Sorry.
No, I'm not kidding. I am.
With all the travel, combined with the hard work to do when I'm actually at work, the Blog has not been first and foremost among my thoughts. Nor should it be.
But that doesn't mean I should run and hide for three weeks or whatever it's been.
Alaska was fun. So was Colorado. I'm looking forward to a week in Florida. That will be cool. What's better is that UMD's men's hockey team is improving. The youngsters are really coming into form, especially Mason Raymond, who has been on a scoring tear as of late and is showing incredible skill and ice vision. The goaltending has been improved of late, too. It wasn't Josh Johnson's fault that Colorado College hung a touchdown on him on Friday night. He didn't have a lot of help in that disastrous third period.
In football, the right guy won the H*i*m*n. But don't go too far to pat the voters on the back. It's not like they had a choice. Even last year's winner voted for Reggie Bush, even though last year's winner could have voted for himself. It was that obvious.
While we're talking about people that don't deserve a pat on the back, how about the BCS apologists? "The BCS got it right this year."
Well I should hope it did! There were two unbeaten teams in Division I-A college football. Both of them were in "power" conferences, and both of them were at the top of the heap throughout the season. If the BCS screwed this up, the people responsible for this stupid system should be publicly flogged. Come to think of it, that's not a bad idea, even though they did get it right.
While I'm randomly ranting, let's talk politics. The big story in Duluth today is the Friday night arrest of the city's mayor, Herb Bergson, for driving while, um, well, not sober. The story going around is that the mayor was on his way to a conference in Chicago (some environmental deal) on Friday. He told the Duluth News Tribune that he had hoped to make it to Eau Claire, WI, that night. He made it about halfway there. Bergson suffered minor injuries in a battle between his car and the guardrail along U.S. Highway 53 near Spooner, WI, in Washburn County. The battle was won decisively by the guardrail, as Bergson's car was totaled. After reportedly telling passersby not to call the police (gee, I wonder why), Bergson was eventually taken in when responding officers thought something wasn't right.
I have a few thoughts:
1. First, I want to say I'm glad Bergson is okay. His injuries were minor. The car can be replaced. And if this is a sign of any personal demons that we were otherwise not privy to, I think I share the sentiments of most in this area when I say that I hope Mayor Bergson can conquer those demons (I don't know the man and don't know if such demons exist, though this incident at least shows that it's possible they do).
2. Why is the mayor of a reasonably-sized city like Duluth driving to Chicago? Mapquest says that's 472 miles. I know they don't have a lot of money in Duluth (there's been talk of the city filing bankruptcy, after all), but are they really that poor that they can't afford to get the mayor a plane ticket for such a trip?
3. The accident occurred at 6:25pm on Friday, according to the DNT report (DNT website). The mayor was legally drunk (.161, or twice the legal limit) at the time of the crash (George Carlin: "If it's legal, what's the [expletive] problem?"). Let me be the first to say that I hope that his consumption started out of the office, which means I hope he didn't just leave work and start on his trip.
4. Combine this with the whole "Firing a guy by sticking a note on his office door and leaving town" thing. Seriously, is Bergson trying to throw the next mayoral election? If he doesn't want to win, why doesn't he just decide not to run?
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