Hello, to all of you fine fellows. (again) My life, surprisingly, hasn't eased up as to finding time to do my research and writing, so IE posts will be (to everyone's approval) modest in numbers. Interesting to see NDAK is still somewhat of a jerk and can't discriminate between an environmental studies professor and a communist (always a flattering denominator), but some levels of change cannot be expected.
As to the old blog --- I couldn't keep up the pace, so had to let it go. Still gets over 100 hits per day, and apparently some folks (ironically in places like Russia) seem to occasionally try to download the whole thing. Still pumping out the UFO research to the community there though.
As to football: when I couldn't get on IE for so long, I quit logging the individual play-by-play OLine play so can't give any point-of-view-from-the-trenches there, other than to say that almost the only way to win regularly is to have the better and smarter maulers on both sides of the line, and ND DID have that for most of the season. As to Alt and Fisher --- woo baby! Barring injuries we are in GREAT shape there, and they both could play LT or RT and we'd have the start (with Kristovic) of a VERY top pass-blocking line. Last year the staff had a rough time early on and it was hard I believe to "see" Alt that quickly. Plus "logic" said to put Lugg at RT when he should probably have been Tommy Kraemer at RG (Big Tommy as we saw started a few games for the Lions and blocked the waddin' out of opponents on almost every run play and was OK on pass plays --- which should vindicate him and the staff against a few persons who would bad-mouth him here on IE.) Back here at home: we look to be potentially really good on the OLine, maybe great. I'm not sure if center is Kristovic's best position, but (and I've not followed graduations, declarations, transfers well) the Patterson gap is obviously major. There, I've fulfilled my preliminary duty on OLine commentary. Alt, I believe, will be a great tackle --- better than Eichenburg and as good as McGlinchey and sooner. ... no injuries please.