How bout them Cardinals!!

I repeat... How bout them Cardinals!! What a game! I thought it was going to be a blowout but then the Cardinals started to pull a Jets in the second half (snatching defeat from the jaws of victory), but Kurt and the boys put together a memorable drive and it's off to the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history...(I didn't realize that the Cards are the Cubs of football...61 years since a title, second only to the Cubs at 100 and counting)...The radio stations, billboards, and sporting goods stores are going wild. Everyone is wearing the red and white...(and from the looks of owner Bill Bidwell on Sunday, it couldn't have happened at a better time---Bill, get out and get some sun!) You know, the East Coasters in our group are spoiled when it comes to sports...Football (Jets and Giants), basketball (Knicks and Nets) hockey (Devils, Rangers, and Islanders) and baseball (Yankees and Mets). When you only have one per sport (Cardinals, Suns, Coyotes, and Diamondbacks) and they are perennial also-rans or just stink out loud (the D-backs did win a World Series, sorry Yankee fans), this Cardinal string of victories is huge for Arizona. Plus the red goes well with sunburn (which I think is the state color).

In other news, my Jeep is now officially a resident of the state of Arizona...I did the DMV shuffle again on Friday... Three separate stops and still only took and hour and a half! In Arizona, all out-of-state vehicles must pass an emissions test(which it did), an "inspection" (they make sure the vin# matches the car and title, that's it!) and then you go into DMV for registration and title...Turned in one plate...(told me I could keep a souvenir) ... All in all, once I got to the counter (and they have chairs so you sit while they do your paperwork) it took about 15 minutes and I walked out with a title (they don't mail it), a registration and 1 new plate...(Gotta get used to not seeing plate on the front, a little eerie). And all three stations where they do all this are next door to each other on the same block...

So Sunday morning I get up and drive up to Glendale to play beach volleyball... The place they have there is a sports park (paid admission) where you reserve fields in advance...Soccer, baseball, basketball, volleyball and a host of others... So I pull in the parking lot and there's only one other car in it and I'm saying to myself "I'm in the wrong lot". The other car belonged to Megan who is the Events and Adventure event coordinator. She was on the phone. She gets off the phone and apologizes because the park is closed! I was further down her call list and she hadn't gotten through to everyone yet. The reason the park is closed? The owners wanted to give the staff the opportunity to watch the Cardinal game! So, I ended up at a sports bar with some rabid Cardinal fans and watched franchise history...

So now we are inundated with two weeks of hype...(new useless information to pour into the "fountain"). Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Steelers (how about that hit on Willis McGahee--crunch!). Battle of Bill Cowher's former assistants (Tomlin and Whisenhunt). You know I have to root for the Cardinals...The best thing about being a Cardinal fan? When you "bleed" for your team (i.e. "bleed Dodger blue") it doesn't ruin your red shirt! I also expect my cousins to be rooting for the Cardinals (they used to be in St. Louis, the Midwest conection) and Kurt Warner used to stock shelves in Iowa... GO CARDINALS!!