As the rugby season winds down in New Mexico (except for the upcoming Rio Grande 7's tournament in late May and a reported visiting team from Wales coming to the Duke City to play the University of New Mexico... hey, I may actually report on that when it happens), it's time to turn back to the national rugby team, and the disaster running through the national rugby office in Boulder.

(Let me get it out of the way now, and say that if they offered me the chance to run USA Rugby, or do the PR for them, I'd do it in a heartbeat)

The "transition team" is now in place, they are going to find a CEO in the next few months (I hope). Today it was announced that New Zealander Peter Thorburn will take the helm of the U.S. National Team, just in time for the hectic summer season, with matches in the North America 4 (with Canada), the Churchill Cup (with Canada, Scotland, England, et al) and World Cup qualifier matches.

I don't know much about Thorburn, but I'd have rather seen Ian Jones, the coach for UNM, as national team coach. He's a really smart rugby guy, good with the players and knows how to get the most out of not much, which is a requirement for working with the underfunded, underfed, underdog USA Rugby offices. And I'm not the only one, Brian Lowe at American Rugby News also gave him a few lines of love in a recent column.

It's good that USA Rugby found someone to run the team, even if the players on the national team are upset that they don't know what's going on.

No one ever knows what's going on up in Boulder, why should the national players be different? I only hope the USA Rugby board can get their act together.

And on another note, my girlfriend's cat has been missing for a week and a half now. We really hope he's just out having a good time. If you can spare a few good thoughts, shoot them over her way for her kitty. Plus I'm housesitting for her this week, she gets to go to Indy for 8 days to train some nurses on how to work over the phone.

Sounds like fun!

Well, it’s Earth Day again.  And every Earth Day I start to reminisce.  About what’s happening to the planet and about what happened when I was in college.  

Nothing major, but when I entered college I was an environmental engineering and environmental science major.  I had such great hopes about being the one who could help salvage the environment and keep the planet from spiraling where it’s still going.  My step-father once told me that he thought I was the kind of person who would be able to have an impact on the planet working from a lab.

As you can see (from my upcoming graduation with a degree in public relations), that went over like a pregnant pole-vaulter.

And now, as I get ready to graduate, and as I watch the massive changes in our environment, I have to ask.  Is it really too late to alter our lifestyles enough to save the planet?

“But we like it warm,” some might say.

How warm do you want it?  Christ, it was almost 100 degrees in Dallas.

100 degrees.  

In Dallas.

IN APRIL!

Are you kidding me?  And people still want to argue that man’s impact on the planet isn’t influencing global warming?

If you go to the photo slide show on Slate, you’ll start to see all of the changes that are going on in the world.  The fabled snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro have thinned, and the ice cap there has melted to near nothing.  The Arctic and Antarctic circles are melting faster and faster, which will have an impact on island nations and coastal areas.

(Although the thought of a lot of Florida and California under 4 stories of water can’t make me cry too much) ;)

“What can we do?” you ask.

I don’t know anymore.  Maybe if I hadn’t switched majors in college…

Ha! For a change I'm not posting in class. ;-P But this is interesting in the rugby community (small though we are) in the U.S. It turns out that Doug Arnot, the current CEO of USA Rugby has decided to step down. He's been the CEO of USA Rugby for about three-and-a-half years, but decided it was time to go. The announcement came last Friday afternoon, usually known in PR groups as a good time to announce bad news, because no one reads the Saturday papers and by the time Monday rolls around, it's old news.

Is this good or bad for rugby in the U.S.? I'm not really sure yet. The staff at the national office has grown in the three-plus years since Arnot took over, and it appears that incoming money has increased at the same time. Player registrations have gone up (but that's deceiving, because they were going up before Arnot took over as CEO), national team money has decreased (the basis for that was the B-Sky-B deal that the men's national team had worked out. According to rumors, that money was slowly siphoned away from the national team for the national office.. yeah yeah, boring I know.)

In a turn for the worse, the head coach of the national team decided he's had enough and also quit. The coach is probably one of the best, if not the best in the U.S. and I'm not sure why he decided to pack it in. One of the blogs I found out about this from (the one I linked too) left me with the feeling that part of it had to do with the above money situation, or lack thereof, for the national team. This is really too bad, since the guy is a really great coach, and it'll suck to see him go.

Now, why did I call this post "another blogger-led overthrow"? It sounds like, from what I've been able to ascertain, that the blogger at www.gainline.us hasn't been too much of a fan of the now soon-to-be former CEO. So was it because of this blogger that Mr. Arnot decided to step down? Did he start some kind of movement that led to Arnot's "ouster"? We wonders, don't we, precious...

Still in class, we're working on animations for the web using dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop and Imageready. Maybe, after learning some more on web design, I'll be able to add some cool stuff to this blog!

Back again, and posting in class! More to come soon!

Kicking back and watching Real Time with Bill Maher. On a Saturday night, yeah I don't have a late night social life. ;-) If anyone else is watching this episode, is it just me or is Erica Jong really kind of an arrogant pain?

I’ve been reading the latest to come down from Major League Baseball about the Barry Bonds Steroid issue. What I still don’t understand is, why aren’t people as outraged about other players using steroids? I hear so much about Barry Bonds, or Mark McGuire, but you don’t hear as much about the people they are facing off with using steroids. If there is any position that could benefit from the increased power of steroid use, it’s the pitchers. It’s a new age and a new sport, complete with new problems.

On a side note, you can't tell me that if Ruth, Nolan Ryan, et al were playing baseball now they wouldn't try steroids if it would improve their performance. Hell, I think Ruth truly believed that cigars, alcohol and women improved his performance (I can't disagree with that, can I get an "Amen"?)

The latest outburst against Bonds, based on some book about him, comes from a couple of reporters for a San Francisco newspaper. I’m not really shocked by this. Bonds has never been the most media-friendly guy, he doesn’t like to put up with the media’s crap and he lets them know it.

There are the usual allegations of racism, that these reporters don’t want Bonds to bypass Babe Ruth as the home run leader. I don’t think it’s as much racism as it is a desire to see a childhood hero (Ruth) not be passed by someone these reporters think of as a jackass.

Although you never know…