It’s been a really lousy week.  Yet another business trip.  I suppose there are a lot of things to appreciate about business travel, but quite honestly I have a lot of difficulty finding any.  I love my wife and family, I love wrestling with my two kids, I love my early-morning runs with my two year-old yellow lab, and I love cooking in my own kitchen.  Sitting alone in a hotel room at the Hampton Inn in Spokane, Medford, or Moscow watching Sportscenter just doesn’t cut it. 

Dinners at Red Robin make my mission to drop a few extra lbs over the off-season in preparation for next year’s triathlon season an added challenge.  I’ve grown to despise airline delays and microscopic-sized bags of pretzels.  The five-hour drives to towns I’d never previously heard of?  Right up there with passing a kidney stone the size of a bowling ball. 

I’m currently in the midst of seven business trips over a five-week time frame.  Beautiful.

So I’m driving home to Seattle Wednesday evening after a few days of business in Northern Oregon when I got the phone call:  Grampa died. 

I nearly drove off of Interstate 5. 

There are those indelible memories we keep for a lifetime.  For my parents’ generation, it includes the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and JFK’s assassination. I have Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk and the shooting of Ronald Reagan while I was in high school, playing in a basketball tournament in Stockholm.  The tragic demise of the space shuttle Challenger while sitting in class during my senior year at the UW.  Holding my two babies, tearfully watching the World Trade Center towers inexplicably crash down to the Manhattan streets below.

And now, the passing of my grandfather.

I can’t begin to tell of the countless childhood evenings spent listening to stories spun like fine threads of a new silk shirt.  My grandfather wasn’t a storyteller, he an artist with words.   Clouds weren’t merely clouds, they were "pufferbillies".  The sunset over Puget Sound wasn’t beautiful, it was the final streaks of sunlight stretching from the heavens above the great Pacific Northwest.

My grampa liked all sports, but he loved baseball.  He shared stories of Ruth, Kaline, and Stan the Man. The Duke and The Mick.  Jackie Robinson and Josh Gibson.  Teddy Ballgame.  His stories were larger than life.  He was larger than life.

I cannot even begin to guess how many childhood evenings I spent listening to his voice, the last voice I heard before falling asleep.

Grampa’s gone.  His voice forever silenced, everywhere but in memory.

Grampa undoubtedly spent as much time raising my children as I have.  My children can hardly separate the memories of their time with daddy as their time with grampa.  From the time the children were born, coaxing them to sleep required only a comfy couch, their daddy’s chest, and grampa's soothing voice weaving another magical story of the baseball diamond. 

Life is pretty simple for my children, now ages 9 and 11.   Mommy for loving, daddy for snuggling, and their grampa’s sweet baritone chords to make life right once again.

I have come to dread the arrival of October.  We would never hear much from grampa over the cold winter months, making that time just darker, drearier, and far more challenging.  But when the first baseballs were rolled out each spring, grampa magically appeared in our family room again and we knew that warmer days were right around the corner.  

It breaks your heart.  It is designed to break your heart.  The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.  You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time.

- A. Bartlett Giamatti

We all knew grampa was getting on in years, not quite as sharp as he once was.  The routine seemed just a bit more challenging, the challenging appeared laborious.  But as long as the spirit was willing, grampa would be there for us.  And, oh, was that spirit willing, right up until the very end.

His passing wasn’t an altogether shock.  There have been warnings: the heart attack in ’96.  The doctor-ordered change in diet really frustrated him; I’ve heard him grumble on many occasions that without the salt and gravy, food just wasn’t fun anymore.  Smoking was absolutely off-limits.  That was a joy…he never discussed it openly, but we all knew what he was going through to kick that habit.  It was the timing, however, that has us all thrown for a loop; grampa seemed to be going as strong as ever, and the sudden finality was a slap like none other.  Grampa is gone.  I didn’t get to say goodbye.

I never met my grampa, at least in person that is.  In reality, we weren’t even blood relatives.  But Dave Niehaus was as much a part of my family as anyone has ever been or will be.

Dave's golden tones reverberated throughout my home for as as long as I can remember.  As an 11 year-old boy, I sat in my mom's kitchen during the Seattle Mariner's inaugural season, transistor radio in hand, scorebook spread across the table, learning about baseball through the eyes of my adopted grandfather.  Sliders weren't low, they were looooooooooooowwwwwwww.  Home runs weren't hit, they were Belted deep to right field...and this ball will FLY, FLY AWAY!  Dave's masterpiece, defining moment is forever burning into my brain:  And the 0-1 pitch on the way to Edgar...swung on and lined down the left field line!  Here's comes Joey...here's Junior to third...they're gonna wave him in...the throw to the plane will...be...LATE!...THE MARINERS ARE GOING TO PLAY FOR THE AMERICAN LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP!  I DON'T BELIEVE IT!  IT JUST CONTINUES!...MY OH MY!!!"

I have no doubt that late last evening, as if just out of Field of Dreams, the ghosts of The Babe, Cobb, The Big Train, The Cyclone, and the other Cooperstown immortals made their way across the parking lot to Doubleday Field and played an impromptu exhibition game with Dave Niehaus at the mike.  Just so they could hear him, too, a master at his craft. 

After all, it takes a legend to know when in the company of greatness.

Goodbye, Dave Niehaus.  You will never be forgotten, you will forever be missed

(This is the second of a three part series of articles being sponsored by Samsung. Enhance your experience with Samsung)

One of the greatest innovations in tailgating has been the invention of the custom tailgating trailer. We aren't talking RV here because it doesn't have any type of living space. This puppy is all about serving a hungry crowd food and keeping them entertained outside the stadium on game day with a wide array of over the top electronic gizmo's in addition to food service capabilities.

I have a good friend who had one built recently and it even includes WiFi on the go, Direct TV, and flat screen panels to keep up with what is going on around the football world while outside the stadium. It has a couple of Kegerators built into it with custom taps resembling Husky football helmets.

This is a great example of what to do when you find yourself in the situation of having way too much money and not enough places to spend it. You of course need to have an understanding wife to pull this sort of thing off. What can help sway here is to also build in a custom wine fridge for her and her friends to swill away the afternoon.

What is the cost of something like this? Well nobody who buys one usually throws around numbers but we are talking somewhere in the high 30's to be able to pull this kind of thing off with success because it is so heavy the frame has to be built from scratch to support the payload of fun that it is going to be carrying.

So next time when you are at Husky Stadium take the time to admire the work of some of the Husky fans out there who have built their own private tailgating castles. Even better yet you can click on this link. Taylor takes a Taste to see some of the more unusual tailgating rigs that were at a recent Husky home game against Oregon State.

(This is the first part of the three part series the SBN blogs are doing in conjunction Samsung. We will be running articles similar to this over the next two Friday's. Enhance your experience with Samsung!)

I moved to the Midwest right after the Huskies National Championship season. The first place I lived was Nashville, Tennessee. It was a tough move because I was leaving all my friends, family, plus Don James, and the Huskies behind.

It was pretty tough living outside of Seattle and being a Husky fan in 1992. I had to go to sports bars to watch games if they were on TV. Imagine how many fellow Husky fans you could find in Nashville, Tennessee? There was no Internet content at the time, so I had to subscribe to the Seattle Times Sunday edition by mail, and of course Sports Washington, which would show up 2-3 weeks late.

If I wanted up to date recruiting news I had to get jammed for an ungodly sum by Jim Heckman on his 1-900 service. If I wanted to listen to a game on radio I had to do it over the phone, and that was ungodly expensive too. I ended up flying to as many games as I could because it was the only way I could truly follow my favorite team if I was 2000 miles away from home. I am sure some of you other expatriated Husky football fans have had the same frustrating experience.

When I moved to Minnesota just a few years later a few things began to happen that were positive. The Internet was now in vogue, and the games started to be streamed live over the Internet. I also was able to follow the Huskies through the local newspapers, and something called Dawgman.com. Another piece of technology came along known as Direct TV, and I was able to watch the televised games at home rather than a smoky sports bar that was devoid of fellow Husky fans.

I have been here in Chicago for the past twelve years, and as technology has advanced, I have bought into it to fuel my Husky passion. I got by very well with streamed radio, direct TV, and the Internet, but when I got married four years ago I had to learn to compromise, I wasn't going to be home every single weekend of the Fall anymore. My wife had to compromise too, she doesn't mind if I watch, and she enjoys it too, but sometimes commitments get in the way.

What I have done is put together the ultimate home, and remote package for the rabid Husky Football fan so no matter where I am in the world, or whatever I am doing, I will be able to watch the game.

1. High Speed Broadband Internet

You need this for a ton of reasons, but to power my remote packages I need a high speed G or N wireless router. As you will see everything works together in my Wireless Husky network!

2. Subscription to Dawgman

You can't live without if you are a Husky fan, and chatting online with fellow addicts during the game is a must. Also included is a subscription to Sports Washington which is awesome!

3. Subscription to Go Huskies.com

The only way you are going to be able to stream the game live to your computer from ISP.


4. Direct TV

If the game is on you can get virtually every game this way no matter where you live in the United States.

5. Slingbox

Slingbox allows you to watch whatever you have on your home TV system anywhere there is a broadband connection for your PC. You can also stream the live video to your cell phone.


6. Smart Phone

Smart phones just keep getting smarter with the best of the bunch being the I-Phone from Apple and the Androids from Google. The only thing I don't like about the I-Phone is that you can only get it on ATT.


7. XM Radio

Almost every Husky game is available on XM radio so if you are in a remote location, or driving in your car, you won't miss a minute of the action in the continental United States. Unfortunately it doesn't work in Hawaii, Alaska, and is very spotty in the Caribbean, and Mexico.

8. Squeezebox

Squeezebox is an Internet radio receiver that streams your entire PC Music collection, Internet radio stations, and music services such as Rhapsody, Pandora, etc...directly into your audio system for a high fidelity sound. Listen to Softy, and KJR in all their harmonic majesty no matter where you live in the world. Can you stream the game? Not currently, but I imagine partnerships will be developed for that to in the near future. In fact I wrote CSTV about considering such a partnership. In the meantime I just hook up the Y cable to the audio during games from my PC.

9. The Big Flat Screen

I can't believe we used to think that a 28" had a huge screen! With today's HD TV's you get incredible sound, picture, and internet applications. you really are only limited by the size of your wallet and the size of the wall you are mounting the screen on. Samsung by the way seems to be the official flat screen of the SBN blogs.

10. Membership in the UW Dawg Pound

The message board is alive during game day and during the week we try to give you a positive view of what is going on with the team.

Conclusion

I have gone to a lot of work and some expense putting together my complete Husky package, and if you are married you may not get the support you need, but since all these things work well with music, and other entertainment options you should be able to keep her happy too with all the new options you have put at her disposal!

My ultimate goal is never miss a Husky game ever again!