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Opening Day ... in the US anyways

Mar 31, 2008
Braves Opening Day 2008
After the weird two game set in Japan to start the season, the Braves and Nats tried to one up the league and play host to their own one game series (if you will) to christen in the new stadium in D.C.

I was pretty impressed with the new stadium. Sometimes you never know what stadiums will put in to try to be different. For anyone who watched the game, one of the best features of the new stadium has to be the new stone backstop. Since we were throwing Beth a birthday party at our place last night, I didn't get to watch much of the game, but I'm sure that the way the ball caroms off the wall is something that players will have to get used to.

The party was great, and probably a good distraction since the Brave's lost with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 9th with two outs. It's good to see Chipper start off the year with a home run and be the first player to ever hit one in that stadium. I'm sure there will be a lot more baseball talk coming up since my upset special didn't win the big dance (see below).
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2 Down, 4 To Go

Mar 24, 2008
Louisville 2008 NCAA Tournament
Over the years of doing horrible in the NCAA tournament, I decided to go with a different approach: Pick a team to win it all that no one else will pick. With everyone picking UNC, Kansas and UCLA; you have to make sure you pick up as many of the first and second round games that you can to pull ahead by a few extra points at the end.

This year, my new approach was to pick a team that no one else would pick. If they could make a run to the championship game, or even the final four, I figure that I'll pick up a bunch of extra points that no one else will. The worst case scenario being that my team will lose early and I'll be where I'm at every year.

After being impressed with a few games out of the regular season, my team this year is Louisville. They've had two blowouts so far, and could've coasted into the Elite Eight if Butler would've pulled off the upset in overtime against Tennessee.

I might be the only person outside the state of Kentucky to take them all the way, but with four more wins it'll pay off taking a risk. Here's to being the underdog for the rest of the tournament.
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Back to the Homeland

Mar 19, 2008
Today Erica finally came home for good, or at least it seems. Talking with her yesterday, we both have seemed to have lost count on how many times she's made the trip back and forth from Berlin. She finally said that it was either 8 or 9 trips ... all before her 26th birthday.

And with mom's birthday tomorrow, she said it was the best gift that she could've asked for. Now instead of planning a return trip to go back and see her, we'll have to plan a return trip and bring her along as our official translator.

Either way, I'm glad to have you back sis.
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Green Beer and Dancing

Mar 17, 2008
green beer
Today we raise our green beers high and try to decipher which team will last the longest in the NCAA tournament. Disappointing as it is not being in Chicago to see the green river for the second straight year, we have more pressing issues to worry about.

Everyone's trying to guess who will be this year's George Mason, the official "Gonzaga" of the tournament last year. As with 2007, I have set up the online tournament for Seward Motor Freight and added one for the Bracket Challenge that Ben set up while we were all in the 436. As he states on his official bracket page from last year, the goal of our challenge was to bring the "NCAA Men's College Basketball Tournament [to] Lincoln, Nebraska." I think Ben's done a great job in 3 short years getting the tournament to play some first round games in Omaha.

Those wanting to take a gamble, or just check out my sweet online bracket, you can sign up for the 436 Bracket Challenge at 2008ncaa.brianhelge.com. If you do sign up, be sure to contact Ben and send him your "donation" in support of him keeping this going (and growing in size) for the past 3 years. We need 14 entries to break last year's record.

With upsets looming around the corner, go throw back some green beers and pick a random team to go all the way. All eyes on Steph as she tries to become the first repeat champ.

Cheers.
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Good Use of Election Time

Mar 14, 2008
Guinness Proposition 317
The bi-weekly lunch with the former roommates yesterday landed us at the Dundee Dell, and like every other place in town, they looked to be decked out in St. Patrick's gear way too early.

Even with green shamrocks floating from one corner of the room to another, one cool thing that they showcased was the Guinness Proposition 3-17 posters everywhere. At first glance, I thought the Proposition 3-17 was just a clever way to play on election times and get people to order a Guinness on Monday. But Ben told me that the Irish beer conglomerate is trying to get one million online petitions signed by the end of the day on the 16th. Even by taking advantage of high voter morale right now, I'm not sure that their scheme will work. On their site, www.proposition317.com, they only had one fourth of the total.

I'm not sure that I'll ever hold my breath for St. Patrick's day to be an official holiday, but I'll be on the lookout for more Guinness marketing material in the upcoming months.
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Unreal

Mar 4, 2008
brian helge kansas basketball senior night
What a "senior" night for KU. The Jayhawks matched, or bettered, Tech's entire score in each half and didn't let their seniors/starters play in the second half. The team even pulled the phenomenal feat of beating a team by more points than they scored (109-51) and 15 players scored. 15 PLAYERS SCORED!

To put this into comparison, there have been only 14 Nebraska players that have scored ... this entire season. I've never seen a team's bench completely destroy the starters of another. If you think about it, KU pretty much had 3 different sets of players that were better than the entire Tech team.

Every year, Nebraska has that one big win. I'm not saying it was Oregon, since they're horrible now, or even KSU or A&M since they've been on a downward slide and both are on the bubble. This leaves top 10 Texas tonight to knock off. Here's to the fall of the Longhorn's.
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