Brain Enema of a Savage Mind

Well last night Niagara lost to Michigan in the opening round of the men’s college hockey tournament.  Was I surprised by this?  No, not really.  Was I surprised by the score?  Again, not really.  Niagara played a great first period, not allowing Michigan to get their offense going.  In the second they had some shaky moments, but played pretty solid, but Michigan did climb ahead with a 2 goal lead.  In the third period Michigans skill and conditioning came in to play and they just dominated every aspect of the game.  I’m proud of how they did everything they could to keep themesleves in the game.  They hit hard, and they didn’t want to give up.  It was a pretty good showing for going up against the team that nearly everyone has picked to win the whole thing (personally I’ve got North Dakota to win the championship this year).  With an uncertain future for their conference next season it should be interested to see what happens.

Later today it’ll be nice to see people from my adult league hockey team.  We’re having a little get together to drink beer, barbeque, and just relax.  It would have been nice for a little warmer weather (ie, not a blanket of wet heavy snow on the ground), but it should still be a good day anyway.

It’s strange when a holiday falls in the middle of the week. The 4th is on a Wednesday this year, and thankfully we’re closed on the 4th. So that means I work Monday and Tuesday, I have a day off, then I work Thursday and Friday, then I have my normal weekend. It’s certainly nice to break a week so that it can’t get too stressful when you’re only working 2 days in a row on either side of a holiday. Though I think I’d much rather have a long weekend instead. There’s just this intangible something that makes 3 days weekends that much more relaxing. It’s like the relaxation increases exponentially with the number of days off in a row you have. It also would have been really nice because Denise was gone all last week and damned if I didn’t miss her something fierce. I guess that just goes to show things are still working that well.

The big event of this weekend was Friday night. I stopped at Lowe’s on the way home from work to purchase a brand new charcoal grill. I love this thing! 800 square inches of cooking surface for making the yummiest charred meats! Denise and I assembled it Friday night but by the time we were done it was a little late to start cooking. Saturday I grilled some very delicious steaks on it. Sunday we made hamburgers. I forgot how much better meat tastes coming off a charcoal grill rather than propane. Sure, propane can be convenient at times, but flavor-wise it leaves a lot to be desired. Next up will be Wednesday when I grill any kind of meat (and probably some non-meat things too) that I can lay my hands on. A couple of people are coming over for the 4th but I get the feeling I’ll cook enough to feed a small army. I love grilling. Sometime soon I’m going to do some nice smoked BBQ on it - probably pulled pork. Delicious!

For now I’m avoiding the rant about the Sabres and this horrible start to an off season, but I figured I’d wait until I’m not quite frothing at the mouth on this one so I can try to analyze things a bit. Of course if I read anymore of these news stories about it I’m sure the upcoming rant will manage to be extra-frothy.