You Want Info on Fog in Liverpool? There's a Blog for That

Over on The Rainout Blog, a project I've been playing around with for the past six years – or has it been seven? – I've written a brief note today about the fogging night in Liverpool and the gloriously beautiful snow game played in Manchester Saturday. Carry on.

Oh, and yes, I hope to begin posting soon about my upcoming book project. Stay tuned.

(Did I just write "stay tuned"? Yuck! So cliché.) 

Tired Excuses

Wait! What?

Referees get tired too?

Yep. That's what Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini said last week after his club exited the Carling Cup following a loss to Liverpool.

''The refs sometimes are tired - to play every two or three days is difficult for the players, and for the referee. The referee is like me, like the players. They can be tired sometimes.''

If this is true – who am I to second guess Mancini – perhaps Premier League refs need to find themselves a better fitness program, just like National Football League officials did several years ago when they hired this dynamic fitness and nutrition duo I wrote about last week.

The husband and wife team conducted a 10-game study on NFL officials a few years go, and data showed the league's officials ran an average of 6.1 miles per game. It was far more, they said, than anyone, officials included, guessed before the study was completed.

I wonder how many miles the average Premier League referee gallops per game. I'm sure this number has been calculated, but I haven't found such data in my few minutes of searching.

However, I did find this Guardian story from March 2010 about football (soccer, whatever) referee Peter Walton, who said he trains four days a week to keep in match condition.

The interview is fun, and it's particularly interesting to learn what Walton sometimes eats for breakfast. Ummmm, baked beans!

  

Lost in Space Writing

I took this photo last night. No, I didn't.
It's from National Geographic/Getty Images 

After talking an hour with a physics/astronomy professor yesterday, I now know that I know nothing, absolutely nothing, about our galaxy.

I'm almost embarrassed by how little I knew and how wrong I was about all the things I thought I knew. Does that make sense?

Ok, that's all I have to say about my lack of galactic knowledge, but I can say I am making a little progress toward getting started on my book, which – I'll give you a little hint here – has nothing to do with the Milky Way or space in general.

People who know me know I'm a bit of a sports guy, and yeah, my book is going to be sports related.

What? That's not enough of a hint?

Ok, I'll also say that I love baseball, and while I do hope to work on a baseball writing project soon, my book will be all about a particular football game. I may even narrow it down to a book about one single play. Imagine that.

I've talked with a few people about the book, and they all seem excited and eager to help. So, I hope to get started on more formal interviews in the next couple of weeks and then be able to provide more information on this blog throughout the interviewing, research and writing process.

Now, back to writing about galaxies, dark matter, intergalactic space and such.

Why do I ever doubt Novak Djokovic?

Getty Images

Ok, I don't think I really doubted the Djoker, but I had tremendous confidence in Rafael Nadal entering the Australian Open Sunday. I'm no expert tennis analyst, but watching Nadal this year made me think he had taken his game to an even higher level, if that's possible. 

He seemed to me – a tennis novice – to be hitting the ball with more force than usual as he tirelessly disposed of opponents.

And heading into Sunday's final, Djokovic was coming off an impressive but exhausting five-set, five-hour win over Andy Murray in the semifinals.

I know the Serb is super fit, but some experts were questioning his stamina during the Murray match.

Rafa, looking like Superman with a racquet, combined with questions about Novak's ability to bounce back from a grueling match led me to believe it was Nadal's turn to finally get the best his rival.

And as usual, I was so wrong.  

Before I Stab My Ears with a Q-Tip

I don’t want to get my hopes up, but earlier today I think I heard an NPR anchor say today is the last day of the fundraising drive!

If there’s a God, it will be over the next time I click my FM dial though the 80s and lower 90s.

Oh my goodness gracious!

Don’t get me wrong. NPR is great. I listen every day, but the constant pleas for donations get a little ridiculous sometimes.

Has the NPR money drive always been so aggressive?

Tennis anyone? Anyone?

UPDATE: This post is from when I thought about authoring a blog featuring my goofy amateur photos. This is too pathetic to delete.


I really didn’t want to begin my photography blog with a photo I snapped with my cell phone, but I will anyway… just to get things started. (Sometimes I can’t wait to get things rolling.) For the past few weeks, I’ve been waking up at 4:50 a.m. to either walk around the neighborhood or to drive to the high school tennis courts to smack balls off the painted red wall. Yep, I pay tennis alone at 5 a.m. I think I took this photo to send to a few people at 5 a.m. just to impress upon them that I was out doing stuff while they were still in bed. Trust me, no one was impressed. They all think I’m nuts.

More Stripes than Wins... No More

The Buffalo Bills may be a horrible team again in 2011, but at least they will look good while losing 34-13 to the Jets. The team has announced on its website that the four-time Super Bowl runners up will be “sporting fresh threads” for the upcoming season. Even if you’re not a fan of the Bills, you mostly certainly have to cheer that one of the most hard-on-the-eyes uniforms in the NFL is going away.

I first read about the uniform change this morning on Uniwatch Blog, which reports from someone in the know that the “new Bills uniforms are clearly modeled after the later Simpson-era design, including the white helmet, but they’ve been updated to include a tiny amount of navy blue trim.”

The Bills say they will introduce the new threads at a fan appreciation event later this year. Fans of the Bills, and even those of us who are just curious, can register on the team’s website to receive e-mail notifications about the uniform unveiling.