New computer

My new Macbook arrives tomorrow at 4:30. My old laptop is unresponsive. I have tried again and again to get it started up, but the screen remains black. But I can hear the hard drive starting and opening. Nothing appears on the screen. I just hope all my files can be saved and transferred from the hard drive.

I never realized how dependent upon my laptop I was.

*****

A new tradition - last night I called my brother and invited him over tonight for the BCS national championship game. Last year I invited both he and Dad. But just Dad showed. So tonight we start a new tradition. Kristie was beaming. Throughout all of this she has been encouraging me to reconnect with Kevin and Barb. It's not like I've ever ignored them. It's just that they are 12 and 10 years old, respectively, than me. So we never had much time to bond. They were out of the house by the time I was in fifth grade.

Football has always been a constant in my family. My dad was quite the player in high school. I found his old yearbook and saw that he made honorable mention all-conference as a sophomore running back and defensive end. My mom always said he would have played college ball had he not suffered a broken leg his senior year and then lost all interest in school and dropped out. My mom was a bigger football fan than either Dad or me. She listened and attended high school games (when I played) on Friday nights. On Saturdays she listened to the local community college team while she watched her beloved Notre Dame. And on Sundays she always watched the Vikings or my Bengals. My brother is a Vikings fan through and through, but it was just recently I found out his love for college football.

On New Year's Day Eve (is that even the proper way to phrase that?) we were all up at the hospital with Dad. We all knew his time was drawing near. He was on quite a bit of morphine and in and out of consciousness. Dad loved football and had had the bowl games on the TV all day in his room. The Boise State/Oklahoma game happened to be on, which just so happened to be the greatest football game of the past 15 years.

It was only appropriate that we bounced from the TV in Dad's room to the TV in the family room watching the game and talking about Dad. The game ended in OT and included several amazing gadget plays by Boise State, who were a huge under dog. At one point, when Boise State scored on fourth down with seventeen seconds left with a hook and ladder, Kristie jumped out of her chair. Then when they tied the game in overtime with a pass from their wide receiver to their tight end, Kevin stormed into the family room exclaiming, "Are you watching this?"

Dad would have loved it.