachern High School. In the same hotel . . . on the same hallway . . . on the same weekend. Weird.

At the end of the hallway was another registration table -- the one for North Cobb. There I picked up my name tag. The folks at the reunion consultants were kind enough to slap a copy of my senior portrait on the name tag in case I forgot what I looked like with a mullet. (Or maybe in case I had hidden that part of my past from my lovely wife.) I think the women alums (alumnae -- for you Latin devotees) had it worse. Most of their name tags reminded them of their Reba-McIntyre-Entertainer-of-the-Year hairdos. The ones that required a bottle of Aqua Net per day to maintain maximum height and circumference.

The night was filled with recollections of days long ago. But more conversations were about where we've been since that June morning at the Cobb Civic Center in 1987 and what we're doing now. Talks about jobs and kids and ailments -- kids' ailments and our own! The one thing that I noticed was that the years had seemed to release most of us from the cliques that so many of us had been caught up in. It was sort of the mirror image of that first day of kindergarten. When you're 5 and you go to school for the first time (of course, no one now goes to "school" for the first time at the age of 5 anymore -- waiting that long might reduce the chances of your kid being able to learn algebra in the 5th grade. Because if you master polynomials by age 11, the world is your oyster, but if you wait until 9th grade, your only option may be law school.) Like I was saying, when you go to that first day of kindergarten, you'll talk to anyone because all you see are other kids the same size as you. You don't care if they're wearing clothes from Baby Gap or Wal-Mart. None of them are cooler because they rode around in a $400 stroller at 6 months old. All you see is another person with a runny nose just like you.

Some 30+ years later, you live out the mirror image of that first day of school. Again, you're back to talking to anyone. Why? The innocence of that first day is lost. By now, life has thrown so many other things at us since high school that people simply don't have time to bother with concerning themselves with perceived status. So you can have conversations with people who never would have let you borrow a pen in class 20 years ago. It's kind of nice to think that people who could be so petty then (myself included) could put away any resentment and just enjoy the moment to reminisce about how stupid we all were then.

Play Doh Advert

Back in July, I posted about two ads for the Sony Bravia television that are genius productions. The folks at Sony have done it again with their latest installment. For a high resolution version go here and click on the link to watch the Play Doh Ad. Below is one of several copies that are available on YouTube. They used 2.5 tons of play doh to make the ad.