Sort of complimentary, that is. After the cost of the room per night is factored in, complimentary takes on a whole new meaning.
Anyway, it's been awhile since TB actually read a newspaper. At least one that wasn't online.
When he was a kid, The Asbury Park Press and Star-Ledger took turns arriving at his door every day. And FatherBlog always brought home The New York Post.
It was reading those newspapers that played a large role in moving him towards the direction of the newspaper business. For all the years he was in that business, plus most of the time he's been at Princeton, he had morning delivery of The Trenton Times.
For the last few years, though, he has gotten his news online. He reads many newspapers each day, and finds links to different ones all the time. It's how newspapers are to be read these days.
Of course, it makes him wistful for the days when the paper came to the door every day and he would read basically all of it.
So he was pretty fired up when The Oregonian was on his doorstep this morning.
Even better, he was pumped to read it on the beach.
If you've never been to the beach in Oregon, or at least the northern part of the Oregon coast - which TB had never been before this week - the first thing you need to know is that is that it's TB's idea of a nearly perfect beach. The temperature was in the low 70s, and the water was a bit cold.
But the beach was mostly overcast, the wind was gently blowing in off the Pacific, there were mountains whose tops were covered in fog just to the east, there was natural beauty everywhere, the sand was clean and there was hardly a crowd to be found.
If TB had to choose a word to describe it, that word would be relaxing.
So TB took his newspaper and began to read. Of course, it's not always easy to fold a paper on the beach, because of the breeze, but TB did his best.
The lead story on the front page was about a man whose ex-wife had killed a woman in a drunk driving accident 16 years ago and then fled to Canada with their three-year-old and baby. He hadn't seen or heard from them since, until recently, when the ex-wife was finally arrested after having remarried and lived under a false name all those years.
The issue was that the second husband was trying to adopt the two kids, and he is the only father they've ever known. Meanwhile, the first husband has gone through all his money trying to stop it and has of yet gotten nowhere.
After reading that story, TB went to the sports section. There, he found way more stories on what sport than any other, or really every other combined?
That's right.
College football.
There were eight stories about college football in all. There were two on Major League Soccer, one on the playoff push for the Portland Timbers and the other on MLS expansion.
College football dwarfs everything in Oregon. In Seattle, it was more of a balance between the Huskies and Cougars and the Seahawks. Here, talk of college football dominates.
The newspaper this morning had continued its series counting down the top 10 impact players for both Oregon (an offensive guard) and Oregon State (a running back), with today's spotlight on the No. 6 players. There were also depth charts for Oregon's offensive line and Oregon's State backs, depth charts that ran four deep.
There was a round up on other college football news. There was a story on an Oregon player on the Steelers.
And camp hasn't even started yet. Imagine what the season is like around here.
TB saw framed pictures for sale of games at Oregon and Oregon State, with packed houses at both. They sold for $250 each.
Oregon opens its season Aug. 31 against Nicholls. Oregon State opens that same day against Eastern Washington. The regular season ends with Oregon State at Oregon on Nov. 29.
Princeton's season starts three weeks after Oregon and Oregon State start, and it ends one week before the two teams meet.
Ivy League football is great, at least to TigerBlog. The tradition. The long, long history. The relatively even matchups week after week.
He likes the 10 games in 10 weeks format, though he'd be open to an 11th game, or to opening the season and having an off week (for health reasons alone) and of course for Ivy participation in the NCAA playoffs.
TB also loves the fact that football doesn't drive everything about the schools themselves, let alone their athletic departments. He loves that so many Ivy Leaguers - including Princeton's Mike Catapano - are currently competing for NFL spots while at the same time the schools haven't sold their souls in the name of football.
But he also gets that in so many parts of the country, football - especially college football - is where it starts and ends. Princeton will never again be able to compete with the Giants or Jets like it did when the NFL was new. TB gets that.
Oregon and Oregon State? They are bigger than the NFL in this state.
Princeton's 2013 season should be an interesting one.
The Tigers went from 1-9 and 1-9 to 5-5 a year ago. There is considerable excitement about the coming season, as there should be. Clearly Bob Surace has the Tigers headed in the right direction as he enters Year 4.
Princeton began last year 0-2 with tough losses to Lehigh and Georgetown, and those are the first two opponents again this year. After that is the Ivy opener against Columbia, the final non-league game against Lafayette and then, as it always is, Brown, Harvard, Cornell, Penn, Yale and Dartmouth.
Each week provides its own challenge. The goal is to be in contention in November.
By then, TB's time here in the Pacific Northwest will have become a memory, and the serenity of reading a newspaper in nearly perfect conditions on the Oregonian beach will have long vanished.
Football is coming soon at Princeton. Even sooner here in Oregon.
Judging by today's paper, the locals are more than ready.
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