I am a little late on getting this one posted. We have already embarked on our next work week. It is hard to believe that it was only a week ago today that we had the gift of Labor Day. A 4-day work week. A week with 9 fewer hours of soul crushing drudgery. Actually, that was not the case for me at all. I was somehow able to pack into 4 days the same number of hours I usually work in a normal 5 day week. When Friday afternoon rolled around I was even more excited than normal to get outta there and not think about trains or dollars for two whole days.
With the return of college and NFL football this time of year is always exciting. For the first time I joined an NFL fantasy league. I can already tell I am going to enjoy it quite a bit. It engages you a little bit more with the games, even though normally they would be of no interest to you. We cut it close with our draft. We didn't finish picking our teams until about 15 minutes before the game started on Thursday. This was also a good weekend for college football. I always enjoy seeing Notre Dame lose. Purdue isn't going to give me much to cheer for this year so I will mainly be looking forward to watching the bigger match-ups of the weekend. Maybe I will even root for the Razorbacks a few times. In addition to football this weekend was the semis and finals of the US Open. The men's semi-final between Federer and Djokovic on Saturday was insane. It was so much fun to watch. This also was the weekend for the LPGA Tour event here locally. We have gotten tickets every year so far, and always enjoy spending at least one afternoon out there. Sunday we decided to skip the Colts game and go walk the course and watch Michelle Wie play. She was in the lead, but got caught on the back 9 to lose by one stoke. It was a beautiful day to be outside and we had a fun time.
This weekend reminded me of why I love sports so much. As fans we arbitrarily align ourselves with/against teams or individuals. Aside from gambling, the outcome of the sporting event has literally no impact on our actual lives. Still, the spectacle is able to stir such emotion inside of us. It is almost silly to think we could get depressed because our favorite team doesn't play well, but it happens... and it is fun. It is fun to be able to care so much about something so meaningless. I don't hate Notre Dame, but I get so much enjoyment from seeing them fail. I can't explain it. I play tennis, but I have never been great at it. I don't follow one specific player, nor do I watch every single tournament of the season. On Saturday when Djokovic was playing those points to keep the match alive I was going crazy. It was getting so amped up. He was hitting shots as hard as he could and putting them right on the line. One little mistake and his tournament would have been over. However, he was able to execute when it mattered and ended up getting the win. That sort of thing just gets me so charged up. It's almost like riding a roller coaster or something. Looking back on it now it almost seems stupid, but at the moment I was totally enveloped by what I was watching. Sports are fun!
