And to all a good night for 2006. This past year ranks up there with the best of them even if the blog posting was lack luster. Here is a list of events that happened to Stickrod throughout the year:

January - Visited the wife in Bermuda where I discovered the Dark & Stormy resulting in injury

February - Celebrated 1 year of marriage on the 5th

March - Observed St. Patrick’s day in a Mexican bar

April - Wife’s birthday, age not to be listed

May - Vision problems, and wedding at the ocean

June - Wicked, another wedding this one with military flare

July - Holiday at the Cape. Finished 2nd in a charity kickball tourney. Venetian night on Monroe Harbor

August - Achieved 30 years of age, need I say more

September - OSU football commenced (and finished with a perfect, undefeated season as of this post, I am optimistic)

October - Friend lost

November - Mock Thanksgiving dinners. A legend passes

December - Holiday galas. iPods multiplying like rabbits

I look forward to 2007 with new challenges and experiences on the docket. Here is to wishing all of you a happy and healthy new year.

Back from the holiday weekend. It was refreshing visiting with family and friends; well half of the crew anyways. Although the weather was not stellar we managed to enjoy ourselves at Beckett’s tailgate. Prior to kickoff big red smokies and MLite were abound. The Buckeyes played a respectable game against Northern Illinois winning 35 to 12. The southstand seats were better than I expected. From the high vantage point on one end of the stadium I felt as if I was playing Madden on my PSP.

I spent Monday cleaning up Mother’s garage and car. A fresh coat of wax on the 6 really makes that car shine. I love the look of black car all carnaubaed up with Zymöl. My car fever is in full swing as my sister provoked me by displaying a new BWM 3 series coupe. The styling of the new 335i is striking while the power increase is just plan ridiculous. This staggering increase in horsepower makes me wonder what the Germans will put in the new M3. A new bimmer is not in my immediate future but a boy can dream.

Posting has been slow and sporadic at best the last two weeks. Much of my time has been spent working on the house. Painting a spiral staircase is a major pain in the ass. Contorting one’s body to get a paint brush to cover all cracks and crevasses can be a real challenge.

I have not spent enough time tweaking this new-ish site design. I actually just realized how shitty the new pages look in Internet Explorer. I need to recommit myself to whipping this half-assed website back into shape.

The wife and I are heading back to C-bus to visit family, friends and cheer on our beloved Buckeyes. Hopefully our high perch in the southstands will be an enjoyable vantage point to watch the game. GO BUCKS!

The wife and I are good American consumers supporting the economy in our purchases. This can be witnessed by our two new mobile phones purchased over the weekend. To my defense I have a small issue with self control when it comes to high-tech gadgets. The purchase of the new Motorola SLVR L7 was predicted upon one of our RAZRs demise when it met the concrete with irreversible trauma – a shattered screen. Now I will not tell you which one of us dropped the phone but it was not me. The plan was to purchase a new phone for the responsible individual (read the one that does not drop phones) and I would transfer my perfectly good RAZR. After 20 mins with the salesmen and working through some SIM card issues it was conceived that buying two SLVRs would cost us a mire 200; 99/each. This time a sticker will need not be applied to the case of our identical phones for I opted for the masculine black while the other phone screams femininity; pretty in pink.

While out for a friend going away party I was criticized, openly, for my lack of updates on this here weblog. As life has taken a sustained accelerated pace I have had less time to allocate to my plethora of hobbies / projects. Highlighting one of these hobbies, this site design has been moving around with some improved bits here and there. I have now definitivly decided upon a final design and will work diligently to implement within the next week or so.

In other news, the wife and I have begun to wrangle with a crash diet and a healthier life-style there after. An outline of the workings of said plan and periodic progress reports are forth coming.

So sit tight sports fans as I ramp up the writing and design efforts.

Yes, 5 my eye. Cinco de mayo started out quite enjoyable. Cat and I visited friends with a cute newborn. Some friends came over and we enjoyed many fine mojitos. Next we joined some of the wife’s friends for a pleasant dinner at Carnivale. This place is a sight to see; extremely vibrant and alive with Latin flare. The food was fantastic; the wife had braised pork shoulder with plantains and I had pan-seared halibut. The evening wound down to a nice simmer and we found our way to the door around midnight. Next thing I know I am awake at 4:30am with hives on my legs, my throat itching and feeling constricted and my eye looking like this. Must have been a food allergy. Strange thing is everything I consumed that evening I have had before. Benadryl saved the day and by tonight, Sunday night, my eye is finally back to normal.