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Thursday, September 13, 2007

Your Hub for All Things Football

I've added a new section to the web site - Morgan Wick Sports - that will serve as a home base for the Lineal Titles, the SuperPower Rankings, and the College Football Rankings. This week's SuperPower Rankings are now available there. Go to morganwick.freehostia.com/sports/football.

The NFL lineal title history is now located there as well, and the ATH Drinking Game is now here.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

My Airport Misadventures

You probably thought I had made my last "Da Blog in LA" post. I thought so, too. Instead, it turned out the most eventful part of my trip came once I got back.

Never book a flight that gets in after 10.

My flight was scheduled to arrive at 10:56 PM and it did so. Before we got off, however, we were told our luggage would arrive on either Carousel 13 or 14. Uh oh.

I arrive in the baggage claim area, look at the board showing arrivals, and it says our baggage is coming on Carousel 14. Straightforward, right? Except that after a while of waiting someone comes on the loudspeaker and says our luggage is on Carousel 13. Oops. To add to the confusion, neither carousel's own electronic board ever states that my flight is on it.

Thinking maybe our luggage just hasn't come down yet, I sit and wait while a collection of other flights sees their luggage arrive. As I wait, two things occur. The ex-passengers of a different flight, arriving at around 11, complain after an hour that their luggage hasn't come down yet. Their luggage doesn't come down until around 12:40. (So I am justified in thinking it's taking a long time - it was a possibility.) While they're waiting, I meet someone else from my flight who tells me our luggage has already been "unloaded". What does that mean? That it already had its turn on the carousel and I missed it, or that it should be coming down shortly? If the former, well, if I'm an idiot I'm evidently not the only idiot.

Which is exactly what it turns out to be. After the pack of long waiters finally get their luggage, I note that there are basically no waiters left and finally find out my luggage has been sent to behind a rope. It's around 12:45 by this time, so I've waited for the better part of two hours. If it weren't for the two factors above, I might have found out what happened quite a bit sooner.

You know, I have a vague memory of something like this happening two years ago, when me and my dad went to LA partly to check out colleges in the area, but it may just be false deja vu.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Da Blog in LA Recap (what prodigious output!)

For the most part, my week in LA consisted of little more than hanging out around my dad's house. I had some enlightening conversations with him about heavy topics and briefly caught up with some family, but not much happened.

Some catchup from the week that was:
  • NFL Lineal Title news: Carolina picked up the core Lineal Title off the Rams. They face Houston next week. The Colts will be defending against the Titans next week. If Houston and the Colts win unification would come Week 3. Atlanta and New Orleans are rooting for Carolina and Tennessee to win respectively.
  • After a week of no CFB lineal changes we get changes galore this week. Florida held on to the Princeton title against Troy, while LSU demolished Virginia Tech to retain the 2004 Auburn title. But Boise State falls to Washington while BYU loses to UCLA, making unification between the 2006 Boise State and 2004 Utah titles likely. UCLA plays Utah next while Washington plays Ohio State; the latter has a very high risk of averting unification. Unification is certain, however, if both teams retain.
  • SuperPower Rankings will start being hosted on the web site tommorow. They are currently delayed; Sporting News is joining the race but SI appears to be dropping out and if USA Today has any power rankings ongoing they don't have this week's up yet. My Week 2 picks are partly dependent on the SuperPower Rankings and are similarly delayed.
  • The voting-method-for-100-greatest-movies poll received no votes whatsoever in almost two months. I'm ashamed of you.