Opening Day

Yesterday was opening day for OSU football. Cindy and I and 105,000 our closest personal friends packed ourselves into a concrete horseshoe in roughly 90 degree heat to watch the beloved Buckeyes take to the field of honor and glory to face off against Coach Tressel's former team, the Penguins of Youngstown State. Aside from Beanie Well's injury the game itself was fairly uneventful, which was it should be, just ask our friends in Ann Arbor. The most difficult part was simply getting in. One of the perks of working for OSU is that each month I pay a nominal fee for a parking pass, not too dissimilar from other places. But that pass allows me to park anywhere on campus on weekends and thus as long as I park in a university parking lot I never have to pay for parking. Of course that pass does me no good whatsoever when those lots are full, as was the case when we got to campus. We searched around for about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes before finally giving up and parking in a garage off Kenny Road (which oddly enough was right next door to where I work).

In terms of the game, it went pretty much as expected. It was sort of cool when the crowd started chanting "Future Heisman" when Terrelle Pryor entered the game, though the biggest cheer came when Chris Wells walked back to the OSU sideline from the locker room after his injury. It's not much of a stretch to say that Ohio State's BCS chances rest on his feet.

Incidentally, 2 personal (and slightly burnt) pepperoni pizzas, a bottle of water and a bottle of Coke cost $22 in the stadium.

Sam and Abby spent most of the day with our friends Susan and Katie and had many adventures in and around the bustling city of Gahanna. Later on we took them a to campfire and story telling program at one of the Metroparks (Blacklick park in Reynoldsburg). Abby roasted about 10 marshmallows and would have roasted a lot more, but we had to stop her since she doesn't particularly keen on eating them. Cindy and I ate most of them and would rather not see a marshmallow for a while. Sam roasted a couple, but really wasn't that much into it and ended up just holding onto one until he went to bed (yes, we did clean his hands before putting his pj's on).

After the roasting settled down, the naturalist at the park started to ask questions about stars and constellations, and Abby bless her soul, answered almost every one. I asked her later how she knew so much about constellations and she told me "from TV". Sam wore down a bit and was simply content to sit on our laps and look around. I think he was happy to just be outside at night.

A few random items:

• After introducing Sarah Palin as his runningmate, John McCain stopped by Columbus to buy a bunch of Buckeye stuff. Give him some credit, he knows how to play the home crowd.
• I'm thinking about starting another blog on topics related to higher ed.
• A dog sees a help wanted in the window of hardware store and asks the owner about the position. The owner says “A talking dog? You should get a job at the circus.” The dog replies “Why would the circus need a plumber?”