Cheerleaders make me laugh

This is exactly what not to do as a cheerleader. I think in the cheerleader handbook this is rule number 1, don't run behind the banner when the team is ready to run through it. I love it when they play the hit over and over and over again.

Sports

So the Red Sox won, Yippie. I feel kinda guilty though, it looked like the varsity football team versus the nerds, geeks, dweebs, and lameos from gym class. I feel bad for the Rockies, but at the same time I don't think the Arizona Diamondbacks or the Phillies or even the Padres would have fared any better. The tables might have been turned had the Cleveland Indians finished off the Red Sox, but that just didn't happen.

So the Red Sox Parade is today and I'm sure you are waiting with baited breath to see Johnathon Paplebons dance. He is known for his legendary dances, he did a "Riverdance" type of jig on the infield at Fenway Park after the Sox won the ALCS. There is supposedly going to be a dance stage set up for him, and Josh Beckett said if the Sox won he would join him for the dance. Should be good!

The Broncos have a way of breaking your heart don't they? They get the ball with about 2:30 left in the game and down by 3. They drive all the way down to the 4 yard line and with about 30 seconds left what do they do? They run a QB sneak? What the heck, what gives? Why not try a roll out pass, which the MNF crew said the Packers were giving up a LEAGUE LOW 130 QB passer rating, possibly giving Cutler a clear lane to run it in that way. The Denver offensive line was pushed around all night by the Packers D line, so yeah running right up the gut sure sounds like a good play.

Then, when is the NFL going to do away with it's overtime format and adopt one similar to NCAA football? Overtime was all of 6 seconds with an 82 yard bomb past the badly burned Dre Bly (we paid how much for his "shutdown" services). I don't really know if Denver could have countered with a scoring drive of their own, but it would have been nice to at least let them have a shot at it.

On Saturday Bridget and I are headed to Provo, UT to watch the CSU Rams face the BYU Cougars. I am going to try to find some paper sacks so I can cut eye holes in it. It is going to be ugly, but at least I get to see them play once and a while. Since the Mountain West Conference signed an exclusive TV deal with CSTV and The Mtn. network televised games have been few and FAAAAR between, it really stinks.

Sydney's Knock Knock Joke

This came out of nowhere, but I think the quality really speaks for itself.

Sydney: Knock, knock daddy
Me: Who's there?
Sydney: Chicken poop
Me: Chicken poop who?
Sydney: Chicken's gonna poop on you!

I don't know where she gets it, but she laughed a big deep belly laugh!

Pumpkin Tips

I just took a look at the Pumpkin I carved 3 days ago and it is already starting to wilt away. It probably isn't going to make it to Halloween. I just read this tip on preserving your pumpkins, spray the heck out of it with WD-40. Coats the pumpkin and keeps the moisture in. They also said petroleum jelly would work, but since I hope to go through my life with out coating ANYTHING in petroleum jelly...I think I'll try the WD!

Oh, and of course don't spray the pumpkin when the candle is lit inside it! Bad idea!! I have some cool new LED pumpkin lights, so no need to worry about flammable issues!

100 million bulbs

No, that's not how many bulbs I have planted for spring flowers...that how many Compact Florescent light bulbs have been sold in the US! That is equivalent to taking over 700,000 cars off of the road!

A quick education in light bulb usage. On a recent Mythbusters they tested if it was more efficient to leave your lights on if you were just going to leave the room for a few minutes, or if it was better to turn the lights off after you leave the room every time. A light bulb uses more power to start up than it does to stay lit. So here are some rules to remember-

Standard incandescent: turn off even if you leave the room for just seconds.
Compact fluorescent: turn off if you leave the room for 3 minutes.
Standard fluorescent: turn off if you leave the room for 15 minutes.

While checking into some "green" things I came across this, it's kinda fun. Bubble packaging is not the most environmentally friendly packaging, so this is a way to relive your youth and keep the planet free from bubble wrap. Try it here and be a kid for a few minutes....try the Manic Mode!

Rox vs. Sox

So this is it this is how I feel. I have been doing a lot of soul searching about whom to root for and who I want to win the series. I loved the Rockies when they made their debut in Denver in 1993. I watched diligently as Eric Young hit a lead off home run in their first ever game at the old Mile High Stadium. I followed them in their 1995 season when they went to their first playoff series against Atlanta. I even have a brick outside the stadium across 20th Street that reads "Christopher J Brown, a Devoted Fan." But after I went to college I really stopped following all of baseball. Of course it didn't help that the Rockies were cutting their payroll and finishing with winning percentages below .500 for 6 consecutive seasons (2001 - 2006).

Then along came the Red Sox, while living in Rochester I started rooting for the Sox just to irritate my neighbor who was a die hard Yankees fan. During the summer months I couldn't walk past him without hearing "how bout those Yankees?" Then of course the miracle comeback of 2004 when the Sox were down 3 games to none in the ALCS. They of course made the comeback and won the World Series. In 2005 Bridget, Sydney, Sean, Katy and I went to a game at Fenway Park in Boston. That cemented it for me, I was hooked. I had never seen fans so devoted to baseball every seat was full, the fans chanted in unison, they watched every play and even knew the opposing players names as they chanted "you suck". It was great, then on the way out I stood in line and tried on a replica World Series ring from the previous year, it was awesome. Since then I have been hooked!

So I thought about it this way for the series, my favorite team in all of sports are the Broncos. I'll cheer for them if they are 0-13 or 13-0, doesn't matter to me who they play I always want them to win. They are my team. I have to say that my baseball team is now the Sox, so I really want them to win. Although I want them to have a good 6 or 7 game series, that way they win at Fenway and the Rockies will have won at least 2 games in the series. If the series were between the Rockies and the Indians I'd be pulling for the Rockies 100%, but when you pit them against the Sox I just can't bring myself to root against my team. GO SOX!

Weekend Plans

We have a pretty laid back weekend on tap. We are huge fans of Tim Burton's: A Nightmare Before Christmas which is showing in 3D for a limited 3 week engagement. We are hoping to get a sitter tomorrow night and go see it. On Sunday we are going to a pumpkin carving party! We still need to get our pumpkins, but I think everybody wants to carve one so we'll have to get 4. And as for tonight we are going to watch a movies called The Hoax, with Richard Gear as a writer who makes up his entire story while doing an autobiography on Howard Hughes. We'll see I guess, it looked pretty good.

I must be flipping crazy

I have a breakthrough to announce! It really only means something to those few readers who used to competitively swim, but anyway...I have learned flip turns in the pool! I started working on them about 2 weeks ago and this morning I swam 4x500's all with flip turns. Well I messed up 1 of those turns cause I tried to sneak one more breath in, and was thinking I would crash into the wall if I tried to flip. I think this is a pretty cool accomplishment because I think it is harder to learn as an adult than as a kid. I equate it to being like skiing and learning as an adult vs. as a kid. A kid beginner has no regard for their body, they just go and crash and look half out of control most of the time. Adult beginner skiers ski with caution and prefer to go slow enough so that when they crash it doesn't hurt (or hurt the next morning more importantly!). A kid swimmer flips and swims like a fish, adults worry that they are going to drown themselves and/or snork up a bunch of water. Anyway I am excited because I think it looks a lot less amature in the pool, although I am not totally convinced that I am faster at it than open turns....that will come though. I guess I did time a 100 the other day and I was 3 seconds faster, but that was just one attempt at it and not very scientific.

Next thing you know I'll be sporting a speedo! I know, scary thought!!!

I love Hardees!

Hardees restaurant has tortured us for a few years with menu items like the Monster Thickburger, which weighs in at 1,420-calories and is made up of two 1/3-pound slabs of beef, four strips of bacon, three slices of cheese and mayonnaise on a buttered bun. Because a buttered bun is essential on a sandwich like that, but that is another topic for another day. In an attempt to top themselves and bring their big guns (or bellies) Hardees just released their new breakfast item today. Man it sounds good. Check out the new Country Breakfast Burrito -- two egg omelets filled with bacon, sausage, diced ham, cheddar cheese, hash browns and sausage gravy, all wrapped inside a flour tortilla. The burrito contains 920 calories and 60 grams of fat. And don't worry you can make it a combo with tots and coffee. I love the line in this article that says: "That's all before 10 o'clock in the morning,"......yeah that's because at 11 in the morning the heart attack begins.

Shouldn't there be some form of corporate responsibility in selling foods like this? I thought McDonalds was bad by polluting their salads with bacon and cheese and super fatty salad dressing. I think that these companies should be able to come to a compromise between a food item that will sell to the masses and still be in the ballpark of healthy.

Best cure for TMJ I have ever heard of......

A dentist in California has found a great way to treat TMJ in his patients. He waits until his female patients are under sedation and then he massages their breasts in order to ease the pain. Yeah right buddy, nice try! Needless to say his license has been suspended, which has him crying because how is he supposed to feed his SEVEN children. What a sicko!

Gore wins Nobel Peace Prize

Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize today for his efforts to publicize the climate crisis. For those keeping score that is an Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth", An Emmy for creating Current TV a network devoted to the environment, and now the Nobel Peace Prize. That's pretty amazing stuff for a guy who made his name in politics. The former vice president and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change jointly won the 2007 Peace Prize for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for fighting it. He has announced that he will be donating his portion of the award money to The Alliance, a non-profit group that he founded to help spread the global warming message.

The website Draftgore.com has nearly 200,000 signatures on their petition to get Gore to run for president. The Website also took out a full page ad in The New York Times to bring attention to their cause, see it here(PDF file).

Halloween Costume

So the Votes are in and there is a tie! 2 votes for a policeman and 2 votes for a knight. Who voted for Shrek? Here he is, costume just arrived today:


So the Votes are in and there is a tie! 2 votes for a policeman and 2 votes for a knight. Who voted for Shrek? Here he is, costume just arrived today:

Yoga insanity

So I don't know if I picked a particularly challenging Yoga DVD from the library or what, but this stuff is crazy! So I based my selection off of reading user comments on Amazon.com, and this DVD was geared toward athletes so I thought it was perfect. Basically here is the scenario when I do this workout, I follow along for 9 minutes and then I can no longer even hold myself up anymore and have to stop. I think I may just do a section of the video per day since trying it all leaves me a quivering pile of mush. And who said yoga was relaxing? Oh my gosh no, at least not this DVD! We are going to try a more relaxing yoga next time, not one for athletes or toning or tightening anything....if that is a byproduct, fine but not as a main focus.

Baseball Post

So this has actually turned into a great October of baseball for me. I claim the Red Sox as my favorite team in baseball, and they swept the Angles in their opening round playoff series. They start the American League Championship Series against the Cleveland Indians in a few days. But it would be lie if I said I wasn't also following the Rockies. What an amazing streak they are on, winning 17 out of 18 games and in the process sweeping the Phillies out of the first round playoff series. I even read stories in the paper that when the Broncos fell pathetically behind Chargers on Sunday the fans started to yell "Go Rockies"....What? Could this be? Has there been a cataclysmic shift in Denver sports allegiance? I think the Mile High City is pumped to see the Rockies having an impact in October for the first time since 1995. I also think the Arizona Diamondbacks should be very afraid of the Rockies right now. I don't think there will be a sweep in this series, but I really think the Rockies have a shot....that is if they play Rockies baseball of the last 18 games and not Rockies base pall of the prior 15 seasons!

Project 1/1/100 update

So I didn't want you to think that I was not writing about my weight loss goal because I had given up on it or anything. I just didn't want to overdo it and make everyone sick of reading my blog since it is all I ever talk about.

So just as a refresher, Project 1/1/100 is my weight loss goal...to lose my 100th pound by January 1, 2008. I started my weight loss quest in November of 2006. Then I lost 75 pounds by March 2007, I gained 20 of those pounds back during the Marathon training. I found it very difficult to properly nourish myself during that training, anyway that left me 45 pounds to lose before 1/1.

Yesterday was 5 weeks into Project 1/1/100 and I am proud to report that I am down 17 pounds! Leaving me 28 pounds left to go, and 12 weeks to do it in. I just keep working at it, keep chugging away and so far everything seems to be working well. I am trying to keep my exercise varied, I am even going to try some Yoga this week!

Weekend Plans

What's on tap for this weekend you ask? Well not a ton, but we should still have fun.

Tonight we are going to Sydney's friend Michaels 3rd birthday party. Michaels parents, Ryan and Claire, both graduated from CSU and are going with us to the CSU vs. BYU game in November. Ryan is a 1st year resident in pediatrics.

Tomorrow we would like to finish planting bulbs in our backyard gardens, but the weather may not cooperate with that as it is supposed to rain all day. We are also going to go to the Children's Museum, they have a new exhibit with robots!

And on Sunday we are going to try our hand at Melissa's Indian Chicken recipe. We are also going to watch the Broncos, hopefully they will have some better results than they have in the past few weeks!

Hope your weekend is going to be as good as ours, let us know what you have planned for the weekend.

Poll

I felt like doing a poll today on my blog, I just don't know what for? Initailly I was thinking about one on the Broncos, but I am still too worked up over their 2 recent losses to get anything constructive out. Then I thought about baseball, seeing as how the Rockies are really making waves....but I don't really know if that makes for an interesting poll. I try my best to stay away from politics so that is a no go. Compost doesn't work very well for a poll, unless the topic was will it compost....still not very exciting. Weight loss and exercise is a tough one to make a poll on as well. Just not a ton of ideas going through my head today I guess. I just got one, it may not be strong....but it is something. Since I just ordered Aiden's halloween costume today, let see how well the readers know our line of thinking in halloween costumes.