Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup Progress Chart has Moved

It can now be found at my new Detroit Red Wings blog, with other information and articles.

Mitch Albom Shoots One Between The Pipes

9 times out of 10, I cannot stand Mitch Albom.  I think he’s generally an overrated hack who’s actually built a literary career writing books like Tuesdays with Morrie, et. al. that are tantamount to the Simpsons episode which spoofed human interest broadcasting, ending each news story with "and this…is one of Bart’s People.  I’m Bart Simpson."  His writing is often so sugary it’s like he writes every story while drinking a maple syrup smoothie at Waffle House.  (For you yankees, that’s a southern version of Tim Ho’s with ugly waitresses and food that truckers have to think hard before eating and not think about again if they want to keep it down)

I’m not kidding.  I could go on for days about how much Albom’s irritates me.  I’ve actually considered writing (i.e. programming) a Mitch Albom Writing Kit that can help you write stories just like him.  How hard could it be?  You pick a phrase and say it 20 times through a story for impact.  For example:

Jimmy John blabb blah blah blah blah…

But he wouldn’t quit.

The world was against Jimmy and 2 more paragraphs of stuff.

But he wouldn’t quit.

 

You get the idea.

AAAANYWAY, my Ritalin is finally kicking in so I can stop ranting now.  He wrote a great and well-deserved piece on Chris "Doogie" Osgood, Red Wing Goalie.  It’s a good read.

And so he is back to his pretty damn good — back to where he belongs, Detroit, where he says he will live for the rest of his life.

When they yell players’ names at hockey games, it can be a fad, a spontaneous eruption. When they yell "Ozzie" at Joe Louis Arena, it’s more like a career cheer, a hometown familiarity, the thing he has wanted more than anything else: to be a key part of this franchise, to hopefully retire in this jersey.

Seven years ago, when the Wings let him go, this is what he told me, before hanging up the phone:

"Make sure nobody takes my number."

The amazing rebirth of Red Wings goaltender Chris Osgood | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press

Too cute for Daddy’s own good.

 

And yes, those cheeks are very kissable. 

Some Mary Rose pictures

They grow up so fast…

Happy Birthday Mary Rose!!!

Mary Rose Estep turns 1 year old today. It has been probably the fastest year of my life!

Look at those teeth!! She has 5 now, 3 top and 2 bottom.

Mary Rose loves honey nut cheerios, ice cream, and pizza crust. Her favorite person right now is her big brother Jesse. She clings to him like a little monkey and cries if he tries to get someone else to hold her.

She’s not walking yet, but she can stand up on her own and balances pretty good. Mary Rose is also a fast crawler.

Her favorite mommy and daddy toys are mommy’s phone and the remote control. Her favorite baby toy is a baby book that crinkles when you squeeze it.

Mary Rose’s favorite colors are pink and purple because she doesn’t have a choice.

She’s not talking yet, but she makes all kinds of talking-style noises like da-da-da-da and she mimics words pretty good. She’s great at saying “ow!” whenever someone gets hurt and says ow!

Mary Rosetta is the youngest of 9 children and she has 4 brothers and 4 sisters.

Happy Birthday, Sugar Bear!

One out of Two isn’t bad.

I was right on President Eyring but the second counselor is Dieter F. Uchtdorf, which is much harder to pronounce, though fortunately his English has gotten better over the past few years, even though he’d spoken English his entire adult life (a requirement to be an airline pilot, even in Germany).

I’m reminded of the saying, “The King is dead, God save the King” that is used in England when a monarch dies. It signifies that death does not leave the country leaderless, nor does it do so with the LDS Church. Upon President Hinckley’s death, President Monson assumed leadership as the President of the Quorum of Apostles which became the highest governing body in the Church. President Monson had already had that position for nearly 13 years and Boyd K. Packer was “acting” president. President Packer is now in his own right President of the Quorum of Apostles, though a new Apostle has not been named.

Obligatory First Presidency Prediction

Since President Hinckley died, there needs to be a new first presidency in the Church. That will be announced in just over a half hour. Since we Mormons just love to speculate on such things, I’m going to give my own “predictions” here.

President Monson will be the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (duh!)

I speculate that he will choose as his counselors Henry B. Eyring and L. Tom Perry (my alternate guess would be Dallin H. Oaks)

A new apostle could also be announced today (but probably in April at General Conference) and my totally “pulled out of my butt” speculation is that it will be one of the following:

Gerald N. Lund
Claudio R. M. Costa
Earl C. Tingey
Marlin K. Jensen
Lance B. Wickman

Again, these are all just guesses. I claim no knowledge (nor prophecy) so when I’m wrong just shut up.

In praise and irritation at Steam

I love Steam.  It has made my gaming so much more manageable.  For instance, Julie bought me Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for Christmas.  It’s a really great game.  But like most disorganized people, DVD’s or CD’s and I don’t really get along.  By that I mean that if I buy a game, I’ll probably end up either losing or damaging the medium on which I purchased it thereby making my gaming impossible or at the minimum, very inconvenient.

Now comes Steam.

Steam is Valve Software’s game distribution network.  If you play games (other than PopCap games like my Mom *cough* Zuma ) and you’ve never heard of Valve then you need to come into the 21st century.  Valve is the company that came out of nowhere and made what some consider to be the best computer game of all time, Half-Life.

Names like Gordon Freeman and Black Mesa mean nothing to you.  I pity you.  But I digress.

Steam makes it possible to buy games online quickly and easily.  It is downloaded to your computer (while you do other things, if you desire) and when it’s ready you can play.  It’s already registered to you and you don’t have to worry about anything like disks.

Here’s the really cool part.  If you ever need to reinstall it, all you have to do is delete it and tell Steam to just download it again.  You can do that on any machine!  If my computer crashes and/or I buy a new one, all I have to do to reinstall those games is download the Steam client, log in and it will tell me what games I owned and which, if any, are currently installed.  I then tell it to install whatever ones I choose.  How cool is THAT?!  And if I need more disk space, I can delete games I don’t play or aren’t ready to play yet or simply not install them (like the Half Life 2 expansions I’m not ready for).

And you can do that for other games like my beloved Call of Duty 4 and even PopCap games.

But there’s one thing that irritates me every single day that I use it.  Sometimes when you click on a link in Steam it opens up the link in the steam client.  Other times, and without warning, it will open up my browser (which may take 30 seconds or more to load because I have a huge session with 30 tabs saved).  That really, really irritates me.  So my question is this:

How freaking hard is it to tell me when I hover over a link that it will open up my browser?!?!?!

There.  I feel better now.

Word of Wisdom Strikes Again!

I just love this headline:

Researchers Links High Quantities of Caffeine to Miscarriages in Pregnant Women

The study, which published online in the American Journal of Obstetrics and
Gynecology, found that consuming 200 mg of caffeine, equal to two cups of coffee
per day, doubles a woman’s risk of miscarriage during pregnancy.

We LDS get a lot of flack for the “No coffee, No tea” provisions of the Word of Wisdom. It’s something that Mormons “just do” and to most of us, it’s not that big a deal. We keep hearing all of the “latest” science on how tea is just so healthy and how 2 cups of coffee a day can actually be helpful.

Well, not if you’re a pregnant woman, it isn’t! And if it’s not good for a developing fetus, do you really think that it’s not affecting you, even if it’s at a smaller level?