Congratulations to the University of Dubuque Marching Spartan Band for a splendid half-time show and to who ever runs the web cast audio-visual for actually letting me see and hear it.

After looking forward to watching Central play in California ever since the schedule was announced, I was very disappointed to find I would have to pay to see the video. Even though I am Dutch by association, and not birth, I am still too thrifty to pay for something I am used to getting for free. Fortunately Treavor Castle's play by play made me feel like I was there.

I watched the Eau Claire marching band's half-time show. They are really good. Boy am I jealous!

Congrats to the Eau Claire band on a great half time show. The sax solo in the Dolly Parton song nearly made me weep.

I will be cheering for the Dutch Saturday, but it will be from 2000 miles away. Let's all hope the prevailing winds keep the wildfire smoke away from Thousand Oaks. That stuff can make even Southern California miserable.

I am excited to see, what I believe to be, the Central football team's first trip to California. Thinking about it is giving me a craving for an In-N-Out burger.

When I went out my door this morning, it smelled like football season for the first time this year. I am a big Central fan. I don't have any connections there and I don't know what the season holds, but my big wish is that they have a running game this year.  It seems like it has been awhile.

Spread or no spread I will be picking Central to win every one of their games and Simpson to lose everyone of theirs. And, spread or no spread, all of the others will depend on a coin flip.

I just couldn't let the Central Simpson rivalry game pass without reminding everyone of the time a Central economics major and a Simpson economics major waled into a bar. They grabbed a couple of beers and the Central guy said, "so, what do you think of the growth in the gross domestic product?" And the Simpson guy thought a second and said, "why do you have to bring my girlfriend's weight gain into this?"

I am enjoying watching whoever runs the Central football video stream learning to use the new resources they have. Sentimental old sap that I am I even enjoyed the shots of the little kids playing around in the spectator grass.  The video crew seem to have figured out that the best place to watch the game is from the press box and the other cameras can give a little more of the game day experience.  It was a little disorienting when the picture went stobe on me towards the end of the second quarter.  Those sixties flashbacks are a real trip man.

I was pleased to see that Central now has more than one camera for the football video. I'm sure the camera operators will get better with practice as well as whoever decides which camera's image gets streamed. Of course I doubt that game would have looked any better if had been produced by the people who do Monday Night Football.

Well thank you very much.  Now I know...kinda.

I can't figure out how to handicap tomorrow's Central v Coe game.  Central didn't look bad in the first two non-conference games on the road. On the other hand, they didn't look great.  And as for Coe, all I know are some impressive scores, except that it hard to be too impressed without knowing anything about the quality of the competition those scores were hung up against. So now I am wondering, what is the home field advantage worth.  It sure seems to me that for as long as Post Patterns has been around and for as many subjects as we have covered on here, and for as many great minds as there are in this community, we should have come up with an answer to that simple question. It could be the difference between whether or not I get any sleep tonight.

I was already excited for Central to kick-off conference play. Seeing "the best new look." will just be frosting on the cake. 

That is some good work.  Thank you very much.