Hopefully everyone had a nice Thanksgiving weekend. Kim and I spent some time in Cincinnati visiting with our families and friends. It was a great time and I cannot wait to spend even more time there around Christmas. We flew back to Denver on Friday and went out snowboarding for the first time on Saturday morning. Even with the snow from last week, the conditions were still pretty bad. We went to Keystone, our go to place from last season, and they only had 4 lifts running with just as few runs open. After two runs I started to feel a little ill so we drove back home to spend the rest of the day on the couch. I must have had one of those 24 hour flus that seem to be going around. I never got sick, but I had a killer stomach ache for most of the day and massive body pain. It appears to all be gone now. Has anyone else been affected?

I’ve got better things to do on Friday than head for the stores at the crack of dawn to save a few bucks, but if that’s your thing, you may want to check out TGI Black Friday. This site lists loads of deals for tons of stores, and even lets you know if the deal isn’t really that good and can be beaten online. I hope everyone has a nice turkey day, and if you do head out to the stores on Friday I hope you have lots of success. I’m outta here until Monday…

What a disappointing week in football. This includes the Bengals who lost to Arizona, the Bearcats who lost to West Virginia, and two of my fantasy teams that also lost. One of the loses came against the guy who is still in first place, but I should have beaten him. He had Marshawn Lynch active and he didn’t even play on Sunday! This is the worst of my teams, with a record of 4-7. I still think there is hope for the playoffs, but I will definitely need to win out. The guys I’m chasing are at 6-5. The good news is that I clinched a playoff spot in my other two leagues, despite losing in one. I’m currently in third place in that league with a 8-3 record. In the other, I’m still trailing Kim by points, but we are tied with 8-2 records for first place. I guess you can’t win them all.

Though we haven’t gone snowboarding yet this season, we have been thinking about it a ton. We have all of the gear we need and are just now waiting for some good snow. There are plenty of resorts open now, but they have so little snow that it doesn’t make the drive seem worthwhile. So, we gathered with thousands of others on Friday night at the Paramount Theatre (map) to watch Warren Miller’s latest film titled Playground. Before the movie began, the MC for the night encouraged everyone to get as loud as possible so that we could wake the snow gods and bless the mountains with tons of powder. Maybe it worked, since it appears that snow is on the way starting tomorrow! Hopefully we’ll be out enjoying some fresh powder this coming weekend.

Today we are starting yet another home improvement project, but just like the windows before, this is not something we are doing ourselves. We have a crew from The Premier Roofing Company doing what they do best, installing a new roof on our house. This was something that we knew needed to be done when we bought the house, we were just waiting for a good time to do it. Well, the time is now, especially before winter really sets in.

It’s been a little noisy so far today, as the crew ripped off the old roof all the way down to the frame removing multiple layers of shingles along the way, including possibly the original wood shake shingles. Now they are busy installing plywood decking to the frame, which is a much quieter process. Things are looking great so far and I can’t wait to see it all done with brand new shingles on the entire house. I’ve added some before and current pictures in this album, and will continue to take more as the process moves along.

We won yet another game in my hockey league last night. We typically only play once a week, but we had a game canceled a couple of weeks ago due to a power outages, and the makeup game was last night. This marks two wins in a row, which could be the first time this has happened since I joined the team. I didn’t get any points last night, as one of our players got four of our five goals and plays on the other line, but it was a pretty good game for our entire team. I’ll miss next weeks game, so I hope the downtime won’t affect my play too much. Go Monkees!

I’m finally adding some life to my new fish tank project. I just went down to a local store that specializes in saltwater and picked up a half dozen hermit crabs and a few snails. I should have written down exactly what I got, but I think the hermit crabs are called dwarf red tip hermit crabs. They are pretty small, all occupying shells that are around half an inch. I believe the snails are orange turbo snails. I thought they were another variety other than turbo, but I cannot find anything other than turbo snails while searching online. Either way, I don’t think it will matter too much. Currently, I am acclimating them from the water at the store to the water that is in my tank. I’ll be sure to take some photos once they are in the tank.

Edit: As promised, here are a few photos of the critters.

All I can see are W’s all across the board! I had three wins in each of my fantasy football leagues. My adult league hockey team also won another game last night, finally! I had a goal and an assist, taking my total to three goals and three assists in five games. Not bad. And finally the Bengals won and the Bearcats won. It was a great weekend in sports.

I am now in first place in two of my fantasy leagues (although Kim will claim that she is actually ahead of me still since she has more points than me, however we are still tied based on records alone). I’m 4-6 in the other league and closing in on the top half of the league. It’s still going to take a bunch of work to get there though. At least I’ve already claimed a playoff spot in the league Kim and I are tied.

As I mentioned last week, we headed to the Finger Lakes region of New York for my buddy Jay’s wedding. This region is the second largest producer of wine in the US, next to Napa Valley. We stayed in Geneva, on Seneca Lake, and explored the wineries around this lake. The wedding itself took place at the Belhurst Castle, and was a wonderful ceremony and an excellent reception. We all had such a great time and wish the newlyweds the best!

Before heading back to Denver, Kim and I made a quick detour to Niagara Falls. It was just over an hour from Rochester, where we were flying out, and Kim doesn’t think she had ever been there before. It was pretty cold for our visit, so we only stayed for a half hour, but we were able to see quite a bit of the area. More pictures from Niagara Falls can be found here, and wedding pictures are located here.

Finger Lakes on Dwellable

Anyone flying in or out of Cincy today? If so, look for me, as I’ll be making a mad dash from one plane to another. Don’t try to stop me though, our layover is only 38 minutes, and that’s assuming everything is on time. We are heading to upstate New York for a wedding of one of my longtime buddies from OARfans.com. I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures, as this should be a great one. Have a nice weekend…