After the weekend that I considered a loser, the Big Red crew was ready to go at Liberty University on Saturday for its game with JMU. And no, folks, I didn't lose money the weekend before but after both LU and JMU games being substandard, and my sales at RIR being at best, average, the weekend was so far from my expectations it felt like a loser.

I was a bit gunshy this weekend. This should have been a huge crowd between the two intrastate rivals and since we've handled both schools for several years, our reputation should translate into a great sales day. I almost decided I'd overstaffed the event as I had Chuck, Ryan and Peggy come down from Harrisonburg, Tank and Laura from here, and me--bad hip and all. With the much cooler weather causing a drop in lemonade sales and with the opening weekend disappointment, I was scared.

The only thing I figured wrong this week was the overstaffed bit. Huge crowd, long lines most of the night and a fabulous result. The staff was awesome and it put Big Red back on top.

I'm off this weekend and start a tough month Oct 1 with games again at both LU and JMU at the same time. If we can get another warm-hot Saturday, I want to bring Justin or Nigel down and try hawking lemonade. We probably would have done OK with that on Saturday despite the cold weather, but I was afraid to try. It was really a great crowd and a great day.

October also features two race weekends at Martinsville and another Saturday with both LU and JMU playing. So it will be a very busy month.

On a more personal note, I've mentioned my hip problems and over the next few weeks or months, I plan to chronicle my efforts up to and including surgery whenever that happens.

Between my personal physician and the surgeon he referred me to, I've been told I have a severe arthritic condition, so bad, in fact, that I am not a candidate for the laproscopic surgery that is much easier than a replacement. Because of my schedule, I can't afford the four months or so to recover until I get through the fall season. I also have no health insurance so this is coming out of my pocket unless I can somehow put it off a couple of years until I qualify for Medicaid.

So, Dr. Caprise sent me to start a therapy program. The goals of this are to maintain some semblance of normalcy until Thanksgiving, and/or it I improve, the outside chance of delaying replacement until I reach 65.

The therapy has three parts: office visits where they manipulate the hip, measure any improvements and hook me up to some electrodes and electrocute my hip for 20 minutes. Actually after the first session on Friday, I felt better than I have for months. Unfortunately that didn't last as I was back to hurting on Saturday but it helped improve my overall outlook at this program.

The second part is a series of 8 daily excercises I do one or two times each eay at home. I started that yesterday, and quite frankly, it hurt like hell.

This morning, I rejoined the YMCA and to start a water therapy session that I'll do every other day. It features 10 minutes in the whirlpool, 10 excercises that I work up to three sets each session, followed by 20 more minutes in the hot tub. Today's went pretty well, and although I'm tired, I'm not hurting any more than before I started. I also snuck in 15 minutes in the sauna.

Hopefully, in time, this will help to lose a little weight as well. I tipped the scales at 269 today and hope to target 200 before I undergo the surgery.

Any information, advice or suggestions will always be welcome.