Taking A Breath, Finally

BCS game over, "Tailgate Overtime" over, "Chevy Florida Fishing Report" starting at the beginning of February -- time to stop and take a look around, for the first time since August. Wow, I have TWO kids?

In order to keep things interesting this month -- in between thrice-weekly meetings to discuss what we're doing next -- I will be appearing on the much-heralded "Dante & Galante Show" at orlandomagic.com on Thursday at 3pm. For those who haven't caught the fever yet, it's an Internet-only interview show produced by Magic radio producer Dante Marchitelli and Director of Communications George Galante. The format is, umm, loose. I've already been warned that it could mean the end of my broadcast career -- and that warning came from Dante. Good times.

One follow-up to my great Capital One Bowl adventure -- more than one reader, including Orlando Sentinel columnist Jerry Greene, took me to task for sending my wife back to the parking lot on the bus to look for the mysterious missing ticket whilst I sashayed into the Hospitality Tent looking for refreshments. In my defense (and as I explained to Jerry) -- that was her idea. In her words, "I lost it, I'll go find it."

Which may partially explain why we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary last week. She's a warrior. Clearly, I overachieved, or as I like to say, "outkicked my coverage."

By the way, the traditional wedding gift for the big one-oh? Tin, aluminum, or diamond. That's a hell of a range, no? Can you guess what direction we went? Actually, we adopted an intriguing policy for all gift-giving holidays, one that I'm happy to share: I buy what I want, and she buys what she wants. Everybody's a winner. This worked beautifully at Christmas. I'm all about the spirit of the season.

It's pretty much planning and housekeeping for the rest of the month around here. The "Chevy Florida Fishing Report" is back on January 31st; I will miss the season debut, as I booked a vacation for that final week of January. Don't worry, there's only 36 shows left after the opener.

Meanwhile, the Magic still stink at home, while the Heat simply stink. And I know it's way after the fact, but I had to throw this in:

I watched the Magic-Rockets game at home on Friday night (thank you, DirecTV!) and went suitably apoplectic when Adonal Foyle's apparent game-tying tip-in was waved off, eventually. The game crew was all over it -- excellent looks at the replays from the truck, David Steele and Matt Guokas wondering out loud, as I was, how the refs could possibly have missed it. Once the smoke cleared, the FSN Florida broadcast went to a commercial break.

During those 120 seconds, a thought dawned on me -- for some reason, I kept interpreting the fact that Foyle had started his shot before double-zeroes as proof that it should have been good, when, as all hoopheads know, the ball must be clear of his hand before double-zeroes for it to count. Despite the twenty replays, I was too worked up to consider that fact. And here's the interesting part -- once David and Matt came back from break, it sounded like the same thought had just occurred to them.

You have to understand, a call has to be particularly egregious for David Steele to jump down a ref's throat. He's just not a screaming-homer type. Yet, as bonkers as they both had gone when the play occurred, he and Matt were oddly subdued when they came back for the postgame -- as if they had just remembered the same thing that I remembered.

Of course, the more likely story is that our FSN truck found a more definitive replay during the commercial break and showed it to the talent, who realized that the refs had (eventually) been correct. Still, it was interesting.

Maybe I should get into broadcasting or something.