Stateside

As some of you know, it's been an interesting few weeks, with my father-in-law being rushed to hospital for emergency surgery, blood transfusions and all that good stuff, but he's on the mend now. 

The challenge is that my wife is an only child and California is a long way away and it's probably not the last time we'll get a call like this as neither of her parents are getting any younger. 

Her dad will be 79 in December, her Mum (or Mom) is 75, and as were my own parents, they are somewhat stubborn when lifestyle changes are suggested that would help them. 

They live in a tri-level house that they built themselves, so while that is not an ideal environment, they have this deep emotional attachment to it and simply refuse to even consider moving or down-sizing. 

Neither are particularly mobile, (her Dad was a professional baseball player for several years and has paid the price in recent years with knee and hip replacements) and the consequences of a fall can be severe, but there's only so much one can do. 

At least now that I am retired, it's a lot easier to hop on a plane and fly over there, but it's certainly not an ideal situation. 

Vent over, and the NFL is back, and it's been an unusual start in more ways than one. I mentioned the Friday Night game in Brazil in this previous post, but it's been unusual in terms of results with the biggest favourite losing straight up in both Weeks 1 and 2, the first time this has happened since 1980 according to Sports Odds History.

Week 1 was not pleasant for followers of the systems in the Sacred Manuscript - "brutal" as one subscriber called it - but while it's always nice to get off to a strong start, it's important to remember that it's a marathon not a sprint, and Week 2 was profitable bringing the overall record for this season to 9-13.

The College Football systems are purring along nicely though, with a 41-23 record but the CFL Totals are hurting us north of the border with an overall 16-18 record there. 

The WNBA regular season ends today, and we have one final selection before the playoffs start on Sunday. The three systems are a combined 31-16-2 (12-7-1, 10-6-1 and 9-3-0) so far. It's not the highest number of selections each season, but since records began it has a good record:

Baseball has another ten days of its regular season to go, with the playoffs starting on October 1st. 

The NBA starts on October 22nd.