Two footballs, one day

I didn't have to be to FedEx quite as early today; in a late switch because of the playoff implications, the game was moved from 1 to 4:30. (Those of you outside of EST may adjust accordingly.)

I left around 1 and, as usual, flipped on the Beeb. I was fortunate to catch the final few moments of the Manchester City-Liverpool game over in the Premier League.

Or, if the announcers were to believed, I wasn't so fortunate.

And that's part of the reason I love it: What wonderful use of language.

Just after the final whistle of the 0-0 tie, one announcer said: "It was a poor example of Premiership football."

Well, it is Britain, so the actual result was "nil-nil," and the announcer labeled that result as "miserable."

I'll have to take their word for it. Liverpool is fourth in the standings, err, table with 37 points (a 10-2-7 record) while Man. City is fifth with 36 points (10-4-6). A draw doesn't seem too implausible.

But the best language was reserved for the postgame report. The BBC recapped the league's other match of the day, Blackburn Rovers' 2-1 win over hapless Derby County.

Derby is in dead last with seven points and a 1-15-4 mark. Fulham, in second-to-last place, has 15 points and one more win. Needless to say, Derby seems to be a lock to be relegated at the end of the season (a concept that, by the way, is woefully underutilized here in the States. Back to AAA with you, Devil Rays!).

The announcer's comment: Derby is eight points "adrift of safety."

Excellent. In no way, shape or form would those words be heard at the game I was heading to, unless Roy Williams missed a tackle (which was still far more likely than that term being used).

My game was exciting for its own reasons and I'm sure most of you know them.

I can't, however, say I was as thrilled as some when, while walking down the main internal corridor, I had to make way for a limo carrying someone I vaguely knew.

It rolled by and I caught up by the time the driver was able to open the door (rough life, huh?).

"That's Ryan Seacrest!" some young woman whispered excitedly. As if it's not enough that we had TomKat at the season opener last year...

I was considerably more excited to get to the pressbox and see people I actually cared about. Like the folks I see each Wednesday and at home games. Oh, and Dan Reeves, too. Not sure why he was there, but I sent a text to Matt mentioning how interesting it was to see those two guys in a 30-minute span.

So the Redskins won and I'm in for another week. Saturday at Seattle, though I'll be watching from home.

Life goes on...

Post-travel notes

I am happy to be writing this. For much of the day, I've been wandering around, absolutely miserable: general achiness, a feeling of weakness (like picking up anything over 20 pounds would've been impossible), tiredness, chills, all kinds of stuff.

But I got up a little while ago after a nap that lasted around three hours (and one of several I've taken today). This is the best I've felt all day; though it's not perfect, it's a heck of a lot better than the general sense of drudgery that has otherwise been the hallmark of the day.

Given that I've (sort of) recovered, I don't think it was any sort of bug or illness - just my body saying, 'Hey, asshole, your tank's on 'E' and it's about time you gave it a rest.' Yes sir, I am listening.

So I'm doing much better, thanks.

Thursday, travel day, was an interesting one. As we had on the way out, we took a prop plane from Redmond (near Bend) to Seattle. The flight is surprisingly short, considering it's like a 6-hour drive.

Once in Seattle, we didn't have a whole lot of time to mess around, maybe an hour or so. Plus they were trying to speed up our departure time, since snow was on its way. Indeed, though it was raining, it had changed over to snow by the time we took off. (I did mention to my wife that I was thoroughly disappointed we didn't see better weather in Seattle.)

We did have a treat for the flight back to D.C. As we did on the way out, we took a Boeing 737-800 (like this one); coming back, we were treated to a special paint job celebrating Alaska's 75th anniversary - a gorgeous retro livery.

The flight itself was pretty quiet. Because of the intermittent bad weather, we had some minor turbulence from time to time, but nothing too bad.

Just before we began our descent, the pilot announced that we'd be flying the River Visual into National (here's a wing view and pilot's view) unless air traffic control switched runways on us.

Well, they did, and now we'd be approaching from the south. Still, we had an interesting view as we banked over Mt. Vernon on the way up the river.

We landed without incident and were on our way...

-- I FEEL AS IF I should apologize for the disjointed nature of the post. My mind still isn't totally with it, but as I said, it is a great improvement.

Merry Christmas!

Lift a glass to Santa for all of his hard work...

And here's hoping that he's rewarded you for being good girls and boys this year.

Merry Christmas.

Thursday's route

My wife and I are flying west on Thursday. We'll be aboard Alaska 3 from Washington National bound for Seattle-Tacoma International, then a prop flight into Redmond, Ore.

The main leg heads northwest before flattening out along the Northern Plains.

Here are the points we'll pass along the way:

National Airport, Arlington, Va.
Bolivar, Md.
Seven Springs, Pa.
Cleveland
Middle Bass, Ohio
Carleton, Mich.
Berryville, Mich.
Coats Grove, Mich.
Grand Rapids, Mich.
Borculo, Mich.
Milwaukee
Wonewac, Wisc.
Nodine, Minn.
Kasota, Minn.
Redwood Falls, Minn.
*-Gettysburg, S.D.
*-Bowman, N.D.
Miles City, Mont.
Lewistown, Mont.
Mullan Pass, Idaho
Spokane, Wash.
Saint Andrews, Wash.
Maplecreek, Wash.
Telma, Wash.
Berne, Wash.
Startup, Wash.
Hilltop, Wash.
Sea-Tac International

A * indicates that those places are not on the projected flight plan. Instead, the projected flight plan didn't include any waypoints in either of the Dakotas, so I made my best guess.

We'll actually be over water for a while. Middle Bass, Ohio is actually an island in Lake Erie, part of a three-island chain. We'll also traverse Lake Michigan before hitting Milwaukee.

So there you have it. The actual flight plan looks like this, courtesy of flightaware.com:

BUFFR J518 IHD DJB J34 RWF MLS LWT MLP GLASR6

I know you were dying to know what the actual route was.

New blog!

I just fired up a new blog for myself called Hustle's Wine Trials.

I explain the whys over there, but essentially it's a way for me to preserve what I think about the various wines that we try.

As you all know, I know nothing about wine, so I hope I don't come off as an expert. But I do want a reference point for when I'm looking for a good bottle - and there's no better reference point than past experience.

So off I go, doubling my presence in the blogosphere.