Congratulations to the Northern Kentucky University Lady Norse, who won the NCAA Division II women’s national championship game on Saturday night!!! They rallied from two big deficits to beat South Dakota 63-58. Way to go NKU!!! Woohoo!

Unfortunately, both Xavier and Louisville went down in defeat in the Division I NCAA men’s tourney semi-finals. Sad times… I was pulling for both and hoping both would make it to the final four. Instead, we have UCLA (*blah*) and UNC (*gag*). Hopefully at least one of the remaining #1 seeds will fall tomorrow. Go Davidson?!?

Via GraphJam.com

In March 2004, a tiny grey and white kitty was born in Ohio. Thankfully, I rescued him from the Buckeye state in October of that year and brought him to a new home in good ol’ KY. Boy, the time has flown by – hard to believe he’s 4 already. And he’s definitely grown in that time.

For his birthday, I took him to the vet. (He didn’t like that gift so much…) He weighed in at 15.9 lbs last year. This year…drum roll…he lost weight! His weight is down to 15.8 lbs. Okay, okay…so it’s not that much of a loss, but at least he didn’t gain any weight. He’s not a small breed cat, apparently, so he’ll never be down to 7 lbs again, but the vet said he could still stand to lose about 3 lbs.

I don’t think I can embarrass a cat, but I thought I’d pull up some pics from Smokey’s youth. Man, he used to be a tiny little thing!

It’s better to wear out than rust out – Frances Willard

Nice quote! This speaks to how I hope to spend my summer. I won’t be taking classes this summer for several reasons, the primary being I need to the time to build up my school fund for next year. (Xavier’s a bit expensive and I will NOT go in debt for school). Second to that is there is so much I’ve been yearning to do, but have been unable to do, because of classes and the associated studying and homework. I’ll have the summer free and I’m going to take advantage of it to get worn out!

For me, I tend to have extremes – when I’m busy, I’m really busy; when I have nothing to do, I really do absolutely nothing. In high school and college, I was constantly on the go, being involved in just about any organization or activity in which I had the slightest interest. The more I did, the more I was driven to be more involved – band, student government, service organizations, religious organizations, etc. I didn’t tire so much at first, as each activity fed energy into the system to go to the next activity. As you can probably guess, though, I did wear myself down at times. Ironically, I felt worn out the most when I had some downtime, when having a single evening free with no meetings or obligations seemed like having a whole free weekend. It’s similar to running on a hot day – you don’t realize how tired and sweaty you are until you stop. But, dog-gone-it, I was wearing out rather than rusting out!

A couple years after I graduated (I was still connected and involved in college life for a bit after I graduated), when the easily accessible organizations and opportunities were no longer laid out in front of me, I went to the other extreme – I went to work then…nothing. I hung out with friends and such, but that’s not the same type of involvement as what I had in college. I no longer was part of groups that were making a difference in myself or others. I didn’t have the energy of being involved to feed me to get more involved. I didn’t feel motivated to start the ball rolling, either. The stress of work, especially at my previous job, led me to not want to do anything but crash afterwards. The spirit of apathy and lethargy was feeding me to be more apathetic and lethargic. I was rusting out.

A few years ago, my eyes started opening to this reality and I realized I was missing a prime time of my life to make a difference. I started slowly turning the corner and adding things to my plate again, such as occasional charity work, bible study, work activities and eventually school. Things are different from the college days, though. I’m no longer as youthful and full of energy as I had been. I can’t stay up until 2 or 3 am and make it through a day of work and classes. Having been slave to the man for seemingly too many years now, my body has accustomed itself to the 9-5 work schedule and the sleeping patterns associated with the schedule. Being back in school now, I’ve had a bit of a re-awakening, a hearkening back to those college days of yesteryear, and a desire to be worn out again. I know it can’t be like it was in college, so I do have to be realistic and not over do it. It’s important to set boundaries and have priorities in place.

But it’s time to again be more worn out than rusted out again!

Ah, the news I’ve been waiting for was announced yesterday:

Rock Band moshes over to Wii on June 22nd.

I’ve previously written about how much I’ve liked playing Rock Band, but I’ve only been able to play occasionally at Patrick’s house. A month or so ago, I bought Guitar Hero 3, but I haven’t enjoyed that anywhere near as much as Rock Band.

I need to temper my expectations, though. Some things will be lacking in the Wii version, such as character creation, Mii support and downloadable content. That’s disappointing. I also read that Guitar Hero 3 guitars will NOT work with Rock Band. Bummer…that’s one of the big reasons I decided to go on and get GH3.

Regardless of the negatives, I’m still looking forward to rocking out.

Here they are, my final brackets for the 2008 NCAA Tourney…for now at least.

I can’t really bring myself to pick any major upsets. I’m still wavoring on the final four, too, so chances are this could change.

Overall, I thought the brackets were pretty good this year. No real big surprises or disappointments in who got in, who got left out or the seedings.

Go UK! Go Xavier!

Catchy song and video from The Afters:

MySpace Girl

This MySpace fad needs to die, though. It’s getting – no, it’s been – old, for a while now, sinceit’s been popping up in movies, songs, etc…

It’s two and a half months into the year already. Time’s sure flying by.

As I wait for the UK game to get started (It’s 11:15pm right now, and with the severe weather in Atlanta, the game has been delayed for quite some time, both because of the continuing weather and damage to the Georgia Dome), I thought I’d post an update of my 2008 goals.

My goals for 2008:

• Run three 5ks or one 10k
  First step is done – I signed up for a 10k in January. Now I just need to train for it…
• Become and stay debt free, completing baby step 3 of Dave Ramsey’s plan
  As of 14Mar2008, I’m entirely debt free! And 3 months sooner than I was planning on it being gone! Finally, my personal loan stupid tax from 3 yrs ago is gone, so now I can focus more on saving a larger emergency fund, investments and paying for school. I made some guitar picks from my old credit card.
• Complete a minimum of 12 credit hours of classes without incurring any debt
  4 hours completed (Micro Econ and Financial Acct), I’m currently taking 4 more (Macro Econ and Managerial Acct), and there’s plenty of time to take the other 4 hours. No loans or other forms of debt so far.
• Finish up some landscaping and outdoor projects
  No progress yet, but this is a spring/summer project. Hard to do much in 15″ of snow or soggy ground anyway.
• Become more knowledgeable about mutual funds and retirement savings
  I’ve read two books so far and I’m currently reading a third. I’ve been reading a lot online, too. I’ve picked out 4 funds to invest in and I’ve been watching them over the last couple months, through the up and down market. In addition to my company 401k, in which I’ve been investing for 3 years, I’ll be investing through Vanguard.
• Maintain weight
  I’m on the upper end of where I want to be, but still within the limits.

Well, they’ve postponed the UK/Georgia game. To when? The semi-final round is tomorrow, so this quarterfinal game needs to be played before then. Looks like either UK or Georgia will be playing two games tomorrow. There seems to be quite a bit of damage in Atlanta based on the videos they were showing. Hope everyone’s alright…

CNN.com has an article on Tooth Fairy Economics.

Shannan and Marty Boyer of Park Hills, Kentucky, faced a sudden financial quandary one evening. Their 5-year-old, Sean, had just lost his first tooth, and the Boyers realized they didn’t know the Tooth Fairy’s going rate.

“My husband was like, ‘Maybe we should give him a twenty?’ And I said, ‘No! I used to get a quarter!’” says Shannan Boyer, 32, a publicist.

They settled on $5…

Wow, twenty dollars! I don’t remember exactly how much I got when I was younger, but I do know quarters were involved. The article goes on to report that some kids in LA got $20 for a tooth, too, so this price tag doesn’t necessarily seem to be that far-fetched. How the times have changed! It’s encouraging to read that some parents are using this as a lesson to teach their kids about business, finances, etc. We definitely need more of that.

I don’t know about this whole paying for a tooth thing, much like I don’t know how I’m going to deal with Santa Claus, but I don’t have to worry about those decisions quite yet. This may change when I do have kids, but I think it would be more fun and beneficial to put tickets to a ballgame, the zoo or something along those lines under my kids’ pillow. I would much rather spend time with my kid than give ‘em $20 bucks that will only go towards buying a video game.

All you parents out there (and I know that there are a bunch of new parents) – how much do you give your kids/will you give your kids for losing a tooth?

One of my co-workers sent this to me the other day:

One Week’s Worth of Food Around Our Planet

and

Hungry Planet: What the World Eats.

Some quick observations (hopefully not sounding too stereotypical):

• Americans eat more junk and fast food (no surprise)
• Americans don’t eat as many fruits and veggies
• Mexicans seem to really like Coke
• Pig’s knuckles with carrots???
• People in poorer countries, who live and work more outdoors, eat less than those who sit on their duffs in cubicles and on couches