Something happened over the weekend that I haven’t experience in a long time, I was on a winning hockey team!  My team for weekly adult league hasn’t won a game yet this session, and we’ve played six games now.  One of the guys I’ve played with for a while now asked me to join his team over the weekend for the 2009 Gobbler Classic tournament.  We were scheduled to play one game on Friday evening and two on Saturday.  I must admit that I haven’t played that much hockey in a long time, probably since high school.  I may have played in tournament while living in Kansas City, but even that would have been at least three years ago.

The tournament started off great.  My team was able to score four quick goals in our first game, and we were able to hang onto a 5-2 victory.  Our second game was on Saturday afternoon, and though we held the lead for much for much of the game, it was close toward the end.  We ended up pulling out another win.  Though I don’t recall the exact score, I think we won by two goals.  Our third game was on Saturday at ten o’clock.  This game was against the best opponents we faced, and in the end we lost the game 2-1.  The other team’s roster was filled with many younger players, and anyone could tell the non-stop hockey action had taken its toll on our older team.

With that said we still had enough points to make it to the championship game on Sunday.  Again we were going up against the team that had just beaten us the night before.  Right from the start you could tell this was going to be a different game, even though it remained scoreless for some time.  Eventually we started scoring goals, and it didn’t end until we were up 4-0.  Our opponents managed to get a couple of goals by the end of the game, but it was clear that our team was rested and had come to win!  We were awarded our championship long-sleeved t-shirts after the game, and had a couple of beers in the parking lot afterward.  It was a nice weekend for lots of hockey.

For the second year in a row, we are not traveling for Thanksgiving.  We will instead be staying in Denver with lots of fun activities planned along with some work around the house.  Should be a busy weekend.  I hope everyone out there has a nice turkey day and long weekend.  I am likely signing off until Monday…

No Bearcat football game this weekend and a terrible Bengals game didn’t make for a good weekend.  Rather than dwell on that disappointment of a game, here’s an update on my fantasy football games.  I went 2-1 in standard fantasy football play.  As far as the losing team goes, it was in one of my money leagues.  In this league, I am now in 6th of 12 teams.  The playoff cutoff is 6, so I need some big games over the next couple of weeks.  In the other money league, I am now in 4th of 10 after this weeks win.  Again the playoff cutoff is 6, so I’m in a little better shape.  However I have to take on the league leader this week.  And in the other standard league, I’m in 3rd of 8.  This is the league that Kim continues to dominate and I don’t think I have a chance of catching her since there are no playoffs.  Looks like I could potentially finish this year better than the last few years.

I finally bought The Beatles: Rock Band over the weekend.  After only playing it for a couple of hours so far, I must say that it is just as great as I originally thought it would be.  I’ve only unlocked about a dozen of the songs so far, but have already played most of them more than once.  The songs actually seem to be harder than other songs from past Rock Band games, perhaps it’s the lack of chords and quick switches between notes.  All I need now is to finally purchase another guitar controller, and possibly some additional microphones.  For the first time in Rock Band history, this game allows for background vocals and harmonies.  I think it would be pretty cool to sing along while rocking out the guitar or drums.  I don’t think this game will be leaving the Wii for awhile.

There’s a new bar in town!  The Rackhouse Pub opened about twenty days ago, adjacent to the Stranahan’s distillery. We decided to check it out last night, along with a bunch of other folks, as part of a monthly Denver Tweetup. Essentially a Tweetup is an announced location for users of Twitter to gather for socializing and such. True, it sounds pretty nerdy, but you have to remember that I’ve met many of my good friends online before ever meeting in person. Times are a-changin’.

Anyway, I was really impressed with the Rackhouse. They have a great selection of Colorado beers, all for a great price. It may have just been a special last night, but beers were just three and four dollars a piece, and this is for great beers, like Breckenridge, Odells, and New Belgium, just to name a few. We were also pleasantly surprised by the food. The white bean chicken chili that Kim ordered was excellent, as was the whiskey chicken sandwich I had. And though we didn’t try the pizza, all of those looked great as well.

We also stuck around to take part in our first ever Geeks Who Drink trivia night. I have to admit that I was a bit intimidated by the idea of bar trivia, as it can often be really difficult. However, we managed to make it all the way up to first place at one point in the game, and that was with very little cheating. In the end we finished way back in eleventh, but it was still a good time, and perhaps something we should try again. After all, I am a geek and I do like to drink.

Last night, Kim and I headed downtown to see Ray LaMontagne play a solo show at the Ellie Caulkin Opera House. I’ve seen him a couple of times before, but I believe that he had always had at least one person playing with him. Playing solo last night definitely subdued the overall feel, but allowed for his wonderful voice to really shine. With that said, I still think that I’d prefer to see him play with other musicians included.

Prior to last night, I had always thought that Ray was sort of introverted. And though he admitted that he doesn’t really like to be in the spotlight, he opened up last night telling stories and laughing along with the crowd. That definitely helped lighten the load of rather somber music. In the room normally reserved for opera performances, the crowd remained seated the entire show. Pictures were not allowed at all, and the tuxedoed ushers made sure to enforce the rule.  I still managed to grab a couple of quick photos with my iPhone from our seventh row seats.

I realize that those pictures leave a lot to be desired.  Fortunately, I found a small collection of photos from his concert the night before, also at the same venue.  The Denver Post also has this review of the same performance posted online.  The setlist last night had many similarities to this one at the bottom of the review, including the same covers.  I’m not sure if our main set was shorter than the night before or not, but we actually had a four song encore instead of two.  Either way the hour and half performance was easily worth the price of our tickets.  I just hope that he brings along some additional musicians in the future.

Entries for the last two times I’ve seen Ray LaMontagne:

• September 20, 2005
• August 11, 2008

I think I’m many years behind in saying this, but I’ve created my first flash animation.  I’ve had Adobe ImageReady installed on my computer for a while, since it is installed with Photoshop, but I’ve never really used it.  I’ll be honest and admit that I’m not that big of a fan of flash-based websites, especially with the increased use of mobile browsers and their lack of flash support, but I feel that it can be useful in moderation on websites.  Anyway, to create a simple flash animation, I created individual slides in Photoshop and then transferred them into ImageReady and used the built-in Tween command to automatically transition between slides.  The result is pretty smooth, and I was able to save the animation directly into flash from inside of ImageReady.

Friday night, Kim and I headed to the Paramount Theatre for the latest Warren Miller movie, Dynasty.  Kim organized a group of 25 for the movie and got great seats for us.  Not only do people generally enjoying watching the movie, it’s also a fun way to get pumped up for the season with the loud sold-out crowd.  Not to mention the free lift tickets that are included with each ticket.  However, I didn’t think this movie was as good as in years past.  I didn’t feel that the skiing was nearly as good as it’s been in the past, and there were very little snowboarding segments.  Though one of the better segments of the night featured ten-year-old Alexis Roland, who appeared to be a better snowboard than me.  Another good segment showed the disabled mono skiers at the X Games.  Most of the other segments showcased beautiful backdrops, so if nothing else it was cool to see some other resorts across the globe.

Wow, another great weekend to be a Cincinnati football fan with wins for both the Bearcats and the Bengals.  The University of Cincinnati Bearcats defeated 25th ranked West Virginia on Friday night 24-21.  I was hoping for a more decisive win, but the game was fun to watch anyway.  The Cats are now 10-0 for the first time in school history and were the first BCS team to reach 10 wins.  Speaking of the BCS, they remain the 5th ranked team in pretty much every poll including the BCS standings.

Yesterday the Bengals beat the Steelers for the second time this season, the first time doing so since 1998.  As long as they beat Cleveland in two weeks, they will sweep the division!  With a 7-2 record they are now sitting on top of the division and second in the conference.  Beating Pittsburgh is always great, but doing it twice in one year feels wonderful for the fans.  I’m hoping this winning streak can continue even more.

Fantasy football also treated me well this weekend.  I won two games and will lose the third.  The wins come in both of my money leagues.  I was 8th of 12 teams and 6th of 10 in these leagues and I can’t wait to see where I stand after the game tonight.  After four straight wins in the non-money league, this loss shouldn’t hurt too bad.  I was in 4th of 8 teams.  Also I’m happy to report that I am the winner of the survivor league.  I stuck with Miami over Tampa Bay, while the other contender chose Denver over Washington.  Miami won, while Denver lost, so I am the sole survivor of the game!

Last night I spent some time down in the basement, working on my finishing project, for the first time since April. I guess the warmer months didn’t provide me with much opportunity to stay inside and work. Now that the sun is setting before I’m even off work, I hope I’ll be able to dedicate some time to the project once again.  Anyway, last night I finished patching a ten square foot section of the floor that was not even close to level with the rest of the basement. Nearly a year ago, I filled in most of it, and I finally finished it off with some resurfacing mix that is much smoother. I forgot to get a picture, but may post one in the future.  I still need to decide what we want to do to finish the flooring, but that may be able to wait while the walls are constructed. Hopefully that will start soon. Nearly a year after I started working on the project, I’ve yet to get much accomplished, but I’m hoping that will all change this winter.