Live from Mansfield, Ohio

It's just SN, no L tonight.

I'm in Mansfield, Ohio as we open the NCAA playoffs for football tomorrow for the first time since 1993...We chartered a flight from the cities and touched down in Akron, Ohio this afternoon at 1, local time...After renting a car, our AD, beat writer and I cued up our Garmin GPS and made our way to Ashland/Mansfield...

After a walk through and a coaches meeting, I've just finished my supper and now am officially a sports/politics geek (i guess that's not really breaking news)... I have our men's hockey video and radio feed up on my laptop, I have the Rachel Maddow show on the TV to my right (Obama just picked up one more electoral vote today.... Nebraska awards electoral votes by congressional districts and they finally counted the votes in Omaha) and I'm awaiting our swimming results from tonight, so I'm basically in heaven... Casey (our radio play-by-play guy and I have a great suite, king size bed (Casey's), pull out couch (Mine), a bathroom and kitchen.. who says it doesn't pay to travel on the NCAA dime... The only thing that is missing is my wonderful gal, who is busy Christmas shopping with her mom and Lindsey in Mankato...

I love travelling and seeing the country, but it's tough to be gone, especially as often as i am in the winter and fall...Lisa's pretty understanding of the whole thing, but it doesn't make being away any easier. Thank god for cell phones and text messaging, as we can stay in contact basically the entire time, which is nice. It's also really nice we have a charter plane, because we should be home as soon as we can load the bus, get to the airport and have the plane ready for us. Love you sweetie, see you tomorrow!

If we win tomorrow, we do this all over again next week, if we lose, I'm home for our eight-team, Pepsi Tip-Off tourney next weekend, so the madness doesn't end.

I hope we start to get some hard freezing here in the next couple of days...With the moisture we've had, it's been tough to get the 250 (give or take 30) acres of corn that Dad and Daniel have in the field out... I hate talking to grouchy farmers, I always feel guilty that I'm not home to help.

Well that's it for now, I'm going to clean out my inbox for my school email and start to get things ready for next week.

Until next time,

Sn (and L)