Georgia Christmas

Per Aunt Joyce's Request.....more to come later.

Welcome To Detroit

The newest Detroit Piston. We gave up Chauncey for this guy.

When I Get Where I'm Going

Yeah when I get where I'm going,there'll be only happy tears.
I will shed the sins and struggles,I have carried all these years.
And I'll leave my heart wide open,I will love and have no fear.
Yeah when I get where I'm going, Don't cry for me down here.

I'm gonna walk with my grandaddy,
and he'll match me step for step,
and I'll tell him how I missed him,
every minute since he left.
Then I'll hug his neck

-Brad Paisley from "When I Get Where I'm Going"

It has been a year and I'm still missing you Gramps. I pray you're resting comfortably.

Maybe Next Year

Well Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) once said "There's no crying in baseball." The Red Sox failed win the 7th game of quite a memorable series. All I can do is tip my hat to the Rays.

Miracle At Fenway

Are you kidding me? Seriously, down 7-0 heading into the 7th inning with the entire season on the line. The Red Sox were being completely dominated the Rays. No one including myself was very pleased. I messaged Rachel on the computer and said the Sox were going to need a miracle if they were going to pull it out tonight. That's exactly what they got.

With 2 out and runners at the corners in the bottom of the seventh, Dustin Pedroia hits a little poke to right for a single and scores a run. Ok cool we didn't get shut out and it's 7-1. Enter stage left: David Ortiz (Big Papi). Runners still at the corners and a struggling Ortiz at the plate, commentators never failing to mention that he hasn't hit a homerun in his last 61 post-season at bats. Well what do you know he sent one flying into the crisp Boston air for a 3 run homer. Fenway has come alive. The fans can feel it. They've been here before and have seen some crazy things. So after 7 innings it stands Tampa Bay: 7 Boston: 4. Tampa Bay fails to score in the eighth and Boston has another chance to carve into their lead. Leading off in the eighth was Jason Bay, the surpringly great talent we picked up from Pittsburgh after we sent Manny Ramirez to LA. He draws a walk and once again the fans can feel something brewing. Enter stage left: J.D. Drew. Here's the wind up and the pitch and Crackkkk....J.D. Drew sends one flying over the right field wall for a 2 run shot...7-6 and the now the fans are going crazy. Could they really pull this off? The biggest postseason comeback for the Sox had only been 3 runs. Could they really come back from 7 down? Well the next batter, Jed Lowrie, flied out. Ok no big deal....1 out.....Pinch hitting for Jason Varitek we have Sean Casey former Tiger and likable figure around the entire league......strikeout...2 down. Looks like the magic could be running out.......next up late season acquisition Mark Kotsay....he hits a rope to center just out of reach of Tampa's centerfielder for a double. Now the Fenway faithful are one hit away from squaring this thing up or possibly taking the lead. Coco Crisp steps in and hits a liner to right which at first glance I thought he had hit it too hard and the runner at second would have to hold up, but the third base coach never had that idea....he was sending Kotsay home no matter what and it paid off......the throw from right was horrible and got cut off by the first baseman who quickly threw to second to gun down Crisp who was trying to stretch his hit into a double. Kotsay had scored before Crisp was tagged out so the run counts. 7-7 going into the ninth....is it possible ?

Top of the ninth and Boston gives up a lead off single. Oh no, don't give up a run now. Next batter fly out. 1 down. Next better walk. 2 on with 1 out and Carlos Pena to the plate. Pena had only grounded into 2 double plays the entire season so getting one here would be unheard of but wouldn't you know it, he hits chopper to 2nd and Boston turns two and heads into the bottom of the ninth with a chance to win it.

You couldn't ask for 3 better batters from your lineup to be up in this situation. Pedroia, Ortiz, and Youkilis. Pedroia-groundout...dang...Ortiz-strikeout....seriously c'mon.....Youkilis - bouncer to third fielded cleanly and the throw over is....LOW!!! It gets away from Pena at first and Youkilis takes second !!!! Next up Jason Bay: intentional walk to create a lefty/lefty matchup between J.P Howell and J.D. Drew, Drew has had past success against Howell going 4 for 7 against him in his career but Tampa Bay was playing the odds of lefty vs. lefty on this one. So after hitting a homerun in the previous inning J.D. Drew digs in with a chance to be the hero. One swing and Boston can cap off the greatest postseason comeback in their history.......and......CRACK.....a hot shot over the head of the right fielder and Youkilis comes into score and RED SOX WIN !!! RED SOX WIN !!!! Boston lives to play another day and memories of this game in Fenway will be remembered. Down 7 runs in the 7th and you pull out an 8-7 win in the bottom of the ninth. Crazy...absolutely crazy...but if any team could do it, it's Boston.

I know I know, they still need to win the other 2 games of this series to get to the world series but I have to give them credit for battling and not giving up after being down by 7. The series will head back to Tampa Bay now and will resume play on Saturday and Boston has their two best arms going for games 6 and 7. Josh Beckett and Jon Lester. If they lose, they lose and if they win.....they'll look back on this game as a turning point. I'm stupid for staying up and watching it, I'll be tired in the morning, probably even dumber for blogging about it after it was done but I love basbeall in October and this was well worth it. GO SOX !!!!

Rainy

Hey everyone, not much to report. I think there was a rained out baseball game in about half the county last night. The Houston/Chicago game which was moved from Houston because of Ike was still rained out. Tigers/White Sox...rained out. There were about 6 more rain outs. There will be many doubleheaders played today. I lucked out though...Cleveland played their game against the Royals and since ESPN wanted to put some baseball game on, I got to watch the Red Sox/Blue Jays who actually played about 6 innnings in a steady rain. So I actually had options as far as what I wanted to watch.

Today I'm heading home to Michigan for a party. My friend Jeff bought his first home and has redone about everything. He has worked on it a lot over the past 8 or 9 months and now he's having a little housewarming/bonfire (weather permitting) party.

In other news, there is a rather important college football game today between Ohio State/ and USC (Southern Cal). Living in Ohio now all I hear is Buckeyes this, Buckeyes that, Michigan is the worst, Wolverines are bottom feeders, the school up North is crap. Everyone here is in love with the Buckeyes and it's kind of annoying. I hope USC beats Ohio State. Maybe it would shut the fans up for a week. That'd be a nice break, then again they'll probably come up with some excuse for why it happened. Enough about that, 2 years living in Ohio and I still hate the Buckeyes as much as I did before.

Next topic...ENOUGH WITH THE HURRICANES ALREADY. I couldn't imagine the hardship this is causing for those states in the Gulf. Evacuate, come back, sorry we have to evacuate again, by the way your house is gone or on fire or damaged, or flooded. That's gotta be tough.
Hanna, Gustav, Ike.......how about "Hurricane Finished" or "Hurricane This Is The Last One"?

I think that'll be all for now, have a safe a happy weekend everyone!

#24

I know it's a day early but thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes. Tomorrow I turn 24. Yahoo.

Now onto more current events: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM !

That's all I can blog for now as I am on my lunch break. Have a great weekend everyone !

I'm Back

No worries, I can still blog. First I'd like to wish my Sister and Suleyman a very happy first anniversary. Congrats to you both.

Second, the Tigers are not going to make the playoffs....and that comes from someone who is an extreme optimist when it comes to pulling for sports teams. I hope they prove me wrong.

Let me see here, this past weekend I traveled to Indiana with Rachel and her family to camp at Pokagon State Park. It was a great time, we went to the beach, soaked up some sun, played a few games, made a little campfire and just relaxed. I wish I could have stayed a few more days but like always...duty called and I made my return to Ohio.

Next weekend I am moving Rachel into college for her final year and celebrating my 24th birthday. It should be a good time.

That's about all for now, thanks for stopping by.

Blog By Number

First off, congrats to Sam and Kristie on Daniel Ryan.

Second, Pistons....you let me down...again. Tigers....it's not looking good right now but keep trying, long way to go still.

Third - This thought just crossed my mind when I was watching some stuff on horse racing today. Is horse racing the Amish version of NASCAR? I don't know, sometimes I scare myself to think that my own brain came up with ideas like that. Anyhow, good luck to Big Brown as he goes for the triple crown later today.

Fourth - Why did I just talk about horse racing?

Fifth - Red Wings, well done. I've never been a huge hockey fan myself but I stayed up for the triple overtime loss in game 5, luckily they redeemed themselves and won game 6 and won their 4th Stanley Cup in 11 years.

Sixth - 21 days until I arrive in hot and sunny Georgia. I can't

wait.....boating and fishing and not going to work. Gotta love it.

Seventh - My escort just rolled over 165,000 miles the other day. Relevancy to readers: NONE

Eighth - Today is 06/07/08. That won't happen again for a long long time.

Ninth - I have found the best ice cream in the entire world. I think so

anyways. I have never tasted anything better than Ben and Jerry's "Cinnamon Buns". If you feel like being unhealthy, feeding your sweet tooth and enjoying a nice Summer treat all at the same time, I urge to go and try this ice cream. You'll be glad you did, unless of course you don't like Cinnamon Buns.....but who doesn't?

Tenth - That's all for now. Enjoy your weekend everyone !

Weekend Update

Weekend Summary: Home to Michigan, moved Rachel out of college, smashed my finger in a car door, watched it turn black and blue, drank a few energy drinks, played some card games, some dice games, asked Rachel to be my girlfriend, went to church, did some laundry, scratched off some lottery tickets, won nothing, drove home and was in an accident with a racoon, lost some pieces of plastic on my car from said accident, and then went to bed. That was my weekend. Hope you had a good one !

Creature Of Habit

Nothing new as of yet. I'll get up tomorrow, go to work, workout, come home, shower, eat dinner, watch some tv and go to bed, rinse and repeat.

Bringing Down The House

So for about the past week I have been anticipating the release of the new movie "21". The story behind this one is what really got me. It is based on the true events that happened in the early to mid nineties about a handful of gifted MIT students who used card counting and a few other skills to make serious money at the game of blackjack in none other than Las Vegas.

I was so interested in the story of how this came to be I went out Friday after work and bought the book in which the movie is based off of called "Bringing Down The House". I wanted to read the book before I went and saw the movie today so I proceeded to read all 340+ pages in a matter of hours. I don't read books very often and I sure as heck don't read entire books in one night. This one was different though. I finished reading and still wished there was more to read.

Having been to Vegas a few times it only heightened my interest since I've seen and walked through almost all the places they talked about in the book. (My friend Nick and I had quite a walk down the strip one day a few years back. Since we were under 21 at the time we generally had to "keep moving" so we covered a lot of ground that day.)

This team of gifted students not only could count cards but they also developed their own signals, language, and could act the part of whichever fake identity they were playing under that particular trip. They had to stay under the radar somehow. Although card counting is perfectly legal it is highly frowned upon and you can be asked to leave the casino if caught.

I will try and attempt to explain how the students did this but I apologize if it comes out a big jumbled mess.

The students used a hi-lo system of card counting among other things. When playing they keep a "running count" with every single card that is dealt. Cards 2-6 are given a value of +1, cards 7-9 have a value of 0 and cards 10-Ace have a value of -1. Each time one of these cards is dealt you apply it to the running count. A postive value is given to lower cards because when they come out of the deck it means there are more face cards left in the deck and that means there is a better chance to get blackjack. A negative value is given to 10-Ace because when they come out of the deck it means there are less of them left.

Usually one of the team members known as a "spotter" would sit at a table and keep track of the running count while betting the table minimum (every single time without varying the bet at all). When the running count got high, lets say up to +16 the spotter would signal to another team member known as a BP (Big Player) to come and sit at the table (usually signaled by crossing their arms behind their back). When the big player sat down the spotter would then say a sentence with their code words to convey the running count to the big player. Since this particular running count we said was at +16 the spotter would say something like "Wow, my drink is way too sweet." How does that convey the running count you ask? Well they matched up words with numbers to do this....the code word for 16 was "sweet" as in sweet 16. Other words like car meant 4...4 wheels on a car.....glove =5, you put 5 fingers in a glove, gun = 6, 6 bullets in a gun.....you get the idea. They had words for a lot of numbers.

When the big player was notified of the running count he would then have to convert that into a "true count" while still keeping track of every single card that was being dealt. To get the true count you take the running count and divide it by approximately how many decks are left in the shoe. So if we were playing with a 6 deck shoe and roughly 4 decks were left you'd divide the running count of 16 and divide it by 4 to get a true count of +4. If the true count showed positive results, then they'd change their bet size so they could earn more profit. When the deck would start go to get cold the BP could get up and go look for another spotter at another table.

The simplicity and complexity of this plan is what makes it fun. Anyone can learn to count cards, you just have to train your brain to do that. Yet not everyone can act a part and blend into a crowd while taking millions of dollars from the casino without getting caught. Of course, this team of expert blackjack players received their fair share of intimidation from pit bosses on the casino floors but overall their plan worked.....worked very well.

Eventually, technology caught up with the kids and the millions of "eyes in the sky" that Vegas has....all those cameras watching every single move on the casino floor....caught them. I say "caught them" but in reality they did nothing illegal, yet the fact that casinos are "private property" allow casino managers to pick and choose who they want in or out of there. They wanted these kids out. One of the MIT students, Jeff Ma is his real name, who was part of this team is not allowed within 25 feet of a blackjack table in some casinos in Vegas and they know exactly where he is the second he walks into a casino. Seems like pretty intense security for someone who didn't do anything wrong except beat the system.

So if you've ever lost money in a casino and would like to see a very real way in which the system can and was beat. I'd recommend this movie and/or book to you. That's all for now. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Arnold Classic Fitness Expo

This past Saturday I decided to drive down to Columbus, Ohio for the 20th annual Arnold Classic Fitness Expo. As some of you may know health and fitness along with nutrition are a few things that interest me. After being at the expo for a good eight hours, I can say it was an awesome experience. I even got to see Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger himself. While Arnold is a name that is recognized worldwide there were a few other people there that I would imagine only the fitness/bodybuilding community would recognize. People like Layne Norton (see right), Jamie Eason (see below), and Tommy Jeffers (bottom middle). I introduced myself to each of these people and they were more than happy to talk and take pictures. It's nice when you meet someone you look up to and they're so down to earth about things.

Of course since this was a fitness expo they had events going throughout the day. Dance and cheer competitions, karate, mixed martial arts, arm wrestling championships, bodybuilding competitions for guys, figure competitions for girls, and strongman contests just to name a few. Along with these competitions there were hundreds of booths with information of all sorts of different things relating to health and fitness. I received a ton of free samples after walking around for 8 hours. I even won a raffle while I was there for a months supply of protein. It was worth about 60 dollars and it was a free raffle so I was thrilled.

I definitely got to see people in all varieties this weekend. Out of shape, in shape, muscular, toned, large, small, short, tall.....all kinds. This event draws a lot of people apparently. I would most definitely like to go back. Here are a few other pictures from the expo....

Polar Bears..Prepare For Glory !

Just another weekend of jumping in Lake Huron as told by the Bay City Times.

"Ryan Hogan of Monroe, dressed as a Spartan from the movie '300,' leads the crowd in a snowball fight as they get ready for the Polar Bear Plunge. Temperatures were just above freezing on Saturday for Perchville USA in East Tawas. Sunday's plunges were canceled when the temperature dropped into the single digits and winds increased."

Yes, that is one of my friends.....I am directly behind his bicep and spear. That is our Polar Bear Army. It was once again amazing as usual.

East Tawas, here I come !

Well the time has come again. If anyone needs me this weekend I'll be in East Tawas jumping in Lake Huron. Please have a warmer weekend than I am going to have.

Hi

I know, it's been way too long but for good reason.....I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts.....sorry had to throw in a Blues Brothers quote there.

What's new you ask? Not much. I tried going to the Y after work 2 days this week. It's not as enjoyable as when I go in the morning. At one point I counted 12 people by the weights...12 !!! I'm used to 2. So it was a bit cramped to say the least but I got through my workouts anyhow.

Only 16 more days until I head up north to jump into the frozen waters of Lake Huron. This will be my 7th year of jumping now. I'm gonna be honest, it doesn't get any warmer. It takes your breath away every single time. It kind of feels like the inside of your chest stops working for a bit, but then it comes right back and you get out of the water and you can just stand around because the air feels so warm once you get out. I don't recommend standing around for too long though because there is a pool/hot tub/sauna waiting in the hotel that we put to use every year.

Well that's all I've got for now. Man, if my blogs keep being this boring I'm going to be sent back the minors.