Nick D

Are we making sausage this year?

For all you beer lovers....

So whose Christmas List is this on?

[L] #spendingistheproblem

http://www.flickr.com/photos/speakerboehner/8269146227/

Bowl Pick'em

Well college football regular season is officially over (mostly) and now it is on to bowl season. Auburns bowl season is a coaching search while FSU and UF get to play in BCS games. Admittedly both of our matchups are not exactly high profile, but oh well we both had good years and deserve the big stage. These bowl games are definitely important for both of our schools. For FSU it means that when conference realignment starts back up again FSU can finally claim they are ACC Champions and a top 10 for the first time in a long time, which makes us all that more attractive to the Big 12 or SEC. FSU has not had a lot of good wins this year, but not much we can do about that a 12-2 record would make me very happy. As for UF well they have had a really good year and some good wins but have zero hardware to show for it. Should UF lose the Sugar bowl they will have nothing of substance to show off what a good year it has been for them ( you guys like that little dig?? Bwahahah)

Bowl Mania

Group Name: Orange Sugar

http://games.espn.go.com/college-bowl-mania/en/frontpage

PS A prize will be provided to the winner courtesy of Nick D

By the way...

What's with the backwards 'FSU'?  Is this a thing or did this lady just have a mirror fail on national television?

Mirror fail?

FSU v UF

Well this might be the first blog post of season for college football and it rightfully so is about FSU and UF. For the first time in I don't know how long (10 yrs) this game matters for both our teams in terms of having a shot at a national title. Although in all honesty since FSU is not in the SEC and have a weak schedule to date we still need some help, but hell we have a shot. This has been a great year for both of our teams and one team will end the regular season at 11-1 and with big time bragging rights and a top 5 finish for sure.

Most places have FSU favored by a TD, which I feel is pretty accurate. In all honesty I am pretty confident in this game, but have a feeling it could be a bit ugly. UF has a really good defense and specials teams, but the offense is a different story heck they have only scored 2 offensive TD's in the last two games, against bad competition. Now FSU has a really good defense and halfway good special teams (our FG unit is awesome, while our punting unit bad) and our offense is above average to good, especially at home.

If this game were at UF I would be very nervous about it because obviously FSU has struggled on the road some this year. UF has beat some very good teams this year home and away so I know UF will come to play. I could throw out some analytic's but prefer to go with a score prediction. This score prediction takes into account the typical UF defensive or special teams TD that they seem to get.....

I think FSU wins this thing 24-13.....

Post for Eric

Eric, we ended up making a better mob spawner in the End and so this was the fate of our old one last night... (we each took a screen grab)

Plans for X-Mas break

Let me know if you are interested in taking part in a group trip/activity this X-Mas break.

I'll put together a group email of interested parties so we can plan.

Humble Bundle for Android 4

There is a great Humble Bundle offered today. It includes 6 really good Android games (also playable on Windows, Mac and Linux) and their full soundtracks. You have to pay at least as much as the average donation to get the 6th game, which at the time of this writing is $5.70. I paid $7.00. Go to http://www.humblebundle.com to check it out.

Movember

Eric can you post the link to your page on here?? I would like to check up on your progress and after your first good shave where the mustache is visible a donation shall be headed your way. Make your father proud Valamos...

Closer and closer to Skynet

Bradenton Riverwalk

 

Today was the grand opening of the Bradenton Riverwalk and we decided to check out the festivities after work.  It's spans the riverfront between MMH and Rossi Park and it's really nice.  Amenities include a boat launch for kayaks / rowing teams, a skate park, 2 sand volleyball courts, a playground, a fountain/water park for kids, many covered benches and swings, an amphitheater, a fishing pier and a large dock with 20+ boat slips.

New Addition

We have a new family member!  Wanted to give Chandler a brother and figured we'd better do it now before the wedding planning takes over the world.  He's a pure-bred lab and is just as sweet as can be... although I may be singing a different tune when he eats the coffee table.  Everyone, meet Griz :)

{rant}

rules of the road

1) every time you drive like a d-bag because you are reading/writing a text, God drowns a puppy

2) if i honk at you about 1) and you flick me off, you have cemented your d-bag status

3) when the light turns green, it means go.  it doesn't mean slowly roll forward while finishing text, then go

4) if i miss a green light because of 3) you better as hell hope i don't catch up to you at the next red light

5) if you swerve out of your lane and i get up along side you and see you continuing to shove your nose in your phone, i am within my moral rights to beat you to within an inch of your life with a DMV handbook

{/rant}

Huge Game Trade-In

If anyone would like to give me trade in value for any of these games let me know.  Otherwise, they will be the property of Amazon in the near future.

Auburn is bad, but this is horrible

http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&safe=images&sa=N&biw=1366&bih=672&tbm=isch&tbnid=P58Vk8zBUGu3pM:&imgrefurl=http://www.squidoo.com/auburnvsgeorgia&imgurl=http://i1.squidoocdn.com/resize/squidoo_images/250/draft_lens1597157module7858608photo_au_logo.gif&w=128&h=112&ei=cBdEUPaiHaLc2AXn7IHIDA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=845&vpy=245&dur=1537&hovh=89&hovw=102&tx=86&ty=66&sig=113964616478789947173&page=1&tbnh=89&tbnw=102&start=0&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0,i:115

bingiton

http://www.bingiton.com

this was kind of an interesting exercise

basically microsoft is letting you do a blind comparison of 5 search terms of your choosing between bing and google.

my result was a draw, 3 ties, 1 bing, and 1 google.  an interesting marketing idea to try and jolt people out of their usual habits.  my results weren't astonishing enough, though, to stop my fingers from mindlessly typing google.com

crazy bank robbery

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/national_world&id=8798628

i swear i've seen this movie before.

Football is BACK

What a wonderful time of the year.....

FSU rolled over its pansy of a opponent this past weekend. These games are worthless and tell you next to nothing about your team, but at least our O-Line looked better than last year. This week we have an even worse opponent thanks to West Virginia canceling the game we had scheduled. In other bad news FSU lost our starting DE to a season ending injury. While we have good depth at this position losing a 1st/2nd round pick is not something you can just cover up...big bummer.

I watched some of the UF game and was not terribly impressed, but UF won and has named a starting QB and I saw some nice runs from your RB. As I did not watch the game play by play I don't really know how you looked, but I heard it was not great.  Should be an interesting game against Tex A&M this week I have no idea how good A&M will be after losing their starting QB. Should be an interesting game for sure and could really help propel one team or the other off to a good year.

Alex I was really pulling for Auburn in that game as I hate Clemson. What do you see as Auburns biggest issue this year? Did Auburn just play poorly or will they be about as good as last year?

New FB like button

I added some code that puts a FB like button below each post.  Thanks to Ashley for the idea.  Let me know if it works or not (can't test it since I am FB free since '93)

Cool Egg Trick (Ignore audio)

Not sure how old this vid is, but it shows a pretty cool way to separate out your yolks...

Anyone playing Minecraft?

Due to a lack of new stuff on X360 and COD burnout, I've recently started playing Minecraft and I'm curious if any of you guys are playing it as well.   I avoided it for a long time because I didn't understand the appeal. Random web browsing directed me to the "X's Adventures in Minecraft" youtube series and after a few videos I was pretty interested.  Now that I'm pretty addicted and beating single-player to death I'm thinking about multi-player.  Let me know in the comments.

Thoughts on Ryan

What does this largely right-wing audience think of putting Ryan on the ticket?

For me it has taken me off the fence since Ryan seems to be the only cat in town willing to tackle the debt issue head on.

I'm sure Drew will have an interesting take on the matter.

Passing of a great Italian American

My dads father Giovanni "John" DiVincenzo has passed away this weekend. He has been in at home hospice for a couple of months now so this has been a few months coming. He was in peace and it was just his time and to be quite honest necessary so we could all kind of move on and celebrate his life. Just wanted to let you all know since most of you have met him or at least heard the stories during sausage makings. Anyway we will be flying up to Cleveland in two weekends or so. Talk to everybody soon hope all is well.

Nick D.....

PS. If anybody wants me to pick up some memorabilia from Cleveland just let me know :)

Making Moves

So for those of you that don't know, here's an update on what has been going on! I have accepted a new position in Charlotte, NC and am in the process of moving. In fact, I'm being loaded up today and will be leaving Jax in the morning! I resigned from CMC July 16th, so I haven't been working for about a month now....which in reality has been driving me crazy, so I'm excited to get back to work. This is a HUGE opportunity for me and I'm very excited about it! One of my professional goals was to make a certain amount of money @ 30 years old, and this job accomplishes that goal! I'm living in a beautiful area of Charlotte called 'Elizabeth,' and the apt complex is Elizabeth Square. I'm in the heart of ACC country, so no excuses not to come visit! Until next time, Bryan

Happy Birthday to Me

Google Fiber

http://fiber.google.com/about/

Jared turned me on to this today.  Google is offering a pretty amazing service to people in KS.  Check out their pricing.  Ridiculously cheap for what you're getting.  I hope this is successful and gets rolled out to more cities.

Trip to NYC

We spent one night in NYC on our recent vaca to CT.

Checked out the status of ground zero...

Visited Wall Street, NYSE, and the bull...

Lady Liberty in the background...

Jen used her fancy phone and I navigated with my iMap...

Got some delicious Korean for dinner, thank you Urban Spoon...

Stayed at The Times off Time Square...

Checked out the Today Show the next morning...

What's on Ceelo's lap?

Good times, good times.

Glad I brought the SLR

Shot this guy on our vaca in CT... posting it full-res for all to enjoy :)

Juggalo's

Last night Tosh.0 supposedly had Juggalo's on his show, I did not get to watch it but I recorded it. I had no idea that ICP still made music and they still had super fans around. It is slightly embarrassing that I have like 5 of their CD's oh well it was "fun" music to listen to. I can't wait to see all the jokes he makes at the expense of the Juggalo's. I will report back after watching or if anybody has watched just let me know.

Attention non-Facebookers!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks

Just wanted to thank everybody who made it out to our wedding. Me and Irene had an great time and we appreciate everybody who took their time and money to get there. Sorry we could not chat more, but those of you have been married know how crazy the weekend is. Thanks for helping us having a great night. Hopefully we will be seeing all of you soon.

Nick D = Locked Down

DEA major fuck-up

An apology *so* doesn't make this right

BO2

Got this in my inbox today... I don't even recognize this game.

The blog is dead, long live the blog

Does anyone know how to post videos to Blogger from an iPhone?

I don't have any spare cycles anymore to post to the blog regularly but Jen has some good videos of Braden that I wanted to post as long as it was easy (which I imagine it has to be).

Just curious, what's the tally as far as iPhone users vs Android users for those of you who still check the blog...

Happy Birthday...

Nick D.

P.S. I'm in town til Thursday

Braden

So is he pretty much a walking machine these days?? If so be sure to baby proof that liquor cabnet that Jae keeps fully stocked, don't want him getting his hands on anything he shouldn't..Focker!

Hello

Sanka you ded ma'aan??

"Yea ma'ann the blog is ded"

Tourney Time

Well it is that time of the year again where we all try and guess who the heck is going to win some basketball games. I created a free group on ESPN so we can compete against each other in a friendly manner. This year I am actually trying to contain my excitement after FSU won the ACC Championship for the first time ever and was awarded a #3 seed. This should be a crazy tournament this year, filled with lots of upsets. Time to go dancing.

Site: ESPN Tournament Challenge
Group: Pick'em and Weep
Password: powers

Go Noles!!!!

It's Official!

No, Allie and I are not having a baby, but we did buy a house! It is right in downtown Middlebury, very close to the college and very close to my office. It is a major fixer-upper so we are not moving in for a few months. We are completely gutting the house. New plumbing, new electric, new siding, new windows, new floor plan. I am going to walk through the house with a video camera tomorrow and try to get it online. Anyway, it is exciting stuff! And once it is done, there will be plenty of room for visitors!

0.5 Js in 21st Century

Jen got her b-day gift yesterday. A shiny new iPhone 4S with the data plan to boot. I was still able to weasle out of paying for texts by getting her setup on Google Voice.

Let the Words With Friends addiction begin...

Happy Birthday Jenny

Goodbye 20s and hello 30s...

Great Time-lapse Photography Video

test

Sean got his picture taken

Super Bowl Party?

I haven't heard anything about a Super Bowl party so far. Is anyone planning anything? Anybody interested?

Calling All Erics & Jaes

Hello everybody! So... I'll be moving to GA this Saturday, and anticipate being out of work for at least a few weeks (hopefully not too much longer than that though!). In my downtime, I'd like to start up a fitness blog, and therein lies my question. Can somebody help me get started? Never created a blog before - only contributed mindlessly to existing ones :)

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Free Hotel & Flight Option

Hey everybody I just thought I would post this and see if anybody is interested. My parents are staying is this place called The Shores courtesy of the Canales family. They had some time shares that they had to use and this place was able to accomodate them so they gave 2 of them to my parents. Now my parents will be staying in this place Friday night through Sunday night, then the rooms will be unused the rest of the week. It is not really the nicest place kind of has that old school feel to it, but it is free (It is nowhere near as nice as The Island on our website). So if anybody was going to hang around after the wedding and wanted to possibly stay here we can work it out. Obviously there would be no cleaning service that would come in after my parents left, but I am sure they could throw some sheets in the washer or something. There is no cost to you or for that matter my parents. It becomes available Monday night if anybody is interested let me know.

Also, just wanted to say for anybody flying out of Tampa make sure to check Southwest as they don't show up on all of the classic search sites.

Catch you on the flip side.....

Nick D > Rory * 2

Update on Wedding Plans...

We ended up booking a 3 bedroom condo at the Lake Travis resort with Ramdin, Brenda and Jared since they will be meeting us there Thursday-Sunday too. It was a little pricier than the hotels but the extra amenities (living room, kitchen, pools, views, jet ski rentals, etc.) seemed worth it. They still had two more 3 bedrooms and a bunch of 2 bedroom condos available so hopefully we can make this the place to hang.

P.S. - Brenda has offered to babysit any little ones if you end up staying in the condo place...:)

Repub Primaries

Risk Legacy

This game was mentioned in a blog that I read regularly. The author is a fan. I did a little reading about the game and it sounds so awesome that I feel compelled to play it. In short, it is Risk reimagined. Rules are made and changed during gameplay, the board is phyically altered and decisions made in one game affect all future games. The catch is that the game is designed to be played 15 times and the same players (up to 5) have to play all 15 games. After 15 games the rules are set and it becomes vanilla Risk more or less. Any takers?

Football vs Baseball vs Basketball

I cooked up this little chart today in Google Insights...

Wedding Plans...

Just wondering if anyone has started looking into lodging for Irene and Nick's wedding. Jae, Braden, and I will be flying in Thursday night, and leaving Sunday. Their website shows 3 nearby hotels and 1 condo-type place that I believe is even closer. Have any of you booked anything? And if so, where?

P.S. - The title links to their website.

Ummm...

Believe it or not, this is for real. What ever happened to just putting on pants?

Sausage Making

Anybody who took some photos and or videos of the sausage making could you kindly post them at your earliest conviencence. For those who could not attend it was a fun event and we absolutely ate ever single piece of sausage made, for a first time ever, which left us with no leftovers...booo. We had to incorporate a bunch of new people into some skill positions, but we manged it ok. Adam as others can attest too I was a very poor sub for your role in casing the sausage. The two I made turned out flacid and not up to par. Others like Logan and Alex stepped up and filled in admirably though. Thanks for coming everybody it was fun!!

Nick D

Redneck celebrity [L]

Just thought everyone might want more reasons to root against the updykes tonight. However, I will not be watching the game considering I saw it the first time. WDE

New Address

Happy New Year and Happy Holidays everybody! In typical Bryan 'The Nomad' Leighton fashion...I moved this weekend. New address below...

8450 Gate Parkway West Apt 502
Jacksonville, FL 32216

Please update your records accordingly.