Welcome To Notre Dame Brian Kelly

Well the search is over. Notre Dame has a new head football coach. I am glad ND has found a new head football coach and I wish him the best of luck. I would have preferred a more established coach (Stoops or Meyer) but it sounds like they were not willing to make concessions. I do hope that Kelly can restore the Irish to national prominence. I hate listen to Mark May mocking and ripping apart the Irish on Saturday nights. Lou needs an Irish team to jab back at May with. On a related Irish note, Golden Tate won the Biletnikoff Award as the nation's top wide receiver. He and Jimmy Clausen will sorely be missed next year, however we wish them good luck. Check the video clip out below for a glimpse as to why he won this award!

Thanksgiving Weekend!

Thanksgiving weekend started out with the 100th Thanksgiving Turkey Trot in Cincinnati. I didn't run the whole thing, however I think I did good for barely having trained for it. I ran at a 12:03 minute pace and ran the entire race in 1:14:48. I then went back to the house and did some clean up because Melissa's brother was coming in from Florida. We started making some of the food for Thanksgiving Dinner, since Melissa's brother flew in on thanksgiving evening we moved our dinner to Friday. We drove to the airport to pick up Melissa's brother and had our "Thanksgiving Dinner" at a CrackerBarrel Restaurant. We then drove home and Nick and I traded jabs in NCAA 2009 on xBox 360, that was after April turned into peeing fountain when she saw Nick. I would say that she peed close to a half a gallon of pee.
The next morning we had to get up and start making the food for our Thanksgiving Dinner. Nick and I brought our total of NCAA games to a 3 - 3 tie. Melissa took a nap and then we cooked the turkey a little too fast and were about an hour a head of schedule. We sat down and ate our dinner and Melissa's brother just had turkey, cranberries sauce, and mashed potato's. We had so much food left over. Tomorrow we are taking Nick out to Benihana for his annual Christmas dinner.

Notre Dame / USC Weekend Thoughts

This weekend started out with Melissa and I running our final long run prior to our Mini-Marathon next week in Buffalo, NY. We ran a path that we had road bikes on to a Notre Dame Football game a few years ago. During that bike trip, Melissa and I had shown our fitness level when we were breathing heavy and being extremely fatigue. This past Saturday we ran the entire path and back and were just a little fatigued. After this we headed back to my parent's house to shower and get ready for the Notre Dame vs. USC game. We made a stop at Martin's Supermarket to get a salad from their salad bar, we stopped to pick up a coat for Melissa's brother, and then we were off to campus to see Notre Dame defeat USC. We parked and walked to campus. On the way way there Melissa bought the shirt that you can see in the picture to the right. She is very proud of it and I think it is pretty cool, too! We walked around campus taking in the atmosphere and see the usual gameday activities. We snapped a couple of pictures of the campus and then it was on to the game. The outcome was not what Irish fans expected however we it was the best college football game that I can say I have had the pleasure of going to. I will post some hightlights of the game and a couple of other pictures from the weekend soon. I can say that even though the outcome stinks, I am glad that the Irish were able to hang in with the trojans, which had been a problem as of late. The Irish are now 4 - 2 and I hope that they can meet the trojans again in a bowl game as I think the game will end differently. A few things that need to change:

• The defense needs to step it up. You can't have the team on 3^rd down and 9 and give up 30 - 60 yards.
• You can't let time that you will NEED later in the game to run off the clock to prevent the other team, IN CASE you score from getting the ball back.
• PETE CARROLL NEEDS TO STAY ON THE EFFING SIDELINE AND NOT ON THE FIELD!

After the loss we went to visit Melissa's brother and then went to my parents house to get some much needed sleep. We woke up the next morning, took the dogs on a long walk since we were getting Family Portrait done by our wedding photographer Sunday morning. The pictures turned our really well and I hope to post some for everyone to see. Well here's to the start of hopefully a good work week, oh and the Buffalo Bills pulled out an overtime win against the NY Jets. GO BILLS!!!

Been A While...

Well it has been a while since I have blogged so I thought I would let everyone know what has been going on in our lives plus we are also coming up on a big game this weekend so I wanted to blog a bit prior to updating everyone about the game this weekend.  Things are going good at work.  I have been working on a redesign of our company webpage for the past year and we have finally begun beta testing it with some of the sales staff and managers.  It was just released to them today, but the overall responses have been positive and happy with the amount of information there.  When you compare it to our current website, it is leaps and bounds ahead of it.  I'll keep you updated and hopefully will provide a link when it is live.

Training for the upcoming Niagara Falls International Mini Marathon has been coming along.  Melissa and I are going to be running at the same pace, which is her's not mine, that will help me pace myself so that I don't do what I sometimes do, start too fast and end up walking.  This past weekend we ran 9 miles straight (4.2 miles less than the full length of the Mini).  We will be running 10 miles this week and then tapering off the running up until the big race.  Wish us luck!

Bush for the Push

Turning to sports, the Fighting Irish are 4-1 with their only loss coming to Michigan and a controversial loss at that.  They have won the last 3 of the those 4 in the final minutes and in one case seconds of the game.  This weekend's showdown in South Bend, which we are going to, should be a good game.  I had tickets to the 2005 "Bush for the Push" game in the Bend and didn't get to go because of work so I hope this weekend's game is as exciting as that game was but with a different outcome.  Here's hoping that Jimmy Clausen and the Irish can put a hurting on the Trojans of Troy.

Notre Dame 37 vs. Washington 30

From Notre Dame Scoreboards

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Notre Dame 33 vs. MSU 30 Scoreboard

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First Victory over MSU at Notre Dame Stadium since 1993

Thoughts on the ND vs. Michigan Game!

Just got done watching the Notre Dame vs. Michigan game and I can't believe the Irish lost it :-(. There were a few miscues on the game that I want to talk about. I cannot believe that the touchdown in the first half was overturned. The video evidence was not inconclusive and therefore the call on the field should not have been overturned - I blame the refs! Second, the Irish should not have been throwing the ball when they had the lead in the forth quarter, you run the ball with the lead - I blame the coaching! Third, there were 3 seconds stolen from the game that need to be addressed. There was a reason that the refs ran from the field after the game was over - Again the refs are to blame! Now as I told some of my Michigan fan aquaintances that I don't mind losing, that is IF I LOSE FAIRLY, and I don't feel that that game was a fair game. Now with that said, bring on Michigan State and I now have to root for OSU, cause I hate USC!

Tenn. Trip Day 1 – Waterfalls & ND Football!

After we were done Ziplining we made an executive decision to head to the Smoky Mountains State Park and head for some hiking and to take some pictures of the waterfalls they have. We got out of the car right after the game had started and ND had scored its first touchdown. Now, before I begin I hope everyone realizes this was hard to not watch this game: home opener, high hopes, first game of the season – but don’t worry I have it TIVO’ed. We started out on our hike to the Laurel Falls and the skies started to look threatening. We kept going and started to hear

“There’s a bear on the trail” and “Yep honey that was Yogi Bear” which made us a little curious and we kept going. As we approached the falls someone was pointing to a place on a nearby cliff and sure enough there was a small bear! I snapped a couple of pictures that didn’t turn out but we kept going and took several pictures of the falls, and wouldn’t you know it as we started to take pictures the rain came. We hung out under a tree/ledge and were dry for a while and as it started to let up we headed out. We got back to the car and I immediately jumped on the phone and checked the text messages that Melissa’s brother Nick was sending us about the game. “28 – 0 ND at the half” he said and we decided that we would head back to the cabin we were staying in and get ready for dinner. We got back to the cabin and were able to see some of the highlights of the game and from what I saw I think we are going to be good this year. If we can beat Michigan next week that will be the litmus test for the season, win there and we should do well for the rest of the season.

Tennessee Trip Day 1 – Ziplining

Well Melissa and I woke up on our first day of vacation and had some eggs, bacon, and a biscuit for breakfast. We took the dogs out for a little bit, watched some ESPN College Gameday and then we headed out to stop by Wal-Mart for some items prior to heading out for our day. On our way to Wal-Mart we saw a place that was advertising Ziplining.

Melissa & I have never done this before and Melissa said “That sounds like fun!” So we found a place that takes you up to the top of a mountain and you Zipline down. We signed up, finished our lunch, and headed on our way. Mental note: Krystals = White Castles. The Ziplining was a blast. We headed up with 2 guides who were cool and funny. Our group was great too! I was able to snap some pictures of Melissa using my Blackberry, check them out. I would suggest that anyone who has the option of doing it does it because we had a lot of fun.

Day 1 of the Boy's Spring Break!

Well both, Alex and Nick, are finally here in Cincinnati. Total we went to Chick-Fil-A for breakfast before heading to Cosco for our monthly trip for groceries there. After that we took April for a really long walk to tire her out prior to Nick arriving in the afternoon. I learned that I was able to keep up with my high school aged brother in a run during our walk. We then came back and had Salmon for dinner which was excellent. Nick and I played NCAA 2009 on his Xbox and be both won a game each. I posted some of the highlights from my first game with him. Tomorrow it's off to Keeneland for racing. Wish us luck as we try and make some money or at least have a fun day and come back with plenty of pictures!