wired

nights like this ... surfing for more big news about my mountaineers, catching up on online media, keeping track of a dramatic world series ... i'm up for no good reason.

this was a hard week at the paper with said big story about my alma mater. (which was itself filled with drama.) combine with remaking two different section fronts on consecutive nights and an epic game six to end the week, and i'm tired and wired.

i'm up and i should be asleep. but i feel like i should be getting work done in the house. it is difficult to focus.

i should just cut my losses and hit the sack.

wvu@25

here's my silver lining to west virginia's shocking loss at syracuse: instead of dropping down to no. 25, we'd be a top 10 team today.

with the upsets of oklahoma and wisconsin, two teams ahead of us in last week's polls, we'd have moved from no. 11 into no worse than 9 or 10.

maybe it's the fatalist in me, but if we were a top 10 team, some other conference foe -- likely rutgers this week or, worse, pitt in november -- would have exposed the weakness that syracuse exploited.

and that would have been a bubble buster even harder to stomach than this last one.

we're still a top 25 team, albeit by our fingernails. but we're also two losses wiser.

while a lofty mid-season ranking provides some heady ether, being brought down to earth can be a painful, but necessary way of sobering up to focus on the opportunities ahead.

i'm hoping that this really is a blessing in disguise, part of a football program's growing pains to bigger and better things.

wvu@5-2

my colleague, mike, posted a prescient preview story before friday's west virginia game against syracuse, in which he noted the similarities coming in this year and last.

unfortunately, we got the same result, an upset loss -- and, more than that, it was an old-fashioned, behind the woodshed ass-whipping.

this appeared as comment in his blog:

as per last year vs. this year: i don’t sense the ineptitude, impotence or indecisive flailing the team effused after losing in 2010.

we have an identity, and it’s a good one; we just happened to run into a buzz saw.

syracuse’s game plan was simple, but they executed to perfection. they were the team (coach doug) marrone asked them to be: smart, patient and, most importantly, physical.

as long as our defense couldn’t stop them, their offense dinked and dunked its way up and down the field and protected the ball.

the orange defense was relentless and constant as a piledriver. we never maintained a steady rhythm.

as (blog commenter) lcj said, we played “fine,” but we needed to be better than “good” against a team that wasn’t making mistakes.

my understanding of the 3-3-5 defense — and spread offenses, for that matter — is that they made up for the deficiencies from not being able to recruit elite athletes at positions designed for a pro-style offense or conventional defense.

we’ve needed gimmicks because we’re not alabama or michigan.

while my fondest dreams were that everything would gel this year and we’d pull off the upsets and crush the rest, i’m having to face the facts that “the experts” pointed out before the season began: we’re inexperienced in the places that count — o-line and defense.

we”re learning — and we should be the better for it, if not this year, then next.

while we no longer control our own destiny, that conference title is still up for grabs. i can only hope we take something moving forward from these lessons.

that about sums it up for me.

superhero day

on a day where we ran a story about self-styled "superheroes" rising up and roaming the streets of america, i actually sort of got to play one.

the boy and i were at the playground, where he was having a snack break from his morning rumpus.

from the shelter i heard a mom shout, "amanda? where are you?"

a quick scan of the playground revealed the 2-year-old atop a climbing wall trying to clamber onto a platform leading to a slide.

i hurried over as i pointed her mom in the child's direction.

as mom told her tyke to be careful, i climbed up to ensure the youngster didn't fall.

then she did. my hand shot up as her bottom landed square in my palm.

as i couldn't get enough leverage to push the child back onto the platform, i caught her in my arm as i jumped off the wall.

she cried, i think because a strange man was trying to make her stop crying. i handed her back to her mom, who said thanks.

earlier, on the way to the park, managed to get a kitten off the side of the road and back into her owner's carport.

she bounded down the slope to the road where the boy and i were walking and wouldn't leave the shoulder. that she was staying there playing made me nervous.

it took a couple of attempts to get her to stay closer to the house.

luckily, i recalled the "cat trap" picture and set her in a decorative halloween cauldron in the carport.

this bought the boy and me the time and separation needed to ensure she didn't us follow to the road.

i called the number on her tags and confirmed with the owner that it was indeed her house and that she is an indoor/outdoor cat. (owner was en route from south carolina back home.)

catching a falling child and saving a cat. sounds kind of like a superhero day to me. demented and sad, but kind of.

postscript -- 18 october: on way to work, moved a turtle out from the middle of the road. just doing my job.

go go, go go

this is the boy walking and talking down the street.

all he is saying is "go go, go go." he keeps this up for only a few seconds.

on saturday morning, though, he toddled with a head of steam down the alley beside the house to our neighbor at the bottom of the hill repeating it like a mantra all the way to her garden gate.

at this phase of his life, "go go" seems less a verb or command as a statement of being.

shake-up

for my west virginia mountaineers, it's come down to this: a big east conference lunging to the west for the hope of keeping open its bid to play for national championships.

for a few hours after the league held probably its most important powwow, i actually got caught up in the hand-wringing: who would give a rat's ass about this frankenstein's monster of a conference?

but if it gets pulled off? boise state adds consequential wins, southern methodist and houston give us texas and strong programs, air force and navy give tradition and prestige.

don't let the door hit you on the way out, syracuse and pitt.

every conference has its bell cows and bottom feeders. this one would be no different.

after the top two, at the very least, the league would be competitive in and outside the conference.

and for what it's worth -- big east supporters in general and wvu fans in particular are going to have to get over this self-loathing that they believe only membership in a traditional -- read: southeastern -- conference will validate a program.

wvu fans need to channel their inner stuart smalley: we're good enough, we're strong enough, and, doggone it, people like us.

after the better part of five years being belittled for its cupcake teams in the western athletic conference, boise state, now in the mountain west, has bloodied the noses of the sec, acc and pac 12.

they've garnered so much respect that they're now seen as the last, best hope for saving the automatic bcs berth of the big east.

(and if all this comes to pass, we'll see how well the broncos will handle a schedule that promises a little more challenge, as well. the battle for standard bearer could become a lot more interesting.)

post-jobs

the reaction elicited in the newsroom last week at the death of apple's steve jobs was not unlike that of learning michael jackson had died.

we kept talking about him and his company. the only business rock star we ever knew was gone.

and the proof of his impact was on our pc screens as we pointed and clicked around our desktop interfaces to drag and import words and pictures to report news of his passing in our newspaper.

from publishing to communications to music -- in all their myriad permutations -- his gift for seeing applications of technology touched everyone who uses the devices his company created or inspired.

(and this includes the snobby naysayers who regard macs and i-anythings as toys. it takes a lot of hard work to make something easy to use.)

his company mourned him.

silicon valley honored him.


even commerce tipped its hat.

i have a terrific loyalty to his thinking and products. his unique genius was once a generation.

i'm not sure if his successors will be able to continue that kind of vision and legacy.

he may never be replaced.