Oh my golly, it's 2007!

So despite two amazing wins (and I'll admit it; I managed to catch the game against the Bruins while in Cleveland before the trip back to the motherland known as New Jersey), a rollercoaster loss against the Red Wingnuts, and a crushing OTL that involved prestidigitation by the referees and the "War Room" in Toronto, I managed to stick with my promise that I would avoid posting until the new year. Believe me, I've been chomping at the bit ever since the Minnesota Wild game to post something -- anything -- about the games.

And it's been a good thing, too! I'm glad I resisted the urge to post, since it's given me time to kick back, relax, and not just enjoy myself while on vacation, but also put in to perspective how I can make Army of the Ohio better. Honestly, I've been trying to come up with a thing or two that I could post about on a regular basis, since just posting pre-game commentary and post-game recaps is about as dull as frell. That, and considering I will most likely be working during all Blue Jackets' home games now, that means only being able to catch, at most, half of a game ... usually less if I'm not lucky enough to be put at one of the kiosks at Nationwide Arena which is in the proverbial "dead zone" of activity and sales (see: almost all upper floor kiosks). It isn't exactly easy to go writing up full recaps when you'll only have X amount of a game to watch, along with recaps from YouTube or NHL.com.

I'm not anywhere near as good as, say, Battle of Alberta or Jes, for example, when it comes to number crunching and showing people intriguing statistics; mathematics and the use of numbers in general have always been one of my weaker points (I blame my high school teachers for this!). I also lack the flair and superior writing style that Truth Serum has when it comes to writing rants, since my ability to stay on target and on topic is pretty bad. The joys of having the attention span of a ferret, right?

So what can I do? Well, if you look back a couple of weeks, I tried something on the fly: analyzing the different goals that the Blue Jackets gave up against the Red Wings during that 5-0 rout. Remember that I'm majoring in management with a focus on sports, so the mental and analytical aspect of the game has always been the most intriguing part of it to me. And the fact that I only commented about goals against the Blue Jackets isn't a reflection on me ignoring goals for them; it's just that they were shut out that night!

So I'm going to keep with that, and see if I can't tweak that to be done in a more in-depth, as well as entertaining way as the season rolls along. I also need to stop procrastinating when it comes to sharing my thoughts or comments about things in the news when it comes to the league in general. I've had thoughts about things from the Rory Fitzpatrick campaign to the new, "aerodynamic" jerseys to re-alignment, and I never seem to find the time to write about them! Of course this blog is about the Blue Jackets first and foremost, but that doesn't mean it's smart to just live in a theoretical bubble in Columbus when it comes to league news.

Last but not least, I need to clean up the layout of this blog. There's a whole lot of background code that needs to be cut out, and I also need to try and work on a better presentation that not only looks good, but is original (as in doesn't rely on 'borrowing' graphics from the CBJ website). I think that will be the first thing I work on as a New Years' resolution for AotO, since a better looking blog makes me want to do more with it.

I'll be back in Columbus tonight, after a mid-afternoon flight out of Newark, then a connecting flight in Pittsburgh. Until then, I'm out!