Welcoming Back the Madness!

Outside of the first weekend of college or pro football, for me, this is absolutely the best time of the year.

If you've been reading my blog for a year now, you'll remember that last year I boldy predicted that Duke would win the whole thing, and I got it right!

Last year, I had one of my final four teams bounced on the opening night of the tournament when Georgetown fell to Ohio, but because of my other picks (and obviously getting the NC winner right) I was able to hold on.

This year the bracket is as wide open as ever, and I suspect we'll see a lot of brackets busted before the end of the first weekend.

Stay tuned for my bracket tips, as well as my bracket.

Enjoy the madness!

No...I'm Not Scared....

A little over 10 years ago, I tuned in to a new show on FOX. It was called 'Beyond Beleif, Fact Or Fiction?' I used to love this show. It was hosted by Star Trek the Next Generation's Jonathan Frakes. The former number 1 of the Starship Enterprise was the perfect host. With his deep baritone voice and trusting beard, he made you as the viewer feel as though he was telling the truth when he told the stories featured in the show.

The stories that were told on the show ranged from conspiracy theories, to ghost/paranormal activity stories, out of body experiences and the like. One of my favorites featured a runaway  plane that was apparently piloted by the pilot's deceased father, who died in a plane crash. Another good one was a lady who dreamed about a house she was supposed to buy and when she went to buy it, the owner said "you're the lady that has been haunting my house for the last month."

For me, the show was always kind of a fun show to watch. A modern day Unsolved Mystories or Ripley's Beleive it or Not. It would usually recount 5 stories and at the end tell you whether or not they were true. Some of the classic lines that Frakes would say at the end were: "Is this story true? I'm afraid not!" and "So, is this story based on true events? Or is it just the work of our writers? Not this time!"

So, why am I telling you this?

Well, the show is back on TV in the form of reruns...and every single time I get sucked into it. The problem is, I'm a grown man and should not be scared of stories filmed 10 years ago with really bad acting...but somehow these stupid vignets get to me. I used to shower in the dark when I got up in the morning...now, I have to shower with the light on because of one of the shows having a personage show up in a mirror. Ugh! Also, the ghost stories freak me out...I don't want to go in my basement at times. In 10 short years, it has gone from a fun show to something that haunts me.

What the heck happened to me?

DisAnim.Com

This is a shameless plug for my brother in law's new website, DisAnim.Com.

The concept is simple, he is going through all of the Walt Disney Animated Films in chronological order and breaking them down. For each film he analyzes the significane of the film, it's place and timing in history, key lessons learned, the potential time and place of some of these movies, their ties to folk-legendes and much, much more.

If you enjoy the disney catalog and want to dig a little deeper into some of these shows, please take a fewminutes and check out DisAnim.Com.

Up in the Air Part II

Coming back from a trip is a funny thing. The minute you walk in the door, and after the 3 or 4 subsequent days that you don't unpack, it feels like you never left. All that said, the gettin there and the gettin back can make for some fun times.

This post is a sequal to Up in The Air, which was posted after my last trip.

The flight out was pretty uneventful. Though while waiting in the terminal, I observed that people really seem to enjoy standing in lines, clusters, or bunches. Otherwise, why would they stand up there if there zone has not yet been called. In the case of the flight I was on, the people waiting for the plane quite literally created a wall around the door that made it very difficult for anyone in zone 2 and 3 to break through.

Boarding in Zones is kind of an interesting concept as well. One thing I've never really understood is why the plane gets boarded from the front to the back. Now I understand that those first class folks (and from what I can tell most of them are first class all the way -eyeroll) want to sit and sip their club sodas in their big comfy chairs, but don't they realize that all of us coachers are looking at them and just resenting them the whole time we walk by their 6-8 rows of in-flight bliss.

As my plane was getting ready to land, the fasten seatbelt sign flashed to signal to everyone "hey the plane is landing in like 5 minutes," which prompted one guy to literally get up, and sprint through first class to the bathroom. I thought, "we're going to land the plane with this guy in the bathroom...I hope he likes a dash of blue water on his clothes."

The trip back was a real life lesson in inefficiency. At the SLC airport, they have what is called a family line. The family line  is a seperate line set aside for two reasons: 1) to allow families traveling with small children to get through security without incident and 2) to prevent other passengers from being held up by families and their 75 things they're taking with them. In SLC, the line also serves as the means by which airport personnel get to the terminal. I cannot begin to express to you how dumb I think this is.

So, we get there and there are two "families" standing in front of us. One of them is a mother and daughter combo. The daughter is at minimum 14...small children? I had no issue with the other family, but during the time we were waiting to get to the security scanner, quite literally 20 airport employees walked through ahead of us. Then, a nice 18 year old kid who worked for the airline wheeled an older lady up to the front of the line. That's cool, I'm a fan of the elderly...but then we hear from the back "wait! wait! wait!" and up comes 4-5 people who are apparently traveling with said elderly women. None of them have problems mind you, and none of them cared enough to push her, but they were all apparently important enough to go to the front of the line.

Once we got through the first part of security, the cutting really began. Several airport employees were very litterally shoving my stuff backwards on the conveyor belt to make room for their stuff. After about 15 people did this, I got a hair irritated. I started forcing the issue with my stuff and stopped short of the ole talking loudly trick (you know, the one where you say something to someone else with you so that the offender can hear you loud and clear).

We finally made it through, and ended up sitting in front of someone who thought he was Larry the Cable Guy...he was just full of one-liners and whoppers...and really made me glad to be sitting in front of him. All in all it was another great opportunity for people watching...

The Rise and Fall of my Tooth Brush

This is a cautionary tale about cleaning the bathroom...

It also proves that no good deed gos unpunished...

Whilst staying with my in-laws this past week, I decided to be a good son in law and clean the bathroom we were using. I got all of the cleaning supplies out and ready made that sucker shine. As I was putting the finishing touches on it and throwing away the last piece of paper towel from wiping the glass. My arm grased the back of my tooth brush, sending it into a spinning motion and flying downward at a rapid pace. Given that it had a short distance to travel, it didn't take very long, but I still reached for it loudly proclaiming....NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It finally came to rest here:

We had a good run, but no amount of cleaning could've brough my toothbrush back to life. It was gone and it was time to move on to a new one.

And now for some cheap tooth brush humor:

Did you know the tooth brush was invented in West Virginia? If it had been invented in any other state, it'd be called a teeth brush. BOOM!

FF Season in Review Part I: The Records

And so another season of fantasy football has gone by the wayside. It was an up and down year for me overall. I played in a total of five leagues and made the playoffs in four of them. Here's a league by league breakdown:

League 1: (12 Teams): Record; 9-4 (2nd place regular season) 4th place finish.

First round: (my pick in bold)

1. Chris Johnson (Ten - RB)
2. Adrian Peterson (Min - RB)

3. Ray Rice (Bal - RB)

4. Maurice Jones-Drew (Jac - RB)
5. Steven Jackson (StL - RB)

6. Randy Moss (Ten - WR)

7. Andre Johnson (Hou - WR)

8. Aaron Rodgers (GB - QB)

9. Michael Turner (Atl - RB)

10. Frank Gore (SF - RB)

11. Ryan Mathews (SD - RB)

12. Shonn Greene (NYJ - RB)

The player who picked 3rd in this league ended up winning it.

League 2: (12 Teams): Record; 7-6 (4th place regular season) 2nd place finish.

First round: (my pick in bold)

1. Chris Johnson (Ten - RB)

2. Adrian Peterson (Min - RB)

3. Maurice Jones-Drew (Jac - RB)

4. Frank Gore (SF - RB)

5. Ray Rice (Bal - RB)

6. Drew Brees (NO - QB)

7. Aaron Rodgers (GB - QB)
8. Michael Turner (Atl - RB)

9. DeAngelo Williams (Car - RB)

10. Andre Johnson (Hou - WR)

11. Randy Moss (Ten - WR)
12. Ryan Mathews (SD - RB)

The player who picked 7th in this league ended up winning it.

League 3: (10 teams): Record; 8-6 (4th place regular season) 2nd place finish.

First round: (my pick in bold)

1. Chris Johnson (Ten - RB)
2. Adrian Peterson (Min - RB)
3. Maurice Jones-Drew (Jac - RB)
4. Ray Rice (Bal - RB)
5. Michael Turner (Atl - RB)
6. Frank Gore (SF - RB)
7. Andre Johnson (Hou - WR)

8. Ryan Mathews (SD - RB)

9. Shonn Greene (NYJ - RB)

10. Rashard Mendenhall (Pit - RB)

The player who picked 4th in this league ended up winning it.

League 4: (10 teams): Record 9-5 (1st place regular season) 3rd place finish

First round: (my pick in bold)

1. Chris Johnson (Ten - RB)
2. Adrian Peterson (Min - RB)
3. Maurice Jones-Drew (Jac - RB)
4. Ray Rice (Bal - RB)
5. Michael Turner (Atl - RB)
6. Frank Gore (SF - RB)
7. Andre Johnson (Hou - WR)
8. Ryan Mathews (SD - RB)
9. Shonn Greene (NYJ - RB)
10. Steven Jackson (StL - RB)

The player who picked 8th in this league ended up winning it.

League 5: (team teams) Record 10-7 (5th place finish) - no playoffs.

First round (my pick in bold)


1. Chris Johnson (Ten - RB)

2. Adrian Peterson (Min - RB)
3. Maurice Jones-Drew (Jac - RB)

4. Michael Turner (Atl - RB)

5. Frank Gore (SF - RB)

6. Ray Rice (Bal - RB)

7. Drew Brees (NO - QB)

8. Rashard Mendenhall (Pit - RB)

9. Ryan Mathews (SD - RB)

10. Andre Johnson (Hou - WR)

Overall I think my first-round picks were solid. It was obviously a huge blow when Frank Gore went down. Had he not, who knows what might have happened. The one thing I learned this year is that I can draft a pretty solid squad, but I've got to do a better job of managing my team. I'll break down the teams in my next post.

Total win loss for the season: 43-28

Wrapping Up Christmas

On December 26th, my two-year-old woke up to see what presents Santa had brought for her that day. The previous day was Christmas, and of couse she was showered with gitfs so she couldn't wait to see what the next day held in store for her. When she realized that Christmas comes but once a year, and that that day had indeed past she said "time to take down the tree, Christmas is over." And so it was.

It has been very interesting, funny, and educational to see how others handle Christmas. From trying to figure out how soon is too soon for the tree to go up, or for Christmas music to start playing throughout the house, to when to take it all down and store it for another year, everyone seems to do it just a little different.

I've always loved the holidays. Growing up (and even while I was in college) it meant that I literally didn't have to do anything for about two weeks. I can remember as a kid getting up on Christmas morning one year and being done with my present opening and running to the neighbor's house to see what my friends got...but they were all still sound asleep!

Outside of the religious aspects of course, Christmas for me is about traditions. We're trying to establish our own family traditions and it isn't always easy. This year, I decided that I was going to read "The Night Before Christmas" and have that be something I do every year. Though my kids are still too young to sit through that kind of thing, it's still kind of fun to do.

One of my favorite parts about the holidays is all the Christmas movies that are on. The one that for me stands the test of time is Christmas Vacation. That movie is not only fantastic, but so quoteable and it just puts a smile on my face whenever it is on. "Surprised Eddie? If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet I wouldn't be more surprised than I am right now." Classic!

We just finished our last Christmas/New Year's tradition of the season, Divinity! This stuff is so ridiculously yummy that I can't even handle it. I could eat my weight in this stuff...in fact, I may have already! But that is what New Year's Resolutions are for!

I hope everyone out there had a safe and happy holiday. I look forward to more fun posting and sharing in the New Year.

-  The Loose Change Guy