Tech football started the season with a bang:  A terrible implosion.  Completely incompetent on offense, VT still managed to lead for the first 57 minutes of the game.  ECU stuffed the box but our running game was still modestly successful. However, Stinespring found grinding-it-out to be unacceptable and decided to take to the air.  Regardless of the fact that the first pass Glennon threw in the game was an interception, Stinespring must have thought it an aberration as he continued to call passing plays that inevitably failed, were intercepted, or resulted in no gain.  Likewise, despite two great defensive scores, overall the defense didn’t help much on a play-by-play basis.  At this point, it really feels as if the coaches are “throwing away the season” by putting Glennon at the helm with this very young VT team.  Glennon has yet to improve as a quarterback in his several years playing for Tech.  He still makes the same mistakes, still blames others for his faults, and still shows little enthusiasm for developing his game.  By next year, the rest of the team will be veterans and we can put in Tyrod who has a much higher upside than Glennon.  Maybe they’ll prove me wrong but for now, it looks like the Hokies will have to suffer through another disappointing year.

No soon had I mentioned that I tried to stay out of politics than McCain announces his VP selection.  I said it before but you have to be somewhat excited about this years presidential election.  Two reasonable candidates and now, a guaranteed “first” - either the first minority president or the first female vice-president.  Well done, McCain and Obama. Well done.

… Those that love Notre Dame football and those that hate it.  There is no in-between and I can’t fathom how there are any of the former (I guess that indicates which type of fan I am).  A recent columnist wrote that “Regardless of whether you love or hate Notre Dame, you have to acknowledge that college football is better when they are winning.”  I guess we know which side that columnist is on as I whole-heartedly disagree.  It’s much, much better when Notre Dame is losing.  So many better teams “lose out” whenever Notre Dame has a winning season.  They have been terrible for the past several years yet they are “good” enough to steal bowl games, sometimes BCS games, from more deserving teams because there are special clauses exempting Notre Dame from the normal rules.  In college football, every other team follows the exact same rules as every other team with one exception: Notre Dame.  And that’s just wrong.

I try not to get too involved in politics mostly because of the partisanship and incompetence at all levels but every now and then, someone says something that just rings true.

We are borrowing money from China, to buy oil from the Middle East, so we can burn it in ways that destroys our future.

– Al Gore

Though this summer has been better than most for sports thanks to the Olympics, it’s finally the start of college football.  After a very disappointing finish, I’m not terribly optimistic that VT is going to do any better this season.  Though we’re picked to finish atop our conference by many analysts, I have my doubts as I always do when Stinespring is calling the offense and Glennon is our QB.  For whatever reason, VT has gotten away from its running game.  Couple that with Glennons inability to throw to people wearing the same color jersey as he is — comically reinforced in our GT game last year when he was wearing a loaned GT jersey and had his best game ever.  However, even a dreadful season of VT football is better than the time between college football seasons and I can’t wait to see if VT can pull it together for another good season.  Run the ball!

With a little self-reflection this weekend, I’ve decided I must be addicted to frustration.  In particular, I seem to seek out and immerse myself in activities that can drive me crazy.

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In the great libraries of Mongolromania, a scribe was cleaning out the basement of a library and came upon an old trunk containing several long-lost books of history.   Among those was a short book in the words of a Russian scholar.  The history detailed the rise and fall of the Russian tribe, a group of people who once wandered the southern plains.  This is their story…

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I’ve been slowly trying to convert Christina into a movie-junkie and the results are really starting to pay off.  We’ve been watching several movies a week as we try and work through our Netflix Queue.

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Usain Bolt doubled down today by winning the 200m race in addition to his earlier 100m and managed to beat the world record in both races.  Simply amazing.

LeRoi Moore, saxophonist for my favorite band, died yesterday.