Rhya brought home a bunch of pictures from Rockford, and this one makes Rhya and I realize that little Lindy is growing up really fast.
July 25, 2006
She’s Growing Up
July 21, 2006
Happy Birthday Caryn!
This one is even later, but I blame the timezone 
Hope you had a great one!
Happy Birthday Rawlins!
This post is a bit late (Brian’s Birthday was the 19th), but I came across this picture today.
Happy Belated Birthday!
July 20, 2006
Lindy – Saying Mama?
It feels really early, but it sure seems like Lindy is saying “Mama” when she wants Rhya to pick her up. She has been working toward it for the last couple of days, and Rhya (who is in Rockford right now while I paint the basement, left me a voicemail yesterday. She eventually said “Mama” plain as day. It is a bit long, so I’ll trim it and upload it this evening.
UPDATE: Here is Lindy saying “Mama.”
NCAA Football 2007 – First Impressions
I’ve only played 2 games, and both of these were in Dynasty Mode. I’ve heard there are a lot of enhancements to the Race for the Heisman. I’ll write about that later. Anyway, here are the notes off the top of my head. Let me know what you like/don’t like!
- Good:
- Momentum – I’ve heard from others that this can cause some unrealistic blowouts by horrible teams, but I haven’t seen that yet. For me, the momentum shifting back and forth on big plays adds to the game immensely.
- New Kicking Meter – I’ve never been a big fan of the tap-tap-tap kick meter, and this is a little more “Golden Tee” style, where you pull back the R-stick and push it forward to determine strength and accuracy. However, it feels like the field-goal kickers are kicking more line-drive style this year. I’m not sure if this is the game or the way I am kicking it. We’ll see.
- Tighter 3rd Person View on Kickoff Returns – It is really neat to see the holes develop (and close) in front of you. I found myself twisting my body like a grade schooler trying to fit through holes.
- Xbox Button Layout – Leaps and bounds better than last year. Making Y the stiff arm was brilliant.
- In Season Recruiting – This is pretty neat. It isn’t as involved as off-season recruiting, but it lets you try to nab some All-Americans early.
- Bad:
- Jumping the Line – Good idea, but horrible on implementation. I enjoy playing as linemen a lot on defense, and this allows you to hit a button at the time of the snap to try to come off the ball better on Defense. In reality, this is super easy, and it seems like I knock down the offensive lineman too often. I’m going to play with the AI settings to make this harder. Like I said, I like the idea.
- 3rd Person View on Punts – This is really hard to see how far defenders are, and I’ve had a problem calling fair catches in time.
- Ugly:
- Announcers – You’d think the announcers could record some original material. Boo!
- ESPN: The Magazine – I heard ESPN was going to replace Sports Illustrated in the game. I thought “Awesome! We’re going to get Sportcenter highlights at the end of every week!” Nope. Sucks. All they did was search for “Sports Illustrated” and replace with “ESPN: The Magazine.” Lame.
- PSU’s super-slow QB – I miss Michael Robinson. (Though his arm is phenomenal, so I can’t cry too much.
T-Storms
I wish I would have had the digital camera last night. I’ve never seen so many trees ripped up in person before. I drove home from work last night right after a severe thunderstorm had passed through, generating winds of over 70 mph. This picture from my camera phone shows a giant tree two doors down from our house with about half of its major branches ripped in half. Luckily, the only damage done to our tree was very minor – but it was enough that I was picking up sticks in our yard for an hour while they restored power to our block.
July 17, 2006
Happy Birthday Chip!
Get the beer flowing and “Regulators” pumping, it’s Chip Wooden’s birthday!
Even though he’s dealt a 7 and a 2 in this hand of life poker, may the flop come 777 and allow Chip to bust some fool with pocket rockets. (…Yeah it’s corny. And what.)
(Hopefully I’ll meet up with him sometime tonight and tell him in person)
July 14, 2006
We’re Building!
I’m a bit hesitant to put this up on the site yet, as I’ll be antsy until there is actually a hole in the ground, but we have begun both the financial and construction process for a new home! We have a rough approval from the bank, and we have a lot that we are happy with, and we are having blueprints drawn up right now (We created a design based on this plan).
We are definitely excited, and I will update the site throughout the process, and hopefully impart the lessons that we learn.
First of all, I’ve got both a bank and a builder that I trust, and I feel like I would recommend them to anyone. I’ll hold off on disclosing the former until we are farther along, but I would recommend the builder in a heartbeart to anyone: Charles Rusk II Custom Homes. As a bit of disclosure, I’ve known Charlie for almost all my life, and we’ve been really good buddies for most of that time. That said, he is one amazing builder, and we’re lucky that he is taking the time to build a house for us (as he is normally undertaking much bigger projects).
We are very excited, but it seems that the blueprints will take 3-4 weeks to be finished. I’m debating on making this journey its own page instead of a series of posts. We’ll see!
July 12, 2006
My Girls
It has been forever since I took time to get this website up and running again, and I’m sure I’ve lost most of the readership, but we’ve got exciting news from the past, and a huge amount of fun and new things coming up for our family, so dust off the M&R bookmark or fire up the RSS reader of your choice and join us!
