The family is heading down south (i.e near Canton) tonight for an annual get together. It should be fun, as it always is, but more somber thoughts can't help but creep into my head.

The prognosis on my grandmother is worse than I had originally been told. Previously, it was said that within 6 months she would begin to feel pain in her arm and that her life expectancy was 1-2 years. Now I've been told that she can start to feel pain at literally any moment and that her life expectancy is 6 months to 1 year. That's a hard pill to swallow for me, as she's essentially been another mother to me.

I recognize that I need to savor the time that we do have and absolutely make the most of it, but I'm having a hard time doing that while simultaneously thinking of what the near future holds. I've got to try to leave those thoughts for the future and not let them taint the present, but it's not easy.

The Purdue - Central Michigan game reminded me of the Oklahoma - Boise State game from last year. Lots of offense. Defenses that were incapable of stopping the other team. A last minute victory.

Of course, the Boise State game from last year had more at stake and featured much better teams, and did have perhaps the greatest ending of any college football game ever... but hey, the Purdue game at least reminded me of that one.

I'll take a bowl game victory, even if it's in the Motor City bowl. The game was nicely attending, and certainly won't go down as the most boring game of the bowl season.

I trust that everyone had a good Christmas.

In case you haven't noticed, and judging by the attendance, you haven't, Purdue plays Central Michigan tonight in the Motor City Bowl.

Woo! I'm so excited I might watch part of it. Woo!

Making another trip to Maryland tonight. Hopefully we have no car trouble *knock on wood*. We should get in hopefully before 10PM tonight.

Today I heard something utterly and completely ridiculous on the radio on the way to work. The morning hosts were talking about Christmas gift ideas for kids. They were trying to show that Christmas is more than just getting toys and new clothes, etc. Some of the gift ideas were 3X5 cards with things written on it like "Use for 1 extra hour of staying up before bedtime" or "Redeemable for one weeding of the garden." Stuff that is more about the kids giving or receiving time than monetary gifts. Anyway, at one point the guy who was being asked for these ideas said "Tell the kids to remember, it's not their birthday." What he's saying, obviously, is that it's not just another birthday party for them. The gifts are secondary. There's a reason for this particular holiday that we call Christmas. Well then the host said "Yeah, it's Santa's birthday."

Are you freaking kidding me?!?! Christmas is now Santa's birthday? A make believe guy that delivers presents? That's what Christmas is now? I think you shmoe that what the other guy was saying is to tell the kids that Christmas is about... you know... Christ! That's why it's named CHRISTmas! Have we really gotten to the politically correct point that we're so afraid to mention Jesus Christ when talking about Christmas? It's obvious that we have.

It's completely ridiculous and extremely irritating to me.

The Browns are sitting at 9-5. I would've bet any amount of money earlier this year that they would not be 9-5. 5-9 would've even been a stretch. After the season opener against Pittsburgh, when they got drubbed, I was predicting 3-13, or 2-14. Apparently Charlie Frye really was the problem, because as soon as Derek Anderson came in, the team really took off. They're actually exciting to watch. That's something I haven't been able to say in a long time.

Hopefully this will be the second to last busy night of the year. I'm working on somewhat of a secret Christmas present for my family and am trying to get it all done tonight.

Last night I was busy responding to Lindsay's kids. She had them write letters to Santa Claus (me) and I responded to them. Quite excellently I might add. I went above and beyond if I do say myself. Hopefully they like them.

Two days from now is my Dad's birthday, but we're having them over tomorrow night for dinner, so that should be the last busy night. Until of course we have to drive to Maryland on Friday... so maybe I have no idea how many busy nights I have left.

Yesterday was my graduation ceremony downtown. Everything started okay at home. The weather was fine, well cold, but otherwise fine. We went out to breakfast and the weather was still fine, which was weird as there was supposedly a huge winter storm coming our way. After breakfast we were driving downtown because I needed to be there at noon and the ceremony was starting at 1:00 PM. About halfway there it became evident that there really was a large winter storm coming our way, and in fact, it was here. The roads were clear, but it was still essentially white out conditions. The winds were quite heavy and were busy blowing all of the snow sideways, thus obscuring your vision.

Lindsay dropped me off at the Wohlstein Center (see Convocation Center) and headed out to park. As I would be wearing a cap and gown, I left my coat in the car. It turns out that it was cold outside. Really cold. Especially with no coat on. Anyway, I made it alive and unfrozen into the building and headed over to pick up my honors award. Yes, they gave me an award in the form of a large medal because I graduated Magna Cum Laude. Top 15 in my class. Yay for me. I guess that's what happens when I can be bothered to attend class. Back to the story, I got my award, and went to the basement. I signed in, got dressed, and here it was, 45 minutes before the ceremony. Yada, yada, yada, I went up to take some pictures and say my hello's, went to the ceremony, etc, etc. Now the ceremony is over. Great. It's only 3 hours later. We met up and headed out.

It was cold, windy, wet, snowy, and all together sucky. Did you see the weather at the Browns game? Conveniently, it was exactly like that. We had to walk about 2 blocks. No problem right? Well there was a problem. The city of Cleveland has exactly zero snow plows. Maybe even less than that. Snow? In Cleveland? Come on! That never happens. Why do we need snow plows? We don't. Problem solved.

So we're running through the arctic circle otherwise known as downtown Cleveland. Cars are sliding all over the place, nearly running down pedestrians like they're getting bonus points for doing so. Eventually we made it to the car. Next stop, the highway. If only we could see the roads, let alone the lanes. Lindsay was driving, and she got to the highway, which were better than the roads but not by much. At one point, we were in the fast lane and there was a car about 100 feet in front of us in the slow lane. He tried to get over a lane and instead spun out in a 720 across all four lanes of the highway and into the wall directly in front of us. By directly, I mean he was about 20 feet in front of us when he crashed into the wall. We stopped and he got out, checked his car, and then just drove away, so we did the same.

Long story short, we made it home safely, and had a nice party with a bunch of people. The end. Come to think of it, maybe later I'll expound on the party itself, complete with pictures. Or not.

The last day of school is at hand. Rejoice, I say to thee rejoice! I'm almost free of my chains and shackles. I cannot wait. One last exam. One more time getting ripped off at the bookstore. Who cares, I'm out. Done. Finì. Adios muchacho.

I just bought something on eBay... a USB SD card reader. It's coming from Hong Kong, which last time I checked, wasn't too close to Ohio. Total shipping on the item is $1.99. I can't ship something to Akron for $1.99. How exactly are they making any money on these things? Do they have their slave laborers swimming across the ocean and then hand delivering it to me?

Good news everyone! I went to sell back my books and for one they'll give me a whole $6. For the other they're willing to take it off of my hands for a grand total of zero dollars. What a deal!

We went out on Saturday and cut down our own Christmas tree. That makes three trees that we have up in the house this year. I took pictures of each of them, but they're on Lindsay's camera and we couldn't find the cord to connect it to the computer, so you'll have to wait to see them in their glory. We have a fake 3 footer, a fake 6 footer, and a real 7 footer.

Sawing down a tree with a handsaw is a lot less fun than you'd imagine, and I imagined it to be not very fun.

I have a presentation in my knowledge management class in about 15 minutes. The class is useless. The idea of knowledge management itself isn't so bad, except of course that it has no practical applications... at least not the way this course is being taught. It's more like a class on buzzwords.

That said, my buzzword presentation is in 15 minutes.

As you all know, my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer about a year ago. She had a few surgeries, chemo, and radiation in attempts to get rid of it. On Monday she had another PET scan and it showed that the cancer had grown in her arm and had spread to her lung.

She had previously stated that she wouldn't go through that stuff again and that she'd just let it run its course. As such, the doctors told her that within 6 months she'll feel pain in her arm and will need to be on pain medicine. They also said that she should contact hospice because she'll be needing it. At this point they don't know how quickly this will progress though. They said it's possible that she could go 1-2 years with no other symptoms or that it could spread much faster than that. Why they can't be more specific I don't know.

What they do know is that it's in her arm and at least one lung and in her lymph nodes. They only scanned her upper body, so they said it could be in other areas also. I don't know if they're going to do another scan. At this point I don't really know much of anything other than now she has a terminal illness. There's no cure and she's not going to attempt to delay the inevitable either.

Really bad news on a personal level today. I'll post details if I get a chance.

Sunday it's supposed to snow. Monday it's supposed to blizzard. Tomorrow? Very nice.

So I guess it's too bad that we're not moving the couches we bought tomorrow. Instead we've been postponed to next Friday... in the middle of a snowstorm. Yay.

I took my college assessment exam. Basically it's an exam that covers all of the core classes in your major. Long story short, it means I'm almost done.

Whoopee!

There was an article on ESPN.com today about how the Yankees are looking to trade for Johan Santana. Rumor has it that he's looking for a new deal in the $25 million per year range. Not many teams could even begin to think about signing him to a deal like that, but the Yankees are certainly one of those teams.

This, once again, leads to my question of when is MLB going to beat down the union and install a salary cap? Is it going to be when the Marlins have a $25 million payroll and the Yankees have a $500 million payroll? It should only be a few more years before that happens. If the Yankees do get Santana and pay him his $25 million, then they'll have a 25 man roster that costs more than $250 million per year. That's a ridiculous AVERAGE of $10 million per year per player.

I don't care that the Yankees haven't been able to buy a World Series lately. Regardless of what you believe, the fact is that eventually this disparity will kill the game.

In 2007 there were 64 players in MLB that had salaries of $10 million or more. 11 of those played for the Yankees. Now consider than the Yankees also had 9 players making less than $1 million per year. Imagine what will happen to their payroll when they begin replacing some of those low priced players with high priced players.

I say it every year, and I'll say it again. One of the main reasons that the NFL succeeds is because of their salary parity and the non-guaranteed contracts that they have. All of the teams are on equal footing, which is why teams come from nowhere to compete. That's unheard of in MLB. You're not going to see the Devil Rays lose 100 games for 5 years in a row and then win 100 games the next year. It just doesn't happen. Well it does happen in the NFL. The Browns have been a doormat for 5 years and if the season ended today, they'd be in the playoffs.

I understand that the executives in charge of MLB love having the Yankees as the big gorilla at the top. It helps attendance, etc. What it doesn't help is parity.

Here's a wild solution that stands absolutely zero chance of happening.

1. Install a salary cap in baseball.
2. Allow each team to designate 3 keepers (players that will stay on its roster.)
3. Throw all of the rest of the players in the Major Leagues into a draft.
4. Have each team do a re-draft of players while sticking to the salary cap.

You'd end up with salary parity and a real feeling that anyone could win. Yes, I know it would never happen, but imagine the excitement that people in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Tampa Bay would feel.

Our project due date got moved to next Tuesday. Praise the Lord! I had done only about 25% of the work that I needed to have done by tomorrow, so this is really great.

Also, school's almost over.

Suck it school!

An uneventful return trip from Maryland. Not counting the 90 minutes of dead locked, 10 MPH max traffic between Breezewood and Bedford Pennsylvania of course.

You've got to love the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It's the definition of great.

It's got it all...

Stopping on the highway for no reason? Check.
Under construction all of the time? Check.
Views of a boring wasteland? Check.

I'm closing my eyes now and picturing Miguel Cabrera playing third for the Indians. It's nice.

Now I'm opening my eyes and realizing that it will never ever happen.

Florida probably wants CC Sabathia, Grady Sizemore, Victor Martinez, and the naming rights to Jacobs Field in order to consummate any trade with the Tribe.

Boo to that. I don't want the Jake to be renamed Fish Stix stadium, or some other such crap.

Once again, my group hasn't done too much. It's okay though. I only have five class days left and just two more group projects. Ever.

Ah, sweet sweet freedom. I can taste it already.

Might get new couches tonight. Pretty exciting! Then I've got a big day tomorrow too. Actually a pretty nice little Saturday, we're going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I don't know, I don't know if we'll have enough time.

I think it's hilarious that Alex Rodriguez is once again talking to the Yankees. It turns out that it wasn't about wanting out of the pressure pot known as New York... it was only about more money. That's why people hate a lot of professional athletes. They claim it's for personal or family reasons, but it's ALWAYS about the money.

Scott Boras: We demand $350 million per week in order to negotiate.

A-Rod: Nevermind Yankees, I don't like New York so I'm opting out.

Steinbrenner: Okay, we don't want anyone that doesn't want to be a Yankee.

Rest of MLB: *crickets*

Scott Boras: Oops.

A-Rod: I changed my mind. I love New York!

Steinbrenner: A-Rod has shown he DOES want to be a Yankee. Yay!


It's so freaking stupid. All he cares about is the money. He doesn't want to be a Yankee any more than he wants to be a Marlin. He just wants $30 million per year. He doesn't care where it comes from. It's all about the money. He'll kiss the new Steinbrenner's booty in order to get it too. It's just a shame that the new management of the Yankees didn't choose to stick it to him this time and not let him back to the table. That would have been really great. To see A-Rod leave $81 million for 3 years + $150 million for 5 years on the table in order to take a 4 year offer of $80 million. Oh the happiness that would've brought me.

Suck it Scott Boras!

Oh, and PS. Suck it Yankees!

Money doesn't buy rings, but what it definitely does buy is the ability to recover from a free agent mistake. It also makes it far easier to add depth to a team so as to prevent a few injuries from ruining a season.

Baseball needs a salary cap and it needs it now. Whenever average (at best) pitchers are commanding $10 million + salaries, there is a huge problem. They need to break the union and install a cap. It's the only long term hope for the success of the league.

Presently, there are about 25 teams out of the running for most of the free agents in the market. That's just not good for the health of the game. When fans give up on their team before the season even starts, it's just not good.

The NFL is successful because all of the teams salaries are on par. Everyone has a chance. MLB is successful in spite of the huge salary disparity of the teams. That can't last forever.

The potential end of my long and painful college career is just a month away.

Finals are the week of December 10-14 and graduation is on December 17th.

At that point I will have earned 203 credit hours. 203! For a freaking bachelors degree. That's 70 more than is required. I could've earned more than 2 masters in the same amount of classes, and people wonder why I hate school so much.

It's because I lost so many credits in my transfer. It's ridiculous that they can't give you credit for a class because "it's too advanced and we have nothing comparable."

That just sucks.

Dear college,

I hate you!

-Tim

We're STILL writing wedding thank you notes. And by we, I mean me. I imagine we've got about 10 left to write, and they just seem to be taking forever. Why? Because I suck. It's certainly better than not having to write any notes, but we must have had about 873.2 notes to write. That's a lot.

What annoys me most (among a long list of mosts I might add) about Hillary Clinton is her seemingly invulnerability in the media. Am I the only one in the world that has noticed that every time she speaks her opinion her ratings go down? They only go back up when she shuts up. Guess what that means? It means that she sucks.

Why doesn't the media say something about that? Oh. I remember now.

So I was reading this article about this kid that made a foot powered toilet lid (just like the trash cans you step on to raise the lid.)

Anyway, in the article is this quote:

"My mom was getting mad at me for forgetting to put the toilet seat down and she was falling in," said Jake, a fourth-grader at Odebolt-Arthur Elementary School.

This got me to thinking... if women can complain about the lid being up all the time, don't you think they could also just check to see if it's down before they sit on the toilet? I mean really, how much effort is it to just look before you sit?

We had our group project tonight. The guy who did nothing got zero credit. He didn't even get to present tonight. Sucks for him, as this project was worth 25% of our total grade and this is our capstone class...

You get what you earn though, and he earned zippo on this.

What sucks though is that we have one last group project, and it's with the same groups, so once again we get stuck with this guy who has already screwed us on two different projects.

Gotta love group projects part two: One of the guys in my 4 man group didn't bother to contact us or respond to his responsibilities until tonight. The project is due tomorrow along with the presentation. Nice one. The guy literally did nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Then he has the nerve to contact us to see if we needed help with anything. Ha! That's funny. Funny like a clown. Funny ha ha. You amuse me.

Shmoe.

Can someone explain to me why this person with the freakishly huge mouth is attractive to a large portion of the world? I just don't get it. She's average at best to me...

This just in. LeBron James is boring and the Cleveland Browns are exciting.

What world is this?

Something caught my eye today when I was reading an article about the Madrid bombings from a few years ago.

The three lead suspects convicted of murder and attempted murder each received sentences ranging from 34,000 to 43,000 years in prison, although under Spanish law the most time they can spend in jail is 40 years. Spain has no death penalty or life imprisonment.

They were sentenced to 34,000!!!!! years in jail, but the most they will serve is 40 years. What exactly is the point of sentencing anyone to more than 40 years then?

Thirty four thousand years in jail. That's a really long time.

Forty years. Still long, but not long enough in my opinion.

Basically what Spain has said is that if you murdered ten million people, you would spend 40 years in jail. Yay Spain. Cue sarcasm.

Deviating from the norm for a moment, allow me to comment on this stupid Seinfeld controversy.

First came "The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals"

Then came "Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food"

Hmmm. Interesting. Certainly seems suspicious at the very least. Sneaky / deceptive. Simple strategies / simple secrets. Same recipes. Something smells rotten in this deal and it isn't the big salad.

Verdict: guilty.

Sentence: forfeit your money to me.

Two of my three group members didn't bother to show up for class tonight. Hooray! It's not like our project is due on Tuesday and we haven't really started or anything...

Went to Cedar Point on Saturday with Lindsay and my brother and sister. I rode the new ride, Maverick, for the first time. It's MUCH more wild than it looks. I had no clue where I was at any given time and no idea what to expect next. After the first ride I'd have to say that I didn't like it. I need to give it a few more shots though before I confirm that.

Reason number 1 why I'm upset that the Indians lost game 7.

If they had won that game, they would've had about an 85% chance of winning the World Series.

Instead, they got my hopes up, then walked up behind me and pushed me down the stairs and started throwing knives at me.

Totally random thoughts:

We saw Little Miss Sunshine a week or so ago. Hilarious! Starts slow, but definitely worth it.

I didn't even realize that the World Series started yesterday. I'm still in a sports-induced daze.

Bye weeks in the NFL are stupid, if only because they screw up my fantasy team.

I'm not ready for the NBA season to start in less than a week. It seems like it should be 2 or 3 months off still.

School work is starting to hit high gear now and is thus constantly reminding me of how much I hate it.

I would like to have $500K of disposable income right about now.

Why don't I ever get bags of crap when there is a Woot-off?

Purdue has 4 games left. 3-1 would be a great step. It's possible that they could go 0-4 though... or even 4-0. It would be nice to see a consistent product from week to week.

Someone should start a company that just writes wedding thank you cards. Pay them $2 per card or something and it's all taken care of for you.

We had an earthquake here last week. It was only a 2.9, but it was Lindsay's first earthquake, and for some reason she was excited about that. Apparently it shook the house for about 4 seconds. I was on our street coming home right when it happened and she thought that either a tree had fallen onto the house or that I had driven into the living room. When I was in the condo I actually did see someone drive into their living room. They were just a tad bit intoxicated.

A woman who stabbed her tied-up lover so she could drink his blood has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. She said that she was sorry for the incident and that she never meant to hurt anyone.

Interesting. She never meant to hurt anyone? Okay, I can see her point. I mean, I know tons of people that love to get stabbed. Perhaps my favorite part of this non-violent tale was when the guy escaped and she lovingly chased him with a pick ax.

The news of the day started ominously with Paul Byrd and HGH the talk of the day. My first thoughts were in conspiracy theory mode. Why wait until the morning of game 7 to bring these out? Did MLB prefer Boston the World Series (of course) and did someone want to distract the Indians? We'll probably never know, but the timing is certaily coincidental. It would be the same thing if David Ortiz was found to be using steroids and the media held onto that information until the most important game of the season.

Anyway, that ultimately had nothing to do with the Indians losing - distraction or not.

Game 7 of the ALCS ended when Joel Skinner stopped Kenny Lofton at third base. While replays clearly showed that Lofton would've scored easily, the brakes were put on not just Kenny, but any momentum the Indians would've gained.

Had Lofton scored, the game would've at least been tied at 3-3 and the Indians would've had the momentum from scoring the last 3 runs of the game. Who knows how the next half-inning would've went. Maybe the Red Sox still would've homered and taken a 2 run lead. I suspect the entire Indians team would've been energized though, and it really would've been a good game.

Instead, Lofton was stopped at third, Blake hit into an inning ending double play, I was really really really not happy, and the game was essentially over. The Indians were completely deflated. It really sucked. A lot.

You can argue that the terrible pitching of Sabathia and Carmona doomed the Indians, but I don't think so. I think a bad call by a usually aggressive third base coach doomed them last night. Granted, CC and Fausto sucked and sucked bad, but even after their horrible performances, the Indians still could've won.

Such is life as a fan of Cleveland sports. They will occasionally take you to the brink of something really spectacular before deciding to stab you in the eye.

This just in. In case you haven't heard, the Indians sucked last night. I wasn't terribly confident before the game and tried to cover that with bluster. Well, that just doesn't work. I wanted them to clinch a World Series berth at home as they haven't done that in my lifetime. Well, enough about that crap job last night.


In other news, I bring you the worlds most ridiculous car chase. Click on the picture to watch it.

It's Tribe Time Now!

Yeah, it's a stupid slogan, but whatever. Suck it Boston!

The Indians will win tonight. C.C. Sabathia will pitch like he is capable of. It will be a hard fought close game, but the Indians will prevail.

On to the lowest rated World Series in history! I'll be loving every minute of it. Maybe we can get a few games snowed out and end up playing into December. Not to take for granted that the Indians have to win one more game, but I'm taking that for granted.

People around here have finally stopped talking about the Browns, but I'm fairly certain that's only because they have a bye this week. In the mean time, the Indians have certainly succeeded in capturing the town. They are hitting ridiculously well in the clutch. The bullpen is pitching great. The Eddie Harris' of the team (Westbrook and Byrd) and handling the Red Sox lineup. ESPN has finally recognized that it just might be possible that neither the Red Sox nor the Yankees will make the World Series. What could be better?

I don't have any particular strong feelings about tonight's game. For some reason I wasn't the slightest bit concerned about last nights game. As for tonight, I don't have any glaring concerns either, but I do think that it will be close. I think the Indians will win, somewhere in the area of 6-5.

I was surprised (not shocked) at Borowski's perfomance in the 9th last night. I was very pleased with the way that Rafael Betancourt pitching to the middle of the Red Sox order in the 8th. That was really the game -- if you ask me anyway.

The Indians will win tonight in game 3 of the ALCS. You can put it on the board.... yes!

The final score will be 8-4.

You heard it here first. There is no longer any opportunity for you to change the future. It is what it is. Sorry about your luck Boston.

There's headline for the ALCS on ESPN.

It reads "Cleveland Clashes With Another Titan"

It might as well read "Lil' ole' Indians try to play a few competitive innings against the GREATEST TEAM IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE THAT ONLY EXISTS ON THE EAST COAST!"

Give me a freaking break. This is the same coverage that existed AFTER the Indians beat the Yankees. What'd you hear about then? Is A-Rod leaving New York? Was that Joe Torre's last game as manager? Mo Rivera is a free agent now. Who cares! How about you talk about the winning team?

This is how the teleprompter read:

Hello and welcome to ESPN.

In unexpected and disappointing news, some team from Cleveland beat the powerful New York Yankees last night.

How'd that happen?

I have no idea, but did you hear that Joe Torre might retire?

Why, no. I didn't hear that. Tell me more.

Okay, but wait just a minute. Breaking news that Alex Rodriguez might opt out of his contract.

Wow. I love the Yankees.

Me too, but that's not all. Mariano Rivera is now a free agent.

Say it ain't so! Not the Hammer of God!

He might sign with the Boston Red Sox though.

Oh? That'd be great! I love the Red Sox too! Yay!

I don't know what to make of the Indians - Red Sox game tonight. I think the Indians need to win the game in order to win the series (basically meaning that Sabathia and Carmona need to win all 4 of their games.) I just have an uneasiness about it.

The last time I felt that way was in game 3 of the Indians - Yankees series, and we all know what happened there. Even when Jake Westbrook was leading, I never felt comfortable. That's, unfortunately, the same type of feeling I have heading into this game.

I think the Indians will win the series 4-2, but I'll be much more confident about that pick if they win tonight.

I just don't think the Diamondbacks are very good. I don't care that they tied for the best record in the NL. They were outscored for the season. That's just not good. I think the Rockies have a chance to go through them like a hot tamale through my intestines.

Rockies in 5, and I don't even think it will be that close.

Wait, you say. They swept the Cubs. Seriously? That's your argument for them being good? They swept the Cubs? Come back when you have a real argument.

I don't really understand how people are talking about how great the Red Sox offense is and how it will handle the Indians pitching. Did they not watch the Indians - Yankees series? Last time I checked, the Yankees had a better offense than the Red Sox, and the Indians did pretty well slowing them down. Why wouldn't they be able to do the same against the Red Sox?

My prediction for the ALCS is Indians in 6 games.

What do all of these things have in common? They show a human foot. Why would I have pictures of a foot?


Well, because this is my foot now. Notice the nice blue tint? How about the swelling? It's pretty nice! This picture was taken in the doctors office just before the x-rays came back. It really doesn't do it justice either.



How did this happen you might ask? Well an eighty pound ladder was jack-hammered into my left foot. The ladder (gorilla variety - the type can that go in all kinds of different positions) was set up as a 10 foot step ladder. The pins were pulled to lower the legs down and down they came. Rather rapidly I might note. Right onto my foot. It hurt like a master falcon. Literally, no exaggeration, within 1 minute, it looked like there was a golf ball under my skin. Ice was immediately applied and held for 45 minutes and I laid there with my foot up over night. The next day -- yesterday -- I went to the doctors office for x-rays.

The doctor walked in and said "Am I in the right room? I looked at some x-rays and they look fine, but your foot definitely does not look fine." They proceeded to check my foot and found that it probably is not broken and that I still have good circulation in it, but that I get to wear a special boot for a while. Let me tell you... it is GREAT looking! I'll be a fashion trend setter for sure with this thing.

Moral of the story? Don't drop 80 lb ladders on your bare feet.

For reasons that will be revealed in my next post, this recap of Friday's game has been delayed.

Before the game I saw John Adams - he that bangs the drum during the games - standing outside of Gate C. I walked by, commented to Lindsay about how I should get a picture, then went back and got a picture. I'm glad I did. I'm aware that it's ridiculous, but I'm still glad I got a picture. Also, as you can tell (or not, because the number is hidden), I'm sporting my #99 Rick Vaughn jersey, as promised. While we were walking in I saw someone else wearing a #43 Roger Dorn jersey. He wouldn't have been my first choice from the movie, but hey... whatever floats your boat.



The Division Series playoff game between the Indians and Yankees on 10/5/07 is one of the greatest games I've ever attended. It was filled with drama, clutch situations, abnormal circumstances, and overtime.

There were a lot of chances for the Indians to put some runs on the board, but at every turn, Andy Pettitte shut them down, much to my chagrin. He and Fausto Carmona each pitched extremely well. In fact, all the pitchers that night pitched well. Even Joba Chamberlian, he of the plague infested variety, pitched well. He was clearly bothered by the bugs, and I truly believe it got into his head. He wasn't the same pitcher after being doused with gallons of bug spray. The bugs, while clearly in the face of the Indians players as well, didn't seem to affect the Tribe the same way. The Yankees players appeared in general to be much more distracted by them. As a fan in the stands, I wasn't bothered by them at all... mainly because they were nowhere near the stands. Lindsay said one flew into her eye, but I never noticed any.

It is, as you can see, Tribe Time Now! Apparently. I'm not sure who came up with that slogan, but meh. Whatever. They handed out towels with the It's Tribe Time Now! saying on it also. It will join my sports towel collection, perhaps in a to be determined place of honor.

Pandemonium set in after Hafner's game winning hit. Cowboys were hugging Indians. Dogs were hugging cats. It was just like at the end of the movie Major League. We stayed in the stands for a good 10 minutes after the game just releasing all of the pent up emotion of the game. It was a really great game, and a perfect example of why baseball is such a great sport.

Fans need to realize that game 1 is over. Sure, it's great to win it, but it's not a 1 game series. The Yankees have a terrific offense that is capable of scoring a lot of runs, and the Indians would have a hard time winning a slug fest. That said, the Indians have better starting pitching, and with the exception of closers, the Indians have better relief pitchers also.

In the playoffs, pitching and defense wins games, but it doesn't hurt to score 10+ runs.

I think, in general, if the Indians are going to win games, they're going to tend to be close, somewhat low scoring games. Something like 5-4, 4-2, etc. The Yankees have the ability to blow a game wide open though, which could lead them to victories in the 9-3 area.

I'll be at the game tonight and will be cheering for Carmona. We were at a game two weeks ago and saw him pitch well against the A's. I think he can do it again. I look for him to go 6 innings and give up 3-4 runs. If the Indians bullpen trio of Perez, Lewis, and Betancourt can shut down the Yankees in innings 7 and 8, it could get interesting in the 9th if they call on Borowski.

I was upset last night that they wasted Betancourt with a 9 run lead. That's the perfect situation for Borowski to come in, because even he would have a hard time screwing that up.

Tonight I'm officially predicting a score of 7-4 Indians.

Yay. It's only one game. Tomorrow it doesn't mean much of anything.

We'll be at the game tomorrow. Hopefully we can play hard. Give it 100%. Insert cliche here.

The Indians need to win tonight in order to have a chance in the series... in my opinion. I'm already marking down games 3 & 4 as losses as Westbrook and Byrd will be pitching those. It's possible to win, I just don't think it's likely. CC needs to win both of his games, which I think is possible. If he can get past three innings tonight, I think he'll be fine. That said, he could come out throwing darts from the beginning, but I think he'll be amped up and will be a bit wild. Hopefully I'm wrong.

If the Indians are to win tonight, I think it will be close... 5-4.
If the Yankees win tonight, it could get ugly... 9-3.

If you returned a Thomas & Friends toy to RC2 recalled for lead paint, you probably received an apology and a "bonus gift." Guess what? it contained a "special surprise" for your child: more lead. The replacement toy for the lead recalled toys has now been recalled for lead. Maybe the apology toys for these ones will contain polio.

Test in Knowledge Management? Check.
Presentation in Strategic Management? Check.
Unplanned visit to the emergency vet? Check.

What's the verdict? Okay, good, mineralization on a vertebrate.

Hopefully it's not chronic. For now, Max is on a steroid anti-inflammatory, a narcotic pain killer, and a muscle relaxer. Sounds like a good night to me... or something.

Cleveland's Regional Transport Authority (bus lines and light rail) was voted the best transit system in North America.

If nothing else states it, I'm pretty sure that that means that North America is full of horrible mass transit. I've been on the RTA here and it's nothing special.

Today we're off to Maryland for the third to last time of the year. We have the last wedding of a crazy wedding year on Saturday. It's at 3:30.

My goal is to watch enough of the Purdue game to see them be up by 30 on Notre Dame before I have to leave for the wedding. Bring your A game Boilers!

Official prediction: Purdue 37, Notre Dame 20.

Crazy prediction: Purdue 66, Notre Dame 20.

Four days left in the season and I'm up by 2.5 points in fantasy baseball. It shouldn't even be this close, but it is. I'm nervous because even at this point, there's a point or two fluctuation every day. Not to give away my strategy, but I will anyway... I need two holds and Matt needs 0. That would secure me a two point swing (since he is one hold ahead of me), virtually guaranteeing me the win.

I'm close in saves too, only up by two, but I believe I can hold on. I think that four more saves in the next four days would keep me ahead for sure.

It's a nail biter now, which is annoying since I was up by 20 points for most of the year.

Also, Matt's team just isn't good.

Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

The Raiders were victims of a stupid rule last week and they in turn stuck it to the Browns this week. It's idiotic to me that a coach can tell the ref he wants to call a timeout, but then wants to ref to wait until basically the ball is snapped before blowing the whistle in order to wait the longest amount of time possible.

Once a team is at the line of scrimmage for more than 5 seconds on a field goal try, the coach shouldn't be able to call a timeout. Plain and simple. Icing the kicker doesn't work. It's just stupid.

We participated in a chili cook off today. We had an entry in the mild category, but didn't finish 1st or 2nd. I blame myself -- too much garlic.

We sold out of it though. We had 20 bowls, and 20 bowls were purchased. All the proceeds went to charity, CROP - Communities Responding to Overcome Poverty.

We figured it would be for a good cause and we're doing pretty well, so this was an easy way to give something back.

I finally managed to sleep for more than 25 consecutive minutes last night! It was really great.

Here's what we did that lead to that.

9:00 AM - Take 2 Prednisone steroid pills, 3 Advil, 1 Amoxicillin, 1 multi-vitamin
12:00 PM - Take 1 Tylenol
1:00 PM - Take 1 Prednisone steroid pill
2:00 PM - Take 1 Amoxicillin
3:00 PM - Take 3 Advil
6:00 PM - Take 1 Prednisone steroid pill, 1 Tylenol
9:00 PM - Take 3 Advil
10:00 PM - Take 2 Prednisone steroid pills, 1 Amoxicillin

Then we turned on the humidifier because we thought it might help with my congestion and swollen throat.

It worked! All it took was 20 pills, a humdifier, 3 hot chocolates, and 2 hot teas.

Lindsay's done a really nice painting the upstairs bathroom. She's using some cross-weave technique in a gold color. Some glazing technique or something. I don't know. All I know is that it looks good.

The end.

Also, go Indians.

Also, I hate school.

I thought this was funny, so you had better too... or else!

This was on the ESPN Top 100 Most Hated Players list.

21. Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees: Sure, they love him now. But just wait until he goes 49-for-50 with 49 homers and 150 RBIs in the playoffs, only to make the final out of Game 7 of the World Series. Then we'll know that A-Rod the Choker never left us.

Purdue looked like the number 1 team in the country. In the first quarter. Then they fell back to Earth, but still managed a victory. 3-0 feels good.

Notre Dame is awesomely awful. I love it. It's splendiferous.

The Browns offense was off the charts. Their defense is allowing 40 points per game however, so the offense NEEDS to be off the charts. Week 1 of Derek Anderson QB, pretty good. Charlie Frye? Who?

The Indians remain in first place, and we'll be at the game on Friday versus the A's. It's fireworks night! Yay for us.

All in all a good weekend.

Purdue looked untouchable in the first quarter against Central Michigan today. Their offense was carving up CMU's defense like a chainsaw through a turkey. It was ridiculous.

Then they inevitably came back to Earth and allowed the Chippewas to put a little scare into some fans, but not apparently ESPN, who decided that they would stop showing the game at all so that we could watch Temple versus Connecticut. I kid you not.

Just so you know, Temple got jobbed in that game. It essentially ended with a referee replay, which they completely managed to screw up. The Temple player caught a ricochet pass in bounds with a foot down. Didn't matter. The refs screwed it up twice. Oh well. I guess that's what happens when you only win 1 out of your last 27 games.

Busy, busy, busy.

I've got two group projects in school and lots to do around the house. As such, I haven't been updating this like I should be.

I'll try to put up some insightful junk soon. Or not. We'll see.

If I get around to it.

Maybe.

The Browns have traded Charlie Frye to the Seattle Seahawks for a sixth round draft pick. They gave him 37 seconds of play time in the first half of the first game before deciding he clearly wasn't the answer. Well done, coaching staff! That's the way to emulate Super Bowl contenders! Yank your starting quarterback as soon as you can and then trade him. Don't bother to improve your offensive line first. I still think the Browns would be better off if they just had a center, a QB, and 9 wide receivers. Really spread that field.

The defensive pass rush wouldn't be that much improved against the center as they are against the whole offensive line. The strategy of Cleveland offensive linemen has typically been to fall down and play possum as soon as the ball is snapped.

Hopefully they can follow the Tim Couch model and throw rookie quarterbacks under to bus to the point where they need repeated surgeries to repair their arms after the massive beatings they've been subjected to.

I have an idea Romeo... just hit Brady Quinn with a tire jack before the next game, tie his legs together, and then put him in the game. The idiots in the stands will surely cheer. After 15 games and 98 sacks, Quinn will be well on his way.

Here's another idea. DRAFT. OFFENSIVE. LINEMEN.

With every pick.

For the next 10 years.

It was 6 years ago, at just about this time. I don't think I'll ever forget what I was doing. I was told to check my pager because it gets news info. It said that a small plane had flown into the World Trade Center in NYC. Since I was communicating with Justin about fantasy football, I just threw in a comment about that to see if he had heard anything.

Little did I know what had actually happened. It was a surreal day that I hope will never be repeated, but sadly, I feel like it will be.

Cold sweats? Check.
Back pain? Check.
School sucks? Check check.

This just in... I have infectious mononucleosis. Mono for short.

I guess that explains why I'm so exhausted.

I have the flu. My body let me know that at just about 6:00 PM last night. Class was fun after that.

I didn't go to work today. I didn't do ANYTHING today. I didn't even get out of bed until 4:30 PM. I finally showered around 8:00 PM. Now I'm ready for bedtime.

This is taken from an AP news article...

The makeover of "CBS Evening News" has been spiked and executive producer Rome Hartman reassigned in favor of veteran Rick Kaplan, who has made the newscast much more harder-edged and newsy.

Newsy? Much more harder-edged?

One of those isn't even a word and the other is just terrible grammar.

Me caveman. Me start job as reporter for AP.

School. Freaking. Blows.

Tons of work already. Is it December yet?

Source: Ron Paul

December 20, 2004
In 2002 I asked my House colleagues a rhetorical question with regard to the onslaught of government growth in the post-September 11th era: Is America becoming a police state?

The question is no longer rhetorical. We are not yet living in a total police state, but it is fast approaching. The seeds of future tyranny have been sown, and many of our basic protections against government have been undermined. The atmosphere since 2001 has permitted Congress to create whole new departments and agencies that purport to make us safer- always at the expense of our liberty. But security and liberty go hand-in-hand. Members of Congress, like too many Americans, don’t understand that a society with no constraints on its government cannot be secure. History proves that societies crumble when their governments become more powerful than the people and private institutions.

Unfortunately, the new intelligence bill passed by Congress two weeks ago moves us closer to an encroaching police state by imposing the precursor to a full-fledged national ID card. Within two years, every American will need a “conforming” ID to deal with any federal agency– including TSA at the airport.

Undoubtedly many Americans and members of Congress don’t believe America is becoming a police state, which is reasonable enough. They associate the phrase with highly visible symbols of authoritarianism like military patrols, martial law, and summary executions. But we ought to be concerned that we have laid the foundation for tyranny by making the public more docile, more accustomed to government bullying, and more accepting of arbitrary authority- all in the name of security. Our love for liberty above all has been so diminished that we tolerate intrusions into our privacy that would have been abhorred just a few years ago. We tolerate inconveniences and infringements upon our liberties in a manner that reflects poorly on our great national character of rugged individualism. American history, at least in part, is a history of people who don’t like being told what to do. Yet we are increasingly empowering the federal government and its agents to run our lives.

Terror, fear, and crises like 9-11 are used to achieve complacency and obedience, especially when citizens are deluded into believing they are still a free people. The loss of liberty, we are assured, will be minimal, short-lived, and necessary. Many citizens believe that once the war on terror is over, restrictions on their liberties will be reversed. But this war is undeclared and open-ended, with no precise enemy and no expressly stated final goal. Terrorism will never be eradicated completely; does this mean future presidents will assert extraordinary war powers indefinitely?

Washington DC provides a vivid illustration of what our future might look like. Visitors to Capitol Hill encounter police barricades, metal detectors, paramilitary officers carrying fully automatic rifles, police dogs, ID checks, and vehicle stops. The people are totally disarmed; only the police and criminals have guns. Surveillance cameras are everywhere, monitoring street activity, subway travel, parks, and federal buildings. There’s not much evidence of an open society in Washington, DC, yet most folks do not complain– anything goes if it’s for government-provided safety and security.

After all, proponents argue, the government is doing all this to catch the bad guys. If you don’t have anything to hide, they ask, what are you so afraid of? The answer is that I’m afraid of losing the last vestiges of privacy that a free society should hold dear. I’m afraid of creating a society where the burden is on citizens to prove their innocence, rather than on government to prove wrongdoing. Most of all, I’m afraid of living in a society where a subservient populace surrenders its liberties to an all-powerful government.

It may be true that average Americans do not feel intimidated by the encroachment of the police state. Americans remain tolerant of what they see as mere nuisances because they have been deluded into believing total government supervision is necessary and helpful, and because they still enjoy a high level of material comfort. That tolerance may wane, however, as our standard of living falls due to spiraling debt, endless deficit spending at home and abroad, a declining fiat dollar, inflation, higher interest rates, and failing entitlement programs. At that point attitudes toward omnipotent government may change, but the trend toward authoritarianism will be difficult to reverse.

Those who believe a police state can’t happen here are poor students of history. Every government, democratic or not, is capable of tyranny. We must understand this if we hope to remain a free people.

This weekend is my annual pilgrimage to the Cleveland International Air Show for each of the three days that it runs. This year the Air Force Thunderbirds are the main attraction, but I'm really looking forward to the F-18 E/F Super Hornet performance. It is able to do some ridiculous things in the air. I'll try to post some pictures of the event if I can.

The Lion King was pretty good. Some of the mechanisms they used to represent the animals were ingenious. The stampede scene was great. I really liked the animals walking down to the stage also. The costumes were well done. Everything was good, with the possible exceptions being a few scenes in Act 2 that seemed to drag on.

In the past 2 years, six members of the Paw family have donated $200,000 to Democratic candidates. It isn't obvious how the Paw family is able to afford such political largess. Records show they own a gift shop and live in a 1,280-square-foot house that they recently refinanced for $270,000. The Paws' political donations closely track donations made by Norman Hsu, a wealthy New York businessman in the apparel industry.

Read more about this "interesting" story at the Wall Street Journal.

Why is this interesting? Because the law states that it is illegal to reimburse someone for their political donations, and that's especially pertinent now as there are strict limits on the amount a single person can donate.

This doesn't exactly make Hillary unique among the Clintons though... Billy boy got lots of Chinese cash for his campaign also, then, he let the Chinese have advanced US ballistic missile technology. Experts say the technology he let them have advanced their program by an estimated five years. Now the Chinese have ballistic missiles capable of hitting the US mainland. The Clinton's are Machiavellian, anything for political power and money. Wonder what these "contributions" will cost the US if Hillary is elected.

The wife and I are going to see the Lion King tonight. I'll report back tomorrow on my thoughts.

This will be the second Broadway show that I've seen (and third musical overall). The first was Spamalot. I enjoyed that, and I think I will enjoy Lion King too.

I saw a mini version of it at Disneyland a few years ago, and I like that.

I was told to get aisle seats so that we could be as close as possible to the animals as they walk down to the stage. I did one better... we're at the intersection of two aisles, so we'll see them walking towards us from the side, and then down to the stage.

111 days until graduation. Of those, 30 of them are class days.

60 total class sessions and I will be done!

Every week and a half I am 10% closer to graduation.

Each minute that goes buy during class, I will be .01% closer to graduation.

Can you smell the anticipation in the air?

I thought that the busy times were over... well, I thought wrong. It seems like every day, I've got at most 2 hours of "free" time. Yes, yes... complain, complain, complain.

Once school starts, my Tuesdays and Thursdays will start at 5:45 AM and will end at 10:30 PM. And by end, I mean that's when I will get home.

I really miss being able to veg out. There's always somewhere to go and something to do. I don't want to go anywhere. I want to sit. I don't want anyone to come over. I just want to sit and do nothing.

The Indians won a close game! Color me surprised. I thought for sure when they had 0 outs with a man on first and second in the tenth that I was going to witness a walk down strikeout lane. Well, the next batter hit into a fielders choice, so a man on first and third now with one out. All you have to do is hit a fly ball. Instead? Strikeout. Now it will take some clutch hitting - which has been really lacking lately - to get the job done. Hooray for the infield single. Follow that up with a legit single, and it's 3-0. In comes the human gas can to throw some fuel onto the Tigers. In other words, Joe Borowski. He gave up a run and made it more fretful that it needed to be, but a win is a win is a win.

Going to the gym in the morning isn't really all that bad. We don't have quite enough time to get everything done, and I do feel somewhat lethargic while I'm there, but it's not all bad. I think we actually need to get up 15 minutes earlier so that we can finish our cardio and weights on the 3 days we do that. We have plenty of time when it's just cardio. In fact, it's nice because we get to have breakfast before we go. It's not chicken nuggets and waffles, but it's still good.

Tired. So very tired.

We went to the gym today before work. That means I got up at 5:45 AM and headed for the gym... it's dark at that time of the morning and I was still sleepy.

More sleepy time. Less worky time.

In the past 8 days my companies stock (PCP) has lost $25.89 off it's share price.

For no reason. I don't care that hedge funs are selling off any liquidity in order to cover themselves as they were heavily invested in real estate holdings. Why aren't they regulated? Why are they allowed to play their own private games with stocks?

Hedge funds don't make most of their money when a stock goes up. They make most of it when it goes down. They short millions of shares, drive down the price of a stock, re-buy it later at a much lower price, and then reap the rewards. Companies stocks pay the price, and often there is no legitimate basis for the drops.

Take our stock for example. We've blown past analyst estimates by more than 10% for 17 consecutive quarters. That sounds like a pretty safe bet. So how to explain losing $25 over a week period? There is no answer except for panic selling and hedge fund manipulation.

It's time to regulate the mothers.

Inmate claims Michael Vick is an Al Queda operative and sues him for $63 billion.

Read his list of defendants here.

He's got everyone from President George W. Bush to Wendy's. Yes the fast food chain. He's got Sugar Ray Leonard on there! What do Tony Blair, Rudy Guliani, Three Mile Island, Chubby Checker, and Disney's Typhoon Lagoon have in common? They're all defendants in the case.

Read his full handwritten filing.

According to the plaintiff, Michael Vick subjected him to microwave testing, used drugs in school zones, and has to stop physically hurting my feelings and dashing my hopes.

bunt (bŭnt) Pronunciation Key
v. bunt·ed, bunt·ing, bunts

v. tr.

1. Baseball

1. To bat (a pitched ball) by tapping it lightly so that the ball rolls slowly in front of the infielders.

2. To cause (a base runner) to advance or (a run) to score by bunting.

2. To push or strike with or as if with the head; butt.

v. intr.

1. Baseball To bunt a pitched ball: The batter squared away to bunt.

2. To butt.

n.

1. Baseball

1. The act of bunting.

2. A bunted ball.

2. A butt with or as if with the head.

[Dialectal, to push, strike.]

bunt'er n.



If you don't understand the purpose of posting a definition here, allow me to explain the situation.

The Indians and the Tigers are tied for first place in the AL Central. The Indians and Tigers are playing each other on Tuesday in Cleveland. The Indians and Tigers are tied 2-2 in the bottom of the 9th.

The Indians have a man on second with no outs. None. Not even one. Zero. No outs. Man on second. No outs. What do they proceed to do? Let's swing away shall we! It will be a grand ole time. Let's swing all night long. What proceeds to happen? It goes something like this... in order:

Strike out.
1 out.

Strike out.
2 outs.

Strike out.
3 outs.

Let's play extra innings shall we? Then the Tigers score 4 in the top of the 10th and win 6-2.

Hence, my suggestion to BUNT THE FREAKING BALL! Bunt like your life depends on it, because it does. If you keep playing like dung then you will miss the playoffs again. BUNT! When you only need one run, and you have a man on second with no outs, you bunt. It's simple really. They're major league baseball players. They should all be able to bunt. So bunt. Just bunt. For the love of God, bunt the ball.

The house is coming together. There's still a lot of little stuff that needs to be done in order to get ready for the big party this weekend though. We're still in the process of figuring out which of our stuff we're going to keep, which we're going to get rid of, which we're going to put into storage, and where can we possible put all of our wedding gifts.

On top of that, we're going to the gym every day, so there's only so many hours to work on the house, and of those, there's even less hours when we even want to work on the house.

How's that saying go? A busy beaver is as happy as a pig in mud? Idle hands make the world go round? Two elephants walked into a bar?

The Indians just got swept at home by the Yankees and are now trailing in the wild card. They're still okay for the division, but they play the Tigers 5 times in the next two weeks, and it's critical that they win at least 3 of those games. They're be in really nice shape if they can take all 5, but I don't think that's likely. They look lost without Travis Hafner out there.

We'll see. Will this be another swoon for the Tribe or a close but no cigar year, or will it be the year they finally return to the playoffs? Time will tell.

11 hours and 41 minutes. That's how long it was supposed to take us to get from Nags Head, NC back to waterlogged Cleveland.

14 hours and 45 minutes. That's how long it actually took us.

Why the delay, you might ask?

Outside of Richmond, Virginia we ran over a S hook in the highway which punctured the rear drivers side tire. It stayed in (which was good) so that we could drive to the next exit 3/4 of a mile away. We pulled into a BP station, asked them where we could go to get it fixed, filled the tire with more air, and headed on our way. They suggested a Wal-Mart Tire Center about 3 miles away.

We got about 90% of the way there when the S hook dislodged itself from the tire and we began RAPIDLY losing air pressure. I managed to make it to the driveway of the Wal-Mart before the tire went completely flat. Lindsay went inside to get some help and I began the process of unloading the car and retrieving the spare.

After the spare was put on, they took the car in and patched the other tire, for a total cost of $9.50. So other than a 2 hour delay, we didn't come out any worse for the wear. We were both okay. The car was okay. The rim was okay. No real problem.

It certainly made for a long day though. We left NC at 5:45 AM and got home at 9:30 PM. We had a 30 minute nap in Maryland which did help refresh us quite a bit. We had a good time though and did get home safely, so that's all that matters.

Today is Lindsay's birthday. Happy birthday Lindsay! She's still a young pup... only 27.

We're off to Nags Head today. This is a picture of the house we'll be staying in.

It should be a good time. Believe it or not, I'm really looking forward to some really fast go karts. And sleep. But not at the same time.

"Repairing damages to luxury vehicles involved in low-speed crashes of 3 to 6 miles per hour, which typically happen in commuter traffic or in parking lots, can cost significantly more than for other cars, according to tests released Thursday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The institute conducted a series of four low-speed crashes on 11 2007 luxury vehicles. It found the Infiniti G35, which starts at $31,450, had the highest repair bill at nearly $14,000 in combined damages for the four tests. In one test involving the front-end, the G35's bill was more than $5,000."

Sweet.

Searching for Indians tickets. We received a $50 gift card to MLB.com for a wedding present. I'd really like club seats, but those are $98 each. Then Ticket Master rips you off with a $4 convenience charge per ticket on top of that.

How exactly does doing their job for them make it more convenient for me? Shouldn't I be able to charge them? Seems like it...

Anyway, there are a ton of promotion games left, but I'd like to sit somewhere decent. That doesn't appear to be likely at this point though.

It's the first day of August. I go back to school this month.

This is the final semester (potentially) of my long and esteemed college career.

In December you'll be able to call me Dr. Van Awesome.

Is it Friday yet? It feels like Monday, which I suppose is because I wasn't at work yesterday.

Lindsay and I went to check out a gym on Sunday. Maybe that's why I was sick yesterday.

I must be allergic to exercise!

Feel like puke. No worky today. Bleh.

Finally we come to Saturday. Departure day. We had a noon private transfer scheduled to take us from the resort to the airport. Never mind that they didn't pick us up until 1:00 PM. It was irritating, but not the end of the world. We still had time, in between dodging the craziest drivers this side of Los Angeles, to stop at the Tortuga shop and pick up not one, not two, but thirteen rum cakes. Yes. Thirteen.

We bought a few other items there and then headed to the airport.

That's where the joy of first class really kicked in. We didn't have to stand in the 600 person strong line waiting to check in at the Air Jamaica desk. Instead we waited in a line that was us and pretty much no one else. We also learned that the Montego Bay (Sangster) International Airport is not air conditioned. Who needs it anyway? Well, pasty white travelers from Ohio. That's who. We got to hang out in the air conditioned first class lounge while the less fortunate had to sit in the sweltering non-airconditioned section.

The flight itself was delayed about 90 minutes, but was otherwise uneventful. Likewise, we waited for 45 minutes for the luggage to clear security, but customs took us all of 1 minute once we had them.

A good time was had by all. I'd recommend it to anyone and everyone. It's a beautiful country full of beautiful people.

Finally, we come to Friday in Jamaica. We had 3:00 PM reservations for a catamaran cruise. The cruise took us down the coast to a bay named Pirates Cove. The ship anchored off the coast and we were able to jump off into the ocean from there. There was also a water slide on the boat, which I used once. Once in the water, we were able to swim through a cave in the side of the cliffs. It circled around like a horseshoe though the cliff wall. It made me feel like I was in the Goonies while we were in there. The current was quite rough. Several times it nearly through me into the jagged rocks that lined the wall. Once we got to the back of the cave however, it was shallow enough that we could stand and take a breather. From there we had two options. One is to climb the steep, rickety, slimy ladder to the top. The other is to swim out the other side. We did both.

Once you got to the top of the ladder you had the option to jump off the 40 foot cliff back into the ocean, or you could cowardly climb down the ladder and contemplate your own fear of heights. I bravely chose the cowardly approach; as did my wife. 40 feet looks high when you're in the ocean looking up at people jumping off, but it looks REALLY high from up there.

After the swim back to the boat we just floated in the ocean for about 30 minutes watching other people cliff jump and even some who climbed trees on top of the cliff and jumped from there. It was a nice time.

After the cruise ended, we went back to the pool and hung out there for a while. Then we showered and got ready for our reservations at 8:45. Of course, the night wouldn't be complete without a pre-dinner dinner, so we went to the buffet to see if anything would catch our eye. The jerk chicken and jerk shrimp did, so we had our fill of that. We contemplated skipping out on the second dinner, but decided to power through another 4 course meal. Poor us.

After another long day of eating and sitting, we decided to retire. It was now quite late. We stayed up until 11:00 PM! Crazy.

And now for Thursday. It was another hectic day in the land of tropical paradise.

We had a snorkeling trip scheduled for 1:30 PM. That meant that we had to get up sometime before noon. It was a challenge. Breakfast was left outside of the room this time, as by the time room service knocked on the door we had not yet woken up. We polished off the breakfast tray and then went over to the Palms for a little a la cart action.

Following the long tortuous walk along the beach back to the room, we slathered ourselves in SPF 50. I wouldn't want my milky white skin to become slightly tanned (i.e as red as a lobster in 30 minutes or less.)

We boarded the same glass bottom boat that we had ridden before for our trip out to a dive site named "New Mexico." The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to return soup at a deli. As a snorkeling newbie, I stayed on the boat for about 5 minutes in order to get myself situated. The view was remarkable. We were in waters that ranged from 15 feet deep up to 30 feet deep. It didn't matter though, because you could see the bottom as if it were inches from your face. The water was crystal clear. It was really amazing. Unfortunately for me, my sea sickness kicked in. The water was quite choppy and after 30 minutes of bobbing up and down while looking down, I started to feel crappy. If I were able to keep an eye on the horizon I think I would've been fine, but since I was face down, I had a problem. I didn't get sick, just a crappy feeling. Later on, as I was laying down, I still felt like I was bobbing up and down - not good.

That said, I would do it again in a heartbeat. It's something that everyone needs to experience.

After the snorkeling, we took a much needed nap. We had dinner reservations at 7:30. We were having a private dinner on the beach that night. Just us, under torchlight, with a private waitress. It was great. We had steak and lobster as part of a 5 course meal. The ocean was essentially lapping at our feet. The stars were plainly visible. It was a very nice evening.

On to the busy day of the honeymoon. Wednesday.

We were woken up by room service. They delivered our food to the veranda.

I managed to drag myself out of bed to eat some food. Doing so on only 9.5 hours of sleep mind you. I'm a trooper.

We ate on the veranda and then proceeded to get ready because we had a glass bottom boat ride scheduled for 9:30.

We went on the boat ride, came back, and had some lunch.

By now it was about 1:30, so we went back to the room and relaxed. It was needed after all of that running around.

We had 3:30 appointments for a message. It was 50 minutes but it felt like I could've stayed there for 50 days.

After the messàge we went back to the room and took a nap. It was a long walk from the spa to the room. At least 1/4 mile. Plus it was hot. It takes a lot out of you.

We napped for about 1 to 1.5 hours. We had to wake up because we had dinner reservations at 7:00. We decided to go over and check out the a la carte dinner spread and had a bit to eat there before we went upstairs to the Thai restaurant. By then we were of course full, but we ate anyway.

After that we were REALLY tired from all of the sleeping and eating we'd been doing, so we once again retired for the evening before 10:00 PM. Off to another 11 hours of sleepy time for us.

Something tells me we missed the boat when we rented the Hummer limo.

We could've gotten this.

Here's the link to the CBS station in DC that interviewed us before the wedding. Complete with a picture of our marriage license that they had earlier shown on air... the same marriage license that had our names and address on it. Neither of which were blurred out. Yay!

Also, here is one of the comments posted on that site...

"Congratulations Lindsay and Tim, I am so happy for you. I think this also means you will have 7 children."

Great. That would really be great. Really great.

Tuesday of the honeymoon went something like this:

Wake up.
Have breakfast in bed.
Lay in bed.
Go to lunch.
So hot. Makes me sleepy.
Take a nap.
Go to dinner.
Go to sleep.

It was perfect. Seriously. To have no obligations, nowhere to go and nothing to do... it was something I'd dreamed about for a long time.

The honeymoon started off with a bang. We had to get up at 5 AM in order get to the airport and get through security so that we could catch our 8:35 AM flight to Jamaica. Or so we were told. What really happened is that we were the only ones in security and got through in.... oh.... 17 seconds. Then we just went into the first class lounge where we learned that our flight was delayed. We stayed up for a bit, bought some medicine since Lindsay was sick, and then I fell asleep for a while. More sleeping on the plane for both of us. Lindsay almost fell asleep during the 90 minute ride to the resort. Once we got there and checked in, we went and ate dinner. Then.... we promptly fell asleep. At 7 PM. We woke up the next day at 9 AM.

Yay for sleeping! It was great! I think I got 50 hours of sleep that week. It was just what the doctor ordered.

Since I'm back, I guess I need to start writing something useful.

On the morning of Saturday 7/7/07 (our wedding day), I was basically calm. It hadn't yet sunk in that I was getting married that day. I was running around trying to make sure everything was in place and didn't really have time to even think about it.

The reality didn't hit me until I stepped into the ante room off of the church's nave. Literally, didn't hit me. One second I was fine and then I crossed the entryway into that room and *BAM* it all just hit me in that instant. I could see the people in the church and it was just me and the minister there for a bit. The emotion of the moment flooded over me in that one step.

I was still okay though. While I was positive that I was absolutely going to lose it when Lindsay started walking down that isle (I'm talking snot bubbles and everything), I was bound and determined to remain composed to the best of my ability.

I have to say, I'm quite proud of myself. That's not to say that I didn't get emotional, because I definitely did, but I didn't turn into a blubbering baby with no control of his bodily functions.

There's another moment from that day that definitely stands out. When Lindsay was saying her vows she got choked up and some tears leaked out. That of course got me choked up. That in turn got my mom choked up, and then everyone seemed to be crying. I can't be sure about that because I was solely focused on Lindsay, but I've heard that from sources in attendance.

The wedding was perfect. Everything went by way too quickly, but it was definitely perfect.

Here's the view from the veranda of our room in Jamaica.

Back home now. So many thoughts to post about Jamaica.

In a few words... it was amazing.

Also... I'm married!

I'm getting married today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My dad got taken to the emergency room via ambulance today. He had shortness of breath and some "minor" chest pains. They did an EKG on the way and found a "disturbance" in the heart. A valve was opening when it shouldn't. Now... I'm no doctor, but that doesn't sound good.

The problem was that he was having PVC (premature ventricular contractions). That most likely was causing the shortness of breath. PVC is a form of an irregular heartbeat. They're keeping him over night for observation. Originally he was planning on leaving for Maryland on Wednesday morning, but that may be up in the air now. I would really like for him to get checked out by a cardiologist before he leaves, but that might not be possible with the holiday and all.

Lindsay is leaving town for Maryland today. That means that for the next 5 days I will once again be living like a bachelor. A substantially more broke bachelor than before, but a bachelor nonetheless.

Party time! (*)

I actually do have a lot of errands to run this weekend. I suspect I'll be very busy all day Saturday, but hopefully I can get them wrapped up before Sunday. I'll be leaving for Maryland on Tuesday after work.

* Please note: Party time! consists of eating cereal for dinner, waking up at 10:00 AM, playing video games, and watching Futurama before I fall asleep at 9:30 PM.

The NBA draft was tonight. There was a lot of talk of exciting things, but in the end, it was pretty boring. That about sums up the NBA in general, doesn't it?

If the presidential election were today, I'd vote for Ron Paul. When the Republican primary hits Ohio, I'll vote for Ron Paul.

He's so far outside the beltway that I can't help but be drawn in as a supporter. His policies make so much sense that I almost can't believe he's an actual candidate.

Therefore, he'll be swept under the rug and won't stand a chance because he's not named Rudy or Hillary. That doesn't matter though, because he's got my vote.

Most of the wedding stuff is done. I feel like I don't have anything to say now.

So.... how's the weather? Can you hear those crickets chirping?

The whirlwind tour of weddings this weekend is over. Rehearsal dinner in Poughkeepsie, New York on Thursday. Wedding in Poughkeepsie, New York on Friday. Wedding in Dover, Delaware on Saturday. Home to Cleveland on Sunday.

21 1/2 hours of driving
1,263 miles
2 weddings in 2 days
Pennsylvania still sucks
Priceless

Today I won a trivia contest at work. I received 35,000 Diners Club points. These can be used to buy just about anything, including gift certificates. Essentially, it amounts to a $350 award. Yay for me. I just need to figure out what to buy now, since I want about $5000 worth of stuff for my $350.

Paper beats rock. BAM! Your rock is blowed up!

"Bam" doesn't blow up, "bam" makes it spicy. Now I got a SPICY ROCK! You can't defeat that!

I have no time to update this site with stories of my exciting life. So much wedding stuff. Almost over. It's a good thing that I only have to do this once in my life!

Another busy day of running around. No crappy NBA games to watch. Just a lot of stuff to do. We got rid of some furniture. We put away clothes. Lindsay helped me finish some of my attendant gift bags. I still have some stuff to do, but we got a lot done today.

I didn't manage to watch a single complete NBA Finals game. Does that make me a bad fan? I don't think so. I think it makes the NBA stupid for starting games at 9:00 PM Eastern. What's wrong with starting a weekend game at some time when people in the home town of one of the teams can actually watch the game without staying up past midnight? You know, it's Sunday... why not start the game at 4:00 PM? Interesting.

Oh it's a weeknight? Let's start the games at 11:30 PM. That way we won't risk anyone watching it. We wouldn't want those ratings to be too high after all.

Pure stupidity. Play the freaking game when more people can watch it. Any by more people, I mean me.

Moving is ahead of schedule. Lindsay is making two more trips today. After this, there will only be a very few big things that still need to make the trip. That means that this weekend, we can finish moving and can also do some cleaning. The week after that we'll be making a 1,250 mile road trip to two weddings. The new tenants move in to Lindsay's place (soon to be our other home - that is, our vacation home on the sunny west side of Cleveland) in two weeks.

Yesterday was my grandmothers last surgery. She had her port removed (something in her chest that they can use to access the blood vessels without needing to poke and prod her veins every time) and they also removed as much of the cancer as they could. They left some behind because it was intertwined with tendons and veins and such. Now the key is to find out how aggressively the cancer will grow. It's possible that it will not grow at all. I think she'll have the appointment for that in a week or so. Initially, her cancer was the most aggressive type, but chemotherapy could've changed that. They'll be monitoring her wit PET and CT scans every 6 months or so.

Let's see... what happened yesterday? Hmm. Just about the only thing that I can think of is that Lindsay and I went to see Knocked Up. Yep, that's it. I can't think of anything else. Not a thing.

Knocked Up was pretty good. It had it's share of moments, which was good, because nothing else that didn't happen yesterday had any kind of moments.

Way to go Cavs. Way to dribble out the clock as if you had all the time in the world. Here's the deal: you're down by 8 with 1:27 left in the game. That's it. Eighty-seven seconds. You don't have freaking time to dilly dally around. Then when you score, you certainly don't have time to not foul. The game is not over. There's a reason it's called extending the game. You want to... you know... extend it! That is to say, not let it end. When you're losing and you let the game, uh, end... you know... you lose. You don't win. That's why you score, then foul. Repeat until no time is on the clock. You don't walk up the court and try to get into your slow offense. You run. You don't give up, but that's exactly what you did tonight. You gave up. Way to represent your city.

Someone asked me what the attitude was in Cleveland right now. You want to know what the attitude is? The other day people were talking about the Browns starting training camp in a few months. The freaking Browns! The Indians are leading their division. The Cavaliers are in the NBA Finals. Those freaking guys were talking about the Browns.

So, what does that tell you about the attitude of Clevelanders? First, it tells me that they're stupid. Second, it tells me that this is a football town forever. Regardless of how bad the Browns are you'll have people who can't wait for the season to start.

I predict that the Indians could go 162-0 and sweep their way through the playoffs and you'd still have idiots wanting to talk about pre-season football.

How many years of suffering can you people take?!?! The Browns are TERRIBLE! The quicker you realize it, the happier you'll be. Look at me. Can't you tell that I'm happy?!?! The Browns ARE NOT going to the playoffs this year. The Indians very well could and the Cavs are 4 wins away from being champs. Stop talking about the Browns!

It's okay to turn right on red. You won't hurt the red lights' feelings. Trust me.

It's not okay to turn right from the left lane. It's REALLY not okay to move over into the left lane, come to a complete stop, and then turn right.

It is okay to use your turn signal when you want to turn. It is not like gasoline. You'll still have the same amount of turn signal left after you use it.

Allow me to vent a little.

I am tired of running around so much! Even when I'm at home it feels like I have things to do every second of the day. I cannot wait until all of this is finished so that I can just sit. That's it. I just want to sit and do nothing.

This will all be worth it when it's over obviously, so until then I just need to continue putting up with it. I just miss free time.

End vent.

All this energy calling me.
Back where it comes from.
Its such a crude attitude.
Its back where it belongs.
All the little kids growing up on the skids are goin'
Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks!

Jumpin' jean genies, moody james deanies goin'
Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks.
Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks.

Mama knows but she don't care,
She's got her worries too.
Seven kids and a phony affair,
And the rent is due.
All the little chicks with the crimson lips go
Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks.
She's livin' in sin with a safety pin,
Goin' Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks!

Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks!

I got some records from World War II.
I'll play 'em just like me grand dad do.
He was a rocker and I am too!
Oh Cleveland rocks, yeah Cleveland rocks!
So find a place,
Grab a space,
And yell and scream for more...

Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks!
Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks!

The Cavs play tonight. I will not be at the game. I will instead be many miles away at a graduation for one of my cousins.

I like their chances tonight, but I expect it to be another nail biter, with the only possible separation between the two teams coming with under 2 minutes left in the fourth quarter.

We'll see.

My official prediction: Cavs 91 - Pistons - 88.

My company (stock ticker: PCP) was just added to the S&P 500. The stock was up $3.30 per share yesterday. As of right now it's up another $2.67 per share. Hopefully it will go up another $60 per share so that I can sell. Every month that I wait however, the stock price that is required to make us debt free goes down by $3.07. That means that within a year, the stock price required will only be $24 per share higher than it is now. That is definitely reachable considering that over the past year it has added $63 per share.

Yay for freedom from debt. It enables me to buy Nissan GT-R's.

In my dreams.

And oh yeah... the Cavs won. There is still plenty of room for improvement in running the offense however. LeBron took some AWFUL shots that he somehow managed to make. That doesn't mean they were good shots though. On the plus side, the Cavs defense has improved quite a bit over last year.