Week in Review

Well, after being back from freezing Michigan to Bermuda, I gotta say it's been quite nice to not experience winter depression.

Work has been busy and will continue to increase. There is a major backlog of TDP(Total Dissolved Phosphate) samples. At least 1000. To run TDPs its about a 4 half day process, that being said it takes quite along time to prep and actually read, so I will be stuck with these guys trying to catch up.

It's nice that BIOS is starting to come back to life. More scientists and techs are returning. There's a student group from Eckerd here for about 2 weeks. Soccer has returned along with the evening daylight. Our lab has recently gotten a PhD student from Southhampton, UK for the next few months. A few new staff will be arriving in the next few weeks as well. Things are picking up. It's left little room for being bored.

It's turned out to be a weekly tradition by myself and Steve Bell the Tazmanian Devil to go golfing late Sunday Afternoon. I'll get some pictures next week. But we were able to get two more guys from the lab and had a solid 9 holes.

After golf, we grabbed some football at a pub in St. Georges. One of the most enjoyable things to do here is shoot the shit...with somebody other than an American. The English most likely being the most fun to argue with. That being said, at dinner we got into a argument because of the following quote, "The U.S. is not a sporting nation." I was with another American and we both laughed pretty good about this and asked for his reasons. They were...because we don't invite anybody to have a match with them....like Britain does with other nations such as Australians, India....basically any other country that has been a part of the British Empire i.e. takes part in the retarded game of Cricket. I will give them Rugby. It is extremely relentless sport.

I will try to go through each sport and solely determine the U.S.'s place among them.

Basketball. Global sport. U.S. dominates. Example - 2008 Gold Medal

Hockey. Relatively Global Sport(Northern Hemisphere. U.S. competes with strong Candian, Eastern European, and Scandinavian Teams.

Baseball. Global Sport. U.S. somewhat falling behind with strong teams from Central America and even Japan and Korea.

American Football. Only U.S., maybe Canada. Aparently Brits think all the padding NFL uses makes them pansies. I would take an NFL linebacker against a Rugby player, however, with light confidence.

Futbol(Soccer). Global. U.S. competitive, however, ranked 22nd in Fifa. Still, developing.
Women's futbol is very legit.

Golf. Global. U.S. wins, but not always dominates. Ryder cup victory this year was first in a few years. Plus we have Tiger.

Tennis. Global. U.S. solid, but loss of Agassia, Sampras has taken U.S. off the map. Roddick and Blake still strong players.

Cricket. British Empire. U.S. Garbage...nobody cares. Lousy sport, you don't eat Butter and Cucumber sandwiches halfway through your match.

Rugby. More than just British Empire. U.S. sucks. I'd like to see them more competitive.

Auto Racing. Not Nascar but Formula 1. I doubt there are any money-making Americans, but the Andretti's used to have there name with Indy/Formula. Were they Canadian though?

Olympic Sports. Boxing, Gynamastics, Swimming....well U.S. consistently dominates the Olympics with China getting theres too.

I think its a safe assumption to say that Americans cover the broadest range of highly skilled athletes in their respective sports.

Oh well, good to have an argument like that. I'm happy to get a chance to have them.


Another note, my bike is now no longer running. The muffler was old and scraped up and could be heard from literally hundreds of yards away. You're giving yourself a good opportunity to be pulled over. Back to borrowing bikes and taking the bus.