Best and Worst of the Weekend – 1 on 1 with Ice and Electricity!

Hey another 3 day weekend, I can get used to this.  It should be the norm! 

Speaking of Norm, the Hawkeyes couldn’t send Norm Parker out with a win.  Though I did think they played pretty well.  Mike Daniels where have you been all year?  When it was 14-24 I thought there might be a chance but then the ESPN Sky Cam attacked Marvin McNutt and it was just gone from there.  With the loss to I had to change my Twitter avatar to Boomer, a fuzzy horse OU mascot for a week.  It’s almost over!

All winter last year and since Thanksgiving my oldest has been bugging me about taking her to Brenton Skating Plaza to go ice skating.  So Saturday I finally gave in.  It was nice out, and she needed to get out doing something.  I was shocked that it was only $15 bucks for the two of us to rent skates and to skate.  Pretty good for the money.  After battling the ice skate with my foot we finally got on the ice.  I went straight for the railing.  I did my internship with a minor league hockey team but never skated, I was always on the ice in just shoes.  Who ever thought of putting on a sharp piece of metal and going on ice is a moron too.  How are you supposed to do that?  I went around once and Addy followed me on the railing.  Stopped and asked her how she was doing, she wanted to skate, not talk.  Second time around I tried to not use the railing so much.  Then I took a break and let Addy just go.  She was trying without help of the railing a few times and was doing ok.  When she did a full lap I went out again.  Half way I was getting a little cocky and veered away from the railing.  Bad idea.  Ice Rink-1 | Matt – 0.  Landed on my butt and shoulder.  The couple behind me even said “ouch that looked like it hurt” As soon as I got out the skates were off and it was all Addy.  She got a walker type thing to help her go around and she flew with that.  Then after 3-4 laps like that she went without the walker and was doing really good.  She stated she wants to go back again, sooner rather than later.  I’ll take her, but next time it’s all her! 

Sunday I decided to do some interior lamination in the laundry room.  There is only one light and no switch or string to pull so every time I have to twist it to turn it on or off.  So after a couple trips to Menards I was working on it.  Let’s say I had some successes and 1 failure.  I got all the lights working!  Score one for me.  Light switch wouldn’t work.  Redid it and got the switch working!  Score one for me.  Lost power to my daughter’s room didn’t work now and only 1 light of the 3 worked on the switch.  After some frustrations and kids asking to do stuff I got it back to normal and will get back to it another day. 

Monday I had off from work while the two older kids had school and there was a full day of football on!  After dropping those off I needed a nice base of breakfast for the full day of bowls.  Went initially to the Waveland but it was packed with a CNN Caucus bus out front.  Next the Drake Diner.  There was CNN there too but only a camera man and a news chick.    While watching them they panned the Diner and me and my youngest got on TV on CNN.  It was only a second but that counts! 

The bowls were good Monday too.  Michigan State thriller in the Outback bowl, the Rose was great and though I missed the end of the Fiesta (crashed hard) it was a great game too.  Even last night the Sugar Bowl was good.  Some of these colleges need to get better kickers though.  So far in my picks I’ve got 17 right straight up.  My 4yo son picked the winners to by logo…well he’s got 17 right too.  Bout how it supposed to go.

Few other things

·         Great win in the Kohl Center by Fran and the boys.  Not “Getting Mad” yet but that was a nice win.  Another big game tonight at Minnesota

·         I’ve started my diet back up again after thanksgiving and have lost 15 pds, still need to get running and lifting again, want to lose 15-20 more before softball starts.

·         Ugly injury and bad way to end the year for Brian Urlacher.  Bears at least didn’t lose to the Vikings but Urlacher I doubt is ready for 2012.

·         Bears also made moves with GM Jerry Angelo canned and Mike Martz resigning.  I wonder how different Halas Hall would be had Jay and Forte would have not got hurt?

·         The Iowa Caucus was last night; the smell is burning rubber of the candidates campaign’s getting out of Iowa.  Dead heat of Santorum and Romney.  Perry and Bachman are done.  Newt needs to come in 2^nd in NH and first in SC to stay alive.  Santorum and Paul need to stay strong too or this will be done quicker than the 8 day war.

·         This week is my most stressful week of the year with Year End, creating tax statements is always stressful.  My 3^rd year doing it and I’m still nervous.

·         Monday night on WWE Raw my fav wrestler returned.  CHRIS JERICHO!  He is by far the best wrestling entertainer EVER! 

·         Also over the past week since Christmas I’ve been on XBOX a lot.  Call of Duty: MW3 and my NCAA football online dynasties.  I still haven’t opened up Batman: Arkham City.

·         Google+ where’d you go?  There is so much cool stuff on google, it needs to attack facebook and not just enhance something facebook offers, give us something new! 

So that’s about that. 

Best and Worst – Tis the Season

Anyone else think 3 day weekends are just a tease for a 4 day weekend?  And when it’s over you feel like you need more instead you have to go back to work…and the only thing good really is a short work week then to only get teased again with another 3 day weekend on the other end.  Yea that’s how I’m feeling right now.  BUT I will say it’s a good thing that I’m back to work today because if I stayed home one more day with the Christmas cookies that are in my house I’d be in trouble. 

Friday night was pretty good to start off the week.  Went out to Merle Hay Mall to pick up some gifts and went and visited @hawkart_sean at his store and drank some wine there.  I got one of his drawings (the Dan Gable one) for my nephew who is big into wrestling.  He got to practice with the Hawkeyes this weekend while the Brands boys and Metcalf were all wrestling.  So that was cool.  After the mall I headed to Carl’s Place for some Grainbelts with @SOXNHOX.

I’m kinda unofficially doing a #hawkeyeslimup or #hawkeyeslimdown which ever it is and I’m down (according to my scale) 15 pounds.  Another 15 or more and I’ll be at my goal and hopefully start to put on muscle and get running good and ready for Dam to Dam and softball!  I’m already starting a countdown for softball; I’m so ready for it, and golf.  The no snow we’ve got so far has me more ready this year than previous, though I know that snow is coming soon…it’s Iowa, we’ll probably get like 2 feet some weekend coming up.

Well enough about me, we’ll get on to this weekend, Christmas.  Had a couple to go to this year and really when did it become that you have to outdo last year’s gifts and keep adding?  I feel like with the kids that’s what it’s become.  There’s an extra gift or more spent or something BIGGER.  As a kid, would I say no to it, no, in fact I’d love it.  As a parent, it’s making me sick.  First off things are more expensive and second off, where the hell am I going to put all this shit?  My youngest got I think half of the Playskool line for infants.  My oldest got an iPod cube/radio and she still doesn’t have an iPod (guess what she’s getting for her birthday).  And my son has 3 captain America figures, and a couple Thor’s.  Really, 1 of each would be ok. 

Ok off my soap box, that being said, the kids all had a good time and loved all their gifts.  That was the fun part of Christmas just seeing them tear open the presents and smiles and excitement.  Also the amazement and questions they got seeing that Santa had eaten their cookies and the carrots being chomped on.  They even wrote notes to Santa.  Playing with their toys with them is fun too.  Especially with my son and his race track and the attachments he got this year.  It’s an extra booster that launches the cars faster and we had a ramp built up jumping over his monster trucks.  Its fun seeing how excited and happy he gets.  Every time one would clear the monster trucks he would jump with a fist in the air.  Only bad thing is he woke lil sister up.  Other than that it was really good.

I must have fooled Santa too because he brought me 2 Xbox games.  Call of Duty:MW3 and Batman Arkham City.  COD:MW3 is pretty sweet and the online play is cool.  I’m sure I’ll get sucked into like I did GRAW2.  Also got on DVD Thor, Captain America and XMEN First Class. 

That is the good and fun stuff.  The stress was also there this weekend with the family coming over and just anxiety in the house and getting everything ready.  I also need a bigger house!  There’s a lot of stress I won’t get into but let’s just leave it as I’m really glad Christmas is over, the tree is down and my kids had fun, but I’m ready for 2012 and going to face it full blast.  Oh but first is Friday night and the Insight Bowl and the Hawks, after that I’ll be ready to go for 2012.