Joe McCaffery's Blog

I’m a huge college football fan and get sick to my stomach this time of year when the regular season for major college football ends and the controversy begins over who got screwed by the BCS. I’m a fortunate guy though as I am a Montana-native, a UM alumni, and a die-hard Griz fan (whose heart was recently broken thanks to Wofford). Football snobs (think Kirk Herbstreit aka Mr. Three-Year Bench Warmer) can say what they want about I-AA football, but I’ll put up game day at Washington-Grizzly Stadium against any other venue in the country. That goes double when it comes to the playoffs (or a Griz-Cat game).

There is just something about the do-or-die, loser-goes-home nature of the playoffs. How often have you heard people refer to it as a “playoff-like” atmosephere. I honestly feel sorry for “major” college football fans. They have to settle for a “playoff-like” atmosphere, the rest of us get to experience the real thing. It’s because I’ve been fortunate enough over the years to experience the highs and lows that go along with cheering for the Grizzlies as they make their run in the I-AA/FCS playoff that I’m writing this post. That and the fact that I’m sitting on the train trying to make the most of my commute.
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I had an extremely relaxing Thanksgiving this year. We didn’t go anywhere or have anyone over. It was just the five of us and it was great.

I spent Wednesday working from home or at least trying to work from home. I didn’t know it until that morning, but the kids didn’t have school that day. Not having them at school always makes working from home an interesting experience. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times I tell everyone that I’m working, they never seem to believe me. Thankfully I only had to dial into one meeting that day, so the general chaos of home didn’t affect anyone else.

We ended up going bowling that night, which was a fun way to start the four-day weekend. There happened to be an air hockey table at the bowling alley and Keegan became obsessed with air hockey. The next day he created his own air hockey game with an old Rubbermaid container and some legos.

He tried his best explain to Nolan how to play, but never did have much luck getting Nolan to cooperate. They even incorporated swim goggles into the game to make sure they didn’t get hit in eye while they played. That of course had me in stitches when I came in and found them looking so ridiculous, but taking the game of home-made air hockey so seriously.
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Jayden, Keegan and I spent Sunday evening rockin’ out to the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus. We didn’t have the greatest of seats, but it was a fun time nonetheless.

Jayden has really been getting into music recently and has been a fan of the Hanna Montana show on the Disney Channel for some time. In fact Jayden figured out how to set up a season pass on our Tivo specifically so she could record Hanna Montana (gotta love technology). So when I heard she was going to be coming to town thought it would be really neat if she could go.

The problem was that I heard about concert by reading an article in the WSJ about how fast tickets were being bought up on-line and then put for sale on eBay and Stub Hub for two and three times the face value of the tickets. That’s great for me as an eBay shareholder, but not so great for me as dad hoping to score some tickets at face value.
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