Mike and Sheila Return!

After a week vacationing in Brazil, Mike and Sheila have returned! We got to see them right when they got back and it sounds like they had a great trip.

Monnie and I were happy to see them and hear about the trip but Claire was even more excited to have them home. She'd been having a good time hanging out with nana, bapa, Monnie, and I but was definitely happy to have them back!

More pictures of the day-and-a-half Monnie and I spent with here here. And Monnie's post here.

Leiland's Baptism

We've posted some pictures from Leiland's baptism.

Enjoy!

More More More

Lots of posts today...

The pictures of the weekend trip to Mt Bohemia are uploaded. The videos (avis) were actually better than the photos but I don't think that I really have a way to post those for you unfortunately. Suffice it to say: we all looked awesome crusing through the trees.

My friend Brandon sent this update, from the Conservative Voice along to me regarding the 'Lost Liberty Hotel'. You may recall there was a post here quite some time ago on the topic. You really should check it out... especially since for many readers the opportunities to agree with conservative news outlets are few and far between!

Also, while we were away apparently the scoreboard was broken in LA as Kobe Bryant went off for 81! The second highest point total in history. Making it even more amazing: he sat out for 6 minutes AND only had 26 in the first half. Like him or hate him: that's absolutely incredible.

In other (big) news.

Mike took the boards! Glad that's done with and it sounds like he's already on to more crazy adventures. I don't want to ruin the story but it does involve a flashlight that makes hippo noises and changing the tire of a car while in motion (typical Mike and Sheila stuff). As usual, the 2 year old sums it up best: "That blue car is broken".

Monnie and I (as well as nana and bapa) are super pysched to be taking care of Claire now that we've finally managed to deport her parents to Brazil! I'm sure they'll have a great time and we'll get some awesome photos and blog reports. and I'm sure we'll have fun while they're away too, including (but not limited to) sliding down the giant rainbow in our backyard, as we do whenever Claire is over at our house.

Aly is moving to Vegas! We'll definitely have to meet up when we're out there in March. I'm sure a large part of the reason that she's moving out there is so that she can participate in our 15 guy all night gambleathons. Sounds like every little girls dream (well, maybe Emily K's actually).

Jon and Alison are not only recently engaged, but also have just completed their blog across Europe. Lots of photos and even a few movies for you to check out.

Mt.Bohemia

For the third straight year Mt.Bohemia was a great time. Unfortunately, this was also the third year of warm temperatures and not quite enough snow, but the terrain they have there makes it well worth the 7 hour drive anyway!

Actually, our first day there (Saturday) the snow was great for the first half of the day. They had received quite a dose over the course of the week and with sparse midweek crowds - the majority of it was still out there waiting to be found.

Unfortunately, JNo broke his binding (as in - it exploded) early on in the day but he was able to get his money back and took the rest of the day off. Sunday he was back out there with rentals. Burt and I were able to make it through both days but all three of us definitely came home battered and broken!

I'll post some pictures tonight. So, make sure to check over at our Flickr page later.

More Fantasy Sports

I started out the fantasy sports season with something that I like to think I know a thing or two about: baseball. The result? Well, I was just about mathematically eliminated at the all-star break. That may be a bit of an exageration, but it sure wasn't pretty!

Next I moved on to football. I definitely don't have the level of detail on football that I do on baseball but I feel like I'm pretty par for the league knowledge-wise. The result: 3-10. Ouch.

Now on to basketball. NBA basketball is something I know incredibly little about. I loved it in High School but haven't really followed it much since. Basically I can tell you that Detroit is unstoppable, Milwaukee is average, and Kobe and Shaq shook hands the other day. That's about the extent of my knowledge, yet somehow my team is kicking butt all over the place.

Every week you play 15 "games". 10 weeks in, I already have a 24.5 game lead on 2nd place! That's pretty crazy. Especially since I don't really know what I'm doing!

Ah, that's better

You may recall my rant about Ticketmaster a while back. If I'm going to point out how unpleasant that experience was I should also point out how pleasant my ticket-ordering experience was last night.

I ordered tickets from tickets.com last night. The process was quite convenient yet lacked the massive charges. The tickets were a (fairly) agreeable $29.50 and it was even a presale, so I couldn't get them from the Ticketmaster yet even if I wanted to. All told I bought 8 tickets coming to a total of 298.68. The convenience charge on said tickets: $3. No, not $3 * 8, even... $3 total.

The last time I went through this it was a $10 charge for an $18 ticket. So, let's assume that even though these are more expensive tickets that (out of the kindness of their hearts) they didn't bump up the fee (unlikely). Even then we'd be looking at an extra charge of $77.

tickets.com has somehow managed to not only streamline the process used by ticketmaster.com, but they've actually managed to do $80 of work for only $3! Incredible!

Anyway, I'm very much looking forward to the David Gray show. The last time we saw him in Milwaukee was one of the top-5 shows that I've been to. I don't think this one will be able to compete with the open air/perfect climate combo the last one had... but I have high hopes anyway.

Great new blog

Mike Fox has started up a blog! More accurately, I have started a blog on his behalf since he's too lazy to click a mouse 4 times himself.

Since I did have to do the setup, I've taken the liberty of writing the first few posts under his name... he's talking about starting to write his own soon... he may want to think about changing that password soon at least!

I do see that he's changed the title of the blog to reflect his deep feeling of admiration for me. That's a start!

What a game

National championship on the line, 1:04 remaining, playing at the Rose Bowl in Pasedena. Ball on the 40.

Vince Young, coming in with the third highest passer rating in the country, leading the Texas offense, coming in #1 in the country in total scoring. Down by 5 - no way to tie it, touchdown wins it.

With 19 seconds left, your QUARTERBACK (the aforementioned Vince) runs it in for his 3rd running TD of the night…not to mention the 2-point play encore.

Young upstages both Heimsan winners from the past 2 years, clearly the star, racking up 267 yards passing + 200 on the ground and 3 TDs. Lee Corso comes out after the game and calls him the “best college QB that's ever played” and that he's “clearly the best player coming out next year”. Quite the statement when half of the NFL season we've been talking about the Reggie Bush lottery. Unbelievable to think a player like Leinert could go 3rd in a draft.

What a game. and a great finish!

Afterwards, Matt Leinert did his best to sound Tom Brady in the interview (even if Tom Brady hasn't sounded too Tom Brady lately, recently claiming that they’ve been “disrespected more than any team in the league this year.”).

While Leinert clearly wants to be Tom Brady, it's equally clear that Vince Young wants to be something to the effect of Dion Sanders (flashy, a little edgy, but not real far out there either). and hey: that's fine too. I certainly can't say that Leinert was more entertaining to watch than Young.

I think it's highly unlikely that the draft doesn't go:
1. Texans – Bush
2 and 3. Saints and Titans take those 2 QBs in one order or the
other.

The Packers meanwhile have the 5th pick. If any of those top 3 fell this far they'd be crazy to pass but that's not happening. So, unless they trade - they're eyeing up one of these guys:
D'Brickashaw Ferguson (Virginia-OT)
AJ Hawk (Ohio State-OLB).

There’s a pretty solid likelihood that they’ll be taking whichever of those 5 guys is still around at that point. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out, but they’ll be getting a really solid player no matter how it goes down.

Let’s just hope that Brett comes back.