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In early September, ESPN celebrated its 40th anniversary. I’ve hardly watched over the past 20 or so years, but in the 90s I watched it pretty religiously when I had access to it.

I especially enjoyed SportsCenter. I loved the anchors like Chris Berman, Keith Olberman, and Dan Patrick. I thought it was amazing when they brought on Linda Cohn. There were days when I watched pretty much every airing of SportCenter, even when it was on for hours at a time and they were pretty much just repeating the same stories each episode.

In addition to SportsCenter, I watched Baseball Tonight and a lot of Sunday night baseball games.

I guess it was sometime during or after high school that I stopped watching ESPN. Every once in a while I would come across it and watch it for a few minutes before moving on or if there was a football game I really wanted tosee, I’d watch it on one of their stations. Sometimes I would put a game on just for background noise. I never got around to watching 30 for 30 like I promised myself I would. A few months ago I actually did start watching SportsCenter a few nights a week while I was in bed. That’s how I knew the anniversary was coming up. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Linda Cohn was still doing SportsCenter. My newfound interest in ESPN didn’t last long, however.

Now that Disney+ is out, I have the bundle that also gives you ESPN+ and Hulu. I think I have access to the entire 30 for 30 catalog. I’ll be giving that a try starting in the new year and possibly slipping back into some regular SportsCenter viewing.

Happy belated anniversary to ESPN. You were a big part of my childhood and will hopefully be a big part of my adulthood.

September just flew by, didn’t it? It started out with P.A.X., which I’ve already written about. The next weekend was the first ever Rose-City Comic-Con. I went in not expecting much, but my expectations were somewhat exceeded. There were a lot more people than I expected. There were people in costumes, but the quality wasn’t as good as they were at P.A.X. and San Diego Comic-Con. I shouldn’t say it, but most of the people wearing tight costumes shouldn’t have been in tight costumes. Richard Hatch and Noah Hathaway were there signing autographs and they had their own panels. There were booths set up with some interesting stuff. I bought some comics and some artwork that I need to hang and take pictures of. The only panels I went to was a Star Trek anniversary panel and a Doubleclicks panel. I had never seen The Doubleclicks perform, but I had heard much about them. I really enjoyed it. I did everything on day one. When I left I figured I had done everything I needed to and decided not to go back for day two. My personal highlight of the con was that Matt Fraction and his wife Kelly Sue DeConnick were there signing autographs. When it was finally my turn to speak to them, someone else started talking to her, so I really only got to speak to him. I can live with that. I’ve gotten used to being around celebrities over the past year and half or so, so I don’t usually get nervous anymore. I got nervous around Matt Fraction. He was really cool though.

The next weekend I got to see Oregon play Tennessee Tech down in Eugene. I got a call the week before from my dentist’s office saying that they had a drawing for the tickets and my name was pulled. Awesome! I didn’t even know I was in a drawing. I figured someone couldn’t go and they decided to give the tickets away, which was pretty much confirmed at the game. The drive down there was about 2 hours. There were a lot of other Oregon fans making the trip down. Driving through the middle of nowhere Oregon is a lot like driving through the middle of nowhere Mississippi except that there were hills. At one point I saw a vehicle coming down on a parachute. I loved the University of Oregon campus and the game day atmosphere was great. I tailgated with my dentist and his friends and father before the game. I had a great time at the game itself. The Ducks won 63-14. The trip back took over 3 hours because of traffic.

I got a lot of cool stuff done and work and a made some new friends, whom I’m sure I’ll be hanging out with on a regular basis. Even Reese has gotten to social a lot more lately.

Life is good.

The Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup last night.  I understand that fan support is important to a team, and that it’s a big part of a team’s success.  However, I don’t understand why Boston fans were being congratulated like they were the ones who won the championship.  Also, some Boston fans were acting like they won it themselves. 

Maybe I’m just jealous.  Maybe I would understand if Mississippi State won a national championship, but I don’t think it would be the same as the local professional team winning it all.  I might one day I’ll understand what Boston fans know, but I don’t think I’ll ever be as big of a sports fan as I used to be.