CFL Exellence

I was just reading my friend Trish Siplon's excellent blog and she admitted that 2014 was a bad year for blogging.  Apparently there's something in the water because it was, by far, my worst year in regard to looking after my blog.  Part of it related to the fact that I didn't do much traveling, and, well, this did start out as a travel blog (hence the clunky blog moniker).  Still, it's not as if I didn't do anything that was interesting - or at least interesting to me.  I will be taking a group of students to Jordan over spring break, which I'm looking forward to.  That said, I have to get my head around the fact that I'm just not going to be traveling like I used to, and, truthfully, that's not an entirely bad thing.  I think too often I ignored my personal life - both the good and bad of it - because of my fascination with discovering new adventures, and foolishly ignoring the treasures I already possessed.

I think I've devoted a ton of time to Twitter (as I close in on 8000 Tweets) and I've found that world really fascinating. In fact, I think I now clearly fall into that category of folks who get most of their news, especially true in regard to international news, through Twitter.  I've also been devoting a lot of time to one of my latest projects, which I call the Core Talks (that deserves a separate posting, so I'll have more to say about that later). 

I've also been doing a ton of research and writing on my long-delayed - and long-suffering - epics book.  I feel like I'm making a lot of progress on it, and I'm slowly building up that momentum and approaching that tipping point that form the core of all big projects.  However, that also deserves its own postings; so, once again, more on that later.

Anyway, the point of that long preamble is that I'm going to attempt to devote more time to blogging this year.  It is something I enjoy, especially when I look back months or years later and am surprised (sometimes pleasantly so) at the places I've been.  The other day someone asked me why I blog, and I had to say that I do it for myself (and who needs a better reason than that).

For several years a group of us have been talking about making our way up to Montreal to watch a CFL game.  I've always enjoyed the Canadian Football League and my son and I always used to watch the Grey Cup.  When we were getting supplies for the game the standing joke was that we must have made it to the store before the mad rush to get Grey Cup Party treats.  So, we decided to stop talking about it (much like I tired of listening to Sanford talk about driving to Oklahoma and forced him to take the Trip of Excellence). 

We (Mike, Andy and Eli) decided to go to the Alouettes game with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, since they are my favorite team.  We had considered trying to catch the Edmonton Eskimos, since they are my favorite team.  In the end I guess it didn't matter because we did get to watch the Alouettes, who are my favorite team.  It's rare when you can have a third of a league (with expansion the CFL is up to 9 teams again) as your favorite team.  The Edmonton and Winnipeg favorite team competition relates to the fact that I mistakenly thought that former Vikings head coach Bud Grant had coached the Eskimos, so I adopted them as my official favorite CFL team and this was true for years.  And then later I found out that I was mistaken, and that he had actually coached the Blue Bombers (to multiple Grey Cup titles, before moving on to the Vikings and four Super Bowl, uh, appearances) - so, technically, the Blue Bombers should have been my favorite team.  In the end, however, I really think my favorite team should be the Alouettes because, for those of us up here in Vermont, they are our closest professional team.  Obviously, I'm still negotiating the whole business of my favorite CFL team.

The trip turned out to be a lot of fun, even though the Alouettes lost in dramatic fashion.  At the time they had a terrible record, but ended up going on an insane win streak at the end of the season and almost made it to the Grey Cup.  I think this is going to be an annual event.

It was pretty easy to find the stadium, especially with brilliant guides like Burkhardt and Lange on the job.

The stadium was packed and there was a lot of energy.  Truthfully, the food was an abomination - imagine sub-high school level - but we'll just plan better next time.  And, yes, the end zone is twenty yard deep.  One of the many cool peculiarities of Canadian football.

The Gentlemen of Excellence, as is their wont, passionately supported the home team and made Vermont proud.  How could we not be excited - the Alouettes are my favorite team.

We did get to see former Bengal Chad Ochocinco Johnson score his first CFL touchdown.  After catching the pass, in classic Ochocinco fashion, he hugged the referee.

While the food in the stadium left a lot to be desired, the post-game stop at Tim Horton's for donuts was, as always, tasty and delicious.  Here's Andy considering whether he should go back and for more Tim Bits.