Last night, while Kim was busy working on all of this house stuff, I took some time to create a new layout for Phil’s site. I was amazed that I could come up with that in just a couple of hours, especially when I’ve been working on my own redesign for months. I guess I’m just too picky. Kim agreed and called me a perfectionist. That’s not a bad thing, is it? Anyway, I figure this is gonna cost him a couple rounds at Brooksider! :)

I just sat in an hour and a half long meeting about the sales system that my company now sells. Basically, salespeople at every local television station use this software (or something similar) to sell commercial breaks to potential advertisers. It then hit me that the revenue brought in from these commercials eventually is what makes up my paycheck, since the television stations are mostly the ones who buy our software.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, I don’t think I’ve watched a commercial in months! Ever since I bought a ReplayTV box a couple of years ago, we have only watched recorded TV shows. Even when we watch the news in the morning, we watch it delayed so we can start at the beginning, which we often miss by ten minutes or more. I know there are tons of people (myself included) who are in love with DVR technology, but I hope it doesn’t catch on too much, at least not until I find myself at another job.

We are so unpredictable. One minute we both are thinking of how to move back to Cincinnati and then the next minute we are out looking at a house for sale. We started a few months ago by looking at a couple of condos that were close to the plaza (within a mile or so) and then moved on to houses from there. A few weeks ago we toured a house that was in our price range and in the plaza area only to find it was a complete piece of crap! From there we sort of gave up on the idea until Kim was contacted yesterday about a wonderful house that was affordable and close to the plaza. We toured it last night after work, and it really is a nice house in great condition. Who knows how long it will last but we are actually attempting to get info on it and do some additional research.

Wait, what was I just talked about? Moving to Cincinnati? You see what I mean.

Oh yeah, we looked at a house last night. After that was over we drove right up the street to Jazz for dinner. We had a gift certificate from awhile back that we had surprisingly not used yet. Dinner was delicious as were the drinks. After we were completely stuffed, and we collected enough leftovers to get stuffed once more, we headed home to watch some TV.

After my terrible predictions for the last couple rounds of the NCAA tournament one thing has been solidified, I will not be winning any of the fantasy leagues that I am in. Regardless of what happens I cannot get any more points in this tournament, but the same can also be said for all the other people at the bottom of each league.

I will finish in 10th place out of 11 in one of the tournaments. Guess who’s at the bottom though, finishing in last place? That’s right. Kim is, so at least I can claim victory in the apartment! In the other two tournaments I’m participating in, I will finish 40 out of 50 in one and 14 out of 16 in another. Pretty embarrassing, but who * would have thought that an eleven seed would be in the final four. I’ll be pulling for George Mason the rest of the tournament.

* I guess some people picked George Mason into the final four, whether they meant to or not.

My birthday weekend is now over. This 26 year old is back at work on what seems to be another typical Monday morning. Before I can say goodbye to the weekend here is my recap of the events.

After work on Friday I drove home to find boxes of wrapped gifts from Kim. She bought me all sorts of clothes and even a new pair of shoes. After opening all of the boxes we quickly drove down south towards Overland Park and Olathe (Kansas suburbs). We tried to get in a few different restaurants for dinner, but each place we went was packed and had hour long waits for a table. Luckily I remembered there was a Moe’s nearby, so we settled on burritos for dinner. Next up was a hockey game at Ice Midwest. This was not your typical game though, it was a “NHL rules” game that a couple guys from my team played in. This game had it all: big hits, nice goals, good goaltending and even a fight. The standing room only crowd was estimated to be 300 deep. Overall “Friday Night Lights” seemed to be a huge success, and the guys from my team said they would play again. From there we went back home to rest up for Saturday night.

During the afternoon on Saturday we preparred for a little party that would later take place in our apartment. Mike and Christie helped kick the party off shortly after dinner. We played a game of euchre before other partiers arrived, if I remember correctly the guys won! Todd stopped by early in the night, but had other events to attend. Doni, Phil, Maria, Christina, and Taylor all helped in celebrating my birthday. Later in the night we made a trip up to The Levee for some music and a couple rounds. All in all it was a very nice birthday party!

Sunday turned out to be a fairly nice day, so we started off at the driving range with Maria. I hit everything really well except for the stupid 6 iron. I could not get that one right, and I’m still not sure why. Hopefully next weekend we can squeeze in a round of golf. From there we had lunch at Ponak’s and completely stuffed ourselves. Next time we go, I’ll have to try one of their Margarita’s which I’ve heard great things about. After lounging on the couch for a few hours, I drove up north for the first round of playoff hockey. We faced off with the same team we beat up on just one week earlier. This must have got to them though because they came out flying and hustled the whole game. In the end we lost our second game of the season, and will be playing for 3rd place this coming weekend. I guess it was only a matter of time before we lost.

Up and down the puppies’ hair
Fleas and ticks jump everywhere
’cause of original sin
Down the hill fell jack and jill
And you came tumbling after
’cause of original sin
Rip away the tears
Drink a hope to happy years
And you may find
A lifetime’s passed you by
What would you say
Don’t drop the big one
If you a monkey on a string
Don’t cut my lifeline
If you a doggie on a chain
Don’t bite the mailman
What would you say
I was there when the bear
Ate his head, thought it was a candy
Everyone goes in the end
Knock knock on the door
Who’s it for, there’s nobody in here
Look in the mirror my freind
I don’t understand at best
And connot speak for all the rest
The morning rise a lifetime’s passed me by
Every dog has it’s day every day has it’s way
Of being forgotten
Mom it’s my birthday
What would you say

-DMB

College basketball is back on TV again tonight. Here are my picks for who I’d like to see win in this round:

• Duke over LSU – I picked Duke
• West Virginia over Texas – I picked WV
• Memphis over Bradley – I picked Memphis
• UCLA over Gonzaga – I picked Marquette, so I really don’t care
• Washington over Connecticut – I picked Washington
• Wichita State over George Mason – I picked Wichita State up to this point but unfortunately had Michigan State winning this game
• Villanova over Boston College – I picked Nova
• Georgetown over Florida – I didn’t pick Florida, so screw everyone who did

If all of these happen I could improve my position in all of my fantasy leagues, since I have the same picks in all of them. I am currently in 4th out of 16 in one, 4th out of 11 in another, and 20th out of 50 in the last.

Let’s not forget about Cincinnati, who has won two games in the NIT tournament and will be playing against South Carolina tonight in the quarterfinals. In other Bearcat related news, Bob Huggins will be following my lead and moving out to Kansas to become the coach of the Kansas State Wildcats. This could be the only time you’ll see me cheer for a team that wears purple!

The delay in today’s update was due to yesterday’s double post that would not go away (although it is now gone). I didn’t notice that the update from yesterday was posted twice until I got to work this morning. I then spent quite some time trying to delete one of the entries. I’m not sure if it was blogger acting up, or my computer at home, but I cannot wait until the conversion to wordpress is complete.

Last night we hung out with Bianca for a couple of hours. Kim actually made dinner and it was pretty tasty. After we ate, Kim and Bianca did some homework while I worked on a couple of things for Ed Hearn. He wanted to put a new image on the front page, so I created a couple of examples for him and we eventually went with the one that is on there now. Other than that, I’ve been very busy at work trying to meet a deadline at the end of the month. I think I’m actually getting close to completing it, so perhaps I’ll have more free time in the near future.

Yesterday was the first official day of spring and with it came lousy weather. Usually you expect spring to be a little rainy, but starting just after work yesterday we got snow! I checked the weather before leaving work and saw that we were under a “winter storm warning,” which I guess doesn’t only apply to winter. I heard predicted snowfall amounts in the neighborhood of 2 to 4 inches. In the end it didn’t amount to much, less than an inch, but just north and west of here got over a foot of snow!

You always hear that April showers bring May flowers, well what about March snow showers? What do those bring us? Perhaps it kills all the flowers resulting in fewer allergies for us to deal with in the next couple of months. It never hurts to think positively, right?

I got up at the normal time on Friday morning and drove out to the airport. No problems with my flights, although I must admit that the flight from Cincinnati to Dayton was pretty pointless. By the time portable electronic devices were allowed I only had time to listen to one song on my mp3 player before I was tapped on the shoulder and told it was time to shut it down. If it will save me a couple hundred bucks I guess its worth it. Anyway, Kim picked me up in Dayton and we drove over to my parents’ house.

Later in the night we headed down to the Holy Grail with my parents and my brother. We met up with Fighty, Liam, and the Hemmelgarns there and after a few rounds of Guiness we walked over onto UC’s campus for the second round NIT game against Charlotte. Unlike most college’s across the country, UC typically serves beer at the games, but unfortunately the NIT does not allow it. We all had great seats on the end of the court in the student section. At halftime we headed up to the UCATS Club after Fighty heard that it was open to the public for this game. We watched the second half of the game from up there and had drinks served through the end of the game. It made the bearcat victory even better!

After the game we spent a couple of hours at Christy’s and ran into a bunch of family members of mine and Kim’s. And of course, no night in Cincinnati is complete without a late night trip through the Skyline drive-thru.

After hanging out at my parents’ on Saturday we went to my aunt and uncles house for Emma’s 1st birthday party. In case you have forgotten, Emma is my godchild. It was nice to see everyone again, although we could only stay for an hour or so.

My buddy from high school, Jeff, was getting married and we were already skipping the ceremony so we didn’t want to be late for the reception. After picking up Jon, another buddy of mine, we finally arrived at Ivy Hills Country Club for the reception. There we met up with yet another friend, Chris, and his wife. I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years, so it was nice to catch up. The food was good, the band was great, the fireworks were a nice touch, and it was a very nice reception. This will probably be the only wedding that I ever go to that has a 15 minute fireworks display. I was a little disappointed by the lack of musical accompaniment, but I guess you can’t have everything. :) Congrats to Jeff and his wife Megan!

Our next stop after the reception was at Million’s to meet up with Amy and some of her friends. That bar has really changed since the last time I was there, but I was just happy that it wasn’t too crowded.

We got up early on Sunday and drove over to the Hais’ house. Kim’s brother Jason had a birthday present to give to me, and wanted to see us before we left Cincinnati. He made a marble mouse pad for me, something he has learned to do at his new job. I also got a bottle of Woodford Reserve from her family. I can’t wait to open that up! It was nice to see everyone again, and meet James, their latest foster child. Kim’s sister Bobbi drove us to the airport, complete with a trip on the Anderson Ferry and a stop at the Gap outlet store. This ended our trip to Cincinnati, but we’ll be back again soon.

I had another hockey game last night to round out the weekend. We won yet another game to finish the regular season undefeated. We don’t count our overtime shootout loss as a real loss. The playoffs start next weekend and hopefully we can win the mini tournament.