Hey little girl!

Guess who’s sitting in the lobby of the Cedars Inn in Ritzville with tears in his eyes?

Guess who can’t believe you’re graduating from Washington State already?

Didn’t I just take you to kindergarten for your first day of school at Sunset Elementary?

Weren’t we just in Indian Princesses with other dads and their 5-to-9-year-old daughters?

For that matter, wasn’t it just yesterday when you were born? How did 22 years go by just… like… that?

You were born on Mother’s Day, May 12, 1991, and the first thing you heard when you entered the world was the Cougar fight song from an excited new dad.

As a little kid, you made it through a dog bite that left a scar on your cheek and a swing of an aluminum bat by the neighbor girl that took us to Children’s Hospital to repair your broken cheekbone.

You made it through your parents’ divorce.

You made it through some tough times academically – school has never been easy for you, but you worked at it and have truly earned your degree.

I’m glad we’re close. I’m glad we spend a lot of time together. I’m glad we’ve decided that Dads’ Weekends in Pullman don’t have to end just because your four years as a student have.

And I’m glad we’ve taken so many road trips, mostly to Lake Tahoe but also to Banff. Then last November to Tempe when we had too many margaritas before the Cougar game against ASU.

You were lit, I was lit, and yep, I admit to being glad we did that too.

Good times, little girl.

As a father, I should have some great words of wisdom for you now that you’re about to enter the real world. But other than “Go Cougs,” I don’t.

I’m thrilled for you for many reasons and appreciate that you love Washington State and being a Coug as much as I do.

I love that you’re in no hurry to be an adult. Neither am I. But you’ll be fine. You’ll be more than fine.

OK, I’m done. I don’t want to blubber in front of your brothers. They’re anxious to get to Ferdinand’s.

Just know this, little girl. I’m as proud as a dad can be.

I’ve got a cool vet. I know… everyone who has a dog thinks his vet is cool. But mine’s the coolest.

She’s Dr. Terry Tomchick at Alpine Animal Hospital. I’ve known “Dr. Terry” for 25 years. I took my first golden, Murph, to Dr. Terry when he was six weeks old.

Fourteen years later, I took my second golden, Willie, to Dr. Terry when he was six weeks old.

Willie’s almost 10 years old now. I took him in for a “senior” check-up two weeks ago. In most respects, he’s doing fine.

But something showed up in the X-rays. His intestines are in a different position than they should be. Or something like that.

Because they’re situated the way they are, there’s some concern about his spleen. Dr. Terry mentioned that they didn’t see a “mass” in the X-rays, but they want to make sure. So she suggested an ultrasound.

The ultrasound will cost $300 to $400, and I was good to go with that. If he has a mass, Willie can live without his spleen if need be. Dr. Terry said if it were her dog, she’d have an ultrasound.

So tomorrow, Willie will have one. And Dr. Terry called me back to tell me that Alpine Animal Hospital will pay for it through its Pet Fund.

The clinic has a Pet Fund that was formed 10 years ago. It helps dog and cat owners in financial need.

The Pet Fund was originally funded by former Mariner Jeff Cirillo, who promised to make a $20,000 donation to my favorite charity if he didn’t hit .280 during the 2003 season.

I can’t remember what he hit, but he fell short of .280, and Cirillo came through on his pledge – donating $10,000 to Alpine Animal Hospital and $10,000 to the Kitsap County Humane Society.

The $10,000 at Alpine Animal Hospital was used to start the Pet Fund, which exists to this day.

I guess as a thank you of sorts, Dr. Terry will take care of Willie’s ultrasound tomorrow through the Pet Fund.

I want to thank her for that and Jeff Cirillo too. And now you know why I think I’ve got the coolest vet of all.

Plus one more thanks to you for coming back to the site. Hope you have a good day.

For a long time, I weighed 210 pounds. Then for a long time I weighed 220 pounds, then 225, and for the past several years, I’ve held steady at 230.

What’s next 240, 250, 300?

That’s the fear. But what I’m going to try to do is head in the other direction. I’m shooting for 200 but would be thrilled to hit 210 again.

Yesterday was my first day on “The Fast Diet.” I read about it in the Seattle Times a couple of Sundays ago.

I’m sure it’s unhealthy as heck, but it sounded like something that might work for me. I have zero willpower. Food pretty much owns me, but on this diet, you can eat whatever you want five days a week.

The other two days, you are limited to 600 calories. There’s some sort of science behind “fasting” that allows you to lose weight besides merely consuming fewer calories.

I bought the book, read it and started the diet yesterday. My fast days are Monday and Thursday. Yesterday I had a spinach feta wrap at Starbucks (290 calories) and a Southwest grilled chicken salad at McDonald’s (315 calories). I went over my daily limit by 5 calories.

I had the wrap at 10 a.m. and the salad at 2 p.m. I didn’t eat the rest of the day. Was I hungry last night? Yep. But I fought off the urge to go to the pantry and refrigerator, knowing that I could eat like a normal person or eat like a fat person today.

We’ll see how it goes. I’ve failed miserably at diets before. But I’m 6-foot-1 and should weigh 190 according to those charts. I don’t know if I can get that low, but I know that I shouldn’t weigh 230. I’m sick of wearing my golf shirts untucked to hide my gut.

I’d also like to live long enough to see my kids graduate from high school and college. They’re still only 8, so I’ve got a ways to go.

Thanks for stopping by the website. Hope you have a good day. Go Cougs.

I really thought we were going to beat the Huskies in the Pac-12 tourney last night. We had just come off a couple of great wins over UCLA and USC, and I thought that momentum would carry us past the Dawgs.

How confident was I? Confident enough to talk trash over and over again on Facebook, counting down the hours until we would celebrate the win over our rivals.

As everyone knows, the Huskies aren’t that good, barely beating us in two regular-season games. I thought this third game set up perfectly for us, realizing we’re not very good either, but good enough to beat Lorenzo Romar’s team in Vegas.

As you know, we were getting it handed to us for 34 minutes. We trailed by 19 points early in the second half, and we were still behind 62-47 with around 6 minutes to go.

Then we suddenly got hot, and the Huskies went cold. We scored 15 consecutive points to tie the game at 62-62. We had a chance to take the lead only to have D.J. Shelton’s three come up short with around 2 minutes left.

We ended up losing 64-62 after Brock Motum took an ill-advised three with 6 seconds to go, trying to get a foul from Andrew Andrews. He wasn’t fouled, and he didn’t take a good shot.

I would’ve rather seen Motum drive to the basket and force OT or swing it to one of his teammates, who surely must have been more open than he was.

I can’t believe that I still get worked up over Cougar basketball games. I set myself up to be as disappointed as I am right now.

In the scheme of things, I try to tell myself: “It’s Cougar basketball. We’re not very good. We’re the 11th-place team in a 12-team conference. Why would you think we have a chance to make it the Pac-12 tournament championship game?”

Because I really thought we had a chance. If we’d beaten Washington, we would have had a shot against Oregon. We led the Ducks by double digits in both regular-season meetings this year. And then I would’ve given us a reasonable shot to beat Cal in the semifinals. There isn’t much separation, top to bottom, in the Pac-12 this year.

I was front and center, a few feet from my flat screen, hoping that we’d hit some kind of buzzer beater and advance to play the Ducks. I was also picturing the Dawgs heading home with their tails between their legs.

Better yet, I was picturing Greg Rankich leading the campaign to keep Ken Bone as our coach. Rankich is the Coug who donated $3 million the Martin Stadium renovation. He’s also a Coug who wants Bone fired.

I made a deal with him via Twitter during the game last night, asking him to lead the “Keep Ken Bone” campaign if the Cougs rallied to win. He agreed. The Cougs came pretty close to making it happen.

Not sure how you feel about it, but I hope that Bill Moos keeps Bone. I watched most of our games this year, and what I liked about our team is that it played hard in every game.

Did we lose a lot of games? Yep, we sure did. But it had more to do with a lack of talent than effort. Bone’s responsible for the talent too, I get that. But let’s see how we do next year.

I don’t follow it closely enough to know who we have coming in, but I’ve heard reports that we have some pretty good players who will join the Cougs.

If I had to bet, though, I’d guess that Moos is going to want a new coach now. Hopefully I’m wrong about that.

Go Cougs.

I admit that for about 30 seconds, maybe 60, I was mad at Dexter Kernich-Drew. How could he have fouled E.J. Singler with 3.8 seconds left in overtime with the score tied 77-77?

Royce Woolridge had just made an improbable 3-pointer to tie the game. I say improbable because Woolridge isn’t that great of a 3-point shooter. He’s OK, not great.

And the situation, with a man in his face? When the Cougs needed it most? For him to deliver at that moment? After DaVonte Lacy made a three to send the game into overtime?

I figured we had used up our unbelievable-shot quotient for one game. But when Woolridge made his three, I thought maybe we were destined to beat the Ducks, a last-place team was actually going to beat the first-place team in the Pac-12.

But no. Of course that didn’t happen. Gawd it is hard to stay positive with this team.

Thinking we needed to foul to get the ball back, Kernich-Drew bear-hugged Singler and sent him to the line for two free throws that he naturally made.

Said Singler: “I was shocked.”

Hey E.J., so was everyone else.

“What are you doing!?!?!” I yelled at my flat screen, as if Kernich-Drew would have heard me in Pullman, 280 miles away.

I was preparing for Singler to throw up a last-second shot and miss, just like he did at the end of regulation. Or hoping he would anyway.

I was looking forward to the second OT in which Woolridge might have scored four more points and been the rightful hero with a career-high of 40 in a startling Cougar win.

Or how about triple OT or even quadruple OT with the Cougs winning and the Zzu Cru storming the floor and putting Woolridge on their shoulders?

While cursing Kernich-Drew, I shook my head. My 8-year-olds watched the game with me, as they always do whenever the Cougs are playing. When we led 32-15, I said to them: “How do you think we’re gonna lose tonight?”

Sure enough, we found yet another way. I’m guessing we’ll be ahead of ASU Wednesday night, and a meteor will prevent us from winning.

But just as quickly as I got mad at Kernich-Drew, I let it go. He’s a kid. He screwed up. He feels worse about it than I do. I wish it hadn’t happened. He really, really, REALLY wishes it hadn’t happened.

I’m just upset that my alma mater lost another college basketball game in the weirdest way possible. He’s upset that he let his teammates down. That’s worse, much worse.

Coach Ken Bone said Kernich-Drew “was bummed.” I’ll bet. I would have gotten hammered Saturday night if I were him. I would have drowned my sorrows and then some.

I’ve gone from being mad at Kernich-Drew to feeling really bad for him. I hope that sometime soon, he will redeem himself.

I’m hoping that on March 3, it happens. Kernich-Drew launches a three-pointer as the buzzer sounds. When the ball swishes through the net, the Cougars beat the Huskies 65-64 at Alaska Airlines Arena.

If it happens, I plan to rush the court, crutches and all.

Hang in there, kid. We’ve all made mistakes. You’ll get your second chance.

Go Cougs.

I haven’t posted anything in a week and a half and I’ll give you the top two reasons why…

1) I have a tendency to be lazy, an affliction that has dogged me for years.
2) I’ve been dealing with a knee injury that has taken me down a bit.

Right when I was getting ready to write about letter-of-intent day and trashing the Huskies for something, I got the news that my knee injury was more serious than what the MRI had shown.

My doctor, Tom Castle, said I had meniscus damage and other particles that were floating around due to arthritis. I’d have arthroscopic surgery and that would be that, just like it was in 2001 when I had the same surgery on the other knee.

But when he got inside the knee, he found other stuff, not very good stuff such as a microfractured femur or kneecap or something that shouldn’t be microfractured.

The upshot: I guess he drilled a couple of holes in the bone that releases something that resembles cranberry jam – that’s what he called it anyway. Maybe it’s blood and platelets or something, I’m not sure.

Anyway, I was told at my follow-up appointment that I need to keep all of my 230 pounds off my right leg for the next five weeks to allow the cranberry jam to form an “artificial” type of cartilage that will let my knee operate like it should.

And the way I understand it, if you don’t keep your weight off of it and don’t get on a stationary bike for two to three hours a day, the cranberry jam turns bone-like instead of cartilage-like, and that’s not what you want.

So I’m coming to grips with three things:
1) Being on crutches for the next five weeks. You never realize what a hassle that is until you’re on crutches. The crutches aren’t so bad – it’s just that you can’t carry anything while you’re hobbling all over the place.
2) Dr. Castle told me I should get on a stationary bike for three hours a day. He’s not looking for the cardio benefits; he wants “motion” in the knee. I got a membership at Planet Fitness and spent 90 minutes on the bike this afternoon, but I wasn’t able to do a full rotation with the pedals because of soreness and stiffness in the knee.
3) Dr. Castle also said I should never run again. Out of everything, this is the worst news of all. I tell myself I’m OK with that when I’m really not. I’ve been running for 35 years, and I’m probably in this situation as a result – I’m guessing that pounding the pavement when you’re 20 pounds overweight isn’t the smartest thing in the world, but that’s what I’ve been doing.

So I’m coming to grips with that. Castle said I could golf again so that’s cool. If he told me I couldn’t golf again, I’d be too drunk to be writing a new post right now.

I’m being philosophical about it and doing the best that I can to follow Castle’s instructions. I want to play Horse with my kids in the driveway. I want to walk my dog again. I want to be a single-digit handicapper.

But it’s been a blow. To think that I’ll never run again after doing it for so long is tough. Oh well, thanks for stopping by the site again. And above all else…

Go Cougs.

If you watched the Pac-12 Network for four hours like I did Wednesday night, you know that Oregon beat Washington State 68-61 and Oregon State beat Washington 74-66.

The Cougs led 39-29 at halftime, but everyone who follows them knew we’d probably lose, and we did. Just being honest, hate to be pessimistic and glass-is-half-empty when it comes to the Cougs in anything, but our hoops team isn’t very good, and Oregon’s is.

The Ducks are ranked 16th in the country. We played great in the first half, making 7 of 13 three-point attempts. Then we went 0-for-11 from beyond the arc in the second half.

Playing at home, the Ducks rallied like you figured they would. We didn’t collapse entirely, but just enough for Oregon to coast in the last two minutes.

Interestingly, the Beavers also led 39-29 at halftime and hung on after the Dawgs closed within 53-52. Oregon State won its first Pac-12 game just like Utah did when it beat Washington last Saturday at Hec Ed Pavilion.

The Husky loss eased the pain of the Cougar loss. Husky losses have a way of doing that. People wonder – or I should say that Husky fans wonder – which makes me happier, a Cougar win or a Husky loss?

Cougar wins still make me happier, but Husky losses aren’t far behind. In fact, if it were a horse race, it would be a photo finish with Cougar wins nosing out Husky losses on the happiness meter.

With basketball, we’re not expecting much from our team this year. So when we do post a win in the Pac-12, it’s a nice surprise.

The Huskies always expect to make it to the NCAA Tournament. So when they lose, especially to bottom feeders such as Utah and Oregon State, it’s a beautiful thing. Though I’ll freely admit that U-Dub basketball losses aren’t nearly as much fun as U-Dub football losses.

If there’s a fault with Lorenzo Romar, it’s that he’s too darn likable. I like to see his team lose, but I don’t like to see him lose, if that makes sense, which I know it doesn’t.

I just like the fact that Husky fans must have been getting their hopes up with a 4-0 start to the conference season. And I’m sure they thought they’d beat Utah last Saturday to improve to 5-0. Now they’re 4-2 and about to go to 4-3 when they lose to Oregon on Saturday.

Am I a shallow and really small person? God yes. One more thing…

Go Cougs.

Just when you thought it couldn’t possibly get worse for Ryan Leaf, the former Cougar QB violated his treatment plan at a drug-treatment center and was sent to the Montana State Prison.

In an Associated Press story, we learn that the staff at the treatment center had exhausted all resources in keeping him there. We also learned that Leaf wanted to drag a staffer by his hair and that he wanted to throw the staffer against a wall and smash a glass into the man’s head.

So now he’s in the big house. His five-year sentence for burglary and possession of dangerous drugs called for him to be in the treatment facility for nine months as an alternative to prison.

He’ll be at the Montana State Prison until at least June 30, when he’ll be eligible for parole.

What is there left to say? I don’t know enough about drug addiction to write intelligently about it.

It’s got a powerful grip on Leaf, that’s for sure. If it didn’t, he’d be more accepting of the help he needs.

I still have a hard time believing that all of this is happening. I met Leaf for lunch at Joey Restaurant in Seattle two years ago. He seemed to be on the comeback road and grateful for support from Coug Nation.

Then in 2011 at Banyan’s at Palouse Ridge before the Stanford game, Leaf gave books to every person, friend and relative, who had helped him through his ordeal.

He spoke to each person with heartfelt gratitude, tearing up at times.

If you had told me that night that he would end up in the Montana State Prison, I would not have believed it. He seemed like he had gone through the worst of it and was coming out on the other side.

But, again, I know nothing about drug addiction. I’m just saddened by the latest chapter in the Ryan Leaf saga.

It’s sad but true – a Husky loss takes some of the sting out of a Coug loss.

Such was the case last night – Colorado beat Washington State 58-49, but at least Utah defeated Washington 74-65.

The Huskies’ loss was worse than ours – Washington was 4-0 in Pac-12 play, and Utah was not only winless, the Utes had never won a conference game on the road.

How we beat that Utah team by 10 points on Wednesday night is beyond me. The Utes looked pretty good against the Dawgs.

Meanwhile, we looked pretty bad as you know if you watched the game. We can’t shoot and we’re boring to watch. How in the world did we almost beat Gonzaga in December?

Hate to be pessimistic about the Cougs, but it’s hard to see us winning any games on the road. Maybe we’ll eke one out at Corvallis or Tempe, but as for anywhere else, I’m not seeing it.

But it cheered me up to see the Dawgs go down to the supposedly worst team in the conference.

TOMORROW: Reporting on the Dawgs’ new assistant strength and conditioning coach, Grey Ruegamer, who castrated lambs with his teeth when he played at Arizona State.

Lots of Coug football news this week with the Pac-12 finding that Mike Leach and his assistant coaches have not been abusive to the players, a claim that Marquess Wilson made when he left the team in November.

The 2013 schedule was also released this week with the surprise announcement that the Stanford game will be played in Seattle instead of the Oregon State game.

I’m glad that the Pac-12 investigation has finally ended and that Leach was cleared of any wrongdoing.

I’ve heard from some Cougs who feel like I’ve got issues with Leach. I don’t. I personally don’t think I’d respond in a positive way to his coaching methods, but if this is what it takes to change our losing culture, fine.

He knows what he’s doing. He built a highly successful program at Texas Tech and you can only assume he’ll do the same thing at Washington State.

I just thought we’d be better than 3-9 this year. Leach accused of me having some kind of “agenda,” and I really don’t other than thinking we’d be better than we were this year.

I would’ve even accepted 3-9 if we had lost games 46-35 instead of 46-7. I’m guessing that even Leach’s biggest supporters thought we’d be better offensively than we were.

But I guess you can blame those problems on our offensive line – at least that’s what I hear all the time.

So let’s see what happens in 2013. It’s going to be difficult opening the season with games at Auburn and USC. And if I’m being honest, I’m not excited about a Martin Stadium schedule with games against Southern Utah, Idaho, Oregon State, Arizona State and Utah.

We replaced the BYU game with Southern Utah. Why? Bill Moos said it had something to do with wanting better scheduling balance.

Translated: We have a much better chance of beating Southern Utah than BYU.

But as a fan, I’d rather watch us lose a close game to BYU than beat the heck out of Southern Utah, a team I didn’t even know existed before it popped up on our schedule.

Southern Utah? Are you kidding me? We already have a cupcake on our schedule in Idaho? Do we really need two?

If you’re a true Coug, I suppose it doesn’t matter – you’re going to buy season tickets anyway. But if you’re an on-the-fence Coug who’s thinking about getting season tickets, having Southern Utah on the schedule makes it harder to get your wallet out.

Here’s another thing I never thought I’d say – I’m ready for the Seattle home games to end. Now that there’s a Pac-12 TV contract that gives millions of dollars to conference schools, is it really necessary to play a game in Seattle anymore?

I like going to the Seattle games – a 10-mile drive beats a 300-mile drive to watch the Cougs – but it’s like an away game for the team. We have a better chance of beating Stanford at Martin Stadium than we do at Century Link Field.

Oh well, Go Cougs.