School daze

Labor Day weekend is here. Looks like it will be a nice one, dry and sunny and comfortable. Pretty much the complete opposite of what's about to hit Florida. Hurricane Frances is swooping in and is expected to slam the entire state, not just the coastline. I'm working with a potential author out of Orlando and when I called him today, he was outside boarding up the windows on his house. Damn.

The Republican convention wrapped up last night with Dubya's big speech; I only saw about a minute before I fell asleep. More interesting was this Zell Miller dude, a Democratic Senator out of Georgia who was frothing at the mouth Wednesday night as he ripped into Kerry and his own party. And then he went all 18th century on Chris Matthews of "Hardball" fame, challenging him to a duel. The Democrats responded by reminding Miller that PAX was showing a "Matlock" marathon, at which point he flew right back to his nursing home.

Watched some good hockey this week as the World Cup of Hockey got underway. The U.S. finally won a game tonight over Slovakia after getting dominated by Canada and Russia. I'm a little peeved that ESPN isn't showing any of the games this weekend; I understand college football is also starting this weekend, but for crying out loud, ESPN's got three or four freaking channels. Coverage picks up again on Tuesday.

It looks almost certain that the NHL season won't start on time; the players' union and the league have been meeting all week, but they're nowhere near a resolution. In the meantime, you can find some good hockey analysis and writing at Off Wing Opinion.

A shout-out to the UNH Wildcats football team, which started its season last night with a huge upset over 1-AA national champ Delaware. The Cats have struggled in recent years, so it's nice to see them off to a good start. Unfortunately, they lost their starting QB, Mike Granieri, for the season with a knee injury. A redshirt freshman, Ricky Santos, came in and led them to the victory.

Music lists are always the subject of great debate, but this one is fun to read: The Ten Most Hated Men in Rock. Very vitriolic, but also very funny. I would put Don Henley much higher than this guy did, though. Thanks to Largehearted Boy , consistently the best music blog around, for the tip.

My big race is Monday and it looks like the weather will cooperate. I took the week off from running until today to rest my sore Achilles' tendon. Ran five miles in Marblehead at lunch and felt pretty good, so hopefully I'll be okay Monday when I run three times that.