It is six AM.  I am in downtown Sacramento preparing to work until noon.  Heck, I even beat the construction workers to work this morning.  All of this so I can leave at noon and head up and over the hill (where values of hill are in excess of 7000 ft) to go to Reno and Worldcon.

It's a beautiful morning.  That said, I'm thinking about the trip.  Of course, I'll be going the wrong way than the early pioneers, but it seems to me that the route over Donner is significant just because there's so much of the mythical California on that route.  Between the infamous Donner Party, and the transcontinental railroad; between Lake Tahoe and the gold miners; California is a land of myth.

I'm a history major.  Can you tell?

So, what's your favorite part of mythical California?  How about the real one?

There has been one issue that has thrown CGBers against CGBers, that has caused strife and dissention beyond anything that can be believed, that has caused people to quit the blog (although, thankfully, they've come back).  What is this issue?  What could stir the passions of CGBers so much?

It was not USC's sanctions.  It was not Pete Alamar nor Bob Gregory.  It was not over the best beer in the states bordering the Pacific.  It was not about the horrible prospect of Texas joining the Pac-10 -- or Utah or Colorado.  And it probably wasn't Pete Carroll's fault.

No, it was not even over how awesome or horrible Sacramento! is or the sexual mating habits of birds.

Even the Cal band thinks he's awesome! (via pubs.acs.org)

The issue that has caused such dissension here at CGB is the election of Glenn Seaborg to the CGB hall of fame.  And I fear that it is my fault.  After all, I nominated him.  I didn't realize at the time that it would cause such craziness this summer, and if I had to do it again, I would seriously reconsider.

I chose to nominate Seaborg because LeonPowe got my thought process going by bringing up Chancellor Tien.  I was in agreeance that Tien was awesome, but then I realized that Seaborg was even more awesome, and so I put him up for nomination.  It was partially tongue in cheek, and I did not expect the nomination to take off the way it did.

So mea maxima culpa.  It's my fault we now have a chemist in our athletic hall of fame.  That said, I find it pretty awesome (and so very Berkeley) that we've done such a thing.  And I'm sure that if there is such a thing as life after death[1], I'm sure Dr. Seaborg, the lover of Cal that he was, is smiling at the honor.

But I hate being the cause of blog strife, and for that I apologize. 

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[1] I am not arguing whether this statement is true or false.  I said 'if', dammit.

So yeah, you all know about Saturday and are just sharing my pain.

On Sunday, I got the news that a good friend of mine is in the hospital fighting for his life from complications of what is probably H1N1. They think he'll make it, but it'll be a couple weeks before we know anything.

It kinda puts the football game in perspective.  

Or, I suppose, it just gives me something that isn't Cal football to fret about. 

Tony Gonzales in the 1996 USC game, the fifth win of that season.  It was all downhill from there... (via media.scout.com)

This was sparked by a conversation in the the report card thread, in which I mentioned that I hate getting that sixth win when we start 5-0.

So this got me interested in looking at the historical records.  I'm fond of this site for querying data, but in particular it's this set of records that's the most useful for this purpose.  On a quick scan of the records, I've found six teams that couldn't make the jump to 6-0 (1952, 1991, 1993, 1996, 2005, 2007).  There's also the string of 1948-1950, in which we managed three straight seasons where we got to 6-0, but I think we're starting to get a little back in the history.  So let's look at the five teams that fit into the Pac-10 era.

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