Mom's Weekend

Happy Monday everyone. It was a jam-packed weekend that started Friday night with a mowing festival as soon as I got home from work. She ran like a dream and we had no issues, which was awesome! It was the first time I had used the bagger, we had a lot of dead grass kind of laying around. 3 hours later I finished the 8th 42 gallon bag full of grass that now rests against the side of the house until trash day! I am still sore.

Saturday started off with a visit from Mom and Grandma and lunch at Johnny Carino's. We all dig italian and wanted something a little different than Olive Garden. It is always good to see my momma.

Saturday night I headed back to Johnny Carino's again to hook up with a group of friends from 4 Corners. We were not able to secure a babysitter for The Reese, so Bon stayed behind. Although this time, they had a balloon magician at the restaurant! He could make 500 different animals! (credit for that statement goes to Trent). I feel terrible that Bon could not make it and she missed hanging out with everyone.

One last thing, a shout out to my man Justin Swartwout, who was stricken by the 4 Corners four-wheelin' injury bug. He severely broke his leg, and I am guessing will be out for softball this year. Take care dawg.

That is all for now, tomorrow I will review the movie "Pursuit of Happyness" for you

Friday Music Pick

Looking forward to Mom and Grandma coming to see us tomorrow and also mowing with my OWN mower tonight!

Enjoy the show, love these guys...

Miss Photogenic

Starting her young folks, love the Notre Dame pink!

Have to throw some mad props to Kim DeVilbiss. She came by the house last week and took some pictures of Reese, which turned out PHENOMENAL! We are extremely pleased. They turned out much better than any pics we have ever had taken in a studio. We will continue to use Kim in the future and I 100% recommend her to take pictures of your families/children.

To schedule a sitting, you can call or email Kim:

(513)541-2632

kimdevilbiss@fuse.net

Technology Rocks...

The Oakland A's said fans will be able to download tickets to their cell phones beginning Friday. As part of a deal with Major League Baseball's Internet unit, the A's said fans who buy tickets at Oaklandathletics.com can choose to have the bar coded ticket delivered to a mobile phone. The bar code is then scanned at a gate at McAfee Coliseum.

W Story

Now, I try to keep my political views out of the blog and keep it a "happy place", but I just could not let this one go. This was forwarded to me from a friend of a friend who is currently stationed in Mosul.

Jack Tilley, a Sergeant Major of the Army, was with a group of people who recently were visiting wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, DC. He saw a Special Forces soldier who had lost his right hand and suffered severe wounds of his face and side of his body.

Sgt. Tilley wanted to honor him and show him respect without offending, but what can you say or do in such a situation that will encourage and uplift? How do you shake the right hand of a soldier who has none? He decided to act as though the hand was not missing and gripped the soldiers wrist while speaking words of comfort and encouragement to him.

However, there was another man in the group who knew exactly what to do. This man reverently took the soldier's stump of a hand in both of his hands, bowed at the bedside, and prayed for him. When he finished the prayer he stood up, bent over the soldier, kissed him on the head, and told him that he loved him.

Sgt. Tilley was awed by the powerful expression of love for one of our wounded heroes he was witnessing! "What a beautiful Christ-like example!" he thought, moved to tears.

What kind of a man would do such a thing?

It was the wounded man's Commander-In-Chief, George W. Bush, President of the United States. This eyewitness account was told by Sergeant Major Jack Tilley at a Soldiers Breakfast at Red Stone Arsenal, Huntsville, AL, and recorded by Chaplain James Henderson, who was stationed there.

No Cheesesteak?

Bon has returned from her weekend excursion in Philly. She had a great time, and Reese and I managed to keep the house from burning down! We had the chance to head over to Chi-town and see Slim's posse and my mama. Reese had a rock solid time with her cousins and slept the whole ride home. One of the great pleasures in life I have learned, is when my baby girl has fallen asleep in the car for the night, I take her out to carry her upstairs, and she gives the greatest "Daddy I feel safe in your arms" hugs. It is absolutely priceless.

Reese got the chance tonight to see her Mom in volleyball mode. We headed over to Sports Express and watched Bon and Jill kick some tail. We came away very impressed.

Warning, I am on the verge of chopping my lettuce. It is getting a little long and it is summer. (Not real conducive to flowing locks...)

Peace out

Big Things

I apologize for the delay, a lot going on lately. Working on two papers for a final class tonight and had some car issues yesterday.

As I was driving around doing my thing, the car started making a weird noise. It was like little people were typing morse code inside the engine. I decided to take it by Oil Express and have them check the belts and hoses. It was not them, but something much more exciting, one of my spark plug wires had blown the end out and was not attached to the actual plug. Upon further investigation he revealed that the other three wires were fried and it was not going to be long until I was stranded on a road somewhere. They were extremely helpful and cut me a nice deal. If you live in the 'Nati I highly recommend them.

According to Sibcy Cline's web-site, the house next door to us is no longer available, sold already! Clearly they were informed of their potential wicked sweet neighbors and knew they had to buy.

At 12:01 a.m. tonight I will be watching Spider Man 3 with a group of friends...

Reese is having pictures taken this morning...

Bon is leaving us tomorrow for the weekend, I sure will miss her...

I give the Bears a "B" on their draft, Greg Olsen was a good pick, but nothing else moved me. I will give them a free pass this year.

NFL Draft

One of the beauties of blogging is that it stays here, in black and white, forever and ever. So 5 years from now you can come back and look at my draft preview and realize my genius.

It is nearly impossible to predict who everyone will take, because some teams are ignorant. What I will do is give you players that I think are legit, and players who are druts (turd spelled backwards).

Legit:
Calvin Johnson
Joe Thomas
Amobi Okoye
Patrick Willis
Michael Bush
Steve Smith
Brian Leonard
Tony Hunt

and, oh yeah, Brady Quinn!



Druts:
JaMarcus Russell
Gaines Adams
Levi Brown
Marshawn Lynch
Leon Hall
Ted Ginn
Kevin Kolb

26 hours...

Guinea Pig

So, I get a call from Slim and he drops some knowledge on me about a new airline called Skybus, (www.skybus.com).

If you check this site out you will see one-way fares for $10, insane! They only fly to a select number of cities at this point, and are actually based in C-Bus.

Fortunately, they fly to Richmond, VA. This means a dirt cheap trip to see $$$, aka S-Braine. I am very much looking forward to seeing him, we have not had a chance to hang out since ISP days, about two and a half years ago.

Skybus also flies to Greensboro, so as long as the airline is legit and I am not smuggling drugs on the trip, we will take a family trip to the NC and get a rental car to transport us to Fayetteville.

I am currently in class and watching a movie.

1 Day, 16 Hours until the fiesta...

Check back tomorrow for my draft preview

Rolling

Not much new going on today, Bon did a ton of work on the house yesterday and I managed to almost drown Reese in the bathtub. (Not really, she drank some bath water and got a little choked, but freaked me out!)

So in order to still provide entertainment, I have decided to provide some tunes for you to enjoy...

3 Days until the Draft baby!!!

Congrats...

To Guido and Emily who welcomed son #2 to the world yesterday, Hayden was born in Athens and all are doing well.

Weekend Update

(Look Chubbs, outside!)

A busy weekend is behind us, and it all started Friday night. I came home from work intending to knock out the mowing for the weekend. I got a good piece of the back yard knocked out and down she went again. The mower was not working. It may be a hidden talent, if I were a wrestler would I be the "Mower Killer." So big ups to The Godfather, who bails me out AGAIN, and loans me his mower to finish the job. Now we take ours to the shop tomorrow and hope the warranty covers it.

As I finished up today something struck me, it was the sound of a subdivision, the symphony of mowers, ahh...

Mad props to Trent and Michelle, who hosted our posse on Saturday and made some amazing BBQ ribs! We had a great time and are looking forward to the expansion of our group and getting to know each other better.

I also got the opportunity to meet some guys on the street and play a game of cornhole this evening, I am definitely a little out of practice, but it was nice meeting them.

I now have a 100 foot extension cord if anyone needs to borrow it...

Scholarship

So, this is my ticket to South Bend...

Biz is tough

OK, we are approaching our first hurdle in the new biz. The name we wanted is already taken. So now it is time to get the creative juices flowing and try to come up with something else. This should be interesting, I really, really want to stay away from using our family name in the business moniker.

Swing and a Miss

Props to the Godfather and the guys from CCM for picking me up for a softball double-header last night. My performance, was, lackluster at best. At the plate, two words for you, "swinging bunt". I did not get one hit out of the infield and struck out to end the second game. I see some batting cage work in my future. I must step up my game with a possible 4 Corners squad on the horizon.

Where to Start?

OK, I hope you all have had a chance to enjoy the video. Some of this is going to be pretty random, I apologize.

Last Tuesday I woke up with a little belly ache. This soon turned into attack of the aliens on my intestines! I will save you the details, but, the floodgates were open at both ends if you know what I am sayin'

Shout out to Daddy B, (for those of you who may not know he is my biological uncle, but has unofficially adopted me), he has completely torn his rotator cuff. Surgery is on the horizon and 4-6 months off of work. For those of you who know him, this is going to be a problem. He loves to work! The silver lining is that he will have a bionic shoulder once our business gets rolling!

An 82 year old client actually said to me last week, "Is that your real hair?"

I have not been able to mow my yard for 15 days, or use my new trimmer which was purchased 14 days ago...

On the horizon is the "Heat Endorsement Links", these will appear on the left side of the blog page and will link up to some of my favorite businesses...

Reese has yet to grasp spacial differences, she thinks Bon and I should be able to sit next to her in a box...

My favorite weekend of the year, the NFL Draft is twelve days away...

Reese Vid!

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

One of the amazing things Bon has been able to do with Reese at home is teach her some sign language. She has got "more" down pretty well, which is touching the index finger and thumb of each hand together. In this clip, she decides her baby doll wants to do it too.

A ton to talk about expect a big update later tomorrow, don't want to take away from the video, let's just say I spent alot of time with our toilets for a couple of days...

Easter Update

OK ladies and gentlemen, the significance of the photo to the left is this: if you have ever wanted to be our neighbor, now is your chance. One of our neighbors have just put their house up for sale. I encourage anyone who reads this blog to seriously consider it...

Friday night we had a great time at the Godfather Casa, celebrating with Blake. Thanks folks, Reese had a good time.

Saturday was the festival at our house with 30 in attendance I believe. This required me to pick up some tables and chairs from a party center, which went very well. I think everyone had a good time, I bailed at 4:00 to head over to the gym to set things up for Easter at church.

Easter service was phenomenal, Reese adapted well to her big poofy dress. I have a ton of pics from this weekend and will try and get them posted in the next few days. Yesterday Reese figured out how to enjoy a ring pop on her own, that was cool.

Back at work, need to find some $$$ for April.

Keep it real

Hillarious

ESPN Radio host rips Cincinnati

THE ENQUIRER

Wednesday on his nationally syndicated sports talk radio show, "The Herd with Colin Cowherd," ESPN Radio's Colin Cowherd spent several minutes lambasting Cincinnati after reading a story about a woman - whose name and hometown have not been made public but Cowherd assumes is from Cincinnati - who Tuesday caused a CVG-to-Hawaii flight to land in San Francisco.

Click here to listen to the mp3 of Cowherd's rant about Cincinnati.

Excerpts from Cowherd's assault on Cincinnati included:

• "What is it with Cincinnati? ... For how small a city it is, is it me or does Cincinnati have a disproportionate number of bottom-feeders and low-level gutterballs?"

• "Jerry Springer, Pete Rose, the Bengals, Bob Huggins, wild chick on an airplane, Larry Flynt ... They're not serial killers, they just have no class."

• "I mean, I live in a city that's essentially the same size, Hartford. We don't have half the problems, half the weirdos."

• "I mean, it's just boring. People get in trouble. It's just boring."

He proposes coming up with a new slogan for Cincinnati.

"Because the Queen City doesn't really sum up their dysfunction."

Cowherd said listeners submitted the following slogans:

• "Cincinnati: You're under arrest."

• "Cincinnati: We need more razor wire."

• "Cincinnati: We're what happens three hours after you eat at Taco Bell."

• "Cincinnati: Just like Vegas, without all the really great stuff."

• "Cincinnati: Step out of your car, please."

• "Cincinnati: 'Cuz losers need somewhere to live as well."

Opening Day and an Oil Spill

Since yesterday was such a beautiful day, after getting home from church I decided to mow the yard. The first time I have ever mowed my own yard mind you, and we have a brand new mower thanks to Clark. So everything is going well, moving along and I decide to add more oil when I have some difficulty getting it re-started. Of course I did not read the manual for the mower and poured in WAY too much. It starts back up and starts smoking violently and spewing oil out the side into the grass. (This photo is not actually from our yard) I decide to turn it back off, and after a quick call to Slim decide to drain all of the oil out and start over. All of that went well and I eventually got her running and full strength again. The yard looks great and Reese had fun watching me doing it, so that was cool. Chalk it up to another life lesson...

Also, when we pulled in the driveway from church the neighbor we had not met was outside doing some yard work, so I decided to introduce myself. The best part is that he was wearing a Muhsin Muhammad Bears jersey! Turns out he is from Chicago and a big Bears fan. Awesome...

Go Tribe and the Reds I guess...