01 January 2003

Gentle Readers, I hope that the Eve was good for you and the New Year finds you dry and comfortable. Ohio State is playing later today for the National Championship and I will dutifully cheer for the Big Ten, though my heart is not really in it. My game is this morning at eleven, and hopefully my guys won't let me down against the Gators. It is not for the National Championship, nor even the Big Ten Title, so it really doesn't matter in the great scheme of things. Being this far out of the title chase, all that is left is the obscure. Like the rivalry with Notre Dame for the greatest number of total program victories in college football history- we lead them by thirty or so- so that is a slow motion race that will be played out across the rest of my lifetime.

I did not get a call about my boys, so I assume they also made it through the night. I managed to craft a compromise with my almost ex by which I will have my older son for the Michigan game this morning. I chose to have a quiet Eve, hanging on as the the clock ran down to midnight. I fooled with the computer and watched The Longest Day and Donvon's Reef, deciding that The Duke really was my favorite movie star. When I swtiched channels, the crowds were thick in Times Square and no explosions happened except the ones that were supposed to. I lasted long enough to know that things were OK, that the New Year had passed over Arlington and was racing across the nation toward California, and then I prepared for bed.

I had plenty of human contact, though not in person. here was enough stuff on the phone and the internet to keep me occupied and content. Given the subdued nature of the year, and the rumors of external threats, I elected to not buck the amateurs and stay home. There are so many rumors and reports that some of the analysts at the office are starting to act a little looney. I did not make my once traditional round of phone calls around the world after the ball dropped and Dick Clark, or Dorian Gray, introduced the next big musical group. In years past from Hawaii I would call the Eastern Seaboard at the mid-Pacific midnight, the smell of gunpowder from the Chinese fireworks hanging heavy in the moist air. Smart celebrants learned to turn off their phones,before retiring, but there was no threat last night. Perhaps it is age, or the consquences of the idiotic schedule I have worked the last few decades.

And so I am awake at the usual time this rainy morning, first cup of coffee in an alien year, a time traveler again. Vicky and Emilio are off this morning, the voice of Mr. Damon of the BBC very crisp and British. I had left the radio on last night as I reclined. I knew then that the terrorist team was not going to hit the crowds in New York, the descent of the glittering ball was not marked by violence. Bob Edwards, God bless him, is awake and alert, describing the national hangover.

The murmur of the news is has no startling revelation this year as its tendrils insinuate themselves into my consciousness. It is the twentieth anniversary of the Internet, the medium that makes it possible for us to quickly download bad jokes, images of questionable origin, or notes across town or across continents.

I'm sure there is a greater purpose to it, but that will suffice for me. I am looking forward to 2003. There are some major events that will play out across the months, some National and some personal. War, final divorce, retirement. Some of note and others only of interest to the direct participant. I suppose it is not unlike the Michigan-Notre Dame rivalry. We will have interesting times.

Happy New Year!