(Written by kencraw)

I suspect some have wondered where I’ve been the last few weeks, seeing how my last post was on July 13th. The answer is two-fold:

1. I was running my annual regatta called the Dinghy Delta Ditch on July 25th, which requires a ridiculous amount of preparation. As some of you know, my other big hobby is sailing. Every year I organize a regatta to do my part to make sure there’s lots of good regattas for people to sail in. This year was a particularly challenging one because the wind didn’t fill in at its normal time and the tide turned later than the tide tables said it would. So as a result, instead of people finishing between 6:00 and 8:00 PM, they were finishing well after dark between 8:30 and 11:00 PM. You can find the results here (if you care). Note that if you click on the word “score” for each fleet you’ll get detailed break downs on start and finish times and the such. For those who are asking, yes, the regatta is purposely scheduled to be a couple of weeks before Fall Practice starts so I can wrap it up and call it done before things get rolling here and on BearTerritory.net.
2. I was on vacation with my wife. Her family has a cabin by Little Grass Valley Reservoir, so we left the boys with Grandma and Grandpa and spent the week relaxing. No internet, no cell phones, no responsibilities. I managed to read 3 books, watch 12 movies on DVD, go for a daily bike ride in the mountains as well as spend lots of time with my wife. Heck, I even had 4 beers in one week, which has to be some sort of record for me since my 21st birthday.

All of this is just a long way of saying that I wasn’t purposely ignoring the blog, it was just a casualty of everything else going on.

But never fear! We’re back in business. Here’s what is coming up in the next few weeks leading up to the start of the season:

• I’ll finish off the 2007 looking back series (I’m going to do the 2008 looking back series not in chronological order, but do one game each week during the season matching each look back game from 2008 to who’s being played that week in 2009. (So, the order will be Maryland, Colorado State for this years weakest non-conference game (Eastern Washington), Michigan State for this year’s Big 10 opponent (Minnesota), Oregon, USC, etc.))
• Practice reports from Fall Practice
• Podcasts with player interviews from Fall Practice
• Game-by-game predictions for the season
• Updated blogroll (if you want on the roll, read my criteria and then post a comment)
• Enable the 2009 Pick’Em league