I Have So Much To Say

Lyndi:  "Mommy, what you doin'?"
Me:  "Trying to pop a pimple.  Owww..."
Lyndi:  "Mommy, your nipple hurt?"
Me:  "WHAT??"
Lyndi:  "Your nipple hurts??"
Me:  "OH!!!  My pimple....yes, it hurts... lol"

"And now we are eating 'sloppy jokes' for dinner... lol" -Kelley Senn Leeds-

"I do five sit-ups every morning.  May not sound like much, but there's only so many times you can hit the snooze button..." -via Francesca Welch-

"If you don't have emotional control, all your other skills are useless..." -Daniel Negreanu-

"If you want me to go running with you, I'm going to need some motivation...  Like a clown chasing us with a bloody knife and margaritas at the finish line..." -The Bikini Model Cookbook-
(via Leanne Calderon)

"According to this 3yr old, he won't get dressed unless I iron his clothes..."
-Monica Rodriguez-



Good afternoon everyone.  Yeah, this would be the alter ego of the 'I Have Nothing To Say' post that I did last time.  Lucki from 'Small Potatoes Poker and Sports Betting' in the links to the right left the comment, "For someone who didn't have anything to say, you sure said a lot."  Well just wait y'all, because I PLAN on saying a lot this time.  Since I obviously don't have any time to waste on all of this small talk with you, let's get started...  ;)

Yes, let's lead off with HalleyAnna.  Right here we also have to recognize the power of "advertising" on facebook.  When I worked at Harper's last year in San Marcos, I would constantly post statuses on the social network because I didn't want to be at work alone.  I also post blog 'ads' on facebook every time that I write a new entry (and still no one reads the blog).  :P  Yeah, we're going to pass 67,000 total pageviews here today, but we're here to talk about HalleyAnna, so PLEASE focus...  I powered up my facebook after I got home from work on Thursday, and as I was about to take my semi-traditional nap, I saw that my friend HalleyAnna was going to be headlining that night at the Cactus Cafe on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin.  I hadn't seen HalleyAnna headline anywhere, and some of you might be aware of the rumor that I'm moving to Las Vegas in four months.  Although this venue was going to be way out of my way, I decided that I would do my best to make her show.  "Wait Coach..., don't you work at UT, and don't you WALK to work???"  Know-it-alls...  Yes, I work at UT, and the Cactus Cafe is located in the Texas Union, which is about half as far as I walk to work, and I walked to the show from my apartment in less than ten minutes...  ;)

Well, I was the first one in the door (I like arriving to shows early too, just like sporting events).  I took a seat right up front, but against the wall, so that I would have a good vantage point, but hopefully wouldn't make HalleyAnna nervous, being front and center.  (Oh, and HalleyAnna, when I spoke to you after the show, and forgot what I was going to ask you, I meant to ask you what the biggest crowd was that you've played for)...  :)  As it turns out, Thursday night's show on campus was her last performance before embarking on a three-week tour, and HalleyAnna had a lot of friends in the intimate setting of the cafe.  The obvious sign that I enjoyed the show was that it went by way too fast.  Have you ever gone out and the time just FLEW BY?  HalleyAnna's music is Americana (defined by the Americana Music Association as "American roots music based on the traditions of country").  She hit a note in a song and I had to stop and think, "WHO does she remind me of?"  The answer was Bonnie Raitt.  Thank God that HalleyAnna knew who Ms. Raitt was when I asked her after the show, AND that she likes her...  :D  She's versatile in that a write-up that I read on Thursday afternoon likened her to Patsy Cline.  I have to brag on HalleyAnna a little bit here by letting you know that she's been nominated for 'Lone Star Music's Emerging Artist of 2014 Award.'  You can find several of her songs on YouTube, and you can visit her webpage at www.halleyanna.com to learn more about her.  I even gave HalleyAnna a suggestion for the name of a new song of hers that has yet to be titled.  I really enjoyed the show, both the music and HalleyAnna's interaction with the audience.  She's going to be in the Little Rock, Nashville, Alabama, South Carolina area soon if you're in the neighborhood (yeah, BIG AREA, I know), and she's due to be back home in Texas near the end of the month.  Give her music a spin and get out and see her if you get the chance...

Profile photos...  Brittany, this is all your fault, but I'm going to start with my friend Rose.  This picture came across my newsfeed a couple of days ago...

             

I KNOW that Rose posted this shot just to bother me, and I'm sure that Jessica, Leanne, Kari, and Pete (among others) will appreciate that.  Then, when the Yankees were winning a game recently, she gave a "what what" in a status.  I made a clever (or so I thought) comment about being confused by the Yankees success also, and Rose replied, "Are you Dazed?"  Now you cool kids will get that...  #dazedandconfused  Oh..., it's going to be a LONG baseball season...  ;)

Now for our troublemaker, and the reason that this will turn into such a long (but worthwhile) entry today.  I saw Brittany's new profile photo on my Droid Wednesday, and when I saw it again on my computer after I got home, I was really impressed with it.

I wasn't the only one who liked it...  I'm sure that you've heard of instances where people have ended relationships by sending a text message.  WAY on the other end of that spectrum is something that I don't ever remember seeing (or hearing about) before...  One of Brittany's friends commented, "Would you like to marry me?  I'm available right now..." beneath her photo.  Wouldn't that be something if someone successfully proposed marriage via a facebook comment??? Unfortunately, Cupid missed the mark in this case, as Brittany replied, "Ooooh so tempting...ha ha..."  Her response surely had NOTHING TO DO with the additional comment stating that he wasn't sure if he would feel this way for more than a couple of days...  #friendsarethebest  :)

Truth be told (and why would I lie?), there were A LOT of comments about this photo, including a touching family moment when her aunt commented on her mascara, and asked Brittany who taught her how to put it on (I'll give you one guess...  NO..., it wasn't me, it was her aunt)... #keepuppeople  To be totally honest, what stood out in the photo to me was Brittany's Chanel "I go out more and have had more fun in the past month than some people do in their entire lives, AND I'm very possibly going to Las Vegas in MAY COACH, BEFORE YOU" shade of pink lipstick...  Or is it Dior..., Clinique..., Revlon???  ;)  As you can obviously tell, Brittany is a really good sport about letting me share her stuff, and it makes me wish that her sister posted more also.  However, I'm sure that Carrie is probably saying, "Blog?  Who wants to be in a blog?  Blogs are so two thousand and late..."  Okay..., Carrie PROBABLY ISN'T saying this, but then I learned that Carrie and Brittany used to RAP, so who knows?...  :)  As these young ladies are enjoying strawberries today (strawberry festival, wouldn't you know it?), the point of using Brittany's lipstick to tease her about her awesome social life was to segue back to my last blog entry (and yes, I'm now segueing between posts).  Get out and do the things that you want to do, because time isn't slowing down...

Shortly after I first saw Brittany's photo, this picture appeared on my facebook page...

Now this is my friend Jessica, and she hits twice on the segue meter...  Jess has a cool new profile photo, and she's doing what she wants to do.  Jess is incredibly bright, and I'm talking both "book smart" and "street smart" - she's very sharp.  She studied International Business Management, and after college Jess decided to go into modeling and promoting and I don't think I can even begin to do justice trying to list everything that she does...  ;)  Back to her being bright (and talented), Jessica was about the only true post that I had on a junior varsity girls basketball team with A LOT of guards.  Now we were scrappy and we hustled, but we just weren't very tall. Jessica was so coachable and so smart that she managed to pull in A TON of rebounds AND stay out of foul trouble despite being the focal point of our opponents underneath.  Editor's Note: I'm still saying all of these nice (and rest assured, they're true) things about Jessica, DESPITE THE FACT that she broke out the word 'Coachella' a few days ago...  ;)  One day she's a j.v. post player, and the next day she's art...  :)  Jessica told me that this work was done at 'Beyond The Canvas' in San Antonio, and that the theme of this piece is 'Witchblade' (a comic book superheroine).  Alright, so I've seen the new photos from Brittany and Jess, and then Jennifer posts this shot...

You might remember Jennifer from the 'Pompadorable' post that I did not too long ago.  Jennifer said the greatest thing when I asked her if I could use this picture in the blog:  "Yes, but you have to mention I really do have a shirt on!  Lol  :)"  Totally Pompadorable...  ;)  Okay, so now that's THREE pictures (I cannot in good faith praise the photo with the Yankees jerseys, sorry Rose... :P), and it dawns on me that my friends have some REALLY INCREDIBLE profile photos.  Earlier in the week, I would have been completely satisfied just picking on Brittany, but now I have a theme, so I'm keeping my eyes open, and trying to remember some of the older profile photos that my friends have used.  There's Lindsey...

    

Now this is the same Lindsey that contributed the photograph that looked like art from the Bobcat baseball game recently (her snapshot and Jessica's picture are about the only art that you're ever going to find in my blog, unless you count the art from Charli of course)...  ;)  Going further back (to the fall), this is also the Lindsey who commented on the pizza that I was eating at Harper's, and who proceeded to BUY ME A PIECE after I let her try my slice...  :)  I like the similarity between Jennifer's photo and this one, but at this point there are far too many similarities and segues to keep up with...  ;)  However, with that being said, Lindsey and myself have a mutual friend named Bianca...

    

Now I really don't remember when this started, but I know that more than once in the past, I've addressed Bianca as 'supermodel' when our paths have crossed.  Just like Jessica (and HalleyAnna and Carrie for that matter), Bianca is a former student of mine who I was more than happy to add as a friend on facebook once I joined (which was obviously long after I taught and coached, since that was 100 years ago, as we've covered here before)...  ;)  Now Bianca has always been just the most level-headed, unassuming person that you would ever want to meet. Editor's Admission:  I knew that 'unassuming' was the word that I wanted to use, but I did recheck the definition just to be sure, and the word means, "lacking in arrogance, pleasant, polite..."  So yeah, 'unassuming' is EXACTLY the word that I wanted to use to describe Bianca - she might beat you up and steal your lunch money, but she's always been nice to me...  :)  This points us in the direction of my personal moral of this "little" blog entry (and thanks again for starting all of this Brittany - my blog entries never required "morals of the story" before), which we'll get to shortly.  I now find it ironic that 'supermodel' is the word that I've sometimes used to address Bianca, because unassuming (see definition above :P) is about the last word that I'd associate with supermodels...  And then there's the young lady who breaks us away from the profile photo theme, but that theme only...

  

Heather is being tagged to photos on facebook constantly due to the fact that she dances for the Austin Toros, but her current profile shot is a little bit..., grainy??? (for lack of a better word)... However, I wanted to include a photo of Heather here because I didn't know her very well (I had actually just met her) when I first mentioned her in the blog.  This is the young lady who was waiting tables at Bobcat Nation when I visited back in the fall, the one who told me, "you better stop watching me," which were the first words EVER spoken between us...  Like I said, I thought this was AWESOME, and now you have a face to put with that story.  I think I mentioned in that post that I already knew several of the other people who worked there, and that Heather could see that, but it was still one of the most memorable first encounters that I've ever had.  And that brings us to our last photo, until we get to Joey and myself, who are obviously the real supermodels here...  :)

  

As I continued to find and remember all of these amazing profile photos, I recalled something that I told my good friend Kelley (not quite 100 years ago)...  Obviously, in every photo from HalleyAnna all the way down to Kelley (and YES, you too Rose, EVEN in that YANKEES jersey ;) ), this is an extremely photogenic group of people.  I wouldn't hesitate to use the word beautiful to describe any of them, and I don't just throw that word around recklessly.  Since you've been with me for 67,000 pageviews now, this is something that you should know about me (and hopefully you already do). What I told Kelley is that no matter how physically attractive somebody is..., if they aren't cool..., if they're jerks..., if they don't treat other people with respect..., then I don't care about them at all. They're not attractive anymore...  If you want a Las Vegas segue right here, we can talk about cocktail waitresses (who are generally considered to be pretty attractive)...

        

Okay, I guess this is a bonus photo for you before we get to Joey and myself, but we both worked with Maly, so this is like a double or triple segue...  :)  This is my favorite cocktail waitress, and for exactly the reason that I stated above.  Maly is an extremely cool person (she even started betting football games with us).  Maly became less cool when she started winning more bets than we did, but that's another story...  ;)  Anyway, if a cocktail waitress is rude to me, I will tip her for whatever she brought me (having a lengthy service industry background myself), but that's the last time that she'll be my cocktail waitress.  The next time that I need something, I will find another waitress.  If the waitresses are only allowed to provide service to their specific sections in the casino, then I'll go to the bar, or to the gift shop, or I'll just go without.

As my blog continues to pick up a greater following, and as I prepare to move back to Las Vegas (where I'm bound to meet exponentially more people this time around), this message is very timely (thanks again Brittany - I knew that you had a plan in mind all along)...  ;)  Treat myself and others with respect, or I won't have anything to do with you.  To all of you above who gave me permission to use your photos and quotes today, thanks again.  You're an AWESOME group of people, as are all of my friends.  For those of you who don't already know this (and I told Rose this earlier in the week), I only pick on people I like, so if I do tease you, please take it in stride...  ;)


And now onto the Final Four.  Because this post has taken me longer to write than I originally thought, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Connecticut will upset Florida.  WOW, I got it right!!!  Yeah, the game just finished, and we're waiting for the second game to tip off...  Hold on, let's make this official...

Coach (4-6 in the NCAA Tourney)


Kentucky is my only prop team that is still alive.  The good news is that I bet them at 33 to 1 to win the championship.  I went ahead and hedged $4.00 today on Wisconsin at (+1 1/2).  PLEASE root for the Wildcats!  ;)  I'm going to predict that Kentucky wins this game 65-57 over the Badgers (and hopefully I'll hit the 'publish' button before the game begins, so this pick isn't sketchy)...  :P Now, live from the Palace Station Sportsbook in Las Vegas, here's Joey...

Joey (4-6 in the NCAA Tourney)


Final Four picks - I'll keep it short and sweet.  Florida is the best team in the country (uh oh Joey). They are playing great and coach Billy Donovan will have them focused, plus U. Conn is the last team to beat Florida (don't do it Joey).  I'm not big for revenge games, but this game is too important.  Florida jumps out early and keeps the hammer down.  Florida 72  U. Conn 62 (Awwww, sorry Joey)...  ;)

Everybody is supporting Kentucky.  The public was behind Michigan State and Louisville, and they both lost, so I'll bet against the Wildcats.  Wisconsin 65  Kentucky 60

That's it for the parlay card til football season.  Come by Palace Station and say hi.  By the way, Florida wins the national championship 72-65  (Try again Joey???)


Thanks again for stopping by, have an outstanding weekend, and I'll see you again on Tuesday!