Dateline: The confluence of the Amazon and Rio Negro, where the heat is extra hot, the humidity is extra humid, and there's a constant battle between malaria and syphilis atop the "things I'd really like to avoid" power rankings. Regardless, I might just, uh, stay here for the long term. Well, one term anyway. Plus the beer is cheap.
Your Washington State Cougars continued their home/road sine curve on Saturday, coasting to a rather drama-free 49-28 win over future conference-mate Utah State on Saturday night, improving their record to 8-1 and AP ranking to #19 in the process/aftermath. Pretty good! Wait, sine curve? What the hell is he talking about? Well, WSU has coasted to rather easy victories in its last two home games, but has struggled a lot more on the road against mediocre-to-bad teams.
/peaks at upcoming schedule and sees two straight on the road against bad teams
There was a lot of "good" on Saturday night, as well as some bad and ugly, so let's dive in.
"CW in a nutshell - Let's continue coverage of a stupid NASCAR race that's already over so we can listen to some redneck talk about his victory that nobody cares about. Then the coverage ends and let's show 3 ****ing commercials about our upcoming game between Utah State and WSU, which is actually in ****ing progress while we show you these commercials."
Good job, good effort, TV people.
All that aside, the Cougs are 8-1 (!!!) and will almost certainly move up into the CFP Committee's Top 20 on Tuesday. It doesn't mean much since there's still a month to go, but it's still cool! And always will be!
These highlights show some curious stuff. Like, is it really a highlight when WSU catches a six yard pass on 3rd-and-9? Or kick returns that barely get to the 20? Oh well, they're still a fun watch overall.
I mentioned a while back that the boys had decided to cook their own lunch on Sunday nights, making enough for most/all of the week. Well, things came to a head around 7:30 p.m. one Sunday night when this was the scene (one kid grilling flank steak and the other mixing a pot pie recipe) as Mrs. Kendall was trying to get dinner on the table.
That was the end of that, Mrs. Kendall declared, so now we have guidelines in place that mandate the meals be prepared before Sunday evening. I haven't been home in over a week, but I suspect that we're at least halfway back to peanut butter and jelly on the regular.
Later in the week, we seemingly had every teenager in a 10-block radius pass through the house to slake all of our soft drinks and murder every piece of pizza in the house while I sat in the driveway, drank beer and asked fake trivia questions to trick-or-treaters. Meanwhile, the 16 year-old had plans to trick-or-treat (I don't know why) but no plan for a costume, despite my badgering beforehand, so he did what every other kid in the Florida Panhandle does at this time of year.
Yup, if I had a nickel for every southern kid who donned the Steve Largent jersey and throwback Seahawks helmet, I'd be five cents richer.
On the fall sports scene, the mighty Dolphins had their final game of the season the day after Halloween. Mrs. Kendall and I arrived a bit late due to some parking lot buffoonery, and the score was 8-7. Wait a minute, we're actually in the game? It was actually close for a bit until the opponent decided to just keep giving the ball to its gigantic running back, who bowled through the Dolphin defense time after time enroute to a 50-25 Dolphin loss. And that was that.
When the kiddo got home, he asked if we saw the play where he got in. WHAT??!! NO! Turns out one of the kids on the PAT team didn't go in for the first kick (aside - it's the last game of the season and we still can't figure out who's on the special teams. Tremendous), so our guy ran in as the 11th player. When the snap came, he basically just tossed a rusher to the side (we only saw this on video). Pretty cool! Good thing he barely got to play!
As for the Argos, I got to see one last game where they got a last-play win in which the 13 year-old caught a couple touchdown passes, batted a pass down on defense, and snagged a crucial fourth down pass on the game-winning drive. All of that resulted in a player-of-the-game award, which was pretty great for me since I won't get to see any more games. The next week brought some heartbreak, however. He was too sick to play Tuesday, and they lost in overtime on Thursday. Hopefully the playoffs bring better results.
I mentioned that the 13 year-old missed a game due to illness, having caught strep throat for like the ninetieth time this year. Both he and the oldest were home from school on Tuesday as a result, and I had to run out to get them their prescribed antibiotics. While I was out, I got a note from the youngest.
I got them the milkshakes, mostly out of guilt since I was leaving the country later in the day. #sucker
Scenes from a Brazilian elevator:
Uhh, you mean there's a chance that when the elevator door opens that I'll step straight into my death? Feels like I shouldn't have to worry about that! But wait...
Elevator apartheid is not something I expected to encounter on this, or any trip. Take it away, Mr. Lombardi.