Grave Digger

An older song by Dave Matthews, but one of my favorites. I saw the video on MHD the other night for the first time. It really compliments the song well. Very powerfully done, with great imagery. The beginning is slow, but worth the wait.

Buffalo Tom

Really like the new CD by Buffalo Tom. They were awesome on Letterman the other night. I've always like power treos. BT creates a nice wall of sound, and they have a raw sound. Not overly processed and digitally scrubbed like a lot of todays music. Not sure what a September Shirt is, but the song rocks!! Enjoy!

Personal Best

Skipped jogging on Friday because my mom was in town visiting. Audra came over with the kids after dinner to play the Wii, so I didn't think I was gonna get a run in tonight either. But they left around 7:30 to go to bed, so Rachel and I headed to the track.

We got there at about 8:00 and it started getting dark, so I figured I better run a little more tonight and walk less so we can get out of there before it's dark. I finished the first mile in 9:38. I was pumped. As John Fogherty's Rockin' All Over the World played, it fired me up for my second mile. Then some AC/DC came on, and I grunted my way around. I was pretty much walking 1/3 and running 2/3 of each lap at this point. I was at 1.75 miles and starting to really tire. I was at about 18:00 and needed to walk for a bit. I walked for about a minute, then came around the last turn and began to sprint for the finish. Rob Zombie's YEAH, YEAH encouraged me as I got closer and closer. I wanted to stop so bad. But I grunted through it and finished in 19:45. So I broke the 20 minute mark. Pretty good considering I was doing 12 minute miles when I first started and last week I finished each mile in about 11 minutes. So I'm shaving time off each week. I think as my stamina builds, I'll eventually be able to finish a full lap without stopping, then walk for 1/3 of a lap and do another full lap. That should shave another 20-30 seconds off per mile.

On Sunday, I got to play golf with Dylan my Godson which I enjoyed so much. It was such a fun time, and I got such a kick out of seeing him out there. Thankfully I didn't embarrass myself, and held my own. I was expecting to dribble one off the tee on the first hole, but I hitting a nice, high soaring drive that went about 220 yards. My brother in law Richard hit one about as far, and followed up by hitting his 2nd shot about 10 feet from the pin. He putted in for birdie. Holy crap. I ended up shooting a 97, Richard shot a 96 and Dylan finished with a legit 94. He teed off from the yellow tees (we played from the tips), but Dylan did a really good job. I may be a little partial, but he was pretty damn good. On a couple of the shorter par 4's, he hit his drives about 170 yards and followed up with a 7 iron onto the green. He had about 4 or 5 pars, way more than either of us had. Definitely want to play golf with him again.

Went to the driving range out near work with my friend from work. He is just getting into golf, so he wanted me to give him some pointers. We went to the Dulles Golf Center in his Prius which took us about 15 minutes to get to. We got there and it was like a little mini resort. Really nice chipping area, putting green, mini golf, batting cages and about 45 driving stalls. Nice! We walked up to the sign that said "Automated" and found this weird hopper. We dumped our balls in (OUCH!) and read the little sign. A pressed the green button and a ball rolled out of the hopper, settled in this little dip in the mat and this rubber tee came up and lifted the ball. AWESOME. The net, at the back of the range was 230, and I hit quite a few to the back of the net. BOOYAH!! The nice thing about the auto tees were that you could adjust the tee way up about 2.5-3 inches for your driver, an inch for a fairway wood, and like 1/2 inch for irons and hybrids. I git to practice hitting my hybrids off the tee which will hopefully come in handy on long par 3's. The other nice thing about the mats were that they were air cushioned. So when you hit your irons off the deck, it wasn't bone jarring. It was soft and almost like grass. AWESOME

The last few days....

Who's More Now is ruining ESPN.

1) Is has the Stewart Scott factor.
2) It's a dumb concept that should be reserved for VH-1 and E!

Catherine Zeta Jones was on Letterman last night. About ten years ago when she was in Zoro and gracing the cover of Maxim, she was a favorite of mine. She hasn't done a whole lot lately, so I had forgotten about her. Last night on Dave, WOWWEE WEEWAH!!! Man she looked amazing. The face, the body, the accent. Damn. I don't like the full on British accent like Sienna Miller has or Renee Zelwieger tries to have, but Kate's is nice.

I'm not sure which sport is more of a joke at this point NBA basketball, or bike road racing.

The other night I grilled baked potatoes. Wow was that tasty. You stab the potato with a fork. Rub a little oil on the potato, then sprinkle with salt. Nuke for 4 minutes. Flip the potato, and nuke for 4 more minutes. Then take the potato and throw in on the grill for about 15 minutes until the potato is sort of soft. So good!!!

Another win for the Yankees. Here they come!!!

Ran on Monday and Wednesday. Monday I ran after dinner, and got some cramps in my stomach as I was running. So last night, Rachel and I went before dinner. Worked out much better. I was actually able to do 90 seconds of jogging and 120 of walking. So I've moved on to the next level. Only problem with running at 5:30 as opposed to 7:30 is that it's quite a bit warmer. The sun was pretty strong, but the track was empty. It was just me, Rachel and some girl out there. If it's a super hot day, I may have to wait till after dinner. I finished 2 miles last night in around 21:30. So my times are improving.

My mom flies in today. My sister Donna and her family will be stopping by on Saturday night on the way back from Hilton Head, SC. They'll stay the night and stay around Sunday for the shower. While the shower is going on, the guys (including Dylan) will be playing golf. My other sister Linda from MD, will be coming Sunday morning with two of her daughters for the shower. Im looking forward to playing golf with Dylan. Hopefully I don't imbarras myself in front of him.

Aaron Eckhart creeps me out. Something I don't like or trust about that guy.

For the record, I think Drew Carrey as host of the Price is Right is a mistake. I felt the same way when Katey Couric got picked to host the nightly news on CBS. People want Katey to talk about cooking and Hollywood gossip, not about the war in Iraq and the 2008 election. Who's Line is it Anyway, was an awesome show, but it wasn't because of Drew. Drew is disturbing to look at, and I don't see people tuning in to watch him on the Price is Right. But who knows.

Wow is Corey Haim's brain fried. I always thought that Corey Feldman was the kooky one, but Haim is really seems like a nut. Feldman seems to have his life back in order. It was pretty entertaining watching them on Larry King the other night. What a weird grouping of people.

Running Confusion

Went jogging again friday night. The track was really empty which was nice. Not a whole lot of weaving in and out like I normally have to do. It was a confusing run to say the least.

On wednesday when I ran I felt really good, I felt like my breathing was in control and I didn't get as winded as I did the days before. It was just the opposite on Friday. I felt like I was really gasping for air and really struggled. But the amazing thing was that I finished in great time. I set the virtual trainer to a pace of 2 miles in 22 minutes. Well I finished two miles in 22:09. Pretty damn close. But I think I got screwed and finished ahead of that time. The track I run at is supposed to be 1/4 mile. I did my first lap and it seemed like when I crossed where I started it was at about .25 miles. But when I finished, as I finished lap 8 and crossed where I had started it said I was at 1.85 miles. Somewhere I lost .15 of a mile. I made sure I stayed in the outermost lane, but for some reason, it said I came up short. There's a few spots where there are trees that overhang the track. So maybe I lose my connection with the satellite briefly and it throws off my time.

It was strange also because I felt like I struggled so much and was huffing and puffing and really pushing, yet I finished in really good time. The other odd thing was that the rest of the night, my nose was running like crazy and I was hacking up "lung butter". Maybe all the running is clearing out the crud from my lungs. Im curious to see if its easier to run now.

At this point for tonight Im not sure I will run. I have a lot to get done before my mom comes down on Thursday. If I run, it will probably tire me out and I won't want to do anything. We'll see what happens. Rachel has been enjoying the walking. If I do run, I think Im just gonna use a stopwatch and do 8 laps.

Man, if only the Yankees could play the Devil Rays every day. 21-4. Geesh. That's more points than the NY football Giants score some weeks. I'm trying not to get excited about Shelly Duncan, because 1) he hit 3 home runs off of Devil Rays pitching 2) his name is Shelly.

That story about the NBA ref sounds crazy. That ref is so dead. Sounds like he has all kind of tie in with organized crime. This is just one more reason why NBA basketball sucks.

I'm not really a dog lover, or any other animal for that matter. But when I heard about how Michael Vick and his friends and family treated those dogs, it upset me. The fighting part didn't really bother me. Animals in the wild fight one another all the time. Even though dogs have been domesticated, they are still animals and have that animal/survival instinct. But when I heard about how they would body slam the dogs, use cattle prods to electrocute the dogs and how they would snap dogs over their knees, it made me sick. Makes me wonder who the real animals are.

Radio legend Don Geronimo has announced that he will be retiring in May of 2008. Not sure if it's some sort of bargaining chip or if he's serious. When his wife Frida died, Mike, Buzz and Rob did the show and the show was still really great. So I think they could do well without Don. But Don is more of a mans man than Mike, Rob and Buzz. I like when Don talks about football and sports in general. I don't see that happening if Rob, Buzz and Mike do the show. In fact Don usually determines the subject matter and drives the discussions. So not sure how things would be without him. Coincidentally, you can now download full episodes using iTunes.

Jogging Day 2

Rachel and I ran a few errands after work. We stopped and picked up a quick bite to eat. I had Subway, she had Chicfila. I was feeling tired, it was already 7:30 and I started to think, I'll just skip a day. But Rachel said lets go home, change our clothes and go to the track. She grabbed her Nano, I grabbed my Forerunner, and we headed to the track...

I did the same pattern, 60 seconds of jogging, 90 seconds of brisk walking. I finished my first mile 10:55. I concentrated on getting my breathing in check during the 90 seconds of walking. Seemed to make the jogging stretches a little easier. I finished the 2nd mile in 12:05. So I completed my 2 miles in 23 minutes. Im pretty happy with that time. I only slowed down about a minute my second mile.

I talked to Audra and she runs regularly. She does about 2.5 miles in 20 minutes. So I am not too far off that pace. I think as I build my stamina and start jogging longer stretches I can get my two mile time down to about 20 minutes.

I am supposed to repeat my 60-90 alternation on Friday. Then I am supposed to progress on to 90 seconds of jogging and 2 minutes of walking. Not sure I am ready for that. I may do another week of 60-90 before moving on.

Rachel walked about 4 laps (1 miles). We finished up at around 8:55 just as it was getting dark. My left thigh is pretty tender right now. I kind of rushed to get started because it was getting late, so I didn't stretch properly. Rachel noted that my running form was much smoother tonight. My shins and ankles don't hurt at all.

Running Update

I started with the 8 week from the couch to a 5k program last night. We went out to dinner with Rachel's brother and mom and when we got back, we changes clothes and went to the local middle school where they have an outside track.

Rachel walked about a mile while I did my jog/walk routine. I followed the directions and warmed up by walking briskly for 5 minutes. That was able the time it took us to walk from the car to the track. Then I ran for 60 seconds and followed that by walking for 90. I kept alternating the same amount of time for 20 minutes. I finished just under 2 miles in 20 minutes time. Not too shabby. I forgot to reset the lap time after finishing the first mile, but I think I finished the first mile in just under 11 minutes. I tell ya, jogging for 60 second intervals may not sound like a lot, but when you haven't ran a whole lot lately, 60 seconds is the perfect amount of time. So if the weather cooperates, I plan on doing the same routine Wednesday and Friday night. I feel really good today. My legs and back were killing me after my first run, but I feel great today. The backs of my ankle and calves are a little tender, but I think thats because my running form is a little unorthodox. Rachel said I run sort of flat footed. I'll have to work on that.

I did a search online last night and throughout the year, there are several 5k runs in northern Virginia. One that really intrigued me is a "fun run" in Manassas through the old Civil War Battlefield. If I actually stick with this, I may actually enter one. There is also a 5K turkey day run in Centerville on Thanksgiving Day, but thats kind of close to Rachel's due date, so I don't know if I will risk entering that one.

Next week I am supposed to progress to 90 seconds of running and 2 minutes of walking for 20 minutes. That should bring my time down to where I can finish the 2nd mile in 20 minutes. Last night I finished 1.85 miles after 20 minutes. Walked back to the car, and that brought me up to 2.05 miles.

A few weekend notes

My father in law is obsessed with the Wii. We played the Wii about a month ago when Audra and the kids were in town. Rachel's dad reluctantly joined in and played. How he is hooked. He called up and asked if he could play Wiiiiiiiiiii. So he came over around 6PM. 9PM came along and he was still playing. Rachel finally played the pregnancy card and said she needed to go to bed so he needed to leave LOL. He's particularly fond of the Wii bowling and golf. As a side note, I really hope they come out with some more Wii Sport type games. I think boche ball and horseshoes would be awesome on the Wii. And perhaps shuffleboard and curling.

Shot a 103 on Saturday. The 87 is seeming more like a fluke every round I play. Played a pretty tough course, and I really fell apart at the end. Through the first five holes I was 5 over, playing bogey golf. Then the bottom dropped out on me.

The Yankees deficit is down to 9!!!! 8 in the Wild Card.

Gary Sheffield is an ass. Talk abouts our grapes.

The "newish" Mountain Dew flavor Baja Blast is awesome. It tastes like green ice pops. Although the only place I can seem to find it is Taco Bell. I wish they would start selling it in 2 liters and cans.

My legs, mostly my shins and thighs are feeling much better. They were really hurting me friday and saturday, especially after we finished golfing Saturday. Running on pavement is way harsh on the legs. I read that in extreme cases, you can actually cause stress fractures. I found a website that is supposed to take you from a couch potato (that's me), to a 5K in about 2 months time. I used to run 5K's all the time when I was at St. Margarets. Of course back then I weighed like 85 pounds and I was 11 years old. Basically the program is where you run for 60 seconds, then walk for 90, run for 60, walk for 90. You do this for 20 minutes, 3 times the first week. The second week you run for 90 seconds, then walk for two minutes. Do this for 20 minutes, 3 times the third week. Then the third week you run for 60, walk for 30. Then the third week you jog 90 seconds, walk 90 seconds. You continue to build your stamina as the weeks go on. As long as the temperatures aren't around 100 and I can find a jogging track that is accessible to the public, I think I can handle that. Supposedly by the end of the 8 weeks, you should be able to do about 3 miles in 30-40 minutes.

There was this great bit on the Espy's last night where they show a tight shot of Jimmy Kimmel in the shower and he's got a sponge and he says "it won't come off, no matter how hard I scrub, it won't come off". Then they pan out and its Jimmy trying to scrub the tattoo off Mike Tysons face. Too funny.

Turn the Page

I'm looking forward to the start of the 2nd half of the baseball season. I think if the Yankees have any shot at the post season, the next month is really a time when they need to go 20-10 and gain some momentum. They have a 4 game series against Tampa Bay, then they play Toronto, Tampa Bay at home, Kansas City, and then Baltimore. These are all pretty crappy teams that any respectable team should beat up on. If Pettitte, Wong and Clemens keep pitching solidly, I think they can do well. Get a few quality starts from Musina, and they can easily go 20-10. Hopefully the A-Rod negotiations won't be a distraction for him and the rest of the team

That show with Shaq is complete crap. I love the idea behind it, but it's so bogus. The episode I watched the other night made Shaq seems like Superman. At one point in the show, his program was in jeopardy. There was a new school superintendent (Chalmers), and he didn't want his kids taking part in the Shaq program. Shaw makes a few phone calls and then the next scene Shaq is talking to the school principle and she is saying the program is back on. They made it seem like Shaq did all the leg work. When it's far more likely that ABC's lawyers climbed way up the ass of the new super intendant and told him/her that they would sue the crap out of them if they shut the show down. Plus all the bad PR. I mean, what school district wants the stigma that they don't want to help obese kids lose weight and become healthy. One interesting aspect of the show was they made the kids all run 1 mile. It took the average kid about 13-14 minutes to complete. I'm gonna run a mile either tonight or tomorrow, and see how quick I could do it. I think I could almost walk a mile in 14 minutes. I know I do 6 minute miles on the elliptical, but I think their electronics exaggerated your time a bit. I'm guessing I could do a mile in about 7-8 minutes.
I know I shouldn't be comparing myself to obese 12 year olds, but Im obsessed with statistics and performance. Like when I hear that a pro golfer can hit a 7 iron 190 yards, I love comparing that to my 155-160 yards. Or when I read in Mens Health that the average adult male cam do X amount of pushups. I like to be one notch above average.

The World Series of Pop Culture is great. I didn't know if I would like it as much as I did last year, but Im swept right back up into it. I've only watched two episodes so far, but I feel like I don't know as many answers this season. So maybe they have made it tougher.

I heard this funny story about Will Farrel. Supposidly he showed up a Neil Diamond concert dressed as Neil Diamond and "doing" Neil Diamond. Now that's funny.

What's up with James Hetfield's facial hair? I saw a clip of Metallica playing at Live Earth and he looked like he should be in ZZ-Top. I remember when Metallica used to be the epitome of cool. Now they just seem so lame.

Speaking of lame, The Smashing Pumpkins calling themselves the Smashing Pumpkins is ridiculous. It's Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain who was kicked out of the band originally for being a heroin addict. It's funny too, because the new bassist tries to look like Darcy the old bassist. But that song Tarantula is pretty awesome. I saw them perform on Letterman the other night and BillY Corgan is so smooth when playing guitar he almost looks bored.

When Apple first announced the iPhone, I thought $500 sounded ridiculous. But now that I've played with one (owned by a friend at work), I so want one. I think if the price drops to the $300-$400 range, when my 2 year contract expires next summer, I may get one. My Treo used to seem pretty awesome. Still pretty cool, but when compared to the iPhone it's left in Apple's dust. We were connected via WiFi at work, so the iPhone seemed faster than a PC. I can check my mail, browse news sites, do Google searches and stuff on my Treo, but since it uses the cell signal, it's very slow. It's like being back on dialup.

Finally tried a P'zone last night. I ordered a classic P'zone which wasn't a smart decision. I thought the classic had more meat in it, but it was filled with mostly red onions and peppers. I like red onions and peppers but not as the main filling.

I heard that they added the word ginormous to the dictionary. That's so stupid. But not as dumb as adding the word smackdown. How soon before Shizzle is in the dictionary? It's funny that they also added the word crunk. I remember when Conan O
Brien first came on the air, he wanted to make the word crunk a replacement for traditional curses. He almost got his wish. If they are going to add smackdown, they better add bitchslap and pimphand.

Random Bitching

I'm really sick of Outback. The whole things where the Australian accent was ultra hip and cool was like 20 years ago. They're dumb commercials flood the radio. They take the same damn tune and punch in new lyrics for different holidays and times of the year. SHUTUP ALREADY!!! Not to mention their steaks suck. The only reason to go to Outback is for the Bloomin Onion.

I made these awesome egg sandwiches for breakfast. I've decided to call it an egg mike muffin. I don't really remember what I put in it to make it taste so good. I just grabbed a bunch of stuff from the fridge and the cabinet and started putting a pinch of this and a dash of that. But they turned out awesome. I hope I can re-create them.

Played golf yesterday despite it being July and 95 degrees. I figured hey if Tiger and friends can play over at Congressional in this heat, so can I (though not AT Congressional). We played 18 and then played 6 more holes after that. Took me forever to cool down afterwards. I drank 4 liters of water and when I got home, I barely had anything to piss out. Guess I sweated it out. Shot a 95. We didn't really keep score on the other 6 extra holes. But I started playing two balls and had two awesome pars on this par 3. I hit a 6 iron and came up short and ended up in the sand in front of the green. Then I hit a 5 iron and landed it on the green. I pitched out of the sand, and one putted for the sand save par. Two putted for par on the 2nd ball. And as a side note. Still not having good results with the hybrids on the course. Was smacking the crap out of the ball at the range, but on the course, its a whole other story. I so badly need a club I can hit 180-200 yards off the deck.

Glad to see Ratatouille doing so well. I really like Paton Oswald, so I'm glad to see he is having some success. I saw him in Reno 911 Miami and man that was sad. Sure he's the voice of a cartoon rat now, but it still seems a whole lot more dignified than his role in Reno 911. And was that really Nieci's ass in the movie?

Rescue Me is pretty great this year. And Jennifer Espisito joined the show this season. WOWEE WEEWAH.

Furniture for the nursery has been ordered. Should be here in about 3-6 weeks.

Grown men shouldn't wear flip flops or opened toed sandals (sorry Jebus).

I was watching Live Aid on Bravo and I do believe The Police did the longest version of Roxanne ever. Great song, but damn!

Not sure if I mentioned this before, but I gave up on 365 Daily Self Portraits (I was getting sick of seeing me), and started Project 365. Trying to capture an image a day to help me remember what was going on that day. I can't wait till late november/early december when I take the camera into the delivery room. HEYOH!!!

This guy in Flickr whom I've befriended is an American married to a Korean woman and living in Korea. Pretty interesting guy. He has two little kids and he does a great job of capturing cute moments from his kids each day. He does these really cool photo collages using some fancy smancy Mac program. I was able to replicate the look using Photoshop on a PC. Pretty cool idea.

It's Virtual Mikey

4th of July

I used to love Independence Day when I was a kid. School had been out for a little over a week and it was sort of the unofficial start of summer. But now as an adult, July 4th bums me out a bit. Because time seems to travel so much quicker as an adult, I realize that the "summer" is halfway over already.

What made Independence Day suck even more this year is that it falls on a Wednesday. So returning back to work today makes it feel like its Monday. Fortunately, next year is a leap year so the 4th of July falls on a friday next year. So that means a 3 day weekend. Then in 2009 and 2010 it falls on a weekend, so we'll have the friday before and/or the monday after off. SWEET!!!

Sorry to hear about Al Gores son. But maybe it's a blessing in disguise. A lot of people think of drug abusers as some guy or girl in a metropolitan area shooting up heroin or smoking crack. But the new trend seems to be suburbanites who abuse prescription pain killers. Maybe this impacting the son of a former US vice president will bring the problem forward and get more attention and recognition. It's scary thinking about how many soccer moms are out there driving around in their giant SUV's after popping a few Vicadin. It's somehow all a little ironic though about how Gore III was caught doing 100mph in his Prius.

I used to skip breakfast most work mornings because I wanted to maximize my sleep time. If I were to get up and make breakfast that would mean getting up 20-30 minutes earlier every day. That's like 2.5 hours of lost sleep every week. So I've been eating granola bars and cereal bars because they are quick and easy. I had been eating Powerbars for about a year and had grown born with them. So I grabbed this nutrition bar at the store called Luna. They were on sale for 10 for $10, so I figured it was worth a try. Holy crap are these things tasty. I loaded up and bought like 10 more. Well the other day I was driving to work and I looked down at the Luna bar and noticed the graphic on the label was a woman doing ballet and yoga. Hrmmm that's a little odd. Then I read above the graphic where it read "The Whoile Nutrition Bar For WOMEN". They're not infused with estrogen or anything, so I don't see why I couldn't keep eating them. Now if I could just figure out why my breasts are so tender all the time.

Vacation

Man having a few days off was just what the doctor ordered. I feel so refreshed and so much better in general.

In a follow up regarding shooting an 87 the other day, it was probably a fluke. I shot a 99 on Wednesday and another 99 on Saturday. For some reason on Saturday, I lost the ability to hit my driver on the back nine. I score a respectable 47 on the front 9, but fell apart and shot a 52 on the back. I had three pars on the front 9 and only one on the back which came on 18. 18 was the only hole I remember playing from the fairway. All the rest I was in the rough, in the sand, or behind a tree. During my 87 round, I lost one golf ball. On Saturday I lost 8 :-(.


For a while I lost interest in Mythbusters. I loved the first two seasons, but I thought the show got a little stale after a while. I thought the Mythturns especially Tory and Cary (sp?), there was another girl who was a Mythturn who was really lame, I think her name was Christine. I don't think any of them really bring much to the table. With the exception of Cary who was eye candy. I liked Scotty because she wasa great welder and gear head and brought something to the table. But I digress. I think the addition of the Mythturn Grant really raised the show out of the dumps. I think Grant is smarter than Adam, and probably on the same level as Jamie (minus the awesome beret).

So far this season has been really cool. They did a show the other week where they tested to see what methods worked best at distracting ferocious guard dogs. In the end, the obvious was demonstrated. Sex and food proved to be the easiest ways to distract the attack dogs. Tory walked up the cyclone fence and held a raw steak in his hands, the dog was instantly distracted and started sniffing at the steak. While he was sniffing the steak, Cary ran in and "stole the jewels" from the safe. The dog devoured the steak while Cary ran past him and came back to the fence looking to get more from Tory.

The second way they distracted the dog is by using "bitch in heat urine". They kept referring to it as bitch urine, which cracked me up. They soaked a rag in the urine of a female dog in heat. The scent of the "bitch urine" drove the dog wild and totally distracted him.

They also tested blood hounds to see if their keen sense of smell could be fooled. Adam played the part of the escaped convict and he tried to do all kinds of tricks likes running in a zig zag pattern, pouring black pepper around, and a few other tricks like climbing a tree. None of them worked. It was like he had a GPS sensor on him. The dog found him each time. Amazing.

As part of the promotion for the Simpsons movie, a few 7-11 stores have been converted into Kwik-E Marts. I think there is one in Maryland. I may have to check it out. Here are some pics someone posted of one from California.

I saw this funny clip of this woman outside an Apple store in Dallas. She showed up with $100,000 in cash to buy out the store of all their iPhones. She planned on selling them on Ebay. Problem was that she showed up a little late, so she wasn't close to the front of the line. So she payed some kid who was first in line $800 for his spot. She strutted into the Apple store all confident that she would get her hands of a few dozen iPhones. She was told by the sales person they were only allowing 1 per customer. So the kid she gave $800 for his spot ended up getting his phone for free and then some, while the woman looked....stupid.

While I was home last week, I tuned in ESPN to see one of the lamest sporting events I've ever seen. It was the PBA All Stars skills competition. But for some reason, I couldn't turn it off.

Over the weekend we painted the nursery. Mike and Audra came up from NC to help us. While they were over, the kids stopped by and Andrew saw the Wii. Very funny trying to explain to a 5 year old and a 3 year old how to do Wii bowling. Andrew really started to get the hang of it after about an hour. Ashley didn't quite get it and decided to just be a cheerleader for everyone else.

Lastly, Rachel and I went to Charles Town, WV to the casino and horse track. Holy cow is the horse track exciting. I could see why people become degenerate gamblers betting on the ponys. The first race I bet $2.00 to win and $2.00 to place on the #8 horse. I just bet based on the horse name Fleet Chiquita. I liked the name. Rachel liked the #6 horse Queen Creole, but didn't want to go back inside to place another bet. The #8 horse was in 2nd the whole race. Then down the stretch in runs out of steam and falls to 5th place. DOH!!! The winner of the race #6 Queen Creole. DOUBLE DOH!!! #6 has always been Rachel's lucky number, it was her jersey number when she played soccer as well, so it has special meaning to her. So for the 2nd race I bet $2.00 to win on the #6 horse It's A Given. The horse starts out in 4th, first turn it takes over 3rd. The horse makes the 3rd turn and takes over 2nd. Rachel and I start getting exited and start screaming. The horse comes around the final turn and takes over the lead. HOLY CRAP!!! Go baby go!!! All of a sudden, this horse comes flying by and wins by like a neck. DAMN!!!! We didn't win, but man was it exciting. I would have stayed for all 10 races, but it was getting dark and we needed to find the hotel. By the way, we stayed at a Hampton Inn (home of the breakfast sausage whore) and I must say I was very impressed. We stayed in a suite for 1/2 price because Rachel words for the federal government. The room was awesome. Flat panel tv, granite counter tops in the bathroom, complimentary high speed internet access and a comfy ass king sized bed. Holy carp was that bed cozy and big. It was like I was sleeping in Queens and Rachel was out in the Hamptons. Plus the room had a cool digital thermostat, so before bed I set it down to like 62. By morning it was sooooo cold in our room, you could store sides of beef in there. Cuddling ensued...