After another alright week in fantasy football, going 2-1, I have moved up into fourth place in one league.  In the other league with a win I remain in third place.  And in the final league I fell into sixth place, from fifth, after the loss this weekend.  I also moved into first place in the college pick’em game and fell back into ninth in the NFL version.

My hockey team got crushed last night, 9-2.  We faced-off with another one of the traditionally good teams in the league, and paid for it severely.  I think we can blame most of our poor performances on the lack of team chemistry.  There are only a few guys left from the core group that I played with regularly for years.  We actually talked about it last night, and may end up making some changes in the next offseason.

I won’t be able to make this week’s bowling, as I’m catching a flight later tonight.  The good news is that I’ll be able to catch a Cincinnati Bearcat football game in person on Saturday.  This weekend is the homecoming matchup against Syracuse.  I’m really looking forward to being back on campus and catching a game.  Look for me on ESPNU.

We’ve had the new TV up and running for a couple of weeks now, and are finally starting to watch some things in HD.  We still have a backlog of recorded shows on the DVR that were not recorded in HD, so we have to get through those as well.  I’m already noticing that the DVR is filling much quicker with the HD recordings.  I’m aware of an updated cable box from Comcast that has a bigger hard drrive, but I need to clear this one off before making the switch.

Anyway, some of the new shows this fall that I’ve been enjoying are Mike & Molly, The Event, Chase, and Outsourced.  We have been also watching Better With You, Modern Family, Parenthood, and Raising Hope.  None of these have really become favorites of mine, but I can tolerate them enough to watch.  We tried My Generation, and that show definitely deserved to be canceled.  I’m curious to see if any of these can reach into my list of favorites, joining How I Met Your Mother, Chuck, and The Big Bang Theory.

Our son isn’t even born yet, and I’m already making sacrifices.  During a routine exam of the little guy this morning, I was given a flu shot!  This may sound like no big deal to many, but I’ve never had a flu shot, and I can’t remember another shot since I was given the chickenpox vaccine many years ago.  Yes, that’s right, I never had the chickenpox.  I’ve always had a bit of a needle phobia, but I sucked it up today just for the future.  Infants cannot get the flu shot when under six months in age, so we have to do what we can to prevent bringing the flu home.  I haven’t had the flu since I was little, and I don’t think Kim ever has, but you can never be too safe.  We wouldn’t want to get this little guy sick, would we?

We tried a newer place in town on Friday, Stoney’s Bar and Grill.  After meeting up with some other University of Cincinnati alumni the week prior, we suggested checking this place out for the next football game on TV.  As mentioned earlier, the Bearcats took on South Florida this past Friday, an eventual loss for the Cats.  But this isn’t about the game, it’s about Stoney’s.

Kim and I arrived just as the game was getting started to find a small group already seated just inside the front door.  They had arranged a large table, which we joined, and soon enough took advantage of their wonderful 2-for-1 happy hour.  This includes all drafts, premium wells (not sure what that means), Colorado wines and margaritas.  I decided to go with Great Divide’s newly released Hibernation Ale, which was just as great as I remembered it from last winter.

Halfway through the game we decided to order some food.  Stoney’s menu is pretty much limited to sliders, along with some sides and salads.  I ordered the chicken fried chicken sliders, which featured mashed Yukon potatoes and country gravy on the sliders, and decided to try the tater tots on the side. Kim had the Habanero roasted Colorado pork sliders served with Jack Daniels BBQ sauce with truffle Parmesan fries on the side.  All of the food was excellent, but if I had to pick a favorite it would definitely be the chicken fried chicken sliders.

The restaurant itself is a huge improvement over the prior occupant (Andrew’s on Lincoln).  There are over twenty TV’s and lots of space to accompany two large bars and skee-ball machines.  There are large garage doors across the front, which allow the nice Colorado air inside on the many nice days.  We had a great experience at Stoney’s and we will definitely be back.  I already know that I want to try the vegetarian black bean sliders, flash fried black bean cake and caramelized onion, served with spicy pineapple chutney.

Here’s another update on my world of sports.

I went 1-2 in fantasy football this past week.  Not my best performance, but I’m predicted to win all three games this weekend, so I’ll keep thinking positively.  Also I remain in the top half of the leagues: 3 of 12, 5 of 10, and 5 of 12.  I remain in second in college pick’em and moved up one spot to eighth in the pro level.

Hockey was pretty brutal this week, as we lost 7-2 to one of the perennial powerhouses in the league.  My team is sponsored by the bar/restaurant in the rink, while our opponents are actually sponsored by the rink itself.  With a 2-2 record, we are now in 7th place in the 12 team league.

Prior to last night’s round of bowling, my average was close to my new goal of 120.  It was at 114, but I expect that to possibly fall a little after last night’s performance.  My first game was a nice warmup score of 106.  However, my second game went down to 101, before I rebounded to finish at 126 for the third game.  My team should remain in first place, though we only took four of the possible seven points last night.  Fortunately the team closest to us lost all seven points last night.

We will be venturing out for a game watch tonight as the University of Cincinnati takes on the University of South Florida.  After last weeks win over Louisville, the Bearcats have won thirteen straight Big East Conference games, looking to take that even higher tonight.  For those interested in tuning in, the game is on ESPN2 at 8pm EDT.  Go Cats!

It was another early morning on our second full day in Grand Teton National Park.  We opted to skip sitting down for breakfast so that we could drive out to some popular viewing points for sunrise photos.  We first stopped at the Oxbow Bend, where we were treated to great views of Mount Moran, including a wonderful reflection in the still water of the Snake River.  Next, we drove out to the Snake River Overlook, which is a location that was made famous by Ansel Adams photo of the Grand Tetons.  My photo didn’t turn out nearly as well as his did, so we quickly moved on to the Schwabacher Landing.  This was my favorite location of the morning, with plenty of spots for great reflection photos.

We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around the southern roads of the park.  We spotted a bull moose just off the side of the road as it approached Moose Junction Entrance Station.  We also spotted a black bear down on the Moose-Wilson Road, around the same area we had spotted the moose a day earlier.  This area proved to be one of the better wildlife viewing places in Grand Teton.  We watched the bear for a while as it was feeding on berries.  There was a ranger nearby to keep the crowds inline, and he proved valuable when the bear suddenly decided to cross the road right where a group of us were standing.  He warned everyone not to move and to let the bear cross without startling him.  It worked, but I think Kim nearly freaked out.

The rest of the evening we spent down in Jackson, Wyoming, the majority of the time at Snake River Brewing.  We enjoyed a selection of food and beer while watching the University of Cincinnati Bearcats take on the Oklahoma Sooners.  The game didn’t turn out how I would have liked, but the Bearcats played well and could have won had a couple of plays gone differently.  As far as the beer goes, they were all very good, and I managed to sample quite a variety in the hours we were there.  Afterward, we drove back to the lodge for one last night before making the drive back to Denver the following day.  I think I have a few photos from the last day that I’ll get online soon.

Jackson on Dwellable

On our first full day in Grand Teton National Park, we woke to amazing views out of the cabin window at the Jackson Lake Lodge.  We had a quick, but enjoyable, breakfast at the Pioneer Grill inside of the lodge.  From there we drove out to Jenny Lake for an early hike toward Inspiration Point.  We had already decided to skip the ferry across the lake, and good thing we did, as we were too early and it wasn’t open yet.  We detoured from the trail for a quick attempt to see Moose at the Moose Ponds, but didn’t have any luck.

The hike around Jenny Lake was very nice and relatively flat.  The trail didn’t start gaining elevation until we approached Hidden Falls and then the short remainder of the hike up to Inspiration Point.  We sat here and enjoyed the view for a bit.  Afterward, we decided to continue to hike up into the Cascade Canyon, which I am really glad we did.  It didn’t take long for the views of the Canyon to be really great.  It was already getting late in the day, and we were pretty tired, so we decided to take the ferry back toward our car, cutting out a couple of miles on the return hike.

Once back in the car, we drove out to Moose-Wilson Road hoping to spot some wildlife.  We were quickly rewarded with great views of a moose cow.  She was busy feeding in a pond and didn’t mind the crowd of photographers.  As we were starting to get hungry for dinner, we started the drive back north towards the lodge.  We stopped at Signal Mountain for a quick drive to the top for views of the Teton Valley.  While in the neighborhood, we decided to have dinner at the Trapper Grill inside the Signal Mountain Lodge.  The meal was good, with food much better in quality than what we had while in Yellowstone.  In fact, all meals at Grand Teton were better than Yellowstone’s.  After dinner we headed back to the room to rest up for another full day in the park.

Jackson Hole on Dwellable

This past Saturday friends of our decided to host an Oktoberfest party.  They provided their handmade brats, and everyone else brought along a German side.  While researching my options, I realized that either Germans eat a ton of potatoes, or we Americans think they do.  Either way I decided to make potato pancakes based on this recipe.  The prep work wasn’t too bad, but cooking well over thirty pancakes took some time.  The recipe said to cook each side for about three minutes, but I found it was closer to four minutes.  At the suggestion of a few reviewers, I added parsley to the ingredients, but followed everything else exactly.  I wish I would have taken a picture of my creations, but they looked a lot like this.

Other items at the party included German potato salad, fries, sauerkraut, and even some home-brewed Hefeweizen!  It was all so good, and the potato pancakes were a hit as well.  Prost!

I attended my first Broncos game yesterday, along with Kim and a couple of our friends.  When our friends told us that they had some extra tickets for the game, we jumped on the chance to get face value seats for a pretty high demand stadium.  We arrived at a nearby church parking lot around 12:45, paid our $10, and had a few drinks and snacks.  Shortly before game time we walked over the stadium, but unfortunately were too slow to catch the opening kickoff.  Our seats were up in the 500 level, and though they were high up, the stadium is very well built so that we felt on top of the action.  This is definitely better than the upper seats I have sat in at Arrowhead in Kansas City, and on par with the uppers at Paul Brown in Cincinnati.

The fans were very energetic, and I was amazed at how much noise could be generated using lots of feet and the metal floor surfaces of the stands.  I’m told it is a little more calm in the lower sections, where season ticket holders for decades remain in their assigned seats for the most part.  However, it couldn’t get much crazier than the crowd in the upper sections.  Included were an individual two seats down from us with the most fowl mouth I have ever heard.  Even more surprisingly was that it was coming from a rather normal looking female.  We had the guy in front of us who tried unsuccessfully for a full quarter to start the wave.  As soon as he left his seat for a moment, the wave was on, originating just a few sections overs.

The game was a good one, full of excitement, some questionable calls, long field goals, and a few touchdowns.  We were able to see Tim Tebow’s first NFL touchdown, though I actually saw it from the concession line.  Matt Prater hit a 59 yard field goal at the end of the first half, the longest of his career, and the 8th longest in NFL history.  He later missed a 49-yarder.  So obviously there were some obvious high points for the Broncos’ fans but unfortunately they lost the game 24-20.  There were some really upset fans, many whom blamed the game on a questionable pass interference penalty late in the game.  We saw a couple of arguments, and what appeared like a royal rumble near the ramps exiting the stadium. I don’t know if we will be back to Invesco Field at Mile High, but it was quite a first experience.

Here’s a recap of what’s been going on in my sporting worlds.

First off, I had a respectable week in fantasy football, going 2-1.  My teams are all now 3-2 so far, and in the top half of all leagues.  I can’t ask for too much more than that, though a round of wins sure would be nice this week.  My pick in the survivor league really let me down.  I had San Diego over Oakland, which was wrong.  My other choice was Cincinnati over Tampa Bay, which was also wrong.  What the hell is wrong with the Bengals, anyway?  I remain in second in college pick’em, but fell to ninth in the pro league.

I had to miss hockey this week, but I’m told that we won a good game versus one of the better teams in the league.  We have another big game next week, that I will definitely be at.  Bowling last night was overall an alright night, and my team remains in first place.  Personally I bowled much better than last week, but not even close to two weeks ago.  My scores continued to go up as the night went on: 103, 124, 127.  My handicap was 108.  I’d expect it to go down a little bit, but probably not much.  I’d like to get that down to under 100 before the end of the season.  That would mean an average of over 120.  Currently only three people in the league are at that level.

Tonight, be sure to tune into ESPN at 8pm EDT to watch the University of Cincinnati Bearcats take on the Louisville Cardinals.  It’s a big rivalry game, and the start of Big East play, as Cincinnati looks to threepeat the league championship.  Go Cats!