Looks like I may win another prize on the football pick'em site I'm on. I've won $20 twice (3rd place) and $50 once (1st place) and this week I'm in 2nd place ($30) and I think the only game they haven't added is Monday Night Football last night. Which I picked Green Bay and they scored 45 points, so that just adds that much more to my score. However, I'm 49 points behind the 1st place guy so even if he didn't pick the game or picked it wrong I can't take 1st from him. Still, not too bad for just starting back in Week five and only playing 7 weeks so far. Out of 50-60 people playing, my finishes have been 27th, 6th, 7th, 3rd, 10th, 3rd, 1st, and so far 2nd for this last week. Yes, I watch too much football.
After Monday Night Football last night I noticed out the back door that the fog looked really thick and the moon lighting it up was pretty cool so after turning off all the lights in the living room I thought I'd take a quick look. I noticed something walking through the back yard and thought it was a huge dog or something since I could barely see it. Turns out it was one of six deer playing in our back yard. I say playing because they were jumping around and running around chasing each other and they were all too young to have antlers. So, I shot them all.
With my camera...
They're blurry because my camera doesn't do night shots well without a lot of noise when you up the ISO speed (light sensitivity), so I went the other route and just left the shutter open longer. Handheld at that... so, between normal hand shaking and the deer moving around, they ended up a little blurry.
An animal shot that didn't blur was the one I took of a squirrel today out on the Horseshoe at USC. I borrowed a Nikon D70 for my lunchbreak from our graphics/web guy here where I work. I have to say it was really nice using a real SLR camera instead of a point-and-shoot for the first time. Shame they're insanely priced.
USC was also decorating their Christmas tree on the Horseshoe today... stringing lights and such:
It's a great camera... sharp images, extremely fast shutter speed, and nice colors.
Well, I found out yesterday that I'm going to be at Dead Valley for the Carolina-Clemson game. Not only will I be at the game, I'm going to be roaming the sidelines.
A friend who is a sports photographer for a local company that shoots team pictures has an extra sideline pass because his wife isn't going with him for this game. He normally shoots Carolina's home games from the sidelines.
Should be a lot of fun. Not as if I need to say it or anything, but look for pictures from the game to be posted here.
The big drawback to all of this? It's a 12 noon kickoff. We're leaving Columbia at 6:30am. Ugh.
Black Friday is coming. For those of you who enjoy battling the crowds on the day after Thanksgiving, here's a site that gives the early jump on some deals. Great for planning that early AM route:
Then again, after last year's game it's kind of hard to get excited. Things are interesting yet again this year, only not for us this time around. We did get quite a beat down by Florida last week down in Gainsville, however, Clemson managed to drop their game at Duke. Even though they only lost by 3 and we lost by 34, a loss to Duke probably stings more than a loss to Florida which happens regularly to lots of teams.
Anyway... the reason that Duke loss is interesting is because that leaves Clemson with 5 wins and they need 1 more to be bowl eligible. The exact situation we were in the last two years going into the last game against them. Both times we lost leaving us home for the holidays. So, there's a bit more to this year's game again. Of course, even if Clemson wins there's a good chance they're not going to a bowl because of the number of teams ahead of them in the ACC and bowl tie-ins and such. But it'd be much easier to figure out if we just beat them. A 7th win for us would send us probably to the Peach Bowl in Atlanta and if we lose and stay with 6 wins it looks like the Music City perhaps in Nashville. We'll see I guess...
Carolina won their last home game last Saturday against Arkansas giving them 6 wins and making us bowl eligible! We came back to take the lead back 4 times in that game, including the last drive to win. Quite an exciting game. Don't have any pictures up... haven't had time to go through them all yet. Big game tomorrow against Florida down at the Swamp. It's on ESPN2 @ 7:00pm I believe. Maybe 6pm, not sure. It's nice to be able to think about bowl plans now and only worry about improving them with the rest of our games instead of worrying about even making a bowl the rest of the season.
There's been a ton of talk about Steve Spurrier coming here to Carolina to take over if/when Holtz retires after this season. Holtz says he has not made a decision yet, but man does this story have legs. It's coming from everywhere... major media outlets like ESPN right on down to small unheard of websites and message boards. We'll see how it all works out. Holtz said this year's team was capable of winning the SEC East and he wasn't joking. They certainly have the talent, just didn't finish games well a couple times so far this year. Whether Holtz is back next year or Spurrier does come here, they're going to have a very talented football team to coach. Plus, of the 11 games next season, we have 7 home games instead of the standard 6 teams normally have. Definitely an advantage.
Matt and I also went to Carolina's first home exibition basketball game last Monday versus USC Upstate (formerly USC Spartanburg). It was nice because it's the only game we get to sit down low in the really good seats for a basketball game in the 18,000 seat Colonial Center. I have pictures of that game online:
Also, we went to a Halloween party Saturday night after the game. A group of girls in Public Health were I work get together for happy hours occasionally and Lorie decided to have a party at her place. We had a lot of fun and were out pretty late. We dressed up as the paparazzi and a Hollywood Star:
Also, we ran our Haunted House (garage) again this year. It was kind of a disappointment because we only had 30-40 kids tops. Probably not enough kids to warrant doing it again next year. Which is sad, but too much time and money went into it for the few kids that showed up. And of those, only 5-10 were really good scares. Here's a gallery of Halloween shots, including the Haunted House:
