Last night was the NFL season opening game between the Colts and the Saints, and my friend Gaye and I were THERE!!!
The city of Indianapolis had a free outdoor concert featuring Kelly Clarkson and Faith Hill in the circle. We didn't really get to see them up close and personal, but we heard them sing!
That's Kelly Clarkson somewhere in there.
And that's Faith Hill across the street.
Doesn't Peyton look scary in that picture? Those were hung up in several places around downtown. I have to admit that while it was pretty crowded and hectic and crazy, it still wasn't as crowded and hectic and crazy as Buckeye football.
The RCA Dome holds 57,000, a little more than half as many people as the Horseshoe. It was LOUD in there! The Colts don't have any special cheers or anything that is specific to their team (i.e. OH! IO!) so I didn't have to learn any words/moves before the game. :) However, they cheer COMPLETELY DIFFERENTLY than what you would be used to. When the team is playing defense, they cheer like crazy, and when the offense plays, they try to stay as quiet as possible. I guess it's because it's so loud in there that the opposing team players can't hear each other when they are calling the plays.
This is the Colts during warm-ups. You can see that we had pretty good seats - close enough to see everything! Gaye's aunt had given her the tickets. We also got a bunch of cool free Colts stuff! We got a towel to fling around, and a keychain, and a cold-drink huggie-thing. And we got a nice program that had pictures of all the players and their info.
Three Buckeyes are rookies for the Colts this year: Anthony Gonzalez, Roy Hall, and Quinn Pitcock. Gonzalez was a first-round draft pick. I was excited to see that there were a lot of #11 Gonzalez jerseys in the crowd! There happened to be about 5 sitting next to each other two rows in front of us.
I noticed that several of these guys wearing the Gonzalez jerseys had shaved heads, like Anthony Gonzalez. And then I noticed that one of them looked JUST LIKE him!!! It had to have been his brother. No question. So that was pretty cool!
So of course I was trying to eavesdrop when a lady in the row in front of us started asking them questions, but with the crowd noise I didn't hear anything. But one of the guys pointed to the big ring he was wearing and she was asking him about it. It looked like one of those ginormous bowl championship rings - and it had what looked like a Block O on it! However, the O was on a blue background. So from what I can tell from googling, this was not a Buckeye championship ring. Plus, the guy did not look beefy enough to be a football player. So I am very curious what that ring was!
And did I mention John Mellencamp played a pre-game show in the stadium? He's up there somewhere. We actually saw him. Gonzalez's possible brother was sitting to the left of the guy with the towel on his shoulder, but he's not in this picture.
It was a great game and the Colts won, 41-10!
Go Colts!
Are you sick of reading and hearing about Chuck yet?
Huckabee is a former governor of Arkansas and a former fat guy. After a health scare, he lost 120 pounds and has even run a marathon. For that reason, I think he probably really understands the obesity epidemic in America and how it is bankrupting our health care system. He is very supportive of arts education in public schools. Also, he's pretty conservative, and his views cover the issues I disagree with Barack on (few that they are). He also seems to be the nicest of the Republicans and most willing to work with people from the other party.
In honor of Lenny's latest culinary exploit with the DO NOT EAT packet, we compiled a list of everything he's ever eaten that he shouldn't have, since he came home with us back in January 2004.
Friday evening after work started out like any other evening. After dinner I started doing some laundry, and I noticed that Lenny was chewing on something. He managed to swallow it before I could fish it out of his mouth, but not before I realized it was one of those silica gel desiccant "DO NOT EAT" packets. Of course. What followed was not pleasant, but Lenny is feeling much better. It turns out it's not really a big deal if you eat one of those packets, but you shouldn't eat a bunch of them. And some of them have small amounts of pesticides in them - you can tell because the stuff inside turns blue when wet. Smurf blue, as we discovered. Lenny was pretty cranky during his recovery. Yuck.
And here is my victorious finish at the Jill Behrman 5K on Saturday! Well, not really. The picture didn't save to the camera phone, unfortunately. But I was victorious and ran the entire way, which was my goal. I told myself that I didn't care about my time, but I was a little embarrassed to learn that I ran just faster than 12-minute miles. My average pace is about 10 1/2 minute miles. But I took my own pace and finished successfully. It really helped running the course a few days before so I knew what to expect. It was very different running with all the other people around, and hard to keep my own pace. Next time will be faster! The next 5K race will be a Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot in Toledo! Chuck also ran the race successfully, and all of our Jacobs School of Music runners crossed the finish line. It was a lot of fun. And congratulations to Jen and Alex for running a 10K this weekend! Wow!
The Maestro is in the news again. Last weekend, he conducted Mozart's "Linz" Symphony with the Columbus Philharmonic, and yesterday, the performance was reviewed in the Columbus Republic newspaper. Now, in addition to being "super-charged," he is "simply wonderful." But we already knew that.
I am a little bit irritated with my iPod. You may notice on the right that it says I ran 0.51 miles yesterday. This is completely incorrect. I actually ran about 3.5 miles, but when I hit the button to hear my "power song" (Gonna Fly Now from Rocky) it decided to cancel my workout instead, and not record it. I was MAD!
My cousin Scotty's successful college football career is still on a roll. Last weekend, Washington & Lee (his school) played Catholic. My Uncle Gary reported that "The GENERALS won 28-21. Scott had an outstanding game with 9 tackles, 1.5 sacks, and a forced fumble, and just missed an interception on a deflected pass." 
The Dalai Lama himself is coming to Bloomington this month, and Chuck and I are going to see him! We just got tickets for a speech he will be giving in IU's Assembly Hall called "Compassion: the Source of Peace."
I was so happy with how this came out. Isn't it a great article?
This year I am the Jacobs School of Music team captain for the Jill Behrman Run for the End Zone 5K race!
This is the Colts during warm-ups. You can see that we had pretty good seats - close enough to see everything! Gaye's aunt had given her the tickets. We also got a bunch of cool free Colts stuff! We got a towel to fling around, and a keychain, and a cold-drink huggie-thing. And we got a nice program that had pictures of all the players and their info.
Three Buckeyes are rookies for the Colts this year: Anthony Gonzalez, Roy Hall, and Quinn Pitcock. Gonzalez was a first-round draft pick. I was excited to see that there were a lot of #11 Gonzalez jerseys in the crowd! There happened to be about 5 sitting next to each other two rows in front of us.
Go Colts!
Besides the computer, I also managed to do something to the coolant-stuff in my car, and the battery of the Roomba, and the automatic shower-cleaner thing, so it's nice to have my fix-it husband back for that too. :) I did manage to keep Shrimpie alive and healthy, and even growing. He molted while Chuck was gone!
