Getting Excited About "Gilmore Girls" And Other Thoughts Before A Busy August

If the words "Gilmore Girls" get you excited, then you already saw the big news.

"Gilmore Girls, A Year In The Life" will be released on Netflix the day after Thanksgiving. The sequel will be in the form of four 90-minute episodes, entitled "Fall," "Winter," "Spring" and "Summer."

The original series ran seven seasons, ending in 2007. The concept of reuniting the entire cast nearly a decade later to update what has happened to them is fairly unique, TigerBlog suspects. He can't think of another series that did this.

Okay, okay. "Gilmore Girls" isn't quite "The Sopranos" or "Hill Street Blues" or "Breaking Bad." It was still an entertaining show with some really good characters, and it was usually good for a laugh or two while having a few intriguing storylines, even tackling some fairly serious issues along the way.

The original series ran 153 episodes, and TigerBlog has seen them all, most of them more than once. It's similar to "Parenthood," another show that TigerBlog binge-watched, though it's not quite as serious.

And now it's going to wrap up all of its loose ends. TigerBlog is intrigued.

He's going to be annoyed if Rory ends up with Logan. And if it didn't work out with Lorelei and Luke. And if Lorelei ends up with Christopher? TigerBlog will be downright pissed.

One intriguing piece is that Edward Hermann, the actor who played Lorelei's father Richard Gilmore, passed away earlier this year. How will they deal with that? How will it affect Emily?

What else? Luke's daughter would be 23 or so by now. She was a really smart middle schooler. Maybe she went to Princeton? She was pretty unathletic in the original series, so if she did go to Princeton, she probably wasn't an athlete. Maybe she was a student worker?

Anyway, the four episodes will be on Netflix on Nov. 25. TigerBlog figures he's going to knock them out in one day.

By that time, the fall season at Princeton Athletics will be over and the winter season will be well underway.

The first athletic event for the 2016-17 academic year is four weeks from today, with women's soccer at home against Fordham. The Tigers are home two days later  (Sunday, Aug. 28) against Villanova in a game that will be televised live on ESPNU.

Wait? Four weeks? Is that possible? It's going to be August already?

Where does the time go?

Like TB said, the first athletic event is four weeks from today. It doesn't mean that August will be quiet.

The Opening Ceremonies of the Summer Olympics are a week away. NFL training camps are getting underway.

Princeton figures prominently in both.

There are 13 current or former Princeton athletes, plus two current coaches, who are competing in Rio. You'll be able to follow when they compete, how they're doing and everything else on goprincetontigers.com.

As for the NFL, there are three Princeton alums in training camps right now. Caraun Reid (Detroit) and Mike Catapano (Jets) are veteran defensive linemen. Seth DeValve is a rookie tight end (and fourth round draft pick) with the Cleveland Browns.

A year ago Reid became the first Princeton alum in 30 years to score an NFL touchdown. Will DeValve match that feat this year?

TigerBlog would say that it's not easy to be a Cleveland Browns fan. It's probably easier this year, after the Cavaliers won the NBA title. And the Indians are in first place, with the second-best record in the American League, behind only the Baltimore Orioles.

And who has the worst record in all of Major League Baseball? The Braves. TigerBlog didn't realize that until he looked at the standings yesterday.

It also dawned on TB yesterday that he's only been to four stadiums that are currently in use by Major League Baseball teams: Citizens Bank Park (Phillies), Fenway Park (Red Sox), Camden Yards (Orioles) and Safeco Field (Mariners). Can that really be true? He's never been to Citi Field or the new Yankee Stadium.

He's been to a lot that no longer exist, including Shea Stadium (Mets), the old Yankee Stadium and Veterans Stadium (Philadelphia; TB is the only person who actually liked that stadium). And Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. He really liked that one.

Another stadium he really liked was Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta. He went there a few times while visiting MotherBlog, who lived the final years of her life in that city.

TigerBlog remembers going to a game there while the Olympic Stadium was being built in advance of the 1996 Olympics. The stadium was built on the parking lot of Fulton County Stadium, which meant that nobody could drive a car to the game. Instead, fans had to go a gathering spot and ride shuttle buses, from a few miles away.

Did TigerBlog see chaos there? Nope. He saw orderly lines, as people waited for the next bus. People calmly waited there turn. When one bus would leave, another would pull up. There was no pushing, shoving, fighting, nothing.

If anything, there was just pleasant conversation among strangers as they waited for the bus. It was even more amazing on the way out, when all 40,000 people waited in one line. TigerBlog has never seen anything like it.

Years later, TigerBlog figured that if they had tried that while building the new stadiums in New York, it might not have gone so smoothly.

No wonder MotherBlog loved living in Atlanta. 

As for the stadium in Seattle, TigerBlog was there three years ago, on, like this, the final Friday in July. The occasion was BrotherBlog's wedding, and yesterday was the third anniversary for BB and Joe, the official brother-in-law of TigerBlog.

Happy anniversary to them.

And so this brings us to another Friday in the summer. Have a great weekend everyone.

Princeton Athletics will be playing soon enough. Four weeks, to be exact.