Hello Blog Strangers!

Well here I am for what has become my monthly posting. I haven't kept up with this, and I've even quit reading my friends' blogs that I use to read everyday. Why? I have no idea. Maybe I'll go catch up on theirs after I finish this post. Let's see, what has happened over the past month?

I ended up winning the Fantasy Bowl for my first ever OFFL Fantasy Bowl Championship! Go Texas Thunder Thighs! We had a great Christmas and New Year's celebration. I made out pretty good! I got a double-disc DVD on the history of the Green Bay Packers, including the "Ice Bowl." I also got a cool playstation game and quite a few books, including "Favre" by Brett and his mother. I now have 6 books to read, and I know it may be surprising, but I'm already half way through my first selection - Favre! It is so fun to read about games and decisions and events of Favre through his own eyes. After I finish that book, I'll probably either start "1776" or a book by Francene Rivers called "Caleb" which hopefully will give me a better idea of who Caleb was in the Old Testament so I can pass down my son's name's meaning to him as he gets older. It's amazing how the kids can get so much for Christmas and still complain about being bored and having nothing to play with. Anyway, we all had a great time over the holiday season. Oh one more thing - we got a carpet-shampooer-steam-cleaner (?), which I used last Sunday night, and I LOVE IT! It took me 2 hours to do just the living room, but it made the carpet like brand new again...of course, the high traffic area is already beaten down again, but all the little spots are gone! WAHOO!

This paragraph is about the NFL, so if you're not interested, go ahead and skip down to the next paragraph. It came as a surprise that Mike Sherman got fired as the Green Bay coach. I thought he helped the team stick together very well through all their adversities this year. I think (and hope) he will get picked up rather quickly by another team. That move doesn't bode well for Favre's potential return next year, but I'm waiting in high hopes that he WILL return anyway! You could argue that it would be good for the team to have a veteran QB help teach Aaron Rodgers, Favre's eventual replacement, the new coach's system. However, I think physically, Favre still has several more years in him (especially with a healthy team)...but he and his family have been through sooo much recently, it would not be a surprise if he decided he was ready to focus more on his family than playing football. I will be checking the news every single day for the moment he announces his decision. I must admit, I was somewhat disappointed today to learn that Parcells extended his contract 2 more years. I've liked him less and less over the past couple of years. Oh well. This weekend will be fun! Wildcard weekend! I predict the Bucs will beat the Skins, Panthers over Giants, Pats over Jags, and Steelers over Bengals. However, none of these games will really mean anything because I think the Colts will beat the Seahawks in the Super Bowl.

One other quick football note - the Texas vs USC game was one of the best football games I have ever seen! I was so nervous from early in the 1st quarter all the way until the clock expired! I did pick Texas to win, but I felt like it would be a close game. I've only been watching college football over the past 3 years or so, when Chance Mock was QB for Texas...because he's my grandmother's sister's grandson. There is so much more emotion in a big college game than in the NFL, but I think the fact that they don't have a playoff system is absolutely ridiculous! That is why I've stayed away from college football for so long. I have yet to hear a logical argument for the way they determine the championship. Just pick the best 16-32 teams, throw them in a single-elimination playoff tree and see who comes out as the last man standing and there's your champion. I know the bowl games are important because of all the money, but you could still have bowl games in a playoff tree. Each playoff game is a bowl game if you must have bowls. And don't tell me there's too many teams because they use a playoff bracket in NCAA basketball. Anyway, I'll quit ranting about how stupid the current setup is in college football. What I don't get is that most people agree with me, but the system hasn't changed yet.

OK, this blog was not supposed to be entirely about football, but let's face it...my passion for football runs very deep. On to other things though....the most exciting news I've heard recently is that our friends from Milan, Italy - Laura & Marco, whom we met up with 2 years ago in Rome, Italy, are coming to visit us this summer at our house for 2 weeks!! I've really talked up my "Kirkburger" pretty big, so I hope they won't be disappointed. :) They went to Berlin over New Year's and we just received a postcard from them today - Thanks Laura & Marco! It will be a fun experience! They may decide to wait a long time to have children after spending so much time with ours! HA!

Work is going well, but we're approaching a very busy time of year. Hopefully I won't have to work late too many nights. Our director of Marketing has been in California all week working with our biggest brokers on an exciting deal. They bought another advisor's book of business ($90 million) who is retiring to the Hawaiin islands, so Jackie went to help them transfer everything over. We should get a meaningful portion of those assets, maybe half, which would increase our revenues by $450,000 per year!!! Our current assets under management are $160 million, so that would push us over the $200 million mark! Awesome!

It's late Friday night and I think I'm about to go to bed. Not much is planned for the weekend - watch some football, play with the kids, help my school friend from St. Lucia (Carribean) move some furniture from her old apartment to her new one, and that's about it. I feel sorry for my friend, Lua. We went through our MBA together and she was looking for a job here when her visa was about to expire, so she had to hurry up and find ANY job to extend her visa...so she's managing a Waffle House and absolutely hates it! She can't find dependable staff, so she has to work double shifts all the time filling in for people who don't show up or quit after 3 days. If you know of any job down here or even in Wichita Falls that she could do, let me know. Her boyfriend is still in Wichita Falls going to MSU, so she'd be happy to move back if she found a job. Also, a few things to keep in your prayers - Jennifer's back has been hurting her pretty bad, Kylie is sick (again) and could have asthma, and my grandpa is in the hospital with a bad case of pneumonia. He wasn't doing very good at first, but has been showing signs of improvement the past couple of days, so hopefully he is on the road to recovery - at his age and condition, it could be very serious.

Have a great weekend and make sure you leave comments!