Urban Meyer has been the head football coach at the Ohio State University for a little over two months. Tomorrow we will get the first tangible sign of his impact on the program, because it’s National Letter of Intent Signing Day!
For those of you not hip-deep in college football recruiting news, breathless updates, and rankings from recruiting “gurus,” tomorrow is the day when high school seniors sign letters that confirm where they will go to college. College football fans love the day because they can forget about last year and focus on the new members of their favorite teams — usually knowing nothing about the kid except the “rating” they’ve gotten from “ratings services” and, perhaps, a video of carefully selected high school highlights that can be found on YouTube. And then, after the signing is done, there will be disputes about which school recruited the best class. During the off-season, college football fans thrive on that kind of mindless argument.
Coach Meyer has been out working hard, and by all accounts he has done a tremendous job of attracting high-profile players and convincing them that the Ohio State University is the best possible place for them to get an education and display their football talents. Tomorrow we’ll know exactly who has agreed with him and decided they want to call Columbus home for the next four years.
I don’t pay too much attention to recruiting because history has shown that on-field performance frequently bears no relation to the pre-college opinions of the so-called experts. Still, recruiting is a big part of the job for a college football coach and his staff. If you want an elite program, you have to recruit elite players and coach them up to their maximum potential. Coach Meyer is showing that he is quite skilled at the first part of that job description — which is a good sign for Buckeye fans.
Why have teenagers become less interested in driving? Some speculate it is attributable to a poor economy and a lack of jobs. Others suggest that teenagers are simply satisfied to interact within virtual communities via social media like Facebook.
The CBO conducted 
Fighting between 
After all, you’re accustomed to your home commode. You’re used to the height, the seating, the back support, and the sound that is made when you flush. So, when you go the road and find one of those new-fangled devices in your hotel room, you have to adapt.
President Obama, fresh from his State of the Union speech, flew to Arizona to talk about his policy proposals. Brewer met him at the airport tarmac, and the two had a terse discussion. The President’s press secretary says the President told Brewer her version of a 2010 Oval Office meeting they had, described in a book Brewer recently wrote, was inaccurate. Brewer says she went to meet the President to talk about “Arizona’s comeback” and instead he focused on the book and seemed “thin-skinned” and “a little tense.” The President says the little snit was “no big deal.” No kidding!
Leap seconds exist because the Earth doesn’t rotate with absolute precision. It speeds up and slows down as it spins, making some days a few milliseconds faster or slower than others. The problem is that these little spurts and slowdowns put the Earth out of phase with the precise measurement of atomic clocks. Leap seconds were added in 1972 to try keep Earth and atomic clocks in sync. The leap seconds get added here and there, whenever the discrepancy reaches .9 second.
I went to last year’s OSU against Michigan, and it was a tremendous atmosphere. The student section, called the Nut House, was ear-splitting all game and obviously made it tough for Michigan to communicate during timeouts. I thought the crowd helped to pull the Buckeyes through to a win — and I’m hoping that tomorrow afternoon we see more of the same. I know the Nut House has some new head cutouts — including Urban Meyer — that we’ll see during the game.
The film is about a New York City family’s response to a 9/11 loss that leaves a gaping void in their lives — but it is about a lot more than that. The story is told from the perspective of Oskar, a bright boy who suffers from obsessive/compulsive tendencies and related emotional problems. His father tries to connect him to the world through games and challenges. When 9/11 sweeps his father from his life, Oskar tries to make sense of his loss while at the same time keeping his father’s memory alive, and his mother tries to help Oskar as she struggles with her own, overwhelming grief. Oskar decides to accept a new challenge that ends up also causing him to interact with his fellow New Yorkers — all of whom also are attempting to cope with their own issues. The script manages to explore the emotions of 9/11 without being cheaply exploitative.
The most recent news is that 
You sheepishly admit that you didn’t talk about any of that stuff — or anything else of significance, besides. And your wife, arms crossed, fixes you with a withering glare of disbelief — causing you to shrivel inwardly with intense embarrassment, realize for the first time the full and tragic extent of your brutish insensitivity, and vow that you will finally become a decent, nurturing member of human society.
