I don't really have a topic to write about, but that's never stopped me before. Also, today is my 7-day imposed deadline for making a post, so it had to be done.
Despite working 70 hours last week, I still found sometime for some personal fun last weekend. Adam was in town, so I had dinner w/ him and his sister Friday night and then watched MSU beat Kansas, which was sweet. But not as sweet as Adam and I sitting in the 20th row from the floor for Sunday's regional final. It was great to see the Big 10 dominate the Big East, especially considering about 75% of Lucas Oil was covered in Red w/ Louisville fans. Definitely rooting for Mich St in the Final Four.
Let's see, what else....cousin Bodie (see #19 for Bodie, or #22 for yours truly) was in town for the games as well, so went out to the bars w/ him and some of his friends Saturday night, which was OK, but I didn't truly enjoy myself since I did choose to work on Sunday morning. Although, despite ruining the picture in the previous link, it was hilarious to see Bodie at the Casba following a group of girls around and making himself a part of all their photos....and not in a sneaky way like trying to walk behind them and make a face as the picture was taken, but actually going in and putting his arms around them and smiling. As Adam would say, "he's a big, dumb animal folks" Good times
My bracket - it sucked....based on me not going chalk. I also was dominated for the 3rd straight year by Diddy in our picking head-to-head against the spreads. However, i'm not all that disappointed. Why, you may ask?? Well it's because I've stepped up where it really counts...on my actual bets against the spread. 7-1 and counting thus far...not sure if i'll bet on the Final Four or not. As for my bracket, this is the first year that I can ever remember not getting at least one final four team. pathetic, i know.
Purchased Coldplay tickets for their early June show in Indy for this summer...pretty excited about that. Also, I found out yesterday from my that my machine is Conficker free, hope all you are as well. Oh, and according to Wikipedia, apparently the origin of Conficker may stem from the German word for the "F" word, so maybe I shouldn't have had "Conficker this" as my outgoing message on my work instant messagener for the past few days. I don't think LKG uses Wikipedia, so i'm possibly safe for now.
And the video of the week comes at Diddy's request. Apparently since he kicked my ass in our NCAA challenge, he feels he can just request videos like it's his job now. I'll let it slide this time
2008 Taxable income reviewed to date: $21,923,692 I have some rather large returns over the next few weeks, so i think this # will jump up a bit...i'm giving myself about 6.5% chance of hitting my $103M guess.
Until next time...
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Not going chalk
I'm a little confused on how the word "chalk" became so mainstream so fast, so i'm refusing to use it for the time being. I consider myself a college basketball enthusiast and I vaguely remember hearing this term tossed around last year, but this year it is about as common as 'what's up.'
Next up, where's the f'n Madness at? very few upsets, except of course for Cleveland St costing me a Final Four pick (Wake) in Round 1. So my bracket is a little below my own standards, but it's still OK. I did lose out on a Final Four team, but still have 6 Elite Eight Teams in tact, as well as my national title game. Only one double digit seed in the sweet 16 this year??? that's pretty boring. and really, Arizona beat some good teams this year, so having them as a #12 seed is a little misleading. I'm a little upset w/ my Wake Forest pick. in hindsight, I should have seen the signs, although I couldn't get over the fact that they have potentially 3 NBA first round picks in their starting five and I just figured the better players would shine. Oh well
So I once again am taking my annual beating from Diddy. I'm down 27-19 through 48 games thus far (we had 2 ties). I had 4 or 5 games where I lost by 1/2 or 1-pt. I'm sure Diddy may have 1 or 2 of those as well that went against him, but I don't keep track of other people's bad beats, only the ones that go against me! So I have to go 9-3 this upcoming weekend to even have a shot of beating him.. However, all is not lost on the gambling front. For my actual bets against the spread, I went 5-1, so I made a little bit of money on them. The only game I lost was when FSU put up a stink job against Wisconsin (go Big 10!)
So the past weekend was nice. I actually took Saturday off, which we get one Saturday off during busy season. I spent basically all Friday afternoon and night, all day on Saturday and most of the day on Sunday at Scott's watching basketball, eating fast food, and drinking beers and yes, whiskey. Some epic games of Foosball were played as well between some combination of Scott, Matt, Andy, Dave, Buck or me. It was also discovered that Diddy may have a younger brother w/ the last name of Singler, but that's still being determined. For those of you who don't know Diddy, he's a diehard North Carolina fan, so this just absolutely devastates him. Some non-basketball related news is that I wrapped up the title of my sunday night winter tennis league, which won me a free round of golf at a very nice course later this summer, so that was sweet.
A coworker and I locked up a new client tonight at a proposal meeting...first time we had met w/ him and he basically accepted on the spot, so that was a good feeling. Nothing huge, but still a good victory for Greg and I.
So in the spirit of the NFL starting to release their 2009 schedule, here is the video for this week's posting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_slkTEZ0rs&feature=rec-HM-r2. Only about 5 months or so until kickoff!!!
2008 Taxable Income Reviewed to date - $19,900,685 (long way to that $103 million...i'm beginning to think I may fall a tad short)
Next up, where's the f'n Madness at? very few upsets, except of course for Cleveland St costing me a Final Four pick (Wake) in Round 1. So my bracket is a little below my own standards, but it's still OK. I did lose out on a Final Four team, but still have 6 Elite Eight Teams in tact, as well as my national title game. Only one double digit seed in the sweet 16 this year??? that's pretty boring. and really, Arizona beat some good teams this year, so having them as a #12 seed is a little misleading. I'm a little upset w/ my Wake Forest pick. in hindsight, I should have seen the signs, although I couldn't get over the fact that they have potentially 3 NBA first round picks in their starting five and I just figured the better players would shine. Oh well
So I once again am taking my annual beating from Diddy. I'm down 27-19 through 48 games thus far (we had 2 ties). I had 4 or 5 games where I lost by 1/2 or 1-pt. I'm sure Diddy may have 1 or 2 of those as well that went against him, but I don't keep track of other people's bad beats, only the ones that go against me! So I have to go 9-3 this upcoming weekend to even have a shot of beating him.. However, all is not lost on the gambling front. For my actual bets against the spread, I went 5-1, so I made a little bit of money on them. The only game I lost was when FSU put up a stink job against Wisconsin (go Big 10!)
So the past weekend was nice. I actually took Saturday off, which we get one Saturday off during busy season. I spent basically all Friday afternoon and night, all day on Saturday and most of the day on Sunday at Scott's watching basketball, eating fast food, and drinking beers and yes, whiskey. Some epic games of Foosball were played as well between some combination of Scott, Matt, Andy, Dave, Buck or me. It was also discovered that Diddy may have a younger brother w/ the last name of Singler, but that's still being determined. For those of you who don't know Diddy, he's a diehard North Carolina fan, so this just absolutely devastates him. Some non-basketball related news is that I wrapped up the title of my sunday night winter tennis league, which won me a free round of golf at a very nice course later this summer, so that was sweet.
A coworker and I locked up a new client tonight at a proposal meeting...first time we had met w/ him and he basically accepted on the spot, so that was a good feeling. Nothing huge, but still a good victory for Greg and I.
So in the spirit of the NFL starting to release their 2009 schedule, here is the video for this week's posting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_slkTEZ0rs&feature=rec-HM-r2. Only about 5 months or so until kickoff!!!
2008 Taxable Income Reviewed to date - $19,900,685 (long way to that $103 million...i'm beginning to think I may fall a tad short)
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
It's Official
I submit one bracket and one bracket only. It's an integrity thing....I go w/ my picks and stick w/ them....if you're one of those people that fills out five different brackets and then brags about beating a friend/co-worker/mistress/baby in one out of the five, then you and I have some serious philosophical differences. If any of you want advice on your picks, I think this clip sums it up. Onto the highlights of my bracket...
First Round Lower seeds winning - Arizona, USC, Texas A&M, Maryland, Tennessee, Portland State, Butler, Michigan. I really don't see a many of 11, 12, 13, 14 seeds winning this year. I was skeptical to even pick Arizona as a #12 because EVERYONE is picking them.
Sweet 16
First Round Lower seeds winning - Arizona, USC, Texas A&M, Maryland, Tennessee, Portland State, Butler, Michigan. I really don't see a many of 11, 12, 13, 14 seeds winning this year. I was skeptical to even pick Arizona as a #12 because EVERYONE is picking them.
Sweet 16
- MIDWEST - Louisville, Wake, West Virginia, Mich St.
- WEST - UConn, Purdue, Missouri, Memphis
- EAST - Pitt, Florida St, Villanova, Duke
- SOUTH - North Carolina, Gonzaga, Arizona St., Oklahoma
Elite 8
- MIDWEST - Wake, West Virginia
- WEST - UConn, Memphis
- EAST - Pitt and Duke
- SOUTH - North Carolina and Oklahoma
Final Four - Wake, Memphis, Pitt, Oklahoma. Pitt beats Memphis for championship.
There ya have it folks. Onto gambling.... Diddy and I went through the first round games and picked every game against the spread. He has basically owned me the past two years, so I'm looking for a little revenge. I've always got off to a slow start, so I'm looking to at least not be down 11-5 or something ridiculous after the 16 games on Thursday.
I'm also going to bet on 2 games each day against the spread for the first and second round games. I'm putting my Super Bowl winnings to good use....
Alright, everyone enjoy the games this week/weekend. I'll be sure to get back on here in a few days to provide my expert analysis and commentary on the Tourney thus far for those of you who aren't fortunate enough to watch the games with me personally.
2008 Taxable Income Reviewed to Date - $18,673,381
Let us take a trip down memory lane...safe to say you won't here that during the 2009 tourney
Sunday, March 15, 2009
March Madness
Ahhh, I love this time of year. Although working 65 hours a week really puts a damper on all the basketball, but I still find time to enjoy the greatest 3 weeks in sports. There really is nothing like the NCAA college basketball tournament. Many of my most memorable sports viewing moments revolve around this tourney. I remember where I was when Bryce Drew hit his 3 to knock off Ole Miss in 1998. Or Tyus Edney going the length of the court in 4 seconds to lift UCLA. Of course the greatest college basketball play of all time...Laetner's shot. How about the Hoosiers run to the title game in 2002? A few blogs ago I mentioned that I would write about my best sportsfan memory moment. I'm not gonna do it here, but it'll be in a future posting. It definitely involves March Madness. Back to the posting...
The pairings were announced tonight and you can be sure that my postings over the next 3-4 weeks will revolve around this tourney. Of course my predictions, bracket, expert analysis, and commentary will be provided...I may even consider doing some sort of running blog for one of the sessions if I can find the time.
My initial reaction to the brackets is that Butler was fairly seeded as a #8/9 (unfortunately). Now, unfortunately they have to play the SEC regular season champion (LSU) and then their reward for winning is getting to play North Carolina in Greensboro....good luck. I had lunch w/ Joe G (Butler's radio play-by-play analyst) this past Friday and that was his worst fear realized....an #8/9 seed in Greensboro playing North Carolina in Round 2 if the Dawgs are fortunate to get out of Round 1.
Sometime before the games begin on Thursday, I'll be sure to make my bracket public for all my readers to see. Note, i said "bracket"....not "brackets." One of my biggest pet peeves are people who fill out 23 brackets and then get all excited that one of them by some miracle from the heavens ends up being somewhat accurate. Fill out one bracket and go w/ it!! I'm sure there will be more on this as the tourney progresses.
Alright, last week sucked in general, except for the fact that Ted gave me two tickets to the Big 10 Tourney friday night. Unfortunately the games weren't that competitive. Work was a little testy as it always is the week before the March 15th corporate deadline. This week should be much better as the deadline has passed and I can take a little breather before the April 15th deadline starts to creep up. Also, I have next Saturday off...it's been 7 weeks since i've had a Sataurday off, so i'm looking forward to that.
Good luck to a few of my friends that are heading to Vegas this week for the games...wish I could be there w/ ya.
Oh, one last thing. GAMBLING!!! Yeah, the Tourney provides 4,367,320 different ways for me to gamble on the games. Although I typically don't bet on college sports, i make an exception for the NCAA Tourney as well as the college FB Bowl Games. Front and center is my head-to-head battle w/ Diddy. We pick every single game versus the spread, rotating picks. We do this before each round begins. Unfortunately he's taken me behind the woodshed the past two years, so I'm looking for a little revenge this year.
Let the Madness Begin!
Video of the week - here ya go - Dave and I were shocked as we had a great view of this play. Apparently he had done it before
2008 Taxable Income Reviewed to Date - $16,233,849
The pairings were announced tonight and you can be sure that my postings over the next 3-4 weeks will revolve around this tourney. Of course my predictions, bracket, expert analysis, and commentary will be provided...I may even consider doing some sort of running blog for one of the sessions if I can find the time.
My initial reaction to the brackets is that Butler was fairly seeded as a #8/9 (unfortunately). Now, unfortunately they have to play the SEC regular season champion (LSU) and then their reward for winning is getting to play North Carolina in Greensboro....good luck. I had lunch w/ Joe G (Butler's radio play-by-play analyst) this past Friday and that was his worst fear realized....an #8/9 seed in Greensboro playing North Carolina in Round 2 if the Dawgs are fortunate to get out of Round 1.
Sometime before the games begin on Thursday, I'll be sure to make my bracket public for all my readers to see. Note, i said "bracket"....not "brackets." One of my biggest pet peeves are people who fill out 23 brackets and then get all excited that one of them by some miracle from the heavens ends up being somewhat accurate. Fill out one bracket and go w/ it!! I'm sure there will be more on this as the tourney progresses.
Alright, last week sucked in general, except for the fact that Ted gave me two tickets to the Big 10 Tourney friday night. Unfortunately the games weren't that competitive. Work was a little testy as it always is the week before the March 15th corporate deadline. This week should be much better as the deadline has passed and I can take a little breather before the April 15th deadline starts to creep up. Also, I have next Saturday off...it's been 7 weeks since i've had a Sataurday off, so i'm looking forward to that.
Good luck to a few of my friends that are heading to Vegas this week for the games...wish I could be there w/ ya.
Oh, one last thing. GAMBLING!!! Yeah, the Tourney provides 4,367,320 different ways for me to gamble on the games. Although I typically don't bet on college sports, i make an exception for the NCAA Tourney as well as the college FB Bowl Games. Front and center is my head-to-head battle w/ Diddy. We pick every single game versus the spread, rotating picks. We do this before each round begins. Unfortunately he's taken me behind the woodshed the past two years, so I'm looking for a little revenge this year.
Let the Madness Begin!
Video of the week - here ya go - Dave and I were shocked as we had a great view of this play. Apparently he had done it before
2008 Taxable Income Reviewed to Date - $16,233,849
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Bowling
I suck at it. OK, so maybe I'm not that bad, but I'd obviously like to be better. The firm had it's annual bowling party on Saturday night, which is always a good time. I started out hot w/ a spare, strike, strike, strike, but cooled off. I was actually beating my buddy Dave through five frames, which is saying something considering he's bowled his whole life and apparently had an 800 series a few weeks ago. He woke up though and proceeded to bowl over 200. Anyway, back to me...in the 10th frame of Game 1, all i had to do was pick up 7 pins to break my personal record and I failed to do so. It was up there as one of the greatest choke jobs of my athletic career, just behind missing a 2-ft putt at Cedar Lake would have given me a 79 (i've never broken 80 on the golf course).
I had a nice 70 hour work week last week, which was the first one of those this year and hopefully the last. This upcoming week is always a nightmare, so i'm not looking forward to my life the next 7 days.
Dad was in town today just to come see me. It's nice to have visitors! On a side note, Mom was also in town on Saturday, but due to working and then the bowling party, I didn't get a chance to see her. I took Dad to YATS and he was a big fan. Dad also attended the Ritter alumni basketball league for our game today, so he got too see me play basketball for the first time in over a decade. I had an OK game, but did miss both of my free throw attempts. Then in the only way an Indiana born Dad can, his only comment was "what happened on your free throws?" I tried to convince him that I'm actually a good free throw shooter, as evidence by my Gold Medal as the Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas free throw champion. Oh well...at least we won the game and I nailed a 3 in some guy's eye very similar to this, except mine was in the 1st half and may not have been quite as epic.
Not sure when i'll make my next posting, but hopefully I'll find sometime next weekend. The warm weather just makes me think about golf, so I leave you w/ this...
Two classic sport movie clips in this blog...aren't you glad you stopped by?
2008 Taxable Income reviewed to date: $12,811,459
I had a nice 70 hour work week last week, which was the first one of those this year and hopefully the last. This upcoming week is always a nightmare, so i'm not looking forward to my life the next 7 days.
Dad was in town today just to come see me. It's nice to have visitors! On a side note, Mom was also in town on Saturday, but due to working and then the bowling party, I didn't get a chance to see her. I took Dad to YATS and he was a big fan. Dad also attended the Ritter alumni basketball league for our game today, so he got too see me play basketball for the first time in over a decade. I had an OK game, but did miss both of my free throw attempts. Then in the only way an Indiana born Dad can, his only comment was "what happened on your free throws?" I tried to convince him that I'm actually a good free throw shooter, as evidence by my Gold Medal as the Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas free throw champion. Oh well...at least we won the game and I nailed a 3 in some guy's eye very similar to this, except mine was in the 1st half and may not have been quite as epic.
Not sure when i'll make my next posting, but hopefully I'll find sometime next weekend. The warm weather just makes me think about golf, so I leave you w/ this...
Two classic sport movie clips in this blog...aren't you glad you stopped by?
2008 Taxable Income reviewed to date: $12,811,459
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Dedication
Dedication. that's the word I would use to describe how I feel about this blog. It'd be very easy for me to ignore it during tax season. But NO!! I won't let it happen. However, it is getting tougher to come up w/ topics when all that is running through my head are client issues, IRS tax regulations, billable hours, etc....
So I went to the Cystic Fibrosis Wine Opener at Conseco Fieldhouse last friday night w/ my roommate, Gill. If you've never been to a beer/wine festival, I highly recommend attending one. I'm not the biggest wine drinker, but I do occasionally enjoy a glass. We arrived around 7:30 and were treated to a ton of female eye candy, my favorite kind. Most people were "classin" it up, so that made for some women going all out showing off their assets. A bunch of different restaurants around town catered the event, including unlimited BW3's boneless wings. Gill was in heaven....he loves B-dubs more than a young Tyler Hansbrough-esque kid loves his N64. About midway through the event we finally noticed Rock Bottom Brewery had a table and they were actually giving away 12oz cups of a few of their draft beers. needless to say, I didn't have anymore wine the rest of the night. All-in-all, the event was pretty fun and I met some interesting people as well as ran into a few friends from the past.
Work is very taxing right now (get it, taxing....hehe, yeah). March 15th, the corporate deadline is taking a toll on me as many of my bigger clients are just now ready to be prepared/reviewed...not to mention our 1040's are starting to roll in and people obviously expect them to be done within a reasonable time frame. Due to all of this, I haven't really thought of a good topic for tonight's blog, but I have thought of a topic that i'll write about in the very near future, which will be my most memorable sporting event I've been at. I suppose I could also write about what I think my best memory is of my athletic career....so let me ponder those two items and I'll share in the near future.
the firm's bowling party is this Saturday night, so that's normally pretty fun. plus I'll get to end my 2 1/2 month draught of not seeing Greg Jarrett. Dave will also be at this year's event since he is dating one of my coworkers, so that'll be nice.
2008 Taxable Income reviewed to date: $7,991,148
So my Lent video to wrap up last week's posting may have been a little crude. this week I'll show my compassionate side w/ a real feel good story. very solid
So I went to the Cystic Fibrosis Wine Opener at Conseco Fieldhouse last friday night w/ my roommate, Gill. If you've never been to a beer/wine festival, I highly recommend attending one. I'm not the biggest wine drinker, but I do occasionally enjoy a glass. We arrived around 7:30 and were treated to a ton of female eye candy, my favorite kind. Most people were "classin" it up, so that made for some women going all out showing off their assets. A bunch of different restaurants around town catered the event, including unlimited BW3's boneless wings. Gill was in heaven....he loves B-dubs more than a young Tyler Hansbrough-esque kid loves his N64. About midway through the event we finally noticed Rock Bottom Brewery had a table and they were actually giving away 12oz cups of a few of their draft beers. needless to say, I didn't have anymore wine the rest of the night. All-in-all, the event was pretty fun and I met some interesting people as well as ran into a few friends from the past.
Work is very taxing right now (get it, taxing....hehe, yeah). March 15th, the corporate deadline is taking a toll on me as many of my bigger clients are just now ready to be prepared/reviewed...not to mention our 1040's are starting to roll in and people obviously expect them to be done within a reasonable time frame. Due to all of this, I haven't really thought of a good topic for tonight's blog, but I have thought of a topic that i'll write about in the very near future, which will be my most memorable sporting event I've been at. I suppose I could also write about what I think my best memory is of my athletic career....so let me ponder those two items and I'll share in the near future.
the firm's bowling party is this Saturday night, so that's normally pretty fun. plus I'll get to end my 2 1/2 month draught of not seeing Greg Jarrett. Dave will also be at this year's event since he is dating one of my coworkers, so that'll be nice.
2008 Taxable Income reviewed to date: $7,991,148
So my Lent video to wrap up last week's posting may have been a little crude. this week I'll show my compassionate side w/ a real feel good story. very solid
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