Zac Brown Ticket Hunt

Just a quick one today...

The kids BEGGED me to go see the Zac Brown Band when they came to town on December 30th.  I let Christmas come and go without letting them in on the tickets.  Yesterday I devised a plan for the kids to track the tickets down through rhyming tree-mail clues, Survivor style. :)

Below is the video of their ticket hunting escapade...  Also, the show was a hit!  It was the last stop of their Southern Ground tour.  Zac had three different people open for the band, and he came on stage with each of them to perform a track he personally liked from their individual albums ... it was pretty cool.

NATO and I hung out afterwards to get our Georgia Bulldog hats signed by the Zac and the band.  Great group of guys ... very down to earth and super friendly for all the dinero that must be falling out of their pockets nowadays.  Congratulations, it's well deserved.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

"Hey, Dad .... good game."

That's what I woke up to this morning.  Nathan standing bedside, congratulating me on the outcome of our fantasy football league championship game.

I started the night with a slim 1 point lead.  I had Minnesota's kicker Ryan Longwell going for me and some random guy named Adrian Peterson playing for Nathan.  (If you read my last post it seems Nathan had a change of heart and did go with AP over Ahmad Bradshaw ... bad news for me.)

If you watched the game, AP was SHUT DOWN the entire first half.  Things were going well, although I'd hoped the Vikings would have gotten close enough for a few field goal attempts.  The second half was a different story ... AP All Day scored three touchdowns and Longwell missed a few chip shots.  I didn't even look at the final score.  I'm guessing he had me by 20 points or more.

Now ... for the rest of the story.  Nathan went to bed with what he thought was a slim lead.  The game was headed to overtime and I had him convinced that if Longwell kicked a "game winning" field goal it would be worth more points and enough to give me the win.  This of course was not the case, and the outcome of our game had already been determined.

I'm assuming he woke up first thing to turn on SportsCenter and see the Bears win, then log onto his Yahoo! account to get the final tally.  Rather than jumping up and down, screaming in his yet to deepen 10-year old voice and shouting "winner, winner chicken dinner!" (which he's heard me do all to often), I got an extended hand and "hey Dad .... good game." :)

What a way to start the day!  I googled an old St. Louis Post-Dispatch column about "there's a way to win, a way to lose, and character to be extracted from both."  I couldn't find it, but did stumble upon the Pursuing Victory with Honor sportsmanship campaign.  A noble cause built around the adage of "it's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game".

I'm not sure how we got so far away from that, but the "Smack Talk" section of the Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Football page clearly indicates we're there.  I also distinctly recall Optimist Park in good ol' Rock Falls, IL and being pulled from a T-Ball game by my mom so we could walk home after a few parents got a bit too unruly for her taste.  On a more positive note, I'm sure she'd have been proud of her grandson this morning.

Congratulations on winning the league Nate ... and thanks for doing it with the class, integrity and character that I certainly didn't have as a 10-year old boy.  Some might argue whether I have it as a 35-year old. ;)  Well done old boy, well done.

Welcome Back World!

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE JOE DIMAGGIO?

Wow... Just noticed my last post was over two years ago! Nathan is now 9, and he's still trying to negatively influence my fantasy football team selections. We're playing head-to-head in our league championship this week and he's posted a message that says "i am not starting adrian peterson."


Hmmm ... is he trying to get me to sit some of my more talented players as a challenge to let our second string duke it out? Or does he know something about Jerome Harrison and Ahmad Bradshaw that I don't? I'm letting him have it with Chris Johnson and Maurice Jones-Drew anyway. Check back to see whether or not he successfully defends his title from last year.

TIGER

Again ... wow! If you've read this blog before you'll know that of all my posts (2), half of them are about Mr. Tiger Woods. He's a legendary golfer, a passionate competitor and a HUGELY successful athlete. I look forward to seeing him between the ropes on a golf course again very soon.

As for his personal and private life, I'll begrudgingly follow it via US Weekly, in Touch and the other rags. It's like a train wreck ... I don't mean to stare, but it's so hard to turn the other way. I sincerely hope that he and his family are able to move forward as best as could possibly be expected given the circumstances.

WORK

From Edward Jones to MasterCard Worldwide to Savvis, it's been a whirlwind. I've learned a ton about people, organizational maturity and technology. I've been blessed to work with great leaders, reconnect with wise mentors and even start a small business venture with one of them! I expect 2010 will have a number of personal and professional growth opportunities ... looking forward to the show!

PLAY

• My weekly pickup basketball games are a thing of the past ... too much work to get into Ladue in a timely manner and the allure of catching up with the boys during some MNF is pretty persuasive also.
• Climbing shoes and chalk have also remained in the closet for some time ... I'm not sure I could climb a fence at this point. ;)
• Poker skills need some dusting off too. Any holiday games I was able to participate in were more of a charitable donation than a viable chance at winning money.

Man, this changing jobs and starting a business stuff really impacts your social life. Still getting out to see good friends on a pretty regular basis, and looking forward to some warmer weather to get the clubs out of the basement!

FAMILY

I put this last not because that's where they fall in terms of priority, but because it's taken that log to debate whether to drag them onto the internet with me (with the noted exception of Nate's fantasy football genius).

1. The kids are fantastic! They of course don't like the idea of going back and forth, but two Christmases and the chance to manipulate two sets of rules certainly keeps them busy. :) Nate finished his first season of tackle football this year and is currently in his 5th year of basketball. Won the first game of their holiday tournament yesterday and are scheduled for an 8:00AM start on Monday. Kaylyn started her first season of gymnastics and is a few weeks away from doing cartwheels as her main mode of getting from point A to point B. And she promises that she'll practice the piano everyday if she were lucky enough to get a keyboard ... we'll see.
2. Significant other(s) ... it's complicated. Women have been an enigma to me going all the way back to my mom. Very special people, very difficult to "figure out". Having Kaylyn has upped the ante that I devote more time, attention, energy and effort to understanding the fairer sex. I've found a great girl, and at times I can't tell if she's trying to get me to expand my horizons are just trying to piss me off. ;) We'll keep at it and try to figure out what contributes to the good times and limit whatever it is that makes us both want to run for the hills.
3. Ummm, me ... turns our I'm more complicated than I thought too. I've found an excellent teacher in terms of life lessons, psychology, spirituality (yes, I said it) and continuing to improve yourself as a person. It'll be a lifelong journey I'm sure, but it's more enlightening than it's ever been. Still looking for my "life's work", and for now I'm content with it being raising two wonderful kids and appreciating a girl who clearly loves me very much.

In 2010 ... I'll try not to go another 26 months between posts so we can discuss lighter topics and skip the biographical updates. ;)

Cheers!