Monday in Missouri

Today I flew to St. Louis and then drove 125 miles to Columbia Missouri where I'll be working tomorrow and Wednesday at KBIA on the campus of the University of Missouri. You can check both out at http://www.kbia.org and http://www.missouri.edu

Then on Wednesday night I'll drive back to St. Louis and work Thursday at KTRS.

http://ktrs.com

Then Friday I'll be coming home. Saturday is Lindsey's first birthday. Her parents will have a party for her in the early afternoon. Then later in the afternoon my other two granddaughters, Kiehra and Kaylee, have a Just for Kix dance event. And finally Saturday night is a Nextel night race in Phoenix. Jeff is still hanging on to first place in the point standings.

Let's keep our fingers crossed for the Wild tomorrow. If they loose tomorrow they're done for the year. They have lost all three playoff games to the Ducks.

HOCKEY

My Avs are done. They put up a good fight though. As a matter of fact they weren't eliminated from the playoffs until last night. So now my loyalties will migrate to my number two team, the Minnesota Wild.

The Fighting Sioux where eliminated from the NCAA Championship on Thursday. So I cheered for Michigan last night and they did win the Championship against Boston....barely.

So College hockey = DONE.
Colorado Avalanche = DONE.
NHL regular season = DONE.
So onward with the NHL Playoffs.
Go Wild!

Off to Minneapolis

I'm off to Minneapolis for the weekend. Makita's Dad, Jim and Kathi are flying in for the weekend. So we're going to go down there and hang out with them. Then I'll be driving directly from there to International Falls to work next week.

I hope everyone has a Happy Easter!

If You Can't Beat Them....Join Them

Nearly two weeks ago in Denver, the Fighting Sioux scored at 9:43 of overtime to lift the Fighting Sioux to a 3-2 victory over top-seeded Minnesota in the NCAA West Region final and into the NCAA Frozen Four.

The UND men's hockey team's NCAA Frozen Four game against Boston College will be televised live nationally Thursday on ESPN2 at 7 p.m. Central time from St. Louis MO. The winner of UND's game against Boston College will play for the national championship on Saturday at 6 p.m. Central time against the winner of Thursday's 3 p.m. game between Michigan State and Maine. Saturday's game will be televised live nationally on ESPN.

So I guess if we can't beat 'em...we must then join them. Go Sioux!

Easter Egg Humor

April Snow and Below Zero Wind Chills

Yep...officially over 10 inches here in Brainerd yesterday. A week ago Monday it was in the upper 70's and this morning it's below zero with the wind chill. You gotta love good old Minnesota! BRING IT ON!

Denver con't

While in Denver we went and saw the movie "Blades of Glory". Wow ... a lot of one liners. I'll have to see it again just to pick up on those again. These guys are so seriously disturbed.

We also went and saw Tammi Nichols perform. This picture is horrible because it was dark in there and my photography skills are limited. It was nice to see Tammi and to hear her sing.And I gave Lorrie her birthday gift. As you can see it's a nice stained glass piece by Ms. Ellie that depicts Lorrie's Wyoming paradise on the mountain. She can hang it in her kitchen window to remind her each day of her upcoming project of building up there and her bright future of living up there.

A little taste of Ireland

Saturday night while in Denver we stopped by Fado's Irish Pub and had some Boxties and the guys enjoyed a couple glasses of Irish Whiskey, including these glasses of Bushmills. Cheers.

What the hell is wrong with my face? Looks like I pooped my pants.

Getting "Wild" in Denver

Or should I say "Getting the Wild in Denver". As you can see here on the scoreboard, Denver stopped the Wild with a two to one game. The Wild scored in the first minute and a half of the game and that's where it ended. I was the only one celebrating in my group.

I was very surprised to see so many Wild jerseys there in Denver. We even met a family that had drove 14 hours from Minnesota to be at this game.

Turns out Kyle's a poet

Today Kyle received an award for taking second place in his class for a writing contest. Kyle wrote a poem about bees (I guess that's what it was about. His other Grandma, Carol, said thats what it was about. But I haven't actually heard the poem). Good work Kyle!

Tami Nichols

While we're in Denver this weekend we're going to Herman's Hideaway to see my friend Robin Hopp's daughter, Tami Nichols, perform. Check out the following websites and stories about her. She's beautiful and very talented.

http://www.taminichols.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/taminichols

Going to the Pepsi Center

Going to Denver to see the Avs play the Wild this weekend. I hope the Avs win but that's being very hopeful. The Wild are on fire right now. The Avs only have seven more games in regular season and unless they win almost all of them and Calgary loses almost all of their remaining games, the Avs are not going to the playoffs. The Wild however are well on their way to the playoffs.

Jeff Gorden won the first pole of the Car of Tomorrow era, putting his Chevrolet Impala in the top starting spot at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday. So I hope Jeff does good. He is currently in second place in points.

My fantasy pick for this Sunday in Tennessee is Ryan Newman who is going to start 22nd.

The Movie Wild Hogs

I went to see Wild Hogs last night. It was non-stop laughter. It's about as stupid as it could be but pretty darn funny. Don't expect to come out of it saying "That was good", cause you won't. But you'll probably come out saying "damn funny....just plain damn funny"!

Jacksonville Beach

Tonight I drove down to the beach. It's about 10 miles from where I'm staying. There were a lot of people on the beach even at 7pm. People and jelly fish. Lots of jelly fish washed up on shore because the tide was coming in.

Kyle's Birthday

Last week was my grandson Kyle's 8th birthday. On Friday night his parents had his party. He had a great cake as you can see.

Ahhhhh Travel.....

I'm still trying to get to Jacksonville. I've been working on it since 7:30 this morning. After watching the weather channel I just knew I wasn't going to get out of Brainerd and Minneapolis as scheduled today. It said there was a 70% chance of snow, sleet and rain in the afternoon. It didn't sound like conditions for flying to me. So I talked to Northwest and they couldn't get me out of Brainerd on an earlier flight but they said if I went to Minneapolis I could probably get on a 1:30 flight directly to Jacksonville arriving there at 5pm. Well hell that sounded a lot better than flying Brainerd to Minneapolis at 3pm, Minneapolis to Memphis at 5pm and Memphis to Jacksonville at 7:15pm and not arriving in Jacksonville until 10pm. So I call Makita and get him out of bed (which he had barely gotten in to after working all night in Lakeshore) and convinced him to drive me to Minneapolis before the storm hit. So he got me to the Minneapolis St. Paul Airport by noon. I stood in line quite a while to find out the 1:30 flight was oversold and they encouraged me to stick with my original flight leaving at 5pm. Great. I love sitting in airports for long long periods of time. Five hours.....perfect. So I decided to go directly to the gate for the 1:30 flight. When I got there they gave me the same story. The flight was full and I should stay with my luggage (I wonder where the hell my luggage is right now). So I walked around for a bit (circled the entire airport twice, now I have a blister on my little toe on my right foot).

Then I thought I'd try to get on stand by for a Memphis flight. At least I could get partially towards my goal and eventually my luggage should show up there in Memphis for the 7:15pm flight I was scheduled for. So I went through the whole process of going standby for a 3pm flight to Memphis. I didn't get on it. So I went to Chili's to try and catch some of the race. Well all they were interested in was NCAA Basketball. So I waited for my 5pm flight to Memphis that was only going to give me a 25 minute layover to get on my 7:15pm flight to Jacksonville. Well we left Minneapolis 45 minutes late and arrived in Memphis at 7:15pm. When I de-boarded the plane they were waiting there with vouchers for food and hotel and a boarding pass for the next mornings flight to Jacksonville.

So here I am in Memphis. The morning flight isn't until 9:30am. I won't get to Jacksonville until 12:30pm and will obviously miss at least a half a day of work. Ahhhhh travel.

To my Irish Friends and Family

The Wish
I caught a little leprechaun, quite wise and very old and he said to me, "You have one wish,would you like my pot of gold?"
"No thank you," was my quick reply,"But how about another...A gift that's truly precious and esteemed above all others?"
He offered then some emeralds, rubies, sapphires, pearls and a host of other treasures that would make your senses whirl!
As I rejected all his lis this bright eyes flashed with fire and, angrily, he said to me:"What is it you desire?"
I said:
"A rainbow's far more beautiful than its' supposed treasure and the 'rainbow' that I'm wishing for is priceless beyond measure.
"I'd like to have the dearest friends a person ever had to share in all the good times and help me through the bad...
"To laugh and sing and joke with, love and appreciate as we live life's greatest adventure that would certainly be great!"
"Oh, now I know you're daft!" he said as he ran off with his pot..."to waste your wish on something you have already got!"
~Author Unknown~

Iditarod Winner

Lance Mackey won the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Tuesday, becoming the first musher to win major long-distance North American sled dog races back-to-back. Mackey crossed under the famed burled arch in downtown Nome early Tuesday evening, completing the 1,100-mile Iditarod in just over nine days.

Formerly the Outdoor Life Channel, Versus, is Alaska’s premier cable sports channel. Versus is airing a series of Iditarod shows.

All shows listed are Central time, 60 minutes in length and on the Versus channel (the old Outdoor Life).

3/18 6pm

3/18 9pm

3/25 6pm

3/25 9pm

4/1 6pm

4/1 9pm

My new toy

Got myself one of them there wheelers. As you can see it's a little used (has 800 miles on it). Needs tires. But now I can ride with everyone else. Giddy up!

Sunday's Race Recap

This past Sunday in Las Vegas Jimmy Johnson took the checkered flag. Right behind him the number 24 of Jeff Gordon snatched second. I guess it doesn't get much better than that for me. My fantasy pick for last week was Mr. Johnson. So if I had to pick how the race would end, I would have had to pick Johnson first and Gordon second. Good race fellas. My fantasy pick for Altanta next weekend is the 99 Carl Edwards. My fantasy Nascar is going fairly well. The only driver to screw it up so far is Kasey Kahne. I had him winning in California and he crashed and DNF. No points for me that week.

To catch you up with the standings: Mark Martin 1st in points, Jeff Gordon 2nd, Jeff Burton 3rd, Johnson 4th, Tony Stewart 13th, Little E 28th and Kasey Kahne 36th.

Snowshoeing

Yesterday I finally got the opportunity to use my new Snowshoes that the Wnuks got me for Christmas. Makita and I went up to Dave and Ellie's place in Thor and tromped around in the really deep snow. We tried walking with them and without them and let me tell you, it made all the difference. It was a lot of fun to get back outside. The weather was amazing. It was in the 40's and beatifully sunny. Maggie liked being out in the woods too. Good dog.

Ellie and Dave are pro's on the snowshoes. They showed us the way. They also cooked up some big fat juicy steaks on the grill and treated us to a winter picnic. I love a picnic!

Wasted Energy

Last night I went down to the Iron Rail, downtown Brainerd, to see my second cousin Andy Fischer perform with his band Wasted Energy. Andy is the lead singer. They've won several local singing contests including the Brainerd Battle of the Bands last summer. The entire band is still in high school and did an excellent job.

Brainerd area Polar Bear Plunge to benefit Minnesota Special Olympics is scheduled for this Saturday March 10th.

WHERE: Breezy Point Resort Marina

TIMES: Registration: starts at 11 a.m.

Plunge time. 2 p.m.

And our very own Dave Makita St John Cox is taking the plunge for the second year in a row. Loco. If you haven't already sponsored him, because I know a lot of my readers have, give him a shout today or tomorrow and make a pledge. 218-838-9793

Here's a little reminder of how it was last year Makita. Yikes that's a shrivel'r.

Larsmont Cottages on the Shores of Superior

The radio stations in Duluth put me up in one of the nicest places I've ever stayed. The Larsmont Cottages are awesome. I hear the rate is around $300 per night. As you can see from these photos it's top notch.

Check out their website at www.larsmontcottages.com