DaveBarousse.com

This will most likely be my last post for 2007 as I will be traveling the remainder of the year. I am really looking forward to 2008, especially the New Years day College Football Bowl Games leading up to the BCS National Championship game in which my LSU Tigers will be playing in. It should be a great start to what is already looking to be a very exciting new year. As for the rest of 2007, it should also be quite exciting.

My wife and I will be spending Christmas in Breckenridge, Colorado at Beaver Run. We will be meeting up with some of my wife’s family to do some snowboarding and other random snow activities. We will definitely be having a white Christmas this year. Unfortunately, we haven’t had much of the white stuff in Oregon yet this winter to get back on the boards before heading up to Colorado, but it shouldn’t be a problem. We missed opening day at our local mountain, but luckily for them, Dave and Tiffany took advantage. It looks like it was a great first day.

Once we get back from Colorado, we’ll have a little less than 12 hours to get ready for a total change of scenery as we’ll be heading down to Tampa, FL with Joe and Jessica for some business and pleasure. It should be a great trip and it will be nice to get some sun and hang out on the beach a little. I am really looking forward to going to Tampa for the first time and metting up with an old friend.

Happy holidays, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you that I will not talk to until we get home from our travels. I hope you all have a great holiday season and new year. Geaux Tigers!

Until next year………

Random Access Memory (RAM) - The physical memory used to store data while a computer is operating.

Thanks to an awesome gift certificate given to me on my birthday by The Garstka’s and a memory sale at The Mac Store, I was able to add an extra 1 GB of RAM to my MacBook Pro for next to nothing.

Since adding the new memory, I have noticed a huge difference, especially when running Parallels. That makes me happy.

Finally, Michigan hired Rich Rodriguez as their next football coach. This should ultimately put to rest all of the speculation that Les Miles will be leaving LSU for Michigan after the National Championship game in January. At least I thought it would.

Even prior to Kirk Herbstreit’s sources telling him that Miles to Michigan was a done deal, the Mad Hatter said several times that he was not interested in the Michigan job and would be staying at LSU. Of course, that doesn’t mean much these days with football coaches leaving in the middle of the night to take a new job without even meeting with their teams to let them know. So it really wouldn’t have been a surprise to me if Miles did leave after saying he was going to stay. And it’s not like we haven’t had that happen before. Recall when Nick Saban left for the Miami Dolphins hiding behind the distractions of Christmas Day to make his announcement in Orlando, FL (not even in Baton Rouge) that he was leaving LSU.

I do think that Miles may still go to Michigan one day because eventually he will want to go back home. And I can’t imagine that Rodriguez will stay planted longer than a few years once a better offer comes around and he realizes that the spread offense doesn’t work well with big slow quarterbacks. I just hope that I do not have to hear any more about Miles going to Michigan any time soon, especially any more before the National Championship game.

From now until after January 7, 2008 all I want to hear about Miles is how he is preparing to hold up the Crystal Ball at the end of the game in front of Tiger Nation. It should sit nicely next to the 2003 BCS National Championship trophy.

My wife and I both reunited with old friends this week.

In my case, I have been knowing this particular friend for close to 20 years now and we sometimes lose touch for long periods of time. His parents lived in two different states, so when we were growing up, he was always going back and forth between his parent’s houses. After we finished high school and then college, we both moved away and haven’t done a very good job of staying in touch with each other.

One thing that I have always enjoyed about this friend is that even after not speaking to each other for long periods of time, once we do get back in touch with each other, we can pick up right where we left off. There is no weirdness or grudges, we just continue on as if we had been in touch the whole time.

With the technology available in communications today, there really is no reason to not stay in touch with your family and friends. Life is so much better when you surround yourself with great people that you enjoy. Plus, it is always great to reunite with old friends.

Homework:

Call,email or text at least 3 old friends or family members today. It only takes a second and you will make their day. Here is an example of a quick message you can send:

Hey [name],
I’m just writing to say hello. Hope all is well!

[your name]

As an added bonus, my friend is currently living in Tampa, FL and I am going there in two weeks, so we’ll get to hang out.

The dude is a triple threat!

He busts onto the scene doing the Robot and then mixes it all up. If you watch closely, I think there is a short type writer thrown in there. Then he drops it like it’s hot into a SPLIT for the grand finally! Oooooooh what what! I’m impressed.

After a long hiatus from the blog world, I have decided to start posting again. I’ve mostly used this blog for experimental purposes, but I would like to shift the focus to my personal life to highlight all of the fun stuff I’ve been doing. I really enjoy reading my friend’s blog post when they do fun stuff, so hopefully I can provide some of the same type of entertainment.

If you still have my feed in your feed reader, leave me a comment on this post to say “What up.” It will definitely be more motivating to post more often if I know I have a small audience. Word!

After another very exciting race, the indy 500 results are out and Dario Franchitti came out on top. Even though the race was cut 35 laps short of it’s traditional 200 laps, the competition was fierce and Franchitti emerged through fortunate pit strategy to beat Brisbane-born Kiwi racer Scott Dixon with Helio Castroneves third in the Team Penske Honda.

Click the following link to see additional 2007 Indianapolis 500 results.

Amy Harcar wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press that Laura and AJ Hawk signed a contract that gave her permission to publish their photos. However, the photos were recently removed from the photographer’s website with the note:

“By request of the Hawk and Quinn families the images from A.J. and Laura’s wedding have been removed. All of our contracts, including the Hawk contract, reserve the right for Harcar Photography to use images for display, advertising and publication.”

It doesn’t surprise me that Brady Quinn was dancing around in chaps. I guess that’s always a good way to blow off some steam after getting humiliated at an NFL draft. It’s too bad that Harcar has to abide by the rules of the rich and famous that would never apply to the rest of us.

This may sound crazy to some of you, but I decided last night that I want a Lamborghini. I’m not sure which model yet, I just know that I’m interested in owning one. I definitely have higher priority goals that I need to accomplish before I would even consider forking over the money for a Lambo; however, I like the fact that I am raising the bar for myself.

I have been a loyal customer to ING Direct since the day I opened an account with them. Since that day, several other online savings accounts offering a higher APY have surfaced. Although the rates are higher elsewhere, I have stuck with ING Direct because I am comfortable with them and I am expecting them to raise their rates soon in order to keep up with the competition. It has been a while since ING Direct has raised their rates, so I’m starting to consider making a move to one of the other, higher paying, services.

The E*Trade Complete Savings Account is looking the most attractive to me at this point. It offers a 5.05% APY and I already have a brokerage account with them. That may be the quickest and easiest way for me to increase my rate of return, but definitely not the highest rate that I could possibly earn.

If I do decide to move away from ING Direct, I will document my experience here and compare it to my experience with ING Direct.

Will ING Direct raise their rates soon? I’d prefer not to move away from them if I don’t have to, but I’m beginning to get the feeling that they are holding out on us. What are your thoughts? Leave a comment.