Merry Christmas 2009

Christmas is about family, togetherness, sharing, forgiveness and love. No judgmental feelings, just enjoying the company of those that truly mean the most to us. Christmas is about the gifts of oneself. Christmas is about what you feel in your heart. This year I think our family truly had one of our best Christmas's every.
Jamie arrived home Tuesday and we welcomed  Jack home on Christmas Eve. That afternoon we all went to a beautiful Christmas Mass at Spalding High School. Father JoJo from Our Lady of the Fields presided over the Service and gave a wonderful homily on family and Christmas. We then went over to Joyce Buswell's for the annual Christmas Eve tradition of spaghetti dinner and gift exchange between all the cousins, aunts and uncles. There too the true meaning of Christmas was present. Everyone was very understanding of the difficulties we had been going through and did not dwell on any of it. We just enjoyed one another's  company, shared stories, good food and laughed. 

Christmas day was just as nice.  Everyone slept in until around 8:30. We shared our few gifts and then had a wonderful breakfast of french toast and bacon. The children were very thankful for the gifts they received. I think they are beginning to realize the sacrifices Mom and Dad must make to provide these things for them. After breakfast we broke out some old movies from 1992-1994 when Jack and Jamie were just little guys. We had many laughs watching those old home movies. Gosh we were young. My young bride was really hot too. We spent the rest of the afternoon just laying around, goofing on the computer and playing on the wii. We fixed a wonderful turkey dinner and actually broke out the good china for our Christmas dinner.

I think what I may have learned this year was to take my time, enjoy myself and savor the moments. I hope I can bring some of this Christmas into everyday.

Blizzard of 2009

We spent the morning digging out from the record breaking snow that came yesterday. It began to snow on Friday night and by the time it was all done last night we had a total of 21 inches.

Here is Jamie's car. I imagine she will want to use her car when she returns from school on Tuesday. It will be a big job for her to dig it out. My car was parked in the garage but I still haven't been out because the county has yet to plow our street. We called last night and they say it will be done sometime before Wednesday.

( Movie Reveiw) Public Enemies 2009

Public Enemies is an alright docu-crime-thriller that, thought well-made, ends up coming out dry. Many of the scenes are well paced, but in its running time the film feels like a very rushed overview of the final years of John Dillinger. What I mean to say is that this is a good movie, but you probably won't leave the theater feeling like you've learned anything about John Dillinger, other than trivial facts.
Depp could have slid by just showboating. Instead, he lets his haunted eyes reveal the confusion, cruelty and fatalism of a criminal who knows that part of his deal is dying young (he was 31).
Having spent most of his youth locked up in prison or hideouts, Dillinger knows what he wants when he hits Chicago. "Everything — right now," he says to hatcheck girl Billie Frechette (La Vie en Rose Oscar winner Marion Cotillard), the half French-Canadian, half American Indian beauty he moves on so hard it scares her: "I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars and you. What else you need to know?"
The patter is pure Hollywood, but Depp and the vibrantly touching Cotillard give the relationship a potent intimacy. When Billie is brutalized by cops, it's not Dillinger but Purvis who steps in to make the gallant gesture. Bale excels as this dapper G-man who uses his rank as chief lieutenant to FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover (a superbly creepy Billy Crudup) to rise in the ranks. He's just as ready for his close-up as Dillinger.
In the film's most thrilling action sequence — the 1934 FBI raid on Dillinger and his gang at Wisconsin's Little Bohemia Lodge — tommy-gun fire explodes like Fourth of July fireworks, and Purvis once again misses getting his man. That failure prods him to set the trap at the Biograph Theatre with the help of Anna Sage (Branka Katic), a Romanian prostitute. Though we know the outcome, the shooting is handled with pulse-quickening suspense, ending with Dillinger's dying whisper. What did he say? Mann comes up with a guess, which you can believe or not.
At the end of his book, Burrough pays a visit to Dillinger's Indiana grave and runs his hand over his tombstone. He writes that it's "nothing more and nothing less than polished granite — smooth, hard, cold. Real." Mann isn't satisfied with real. Never has been. His interpretation of the facts is not that of an objective reporter but a cinema poet. Onscreen, in Depp's towering performance, Dillinger still has blood in his veins, his dreams as vivid as the crimes that debased them. Public Enemies comes at you like Dillinger did: all of a sudden. It's movie dynamite.

Sport Fair Winter Classic (FGAC)

I attended 2 days of the Sport Fair Winter Classic Swim meet at George Mason University this weekend to watch Jenna compete in her "championship meet." I rarely go to these events because they are very time consuming. This meet was somewhat different in that Jenna's events were just in the morning session each day. Maureen went Friday morning as I had to work. Jenna started the weekend off great by dropping almost 2 seconds off her 50 breaststroke time going a 37.55. That was her only event of the day so the two of them had a nice lunch and then came home around 1pm.
Saturday we were up early and out the door at 6:30am. Warm ups began at 7:30 and the meet began at 8:40. Jenna's first event of the day was the 50 freestyle. She had another nice swim and for the first time went sub 30 and came in at 29.77. Next she took off almost 3 seconds in the 100 breaststroke going 122.60. Her last event of the day was the 50 backstroke, where she again dropped some time coming in at 36.22.
We spent he night at the Marriott hotel at Fair Oaks mall. Maureen and I did some shopping at the mall that afternoon. We had a nice team dinner that evening but the ride to the restaurant was difficult because of a faulty navigator.
Sunday we arrived at the pool and Jenna's first race was the difficult 200IM. The first leg is always difficult and this time was no different. After the butterfly leg Jenna needed to pick it up in order to get back in the race. She did a decent job and wound up finishing with a similar time of 2:46. After that race was the 100 free. In my opinion this was her best race of the weekend. She dropped 2 seconds of her time and came in at 1:05.66. The time was one of the faster times and enabled her to swim the girls 13-14 400 free relay later that morning. Click Here to see that race. That was one of her goals for the entire season and I think she surprised herself by reaching it in December. Her event of the weekend was the 200 breaststroke. She had another nice swim her continuing the trend of dropping time and dropped a full 6 seconds finishing with a 3:04.22.
It was an enjoyable time watching her swim so good this weekend. All the hard work she has put in with FGAC is paying off for her.
Congratulations Jenna. Keep up the great work.

Ohio State Inivtational

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University men's and women's swimming teams take to the road for the last competition of the fall season Friday when they head to Columbus, Ohio, for competition at the Ohio State Invitational from Dec. 4-6. The three-day meet will take place at the Bill and Mae McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion.
“Being our first prelim/final meet of the year, racing well in the morning will be very important and also new to some,” Riggs says. “All in all, this has always been a good meet for us and gives us great information to use going into the second half of the season.”
The prelims will start 11 a.m. on Friday, 10 a.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. on Sunday. The finals will begin at 6 p.m. on Friday, 5 p.m. on Saturday and 3 p.m. on Sunday.
West Virginia and Ohio State will be joined by Miami (women), Minnesota, Notre Dame (men), Penn State and Pitt.

It's a very exciting time for Jamie being a part of the team. She is only swimming a couple events but the fact that she is traveling with the team and taking it all in is a great experience for her. We're very proud of her and hope she can continue to keep up the hard work that swimming for West Virginia University demands.

TIGER WOODS NEW JOB: ADVICE CZAR !!

I can't imagine anything good for Obama with this cover out now. Timing impeccable.