So, we got tired of the new G6 and traded it in for this Dodge Caliber:
Yeah right... obviously joking. The Caliber was a loaner yesterday while they took care of the last scratches and paint issues on her G6. Which, the guy did an amazing job - everything looks great on it now! Besides, that Caliber is a weird little thing, inside and out.
And it was so nice having the day off yesteday that I decided to have an encore today and make it a long weekend. Not that much really going on though - Saturday is Dave's birthday so we're going to try to get a few folks together to go to the Saucer for a couple drinks and watch the SEC Championship game there probably. The game that back in October we had a halfway decent shot at being in ourselves until our season imploded.
The fall colors here were pretty good this year. I didn't get many pictures of them - never worked up the ambition really. However, here's a gallery of photos from our trip to Atlanta for Thanksgiving that show some of the trees and now are all brown unfortunately:
What an ugly game last night. Both teams looked awful, but in the end we just made more mistakes. We certainly didn't deserve to win that game, that's for sure.
Still, I have to hand it to the kids, for having 6 defensive starters injured this season including two or three of our best, they stepped up and played hard last night, it just wasn't enough in the end.
Looking ahead to next season we lose our 5th year senior quarterback, but he wasn't that great this season anyway... should be about even there. Running back will suffer by losing Cory Boyd, but Mike Davis has had a ton of playing time and should be ready to be a starting back. Our defense will be healthy and much improved with some key additions. All in all, the team next year will be more experienced and more of Spurrier's recruits.
But looking back at all the opportunities for wins this season really makes 6-6 hurt knowing it could be better. Not sure if we're going to a bowl this year or not because even though 6 wins makes you eligible, there's a lot of SEC teams with better records. I hope we do get a bowl invite though because with a team as young as ours, the extra month+ of practice time would be nice. If you're not invited to a bowl, you're not allowed to practice as a team until Spring ball starts.
Even though we lost last night, I wish I could have stayed for the whole game... but I was ill. Seriously ill... started earlier in the day and I hung around as long as I could, but we left a little before the half when it was still 10-7. Got home in time to watch the second half. Feeling much better today, but last night was b-a-d...
So, enough about the game I guess... Thanksgiving was nice. We made a day trip over to Nicki's and had Thanksgiving there. Took a few pictures, I'll have to upload them later. Anna is so much bigger now but just as cute. Loves to be picked up, that's for sure. She was sick though, so of course I told Christina that the reason I felt sick last night was because I was poisoned by a little Clemson fan with germs.
Feeling better today though and I have a good distraction to get my mind off our pathetic season... Christina's new car is so cool. I took all the dealer crap off (stickers, license plate thing...) and it's looking better. Still need to take the ugly "GM" sqaure logos off the sides in front of the doors - not sure why GM decided to put those there, they look out of place.
The stereo really booms too for a stock stereo. It's got the 8-speaker Monsoon system in it and it sounds like it's got some smaller subs from the bass it has too. The XM satellite radio is coming in too, but it doesn't change channels from 001 to 002 to 003, etc... it goes from 001 to 007 to 026 to 030 to 045... so I'm not sure if the owner had some kind of weird subscription or not. But since it's got the 'hit music' channels, it's not a preview subscription really - it's just missing channels in between. We figure since some of the main channels come in now that we'll probably just let it go and see how long that lasts before starting our own XM subscription.
I am finally done... (sadly) it took me 4 years, 3 months, and 8 days to finish my 200th beer at Flying Saucer, but I had it last Friday night when Christina and I went there for dinner. Below is a link to my final beer list:
Of course I've said I signed up because it's important to have goals in life. Now I have no idea what I'm going to do. Unless... hmmm... you can go around multiple times. In fact, there's someone in the Columbia Saucer who has gone around 6 times already. Yes, that's 1200 beers there... just crazy.
So anyway I guess I get a gold plate up on the wall with my saying of choice and a $100 bartab too. Not sure when, but I'm going to try to get a few folks together and use it to buy the first round one night.
Even though we kind of expected the loss to Florida, the end result of being 6-5 is still what it is. Even though Spurrier has said from the beginning that this isn't the best team we'll ever have here and that it would take a break or two, it's awful how many breaks have gone against us this season in our losses.
So, even though a win against Clemson in a couple weeks would be great like it would be any given year, it's not like that would salvage the season. Besides, the way we're playing defense this season, ending up 6-6 is far more likely than 7-5.
In yet more frustrating news, Christina still doesn't have her new car. The part that they need for the airbag is backordered. So of course it's warming up here again just to rub it in... high of 76 today and even warmer tomorrow. And as she was driving into work this morning, the morning DJ even commented how it's a beautiful day for a convertible. So she flipped off the radio. That's why I love her.
Another week, another half of a football team showed up.
Offense looked good at times (could have been better)... but the defense couldn't stop Arkansas' running game whatsoever. A 300+ yard rusher against your defense is a pretty bad night.
But, at least we were beat by a good team that played well this time instead of finding a way to beat ourselves and lose to an inferior team like the previous two weeks. We sit at a lousy 6-4 now though - definitely a busted season so far. And with how we're playing, who knows... 6-6 with no bowl game isn't out of the realm of possibilities. Even 7-5 with a 'lesser' bowl would be a disappointment at this point given we were 6-1 and #6 in the country with two teams in a row we were more than capable of beating. Amazing how fast a possible 8-2 ends up being 6-4, eh?
Here's hoping we recruit offensive linemen and linebackers well this next year...
It's funny - I'll go from not posting because nothing is going on to not posting because we're too busy.
Really, the delay the last few days has been waiting for Christina's new car to be ready to pick up so that I could put some photos up. She got a (relatively) new 2007 Pontiac G6 GT Sport hardtop convertible. Car has 9,700 miles on it so we didn't have to take the new car depreciation hit when we drive off the lot - in fact, her car has every single option that a new car in town has at another dealer that is priced about $9000 more than what we paid. Almost a dollar a mile makes buying a car with 9700 miles on it a pretty good deal.
Anyway, unfortunately we don't have the car yet - when we were test driving it we saw that the console's "Driver Information Center" said Service Airbag, so the dealer we bought it from brought it to a GM dealer where they're replacing some module. The GM service shop is the one we always used for her old Grand Am, so I called them and they said it wasn't a common problem and that it wasn't the airbag itself, so that's good news. Bad news is that because it's not common, the module they have to replace needed to be ordered. They ordered it Tuesday and said 3-5 days... hoping they call today and the car is ready.
All this new car stuff has been nice though - it's taken my mind off that sickening football game last weekend. It is so frustrating to know how good this team can be only to see them two weeks in a row find a way to beat themselves. So many opportunities to win that game last weekend it's crazy... At least the big Public Health Tailgate Party was fun... game looked good up on the big screen in our auditorium at work and everything went off without a hitch. Here's a wide shot later during the second half after a good number of folks gave up and left because of the horrible first half:
This weekend we're having people over to our place for the Arkansas game and we're doing the outdoor tailgate party there... though the screen's no where near as big as the one at work. Still, it's been fun the last couple years, so we're looking forward to it.
