thanks so much to everyone who offered me birthday wishes yesterday. That’s probably my favorite part of turning a year older, because it’s a reminder that you are loved, and there’s nothing better than that.

so 30 isnt so bad now that I’m here. I’ve actually been preparing myself for this for the past few months, so it almost feels good to be here now. Being a 30-yr old is almost like a merit badge in a way. It says “i’ve been around these parts for enough time now to have a pretty good idea of what’s going on”. Of course there’s still lots to learn, and the other part of being 30 is realizing that there’s so much more you don’t know. I love learning and hope to keep that up until i stop breathing.

So thanks to everyone for reminding me how blessed i am. I got some nice cards from my parents, my grandparents, my inlaws, my wonderful kids (nice homemade cards), my amazing wife, and the kids at Catalyst youth group (Kudos to Sarah K for the picture card as well). Got some great emails from my sibs and other friends, and some phone calls as well.

this weekend should be fun. I’ll be seeing Caedmon’s tonight a couple hours away. A nice date night for Erica and I while my parents (in town for the weekend) watch the kids. Tomorrow my dad and i plan on golfing, though the 48 degree forecast at tee time sounds about as inviting as a root canal. it will be fun though. should be a good weekend.

so the big 3-0 day has come and gone, and as my mom reminded me, today i am closer to 40 than i am to 20. i say bring it on!

• Jack Nicholson refused to wear a Red Sox hat for his role as a Boston mob boss in The Departed. As if i didn’t care for him enough already.
• Amusing clip from a South American soccer match. Watch the ballboy in the green shirt take the ball from the goalie and nonchalantly place it in the net. Then watch madness ensue as the referees count the goal. (FYI, the second half of the video is pointless, so don’t waste your time once you’ve seen the initial reaction of the players and crowd).
• Former New Kids heartthrob Jordan Knight has a CD Signing Party at a Wal-Mart. 4 people show up. Somewhere, Danny Wood chuckles.
• This is an interesting sneak preview at what Disney has on tap in the future. Looks like American Dog, Rapunzel, and Toy Story 3 will all be pretty good.
• Newsweek looks into the world of dreams.
• by the way, i went 14-2 against the spread last week in my NFL picks. that was good enough to win me $40. yeehaw!

Erica and I spent the weekend in the Big Apple with some of our favorite people and had a great time. Here’s the rundown.

Friday

• enjoyed a turbo Dunkin Donuts Coffee and low fat muffin on our way into the city. Kandace and Erica watched Pride and Prejudice on the DVD player while Than and I listened to music and chatted about all things under the sun. Those DVD headphones work on kids and wives too! haha. i jest. it was a nide ride in though, and i got my first look at lady liberty.
• our hotel was, in a word, Amazing. The Millenium Hilton, right in the center of the financial district. The couple known as Thandace (our very own Brangelina…complete with news of a coming baby!) shared a room with Erica and I. We were on the 31st floor, with a corner room facing North and East into the city. The Herrs and Mellinger’s room was on the other side of the hotel looking directly down into the Ground Zero footprint which was across the street from us. It was definitely moving to be right there were so many innocent folks lost their lives 5 years and 1 week earlier.

(here’s the view from our room while Than and I pass time before the wedding watching football)

(warning: large nose ahead. here’s a pic i took of myself in front of our window. and honestly, this is direct from the camera, no photoshopping)

• We had dinner reservations at 8pm at Little Frankie’s just North of Houston Street. We left at 7:30pm, expecting to hail a cab and get there in time. We learned a hard lesson about trying to find a cab in NYC on a friday night. Instead of waiting in front of the hotel like we should have, we decided to walk and get one on the way. an hour later, we arrived at the restaurant having walked the entire way (probably a mile and a half). Not a big deal, you say? Well it wasn’t for the guys, but the ladies were all wearing shoes that weren’t exactly for walking. I think the final blister tally between the 4 of them was somewhere in the 10-12 range. But hey, we got a nice scenic tour of SoHo. Needless to say they weren’t amused. Oh and to top it off, they didnt hold our reservation because we were late and we sat outside the place for an hour and 10 minutes before we finally got seated (even thought they told us 15-30 minutes). Not a good start to the night. Once inside, though, the food was as great as the waiter was unintelligible.

(outside Little Frankie’s. Erica’s face sums up how our wives felt about us at that point)

(the idiots who couldn’t hail a cab. josh, me, matt, and Than)

• We made it to Grace, a small bar off of Church St. in the financial district by 11:45am, over 2 hours later than we had planned. oh well. Matt and Renee (the happy couple) were still there. We chilled there for a little over an hour. A few things i learned: 1) “Stella” is not a cute name for “Amstel”. They are vastly different beers. 2)Cosmos in the city can set you back $10, Long Island Iced Teas can set you back $12, and 3)Grouchy, unfriendly bartenders don’t like it when someone walks out with one of their candles.
• Before crashing back at the hotel at 3am we stopped in at the Groom-to-be’s new apartment on Murray St. It’s an incredible place at an incredible price. And by “incredible” i mean that the rent for their 2-bedroom apartment is 4 times my mortgage payment on a 4-bedroom house. location, location, location. great place though.

Saturday

• rolled out of bed around 10am and found the nearest Dunkin Donuts. While the ladies did the pedicure thing, the four horsemen walked down to Battery Park. Looked at the Statue of Liberty from a distance. Looked at all the people waiting in line to go see the statue of Liberty. Headed back to the hotel to watch football.
• at 3:15pm we boarded a bus headed for the wedding. it should have taken us 20 minutes or so to get there, but we didnt make it to the church until 4:30pm. the wedding was supposed to start at 4pm, but since more than half the guests were on our bus, they waited. the bus driver missed a turn, got stuck in horrific traffic, tried to take a sharp corner and failed (taking out a rear view mirror), and barely got us there.
• The wedding was at a nice little church in Greenwich Village, everything went well. Back on the buses and over to the reception on the lower West Side. The reception hall was on the 10th floor of a warehouse with a nice balcony overlooking the city. The food was incredible. The place was incredible. The whole thing was top notch. We were there until about midnight when the party moved to a small bar called West a cab ride away.

(man and wife)

• Most of the wedding party (125 people) crammed into the small bar and tried to talk over loud music with no light. I enjoyed catching up with Matt’s dad for a while. He provided some of the best one-liners of the night. We found a cabby that squeezed 6 of us into his cab (the Herrs took off earlier because the loud music was “death on a stick” to Matty) and we dozed off around 3am again. (but not before i got a phone call from Matty’s cellphone which was apparently no longer on Matty but was stuck in a cab somewhere. remarkably it was returned to the hotel the next day).

Sunday

• We drove uptown to see all we could see before heading back home. First stop was Greenwich Village to visit Magnolia Bakery (you might remember the name from the SNL short, Lazy Sunday). Their cupcakes were tasty, and we were all excited to walk by Anderson Cooper who was hanging around outside talking to some dude. I thought about getting a pic with him, but decided against it.

(The Magnolia Bakery)

(Waiting in line for a coffee and cupcakes at Magnolia)

(Chris Parnell with his Magnolia cupcake)

(Anderson Cooper, in case you were drawing a blank)

• We left Greenwich Village and parked up near Central Park. They seemed to be shooting a movie a block away so we went to check it out. We couldnt get close, but one of the crew members told us it was a Will Smith flick called “I am Legend”. (movie description: “The lone healthy survivor of a biological war faces off against a new breed of nocturnal mutants.” um… no thanks). We walked through Central Park, visited the new 5th Avenue Apple Store, walked to Rockefeller Center, and then into Times Square where we ate dinner at the Hard Rock.

(at Central Park)(at the Apple Store)

(Erica at Rockefeller Center)



(Times Square)



• We tried to leave NYC via the Lincoln Tunnel from 11th Ave around 7pm. Big Mistake. It took about an hour to go a mile or two, but it was the craziest traffic jam ever. Even though 11th ave is 2-way traffic, the cars headed south outnumbered the northbound cars to the point that the road became a one way. The people trying to go North were not amused. We were. We got back to lancaster county around 10:30pm and crashed as soon as possible.

The whole trip was a blast. Many more stories i could recount, but we’ll save that for the DVD Director’s Cut edition. Great friends, great wedding, and a great city. Might have to do that again sooner rather than later.

Pro Football is back tonight, as you probably know, and as i like to do every year i’m offering up my predictions for the 2006 season. Last year i picked 7 of the 12 playoff teams (nothing to write home about), and my super bowl pick of the Patriots over the Panthers wasn’t really close.

This year I’m back for more punishment. If football does nothing for you, you might want to skip this altogether as it will be as brutal as watching Connie Chung serenade her husband Maury Povich on National TV. If you like football, however, than you might find this as enjoyable as the OK Go Treadmill video. (And for those of you that are really, really, bored, you can watch some dude named Noah grow up one day at a time. He has taken a photo of himself every day for 6 years and they all flash before your eyes in about 6 minutes. freaky, interesting, dumb, and cool all at the same time.)

Also, i thought this would be a good time to remind you that last year i had a perfect season in my NFL Suicide Pool. That has nothing to do with these predictions, but it makes me look smart.

THE DIVISIONS
NFC EAST - i wouldn’t be surprised if all 4 teams finished with a 3-3 record in their division. I’d take New York if their schedule wasn’t so tough. Dallas will go 11-5 and earn the NFC #1 seed.

NFC South - I think this division could play tougher than the NFC East. Carolina, everyone’s favorite pick for the Super Bowl, will win this division with an 11-5 record. (but Atlanta is nipping at their heels).

NFC North - From best to worst, this division is putrid. Chicago’s lack of offense catches up with them but they still win the division with a 9-7 record.

NFC West - Seattle will struggle at times this year, but the division is too weak for them not to win it. 11-5 will earn them the #2 seed in the NFC.

NFC Wildcards - I think Atlanta will be better than everyone thinks and finish 10-6. The Giants will finish 9-7 and make it to the playoffs on tiebreakers.

NFC Playoff Seeds: 1-DAL, 2-SEA, 3-CAR, 4-CHI, 5-ATL, 6-NYG

AFC East - Miami improves, but not enough. While Nick Saban might be approaching Bill Belicheck’s level, Daunte Culpepper is no Tom Brady. If winning quarterbacks were planets, Daunte Culpepper is Pluto. New England finishes at 12-4 with the league’s best record.

AFC South - I’m not in love with Jacksonville like the rest of the sports world. I also think the Colts will take a step back. Indy still takes the division though, with an 11-5 record.

AFC North - I dislocated my finger so bad last year sliding headfirst in softball that it broke through the skin and left a 1-inch long gash. this season i was afraid to slide at all…until i started playing. i had vowed to go feet-first, but that first close play at second base happened, and i did what came naturally. i dove head first. Carson Palmer won’t be worrying about his knee this season, he’ll be shredding defenses. Cincy goes 11-5 and wins the division.

AFC West - Denver is the pick here by default. They’ll finish 11-5. Oakland will be pitiful. Either the Raiders, the Jets, or the Packers will have Brady Quinn under center next year.

AFC Wildcards - The defending champs will enter the playoffs like they did last year, from the wildcard spot. Maybe they like it better that way? I’m torn between picking the Chargers and the Dolphins for that last playoff spot…i think I’ll hitch my horse to LT and Martyball in San Diego.

AFC Playoff Seeds: 1-NE, 2-CIN, 3-IND, 4-DEN, 5-PIT, 6-SD

THE PLAYOFFS - NFC
ATL @ CHI - Vick did it to the Pack at Lambeau, why not here as well. ATL.

NYG @ CAR - Eli tries to win his first playoff game. Maybe next year. CAR.

CAR @ SEA - Holmgren and Co. get the job done. SEA.

ATL @ DAL - Pass rush creates 4 turnovers, Dunn rushes for 150 yds. Upset City. ATL

ATL @ SEA - Falcons run ends as Shaun Alexander rushes for 4 TDs. SEA.

THE PLAYOFFS - AFC

PIT @ DEN - Can Pittsburgh win a playoff game in Denver 2 years straight? You bet. PIT.

SD @ IND - Can both lower AFC seeds win on the road? You bet. SD.

PIT @ CIN - Kimo Von Oelhoffen is a Jet now, Carson’s patellas are safe. Bengals win. CIN.

PIT @ NE - Tom Brady would not lose this game. NE.

CIN @ NE - Tom Brady would not lose this game either. But maybe Carson Palmer decides to elevate his game to a Brady-like level. Marv Lewis get his boys to gut out a tough 23-17 win in Foxboro. CIN.

THE SUPER BOWL

Cincinnati and Seattle head to Miami. Typical storylines. Seattle’s been there before. Carson Palmer is the new Big Ben, ready to emerge. Chad Johnson is the brash WR, plotting his Super Bowl touchdown celebration. Rudi Johnson is the most underrated RB in football. Noone is giving Seattle any respect.

In the end, Palmer does his thing, the Bengal defense does their part, and the Cincinnati Bengals win 31-20 to become the 2006/2007 NFL Super Bowl Champions.

EPILOGUE

(Many apologies to Geof and any other Bengals fans who feel that I’ve just sabotaged their season)

Let the games begin.