Summertime...

Waiting for fun at Disney World

The weather is going to take that turn into real summer this weekend. Both days are expected to be in the 90's with humidity building throughout the day. Joy! Not really, I don't care for days in the 90's where you can't even sit outside and I need to yank some stumps out of the ground too. Only good part of this is no mowing this weekend.

Fort Wayne's Three Rivers Festival kicks off this weekend and runs through next weekend. Should be able to hit Junk Food Alley at some point. We'll miss the parade tomorrow after actually making it last year. Bob Marley Tribute band tonight at the beer tent, that could be interesting. [3RF.com]

Fishing on the pond with Noah

Tonight, Brooke and I will be heading to Fortissimo with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic. Two local bands and another indie group will be playing with The Phil in a one of a kind event. This should be very cool and we're looking forward to it. [The Phil & Journal Gazette]

This week's News Quiz. [Chicago Tribune]

Nebraska joined the Big Ten last week as the 12th member school. Here was a recap of the Big Ten for the Huskers, I thought it was a pretty cool rundown of the league. [Husker Extra]

Neat Op-Ed column about super powers, X-Men, and history. [New York Times]

One of my all time favorite Hoosiers, Calbert Cheaney, is back in the fold. He and I were classmates at IU. [USA Today]

Fishing on the pond with Noah

Paul sent me this link of a real life National Treasure found in India. [Guardian]

In commemoration of the final shuttle launch this morning, here's a sun article on a solar flare eruption with a cool video. It's simply amazing. [Fox News]

Google launched a new social media site this week with a limited release. One of the first to join up was Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. Probably just checking out the potential competition. [New York Times]

Hope you all checked out the massive picture update I did last weekend. Lots of great photos of our trip to Walt Disney World. We had a very good time! 

Ziver Beaver (aka Ziva) chilling out

Stay cool this weekend!

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Feels like Summer

Planting veggies...

We've had a great couple of days for summertime weather. Rowan's been talking about summertime for a few weeks now. I think she may have actually talked it into coming around.

We found out this week we're having a baby boy at the end of September. Rowan is quite excited to be a big sister. I anticipate her being a very big helper when her brother arrives. We don't have a name yet, but we're working on it. Thanks for all the suggestions!

New Horsey named Chocolate

My review of Thor is up on the main page. We really enjoyed our first summer movie of the season. This week, Bridesmaids looks really funny and we can't wait for The Hangover Part II later this month. [IMDb.com]

Sheridan Stables are full for the summer. All 6 stalls have horses in them and things are progressing nicely. We haven't been able to start on the pastures yet due to the wet spring we've had. Might have to stick to the hay field and start the pastures next year. The ground needs to dry up quickly in order for us to do it all this year.

Here's the links I've accumulated since my last blog update.

This week's News Quiz. [Chicago Tribune]

A great story of two family miles apart that connected through the devastating Alabama tornadoes a few weeks back. [Washington Post]

Students with President Bush on 9/11 tell their story of how they remember that day. [Time]

Making sense of organic foods. [Chicago Tribune]

Story of the man who tweeted the raid on Osama's place. He's a pretty good read on Twitter (@ReallyVirtual). [Time & Twitter]

Piggyback ride with Mom during JDRF Walk

The Space Shuttle program is retiring this year. The remaining shuttles will be donated to several places around the country. Amazingly, Houston wasn't one of the places. [NASA & Crunch Gear]

The cleanup from March's earthquake continues in Japan. Here's a great story of people braving the nuclear threat to save a group of dogs. [Japan Times]

Japan Self Defense Forces, their military, has stepped up big time to help find survivors, collect the dead, and begin the rebuilding effort. [Japan Times]

Tsunami warning stones saved one Japanese town, I'm sure more will be made to save others in the future. [New York Times]

Prolific tweeter Andy Carvin (@acarvin) keeps the world updated on the Arab Spring and other happenings around the world. [Washington Post & Twitter & Guardian]

Have a great weekend!

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Halfway through the Tourney - Friday March 26th

Blog's been redesigned a bit this week. If you get the post from email, I encourage you to click the post title and go to the blog online. I think it's a cleaner look. Rowan's ready for cruising the neighborhood in her new power wheels ATV from Aunt Lynnette. She's not real gung ho about pushing the button and going, but I'm sure she'll get the hang of it.

Lots of big basketball games last night, tonight, and this weekend, the Pools are heating up. Go Butler!

We've been checking out movies with our Netflix subscription. Last week we finally saw Bond's Quantum of Solace. We both liked it but are eager for the next Bond movie when they reset the story and go in a new direction. This movie was a continuation from 2006's Casino Royale. Next week I think we'll hit the multiplex for Hot Tub Time Machine. It's getting good reviews (and another) and the commercials are working me over. A 1980's period piece, how old am I again? [IMDb.com & NY Times & Chicago Tribune]

A Happy Anniversary to my parents on Saturday: 40 Years! Awesome.

Adding something new this week. To shorten the main page of my blog, I'll be adding a jump to the middle of my longer posts. You can catch the rest of the post by clicking the Read More link below. I'm not sure if this will be included on the emails, if so, click it and you'll go the the new and improved web site! From now on these jumps will be detailed as follows: News Quiz and more after the jump...

Friday October 9th

Well fall is officially here. I don't think the temps reached 65 this week and most days it was cloudy with a bit of rain. Saw in the Chicago Tribune there might be snow up there on Monday...? Yikes. This was very similar weather to our JDRF Walk last Saturday. It was a bit cold with a slight drizzle, but we finished the 2 miles. We're over $1,000 collected as a team so far, but I'm shooting for $1,000 on my own. See my page here.

Rowan took her first ride on a carousel this week. In the food court at Glenbrook Square Mall they have a double decker carousel with all kinds of animals. Rowan and mom took the first spin and then dad got on for another one. On the second, she took to a pony that went up and down...and loved it! The picture up there is from her first ride on a stationary giraffe. Looks like she was ready for that afternoon nap before the ride started!

Well, the baseball season ended for the Cubs last weekend. Playoff baseball is upon us and for the first time in 3 years, no Cubs. My AL team has always been the California Angels (now the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim), so I'll root for them until the Yankees win. It's already decided, right?

We had a great time in Bloomington for the Ohio State game. It was good to see so many tailgate friends we hadn't seen since the 2007 season, our last full year down there. They all asked about Rowan, who stayed with Grandma Brenda in Anderson. The OSU game wasn't so great, but you can't commit penalties and turn the ball over and beat a top ten team. Long way to go for the Hoosiers, but a bowl game is still possible. Big IU weekend next week with basketball Hoosier Hysteria on Friday night. Then we're hoping to take her to the Illinois game on Saturday, depending on the weather.

This week's News Quiz and Pop Culture Quiz. Something from my dad, a Golf Trivia Quiz. See how you do. [Chicago Tribune & Cincinnati.com]

The big NASA news this week was their bombing the moon, but this picture of colliding black holes is pretty sweet. [Yahoo & NASA]

Love at the bus stop. [Chicago Tribune]

Baseball and softball are out, but two new sports are in for the 2016 Olympics. [GamesBids.com]

People and their dogs. [IU News Room]

Rowan and cousin Harrison at the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes last weekend.

Keep warm!

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Friday September 25

The Sheridan Invitational is done for another year. We had some amazing weather for the golf and the party. If you haven't seen the photos, they're on my Picasa site. Can't believe I've been doing this for 11 years...amazing. That's Rowan up there with Paul on Sunday afternoon...we watched some football together. Not a bad pairing, as I got first for the week and Paul took second. We'll need to do that again soon! [SpydeysWebb.com & Picasa]

We may actually get out to see a movie next week! It is time for a new review on the main page. Have to check the listings to see what's out there to watch...Cool report from the set of Iron Man 2. Gotta wait until May for this one though...[GeekTyrant.com]

The Redskins are in Detroit this weekend. I'd l ike to head up and see them kick some Lion tail, but I'm not sure what team will show up, not to mention the 7 hour round trip to Ford Field and back. Even though Detroit could use some of my cash money, I think I'll enjoy the NFL Ticket and the Red Zone Channel in my basement. Sounds like a plan! Prior to that, the Hoosiers invade The Big House in Ann Arbor on Saturday afternoon. I'm just hoping it's not a blowout! [Time]

Collected lots of articles for the post this week, so let's get to it.

This week's News Quiz and Pop Culture Quiz. I did pretty well on both this week...good luck to you. Try this H1N1 Swine Flu quiz, it might be just a bit tougher than you think. [Chicago Tribune & Time]

Sydney, Australia got hit with a massive dust storm this week that you could see from space. Photos from the ground make the city look more like Mars than Earth! [Wired]

Brooke and I love ourselves some Pittsburgh, PA. I think the foreign dignitaries at this week's G-20 Summit will as well. [Washington Post]

Who's more green: a New Yorker or a Green Mountain Vermonter? The answer may surprise you (but it makes sense). [Time]

A new Segway from Honda, it's a little different to say the least. [Japan Times]

Meet the new head of the Army's Drill Sergeant School: Sergeant Major Teresa L. King. [NY Times]

Some guy found a lot of gold and silver buried in England. They're calling it the Staffordshire Hoard (another link here). If you've ever been to the British Museum in London, you could compare this find with the one on display from Sutton Hoo. Brooke and I perused this on our trip there in '07. [Guardian & Wikipedia]

Website of the Week: now this is how you get your car decked out for the tailgate: SkinIt Tailgate Packs!

My Sheridan foursome: Depune, Shlater, Paul and I.

Have a good weekend...autumn is here, feels like we need to bundle up already!

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DRAFT NIGHT! Friday September 4th

Well, the fantasy football season kicks into high gear tonight with the draft. Let's hope I do as well picking these guys as I did last year. #11 pick, so I'll have a long wait time for that first team member. Went with Ninja Monkeys as my team name this year. Go Monkeys!

Speaking of monkeys, that's Rowan in her monkey jacket from Uncle Dave. It's a 3T and fits pretty well!

With the start of fantasy, it means that the football season is officially upon us. IU needs to pick it up after barely beating a 1AA team last night at home. Play like that next week and Western Michigan will wipe the field with you. We'll be there for that game. More on that next week...

This week's News Quiz, which I did much better on this week. The Pop Culture Quiz, not so much. [Chicago Tribune]

What you should know about preparing for the flu this season, including H1N1 Swine flu. [Miami Herald]

Blogging the flu to keep track of it's spread. [Washington Post]

The Internet is having a birthday. It's 40 years old this year. [Atlanta Journal Constitution]

Spider-man and Mickey Mouse are under the same roof now. [LA Times]

Hoosier astronaut awakened to IU fight song. [IU News Room]

iPhone news was out this week. Seems AT&T is close to losing it's exclusivity of iPhone by the end of 2010. However, it may be a double edged sword for whichever company gets the contract. iPhoners use copious amounts of data, and this clogs the system for phone, data, or any smartphone uses. It's a major drawback for the AT&T system...but would be the same for Verizon as well. [Brandweek & NY Times]

Rowan, September 3rd 2008

Have a great holiday weekend. Enjoy your Labor Day festivities.

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Friday July 10th

It's been a comfortable summer so far in Fort Wayne. Temps have been nice enough to keep the AC off and the fans blowing. It changes a bit this weekend, as the summer temps come rolling in. A little rain wouldn't hurt either.

Maybe Transformers this weekend...I still realize it's getting KILLED with the critics (and even fans), but we want to see it in the theaters. Public Enemies is getting great reviews and could be in the top 10 for Best Picture noms come next year. As for Bruno, not for me. Remember The Blair Witch Project? It's been 10 years since that story came out. [IMDb.com & Rotten Tomatoes & MSNBC]

This week's News Quiz. [Chicago Tribune]

Package changes for Coke. They want their 2-Liter bottles to look like their old school glass ones. [Atlanta Journal Constitution]

Labeled Organic vs. Labeled Natural. Make sure you know what you're buying. [Chicago Tribune]

Military training with donkeys and mules. [LA Times]

Exotic pets and animals from bilge water are creating real problems. Check this out from Miami. [Miami Herald]

I'm surprised Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor isn't a pump user. She's been a diabetic for over 40 years. [NY Times]

Flash page on how the International Space Station came together and continues to grow. [USA Today]

Keep cool this weekend!

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Friday May 8th

For my email subscribers, I suggest clicking on the post title to read this post on the web site directly. Email's fun, but checking out the Blog on the web is better!

First off, Happy Mother's Day to all my mother readers. This is Brooke's first one and we're quite excited little Ro's here with us. This weekend is garage sale time again (remember last year?), Yippee! When I was home for lunch today, Brooke was already at $66. Not bad since we did about $95 total last year. That's Rowan in the front yard getting her crawl on. If you're in the area, stop on by and check the neighborhood sales out. [SpydeysWebblog]

Movie night was last night, and Wolverine was great! Review is up on the main page. I don't know how critics are getting this movie so wrong. This guy agrees with me on that (Depune link). Also got a review from Travis' daughter Shelby for the new Hannah Montana movie. I'll take reviews for any new theater movie! Just email them over if you've seen something that we haven't. [SpydeysWebb & Rotten Tomatoes & Big Hollywood]

Getting great reviews is our next flick the new Star Trek movie, probably Thursday night. If you'd like to join in, let me know. You can prepare with this really hard Star Trek quiz. The new Transformers movie (check out that new trailer!) will have lots of new robots kicking some serious can. Next summer I'm looking forward to the second Iron Man installment. You can get great Iron Man set updates on Twitter from the director Jon Favreau. [Rotten Tomatoes & IMDb.com & Chicago Tribune & IMDb.com & Empire & USA Today & Twitter]

Remember the Apple article from last week re: Twitter? Well it looks like Twitter may be a part of Apple soon...Apple is interested in augmenting their web foothold. [Gawker]

One more week till Grandpas' Cubbie game with Rowan! The countdown clock is on the web, another advantage of reading this post on the website. The Cubs have an interesting player on the bench this week, a 31 year old rookie who spent minor league time in Fort Wayne. [ESPN.com]

This week's News Quiz. It seemed hard when I was taking it, but I ended up doing pretty well. How'd you do? [Chicago Tribune]

The IU golf team's had a pretty good season. They picked up the #2 seed in their NCAA Regional for next week's tournament. [IU Hoosiers]

Seen the awesome new Heineken commercial? That's a blast from the past song that's used very well. [The Critical Condition]

That's no UFO in the sky. [Chicago Tribune]

Here's a site to see how popular your name is, now and historically. [Baby Name Wizard]

How to make a time lapse video. I'd like to see Christian give this a try. Here's a really cool one. [The Adventure Life]

Website of the Week: The National Tailgating League. Why didn't I think of this!

Grandpa and Grandma in Costa Rica. Looks nice!

Come on by the Garage Sale this weekend!

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Friday April 24th

Rowan had lots of daddy time this week. I stayed home on Monday, which was a planned day off since I thought I'd be getting home late from the Sunday night Cubbie game. No game, but took the day anyway. We had lots of fun. Tuesday was barn night for mom, so dad was in charge again. This pic is from one of our times playing together.

Like the new color scheme of the blog? I've been looking for a new template all week and finally just changed the colors of the one I currently have. Seemed all the other templates I used would erase half the widgets I have on the right side! That would be no good. I'll keep looking, any comments are welcome. [BTemplates]

NFL Draft this weekend. I can only hope the Redskins are kidding about going for another QB, which would be a new QB, which would be even more time before we're a serious contender for a Super Bowl. We have more pressing concerns (OL or LB or DB), and Campbell's getting better. I know this is too much Redskins talk for everyone, but I had to vent a little cause it they trade to get Sanchez tomorrow, I may need to find a new favorite team! (But I know I won't...I own too many team clothes) [NFL.com & Washington Redskins]

I'm following coach Tom Crean on Twitter now. Very cool inside dish updates from Coach. Got a new commit this week for the Class of '10. Forward from Jacksonville, FL named David Williams. Hadn't heard much about him, but he looks like he's getting better as he gets older. I'll have to trust the staff on this one...By the way, you can follow me on Twitter if you like, I go by SpydeysWebb on there. [Twitter & Indy Star]

Got out to see State of Play last night or as I told people what movie we were seeing, "the new Russell Crowe one". We really enjoyed it and the review will be up on the main page sometime this weekend. Brooke said at the theater that it'd been a while since we'd seen a movie like this, and it's true. We stick mostly to comedies or comic book/super hero flicks! Speaking of comics, Wolverine comes out a week from today. Not sure if it's an opening night trip, but sometime in the first week we'd like to check this one out. I think Wolverine's opening is the start of summer movie season, previewed here by Rotten Tomatoes. Gets earlier every year! [IMDb.com & SpydeysWebb & Rotten Tomatoes]

This week's News Quiz. How'd you do (comments section is open!)? [Chicago Tribune]

The Great Wall of China is getting greater. They've discovered that it's longer than previously thought. [AP]

Interesting article about Chinese government and citizen's names. There are a lot of Chinese characters but not all of them are recognized by the government for personal names. Yours not recognized? Then you'll have to change your name! [NY Times]

Space shuttle's next mission will be the last trip to work on the Hubble telescope. This week scientists found a few Earth size planets out there..[NASA & AP]

How to save Flint, Michigan? Tear it down. [NY Times]

Web site of the week: Redskins blog I found searching for info on the draft. Hogs Heaven.

Hot this weekend! We're getting out in the yard to enjoy it. Rowan's already beaten me to it...maybe she mowed the lawn this afternoon? Have a good one!

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