I am desperately trying to finish this year’s Jenny Challenge. After today’s 7 mile run, I am still 21.6 miles short. That means some busy days ahead as I try to finish the miles before Christmas. Fortunately the weather forecast looks decent enough that I might be able to finish. Without access to a treadmill, keeping my fingers crossed for good weather has been my only option.

I know most of you probably find this boring, but this should be one of the last fantasy football updates for a long while. My fantasy teams went 3-1 this past week. Unfortunately one of the losses came in the championship semifinals. I will be playing for 3rd place this week. In another league I have advanced to the championship and have guaranteed myself $90, but could win $180! In another league I’m playing for 7th place and in the last league I wound up in 11th place (ouch). I remain in 1st place in pro pick’em and 4th in salary cap.

This past Saturday was Christmas in Loveland. Kim, Trey, and I headed out to visit with my parents and take in the sights of this annual festive event. We spent most of the time on the patio of Paxton’s  enjoying drinks and a fire pit. From there we had a perfect view across Loveland Ave toward the live nativity, various choir performances, and the horse-drawn carriage rides that were frequently going past. The weather outside was far from frightful, so the crowds were large, and it was overall a fun night out in the burbs.

Santa Band

After waiting over an hour for a table, we eventually settled in to The Works Brick Oven Restaurantfor dinner. The nice thing was that we were able to put our name in, along with a cell phone number, and they called us when the had a table available. That meant that we were able to enjoy the festivities rather than waiting inside the restaurant for a table. Later, during dinner at The Works, we were treated to a surprise visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus, along with the thirty piece Santa Band.

Santa And Mrs. Claus

Tickets for the 5th annual Cincy Winter Beerfest  are now on sale. If you purchase them before Christmas, you can get VIP tickets for the same price as regular tickets, just $35 each. VIP includes early entry, 25 samples, and an 8oz souvenir glass. The festival takes place over two nights and includes 300+ beers. We are planning to go VIP style for the Friday evening session if anyone would like to join us.

Also Hoperatives  is putting on the 5B:  Believers in Better Beer, Bites and Blogging Conference to be held Saturday, February 11, 2012. “5B is a one-day blogging conference featuring sessions on beer blogging, food blogging and blogging in general.” Registration is just $50 and includes a general admission ticket for Friday night and a Connoisseur ticket for Saturday night. You can also upgrade to a Connoisseur ticket for Friday night as well for just $25 extra. This is definitely the way to go, and I just submitted my registration. The only catch is you have to be  affiliated with an active blog, which means at least eight posts in the last two months.

Slowly but surely we are finally decorating parts of our new home. After long days of working, cleaning, let alone decorating, is the last things we want to do. We would much rather sit down for a nice meal and spend the evening playing with Trey. That has left us with weekends and those rare moments during the week when Trey isn’t around for our decorating needs.

World Travels

We also just recently finished moving all of Trey’s bedroom stuff into a bigger room, as he was quickly outgrowing the smallest room in the house. Now the office is in the smallest room and I have already grown to like the layout and have started hanging decorations on the wall. The first thing to go up was our cool world travel map that we got for Christmas a few years back. Next up will be my gold record along with a selection of my coolest O.A.R. posters, all of which can be viewed in pictures from the last time I decorated our Denver office. I’ll try to get more pictures of this office online once the transformation is complete. Plus I probably owe some photos of Trey’s new digs too.

So much of this week’s sporting news in Cincinnati has focused on the Crosstown Shootout  Beatdown. If you have no idea what I’m writing about, a big fight broke out with seconds left in the annual basketball game between the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University and the game had to be ended prematurely. There has been a lot of finger-pointing since the brawl and now suspensions have been issued and  apologies  have been made. Hopefully the universities can find a way to continue this great rivalry game without results like this. If you have time for it, UC  head-coach  Mick Cronin had some good things to say after the game.

In other news, my hockey team has continued our winning ways! I netted two goals in our big win over a team that we have now beat three times this session. I was able to play numerous shifts with both of my buddies from high school, and it was fun to all be out on the ice playing forward again together. I think our line was responsible for most of the points in the game.

Finally I had a pretty brutal week in fantasy football, but fortunately my losses have very little major playoff implications. I lost one game in the consolation bracket and now will battle it out this week for second to last place. I had a big win in another consolation bracket and am still alive for a decent finish in that league. A loss in another league did drop me from a likely second seed in the playoffs to the fourth seed, but I am still alive. And after a bye week in my final league, the action resumes for me as I try to capture a championship. I remain in first place in the pro pick’em game and I am up to fourth in the salary cap game, which is quite an accomplishment since I was in dead last at one point.

Last Thursday after getting our son’s hair cut at a nearby location, my wife and I stopped into Shaan Indian Cuisine for dinner, dragging our almost one year old son with us. We thought we could sneak in a quick dinner, but after sitting down it was quickly evident that the haircut alone had tested his patience and he didn’t want to sit in a high chair. We decided to put in a carry out order and enjoy it at home where he could run around freely.

The restaurant itself wasn’t too crowded, but it was past seven o’clock. The room is pretty small with booths lining the left and right walls along with a few bigger tables in the middle of the restaurant. At the back is an area for the lunch buffet, which I would like to try sometime, and a counter for paying the bill along with an entry to the kitchen. The staff were all very friendly and had no issue with us changing our order to carry out, which was ready in less than fifteen minutes.

Chicken Vindaloo

My choice for dinner, chicken vindaloo, should come as no surprise as it is one of my favorite Indian dishes. I love the  spiciness  of it and found Shaan’s heat level four of six to be right on! I could have probably ordered a five but I know that my wife wouldn’t have liked it to be that hot and we were sharing our dishes. The chicken and potato mix was good, though I could have used a few more potatoes in my serving.

Chicken Tikka Masala

My wife decided on the chicken tikka masala, another very popular dish. She ordered a two of six on the spice scale since we were going to feed some of it to our son too. The chicken in this dish appeared to have been cooked in a Tandoor oven as it had the trademark pink outside. The taste of this dish was excellent and the tomato, onion, and butter sauce was perfect. I might have liked this dish better than the vindaloo and I loved the vindaloo.

We also had a side of garlic nan ($2.99) that was easily large enough for the both of us and with extra to go with our leftovers the next day. The serving size of both meals we ordered was more than enough and the $10.99 price tag for each seemed fairly priced. Though I’ve yet to try another Indian restaurant in Cincinnati, it will be hard for them to compare to a wonderful experience at Shaan.

Despite the fact that I’ve yet to hang our outside lights, our house is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Yesterday was the day for the annual Christmas tree hunt with Kim’s family. Though we lived out of town for eight years we still managed to tag along for a few of these adventures over the  time-span. It typically involves stops at a couple of different tree farms and yesterday was no exception.

First we stopped at Pine Achers (11469 County Farm Road,  Aurora IN 47001) a place that I immediately remembered from prior visits. To me it seems that the owners of this farm are not planting any new trees, and most of the remaining trees are really big. In my opinion it is not worth stopping here again, though one of Kim’s uncles always seems to get his over twenty foot tall tree here.

24 Foot Tree

After only cutting down one tree at this lot we moved over to the somewhat nearby Mount Pleasant Christmas Tree Farm (21797 Mount Pleasant Road, Lawrenceburg,  IN    47025). Again I immediately remembered this place from a visit quite a few years back. Unlike Pine Achers, the owners here seem to be growing new trees for future year sales. At first our group wasn’t finding many good ones for this year, and Kim and I decided to settle on one of the few decent looking bigger trees we could find. Later most in the group eventually settled on a tree from the lot, but overall the selection was again disappointing. Maybe we were just too late in the season, for this lot especially.

Our Tree

With the help of one of Kim’s brothers and one of the employees on the lot we got our new tree on top of the car and secured it with a strap I borrowed from a family member. I was a little disappointed that they didn’t have anything to bail it together with, but we managed to get it on top of the car and only a little mud in the car. After a stop at my in-laws house for lunch, Kim and I took our tree home. Unfortunately along the way one of the clips on the tie down strap busted loose and the tree fell into the street. Luckily a couple of passersby stopped and helped me to secure it to the roof again and then we made it home with no further issues.

Decorated Tree

Since this was our first time dealing with a live tree, I was a little unprepared as to how much work it would take to get it setup inside the house. First I had to cut a foot off the bottom since it was a little too tall, even for our nine foot ceilings. Then I trimmed a bunch of branches off the bottom before dragging it through the front door. Once inside I realized just how big the tree was. Funny how seeing them out in the woods they don’t look so big, but once inside they become huge! Anyway, after messing with the stand for a half hour, our tree was finally standing upright. I quickly threw some decorations on it and called it done. Our old star shaped tree topper might not be big enough for this massive tree, and the two strands of lights I had may not be enough, but I think it looks pretty good.

The Cincinnati Bearcat football team had a big win this past Saturday versus UConn, 35-27. It was great to be back at Nippert Stadium, especially seeing a win that gave the Bearcats their third Big East Conference championship in four years. They lost to BCS bid to West Virginia, who shared the championship with the Cats as well as Louisville. However they will be playing on New Years Eve at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis versus  Vanderbilt. My parents have already made plans to attend the bowl game and I hope that we can join them.

With all the success the team had it came as no surprise that head coach Butch Jones was named as the Big East coach of the year. Completing the sweep of awards, running back Isaiah  Pead won offensive player of the year, and defensive lineman  Derek Wolfe was awarded defensive player of the year. I have also seen Wolfe’s name on some lists of All-Americans.

In  other Bearcat news, the basketball team has their annual  match-up  with neighboring Xavier University tomorrow afternoon. The game will be televised on ESPN2 starting at 12:30 EST.

My hockey team got back to the winning ways this past weekend. I also recently found out that I’m on a broomball team for an upcoming league down at fountain square. My buddy Kenny and I got a head start on everyone by practicing our broomball skills before our latest hockey game. I’m sure this will provide some interesting updates once the season starts after the new year.

Today is the halfway point for the Jenny Challenge. Unfortunately I’m not at the halfway point for the 100 miles, but I’m close. So far I’ve totaled 44.4 miles in 16 days. I need to average nearly 3.5 miles per day to finish the challenge this year. I guess I better get running!

Finally a quick fantasy football update. I had two wins and two losses this past week. The playoffs have started in the two leagues I had wins. In one league I finished the regular season in 2nd of 10 and have a first round playoff bye. In the other league I finished 9th of 12 and am playing in the consolation bracket. The playoffs also started in another league where I finished 8th of 12, and so again I am in the consolation ladder. Finally I am sitting in 2nd of 12 in my last league and playoffs will start next week. A win this week will make sure  I make the playoffs, while a loss would lead to all kinds of interesting tie breakers. The college pick’em game has ended and I took home 3rd place! I moved up one spot and sit in first place in the pro pick’em. Finally I’m up to 6th in the salary cap game.

I went to my first Cincinnati Cyclones game in years this past Saturday night. Tickets were only $13 each for just about any seat in the house. With only the lower seating bowl open, there wasn’t a bad seat to be had. Plus drinks and snacks are a more affordable than at other sporting events, especially when they have $1 beer nights or the more regularly occurring food specials. It’s hard to find a better deal around town for a night of entertainment. Plus Santa was there on Saturday. Trey was not a fan of the man in red, but calmed down enough for a quick photo as long as I was in it with him.

Last night Kim and I headed to Music Hall for Great American’s annual Christmas Party. This isn’t your average company holiday party, as they always bring in some big name talent for a couple of special concerts. This was my first time attending the party as we have always lived out-of-town in years prior. Kim did go years ago when she was a co-op student and remembers seeing Wayne Newton. Last year they had Darius Rucker and I think a year or two before that was Michael Bublé. The  entertainment  for this year was none other than Carrie Underwood.

We were treated to seats in the orchestra pit and even though we arrived just five minutes after the theater doors opened the only open seats we found were in the fourth row. This Carrie Underwood is one popular gal. Immediately upon her arrival on stage everyone had their phones and cameras out taking photo after photo of the stunning beauty. Throughout the hour and half set the audience was treated to a variety of tunes from her three albums and even a couple of Christmas songs. Between tracks the singer often showed her down to earth side with funny stories and brutal honesty. She was accompanied on stage by an eight piece band who all appeared to be well accomplished musicians.

Overall I enjoyed the concert, even though it isn’t normally in the style of music that I listen to. With that said Carrie Underwood does have an amazing voice and vocal ability. She seems like a very genuine person and she deserves all of the success she has earned. It is always nice to scratch a big star like this off my list of bands seen, especially when it comes at no cost. My only regret is that I should have brought a better camera.