How many notable sports moments have occurred since The SportDork's last entry?  Allow me to recap:

1) Rafael Nadal picked the underwear out of his butt all the way to his first Wimbledon championship, dethroning Roger Federer.  (Check out the following link from last year's tournament.  Apparently it's become a running joke on tour.  http://funnyvideooftheday.blogspot.com/2007/07/soderling-imitating-rafael-nadal-at.html)

2a) Jason Giambi grew a mustache:

2b) And then shaved it off.

3) The Olympics started, and Michael Phelps has already won three gold medals, proving, as O.J. Simpson once proclaimed on Monday Night Football in reference to a player who was neither right or left handed, that "he's amphibious!"


4)  The University of Georgia Bulldog football team was ranked #1 in the country in all the major preseason football pools, virtually guaranteeing that they will neither win the national championship nor go undefeated.  It also immediately cast bad karma on the Bulldogs, who lost their starting left tackle to injury for the season shortly after the polls were released.


5) Padraig Harrington demonstrated that the ability to contort your face in such a manner that you resemble a gopher somehow increases your odds of winning major champtionships, as he has now won the British Open two years in a row, as well as back-to-back majors.  (Sadly, Sergio Garcia also demonstrated that he still can't make four to six foot putts when they really matter.)

6) The University of Florida finished sixth in ESPN's Titletown contest. 
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/titletown/index

7) The University of Florida finished first in a far more important category - Top Party Schools, according to the Princeton Review's 2009 Edition of The Best Colleges 368 Colleges.  Go Gators!!  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25888709/

8) A-Rod once again exercised impeccable judgment when it comes to the ladies and demonstrated that he is one of our country's great minds by hooking up with Madonna.

9) Geraldo Rivera won ESPN's "Greatest Mustaches" contest.

No argument here.

10) I developed a bad case of Brett Favritis.  It comes from over-exposure to . . . . . you guessed it - Brett Favre.  Symptoms include nausea and hives any time you see his salt and pepper facial hair on your television screen.

11) And finally, since The SportDork last posted an entry, people began asking Tim Tebow to use their newborns as footballs:

Go Gators.

With so many memorable sports moments taking place since my last entry, the question has to be answered - Where has The SportDork been? 

The answer is simpler than you might imagine, and it's only three words:  Mahwah, New Jersey.  That's right.  Shortly after my last entry, The SportDork was exiled to Mahwah, or as I now affectionately refer to it, Mahwahssssssuuuuuupppppp??????  (It's even better if you use the Bud Light voice when you say it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AXB4O3851k&feature=related)

Working twelve hour days has not been a boon for SportDork.com productivity, but having recently stumbled upon a few spare hours, I decided it was time to bring some joy back into the lives of The SportDork Nation.  I sincerely apologize for the month-long hiatus, but every so often that pesky career has to take center stage.  If you ever get the chance to fly from Atlanta to Newark on a weekly basis, I highly recommend jumping at it.  It's a life experience you don't want to miss.  It tests your character, and in the end, makes you stronger.  Kind of like chicken pox.

Here's a stress-relieving piece that I wrote on one of my recent flights in order to avoid attacking someone on the plane.  It might provide some insight into the last month:

Continental Flight 85, seat 22A.  That may not be enough to give you the full picture, so let me see what I can do to help.  Newark to Atlanta on a Thursday night.  7:15 PM scheduled departure time, actually, but that's almost completely irrelevant information, since scheduled departure time when flying from Newark to Atlanta bears little relation to the actual time that your plane's wheels distance themselves from the Newark runway.  It's now nine o'clock.  I wish I could say that we are mid-flight, happily bounding toward our destination, but this is Continental Flight 85 out of Newark on a Thursday night, so we both know that's not the case.  I wish I could say that we are out on the runway, waiting for clearance to begin our journey, but again - this is Continental Flight 85 on a Thursday night.  So here I am, in seat 22A, where I have been for the last hour, waiting for whatever act of Congress is required to allow us to back out of our gate and make our way to the runway, where we will likely join twenty to thirty other planes, and the pilot will delightfully announce that we are number twenty-six in line for take-off. 

Did you know that you are not allowed to have more than one infant-in-arms in any three-seat section of a flight?  It's true.  If the flight has a three-three seat configuration, there can not be more than one infant on either side of the aisle.  Why?  Because there are only four oxygen masks on each side of the aisle.  While I've been flying for many years, this is a regulation of which I was unaware until tonight, when the family of four and mother with child teamed up to violate the afore-mentioned regulation.  It seems that while myself, the seven year-old Indian boy and his mother were on one side of the aisle, the mother with child, as well as the family's father and their infant (which has spent the last hour exercising her vocal chords) were all on the other side of the aisle.  That all changed a few minutes ago, when our astute flight attendant fortunately identified the extreme violation of FAA regulations and re-located the Indian family's infant to our side of the aisle, which afforded me the opportunity to identify that a) the child's screaming is less a result of any personality disorder than it is due to the mucousy discharge emanating from her right ear, and b) she needs a new diaper immediately.  I'm assuming her last illness was bronchitis, since based on the incessant hacking, that's what her mother has.

This flight actually represents a number of firsts.  Not only have I never had the pleasure of enjoying a flight with two infants in my row, but I have also never flown with five children under the age of seven within two rows.  I'm no expert on child feces, but based on the variety of odors currently dancing across my nostrils, I'm pretty sure that the little one sitting next to me isn't the only one due for a new diaper.

The pilot just announced that we are number eighteen in line for take-off, so we've got that going for us.  Much better than number twenty-six, and I'm all about small victories at this point.  I hope that if seat 22A didn’t' mean much to you before, it does now.  I think everyone's been in this seat before.