Civic league playoffs. . . playoffs, don't talk about playoffs

Well the old flag football season is winding down and what is a kindergarten/1st grade playoff without a little controversy. We lost tonight in the first round thanks to some creative score keeping, but since it just happened I will recount the events as they are fresh in my mind. Also Sampson got two flags tonight and he blocked really well, way to go buddy. Ok so the Broncos started with ball in the first half drove down and scored 0-7. Then we drove down and scored 7-7, it was actually kind of dramatic as the Buckeyes had to convert a fourth down in order to keep the drive alive and a penalty on the conversion gave the Bucks a much needed second shot on the conversion. Then they scored 7-14. Then we scored but missed the conversion 13-14. Then the Broncos scored to make it 13-21 before the half. We got the ball one more time, but ran out of time before the half ended. Little kids flag football plays two 20 minute halves with a continuous clock until the last minute of the half and then apparently the clock stops for everything, so games last like 5 hours. Just kidding it is like an hour, but tonight's game took a little longer.

(Switch to Dramatic Mode)
So the Buckeyes were down at half time, but not dejected. Determination shown through on their little faces as they took the field for the second half and the referee signaled 1st down Buckeyes to start the half. Methodically the Buckeyes marched the ball down the field to score and draw back to within a point, 20-21, of the hated Broncos. Well not hated, but greatly disliked at least tonight. Anyway we let them go back down the field and score and make it an 8 point game at 20-28. On the next possession the Buckeye marched down and scored, but failed on the two point conversion leaving them in a two point hole at 26-28. On the Broncos next play from scrimmage a seldom used 1st-year player was given the ball, I assume he was a first year player because he instinctively ran backwards where he was taken down for a safety, allowing the Buckeyes to draw even at 28-28. I give the Broncos credit for giving the ball to one of the younger guys in that situation as it would turn out to be pivotal, unless they just thought they had the game in the bag then that was silly. After the safety, by rule, the Buckeyes get to go back on the offensive. Now with the game even and new life breathed into the offense again the Bucks went to work dismantling the Bronco D for another score 34-28 Bucks as they took their first lead. But missing on the conversion had left the door open for the Broncos to come down and score and tie the game, before converting and regaining the advantage at 35-34. Undaunted the Buckeyes huddled having less the a minute now to work they had to be quick yet manage the clock. Two running plays and two timeouts moved the bucks near the goal line, but not in. Now in a creative genius mode our coach pulls the boys together and decided to go for the deep ball. I say deep, but really a pass play in flag football is pretty spectacular at any yardage. Our QB drew back passed the ball to a wide open slanting receiver who caught the ball, but stopped short. Desperate the bucks used their last timeout, because let's face it trying to line up a bunch of kids in a timely manner is like herding cats. So effectively if the Bucks failed now it would be game over. Calmly and probably not realizing the enormous weight of the moment the QB settled under center now, quick snapping the ball and running into the end zone for the go ahead score 41-35 Bucks, after the conversion. The crowd was going crazy now, but the Bucks had made one error . . . too much time remained 33 seconds showed...the broncos would need only 22. Two plays and they succeeded in making a touch down and subsequent conversion vaulting them ahead and seemingly leaving the Buckeyes staring at the short end of a 41-42 score. All hope was lost, down 1 point, no timeouts and facing an entire field, but hope was not lost not yet the 5, 6, and 7 year-olds lined up. Knowing no fear they stared down the enemy for one last play. . . Go said the QB and the Bucks where off, but the hand off had been mistaken and the ball dropped to the ground. Game Set Match Broncos. . . but wait. A penalty, off sides Defense. New life had been given to the Bucks and this time fate would be made their b... well fate was dealt a blow as the Bucks answered the bell with now only 4 seconds left. Go they yelled and this time there would be no one catching the speeding back as he zigged and zagged through the Bronco D one last time to cap the scoring and deliver the win to Bucks, 47-42. But wait, controversy had reared its ugly head and the score was in doubt. Down by 2 the Ref Said. WHAT?!!?!? Panic set in on the crowd for the Bucks as they would now have to score a two point conversion just to "tie" the game. Alas the Bucks were stopped short yet again and the Broncos were announced the winners and would move on to the championship game. Disgusted by what I had just seen, and feeling terrible for the boys as they had played hard and deserved to win the hard fought game (legitimately as they had scored more points) I yelled at the ref to voice my concern, but to no avail. I pleaded with the coach who agreed as did several of the by standers, which relieved me because then I knew I wasn't some insane parent just ranting and raving for the sake of being a lunatic. So we confronted the head ref and he kept score on like a sheet of paper with no rhyme or reason. Our coach looked at it, he pleaded one last time and I think he thought he had made his case but the announcement had been made. Now what... the Bucks play for third.

Sophie's Surgery - Done

Sophie got out of her surgery fine. Thanks for the prayers. It took a little over an hour and then she was in recovery for like another hour. By the time she got to her room she was a little groggy and in some pain. So the nurse gave her a couple of shots after they got her status updated in the computer ( and I don't mean her face book status, I had to update that for her). Then I went and picked up the kids, brought them home, got them something to eat and then took them down to the hospital to see her. She should get to come home tomorrow. I'll let everyone know. Now I just have to make it through the night with kids . . .

Sophie's Surgery

Sophie goes for surgery Tuesday. So if you could shoot out a prayer for her that would be great. She is getting her gal bladder taken out. They said it could have been the cause of her back trouble and stuff too, so hopefully after it comes out she will feel a ton better. She is in a lot of pain right now and any time she eats she gets doubled over, but she is very nervous about her surgery. She has to stay in the Hospital over night too, so I get the kids all by myself. Hey shoot me a prayer too. Thanks.

The Bucks

Sampson is playing flag football again this year. He is doing much better his second year and is usually one of the biggest kids on the field. He isn't exactly angry guy though so he gets pushed around a little, I keep waiting for him to just explode though as he can pack some punch for a 7 year old. Today we complete the regular season. So far we lost 1 game to his team from last year. That is the first game he lost and it happened to be the second game of a double header, which was tough on the youngsters. He couldn't get on his old team because Sophie's brother had his little boy and they wanted them to be on the same team. Next year though Sampson moves up and Sophie has already declared that she wants 'her friends' back.

Peach is dancing again too. This year she picked up ballet along with tap and acro. She can touch her head with her feet when she does her seal now too. I think Sophie was a little disappointed that she liked ballet so much, because Sophie hated it when she took it. Peach is definitely her own little person though. This year we will try and keep her away from any injuries so she doesn't have to wear a cast for her recital.

MMO RPG Reviews

I finally finished Evony. Well I quit playing anyway, which should be obvious since I am blogging again. So I finally figured out that the deal with MMORPG's is that there is no way to get out. They just kind of drag on for ever and ever, and you get to a point were you have done everything you wanted to and there just isn't anything else to accomplish. Evony ended up being pretty good one of the best things about it is the alliance chat, i don't like the idea of being attacked when your not online and because people are from different areas it becomes very easy for them to attack you when you are sleeping. Unless you never sleep which didn't seem to be a very good option for me. The other thing I didn't like was the war system itself. Once you get an army to a certain size it becomes unsustainable and the only thing you attack on a regular basis is NPC's. Granted it takes a while to get there, but then you have to keep your army up to defend yourself. Then the bigger alliances just get a bunch of their member to send 100k troops at a time to bring your defenses down. I achieved the highest population in the game for a short period, before I started getting attacked by an old alliance, conveniently while I was off line, but I had already decided to quit by then anyway. Someday I may recap the story of my old buddy Casca Van Furey and how he held the evil VersusB alliance at bay when I was off line, lol.

So after I quit evony I was looking for something that didn't require as much time, that you could play when you wanted to and was failure secure if you were off line. So I started playing Tribal Wars, but it is like a watered down evony, without the alliance chat. I don't really care for it but I log on every once and a while and upgrade stuff. I guess I need to upgrade my army in that game too since I just got attacked.

Next I tried Tagoria, which is just a game where you control one single player. You complete quests and fight other people in order to gain experience and gold. It is all text based too essentially, as it is your stats versus someone else stats. It at least is a fairly quick game, but it gives you something to do on a day to day basis. you can only attack every 10 minutes or so then you just wait so not too bad, but definitely not the most exciting game on the web.

Then I found Dogs of the Seas. This game is fairly unique among the MMO's as you actually take the battles in your own hands. You pilot your own ship, complete missions and look for treasure. You have your own home base that you can build ships in and cannons and when you need supplies you can go out and plunder or fight an NPC. And if you were really skilled you could take down a bigger ship with a smaller one as it is not completely based on text stats. I reminds me of the old pirates game I had for the Tandy 1000SL. Anyway your home base is protected when you are off line (yeah) and you only put at risk the ship you are sailing. You could also join up with an alliance and double team or triple team an enemy. But if you are good I think you could pretty much get out of anything as you could navigate back to your home base or to a protected area. It seems like a pretty decent game at least, probably the best of the ones I have played so far.

Random Stuff

Have you noticed that Tony Stewart is now endorsing Burger King and the Whopper. Hey didn't he endorse Subway last year? Burger King is probably a better fit.

Taylor Swift's video was better than Beyonce's.

This is just funny:

Techno Stuff

If you get a smart phone that isn't an iphone, you can download a browser capable of full web browsing with flash capability (which the iphone doesn't have). The browser is 'Skyfire' and it works well on the LG Incite.

Fantasy Baseball - 2009

Well the old Ninja Frogs were transformed into the 'Revenge of the Frogs', and did exact their revenge on the league this year. After being mired in 3rd or 4th for most of the first half the Frogs kicked it up after the all-star break. The good thing this year was that I had a decent enough team that I didn't have to trade much or hit the free agent wire. Once A-rod came back off the DL my team was pretty well set. Ian Kinsler did go on the DL for 15 days in August, but other than that he was pretty dependable. I didn't mess around with catchers even though Russell Martin severely underperformed he was still solid and not worth tieing up a roster spot with another catcher. I had too many outfielder to start with, but they were all pretty decent and I held on to Corey Hart for as long as I could before I ended up dropping him when A-Rod came off the DL. I think that was how that worked or else Gil Meche went on the DL right about the same time and bought Hart another month. Either way out of Bay, Damon, Eithier, and Fowler I had to get rid of Hart. I didn't want to get rid of Fowler because I thought he would be decent, but he never got enough playing time, oh well. I think I still like the Roto format better as head to head provides for new opportunity every week there are some match-ups that people just flat out tank. The guy I took over for second played a guy he beat 10-0 one week then the last two weeks of the season I played the same guy and he beat me 7-2-1, go figure. Anyway I had a 10 game lead so it didn't matter. Oh and for Stevie, well he limped in at third ha ha. I guess his team name the '3 peters' meant he was going to come in third. Who knew. It definitely wasn't because he 3-peated as league champ. Hey at least you had a good run, but in the last year and a half I have taken over as fantasy champ. If it wouldn't have been for the first half of baseball season last year when I was learning about fantasy sports I could have won that too. Well maybe not, but next year the Frogs will look to "repeat" themselves.

Pres Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

Wow

I'm Back.....

Well at least for now. What were you worried? I took off 2 years before, 4 months is nothing.

New Obsession

Evony. That's it, that is the new obsession. It is all real time MMORPG, so that is all. If you want to play join sever 9 and look for Kirk Helfen. My alliance is pretty fun we like to do conquering parties, but not on Wednesday. That's 'No Plunder Wednesdays'. If you want to check it out it is www.evony.com, but I warned you - it is very time consuming. Right now I've got 5 cities and I conquered my first player controlled city yesterday. It took 3 hours, but shawn helped so it wasn't too bad. Anyway it is fun, but I barely even have time to blog. Fortunately I didn't have to go to work to day, so I can get caught up a little. Well see you there.

VBS Week

The week after Father's day happened to be VBS week this year, and every VBS week we always stay at Mom's house. That is because it is a lot closer and Sophie and I help out. I often don't get to see her much though because by the time I get back from work, it is dinner time then at 6:00 we had to go in for VBS. It didn't end 'til 8:30 so needless to say I was usually pretty tired by the end of the day. Plus this week I got to play Jesus. It was pretty dramatic, one day I even had the audience in tears with my performance. Well Peach was in tears. The theme of the week was Jerusalem and it was for the period when Jesus went to for passover and they crucified him. Well we did the last supper one night, and then when Jesus was betrayed the next night. Well the second night I was Jesus praying in the garden and when the Judas came the guards took me and put me into the Jail they had set up. Well Peach was very upset that Daddy was put in jail. She thought it was for real, and she was crying and screaming. I guess I was just too good, and some people couldn't tell the difference. Just Kidding. Anyway I also got to do recreation, which wasn't too bad. The only bad night was the one that it rained and we had to do stuff inside. Then on Thursday they brought in the inflatable obstacle course so that the kids could play and really have fun. Of course I was concerned that Peach would have a hard time what with her cast and all, so I went with her :). The second time I was just trying to keep her spot and when we got to the front the other kids behind us had matched up, so they wanted me to go against a little boy. Well I won't go into detail, but if you get a chance you should definitely ask Sophie what happened. All I'll say is that the kids weren't embarrassed, but Sophie was. Sorry honey, I thought it was funny myself, but like I said I'll try to spare her any further embarrassment. The last night they always do a slide show, but some of the pictures were too big to use so they had to print them out and scan them in. But the power went off when there was only about 30 minutes until show time. So they came and asked me if we could do something and we hurried up and put the pictures on a flash drive and did a slide show using the picture viewer. It actually worked out pretty well, I did that in about 7 minutes to get it ready, loading the pictures took a while because of the size, and then when it got to the end I hit space bar to pause it on the slide with title on it. I thought that was awesome because I thought the space bar was the right button to pause it but I was only about 60 % sure. Probably 62.8%. Yeah definitely a little higher than 60%. Anyway that worked and if you didn't know any better I don't think you could have told it was just kind of thrown together, but hey when you got Jesus on your side (the real Jesus in this case not me) nothing is impossible. So all in all VBS week was pretty good, and next year should be good too as the theme is like the secret early christian church where they met in caves and they are going to do the whole fellowship hall like a big cave, so it should be pretty good. Well see you there.

Fishing Derby '09

Well this year we finally got a trophy. After seven years of trying with my little buddy we finally brought home the big one. We got the most fish trophy. Sure he carried most of the load and after we finished I didn't even think we would win, but we finally pulled it out. One year we would have won if he could have caught just one fish because I caught like 8 myself, but he was either 10 months old or 1 or so, either way he finally delivered the goods. He also caught the smallest fish, but I guess there is some rule about only getting one trophy, oh well. Peach reeled one in too, with her cast and all. She was using Sampson's old Ninja Turtle pole to start out with, but she came over by me and I casted with her and hooked one and let her reel it in. The fishing derby is definitely one of my favorite things to do with the kids, even though they are lucky to stay interested for the 15 minutes we get to fish together. Here are some picks from the derby. Oh and if you wondering if worm inflation had continue to skyrocket, I really can't tell you. I would have paid a dollar a worm to win with one of my kids (although Sampson did catch 5 in a row with the same worm, or varying amounts of the same original worm, way to be efficient buddy). Now I just have to win one with Peach, provided you know, she can carry the load. No pressure sweetie.

Peach's Recital

Even with a cast the show must go on . . and on . . and on. Well I say that because it seemed to go on for a really long time. Especially since she didn't get to go on until the fourth Act. If I was thinking ahead of time I would have said I'll be a little late ;), but no we were there for virtually the whole thing. I don't know how you could make little 3 year-olds wait 3 hours to go on, but they did really good. If I get the tape on the computer I'll try and post the video. Since she had the cast she couldn't do her acro part, but she could still tap. She was soooo cute walking across the stage smiling holding her hat. That darn cast though, arghhh I hate that thing. Next year she isn't allowed to do anything 6 weeks before the recital. After the show we gave her some roses with a barbie dancer in, and she was really excited. She did a really good job. Next year Sophie said she was going to put her in Jazz, ballet, acro, and tap plus private lessons so that when we are sitting at the recital for four hours we will at least get to see her some. Some of the girls we saw a lot. a lot. a lot. It got a little annoying, but some day that will be my little girl so get ready.

Peach's cast

I promised a couple of pictures of her cast, so here you go. She looks really sad about having that cast doesn't she. Hopefully she will get it off Monday the 22nd. They may have to put a small one on, but man I hope not. I think she is going to go nuts when they come at her with that saw. I don't think she has thought about how the cast comes off, but she freaked out when I had tweezers to try and take a splinter out of her foot. Good luck Sophie.

I have hated having to watch her do stuff with that thing on, it just makes me feel so bad. It really is a sad predicament at least for Mommy and Daddy, but she had done really well with it. I don't know that she has learned anything from breaking her arm, we'll just have to wait and see how long it is until she breaks another bone. Incase you were wondering the cast hasn't slowed her down a bit. I'm just glad it has been unseasonable cool so that she hasn't been miserable. Expect it to start getting hot on the 23rd though.

First Grader

Sampson made it through Kindergarten. Next year we'll have a first grader on our hands. He did really good this year, he ended the year with 15 Masters so Mommy and Daddy were pretty excited. Of course he has been using that as an excuse to try and soak some money and/or presents out of people. Good job Buddy.

Blog Break

Okay, we have had a lot going on lately, but I'll try and bring you up to speed. :)

Tony and Lyoto Win (Welcome Back)

I was wrong about Tony, but not about Lyoto. I haven't blogged in a while and why not start with a correct prediction about Lyoto Machida winning the light heavy weight belt in UFC. He beat Evans back in May, but fortunately I had already called it, so even if you missed it you should have known what was going to happen (gee whiz look at all those conjunctions, don't worry I'm just a little rusty). As for Tony . . . well after the all-star race and since he was running up front all year I though he actually might have a chance to win. But when he left Gibbs last year I didn't really know if would happen or not given the recent success of Micheal Waltrip and Robbie Gordon, fortunately Tony is probably a little bit better driver than them. Also he is apparently a good bit smarter as he is using Hendrick stuff. (which I guess would kind of make him a member of HESCAR) Anyway he won the Pocono 500 at Pocono June 7th. I actually had to fight Mom for control of the T.V. because the Red's had gone into extra innings, but since she is such a great Mom she let me watch the end of the race so I could see Tony's first points win. Then the Red's gave up 3 runs so I could see him talk too.

My Jinx

Well it is all my fault. Yesterday I wrote about worrying when our next visit to the E.R. would happen. Turns out it was today. Peach and Sampson were playing on the swing set and sure enough Peach falls off the slide and we end up at the emergency room. . . again. I hope they just put a folder for Peach out front because this is the second visit in three months. And she broke old Dad's record for first broken bone, cause I was about seven and she is only three. According to the ER X-ray she has a real slight break in both of her forearm bones. The radius and ulna. That means she'll get a cast on Monday and have that for about 4 or 6 weeks, which runs in to her butterfly school recital. Hey, if you bought tickets already too bad. No I'm just kidding if you would need the money back just let us know. I mean she might be able to tap still she just won't be able to do the tumbling stuff. Maybe she will be able to get her cast off on the day of the recital, because I don't think she will actually be able to get her dress on with a cast. Once we get the cast I'll be sure to post pictures.

Outside Fun

I decided that even though basketball has given me three sprained ankles and a broken wrist, that is still ok for me to play with Sampson. See we set up our little 6 foot hoop in the back tonight and I taught him how to play knockout. Then Peach climbed on the monkey bars pretty much all buy herself. Although I think I taught her that it was Ok to reach out and swing, I just hope she doesn't get daring and decide to do it when someone isn't close. Otherwise we could be in for another trip to the E.R. Of course if I keep playing basketball with Sampson we could be headed there anyway.

On an inside note, Sophie is watching the "Bones" finale. So far she said it was the dumbest season finale she has ever seen. Two minutes left. . . Oh snap the dude woke up and didn't have his memory. Sophie says it was still bad and she might not even be interested for next year. We'll see. . .

Go Fish

Sampson has found a new favorite game - Go Fish. Only Sophie bought it for Peach so she could learn some of her colors, but Sampson has managed to hijack it. Now he wants to play it continuously, and there is no way to stop him. He is kind of like me that way, when I find something fun I just do it, and do it until it isn't fun anymore and then I don't want anything to do with it. Well we finally broke the streak tonight, but he would play 10 or 12 games a night easy if you let him. Did I mention the cards were Care Bear cards? Oh if you have any other go fish cards please send 'em this way, something for boys. Like bugs or different kinds of weapons or even transformers, something for boys just not Care Bears.

Responding to a comment

I noticed this comment recently-

"hey here at the triple c we notice your not in a cast."

This was in response to the pictures from Maw's house where we were playing basketball. Of course given my recent history with basketball people may expect to see me in a cast after hooping it up. Well I just wanted to let people know that against the elderly and small children - I OWN! Now you start getting into the kids that are double digits and you gotta watch out cause those kids are trouble. They don't only get you down, they keep you down and then jump on your ankle and next thing you know... well let's just say 10 and up you gotta keep yourself safe first.

Happy Mother'stine Day

That is what Peach told Sophie today when she woke up. 'Happy Mother'stine Day'. I guess it is like a cross between Mother's Day and Valentines day and apparently it is good for anyone as she wished me and Sampson the same thing. Anyway hope everyone had a good Mother'stine day.

Our normal Mother's day dinner on Sophie's side didn't disappoint this year. Normally there is always something that happens. Last year we went to Cheddar's with about 10-12 people so we waited a while for a table, then when we were seated we waited for a while to order. Then after everyone's food came I waited an extra long while, because apparently they forgot to put my order in. I had to wait until almost everyone was done eating before I got my food. Needless to say I haven't been back since. This year though we decided to have breakfast on Saturday before the T-ball game. So we went to Bob Evans with Sophie's brothers and Mom and when we got there we ordered the table for 10. Well Ricco said that the manager was giving a lot of attitude for having to fix the dining room up for 10. So he wanted to leave. And he did. And then we did. We all kind of followed out into the parking lot and decided to go to Denny's, which didn't bother me all that bad because I was wanting to try the new grandslamwhich (by the way it was awesome - although the syrupy french toast type bread was maybe a little too much on the sweet side). At least I didn't get left out of the food this year, but I would say the total time I had to wait to eat was probably still over an hour from the time I thought I would be eating. Maybe it is me, maybe I'm the bad luck guy when it comes to Mother's day meals. I know one thing, next year I'm packing a snack when we go out to eat.

Blog Neglect

Well I have neglected the old blog for the last couple of weeks, but not without reason. See I've been at war with my cybernation Helfenland and it has been taking up a good bit of my time. Anyway the war is over for now I things are starting to get back to normal. Other than that not a whole lot going on. My job is still in a state of flux, hopefully this week we'll find some more out. Sampson has played a couple of games of T-ball, Peach continues to practice for her recital in June, both kids got their pics taken, and Sophie has been working out. Sampson is also really into playing basketball outside. He reminds me of me when I was young. We got a little 6' hoop that he uses, and I put a new net on it last week. Today we brought home my little OU basketball so he could use it, since it is a little bigger than the one he was using. Hopefully now I'll be able to updated the blog a little more regularly, unless you know war breaks out again. Also that was the reason for the 'Fightin Music'. In case you didn't notice the change.

Unbridled Fun at Maw's House

Mom always said she wished she had gotten a scooter when she was younger, so for Easter she bought the kids Scooters. We told her she needed to try it out and it looks like she really liked it.

I hope she doesn't wear it out before the kids get to really use it. Also Mom was showing off her mad balling skills. Check it out.

Just goes to show you can't have too much fun at Maw's house.

iPhone obsession - over

I had badgered Sophie pretty bad about letting me get an iPhone, but she never gave in. Anyway I think my obsession with the iPhone is over. It is $200 plus you have to get a data plan for an extra $30 a month. Currently I have changed my focus to an LG Incite, which I can get for $50 with no increase in the plan. And I think there is a way to get around the GPS monthly charge and have the GPS work as stand alone, plus it is Wi-Fi capable and has windows mobile. I worry about picking up another 2 year contract though, maybe I shouldn't. I'll probably just wait.

Work Update

The black cat strikes again. There is some talk that the Big-O may have to idle production due to a lack of ore. As more details become available I will let people know, but right now Sophie and I aren't panicking. Maybe we should though, I guess you just get used to it after about the 4th or 5th time. Anyway if it does happen it won't be for at least 3 weeks, so we'll have that. There might even be some things happen that would allow for just about everyone to stay employed through the end of the year. That would be a positive. I just hate putting life on hold because of worrying about this kind of stuff, but I don't know what to do to avoid it. Eventually the recession will end because there won't be anymore jobs to lose.

Fantasy Update - Cause real life sucks even more

The Ankle Breakers have WON!!!! My first ever fantasy championship. I wonder if I can get Sophie and the kids to put up plastic everywhere and then when I get home from work I'll get some champagne and celebrate. or not. The 'Revenge of the Frogs' had a little tougher start at 4-5-1 in the baseball league, but so far this week I'm 9-0. Poor Stevie started out in last. Hey at least he let me borrow his car, while the van is in the shop. Peach says she likes it because 'it goes really fast'. Yeah it does, but the steering wheel shakes when you get much over 110 mph. Just kidding. It shakes over 80 mph. No seriously I never drove it that fast, I guess it just looks really fast.

Random Thought #9

The Command Module Pilot Job for the Apollo space missions is probably one of the most over rated jobs in the history of mankind. Only 12 people have ever been on the moon, but 6 were really, really, really close.

Getting My Feet Washed

I know what you are thinking and yes I do wash my feet on a normal basis, at least once a week whether they need it or not. But this is about Holy Thursday and Sophie asked me to get my feet washed at her church. Since she is Catholic they really celebrate all aspects of holy week and the washing of the feet takes place on Thursday when Jesus and the disciples would have had the last supper. Basically it was me and 6 other guys and we went up front and took one shoe off, got it washed by the priest, dried and then that was it. I did it because Sophie had read the kids a story about Jesus washing the disciples feet and I thought this would be a good opportunity to do something for her church and hopefully set a good example for the kids. I even got a 50 cent piece during the ceremony. Originally they asked for me and Sophie, but then they only wanted guys to do it so Sophie had to sit it out. I was kind of nervous because I had never even gone to the Thursday service before, so I had not seen the feet washing before and I was sure what all it entailed. (Oooo check that out, entailed . . . hope that is spelled right) Anyway I put the old left foot up there since that is the one I was conducting the "experiment" on and figured that the holy water and blessing and stuff would help it out. Then Sophie told me that the water wasn't holy water, but I mean the priest is handling the water, you're on the alter and what not, can it get much holier (er . . . holy-er) than that. No miracles yet, but I'm willing to give it a little time.

Blood in the Water

I think the kids at T-ball practice must have sensed weakness or something today as they started to act up during practice. I about made Sampson run laps, I told him "You are going to be the first person in the history of T-ball to run laps." But I didn't. Then we lined up and were doing fielding and we had about 4 kids with gloves on their heads. I had two kids, one being Sampson, tell me they were going to quit. I about said go sit with your moms then. Yeah, I'm the coach . . . well assistant coach . . . I actually don't think I have the power to dismiss anyone, plus you know it's instructional league so as long as the kids show up for the games and don't get seriously injured that is about as good as you can do. I think all the kids were a little stir crazy because it has been so cold and rainy lately. I'm still waiting for the old global warming to kick in. I mean is couple of days of 60° weather too much to ask for.

Twitter

I don't really care for it myself. It is the equivalent of text messaging a blog. I think it is dumb. If you want to put the time in just sign up for a blog on blogger, it ain't hard. Plus you can add pictures, video and other neat stuff. Or just answer the question 'What are you doing?' every post. Maybe I'll change my mind, but I ... wait hold the phone I could use twitter for shameless self promotion. YES, that's it, that is all it is good for, kind of a 'Hey, Look at me' and then redirect them to the old blog, where AdSense is waiting to cash in. Oh happy day. Check me out on Twitter.

Harold and Kumar go to the White House

Well Kumar at least. I guess Kal Penn has had enough of the Hollywood life, you see that is the guy who played Kumar in 'Harold and Kumar go to White Castle' and the follow-up hit 'Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay'. Haven't seen those, well he was on House M.D. on the Fox channel too... at least until Monday. This is so funny every time I need a laugh I think I'll come here and read this. See he wanted to go work for Obama, but to do that he had to leave House. And all I can figure is that Fox is somewhat of a conservative network and when he told them he was leaving they were like 'Okay, where you going' to which he said,' To work for Obama'. Then the probably said,'Yeah, don't worry we'll take care of you.' So in his last episode he is killed off. Wait not just killed off, apparently his character committed suicide. I guess he won't be coming back there. The other funny thing about this is that 'kumar' is kind of a weed addict in the movie, so now Obama is going to have this guy working for him who played a weed smoker trying to get over the munchies, a doctor who commits suicide, oh and by the way he also did a guest appearance on the show '24' as a terrorist. What's the matter did Obama run out of tax cheats to appoint to positions. Ha ha. The only position I figure he'll fit in is the Secretary of Entertainment / Snacks. Basically he would be in charge of getting good deals on refer and whenever the prez is out doing his town halls or celebrity appearances, Kal would be in charge of knowing the fastest route to the nearest White Castle. Also he could advise the president on Gitmo since he has intricate knowledge of that facility. Oh man, that is comedy gold. I really hope someone comes up with some good material for that.

Condit loses for the first time in 9 fights

Just a note I didn't think Condit should have lost in a split decsision in his first welter weight fight in the UFC. I mean I don't think Kampmann deserved to lose either, but Condit fights off his back better than just about anyone and I thought the fight was judged wrong. I mean it was a split decision so that is tough to call, but it's Condit. Oh well he'll be back. And Lyoto Machida will get his shot at the light heavy weight title in May, just like I said he should.

HESCAR Strikes again

For the second week in a row HESCAR has pushed one of the Hendrick cars into victory lane. This week Jeffy was able to get his first victory in 47 races. And at a place he had never won before. And he didn't even have the best car. But those details don't matter in HESCAR. What allowed Jeffy to win was when Greg Biffle was pushed out of the way courtesy of Dale Jr. Biff was probably the class of the field for the parts of the race that I watched, he even ran down Tony Stewart for third at the end of the race. Tony's run was very impressive as I figured he would end up way back in the field since this was his team's first try at Texas, but he proved me wrong. It really makes me appreciate his talent as a driver though, because how many people could leave a championship team go to a team that basically had nothing and yet when he starts driving for them he is competitive. I think that really speaks to his ability and I doubt that some of the other drivers could what he has done. Especially someone like Jimmy, who is only in a position to win races because he has the smartest crew chief (even though his personality is terrible and I don't care for him), and his owner spend all kinds of cash for the best stuff. If he left Hendrick he would likely be back in the pack, because let's face he is short on driving talent as evidenced by his "pass" of Denny last week. Denny made a flat out awesome move to get by on a restart, but Jimmy couldn't get by without almost wrecking Denny. Jimmy would probably run like he did in the truck series when he drove for Randy Moss and ended up 34th... out of 36... way to go... who won that race anyway, oh yeah Kyle Busch. Tony doing well is keeping me interested, but I don't know for how much longer...

Peach goes for a ride

Courtesy of Robbie or Captain Insano as he likes to be called. He took the kids a ride on a 4 wheeler around the yard and they just thought it was great. Now I think Peach wants to go for a ride on his motorcycle. Yeah (sarcasm). Anyway I think it will be a while before Robbie is allowed around the kids again. But he did do something awesome last week as he was able to get Mom to make some bread and homemade jam. No hotdog buns though. (not buns that you put a hotdog in, these are buns with the hotdog already baked in, and man are they tasty). Also this week we picked up some up the creek mustard, that would have been really great on some hotdog buns. Just kidding Mom, Love ya.

The Circus

We got to go to the circus yesterday and it was a lot of fun. I just want to give a shout out to Bo for the tix, thanks Bro. Next year Sophie says she wants to ride a camel, I just wanted to write that down so we won't forget. The kids got to ride an Elephant and some ponies and I think they had a pretty good time. One of the clowns that did a diving routine really had Sampson cracking up, it was funny because it was all slapstick stuff and he was just eating it up. My least favorite part was when the two guys went on that Ferris wheel two circle dealy thing and they were running on the outside of it. It wasn't that it wasn't entertaining, but man the safety aspects make me sick, though I guess that is kind of what the circus is about. I'll put some pics up tomorrow when Sophie gets them downloaded (I'm still not allowed to touch the camera).

"Terrible" Draft as it turns out

I watched ESPN's fantasy special last night and the first thing they said was to stay away from Ian Kinlser because he is injury prone and then to not draft A-Rod before the 5 round or so.  But if the stupid Yankees would just put him on the DL already I could still have him on my roster and pick up someone to fill the active roster spot.  Other than that I think I did alright, but they were saying the starting pitching was deep and don't pay for saves, which I agree with.  They also said catcher was deep, but I don't buy that.  If there are 5 catcher that contribute you're lucky and the difference between 1 and 10 is probably about 200 ranks and I had a heck of a time last year finding a catcher, but finally found Chris Ianetta late in the second half of the season.  Granted catchers don't contribute as much, but have a distinct advantage at that spots could be the difference.  I don't know about the head-to-head format, but it can't hurt.  

On the basketball front, I re-picked Gilbert Arenas and he did well his first night of action too bad I have only got 4 games at point left.  At least I'll get about 4 games out of him, when the season started I thought I would get about half but he stayed out until Friday's game.  All I have to do is coast to the finish line, Stevie is closest, but all the categories are pretty much too far away for anyone to make too much of a move, you know unless Stevie can pick up about 10 points in FT%.

Sophie almost wins

Every year Sophie and I fill out a bracket and battle amongst ourselves for supremacy.  Unfortunately we have started thinking too much alike and our brackets looked fairly similar, and this year we only guessed one final four team differently.  Today actually decided the winner since both of our championship teams have been eliminated.  If Oklahoma wins, Sophie wins, if UNC wins, then I win.  Fortunately UNC won and I won for like the 7th or 8th year in a row.  Now if only I can finish ahead of the big O, who is currently in about the 53rd percentile on ESPN.  I think I might still be able to finish ahead of him as long as UNC loses.  Oh well.  You know if you are president it is actually pointless to do something like that.  If you win people will come up with wild conspiracy theories, if you do poorly people will think you are wildly incompetent.  I guess he didn't think that all the way through before he filled out the bracket.  Hey, maybe he didn't have all the facts, I know he likes to have all the facts before he does stuff.

My Jury Duty Experience

It turns out Jury Duty really isn't that bad, especially if you don't end up having to participate in the trial.  Basically all I had to do is show up endure about an hour and a half of jury selection and then leave.  It was neat to see the procedure of the court and be a part of the system.  It was a good thing they had as many people there though, as there were about 10 deferrals in order to get 8 jurors.  It was a civil trial and the one lawyer asked if any of the jurors had ever contributed to TORT reform and I was thinking 'no, but I'll take up collection if it gets me out of here'.  Just kidding it wasn't that bad, but the whole time the jury members are being dismissed you keep thinking 'who's next' and they're reading off a list so it isn't like avoiding eye contact is going to keep you out of it.  But the judge started out asking questions, then the lawyers had a turn, then they got to boot people without cause, re-screen some more jurors and then pick and alternate.  The judge was good about all the people that couldn't be impartial and in the end he called the seat that everyone was vacating 'the hot seat'.  I didn't have any problems though I just kind of sat there in my "I'm not prejudice, I hate everyone" T-shirt waiting for my name to be called, but it never was.  So I didn't get out until 11:00 and by then it was too late to do any good at work so I just took the rest of the day off, and went home to celebrate with my $30.00.  

Post 400 - The Blog Quiz

For Post 400 I wanted to do something special so I came up with the blog quiz to see how well you've been paying attention. Answers will be posted later, you know if you can't come up with them. Without further ado...

1) What day did the blog start?

2)What did I build to celebrate Post 100?

3)How many stitches did Peach get?

4) How long was the unofficial record the old blog set for longest period between posts?

5) Before the Indy race with the tire issues what was the worst HESCAR race in history?

6)Who was the last player picked up during my first year of Fantasy Baseball (remember I said there might be a quiz, I wasn't joking)?

7)What title did I give the post where we decorated Sophie's brother's house for the Brown's Bengals game?

8) Who makes the 'World Clock' located over there on the left?

9) What was the name of my Fantasy Football team? and where did I finish?

10)When Stevie had to go to Iraq what base did he end up at?

Have Fun!!

Trouble Brewing

Yesterday while Sophie was walking Peach and Sampson back from dance class a motorcycle went by and Peach said almost half crying that she couldn't wait until she can ride on a motorcycle.  Which made Sophie sigh, and when she told me I sighed, then we asked Sampson if he wanted to ride a motorcycle and he said, "No".  Sophie happened to be taking a drink when I asked him and she just about spit it out.  Not because he said no, but because he said it so fast.  Oh also Peach thinks tattoos are pretty . . . man are we in trouble.

The 400 mile tank

I got my first 400 mile tank yesterday and my mileage came in at about 32.4 mpg.  I think the warm weather is really helping.  I almost need to do another 'control' run to get a better idea of how my mileage is better since I've made my changes.  I think I'll wait a little longer though.  I could have went a little longer instead of filling up on my way home, I mean the fuel light wasn't even on yet, but I was too excited about getting to 400 miles that I wanted to fill up and see what my mileage was.  Turns out I could fit over 12 gallons in the old tank.

Fantasy Update - Cause real life sucks

Real life is kind of troublesome lately for some, what with the economy and all. Plus the President's bracket had him in the bottom 4% of folks on ESPN, gosh can this guy do anything right? Anyway as far fantasy stuff goes basketball is almost over and I have about an 8 point lead. I guess the wheels could really fall of here the last few weeks, but at this point I have done pretty well to hang on considering two of the people I lost to injury are still in the top 100. On the baseball front there is 2 weeks to opening day, and my team hasn't changed yet. I have emailed Yahoo! and the Yankees! organization about placing A-Rod on the DL, but to no avail. Maybe by the end of the week they'll put him on the DL and then I'll be able to pick up another player. Right now I'm content, because once the season starts some people are going to come out of nowhere and it is all about picking them up more than it is about getting frustrated before the season starts. I figure I've got one of the best catchers in Russel Martin and probably the best second baseman in Ian Kinsler so they will probably both get hurt. But if they stay healthy and A-Rod comes back I should be in pretty good shape. Here is a copy of the response from the Yankees! as well as my letter. Please note that the person who responded is 'Bryan', which I can only assume is an alias for their G.M. 'Brian' Cashman.
Yankees:
Response (Bryan) - 03/19/2009 05:23 PMDear Kirk Helfen,
The New York Yankees thanks you for your letter. We assure you that your comments and support are appreciated.
You can write directly to a player or team official at the following address:
Yankee StadiumBronx, NY 10451.
Thank you again for taking the time to write.
Regards,Yankees.com

Here is my original letter:
Please put A-Rod on the DL, 30 day, 60 day it doesn't really matter. I just need the roster spot opened up in my fantasy league. Please do it for the fans. I don't want to drop him but even with rehab and what not you know he is going to be out for at least a month. Also you guys have way toooo many outfielders, you should trade a couple for a catcher like chris Ianetta. Seriously. Thanks, Kirk

I guess if the Yanks make a trade for Ianetta we will know who thought of it first. Plus if they trade Johnny Damon that would give me an outfielder playing his home games in Colorado - Bwah hah hah. Let the games begin!
Please note: I think both the Yankees! and Yahoo! are Yucky! Sorry, I thought that kind of fit, but I really don't care for either institution. Well at least Yahoo! fantasy sports, the rest of the site is cool.

Draft Day '09

Well we're Pirates again. Apparently Sophie had the time wrong, but since he was already on a team he gets to go right back to the same team. No word on practices or opening day yet, but I'll post as soon as I know. Also Sophie got me a sign for the back of the window. It says, "MF Baseball Fan". I told her it is almost like it could be taken two ways.

Happy St. Patty's Day

I was going to make the whole blog green and what not, but I forgot to do it yesterday so all I got is this one green post and some Irish music. But hey, what better way to celebrate possibly the greatest saint of all time, I mean he did drive the snakes out of Ireland right. You know what, saint hood probably isn't enough. He should be elevated to like comic book status. Yeah that's it, 'Anti-Snake Man' or something cool like that. Anyway have a great SP day.

Farewell Mask

This week, March the 11th, Charles "Mask" Lewis was killed in an auto accident.  For those of you who don't know, Mask was one of the faces of the "TapouT" clothing line.  It is associated with MMA and after watching for a little over a year it is impossible not to recognize the TapouT symbol.  Actually it is impossible to not notice it after watching for about a month.  And it was all do to the hard work of Mask, Skyscrape and Punkass.  Yeah, those are the three guys that came up with the brand, and they even had a show that airs on Versus.  Mask was front man who had worked from essentially nothing in 1997 to one of the heads of this multimillion dollar outfit.  I got my first TapouT tee for Christmas and the TapouT sticker now adorns my door at work.  Anyway I'm sure the brand will persevere, but this was a huge a blow, and very difficult to put in perspective.  I feel really bad for the TapouT guys, but also the young fighters who now won't get to interact with him.  My condolences to the crew and all those associated with TapouT, and Mask's family.  R.I.P. MASK.

Blog picks up a fan

Maybe not a fan, but at least someone who has looked at the old blog.  I guess Scott "The Chainsaw" Russell was out trolling the internet for a review of his last fight and I just happened to have mentioned that in my post about the night I went to the fights.  You know, stuff about how he did, gave him the nickname "The Chainsaw", you know regular stuff.  Anyway I thought that was extremely neat and as it would happen he is now my favorite fighter.  See I'm easy to get along with.  Plus with BJ Penn kind of getting dismantled at the hands of GSP in January, I needed to find a new up and comer.  Granted BJ is appealing the fight because he thought GSP had some funny grease all over him and he had taken something that would make him extra slippery.  I haven't seen the fight yet, but I do look forward to checking it out.  That was the same night that Lyoto Machida won and should have assumed the #1 contender status in the 205 wt. division.  Unfortunately he was not guaranteed a title shot until after Rampage fought, but Rampage won so now he is going to fight Evans in May.  Which is ridiculous, because Rampage and Evans fought on the same night at the end of last year, and if they meet in May that will be Evans second fight compared to Rampage's third.  If the UFC was smart they would let Machida fight Evans in May and then they would still have an undefeated champ to fight Rampage later in the year.  Now Machida would have to fight someone else, like a Liddell or Wanderlei Silva or maybe Griffin even though he clearly deserves the next shot at the title.  I mean it may be worth it for Machida to just wait and fight the winner, that is what I would do rather than risk losing now when he is so close to getting the title shot.  But then again he is good enough to beat the rest of those guys at the top of the division, just because he fights with such a different style.  At least until "the Chainsaw" gets a hold of him.

Draft Day

Well I missed about the first 17 rounds of the draft because my buddies were in from abroad and they took a little bit of precedence.  But I think I ended up with a pretty decent team.  I got Ian Kinsler first and Russell Martin, so those are two pretty solid people to start with.  I also got A-Rod, but I guess he conveniently decided to have hip surgery and will be out until like May, but Yahoo! hasn't figured that out yet so I can't put him on the DL.  So this is kind of like last year, except I have already started with people on the DL.  The bad thing is I had moved A-Rod way back on my rankings in hopes I wouldn't get him but I had no idea he would be out that long.  Oh well, I think I'll be alright we'll see.  This year we aren't doing roto we are doing head-to-head so it may take me a while to figure things out as I'm sure the scoring will be very different.  Hopefully I'll get a couple of breaks early on.  

Sophie finally gets her B-Day gift

This year for Sophie's birthday I wanted to get her something special, but I knew I wouldn't get it right. I wanted to get her a Nikon D60 which is what she was asking for, but she hadn't been able to try one so I never got it for her. Well we finally went to Best Buy one night and she got a chance to try one out. Unfortunately she was terribly disappointed because it didn't have the live view feature that pretty much every digital camera invented has and is the main reason you get 'em. Well after that let down, we had to look for a different camera. So we looked at Cannon, and Pentax and Olympus and Sony. After reviewing the features and the on-line reviews we settled on the Sony. Which everything we have is Sony so they should pretty much send us a check or something. I was a little worried at first because Sophie was pretty excited about the Nikon and seemed upset because the D90 was about $1200 and that was too high, but had more features. Then when we finally got the Sony she seemed really happy. She wasn't happy about spending the money though and I told her it was alright because she is pretty much the best wife in the whole world, which she said makes me the best husband in the world so that worked out pretty good. Anyway happy birthday honey, oh this was the 3rd anniversary of her 29th birthday.

Our Visit to C.E.C.

Yesterday we went to Chuck E. Cheese's (CEC) and what visit would be complete without a fight, an ambulance, a visit from the cops and a couple of crying kids. The fight didn't have to do with any of us, but somebody got hurt and then the cops showed up, but the crying kids well... You see at Chuck E. Cheese you get tokens to play games and the games give tickets, then you cash in the tickets for prizes. So Hans and Sophie's mom went with us and got some tickets so we had a little extra. All Peach wanted was a little plastic slinky, a lollipop, and a bracelet. Well that left Sampson with about 700 tickets so he got a stuffed Chuck E. Cheese, which took all 700 tickets. Obviously he would be upset since his item was 10 times more than what she spent, so he cried because she had 3 items to his 1. He was OK today, he may even take it to show and tell on Friday. Overall it was a fun a visit.

Hyper Motivation

So some people have told me they have started trying to hypermile and that is great. I got 27.9 in the Grand Caravan this week from Mom's house. I also got the oil changed, air filter changed and the tires rotated on my car and I plan on putting some fuel injector cleaner in tomorrow. That should give me a maximum as far as I can figure. Some people may wonder why even try this now, I mean gas was up to $4 a gallon last year it is less than half that now. Sure, but the guy who started the deal started back in 2001 after the 9/11 attack and his thinking was the people that did that got their funding from oil. So why give them more money to attack us? Which was hard for me to argue with, so from here on out I will probably always try to hypermile.

Oh and one more thing for clarification - when riding on the white line I just put the passenger side on the white line. I don't straddle the white line or anything like that.

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.