Disclaimer

If you do not know me (I mean, really know me) then there is something you need to understand before you read this blog: I value the truth above everything else... except a good laugh. A good laugh will almost always beat the truth as far as I’m concerned. Everything you read on this blog will be true, somewhat true, or something I made up in an effort to get a laugh. Sometimes I will go on a rant that I don’t really mean (or only kind of mean). Sometimes I will mean what I write only to completely change my mind a year, month, or day later. Such is life. By reading this blog you agree not to get offended by anything I write (or, at the very least, you agree not to tell me or anyone else that you are offended). It is worth noting that my employer does not endorse my blog (or even read it, to tell you the truth). The Wife also does not endorse my blog (though she will read it from time to time). I am not paid to write this... it’s just my way of giving back to the community. I have, and will, touch on a wide range of subjects and will give my opinion on these subjects. Again, most of what I say is for laughs but every now and then I will say what I really think and feel (see my views on Westboro Baptist Cult). How will you know when I’m serious and when I’m trying to get a laugh? You’ll know. And if you don’t know, well... maybe this isn’t the best thing for you to be reading. So, sit back, read and enjoy. Leave comments if you want and don’t be afraid to publicly follow me.



Thursday, January 13, 2011

Haven’t we been here before?

Ok, I need to get some things out of the way before I tell my story from yesterday. So here we go…

Congrats to Jeremy on winning his fantasy football league. He joined an established league and in his first season won the championship. Knowing how highly competitive the other owners in the league are makes his winning that much more impressive. Not to mention the fact that the previous owner of his team didn’t leave him much to work with. Anyway, congrats to Jeremy.

Next, Happy (late) Birthday to I’m just sayin… friend, Clark. His birthday was this past Tuesday. Also, congrats to his Auburn Tigers who received a good return on their investment when they won the “Championship” game earlier this week. We at I’m just sayin…, of course, don’t believe in the BCS or their “Championship” and we’re pretty confident that Auburn cheated and will at some point have to give back this “Championship” that they won… but we won’t let that stop us from being happy for Clark and all the other Auburn fans out there. So, funny story (to me, at least) regarding a misunderstanding (on my part) of a text I got from Clark: I sent Clark a text the night of his birthday saying something like: Happy Birthday! Hope it’s a good one. (I know, real original). I hadn’t been feeling well that day, so not long after I sent the text I turned off my phone and took some medicine and went to bed. Let’s see, that was Tuesday night… so yesterday morning, I turn my phone back on and a minute or two later it beeps letting me know I’ve received a text message. It's from Clark and it said something like: Thanks amigo. I got a great gift last night. Two things you need to keep in mind here:  1.  I'd just got done reading a prediction at the bottom of this post from my friend at Our Life and 2. I’m getting this on Wednesday, the day after his birthday. So, naturally, when I read “last night” I’m thinking the night of his birthday. Well, Clark is a happily married man… so of course my next thought was “Wow… this is kind of awkward. I don’t really need to hear about what goes on in his house the night of his birthday. Not so sure his wife would be happy to hear him bragging about such things”. So I’m sitting there trying to figure out how to respond when I noticed that, while I didn’t receive the text until Wednesday morning, it was actually sent Tuesday night… which would mean “last night” meant Monday night which would mean the “great gift” was the Auburn win. So that made things less awkward. And it made it easy for me to respond… but I don’t think I ever did respond because……… more on that later.

We went to see Lucas this past Sunday (before I was sick). Two amazing things happened. Well, really it was one thing but it was amazing for two different reasons. What was it? I held Lucas. Why was this amazing?

1. I have a policy against holding newborns (my children being the exception). I typically don’t like to hold children until they are able to support their head on their own.

2. The Wife has a policy against letting anyone hold a baby while she is in the room (our children being the exception). She is what some people call a “baby hog”.

Anyway, here is a picture of me and my little buddy Lucas:


So, let’s look back and see how I did with the last football picks I made:

I’m just sayin... Bowl Predictions Results

New Mexico Bowl - I picked BYU and I was right! (1-0)

uDrove Humanitarian Bowl - I picked Fresno State and I was wrong. (1-1)

R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl - I picked Troy and I was right! (2-1)

Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl - I picked Louisville and I was right! (3-1)

MAACO Bowl - I picked Boise State and I was right! (4-1)

San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl - I picked Navy and I was wrong. (4-2)

Sheraton Hawaii Bowl - I picked Hawaii and I was wrong. (4-3)

Little Caesars Pizza Bowl - I picked Florida International and I was right! (5-3)

AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl - I picked Georgia Tech and I was wrong. (5-4)

Champs Sports Bowl - I picked NC State and I was right! (6-4)

Insight Bowl - I picked Missouri and I was wrong. (6-5)

Military Bowl - I picked Maryland and I was right! (7-5)

Texas Bowl - I picked Baylor and I was wrong. (7-6)

Valero Alamo Bowl - I picked Arizona and I was wrong. (7-7)

Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl - I picked SMU and I was wrong. (7-8)

New Era Pinstripe Bowl - I picked Kansas State and I was wrong. (7-9)

Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl - I picked North Carolina and I was right! (8-9)

Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl - I picked Nebraska and I was wrong. (8-10)

Meineke Car Care Bowl - I picked Clemson and I was wrong. (8-11)

Hyundai Sun Bowl - I picked Miami and I was wrong. (8-12)

AutoZone Liberty Bowl - I picked Georgia and I was wrong. (8-13)

Chick-fil-A Bowl - I picked South Carolina and I was wrong. (8-14)

TicketCity Bowl - I picked Texas Tech and I was right! (9-14)

Outback Bowl - I picked Penn State and I was wrong. (9-15)

Capital One Bowl - I picked Alabama and I was right! (10-15)

Gator Bowl - I picked Mississippi State and I was right! (11-15)

Rose Bowl Game Presented By Vizio - I picked TCU and I was right! (12-15)

Tostitos Fiesta Bowl - I picked Oklahoma and I was right! (13-15)

Discover Orange Bowl - I picked Virginia Tech and I was wrong. (13-16)

Allstate Sugar Bowl - I picked Arkansas and I was wrong. (13-17)

GoDaddy.com Bowl - I picked Middle Tennessee and I was wrong. (13-18)

AT&T Cotton Bowl - I picked Texas A&M and I was wrong. (13-18)

BBVA Compass Bowl - I picked Pittsburgh and I was right! (14-18)

Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl - I picked Nevada and I was right! (15-18)

Tostitos BCS “National Championship” - I picked Auburn and I was right! (16-18)

So I went 16-18 in my Bowl predictions… not bad considering I did zero research before picking the games.

So back to the reason I didn’t respond to Clark’s text. As I was about to, I got a call from the day care. Mary Ruth had slipped on some ice and hit the back of her head on the sidewalk. She was complaining that her head and tummy hurt. Ok, I said, I’ll come pick her up. As it just so happens, I was home sick yesterday. My plan was to sleep all day and get better. So much for my plan. Oh, in case you are sitting there thinking “Haven’t I heard this story before?”, the answer is probably yes. Back in August she suffered a concussion when she fell (again at day care) and hit her head. So I go pick her up and on the way home I call Mom and Dad. I’m thinking I should probably take her to the doctor but it always helps to have Mom and Dad confirm what I’m thinking. Well, as I’m talking to Mom, I hear a little voice behind me say “Daddy, I’m tired” (uh-oh, that’s not a good sign) followed by “I’m going to throw-up” (oh crap) followed by… well, you can guess. (By the way, I haven’t had a chance to clean up the car… so if you want to go somewhere with me it might be best if you drive). So we head home (to get the truck… and a trash can). On the way I call the doctor to see what I should do. He said go to the ER. I call The Wife to tell her. She came home and the three of us head down to my favorite Children’s ER. For any of you scoring at home, this was Mary Ruth’s 3rd trip to this ER. While you’re scoring, note that none of these trips were my fault. Anyway, we get her in and they tell us that it will be about a 30 minute wait before they could get her a CT scan. About 10 minutes later Mary Ruth started throwing-up again and, hey, look at that… they were able to take her for that CT scan right now. So we go (and by we, I mean me and MR… The Wife couldn’t go because of her “condition”) to get the CT scan. Mary Ruth did a great job laying still so they could do the scan. She also got a kick out of seeing me in the apron that I had to wear to stay in there with her. After her scan, we went back to the room to sit and wait. I had texted some people earlier (KC, Danny, and Jenn) and decided I would text one more person… so I sent a text to my friend Jen (wife of Danny) who works in the same Children’s Hospital that we were then sitting in. She immediately grabbed the nurse who is in charge of the ER and stormed out of a very important, high-level meeting telling everyone that some VIP’s were in the ER and she wasn’t just going to have us sit in a room like commoners. Ok, that’s not 100% true (it might not even be 10% true) but she was in a meeting when she got my text and she did end up coming to see us. If I was the kind of person to keep score of such things (or to rank my friends), I’d point out that of all the people I sent a text to, Jen was the only one to come see us. Wait a minute… :) Anyway, it’s also worth pointing out that Jen seems to be the only person at this Children’s Hospital to be able to call Mary Ruth by her actual name (and not just “Mary”). We’ve been over this whole Mary vs. Mary Ruth thing before, but it still bothers me. I knew when we named her that this would end up being a life-long issue, but it still amazes me sometimes. With each person who came in the room, we made it a point to call her Mary Ruth… and yet each person called her Mary. At one point, a doctor came in to run some tests. Mary Ruth was asleep at the time, so the doctor stood by her and said “Mary” trying to wake her up. I wasn’t sure if this was part of the tests or not, so I cheated a little and shook Mary Ruth and said “Wake up Mary Ruth”. I’m not sure if it was really cheating… the doctor might have kept her hands off of Mary Ruth because she just didn’t want to touch her, but I didn’t think the test was fair. I mean, her name is Mary Ruth… I don’t expect her to answer to Mary. Just like I don’t expect The Wife to answer to The. Anyway, they were never able to catch on to the whole double-first name thing. MR did good on the tests which earned us the right to hang around and watch tv while we waited. It seems they had an emergency down the hall (who knew that could happen in an ER?). Honestly, the waiting didn’t really bother me. I was able to sit and read my Christmas present from Dad and Mom (Decision Points by former President George W. Bush). Well, I was able to read it until a nurse came in and turned off the bright overhead light because Mary Ruth said she wanted her to. Note to the nurse, when the little kid in the bed is the one paying the bills you can do what she wants, otherwise it would be nice to check with the guy sitting next to her reading a book. We did have one doctor come in about three times before I was able to understand what he was saying. And he said so little that I wasn’t sure why he even came in. But maybe he thought we would like to know they hadn’t forgotten about us… so that was nice of him. It is interesting to note that we seemed to get a LOT more attention when Jen was in there with us. Perhaps she is more important at her workplace than she lets on. Some of the workers actually started shaking when they walked into our room and saw her there. She always smiled at them, but I’m pretty sure her eyes were telling them “Keep the fat guy in the chair happy or I’m going to have to read about this on his stupid blog”… or something along those lines. It was looking like we might have to stay overnight, but then Jen came by (as she was leaving to go home and cook a wonderful meal for her husband) and what do you know… we got to go home. Really, they let us go because Mary Ruth was able to drink some juice and eat some crackers without throwing-up. So we left the hospital around 5:45 and Mary Ruth threw-up in the van around 5:46. But we were gone and we weren’t going back. I’ll end this story by telling you that on our way home we picked up Susie from The In-Laws house and had to listen to her say “Snack!” the whole way home. Over and over and over and over and over…

We went to our doctor today and he said that he thinks Mary Ruth will be ok. And he gave me some medicine, so I should be ok soon, too.

The I’m just sayin... Playoff Football Predictions

Saturday

Pittsburgh vs. Baltimore 4:30pm (CBS) – Leave the women and children home for this one. I expect some hard hitting and it wouldn’t shock me if some guys limp away from this one. It’s a home game for the Steelers so I’ll pick them to win by 3.

Atlanta vs. Green Bay 8:00pm (FOX) – I’m picking Atlanta to win this one by 7.

Sunday

Chicago vs. Seattle 1:00pm (FOX) – I’m picking Seattle with the upset 3 point win.

New York Jets vs. New England 4:30pm (CBS) – The Jets are good, but it’s hard to pick against New England. I’m picking New England by 7.

Winthrop Update: Winthrop plays at Coastal Carolina tonight. It won’t be easy for the Eagles to come out of Conway with a win over the Probation-waiting-to-happen Coastal Carolina “University”. Go Eagles!

Know Your Medal of Honor Recipients:

Captain of the Top John F. Bickford (US Navy) received his Medal of Honor for his actions on June 19, 1864 while on board the USS Kearsarge. His citation reads:

Served on board the U.S.S. Kearsarge when she destroyed the Alabama off Cherbourg, France, 19 June 1864. Acting as the first loader of the pivot gun during this bitter engagement Bickford exhibited marked coolness and good conduct and was highly recommended for his gallantry under fire by his divisional officer.

Corporal Matthew Bickford (US Army) received his Medal of Honor for his actions on May 22, 1863 at Vicksburg, Mississippi. His citation reads:

Gallantry in the charge of the "volunteer storming party."

First Lieutenant Charles G. Bickham (US Army) received his Medal of Honor for his actions on May 2, 1902 at Bayong, near Lake Lanao, Mindanao, Philippine Islands. His citation reads:

Crossed a fire-swept field, in close range of the enemy, and brought a wounded soldier to a place of shelter.

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