Stuff and stuff

Spent most of Tuesday digging out from under the pile of email. Work stuff, Nationals (cool) stuff, ice stuff, other stuff. Then I decide to come down with a really nice head cold. I blame Derek, can't be the skips fault ;-)

Spent a lot of the week looking for team jackets. You wouldn't think it would be that hard. But with the short turnaround we are limited to something local or at least in the US. Too bad, Performance had a really nice jacket but just can't risk a hold up at the border. I remember Mrs. JH taking 3 months to get a pair of curling shoes across the border. Think we settled on an Adidas jacket at this point.

GNCC Senior Men's happening at the club right now. Haven't been there yet but will be tomorrow and Sunday.

What else. Trying to get the driveway cleared. Lots of ice so a little at a time as it melts a bit.

Sunday is the Nutmeg super bowl party where we have fun and almost watch the game. Guess I will root for the Steelers. Lots of friends in Pittsburgh and who cares about the other team (Cardinals?). Can you tell I really follow football.

Sunday is also another step closer to Super Seniors or Masters or whatever they call over 55 curling. Yep, it is the birth day. Another orbit around the sun as Coach Ray or DC might say. Hey, at least I won't be the oldest skip at Club Nationals. There is actually someone older than me there.

Challenge round curling happening as well. Just watching the results and not really rooting for anyone except Dean and Sandra. Have to support the East after all since we don't have clue how to curl. Except if you happened to notice that three of the teams in the Women's Olympic Trials are from the East (Lank, Brown and of course Charrissa).

And the cats, one is currently howling for dinner. The one that stopped eating a while ago.

Later,
JH

We make it, finally

Finally the Club Playdowns have ended. Lots of tiebreakers and the playoffs got moved to Monday. We lost the championship game to Chris and the Potomac boys after Chris made a great shot in the ninth for a three spot. Needed to score two in the tenth to tie and just never got rocks in the right spot.

But we won the next game and got the second spot to Nationals. That is so cool to type, after all these years I finally get to a Nationals. It was a really long weekend but in the end we won the games we had to and made it. The goal was six wins and that is what we had.

Now we have to get team jackets and get some practice time in before Utica. But first a little rest as I am looking to get a sub for curling tonight. Last thing I want to do right now is throw a rock.

Congrats to Chris, Mike, Ron and Michael for winning the GNCC Club Championship again. We will see you in Utica.

Later,
JH

One more

Hopefully just one more game to play. Championship finals at 8:00am Monday. Rematch of last year.

Throw the rock and see what happens.

Later,
JH

Northward bound

Well, not that far really, just up to Broomstones for the weekend starting tomorrow. Off to the USCA Club National Playdowns or the fake nationals as we call it. First game is Thursday afternoon at 4:00. Have to get the old, creaky knees ready for at least 6 games. And ten ends, 4 extra rocks to throw and practice before the game, more rocks. Hopefully I got that many in me. Already planning to pack lots of drugs, all legal of course (or at least they are in Canada).

Mrs. may pop up on Saturday or not or may head down to Plainfield for the Saturday night haggis party or not.

Later,
JH

Very sad news

Elisabeth Childs has passed away, we have lost a great soul.

Elisabeth opened her home to hundreds over the years so they had a place to stay during bonspiels in Norfolk. She was always present in the warm room to watch games when she could no longer curl. Any trip to Norfolk included a stop at the house to say hello.

She will be greatly missed by many.

Condolences to the entire Childs family.

Iran and Pakistan? Really?

At the bottom of the post is the list of the countries that visited here from the sitemap. I have no idea if it is accurate or not, could be some secret CIA plot using multiple routers to track the cats.

Why do they come here? Thailand - cats (delicious), Brazil - curling since they are challenging the US for a Worlds spot (leave Todd an inturn draw), GB, which I guess includes Scotland - ice (maybe internet friend John), Canada - lots of friends up there and some blogs I follow including this guy, Finland - maybe Markku (my favorite male curler), Norway - maybe Dordi (my favorite female curler).

The US is of course the big total. Besides Coach Ray and DC (who always get linked so not this time) there is Texas Dan, plovers, and a bunch of lurkers (PM from MN, MF from MD). There is also a bunch from California, no idea.

Anyway, here is the list, draw your own conclusions.
United States (US) 2,015
Canada (CA) 129
United Kingdom (GB) 19
Sweden (SE) 6
Finland (FI) 6
Austria (AT) 3
Pakistan (PK) 2
Brazil (BR) 2
Mexico (MX) 2
Portugal (PT) 1
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BA) 1
France (FR) 1
Norway (NO) 1
Germany (DE) 1
Spain (ES) 1
Romania (RO) 1
Italy (IT) 1
Bermuda (BM) 1
Thailand (TH) 1
Philippines (PH) 1
Venezuela (VE) 1
Singapore (SG) 1
Argentina (AR) 1
Guatemala (GT) 1
India (IN) 1
Chile (CL) 1
Australia (AU) 1
Puerto Rico (PR) 1
Jamaica (JM) 1
Iran, Islamic Republic of (IR) 1

Dry spell

Just like Coach Ray and sometimes DC, my muse seems to have left for the moment. Although DC usually has an excuse like vacation.

It was a boring week, what can I say. The most exciting thing was the possibility of new drinking vessels that may be available.

The weekend, a bit of a practice with the club playdown team. Football I guess, although not a big fan. Golf is on again now, so maybe on Sunday afternoon. Guess it is the winter doldrums. I could take some pictures of the cats sleeping, which is what they do best. Could always start on the basement cleaning but it is a bit cold down there.

Guess I will just wait for the next snow storm to arrive on Monday.

Later,
JH

Curling watching weekend

So, as expected, watched a whole bunch of curling this weekend which included Friday afternoon and Monday morning. Even caught a little bit of the skins on TSN since Ardsley has a satellite system.

After the dust settled, Charrissa and team make it to the Trials in Denver. Did a bunch of blogging over here while I was down there watching. Too bad Derek lost out or we could have had two Nutmeggers heading to the Trials. Pretty exciting anyway.

On top of all that of course we get more snow and ice which I finally got to get out of the driveway today.

Next up, club playdowns. Thirteen mens team headed to Broomstones in a couple of weeks. As long as Derek and I can avoid extra end games we should be okay.

Later,
JH

So much to do

Between following the regional Trials on the web and watching Twitter while trying to squeeze in some work. Have a feeling that the blogging might drop off a bit this week and weekend.

We are heading down to Ardsley tonight to catch some of the action. Maybe I can talk Mrs. into bringing a laptop and I can do some live blogging. Maybe not.

Huge game happening right now at TCC - Fenson vs Mellerup. Should be interesting, wish I could be there for that one.

Still haven't taken down all the Christmas decorations yet either. That will get done at some point, maybe tomorrow. Saturday is out as we are heading to Ardsley probably early to beat the snow. Then staying down there overnight. Oh well, guess there is always Sunday afternoon.

The kitties have all returned to normal, thanks for asking. If anyone has a cat with liver issues, try some of the OTC stuff called SAM-e from Nature Made. Seems it really helps, just a quarter of tablet (50mg) once a day is supposed to keep their liver in order.

Later,
JH

All is well

Snickle is home. He came home on Friday. He is eating and seems much better. So, that is over for now.

We are also home after the long New Years weekend in LBI. Pretty sure we will be returning to that house for the fall. Really nice place.

Finally got a team together for the Club Playdowns. Registered this morning and we are set.

Olympic trials start this week and we will be heading to Ardsley to support the locals.

Now just trying to get back into the swing of work and such.

Later,
JH