Joni Pitkanen to the Rescue... Again

i'm getting really tired of the attitudes of all hockey commentators. specifically i'm sick of hearing how the flyers can't score without peter forsberg. granted, he's the best player in hockey, which i don't think anyone will refute, but he is not the heart and soul and key to scoring for the flyers. it isn't like they've lost every game that peter the great has missed (and he hasn't recorded points in every game they've played - and won). captain keith has been their heart and soul for the past few years, but thank goodness they can actually win without him this season (two years ago, primeau missed 30 days, and the flyers did not win a single game the whole time he was out). i honestly think that some of the "philadelphia can't score without forsberg" talk played a role in their atrocious performance against tampa bay. i was scared to death that i'd see a repeat last night against the rangers, and if it weren't for my boy joni pitkanen, i might have.

pitkanen has been my favorite flyers' skater all season (though i haven't devoted as much blogging time to him as i have, say, antero niittymaki or ben eager), and earlier this season when chad asked who my favorite flyer was, i said pitkanen. i was impressed with him his rookie season two years ago, and he's greatly improved since then. pitkanen has become philadelphia's top scoring defenseman (an honor previously bestowed upon kim johnsson), but he makes smart defensive plays too - obviously, a must for a defenseman. he also has a knack for bailing his team out when they're sinking, as we all saw last night against the rangers (did you watch that one, nessa? they actually won on OLN!). it was a repeat of his performance in boston the night brian eklund (the eks man) made his NHL debut. the team is down a couple of goals in the 3rd, pitkanen scores to put his team back in the game, richards scores to tie it up, then pitkanen buries the game-winner in OT. how can you not love this guy? he can score, he can skate, and he plays pretty good D. he missed a good chunk of time (about 6 weeks or so) after abdominal surgery to correct a sports hernia, and he didn't look so good his first couple of games back, but he is certainly in top form now and showing the NHL what he's got. i hope bobby clarke hangs on to pitkanen for a long time.

Disturbing Behavior

dudes, what is up with the hockey world? are they all just out to give me a freaking heart attack? the first big hockey shock of the weekend was discovering that chris freakin' heid has been named the ice pilots captain since corey was traded to florida (personally, i'd have given it to bryson busniuk and left heid with the A). and today i find out that freakin' derian hatcher has been named the flyers captain with captain keith's long-running head injury. have i mentioned recently that i don't think primeau will be coming back for the flyers? i guess they aren't comfortable naming rookie mike richards to the job just yet, though from everything i've heard all season he was the guy everyone thought would be the next flyers leader. how much more can a girl take, huh? the flyers are in a downward spiral, and they all need to get rid of the suck bug they've caught. or they just need to start working for their wins again. after they kicked ass on that monster road trip, they figured things would just fall into place at home, not seeming to realize that winning means working. oh well. at least the pilots managed to squeak out a shootout win last night (i say it's because they went back to blue jerseys - enough of this red and black crap, let's get back to the blue angels connection and wear their colors). that was exciting. i thought they'd lose again. but anyway... let's hope things start looking up for both my teams.

derian hatcher... damn.

ECHL All Star Game

let me start by saying that anyone who can should watch the echl all star game when it reairs on OLN tonight if at all possible. it was an incredibly entertaining hockey game, particularly for me, and it took my mind of philadelphia's embarrassing loss to montreal last night (jan bulis scored 4 goals on robert esche! yikes!). however, i think that anyone who enjoys hockey would do well to watch this game and scout some of hockey's up and coming stars.

now that i've said that let me warn you that i am about to discuss this eventful game, so if you don't want to know what happened in the all star game, STOP READING NOW.

ok, i spent much of the all star game laughing my freaking ass off, but maybe it wasn't really funny. the majority of my laughter was at luke fulghum and his hat trick. oh yeah, that's right. pensacola's one and only all star player scored a hat trick for the american conference. crazy. absolutely crazy. i swear, i have never seen luke (jedi, chad's uncoordinated monkey) accept passes the way he did last night. my reaction to his 3rd goal went something like, "holy hell! there is no freakin' way i just saw that! you couldn't pay him to do that in pensacola! oh wait, they do pay him." he's pretty good at parking himself in a good place, he just misses the puck all the time instead of shooting it into an essentially wide open net. obviously, the boy's got skills. unfortunately, we don't really see them shine like that in pensacola, since he (along with the rest of the team, let's be fair) always finds some way to screw things up. seriously, we know he can shoot and score, so why the hell doesn't he do it more often? is he pissed off because he plays for a losing team? whatever. now i think it's going to piss me off even more when he flat out misses a great pass or doesn't shoot when he's got the chance.

anyway, the other surprise for me in the game was stockton's players. yeah. stockton. as in, the worst team in the league by a pretty wide margin. their goalie was the only one of the six who saw ice time to record a shutout for his period of play, and their other all star, mike lalonde, scored a goal for the national conference. so, why exactly do they suck so much?

the game was of course filled with familiar faces (well, names anyway), despite the lack of pensacola players. i recognized the guys from the south division, you know, the ones pensacola plays a ton. one of gwinnett's players, guillaume desbiens (whose name the PA announcer totally butchered, which was obvious from the way he shook his head and laughed when they announced him), missed the net on a great scoring chance at least once, but his teammate jeff campbell managed to put one in the net. of course, a florida everblade also had to score, so ernie hartlieb scored the first goal for the american conference. well, that was all well and good, but they still lost 7-6 (though it was 7-4 with only a couple of minutes left).

the other part of the game i really found funny was charlotte's goalie, jeff glass, and the way he got lit up in the third period. i was like, "there's the charlotte goalie we know and love!" i found it even funnier since the funny OLN announcer guy kept talking about how his contract is with damn ottawa. 4 goals on 8 shots. that's not so spiffy, eh? maybe i should have felt a little bad for him, but no. didn't happen. i thought it was funny.

anyway, even if i've totally ruined things for you, go watch the game. like i said, it was highly entertaining.

Still Procrastinating... Sort Of

still haven't practiced the presentation for tomorrow. today is an HPLC day (translation - a day where i live in the life sciences building from 8 am to roughly 6 pm and consume 2 meals and an afternoon snack in the lab - don't tell OSHA, k? eating in the lab is a no no), and due to my own strange psychological makeup won't be able to practice for real while i'm here. i find it much easier to talk to myself when there is no one else around for me to talk to and without the fear that someone will wander in and think me a freak because i'm in a semi-dark lab adjacent to the lab where i'm actually supposed to be working, talking to myself. i did print out the power point yesterday and make notes next to all my slides so i remember what to say while i practice, so if it comes down to it, i could go in there and wing it tommorw. not that i've ever done that. seriously, i've never done that. i must be prepared when doing the public speaking thing, lest i become one big bundle of muttering, stuttering, uncontrollably sweating and shaking, no eye contact making, uh-spouting nerves. i do ok when i've practiced, though. and i don't use notes when i give the actual presentation. if i did, i'd just read them, lose my place a few times, get really nervous, and turn into the woeful thing i just described. the notes just help when i'm practicing... which i really do need to do. i should have an extra hour in the morning, though, so really it's no big deal. and i could always run down the hall and get valerie and katie to listen to my talk so i wouldn't feel like i was talking to myself in a public place. nah. i'll make do with running through things in my head... though i tend to get distracted if i'm not actually talking.

oops. the HPLC calls - time to inject another sample. adios.

Procrastinating Again

instead of practicing my presentation for wednesday, i am playing on the internet. i know i promised in an earlier post to cut it out with the quiz things, but it's been a while. i'm telling myself it's my reward for finishing the presentation (even if i haven't walked around talking to myself yet).

You Are a Sprinkled Donut

Flamboyant and flashy, you're easily distracted by shiny things. You're definitely a snazzy number, and you usually catch everyone's eye in the room. And you've got the goods to back it up your colorful image. (Though too much of you gives people a stomach ache!)

What Donut Are You?

At Least They Made A Game Of It

i find it oh so sad that i take comfort in the fact that at least last night's ice pilots game was close. they could have gotten completely blown out by gwinnett, but they really made a game of it and managed to only lose by one goal. maybe that should make it worse since they at least had a chance to win and couldn't pull it out. oh well. braff finally scored a goal, so at least it was a happy night for someone. we can all finally see that all of the recent changes to the team haven't really helped. at least the flyers won yesterday afternoon... finally broke that losing trend. esche looked really good in his first outing since reaggravating the groin injury. i still think that he and niittymaki are going to have to duke it out for the #1 goalie position, though. in my humble, niittymaki loving opinion, the rookie has had a much better track record and looked much better overall than esche this season, and he has proven himself worthy of the #1 position. i'm going to be pissed if hitchcock doesn't at least rotate them. not that i don't like robert esche or have confidence in his abilities. it's just that he's been having kind of an... off sort of season. maybe he will continue to put on performances reminiscent of yesterday, and the flyers will finally have two really solid goaltenders.

as for my plans for this week, i have a presentation on wednesday for my plant physiological ecology class, so i have to finish the power point for (and practice) that before turning my attention to the 35-40 minute presentation i will be giving shortly after valentine's day in my seminar. i'm not sure yet whether i'm going to use it as a basis for the outline of my prospectus or as an excuse to finally delve into the wide world of indirect chemical defenses in preparation for the paper i'm working on with anne and her doctoral advisor. i also have to write a review of the paper i'll be discussing in wednesday's presentation, but that shouldn't take too long. i also have the usual lab stuff and readings for classes. the department chair is giving a guest lecture in my fisheries oceanography class since the prof is in alaska this week, and the three papers he assigned for discussion are all his. i'd better read carefully and really pay attention since he of course knows them inside and out, being one of the authors and all. aside from all the work, it will also be a hockey-filled week since either the flyers or the lightning play every day monday-thursday, there's the echl all-star game wednesday in addition to the flyers game, the ice pilots play friday and saturday night, and the flyers and lightning play each other saturday afternoon. whew. so many games, so little time...

New Link

hello all. i've been muy busy over the past week, with all of my reading for classes plus lab work, so i haven't really had the time for a good post. i still don't, really. i just wanted to alert you all to the fact that i have added a new link under "blogs i dig" - ron kiene's antarctica trip 2006. ron is a prof at the sea lab (he taught me chemical oceanography), and he does a lot of work in antarctica. he has started keeping a blog of his trip this year, and it is actually quite interesting... plus, there are tons of pretty pictures. so, go check out what ron is working on, and see some shots of a cold trip and some nifty penguins. if it weren't for the fact that i would quite literally freeze to death, i might have been tempted to join them.

The Next One

wow. someone out there shares my opinion of sidney crosby. go read this highly opinionated article (or just the first part where he talks about crosby), and see how closely this guy's thoughts mirror my own.

my pals thought i was a little blunt a couple of weeks ago when i called sid the kid a whiny assed baby in mcguire's, but he is. i am not going to deny that the kid has talent (because he does, and anyone who has seen him play knows this), but he seems to have the attitude of your typical spoiled brat who thinks he's entitled to special treatment and that anyone who deigns to lay a hit on him automatically deserves a trip to the sin bin. but maybe i'm just one of those flyers fans who have pegged him as a diver - which he is. i'll admit that derian hatcher deserved the penalties he took for roughing up crosby, but as i've said before, derian hatcher is a twit, and crosby sure was bitching a lot for a guy who drew several penalties against hatcher. not to mention all those times when crosby was the victim of a perfectly legal hit (some that weren't even that hard) and went sprawling, lying there looking at the ref, who obviously wasn't going to call anything (as he shouldn't). it's hockey, kid. you are going to get hit sometimes, and you need to learn to take it better. if it's an illegal hit that doesn't get called, bitch about it. if you had the puck and just freakin' got laid out by a great check, well, you've played this game long enough to know that it happens.

maybe crosby just isn't a physical enough player to suit my tastes (i'm sure you all know that i go for the guys who can hit - and get hit), but for now i'm sticking to my story that he's whiny... and i'm not the only one who thinks so.

Oh My God - They Won

so, i'm at the lab today, and since the ice pilots game was moved to 9:30 this morning i decided to listen while i work... i tuned in during the 1st intermission when the pilots were down 3-0 without much hope for the rest of the game. from the sound of things, the pilots really sucked it up during the first period (thus going down 3-0), and apparently schulz got his ass kicked in a fight again... badly. but man, did those guys ever pick it up in the 2nd and 3rd periods when they totally dominated the south carolina stingrays. steven later scored on a power play in the 2nd, then rooneem and cook scored for the pilots in the 3rd to tie the game 3-3, and then, miracle of all miracles, todd ford held off the stingrays during the overtime and the lovely adam courchaine scored the game winner for the pilots. all i can say is wow. i hope that this is a sign of things to come for pensacola hockey. it sounded like the guys worked really hard the last two periods (and overtime) of the game, and they have finally acquired two more points in the standings. mouthpiece boy (vukovic, a recent pensacola acquisition from florida who repeatedly drops his mouthpiece every game) didn't play due to "family problems" but lehun was there and, though he didn't participate in the pilots' scoring, he seemed to play pretty hard for us. i'm impressed. i really didn't think that this team had it in them to come back from a 3 goal deficit... and not allow the opposition to score after the 1st period. like i said, i hope this is a sign of things to come.

A New Day, A New Semester

this first day of the spring semester finds me in a better mood than when i wrote my last entry. today started off with a beautiful 50-something degree, mostly sunny january morning and is progressing toward a cloudy (blah) 70-something degree (yay) afternoon. i'm not crazy about the cloudy, but i am so loving the high-60's/low-70's forecasts for the next week or so. i absoutely hate the cold, and the windy, 29 degree friday night we just had made me want to hibernate. but that was redeemed by a gorgeous 73 degree sunday afternoon... with more of the same for the next week or so. :) also contributing to my good mood is the feeling of doing something worthwhile with my time and the fact that the flyers are presently leading the NHL in points. a win over the devils tonight will assure that they stay on top.

before heading to my first class of the semester, i arrived at the university an hour early to set up sample extractions for me to run on the HPLC tomorrow. spending some quality time at the lab at least makes me feel like i'm one step closer to a Ph.D.... and i have a meeting scheduled with dr. v. on thursday, which makes me feel like i'm one step closer to getting a prospectus written (a goal that's a little closer than finishing the Ph.D.). that feeling of being stuck in a rut with respect to my career seems to have evaporated for the moment, for which i am eternally grateful.

my one class of the day also seems promising... plant physiological ecology. that might seem like the most boring topic of study in the world to some, but a brief overview of the lecture topics leads me to expect to enjoy the course thoroughly. it also gave me a goal for the next couple of weeks - i have a presentation/paper review to do in two weeks (as usual, i signed up for the first spot), so now i have to find a paper to discuss. i have a couple of topics in mind already, so now i just need to look up an article.

of course, i can't post about a fresh start without a little hockey talk, especially considering all the changes the ice pilots have made recently - firing the coach, losing some players, and finally acquiring some new ones and a new assistant coach. i'm excited about the new players from florida, and i hope they help us out. i'm getting really sick of this whole losing thing they're doing. of course, i miss my jacquo banging the hell out of guys on the ice in pensacola, but i'm really glad he's doing well up in toronto. maybe he'll even get to stay there. they've taken notice of his physical style (despite the small size) up there, and he scored his first goal there in the marlies' last game. hooray for jacquo. maybe the pilots will get it together on the road over the next couple of weeks so the next home game will be better then their last few.

Belated New Year Post

does the thought of a whole new year put anyone else in a funky mood? i sort of feel like i didn't accomplish much of anything in 2005, and that really depresses me. i guess this is just some kind of post-holiday blues thing (with perhaps a touch of pms in the mix for kicks), but i really hope that i can do a little more that matters in 2006... like finally get my prospectus written. i swear, i am absolutely going to die if that thing isn't done this spring. i have the distinct feeling that i've just been... floating, stationary, neutrally buoyant, whatever you want to call it for a year, and i hate that. i've always felt like i was going somewhere, and now i feel like i'm stuck on some fly paper and not going anywhere.

bleh. enough with the wallowing. i did actually have some fun on new year's eve (despite the pilots' disgustingly horrible loss to charlotte that night), just hanging out with chad, vanessa, and deva at steak n shake for 3 1/2 hours reliving the past. maybe the memories contributed to my current funk. oh well, we had a good time then, and that's what matters, i guess. and i still have vanessa's birthday festivities after the pilots lose tomorrow to look forward to (yes, i'm assuming they're going to lose, because of their heavily depleted roster and the fact that they're playing the best team in the division, who they can't seem to beat this season). we always have fun at mcguire's, and it's a birthday tradition for our little clique.

ok, as you all know, i don't really do the down in the dumps posts (but the angry posts are always good ones), and i don't think that they're all that entertaining. so, since i am thinking about disturbing things (like the disturbingly high number of people i have known in my 23 years who are now deceased, etc.), which put me in this kind of mood, i'm going to stop writing before you start to think i've become marvin the paranoid android (you know, from the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy). also, i need some distraction from my thoughts (chad is busy reveling in the cotton bowl in high definition). it's a good the thing the flyers play an early game today.

What I Did Over Christmas Break

well, christmas "break" started out fairly normally. chad and i headed over to his parents' house on christmas eve, where we had a yummy traditional christmas dinner followed by gift exchanging and festivities with the rest of his family. we spent the night with the in-laws then drove over to my granny's house early christmas morning for gift exchanging and festivities with my family. we opened presents first thing then had another yummy traditional christmas dinner. my brother (damien), sister-in-law (amber), and 7-month old nephew (dylan) arrived sunday night from knoxville for more gift exchanging and much oohing and ahhing over the baby, who really is the most adorable child. here, have a look.

baby dylan with his proud mama and papa.































this mini-vacation turned sour on monday, when my grandmother's nurse arrived to change the bandages on her leg (a sort of chronic wound thing). that actually wasn't the problem. the problem was that when the total soccer mom nurse was leaving in her army tank of an suv, she backed into the driver's side door of my car. yep. completely smashed in my door, shattered the window, and even moved the whole car over a little (there was a little mound of dirt around my passenger's side tires that attested to that). it wasn't that she hit it very hard, it was that she didn't realize she'd hit something and just kept backing up for a bit, with the increasing pressure causing the glass in my driver's side window to shatter... and most of the glass ended up in the driver's seat. yeah, and to make things even worse, chad and i were just about to be on our way back to mobile so we could do laundry and go grocery shopping when it happened. i was waiting for the nurse to leave so we could say good-bye to everyone. but no. instead, we had to sit around my granny's house and wait for the nurse to contact her insurance company and try to make arrangements for a rental car for me and a tow truck for my car. let me tell you, these things are a huge pain in the ass when they occur on a normal day, but it was made doubly worse by the fact that it occurred on a holiday when nothing was open. no car rental places, no body shops, no nothing. nothing was open. and, since we were in century, florida but we live in mobile, the insurance company wouldn't pay to have the car towed all the way back to mobile. so, my car had to go to a body shop in brewton, and they couldn't get it there until the day after the chick hit my car (yesterday). so, chad and i were forced to borrow a car from his parents in order to get back to mobile at all on monday (which we had to do because he had to work yesterday) since there were no car rental places open.

it gets better, too. we decided to stop at best buy on the way home from my granny's (we watned to purchase a hi-def tivo, which there is a $200 rebate on), and chad's mom's rodeo started acting funny - as in, when chad put it in park, it shut itself off and wouldn't crank again.
we just had to laugh. anyway, we went ahead and went in, but they were sold out of the tivo we wanted. when we got back in the car, it still wouldn't start. chad called his dad and talked to him, and he thinks it was just bad gas. anyway, the rodeo eventually started, and we made it back to our apartment about 5 hours after we'd intented to.

so, i got a rental (a navy blue 2005 pt cruiser) yesterday morning, and my car was towed to a body shop yesterday. i found out today that, at the earliest, my car will be fixed at the end of next week because they have to replace the door, and they have to order it. how much does that suck? this is such a pain in the ass. then, we have to drive all the way to brewton to pick up the car when it does get repaired (but we do have to head over that way to return the rodeo to chad's parents anyway). oh, yeah - and we just paid my car off a week before christmas. so, a week after my car gets paid off, some half-wit in a tahoe comes along and smashes the hell out of it. damn.

anyway, damien and i had made plans for dylan to come and stay over with me and chad last night before the whole thing with my car happened, which he did. my little sister (sammi, for those who don't know her) came along, too, and we had a blast. my frustration over the whole car situation made the baby giggle, which made me giggle, which relieved a little stress. he's a very happy baby - it doesn't take much to make him giggle. he's so cute. actually, damien, amber, mom, sammi, and dylan all rode over here yesterday afternoon. i made chili, and we watched the day after tomorrow. then, damien, amber, and mom left. sammi, dylan, chad, and i watched robots, and chad laughed at the way sammi and i played with the baby like he was a toy. it was fun, though... until the kid woke me up at 5:30 (after waking me up at 4:30 in need of a bottle) for a diaper change and refused to go back to sleep. he wasn't fussy, though. he just wanted to stay up and play and talk to himself. so, i decided that as long as he wasn't crying he'd be fine, stuck him back in the play pen with a couple of toys, listened to him talk to himself for a while, and went back to sleep. he must have eventually fallen back to sleep, though, since he was sleeping when the alarm clock went off. chad said he liked the baby when he was sleeping. he liked the way dylan randomly curled his fingers and toes when he was asleep. i think he just didn't like him when he was awake because the first time i plopped the baby on him, he cried (the baby, not chad). the kid likes me, though. i make him laugh a lot... plus i fed him and changed his diapers for a day, so how could he not like me? anyway, damien and amber picked up their kid around lunchtime and headed back to tennessee, and mom and my aunt jo picked up sammi around the same time. they stuck around for a little while, though, to eat pizza and watch secondhand lions.

everyone is gone now, and as soon as chad gets home from work, we'll be driving over to pcola (possibly in the rental car) for the ice pilots game. hopefully, things will feel normal again soon.

Merry Christmas to All!

so, vanessa made the drive over to mobile yeterday, and we had ourselves some christmas festivities. she gave me a flyers replica jersey (the black one, which is my favorite of the flyers jerseys), which i was totally excited about, along with a really pretty set of glasses complete with pitcher for me and chad. i gave her a really cute set of makeup/travel accessories bags, which i hope will get some use on road trips this year. after the gift exchanging, we had lunch at jericho cafe, a really cute little middle eastern/greek place near the university. the food was yummy, and the waiter didn't suck (unlike the one i traumatized at outback a couple of weeks ago). he had a really fun accent (and a unibrow), and he had that whole "do your job and leave" thing down, which made us both happy.

after lunch, we'd planned on seeing the family stone, but there was time to kill so we hit the mall. man, was that ever nuts. the place was as crowded as i've ever seen it, but what did i expect two days before christmas eve, right? anyway, vanessa bought this great sweater at hollister, and then we had a sisterhood of the traveling pants moment at new york & co, where we both bought the exact same jeans (on sale, of course), despite our completely different bodies. they have officially been dubbed my ass jeans, as my bum looks spectacular in them. i also picked up a really cute button down shirt with teal and blue stripes (also on sale).

after completing our purchases, it was time to head for the theater, which was cheap and not at all crowded (just the way i like them). chad and i long ago decided that the carmike on government is the theater to go to in mobile, as it has the exact same schedule of movies as the one on schillinger, but it costs far less ($4 for matinee, $5 at night as opposed to $5 for matinee, $7.50 at night on schillinger) and is never crowded. there were maybe eight people at the movie, including vanessa and me. the family stone was completely wacko, but very good. i had a few WTF? moments where things just came out of the blue, but overall it was very funny and kind of sweet.

after the movie, deva joined us for a trip to see the christmas lights at bellingrath gardens (after more gift exchanging - she gave me a really great knitting book and lots of fun yarns, and i gave her a cosmopolitan-making kit). of course, i bundled up with lots of layers complete with scarf and gloves (yeah, it's mobile, but the low last night was supposed to be 29!). i still froze my ass off... somewhat literally. my bum got quite cold, though my torso area was toasty. anyway, the display was quite pretty, and the three of us had a great time.

after the lights, it was back to my place for little caesar's pizza and the flyers game on my sexy tv. it was good times. vanessa finally got to see the best of antero niittymaki and ben eager (whose ass i'm told she'd be willing to tap - he is fairly hot... he's got the kind of face that the more you see, the more you want to look at it), and she seemed impressed with r.j. umberger. oh, and now she can see that it's not just me - derian hatcher is a twit. he was directly responsible for at least one senators goal last night, screening his own goalie and failing to clear out a rebound. the game was made better by the fact that simon gagne returned to the lineup and had a great night with a goal and an assist. the flyers came out... well, flying and took a 4-0 lead over damn ottawa. vanessa and i were elated, and then the damn senators just had to come back and give us heart attacks - all because the flyers have no penalty killing abilities. it turned out fine, though. the flyers won 4-3, defeating damn ottawa for the second time this season, much to our delight.

so, overall, it was a good start to our christmas festivities, and i'd like to wish everyone a merry christmas (and a happy hanukkah to my jewish friends), as this will be my last post before heading to the 'rents' place for the holiday.

Ryan Craig's NHL Debut

that's right, folks. former pensacola ice pilot (and current springfield falcons captain) ryan craig made his NHL debut with the tampa bay lightning on saturday night. seeing this led me to tivo the flyers/blues game rather than go watch it on the other tv while chad watched the lightning game. chad doesn't really remember ryan craig, but i do, and i was bouncing off the walls because a former pilot was playing in his first game in the NHL (along with another former pilot, evgeny artukhin, who has been playing with tampa bay for most of the season). it was a little strange that chad didn't even remember craig from the falcons/phantoms game we went to last year... and i pointed him out and everything (and of course, i have pictures - here, i'll post one). the only former pilot chad's gotten really excited about seeing in the NHL is brian eklund. him, chad remembers... but what pilots fan doesn't?

















anyway, tampa bay ended up losing to the detroit red wings 6-3, but up until the 3rd period, it was a really good game (sounds familar, doesn't it, fellow pilots fans?). anyway, the best thing about it was that ryan craig scored his first NHL goal in his first NHL game on the detroit red wings. how sweet is that? i was quite excited for him. he actually saw quite a bit of ice time, playing on several different lines throughout the game (including one with tim taylor, which was the line he was planned to be on, and he actually saw a couple of shifts with brad richards). his goal came in the second period when the game was tied 2-2, and it temporarily gave tampa the lead. of course, detroit is apparently just warming up before the 3rd period, and the wings came back big time in the final period of the game, but it was exciting just the same.

the flyers game turned out a little better for me, with philly beating st. louis 5-2 despite a long list of injuries, including one of their best rookies (and next flyer captain?), mike richards, who suffered a concussion in thursday's loss to vancouver. their only other rookie who isn't playing for the flyers right now due to injuries (jeff carter) was also injured in the game (he took a puck to the side of the head), but he just went and got stitched up and returned to the game. one more note from the vancouver game - ken hitchcock pulled robert esche (the goalie) and put in antero niittymaki about 8 minutes into the 3rd period. esche has really had some problems lately, and i hope he comes out of his funk soon. it's a good thing niittymaki is playing really well these days, first full NHL season or not.

with all of the important guys out of the flyers lineup, a couple of other notable rookies (called up from the phantoms due to injuries) stepped up to fill void. saturday night in st. louis, rookie r.j. umberger scored 2 goals... and it was the first game in which umberger scored a goal and the flyers didn't lose. umberger had 3 NHL goals prior to saturday night, and the flyers lost both of the other games he scored in (the one against tampa in which umberger scored his first goal, then another against the islanders, in which umberger had the flyers' only 2 goals). i can now officially end my "umberger must not score" campaign. he is a really good player with good speed and good moves, and i can now once again root for him to score. ken hitchcock put together a really good line saturday night, playing umberger with fellow rookie ben eager (whose name i absolutely love) and former dallas star jon sim. eager made an absolutely beautiful pass that resulted in umberger's second goal of the night, and his physical play and willingness to go to the net are quickly making him one of my favorite flyers.

mike knuble also tallied two goals against the blues, with sami kapanen (gagne's temporary replacement on that line) picking up a couple of assists. kapanen was denied a goal in the second period, due to a supposed (but completely bogus) goaltender interference penalty on mike knuble. how can it be called goaltender interference when knuble is backing up when the goalie dives into him? he was obviously trying to avoid contact, and it wasn't his fault that bacashihua flung himself into knuble. anyway, this extremely bad call negated kapanen's goal and the ensuing power play resulted in the blues' second and final goal of the game, much to the dismay of all flyer fans.

niittymaki saved the game in the third period, in which the flyers had all of 3 shots, while the blues fired on niittymaki 16 times in the 3rd. as anyone who reads this blog well knows, i am a huge niittymaki fan, although i am also rather fond of robert esche. but like i mentioned earlier, esche is having issues lately, and i think they're mental. but perhaps he's still hurting from the groin injury of a couple of weeks ago.

anyway, branko radivojevic (who i firmly believe has the best name ever) scored on st. louis's empty net to clinch the game, and the flyers picked up yet another win with a vastly depleted roster (though brian savage was back for the game).

Holy Lack of Motivation, Batman!

well, now that i've spent most of yesterday afternoon and all day today studying the structures and toxic effects of pesticides, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, heavy metals, and other toxic substances, i became a little curious and decided to see exactly how low of a grade i can aim for on my ecotoxicology final to come out of the class with an A. well, in doing this, i guess-timated a couple of grades and have come up with a figure that probably underestimates my current grade in the course. in all of this frantic calculation, i have discovered that if i do not take the final exam at all, as in make a 0% on the final, i will have a B in the class. yeah, as of right now including a 0 for my final exam grade i have a nice round 80 for the course. how's that for motivation to study? and, despite having a B with a 0 on the final, i would still have to make a low C on it to keep my glorious 4.0 gpa that has followed me throughout my college career. it would be such a shame to give it up now... but man am i ever not motivated to put in 4 or 5 more quality study hours with my notebook tonight so i can review all of the old material. i think i have a pretty good handle on the new stuff. go on - ask me what the structure of a pyrethroid looks like (it's basically a triangle of carbon with a bunch of functional groups hanging off, in case you were wondering). you can even ask me how bipyridylium herbicides work (they damage photosynthetic membranes via the generation of reactive oxygen species like superoxide). ha! take that, ecotox!

now, all that super basic stuff from way back in the beginning? yeah, i don't quite remember all of that. maybe enough to wing it, though. at least enough to make a C. probably even enough to pull out a B on the exam. but do i really want to put in the extra effort to know everything through and through just so i can say i made an A on the final exam when a C on the exam would get me the same A for course? probably not. well, i'm off to study for another hour or so before the flyers' game starts - they're playing vancouver tonight, and i definitely don't feel so motivated to study a little more that i'm going to miss it.

oh, before i leave you for the night, i must make a short comment on the ice pilots game last night. wow! that pretty much says it all. they had, like, no offense (until collins finally decided to shoot instead of making a pass with about 3 minutes left in regulation time), but the D played surprisingly well (notice that aldoff and heid were both out for the game), and ford kicked ass. and our #1 goalie for now (until freddy makes his return) even tried to kick a little literal ass. corey was involved in a little scrap with two gladiators, all by his lonesome, and ford decided that just wasn't right and decided to step in himself since no one else was around. he ended up falling on his ass, but the fact that he went over and jumped on a guy entertained us all. oh, and i must congratulate jacquo on that spiffy new A on his jersey. i was excited about it. anyway, back to the game and todd ford... the pilots held gwinnett (a very good team, for those who don't know how significant pensacola's not getting killed was - the last time gwinnett played in pensacola, they shut us out 6-0) to only one goal, and they didn't get scored on in the 3rd period for the first time all year (!). vanessa and i asked for a shootout, and that's what we got. it was a good one, too. ford stopped all five shots, and the new guy pete gardiner, who has a flair for the dramatic, was pensacola's 5th shooter in the shootout, and the only player to score in it. yeah, i went in saying, "so, how bad are we gonna lose tonight?" and walked out grinning and a little shocked that my team managed a win.

How Sweet Is This?

my favorite little hockey player (pensacola's chris st. jacques, if you've been out of the loop... or just don't pay attention) leads the league (ECHL) in something. and it's not a bad something! he leads the league in shorthanded goals... and shorthanded points. i've actually known this for a couple of days, but as you might have noticed, i've been a tad on the busy side with vanessa's graduation festivities on saturday, the pilots game saturday night, catching up on my flyers game on sunday, grocery shopping, fighting the HPLC at USA (which i chose not to post about monday afternoon, though i was tempted to let off a little steam), and cramming for finals. oh, and i'm knitting a shawl for my granny for christmas, so i've been trying to find some time to work on that, too. christmas is getting kind of close, eh? next weekend, it is.

anyway, back to jacquo. i'm glad to see him leading in some area. i just wish he was doing a little more of his scoring at home. didn't i have this problem last season, too? he always scored on the road then, as i recall (but mississippi was still active then, so i actually got to see a few of his road goals last year). he had a few at home, but most of his goals were on the road. i did get to see a beauty of a shorthanded goal by him earlier this season, though. i guess i should be glad for that. i'm pretty sure i mentioned it in a previous post. anyway, perhaps his spiffy new "i want to be alex ovechkin when i grow up" tinted visor will act as his good luck charm and lead to a little more home scoring from him. as you should all be aware, i'm quick to poke fun (even at players i like), and i totally enjoyed giggling over the new visor and making "maybe he's trying to hide who he's passing to from the other team" comments. chad thinks it's the new brighter lights in the hangar (aka the pensacola civic center, the ice pilots' home arena, for those who didn't realize). he thinks jacquo is getting blinded by the light's reflection on the ice and needed sunglasses to see the puck right. i don't know. i'd rather think he wants to be like alex ovechkin. he's not a bad guy for a hockey player to look up to (even if the player who's doing the looking up is a couple of years older than his role model). his first NHL season has been pretty impressive thus far.

speaking of the NHL, it's almost time for the flyers to kick the crap out of the columbus blue jackets (i hope - to do otherwise would be a huge embarassment), and my new plasma is calling. even with gagne out for the next couple of weeks and brashear out for the night, they should be able to take columbus. come on, they're like the second worst team in the entire NHL.

all right. off to watch the game - my treat for studying for 8 1/2 hours today.

The End Is Finally In Sight

so, the end of this semester is (finally) almost upon me, and instead of studying for my final exams, of which i have two this week, i am doing everything possible to avoid cracking open a notebook. my freshwater ecology notebook has actually been with me all day, and it was open in front of me for a brief period this morning, but so far all i've done is stare at the same page for half an hour without absorbing anything. i've been really fidgety all day, and every time i make an attempt at studying, i get the overwhelming urge to get up and do something. i feel like friday will never arrive. that's right - friday. dr. rice has oh so kindly decided to allow those of us who wish to do so to take our ecotoxicology final on friday instead of on monday (the exam date set by the university). so, all of this pretty much means that the next three days of my life will be spent cramming my brain with science. yeah, the last day of class is technically tomorrow, but i've already made up my mind to skip. the whole skipping class thing is made necessary because the same geniuses who decided to extend the semester a week after hurricane katrina also failed to include a dead day in the extension. so, the last day of classes is tuesday, and my freshwater ecology final is wednesday morning. yippee.

all right, i'm seriously going to study for a while now... if i can make myself sit still.

A Retraction

i am now forced to take back my former declaration regarding antero niittymaki's inability to handle NHL snipers one on one. he was absolutely amazing last night against calgary, particularly in the shootout. yeah, that's right. after going 23 games without a shootout, the last two flyers games in a row have been decided this way. but after losing to nashville in a shootout on saturday, the flyers managed to beat the flames last night.

you wouldn't think that a scoreless game through three periods and the overtime could be so exciting, but despite the goal drought the game was highly entertaining. it had simon gagne totally going after robyn regehr after regehr knocked him into the boards without a call... very unlike simon, if you ask me. i would expect to see mike richards attack a guy after something like that, but not simon. he took a roughing call for it, but it was deserved. i guess he's getting a bit frustrated by the opposition's constant "shut down simon gagne at all costs" objective, especially since it's been effective in the last three games. every time he touches the puck, he gets absolutely swarmed. in addition to simon kicking ass, the game featured amazing saves by both goaltenders, but i have to give miika kiprusoff credit. he absolutely made the best save of the game... with his elbow... from flat on his back... with puck heading over him in the air, not sliding on the ice. i have no idea how he managed that one, or if he just got lucky, which both goalies did a time or two, as the posts saved their asses. also, the flyers' 30th ranked penalty kill was phenomenal last night. they were very together, and calgary only had 4 shots and maybe one good scoring chance over their 6 power plays. but even not allowing a power play goal two games in a row wasn't quite enough to bring their penatly kill out of the basement. however, if they have one more game where their penalty kill looks good, they should be able to overtake carolina and move up to 29th.

i was quite worried about the state of the flyers' penalty kill last night after learning that joni pitkanen will be out for 4-6 weeks. my fears were worsened when eric desjardins injured his shoulder early in the first period. the few remaining flyer defensemen really stepped up and played well, though. even freddy meyer, the AHL defenseman called up to replace pitkanen, played well. of course, derian hatcher still made his usual stupid mistakes, giving the puck away at least three times. and i don't mean he gave the puck away in a situation where he had a flame on his back and lost it. i mean he gave the puck away in a situation where he was all alone and basically made a great pass to the wrong team. he also made some good defensive plays, though.

by the time the shootout rolled around, i was really excited about it. niittymaki had been strong all night, and after he'd handled a jarome iginla breakaway earlier in the game, i wasn't too worried about him. i was, however, a tad concerned about the flyers' shooters, as mike knuble and simon gagne had both failed to score in the shootout in nashville. ken hitchcock (the flyers' coach, for those who don't follow them in the same obsessive way that i do) went with the rookies, though. mike richards scored on the first shootout attempt, but jeff carter didn't. it didn't matter, though. niittymaki was awesome, stopping kristian huselius (a recent calgary acquisition from florida), jarome iginla, and former teammate tony amonte. of the three calgary shooters, i thought that amonte had the best chance of beating niittymaki. but my favorite NHL back-up goalie was ready for him, and he was largely responsible for his team's win.

One Quick Rant

i realize that i've been through a period of relative blog silence recently, and for that i apologize to those faithful readers who so sorely miss my quick wit and random ranting. i have no real explanation for my lack of posting other than i just haven't felt the urge, that pissed off or super excited feeling that leads to most of my posting. my last few blog entries have been a little half-hearted and rushed, so i will strive to make this a good one... and one about hockey, which i haven't been writing much about as of late.

actually, there isn't a whole lot of ranting that i can do about hockey right now. both of my teams (the flyers and the ice pilots) are doing pretty well right now. the flyers lost to nashville saturday night in a shootout (the flyers' first of the season), but man was that ever a great game. i watched it sunday morning (which was necessary, as the pilots played at home last night, and the game was delayed an hour). nashville so does not suck this year. acquiring paul kariya was the best move they could have made, as he is as impressive as ever. the predators' sole objective in the game seemed to be shutting down simon gagne, which they accomplished. however, they couldn't stop the two mikes (knuble and richards) and derian hatcher (whom i don't really like) from scoring. the flyers and the predators seemed very well matched overall. antero niitymaki and thomas vokoun were both excellent in goal, but niitymaki's relative inexperience with NHL snipers showed a bit in the shootout. paul kariya totally had his number. the loss was a bit disappointing, but it was an exciting game anyway.

as usual, the ice pilots give me a little more to bitch about than the flyers do. that's not to suggest that i'm as pissed off about their performances as usual, though. their record over the past week or so has been vastly improved, although they are once again below the 0.500 mark with a win percentage of only 0.474. however, i can hardly complain about their winning 2 out of 3 over the weekend and having actually managed to put together a three-game winning streak over the past week, particularly when i consider that this team once had a win percentage as pathetic as 0.250. i guess it's a good thing the pilots played sucky bakersfield three times this weekend instead of a team that's actually good. the condors played a pretty tight game against the pilots, though. the high point of the weekend (for me, at least) was probably adam courchaine. man, is that guy good. he's a great playmaker and a great finisher. we can definitely give deep thanks to the houston aeros for assigning him to pensacola.

and now for one quick rant. there was an awful lot of dirty play going on in pensacola this weekend, by both bakersfield and the pilots. pensacola has a very small team this year, and bakersfield's players are lot bigger than ours. the condors used their size to their advantage, too... illegally. they repeatedly pushed our small guys (which is about half the team) down and held them there, laying on top of guys when they collided and forcing our guys to their knees. little dallas steward and jacquo both seemed a little pissed off about their rough treatment, though steward was the only one of those two to take a penalty for it. jacquo just took out his aggression via legal hits. saturday night in particular was rough for jacquo. the best example i have of his mistreatment took place in front of ryan cyr, as one of the condors (i don't remember which one) got his stick up in a hooking motion that hit jacquo at about nose level (so that could have been called either hooking or high sticking) then hooked him again around the waist... and neither infraction was called by the ref. slashes also abounded without being called, and shaun landolt carried out several of these himself. i've decided that he's not that great. maybe he just had an off couple of nights, but i've lost count of the number of times that jacquo made a great pass to landolt only to have landolt do something really stupid instead of shooting... or shooting about three feet high every time he did manage to get a shot off. landolt does have some value as a physical presence, but i was not impressed with him this weekend. our dear captain also was less than impressive, but that is becoming a trend with him, so i wasn't that surprised.

all right, guys. i'll try to put more thought and feeling into my posts in the near future, and keep the random quizzes to a minimum.

HPLC

today i have a date with an HPLC... as a matter of fact, i have to leave in like 10 minutes. for those who don't know, HPLC stands for high performance liquid chromatography, and the machines that do this type of analysis tend to be bitchy. yeah, i said it - HPLC's are bitchy. i spent two months getting things right on the one i used for my undergraduate research, and now i have about a week to get the new one figured out so i can get some results for my directed study project. yay. the problem is that the "new" machine is actually really freakin' old, and it hasn't been used in three years. to make things even better, no one who is currently at USA has ever used this particular piece of equipment. i had a guy from pennsylvania come down and help me with the one i was using two years ago (which was borrowed from the chemistry department), but it looks like i'll be pretty much on my own with this one. anne (my undergraduate advisor, current committee member, and user of HPLC in her grad school days) is going to try to help, but i'm still thinking that this is going to be a pain in the ass. this is a really useful technique for identifying phenolic acids in my seagrass samples, and the new machine allows me to use a better solvent system that should allow me to identify even more components of my samples than i already have, but i think that the next couple of weeks are going to be a headache.