Auburn fans loyal even if unhappy

My wife and I are very loyal Auburn fans. Even in the midst of the now-called "rebuilding" with young players, I will still wear my AU cap in public and when I travel. I will be loyal, but that loyalty doesn't mean that I sit by and be happy if things could be better. We were very unhappy with how the team played and how they were coached.

Brandon Cox appears to have not added any capabilities to his game since last season. His play in the Miss State game was not of a six-year senior. Brandon shouldn't have ended the game the way that he did. He shouldn't have thrown the final play to win the game on 4th down by floating a ball across the middle while falling backwards and throwing off of his back foot. Coach Tubberville (CTT) is supposed to use the team to the best of its abilities. After Brandon's poor games with Kansas State and South Florida, Tubberville should have been working hard to get the freshman quarterback ready for the game. Brandon just doesn't seem to recognize the defense and doesn't have the vision and speed to not telegraph his passes.

Either Burns wasn't ready or the coaches didn't get him prepared except for the "change up" option plays for Cox. That mistake is on CTT. Calling what is going on bad or being unhappy doesn't mean that I am disloyal to Auburn. The national media didn't expect this year to be a rebuilding year based on the pre-season ranking. CTT is now talking rebuilding, but he didn't start that way.

We live in a democratic society with mostly-free speech. We are expected to make some noise if we are unhappy. Brandon shouldn't be happy with his play at the end of the game and he shouldn't be surprised by the crowd's response. The booing was a result of fans caring about the game. If they were unconcerned, then they wouldn't cheer or boo. Just like being unhappy with Bush about the direction of the war in Iraq doesn't mean that I am any less patriotic, wanting change and being vocal is not any less loyal to Auburn. When something isn't working, please change course (Bush and Tubberville).

In Seattle both weeks the last 2 weeks, I saw other Auburn fans still wearing their colors like me. All the way across the coast, I can still say "War Eagle!" proudly and we can still talk about mistakes. And, we are still loyal Auburn. Go Tigers! (Florida fans are now popping up everywhere, too.)

Email posting worked

My post from ATL airport worked, but it stayed in draft. One adjustment to the settings and I can fix that. We departed another hour later than adjusted at that point; so 3 hours late overall. It is always very nice to be home and sleep in your own bed and see your family again. Then, we get ready to do it all over again. But, not this week. This week, I will work from home.

Humberto at ATL

Here is my try at blogging away from a BlackBerry. I am sitting in ATL airport for a couple of extra hours like a lot of people tonight.

Humberto didn't stay here long, but it was evidently turbulent enough to stop everything for a while. But, the airport is much more crowded than last week at the same time. Somehow, the people could get here, but the planes to take them somewhere else aren't ready. The logistical challenges of keeping up with the planes, crews, and passengers when this "irregular operations" take place is pretty extraordinary. The system automatically rebooks you according to some magic formula.

If software wasn't there, then the system couldn't work. When software works, then you can scale better to plan these scenarios.

What a difference a week makes. And if I had happened to book the earlier flight home, then I probably wouldn't make it home tonight because that flight was canceled.

Oh, 2 hours late and they have just pushed the flight departure out another half hour. I love flying...

College Football Kickoff tomorrow

We have waited the whole summer. We have been teased with some silly pre-season NFL games and we were thrown a few games last night. But LSU @ MSU doesn't compare with the real kickoff when the Auburn Tigers take the field again. ESPN HD at 7:45 ET. So, we have to wait all day, but other games can help fill the day. Can you feel it? Football time is back again... Let's go Auburn. Let's feel the energy again. We are unfortunately beginning to root for Florida because we have some fanatic Florida friends who will go to a bar to watch Florida play a junior high scrimmage.

You can guess what I will be doing tomorrow ... after I mow the grass. Maybe it will rain and then I can't mow the grass.

America's Privileged

America doesn't have defined royalty with kings, queens, princes, etc. But, we have celebrity royalty and the people who believe that they are privilege. No caste system exists in the U.S. but with some money and attitude some people think that they are above rules. Let's not even discuss Paris, Lindsey, and Nichole Richie. I don't have to mention their last names and you know the royalty that I am talking.

But, other Americans watch so much TV and believe that they just need to be the style to be G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S (Did you sing the song while reading the word? If not, then you missed out - it has a good beat.). Some Americans believe that they just need the neck roll, facial expressions, and the silly bumblebee-cover-up-my-face sunglasses even while inside to get whatever they want. Here are two examples from my trip this week, both within a couple of hours.

Story 1: Manchester, NH and the Northeast in general are not going to be fashion setting. They don't set the trends up there and they generally don't follow the trends. They do not care as long as the Patriots and the Red Sox do well. When teenagers try to fit with the hip Paris look they stand out. This girl was with her family in the airport eating McD's (that's trendy) looking bored and unentertained as she can be. But, she had the glasses and the look, so she was cool. The dad ignored her, but I figured out where she got it from when her mom returned. Her mom tried for the look but there are some times when skin should not be on display. Good, soft skin is good, but wrinkly, folded old-tattoo skin, I don't need to see.

Story 2: When you get on an airplane, you are bombarded with several announcements. 1 - when the boarding door is closed, you must turn the cell phone off. 2 - bags must fit in the overhead or underneath the seat in front of you. 3 - if you sit with no seat in front of you (bulkhead seat - usually first row) then all items must go in overhead. I have set up the story - can you guess the next parts? A woman with her trendy look sits down in Row 1. She puts her big bag at her seat. The flight attendant tells her that the bag has to go in the overhead. She sits there (I won't say ignoring her yet). The captain comes by a few minutes later and notices that she still has the bag there. Instead of asking, he tells he that he will put the bag up for her. The woman rolls her eyes as he puts the bag up. Privileged try didn't work. But, the story wouldn't be worth mentioning if that was it - that story is true even for us commoners. After the boarding door is closed, during the other talk where we learn how to use the overly-complicated seat belts on an airplane, her cell phone rings. At first, she doesn't react, until the flight attendants stops the broadcast to remind her that her phone must be off. Privilege attempt number 2 didn't work. Her weak response was that she thought it was off. She didn't try for a third which would have been to answer the phone (I have seen that try before but not the other day).

If I tell my wife these stories, then she tells me that I am judgmental. If she reads it here instead, maybe she will think it's funny (or true). I can hope, right? I am not judgmental. I enjoy being a sociologist while traveling. I wish I was as good with the one-liners as Dennis Miller or Bill Maher.

Watching people while traveling is fun. The having to sit and be squished into a seat and wait like herded cattle gets very old though, along with waiting for 30 minutes to pick up your bag.

Dean NWC Picture is old

I just noticed the picture of my post about Dean a few days ago. Usually, after I make a post and I am happy that it reads OK, I do not check back. Firefox is nice enough to highlight spelling mistakes so I do not worry too much.

I thought I was doing the right thing to link to the NWC site image rather than copy the picture. But, I didn't realize that the link to the picture remains the same for each advisory. I guess that approach helps their server by not maintaining all of the pictures for each advisory. I figured that the cryptic path and name of the image was computer generated for each advisory, but I guess that the link is created once per storm and makes the site easy to maintain; just pull the latest advisory from a database.

Some late night wonderment - maybe now I do a bad thing and copy the picture from NWC in the future...

Croc Crazy and Slippers

Bill Maher created a new term tonight on his show on HBO with his new rule to not wear plastic shoes. He recounts how a year ago only young children and mental patients wore shoes that you could hose down to clean.

I agree with him that people are getting too casual. In the Atlanta airport on Thursday, I saw a man getting on my flight wearing a polo shirt, shorts, ankle-length black socks, and Crocs. Which fashion faux paus was he committing? The black socks were probably worse. Please help. Sandals are not a fashion accessory and do not necessarily work with every outfit - particularly long pants. Maybe I have just turned too old-school.

I like my own Crocs. They are comfortable and easy to wear around the house. But, I am not firmly convinced about wearing them outside of our house. I have issues about thinking how old I am I guess. I do not wear slippers around the house no matter how cold it is because it reminds me of old people shuffling around.