Please no more Grossman!

Signs that your days as starting quarterback are numbered.
1.) You throw 3 interceptions in a game you have no touchdown passes
2.) Your home crowd chants for the backup quarterback
3.) Your most exciting play was not a pass play but when you scrambled for a first down
4.) When you have your kicker throwing passes

Sorry Rex...I think it may be time you pick up the clipboard and headset, and enjoy sitting and observing the game. You'll still make the money you were guaranteed, but we may have to say good-bye to you this off-season.

Oh yeah, and to all the Bears defensive team...please stretch out more before and during the games. I know it's probably because the offense couldn't stay on the field for more than 4 minutes, but expect that kind of abuse to your body as long as Grossman is behind center.

I would honestly rather get grizzly Orton back in the game. At least he was just lucky!

[/end rant]

Dancing at weddings

I like making an ass out of myself. I know I'm not all that great, but I know I'm entertaining, so I will put my body through hell to entertain...like so:

My wedding


Diana's wedding


Frank's wedding


Matt's wedding


If you have wedding pics of me dancing let me know! :)

9/11

It's hard to imagine that it was this day 6 years ago that the United States had one of its most tragic days in US history. It's one of those events that defines a generation. One of those moments where everyone remembers what they were doing when the planes hit the World Trade Center. And it is especially vivid in the minds of the families who lost a loved one that day. Luckily I am not one of those people, but it is for those people I will say a prayer for tonight. Although we do not want to live in the past, it is days like today that you should go and remember the feelings you had when you saw the buildings fall and sat in front of the TV waiting and hoping that someone would survive from the rubble. There is nothing dark about it. Those feelings that we had then may seem distant 6 years later, but they are still real. And for the people that lost their lives on September 11, 2001, close your eyes for a moment and just remember how you felt that day. Let them know that they won't be forgotten, not ever, and especially not today.

I'm here?

Yup...it was bound to happen sooner or later, that I would return, and talk about absolutely nothing. Well here goes...

The condo is pretty much done now. I mean, there will always be things I want to replace or something, but we're just not at the place where we can fork out some dough to get some new doors. Sure, it's only like 3 doors, but I'll deal with it for now. I definitely havn't used the basketball court to its full potential...and to think I could've maintained my wicked jumper. That went out the door.

I just recently started working out at the gym at my work. It's pretty much a crappy gym. I definitely miss the days at LifeTime and all the machines and weights and all. Here, there are 2 treadmills compared to the dozens at LT. Seems so long ago...

There are babies falling from the sky around us [not literally, because that would be very gross]. I can't wait till everyone has their babies so I can get my practice in. One day I'd like to have one those and I want to make sure I get all the practice I can get. Of course Jaz knows more on what to do than me because of her profession, that's why it's good that she's around when I'm "learning". Here are the two most recent babies:

Elias Fernandez [9.1.07]


Caden Chia [7.6.07]

..and before you ask, no Jaz isn't pregnant.

Happy Mother's Day!

Mom and me at my wedding

There's so much to say to all of the mothers around the world. Thank you just doesn't seem like enough...but thank you mom for being you. Sure, sometimes we don't see eye to eye because I am not understanding what you are saying, but it doesn't change the fact that I thank God everyday that you are my mom. I love you!

The realization

Being down 3-0 to the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Semifinals will probably be one of the biggest reality checks the Bulls organization will have gone through in the past couple years. I'm not saying that the ast few years have been a fluke for the Bulls, but in order to do some REAL damage in the NBA playoffs, they will need a little more than some end of game heroics from Ben Gordon. It's called, playing a FULL game of basketball. Even back in the Jamal Crawford years, the Bulls have been known to play only 3 quarters, sometimes even 2. And it's in those minutes where the Bulls basically collapse at the wayside and the opposing team can take advantage of them. We were lucky the past couple years with Ben Gordon coming off the bench and hitting game winners or scoring 14+ points in the final quarter. But is that what we want? Sure, it makes for a great highlight on Sportscenter, but I would much rather have won by 6-8 points consistently in each game. Games 1 and 2 vs. Detroit was disgusting. And in all honesty, I didn't even watch the 2nd half of either game, because there was no point. If the Bulls didn't show up to play, why should I wait and watch. The first half of Game 3 had some promise, the Bulls with a double digit lead at halftime. But apparently no one told them there was another 24 minutes of basketball after the Panda bowl flipping girl had finished her act. Now we are down 3-0, and as we heard in the Miami series, no team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win the series in the NBA playoffs. Could we be the first? Anything is possible, but not everything is probable. 49 wins and advancing to the 2nd round? I'll take it for now, but I'll want more later. Thanks, Bulls for another exciting season.

Back to an old hobby?

A couple of years back I was into golf. As horrible as I was, I loved going to the driving range and playing a course. It was a lot of fun. Sure I might a few dirty looks from the more experienced golfers in the next station at Golf Center or from the group behind us at Chick Evans, but it was fun. Today my boss and a couple of co-workers decided to hit the driving range that is almost behind our office. Now being that I haven't even set foot on a golf course let alone pick up a golf club for the past two years, I thought I would be absolutely terrible, which I was, at first! After I worked my way through my bucket of balls I was starting to remember little bits and pieces of how to swing - "keep your head down", "barely grip the club", "make your arms like a V", "keep your head down", "aim in front of the ball", "keep your head down!" And I connected a couple of ball real nicely. I may have to get back into this. I forgot how relaxing it is whack a white ball a couple hundred yards [more like 75 yards!].

Onto the 2nd round

I had all the confidence in the world in the Bulls to beat Miami in a 7 game series. But I thought for sure Miami would at least one game in this series, but I'm glad they proved me wrong. I think I have finally figured out how to watch these games without have an anyeurism. Just watch the first 3 quarters with almost no emotion, so then get into the game in the 4th quarter. That is when the Bulls really begin to play their game.

The next opponent will be the Pistons, who are the number one seed in the East. This series will definitely be a good one, and I actually hope that it will go seven games. I love to watch some good basketball in a win or loss. The Bulls need to stop the Pistons to have only two scorers, like Billups and Hamilton. Not Wallace or Prince though. If they get going, then it's going to be awfully hard to stop the Pistons. The series will probably start sometime at the end of this week or beginning of netx week. Mike and I will be going to Game 3 in Chicago. I love the playoffs.

Bulls up 3-0!!

Being a Chicago Bulls fan, I know the Bulls have their limitations. And in all honesty, I thought the Bulls Kryptonite was one of the only people the league they've called Superman - Shaq himself. But tonight, like many nights before, they have proved me wrong. The Bulls went from up 12 to down 12 to win by 8 points. They started out real strong and then let Miami come back and just hung around throughout the 2nd and 3rd quarter. And then Ben and Kirk took over, as well as the Bulls' defense. It was such a HUGE win! Just ONE MORE GAME!! Let's go Bulls!!

The Auggie Dog

My co-worker, Ken, has been talking about this thing called an Auggie Dog from a hot dog joint in Palatine named "Hot Dog Richies". Finally, Marisol, Ken, and I hit up this place yesterday. The reason he would talk about it because it's basically a heartattack dog. A hot dog wrapped in bacon, and then deep fried, and the smothered with melted cheese. Sounds good right?! Ken told us about this about a month ago and we always say that we need to go get one. We did yesterday and it was exquisite! I actually thought it would be greasier or something, but it was pretty good. The hot dog itself was real good, the bacon and cheese just added to it. I give it an 8 out of 10. 1 point deducted because there was only 1 layer of bacon wrapping the dog and another point because I didn't actually have a heartattack...well, I guess that's a good thing.

You win some, you lose some

Winner: The Chicago Bulls
The bulls are now up 2-0 over the defending champion Heat. I am somewhat happy with thi, but not satisfied. As the TNT announcers seemed to repeat over and over, the Bulls were up 2-0 on the Wizards two years ago, and ended up leaving the remaining 4 games to lose the series. That hurt real bad. I think that was one of my first anxiety attacks. That was a sad series. Luol Deng is playing his best right now, and basically brought back the Bulls by himself in the 4th quarter of game 2. If they can get at least one game in Miami, I'd be happy, if they get both, I'd be REAL happy!


Loser: Melissa R.
I'll admit it, Jaz and I have been following The search for the next Pussycat Doll. The girl we were rooting for the whole time, an 18 year old Filipino girl named Melissa R. was not chosen to be the next Pussycat Doll. We were pretty pissed when they announced the other girl "Asia" to win the whole thing, but I guess it's okay because Melissa R. is a much better lead singer than one of the 6 backup dancers/singers of the Pussycat Dolls. So I guess that's ok. Hopefully we will hear lot more from Melissa and a lot less from Asia.

Growing up

This is my first blog in our new condo. It's such a sobering moment becoming a homeowner. You start to watch every penny and where it goes, you constantly think about what can be improved in your home, and your always looking at other people's homes and start to appreciate what they have done to their place. We've moved in all of our stuff, painted about 90% of the condo, and slowly decorating stuff. The last thing we just got was an HD box for the new TV. SWEEEET! We watched a couple of NBA playoff games on it yesterday. SICKNESS. Here are some *BEFORE* pictures of our place. These pictures were from when we were looking at places back in January:





























Onto other grown up news, Mike and Tracy are PREGNANT!!! I can't believe that I've known Mike for like 15 years or something and know he's gonna have a kid. I've already put in my bid for godfather, but I'll let them make that decision.

Now that's bad

Jaz found this on myspace:

Almost a month later

Time flies when you don't blog. Mike reminded me that I haven't submitted a blog in a long time so this one's for you bahdy...

Last you heard I set a new year's resolution to lose some weight. Since the beginning of the year I have successfully dropped 12 lbs. I think that was a good start, if you ask me. I know I've got a long way to go, but at least I'm motivated now. I try to run at least two times a week. I would like to run 3-4 times a week, but I'm working towards it.

Some other happening during the month. Well we found out that my old friend, Chris from the Stages days is getting married. I'm glad that worked out for them. I remember when I heard they had broken up for a while how sad I was. I knew they'd make it work. Congrats Chris and Marah!

I became the editor for the HobbyKings magazine: Only the Elite and we released our first issue this past month. It got a pretty good response from the site. It only consisted of basketball, but the February issue will contain football as well since the super bowl is coming up.

I've had a couple of good additions to my personal collection, namely a Tyrus Thomas letter auto, a Thabo gold auto, and a Thabo 1/1 redemption. Can't wait to get that in. Apparently the UD blacks are being sent out now. I bet I get a Bibby GU auto...that's gonna suck.

Until next time friends...

Oh yeah, I'm on-call

With Adele gone now we have to be on-call at most, once a month. A bunch of garbage if you ask me. It may truly be my time to move on from this company. 3 pages before 5:30am...just brutal!

A new year brings new year's resolutions

Went to work out yesterday and found out I have hit my all-time high in weight: 310 lbs! Not good at all. Pretty embarassed that I have let myself go this much. So it's time for some changes in my lifestyle. Working out is a must as well as a better diet. The biggest thing about my diet is that I need to eat SMALLER portions. A problem I have been dealing with for years. I don't have a number in mind of how many pounds I want to lose in a period of time. I just want to start leasing a healhier lifestyle. Wish me luck and I appreciate all of your support.

My new least favorite pop

Had a Diet Sprite with my lunch today. I thought I had it before, and I figure all lemon lime type refreshments would taste the same, diet or not. UGH! That was bad.

R.I.P. XBOX 360

I was going to play one of my buddies from Hobby Kings in a quick game of NBA 2k7 and *poof* the screen freezes. I wait a little while and when it doesn't restart itself I have to do a hard reboot, which I HATE doing! Then the little ring of lights turn on, but instead of green, they're RED! In my experience, the color red always brings panic and this situation is no different. I then proceed to turn off and on the console a couple more times, with no success. I quickly go online to see what I can do, and sure enough it was a hardware failure. I go try one more time and it works...I try to play a game in the Association and it freezes again followed by unsuccessful reboots. So it looks like this faulty hardware is out the door. Probably will go to Best Buy on Wednesday. Thanks for the lemon, Microsoft!

The case of the Mondays

Why is that Mondays suck so much? It's really a new beginning to have a good week, but somehow the idea of returning to work or school after the weekend, which this weekend was a pretty good one.

Saturday night was my annual Jao Cousin Christmas party. This year it was at Eng & Jerry's house. I just found out that Jerry is the brother of someone I used to go to high school with. What a small world, right? Anyways, the party was fun as always and this time Jaz was with us. It is our yearly tradition the newly added significant others always have to do something that is kind of embarassing in front of the family, and this year was no different. As part of the Grab bag/White Elephant gift exchange, we had to perform a number dares based on the number of stars accompanied the number that you chose, Jaz got two, and she had to do one for mom as well. So she had to do an interpretive dance to sounds of Jingle Bells performed by the kids as well as a ballet number while singing Silent Night. She did great, and I even received a thumbs up from Dave during one of the performances. The night ended with my very drunk brother being hauled out of the house. Other than that, the night was fun as usual.

Sunday afternoon Jaz and I went to my old high school, Maine East, to watch the winter concert. We had to enter through the fieldhouse entrance since the parking lot that was next to the auditorium was packed. Since we had to go through the school I gave her a quick tour of the spots in Maine East. My old cheerleading and choir lockers as well as the hall that there was a girl fight and one of the girl's tatas popped out and the table I used to sit at in the cafeteria. Quite a few memories rushed back walking those halls again. We ran into Mr. & Mrs. Mangold at the front of the auditorium so I stopped and said hello to them. It was great seeing them, they always had such good things to say and had an AWESOME home. It was like they were on TV, always had treats and cookies and everything was always kept so nice. I miss those days. Jaz and I then proceeded to watch the concert. It wasn't as long as I remember them to be when I was in it 10 years ago. The band and orchestra were always the ones that overshadowed us in the choir, but not so much nowadays. The orchestra's horn section was a little off on timing, but the strings were beautiful as usual. You can tell when they enjoyed playing a piece because it just sounded so much better. The choir had the same problem that we had when I was there, not a lot of good singing guys. There were some, but not a lot. The soloists were quite good though...I'll definitely have to catch Bye Bye Birdie in the spring. I had a quick chance to talk to my old choir teacher Mr. Barnett. He's always been a good spirited person. I know he had to talk with all other students' parents and boosters, so we said our hellos, caught up quickly, and said good-bye. It was a fun showing Jaz my history...a part she had never seen before.

Is it late...or early?

5:10AM...
Some people are waking up, others are falling asleep. I'm neither right now. I slept for about 2 hours and for some reason I woke up like I had 8 hours sleep. Very weird. Must've been the brownie obsession from Fridays earlier.