RSSNotre Dame Closing In On National Championship?
November 19, 2012
Martin Kelly - See all 164 of my articles
Football
This weekend was wild in the world of football. First on the college ranks, the championship picture went topsy-turvy. Both number 1 Kansas State and number 2 Oregon fell. Now Notre Dame is the only undefeated (that can compete for the championship, so we cannot count Ohio State). That makes one half of the game easy to set, but now there are eleven one loss teams that want that other spot. Now we should be down to six after conference championships, even there are three contenders in the SEC and a couple of other conferences that do not play championship games. (I have always had the opinion that if you do not win you conference, you should not be considered for the BCS championship game.) So, unless there is another shake up like this week, there will be plenty of people complaining about who gets chosen for the other side of the championship equation.
This last weekend also means that my Notre Dame friends will not be cheering for Texas on December 1 when they play Kansas State, unless of course they are afraid of playing Kansas State in the championship game.
In the NFL, the picture is getting much clearer as teams separate. On the NFC side, although not done with much strength, the Atlanta Falcons continue to lead. Chicago is keeping ahead of Green Bay and the Giants and 49ers are the default leaders of two week divisions. On the AFC side, Houston is leading again without a lot of punch this week. Baltimore is in the driver’s seat for second with New England and Denver as the default leaders of two more week divisions. The wild cards are also almost set in the AFC with Pittsburgh and Indianapolis making some separation even though they both lost. The NFC wild card is a bit more difficult with Green Bay, Tampa Bay and Seattle all in the hunt. This is way to early in the season to actually predict the final standings, but the character of all of the teams is becoming much clearer with only six games left.
NaNoWriMo
We are past the half way point of the NaNoWriMo. We only have one more weekend left, so you actually need to be much more than half way done. There have been a number of pep talk emails sent out by the NaNoWriMo staff. This is the point in the effort where you have captured most of the ideas you had floating around at the beginning of the effort. No what? You are not alone, even professional writers hit this plateau. This is my fourth effort, so I have been thing about this story line for most of the year, especially since I failed last year. I am at 35,000 words, which is well ahead of schedule. This may sound great, but now I face the Thanksgiving holiday with guests arriving any minute, and kids coming back from college. I just cannot plan any large batches of time to write, even if the ideas keep flowing.
Whether you are a NaNo or not, keep writing. There Is nothing to fear but blisters on your fingers.