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Hey, what’s this?!? A post that’s not about American Idol?? Sure you jest.

Nope. I jest not.

It’s the weekend, and it’s the last weekend in March. I cannot believe how quickly 2008 is going. Baseball season starts this weekend as the NCAA Tournament is wrapping up, then it’ll be time for our trip out to California to see our friends Hani and Katie (hey guys!), then down to Orlando for a long weekend at Disney World. After that, it’ll be time for lazing by the pool with friends as the summer drags on…and before you know it, it’s going to be my birthday (August 2nd, I accept Paypal donations and Best Buy giftcards) and then Katie will have her baby (it’s going to be a boy, BTW…congrats Katie!!!), and then football will be here.

Football season will be full of fun as it always is as my Auburn friends try to convince me that Alabama isn’t coming back into prominence and that Auburn is going to be SEC Champions. And before you know it, September will pass into October, and Halloween will be here. And then in a blink of an eye, Thanksgiving and Christmas will be upon us and cold weather will welcome itself back to Alabama.

See how quickly time passes? Do me these three favors:

1) Download some Jack Johnson for your music player of choice (any album will do, but his latest “Sleeping Through The Static” is pretty darn good).
2) Block off a couple days and head down to the beach. I prefer Destin, but others prefer Orange Beach. You can’t go wrong either way.
3) Take your favorite beverage and a beach chair at sunset to the beach and sit down and listen to the waves and drink your beverage, listening to a little Jack Johnson and the sound of the waves crashing.

Enjoy life. You only get one. However it is you enjoy it…just do so.

And with that, I’m to do just that with some friends at a couple’s baby shower. Take care friends…Top 9 Week on Idol is only days away!

I just downloaded the new Jack Johnson single, “If I Had Eyes”, which is a bit more electric than his usual stuff.  I like it, so the album is pre-ordered.  More news on that in February.

I took the job with IACT, and I could not be happier about it.  This company’s philosophy is 180 degrees different from the VCO.  Speaking of that, we’re getting together with some VCO folks tonight at Pub 261 as a little farewell for me.  I’m going to miss all these wonderful people, but those who are my close friends will still be my close friends no matter where I am.

Here’s something ironic…I have two fantasy football teams this year, one is a pay league (just $20) and one is a free league.  I’m in the playoffs in both leagues, but because of Brady’s tank-job on Sunday, I’m in the consolation game in my pay league, and in the finals of my free league for the same reason (my opponent had Brady).

I think we are just scratching the surface of what’s out there with regards to steroid use in baseball.  Several players have come forward confirming that they used substances like HGH and steroids during their careers since the Mitchell Report was released.  It will only continue.

Amy Lee’s voice is pretty awesome.  I’m in love with that song “My Immortal” right now.

Are dreams the incarnation of true desire or complete randomness (like this post)?

I’ve pretty much stopped playing LOTRO.  Guild Wars is now loaded up and I’m enjoying that.  You can solo that game for a while.

Peppermint Mocha CoffeeMate Creamer is nearly as good as sex.  You know what I’m talking about Pickerings!

Enough randomness!

Hola amigos!  I know it’s been a while since I rapped at cha…

So I discovered something I guess I already knew…since I have a 60GB portable flash drive, I can keep all my files on it and just use the laptop’s hard drive for games and such.  It’s quite a discovery, since I only have an 80GB hard drive on my machine itself.  So I moved all my documents, music and movies to the flash drive and reloaded them onto iTunes.  And what do you know…it works just fine.  Just re-sync the iPood and I’m done.  Pretty cool there.

And just when I thought I was getting more coordinated with myself, I was taking the trash down to the street on Wednesday night and feel down a couple steps, landing hard on my knees and skinning one pretty bad.  After nearing crying from the pain, I had to laugh.  I mean, it was one of the single most clutzy things I’ve every done.

The company Christmas (sorry Holiday) party is tomorrow night and a big group of us are going in a limo…with pre and post game cocktails at our place.  It should be quite the shindig.  Pictures and story at 11.

And I have NO Christmas shopping done yet.  Does anybody know a good gift for $40 I can get for this party I’m going to next Friday?  I’m serious.

So apparently, this new thing called Flock has been released.  It’s a browser which allows you to connect to many a social network (like Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc.) and keep up with things happening with your many friends, on and offline.

It’s called a Social Web Browser.

Nice name.  And after syncing it with my blog, I’m posting this using the cool little Post to My Blog feature.  Pretty cool eh? 

Blogged with Flock

I was browsing a few sites at work today and ran across a new one by the founders of 9rules.com, one of my favorite blogging communities.  It’s a new blog called 3by9.com, and from what I can tell, it’s going to touch on several topics by the three writers.

One in particular caught my eye and I wanted to share it.  Check it out by clicking here.

I simply cannot believe it’s November 1.  You say it every year (I know), but this year has passed by so fast!

So I’m heading up to Tuscaloosa (aka Football Heaven) this weekend and it’s LSU Week.  Some friends of mine are going up with me (big ups to Trish, BD, A-Will and Sarah), and we’re tailgating with some good friends of mine.  It should be a raucous good time, and T-Town should be absolutely hopping!

All 2024 pictures from the Trip of a Lifetime are up on my Flickr account.  I invite you all to go check them out… you can do so by going here.

The Christmas Party plan is in full effect now, with the 7 couples involved renting a stretch SUV limo, heading to our house for pre and post-game cocktails, including a possible trip to the hot tub.  It should also be a super-delicious good time.

Speaking of Trips of a Lifetime, one of the couples we met on the trip has their own website.  There are a ton of pictures on their website from the trip as well, so I encourage you to point your browsers to www.katieandhani.com today.  You won’t be disappointed.

We leave for ours in a little over 24 hours!!!!!

So between now and Sunday evening, I will probably incommunicado through the blog here, but I do plan on blogging a bit during the trip. There are a few days at sea where it will be nice to get out all my thoughts to the three of you that read this thing.

We’ve got a couple of nice bon voyage things planned. Firstly, there’s dinner at Rusty & Gina’s tonight, where we’re having Costa’s and opening up a few bottles of their Napa wine that they got on their most recent journey to wine country. Then tomorrow morning before our shuttle leaves for Atlanta, we’re having a bon voyage breakfast with Christy’s family at McDonald’s (they have the play area…it’s a must with a 2 year old).

Then it’ll be boarding our shuttle, arriving at Hartsfield International Airport, boarding our Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, and away we go!

Thanks again to Abi at HeatEatReview for sitting down with us this week at onemattDOTcom for an interview. And hey Abi, if you’d like a reviewer for Imbibable.com, give me a shout…I’d love to write for you.

And as you can plainly see, I’ve gone Pink for October.  I apologize for getting this up a little late (okay 5 days late), but I’ve been a bit busy.

I hope you know…that this is nothing to do with you…

Okay Gina…I know it’s late, but it’s growing on me.

By the way…we’re under 2 weeks now until the Trip of a Lifetime.  It seems ages ago that I told the world about this trip.  I’m going to be blogging a bit on this trip, so I’ll try and update it at least once every other day with a chronicle of our adventures.

The new TV season started this week, and already waiting on me on the DVR at home is the premiere of Heroes.  According to some who’ve watched it, it was quite different but good from last year’s finale.

Oh, before I go…one last shout-out to April who likes to read my blog from the comforts of her palatial Homewood estate…thanks for letting Ramey out of the house last night. 

The countdown is officially under a month to go until the Trip of a Lifetime!  Christy and I are pumped…I mean, really psyched!

On the “not psyched” list is the VCO softball team I’m managing…we have a problem with the girls not showing up or just out and out quitting.  It’s discouraging, and it makes me never want to mess with anything like this again.

In the category of “things that are back to how they should be”…Auburn lost it’s football over the weekend and Auburn fans everywhere are already calling for Brandon Cox (the 5th year starting QB) to sit in favor of one of their younger QBs.  I’m not sure having a different QB in there on Saturday night would’ve made that much of a difference…the O-line isn’t blocking like they should and their RBs are fumbling it too much.  The QB doesn’t have anything to do with that.  That being said, I’m sure Auburn could do with a dose of confidence, and maybe starting a younger, more exciting player would help do that.

I spent Saturday watching college football all day, and I have a few observations:

• Notre Dame is not good, but they aren’t as bad as people think.
• Michigan is that bad.
• LSU might beat everybody they play by 40 points.
• Texas woke up in the 2nd half against TCU on Saturday.  Be afraid, Big 12…unless you’re…
• Oklahoma, who took care of business against a beleaguered Miami team.  Oklahoma is back.
• Georgia is the “what team are they?”team so far this year…beating a pretty good Oklahoma State team, and they lost to South Carolina this weekend.

That’s all I got…oh, and ROLL TIDE!

I’ve never been a big believer in moral victories. In fact, I just had a quick conversation with a co-worker where he talked about the fact that moral and morale are the same. They aren’t, by the way.

Last night, the VCO Dominators (our co-ed company softball team) were in action against Mountain Top Church. The Dominators rushed out to a 2-0 lead behind a 2-run single by SS Mark Massey. After getting MTC 1-2-3 in the 1st and 2nd, we failed to score and then the roof caved in. They scored 2 runs in the 3rd, and 10 runs in the 4th…and that was all she wrote. One bad inning again.

But the moral victory here was that we were, in fact, ahead for the first time all year. We proved we belonged, and for that, I am proud of us.

In case you’re wondering, the phrase “moral victory” has a page on Wikipedia. God bless the interwebnet.

In other linkage news, my friend Cassie Walker, the Arts & Culture Editor for Chicago Magazine, has a blog on their website which is pretty cool. Aside from being one of the coolest chicks on the planet, she is also a fantastic writer, and if her latest blog entry is to be believed, is able to drink at work, which instantly gives her Hero status in my mind. Head on over to Coda to revel in the Cassie goodness.