The Bowl Watching Challenge...

was set before me by our recent Co-op here at the mill. Well he didn't really start it was my defense of the current bowl setup that got me into this exciting and interesting mess. The discussion was one that has been carried out around many a watercooler or cups of coffee this football season, "Playoffs vs. Bowls". The arguments 32 team, 16 team, 8 team, and plus 1 seem to always come up in the conversation especially when these first bowl games pit two storied programs against each other like for instance Eastern Michigan vs. Middle Tennessee State or Tulsa vs. Utah. To make a long argument short the co-op, Matt Mullins, stated that the only bowl game worth watching was the national championship because none of the others "mattered". I strongly disagreed with him and my side of the argument was helped when he said that he would also watch the Auburn game. There are 32 bowls - 64 teams that will play in this month long stretch of gift giving, worshiping and celebrating. That's over half of the division 1 football teams and everyone of those schools have students and fans that love their school, even Rice the smallest Div. 1 school that only has 40,000 alumni has something to get excited about this bowl season because their team "made it". So I told him I will watch all the bowl games because I LOVE college football. No Chance he said but so far I have proved him wrong. Now it does depend on what you consider watching a game: 1 quarter, a half, 3 quarters, the whole thing, or just scrolling through and pausing every time you get back to channel 28. I myself consider 3 quarters to be considered a full game watching since there is a chance you might, I don't know, watch a recorded episode of "The Office" during the halftime show and not come back until the game is underway. With that set I am now at 8 of 8 on the bowls so far and those were the hard ones. Two close calls have been games watched while at restaurants but with strategic seat choice I was able to fulfill my obligatory time requirement. I will keep everyone posted on how I am doing and hopefully I will get all 32 of 32. By the way Christmas was fantastic, God watched over us as we traveled along with the rest of our families. "No Tears '06" went off without a hitch. We were able to spend enough time with our respective families to walk away with everyone smiling. Lets hope every Christmas is as happy as this one. I will leave you with a quote I saw over the holidays.

"A great marriage is not when the 'perfect couple' comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences." - Dave Meurer