Home Sweet Home

We're back from our adventure in Northern California where we saw a lot of smoke but fortunately no fire. The disappointing news is that the Internet is STILL not working up here on the mountain, although our provider believes he has identified the source of the "rogue signal" that has been interfering with the radio transmitted Internet signal we are supposed to get from the Moose Mountain tower. How soon he'll be able to restore service is still uncertain, so I'm writing from the Hanover town library.

What does that mean?

First, a little background. On most mornings I probably spend an hour to an hour-and-a-half combing a variety of web sites in advance of pulling together the blog. (Yeah, I know. Pretty dumb for something that doesn't bring in any money, but hey, it keeps me informed and helps me keep you informed.) Anyway, I tried that from home on my wife's dial-up work account and, in no small part because the phone line on our dirt road hasn't been updated since Alexander Graham Bell was on this side of the grass, I probably got to one-quarter of my usual haunts in one incredibly frustrating hour.

So the blog will probably be off-and-on until:

• our Internet provider solves the problem,
• or the annual Ivy League preseason media gathering in early August. (Once the media event is held, I'll be working each day on opponent previews and tossing them up on the regular Green Alert site so I'll likely be in town and able to post.)

I'll be back in town tomorrow (Tuesday) to cruise through the athletic department and football offices to look into whatever I missed while I was away, so you may want to check back for that.

What else? This is kind of fun. As has been the case in almost all of our big vacations, we ran into someone we knew. This time it was a Green Alert subscriber/old friend at the Giants-Cubs game in San Francisco. Good to see you Rave!

We also passed through the hometowns of a few Dartmouth players (Cupertino, Palo Alto and Menlo Park). We spent an hour walking around the Stanford campus (but couldn't get into the football stadium for even a peak) and mailed our camping stuff home from the FedEx/Kinkos shop in Menlo Park in advance of two days luxuriating in a hotel in San Francisco.

OK, now for a couple of links. A Texas linebacker has getting a lot of attention from Dartmouth recruiters. Find the story here.

Click here for an update about the National Football Foundation 2008 College Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement Dinner & Show in South Bend, Ind., where former Dartmouth/Cincinnati Bengals standout Reggie Williams will be inducted July 19. ...

You might find this interesting as well. A regular reader sent along the following while we were away:

For those of you who watched the College World Series
from Omaha Wednesday night, it may be worth chewing on
this:

The Ivy League baseball season was supposed to end on
May 4 (it actually ended May 7 because of rainouts).
Had Dartmouth or Columbia advanced to the NCAA’s final
game, they would have been playing it 7-1/2 weeks
after the end of the scheduled completion of the Ivy
tourney.

The Division I-AA football playoffs, by comparison,
last a breezy four weeks -- commencing one week after
the last regular season games and ending three
Saturdays later.

Good thing the Ivy presidents are “looking out for”
football and keeping its season short ... Or are they
really sending the message that they know Ivy athletes
can’t compete in major Division I team sports?

And finally this: That certain Hanover High junior-to-be heads to her summer camp this evening for a week of preparation in advance of being a "West Coast" CIT. She was lucky enough to be chosen for a highly selective program that will send her back to California next week to work for short time at a camp in Julian, Calif., not far from San Diego. Among other things, while out West her group will explore the Channel Islands National Park and hike to the bottom of Grand Canyon, something we did as a family two years ago. Lucky kid ;-)