I am a boat owner!

Well, I officially own a boat now. That's right, now I can go fishing whenever I want. God totally provided this fishing kayak. It was only about a month ago that I even gave thought to the idea of a fishing kayak. I started to do some research and found that at best I might find a good used one for several hundred dollars. So, scrapped that idea, thinking it would take me a good while to save that kind of cash.

Out of the blue a buddy from work sends me a link to a fishing story from the TODAY show. He is a fisherman and knows I like to fish. He then asks me if I have been fishing lately. I tell him "no" and that was entertaining the thought of fishing kayak. He then tells me to come get the one from his backyard for $50. His wife has been on him to get rid of it. It hasn't been used in a couple of years and just taking up space.


Well in case you haven't figured it out by now, I pretty much stole this kayak from this guy. He knew this though. He is smart about this stuff. He felt guilty to get nothing for it, and felt better by getting something cash for it. I was glad to oblige.

As you can see by the pictures, I had great help in cleaning it up and thoroughly inspecting it.

Long Overdue Post

Wow, I apologize for not keeping my blog current. I think after the VT loss, and the next couple of losses that followed, I was discouraged to blog about the Huskers. Then things turned around with the wins at the end of the season. I still get goose bumps when I watch Alex make "The Kick."




Then I knew we were going to get a pretty good bowl game. My buddy Matt, who is a huge FSU fan, knew that his team was deserving of a great bowl game as well. We always said if our teams played each other in a bowl game that we would do anything we could to go. So when there were multiple experts predicting a FSU-NU match up in the Gator Bowl, we sprung for tickets. Obviously, the Huskers ended up playing Clemson in the bowl game. Even though Clemson was the opponent, I still wanted to go. Deep down I knew that it wasn't practical. The cost of the tickets, a repeat trip to Jacksonville in under a month, and the fact that my wife was hoping we could have a New Year's Eve date at a Salvador concert, made me realize I had to sell the tickets. So after the tickets sat on the fridge for several weeks, I ended up selling them the day after Christmas. Overall, I was really pleased about the first year of the Bo Pelini era.

We had a great holiday season. I have been amazed how fast time is flying. Life is just zooming along. As most anyone who reads this blog, knows that Amy and I are eagerly awaiting the birth of our second child. Right now, Amy is about half way through her pregnancy. She is struggling with pelvis pain and terrible heartburn. We are still sifting through names. We will have more about that later.

But, before the baby comes, I have several camping trips planned. The first one, I will be going with my family to Morris Cabin. We absolutely love going to these little cabins and I love spending time with my family here. We are also going with some friends and their kids, and Cooper.

Then the second trip I have planned is with the JV boys from our church. This last fall I started helping as a leader for the JV boys. I really enjoy our time on Wednesday night. My trip with them should be interesting as it is will be a hike to our camping site and then back out the next day. I have never camped like this before. I am kinda looking forward to it.

Then at the end of May I will be going camping with some friends from work. It has sort of become an annual event. We usually try to hike Old Rag Mountain. It is probably my most favorite hike in Virginia. It has a little bit of everything. . I hope to reserve Mutton Top Cabin. If not, then maybe Morris again. We'll see.

Here are some pics from our last Old Rag hike:









I think that pretty much brings you up-to-date on all that is going on with me. Again, I will try and keep the blog more current.

Beat Hokies!

Well we are a 1/3 of the way through the college football season. What a season it has been so far. We saw the first huge upset of the season last night when USC got beat by Oregon State. I had a feeling that USC would lose to a team they were not supposed to, because they always do. However, I didn't think it would happen this early in the season.

With that all said, the game that I have had circled for a long time is finally here. The Virginia Tech Hokies (the birds that shall not fly) "fly" ;) into Lincoln for a showdown tomorrow night. One of my good work buddies, Bryan Deal, is a VT alumni and a HUGE fan of his beloved Hokies. Because we both share such similar passions for our respective teams, the build up to this game has been exciting and fun. The trash-talking has been at a pinnacle this week, and I love it. I think I can speak for Bryan, he has had fun too.

This should be an excellent game to watch. The Hokie fans have a passion for their football team that is almost as strong as Husker fans. The coaching for the Hokies is top-notch and proven. There is no doubt that VT is "rebuilding" this year and the Huskers are trying to restore the order with a new defensive attitude. So far the Huskers are undefeated and looking to get into the Top 25 with a win over the Hokies. VT is looking to prove they can maintain a high level of football respect and get back in the polls, after they fell out with a loss to East Carolina and unimpressive wins against Furman and North Carolina.

Bryan and myself are looking forward to meeting at Buffalo Wild Wings for the game and enjoying cheering on our teams. We will also be joined by some other work friends who are interested in seeing us go at each other during the game. I look forward to one heck of a game and seeing the "Sea of Red" in Memorial stadium under the lights. I purposely have been "bold" this week in my trash talking and predictions. My bottom line prediction for this game is a 31-10 win for the Huskers. Most experts and myself thought it might be a closer game, but after I witnessed the below support for the Huskers, I knew it would boost the Husker players to another touchdown. See for yourself.... "Beat Hokies!"

GO BIG RED!

It's time to get this party started. I can't believe it is finally here. Tomorrow, will mark the beginning of the Bo Pelini era. We (Husker fans) have been waiting for this day since the end of the 2003 college football season.

It is hard for me to keep my expectations down, but I guess it is only natural as I bleed Husker red. Realistically, I believe we will see 6 or 7 wins and a bowl game. Add a bowl game win and we could see 7 or 8 wins. I would think that would be a "successful" season in my book. Kirk Herbstreit, one of the most respected ESPN analysts, is bullish on the Huskers this year. He said he would not be surprised to she Nebraska finish the season with 9 wins. I am all for it, but just don't see it, as the Big 12 is just too deep this year. He also had mentioned the Huskers in several categories of his annual Herbie Awards column on ESPN.com.

I am so excited to listen to the game tomorrow. As much as I would like to see the game on TV, I always enjoy listening to the games on the radio broadcast over the Internet. The guys that call the game pump so much energy into there coverages. I love it.

Everyone get their balloons ready to cover the sky when we score first. Lets get this party started!

Ahhh....The Good Ole Days

I was looking through my 1974 yearbook this week and it brought back so many great memories. Just seeing the hairstyles and clothing, it took me back to when I remember when gas was 35 cents/gallon, movies were $1, and a loaf of bread was 50 cents.

Who knew then my bride-to-be, would be the girl above. Look how beautiful she is. She is still beautiful to this day and she doesn't look like she has aged a bit.

Hopefully this post will inspire others to find their yearbooks, dust them off, and remember the "good ole days." If you have trouble finding your yearbooks, I found mine at Yearbook Yourself.

Wow, What an Opening!

I am sitting here watching the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and I am flat out awed. They have done such a fabulous job with the artistic portion of the ceremony. The costumes are gorgeous and to have more than 2000 of them made for all the people participating is another feat that is amazing. The guys with the lime green suits that lit up were pretty cool. I also liked the Tai Chi guys that were in all white. They held such tight straight lines without any kind of markers.

I just wanted to express my enjoyment of the opening ceremonies this year. I think they were very well done. I think any host country is going to struggle to top this one for quite a while.

An Overdue Introduction.

Well, after my last post. I felt like I needed to follow it with the introduction of our new car.

Meet Lola. She is "Atomic Blue" and she is our new 2008 Honda Civic EX-L. The best part of her is that she doesn't love gas. So far she has fit right in to our lives. That trait will be heavily tested this weekend when we go camping. She is going to be cram-packed. But, we should get 38+ MPG's to the mountains and back.

We were able to take her to Lexington a couple of weeks ago to celebrate our 6 year anniversary, and we were able to get almost 400 miles out of a 11 gallon tank. We were so proud. Not to mention, Lola is a certified "Ultra Low Emission Vehicle". My only complaint of her, is the road noise. She is a little loud when driving at highway speeds, but nothing a little extra volume on the radio can't drown out. In fact, she is so considerate, she turns the radio volume up all by herself as you increase your speed.

After we had leather seats in our 4Runner, we were spoiled with the look, feel, and practicality of leather. So it became a requirement for our next car. When we found out that this was the first year Honda was offering leather in the Civic, we had to check it out.

Another thing we "had to have", was a sunroof. Since Amy's Jeep, she has wanted vehicles with some sort of open top feature. Luckily, the EX-L comes with one.

I was not so hip on getting a Civic, at first. I had the stereotype about the car that it was some little girl's high school ride. The EX-L trim destroys that stereotype. When I found out that a factory installed navigation system was an option, I thought to myself, now I could drive a Civic with leather seats and navigation. The rest is history.

I hope Lola treats us well. So far she shows promise of being a super addition to our family. If she can pull of this camping weekend, she will definately earn her keep.



PS> Plus she has a cool dash!