Merry Christmas!!

As John Lennon wrote:
"So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young"

I hope Santa was good to everyone and that you all have a great Christmas and a very rewarding and happy New Year!!

The Greatest Lacrosse Goalie

I heard the sad news last night from my brother Jon. Dallas Eliuk has been traded from the Philadelphia Wings to the Portland Lumberjax.

Here's a little bit from this article at insidelacrosse.com: "Eliuk has won four world championships (1994, ’95, ’98, 2001), nine All-Pro and two championship MVP awards. He has spent his entire indoor lacrosse career with the Wings, making him the longest tenured athlete in Philadelphia history. He decided to make the move to Portland in order to be closer to his family in Vancouver, BC."

Jon and I are diehard indoor lacrosse fans. I was introduced to the game by my brother back in the mid 70's when the first Philly Wings team played in a pro league that lasted 2 seasons. He had season tickets and I fell in love with the game then and there. I could tell you some great stories about those years, the amazing John Grant, Doug Favell (a Flyers goalie) who played for the team, halftime entertainment that included "The Human Bomb" who got in a box with dynamite and blew himself up setting fire to the astroturf and stumbling around after the explosion. Ahhh, memories!

When a new league started many years later, and the new Wings got a goalie named Dallas Eliuk, the magic began. Many championships, many great performances. The best part of all of it started with an unhappy moment when my Mom (who had season tickets with us) got knocked down in the concourse of the arena prior to the start of a game and got a pretty bad head injury. She spent some time in the hospital and took a long time to recover. An ex sister-in-law of mine (thanks Mary) later contacted a Philly sportscaster (Ukie Washington) who then contacted some of the Wings about what a fan my Mom was. By then she had started going back to games. Well, you guessed it, Ukie brought Dallas and another Wings player, Chris Flynn, down to Wilmington and they did a story about my Mom that appeared on the TV news. We all got to meet Dallas (and Ukie and Chris) and he autographed one of his game jerseys for her. It was so cool. She wore that jersey to every game after. Needless to say, I love Dallas, not only for his playing ability, but also for what he did for my Mom. What a great guy! I wish him luck in Portland and I know all Wings fans will miss him dearly. Portland visits Philadelphia for a game Saturday, February 18th at 8:00PM local time. Go out and cheer the greatest indoor lacrosse goalie of all time!

Christmas Spirit

Well, I decided to get in the Christmas spirit this year thanks to some inspiration from my co-worker Robin. So I went out and got the little tree you see here. It is a 3 foot tall artificial tree that is lit via fiber optics. It has berries and leaves as decoration. No fuss, no muss. Take it out of the box, bend the branches in place and plug it in. Instant Christmas tree!! I have a link (in the links section of this page) to a live webcam that shows the lights pretty well, but the picture quality is mediocre.

I have actually sent out Christmas cards as well. I usually end up waiting until I get some, but this year I bought these before I received any in the mail. I sent them out after only receiving one so far. Pretty on the ball for me.

Anyway, I do hope everyone has a safe and wonderful holiday season. I'll be thinking of all my loved ones during this time, and of course will be wishing I was back home with you all. I may make a quick visit back for the Super Bowl again this year. My guess is the Eagles won't be in it, but I'd still love to come back anyway. I'll keep you all posted. (NOTE ADDED 8:48PM: I just found out the Eagles won't be in the Super Bowl, they've been eliminated from the playoffs)

Like A New Toy

I've been learning about how things work on my new blog and have been doing some tweaking since I first posted it earlier today. I have added more links and info and will probably continue to do so as I find or think of anything interesting. Thanks for your patience!

A New Day Has Dawned

Welcome to my new journal site. I finally decided to become a real "blogger". Man, I hate that word! At this site you will be able to leave comments if you like. Just click the comments link at the bottom right of any post.