29 November 09 (pm)

I am back in Peoria; I decided to defer my first “welcome back” workout to tomorrow morning. This is the last full week of classes but I should be ready for it.

Travel notes
1. I-55 from St. Louis to I-155 (Lincoln, IL) was more crowded than normal. Otherwise, the trip back was uneventful.
2. On the way back, we listened to an unabridged version of The Kite Runner. I’ll say more in a later post.

Football I missed most of the games because I was on the road. But of note:

1. Houston creamed Rice 73-14; it was 59-0 at the half!
2. Hawaii upset Navy 24-17; well it was “sort of” an upset. That trip is seldom easy, at least in the regular season.

3. I love the USC-UCLA game. For one, I find the team colors (both sides, together on the field) to be dazzling. Perhaps this is because I cut my teeth as a football fan when I lived in Japan and my only contact to seeing the color of big time football were the color photos in Sports Illustrated. Yes, this was the big game that year:

This is from this year:

Of course, the action is often good and this year’s game featured a controversy: USC was up 21-7 with less than a minute to go and had the ball. The did a kneel down and UCLA called a time out. Hence, USC ran a play action pass and scored.

This lead to a spirited “discussion” between the two teams.
Cool uniforms, a long tradition and usually good play: what more can you ask for?

Sure, some rivalries mean more to me (Army-Navy, ND-Navy, ND-USC, Texas-Texas A&M) but this is my favorite “disinterested fan” rivalry.

Posts
Given the lighthearted nature of the above, I almost feel guilty about adding this to today’s posts.

But here goes: in Africa, albinos are often murdered and their body parts then sold on the black market because some witch doctors claim that the albino body parts have “magical powers”.