It's football season

Let me start off with a big fat Who-Dey in response to the win by the Bengals over the Steelers on Sunday. For whatever reason, this city just needed that win! Forget records and standings for a second...this city needed to see the Bengals not only beat the Steelers, but get one good sack of Big Ben. To quote the TV announcer from Week 2's game: "Antwan Odom...is not human!"

But let us talk about standings for a second. Power rankings are out.

Steelers are ranked #8 after enjoying a bit of time ranked 1 and 2. What additional comments do we get from Fox Sports:

BETTER THAN RECORD: Chalk up the 1-2 mark to a slight case of Super Bowl
hangover, but more to the loss of defensive leader Troy Polamalu. There's no way
the Steelers blow back-to-back fourth quarter leads if the hairy All-Pro safety
is doing his thing. But even when they won the Super Bowl last season,
Pittsburgh's margin of error was never too vast. Which means they're not far
away from getting back on top.

Now the Bengals - Ranked #13, up 9 spots from last week, and towering over their season-low ranking of 28 - the Bengals deserve a bit more respect. What do you have to say Fox Sports:

RECORD IS JUST RIGHT: That Ochocinco dude may have flown over the cuckoo's nest several years ago, but give the hombre props for being right after he yelled all
summer about his team being a contender once again. Carson Palmer is arguably
the NFL's best QB not to win a playoff game, and his return to health along with
Cincy's improving defense will keep the Trojans (err, Bengals) in playoff
contention all year long.

My Opinion...

So, with TP, the Steelers could have won? Guess what, he's out. And even if he was in there to stop those last plays of the game, that doesn't mean that the rest of the game would have played out the same either. Here's the funny thing about football: you can only play the game with what you have. You put your available guys on the field for 4-quarters and you do what you have to do. At the end of 4 quarters, it is what it is and you have either won or lost. You will never get to play that game again with any different conditions. Why waste your breath on what could have been?

And really, does your focus need to be on Chad's off-field antics. We know he's a clown! Show the same respect to the Bengals that you appear to show the Steelers. We can just as easily argue the Bengals potential playoff contention had Carson's knee not been taken out.

It is what it is. And at the end of the day, the Bengals have more heart and more wins than the Steelers. Now if they could only get a little more respect.

Goodness...

I haven't been on here for a while, and with good reason...

Chrissy got married (and I was in the wedding)

I started teaching at UC (and the preparation takes a lot out of me)

Work has been hectic! Good hectic though.

Jerry and I have been working a lot around the house.

Speaking of which, look at what's becoming of the dining room...

Here is what the dining room looked like for the previoius owner:

When we moved in, we immediately pulled up the carpet and changed the light fixture:

Now we (I?) have decided that we cannot seem to decorate around the previous owner's theme. So we are taking down the wallpaper, and going with a two-tone paint scheme in addition to having the floors redone. So I have spent a decent amount of time over the past few weekends stripping wallpaper and trying to prepare the walls for paint...

We removed the chair rail and I took my first swipe at the wallpaper.

Then, I discovered that the paper had to be taken off in 2 layers - the top, colorful layer and the bottom paper/glue layer. My dad thought that this might have been bathroom-grade wallpaper designed to withstand moisture accumulation. Which makes sense since it repelled every product I tried to soak it with to loosen it.

Check out the awesome paint job beneath the paper! As of this picture, I have one entire wall finished, and 1/4 to 1/3 of each of the other walls uncovered as well. It should probably only take another half day (fingers crossed) to finish removing the bottom layer of paper and to scrub the walls. We will probably have the floors redone before moving forward with painting.

Speaking of the floors... We are planning to have pretty much all the floors redone on the main level. So while I was removing wallpaper, Jerry was tearing up carpet in the hallway. Aside from the nasty (hopefully removable via sander) stain that the previous owner left, I think it looks pretty sharp already:

We are hoping to work on removing the living room carpet throughout the week and have someone out to the house to estimate redoing the floors by this weekend. Hopefully, we can schedule the work so that it doesn't do a whole lot of interfering with my work schedule (since we can't walk on the floors for about 3 days once they are finished). Anyone wanna take us in during that time?

Best Email Ever

On September 12, the Buckeyes take on USC. Now, while I am a fan of Buckeye Football, my sister and Jerry are FANS of it. So the OSU/USC is a big deal, right?

Jerry invited Mindy over to our house and was a planning an evening of football, grilling, beer, and fire.

Unfortunately, September 12 is also the day that my parents leave for Atlantic city. Since they will leave EARLY in the morning and Mindy is working, I am running by the house to let the dogs out and what not and Mindy will watch them later in the day. Therefore, any OSU/USC party at my house has been cancelled.

After all of this was figured out, Mindy and I asked if Jerry could just come over to mom and dad's and we three could watch the game in their newly finished basement. Mom said no! But with good reason...

Quick Backstory...

A long, long time ago in a far away land known as West Chester, my parents decided to finish their basement. My mother also decided that she was going to rip up all the carpet upstairs, get hardwood floors, and redecorate. To that effect she called 1-800-Got Junk and gave them her family room couch. Since then there has been no area in their house to really entertain. They did get bar stools and recliners for the basement, but it is otherwise pretty bare in the house right now. (They did recently order more furniture for the basement that won't be in for a few weeks)I would go so far as to say that the house is torn up and probably won't be put back together until closer to the holidays.

Getting back to the point...

My mother said absolutely no "parties" because the house is in dis-repair. Today my father sent my sister the following e-mail:

Mindy,

I hope you are going to have Jerry and Gina over for the football game on
9/12. I know mom said no one because the house is messy, but Jerry and Gina have
been there before and know the house. Lets not tell mom, and remember to put the
house back the way you found it and she won't know.

dad

I don't care if it's just pre-season

I went to the Bengals game last night and enjoyed seeing them take a 38-7 victory.

I am a bit peeved that Kelly wouldn't just shut it and let me fully enjoy the first half of the game, but good game none the less.

As I drove home, I was listening to the post-game show on WEBN. People were calling in and saying that the Bengals were gonna win 10-12 games this season if they continue to play like that. I've got news, a decent number of the guys you saw play last night were fighting tooth and nail to earn a spot on the regular season roster. Once they get it, I wouldn't expect to see much more action similar to what I witnessed last night.

It's time for complacency and sucky-ness to kick in!

It's Wednesday...again

Turns out that these Wednesdays keep coming around every week. This one has been particularly long.

I spent the first half of the day waiting for my boss to give me changes and recs for the strategic plan...which would pretty much take up my afternoon to review and change. And then she showed up after lunch saying that the council reviewing the plan needs until next Tuesday to review it. Grrrrrr. So now I am stretching for things to do because I put off some appointments until tomorrow. Fun!

I'm so ready for the next phase...the next challenge...bring it on!

Fantas-tic!

I saw my first Fantasy Football draft live yesterday. I don't get it, but more power to you fantasy football players!