Been awhile but.....

Well it's been some time since I've posted anything. That is due to Hectic Holidays and being sick for 3 weeks. Well it's time to get back to it. Let's see since last I wrote:

The injuries to the Ducks, mainly Dixon, caused a major melt down. Finally in the Civil War they showed signs of life again. Oh well time to look forward to the bowl game and next season.

Meantime the other Ducks the Men's Basketball team have had 3 big lapses. 1 against a decent opponent and 2 against what I'd call the dregs! Ugh well luckily unlike in football as long as you get an invite to the Big Dance you can still win a National Title!

The Wife and I traveled back to the Portland area for her family's big Thanksgiving feast. This was her families turn to host. About 70+ people showed up for food and other goodies. We stayed with my wife's Brother and Sister-In-Law. Our Nephew is so much fun to hang out with and is growing like a weed. We got to have dinner with our friends the Greens while we were there which was great as we don't get to see them that often especially now. We were also able to visit for a short while with our friends the Dawgs! They have a little man who I just love to see and hang out with. Oh and his parents are fun to see too! Hi there D and J! This was also time for my sickness to get worse as well.

After Thanksgiving I had just the blahs that come with being under the weather. Then the following week I had a terrible cough and 100+ temp for a couple of days. So off to the doctor after my Mother-In-Law and Wife harassed me enough. Turns out the doctor thinks I had Bronchitis (SP??) so time for the anti-biotics and some serious cough medicine. And did they do the trick I finally got more then a couple hours of sleep in a day since three weeks prior!! That in itself was a big deal.

Well the sickness put me back a bit on my Christmas shopping for friends and family. So the Wife and I were pushing it in terms of getting everything we needed and still have time to get them shipped. We were able to pull it off as well as get our Christmas Cards out as well.

For Christmas this year we had the opportunity to attend the Monday Night football game in San Diego on Christmas Eve. How you might ask? A Partner that my wife works with is married to the Offensive Coordinator of the San Diego Chargers and she was kind enough to invite us along! This was so cool that I was looking forward to this so much! I'm not a Charger fan as most of you know or can tell from my posts I'm a 9er but you can't pass up an opportunity like this. Plus one of my really good friends, Bef, is a life long fan so at least I could go root on his team against the hated Broncos from Denver! The seats were great and the game was a blast especially since the team we wanted to win did!! Way to go Chargers!! Below you'll see some pictures from the game. Oh yeah while waiting before the game I got a quick shot of 2 of the announcers of the game good ol' Ron Jaworski and Tony Kornheiser. Didn't see Mike Tirico. The day before the game we went and visited the San Diego Zoo. That place was cool and nicely put together even though there were major remodels going on.

We got back on Christmas day where upon arriving home we found some presents left by the big man himself....Santa! The Wife got a GPS unit to help find her way around our new surroundings. The family picked up a Digital Video camera for filming life's little events like the one coming up in the near future. I got some Video editing software. Man we must have been really good this year!

To top off our Holidays we attended the Beaver Bowl Game here in San Francisco with my Wife's Aunt and Uncle who were kind enough to bring us along with them for the exchange of a couple nights stay. That was greatly appreciated. It was my second bowl game, first was 1995 Rose Bowl game Ducks versus Penn State, and the wife's first Bowl game. It was also our first time in AT&T Park as well. But we'll visit that place many times in the future as my Mother is a huge Giants fan. Anyway the game while being cold and rainy, luckily we were under an overhang, was just a blast! Especially since the Beavs pulled off the victory!! Whoot that was two games during the holiday's that we attended that the team we wanted was victorious!! Whoot!

Well that's really about it for all that you've missed up to this point. In the coming year we already have a couple trips thought out. In late January we'll be heading to Whistler, B.C. for a long weekend. Hopefully we'll get some company from some friends as well. Then around Thanksgiving time we hope to be in Hawaii for the Maui Invitational with our friends Bar, Kong and Bef and a big group of their family from back east. Both the UO Ducks and UNC Tarheels will be attending the tournament. I'm of course a Duck Alumni and Bar and Bef's family are Tarheel fans. We're not sure about ticket availability right now but we do know we'll be heading to Hawaii no matter!

Well I'll post more as it comes up and hopefully won't get a big blank area again.

MNF Announcers Kornheiser and "Jaws" Plus special appearance by Santa

Welcome to Qualcomm Stadium

Final Score of the MNF game

Forgot to mention that OSU Alumni Gary Payton was 3 rows in front of us at the Bowl Game! Nice!

Final Scoreboard of the Emerald Bowl

Beaver News as Requested

At the Request of my friend Bar here is some news about that other Oregon school the Beavers of Oregon State. Well really more of an update on the best quarter back to come out of OSU in a long, long time. Nope I'm not talking about the much beloved Jonathan Smith, who's coaching at the University of Idaho, but the much maligned Derek Anderson! Yep I said it back then and I'll say it now Beaver Nation he is the best Quarterback to ever grace your campus. Did he make you want to cringe and cower throwing over the middle late in a losing game. Yes! He made mistakes but many of his mistakes were due to receivers dropping the ball and worse yet deflecting the ball to the defense. His numbers would be out of this world and he would own every record if his receivers would have just caught 1/4 of the balls they dropped. Now on the one point I think everyone saw and agreed on was that he was slow and had trouble moving out of the way. Well we were all wrong! In the last 5 games of his Senior season he moved the ball really well with his legs. Did we forget that this guy was the Oregon High School Player of the year in both Football and Basketball? Oh yeah he was also on the track team in High School, go figure. But I figured it out he's not so good at the side to side speed but once he gets moving North and South he just lopes out there. He beat my Ducks his senior year by running not by passing. I thought he'd make a good to above average NFL QB. Look at his size and arm strength and there are not many that match up to him in the NFL. Now the biggest issue with him is his ability to forget what happened before. All Beaver fans remember that Junior year where he'd get one Pick, his fault or not, and he'd end up turning the ball over more or just being so damn tentative it just made you want to close your eyes. His Senior season he won me over in the department as the year went on he seemed to mature vastly in this department.

Last season due to injuries to Charlie Frye Derek was given his shot at leading the team. He didn't put up great numbers but he did lead his team to a comeback victory with his running ability against Kansas City. After that he struggled much like he did at times in his college career. And that brings us to the present.

Now in his third season in the NFL he finally was given the reins to the Browns. After game one the Browns unloaded their starting quarterback....Huh? Who does that? Weird but it was a move that has payed great dividends for the Browns. In his first game as a starter this season he went 20 of 33 for 328 yards 5 TDs and 1 Int against the Bengals in a match up featuring a couple of Great and I mean Great OSU receivers in Chad Johnson and TJ Houshmandzadeh! He since has still put up good numbers while still having a huge INT day especially on the road, he's thrown 5 of his 8 picks in 2 road games. So far his total stats for the season are 7 games 6 Starts 119 of 209 (56.9%) 1,744 Yards 8.3 Average Yards per Completion 17 TDs 8 Ints and a QB rating of 95.5 for the Cleveland Browns of all teams!! Now I'm not saying he's made it but he sure has proven he belongs and should be able to hold off Brady Quinn for a while if he keeps playing like this. I've watched almost all his games this season, as I have Sunday Ticket, and have been greatly impressed with him even in the bad games. He seems to just shake it off and continues to sling them in there. Maybe that's why I like him is he's a big QB who just rifles it in there even when he shouldn't. So far his receiving core in Cleveland (Braylon Edwards, Kellen Winslow and Joe Jurevicius) are making the plays for him to keep him able to thread the needle. I hope he can continue his play and will be able to play for a couple of years with this team to see if he settles in or has a fall back to earth. In either case he's still making plays and leading his team 4-3 (4-2 as a starter) and in second place by one game in the AFC North.

Note: If Matt Lienart were healthy and playing still we would have 3 of the top 5 QBs from the same High School Recruiting Class starting this week with Clemens getting the nod with the Jets. Anderson and Clemens were the top two QBs that year. And I believe they were the top two QBs in the Pac-10 during their tenure as well.

Ducks Rock USC!

Whoot Ducks finally beat USC again. It's been a few years. So now that USC is no longer a National Title contender and more then likely out of Pac-10 but not really yet. It's time to move on to our next challenge taking on ASU. ASU usually gives the Ducks fits. Which like Cal has had an ex-offensive Duck Coordinator as their head coach. But now it's that wiley guy who wins everywhere but the NFL, Dennis "the Menace" Erikson. Welcome back to the Pac-10 and a nice ride his teams had. No one knew what to expect from them but they've played really well and look like they are for real. I'm not sure how their defense will stack against or offense only USC has really stopped us. Cal did an Ok job but the Ducks stopped themselves mostly in that game and couldn't get a stop when needed against Cal. But since that game the Ducks have been on a scoring tear all be it against the bottomfeeders. But even the USC game we moved the ball at will and should have had another 100+ yards of offense but we went conservative with the lead and it almost cost us. And this against one of the best Defenses in the Nation. So we'll see how this goes could be a big shootout like in past years with the score up in the 40's for both teams. Should be a good game and luckily it's at home!

Well the 9ers lost yet again. With Norv gone and the injury bug going on the team just isn't playing well. The Defense even seems to have taken a step back as the seasons gone on. But that's probably due to the Offense being bad. Alex is back and if he stays healthy maybe they can get something back, but that's a big if as he looked like he reagrivated the shoulder again. Adam Snyder has been playing lately and doing an Ok job as you don't hear his name mentioned much after the introduction of the starters. Which is a good thing for an 0-line as he's not making the big mistakes.

9ers Lucky to be 2-0, QB's with Oregon ties perform well

Now don't get this post wrong I'm happy that the 9ers are 2-0 in both league and division standings. However, how they got there has to be the ugliest, sloppiest games I've seen in a long time. Not to mention a little luck! Our offense other then one or two drives in two games looks like absolute shit! Our call playing leaves a lot to be desired. Come on could you use your mobile Quarterback more in the mobile category? He wins the first week for us on a broken mad dash scramble to save the winning drive and you don't do more to get him out running? Come on coaches take you heads out of your collective asses. Defense still doesn't look all that well yet but at least they haven't given up or broken down too much yet. Just shore up the little stuff and they'll be a good defense. Where the heck are the plays for Vernon Davis? The guy is just a freak of an Athlete and you don't run more plays for him? See comment on not using the QB above. Again glad to be 2-0 but we need to see more improvement on Offense as so far it looks like the entire offense has taken a step backwards! Speaking of Offense what's up with the choices on the line? I know I'm a Duck and a homer but come on last season Adam Snyder played better then a couple of linemen *ahem* *cough* Kwame *ahem* Baas. I know they have more invested in these other guys but give him some equal playing time as they're getting in back up roles.

Well onto other updates in the world of the NFL and players from the state of Oregon we had a few QBs in action today. Joey had a game where he didn't cost his team but also didn't do anything spectacular to help his team either. Off to another under his potential season. If I could get all the writers off his back maybe he'd start winning. I mean look at college his stats were good but his biggest quality was at being a leader and doing what it took to win. He also had track stars at WR and a couple strong RBs to help him during his years as the head Duck. So while I've been disappointed with his pro career as many I also realize probably too much was expected of him stat wise at the NFL level. I think this is his last chance and stop on the circuit. Derek Anderson the much maligned QB for the Beavers, although I thought Beaver Nation never gave him a fair shake. I mean come on he leads the league in offense and yes he had way too many INTs. But in both cases if his receivers wouldn't have had butterfingers or short arms stuff both those numbers would have been even better. I can't count the number of times his OSU receivers would have it hit them square in the chest and the other team would get the carom. Anyway back to his day it started off horrid missing on his first 5 passes but then he just goes ballistic on the Bengals defense for 5 TDs and one INT. What a huge game he had. I watched this game and yeah he got a couple of lucky breaks on some passes but that is just make up for all the bad luck he had with his OSU receivers. Karma always evens things out in the end!! Way to go Derek!! Now just have a decent game next week and the talk of Quinn stepping in will quite out for most this season. Good luck man!! And last but not least Kellen Clemens got his first career start for the NY Jets, because that snake Chad didn't want to get beat up by Baltimore! Well for 3 quarters that is what happened to Clemens he got beat up including a couple of hellos with his old Duck teammate Haloti Nagta. But in the 4th quarter down 17 he just went ballistic, or as in the old classic video game NBA Jam HE'S ON FIRE. He leads the team back on 3 pretty impressive drives. On the third of those drives he had one TD pass dropped by a wide open receiver, under threw a second TD pass and then finally the 3rd TD, a little high, pass got tipped and intercepted in the end zone. Now if he can just show up at the beginning of a game he looks like he'll have a decent career in the NFL. The game was a loss and that's never good but the Jets at least know they have a good backup QB who will continue to push for Chad's job. Although he might not be ready to be the full time starter yet I don't think it will be more then a year out before he is a starter in this league.

Well good job by all the players with Oregon ties all throughout the day.