Circling the wagons

The NHL is now in playoff season and for the second time in franchise, the Blue Jackets are in the dance. They're playing the Pittsburgh Penguins, who are on paper a much better team. This is why the game is played though, after four games of a seven game series the teams are tied at two wins a apiece, which means the Blue Jackets have won their first two playoff games in franchise history.

Last night's game was quite dramatic, the Blue Jackets were down 3-0, on home ice, with about ten minutes gone in the game. I was a bit distracted setting my my new laptop to get bummed, although I did suggest the team replace their goaltender to, perhaps, shake the team up. That did not happen.

What did happen was a slow, grinding comeback the Blue Jackets have become successful at. They picked up a goal late in the first period, another late in the second and tied in on a brutal mistake by the Penguins goaltender with about 20 seconds left in the game.

It was quite the moment. A moment that, for me, removed the curse of so many horrible things in franchise history; the last second defeats, the routs, the use of Boomer the Cannon as a mascot, Doug MacLean, the time the team let a person in the opposing teams jersey ride around on the zamboni between periods, all of the failed first round picks, the time the team played the opposing teams goal song after they scored, all of the failed trades and on and on.

The game went to overtime and the Blue Jackets won it three minutes in. I have not seen a team so resilient since, well, the Buffalo Bills of over twenty years ago.

Anything can happen in a best of three now. Both sides are bruised, hurting and willing to battle more. Because it's the Cup.

After almost seven years, my trusty Macbook that I have taken so many places was finally slowing down. I'm not sure if the hard drive (the second one) or the logic board were beginning to fail, but I was not going to put any more into it. So I picked up a MacBook Pro last night (thanks Mom!)

It's quite the device, with a lot of processing power so we can really use Chromecast to watch A Trip to Italy and Mastermind with no buffering problems. It has Pages so maybe I can get off my ass and put desktop publishing to use.