"Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you"

Looking at some photos this morning of the twins that must have been when they were not evena year old... i look at these and I do not have a clue as to where, what, when they were taken. I do not remember... I have no clue where they clothes they are wearing came from. I dont even remember the clothes. It is scary in that i see these pics, i see that they are my children but I have no memory of this event. weird...

flat soda

so... it seems my daughter has some sorta issue with putting the top back on ANY drink bottle and while I actually like flat Diet Coke, it seems her mother doesnt. Of course, we never actually see her drinking anything... but since I-Man only thinks he can sneak Capri Suns into his bedroom, we know it aint him leaving the bottle top barely screwed on....

so who was the Nerd the Miami Heat had coaching them last night? Did they seemingly pull a Kevin Arnold wannabe out of his fantasy league at the local bar to coach that team? Who is this guy?

“Basketball can serve as a metaphor for ultimate cooperation. It is a sport where success ... requires that the dictates of community prevail over selfish impulses.”
-- Bill Bradley

So this video starts the NBA conversation today.... i am going to cast my lot with the team of my childhood (notice a theme here) and stick with the Celtics... one last hurrah!... and they will get to play without the bullseye this season. That sits squarely on the Heat and Lebron. It will be an interesting storyline until May, when the NBA season starts....

"A lot of fans were drawn to me because they knew that whatever the score was, I was going to run as hard as I could on every play. You don't have that now, you have guys waiting for next week or even next year." - Walter Payton

this applies on so many levels it isnt even funny....

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime". - Chinese Proverb

As the song goes..."Today was a good day..." I-Man had two soccer matches. The team has improved considerably and while they probably will complete this first half of the year winless, they no longer are a seemingly lost cause. Today they lost 0-2 and tied 0-0, which is a HUGE improvement. Defensively, this team is somewhat stout with I-Man as sweeper and a strong goalie, with all the girls really providing capable play in midfield. Only one true forward is on this team, and he has to run himself silly the whole game and it wears him down... but I anticipate that the league will assign the best newcomer in the spring to this team, which might take a team that is basically a solid defensive team and make them dangerous to the other teams in the league...

.... Nanna and Papa came into town to see I-Man play (and see Ryles too) and they then spent the day carvin pumpkins, getting new shoes, eating pizza, watching How to Train a Dragon, grilling hotdawgs, hambugers and bratwursts and then celebrating a pair of Birthdays.

So.. all in all... a good day as I always the twins to spend meaningful time with their Grandparents... I hope to have them go spend a night with Grandma sometime in the next two or three weeks. I think that time is valuable to the twins in many ways....

Really? has it come to this?

Seriously... Juan Williams was essentially fired from N Frakkin PR after making some comments (his opinions, mind you) on Fox News... he basically said that if you get on an airplane and see someone who is looking like a Muslim (dressed like it, looks like, it, whatever), you kinda get a little bit apprehensive. Well, I know I have done it... taken a second closer look. And anyone reading this who says they havent done the same... is lying. But somehow, the PC world some people wanna think is actual reality is getting out of control... I will bet this to my friends: the next time there is a terrorist event ( and you KNOW there will be a next time, right?) and the people who perpetrate the event are NOT Muslim, I owe you a chicken dinner from Popeyes. I feel pretty safe that I wont have to be opening my wallet. because you all know that the next car bomb, foiled airplane into tall building, SUV in Time Square, gunman in a crowded building, foilled WHATEVER plot will have a person responsible who is... wait... Wait... WAIT... WAIT FOR IT!!!!... a MUSLIM. Extremist? probably.... but we keep hearing that most Muslims dont condone this sorta stuff... but yet you dont hear anyone standing up and denouncing it... (oh, I am sure you can read of some small blurb on the back page of some newspaper somewhere by some random cleric)... and here is the dirty secret... no "moderate" Muslim is going to say ANYTHING, else he takes the risk of ending up on YouTube getting beheaded by his fellow supposed peaceful Muslim Buddies. but back to my point... if he walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck and keeps blowing up things in the name of Allah, well... it must be a Muslim. Until i have to pony up my Popeyes chicken strip dinner with honey glazed biscuits, i will keep thinking that the OVERWHEMING majority of people are thinking EXACTLY the same thing when they get on a plane and see someone who is a Muslim... " are they going to try something? Am I getting ready to die?"

Sorry PC people... that is the way most people see it...

now... Of course 98 percent of practicing Muslims aint thinking about doing any harm to anybody. But until you start seeing cleric after mullah after Imam standing up and denouncing this from the top of ALL the mosques, it will stay the same...

"Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for the house in blackjack". ~Adam Morrow, quoted in Bill Simmons, "Letters from the Nation," 20 October 2003

THIS is what I am talking about....

my guy will have the best looking car on the track in 2011... all the Junior fans must be having a cow as this is what so many of them clamoured for for years.... yes... watch this be the souvy truck to be at... by the way, tentative plans to camp out at ALL STar Race in May so reserve that weekend for a party... Ha!!! well... maybe it will just be me sitting by a tent and small firebowl by myself... but that's ok. Gives me something to look forward to and shoot for....

OK... I have about had it with Charter. I am going to give them thru Spring, and if they cant get their act together, I am back to satelitte....

Ryles is going to be some sorta witch/sorcerress/thingy and I-Man is going to be.. wait...Wait...WAIT FOR IT... a soccer player... but I think I am going to do this for Halloween....

SO my Braves go down in flames... at least they did do all that I asked for this year.. simply contend and at least make the playoffs... losing Chipper and Prado basically put their offense in neutral and they could just not score any runs... there will be huge expectations next year. HUGE.

so we know have people throwing books at the President during his speeches and people throwing shoes at videos of Obama... this is becoming a joke. Well, perhaps it already was, but I digress. What DOES disturb me and comes up in my mind is this... depite differences of opinion of policy and decisions, i dont see that people would have treated a white President the same way. Seriously... can anyone who is against Obama justify that sorta thing? Not to mention the streaker?... how far is this guy going to fall?... and despite the Secret Service walking back the book thrower, the symbolic nature of the act is profound. But... again... would this have happened to Hillary Clinton? or George Bush... open, blatant disrespect?

Today... I start a different schedule at work, changing from a 10 hour work schedule to a 8 hour schedule... and I will actually get home at a relatively normal hour for a change....

lost weekend?

not really... but as far as rooting for sports teams, it was crash and burn city. Tiger football goes and lays an egg... Cowboys crash and burn... Panthers lose again(not uncommon), Laurens High is defeated, Southern Cal gets smacked around.... and finally... the Braves come back in rousing fashion only to have their Second Baseman blow a routine ground ball and give the game away. This was his THIRD error of the game, and that doesnt count the fly ball he dropped (admittedly a hard play, but one players make everyday), and was a crushing blow.. I went to the game in Atlanta and it was electric. But a HUGE letdown the way the game ended....

Today is... 10/10/10....

OK... so The Office seemed to bounce back last night... did I mention that we now have Disney Channel in HD? oh.. yeah.. I did....

GOALLLLLLL!!!

Thought I might mention that I-Man scored a goal in his last match (another loss... did I mention that his team has 6 girls whereas other teams only have one or two max on theirs).. he has remained in his customary position of sweeper/fullback on defense and, but has started to push forward a little more to help the one kid who is a viable scoring threat up front... this time, he intercepted the ball in front of his goal, and basically pushed forward thru, around and over the other team by himself and sent a screaming drive past the goalie for a goal in their 5-2 loss last Saturday... kinda funny as i heard a parent from the other team say "..wonder why that kid doesnt do that more?...."

on deck...

this weekend will see me attempt to replace my glowplug harness and glowplugs on my car.... also pondering going to the braves playoff game as you never know if/when/ever they might make it to the playoffs again. some people wait their entire lives to see their baseball team even get to the playoffs... i am not taking this for granted...

wow....

... has it really come to this for the people who supposedly support Hope and Change? where is the undying, unrelenting "he can do no wrong" support? Interesting....