So I jumped in the car this morning and some national sports talk was on 990, and of course the topic was how over rated the SEC is every year. Well I will be the first to say the SEC is down this year, UT and Auburn really fell off and the normal play from MSU and Kentucky did not help. Along with Georgia not being the world beaters they were picked to be before the season. I won’t knock Vandy they got to go to a bowl and got screwed by being able to walk to it. So yes the SEC was down. But pointing to the Bama loss to Utah as a reason for Utah to be the best team in that land is just silly. It all points to is a playoff. Any given team can beat any other blah blah blah. Since that is true though tired an undefeated team being left out of the NC game might help a little with a playoff even if it is just a plus one. And no one brought up Saban has choked at or near the end of both of his seasons at Bama.
Enough of that. Can’t really get into the bowls this year anyway.
We had a pretty good Christmas. John was pretty good most of the time and never got out of hand before the big day. He kept his cool, which is good. Santa brought him a Bat Cave, and some diecast Cars. Santa could not find any of the villians not a one. After looking at the amazon prices it must just be to costly to have the elves make them, since retail list is $5.88. Jacene got me 4 CDs from the Folkways Classics series I had asked for only one has arrived but it was pretty good. Her parents got another one and it was ok. On the up side John has really taken to some of the folk stuff we listen to in the car when we are going to school. That warms my heart.
He really likes The Miller and his Sons, which is odd since the song is sort of mean and is sung by an elderly man with no accompaniment. Found that one on If You Ain’t Got The Do-Re-Mi another folkways disc. Hopefully he won’t hate this music later since he likes it now, but I still like Jim Croce and that was one of my favorites at his age.
Jacene also got me NCAA Football 2009 for the PS3 which we got a month ago. I got it yesterday and have played it a little. It is much better then the Wii All-Play version it is pretty weak by comparison. But that is expected. I thought I had an issue with the game at first. I downloaded the demo and while playing it anytime I was running plays I got a beeping noise in the background. When the real game arrived, I got the same sound. After a little testing of HDMI cables and such I found the UPS was to blame the PS3 was plugged into a battery backup outlet and the pull from the polygon maddness that happens when you are running plays was too much and causing the UPS to beep. I only felt a little stupid. Switching to a surge only outlet cleared that up.
Today I put up almost all the Christmas decorations. My normal goal is to have the decorations down by my birthday, which is Sunday. Last year I missed the date and it was into January before everything went back into hiding so this year I am on top of it. Everything would have been complete today but John didn’t want his tree put up just yet so it stays until tomorrow. I also need Clay to hug the tree and put it back in the bag and he had a date with friends.
Oh, as for the post title…I am feeling especially old for this year’s birthday. I am just crazy…or maybe it is the early onset of senility. O…L…D
The picture below is one I took of John on the last day of school before the break. He looks sweet in the mornings…sometimes.
Ok, so I set the record for procrastination this year with Christmas things. I still haven’t wrapped presents, baked Santa any cookies or worse yet…we had not been to visit Santa until this morning, Christmas Eve. We were at the mall before 9am and had a little visit with mall Santa. John insisted on wearing his santa suit to visit Santa. Both seem to get a kick out of it and Santa said “it is like looking in a mirror”. Now I just have presents and cookies for today before the chaos of Christmas Eve begins.
The video washed all the kids out so I was taking photos on the side. It isn’t as cool without sound but at least you can see what John looked like. Notice his hands. He insisted that I add some makeup paint to them as well and draw in the joints. He then rubbed makeup all over his tuxedo and such. After he did this and I tried to clean it up (no effect) I told him not to touch anything. This is the reason he is so stilted in the video. I didn’t realize what impact that statement would make on the evening, oops. I also took some class performance photos for the surreal effect of Jack Skellington along side kids in their Christmas best. I promise we are not a goth family at heart.
So John did a good job, with his part of the program (shown above). Most people have just been impressed he memorized the song. I was most impressed he opened his mouth and sang. His make-up made the next couple of songs a little strange with Jack Skellington running around during more traditional Christmas songs. Over all the show turned out well.
I decided to teach John how to play chess. He got interested when I began reading Through the Looking Glass to him. It is based around chess where Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is based on a pack of cards. After Alice goes through the looking glass she begins moving as a pawn. While reading this I found out John did not know what a pawn was or how it moved. So that was the spark that started this. I spent a couple of afternoons teaching him how the pieces moved. He kept asking when we could play a game. The only snag we hit while moving the pieces was with the knight. This was expected but after talking with a co-worker, I placed the knight in the middle of the board and placed the opposing pawns in the spaces where the knight could move. Then I removed the pawns and had John tell me where the knight could move. After two times through that he had it.
We played our first game on Friday afternoon, it did not take long for the game to be over. And yes I won, and he got upset for a time. We talked about it and he was ok with it and even laid his king down on his own. Now I have been playing GNU Chess since my chess skills peaked when I was 10. This also got me thinking about learning Go. I am horrible at Go but hopefully I can pick it up enough to teach John. GNU Go wipes the wall with me. I also want to try and similar game (well sort of) we have had for a while called Blokus. We have had it for a while but I think we have played it twice. It is a 4 player game, I need to pick up the two player version so he and I can play or Jacene and I or you get the picture.
After we read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland I did teach him a new card game. Go Fish was getting old fast. We all played Knock-out Whist. I had never played before but it is a very simple trick taking game and the only time we played we did not use the knock-out part and all three of us played all seven hands. He picked it up pretty fast though he kept calling spades “aces” for some reason. Have to get him to like these games since Jacene will not play trick-taking/bidding games with me for some reason. Seems they both do things I don’t understand, it might be me.
So along with Jacene’s closet clean out, I cataloged our games at gameboardgeek.com, here they are. We still need to go through and rate the games but at least we can find what we have. While poking around boardgamegeek I did find one really cool thing. We started playing Qwirkle while on vacation, and some brilliant person made a scoreboard for Qwirkle. No hunting for scrap paper, cool. I think the same idea could be used to score Mexican Train at least the way we score it.
Even though they leave nasty messages on my desk and wrap random objects up to regift to me for boss’s day, I do love my team. We all went bowling today. Well first we went to Senior Taco on Broadway for some tasty mexican food and alcohol. It was 2 for 1 margaritas! I had the special and some tasty enchiladas. We then walked across the parking lot to Fountain Lanes to bowl.
I have included the video clip Jeremy took without my knowledge. It is the “gutter ball” link. It was dangerous for them to let me have the camera back after that. I used the team camera from work and had no idea that it would blur anything that moved faster than a turtle so the photos weren’t the best.
I think everyone had fun. I know I did. David and Jeremy beat their personal best scores which was great! I didn’t lose every game but I think I did lose 3 out of 4. I wasn’t really paying attention to the scores.
Today was like any other weekend day…errands. Today was a little different though and I thought I would share. Clay and I had talked about getting a case of wine instead of trying to run out and find a bottle of wine from time to time. I liked the idea and said sure. Today while coming back from Turkey Creek (no I don’t know why we go there every week) I remembered the liquor. We stopped at McScrooges and I ran in to get the wine. Clay thought we were getting one case of Fourteen Hands merlot (the one he likes) and we were. What he didn’t know until we got there is that we were also buying one case of Red Diamond merlot (the one I like). I spent $260 on wine. I think we are ready to tackle any crisis over the holidays. If you need a drink, come to our house we have plenty!
I guess it really isn’t insomnia it is just plain messed up. I came home tonight from visiting my parents and got progressively more tired, so much so that I couldn’t make it through an episode of “Chuck” after John went to sleep. Clay marched me to bed around 8pm. I was worried that I would wake up at 2am and not be able to sleep. Bingo. I got about 5 hours of sleep and now I am wide awake. I did try to go back to sleep but it was a little too noisy beside me. Tonight was also bonus “kick me” night so I have come upstairs to work. I figure it is more productive to actually get up and do something about my projects than laying in bed worrying about them.
