Big weekend. Manning is golden. Golden.

I don't care if you think he is too hyped. One, if you believe that, you're a moron. Two, hype or no hype, one of the most amazing comebacks ever. I think Urlacher and the Chicago D can be the best in the NFL but they are going to get stomped.

I filled up this morning for $1.96 a gallon. Thanks Kroger Plus Card! When I first started driving gas was 86 cents a gallon at the Texaco by our house. My truck had a 15 gallon tank and got crazy gas mileage. My 30 hour work week check from K-mart went crazy far then. I can't imagine people grinding away for minimum wage now.

I have been thinking about my first car today. Here's how that story goes.

My brother turned 16 in 1986. After he got his license (in our house you couldn't take drivers ed until you had already turned 16, and you had to take it through the high school - complete with the driving simulator located in the single wide trailer behind the school) he got a 84 Toyota Tacoma.

Pretty Marty McFly.

Two years later, my sister turns 16. She suffers through the film strip simulator via the mildew fragranced trailer. Her reward: The sweet 91 Ford Festiva dream machine.

Which now retails for a pocket busting $490-$650. Should have held on to that beast; it could turn a bigger prophet than Desert Storm Trading Cards - someone stole my Wolf Blitzer. It unfortunately met it's demise through the back end of a Chevy 3500 diesel monster that folded the Festiva up like an accordion. I didn't turn 16 for another 5 years. What happened in those five years you ask? After my sisters Festiva met an ugly and untimely end, she got a used Nissan Sentra. In all fairness, it wasn't a good car to start out with, but the electrical system eventually burnt up and was no more. Now in college, dear old dad got her a turquoise Pontiac Lamanse, which was a product of the "How about all auto makers make really bad hatchbacks" trend. After she ran it into the ground, she eventually inherited my parents Eddie Bower Ford Explorer. From there she was on her own to purchase transportation. My brother drove the Tacoma into the early years of college where he decided it wasn't necessary to change the oil....ever; which subsequently sent his engine to the junk yard in the sky. My folks gave him their old sedan which he drove several years before eventually being on his own and buying his own car.

Why did I feel the need to tell you all of this? When I was 16, I assumed the trend of gifting a car to the 16 year old child would continue with the youngest son. I had several back issues of "Auto Trader" and had highlighted several items of interest for my dad. I was informed that my option for a vehicle was that I could buy my dad's truck from him. Yea, that's right, BUY his OLD truck. I wasn't as put off about having to buy my own car, I have always been pretty self sufficient, but the fact I had no choice of what to buy. My first taste of Communism. Brutal. So from 94-98 I drove the Blue Barron. 1989 Chevy s-10

Jealous?

Two blogs in one week...who knew?

As if I needed another reason to loose respect for/hate/wish a painful death of wrathful flying monkeys on Barry Bonds. If they are gonna black ball McGuireand the continue to let this moron play... http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/487795p-410640c.html - I might have to boycott pro baseball and find refuge in the college ranks like I have with football and basketball.

In other news. Looks like the marathon dream is dead....at least for now. Unbeknownst to most everyone, I had been training for the Austin marathon. But, it seems I have developed a premature type of tendon and joint arthritis. So I have cut the running in half and started swimming and biking and lifting again this week. Sprint Triathlon season starts back up again this spring, so I think that might be the new adventure. I have been looking into training regiments and this Korean sub-zero training seems to be the most time to result beneficial.

I'm on it.

Ever have a story to tell that is so ridiculous you just can't can't paraphrase?

A group of us left Saturday the 30th for a ski trip in Breckenridge. The thought was, if we leave Dallas early enough (5am), we can get checked into our condo, go grocery shopping and pick up our equipment rentals that night, so we would be good to go first thing the next morning.

We stopped in Amarillo for lunch (we ate at Subway, although the 72 ounce steak did sound appealing). and we were making record time, but as we got just North of Amarillo we started seeing signs that the road was closed due to weather about 90 miles north of where we were. My friend Jimmy and his Fiance where already in Colorado and sitting in front of a computer, so I designated him Goose to my Maverick. He would periodically call me with updated road reports/closures from the D.O.T. as I was leading the caravan of death through the frozen tundra. For about two hours we were flying north west, attempting to swing around the road closures while making northern progress. We then were thrown a dirty curve ball. We had traveled so far into the middle of nowhere that we were left with only one option to head north. It was "closed". We decided that closed was relative and we headed down the "closed" road.
I was on less than a quarter tank of gas, no problem since the next town was in 19 miles, and the first two miles of closed road were in better condition than the open roads we took to get this far. Within the next mile the road turned AWFUL. More awful than that..the next town didn't exist, then town that was 10 miles past that, Amistad, wasn't as much of a town as it was a cultish compound consisting of a Methodist church, a 1a high school and no gas station. Excellent. We reached the point of no return, were forced to turn around by the snow plow company, and found refuge with a farmer named Chuck. This all had the makings of incredible horror movie. Chuck ended up being one of the nicest men I have ever met. Even when we knocked on his door during an ice storm. He found an old hose in his hog barn, helped us syphon gas from Chris' truck into mine. We thanked him for his time and headed back the way we came. There was a hotel in the town we came from, where we could bunker down for the night and wait out the storm. But oh no my friend, we were on a quest. So we got the latest road reports and spent the next 6 hours zig zagging through Texas and New Mexico. At 11 pm, after MANY attempts to make our way onto I-25 and becoming honorary members of the tucker sub-culture via a Love's Truck Stop, we got locked down in Las Vegas. No, not that Vegas, Las Vegas New Mexico. No hotels to be had by that time, so we found uncomfortable cots and grumpy old volunteers at

the make shift Red Cross shelter in the local elementary school.

The story gets exceedingly less interesting from 4 am the next morning on. They did have delecious Daylight Donuts

for us as we headed out to find open highways.

Highlights of the rest of the trip: my friend Chris fell so hard he had to be taken down the mountain by ski patrol on one of those rad little sleds and we watched Boise State amazingly upset Oklahoma.

I hope next years trip provides a little excitement.