angela's blog

I should be in bed. I really should. Whatever crud is going around, I've been nailed by it (with it?). But I had to do this first. Priorities, you know. Best weekend for football. EVER. First, UNC kicks a last second field goal to beat Miami 31-28. And now this. Check. This. Out: Steelers 34 - Patriots 20. What'd I tell ya? Best weekend for football EVER. First quarter: Patriots kick a field goal for 3-0 lead 3 minutes into the game. This would be the first and only time they would lead for the rest of the night. 6 plays and 80 yards later, Big Ben Roethlisberger hit Plaxico Burress for a 47 yard touchdown pass. Jeff Reed kicks the extra point. Steelers 7, Patriots 3. 3 more minutes off the clock, another touchdown. This time, Big Ben to Plax for 4 yards. Touchdown. Steelers 14, Patriots still 3. 15 seconds later DeShea Townsend intercepts the ball. 39 yards. Touchdown. Steelers 21, Patriots ... still 3. Second quarter: Field goal, Steelers. Steelers 24, Patriots 3. After going scoreless for nearly 26 minutes, David Givens grabs a 2 yard pass from Tom Brady. Touchdown Patriots. Steelers 24, Patriots 10 at the half. Third quarter: The Bus ... 2 yard run. Touchdown Steelers. Steelers 31, Patriots 10. Patriots kick a field goal. Steelers 31, Patriots 13. Jeff Reed, field goal. Steelers 34, Patriots 13. Fourth quarter: Givens, 23 yard pass from Tom Brady. Touchdown Patriots. Final score: Steelers 34, Patriots 20. Unreal. Totally completely unreal. It was almost anti-climactic watching the last 2 minutes of the game knowing that all Big Ben had to do was take a knee and it'd be over. Some final stats: Ben Roethlisberger: 18/24, 195 yards, 2 TDs. Welcome to the NFL Ben. He's no rookie. He doesn't play like one, he doesn't interview like one, he doesn't look like one. From now on, after getting past one of the best defenses in the NFL, if Ben makes a goof, he doesn't make a rookie mistake; he just makes a mistake. Duce Staley: 25 carries for 125 yards. His 4th 100+ game this season. Jerome Bettis: 15 carries, 65 yards, 1 touchdown. In this game the Bus ran more yards than the previous 6 games combined. However, it was good to see that the Steelers have some depth at running back. It just takes a little while for the Bus to get warmed up it seems. The Patriots had 4 turnovers, one of which resulted in a Steelers touchdown. The Steelers had none. The Steelers rushed for 221 yards, the Patriots? FIVE. FIVE YARDS rushing. At one point during the third quarter the following was heard from the commentator: And that play brings the Patriots into positive yardage. For awhile the Patriots were sitting at around -1 yards for rushing in the game. Absolutely unreal. And the Bus destroyed his yards:TD ratio during this game. What was he thinking running 30 yards in the 4th quarter?? Oh. Right. Win football game. I'm down with that. For final game stats click here Next week Steelers take on the Eagles, the only remaining undefeated team in the NFL. Best weekend for football. EVER.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/31/2004 09:10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Well ... I have no words. I really don't. UNC upset Miami-Florida? Really? REALLY? Oh okay. REALLY? I'm amazed. We left JJ's with the game tied 7-7 in the first minutes of the first quarter. I figured that by the half we'd be trailing ... maybe not by much but by a little. JJ saw a TV at the half ... UNC 21, Miami 14. Huh? The glory of Tivo. I went back to JJ's house and watched: Chad Scott rush for 175 yards and 2 TDs Darian Durant complete 21 of 29, 266 yards and 2 TDs Connor Barth kick a 42 yard field goal to win the game the goalposts come down REALLY fast Wow. For final game stats click here Go Steelers ... come on guys ... make my weekend.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/30/2004 10:59:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

I am learning that in teaching, especially college students, I'm going to have to cut my losses and just be the hardass teacher. This suspicion of mine was affirmed today by the coordinating professor of my class. I was having some difficulty trying to work the kinks out of some student projects to make them usable, while still salvaging their original aspirations, and try as I might, I couldn't do it. Among other things, I got this in response when I emailed the prof: I wouldn't show them too much sympathy if they're way behind. *talks about some adjustments to make* ... that's not going to give them a great grade, but that's their problem. Ow. Got your point already. I hope my students don't shoot the messenger.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/28/2004 02:11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

And so it goes. The Boston Red Sox have won the world series. I actually watched part of it last night. Mostly because I couldn't find the batteries to my remote and when I turned the TV on that's where it was. I kid, although I did have to launch a search for the batteries in my remote. I flipped back and forth between my Sex and the City (want to make me happy ... Sex and the City ... good stuff) on TBS and the game. And I have to admit that when it was 3-0 in the top of the 7th, I almost made myself stay up to watch the rest. I didn't. I hadn't slept well/much in the last few nights and given my workload this week, I needed at least one night to get me through the rest of my week. I wish I had. Seriously, what was I THINKING?? I saw some highlights from the game and the celebration on the news this morning. There's something about a team that hasn't won a World Series since 1918, a team that's called cursed, that makes its players humble, appreciative, and just good sports about it all. After all, the Red Sox worked for every single game starting with the American League playoffs and a team that fights back from an 0-3 start ... well ... they've got some heart. They have to. There's no other way to do what they did. Kudos to the Red Sox. I'm not a big baseball fan ... but this almost made me change my mind. *As an aside, the Red Sox win has eclipsed the other New England team making history -- the Patriots. Patriots play the Steelers on Sunday afternoon. And heck yeah I'm watching that game.* In other news ... it's been ... a week. It's that time of year: midterm season! This week I had work coming out of my ears. I've worked already 35+ hours and it's 10 am on Thursday morning. I had originally thought I might be able to swing it so I wouldn't have to work tomorrow but I will. On the other hand, compared to what I've been doing, entering data doesn't seem all that difficult. Me, JJ's Tivo, and my data set. I can do that. Things I'm looking forward to this weekend: --Coopers are coming to town! Jackie and Terry are headed up this way after Jackie finishes a book signing in SC for his new book, Halfway Home. --No papers to grade for me this weekend! I think this is the first time in weeks I haven't had to work on papers for a weekend. --We gain an hour on Sunday! Almost nothing could make me cheerier than knowing I get an extra hour's sleep ... without actually having to plan for it. --Steelers are back! Patriots come to Heinz Field ... 4:15 on Sunday afternoon. Hurry up already you silly weekend ... I'm waiting!

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/28/2004 08:39:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

My morning was perfectly normal. I got up, showered, made my lunch, got my stuff, went to the bus stop, got on the bus, got off the bus. I went and got my bagel with butter from Breugger's (I'm sure I'm spelling that wrong). I digress for a moment ... back in high school there was a place called "New York Bagel" where we juniors and seniors would go and get breakfast in the mornings or go and get our lunches. We frequented the joint so much that when we all returned for our first visits home from college, we went there for lunch, and the meal was free. I miss NYB BUT, it appears as though I might have found my own bagel joint here. For a dollar and change I can get my bagel with butter, hot and toasted, every morning. Score. So I go and get my bagel. I walk back down Franklin and cross the street. As I cross I notice this older man in a suit sweeping out his storefront ... just cleaning out the leaves. He waves to someone passing on the street. Charming. And then I turn and head towards my department. *KLUNK* Um. Ow. My first thought was "Someone threw something at me!" so I turn, and I watch one of these big, pointy, spiky, hard things bounce onto the ground. A big, point, spiky, hard thing had fallen from a tree and nailed me on the head hard enough to make me see stars for a second. And now the right side of my head hurts. Owie. *whimper* This can only be topped by the time a bird pooped on me. Seriously. At least that one didn't hurt.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/26/2004 08:30:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Isn't love supposed to be in the air in the springtime? It's October, people. Give me a break. I'm just kidding. But today I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine from Wash U and a few weeks ago I had a conversation with a friend of mine from Wichita and it really made me think: How do we learn to play the dating game? I was never good at the dating game until very recently and to be completely honest, I'm not sure I'm that good at it now. I just happened to find a guy who's playing with the same strategy that I am, with all the same pieces, my dating board game twin you might say. But in high school I had the usual crushes (waaaaaay too many) and about 95-99% of them had at least 200:1 odds that they were never going to make it past, "Oh, he knows my name?" Sure I ended up dating a guy my senior year but that didn't turn out so great and we broke up shortly after I left for college. So what went wrong? Well, apparently I was clingy and didn't have enough backbone of my own. At least that's what he said. Maybe I was just a bad kisser and he never owned up. Who knows. Boyfriend #2 was a lot more friend than boyfriend. We parted amicably and are still sort of friends as in we can be civil if we're in the same room together but it's not like we talk all that often. Cut to now: great guy, great relationship, looks like it's going to turn out just fine. I'm not complaining. I am currently living a very charmed relationship life. Everyone should be so lucky/blessed. But there are so many ways to look at the dating game. Of the friends with whom I've had the discussion lately it seems like dating can fall into a few categories. There's the casual dating, of which I'm not a big fan, there's the dating-because-the-hook-ups-are-good-so-hey-why-not dating, of which I'm an even smaller fan than of the casual dating, and then of course there's that fine line between "dating" and being, for lack of a better term, "boyfriend/girlfriend." There's also a cost-benefit analysis involved with dating. Do the benefits of the potential of it working out well outweigh the costs of the risks you might have to take right now? If one or the other is more invested, who ends up paying the price? What if you're friends first ... does that screw the friendship over? It's a lot of food for thought! As someone who doesn't understand the benefits of casual dating or the hook-ups-are-good style dating, there have always been a large amount of overanalytical thought going into each of my relationships. Probably too much. My friend Dan pointed out last year: God gave Abraham and Isaac wives ... and now we live in a culture where somehow we're at least partially responsible to find a soulmate. Dan's argument was basically, "Not fair!" On the other hand, if you believe in God's plan, then in some ways, God will provide you with your soulmate, right? You just have to be on the lookout for when he/she arrives. Pay attention to the signs and all that. Still though ... God is sometimes nebulous in his communication. There have been times when God basically beat me over the head (i.e. telling me to move to Chapel Hill, the night JJ and I got together ... ) and really it would have been absurd for me to try anything else. But then there have been times when I've definitely had to go, "Could you be a little clearer? This is sort of a big decision ..." and God either has been silent, or I haven't been listening hard enough. Is it really a game? Do we just roll the dice and hope we've guessed the right numbers? Wait for the dealer to hand us our cards and place our bets? Or is the game fixed and no matter what happens we're going win or the house is going to take us under? I have no idea. This post has been very "Sex and the City" in nature. I heart "Sex and the City." Don't knock it.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/25/2004 01:19:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Steelers are off this week. They play the Patriots next week. At my church we've been doing a series called "Reel to Real" and the idea is to use movies that make us think about our relationship with God and how human existence relates to the eternal. The first movie we did was Bruce Almighty. Tonight the movie was The Day After Tomorrow. Jackie had seen it and reviewed it and given it a 7 out of 10. It didn't look like it was going to be anything cinematically earthshattering, but I categorized it, when it came out, as something that would be worth renting at some point. Am I glad I didn't pay money for it. I guess in terms of a summer blockbuster hit that would satisfy a large number of summer moviegoers with popcorn to munch on and the summer heat outside driving them into the theatre, the movie wasn't bad. I think I'm a little cynical. I've noticed that since about my junior year in high school I've developed a taste in movies that leaves me with very few movies that are any good. This one fell into the, "Are you kidding me? They let this into Hollywood" category. Even given that the premise was a little sketchy (big huge storm coming that is going to freeze the entire northern hemisphere) it could have been possible to make it a reasonably good summer film. I'll spare you the gory details but let just say that it was one of those movies that was bad, but the director and producer tried to make it good. So then it was just really bad. I think it could have been slightly more entertaining and less annoying had I not been watching it with JJ. Two cynics don't fit well together when watching a movie of this type. In other news, I think I'm going to cough up a lung. Darn cold.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/24/2004 08:30:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

From Amanda's livejournal 01. Who are you?: 02. Are we friends?: 03. When and how did we meet?: 04. Do you (or did you ever) have a crush on me?: 05. Would you kiss me?: 06. Describe me in one word: 07. What was your first impression?: 08. Do you still think that way about me now?: 09. What reminds you of me?: 10. If you could give me anything what would it be?: 11. How well do you know me?: 12. When's the last time you saw me?: 13. Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn't? Care to tell me now? 14. Are you going to put this on your journal?

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/23/2004 04:31:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

My friend Katie's away message: GOOOOO BEAST!!!! :-) I LOVE ANGELA!!! and, skulling is AWESOME!!! It doesn't get any better than that. Katie's the best. :-)

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/22/2004 10:51:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Talking to my friend Katie today I realized that there is an ever growing list of people who say that JJ has to "meet their approval" before I'm allowed to really be serious about him. I think it's sort of funny because really what about JJ could they really disapprove of to the point it would actually make sense? But as Katie pointed out, I'm pretty lucky to have a bunch of girls who know me well enough that they only want the best for me. Amen Katie. Amen. So just for kicks, though, here's the list and it just keeps getting longer ... and if you want to join the club, by all means just let me know ... :-p Tera Lee Elizabeth Katie Laura Laurel Colette Jess Bri Sarah Sarah (yes, 2 different Sarahs)

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/22/2004 09:45:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

I love fall. Except that in the fall I'm much more likely to get sick between the workload and the weather change. Yup, first cold of fall. So far it's not bad. It's gone from annoying to really annoying but I have yet to try and sleep with the newest development: the hacking cough. I think that tonight it's going to be all about the Nyquil. I did discover the first night I had this cold that I only require 2/3 of the normal adult dose of Nyquil for it to have an effect for 8 hours. This would explain why, in the past, a full dose would knock me silly for 12-14 hours which is a really long time. Red Sox 10, Yankees 3 at Yankees Stadium. Whew. Red Sox fans ... get some sleep.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/21/2004 06:30:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

In hindsight this is funny. At the time it probably wasn't. But I think in hindsight that it is. I get stressed when I have long days at work and I get stressed when I have doctor's appointments. No particular reason why ... other than work is work and I don't like doctors. Last night JJ and I went with Thuy, Jina and Thuy's brother, Hoan, to dinner at Big Bowl for Thuy's birthday. Afterward I went over to JJ's for awhile and did some work for about an hour. After that, I let myself be grumpy because I had a doctor's appointment this morning and a take home midterm to work on that has been driving me nuts. [The midterm, if you'll allow me to digress, is TWENTY ONE ESSAY QUESTIONS. It's insane. Granted, he says he's going to pick a subset of the questions but still there are 21!] So there I am at JJ's, lying on the couch with a very clear, "Don't touch me, don't talk to me" vibe going. Seriously. I could see the bubble around me, just daring someone to pop it. In reality I was tired, stressed, it'd been a long day and my tummy was full. All conditions very conducive to lying down, not moving, not talking. Poor JJ though ... given my recent health issues with the falling down and all he's sitting there thinking "She's not talking ... did I make her mad ... does she feel okay? ... What's going on?" whereas I really was just thinking, "Oof ... tired ... don't feel like talking ... please don't touch me ...." To top it off, this morning JJ took me to my crack-of-dawn doctor's appointment (more on that later) and I said probably 10 words from the time I saw him to the time I got out of the car. Well that was nothing ... before 8 am it's just too much effort to speak sometimes. Back in the swimming days my suitemates and I would grunt our assent to one another that we were ready to go to practice. Not because we didn't love each other but because pre 7 am just calls for different lines of etiquette. After the doctor's appointment I was better and was speaking and explained to JJ how I just cope with stress and tiredness by not speaking. Unfortunately for him this is also how I cope with being mad at him or others, how I cope with being moody, how I cope with anxiety, how I look when I'm feeling weak and about a dozen other conditions. I think the plan is that we have to come up with some sort of gradation of not-talking-ness. I'm thinking: * Tired and stressed = no talking + grumpy look + raise right arm * Mad at JJ = no talking + grumpy look + wiggle big toe on right foot * Anxious = no talking + grumpy look + do the chicken dance * Not feeling good, might fall down = no talking + grumpy look + fall down Hopefully that'll clear things up. :-)

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/19/2004 04:35:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

That was too close. I was granted entry into sacred territory this afternoon when JJ let me watch the Steelers-Cowboys game with him. I knew it was going to be a close game and they were playing in Dallas. Coming in, the Cowboys led the series 16-13, winning their last matchup in 1997 (I think ... that's what I remember reading). Not only that but the Cowboys had just lost to the Giants 26-10 at home last week so they were referred to as "a desperate team." Just before the half, the Steelers injuries started piling up. It was insane. Duce Staley got nailed in the ankle and was seen hopping around during the 2nd quarter. Chad Scott left the game and never came back. And quarterback Ben Roethlisberger came down hard on his knee and was seen sitting on the sidelines with ice on it. Good grief. Antwaan Randle El actually came in as QB for one play after Roethlisberger was injured (for the love of God why can't the star quarterback have last name like Jones ... or at least something with 5 letters or less ... I'm tired of typing it) but then Big Ben rallied and in the 2nd half he was back for more. Roethlisberger's final stats? 21/25 for 193 yards and 2 touchdowns. No wonder he's been Rookie of the Week 3 weeks running. He's now 4-0 as the starting quarterback for the Steelers. And he's only going to get better. With 2:36 left to go in the game, Vinny Testaverde fumbled the ball and it was recovered by Steelers defender Von Oelhoffen (this is ridiculous ... do the Steelers just have team members with the trickiest names to type or what?). Roethlistberger threw a pass to Turman, then Duce Staley ran the ball 5 yards to the Dallas 2. Bring on the Bus. Jerome Bettis gets the ball and takes it over the line for the touchdown. Clock? :34. Whew. It was here that I made probably 1) the dumbest and 2) the riskiest mistake of the evening. Like an absolute idiot (I need to stop thinking out loud, I really do) I was thinking, "Wow, they're going into the bye week 5-1," and it wasn't thinking it that made me an idiot. It was saying it out loud. I thought JJ was going to smother me right there. I've never felt fear when JJ's around ... the same second I said that out loud, I actually felt my body give me the fight-or-flight response. With 1 second left on the clock (which is arguable ... that was the longest second ever) Dallas called timeout. As the clock ran down and I watched Testaverde lob the ball towards the Steelers' endzone I seriously was calculating the distance between me, my keys, my shoes, and the door, thinking to myself, "If I get out of here while he's watching the screen I might be able to spare myself." They didn't catch it. Thank God. Huge win. 5-1. Bye week. Patriots on October 31. Stay tuned. For the full deal visit game stats on nfl.com

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/18/2004 02:43:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

My brother just sent me the neatest video game EVER. So there's this crash test dummy and this truck and the idea is to deal as much damage to the crash test dummy as possible. And there are a wonderful number of possible permutations. You can slide the dummy off the top of the truck, and then run him over. You can just crash the truck into the wall. You can cause the dummy to come flying off and crash into the test wall. It's GREAT.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/15/2004 09:32:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

I don't exam well. I just don't. I never have. I don't like tests where I walk in and I have 4 options for every question and I have to pick one and my fate in that class (or on the driver's license exam) is determined by whether I've picked right. I write better than I mulitple-choice (yes, I did just verb that term) and I would prefer a 10 page paper over a 50 question multiple choice exam any day. However ... today I've been on the other end of the spectrum. I'm grading papers. Lots of them. 19 5-page papers. That's 95 pages about the SAME PROJECT over and over in varying degrees of quality. Some of them are unreal ... they are so good that I wonder whether the author should even be an undergraduate. Give the kid a grant, send the kid off to graduate school. And some of them are just downright pathetic. Did they just not hear a word I said in class? You know that when, in the first two sentences of a paper, a student refers to the wrong personality theory that the rest of the paper is just going to be downhill. I have been plowing through these papers going on 5 hours now and I have 3 left. Plus, I think my students are going to hate me. I'm a tough grader. Or I have high expectations. Either way, now I know why the multiple choice exam is so popular. So the instructors don't have to do THIS ... arrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/15/2004 08:38:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

By the time I went to bed last night I had, over the course of the day, worked out, eaten lunch, watched 3 1/2 episodes of season 5 of Sex and the City, eaten dinner, watched 2 1/2 more episodes of Sex and the City, talked to JJ on the phone and at some point I painted my toenails. Very productive day, Angela. Way to go. If you will take note, I spent most of my time 1) eating 2) watching Sex and the City. Today there will be no such luxury. Today I must discipline myself and grade the 7 or so remaining papers from my class and work on my take home midterm. Wonderful. But at least that means that I'll probably get to take Saturday off, Sunday I have church and YA lunchout, then I'll have a couple of hours in there to work if I don't finish today and then Steelers-Cowboys at 4:15. I had a weird dream last night. Maybe I felt guilty for not having gone to rehearsal (even though I wasn't required to be there anyway) but either way it was a wack-o dream. All my dreams about tech are wack-o. So I show up on a Sunday morning to run the lights for a service and I find that somehow the ENTIRE balcony, which is our tech/production booth, has been transplanted from the back of the sanctuary to the front. The whole thing. It's now like one big choir loft. It gets better. Someone had moved the lights so that they still lit the stage but me being on top of the stage/over the stage I couldn't see the lights themselves. This left me to run the lights completely clueless as to which slider did what. For some reason no one on the tech team noticed the service started and so at the end of the first song there's no one up in the tech booth at all. There's a drama ... and for some reason NONE of the props are ready. I see Ed, Elle, and for some odd reason, JJ and Adam Livermon literally cramming stuff in to plastic bags and running with them, full speed, up to the actors on the stage. This is only odd if you realize that JJ was also running sound. I realize this and take off at a sprint for the tech booth. At some point JJ's voice yells out, "Unmute the basement." I had no idea what he was talking about but lo and behold, I get up there and there's a button labeled "basement." OK, whatever he wants I guess. JJ finally gets up there to run sound and I am trying to run lights and I get really frustrated so I quit. Right there. In the middle of the service. I tear the headset off, throw it on the table, and tell JJ that I'm leaving. He argues with me in an angry whisper and I finally get exasperated enough with him that I shove him out of the way (this was a feat considering he's a lot bigger than me) and storm down the stairs. I'm charging through I guess a lobby. We don't actually have a lobby in the back of the church but we did in my wack-o dream. And as I'm tearing through this lobby someone goes, "You know you should get that checked out. It's going to kill you if you don't." I whirl around and some woman points out that my cheeks are extremely red and apparently that will kill me. Yeah. Right. I keep going. Finally I get outside and now we also have not only a lobby in the back of the church, but we have a picnic ground. I already said this dream was wack-o. So I sit at a picnic table. After this the details get blurry ... I don't remember much more. But I thought I'd share my wack-o dream.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/15/2004 03:33:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

It's amazing how differently I sleep when I know I don't have to get up in the morning. If I have something going on in the morning or I have to be somewhere at a certain time if I'm napping I never sleep quite as well as I do when I can sleep as long as I want to. It's not that I ever do sleep longer ... I still get up around the same time ... but I sleep better. Crazy, I know, but there you are. Last night, as I was drifting off into slumberland, there were a number of things running through my head. 1) My hair still smelled like taco seasoning. We'd made tacos for dinner and that stuff is rank. Ugh. 2) My legs were 1/2 warm, 1/2 cold. Seriously. The bottom half of my legs, though covered by the exact same pajama pants as the top half, were freezing cold while I think the upper part of my legs were actually giving off their own heat. Weird. 3) I wonder what I'm having for lunch tomorrow? Yesterday I bought new running shoes. Nicest shoes I've owned in a long time. I went running on a bike path outside Meadowmont this morning. The downside to this particular path was that it runs alongside Highway 54. Now I don't know about you but the idea of having a car's sideview mirror slam into me going 45+ is very unappealing. As long as I stayed on the path I was fine ... but I came to a point where the path ended. Yeesh. I just turned around and went back the other way. It ended up being a short run - about 25 minutes - because, I couldn't believe it, my feet were getting sore. I have 2 possible explanations for this: 1) I am not used to nice shoes and my feet are going, "Where are our nice, broken in shoes?" or 2) I picked the wrong shoes. I hope it's (1) and not (2) because if it's (2) I'm out of luck. I've already worn them outside. Today is fall break, day 1. Outside it's roughly 70 and I've got my windows open and the fans going to get some fresh air in here. Granted, I'm going to be working the rest of this afternoon. But knowing that nothing needs to be completely done until Monday is a comforting thought.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/14/2004 10:28:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

I realized that I posted over a page about the Steelers but nothing about my weekend. This happens every Sunday and then Monday morning I'm like, "Ooop." - Friday night the movie Friday Night Lights opened. I'd been looking forward to it for awhile and JJ knew I wanted to see it and as he put it, "Girlfriend who wants to see a football movie ... thumbs up ... that's good." We threw it open to a bunch of friends and then our friend Dawn invited, as she put it, half of Wake County. It turned out that they got stuck at a restaurant or something so they didn't make it to the same showing of the movie that we did. "We" was me, JJ, Steve and Sabrina, Adam, Scott and Dave Warner. Afterward we hit City Beverage, which was fun since we hadn't been there in awhile. - You would not believe what I did on Saturday. I got up, went running, and then JJ and I went to Big Bowl for lunch and Barnes and Noble. After lunch, we sat down on the couch to watch college football. And essentially other than bathroom breaks, we didn't move for the next NINE HOURS. I'm not kidding. We did nothing all Saturday afternoon. While we were doing ... well, nothing ... I had no problem with it. It wasn't until we reached 10 pm that I suddenly thought ... I have done NOTHING all day long. Oy. -Sunday was the best Sunday I've had in a long long long time. Worship was good ... guest speaker was a little too "in your face" for me ... then headed to the gym. Was planning on lifting and doing something non-impact for the knees which have been killing me, but forgot my shorts. Oops. Can't work out without shorts. In true form, I had my suit, cap and goggles so I swam for about 40 minutes. 400 SKP's warmup and then originally I was going to do a ladder alternating free and IM both up and down but that didn't work out so well. 100 free/200 IM/300 free/400 IM with the free being threshold-ish and the IMs being above that. I finished the 4 IM and thought ... you know, it's time to call it a day. Met up with Dave at Varsity Ale House for the awesome Steelers game (see previous entry), stopped by JJ's on the way home with the plan being if we win, I stop at JJ's and if we don't, I just keep on driving. Grocery store trip with JJ then home to shower and clean up. Talked to the Coopers for awhile ... that's always fun although I always feel a little bad that I just keep talking. I can coax conversation out of a doorknob if I have to and I have this tendency, since I love talking on the phone, to hold the other person captive for extended periods of time. I need to watch that. - Fall break is this week. Mmmmm ... breaaak. Ahhhhhhhhhh.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/11/2004 03:56:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Call it indoctrination if you will but I think that today I just became a Steelers fan in my own right. I had been lamenting the last couple of weeks that watching Steelers' games via nfl.com's live gamestats just wasn't doing it for me and Dave Warner suggested that maybe we hit up a local bar to watch the Steelers play today. We decided to go to Varsity Ale House and as I got out of my car and walked toward the door I was following 2 guys and a girl dressed in Tommy Maddox (8), Jerome Bettis (36) and Hines Ward (86) jerseys. When I walked in there were probably more than a dozen Steelers' fans sitting at the tables and more coming in the door. When Dave and I tried to get a table I think what we said was, "Well, we want to see the Steelers play ..." and the host hooked us up. Apparently that's the place to be on Sunday if you're a Steelers fan. There was even a mom there with her little boy, probably about 2? and he was dressed in a teeny tiny Steelers outfit. To top it off, the bartender, a probably early to mid-20s dark blonde, was wearing a terrible towel around her waist and then pulled out a Hines Ward jersey that her boss said she couldn't wear in lieu of the Varsity Ale House apparel. My opinion on the bartender? Damn, I'm glad I met JJ first. I think the moment when I realized I was an actual fan and not just a fan by proxy is when Roethlisberger made a huge play in the second quarter, throwing a 37 yard pass on the run to Plaxico Burress for a touchdown and I jumped (or tried to jump) to my feet and slammed my right arm into the table because I had forgotten the table was there. Ow. Hopefully there won't be a bruise ... I don't think I hit it that hard. Highlights from today's game: - Ben Roethlisberger's 6 yard run, ending in a dive over a Cleveland Browns' defender for the touchdown in the 1st quarter. - Roethlisberger's 37 yard pass to Plaxico Burress, thrown on the run, for a touchdown in the 2nd quarter - Duce Staley's personal record tying 3 consecutive games with 100+ yard for rushing They played well today ... these were just my favorites. I've been heavily interested in watching the rookie's progress and if people are still waiting for him to choke, I think that today, if they had any brains, they would have given up idea. As a first year player in the NFL, even with my extremely limited football knowledge, Roethlisberger is doing very very well. He just settles into the pocket, looks like he trusts his offensive line and a couple of weeks ago, when he was about make his starting debut his own offense was saying that he didn't quite have the system down, that he wasn't necessarily ready but it seems like the offense has taken to Roethlisberger. He's certainly doing his job and is 3-0 in the first year of his pro career. Not bad for the 23-year-old rookie who played for Miami of Ohio last year and 11th pick in last year's draft. The Steelers are hopefully patting themselves on the back for that one. Dave and I thought today, though, that Tommy Maddox, even though he's supposed to be back in 4 weeks, might be out of that starting job if Big Ben keeps this up. Bottom line: Steelers are now 4-1 and #1 in AFC north. They play the Dallas Cowboys next Sunday. I think I'm buying Steelers' apparel (read: t-shirt ... those jerseys, even the knock-off ones, are a packet) sometime this week so I don't feel so out of place watching the game. For more commentary on the game visit Dave Warner's football blog.

Posted by Mrs. Cooper at 10/10/2004 09:27:00 PM | Permalink | Comments