New Coach

The biggest news for the local team is that a new coach was hired yesterday - Kliff  Kingsbury from Texas Tech. He has zero experience in the NFL as an assistant or any other position. His Texas Tech teams did not set the world on fire either. I just hope the Cardinals didn't make another huge mistake.

The warmer temperatures we are getting this week make you feel like getting outside to do some work. I know that just sitting on the patio and watching the golfers is a lot more enjoyable than watching from inside the house with 50 degree temperatures outside. I expect to see about three months of enjoyable temperatures before watching the temperatures go into the 90's and higher. That's Arizona.

Our visit by the Geek Squad from Best Buy yesterday was a success. Our TV was raised about 3" on the wall and we can now get full use of our remote from the sofa without holding our arm to the ceiling. There was no way I could have made the adjustment myself without dropping our TV on the floor. It took 2 guys from Best Buy to make the modification. I have a doctor appointment today and then our final service call of the week tomorrow for our refrigerator...

Title Game Blowout

The National Championship game last night between Alabama and Clemson was a blowout - by Clemson, 44-16. Alabama was uncharacteristically mauled by what is clearly the best team in the country. Not only that, the Clemson team is comprised of mostly young players and will be a force for several more years. I was happy to see Alabama humbled and knocked off their high horse.

I have a couple service calls scheduled this week for minor problems. The first one (today) is with Best Buy who will come to adjust our TV mount. Since we acquired the new (and higher) fireplace furniture, the TV sits too low on the wall so that we have to stand to use some of the remote control features. They will raise the TV on the wall about 3" which should solve the problem. The second service call (Thursday) is under the warranty for our new refrigerator. The ice maker makes a loud sound when emptying ice into the tray inside the freezer and they will come to try and locate and fix that problem.

Josie has the weekend off this week so we are going to try and get some organization in the house again since Christmas is all put away. What we really need to do is to make some time and go through our garage stuff once and for all to clear it out...

Classic Finish

The game yesterday between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Chicago Bears was a classic. The game was won by the Eagles, 16-15, but that is only a sign of the kind of game it was. The Bears could have won on a field goal with no time left except the attempt hit both the upright and the crossbar before dropping harmlessly to the end zone. The loss ended the Bears' season. To make it even worse, the field goal was already successfully kicked while the Eagles were calling time out and forcing a re-kick. And I thought the Seahawks loss was a tough one. The playoffs have, so far, been exciting to watch.

Don't forget the National College Football Championship game between Alabama and Clemson is on TV tonight. This is the third time in the last four years that these two schools have played for the championship. Do you think they know something that no other school knows about how to choose players? The coaching staffs aren't too shabby either.

We had some plant damage by the early morning freezes this past week. We are anxious to  see the weather warm up so we can begin repairing some of the damage. I thought that was going to happen this week, but it looks like the warmup will only be slight. Maybe next week...

Wild Card Loss

What a painful loss to watch. The Cowboys were gifted a win yesterday as the Seahawks self destructed in the fourth quarter with penalties - again - to lose a game (24-22) they should have won. It was a terrific year for them as they won 10 games when everybody, including myself, thought that the season would be a bust as they went through a rebuilding process. The organization is strong, and with Pete Carroll as head coach, and John Schneider as GM, they will only improve going forward.

Today's game between the Eagles and Bears should be another great game. The Bears are having a great year (for our family of fans in the Chicago area) and the Eagles will always be favorites of mine from my childhood. It is one of those games where: whoever wins makes me happy.

There has been a definite lack of warmth and sunshine lately. With more rain last night and high temperatures still hanging around the 60's, we are ready for some signs of Spring to appear. Several of our plants have taken a "hit" from the cold temperatures and we will be doing some repair work as soon as we get some warmer weather. We also have our garage staring at us, begging to be cleared and organized. Ugh!...

Rio Mirage Cafe

We get flyers in the mail almost everyday from restaurants that are new in the area or are having terrific sales. One that we received recently was for a new Mexican restaurant called Café Rio which had recently opened in Surprise. We drove by the place yesterday morning after doing a little shopping to check it out and decided to pass on the place as it seemed more like a fast food kind of restaurant. Instead, we drove by the Rio Mirage Café Mexica restaurant just up the street and decided to give that one a try since we now had the yearning to eat Mexican which we haven't had in some time.

That place was fabulous and will now take over as our favorite Mexican restaurant, replacing Macayo's. I don't believe that in the ten years this place has been open we have never tried it before now. I read the reviews before we turned around after dropping off our groceries and they were averaging close to 5.0 out of 5.0 with over 500 reviews. It deserves at least a 5! Everything was delicious, reasonably priced and with great service. The margarita wasn't bad either!

So, after talking about diets in yesterday's entry, we have satisfied our urge to eat out one more time before diving into the diet program.

We also took down the rest of Christmas and have the tree all packed and put away for next year. It's always kind of sad to pack away Christmas for another year. Our house is now back to normal - if there is such a thing...

Diet Stall

One of the (annual) resolutions each year is to diet. We do a fairly good job each year sticking to our commitments but it is getting a bit tougher now. We have much more "junk" food to get rid of before starting a real diet - muffins, pies, candy, chips, cookies, popcorn, etc. Most of the Christmas season goodies are gone, but there remains some things that are just too good and too expensive to just toss in the garbage. I suspect that we will be totally rid of those temptations in less than a week. Then, we can get real serious about sticking to our diets. Actually, Josie doesn't need to be on a diet as she has been really good about keeping her food intake to a minimum at work. I am shooting to lose about 30 pounds and Josie just needs to maintain. I need to begin soon before I lose sight of my goal.

Part of the diet plan is to step up the exercise at the rec center. I have been lax in doing my regular schedule during the holidays which is easy to do. Discipline is the key now if I can just remove the obstacles.

Speaking of discipline, I think we will make a trip to the store today to stock up on some real diet foods...

Welcome 2019

I guess I got too busy yesterday to post the initial entry for 2019. I took-down and packed away all the outside decorations from Christmas and lost track of the time. Actually, I went outside early to start that project and came back inside as a result of the freezing temperatures. I started another project - preparing forms for 2019 - that distracted me again and I just didn't get to the blog as I went back outside at around noon to do the Christmas take-down. At any rate, we are void of all Christmas decorations now with the exception of our tree which will come down this weekend.

The weather is headed for improvement this next week as I see some temperatures in the mid to high 60's in the seven-day forecast. Our plants will love the warm up as will all of us. This should take care of the one week of winter that we get each year in this area. I will say that this cold weather doesn't impact the golfers very much as I still see about the same number of players - all bundled up in jackets and long pants. I did the same for many years when we lived in Washington and nothing prevented us from playing.

Josie got a bit of negative news for the month of January. Her work schedule has everybody on the staff working one less day per week for the entire month. Of course, that all changes in February when the Valentine's Day season kicks-in. Meanwhile, she gets to enjoy 4 days off each week in January...