the mad sports man

THE LAST DAY OF JULY final day of july already. hmmm lets see now. an interesting occurence happening today - a "blue" moon, which means a second full moon this month. doesn't happen that often, though. a sad tragedy 17 years ago today. july 31, 1987 will be forever remembered as "black friday." a pretty big tornado. my family and i left for our holidays that day (we were living in leduc at that time). started northest of leduc and made its way through eastern edmonton. by the time it was over 29 lives were lost.

WILD WEATHER, DISAPPEARING GOLF BALLS AND AN APOLOGY wild weather again last night. thunderstorm rolled through last night and knocked out power here. i ended up asking one of my roomates to get me up this morning since he ended up with a battery operated alarm clock . by that time power came back. what could be more challenging on a golf course than a few extra sand traps, water hazards and squirells running off with golf balls. yep, thats whats happening at riverside golf course. squirrels are running off with golf balls shot in the fairway, driving golfers nuts. squirrels are running off with the golf balls thinking that they are nuts. insane there. an apology to darren for my rather uncalled for rant yesterday with him postponing. what else can i do? he had double booked himself and had to cancel someone. besides, there are other thursday nights we can go to cjsr and watch prarie pickin' live.

what's a thursday night without prarie pickin'?  not much of one, if you ask me.  darren and i were SUPPOSED to go, but he couldn't make it, which was a total pain in the ass bummer because i was looking forward to going.  i ended up deciding to stay home.  not much else to do afterwards.  what else can i say for someone whos in the shits?

today is my sister's birthday.  cool.  she turned 25  today.  gee i almost feel old.  and my birthday is coming in a hurry too.  im just looking forward to the athens olympics - a mere 17 days away.  woo hoo.

klondike days started thursday tight. i usualy try to make it a couple of times per year.  last year on opening night i went, along with a couple of friends, went to see trooper at the telus stage. i went home happy.  i like the fireworks too.  wont be a problem with those, since we got all that rain a couple of weeke ago.  its all good. i may go again this year. well see.

hmmm, another fun day off today.after picking up my paycheck, i ended up paying the remainder of my july rent, my bills and my august bus pass.  the wierd part is leaving for the mall at 9:20 am to catch the bus to begin my trip.  usually im still snoozing at that time.  the upside is i got everything done by mid afternoon.  lately ive turned into "the mad branch hacker." ive been pruning trees here at home for awhile. it's getting almost bad. i have an already mutated bush in the front yard (its been like that since prior to me moving into this house, which has been over 9 years now). im almost tempted to just go mental on it, but we already have a pile sitting by the fence in the back yard and i dont want to add to it.  yet i find yas to add to it.  i guess its time to retire the tree clipper - for now.

a rare sunday without a car race.  not much to do, except maybe take a nap, go to bed early, or both.  not sure yet.  nasty thunderstorm last night.  rained heavy, too.  if this keeps up, we could end up with a tornado like 1987.  geez, almost 17 years to the day on that one.  the conditions are ripe for nasty weather.  just gotta keep watching the skies.

geez!  the same storm that unloaded on edmonton ended up unloadin on peterborough, ontario yesterday.  even calgary got slammed on.  meanwhile it got to almost 30 here.  a little on the hot side for me.  a memory from 1976 montreal summer olympics.  bruce jenner winning the decathlon (10 events over 2 days).  he ended up being called the greatest athlete ever.  by the way, olympic stadium is now used for the baseball expos home games and the cfl's allouettes football team (for playoff time. even hosted a greay cup game in 1999 or 2000, cant remember).

day off today. a good time to relax and sleep in. 1994 winter olympics in lillehammer, norway. the first time that the olympics were held 2 years apart. since then its been alternating every two years between summer and winter games. the best olympics i ever watched too. well organized. i hope they host again.

what a nasty storm yesterday. the rain came down like you wouldn't believe. up to 125mm in the wastend. west edmonton mall had to evacuate after a pipe burst because of all the rain and hail. the ice palace (our ice rink) had to be our makeshift dam so all the people there could move the water into it. with all the hail that came down, snow plows had to move it to the side. rain rain go away. three major storms in a week, the ground is saturated, underpasses got swamped, and tornadoes near andrew and in grande prarie. all this rain is making me feel waterlogged.

grande prarie had an f1 tornado yesterday. and the nasty weather still lurks. as of 4:40 pm a weather statement was still here. so the potential still lurks. plus the rain still hanging around. i wonder if anyone else in edmonton feels waterlogged yet. hmmmmm.

great finish to the toronto blue jays vs seattle mariners game tonite. bottom 9, 2 on, toronto trailing 8-7, carlos delgado at the plate, first pitch swinging, BYE BYE BASEBALL HOME RUN CARLOS DELGADO GAME OVER! that 3 run homer gave toronto a 10-8 win. i got over excited to the point where i could have waken the dead. and i think i did too.

here is a thing to check out on msn. it's got a featur on cassini's ride around saturn (the planet not the car). the photos that were released were pretty cool. they showed pics of saturns rings and titan, one of saturn's moons. i havent done an olympic moment for awhile so here's one. 1980 winter olympics from lake placid.in the hockey semi-finals it was the u.s. vs the soviet union. the russians, it seemed, were unbeatable.next thing ya know, the u.s. pulled of the BIGGEST upset ever beating the russians 4-3 and later winning the gold. that victory as billed "the miracle at lake placid." how it was called the miracle - if you watch the tape of that game, you can hear al michaels (he called the game) say "do you believe in miracles? yes!" as the clock tick down to no time left. i saw that tape, and even though it was from 1980, it gave me chills. it was pretty cool

geez, were getting rain bigtime. got 12mm today and already had 62 mm a few days ago and possibly more to come. even manhole cover got blown off with the amount of water and pressure from the sewers. talk about yikes. can you say major ass clean up? i sure can. and i just did.

another monday night! 1924 winter games in chamonix, france. the i.o.c. staged "international sports week" in chamonix. it was such a success it was decided it would be renamed the first winter games. all was good there.

great race in daytona tonite. jeff gordon wins the pepsi 400. end of the race got pretty good too. an olympic moment. 1896 - the summer olympics that started it all using some of the events that date back to ancient greece. hmmm if i could go back to 1896 to witness this. hmmm

pepsi 400 tomorrow night. looking forward to it. saturday night car racing at its best. hmm ther's something about racing under the lights in daytona. theres that mystique. another olympic moment from 1936 sumer games in berlin, germany. this was at the time adolf hitler was running the country. (thats another blog and i dont want to get too much into politics). in the 100m race, jesse owens, a black man, won it all and stuck his gold medal into hitlers face (figuratively speaking). to add insult to hitlers injury, owens made friends with a german, which was pretty cool there.

bud pole qualifying for the pepsi 400 is happening. jeff gordon is sitting on the pole - for now. qualifying isnt done yet. 1976 summer olympics in montreal, at least i think, will have the great moment of those olympics. nadia comenici's perfect 10's in gymnastics. no one had done it before and i dont think noones done it since. i could be wrong on that. mmmmmmm the olympics.