VIVA LAS VEGAS!

Viva Las Vegas Baby!!!  I'm at the airport waiting to head to Las Vegas fro 3 weeks for work.  Hopefully I'll strike it big!!!!  Wish me luck.

Photo Album for Chloe

Chloe's First Day

Somebody love's his little sister!

Big brother Luke!

More Chloe....

SHE'S SO DARN CUTE!!!

New addition to the family...

My niece Chloe was born this morning around 1:30am, I'm an uncle again!!!!

I think you're the father of one of my kids...

A guy goes to the supermarket and notices a beautiful blonde woman wave at him and say hello. He's rather taken aback, because he can't place where he knows her from. So he says, "Do you Know me?" To which she replies, "I think you're the father of one of my kids."

Now his mind travels back to the only time he as ever been unfaithful to his wife and he says, "My God, are you the stripper from my bachelor party that I laid on the pool table with all my buddies watching, while your partner whipped my butt with wet celery???"

She looks into his eyes and calmly says, "No, I'm your son's math teacher."

The Mayonnaise Jar and 2 Cups of Coffee

The following is one of those forwards that are good enough to share:
 

This is SO TRUE!!

The Mayonnaise Jar and 2 Cups of Coffee When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the Jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes." The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed. "Now," said the professor as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things---God, your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions---and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

 

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. The sand is everything else---the small stuff. "If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

"Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.

Take care of the golf balls first---the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand." One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."

Please share this with someone you care about... I JUST DID

Monster jam

Snow out of my window

Thank you Cedar Fair

Get ready to fly. The Firehawk is landing at Kings Island.

The park today unveiled details of its much-anticipated new roller coaster, Firehawk, which will debut Memorial Day weekend.

The coaster may be familiar to some. The 3,340-foot-long steel monster was formerly known as X-Flight and was located at Geauga Lake amusement park near Cleveland. Relocated, renamed and repainted from neon green to a striking red and yellow, it will be the first "flying" coaster at Kings Island and the first big investment in the park since it was bought by Cedar Fair Inc. last yearis the first major thrill ride here in years," said Maureen Kaiser, park spokeswoman. "We're very excited. It will be a great addition to the park."

As its genre implies, the coaster gives the sensation of flying. Riders will become "pilots" heading off to a top-secret airborne mission. Their seats recline as they are whisked off backward along the twisty, loopy track. Then, in a corkscrew move, the train flips over so riders are suddenly facing the ground at 51 miles per hour with nothing between them and the sometimes 115-foot drop but air and their harness.

Park goers are thrilled.

"Fans of the park have been lobbying for a big steel coaster for quite some time," said Ryan Suhr, 24, of Edgewood.

Suhr is media director of the park's fan web site, pkicentral.com. He's ridden X-flight and has been closely tracking rumors that it was coming to Mason. Those rumors heated up last week after he posted photos of the chunks of green metal track unloaded in Kings Island's parking lot.

Firehawk will be the perfect addition, he said.

"There is no sensation like the flying sensation," he said.

Firehawk will be the first new roller coaster at Kings Island since the Italian Job Stunt Track opened in 2005, and the first major thrill ride since the Son of Beast opened in 2000. It will be comparable in magnitude to what is considered the park's other major steel coaster, the Vortex, which opened in 1987.

Firehawk will perch on 5.5 newly-cleared acres behind Flight of Fear in Coney Mall, expanding the park to 369 acres. The Cincinnati-based Fenton Rigging Co. expects to being reconstructing the coaster mid-month.

The process of moving a roller coaster is a feat in itself. X-Flight was disassembled last fall into more than 300 massive pieces which are being shipped, bit by bit, by more than 200 flatbed trucks to Kings Island. About 100 or more hunks of the green skeleton-like track are already in Kings Island's parking lot.

Geauga Lake, also a Cedar Fair property, closed X-Flight at the end of the 2006 season so it could be moved to Kings Island. Cedar Fair decided to bring in a new ride to balance the expanded selection of family-friendly offerings at its new acquisition with something new for the thrill-seekers.

The company invested $10 million to relocate the coaster and make other improvements for the 2007 season including a new line of shows. The season starts April 21.

Last year 319,000 people rode X-Flight. It was one of the most popular rides at Geauga Lake, which draws about 750,000 people a year, said Bryan Edwards, park spokesman. That number will likely rise when the coaster re-opens as Firehawk because Kings Island is a much larger park, attracting around 3 million people a year.

Suhr said expects Firehawk to become a fan favorite - at least in the steel coaster family.

"For most people, the Beast is always going to be the best ride," he said, referring to the 1979 giant wooden coaster that is a regular on industry top-10 coaster lists. "But this will certainly offer one more unique thing."

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Prince Superbowl Priapism?!

Maybe Prince wasn't so 'noncontroversial' after all

As this photo shows, for more than just an instant Prince was somewhat larger than life during his performance Sunday night at halftime of the Super Bowl.

His stadium-sized silhouette was shown on a billowing screen toward the end of his appearance, his uniquely shaped guitar adding an extra effect as he twirled and played. The effect continued far longer than the brief "flash" during Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" in 2004. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel of Getty Images.)

USA TODAY ("No malfunctions with Prince show") and The New York Times ( "A Noncontroversial Prince, Just the Way the N.F.L. Likes Him") are among the many media who wrote today that Prince delivered a malfunction-free show for CBS.

But some bloggers think he slipped one past everybody:

• Danwendi at Daily Kos says it was "some very suggestive shadow puppetry" and a "giant poke in the eye to the NFL, FCC and puritans everywhere." He also comes up with the best headline so far: "Was Prince's guitar just a guitar?"

• At New York magazine's Daily Intelligencer, Sam Anderson notes that "during the annual Janet Jackson "Scandalize the Heartland" Halftime Challenge, a giant shadow of Prince fingered his phallic guitar while the NFL embarked on its most ambitious attempt yet to answer the age-old question: How many fireworks do you have to shoot off before anyone starts to care that you're shooting off fireworks?

• Says Tim Malcolm at Ourage: "The Colts won the Super Bowl tonight. But the big story ... Prince shows off his big guitar. Seriously, are we going to be talking about this tomorrow? Where is the FCC? Anyone? Anyone?!"

• "Janet Jackson has got to wonder how Prince can get away with a phallic symbol of a guitar," writes the Wager7 blog.

So far, CBS publicists tell USA TODAY's Life section, the network isn't aware of any complaints.

Update at 5:30 p.m. ET:

CBS spokesman Dana McClintock tells USA TODAY that the network's switchboard received "very few" complaints about the halftime show. "Mostly, what they complained about was (that) the announcers were too pro-Bears or too pro-Colts," McClintock adds.

Update at 6:15 p.m. ET:

The search "prince + 'super bowl' " is now No. 1 at Technorati.