I love Thanksgiving for two reasons.

Reason#1: Gives me an opportunity to reflect on all the wonderful things I have in my life; family, friends and a job.

Reason#2: Allows me to eat some of my favorite food; turkey, stuffing, noodles and sweat potatoes.

That being said, since my backissues started a few years ago keeping weight off has been a challenge. After my metabolism slowed, I started realizing that I was actually getting old like the rest of the mortals out there. This typically was not a problem because I am a walking oxymoron in that I am a big guy that likes to run. Now since my back is in shambles I dont run hardly at all and recently under Doctor’s orders “not to, period!”

So Thanksgiving, however enjoyable it is, brings me the disatisfaction of knowing I will have to find some way to shed off all that pie, turkey and other goodies.

As for my wallet, come on, you know what I am talking about if your married. Wife gets up at 3 a.m. and takes off to camp out in front of the stores. This little scene looks like something out of the movie Resident Evil, where all the creatures come rushing in when some unwitting person opens a door. The monsters then begin tearing at everything in site and even each other. This has got to be proof that humans still have a little piece of caveman in their genes as they immediately revert back to primitive survival mode for the newest form of X-box or Playstation.

Either way, I was perfectly happy with staying at home and watching movies and TV and of course football on Sunday.

A quick update on everyone. Kim’s family seems to be doing ok, although Herb is having some issues recovering form his back surgery.Gannon made the honor roll and is really kicking butt in school this year.

Now Gannon and I went to see a movie Saturday called “The Mist”. DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE. First, it is a partial rip off of the movie “The Fog” and secondly it is just plain terrible. We literally had some people get up in he middle of the movie and leave. Just watch the previews and you will see everything you need to see about this movie. The weird thing is that I think this movie was produced or directed by the same person that did great movies like “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile”.

So here is a synopsis of “The Mist”. Mist moves in, things come after people, people get picked off one by one because they do stupid things. The ending is not your typical happy ending though, remember this is Stephen King’s stuff.

 Thats all I have to write about for now. Take care all.

After one week of vacation and a week at training in Virginia, I finally got back to work today. Of course I love the time off, but playing catch-up at work stinks.

I can honestly say the training in Virginia was well worth it. The database we trained on uses Oracle and Cognos. Fairly smooth running database but Oracle can be very finicky sometimes.

Anyway, Saturday Kim and I took the boys to the parade here in J-ville and Gavin seemed to enjoy it very much. Theyhad 6 bands total and he would dance when each one marched by. I was kind of disappointed with the lack of good floats. Seemd like alot of the parade was just regular cars with business placards slapped on the side. Parades are a good advertising opportunity for a small business, but at least have some creativity.

Been working with a friend to start developing his website and I am pretty excited about how this thing will turn out as well as the partnerships that may evolve from it later on. He is a stand up guy that I have worked with and for in the past.

We finally bought a new bnedroom set and Kim really loves it. I like the roomy bed that allows us room to stretch out, especially since Gavin still insists on sleeping with us.

Nothing else really going on in the Brochin household to talk about right now so until next time….

I am really enjoying being home. I love holding my boys and Kim. I love hanging out with them and just doing normal everyday things. Our family event the last two weeks has been to watch the Fox TV Series 24. We are on season 5 right now. Before I left for Iraq Kim bought me season 3-4 to watch while I was there. I think Kim was hesitant at first because she is not into the macho guy action flicks, but she has really been into it.

Now I know there is some violence in the show, but Gavin usually watches his Sponge Bob or something else while Kim, Gannon and I watch 24. Gannon and I talk all the time about Hollywood make beleive and real life and he fully understands the difference between reality and make beleive so no worries there. At least he hasn’t killed any pets yet so I think we are good.

Gannon’s end of the year soccer party was on  Saturday and it was a good time for the kids. The coach bought them all really nice sweatshirts with “Strikers Soccer” on the front and their name and number on the back. Really cool. Gannon really likes playing for his coach and the kids he plays with and wants to move up with them next year even though he can still play in U-14 for another year. Most of the other kids are older and will be moving up an age group. I like the coach too and we will see how Gannon feels about it this Spring.

Kim was able to con me out of some bedroom furniture. Not really, it was close to her birthday so I thought what the heck. She works her butt off around the house to keep a very nice living area and take care of the kids so whatever I can do to make her happy. Cause if mama ain’t happy, nobodys happy! Haha

Big things coming very soon for my business. I have a really big project in the works and it will be a big contribution for those organizations looking for a fund raiser to make them money year round. Kim and I are really excited about it.

Well that is all for now.

The Strikers played in the soccer tournament two weekends ago and it was amazing. They were the second seed in their braket. The first seed was the only team that beat them all year that I spoke about in the last post.

They played one game on Saturday and won the game with no problem. Now on SUnday it was a different story. They had to play a semi-final game and about 2 hours later play the championship game if they would win in the semi-final.

The 2 hours was not to be. The first game was hard fought and the regulation game ended in a 0-0 tie so they went into overtime…0-0 at the end of the first overtime…then double overtime…0-0. Then they went into a shoot out. The first five from each team was selected and made their attempts. Each team scored a couple of shots and it was still tied.

So the next 5 were chosen from each team and started doing their thing. It came down to the last two player on the team and they made and the Strikers were victorious.

The rest in between was not to be had due to all the overtime and the shootout. They barely had an hour before the championship game. The kids were dragging and tired. The parents really did not have much faith that the kids would be able to hold up against such a good team after such a hard game.

THINK AGAIN MOM AND DAD!!!

The championship game was tied at the end of the half and our kids were smoked beyond belief. When the second half started the other team tok charge and finally socred a goal. It was like the life was sucked out of the kids and the parents. Nothing but silence from the side lines.

However, the kids kept grinding away and a few minutes later scored their first goal tieing the game up. Ladies and Gentlemen after that it was like our kids had not even played that day and everything to that point was a warm up. They came to life, controlled the game for the most part from that point and with about 7 minutes left in the game scored the go ahead goal making it 2-1 in the Strikers’ favor.

The next 7 minutes was like time standing still. Our parents kept asking “HOW MUCH TIME?!”. Finally a big cheer let out when the final whistle blew, it was an unbeleivable win.

I honestly wil tell you that I have not watched a sporting event in recent years that can compete against the thrill exerienced watching these kids dig down and pull off the win.

Besides the Gold medal for first place, these kids learned a valuable lesson in life. Never give up and keep fighting until the end. Yogi Berra made a pretty smart statement when he said “It ain’t over till its over.”

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A few more notes about recent events.

Working some more websites and things seem to be growing for Brochin.net.

Rhinoarticles.com and its accompanying blog have some new looks and features. Brochin.net blog also has some new looks. The Satellite Communications website has some recent changes and traffic is increasing to it everyday. The computer training site is also doing ok and is also receiving some good traffic.

Recent projects have been a local realtors website, which I have to make two more adjustments on. I also have two more websites in the works that should be launched in the next couple of weeks. There is also another that should be ready to go in about two months.

That is all for now. Stay in touch via our blog. Photos and video coming soon.