Sunday, September 26, 2010

Sunday Potpourri: Ascendency and Descendency

Just east of Earthquake Park on the Anchorage Coastal Trail
As you can see, fall has arrived in Anchorage.  This week we had our yearly fall windstorm to knock the leaves (and lots of small branches) off the trees.  We also had our 2nd very noticeable earthquake in the past couple of weeks.  The first one was about 5.0 and located only about 10 miles away from Anchorage.  It was what I'd call a wall creaking event.  The second was about a 5.5 and was over 150 miles away.  


I can't help but make an anecdotal mention that I think there must be some relationship between the axial shift of the earth in relation to the sun's position which has some effect on the timing our earthquakes.  We sure do seem to shake more in the spring and fall that we do in either summer or winter.  Or maybe not.

It's interesting how the distance changes the character of the event so dramatically.  While the first one was sharp and you could sense the waves were close together, the second was a bit more of a gentle roller.  Obviously, because of it's distance ... it didn't make the walls creak but otherwise both temblors made one sit up and take notice.

Mother Nature up here has a pretty deep bag of idiosyncratic things she likes to throw at us.  All of it makes life a bit more interesting.

_________________________


This coming Saturday night the Seawolves will play their one exhibition game in Soldotna versus the University of Windsor Lancers.  Yay for Soldotna Seawolves fans.  I'll have a preview of the game on Friday and there will be the requisite chat room here for all of us huddled around the radio.

Early this week (Tuesday?), I'll have a comprehensive season preview.  I don't think there is a team in the WCHA that can't beat the Seawolves on any given night; but the equally important flip-side of that belief is that I don't think there is a team in the WCHA that the Seawolves can't beat on any given night.  

I think there are some surprises amongst the new players this season and as I've confirmed in the last post's comment section, Kane Lafranchise is ineligible for the 1st half of the season.  It sounds as if he ran afoul of some compliance issue with regard to credit hours.  These things happen.  You wish they didn't, but they do.  I'll talk about all issues, challenges and opportunities for this season.  I'm always optimistic at this time of year.

_________________________


There are many things I cannot strongly enough advise against.  This is one of them: Don't crash when riding a bicyle.  I didn't follow my own advice on Friday.  Thank goodness the events had nothing to do with one of the about 40% of drivers waiting to make a turn who never look both ways.  And yeah, Mr. Fire Engine driver who never looks to his right ... that includes you.  If I hadn't of taken my fun little tumble less than five minutes before you would have gotten a middle finger salute instead of just the look of astonishment on my face. 

I think maybe my chain has stretched?  Do bicycle chains stretch?  I dunno; I do know that putting the pedal to the metal caused the chain to pop down to the smallest ring on crank and that made me eat it right in the middle of the cross walk at 36th and Spenard.  Fucking ouch, I'm almost not sore anymore from that fiasco.

The best thing about crashing the bike (for no apparent reason in the middle of a street) was that as soon as my body hit the pavement, I could hear Howard Cosell's voice in my head saying, "Down goes Frazier .. Down goes Frazier".  WTF was that about?  

_________________________


Sam Mellor has scored a hat trick today for Trail in Nanaimo's rink.  His five point night (that's right ... he assisted on both of the other Smoke Eater goals) give him 18 points now in 9 games.  His 11 goal total is the highest in the league.

Andrew Pettitt has a goal and two assist in 7 games after a bit of a slow start coming out of the gate.  Nothing of note from the USHL preseason regarding any of our recruits.  Best of luck to them all as the season gets underway for real this week.  I'll try to have a full recruit update around the end of October.

I'll be watching Chris Heisenberg's page closely over the next few weeks as this time of year the announcements about new players generally come more frequently.

No comments:

Post a Comment