I just cannot seem to shake this head cold. Sore throat took a day to get over, fever took a day to get over, this head cold's lasted 5 days now and it's getting old quickly.
Despite the cold though, we had a really nice visit the last few days with Christina's parents in town. We went on Sunday to cut down our Christmas tree. Ended up getting an 8-3/4ths foot Virginia Pine. They always look smaller outside than inside and our Santa topper just about has to duck to avoid hitting the ceiling. But, it turned out looking pretty nice. We also decorated the house and I added more lights to the house this year and the crape myrtle out front as well. I'll get a better picture of it sometime soon and post it here.
Anyway, we're busier than normal at work for late November, so I need to get back at it I suppose.
It's about time the ball bounced our way this season! Couldn't happen for a better game too.
Carolina beat Clemson 31-28 but honestly the game wasn't as close as the score showed. Carolina outplayed Clemson throughly in just about every statistical category, Clemson's points either came on huge single plays by one of their blazing fast running backs or on plays where a DB for Carolina fell and it ends up being a 76-yard pass for a touchdown. That and they scored 14 points on 2 of our 3 interceptions. The game could have been a major blowout for them if we could have played a game without sloppy mistakes. Of course, we haven't been able to do that all year long.
Anyway, in the final seconds Clemson missed a field goal that would have tied the game at 31-31. I still can't believe after our luck this season that we finally won a close one.
So the regular season ends with a kind of disappointing 7-5 record. It's been a heartbreaking year for Carolina football to be so close to so many big wins. We don't know until after next weekend which bowl game we'll be in this year, but we had a shot at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta if Georgia wouldn't have scored a touchdown late in the 4th quarter against Georgia Tech to beat them. If Tech had won, we probably would have been Peach Bowl bound. Now it looks like either the Liberty Bowl in Memphis or the Music City Bowl in Nashville. I'm hoping for the latter... they pay out the same amount, and while we're not sure if we're going to make the trip yet or not, if we do, Nashville is a lot of fun, so it'd be a great trip!
We got pretty lucky today and got in and out of the stores we wanted to go to. Best Buy, Wal Mart and Circuit City were nuts supposedly, so I'm glad we skipped that. When we got back to Columbia last night from Thanksgiving in Atlanta around 10pm, we did a drive-by at Best Buy and they were already lined up at least 30-40 strong or more. It just gets crazier each year. We got up this morning at 4:30 and were at Staples by 5:00 and were probably in the first 40 people in line and we got everything we were after, so it was a success.
Just like our trip to Atlanta yesterday for Thanksgiving at Nicki & Miquel's place. Here's some photos from the day, dominated by the cutie Anna:
Well, 1 for 2 this last weekend. Carolina won big, 52-7, but Michigan ended up losing 42-39 to Ohio State. There's a chance they'll get a rematch in the national championship game, but it's a complicated series of events and reasoning to get into. Not sure if I agree or not, but I certainly think the best 1 loss team out there right now is Michigan and they're probably the only team that would give Ohio State a run in the title game.
The big news today though is snow in Columbia.
Not a lot though... it started off this morning as sleet, then flurries to light snow, then back to sleet and now it's rain. But the temp's been dropping all day and it's 40 now and that system off the coast is still churning, so maybe tonight we'll get some decent snow. Sure would be nice to have one of those "hazardous weather" days off work!
Man am I glad it's finally Friday. Long week so far.
However, I'm even more glad that things have finally slowed down to normal levels at work. Usually that happens three weeks or so after the semester begins, but this year it's been all semester.
Which is good because it gives me time to get the last bits ready to start moving our users over to the new Microsoft domain and off the Novell servers. So many things are going to be a lot easier for us once that's finished, though it'll probably take into February before the entire School is moved over.
Another good thing about Friday is that tomorrow is Saturday. Our last home game is this weekend against Middle Tennessee State. While they do have a winning record this year and they were pretty good last year, it's still a team we should beat easily, so it'll be a fun game. Brian is going to deep fry a turkey for the tailgate after the game - it's a 12:30 kickoff. We're going to stick around afterwards because the Michigan-Ohio State game kicks off at 3:30 so we'll watch it out at the tailgate. Go Blue!
For the third week in a row we tipped a touchdown pass to the opposing team that should have been an interception. And those three games were decided by 7, 6, and 1 point respectively and each game was against a Top 15 ranked team.
I just don't know what to say... I can't believe it's happened that way... I mean, what are the odds of that? And speaking of odds, three kicks were blocked yesterday giving Florida the win. Pretty much any one of those isn't blocked and we probably don't lose by 1 point yesterday. What are the odds of three blocked kicks in one game when we hadn't had any all year so far?
I guess that whole saying that good teams find ways to win is true and we're just not a good team or else we'd have a better record than 5-5. I know Spurrier would be the last to want to hear someone say "we're the best 5-5 team in the nation", but with this crazy year and how close we've played so many good, ranked teams, I have to think that's true.
I just hope that means we'll salvage the season with the next two games and a bowl game... but with the way the ball always seems to bounce away from us this year and not bounce our way, I'm not holding my breath.
Some of you already know we painted the living room last weekend.... never start a project on a Sunday afternoon by the way. We had such a light color on the walls that the trim and fireplace just blended in, so we went a little darker. Color is called sueded leather.
Anyway, I wanted to post up a couple quick early shots. No casing around the window yet, got that tonight just haven't started it yet. And there's nothing on the wall above the couch yet... haven't figured out what to put there yet.
So what happens when you are tired, indecisive, and broke? Halloween ends up being handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. Which wasn't that bad, some of the younger kids enjoyed what we did... I would have rather done something larger, but never quite got around to it. I'm pretty good at that.
Here's the front porch:
We had the scary music cranked way up from the living room and Christina dressed up as a witch to hand out candy... simple fog machine, a couple of props, and a pumpkin are enough to freak out the young kids apparently.
The problem with doing something more is every other year is a home football game weekend. Plus, we really don't get enough trick-or-treaters... maybe 50 total, but 20-25 of those were kind of older kids and they're no fun.
I think I'd rather spend time and effort on making decent costumes, so I think that's what we'll do next year. We were going to go out to a costume contest last night, but it was a weeknight, so we didn't. How's that for being too old? Besides, neither of us had a great costume... that will not be the case next year, that's for sure.
I guess you always have to decide with limited time what you'd like to do most between football, parties, costume contests, passing out candy to trick-or-treaters, etc. One time saver was not having to plan in Lorie's party we've been going to the last couple years on Halloween that I've posted pictures from... long story short, I'm a firebug, especially after lots of mojitos (rum drink) at her Spring Mojito party she threw and I guess she didn't find playing with tiki torch oil around the bonfire to be as much fun as I did. Might be why we heard about the Halloween party this year but not from her officially and no online evite. Ah well, good times...
Anyway, Halloween night this year was still fun and a few of the little ones were scared, so that was good... better than the average house just giving them candy for nothing. And for 20 minutes of setup after work it worked out pretty well minus the gash on my finger where the pumpkin carving saw broke and sliced open one of my fingers. Note to kids out there, saw slowly with those things... don't try to carve a quick pumpkin in 5 minutes like I did! And don't eat too much candy like I did either... bleh.
Besides, neither of us had a great costume... that will not be the case next year, that's for sure.