What You Missed Last Week

While on vacation in bustling Rock Hall last week, I only had sporadic access to the Internet.  So, I wasn't able to comment on everything that took place in the world around me.  Here are my thoughts on a couple of things that happened while I was away.

• Betty Ford died.  Someone famous always seems to die while we're at Fox Point over the summer -- two years ago, it was Michael Jackson.  In fact, one of our dinner conversations early on in the week was about who was most likely to die while we were away.  We went around the table and gave our "nominations."  One of the names that came up was Barbara Bush.  Turns out we had the wrong former first lady.
• The greatest soccer game ever took place.  No, I'm not talking about USA - Brazil in the women's World Cup.  I'm talking about Mexico - Germany in the semi-final of the U-17 Men's World Cup.  Why was I watching this game?  Well, it was 8PM, I was tired, and there was nothing else on TV that captured my fancy.  Good decision by me.  With less than 10 minutes to go in the game, Mexico was trailing 2-1.  They earned a corner.  My new hero, Julio Gomez, managed to get himself in the way of the fullback who had the back post.  He did this by launching himself in the air and initiating a full speed head-to-head collision.  With the fullback now out of the way, the ball found its way into the back corner.  Julio, unfortunately, was down for a good 5 minutes.  Enormous amounts of blood covered all the towels that the trainers brought with them onto the field to care for him.  Finally, the trainers wrapped yards of gauze and tape around poor Julio's head to stop the bleeding and carted him off the field.  Mexico now found itself down a man with hardly any time left.  Germany launched its counter-attack.  Suddenly, my man Julio was at the scorer's table jumping up and down, ready to re-enter the game.  The center referee ran over, inspected him from head to toe to determine if any blood was visible.  Finding none, the referee let Julio back into the game.  In the 90th minute, Mexico earned another corner.  Watch what happens next: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIRYIT4lwuU.  Julio is the man.  I can't wait til Swansea City signs him.
• Kevin Richardson re-joined Backstreet Boys.  Go ahead, laugh all you want about me knowing that this took place.  But, check out the reaction from the crowd at the 2-minute mark in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKGF6qYD9jw&feature=related.  How crazy are those screams?  Some of those women don't sound happy.  Instead, it sounds like they're dying a horrible death.

I can't wait to see what happens this week.