Hope You're...

Doing well in fighting off this year's flu season! My gosh, I have never seen anything quite like it!! I had it a little more than a week ago from today but over the past several weeks I've watched a large amount of friends and colleagues around me go down with the flu!
Two weekends ago I took a trip to Buena Vista, Virginia for my little brother's high school wrestling tournament. It was just my dad, brother and me over the weekend. I came back Sunday, went to a Superbowl party and had the first symptoms by 2:30am Monday morning. My father checked in with his first symptoms Sunday evening. Somewhere along the way, we both caught it at the same time that weekend.

If you haven't caught it just yet (hopefully you do not), it resembles a bad cold. I had a fever around 100.5, hoarse vocals, occasional chills and heaviness in my chest. I never had a bad cough although there was the occasional cough and I had some sneezing but not a lot. If you catch it early enough, you can have your doctor prescribe Tamiflu but in my case, it was a little late in the game and my doctor's course of action was MusinexD with Ibprofen to control the fever. I also drank lots of fluids including green tea. My wife had a prescription of Tamiflu ready to roll in the event she displayed symptoms but thus far, she has missed this flu bug.

Keep this in mind if you or your loved ones display cold-like symptoms... it may be this flu strain. I did not have the flu shot this year but my father did which as you may have heard, does not cover this variety of flu. If you do catch it, plan on a solid 5 to 8 days of fighting it off... good luck to you!

New Indiana Jones Movie

Can I just tell you how excited I am?

The new Indiana Jone movie comes out in May, and there is a preview for the movie that is already out. I was skeptical at first...but now I may pull a Star Wars dork move and be one of the first people waiting in line!

Or not... but the preview still looks good!



What do you think?

Spelling Bee vs. College Basketball

Before I even get started, let me make it clear, I support all the good spellers of the world.

With that disclaimer out of the way...can I just say "Huh?"

I was cruising through the Charlotte Observer this morning, when I ran across Dannye Romine Powell's article "A bee with wide-eyed engagement."

In the article, Powell says "Think Sunday's Carolina-Clemson game was good? Monday's 54th Regional Spelling Bee at ImaginOn was so much better." Needless to say, I was completely floored.

Again, don't get me wrong - I know that children need to learn to spell. And I know that a Spelling Bee can be very exciting - hoping that the child does (or does not) get the correct spelling. Maybe I'm just jealous that I didn't make it as far as I hoped in my own 6th grade spelling bee - I still wake up in cold sweats.

But honestly, a double overtime basketball game with a top ranked NATIONAL basketball team...less exciting than the Spelling Bee? Pssh!

I know I'm a die-hard Clemson fan, but seriously...ANY double-overtime game is exciting. I've been to some Spelling Bees and trust me, I've even seen PARENTS fall asleep!

I'm just as happy as anyone for Molly Crawford, the 7th grader from Jay M. Robinson Middle School who won. She is an EXCELLENT speller and made it through 26 rounds of very tough words, and I would have stumbled through most of them.

But sorry Molly, until you walk up to another speller and say "BAM! I spelled that word right!" - you just can't hang with basketball.

Clemson's Collapse: The UNC Debacle

So I guess this is the portion of the program where I eat my words.

I seem to do that a lot when it comes to my Clemson Tigers, but even still - I love them dearly.

Yes, I did make a comment about the Tigers following the UNC/Duke game, but I WAS very careful and didn't say they would win. Granted, that is a technicality...but whatever.

So yes...Clemson had a 15 point lead at one point, and blew it. At least we took the Heels into Double Overtime before they won 103-93.

Not the first time Clemson blew a lead, and surely not the last.

So congrats Tar Heel fans (especially you Brandon Tomlin!) on your 53-straight home wins over Clemson. You may not be number one in the polls, but hey - at least we were able to give you a NCAA record!