Category / Sports

by Greg

NFL Draft 2007

NFL LogoToday is the big NFL Draft! Well, today and tomorrow. The Bills have 8 draft picks in the 7 rounds this year. They should be able to get some pretty decent players. (Last season, all the players we drafted made the team, and most made pretty significant contributions.)

The funny part about the draft for the Bills is that they NEVER pick who ANYONE thinks they are going to! Ha! Last year with pick #8 we picked Donte Whitner and not one single prognosticator had forecast HIM as our #1 pick. Or ANYONE’S #1 PICK for that matter. 🙂

So, there may be trades, there will be shock and surprise once pick #12 is announced… but it will be fun. And Marv and Co. will add some great talent to our already talented young team! The Bills will surprise people this year. I (almost) guarantee it. 🙂

GO BILLS!

by Greg

Baseball Means Summer

BaseballI was looking out my window this morning, and the grass looked a little greener. I don’t mean figuratively. I mean, literally… it looked greener. The shadows were a bit different. The sun is moving into it’s summer position. The world outside just seemed a bit more “summery”.

But the one indicator that summer is approaching… BASEBALL. The boys start baseball tonight. They’ll play every Friday night for about 2 months. Alex gets to play his first year of tee ball this year, and Ian will be moving up to “coach pitch” ball. I think that means the coach pitches to the players. I think. 🙂

It will all be great, except that the boys will be on very different fields… AT THE SAME TIME 🙁 I’m really disappointed about that. But we’ll work something out. Or, I’ll just be mad for the next 8 Fridays. 🙁

We’re excited that baseball is here! I’m not looking forward to the hot summer temps, but I am looking forward to watching my boys play baseball again, and practicing with them the rest of the week. 🙂

Come on out and root ’em on!

by Greg

Bowman Cup 2007

Speaking of hockey… we spent a good chunk of yesterday traveling to the HSBC Arena in Buffalo. No, we didn’t get to take in a Sabres playoff game… we watched Rochester high-school all-stars take on their counterparts from Buffalo, both juniors and seniors. FOR FREE! Free admission, Free parking. We sat about 5 rows up, down near one of the goals… it was great! All the kids loved it, including cousin Dylan who came along with Grandma, and met us there.

It was tons of fun, and we’re already looking forward to next year! 🙂

I couldn’t find any news articles about it, but here’s one from the Buffalo News, from before the event.

by Greg

Sabres!

Sabres vs Islanders

This Thursday night the Sabres will be hosting the NY Islanders to start the NHL playoffs! We can’t wait!!! The regular season was sort of a formality for the Sabres. Their presence in the post season was pretty much a given. The best part this year is that all of the injured players have healed, and are back – apparently in great shape and ready to go!

You can’t predict a sweep, but, in this case we almost can. The Isles did beat Buffalo once this season in 4 tries. And it is the NHL playoffs…. anything can happen.

But not this time.

I think I will go out on the proverbial limb here and predict that Sabres advance to round two in just four games. The Islanders are coached by a former Sabres coach, who did not leave on the best terms. They also have our former star player, Miroslav Satan (pronounced “Shuh-tan”). But…

4-0.

We’ll see. I think the next round could be more interesting. We will most likely (barring big upsets) be playing either Ottawa or Pittsburgh. Both teams are significant steps up from the NYI and will definitely be more of a challenge.

This is our year for the Cup though. There may be some challenging games, or series, but I will be surprised if we’re not at least in the Finals as the Eastern Conference Champs.

And it all starts in two days!!!

by Greg

Various Things

  • Kirsten joined us for reading the Bible today (usually it’s just Dad & the boys…) and in today’s story, Jesus was going to have dinner with one of the Pharisee’s named Simon. Well, we had just been talking about how we’d like to go to Wendy’s for dinner, so I said, “Maybe they went to Wendy’s!” The kids all thought that was cool, but the next line said, “So they went to his house for dinner.” I said, “Oh, I guess not Wendy’s. They went to his house. So, they probably had Skyline.” Kirstie replied, “Like us!!!” 🙂 (Which, though I’m 100% certain they did not have Skyline, got across the point that they were peoples just like us.) 🙂
  • Jen wants to make resurrection rolls. That’s awesome. 🙂
  • The Buffalo Bills schedule comes out today (along with the rest of the NFL). It will be announced at 4pm on the NFL Network (which we DO NOT get!!!) and around the same time on the Buffalo Bills website.
  • The Buffalo Sabres have three games to go, and are 1 point behind the Detroit Red Wings for the best overall record in the NHL. Detroit only has 2 games left, so the Sabres are definitely in the driver’s seat. And with games against Boston, Washington, and Philadelphia, they stand a very good chance of winning all of those. Tonight’s game is against Boston, whome the Sabres have a 5-0-2 record against this season! Go Sabres! We could have home ice through the whole playoffs!
  • My wife loves to give gifts. Today I opened my drawers to get my clothes for the day and found an Almond Joy (one of my favorites) on top of my shirts and some travel cups for hot drinks that I enjoy on top of my socks. A fun surprise to begin the day.
  • Mac sales of late have been going at a pretty good clip. At least interest has increased. I am getting calls/emails from folks I don’t even know 🙂 Pretty fun. I love hooking people up with Macs! And the bonus is, now I also get paid by Apple to do it! It’s not a lot, but it’s definitely a nice bonus! Lemme know if you need one… 🙂
  • We are Bills season ticket holders once again! It’s a pretty expensive endeavor for us to go to Bills games (tack on another $50 to even $100 on game day for gas, tolls, parking, food, etc.) so a friend reminded us of the wonder of StubHub. It’s a site where you can buy (and sell!) tickets of all sorts. He’s pretty sure we can cover the cost of our tickets to a game or two we want to go to, by selling the games we don’t want to (or, can’t as it were) go to. SO… we have four seats in the Family section, 225 I believe. See ya there! 🙂 (Guess we’ll find out today WHEN we’ll be going to these games!!!)
  • Jen also surprised me by getting a baby sitter and “taking me” to El Pacifico for dinner last night. It’s our new favorite place. She and I can eat for $15-20 and it’s AWESOME, authentic, Mexican food. Great stuff!
by Greg

The Best

Buffalo Sabres Lead the NHL

We have had some good teams here in Buffalo, but we’re not used to having the best team. Just watched the Sabres (via TiVo) beat the second place team in the Eastern Conference (the New Jersey Devils) 4-3, with the third NJ goal scored with 1 second left. The Sabres looked talented, confident, cool and collected, and … just great.

They’re deep, too. At least three lines that are fantastic. All can score, and do! And we have a couple more players coming back from injuries in the next couple weeks! Heading into the playoffs, the Sabes will defintely be one of the – or THE – favorites to win it all.

How awesome would that be! NHL Champs – BUFFALO SABRES. Incredible.

Stay tuned… the regular season ends April 8th, and that’s when things get really interesting! I can’t remember Buffalo having a 1st place seed since I have been a fan. I hope that doesn’t make them complacent. I don’t think it will. They know this is their year to win the cup… and I really think they’re going to do it!

Bring it on!!!

I found a couple good articles tonight on the Sabres. Click below to read.

Sabres Prove to Be Class of the East [source: nhl.com]
Ultimate Standings: Buffalo Sabres are No. 1! [source: ESPN]

by Greg

7:00

I’m not sure what’s gotten into me lately, but since last week, I have been getting up everyday between 6 and 7am!!! Some days I don’t get out of bed until a little later, but I am living the life of a morning person!!! (Those of you who know me know that such a trend will not last long!) I have needed to because of some other things going on. If I wanted to get my morning walk in, I would need to get up earlier. On a couple occasions, I actually began my walk as the sun was coming up!!!

The funniest part has been… being tired before 3am!! 🙂 I actually went to sleep before midnight last night!!

We had a nice weekend. Enjoyed the snow. (Snowing again today!) And lots of NCAA basketball! Michigan State lost in round 2, but in a valiant effort. Lots of unfortunate calls (or no calls) but… it probably wouldn’t have mattered. North Carolina is good.

So are the Sabres.

Wow, this is totally random! Haven’t posted one of these in a while… 🙂

(More to come…)