Junior's Christmas 2009 Was Delicious!

Junior's Christmas 2009 was delicious! It was nice to spend a couple days with family and good food. Being able to enjoy the holiday locally made it a little easier as well.

A couple weeks have passed since I posted my last blog entry. Sorry about that. Various things, including a lack of spare time, a lack of energy and minor-ish health problems, have kept me away from updating Junior's Eyes as much as I would have liked. That's actually been the case for a few months now.

My having the occasional flare-up of eczema hasn't been sadistically entertaining enough for God. Over the summer, the Lord decided to add wheat to the list of things I'm allergic to. Oh yeah, that's a big one. You wouldn't believe how many things that means giving up!

Keeping the steroid cream on hand, well on both hands actually, is rather expensive. The selection of gluten-free items at the grocery store is probably getting better these days, but it all costs four times as much as the regular versions. The whole idea behind my eating more sandwiches, meatless pasta and other wheat filled food items, was to save some money. Well, that plan didn't work out too well. Anyway ......

I suppose the good part about not being able to eat normal bread, most cookies and cake is that I get to eat more candy. With that in mind, my younger sister Cherie and her family (husband Joe and the boys) included a case of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in the Christmas presents they brought up from Fairfax County, VA. I believe my exact words were "This is the best Christmas present I've ever gotten".

Kim is my other sister. She and her family (husband Steve and the girls), the Christmas hosts, live in Harford County, MD as our parents and I do. From that group, my daughter Chelsea and I were smothered in kisses. Get your mind out of the incestial gutter, thank you. Chocolate kisses, mounted on flourless peanut butter cookies. Oh yeah. I couldn't eat a lot of my favorite things, but it was still a tasty Christmas holiday.

Today's Tune: "Breadfan" By Budgie

I'm getting ready to head out and buy me Mega Millions Lottery ticket. To be honest I'm not a regular purchaser, only participating when the payoff hits a certain level. That way I don't throw as much money away, because I don't expect to win, anyhow.

What if it did happen, though? Thinking about it has me trying to decide what I would do with the loot. Getting four numbers plus the gold ball would mean $10,000, before taxes. That'd be great to me, but five of the white ball numbers would land me $250,000 before taxes, and what's left would more than pay off all my bills (mortgage, auto loan, etc.). Get all six numbers right, and I'm a very rich man. It would take a lot of thinking to map out where all that kind of money would go. Let's see ... pay off all current bills ... buy nicer house ... buy Lamborghini hybrid or electric car ... college fund for Chelsea (my daughter), etc. Oh my! What would you do? Huh? Oh yeah, it's not going to happen anyway. I forgot that for a minute.

Since we're on the subject of money ... Well we are, aren't we? OK, it was all just an excuse to post a music video from the finest rock band ever to come out of the most beautiful place on Earth, Wales (He wrote without any bias at all). The 'Today's Tune' for this October 13th is "Breadfan" , and the band is Budgie!

Budgie - "Breadfan" (1973)

Today's Tune: "Another World" By Brian May

Exoplanet image is from European Southern Observatory.

October 1st is an anniversary date for a couple major events in the history of Disney World, in Orlando, Florida, USA. The most popular amusement/theme park (Actually 4 theme parks and two water parks) and resort on the planet, Walt Disney's Disney World first opened to the public on October 1, 1971. The 1st of October became an important date again, when the Epcot theme park (Originally called EPCOT Center) area opened up on this day in 1982.

At the age of nine, I was lucky enough to visit the "Magic Kingdom" with my parents and two sisters a couple months after it opened up, during the Christmas holiday in December of 1971. I didn't make it back until I was grown up (At least physically) and had a daughter of my own. We were there to welcome the new Millennium. Now that was a special time. We of course spent time at Epcot during our stay, and it became my favorite place in Disney. It does give you enough atmosphere to almost make you feel like you are in the other countries that are represented there, even if you've actually been to those places before.

For this 'Today's Tune', we aren't going to match exactly the happy and playful feelings that would directly relate to memories of the subject matter above. We will have a song title that somewhat links to it though. I offer to you today, a song from within the solo works of Queen guitarist and songwriter Brian May. The tune is called "Another World".

Brian May - "Another World"
(Fan made video includes lyrics, part of another song.)

Capitals Vs Maple Leafs 03/24/2009 Review

Curtis Joseph celebrates shootout win over the Capitals.
Photo by Chris Young - AP Photo / Canadian Press.

Capitals 2 - Maple Leafs 3 SO

All hail goaltender Curtis Joseph. He stole the show last night, after replacing his Toronto Maple Leafs teammate Martin Gerber in net with 57 seconds of regulation left on the clock. The Washington Capitals showed no mercy, bombarding Joseph with shots, but CuJo was impenetrable.

Capitals goalie Jose Theodore was sharp in net too, but the team overall were not the overpowering force they should've been, while facing a team that hasn't been very good this season. Most of the first 59 minutes of play were not awe inspiring. Neither team brought their fans more than a few moments of excitement until the very end.

The game tying goal by Washington's forward Brooks Laich came at 19:03 in the third period. The crease in front of Toronto's net was very crowded when Laich jammed the puck through Gerber, or maybe i should say with Gerber, across the goal line and into the net. Gerber thought he had the puck stopped, and there should've been a whistle. He was so mad about the goal being ruled good, that he started shoving his way though everybody. While he was flipping out, he earned himself a game misconduct, for making contact with a referee and a linesman. That's when he was replaced by Joseph.

CuJo only played a total of 5:57 including overtime, before the game went to a shootout. He stopped nine quality shots during that time. Five of those shots came in immediate succession, from the area just in front of the goal. I can't lie, my daughter Chelsea and I found that sequence rather thrilling. We are both fans of Joseph. He was her favorite goalie when he played for Detroit. The Red Wings used to be her favorite team as well. Still, it's a shame his heroics came against our beloved Capitals. The shootout that followed also proved fruitless for Washington.

With another chance to move closer to the top of the conference thwarted, it's a good thing the Caps have a bit of a cushion within their division. The team has until Friday to make adjustments, when they'll face the Tampa Bay Lightning at home.

No Doubt Reunited And On Tour This Summer

The band No Doubt, hugely popular up until their hiatus (2004–2008) a few years back, are back together and set to tour starting in May 2009. Tickets started going on sale March 7th for the concerts that were on the schedule at that time. New shows are still being added.

Members of the band worked on other projects during their break from No Doubt, with lead singer Gwen Stefani enjoying multi-platinum success with her November 2004 release of Love. Angel. Music. Baby. . The album started as a side project while No Doubt were still together. She followed that with The Sweet Escape in December 2006, which was basically the leftovers from LAMB. After receiving mixed reviews and lower sales numbers for this album and subsequent singles, thoughts of a No Doubt reunion no doubt crept into her mind.

I'm glad they decided to get back together, and I'm sure my daughter is too. Many of their hits have special meaning for me and my Chelsea. She was a big fan of their music before the split of the band, and the split of her mother and I. I was able to tolerate the stuff she was listening to at the time, unlike much of the refuse that's gotten into the rotation since.

Purchasing the expensive tickets for the best seats qualifies you to receive the entire No Doubt catalogue of digitally downloadable music, and yes that's for each ticket purchased. For more information on the download, tour and ticket sales, check out the widget below.

Hurricanes Vs Capitals 11/06/2008 Review

Alexander Semin tries to gain control of the puck.
November 6, 2008 Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP

Hurricanes 2 - Capitals 3

It was the Carolina Hurricanes's turn to be disappointed last night. Until the final few minutes of the game, it looked like they might eek out a victory over the Washington Capitals. Thankfully for Caps fans, Alexander Semin and his mates had a couple surprises in store for the Canes.

Things were looking good for Carolina after Scott Walker tipped in the first goal, on the very first shot of the game. First shot goals have now happened to the Capitals in four of their first 12 starts. After that though, Washington relied on another solid performance by goalie Brent Johnson, and their recently recovered forechecking skills to get them safely through the first period.

The goaltending of Cam Ward had been giving the Caps fits through the first, but at 3:05 in the second period, Sergei Fedorov's wrist shot found the back of the net. Even though Washington seemed to have lost their edge somewhat, it took until 12:13 for Tuomo Ruutu to score and put Carolina back ahead. Some respect was definitely earned by forward Brooks Laich in the second. He blocked a hard shot with a leg at one point, which took him down to the ice for a minute. After a couple attempts, he was able to get up and slowly make his way to the bench. Along the way, he blocked a Carolina defender's pass. Brooks spent a few minutes in the dressing room, before returning to play.

The Capitals' regained their edge, and came out full of energy in the third period. At 17:17, Alexander Semin tied the game. Alex Ovechkin passed the puck to Semin, who brought it around to the front of the net and sent it in through a good bit of traffic. It started looking like we were headed to overtime. Then Ovechkin skated the puck up the ice. He probably should have shot the puck, but he elected to pass it to Semin instead. Semin barely got a hold of it, and with about 11 seconds left on the clock, snapped in the game winner. Caps fans, including yours truly, shot up from their seats and cheered their fannies off. No matter what you might have thought about the rest of the game, that was a great way to end it.

No power play goals yet again. However, the penalty killing keeps on rolling. Brent Johnson was great in net. Alexander Semin had another multiple goal game, and Alex Ovechkin had the primary assist on all three Washington goals scored.

I experienced this game from high up in section 406, along with my hockey buddy and daughter, Chelsea. We also brought a friend of hers, who didn't know anything about hockey. She thought the pounding that Donald Brashear handed out to Wade Brookbank was "hilarious". Even though you can see everything from up in the 400 level, as you would expect, it's just not quite as good an experience as our normal 100 level seats. I usually opt for the good seats because we don't make it down from Harford County, MD very often. One of the worst things about the evening was the sound system. We couldn't make out what was being announced most of the time. But, we still enjoyed the game. Since I got the tickets for free, I guess I shouldn't complain very much. We hope to make it back again, real soon.

"Hey, Big Guy"

AP Photo of Gordon Jump

My teenage daughter has started referring to me as "Big Guy". What does this mean? Why "Big Guy"? I'm not seriously tall. With normal shoes on, I'm exactly 6'0". That's not that tall. Could she be referring to how wide I am? Maybe she's easing toward calling me "Wide Load". Nah, it just has to do with how important I am to her. You know, being her father and all. Shit! She's a teenager, so that sure can't be it. She's never watched a single episode of WKRP In Cincinnati, and I don't look anything like Gordon Jump's character Arthur Carlson, a.k.a. "The Big Guy". It remains a mystery.

WKRP In Cincinnati (Season 1 / Episode 3) - "Les On A Ledge"

Not Just A Dream

It's true! I didn't just dream the whole thing. When I woke up this morning afternoon (Thanks for the wake up call, Chelsea), it was still true. I was sure that they'd do it. But, I've been wrong before. The Washington Capitals are the real thing. You gotta believe, and the best is yet to come. Thanks guys, and good luck in the playoffs!

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Photo - Mitchell Layton / NHL via Getty Images

Bruins Vs Capitals 03/03/2008 Review

Photo - Linda Spillers / AP

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Bruins 2 - Capitals 10

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Last night, my daughter Chelsea and I watched the game together from the living room couch. Both of us were ready to just relax. I didn't take notes and wasn't planning on posting a review. Just like everyone else, we had no idea that it was going to be such an unbelievably spectacular event. So, no long review offered here. Check out the links in the Hockey Sites list and the score above for the details.

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Photo - Mitchell Layton/NHL - Getty Images

Alex Ovechkin, pictured with 2007-2008 season goal 50, 51 and 52 pucks. All scored by 15:31 of the game's first period, on 03/03/2008.

Alex and the entire Washington Capitals team had an amazing game against a very good Boston Bruins hockey team. Thanks guys!