Dayton 79 UNC 68

Congrats to the A-10!

Things we've never watched...Not one second!

1. American Idol
2. Lost
3. CSI-WhateverIt'sCalled
4. Grey's Anatomy
5. House
6. Chuck
7. Family Guy
8. NCIS
9. Two and a Half Men

Good gawd, man, could it be true?!?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Verizon will carry the iPhone next fall!

Best we can do...

4 final thoughts on Tennessee & State...

1. Why anyone would ever pick against Tom Izzo during March Madness is mind boggling. That guy is total money during the tourney. His players come and go and he keeps chugging them deep into March every year.

2. Could the refs have screwed Tennessee more today?!? Every close call went against the Vols.

3. The Sons of Bruce Pearl played really hard, but their big guys seem to be lacking intelligence on the defensive end! And you simply cannot allow State to score on an out of bounds play with one second on the clock before halftime.

4. He has nothing to do with UT or MSU, but we can't resist one final jab at Kentucky's John Wall! If you're the best player on the best team, shouldn't you get your team to the Final Four?!? Especially when the other team is playing its second string point guard (due to injury). And we're pretty sure the rims are still vibrating from his 1-5 three point bricks. Classic.

Oh, well...

As if we weren't already screwed with Our Bracket, K-State losing a few minutes ago made it official. We are in a pool with nearly 50 other peeps. Coming into today, we were sitting at number 23. However, we had K-State in the Final Four where as many losers actually went with Syracuse. A Wildcat win today would have catapulted us into the top 8. Ugh.

Guess now we will pull for a West Virginia - Butler championship game.

Oh, one final thing. K-State's Denis Clemente is twice the college player Kentucky's John Wall is.

Love it...

A nippy 29 degrees right now. Off to the book store and then home to build a fire and get ready for March Madness.

Tomorrow, Vols = Coin. Go Vol$!

Wow...

Stayed awake for all of the Xavier-K State game last night. It was the most exciting game in recent memory. We told you K-State was good. (We have them in Final Four with Kentucky, Duke and, oops, Kansas.) We just didn't know Xavier was that good. Wow.

Hello. Congrats. Goodbye.

Off to the National Honor Society Dinner. Quite the honor. Still, the Blackberry will be tuned in to March Madness games. And at the first available opportunity, we will be gone.

72 hour window of busy-ness begins...

1. This afternoon we have to take The Playmaker's Sister to the final dress reversal of her school's talent show. Practice is from 4 until, well, no one is quite sure when it will actually end. And parents have to stay -- no drop and leave allowed.

2. Tomorrow night we have a school function. It is actually quite an honor. But we will save the details until tomorrow night. However, tomorrow night sees March Madness resume. And therein lies the problem.

3. Friday night is the aforementioned talent show. That's, like, a 7-10 commitment. Ugh.

Hmm...

We have scheduled a late night encrypted chat session with Our Tech Guru (RCM) to discuss the merits of hopping on Apple's latest deal. In an effort to clear out its inventory of 3GS iPhones, The Sons of Steve Jobs are selling the phones contract free for $599. Now contract free means you don't have to deal with AT&T's well documented crappy service/coverage. That's the good news. However, that also means the phone comes locked -- as in it won't really work. Of course, even the worst techno geek in the world is familiar with jailbreaking. Jailbreaking allows a user to "illegally" program the phone to do things that the carrier does not want you to do. Only in this case, Apple intends to look the other way. So it comes down to this -- is $600 too much to pay for getting an iPhone minus the headaches that come with AT&T?!?

I gotta go...I got a test

After School Special

Communists, look away!

Michigan State sends home perennial loser Gary Williams @ the buzzer.

Kansas...wait for it...LOSES!

We told you a month ago. We told you 10 days ago. There was no way the Kansas Jayhawks were going to win the NCAA Tournament. Watch Northern Iowa's Ali Farokhmanesh hit the shot of the tournament...a 1-on-3 pull-up trey to clinch the win.

Best we can do...

Coach Cal's house

Amazing...

Simply put: If you don't like March Madness, you are a frigging communist.

Day one is not even half over, and there have been, like, 12 upsets already.

We had the live feed of the games from CBS.com on in the classroom this afternoon. We told the kids it was "OK" to "monitor" the games "from time to time."

Classic.

Even more classic is the discovery that the CBS College Sports channel (their answer to ESPNU) offers coverage of the best game you aren't getting on your regular CBS channel. So now you get two choices of which game to watch. And because we subscribe to a sports package, we get the HD version. (People who don't pay for the sports package still get CBS College Sports in non-HD.)

By the way, it goes without saying that we will not be at work tomorrow. (Personal Days -- use 'em or lose 'em.)

On the eve of March Madness...

Unlike 90 percent of the clowns who claim to have seen this live, we really did watch it as it happened.

Four on the floor...

1. The new parts were put on the elliptical yesterday (thank goodness for extended warranties)! After a month of jogging, we humped the elliptical today for a mini 35 minute workout. Our quads and calves are simply burning. Ugh.

2. Took advantage of the first day of sunshine in five days and practiced with lacrosse with The Playmaker's Sister in the driveway! Spring ball starts in two weeks.

3. Burgers and hot dogs on the grill tonight!

4. After four years, we finally blew the picture tube (actually called a picture bulb) on the 50 inch Samsung HD! For the last seven days, we have been "slumming it" with the 32 inch LCD HD. Good news, as in less than an hour Captain Ray will be here to help us install the new bulb. The odds are also 2-1 that he will come with some form of bottled fluid intoxicants.

Yes - please!

Ryan Howard for Albert Pujols?!?

Do it. Now.

Good gawd, man. With Pujols in our lineup, we'd go 110-52.

And with ease.

John Wall hype continues to grow...

From day one, we've never been on the John Wall bandwagon. Sure, he's a good player. But people talk about him as if he's the second coming of LeBron. He's a 6'1" lead guard who can get to the rim on anybody. As for his outside shot -- well, yours is better than his. He shoots an ugly push shot that is an open invitation for any NBA player to reject. We're pretty sure The Playmaker could block him. (Sure as hell #31 could.)

So it was today that we watched the Kentucky - Mississippi State SEC Championship. Down two with with about 15 to play, Wall had the ball and missed an easy 6 footer in the lane. Brad Nessler and Jimmy Dykes (a UK guy) said NOTHING. Through piss poor execution on State's part, Kentucky got the ball back with 5 seconds, still down by two. Wall launched a wide open set shot from 20 -- it barely grazed the rim. Luckily, teammate DeMarco Cousins (a future 76er come June) got the put-back at the buzzer. Again, Nessler and Dykes say NOTHING about Wall's Woes.

The game went into overtime. Wall had the ball behind the three point line as the shot clock was winding down. He got forced to his left and threw up a total prayer. It somehow went in. And then Nessler and Dykes go ape-sheeeeet over Wall. Dykes spews on about big players hitting big shots in big situations.

It made us want to puke.

John Wall is a good player. But he doesn't even compare to Coach Cal's last two freshmen phenoms, Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans. Not even close.

And this is not a Louisville Guy going anti-UK. In fact, after watching Duke, Syracuse and Kansas, we decided last Thursday that Kentucky will be our pick to win it all.

The things we don't know...

We don't know everything about sports. We used to. But not anymore. That's what happens when you get married and have a family. Your in depth knowledge on a variety of things shrinks. It just does.

Last night we were watching New Mexico State and Nevada play in the WAC Championship. Stephen Bardo (Illinois guard, 1980s) was doing the color commentary. In the pregame, he was raving about some 6'9" sophomore from Nevada named Luke Perry Babbit. He said the only question in his game was, "which position he will play in the NBA." Our ears perked up. A top flight NBA prospect we had never heard of?!?

Then they showed his picture. He had a mop of hair like those high school kids in Alabama wear. He was pasty white. They showed some highlights. He looked like a D-2 athlete. We figured Bardo, so low on ESPN's lineup card he is the equivalent of the 11th man on the team, was just reaching for something (anything!) to talk about.

Two minutes into the game we joyfully conceded Bardo was dead-on.

On back to back possessions, the left-handed Babbit hit a step back NBA three and then filled the lane for a monster two-handed-slamma-jamma. When the game was over (NMS won, 80-79), Babbit had 33 points (10-19 from the floor, 10-10 from the foul line), 8 rebounds, 3 assists and 1 block. And he played the entire game.

k

Wow.

Friday night thought...

Tomorrow will be our first Saturday off from coaching in a long (long) time. And we will welcome it. As we detailed in an encrypted e-mail to SJH24 earlier in the week, we are suffering from a little bit of Urban Meyer burnout. Going 27-1-1 is great, and something we are extremely proud of, but it did bring with it some self-imposed pressure each week. So we will get to relax for the next month or so. However, we will go watch a game tomorrow afternoon. One of the 6th grade teams from our school has a tournament game tomorrow and we will take The Playmaker with us to go watch. Yes, he will wear his Kobe Air Force kicks. And, yes, he will bring his ball to get up some shots in between quarters.

Have a good night and stay safe.

Disappointing, but not surprising...

Other than last year, Louisville has never played well in Madison Square Garden. The reason is obvious. Their roster is always littered with New York and North Jersey kids. When they come back home to play (especially in the Big East Tournament), they are treated like NBA stars. The problem is they usually play like high school scrubs.

Take last night's game against mighty Cincinnati (with their nifty 7-11 conference record). Cincy won, 69-66.

The Cards got absolutely crushed on the boards. The Bearcats dominated the glass to the tune of 46-29. Center Samardo Samuels (Jersey) had ...wait for it ... 4 rebounds in 31 minutes. The leading rebounder for Louisville was point guard Edgar Sosa (NYC). He had 6. The problem was he played like crap in the second half. (This after he showboated for his homies in the first half while getting 20 points.) He made bad passes. He jacked NBA 3's. He played piss-poor D.

So now UL will get punished by Coach P (Table for two!) for the next four days while they wait to see where the selection committee will send them.

In the meantime, maybe they should work on their rebounding. And stay the hell away from NYC.

Tonight's dinner...

Salmon on the grill

Very interesting...

Took The Playmaker to his first penance today. Our wife is Catholic and we are Protestant. So we have a whole bunch of issues with this penance thing. Alas, good fodder for another day.

It's all about the Benjamins...

Met with the tax guy today. Using a new one this year. Dude is money. Anyone who uses a CPA instead of a tax lawyer is effing crazy.

Tres tired...

1. Three mile run at 5:30 AM.

2. Grocery shopping for 1 hour.

3. Shopping with The Playmaker's Sister (AC Moore, BJ's, Target, Sports Authority and Factory Outlet Shoes) for 2 hours.

4. Two hours of baseball, basketball and lacrosse with The Playmaker.

The perfect season...

This morning, Your Bucks put their undefeated record on the line for the final time this season. It was our toughest game of the year. Fittingly, it was against the only other undefeated team in the league. We trailed most of the game before getting the lead at the very end. In a very physical game, the Bucks won by a score of 30-28 -- to end the season 8-0. It was probably our lowest output of the season. And that was due to the fact that D-bag coach from the other team had a player who was close to 5 feet tall. (In a league of first and second graders, that makes him Shaq.) Being out-sized we can handle. However, the aforementioned D-bag coach allowed Shaq to sit in the paint and double-team whichever one of our kids drove the lane. The Playmaker, donning new Kobe Airforce kicks, scored the first 8 points of the game. That prompted the A-hole coach to move Shaq onto him the rest of the game. (Which was actually a dumb move, since Shaq was double-teaming him anyway.) The Playmaker finished with 10 points (5-10 shooting), 12 rebounds and 3 blocks (all against Shaq, whom he guarded the whole game).

So we won our third consecutive championship this year. (Flag football and soccer in the fall and basketball in the winter.) For the year, we are a collective 27-1-1.

Getting ready 4 Saturday...

Getting ready for The Playmaker's last basketball game of the season tomorrow morning. Trophies, certificates and a pizza party will follow the game. We may even have a surprise guest show up.

Thought 4 the day...

If I had it good, they wanna label me a bad man. With a bad plan, runnin' with this bad clan.

Planning for the future...

Just got back from Mr. D's. We started laying the groundwork for The Playmaker's summer workouts. Mr. D wants to put him on T-Grove's program -- the same one that #12 has followed for five years. It's all good.

Best we can do...

Cool outfit...

Pass the Hemlock...

Tired and depressed.

Ugh...

A somber game followed by a friendly night...

Things don't always go as planned. Sad but true.

Take yesterday, for example.

When we last met, we were on our way to Mr. D's house for coffee and egg whites. Problem is, errr, was, that we were operating on about 4 hours sleep (long story). So we texted The Man and told him we would see him later that night for the BIG high school tournament game the locals were in. A few minutes later he texted back and said he would pick us up for the game around 5. (Dude travels in a suh-weet Lexus SUV.) And with that we went back to bed for 2 hours.

Fast forward to The Playmaker's 12:30 basketball game. The Bucks throttled another opponent. The score was 50-12. (Repeat: 50-12!) And no, we did not run up the score. We were missing one of our 10 players, yet we never double shifted The Playmaker or our second best player. Plus, after about 15 minutes we made our kids pass the ball three times before shooting. The Playmaker notched his second double-double of the season. He went for 12 and 12 (6-10 shooting) and handed out 4 assists. We are now 7-0 on the season.

The second part of our day did not come off as well. Actually, it did not come off well at all. Our Town HS Basketball Team lost its tournament game, 74-70. They had a 5 point lead 6 to play and could not hold on. We sat with Mr. D. (We piled The Playmaker, The Playmaker's Sister and her friend into the back of the Lexus.) Confession time. Mr. D and The Star Player's Dad (introduced in last week's post titled The torch will one day be passed ... "In about 10 years this sheeet will all be yours, and you'll be the one standing here in my shoes." ) are the same person. When the game was over, he looked physically wiped. He stood for a long time and applauded his son and the team. Then he made his way down to the court where he found his boy and wrapped him up in a bear hug. The Son cried into his father's arms for close to 20 seconds before he joined the handshake line. The Star Player's Dad talked to a few of the other parents on the team before making his way back to us. "Let's get the hell outta here," he said quietly.

We envisioned a silent (and somber) ride home. Even the three kids realized the situation and did not not make a peep as we walked back to the car. Once on the road, however, Mr. D asked about getting some dinner. We assumed he was just being polite. Surely he would want to get home and be with his wife (she had travelled to the game with other neighbors) as they awaited the return of their son. We pointed out it was past the kids' bedtime. (It was past 9 at this point.) The Man asked The Playmaker, "Your mom's at a party, right?" (Our wife was attending a party at the home of a co-worker.)

"Yep," said our son.

"What time do you think she will be home?"

"Probably late."

"So then she'll never know that you went to bed late, right?"

"Yep," said our son.

Mr. D laughed. The Playmaker laughed. The girls laughed. Finally, we laughed, too.

Twenty minutes later we were picking up Chinese food. We headed back to Mr. D's house. Mrs. D was already there when we walked in. She was drinking a glass of wine. It was obvious she had been crying. She patted The Playmaker on the head and gave us a hug. We introduced the girls to her. Then she disappeared into the kitchen with the food. Mr. D went and got juice boxes for the kids and beers for each of us. We all sat on the floor of the family room and ate. No one talked about the game. Instead, The Man asked The Playmaker about his game. "We won, 50-12," was all he said. "Holy cow!" screamed Mr. D before we quickly interjected that The Playmaker had bagged a double-double, 12 and 12. The Star Player's Dad took a long drag of his beer and said simply, "Well done. Very well done." He finished his beer and looked at the three kids. He told them how there would come a day when they were all in high school and playing in a Big Game. "Enjoy the moment," he said. "Because it will end quickly." We're pretty sure the meaning of his lecture was lost on the kids. In fact, we got the feeling he was saying it more for his own benefit.

There was an awkward silence that followed. It quickly ended when Mr. D asked, "How about some more food? And another beer for the dads." Another round of eating and drinking ensued. The TV eventually was turned on. The Man asked Michael what he wanted to watch. Syracuse and Villanova was his answer. Mr. D looked over at us and smiled. "That's awesome." Eventually we asked where The Son was. Mrs. D said, "He and some of the guys on the team are having a sleepover at a player's house. I think they need to do some venting." She left the room. Mr. D quickly looked over at us and said quietly, "This will be their venting." He cocked his arm in the ever familiar drinking pose. And then he gave us a wink.

It was our turn to say, "That's awesome."

We clinked beer bottles and watched the game on TV.

Time to man-up...

Back from a pre-dawn run in the snow. Listened to 10 Years the whole time. Going to go clean up and then meet Mr. D, Our New Best Friend, for some coffee. (His wife will probably whip up some egg whites, too.) We'll lay down some Old School Stories. (Who's Cre and where's Co?!?) Then we'll just sit and listen to The Man.

Big Day today! Big EFFING day today!

Best we can do...

The torch will one day be passed...

We took The Playmaker to watch our local high school basketball team play in the state tournament last night. They won easily, but the interesting part came before the game even began.

We walked into the gym and immediately saw the dad of the best player on the team. His family lives on our street and we periodically stop and talk when we see each other. (He likes to stop by when he sees us shooting hoops in the driveway.) We were making polite chit-chat last night when we noticed that for every five people who walked by, three or four would stop and address the guy. Some stopped and chatted. Some slapped him on the back and kept on walking. Others went with a simple handshake. Good gawd, one guy even gave him the ever-awkward Man Hug. The one where you shake with the right hand and half-hug with the left arm.

The Star Player's Dad was the center of attention in the gym.

BMOC, baby! All Eyez on Me!

During a break in this social scene, we leaned over to the man and said, "Geeze-us, you're like the effing godfather around here."

He smiled at us and chuckled. Then he nodded to The Playmaker and quietly spoke into our ear so no one else could hear. "In about 10 years this sheeet will all be yours, and you'll be the one standing here in my shoes."

Amen to that.

Everick Sullivan...

B-Westbrook, ex-Eagle...

It was no surprise that the Eagles released Brian Westbrook today. He had one year left on his contract, one where he was owed around $8 mill next season. And he was due a roster bonus of about $3 mill March 1. Given the injuries he has battled the last two years, there was no way the Eagles could give him that type of money. Having suffered two concussions in a one month span last season, it's doubtful anyone else will risk anything other than short money on him in a 1 year deal. Which means there's a good chance he will retire. This video is fantastic. (So is the song.) It reminds us that for two or three years B-Westbrook was the best running back in the league. And he was always a class guy. We will miss him.

Give us the ring now...

Roy Halladay in Clearwater

Hey, coach! You SUCK!

We don't mind losing when we coach. Really, we don't. As long as our kids play hard, play smart and have fun, we're OK with whatever outcome the end brings. Actually, there is one exception. We loathe losing to coaches who are A-holes.

So far this year our collective coaching record for soccer, football and basketball is 25-1-1. When we win, we try not to make a big deal about it.

Five weeks ago, during a lopsided W, we were making small talk with the other coach. He mentioned that the week prior he had played against a team that "looked like they had played together for years." He also mentioned that the team played in a competitive league against other towns at a local sports facility. "They run plays and stuff," he said in awe.

After the game we went home and figured out what team the coach was talking about. We circled the date of our game with them. February 20. We did not fear the match-up. In fact, we embraced it. After weeks of rolling up on over-matched teams, we wanted to see how we would do against a formidable foe.

Four days ago, however, the sheeet hit the fan. Three parents e-mailed us and said their kids would not be at the game. Unfortunately, the three players were the 2nd, 3rd and 5th best players on our 10 man team.

And so it was yesterday when we walked into the gym. We had no expectation of winning.

They scored first their first time down the court.

It would be their only lead of the game.

They were a good team. They had two good players, including the coach's son who played the point. After The Playmaker, he was the best player we've seen all season.

And this is where things got interesting. The other team had just six players. The subbing should have been easy. Playing approximately five minute shifts, we probably subbed 10 times during the game. Guess how many times the coach's son came out?

If your answer was less than 1...BINGO. ..we have a winner! Zero times!

Let's continue.

Playing the entire game, the coach let his son dribble the ball down court EVERY single possession, except for the final two of the game. (As usual, we had a different player dribble the ball up every possession. To let the coach know he was a douche bag, we would call out the player's name whose turn it was and then add, "Everyone gets a chance to dribble with the Bucks!")

Let's continue (again). Back to the aforementioned last two possessions of the game, when the coach actually let someone other than his kid dribble. On those two possessions, while another kid dribbled, he ran his son off of a DOUBLE PICK to free him for the final two shots.

Oh. We forgot to mention that setting picks in the 1st/2nd grade league is effing ILLEGAL.

So to summarize:

*The coach played his star player/own kid the ENTIRE game.

*The coach let only his star player/own kid dribble the ball up the court for 99 percent of the game.

*The coach ran illegal picks on nearly every possession.

*Every one of our seven players got to bring the ball up the court multiple times.

*We were missing our 2nd best player, as well as two other good players.

*Their team had blown out all of its previous opponents.

Add all those things together, and we won 30-24. And we did it Playing The Right Way.

The Playmaker scored 14 points on 7-13 shooting. He also had 3 assists, 6 rebounds and 3 blocks. And he guarded the coach's son, which meant he worked harder on D than on the offensive end. Every time down he had to fight through and around picks. He never once bitched or complained. In fact, the coach's son was the baby who was bitching. After one layup, he ran by us and said matter of factly, "Your player fouled me."

Our response?!?

We looked him straight in the eye and said, "You travelled first."

Classic.

k

This was one win we made a Big Deal about.

Success, finally...

This YouTube mess, where videos wouldn't play on website via our desktop, drove us crazy for almost two weeks. The infuriating thing was that when we used Google Chrome as our web browser (instead of Internet Explorer), the videos were fine. And when we used our laptop (via Wi-Fi), the videos on the blog were fine using IE. At first we thought it was a Blogger (the site that houses this and millions of other blogs) issue. We went to the community help site and found that many other Blogger blogs were also having video issues. ***But then, why were we able to view the videos on the laptop?!? We traced the problem back to a Windows update two weeks ago. It was then that our video problems started on the desktop. We did countless searches looking for answers. And we waited for Blogger to solve the bug.

Low and behold it wasn't an IE or Blogger issue.

We woke up in the middle of last night and started going over the situation in our mind. (Feel free to call us a LOSER.) While we were quick to go to the Blogger help site, we had failed to even consider going to the YouTube help site. This morning we did. And it advised us to download the latest version of Adobe Flash Player.

We did. And now the problem has been solved. Woo-Woo!

So for anyone who has been (or is) unable to view YouTube videos on this blog, simply go to Adobe and download the latest version of Flash Player. Click here for the link. You'll be all set in less than 3 minutes. (And then you can see Obese try to wipe off Drew Brees' birthmark.)

Best we can do...

Jodie Meeks

Ummm, NO!

Tony Kornheiser hit on this recently, so we are just piling on. Hannah Storm looks just silly here. Not sure what look she's going for. The slutty/hot one, we guess. But it doesn't work. Not in the least. We wouldn't call her unattractive, not for a 47 year old. But this look must go.

Now.

Hurry.

Last week's brisket...

Injury report

It's not even 9:30 AM yet and we have sustained an injury. No, it didn't occur during our cold pre-dawn run this morning. Nor did it happen after the run when we walked the dog.

It happened doing something we have never (ever!) done before.

We injured our thumb...wait for it...playing the Wii.

For Christmas, Santa brought the Wii for us the kids. Nearly two months later, we finally played it today. The Playmaker got Backyard Football 2010 this week. An hour ago, he taught us how to play. Then we picked our seven player team (Tom Brady, Chris Johnson, Brian Urlacher, Mario Williams, AJ Hawk, The Playmaker himself -- we made him, and one more player whose name we don't remember).

The Playmaker gets 45 minutes a day during vacation to play the Wii. All of those minutes this week have gone into playing Backyard Football. And yet, we somehow had the lead, 21-20, with 2 seconds left on the clock. We went with our base D (four DBs playing cover two) that had worked so well for most of the game. We were pretty sure he was going to go to Calvin Johnson in the end zone, so we rotated our safety (who was, ironically, The Playmaker) to his side.

And what did the real life Playmaker do?!?

He hit Adrian Peterson on a crossing pattern underneath coverage and went 21 yards into the end zone for the winning score on the last play of the game.

The Playmaker 27
Us 21

And now we have a sore thumb from using the controller or nunchuck or whatever-the-hell-you-call-it-thing.

Ugh.

Perspective

Went to a wake today. A 45-year old mom in town died last weekend. We have coached her 11-year old daughter in basketball and soccer for several years. Very sad, obviously. It's a cliche, of course, but something like this puts things in perspective. Go home and hug the kids and your wife or husband. Tell 'em you love them.

Well, whataya know?!?

Just finished snow-blowing the driveway. We got about 4 1/2 inches. Guess the weathermen do occasionally make accurate predictions.

The videos are snow good...

For about a week now any YouTube videos shown here have failed to work. However, the weird thing is when we use/view Blogger in Google Chrome they are completely fine. Obviously that led us to believe it was, wait for it...an issue with Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Yet after doing some digging on the Blogger help site, it appears tons of other peeps are having the same issues with non-working videos; yet no one mentions anything about it being a Microsoft vs. Google issue. Regardless, we obviously will not be uploading any more YouTube videos until the kinks are worked out.

Snow update...

The snow is coming down at a good clip right now. It is supposed to continue into the evening commute. (Which means, obviously, we have already sent numerous texts, IMs and voice mails to The Mrs. telling her to cut out early this afternoon.) The Playmaker did his two hour baseball clinic this morning. The stations were: hitting off the tee, hitting in the cage off live pitching, infield ground balls and catching fly balls launched out of the JUGS machine. The highlight for The Playmaker was when he stung a line drive that hit the far end of the cage in the air. The coach yelled, "That's the furthest ball we've had all day! Who taught you to hit, Chase Utley?!?" (The Playmaker was, of course, wearing his your name Phillies authentic jersey.) Needless to say, the whole thing was captured on our 1080i HD video camera.

Run + Snow = :-)

We dare say it's snowing harder right now than at any time during the day of last week's "12-16 inch blizzard." We are supposed to get 4-6 out of this one. Who knows?!? As stated before, we have zero confidence in meteorologists. Anyway, the elliptical is on the DL (awaiting parts and a tech to install them -- amen to extended warranties). So we have started running outside for the first time since our two week stint in The Basement way back in August. The knees are tender and the quads are on fire. But there is something about running that is more fulfilling than the elliptical. And running in a pre-dawn snowstorm was simply fun. Check back later as our goal is to post six times today. We'll see...