The Suspense

I am typing this on Friday evening at 8:22 PM. I am following the University of Kentucky's football team on the Internet as they face East Carolina in the Liberty Bowl.

I'm following it on the Internet because when we moved we didn't get a full cable package, but a scaled back package that included local channels only. And the UK football team is not popular enough in Cincinnati for there to be any radio station I can listen to up here that covers their games (Basketball is a different story, but football no one cares about). So I'm stuck following the game on CBS Sportsline.

And it's maddening because I know I'm not quite getting the game live. Someone has to type what's going on. And when there are long pauses, like in TV timeouts or other interruptions, I'm stuck wondering whether it's just a natural interruption or whether there's a problem with the Internet.

Take just a few minutes ago. Kentucky supposedly sacked the ECU quarterback. He fumbled, UK picked up the ball and then scored. But then there was an instant replay review. I waited and waited for the result, wondering, "Did UK score? Would ECU get the ball back? What's going to happen? Why is no one typing anything?" Finally, the moderator of the web page typed, "What is there to review? It looks pretty clear cut to me!" and I thought everything was fine, but then a moment later the screen says, "Call reversed!" and then ECU started moving down the field.

This must have been what life was like when telegrams were the primary means of communication. Disjointed messages. I'm in 2009, but it feels like 1879.

ECU was driving down the field, had just crossed midfield, and I was sure they were going to score and take the lead. Then my screen refreshed and the score read Wildcats 25, Pirates 19 and the screen said "Ventrell Jenkins, 56 Yd fumble return (Lones Seiber kick Failed), 3:02." Talk about the game turning on a dime.

In the time it's taken me to type the above the game has ended. UK won. I'm sure it was more exciting to WATCH it than it was to read about it 3 minutes after it happened.

Maybe I'll call the cable company Monday.

More Before and After

I've posted previously posted photos showing how the living room and the girls' bedrooms have changed in our new house. Today I thought I'd show you the kitchen.

We had no plans to do ANYTHING to do the kitchen at first, but then we decided there's no time to work on a house like when it's empty, so we went ahead and made some changes, as you can see for yourself below.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Happy New Year

Well, here we are in 2009. Feels pretty much like 2008, doesn't it?

This could be a scary year, what with the economy and all, a new President, India and Pakistan about ready to go to war. Could be interesting.

On the other hand, there's a lot of possibility as well. A new President (I know I said that already, but I think that fits in both categories), a new administration with new ideas, a whole year of possibility that lies before us. Could be interesting.

It's the last year of the zeroes. Is that what we call this decade? My kids will have done most of their growing up in this decade, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to call it. I was born in the sixties, learned in history books about the Roaring Twenties, the thirties, the forties, and the fifties, grew up in the seventies and eighties, and became an adult in the nineties. What are we going to call this decade? Does it have to be the zeroes? Or will we just say "At the turn of the century"? It works, but it seems to imply both the nineties and the...the...the zeroes, I guess you pretty much have to call it.

For that matter, what will we call the upcoming decade? You can't call it the "teens" because that leaves out 2011 and 2012. The "tens" sounds weird, too. We're in Never-Never land in naming our decades until 2020. That's a long time from now!

I just looked in Wikepedia to see how the decades 1900-1909 and 1910-1919 are handled (though, technically, the decades should be 1901-1910 and 1911-1920, but let's not get started on THAT!). The article on 1910-1919 consistently refers to the period as the 1910's, so I guess we could call the upcoming decade the 2010's. The article about 1900-1909, though, correctly points out that calling the decade the 1900's is confusing because that can mean the entire twentieth century. The article states that in 1900-1909 it was common to refer to the period as the "aughts."

I think I like the Zeroes better.