MMA over the weekend

Well MMA or Mixed Martial Arts for some of you, made its debut over the weekend on network TV. If you missed you are really lucky, because maybe just maybe you still have a chance to like MMA. They had the fights on CBS on Saturday night and it was an eliteXC card. As far as MMA goes eliteXC is like a regional NASCAR series if there was nothing else on, sure you would watch but it is nothing like the Sprint Cup (UFC) or even Nationwide/Busch (WEC). And the last thing that would happen is someone would televise it on network TV. I thought the fights were terrible especially compared to the live WEC event that was held on Sunday Night. Sophie's brothers Hans and Ricco came up and watched the fights on Sunday and they were some of the best I had seen. I have been following MMA for about the last 4 months and can't get enough. Enough good fights that is, I could definitely do without the crapfest that was CBS's poor attempt at displaying the sport. Here was a sport that was right on the verge of blowing up and now it is set back a couple of years. If CBS likes the ratings they could have another fight night, but they really have some work to do. First you introduce the fighters ONCE, not twice, there is no need all this does is waste time. Two, schedule the fights so that there is more than a minute of action in the first 40 minutes of the show. Two B) if the show is going to have such a small amount of fighting have the show end when it is scheduled. I don't want to see some crappy dancers and I don't need Frank Shamrock showing me different holds, people will pick it up as you go, I did. You don't explain the rules of football before every game. Three, actually schedule some MMA fighters to be on the show. The main event looked terrible and I thought Kimbo tapped too. It really did look like they wouldn't let Kimbo lose and maybe he is getting better, but right know it looks like he would get beat by legit welter weights. I would like to see Carlos Condit fight him. I would also like to see Condit fight Georges St. Pierre. Four, Let 'em fight. The guy gets an accidental thumb in the eye and they stop the fight. This was turning out to be a legit MMA fight and the doctor comes in and stops it?!? Give the guy a minute, let him shake it off and if he says he can go, let him fight. That is what happened in the first WEC fight on Sunday. Then two of the best fights I've seen back to back to end the show. Two title fights and if you ever get the chance to see the reply of the Torres - Maeda fight you gotta watch it, I get goose bumps just thinking about it. They were trading kicks and punches and then it went to the ground and at one point both fighters had each other in an ankle lock at the same time. And the crowd was yelling and applauding both fighters when they would get back up. The fight finally ended after Torres swelled Maeda's eye shut and the ref had to step in, but in a true show of class Maeda lifted up Torres' arm after the fight. Then the headline fight of Pulver vs. Faber. I have never seen Faber have to go past the second round before he either knocked his opponent out or made 'em submit, and Pulver had never been beaten in the Feather weight class. Well it went all 5 rounds and came down to a decision, but it was still a great fight because of the back and forth. Faber did enough to win every round, but every time he tried to take Pulver down Jens just through him off or stood back up to neutral. Pulver just never took to fight to Uriah and I think that is ultimately what cost him. It seemed like he was just trying to react and counter punch, but I thought if Pulver would have been more aggressive and maybe tried to take Faber down that he could have won. Either way it was still pretty great. I can't wait 'til August 3rd to see the next live fight on WEC, as for CBS . . . I can wait.

Update to the Energy Drink List

I recently checked out Deton-8 (play on the word detonate). It is the generic Kroger energy drink and it is actually pretty decent. And for less than $1 it is definitely the most economical. It has more caffeine and sugar than full throttle, so at least on the measurable side it stacks up. Check out the rankings at left.

DSL update

DSL is up and running... at light speed... well maybe not quite that fast but when you were running at the old "snailsky" speed, "slowsky" speed looks like "ludicrous" speed.

DSL

Well DSL is finally at the Helfensfelder household. It isn't hooked up yet, maybe tomorrow... Sophie finally decided we needed it after she started getting into snapfish and started her own My Space. Alright that will do for tonight, I see Harrang laid a huge egg for me to night. thanks buddy. It will be great having DSL, then I can see just how crappy my players are doing much faster. You know those commercials for comcast with the "Slowsky" family of turtles that have DSL, I told Sophie we were like the "Snailsky's" and we were moving on up to the Slowsky level.

0.071

Wanna know what 0.071 is? That was my "fantasy" team's batting average yesterday. They screwed me again. We were making positive gains for the last week and got within 14 points of Stevie for second place and then the go out and lay a gigantic egg. You know how to get a BA of 0.071? You get a group of guys to go 2-for-28. And you know who had one of the hits? Good old Adam Dunn. Man I really like that guy. I do have to give myself credit for picking up 8 team points in one day on Sunday.

Basketball End Game Strategy

I'm watching the NBA playoffs and what the teams are doing at the end of the games doesn't make any sense to me. I sit there and look at the time remaining and the point deficit and I am screaming at the TV for someone to start fouling to stretch out the game. After a certain point I can tell now if a team has a legitimate chance to win or not. Here are the basic rules.
Deficit - Time to start fouling
10 - - - - - - - - 2:10
8 - - - - - - - - - 1:45
6 - - - - - - - - - 1:15
4 - - - - - - - - - 0:48

Some people will say, "Oh that is too early you can play defense and shoot 3's", but realistically if you foul and get the deficit down to 2 points with a minute left that is what you need. If the scenario plays out perfectly and they miss every foul shot and your team is able to come down and score in less than 10 seconds, then your team will tie the game with a minute left. These guys are pros, just because you force them to use 24 seconds is not a guarantee they won't score. And if you give up two points with less than 5 seconds left you could have saved 20 seconds by forcing them to make 2 foul shots. I base my estimates on the leading team having the ball and being able to run at least 20 seconds off the clock during each opportunity and the team that is behind using at least 10 seconds to try and score. I believe that if you are going to foul then you should count on the opposing team making some foul shots down the stretch. That is why you can't wait until less than a minute left to start fouling to try and make up a 10 point deficit, and you can't sit back and play defense down by 10 with less than 2 minutes. By my scenarios the 2 minutes would result in only 4 offensive opportunities to try and make up, realistically, 5 possessions. So until one of these coaches reads this or comes up with their own plan (and praying to hit miracle 3's is not a plan) I will continue to scream at the TV.

Funny Bob Evans Story

Sophie and I got to go on a date on Friday to the new Indiana Jones movie, and we decided for dinner to go to Bob Evans. I pulled up to the light in front of Bob Evans and there was a car in front of me. The light was red and we were both stopped, when the other car decides to just start going through the red light. This is about 7:00 P.M. so the road isn't exactly empty. Anyway the light turns green, for the people on the right of us. Luckily they see the car creeping through the light, that's right creeping - if you run a red light at least run the light don't just coast through like this car did. So I said "Gee that car must really be in a hurry, good thing they didn't wreck right in front of us or else I would have had to turn right and go around the wreck to get to Bob Evans." Well wouldn't you know it, after the car makes it through the light it turns into, where else, the Bob Evans' parking lot. So after waiting to go through the intersection legally Sophie and I pull into the parking lot and quickly spot the offending car. Sophie and I then have a brief discussion as to the age and gender of the driving before deciding that this is an elderly woman. We get out of our car and hurry into Bob Evans to get a place in line, but we figure this woman would just skip the line anyway and go set down if she wants. Well after she sits in her car for about 5 minutes (kind of makes you wonder why she was in such a hurry to get through that light) she comes in and goes right over to the counter. Here she had ordered to pick it up. Of course, after all she doesn't have time to waste eating in the restaurant. Sophie and I thought this was hilarious, I mean yeah it could have been serious, but it was just really really funny.

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull - A review

First let me say that Sophie and I view the Indiana Jones movie as an event more so than just your run-of-the-mill sequel. So if you really enjoy the Indiana Jones movies than go see it in the theatre you really won't be that disappointed. This was the first time I have seen one of the Indy movies in the theatre so it was kind of a treat. Now to the stuff that makes the movie less than spectacular. Harrison Ford does a good job being Indy, but he isn't the same. The time frame is sometime around the 1950's after WWII and you get a little background that Indy served during the war, but some of the exploits are just glanced over. His new enemy is the Russians, the series has dumped the Nazis as the old enemy since they would no longer be relevant in the time frame. Anyway Harrison does a good job because he is 20 years old than the last time Indiana Jones appeared on the big screen. It is noticeable, but I think you have to look at Indiana Jones as a bigger than life personality and someone who could transcend the aging issue. So yeah Indiana is older, but it's cool. The movie starts to fall apart around the skulls in my opinion and don't get me wrong it isn't a total collapse, but the idea is that the skulls are from space. I won't go into any more detail than that other than to say that I thought the plot was on the edge of believability and the ending put the movie way over the edge. WAY over. Other than the ending I thought it was around a 4 to 4.5 out of 5 but the ending took the final ranking down to 3.5 out of 5. If you're just a casual Indiana Jones fan I would say definitely wait 'til this comes out on DVD, but it is good enough to watch. I don't know if them bringing Shia Lebouf on as Indiana's "friend" in this one is prepping him to take over the series, but he did hold his own in his action scenes. The swinging through the jungle was a little over done though. Also Indiana's dad died, which if you saw the third movie didn't make any sense because he drank from the holy grail, right? I mean I guess if he got caught in some horrible combine accident that makes sense, but the cause of his demise is never touched on in the movie. Oops I guess.

Iron Man the Movie - A Review

I should have blogged about this movie earlier, but it is really a good movie. It is along the same lines as the Transformer movie only with a little less action. It is another good Marvel film, and the only real criticism is that Robert Downey Jr. is cast as Tony Stark. I really don't remember seeing anything where Tony Stark is as brash or arrogant as Downey makes him seem. Stark to me is a much more humble character who is still awesome, but not over the top. Also there is a little too much dialog for my taste and the action towards the end of the movie seems to fly bye because it seems rushed. I still would give the movie a 4.5 out of 5, but would advise seeing it in the theatre only if you're a big action fan or a big Marvel fan. Conveniently that is the category that Sampson and I fit in.

Sophie Ruins The Coke 600

Well Sophie strikes again. If you remember my blog about people that Tony Stewart Owes, you recall that Sophie's name is on that list. And now it should be doubly on the list. I won't say that it is completely her fault, but she did several things very deliberately today to cost Tony the win. First she wouldn't let me wear my Tony Stewart jersey.
Second she "rooted" for Tony. This is always bad because whomever she roots for is doomed.
Third, after getting back from the cook out today she comes back and puts on my Tony Stewart jersey. The first time she tried I wrestled her to the ground and then she claimed her arm was "hurt". So I left her alone, mistakenly with the jersey because I figured she learned her lesson not to touch the jersey, but no. Sampson came down and told me she had it on, but only briefly, and with two laps to go, sure enough Tony blows a front tire... while he is leading the race ... by 5 seconds. Thanks Sophie.

Obama's new controversy

Well by now everyone knows about the Rev. Wright deal with Obama. Which is kind of funny when you think about it. Here he is saying he goes to the church for 20 years and his book title is based on one of the sermons that the good Reverend has, but he is some how unable to recall the racial hate filled sermons that have sprinkled the services basically throughout. Then he defends Wright, which he should and he says he could no more deny Wright than he could deny his own Grandmother, who is white. Then Wright goes to the NAACP meeting and reiterates all these old hate speech ideas and suddenly Obama dumps him. Which is nice to see the character behind this guy, if someone gets in his way or causes a little difficulty in his life he'll just dump 'em. Which leads to the next controversy, Michelle Obama. You see while she was out stumping for her man she said that "This was the first time in her adult life that she has felt proud of her country" and she didn't just say it once either, she said it multiple times because there is multiple videos of her saying it. So the GOP has jumped on this and is making it seem like she was never proud of her country before, and maybe she hasn't been. My only warning to her is WATCH OUT. You could get dumped next. It's comical, I mean it shouldn't be, but this election process is becoming a joke. Obama is the most liberal senator in congress. He is to the left of Hillary the left of Ted Kennedy, and left of John Kerry. He hasn't once reached across the isle to help pass legislation and yet people think he is going to be some great uniter of people. He is not going to change. If he gets elected president he will have gotten elected because he never had to change. He never had to go towards the middle to work with other congressmen, and he never had to vote on a wedge issue that put him more to the middle. No he'll get elected by being a major league liberal, and if you like that sort of thing good for you, and he'll stay a major league liberal he won't change.

Sampson Wins

Sampson got the game ball from Monday's game. He had three hits without the tee. Way to go Buddy. Sophie and I didn't even know they did such a thing. Now all he has to do is get the game ball in the rest of his games. No Pressure. I did feel bad, I missed the first inning because I thought the game started at 5:30. I am going to have to start checking the old blog at work to make sure that doesn't happen again.

Sampson's T-ball Schedule

At the request of some readers here is the upcoming schedule for Sampson and the Pirates.
May 19th 5:00 PM - Fodor Field, M.F.
May 28th 5:00 PM - Fodor Field, M.F.
June 1st 7:00 PM - Fodor Field, M.F.
June 7th 9:00 AM - Fodor Field, M.F.
June 12th 4:30 PM - Fodor Field, M.F.
June 12th 6:00 PM - Fodor Field, M.F.
That will do for now.

Resistance Fall of Man for the PS3

Well I finally broke down and bought Resistance Fall of Man. This is hands down the best first person shooter I have ever played. The levels are so full of action and I really like the all out battle scenes. This game is definitely a 9.5 out of 10. The only thing that would make it a little bit better is if they told you how to accomplish the skill point rewards. Other than that the controls are great and I love the 2 player co-op mode. It reminds of Halo that way. Which I haven't played Halo 3, so maybe it is better, but only until Resistance 2 comes out in November. And I will not wait a year and half to get that game.

5 Reasons Boston won't win the Championship

1) None of the regular players have actually made it to the finals. These guys have long histories of losing in the playoffs.
2) Doc Rivers is terrible. Sometimes it looks like he is trying to lose the game. Not playing your best players during the last two minutes of the quarters when all you anyone preach about is closing out quarters. He stinks.
3) I hate Boston.
4) They haven't an easy series yet. All of these seven game series are going to start taking a toll on a team filled with "veterans".
5)They flop too much. It is like watching a team of Vlade Divacs out there. Seriously I thought Paul Pierce was trying to win an Oscar. I haven't seen that much over acting since I saw Jessica Simpson in "The Dukes of Hazard"- which I did not pay money to see.

Visit from the Assistant Fire Chief

For Mother's day my brother Willard decided he was going to burn down the old doghouse that was plaguing my mom's yard. Unfortunately he picked the windiest day he could, and did I mention that the dog house was actually converted from my old playhouse, by the way, thanks a lot Willard for burning down my old playhouse. Anyway what with the wind and the excellerant that was applied to the fire the smoke solicited a visited from the assistant fire chief. Well it was no big deal because the previous weekend Willard had burned down an old house so the Assistant Chief kind of looked the other way. Oh did I mention that the Assistant Chief is also my brother Bo. Who didn't even try to save the old play house. Thanks a lot bros. Next time Assistant Fire Chief appointments roll around my vote goes to anyone not related to me. Also Willard had to charge Mom a $6.00 fuel surcharge for the use of the fuel during the fire. Happy Mother's Day.

Response to some comments

Well recently there have been some comments posted and I would like to address some of the questions that have been raised.

Sampson has the eating ferocity of a rabid wolverine when it comes to corn and the capacity of a seven stomached bovine.

I never, nor would I ever dump a flagon of cap'n crunch whistles on the M&R department.

Also I agree that Deep spaCe fire Suppression is quite silly. I mean really think about it.

A Quick 2 week update

Sampson's T-Ball - Got his first hit without the tee in his second game. Got two home runs off the tee in his third game. (I use the term home run quite generously here, as he was the last batter of the inning and the last batter gets to run around and touch all the bases.) He also played in the pitcher circle and then played the hot corner at third. He has his fourth game tomorrow and his Maw got to come down this weekend and see him play for the first time.

Sampson also graduated from pre-school on Friday. He got some cards and some cash which he had to promptly spend on marvel figures. I took the last week off for vacation and got to go on his field trip to the zoo.

Peach continues to use her face for a battering ram for pretty much everything. She fell off the couch and landed face first on a plastic crayon box, then during the fire we had Friday for the graduation she ran her face into some wood and left herself a nice little scratch.

During vacation I also tore out the little flower bed that was in front of the house. I got all the castle wall block and plan on putting a fountain out front.

I also have about reached my threshold for fantasy baseball. It turns out I can only stay interested in it for about 2 months. It seems everyone I pick tanks, but some of the guys are starting to come on. I got about 5 home runs in the past two days, which is good because I had about 5 the whole week before. Stevie keeps trying to get me to make silly trades and before it is all over I might give in, since he is going back to Iraq. He says he can work there for a year and be done working for good. He told mom that on Mother's day - good thinking Stevie, that makes my gift look really good.

Back Home ... and not soon enough

Well the kids were waiting for me, but now they are yelling. That took less than 2 hours. When I opened the door Sophie was just rocking back and forth on the floor with a blank stare (I think the kids might have gotten to her a little this week). I guess your anxious for me to tell you what all I learned while I was gone.

1) The PA turnpike sucks. The road is terrible and you can't see anything over the giant barriers. The closer you get to Philly the worse the road gets too. And how the heck is it legal for them to charge me $16 to drive on a road that I pay for with taxes from gas and what not. Turnpikes should be outlawed.

I remember something my Dad said about turnpikes. He asked the guy at the booth if he had a gun and the guy said "no". And Dad said something like "that is pretty good, you can rob people and not even carry a gun."

2) If you think people from PA drive fast, people from New Jersey drive even faster.

3) Some DCS stuff.

Well that's about it, I gotta check on the old fantasy team.

1 More Day at Camp!!!!

Sophie / Kids,

You gotta get me outta here. My back is killing me from that evil mattress, and last night for dinner I felt like I was on Survivor. I never had that many things at one meal where it was just kind of don't look at it and just try and swallow. And I think I was 1 of 5 people in the whole place who was under 50. fun fun fun. I think the people came there just to be around other people that they thought would kick the bucket before them. Seriously. Well now it is just rainy so I can't even try and go outside, I guess I'll just get my stuff packed so I can get out of here as fast as possible. Well love you and I really really miss you guys.

Desperately,

Kirk

P.S. How mad would you be if I got a speeding ticket coming home.
P.P.S I got the kids stuff. Little Liberty Bells and what not. I got Peach a Hannah Montana Pillow she can hang up. I debated getting it because of the incident this week, but she apologized so we should be good, right? It will probably be 50% off next week cause Disney's gonna dump her.
P.P.P.S. Also while I was "shopping", some lady tried to sell me some snake oil thing for my skin. I told her no, but she put it on me anyway and now my wrist smells like a woman. She was gonna "give" me the stuff for $29.99, but I felt too violated to give her any money. Like it was some kind of sting or something, well I am going to up to my room and cry now. See you tomorrow.

Seriously it was just some spray stuff, I know if you read it again it kind of sounds dirty, but it wasn't. More creepy than dirty.

Day 3 at DCS Camp

Dear Sophie and Kids,

Today was a little harder. I didn't realize how physical it would be here. I was a little sore this morning when I woke up, I guess the bed here isn't quite as comfortable as the one at home. Then they filled up a puddle full of water and made us do push-ups with our faces over the water while reciting different methods for making tags. Then at lunch I thought I would try something different because the food has been OK, but they put a bunch of olive oil and stuff on the sandwich and I didn't really like it. So I gave have of it to one of the people back at the training "complex". That is what they make us call it here now the "complex". Well that is about all I have time for Ming and one of the "S" guys are going to take me out for dinner, I hope they bring me back. What with all the murders here in Philly over the past weekend. I'm sure I'll be fine and hopefully I'll be able to pick you and the kids up something today. Also I got gas for my car, I finally found a filling station, so I should have enough gas to get home.

Love,

Kirk

P.S. Can't wait to come home.

A Letter from DCS Camp

Dear Sophie and Kids,

DCS Camp is really great so far. I miss you guys a lot, but I am having a lot of fun. We are learning soooo much and the people are so nice. I can't wait to get home, but the people here really make it hard to want to leave. We are learning about tags and graphics and today we started our own graphics for our projects, I made an agitator that really spins!! Well I am going to eat dinner (did I mention how good the food is) and then try and get to bed early, but I bet it will be difficult because it is just so exciting here. Well see you soon.

Love,
Kirk

P.S. I am going to get you and the kids something great before I come back.

Helping M&R

Today I helped out the old M&R team. Well actually only one person, Dean Markham. I found some old speakers in my office and gave them to him for his computer. Enjoy Dean.

Happy Earth Day

Today is Earth day. Please Enjoy. Sorry the post is so late. Enjoy tomorrow.

Thanks for the Prayers

Unfortunately Adam Dunn has managed to screw me again. If he would of hit a homerun last night I could have played him today, but instead he was on the bench. So he proceeded to go 2-for-4 with a homerun, rbi and 2 runs scored. Thanks, just let me know when you are praying for him so I can get him into the lineup.

T-Ball Update

Well Saturday is our first exhibition. Sampson gets to ride in on a firetruck and then play a couple of innings of exhibition T-Ball. He is getting better practice by practice. I told the coach he should fill a hole full of water and make 'em do push ups with their face over the water, but then the police cruisers pulled up so I just went over and sat with the rest of the parents. But if that coach ever goes down in practice, they'll be running foul pole to foul pole and doing push ups. Unless you know the "authorities" show up, then we'll remain with his civilized practice. But when they run bases they'll have to do it holding a bat over their head.

Sampson the Corn eater

Sampson really loves corn on the cob and he was begging Sophie to get some so she got some and we had our first corn of the year. It was very good and Sampson remarked during his second ear that,"I'm attacking this corn huh Daddy." Yeah, buddy you are tearing it up, literally. His little 'Future President' shirt might be ruined, he'll be lucky to be a junior senator someday. Which of course means he could run for president, but probably not win the general election.

Sampson's comment about corn - Delicious.

Fantasy Update

Well I'm officially a type A fantasy baseball player. That means I tend to be a "control addict" when it comes to adjusting my lineup and getting players. I even put players up on the trading block I'm such a nerd. I'm still third in the standings, but Joba Chamberlain being off for a week kind of hurt, so Please pray for his father to get better. Oh wait that isn't really a good reason to pray for someone, you know to help the old fantasy team, but don't you kind of feel obligated ow. Ok, well I don't have much time to blog I gotta check my starting lineup for tonight and I swear if Adam Dunn doesn't start producing I will trade him... seriously... I'm not joking... one, maybe two weeks... just pray for Adam Dunn too. Thanks.

Post #200

Well I promised something special for old post number 200, so here goes. I got nothing. I know I said I was going to do perpetual motion, but it turns out the Hero's fountain is based on pretty sound fluid dynamics, that can't be easily manipulated. So basically I decided that "perpetual motion" is kind of a misnomer. See you could have motion that lasts for a really really long time, but that just doesn't sound cool. I came to the realization that perpetual motion doesn't exist for a few reasons. One is erosion. If the pieces of this perpetual motion machine are made of solids eventually the solids will "rub" together during the motion causing the machine to fail. Two is vapor liquid equilibrium. If fluids are used, i.e. the Hero's Fountain, eventually the fluid will evaporate, unless there is a completely closed system free from the outer atmosphere. The only way I know how to do that is to weld a metal box around fluid system, but then you can't see the motion. Hey, that's it, I'll just weld a box closed and I'll have perpetual motion, or is it? I'd probably have to have someone from M&R weld the old box up though.

Random Thought #2

E! Entertainment television is not all that 'Entertaining'

P.S. - The next entry will be #200, so I'll try and do something special.

Happy 18th Birthday... to ...Me

See I bet you all thought I was older than that, but good old Gillette knows better. They sent me a razor for my 18th birthday, so that means Sophie married me when I was 10. Oooh gross. It is like we were in that cult out West where that guy was marring the kids and stuff, only worse. Any way, Thanks Gillette your the betterest. Well that's what the guys from the old M&R department would say.

Sampson's First Pratice

Sampson says he really enjoyed his first T-Ball practice. It was pretty good, it is funny watching kids practice for the first time because they don't know what baseball is or what to do. The 6 year-olds were hitting first and knocking the ball through the infield and the other kids that weren't batting were fielding standing between 1st and 3rd. Well when the ball went through everyone would go get it. It looked like somebody throwing bread to ducks and all the ducks go and try to get that piece of bread. I will try and put a video up of it that I have. Good Times.

Presidential race ' 08 - Update

The democratic primary is still going on and it is getting really testy. I was going to post this 3 weeks ago, but what is sad is that the subject matter is still relevant. The Pa primary is tomorrow and the candidates are a slinging mud like there is no tomorrow, and well there sort of isn't you know if you don't count the general election. I think that when historians look back at this election year and the Democrats end up losing they will attribute it to several factors. Number one is the decision by the states Michigan and Florida to move up their primary dates to make them more relevant and the decision by DNC chairman, oh crap the yelling guy from 2004 what's his name oh yeah Dean. Howard Dean decided to not let Michigan or Florida's votes count at all since the moved their primaries up. Big mistake. He would have been well advised to do what the Republicans did and count only half of the delegates. That way everyone counts the first time and there is no talk of any costly revotes or discussion of how to count votes in a state where Obama wasn't even on the ticket (Michigan), but since you are splitting the delegates according to the popular vote just seat 50/50. The second factor is going to be the Republicans and talk radio. Rush Limbaugh, love him or hate him, has started operation "Chaosis" for later voting states. Basically states that have open primaries are being targeted by Rush to vote for Hillary since she is behind, and it is working. She carried Texas and Ohio two big open primary states, and in some of the other states where the primary is not open Republicans are crossing over and voting democrat. The third is the fact that the democratic candidates have given into dirty tactics to try and win the nomination and are essentially doing the job for the Republicans for the general election. The funny thing is they are still pimping themselves as uniters of the people they are going to bridge the divide, but supporters of the respective candidates have said they won't vote for the other candidate if the one they are supporting doesn't win the nomination because the primaries have gotten so nasty. Oh well I really got do some fantasy stuff now, hey I know they should have the presidential race into a fantasy game, you select a President and a V.P. and you get points according to how many votes they get.

"the Grid"

This is the first update for the "Grid". The Grid will eventually overtake the Internet because of technology and speed. The old Internet is based on older telephone technology and the Grid is all new with high speed stuff. I will keep you updated as this technology comes to the forefront. Right now they are saying movie could be downloaded in a few seconds rather than a few hours. Not sure just who "they" are though, or where "they" get "their" information.

Dollar coming back?

It looks like the old dollar might be making a come back. It looks like the really good time to buy stuff might be coming to an end. I figure once the old gov't comes through with those checks prices will go up a little bit so that the old consumer loses out. Right now the dollar is coming up against some of the other foreign currencies, but it will take more time to see what is really going to happen. It kind of makes you think that this whole recession thing was a little overblown. From my understanding recessions are tied to job growth and not necessarily incomes or money changing hands. Oil continues to increase and is at over $107 a barrel, and it looks like it won't get back below $100 either because hedge folks have set up automatic buys for anything under $100 so unless the stockpile just shoots up you can forget about prices going down, especially before the summer driving season.

MLB '08 The Show - Update

Well it turns out the addictive power of MLB'08 the Show is actually closer to 9.5. The 'Road to the Show' mode is pretty addictive. You play as one player in one position and you only have to bat when it is that player's turn and you only have to play in the field when the ball is definitely coming to you. You start in AA and work up through AAA and then you are in 'The Show'. Then you have to get enough stats to be a H.O.F. So far I have made it to the Indians and am doing pretty decent the first month. The addictiveness is starting to wear off with the warmer weather and I am hoping to get it out of my system in the next few weeks. That is the funny thing about me, I pretty much throw myself into a game or activity for about 6 - 12 weeks then it is on to something else. The only thing that I have kind of stayed up with is the old blog, and Thank you for your support.

Raining and Reigning

Well the first T-ball practice was rained out Saturday, so hopefully we'll have practice tomorrow although the forecast says rain. Don't worry though I've been practicing with Sampson, I made him throw with left hand yesterday. I figure that's were the money is. Just kidding. Also I was (WAS) the reigning leader of the fantasy team the first week, but have since settled back into 5th. The stupid catching position is killing me. I picked up the Pirates catcher, but he is being platooned and he has played like twice. So I had to pick somebody else up and I decided to get Yadier Molina. Yeah. Well at least I wrote the check to Stevie, he can probably just go ahead and cash it and keep it.

Science finally comes through

Well I saw a commercial touting the 'healthy' goodness of Mayonnaise. That's right I had been waiting for science to say that Mayo was good for you, but I never thought it would happen. Apparently mayo has Omega-3 fatty acid. I'm not sure what it does, but I always new there was something good in there. I guess it can lower triglyceride count and lower your blood pressure, which makes sense because I don't eat all that healthy and my b.p. is like 120's over 80's. I haven't had my cholesterol checked in a while, but it was good the last time. The only bad thing is that if you have Congestive heart failure omega-3 turns out to be a bad thing. It can keep the electric signals around your heart down and when you have the congestive heart failure that can be bad since you don't have that many cells firing already. Just in case any body out there has that condition. So now all we have to do is wait for science to say it is bad for you, so eat as much as you can while it is still good for you, I know I will.

The Fantasy Draft

We'll I didn't get the guy I wanted, but I must not have picked 1st, I did get Albert Pujols. On the front page of Yahoo fantasy sports though, there is an article saying 'Take a chance on Pujols elbow or give somebody from K.C. a shot.' So that is basically it, you can pretty much track who is on my team because they will either get hurt or suspended. I dropped Melky Cabrera who was set to serve a 3-game suspension at the beginning of the season, but since I dropped him that will probably get appealed. Then the other guy I wanted- B.J. Upton - gets beaned with a baseball in his arm on draft night and can't hold a bat. That's encouraging. I figure he got hit about 5 milliseconds after I drafted him. Anyway Stevie was already trying to make a deal with me to get Carlos Pena for Todd Helton and some catcher on the D-Backs. I looked up the stats on MLB '08 the show and there projected spots in the line-up and then shot him down. So basically Pena will probably get hurt and Helton and that catcher will have all-star years. Right now I figure if my catcher doesn't do very good I could just pick up another one, since he is pretty far down on the list. I don't know much about fantasy sports, but I figure I'm in for it.

A Week of Drafts

Well we're pirates now. Sampson got drafted by the Pirates on Sunday, so that is who we will be playing T-ball for. It was pretty simple, you just go and set there, they read the names of the 6 year-olds already on a team and then you go and sign up for a team. Sampson's little friend from down the street was there and his mom said he was going to play on the pirates since she knew the coach, so that is where Sampson wanted to play too. We start practice in April, but it is just an instructional league so they don't really keep score, they must just let the kids play and then after everyone gets a turn they switch places. I guess we'll find out.

MLB 08 - The Show

I got 'MLB 08 The Show' this week and so far the addictive factor is about an 8 out of 10. I got the game because it had more favorable reviews versus the other baseball game for PS3 (I can't remember the other game). Anyway the things I like are the jukebox feature where you can take songs that are on the PS3 hard drive and incorporate them into the game. So if you don't like the music on the game you can change it. The graphics are great and the pitching is good. The rookie mode is useless in my opinion, it is completely different from the veteran mode. In veteran mode you can try and guess the pitch and location and if you do the screen lights up and you can load up and try a heavy swing. The only thing I don't like is the field and base running controls. The game has a habit of not switching to nearest fielder and you have to make a split decision and recognize who you are controlling and whether you need to switch and then whether you need to dive or jump for the ball. Running the bases is no easier. For some reason the controls seem really unintuitive for me, although I played Sampson a game and he hit four home runs. He didn't win though, I couldn't let that happen. But when you run the bases you have to point to the base where the base runner is starting from and then you have to tell them which base to go to. There is an advance all runners and send all runners back control with one button, but when you want to send the guy from third home and leave the other guy at second you have to really think about it. I would have been simpler if you could just point at the runner and either advance or return, I mean come one we had the controls with the old Nintendo remember, all we had then was the 'A' and 'B' buttons and those controls were fine. Anyway the ballparks are awesome and they seem to have done a good job on scouting pitchers for the capabilities, it just seems like no matter what I throw the computer will foul it off. The computer gives you a pitch to throw, but you are better off knowing what your pitches strengths are, throwing that 1-2 fastball with Paul Byrd is not his strength. Overall I give it a 7 out of 10. Once I figure it out it will probably be one of those forgettable games. Oh well. Maybe 'Resistance fall of man' will come down in price since it has been out for over 14 MONTHS. I have never seen a game hold that kind of price since its original release.

A truely Blessed Week

Usually people here about the bad things that happen and rarely the good things. Well we had a really good week and I hope it continues. I have chronicled the recent downturn we experienced with deaths, but when the Lord taketh away he often giveth back, which is what we were on the receiving end of this week. The old triple C came through for a very good week, then Sophie was on the phone with Discover and when she paid the bill last month it was one day late (because of you know everything that was going on) and we got hit with a finance charge, but since Sophie had never had a late payment in 12 years and our extenuating circumstances the lady took the charge off, so there was an extra 40 bucks back. Then I won the monthly safety drawing, the first time I had won in 22 months. We got our state income tax back, and yesterday when we were at WAL*MART the guy who was going to rotate our tire said that the tires looked good and the ones that were on the front were actually a little bit better so we didn't need to rotate them and he saved us $6 bucks. Also Sophie and I actually got to go out just the two of us and have a meal together sans children. Oh and I got a new game for the PlayStation (I will blog about this separately). Anyway, thanks God!!

Milestone - 1,000 views

Well the old blog has reached a milestone of 1,000 page views. Thanks everybody, hope you've enjoyed it. And in just a shade under a year too. Also the old AdSense has come in for a tidy little profit of $5.44, and since I have re-upped with AdSense hopefully the ads will be back for your clicking pleasure.

New Element

I am going to start updating the old blog description at the top of the page a little more frequently, but if you miss one I will keep an archive of the old descriptions over there at the left... near the bottom... keep on going ... way way down there.

Beowulf: the Movie - A Review

This movie wasn't bad, but it caught me off gaurd that it was all digital animation or as they say 'digitally enhaced'. It had the same stuff as Polar Express, but I don't think the technology is quite there for a feature film that doesn't appeal to kids, at least not to be profitable. My brother in-law Hans went to the theater to see it in 3-D and there are definetly some parts that would have been cool in the theater in 3-D, but when you are watching at home it kind of loses some of the effect. Not all, but some. You still sit there like, 'Whoa, that was cool,' but a couple of cool shots don't make a movie. The digital stuff loses too much effect up close, but it does allow for some great actors AKA Anthony Hopkins to step into a role easierly (check that word out), but what you pick up in having his facial features and overall ability you lose, by not having the full body interaction. The story wasn't bad, but after watching it was no more out of the range to do in a traditional manner than say Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. It is pretty much your old stand by story of Boy kills monster, boy hooks up with evil monster mom, then boy has to kill his own demon offspring who turns into a dragon, pretty standard really. If you have the capability to see this movie for free I would recomend it, otherwise view at your own discretion. I say 3 out of 5, Sophie says 2.5 out of 5.

WWVA Question

I was listening to WWVA the other morning and they were doing a call in thing for listeners to call in with the answer to a question. The question was 'How many times a day does a normal man fart?' The correct answer was 13. I said the normal amount for a 5 year-old male is about 40 times and the normal amount for a two year old female is about 75 times, these figures are based on independent research. For a 30 year old female the average is 0, women don't fart they only fart in the bathroom where you are supposed to fart you disgusting pigs. That is also based on independent research.

Ice Truckers and Diamonds

So Sophie and the kids and I are pretty much snowed in today, and we are watching Ice Road Truckers on the history channel. The premise of the show is that the truckers drive across frozen lakes during the cold weather in Northern Canada to deliver supplies to the diamond mines up there. It looks like it would be crazy to do and also very cold. Sophie said she wondered if the people that work in the mine take a little bit for the themselves. She said she thought the best way would be to shove the diamonds up your nose to make it out of the security checks. She said the kids would be good at getting it out since they act like they are digging gold out most of the time, diamonds wouldn't be that big of a change. I said if you developed a little capsule that wouldn't dissolve in your digestive system you could fill it with diamonds and then just dig it out when you know... you go to the bathroom. Just make sure you don't go at work!!!

Forgetting What Bush Did

Lots of people have bad mouthed President Bush during his tenure and sometimes rightfully so. But the criticism he gets for NAFTA and the local manufacturing industry isn't so well deserved. People seem to forget that he signed the steel tariffs in 2001 or so and that is one of the reasons that Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel is still around. Sure it took a lot of other things to happen to keep that company around, but I guarantee that if the steel tariffs had not been put in place those facilities would have been shut down over 5 years ago. I remember being in some of the salary meetings with then CEO James Bradley and he was telling us just how close the Company had been to idling the plants. You know that is the other thing I don't understand about people's criticism of companies. They say the large corporations need to be taxed more, but these companies employ people and create a lot of jobs. So what if they can make a decent profit, at least then there is a chance that money can be shared with the employees that made it or used to improve the facilities to keep them running for a longer period. If the government takes the money it will go to people that don't work or are illegal or something, but it definitely won't come back to the workers.

Nippert gets Nipped

So much for the blog bump. Hillary won Ohio and Texas on Tuesday. But the real winner was the republican party. Now the democratic race will likely continue until the convention. In the mean time they may have a redo in Michigan and Florida where Hill won the first time, but because the DNC dissallowed their delegates, they don't actually count towards her total. It will be interesting to see what happens now, because the Clintons have really been in attack mode, and that is always kind of off-putting the longer an election lasts. If McCain can pick a conservative V.P. it may bring some more people to his cause and really may swing the general election in his favor regardless of what the democrates settle on.

Visit from the Tooth Fairy

Apparently the tooth fairy visited last night and left Sampson $2, again. But this time Sampson had open up the plastic bag that the tooth was in and when the tooth fairy went to grab the bag the tooth fell out on the floor. Then the tooth fairy had to spend a half an hour looking for the tooth in the dark with the tooth fairy's book light.

Note: I thought this story was hilarious, but the tooth fairy didn't seem to think it was very funny since it happened at about 1 in the A.M.

Rendition: a Review

This movie was terrible. It had one thing going for it and that was at the end of the movie you found out you weren't watching what you thought you were. There were basically two different time lines and you don't find out till the end. I don't want to ruin it, but oh what the hey if you really want to see it don't read the next part. The boy and girl that hook up at the beginning are actually the explosion, but you don't realize that until the end when they show that they were the ones getting blown up. It is kind of like deja vu when you watch the scene and your like 'hey this already happened' and then your like 'what the hell just happened'. Anyway I didn't like it because the main character is a Chemical Engineer that gets kidnapped by the federal government because they think he is a terrorist and it is all done under the law of rendition. Thus the name of the movie. The other thing I didn't like was the guy was making $200,000 a year. And he went to NYU. It was like they didn't even try to do any research on salaries that make sense for as vague of a job as he did. They might as well of said he made a gillion dollars. Also Reece Witherspoon is in it and she is "pregnant" except it looks like she is pregnant with a half deflated soccer ball. It looked like this whole movie cost about $200,000 to make. There was one big explosion and they milked it for more than it was worth. You saw the same explosion 3 separate times in the movie. So the final tally is : One crappy explosion (shown 3 times), a ton of subtitles, one ChemE that makes a gillion dollars, and Reece Witherspoon giving birth to a soccer ball. That equals one out of 5.

T-Balling

Sampson is signed up for the old T-ball, wanna know how I know, there is $40 worth of chocolate sitting on the counter to sell. You know I was a bit of ball player back in the day. I once pitched a 1/3 of an inning in reserve ball, so that basically qualifies me to coach and stuff. Or at least I could go around and pick up the bats after the kids get done and make sure there aren't any big rocks in the base path. Yeah, that's probably what I'll be doing.

Another one bites the dust

Sampson lost his second tooth today. That means another visit from the tooth fairy. Yeah (sarcasm). Last time she left $2. I think I used to get 50 cents. And no not the rapper.

The Fantasy Starts Here

Well Stevie talked me into playing fantasy baseball this year. I have held out as long as I could before playing any fantasy games, because I don't want to become addicted. I will chronicle my progress throughout the season. I have a funny feeling they could probably just go ahead and divide up my money now. Of course if they want to come and check out the old blog they could always click on one of the adds to give me a little cash, then we could all win. Wait that is starting to sound like a fantasy, oh well let the games begin!

Random Thought #1

I hate that show 'Everbody loves Raymond'.

The Webkinz addiction

I can't quit playing that stupid Webkinz. It is addicting with all the gem hunting and going to the academy, working and playing at the arcade. I am stuck on Goober's Lab and Goober's Atomicolicious. That's right it's chemtastic. Oh and Sampson plays too. But so does Sophie. She says she is about to kick the habit though, we'll see. All she does is talk about getting a new one.

Two More go Belly up

Well we lost our replacement fish this week. The two fish we bought to replace Goldie died this week. Little Princess (Peach's fish) and Goldie II (Sampson's fish). Something about when we buy fish we can't seem to keep them alive. I remember when I bought Sophie a Beta fish that could live in a vase with a plant and you didn't have to feed it or anything, it lived off the plant and the plant lived off the fish waste. Seemed pretty simple. That fish lasted a week. Then we got another one, since it died in less than a week. The next one lasted 10 days or so, and I think it committed fish-icide. That is when a fish commits suicide by getting stuck in the root of the plant. I don't know maybe it's us, maybe we drive the fish to it. Oh well, maybe we need to try a land animal, then again....

The Cecil Blog Bump

After my endorsement of Donnie Nippert for Sheriff in Belmont county, I heard one of the local radio hosts also throw his endorsement Donnie's way. I can only figure that after my blog some of the other local talent wanted to hop on the bandwagon after the enormous boost given to the campaign after my endorsement. This is called the Cecil Blog Bump. David Bloomquist will probably get more of the credit if Donnie goes on to win, but I'm OK with that. It is kind of like the guy who stepped on the moon first and said, 'yeah, it looks safe Neil come on out.' Actually that may not be a good analogy.

Game Night

We have been playing different games for people's birthdays, and one of the crowd favorites is Balderdash. So far the best answer I have come up with combined several answers. I think the category was Movies and the name of the movie was "the Pickle". You have to come up with an idea of what was covered in the movie and my answer was as follows: Two hikers get stuck under a foumart covered in furuncle.
This was funny because foumart was a word we had to make up definitions for and I said it was a rock that was so heavy it required two or more people to move. Then I said Furuncle was another name for the moss that grows on the north side of trees. I don't remember what either of the real definitions were, but from now on this blog will refer to words by my given definition.

Continued downward spiral

Well it looks like the downward spiral of the Steel-towners is picking up steam. This past week one of their former annoucers, Myron Cope, died. In the last six months two of the biggest Steel-er fan I know passed away and then Myron Cope, the guy who invented the terrible towel passed away. The let Alan Faneca leave via free agency, meanwhile not signing anyone themselves and they really aren't in a postion to get a high impact player in the draft. They are one terrible draft away from falling apart. I will continue to monitor the situaiton from a distance.

In a side conversation I had with someone at work, he said the 'terrible towel' was actually invented by Myron Cope's mentally handicapped son. Which means the train is just rocketing down.

Tony Wrecks :-(

Tony Wrecked on Saturday and then wrecked again on Sunday. Needless to say it was not a good weekend in Las Vegas. He looked pretty shook up when the talked to him. He didn't even bash Goodyear for the crappy hard tire they made for that track. Then Jeffy wrecked later, and it was Junior's fault. Well Hendrick, how do you feel about letting Kyle Busch go now, since he is setting third in points and you don't even have a driver sniffing the top ten. And it seems like every week you have at least one of your drivers wreck one of your other drivers.

The Littlest Milk Maid

Peach had a cup of milk yesterday and some how she decided to dip her hands in the cup and cover her hair with milk. Needless to say it will be a while before she is allowed to use a regular open cup again.

Mc B.L.T.

Sophie and I were just reminissing about the old McB.L.T. I never really ate it, but Sophie said she would eat one everyday, and then she said it was probably a good thing they got rid of it or else she would weigh 500 pounds. Yeah, that probably was good then.

The Barn Painter

Check out some pics and video from my old high school buddy the Barn Painter. A.K.A. Scott Hagan.

http://www.barnartist.com/

Voting Dilemma

Well I have decided not to vote in the republican side of the Ohio Primary on March 4th. It looks like McCain is going to get the nomination or at least it is mathematically impossible for Huck to win. So I will vote on the Democratic side. You see Ohio has a modified open primary where you can vote for whatever side you want to, but afterwards you are automatically registered to that party. So if you are a republican you can vote in the democratic primary, but after that you become a registered democrat. Like the label really matters anyway. I think you just get calls and fliers from whichever party you are registered to. Anyway all of the other local fun stuff is going to be on the democrat side too, what with the county commissioners and the county sheriff. I gotta give my endorsement for Sheriff to Donnie Nippert, he sprayed me with mace once. Trust me, he is serious about being police chief. Back to the dilemma though, I will either vote for Hill (oh I can't believe I just typed that) or Obama (double yuck). So which one is the lesser of two evils, let's see. Sophie and I kind of agree that the only option here is Hill. Obama seems to have the youth vote and that would carry over into the general election, but if he doesn't make it then that voting block may sit out the general election, also African Americans may feel disenfranchised if their candidate doesn't make it. But seriously what has he done? Other than having a rock star appeal I don't know that he has accomplished anything. Sure he is a good orator, but just because you can give speeches that doesn't entitle you to be president any more than someone who blogs a lot. By the way I am declaring for the 2012 election, regardless of who wins. Also Hillary is the most polarizing of any candidate in the last century or so. She may get 49% of the vote but she will drive away as many people as she draws. So for now it is Hill, but that could change.

Tony Wins, Again !!!

Tony Stewart is still the only person to win in the Nationwide Series, as he wins the second race of the year this time at California. Kyle Busch finished second, which keeps him second in points. I was kind of rooting for Rowdy because he would be leading in points in all three of the top series. Instead he is 1st in points in the Craftsman Truck, Sprint Cup, and second in Nationwide. No one has ever lead all the of the series at the same time. You know in real life, I've done it multiple times on the video games. Also I've won all of the cha

The Montoyaed List

Today during the race Sophie and I said at about the same time someone was going to get "Montoyaed" by Juan Pablo when he got near the front, and sure enough Clint Boyer was the first victim of 2008. I am going to start a list of people who get Montoyaed and I will update every week as debts are repaid.

1. Clint Boyer - Daytona 500
2. Dave Blaney - Daytona 500 - Also took out Mark Martin and some other people.

Tony Wins!!!

Tony Stewart Won the first ever Nationwide Series race at Daytona. Toyotas finish 1 2 with Tony's teammate Kyle Busch finishing second. Now if they can only do it during the big race.

Death

It seems like we have been losing a lot of people close to us lately and it is pretty tough. The toughest period of losing people for me was a 10 month period around my 20th birthday. My grandmother on my Mom's side died in June, fairly suddenly. She fell at her house, went to the hospital, they found cancer and within a month she was gone. My Dad died the next January, after battling colon cancer for two years with two surgeries (one that left a gapping hole in his stomach because they couldn't close it all the way up due to an infection) and chemo and everything. And my other grandmother died in March. During the same period other people close to me also lost people. My roommate in college lost his father at Thanksgiving, he had been fighting bone marrow cancer and was up and down. At the beginning of fall quarter he had actually been up getting around pretty decent, but by the end of the quarter his state had really deteriorated, which is what can happen with bone marrow cancer. Sophie's grandfather also died, around Christmas due to complications from diabetes which caused some other problems and things in his kidneys, which is what I think he actually died from. And two of my friends from high school lost their grandfather.

They say it takes two years to really get past grieving over someone that you lost, and I think that is due to the emotion you feel during the first anniversary of the passing. You get hit with the same emotions you had when you lost the person the first time only now there are no ceremonies and people don't know why your acting the way you are. When someone first dies there is all kind of outpouring of sympathy from family and friends and it kind of distracts you some what, but on the first anniversary there are only the people who were the closest that are left to deal with things. The second year you kind of expect not to be comforted and the emotions aren't quite as strong. When my dad died it was just me and Mom and every January 17th we would call and talk and just see how each other was. Until this year. 10 years later the day is able to pass without any fanfare or acknowledgement, I mean you never forget that day, but eventually you get far enough away from it that it doesn't have the same impact. Eventually there are enough new days that mean something, weddings, birthdays, graduation days that you don't concentrate on the death days. But only if you keep living yourself. Just because someone else stops living that doesn't mean you can stop.

It is hard at first, I cut back my class schedule to 12 hours for the rest of winter quarter, but I was doing undergrad research in chemistry and the summer before my senior year I got an internship with Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel. That is where I met Bud Smith and he really helped me make sense of what had happened. He talked to me about Job from the bible about how he had always been a good and faithful servant. One day the devil and God were talking and God said look at my servant Job he is very faithful. And the devil was like of course he will be faithful if you keep blessing him, take some of those blessings away and we'll see how faithful he is. So God let the devil take away his things, and his family and even his good health, but Job wouldn't say anything bad about God. Eventually his friends came and told him that he should be cursing God and he held out for a long time until finally he asked God 'Why'. Then God asked him if he had been there when he created the heavens and the Earth and of course the answer was 'no' so God asked him why he would ever question what God did and he didn't have an answer. Job said he was sorry for ever questioning God and he understood that he didn't have the understanding or knowledge of God and he asked for forgiveness. When he prayed to God, God saw he was sincere and he blessed Job with more than what he had before.

I don't know if that is going to make a whole lot of sense, but the basics are that God takes people for reason we don't understand at the time and only when we look back can we see what the plan was. Eventually we will all meet the same end and there are going to be a lot of people taken from our lives. We can't really blame God, because we are all born with a terminal illness called mortality. All you can do is be prepared, and it may seem a little morbid, but I always remember my Dad saying that I eventually he would be gone and now it makes a little more sense I guess. It is always hard to lose someone, but God won't give you more than you can handle. I don't remember exactly what verse it is, but it is there. If you keep that in mind you can make it through anything.

R.i.P. - Goldie

Sampson's fish 'goldie' also died this week. We actually got him from Sophie's aunt and uncle who got him from a fair. I don't know how long they had him, but we have had him for about 2 years or so. I don't know it seems like two years. Sampson is dealing with it pretty well, he wants to get a new one. He said he wants to bury him so we'll do that today and then maybe get another one. Farewell fish.

R.I.P. - R.S.J.

On February 12th, Sophie's uncle Rick St. John passed away from a heart attack. He was 61 years old and was a former employee of Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel. We actually worked there at the same time for a period and whenever I would see him he would always say 'Hey Cec' because that is what they called me at the plant up there. He was a very good man and was always willing to help somebody else. I remember when I asked him to help me patch some holes in the ceiling and he said sure. When I got home he said 'let's get started' he walked in the kitchen grab his stuff and said,' Ok, were done', here he didn't wait for me to get started he had already done everything before I got home. There are probably 100's of stories like that for Rick because he was always doing something usually for someone else it seemed like. He also really loved his family and I will miss Uncle Rick.

The Dukes of Hazzard

I vowed that I wouldn't spend any of my money on this movie, and I wouldn't watch it until it was on TV. Well on Sunday I finally saw it, and it was surprisingly better than I thought. They completely ruined the characters though, Before Boss Hogg and the cops were always the bufoons, but this time around it was the Duke boys, and Jessica. That's the other thing Jessica Simpson was terrible as Daisy Duke. Daisy was always intelligent and hot, not just eye candy, Simpson would have better off not opening her mouth. They did do some cool stuff with the car and some of the driving scenes with the way they were shot, and as awesome as the General Lee was, it kind of loses some of the luster with today's cars. Overall maybe 2 out of 5. Acting was a 1, Car was a 3.

The Disney Trend

Sophie and I have noticed that Disney movies have a disturbing trend. The Mom is always dead. Well about 90% of the time. I guess it is really only disturbing if your a mom, but for instance here are some of the Disney movies that fit this trend:

Finding Nemo
Bambi - well at least at the end
Cinderella (implied, but also maybe the Dad)
Mulan
Angles in the Outfield
Dumbo
Lilo and Stitch (both parents)
Chicken Little
Snow White
Pocahontas
A Goofy movie
The Little Mermaid
The Lion King (Mom never mentioned, Dad gets killed though)
The Game Plan

Also Sophie says there are a lot of wicked step mothers and she says that sets a bad example like women can't be nice.

For some interesting reading check out this link.
http://www.cwluherstory.com/Salon/kristin.html

Good Night Story

(taken from the game plan)

The big bad wolf
blew down the grammie's house
and then ate the Goldie Locks
and something about the porridge.

Good Night

I hate sick kids

Don't get me wrong I don't hate kids I just hate when they are sick. Sampson threw up in the car on the way home yesterday. I feel so bad when they are sick, but he is feeling better and we are going watch "the Game Plan".

Cadbury Battle

This year I start battling for my cadbury eggs. Peach grab one of mine (yes, MINE) and shoved the whole thing in her mouth. Allegedly she said, "Umm that's good" but how good could a two year old talk with a cadbury egg shoved in her mouth. Well, I will try and make sure that doesn't happen again.

Moment of Truth

So Fox has a new show called 'Moment of Truth' were someone has to answer 21 questions, TRUTHFULLY. Basically they ask someone 50 questions while they are hooked up to a polygraph machine and they pick 21 of the questions to ask them on TV. The person's family and friends gets to join them on stage and they can hit a plunger if they don't like the question that is asked and the person can get asked a different question. From what I gathered in the first episode I saw, it is basically selling yourself and your family out on national TV for the shot at $500,000.

The guy I saw was a former Marine who had joined the Marines apparently not to impress his father, but while he was in the service he did something he was ashamed of. But not drunk driving, he's done that in the last 6 months. Now he has a 'boring' half Japanese girl friend (he makes racial jokes about her parents) that he doesn't want to propose to and he uses his lack of money as an excuse. Which is ironic because he works as a food server and has taken tip money off of other people's tables and also changed people's credit card receipts to increase his tip amount. Even with all that extra income he still did some time as a male underwear model, but he stuffed up front if you know what I mean. Only problem is he lied about it and went home with out any cash. Guess that girlfriend is going to have to wait for a ring, oh well at least he didn't embarrass himself.

Survivor Picks - Micronesia

What we're gonna do this year is pick one of the 10 fans and one of the 10 favorites.

Kirk's Picks - Fan - Erik
Favorite - Amanda (winner)

Sophie's picks - fan - Girl in blue - Will sort out next week (winner)
Favorite - James

Peach makes herself Pretty

Peach's uncle was watching her today while Sophie went to the doctor's with a couple of girls. Anyway he said he took his eyes of her for a minute and the next thing he knew she was up in the bedroom putting on Mommy's make-up. When he caught up to her she said, "Ain't I cute?" If I would have been here I would have said, "yeah, your really cute, how bought I had some natural redness to your butt." Just kidding. When Sophie told me about it I just laughed. Until tomorrow when I get her myself.

I Make My Own Rules

That is the title of LL Cool J's (James Todd Smith), book and in case you were wondering I finished it last Friday. It was written in the late 90's, and chronicles LL's rise through the 80's and his personnel life all the way though. It was pretty good, it was real graphic though and I would caution young eyes if you know what I mean. He is set to release his 13th album this year and he will finally be able to leave Def Jam. Apparently his dad had him sign some insane agreement before he knew what he was doing. He did have alot of forgiveness for his dad though, at least before that. See his dad shot his mom and grandfather when he was four. Then his mom hooked up with her rehab therapist and the guy would beat LL for any reason and just made life really tough on him. Unfortunately he couldn't tell his mom because she wouldn't believe him. So he turned violent himself before turning to a life of rap and hip hop. Then he got rich and blew a bunch of his money, got into drugs a little and quickly gave them up, but was addicted to physical activity with the females. That is where the book gets a little graphic. Anyway where the book ended he had 3 kids and a wife and was working on his show on UPN, with his clothing line FUBU and shoes Najee (named after his son). He did get pretty deep into religion (when LL was young he was actually Catholic and sang for the Pope in a choir in the 70's). I know the show is no longer on, but I'm not sure where his life is now. Anyway it was a pretty interesting book and just couldn't put it down.

Not so Super Tuesday

Well "Super Tuesday" has come and gone, without really settling much. Except now the only real conservative candidate has dropped out even though he was still second in the delegate count. The real question that comes out of super tuesday is, "What the hell is wrong with West Virginia?" Sorry for the language, but seriously, only 1,100 people voted!! 567 for Huck and 521 for Romney and McCain got 12 votes. Huck ended up with all 18 delegates from the state, but what the heck happened. I think the primary system really needs revised in this country. It is up to local government to fund to equipment and different things concerning elections yet there are only two parties and sometimes the parties don't want to have their primaries on the same day, how stupid. It should be up to the states and there should be one day for both parties and that is it. I know that WV is mostly Democratic but, out of 2 million people you're telling me only 1,100 wanted to vote in the republican primary. Come on. And the sad thing is in all of the coverage on Tuesday and even up 'til today no one has mentioned it. It just seems very odd to me that something like that could even happen. Very Odd. Conspiracy odd, if you know what I mean. I think there was some type of electronic voting or caucasing over the internet or something and some people didn't realize it was voting day because both of the parties weren't voting. What they need to do is have one day and forget about this winner-take-all B.S. I mean when you have three real candidates it isn't fair to give all the delegates to one person when they don't win a clear majority of the votes. If they get more than 50% then fine, give the all the delegates. But when someone gets only 38% he doesn't deserve all of the delegates because 62% of the people voted against him!!! That is why McCain is going to get beat. He may get more delegates than anyone else, but he doesn't even have the majority of the support of his own party. And all of the pimping the media is doing for him will go away in the fall. It's funny, I was listening to the radio and they said "does John McCain really think the New York Times and these other news papers are going to support him in the fall?" And you know what it will be true. For me this race is still going to come down to the V.P. candidates. If McCain comes back with a real conservative V.P. that can mobilize the base of the republican party he may have a chance to win the general election. And if the Democrats go for a mirror image of the presidential candidate (Somebody real far left) they can lose. Right now, though, even if the democrats are running neck and neck they are still ahead of the republicans, which is unfortnate, because it will mean higher taxes for everyone who already pays taxes, and possibly even higher taxes if they pass some form of health care coverage.

Oh, I guess I was wrong about Tuesday being Huck's last stand. It turned out to be Mitt's last stand, but either way after Tuesday the race couldn't support two "conservative" candidates. I am still going to write-in Romney when the primary comes to Ohio.

a lighter note

On a lighter note, I started reading the LL Cool J book yesterday and I just can't put it down. He really went through some stuff when he was growing up.

R.i.P. Harold "Mutt" Milhoan

Mom just told me tonight that Mutt passed away this morning. He had been battling health problems for a while and finally succumbed at the age of 92. He was an elder in the church I grew up in and whenever I think of an elder he will definetly be the first one who come to mind. I remember when I was just starting in adult church and every Sunday when he would have the communion pray he would say, "I was watching Bob Hope last night and when he was on stage everyone would give him a standing ovation, and think it is only right that we should give Jesus a standing ovation as we gather around this table." Every Sunday I think back to that because now everyone who prays just asks people to 'please stand for communion pray' but I bet there are a lot of people who are there that don't remember or never new what it was like before he changed how we worshipped during communion time. He was also a neighbor and I will attend the funeral on Saturday. He and Mildred had the same anniversery as me and Sophie. My deepest heart felt sympathies go out to the Milhoan family, sorry for your loss.

Farewell Aunt Emmy

It has been a rough week for our family, on Saturday we lost our Aunt Emmy. She was Sophie's great aunt and she was actually more like a grandmother to her. It was a small funeral on Wednesday and I was a paul bearer, which I was proud to do as I loved Aunt Emmy as well. She was a 20 year survivor of breast cancer, but in the last two months she had slid from remission in to a cancerous state again. She went into the hospital in December, and she never really came back. It is horrible to watch someone go through what she went through. The last time I saw her was right after Christmas and Sophie and gone to see her at least ever week while she was being moved around from the hospital to a nursing facility. They started to give her chemo again, but after they started she experienced a fairly swift decline. Her memory was slipping a little bit at the end of the year, but she still had that spunky aunt Emmy side that would come out and tell you how it was. Sophie said towards the end she was a lot less talkative and that final Saturday Sophie and her mom spent most of the day with her before we had to go to a birthday party. Needless to say we didn't feel much like a party, buy it was relatives from the other side of her family, so they really weren't experiencing the same thing. After the party we got 'the call' that she had passed. We were very sad, because aunt Emmy was always full of life and the kids really loved her. Sophie has pictures of her and Sampson putting puzzles together, that is what they did when she came to stay, they worked on puzzles. The kids didn't go to the funeral and it was a good idea because there weren't many people there and it was during the week and they didn't really understand. I feel bad that they never really got to see her, to kind of give her a good-bye, but when we broke the news to Sampson he really didn't understand. I think he kind of understands death, but how do you really explain that type of stuff to a 5 year old. My mom came to stay with them during Tuesday visitation and the service on Wednesday and someday when they want to say good-bye I will take them to the cemetary so they can say farewell. Farewell Aunt Emmy may you rest in peace, you will be missed.

Thompson Out

Fred Thompson dropped out today, and I say right now that Mitt is the leader. The Media seems to be pushing McCain, but the battle will start in Florida when Rudy enters the race. I still think he waited too long, but as long as people keep dropping out he has a shot. What it depends on now is where people go after their candidate is out. I think Huck's about done, he is pulling out of Florida, which is a good idea. When the state is divided 3-ways it is hard to fight up from fourth and is probably better to let those 3 fight it out for the win while he gets an early start on Super Tuesday states. That will probably be Huck's last stand, but I still feel the general election will fall on the V.P.'s and not so much the nominees. Fred get ready to hit the road again, President your not, but maybe V.P. We shall see. I heard Hillary might select Even Biegh (sp?). Which could really hurt if she gets the nomination, but because of the rift between her and Obama now, I really don't think she could possibly pick him. Stranger things have happened though....

Fed Steps in Again

Well the Fed stepped in (it) again and lowered interest rates by 3 quarters of point, and at the meeting at the end of the month they are expecting them to lower the rate by another half. There is some debate on whether it is good or not, but I read an article that said what they are doing is reminiscent of what happened in the late 70's. High oil, continuously lowering the rate and then everything finally caught up in the early 80's and caused double digit inflation. And then a recession. Basically right now all they are trying to do is avoid a recession, but lowering the rate might not be the best answer. I think we are still suffering from what they did in 2001 right after 9/11 and they lowered the rate by a half point the next day. We are just prolonging the inevitable and eventually someone is going to have to man up and take the hit like Reagan did. Hey maybe Hillary will. . . (man up that is). Doubtful, she doesn't seem to do to well with confrontation. Hey if you can hang on until the market fully bottoms out, and you have a little cash left, you could pull some sweet financing deals. You know provided there are still jobs and what not.

Sampson the computer Guru

Sampson has really taken to the computer lately. He is addicted to Mahjong, just like his Maw and last night he made his first board. I made one called 'Whatchamacallit' and it is dang near impossible. Sampson's was pretty easy he named it "Sampson" because that's all he can type. We finally got his Webkinz on the internet too. It is a real stuffed animal and it has its own virtual identity with a room and you can buy it stuff like food or furniture. It is pure genius and it will probably cost me a lot of money in the end, but it is pretty neat. The web features come free with the toy, and you earn Webkinz money by playing games and basically spending all your time on the internet. But then you gotta feed it and stuff and take care of it and if you don't it will die and you get kicked out of Webkinz World. Or something to the that effect. Well I better hurry he wants to show what all he got today and I want to play too. Did I mention Sampson is 5 and a half. I remember reading an article when Sampson was little about a woman teaching her two year old how to get on the internet, but the kid would only connect to the internet and go to one place and play one game. I have tried to limit Sampson's early exposure to the computer so it didn't seem like some parlor trick when he wanted to use it and he would actually be able to do something once he got on there. Of course doing something can sometimes mean wiping out the memory on the Mahjong game, but he does pretty good. He also has computer lab at school. Which seems crazy because I don't think I saw a computer at school until I was in 5th grade or so and even then it was mostly just for games. It is definitely something you need to be able to do now though, even in pre-school I guess.

Sophie's Dr. Visit

Well we went to the doctor yesterday morning for Sophie's neck and everything was OK. He told her he didn't need to see her for another year, so the thing on her neck must not worry him to much. He said he could go in and take it out, but it would be a real bloody mess and then he would have to fuse vertebrates in her neck afterwards and it really wasn't worth the risk and we agreed. So to help her back he suggested she do some McKenzie exercises. He said they look kind of "lude" like you were trying out for an adult film, but would help with the flexibility in her back. So I already reserved two books at the library for her, you know to help her back. Also doing stuff online with the library is awesome. I can sit in my PJ's and reserve everything from books about backs and LL Cool J, to CD's and even new release movies. And the best part is it is all free!! I have to say public libraries are probably one of the most underutilized services out there, which is unfortunate because of their awesomeness. At least Drew Carey understands.

Happy Birthday

Happy 40th Birthday LL Cool J.

Today is his birthday 1/14.

COLTS LOSE COLTS LOSE!

Well that outa teach 'em to not throw the game in the last week of the season. See if they would have beat the Titans, then Cleveland would have played San Diego. Cleveland would have won and then played the Cheatriots and the Colts would have played the Jags which they had beaten already and Cleveland would have rooted for the Colts, and they would have won and Cleveland would have avenged an earlier defeat and played the colts in the AFC Championship. Indy would have won and Manning Bowl I would have taken place, but now it is going to be Favre vs. Brady and in an ultimate farewell act Favre and the Packers win the Super Bowl and Bret wins the MVP. Well at least the Colts.

Power outage of aught eight

It was terrible, no computer, no t.v., no playstation, no books. Oh wait we had books and it was before noon so there was still light. So we played, wrestled around, threw the football, played cards. But let me tell you two more hours and we would have been tearing the legs off of chairs and using them to build a fire in the middle of the living room. Or at least we would of packed up for the night and headed towards Mom's.

Republican Debates

Well the focus group in South Carolina afterwards thought that Fred Thompson was the winner and then they had a text vote and Ron Paul was winning by like 12%. I have some reservations about that vote though, as it was probably a bunch of liberals or something just voting for who they thought was the worst candidate. Anyway, I only caught a little bit of it an then the last 1/2 hour. I thought Mitt didn't look too bad, and my only concern with Thompson is the lack of a serious record - long term record. He was only a senator for 8 years and I am not voting for a senator, who hasn't even completed 2 terms, for President. Which leaves Ron Paul completely out because he was only a Rep. in Texas. I think you have to at least manage a state or be a senator for a while before you can be president. Which basically rules out all of the Democrats for me, Barrack, Hillary and John Edwards have only achieved Junior Senator status. The only trump card is that Hillary has spent 8 years 'around' the White House, but I question how much impact she had in the decision making process. I think we all know Bill was quite capable of going out on his own ;-). Then you look at Rudy and he was the Mayor of New York which has a larger population than most states, but my problems with Rudy are that he is Pro-choice and that his private life has kind of been in turmoil since he was elected mayor. He hasn't kept in touch with his son and he got divorced and stuff and it just seems like if you want to be president and run the country you have to first be able to run your own life (during this point in the blog there was a power outage so I kind of lost my train of thought). Well tomorrow is Michigan and the Media says that 'Romney has to win or else', but he did already win one state... 5 points to anyone with the correct answer. . . it was Wyoming. Not many delegates, but he is in the point lead now. I think Michigan will be between Mitt and John and South Carolina will go about the same way with maybe Thompson getting a little more recognition in the South. Rudi will come in towards the back of the pack in both states, but the way things are shaping up if Rudi doesn't win Florida he could be out by Super Tuesday. And I think Romney would stand to pick up more of the support than McCain. Once Huck goes out maybe after Florida, Mitt has a better shot. I kind of think that is how it is going to end up, sort of like the last two elections where you just vote for the person you hate the least. My real feeling though is that the general election will come down to the choice of V.P.'s for both of the primary winners. Well that is enough about this already it is only January!!!