Eric's gonna say something bad, isn't he? He's just gotta. He's just got to!

Well... sorry to disappoint.

My folks, my sister, my brother-in-law and my 3 year old nephew all came up to visit this past weekend. The bottom line is this: Lindsay and I had a good time with them all. So poo on the negativity that you've come to love from me! Poo on it! It's all optimism from now on!

Saturday! Saturday Saturday!

Oh Lordy. Sweet Sassy Molassy. Saturday was... interesting... to say the least. We had tickets to go to the Monster Jam at the Metrodome. By the grace of the Subway Gods, we were able to snatch up Pre-show Pit Passes -- along with all the Die-Hard Monster Jam fanatics and their kids. Let's just say that the crowd was a segment of the population that I rarely ever mingle with. The Pit Passes let the holders of the tickets (the ticket holders) get into the Dome from 4-5:30, go down to the dirt floor and meet the drivers and check out the giant cartoonish trucks that crush cars and fly through the air. We all got there at 3:30 and waited in line. This guy behind us was dropping F-Bombs left and right (and left and right) while my parents cringed. Inside it was still crowded, and still an iffy crowd (for me and mine). My nephew got to meet Tom Meents and got to see all the trucks up close. That was pretty cool. Meanwhile, my sister gave us the lowdown on all the drivers and all the trucks. She knows her Monster Trucks. All for her little boy. It's so cute. Yet, in a way, it's a ton of fun to make fun of her for it, too.

There was a 3 hour break between the Pit Passes and The Jam, so we chilled for a bit. My mom and dad decided to not go to The Jam -- the Pits were (pun alert!) the pits for them. They were to me, too, actually. I was really considering not going to go back for The Jam.

Eventually, I decided to not dwell on the crowd issues and just go.

The Jam ended up being pretty fun. The iffyness of the crowd was a lot more dilluted due to all the normal (at least my definition of normal) people that showed up for just the event.

My nephew is so cute and so well-behaved. He's really great to be around. When I was carrying him to the dome (he has a broken leg), he looked at me and said "I love you, Uncle Eric." My heart absolutely melted. Watching him at The Jam was supercool. He gets so intense about it. I can tell he has a great time, too, I also got to take some photos with My Bro-in-law's sweet camera. Surprisingly enough, the whole event was actually fun. It seemed to be set up a little bit like Professional Wrestling... especially the "Quad Wars" (a "face" team -- Minneapolis and a "heel" team -- Vegas) which were used mostly to pump up the crowd. The people that run the Monster Jam do know what they're doing. They do a damn good job of making sure that it's fan friendly. The drivers and the trucks are more than available to all the fans... it was pretty neat.

---

Yesterday was rough for me though. I felt like I had 2 inches of goo surrounding my entire body. Everything just felt distant and off. And I was really really tired. Whew. 2 weekends in a row of little-to-no sleeping-in had really caught up to me. I was dragging. All day. I got into work at 9. At noon, I had to go and make sure it would be okay for me to take the afternoon off. I didn't have much to do in the way of work, and 4 other people (out of 12 that work where I do) were already out sick. So, thankfully, it was okay for me to leave.

I took a 3 hour nap. I could have slept longer, too.

Also interesting: I wore my glasses to work yesterday for the first time in about a year. At one point I had them off -- God Damn my monitor is huge. Up close, everything is so much larger without any lens correction. That's for damn sure.

---

I have said nothing of March Madness in my posts. If anything, this has been a strange year for me. I usually camp out in front of the TV with chips, drinks and have the TV turned to CBS. I hate to even take bathroom breaks. This year, however, I've only been able to watch a couple parts of a couple different games. So I'm a little bit out of touch with what the feel of the games really is. I just read about them on CBS Sportsline.

My Final Four (out of the 16 left): Duke, UCLA, Maryland and Illinois. I'm shaky on UCLA, but I'm feeling pretty good about the others.

Like you cared...

Thanks for stopping by,
Eric