Scooter Chronicles

Lousy Week
Due to a lot of issues, this past week wasn’t all that fun. Marcia had a migraine that lasted three days. Finally on Thursday I had to take her to the emergency room. The general mood of things was just bad all week. Some of this has to do with me putting my foot down about someone that we associate with. That hasn’t helped relations with this person’s spouse. However, Marcia has backed me up 100% with my stance, but still at times I feel that I am being childish. That feeling though comes mostly when I look at my faults, which I had been doing a lot of last week.

Anyway, it’s over and time to move on. And hopefully I will be in a better mood to post things. Especially since the hockey season is starting soon, and most of the new uniforms have been released (I will be posting my opinions after). Baseball’s pennant races are heating up, though one of my teams (the Tigers) are heading in the wrong direction. (Though I don’t expect the Phillies to do any better.) And of course the most glorious of things happened AGAIN this past Saturday. Michigan State won, and Michigan lost.

That is all I will say. My Dad asked me not to gloat too much.

Happy Birthday (Marcia’s) Mom!
Today is my Mother-In-Law’s birthday. We celebrated it this past Saturday. It was a great way to end a lousy week, at least for me. We didn’t do anything really special. Just ordered pizza. But it turned out to be a good time, where Marcia and I spent most of our time talking with our brother-in-law David, and mostly about music.

My Mother-In-Law has done a lot to help Marcia, Nigel, and I in the last year with us living with her. We feel that we will be ready to make a move soon, possibly after the holidays. And we greatly appreciate her hospitality during this time.

It is bittersweet to look back at her birthday in 2001, which I can’t help doing, being the day before 9/11. The family, along with some friends, went out to an Italian restaurant that is no longer in business in downtown Bethlehem. The food was great, the atmosphere was excellent, and the weather was beautiful (we were sitting outside). It seemed that everyone had a wonderful time. My Mother-In-Law took a picture with her three daughters near the end of the evening that turned out to be a great shot of the four of them. But the events of the following morning quickly pushed back those memories.

Henin and Federer Win the US Open
Didn’t watch much of the US Open this year, or either of the finals, but enough to know.

Justine Henin smoked Svetlana Kuznetsova in the Women’s final. It was Henin’s seventh Grand Slam victory, and her second US Open, having won in 2003. What little I saw of it, Kuznetsova looked tired. She just didn’t seem to have the energy to be competing with Henin. Though she is one of the women’s top players, even winning the US Open in 2004.

Roger Federer needed a tiebreaker in both the first and second sets to get by new phenom Novak Djokovic to win the Men’s title. It was Federer’s twelfth Grand Slam victory, which ties him with Roy Emerson for second all-time, two behind Pete Sampras’ record of fourteen. It was also Federer’s fourth US Open Championship in a row. I saw most of the first set of this match, and it was obvious that Djokovic was nervous, and it wasn’t lack of skill. He had beat Federer in the finals a month ago in Montreal, and it seemed to give him some confidence early in the set. But he blew five set points. However, I think he proved that he’s here to say at the top of the men’s game. It will be interesting to see someone else challenge, since nobody other then Federer or Nadal has won a Grand Slam since the 2004 French Open.