Author: Greg

Week 12 observations

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It looks like week 12 put the final nail in the coffin of my Eagles’ playoff hopes.  Yes, they’re still mathematically alive, but since I can’t explain in 20 seconds or less the scenario in which they can make the playoffs, I’m considering this year’s hopes dashed.   With a heavy heart, here’s what I saw in week 12.

Eagles

Inconsistency at every position was the undoing of this team.  Inconsistent coaching/play calling, pass coverage, run defence, offensive execution, and the list goes on.  The game against the Pats put a very bright light on most of the Eagles flaws.

Play calling – The Eagles lead the NFL in rushing yardage and have the league’s top rusher, but McCoy only got 10 carries in this game.   Before they got behind by 18 points, they were already pass-happy, and that was with their inaccurate backup QB.   Reaching 1st and goal from the 5 in the first half, they called three passes and ended up settling for a field goal.  This has long been a bone of contention with Eagles fans, but this year, with an offensive line and a running back the envy of most in the league, it’s inexcusable.

DeSean Jackson – This was his worst game as an Eagle with 3 dropped passes, including 2 dropped TDs.  A number of times you could see him develop crocodile arms and play to avoid contact.  He’s played himself out of the monster contract he so desired. The only question is how much of a distraction he becomes for the remainder of the year.

Nate Allen – A high round draft pick last year meant to shore up the Eagles safety position after the release of Brian Dawkins, he had a brutal game.  Welker’s first half TD was a result of him biting on a run fake and leaving Welker uncovered.  He took bad angles all game on tackles and looks uncomfortable covering anyone.  He’s been a complete bust this year – makes me wonder how this team would have fared had they resigned Dawkins 2 seasons ago for his leadership – he’s looked pretty good in Denver for 2 years now.

Discipline – One sign of a good team is a consistent absence of penalties.  On Sunday the Eagles committed a wealth of penalties due to mental errors (offsides, illegal formations) that show the team isn’t prepared to play the game.  This is a trend that has been getting worse over the past 3-4 years.

Everything else – The team (with a few notable exceptions against the Giants and Cowboys) has looked lethargic and soft all season, and perhaps never more so than against the Patriots.   So much went wrong in this game that I won’t take the time to break it down.   It was brutally clear that the Eagles don’t measure up to the better teams in the league.  The picture below sums up the game pretty well.

Steelers – After the 13-9 win over the Chiefs, half of my household is still dreaming of a Super Bowl.  The Chiefs played great defence and held the game in the balance long enough for a late potential game-winning drive.  Ultimately, the Steelers weren’t threatened by a Chiefs offence that committed 4 turnovers.  It was an ugly win, but lets them keep pace with the other leaders in the AFC.

49ers-Ravens: This was a great old-time defensive struggle.  I love games like this where both teams battle for every yard of field position all game long.   I know I tend to focus on the offensive and defensive line play in most games, but that really was the key to the Ravens win.  Their DL harassed Alex Smith all night and gave him no time to throw.  It was a surprise as the 49ers OL had looked really strong the whole season.

Broncos-Chargers: The Chargers are the AFC’s Eagles.  It looks like their season is over after this uninspiring game.  I didn’t watch much of this game until the 4th quarter and overtime.  Although it didn’t affect the outcome of the game, Norv Turner committed another boneheaded time management mistake in overtime (not calling timeout with about 1:00 left to save time for a game-winning drive try if Denver missed their upcoming field goal attempt, letting the clock wind down to about :33, then calling a timeout to “ice” the Denver kicker – only, the play clock was about to expire: that would have resulted in a Denver penalty which would push the kick back another 5 yards). 

Suh:  The Lions need to accept some responsibility in what has become a player out of control.  Suh got a 2 game suspension this week for stomping on a player in their Thanksgiving Day game.  What needs to be acknowledged is the role the organization has played in enabling this behaviour.  The Lions are coached by a complete hot-head who taunts players, officials and opposing coaches during games.  He’s validated previously dirty play by Suh for two years and now, in the heat of a playoff push, is without one of his top players for two games (not to mention that the penalty during the game resulted in a Packers touchdown which helped decide that crucial game). 

Looking ahead to next week, I’m going to get to see my Eagles play the Seahawks in person in Seattle on Thursday night (flights and a 90 minute Continental Airlines connection at Newark willing).  Here’s hoping for a beautiful night for football and an entertaining game.

Week 11 observations

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Into week 11 and you can start to see the playoff scenarios unfolding.  By the end of the Monday night game, a couple of teams virtually locked up a playoff spot (Packers, 49ers), a couple of teams saw huge damage to their hopes (Jets, Bills) and a few teams solidified their positioning for the final 6 game push (Ravens, Pats, Cowboys, Lions).  Week 11 is the last week with byes in the schedule, so starting next week, everyone’s playing every week.

Snacks:  For the early game, I made an Indian-themed dip to go with tortilla chips.  The recipe was from Madhur Jaffrey’s “Indian Cooking” book (an exceptional resource).  The dip is a mix of corn, potatoes and tomatoes with mustard seeds, cumin, cilantro, mint, garlic, green chili, cayenne pepper and coconut milk.  I first had this at a wine tasting at Bishop’s Cellar a couple of years ago and since then it makes an appearance 1-2 times a season:

With the spice, sweet and sour flavours in the dip (and about 3/4 of a bunch of mint left over in the fridge), I took a week off of beer and made mojitos to accompany the afternoon of football.

Eagles re-cap

With the 17-10 win over the Giants, the Eagles keep their post season dreams alive for at least another week (they’re still on life support, but the patient didn’t get read his last rites on Sunday).   It was a typical Eagles-Giants game – some controversy, a few crazy plays, mistakes and a lot of physical play made it a real treat to watch.   Here’s what I saw in the win:

1. Offensive line – Although they struggled to open holes for the running game, that was more a function of the Giants committing an extra defender to stop the run to challenge the Eagles to put the game in Vince Young’s hands.   The O-line kept Young clean most of the night and gave him time to pick out his targets.  In particular, Jason Peters was a monster.  No one got around the left side last night on the Giants pass rush.  He’s been underwhelming in his time with the Eagles until this year.  You can really see the effect of new coaching on his technique.  He’s made the Pro Bowl during his tenure with the Eagles (not deservedly in my opinion) and will again this year.  Good to see Canadian Danny Watkins doing a solid job at RG.  They’re not running a lot to his slot, but he was excellent in pass protection last night.

2. Defence – Games are won in the trenches, and this one was a great example.  Although the Giants OL is pretty bad, give the Eagles DL credit for completely dominating them.  They, along with solid efforts from the LBs, plugged every hole in the running game and chased Eli all night, creating the fumble on the last drive which helped the Eagles hang on for the win.  The defence overall gave the Giants fits.  Samuel and Asomugha played tighter press coverage and covered well most of the game (with the exception of Asomugha giving up the TD to Cruz in the 4th – that was poor coverage and a misread of a route).  Hanson (subbing in for Rogers-Cromartie) looked like an upgrade with his coverage and tacking abilities.  I think he earned some more playing time.  Jenkins was probably the team’s best player last night and hustles all over the field for a big guy.

3. Vince Young – He looked really shaky (3 interceptions, 2 his fault) until the 4th quarter.  On the final drive, there was some magic as he kept making plays.  He’s an inaccurate passer, but the team rallied around him for a game winning TD.  He got the win, and at this point in the season, that’s all you ask your backup QB to do.  His receivers made a few outstanding catches, including one by Avant on a 2nd and long where he caught the top of the ball with his finger tips.

4. The drive – Tied at 10 with a bit more than 11:00 left in the game, the Eagles went on an 18 play almost 9:00 drive for the go-ahead score.  They converted 6 3rd downs on a variety of play calls (misdirection trap run for Brown, passes to Jackson, Harbor and Cooper, a QB sneak by Young and the game winning TD pass to Cooper).  The entire offence was clutch on that drive that really saved the season (for now).

5. Holding a 4th quarter lead – The Eagles have led in the 4th quarter of 9 of their 10 games.  After a bad string of blowing leads, good work by the offence and defence allowed them to win this one after entering the 4th up 10-3.

6. DJax – DeSean Jackson is a frustrating and exhilarating player to watch.  He got off to a lousy start.  On a punt where the Giants punter out-kicked his coverage, Jackson ran around and let the coverage come to him (for a 5 yard loss) rather than heading straight up field for at least a 10 yard gain.  Later in the 1st quarter, he was wide open behind coverage but Young under threw him.  He made no attempt to come back to the ball to break up an interception.  Later still in the 1st, after a wonderful reception for a 50 yard gain, he flipped the ball at a coach on the Giants sideline and taunted their bench.  The penalty for that boneheaded infraction nullified the play.   In the last 3 quarters, he got his act straightened out and made a number of big plays receiving and one on the punt return to setup the Eagles first TD.   I’m not sure the Eagles are going to keep him around next year.  Although he’ll make huge plays, he’s not consistent and is quite the diva when things aren’t going his way. 

7. Prognosis going forward – I have absolutely no idea.  I’ve given up thinking I have any clue what this group will do week to week.  They would have to win out to get to 10-6 and I’m not sure if they can play consistently enough to do that. 

Other things I noticed this week:

Tebow – Feeling very wrong about my preseason prediction that he wouldn’t see the field this year.  Hard to believe the Broncos are in the running for the playoffs.  The magic has to end soon, right?

Bears:  For the first 3 quarters their offence was electric.  Great play calling and excellent execution kept the Chargers defence off-balance.  I don’t understand their fake punt call late in the 4th quarter, but the failed attempt didn’t come back to cost them.   The news after the game that they’ve possibly lost Cutler for the rest of the regular season is very troubling.  Most of what they achieve in their passing game is because of throws Cutler is uniquely able to make.  I expect to see teams take away Forte the rest of the year and challenge the Bears (and Caleb Hanie) beat them with the pass.  They don’t have a very tough schedule, but it will be a slog to win enough games to get a wild card playoff spot.

Time management head-scratchers (part 1): Although there are a finite number of permutations for end of game clock management (when to use timeout, when to use challenges, when to get out of bounds to stop the clock or stay in bounds to keep it running), there is always at least one team to screw up the fundamentals every week.  This week the prize goes to Norv Turner and the Chargers.  With 2 timeouts and 2 replay challenges left late in the 4th quarter, it appeared the Bears may have fumbled (contrary to the call on the field).  Turner in his wisdom did something very stupid – he called timeout – and then he challenged the call.  Why is that stupid?  If you’re going to call timeout there, you may as well just go ahead and challenge the call.  It’s unlikely at that point in the game you’re going to need both of your challenges.  An incorrect challenge costs you a timeout, but at least you took a chance on a close call.  Instead, Turner called timeout to get a closer look at the play and then decided (against overwhelming video evidence shown during the timeout) to challenge the play.  When the video replay upheld the call on the field, Turner was now out of timeouts (the first one he called + the one charged to him for an unsuccessful challenge) and out of challenges (you can’t challenge if you don’t have any timeouts left).   A complete moron move that shortened a close game by 40 seconds for the Chargers via the loss of the timeout.  This behaviour permeates that team – they have a significantly lower than normal team football IQ and it costs them a game or two every year.

Time management head-scratchers (part 2): Much less idiotic and obvious, but demonstrating the importance of high situational football IQ – In the Browns-Jags game (I’m embarrassed to admit I actually watched the last few minutes of this), with just under 5 minutes remaining, a Browns player ran for a long gain then casually sauntered out of bounds stopping the clock.  With the Browns up 4 points and driving for a potential clinching TD or to extend their lead with a FG, it was important for them to keep the clock moving with the lead.  Stepping out of bounds stopped the clock;  in essence, it lengthened the game by 40 seconds for the Jags.  Fast forward to the end-game scenario and the Jags had a number of chances to score a game winning TD (and that was an entire lesson itself in horrible game management by Jacksonville) with less than 30 seconds on the clock.  When you’re ahead in the game, don’t make dumb decisions that add time for your opponent to mount a comeback.

Touring the Linc

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October 22 – By tacking on an extra night to my Philadelphia trip, I got a chance to do a tour of Lincoln Financial Field, the home of my Philadelphia Eagles.  I’d been to two games here in the past, but never had the chance to see some of the behind the scenes things that the tour would provide.   Here’s what 90 minutes inside the Linc looked like:

First view of the field down one of the tunnels in the end-zone seats:

View from one of the standing room areas inside the stadium:

From the press box:

Here’s the view from the television broadcast booth:

Eagles locker room:

When they let us loose inside the locker room, there was a mad dash to Vick’s locker.  I was the one guy who headed to the far end to where the offensive line’s lockers are.  This is me at Canadian Danny Watkins’ locker:

Just before being kicked out of the locker room:

Getting to walk on the field through the tunnel as the visiting players would experience it (minus having batteries, beer or snowballs thrown in my direction):

The Linc from field level:

Me at the 50:

I’m a fan of mascots, so here’s Swoop’s locker area with his ATV:

Although strictly forbidden during the tour, here’s my rebel side coming out.  When no one was looking, I made sure I could say I’ve stepped on the Eagles’ field:

Eagles lament and other things from week 10

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This was the first week of Thursday night football and was a reminder that if/when we move from Halifax, we’ll need to find a more NFL friendly time-zone (I think Central would be best).  The 9:30pm start times are tough on someone who likes his 8 hours of sleep.   First things first, let me get my Eagles rant out of my system…

It took an amazing plate of chicken nachos and guacamole to make me feel better and rouse me from a stupor after watching the Eagles lay a complete egg against Arizona.   They’ve now fallen to 3-6 with almost no chance of making the playoffs.   In order of frustration, here’s what I saw in this game and what it means for the rest of the season:

1.  The Eagles were playing a team with a mediocre backup QB and one bona fide wide receiver.  Why on earth they continued to allow Fitzgerald to be covered by a rookie safety or a 4th string DB is beyond me.  For stretches of the game (including the last 2 drives of the 4th quarter), the Eagles did not have Asomugha covering Fitzgerald (according to play charts, he only had coverage on him for 20 of 46 passing plays).   This is football 101 stuff that my team continues to get wrong every week – completely inexcusable.

2. Vick (and his $100M contract) is now 7-9 with 18 interceptions in his last 16 games.   Although spectacularly brilliant at times, he’s an inaccurate passer who plays loose with the ball.   On Sunday, he looked terrible (on Monday it was announced that he played the game with two broken ribs, so that may have had influenced his performance) – missing wide open receivers and was throwing into the wrong places with 4 passes picked off (1 overturned by penalty, 1 overturned by video review).   Yes, he was missing his top 2 WRs for most of the game, but there are still other weapons to use.  Which takes me to…

3. Play calling – The Eagles were the top running team in the league going into the game yet McCoy only touched the ball 14 times (and only 6 times after the break, even though the Eagles led for most of the half).   This is turning borderline insane with this coaching staff continuing to make the same dumb tactical mistakes week after week.  When your top 2 WRs are banged up, how about calling a shorter passing game, mixing in runs, trying end-arounds and reverses to loosen up the defence?

4. Coaching – The Eagles are probably the first professional football team to take an offensive sub-specialty assistant coach and promote him to defensive coordinator.   The result: this defence for most of the season has looked lost with guys out of place at key times.  I can accept a team without talent not performing well, but it’s frustrating to watch a relatively well stocked team look this aimless on one side of the ball.  Not to beat a dead horse, but what possible explanation is there for not having Asomugha defend Fitzgerald all game long?   Asomugha’s strength is lining up on one guy and taking him out of the game.  You can’t let the only guy on the other team that scares you beat you.

5.  Overall personnel and mentality – I hate to say it, but this team is far too much of finesse team (my nice way of saying they’re soft).  There’s not a killer instinct in the bunch.   The offense has a wealth of individual talent, but lacks the glue players that can win a game when the other team (or weather, or luck) takes away your skill positions.   Right now, the Eagles can’t win games in multiple ways as evidenced by…

6. …. how can 5 of the 6 losses be after holding 4th quarter leads?   Right now the defence can’t win a game.  The offence can’t come from behind on the final drive to win a game or get that extra score to put a game out of reach.  There’s nothing exciting on special teams that can turn the tide the Eagles’ way.  Their game plans aren’t innovative or surprising.  This team can’t win a game when a few things don’t go their way.  Last year when the Steelers were without their starting QB, they managed to win 3 of 4 games with an altered offensive approach.  On Sunday, the Broncos won a game with only 2 pass completions all day, tailoring their approach to the talent at hand.  The Eagles for the past decade have largely been a team that doesn’t do well when there are a few hiccups in game plans, situations, injuries/personnel etc. (with the notable exceptions of the 6 game stretch after McNabb broke his ankle in 2002 or when Garcia took the Eagles to the playoffs after a McNabb injury in 2006). 

To date, this has been one of the more frustrating seasons I’ve watched.  I’m not sure that wholesale changes are in the future given the organization’s preference for measured moves, but Reid and his coaching staff are starting to feel like Jeff Fisher with the Titans last year – at some point, you wear out your welcome if you can’t deliver.  I understand you can’t get to a Superbowl every year, but to have the same chronic weaknesses keep you from that goal for 12 of 13 years is something that can’t be ignored.

Enough of that, here’s what else I saw this week:

Chargers-Raiders: If ever there was an example of an offence going south after an injury on the offensive line, this was it.  McNeil (LT, Chargers) goes down, and the rest of the game saw Rivers scrambling with no time to throw.  This game wasn’t as close as the score and has helped set up a really interesting second half of the year in the AFC West.  It’s a lousy division, and I have no idea who’s going to win it which will make for some interesting games down the stretch.

Saints-Falcons:  The talking heads are all criticizing Mike Smith for going for it in OT on 4th an inches from the Falcons 29.   They didn’t make it, and a few plays later they lose the game.  Who knows what happens if he elected to punt, but challenging his team to go win a game on offence is in line with his overall coaching philosophy.

Ravens:  Their performance against the Seahawks is the reason I don’t have them as an elite AFC team.  They’ll likely make the playoffs, but will flame out somewhere before the Super Bowl.

Lions-Bears:  The Lions were dominated, but why did they punt to Hester?  First punt to him – 29 yard return that he almost broke for a TD.  Any reasonable coaching staff orders the remaining punts to be kicked into the 4th row of the stands.  What do the Lions do?  Second punt kicked in bounds to Hester who returns it for a TD.   Mind boggling.

49ers: I love that they win playing smart, old fashioned football.  The onside kick was a great call in this game and shows good film study of the Giants tendency of their “up men” to leave early on kicks. 

Texans:  A bit of a prediction – I don’t see all of the doom and gloom for them now that Schaub is lost for the year.  I think Leinart can be a reliable QB and he’ll have the benefit of an excellent running game and a very solid defence.  It’s always devastating to lose a starting QB for the year, but I can’t think of another team that would be better prepared than the Texans for this situation.  That being said, this doesn’t help their Superbowl hopes.

Friday in Philly

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October 21 – The last conference day, and I’m up at a reasonable hour as my body clock has finally adjusted from the previous weeks traveling in Europe.   Here’s the view from my hotel window of Philadelphia’s city hall and Liberty Place just as the sun is coming up:

The conference wraps up at mid day and my goal is to try cheesesteak #3 of the trip at Pat’s in South Philly.   The plan was to catch a cab, but with a 5,000 delegate conference spilling out of hotels, no cabbie wants a city fare so I start out walking south.  About 15 minutes later, out of the crush of hotels, I find a cab to take me the rest of the way.  Here’s Pat’s:

It’s an odd mix of tourists who don’t understand the gruff protocol of this place and locals looking to pick up a quick bite on their lunch hour.   I step up to the window, order my “wiz wit” and find a table:

It’s surprisingly good.  I’d read/heard about how Pat’s, although the home of the original cheesesteak, just didn’t make good ones – but this is pretty tasty and well put together.  I think I still prefer Jim’s, but I’m glad that I’m now basing that opinion on some scientific experimentation.

Walking around to the other side of Pat’s, here’s their competition – Geno’s (I wanted to try cheesesteak #4 there at lunch too, but a voice in my head, likely tied to the health of my heart, advised against it):

Hopped in a cab that magically appeared, and I get back to Center City to explore in the afternoon.  

View north along Broad Street toward City Hall:

City Hall and One Liberty Place:

Love Park with the Museum of Art in the distance at the end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.  On a previous trip to Philly,  Jodi and I did a city tour and the guide, clearly infatuated with anything/everything French, kept referring to the Ben Franklin Parkway as Philly’s “Champs Elysees” – No knock against the BFP, but he’d clearly never been to Paris:

Liberty Bell:

The plan for my last evening in Philly (on a recommendation from a conference delegate and the fact that I’m currently infatuated with Spanish food and wine) was tapas at Amada, Jose Garces’ restaurant in the Old City neighbourhood:

The restaurant itself is beautiful inside and I’m lucky to have an attentive and knowledgeable server for the evening.   As my first glass of wine hits the table, so too does a small serving of flat bread with a dip made from balsamic, tuna and a cream and cheese mixture that I’ve forgotten (on the left of the photo below).  Sounds odd, but it was really lovely.   Shortly after that arrives, my first dish of aged manchego with truffled lavender honey and green apple (on the right of the photo) enters the scene.   It’s spectacular (great blend of creme, sweet, tart and herbal) and a great start to the evening.

Next up is my favourite dish from the evening – grilled Spanish octopus in olive oil, paprika and garlic, served with small slices of potatoes:

This next course was really interesting – fried peppers with Maldon Sea salt.  A perfect mix of spice and salt cooled down by the foam made from La Peral (a blue cheese from the north of Spain) on the bottom of the dish:

Last up was some Chorizo Pamplona with cornichons, caper berries and mustard.  All of the elements of the dish worked so well together.  The chorizo was divine:

This was my one splurge meal in Philadelphia and I enjoyed it thoroughly.   After a short walk back to the subway, I’m whisked back to the hotel.   I’ve got a big day tomorrow before my later evening flight home…

Broad Street Bullies

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October 20 – I’m excited to get to the Flyers-Capitals game tonight.   This is a great bit of scheduling karma as business has me in town at the same time as an early season game between rivals.   I snag a pretty good seat (chosen so I’d be at the end of the ice Ovechkin shoots toward twice… never been accused of not being a detailed trip planner).  The game is fast paced and competitive for about 45 minutes until Washington scores three quick goals in the 3rd to pull ahead for a 5-2 win.   I enjoyed myself immensely.  Here are some pics from the evening.

Second cheesesteak of the trip (this one from Campos at the rink, it was ok, but doesn’t really compare to the one from Jim’s Steaks two days earlier):

Flyers take the ice before the game:

Here’s a link to a video of the singing of the Star Spangled Banner by Lauren Hart, one of the better anthem singers in the NHL.  I’m a bit of a connoisseur of anthem singers – her God Bless America in the playoffs is outstanding, so hearing her sing was a treat. 

Opening faceoff:

Capitals working on the power play with Ovechkin setting the screen in the slot:

Flyers score to go up 1-0.  Fans celebrating the goal:

Shot from the point with the Capitals goalie trying to look around the screen in front:

Shot of the crowd in the 3rd before the Caps score three quick goals sending most of the fans to the exits early:

Final score 5-2 Caps.  Last pic before the orange line subway ride back to the hotel:

Week 9 observations

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After a weekend celebrating my CMA graduation with my classmates (first, in an informal get together on Friday then the formal event put on by the CMA Society on Saturday), I was in dire need of the right kind of football snack on Sunday afternoon.   Queso Fundido (via a recipe from Rick Bayless’ “Authentic Mexican” cookbook) served with Covered Bridge tortilla chips was the perfect mix of cheese, chorizo, poblano and onion needed to chase away a weekend of celebrating.  Here it is, piping hot out of the oven:

What looked to be an interesting set of early match-ups really fizzled.  Only one of the early games was close in the last 5 minutes.   The lackluster games resulted in this delicious apple crumble being made when Jodi grew tired of keeping tabs on a slew of boring matches:

The later games were the complete opposite, with every game being decided late in the 4th quarter or OT.   I ended up watching bits/pieces of all the games rather than watching 1-2 in depth.

Steelers:  I didn’t want to, but with a long week ahead (including the Monday night Eagles game), I bailed on the late night game at half-time to get some sleep.  The last second loss means an unhappy household and a critical game coming up against the Bengals next week. 

Green Bay:  Aaron Rogers and the offense look super human and uber efficient.  Their defence continues to look like the soft underbelly of this team, but few teams can go point for point with the Packers.

San Diego / AFC West:  What a few weeks back was trending toward a shoo-in division title is looking a lot more suspect.  Proving last year was no fluke for strange outcomes (1st in the NFL in offence and defence but missing the playoffs), the Chargers continue to put up astronomical numbers on offence, but this year, are getting burned by turnovers.  Rivers is uncharacteristically off target in his passes and is fumbling at a clip he’s never seen.   They have the most talent of anyone in the AFC West, but have let the Raiders, Chiefs and Broncos stay in the playoff hunt.

Bengals:  At 6-2, they’re really the surprise team of the year.  Next week’s game against Pittsburgh has playoff implications for both teams.  It will be interesting to see if they can keep up the pace on offence or if under a rookie QB they’ll wear down over the season.   Their defence continues to look like a top 5 unit.

Giants-Pats:  The Giants got another “good Eli” game (and they’re getting way too many of those so far).  Hard for me to watch this and do anything but cheer for the Pats as the Giants have a healthy lead on my Eagles.   I read something last night that this game finally signals the end of the Patriots dynasty.  I wouldn’t go that far as I thought that ended a few years ago to be honest.   

Eagles:  Another frustrating loss, the 4th time this year they’ve lost after having a 4th quarter lead.   The offense had very little rhythm as the Bears bullied the WRs at the line of scrimmage.  It honestly looks like D. Jackson is playing not to get hurt so he can cash in on a new contract next season.  Aside from McCoy and the left side of the offensive line, everyone else contributed to the loss.  Overall, the Eagles looked soft.  The Bears are a physical team, and they were able to exert their will on both sides of the ball.  On defence, Samuel got burned badly on the Bears last TD and Rogers-Cromartie looks like he isn’t even trying on most plays and got torched all game long.   As a unit, they couldn’t get off the field on 3rd down and got no pressure on Cutler all game (it was easily the worst game for the D-line this year).   Bad penalties, a couple of terrible turnovers and a horrible throw by the punter on a fake punt killed any chance for a win.     Though not yet close to being eliminated from playoff contention, the Eagles have to go 7-1 or 6-2 the rest of the way and hope for help in the form of losses by the Giants, Bucs/Saints/Falcons and Lions/Bears to find a way to the postseason.  I’m not sure this team can play consistent enough football to go on that kind of run.

Philadelphia – the first two days

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A year into my new role at the Medical School at Dalhousie, and my business related travels have involved trips to Toronto and Philadelphia, the two places I’ve spent the most time in from my previous career.   I was off to Philadelphia to attend the Educause conference on information technology in higher education.  It was an incredible experience professionally, and it allowed me to reacquaint myself with my one of my favourite American cities.

October 18 – I take an earlier morning flight which lets me squeeze in a cheesesteak for lunch at Jim’s Steaks on South and 4th in Center City before the conference gets underway.   It’s a mess to eat and I don’t want to know what it does for my heart, but I walked about 45 minutes round-trip from my hotel for this to at least make my conscience feel better about my dietary choice:

After a great happy hour with project/portfolio managers in higher education from around the world, I was planning on having dinner at an old favourite place near Rittenhouse Square.  It was jammed, but I stumbled on a really interesting place called Ladder 15 (on Sansom St).  It’s a gastro pub in a converted firehouse.  The food was really good.  I had two Korean tacos (one with shortribs, one with pork belly) – spectacular fresh flavours that went well with a Victory Prima Pilsner from Downingtown, PA.   The guy sitting beside me was a huge Eagles fan so we lamented the season together.  When I told him I was from Nova Scotia he asked “…. that’s close to Greenland, right?”  Um, no.

October 19 – Conference days can feel very long.  A multitude of sessions and lots of discussions with colleagues is both exhilarating and draining.   I take my evening respite at Tria, really, one of my all-time favourite places anywhere I’ve traveled.   I grab a seat at the bar and try to make up my mind – they’ve got an outstanding selection of wines by the glass and beers from around the world.  The food menu is small focusing on cheese tastings, higher end sandwiches, salads and appetizers.  I end up selecting a beer (Allagash White from Maine) to drink and a sandwich with crispy prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, roasted tomatoes, arugula, roasted tomatoes and garlic oil:

On the way back to the hotel, I get caught in a torrential downpour (one which hits Halifax the next day), but it does little to dampen my spirits after a great conference day and wonderful supper.

Zurich, Frankfurt, then home

/ Greg / Leave a comment

October 13 (Zurich) – As trips draw to a close, floating in the air is the odd mix of excitement of where you are, combined with the first feelings of a pull to more familiar surroundings back home.    For us, that means a slower pace in the final day or two, which in a European context means sitting on park benches or in a cafe and watching the city from a perspective slightly outside the bubble.  The train ride from Bern to Zurich reinforces this.   At less than an hour, it’s a quick trip, but one where my mind starts to drift to the flight home early the next day.

Our first plan for our return Zurich is pretty simple – find a place for lunch (a second floor restaurant overlooking the train station fits the bill and surprises with a really exceptional pumpkin risotto).   After lunch, we do some shopping along the Banhofstrasse to pick up a few small things to bring home.    Of prime importance is a stop at Sprungli for a box of mini macaroons.   Leaving the store we start looking for a bench in the sun to enjoy our snack.

Crossing the river Limmat, this is the view back toward central Zurich:

The Sprungli macaroons (these were really good, especially the vanilla and champagne ones):

After some time lounging on a bench, we walk back to our hotel through Zurich’s old town.   With an early morning flight home, our evening is one of packing, picking up a quick supper and getting some sleep for a long travel day ahead.

October 14 (Frankfurt) – One of the “perks” of our flight arrangement is a 6 hour layover in Frankfurt – ample time to get out of the airport and into the city for a quick walking tour before getting on the flight back to Halifax.   

When we packed the night before, I didn’t account for a beautiful yet chilly morning in the German hub city (my gloves would have been nice).   We took the train from the airport into a station close to the old town area in Frankfurt from where we began our walking tour.

First stop was Saint Bartholomeus’s Cathedral:

Next, we made our way toward the Romerberg town square to look around:

It’s a very beautiful area which was nice to explore without any crowds (an early morning wedding party surrounded the church in the square, but that was about it for people walking around). 

Taking our walking tour back toward the train station for a return to the airport, although it was too early to have a stein of beer (it really was, so lookout Germany when I get back on your soil someday in the future because I really want to spend an afternoon listening to accordion music and drinking from 32oz beer steins), it wasn’t too early to try a pretzel (or as it turned out, two).  First pretzel was delicious – perfect amount of salt, nice chew – a great morning snack:

Coming back from the pretzel stand with pretzel #2:

The second pretzel was a bit of a disappointment compared to the first.  I stashed half of it for the trip home and we made our way back to the airport for what ended up to be an uneventful flight home.  

Bern

/ Greg / Leave a comment

October 12-13:  It was really difficult to leave Montreux.  Just the one day there reinforced that I’m going to have to live in a French area in Europe at some point in my life.   The consolation to leaving is another beautiful train ride – this time to Bern via Lausanne.   On the way to Lausanne, there are views of the area’s wineries, perched on the hills above Lake Geneva:

As the train heads north toward Bern, the clouds melt away and we’re presented with yet another sunny day.  We find our way from the train station to our small hotel in the old town of Bern, drop off our bags and after a late lunch eaten sitting along side a cobblestone street, we take in a small museum set up in Albert Einstein’s apartment for his time in Bern.  It’s not a good museum – Jodi quipped that it was like someone just printed out a bunch of stuff from wikipedia. 

With a beautiful afternoon upon us, we stroll over to Bern’s Bear Park to see the bears who are a symbol of the city.   We’re lucky that two of the bears are playing in the water when we arrive:

The bears were very amusing playing in the water.  Jodi decided to shoot this video, and hilarity ensues around the 0:30 mark. After the laughing subsides, we take in some of the sights of Bern as we make our way back to our hotel before supper:

No photo tour of Bern is complete without a picture of the Zytglogge, the 800+ year old medieval clock tower in the heart of Bern’s old town:

In the evening, we have a spectacular meal at cozy Pizzeria da Bucolo.  Wood-oven pizzas, better than any we’ve had, filled the night.  Desert, something I usually take a pass one, was really unique – a panna cotta gelato (so creamy!):

Our second day in Bern and the weather is starting to feel more fall like.  In the morning, you can see your breath, but it warms up nicely for the afternoon.  

Münster of Bern from across the River Aare:

Here’s our morning destination – the Swiss Museum, and in particular, the Einstein Museum located within:

We have the Einstein Museum to ourselves and spend a couple of hours learning the story of his life.  The museum does a great job of putting his life and work in context of world events and the pressures on him academically and politically.   There are wonderful artifacts like old school report cards, essays he wrote to enter university and this one, his immigration document when we moved to the US:

We spend the afternoon being pretty lazy and wander around town a bit:

I really liked Bern.  It’s old town is a UNESCO site and is beautifully preserved.   But it’s also a town with a bit of personality and humour, perhaps best demonstrated by Kindlifresserbrunnen, a monument in a busy town square of an ogre eating a child (with a few more at the ready in his sack).  Ok, that’s not really funny (among a couple of interpretations, the most likely one is it’s a symbol to scare disobedient children), but the fact that it’s still there in a busy square makes me chuckle:

On our last night in Bern, we decide to violate one of our principle travel rules (“Thou shalt never return to the same restaurant on the same trip lest ye be disappointed”) and go back to da Bucolo for supper.  It’s wonderful the second time around.  This place is so good, that for 2 nights we forgot to take pictures of our pizzas.