Bands are very important - at least the ASU band is

I was most pleased to see that goasu.com is telling us that a scant 80 members of North Carolina's Band of Distinction will be representing us at LSU.

I have often made comments to my friends that a mere 50, or 40, or 30, or 20 of our band members could and would outplay a competitors' entire band. I could not be more pleased to know that we will have the Marching Mountaineers with us in Baton Rouge!

Back in the day (that would be the 1979-1980 season) when beasley and brown ruled the turf, i was, for one season only, a lowly member of the band - we're talking 3rd trumpet. Back then us freshman had to learn the BAND CHEER or we were threatened with a toss in the duck pond. Now I sit behind the band at THE ROCK and I'm saddened to say that I have yet to hear "its skidely, ooten booten...".

It's difficult not to get overly confident

Front page of the Winston-Salem Journal sports page today is yet another great article by Tommy Bowman. I just don't understand this comment..."Coaches all say this once was a very top-heavy league, with a couple of teams at the top every year and then everybody else just fighting to survive," Lembo said. "It's kind of shifted. Now you have all these teams fighting to be at the top and very few at the bottom. It was exciting to be part of that last year and hopefully we can maintain that." because I think the opposite. It seems that top-heavy would mean the majority of the teams are at the the top vying for the number 1 position and the few at the bottom not really thriving. I think Elon's Coach Lembo is confused but I stand open to correction.

a sense of humor

i am very fortunate and blessed to have clients that i not only count as friends, but clients who have a sense of humor in these seemingly trying times. i know many of you don't work in the home furnishings industry but i'll bet you will find a chuckle in this youtube video my friends at sterling industries produced. if you were a retailer, how could you NOT do business with this company?!

in mountaineer news...

there was a blurb burried in the winston-salem journal sports page this morning - i would put a link because i'm all about supporting the only major nc paper that covers the mountaineers, but i can't find this on their website - the sports media entertainment network's broadcasters poll (who in the world is this?) gives us the pre-season #1 ranking. well of course they do.

age blind

you have probably heard of a person being color blind but have you ever heard of somebody being AGE blind? i kinda think i am and i'm always smacked back to reality when i have the "aha moment" and realize the fact that everybody is not my age. i don't think this is a good thing or a bad thing. it's simply a thing.

i am blessed to have a ton of friends of various ages (20 somethings to 70 somethings) but i still think of them as being my age. it's not until a conversation leads to something along the lines of what we wore in high school, or what our favorite song in elementary school was, or what we were doing when elvis died, or name the 4 beetles or, well, you get the picture, that i actually realize i am older or younger.

today i went back to see my orthopod about my broken elbow. while i'm waiting for the doc to come in, doogie howser comes in to do the preliminaries. he's a 4th year medical school student and i am officially feeling OLD. then the REAL doctor comes in. when i saw him before i had the feeling he was probably my age. looked him up. wrong! he's younger.

so i tell said young doctor that i really thought my elbow should be substantially better than it is. after all, corey lynch had his arm up and running in 4 short weeks. he chuckled and reminded me that it takes OLDER people longer to heal. my therapy starts august 5th. thank you very much.

bad picture, great message

Either I'm totally unobservant or this sign just went up yesterday. This is visible to west bound travellers on I-40 at the highway68 exit. It actually sits on Albert Pick Road (where my office is located). While I LOVE it, I still can't get past or embrace the current Yosef logo.

I was googling around today and found an old article on the bleacher report where Jimson Cuenta picks our Mountaineers to beat the Tigers.

Last season, the Appalachian State Mountaineers SHOCKED THE WORLD, by UPSETTING the Michigan Wolverines, 34-32 in Ann Arbor, during Week 1 of the College Football season.
This season, the Appalachian State Mountaineers will SHOCK THE WORLD, AGAIN... This time, by UPSETTING the LSU Tigers, AT Tiger Stadium.

less than 60 days and i'm beside myself

david coulson at www.sportsnetwork.com had a nice article about qb's in the fcs. you gotta love a guy that refers to armanti edwards as "the most dangerous player in the football championship subdivision"AND gives him the #1 spot.

stewart mandel at www.si.com has a less than positive view of our chances against lsu but he doesn't totally dis us. i'm ok with this.

i hope you will go through the motions, register and VOTE for the mountaineers in this espn thing. it's rather embarrassing to think we have to rely on the buckeye nation to win this. (no offense intended to ohio state - we love you for loving us!) in this you will also get the opportunity to vote for another southern conference great, stephen curry.

my friend ck had a cool post today where she requested everybody's fave 5 songs. i can't stop at 5 or 10 or 20. i'm just wondering if anybody else really can. (i feel somewhat proud because i introduced ck [she's somewhat younger than me] to van morrison.)

football geek

a couple of weeks ago i signed up - aka paid money - for a subscription to rivals.com. this gives me the inside scoop on the mountaineers and the deacons. i haven't exactly checked out the goings on with the deacs, but i have learned that the mountaineer faithful have nothing to worry about on the d line or on o (in the tragic event superman/wiggle worm is injured).

according to their reports we are totally ok without tharrington and washington...

"In '08 they will have the experience necessary to post more games like they had against Richmond and Delaware, even without Tharrington and Washington. In fact, due to a host of injuries in which Tharrington was suffering, there was no guarantee the Mountaineers would be featuring the same player they had grown accustomed to. Tharrington sat out the entire spring, and was recovering at a much slower rate than he needed to be ready for the season opener against LSU. Had he been academically eligible, Tharrington may have been headed straight for another injury-hampered season anyway. Does the loss hurt? Absolutely. But will the Mountaineers be worse off without him? Probably not, because who's to say Tharrington would have been physically ready to go? Because of the circumstances at hand, it looks as though we can only speculate from here on out. "

as far as coco backing up armanti, i'm not so sure that's going to be the case. it seems that red shirt freshman jamie degeare (ok, i'm totally clueless because i didn't know we had a qb in the wings AND he's from forsyth county)

Jamie DeGeare had a strong spring and will attempt to earn the top backup role.

or incoming freshman hotshot deandre presley will get the job.