A Rambling Tuesday Morning

TigerBlog was driving on Nassau Street this morning, near one of the crosswalks.

The law says that drivers must yield to the pedestrians, which in theory is a pretty good idea. On the other hand, what if the pedestrian assumes that the car is stopping but the car doesn't?

TigerBlog would hate for his last words to be "... but TB had the right of way ..."

The problem TB always has when he's driving in that situation is what to do when he can clearly get past the pedestrian before that person enters the roadway. Should he stop anyway?

And what about the person who is standing near the crosswalk but isn't actually crossing the street? Then the driver has to stop for no reason.

There was a young man - a student - on Nassau Street this morning at the walkway, and as he stepped into the road, the car in front of TB's kept going, forcing the student to stop and wait. As the car went by, the kid looked at TB, who had stopped, and extended his arms, palms open and up, as if to say "what's up with that guy?"

TB was going to roll down his window and point out that the car that kept going had New York plates, which might have explained it. Instead, he just kept going.

So there's that.

There's also the issue of the gnats that swarmed Lot 21 yesterday afternoon. They were everywhere.

It's something that happens this time of year. And they were awful yesterday.

TigerBlog could see the swarms before he ever got near his car. The seem to fly in clusters, and so the goal is to avoid walking through the cluster, because then they get all over everything - clothes, skin, hair, everything.

TB had to put stuff in the back of the car, and the gnats weren't too prevalent there. Then he had to get into the car, but there was a cluster on that side. Looking back, he should have gotten in the passenger side and climbed over. Instead, he got in on the driver's side - which proved to be a gnat-infested mistake.

Hopefully today will be better.

So there's that too.

The other thing TB wanted to say was that it was freezing in here yesterday.

The last two mornings saw the temperature (on TB's phone at least) fall to 39 degrees. Whatever the reason, it was frozen in these offices all day yesterday.

It's a sign that winter is coming. Sooner than you think, actually, as college hockey season has actually begun. Not here, but elsewhere.

Here, the women's hockey team begins its season on Oct. 26 at Penn State, which has an incredible new facility and whose men's coach is Guy Gadowsky, the former Princeton coach.

The men open their season on Halloween night at the second Liberty Hockey Invitational, which is at the Prudential Center, home of the New Jersey Devils. This year, the event is a little different, with semifinals between UConn and Merrimack and Princeton and Yale and then a third-place game and championship game the next night.

Just in case you're not good at math, that means that women's hockey season starts in 19 days, while the men play in 24 days.

What else can TigerBlog ramble about today?

Chris Sailer, the women's lacrosse coach, just came in. She was wearing a really simple "Princeton Lacrosse" sweatshirt - gray, no hood, orange letters. It reminded TigerBlog that the first two pieces of Princeton attire he ever owned were a Princeton lacrosse sweatshirt that he paid $20 for outside of Palmer Stadium once and then wore for about 20 years and a black Princeton basketball sweatshirt that former women's coach Joan Kowalik gave him.

Today TB is wearing a black Princeton lacrosse short-sleeve golf-type shirt. It's his oldest current Princeton lacrosse shirt, and it was part of a set with a white one, until he gave the white one to a Costa Rican player during the Tigers' trip there in 2012, in exchange for a Costa Rican jersey.

It was very international soccer-ish.

Speaking of soccer, there is a home game tonight for the men, against Rutgers, at 7 (free admission. FREE FREE FREE).

Princeton versus Rutgers is always a good one in men's soccer. Ironically, Nancy Donigan of the compliance staff just walked in.

Nancy's brother-in-law is Dan Donigan, the head coach at Rutgers. Dan went to Steinert High School in Hamilton; Princeton coach Jim Barlow went to Hightstown. TB assumes they played against each other at some point, and it makes him wonder if that's a rarity in college sports. Do coaches often coach against people they played against in high school?

TigerBlog was at the Princeton-Dartmouth game Saturday, and Princeton lost 2-1 in overtime. It was a harsh ending, but only the first Ivy League game.

In the first weekend of Ivy men's soccer, there were four games, all of which were won by one goal. That suggests something of a balanced league, which suggests that nobody is going to run the table.

Princeton hosts Brown this weekend in another doubleheader with the men at 4 and the women at 7. Both of those games are also FREE FREE FREE.

What else does TB have for his rambling Tuesday morning? Nothing.

In fact, he can't remember what he set out to write about today. And yet this is where he ended up.

That's what happens when you ramble.