Gheorghasbord: April Madness Edition

Be forewarned, my good Gheorghies. My April is a shitshow of work- and kid-related travel that'll find me scattered across our great nation, from Myrtle Beach (16 hours of driving for eight minutes of cheerleading routines by my daughter) to Minneapolis to Springfield, MA (where I'll be presenting an award to the Springfield Police Department) to Scottsdale, AZ (where I'll be making a presentation to a group of state Attorneys General - Marls and zman, I'll need some lawyer jokes).

As such, I cannot commit to doing my part to maintain our blistering (or, as I prefer to think about it, inevitable age-related settling) pace of one post every two days until we get somewhere near Mother's Day. Just setting expectations.

Even today, after a trip across our fair Commonwealth visiting colleges, all I can muster for you is a few random observations and ephemeral thoughts.

I hope you saw the Walter Mitty story that played out in Chicago two nights ago. The lede from this AP story gives you the Cliff's Notes version: "Scott Foster thought it was going to be just another night. Then the 36-year-old accountant from Oak Park signed a contract, put on his goaltender gear and waited in Chicago's locker room. Then he got into the game."

The Blackhawks lost both of their goalies to injury during their game against the Winnipeg Jets. It's customary for NHL teams to have an emergency third goalie available, but it's exceedingly rare for that break-glass-when-needed dude to see the ice. So rare, in fact, that it had only happened once before, and then only for seconds.

Foster played 14 minutes, and made seven saves while shutting out the Jets. Life is cool, on occasion



Stereotypes exist for a reason. They can be useful shorthand, when they don't lead us to take the easy way out in assessing people. In the case of the two schools we visited with my daughter this week, the typecasting was on point. Our tour guide at William & Mary was a poly-lingual International Relations major who'd spent her Spring Break doing sociology research in the Dominican Republic and participated in Ultimate Frisbee and the Cheese Club. At VCU, the student guide had purple hair and a wicked caffeine habit.

My daughter liked VCU better.

I mentioned in the comments of a thread a few days ago that I'd enjoyed a beer called whitemiata from Richmond's The Veil Brewing Company. What I didn't really get into was the fact that our state capital has developed a killer beer scene. Sure, Stone Brewing gets a ton of pub for locating its East Coast plant on the James River, but breweries like Ardent, Hardywood, Lickinghole Creek, The Veil, Center of the Universe, Three Notch'd, Legend, and a bunch of others are putting out killer product. Vinepair named RVA the #1 Beer Destination in the World for 2018.

My daughter might be on to something.

I had an opportunity to reference the movie PCU earlier this week on Twitter. I relish such opportunities. Someday, when I have the time and inclination (so, likely after I've retired), I'll write a lengthy Gheorghepost on the genius of that film. It's stupid, and generally predictable, but buried in and amongst the filmmakers' obvious hope to be the Animal House for the 90s lies some wisdom. For example, we learned in PCU not to wear the t-shirt of the band we're going to see. That protest for protest's sake is both pointless and poseurish. And, most importantly, that parties serve a valuable social purpose.