How Green Is Your Helmet?

I didn't include this possibility in the poll (to the right) because, well, because I hadn't mocked it up. But a good friend of the Dartmouth program emailed the suggestion about going green and I thought I'd take a look at it. It works for me ... but certainly not with green shirts and green pants. I suppose if you like this choice you might cast your vote in the poll for a "new design."

The Associated Press is carrying a story about the possibility of rescinding the rules enacted last year to save time in NCAA football games. Your local paper probably is carrying a brief version of the story. This longer version on SI.com includes the following possibilities for changes to replace the rules if they are rescinded. You may find them interesting. Quoted straight from the SI web site, those changes would be:

• Using a 15-second play clock immediately after timeouts instead of a 25-second clock;
• Reducing timeouts from 65 seconds to 30 seconds;
• Kicking off from the 30-yard line instead of the 35 to cut down on touchbacks;
• Limiting the time officials have to review a replay to two minutes.

I know one thing. Cutting down on touchbacks and replay time won't to make much of a difference in the Ivy League. I didn't see much of either last year ;-)

The Columbia Spectator has a piece today about the school's early decision admits. There's not much new there, but it's worth a look. Keep in mind, coaches aren't allowed to comment on the regular recruits until after acceptances go out to the entire incoming freshman class and that class is set, which won't happen until spring.

I'm no Internet geek (regardless of what my wife and kids think) but I was able last summer to attach a little thingie (that's a serious tech term right there, folks) on the blog that tells the location of people who stop by for a visit. No email addresses or any of those personal details, but the thingie does tell me where readers are geographically. I share this because for the past three weeks I've been keeping a list of what countries Green Alert visitors have been coming from.

Now, there's a function on Blogger where you can click and be taken to a random blog and I'm sure some of the international visitors stumbled here in that manner. But I'm just as sure there are a number of Dartmouth and Ivy alums around the world starved for information from back home because a few of the following locations come back frequently. If you are one of those visitors, feel free to drop an email and let me know who you are are what you are doing in such a far-flung locale.

With no further delay (insert drum roll here) the Green Alert Blog has had hits in the past three weeks from:

AUSTRALIA
Eight Mile Plains, Queensland
Sydney, New South Wales

CANADA
Calgary, Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Missisauga, Ontario
Toronto, Ontario
Senneville, Quebec
Sturdies Bay, British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia

ARGENTINA
Grand Bourg, Buenos Aires

CHINA
Beijing
Hangzhou, Zhejiang
Jilin
Shandong, Fujian
Shuangyashan, Heilongjiang
Suzhou, Jiangsu
Wuxi, Jiangsu

DENMARK
Snderborg, Sonderjylland

ESTONIA
Tallinn, Harjumaa

FINLAND
Koivup

FRANCE
La Chassagne, Limousin
Paris, Ile-de-France

GERMANY
Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein
Pfungstadt, Hessen
Wuppertal, Nordrhein-Westfalen

INDIA
Madras, Tamil Nadu

ITALY
Ghibullo, Emilia-Romagna
La Giustiniana, Lazio
Rome, Lazio
Sant'Andrea D'Agliano, Umbria
Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia

JAPAN
Tokyo

MARSHALL ISLANDS
Majuro

MEXICO
Cholula, Puebla

NETHERLANDS
Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland

NEW CALEDONIA

NEW ZEALAND
Auckland
Dunedin
Hornby
Lincoln
Takanini
Wellington

NORWAY
Oslo

POLAND
Posmyk, Czestochowa

SINGAPORE
Dakar

SPAIN
Madrid

SWEDEN
Forsby, Ostergotlands Lan
Krattorp, Vastra Gotaland
Linkping, Ostergotlands Lan
Nykping, Sodermanlands Lan

THAILAND
Bangkok, Krung Thep

TURKEY
Burdur

UNITED KINGDOM
Abingdon, Oxfordshire
Belfast
Bromley
Godalming, Bracknell Forest
Hackbridge, Bromley
Harrow Weald, Slough
Lambeth
Newbury, West Berkshire
Notting Hill, Newham
Roehampton, Bromley
Stevenage, Norfolk
Witham, Essex

Some of these locations could make no sense at all to the better informed, but I don't have a clue. True story: My roommate in my first year of graduate school was from the German city of Kiel. I sent him a letter a year or so after he went home and got a nice note back from him some time later. It had a P.S. at the end: "You don't have to put my phone number on the front of the envelope." Seems I mistook his phone numbers for some kind of German zip code. Oops.

A final thought. As a kid I used to stay up late at night listening to an old Hallicrafters shortwave radio. I'd pick up HCJB from Ecuador, Radio Habana Cuba and RSA from South Africa all the time. But it made my day when I'd zero in on signals from other parts of the world. I'd have to listen through screeching and interference and weird music fading in and out until finally an announcer would come on and let listeners know which station they'd found. Somewhere I have a collection of QSL cards I got for writing to the stations and telling them what frequency, what time and what program I heard them on. Now, of course, you can tune into stations all over the world by simply logging into them. I'm sure it's a lot more efficient. I don't know that it's a lot more exciting.

Now for today's weather report: The snow stopped around midnight and we ended up with about 20 inches. With what we had on the ground already, we've got an even 24 inches at the snow stick in our front yard. The golden retriever is having a blast. So are the kids. Surprisingly, because even our dirt road up here on the mountain has been cleared, they (the kids, not the dog) have another day off from school. They don't mind.

Dartmouth closed down yesterday, which was a surprise. Here's a piece The Dartmouth wrote about that. To be honest, this was a nice snow storm, but it was a shock to learn the college was closing.

And finally ... Hanover is in the news today and it has nothing to do with Dartmouth. From today's Boston Globe:

A best-selling author's novel about a school shooting has rattled nerves in her hometown of Hanover, where high school officials pulled it from the reading list amid fears the fictional town too closely resembles the real thing.

Jodi Picoult's "Nineteen Minutes" won't even be published until March 6. Students at Hanover High School were among three schools in New Hampshire and Massachusetts given advance copies to study. In the novel, an ostracized teen living in Sterling, N.H. -- a wealthy, Upper Valley college town on the Vermont border -- goes on a school shooting rampage, killing 10 people in 19 minutes.

More from the Globe:

School officials say they were disturbed by Sterling and Hanover's shared traits: Hanover is home to Dartmouth College, Sterling has Sterling College; Hanover's neighbors are Lebanon and Norwich, Vt., Sterling's neighbors are the same; Hanover High School's colors are maroon and silver, Sterling High athletes wear maroon jerseys. And both towns have Storrs pond, a popular swimming hole.