Yesterday, our little guy turned 1. It's sure hard to believe that since he's 75+ lbs. and is still as hyper as the day we got him. Although, with Christi working from home now (and Stan not being in the kennel), he has been going to bed a lot earlier. He's growing up and going into the bedroom to sleep without us now.

Anyways, for his birthday, we got him a brand new toy and a nice bone that took him most of the night to demolish. We planning on going all out and buying him a dog birthday cake and stuff like that, but that whole job/moving thing hindered our plans recently.

See pictures of Stan's birthday click here and to see the West Hartford Reservoir that he took us to, click here.

ESPN is everything I thought it would be ... and so much more. Today is round 2 of Rookie Camp, and then I'll get thrown into the fire and actually start working instead of watching killer company videos and seeing Mike Greenberg walk down the hallways.

I must have made a good impression because they let me know upon my arrival that they would be airing the Nebraska - Missouri game on their network just for me (and maybe for a few Mizzou fans working there). It'll start at 9.00pm our time, but you have to give and take.

I'm still holding my breath that they give us the NU-Va Tech game instead of watching Penn State this upcoming Saturday. I'll see if I can find the guys in charge of regional coverage today and put my two cents in ...

Since we can't take our stuff out of storage until our temporary housing is up, or we find a place to live, we had to bring everything we needed for our first 45 days with us in our Jeep. That didn't leave us, or Stanley, too much room.

To make up cramped sleeping spaces to our dog, we found a very nice place to rent in West Hartford yesterday. We'll be living on the entire first floor of a home that was built prior to the Civil War (in the 1850s). We'll sign a lease early next week and probably move in around the 11^th. At that point, we'll be sure to take some pictures and post them up here.

Speaking of pictures, I finally had a chance to post some pictures of when we left Omaha. Those can be seen here. With this, I now have 3 different Flatiron buildings (NYC, Denver and Omaha) in my picture collections. I'll see if I can find another one out here.

Our two day journey started Monday morning, and we arrived in Connecticut late Tuesday night. Both days gave us some traffic obstacles, so it feels good to finally walk around and not feel like we're trapped in the Jeep. Stanley thanks us for that as well.

During our trip, I took some pictures (the best I could) of something from each state that we went through. Nebraska doesn't get one since we were only in it for 20 minutes and Connecticut doesn't either since it was pitch black out when we arrived.



Driving through the state of Iowa might be the 2^nd most boring drive in the country. Behind Eastern Colorado/Western Nebraska, of course. It's just a monotonous boring where it seems the scenery never changes.

I've never seen so many "Wide Load" trucks in one state before. There were make-shift houses and long flatbeds as far as the eye can see. The only cool ones that we saw were six trucks carrying the arms for the large wind powered windmills. I've never seen that up close before, so it was cool to get a perspective on how big each one of the arms really are.



Illinois welcomed us by being the only state where unleaded fuel was more expensive than diesel. The strange fuel prices were an indicator of how our drive would fare throughout the state.

We made it five miles from the Indiana border with no problems at all ... then we entered the toll road. It was 4.40 when we payed our $0.60 and knew that we would be in Fort Wayne, IN by 7.30 or so to have dinner with Jared and Tesa. Little did we know, we would still be in Illinois at that time. Right as we payed our fare, we came to a complete stop on the other side. Five lanes of traffic were merging into one lane to ironically merge onto the five lane Interstate.

Because of Hurricane Ike flooding the Interstate and major Highways near Gary, In, the DOT was merging all of the traffic south. It took us seven hours to move seven miles. If you actually think about that, we sat in our car and did not move for a very long time. There were 20-30 minute stretches where we didn't move. We didn't even creep forward a few inches.

After we made it south to Hwy 30, the Jeep's speedometer finally hit double digits and we crept to a normal pace to complete the rest of our journey. Jared and Tesa couldn't have opened their home and their hearts more to us as they allowed us to stumble in at 2.30 in the morning. After 19 straight hours driving (which is not a personal best), I was ready to crash ... even if it was for only five hours.



We woke up Tuesday morning, showered and let Stanley hang out with someone other than us. After driving the graveyard shift to get to their house, we didn't have too much time left until we arrived in Ohio.



Since we didn't go through any major cities (and by major cities, I mean the two which house MLB teams), the drive wasn't anything special. Akron was the only highlight to break up the same view that we had through the state. I was disappointed that in our only fuel up in the state, they discriminated against the two dollar bill.

After taking an unexpected detour by going on the wrong highway, we finally got our bearings straight and headed towards Pennsylvania. We can't thank mom and dad enough for lending an atlas to us for our drive. With our Google Map/Mapquest generation, I had two pieces of paper with directions to get out there, but never thought about what would happen if we went off course. We ended up using the atlas more than we thought and it really helped us pace our journey.



My body finally told me that I needed to stop driving and catch up on some sleep. I decided to listen and Stan and I took a nap while Christi took over the wheel. After a few hours of sleep, I awoke to the most beautiful and scenic drive that I've ever been on. Whomever designed the interstate system through Pennsylvania should receive an award, or a pat on the back at the very least.

Until we entered New York, there was never a moment where we weren't amazed by the surroundings.



New York wasn't much. It was getting dark and we passed through the state in about an hour. Having been to NYC before, we feel that we have already experience a lot that the state has to offer.

Once we got to Connecticut, we thought our trip was finally over. We were then greeted by another toll road and more road construction which backed up traffic (and our trip) for an hour. Finally, we made it to Farmington and were able to unload our Jeep and get as settled as we could.

Tomorrow we are traveling around the surrounding areas in search for a place to live. Our temporary housing is nice, but we already can't wait until we can unload all of our boxes and have our belongings returned to us.

A year ago today, we drove the UHaul from Colorado and moved back to Nebraska. Our intention was to move back and stay here for a long time. But, as many of you know, those plans have changed. Tomorrow, 366 days from the last state we were in, we'll start up the Jeep and begin our journey out east. We'll make a stop in Fort Wayne, In to crash at my cousin Jared's house and then drive into Connecticut on Tuesday.

We'll have a camera and computer when we get there, so if there are any interesting stories or things we saw along the way, I'll try to get them up when I get into town.

The amazing news about our move is that we sold our house a few days ago. Our realtor was absolutely amazing and we sold it in about a month since we first put it up on the market. Not too bad considering the crazy market that we're in.

Work at ESPN starts on Monday, so I'll try to get a few posts in while I can. We'll miss everyone here, but will be excited about the new journey ahead ...

Husker Football
I know UConn has an up and coming football team, but nothing will compare to game days in Lincoln. I'll definitely miss the atmosphere and will have to strategically plan trips back to Nebraska while the Huskers have a home game. Luckily enough, going to game is something that I have grown accustom to, and now I'll be one of those poor saps shelling out $30 per weekend to see if I can watch the game from our house (per wife's approval, obviously).

The Hospitality
Two weekends ago, the good state of Nebraska reminded me one of the main reasons that we moved away from the upscale people near Aspen. First, Christi and I have been trying to go out to a lot of the local places that we will miss. On Sunday, we went to Lazlo's and let the waitress know up front that we had nothing planned for the night and that we wanted a nice relaxing night. No worries on how fast the food comes out or how many times she comes to the table. So we order and wait, and wait and wait some more. But, we're in no big rush. All the sudden, our main entrees come out before our appetizer. We remind them it's no big deal, and our correct order came out a few minutes later. Once we were done with that and our meal came out again and we began to eat. Half way through, the manager comes out and apologizes many times over for how we were treated during our stay there. He said our meal was on the house and to have a wonderful night. Regardless to say, our waitress received a nice tip for the night.

The next day, on Labor Day, I went back to Seward to golf with Dad and clean my room (finally) for mom. Dad and I played 18 holes, had 6 beers and bought a bag of range balls to straighten out my drives. Total cost? 22 Dollars. You've gotta love small town USA. Cheap golf and the 4^th of July won't be the same out on the east coast.

Cheap Gas?
Looking at some stuff online, and my short experience out there, Connecticut is always one of the national leaders for gas prices. When I went out, gas was between 50-60 cents higher than Omaha. It'll be weird to say that I miss gas that costs $3.50 per gallon. But then again with Christi working at home, and having my drive time shorter than it is here, we'll actually save a ton of money (and miles on our cars) while we're out there.

The house on Dewey Circle
When we moved back (less than a year ago), we found an amazing house in a down market and got an absolute steal on it. It would have been an amazing investment ... if we lived there for the next five to ten years. Regardless, the wife and I will miss our 3,500 sq. ft. and will have to realize we won't find something with half the size for the same price (or more). Also, Stanley will definitely miss the yard that he grew up in. How many other yards will he be able to kill babby bunnies (yes, that just happened) and then eat tomatoes out of our garden (probably to get rid of the taste of the fur)?

Friends and Family
Family and close friends, as well as the Glenwood Springs Target store being horrible, are the reasons that we are where we are right now. We could have chosen to stay in Colorado or venture out somewhere else, but having great friends near us and being able to see our family whenever we wanted were reasons enough to make the short trek back to the home state. We are also fully aware that the Sunday night dinners that we plan to put on out there will in no way match the ones that we're used to at gma's house.

Last night I came across two very nice logos. Both got their point across, and both added a subtle touch to set them apart.



First, I picked up my tux for Ben's wedding and saw how awesome the MW Tux logo is. I went a few weeks early to buy a new suit for my ESPN interview and got fitted for the wedding at that time. I'm not sure why, but I never checked out the logo.

Later on that night, I was working on the TrailRunner site, and saw the Five.Ten logo. I'm sure I saw it every single day I worked out in Colorado, but after recognizing the MW Tux logo, I think I was in a mindset to truly appreciate how much time graphic designers dump into things like this.

So with that, here are two absolutely beautiful logos. I'll see what I can do about the "BH" when I redesign in a few months.