Wow…nearly 4 days in and I’m just now posting.  Some habits are hard to break and don’t even get me started on resolutions!  So, since I’m already behind, let me get you caught up.

1. The holidays were great.  There was very little stress actually, but IvyCat managed to attract some sort of evil virus just before Christmas.  Then our little Typhoid Mary managed to spread it to everyone but me.  So, my two weeks of vacation have been spent sort of managing health care for both C. and IvyCat, which is no mean feat considering the following a) IvyCat is too young to really receive any treatment, not that there was any and b) since C. was still nursing, she wasn’t able to take any real medicine either.  Not to mention, I really despise snot.  So when your wife is running through tissues faster than you can open the box and your 8-month old Aside: Eight MONTHS?  I know, can you believe it?  It’s gone by so fast! has a nose that just drains the mucus like a faucet, well, you can imagine my excitement.  But, back to the holidays…they really were very stress-free and had they also been illness-free, they might have been very, very enjoyable.
2. The big deal for the holidays is always the intrastate rivalry between the UofL Cardinals and the UK Wildcats.  Those of you who are not from here probably have your own rivalry, and I’m sure it’s intense and all…but here in Kentucky, we know how to do rivalry.  You’ve heard of the Hatfields and McCoys.  Well, there were 6 fouls in the first 45 seconds of this game and no one had even scored a point yet.  There are professional hockey players that would do well to steer clear of this annual event.  Now then, my beloved Cardinals were on the short end of the 71-62 score, but not before making the undefeated Cats look fairly tame in the second half…and surely if they’d shot better than 17 percent in the first half, the score might’ve been a little different.  I will say this though, this UK team, unfortunately, looks like another of Calipari’s Thug Life squads that have sprung up like toadstools after a bad rain in the wake of this particular coaches sweep through the Division I ranks.  There was quite a bit of “goon” action in the early going.  I’m not making excuses for our poor execution, there was certainly an ugliness to our play in the first half, but we failed to resort to violence…at least as far as I could tell.
3. I’m currently in a training program to complete my very first full marathon.  That’s FULL as in all 26.2 miles.  That’s roughly…4,614.5 trips from my couch to my fridge…or more than 1.6 million quarters laid side by side, which would equal more than $100,000.  There are some who say I’m crazy for attempting such a thing…there are some who say I’m crazy for even dreaming up the attempt, but it’s a new goal to be conquered and I’m well on the way.  I’m going to do my best to keep you apprised of my goal with the following graphic:

   As you can see from the graph, my training is going fairly well and I’m looking forward to competing in the Nashville Country Music Marathon in April.  Oh, and if you should find yourself with an 8-month old who is having trouble sleeping through the night, and you find yourself tagged with a pesky sinus issue that doesn’t want to go away, AND you’re also training for  a marathon through all of this…whatever you do, DO NOT give blood and expect everything to go on smoothly.  You see that gap between 12/29 and 1/2…yeah, there should’ve been another green stripe there…oh, and that green stripe on 1/2, yeah, that should’ve been taller.  Hopefully, this coming week I will have recouped a bit of that pint I gave away and training will go a little bit better.

   Finally, there’s good news in the business and economics portion of my life.  I’ve accepted a new position at the university where I work.  I’ll hopefully be starting there in a couple of weeks, provided all the paperwork goes through.  I’d tell you all about it, but I have a rule about blogging about work which is: Don’t Blog About Work!  Sufficed to say, I’m looking forward to the new position.  It’s similar to my old position, but provides a new working atmosphere and a different program mission.  All in all, a fresh start to the new year!

   See you in the funny papers!