Thoughts from a Train Without Wi-Fi

I wrote the following Tuesday morning on the train, but didn’t have internet to post it until Wednesday.

The man in front of me has a Verizon Mi-Fi card. I have been staring at this card and his MacBook for three straight hours, as he command-1-2-3s from Gmail to TweetDeck to Excel, and my iPhone and Mac keeps telling me, “Hey, there’s internet right in front of you – but it’s password protected. Haha!”

Mean, Mi-Fi. Mean, mean, mean Mi-Fi.

I’ve written one article – a piece for the Brookline Patch about the birth of Skating magazine – because all of the sources were hard copy Skating magazines from two years ago, along with one email from Ben Wright (someone I never in my life ever thought would email wanna-be journalist me, but there it was, Sunday morning in my inbox…ask my husband, I fell over in my chair) that I was able to bring up on my phone.

But can I post this piece and assure my editor that it’s done? No, because Amtrak doesn’t offer internet. Greyhound, of all means of transportation, now offers internet, but Amtrak can’t. And because I’m too chicken to ask the man in front of me for access to his Mi-Fi in exchange for five bucks. (Yes, I’m willing to pay at this point.)

There he goes again. Command 1. Command 2. TweetDeck, Excel, GMail. Mean Mi-Fi.

So while he justly hogs his internet, here are some sports related thoughts:

– Despite all of the proclamation that New England Patriots WR Wes Welker is healthy from his MCL/ACL tear, I’m concerned about his possible overcompensation on other joints, which could lead to another injury if he revs back to 100% immediately. Remember that Tom Brady’s tear was preceded to a summer of foot and ankle problems that would lead to him relying on other portions of his legs to pick up additional work – a trait true of any injury. In order to get back faster, you over compensate with other joints what that injured joint, tendon, bone, whatever was slated to do.

Thus, Welker has to get to the point where that injured leg is doing exactly what it was before – and that the non-injured leg isn’t picking up more than it’s usual share of the work. Then he’ll be truly back.

– Sadly but not completely unexpectedly, the National Lacrosse League’s Orlando Titans have closed up shop while they work out ownership issues, aka The Curse of Steve Donner. But the Boston Blazers were able to benefit by picking up well-known laxer Casey Powell. With the Blazers on the last year of their initial three year agreement with the TD Garden and with a city starting to latch onto the sport hard-core, the addition of Powell’s talent could be just the pebble to push it over the edge. With the Boston Cannons the top seed in the MLL Championships and the Blazers now with all the pieces to make a hard-core run this winter, Boston could finally be ready to accept lacrosse completely as a major sport.

– Dear Gwinnett Gladiators: Where are you? What’s going on? Why haven’t you signed anyone in a while? Are you okay? Are you in limbo because of the Syracuse Crunch’s new affiliation? Say something, anything? Did those evil Florida Everblades kidnap you and have you tied up in a closet? Love, Your Concerned Fan in Mass.