Bracket Update

After this weekends games, the brackets in our house are officially rubbish. So I can update you on our competition now. Within the Duer household, I am the champ this year. Shannon came in second and Grace nipped James for 3rd.

In the bigger Du's & Don'ts challenge, I am sitting in first place and Shannon is in second. Next weekend we will both be pulling for LSU to beat UCLA. There are only 2 people out of the 13 who are playing who have a team left. Both have UCLA. If UCLA wins out, Jane, my sister-in-law will win. If UCLA just gets to the finals and don't win, K. Benfor from the KB.net fantasy baseball league will win.

There will be no 3rd chance brackets at the house. I am just going to enjoy and pull for George Mason to be the first 11 seed to win it all.

Time to fire old man winter

I drove through SNOW flurries on the way to work today. Spring is late! I am about to put out the meteorological equivalent of an amber alert.

Second Chances

Some times you get them, some times you don't.

Getting them:
James is our official 'Homer' in the family. 3 of his final four picks in the NCAA Bracket were teams from Alabama. None of them seeded higher than 10. All of them gone by the second round. Ouch.

Last night, our family filled out second chance brackets using the teams left. He was excited to have a second chance.

Not Getting Them:
Our van's transmission is starting to act up. Therefore, it is time to look for a new car. I saw a possibility on the web and went to the dealer to make a deal. I drove it, liked it and started the haggling process. We started off significantly far apart. So far that I told him "I'll keep looking". The salesman tried every pressure tactic in the book, including saying he thought his boss might be raising the price on the car because they had decided they had it under-priced. That was Saturday.

Sunday he called and had dropped the price by $1000. Tuesday, He came down another $1000. If he had gotten to that price on Saturday, I would have bought it. But Tuesday, a friend called and said I found your van. Slightly higher miles but a nicer van, for $2000 less then the dealers best offer (not including what we will get for our van on the open market), and owned by a guy who even listed the brand of oil he used for each oil change in the ad and who had been following the manufacturers recommended maintenance schedule. The salesman didn't get a second chance.

I have to admit, I enjoyed telling the salesman "No thanks, I have found a better deal".

I am glad God gives second chances and doesn't use "car salesman" tactics to get us to follow him. Love works much better doesn't it.

Frank B in his comment alluded to the documentary "Super Size Me". Shannon & I watched it about a month ago and I haven't eaten at McDonalds since. While I have some issues with the some of the sensationalize he uses, the basic premise is accurate. Fast Food is not good for you. I encourage you to watch the documentary. It is PG-13 for some language and some frank discussions about sex (yes it impacts that too, at least it did for him).

While I generally prefer Wendy's if I am going to have a burger. McD's has always had the best fries. However, after watching the bonus cuts from the movie, I have sworn those off.

This list below came from the Super Size Me web site. Though again, I think some statements are sensationalized, the vast majority give pause for thought. He is attacking McD's because they are the largest fast food operation.

These facts? Uh, Not So Fun.
-Each day, 1 in 4 Americans visits a fast food restaurant
-In 1972, we spent 3 billion a year on fast food - today we spend more than 110 billion
-McDonald's feeds more than 46 million people a day - more than the entire population of Spain
-French fries are the most eaten vegetable in America
-You would have to walk for seven hours straight to burn off a Super Sized Coke, fry and Big Mac
-In the U.S., we eat more than 1,000,000 animals an hour
-60 % of all Americans are either overweight or obese
-One in every three children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime
-Left unabated, obesity will surpass smoking as the leading cause of preventable death in America
-Obesity has been linked to: Hypertension, Coronary Heart Disease, Adult Onset Diabetes, Stroke, Gall Bladder Disease, Osteoarthritis, Sleep Apnea, Respiratory Problems, Endometrial, Breast, Prostate and Colon Cancers, Dyslipidemia, steatohepatitis, insulin resistance, breathlessness, Asthma, Hyperuricaemia, reproductive hormone abnormalities, polycystic ovarian syndrome, impaired fertility and lower back pain
-The average child sees 10,000 TV advertisements per year
-Only seven items on McDonald's entire menu contain no sugar
-Willard Scott was the first Ronald McDonald - he was fired for being too fat
-McDonald's distributes more toys per year than Toys-R-Us
-Diabetes will cut 17-27 years off your life
-McDonald's: "Any processing our foods undergo make them more dangerous than unprocessed foods"
-The World Health Organization has declared obesity a global epidemic
-Eating fast food may be dangerous to your health
-McDonald's calls people who eat a lot of their food "Heavy Users"
-McDonald's operates more than 30,000 restaurants in more then 100 countries on 6 continents
-Before most children can speak they can recognize McDonald's
-Surgeon General David Satcher: "Fast food is a major contributor to the obesity epidemic"
-Most nutritionists recommend not eating fast food more than once a month
-40% of American meals are eaten outside the home
-McDonald's represents 43% of total U.S. fast food market

Ever wonder why we have an obesity problem in America? Here is exhibit A:

The ESPN.com article says:
The Gateway Grizzlies of the Frontier League promised to create "Baseball's Best Burger" in time for the team's opener in late May. And they appear to have succeeded.

The ballpark sandwich will include a hamburger topped with sharp cheddar cheese and two slices of bacon -- all between a "bun" made of a sliced Krispy Kreme Original Glazed doughnut.

If you can find a (loop)hole in your cardiologist's advice, calorie counters predict the monster will set you back about 1,000 calories and 45 grams of fat.

"We have had the opportunity to bring in a new concession item for the past two seasons and each of them have been very successful," said Grizzlies general manager Tony Funderburg. He told ESPN.com that he got the idea after reading about Mulligan's in Atlanta, which has a similar sandwich called the Luther Burger.

Funderberg, who has said he has eaten at least 10 of the Grizzlies' new creations as part of a "sampling process," said the team hopes to sell 100 to 200 of them a night at $4.50 each. He calls it a bargain, considering it is a meal and a dessert in one.

I wonder if it would be okay to eat one if you ordered Diet Coke?

March Madness - care to join?

Our family tradition is to make some picks in March. We pick who we think will win the various divisions of Major League Baseball and we do our brackets for college basketball. Last year, Shannon won the brackets and Grace picked the team that went the furtherest in the baseball playoffs.

I have set up a group at ESPN.com to track our bracket picks this year. Feel free to join if you wish. Just go here. The password is: steve

The brackets will be available for making your selections after the conference tourney's end this weekend.

Being between churches creates some unique challenges. One that has generated a fair amount of discussion is what to do about the money we would normally give on Sunday. Shannon and I have discussed it and have the beginnings of a plan. But I wanted to throw the question out there to see what others would do in that situation. So here it is:

If you weren't a part of a fellowship where you contributed money, what would you do with the money?