T-Ball on the horizon

Today we signed up for year two of T-Ball. This time Sophie signed me up for assistant coach, and she is a team Mom and will help with concessions at some point. I will post updates as the season progresses.

Sampson gets the MOST cookies!!

Well cookie stickers anyway. Hey, this is a big deal as it is the first time it has happened. You see in Sampson's class you get stickers for doing homework and getting good marks on your work in class and whoever gets the most stickers get to pick a prize. I also gave him 5 bucks to pick something out when we went to WALMART and he got the Daredevil DVD. I figured this was a good opportunity to kind of positively reinforce the idea of doing well in school and how rewarding it can be if you do your best. Sophie says I'll have to do the same thing for Peach when she gets in school, but old Dad is tough. I don't pay for C's, she's gonna have to do pretty good if she wants anything from me. Nope, Dad is not soft, not at all . . . well we'll see I guess, but if you see Sampson feel free to congratulate him on doing so well.

Tony's New Team

I guess Tony could win a race with his new team. I'm glad and surprised he is running as well as he has. He finished 8th or so at Daytona and has run in the top 10 in Cali for almost the whole race. So there is some potential for him to get a win. This Cali race Kyle Busch has a chance to win all three races, but it doesn't look like he will get around Jeffy or Matt.

Hyper Miling Results Week #1

Well this week I tried some hyper miling tricks this week to try and stretch out the old MPG's. On Monday, my gas mileage in the cavalier was a paltry 26.5 (this included some Sophie driving though and she is not what you would call "efficient"), but by Friday I got 30.6. That is about a 15% increase in fuel efficiency. So what did I do, well I started by airing the tires up past the recommended. Some hypermilers will push this to the limit of the recommended max on the tire, like 44 psi, but I only went to 38 to start out with. The second thing I did was run on the white line. This keeps you out of the ruts created by normal traffic. It was funny, the first time I tried that it looked like a whole new road opened up for me. If you ever try it on a nice day it will look like you are on a different path. I think this also has an added advantage of keeping you away from the other oncoming traffic thus reducing the drag you encounter from their wake. The other thing I did that pretty much anyone can do is change my parking strategy. It really makes sense when you think about it, how much time do you waste driving around a parking lot looking for a "good" spot and then end up parking far away anyhow. That whole time you're looking you are burning fuel and lowering the efficiency. So what is the solution, pretty much take the first pull through you can get. Also you can look for what the high spot is in the parking lot to help you kind of coast out of the lot when you go to take off. Now I look at parking spots completely differently, the best spot is the most fuel efficient not necessarily the closest. I have also been driving like I don't have brakes. You might say that doesn't make any sense, but when you step on the brake you are essentially wasting the gas that it took you to get going. So how do you drive with out brakes? You just coast into turns, you look for red lights way in front of you so that you can slow down gradually, and also anticipate stop signs and things that you can just let off the gas without using the brake. I have also been taking it easy on the gas trying to stay at 55 or less, but I haven't added a whole lot to my commute. 4 minutes. That isn't too bad, considering I have increased the fuel efficiency by 15%. I also got 26.2 mpg's in the Caravan on the way home from Mom's, maybe when it warms up I can get to 30. That is the other thing, cold weather is bad for fuel economy, warm weather is good.

Hyper Miling Update

I just got down to a 1/4 of a tank today, so I will fill up tomorrow and post the difference in gas mileage. I guess cold weather is bad for gas mileage anyway, but there should still be a gain from the 26.4 mpg I got right before I started this. If it worked I'll share some of my tips.

Revenge of the Ninja Frogs

That's the name of my new Fantasy Baseball team, 'Revenge of the (Ninja) Frogs'. With Yahoo! you don't have enough characters to squeeze Ninja in there too so it just has to be implied. This year we are going to do a draft outside of Yahoo! so we are starting early. Fine by me, I can't believe how long it took for Fantasy season to roll around again. Hopefully this year all of the games will count and I'll be able to bring home the title and hand Stevie a second place finish. Don't worry though, I won't get cocky or anything if I get ahead, like in basketball, or football. Because when you do that people get hurt. No not me, the players. I've had to deal with a rash of injuries in the last two weeks, but I'm ahead in games so no worries yet. Did I mention Stevie fell back to third? Well he is third, actually tied for third. And somebody picked Jameer Nelson after I dropped him. Uhhh don't you think I dropped him for a reason. He hurt is shooting shoulder and is likely out for the year. Even if he's not, it was still his shooting shoulder. Oh well, Let's go Frogs!!!!

Stitches - Our first ER trip for an injury (probably not the last)

Well on a Wednesday night in February, my little princess got her first face stitches. You see I had just told her that she needed to go to bed and that is when she said, 'No, I need some popcorn." So she came down the stairs and proceeded to do a face plant on the popcorn tin on the floor. Then a stream of screaming and blood flowed freely, and Sophie came running down the steps. It looked almost like she had bitten all the way through her lip. I guess it was two separate gashes though, one on the inside and one on the outside. Sophie quickly called her brother Ricco to come and stay with Sampson since he was already in bed. So he came right up while we were putting Peach in the car, by then the blood had kind of stopped. Anyway we ended up at the ER and by the time we got back into where they first evaluate her, it was about 35 minutes. So that guy checked her out and then they gave us a bed to kind of sit on and wait for the doctor to check her out. So he comes in and says they should probably go ahead and stitch up the cut on the outside of her mouth. Great. By the way, I had been doing pretty stellar so far with the whole blood thing, for those of you that don't know, normally when I see blood I get a little queasy, but even with a mouth full of blood I was unfazed until we got Peach to the health care professionals. Anyway after the doc looked at her, another doctor or nurse (not sure which exactly), Kelly, came into do the procedure. So she showed Peach some of the thread and stuff (no needles) and put some topical numbing stuff on where they were going to stitch. But that was just to numb the area a little before the shot of local anesthetic they were going to give her. Anyone who witnessed the splinter incident of '08 knows how much she can fight when needles are around. Fortunately the hospital already knows how much little kids like to fight so they have a restraining device called a 'burrito'. The child is secured inside the 'burrito' before any sharp objects are displayed, and Mommy and Daddy can stay in the room or leave if need be. Well I had been doing good so far so I moved down to hold her little hand inside the 'burrito' while Mommy stayed close to her face. Then came the needle. She fought and yelled, it was almost comical except that there was no give either way. She didn't want that shot or anything to do with the needle and the doctor was going to give a shot, one way or another. She was yelling, 'I wanna go home', 'let me outa here', but the doc was stone cold to the little girl's cry and eventually after several attempts she got the area numbed. Peach kind of stopped fighting after that, and the doc proceeded to stitch her up. Once she got the first one in I figured she was pretty well home free and I guess I let my guard down because I got really light headed. That was the first stitch I had every actually seen going in, sure I've been stitched up 3 times, but they were all in the face and they always put a sheet over your face so you can't see what's going on. Probably a good idea in the case of a three year old, since they would get pretty defensive with the needles and what not. After that I sat down and didn't get to see the last two go in (no complaints from me), and after she was done Peach got a Snoopy Band Aid and a Popsicle. Then she wanted to call her Mimi and let her know that she got three stitches. Yeah that will always make the grandparents proud. Here are a couple of pictures so that everyone can share in our joy.

I guess she beat old Dad's mark, I was 5 before I ever got stitches. But I got 13, so she basically has 2 more years to get 10 more stitches. Hey, I wouldn't bet against her at this point.

First Bodily injury trip to the ER

Peach was the first victim, so if anybody had a pool going about 9:30 PM on the 18th of February would win. She was trying to get into the popcorn tin and busted her mouth on it. She ended up with three stitches, I think she is fine now, but she is going to be hurting tomorrow. I will add pictures and a more detailed experience tomorrow.

The Hypermiling Trial

I was reading my ESPN the Magazine this week and they had an article about Carl Edwards and how he used different techniques to squeeze mpg's. This may be helpful as gas prices start to increase again, so I thought I'd give it a try. Basically in the article Carl and another guy are driving around and the one guy gets the car to stay above 60 mpg for the duration of their trip. Now I don't care if the trip was only 5 minutes, to do that over any period of time is impressive. Especially since it wasn't a souped car or anything (other than you know it being Carl Edward's Car) it was a Ford Focus. So nothing really stand out there, but the guy was able to essentially double the gas mileage just by driving the right way. Now I knew it was possible to stretch gas mileage some by driving technique but 25 mpgs!! That's crazy! So I did a little experiment today on the way home from Mom's and just using the little mpg indicator I was able to get over 25 mpg's. I lost a little in town when I got home, but overall I was impressed. My new goal is to get 30. I'll probably have to do it on the way home though as we are always running a little late Sunday morning and hypermiling doesn't exactly lend itself to setting land speed records. Anyway this week I am going to fill up Monday and see what I can do just on my way to work. I was able to get the Dodge Caravan up to about 27 mpg on Rt. 7 so I'm thinking I can get at least 35 maybe even 40 if I really pay attention. I'll let you know.

My First Trip to a MMA Event

Hans and I got to go to the UCFC event held at the Carnes center on Friday the 13th. The big draw was the Travis "the Terror" Clark fight as this was to be his last amature fight before turning pro in June. It was really packed, I was surprised given the current economic condition. Hans ran into a bunch of people he knew, I didn't know many people. We got there late at like 7:45 or so and fights were supposed to start at 7:30, but I don't think anyone ended up fighting until after 8:00. The whole thing only took about 3 and half hours, I guess if you showed up at 6:30 though when seating opened up you could have spent about 5 hours there. It seemed like when the fights started everyone would get caught in a guillotine choke and the fight would be over in about 2 min. The second fight ended kind of funny, but other than that there were about 10 good fights. Two were really good and one was pretty close behind and the rest were kind of like I said. One fight didn't happen cause the guy didn't make weight, but I thought they could have fought anyway. I mean the guy had to at least be close to weight, even if it was to be for a belt you should still fight. The most exciting fight other than the main event with Clark was probably the Newman / Russell fight. Newman started out throwing hay makers and kind of overwhelmed Russell, but he was being real cocky and the crowd turned on him. Then it seemed like Russell settled down and started to take control and he ended up submitting the guy which was great and the crowd just exploded. And a couple of the people that were with Newman were kind of behind us a little, got up and left and then we took their seats. After the fight they talked to Russell, and I don't think he had a nickname but I would call him Scott "the Chainsaw" Russell cause he cuts through the competition. It's pretty cool to just give people nicknames. The Clark fight was cool because when he came out everyone was on their feet. It was like a really amped up Ohio Valley wrestling match because the other guy was from Cambridge, even though I don't think many people were rooting for him. No offense to the guy he seemed like a good guy, but after people drop $2o on a shirt they want to see that guy win. Clark ended up getting cut pretty bad in the first round, but caught the guy with a right hand and took the fight to the ground where he was able to end with a rear naked choke in the second round. They pretty much had everything there to make a good event - they had the wide screens set up where you could still see the action after they went to the mat, plus announcers and ring girls and what not. The only thing they really need to work on is the timing. I know they probably didn't want every fight to end in the first round, but hey its MMA, just keep bringing 'em out and let 'em fight. We don't need any filler. Also they need to get the heights and weights right on the displays they put up. I swear everyone fighting from 135 lbs. up to 350 lbs. was 6'2". I said it was like a carnival ride or something were you had to be 6'2" to fight. Other than that I thought they did a good job. One guy did get hurt pretty bad though and they had to take him out on a stretcher, I hope he is okay. Oh and one of the fighters after he lost came out and was sitting in the crowd right by us. When he got up to leave I patted him on the back and told him good job. That was neat. And he did do a good job he just had to fight a guy who was 80 lbs. heavier than him and I think it ended up wearing him down. Well that will do for tonight, as I think of things that were neat about this experience I will continue to update this post.

Travis "the Terror" Clark is set to have his first pro fight in Pittsburgh sometime in June. Perhaps Hans and I will head up to check it out. It was funny during the fights, the announcer said something about the super bowl and everyone started booing. I guess MMA fans don't care for the black and yellow. Just another reason to like fighting.

Happy Valentine's Day 2009

Another Hallmark holiday has come and gone, but it was pretty good. Sophie got me a ticket to go with Hans to a local MMA event (separate blog entry) and UFC tapes 5-8. I got her the new Taylor Swift CD, and a Travis "the terror" Clark shirt. Then on Saturday night we went to the "night at the races" for her old alma mater. We bought a horse, 'Emilia Rose', but we didn't win. We ended up betting on about 8 races and then Sophie turned her attention to the Texas Poker table, where we proceeded to spend the rest of the night, and spend the rest of our money. It is a good thing we don't gamble or bet horses cause we would be super poor. We didn't hit one race and the 10 bucks or so we won at poker ended up going right back in the pot. We still had a good time and next year Sophie said we could name our horse ''1 loss from the glue factory", from 'Bad Newz Stables'. Hope you had a good day, also I changed the music for a couple of days or so. Enjoy.

The Octuplets

Sophie and I are watching the story of the new octuplet mother. We'll see how this story ends up. She has 6 other kids, no job and is single. But she is not irresponsible, so she says. What a relief. You know I would love to have a ton of children, but two is pretty dog gone good. We were walking out of the McDonald's this weekend and I had one on one side and the other one on the other side, holding their hands and I thought this is just right. If I had any more kids I wouldn't be able to hold all their hands. I suppose we could have two more, but then Sophie would probably go insane, so we'll just hold off.

Fantasy Update

Well the Wreckers ended up coming in third in football. I would have actually won because I had the most points the final week. Oh well there is always next year, I would just like to thank Drew Brees and Calvin Johnson. I would thank Frank Gore, but he sat out semi-final week and ended up screwing me. On the fantasy basketball front the Ankle Breakers are in first by like 13 or 14 points, it is hard to keep track I'm so far ahead. Only now it is starting to become like the baseball season, with all the injuries my team is incurring. First Steve Blake went down, then Kirilenko, then Jameer Nelson. And Sunday Al Jefferson did something to his ACL and is probably out for the season. So now I'm going to have to scrounge a lineup, but I am ahead in games played, which is good and bad. The bad is I'll be in the clubhouse, so to speak, waiting for other people to finish, but the good is that I have had really good people play in games already and now I can kind of pick and choose the best match ups to help me keep a lead. I'll probably end up coming in second. That would give me a fourth (according to Yahoo!), a third and a second. That would at least mean I'd be due for a first place in Baseball, ha ha.

W(omen) i(nfants) i(nvoluntary twitches) gaming system

Yeah the Wii. I think I am done playing the Wii, because if a 5 year old can randomly swing a controller and beat you in boxing, that is really not a gaming system. So I am only playing with other people who were at least a serious gamer at some point in their lifetime. No more 5 year-olds, no more women, no more people with odd nervous twitches. You see it looks like it is completely off of "intuitive" motion, but it turns out if you can make short wrist twitches that is all you need to do in any of the sports games. It doesn't matter how fast or hard you swing your arm, it only matter how fast you can move your wrist. No matter I am officially retired from the Wii.

Also I got Sophie to play the playstation 3. She lasted all of 2/3's of a level. Then she got sick and had to go to bed. So no Alien killing help, but if she could Wii box the aliens...


Check this guy out. Please note this is not me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrrvkPo7TZ4

Man do I hate being right all the time...

Not as much as I dislike the squealers though. Boy did I call it. I kept watching and even though 'Zona had the lead with less than 3 minutes you kind of knew it was coming. The not so superbowls are starting to get on my nerve. It is starting to become obvious that only certain teams will win the Superbowl. I can go back to 2001 after 9/11 and pretty much make the case that the Superbowl winner was the one that benefited the league the most, not necessarily the better team. Need proof? Go back to the last time the squealers won in 2006 or so, they were the 6 seed in the AFC going up against either the 1 or 2 from the NFC. But thanks to a lot of phantom holds and procedure calls the team that could move the most merchandise wins. Even last year, did you really think the Patricheats were going to win??? Com'on they played the heal role all year, and the only team that people could believe would beat them is the team that gave them a run for their money in the last regular season game. Only problem was they had to win 3 games on the road, which they were able to do. Funny how they couldn't win one home playoff game this year... But don't feel bad for the Patricheats, remember when they played the Panthers and the Panthers took a late lead and it looked like they would win their first title, and the kicker kicked the ball out of bound on the kickoff. I was setting there yelling at the screen, how stupid can you be all you have to do is kick it deep and you win, but they weren't supposed to win, and they had to do everything in their power to give the game back. Well, now that I have destroyed your view of the NFL (and remember it is a business first, they need to make money, they don't need no stinking bail out), I am going to turn my attention to cornhole or MMA, at least they don't rig it yet. . . yet.

Disgusted with the Superbowl

It's still the fourth quarter, but things are getting out of hand. Oh Arizona is making a push now and they may even score to "keep it interesting", but the game was already decided in the 3rd quarter. I guess the way the NFL is pulling games is by doing it in the 3rd quarter. It kind of leaves the game out of balance, though and you are left hoping for an unlikely comeback. Any time a team gets called for 3 personal foul penalties on one drive you kind of get a sense things are one way, then they blow a HALO rule call on a punt. I'm sorry but the receiving guy gets 1 and 1/2 yards not less than a yard. I seen it from home. I'll give you the face mask, but the roughing the passer when the guy was less than a yard a way is ridiculous and I've never seen a call where there is a foul for running over the holder on a field goal. Oh look Arizona scored a TD. Now it is a 6 point game. Time for the squealers to go down and kick a field goal put it to 9 and out of reach. Sorry Zona. I had hopes that it would be called fair. I mean how do you ever expect to win 6 Superbowls if you can never win the first one. I guess there are only about 6 teams that actually have a chance to win the Superbowl every year. too bad.