Well, we had a baby today.

Shannon gave birth to a 9 pound 4 ounce baby boy named Marshall Allen Nielsen at 3:55 pm today. Mom and baby are healthy and doing well.

They didn't have to induce her, but they did break her water at about 12:30 or so if I remember correctly. After this it was off to the races.

Marshall has really hit the ground running as he looks like a 1 month old and already loves breastfeeding. Seems to be well headed to a healthy infancy.

Pictures to follow.

To the Park!

In an effort to get this baby to show us his face we took a trip to Lair o' the Bear park yesterday. The weather cooperated perfectly, and James had tons of fun wading in the freezing water, throwing sticks and rocks, and generally getting dirty. Some beavers had moved in since last year, and there are some big changes to the way the river flows. The dams were cool to look at, but sadly there were no beaver sightings. We did find quite a few gnawed off stumps and branches. The rangers had to start putting up wire mesh to protect some of the favorite trees. Here are some pictures of the festivities.

Sheep Sheering and Turtles.

Shannon and I took James to the Littleton historical museum to see the sheep's get sheered for the summer and it came with mixed reviews.  Shannon and I thought it was pretty cool but James was terrified of the all the loud Bah-ing.  Haircut day is pretty traumatic so the entire flock was bah-ing it up much to James's dismay.  This sheep had 4.5 pounds of wool cut off.  The picture with both dudes in it is them using a early 1900's crank sheer, one dude cranks while the other shaves the sheep.  Thought this was pretty good technology for the time.  

James liked the turtles a lot. They were much quieter.  Day was sunny and fantastic, we got a tad bit sunburned.  

James, gimme some of your tots.

James likes to dip a tot in ketchup and then eat only the part with ketchup on it. The remaining chunk of tot is set aside until all tots are half eaten. Then he'll make his way through the previously gnawed tots.

Billups and Game 3.

Something happened today in the Nuggets vs. Mavs game 3 that I found amazing.  Something I would be amiss to not share with all of you.  

It happened with 35 seconds left in the game right after Jason Terry hit a 3 for Dallas to go up by 4.  The home crowd and the Dallas players thought the game was over and were subsequently going nuts.  As a Nuggets fan and follower, it didn't look good, it did look over.  Then it happened, the camera's made their way to Chauncy Billups face and his face brought a sincere sense of confidence.  It said "You guys think it's over, but we are going to rip your hearts out."  And he/they did.  I'm positive other greats have showed this look over the years, but this one was captured just perfectly.  I've come to the conclusion that I'm simply not a good enough writer to properly capture just exactly what I saw in that look.

Carmelo makes a driving layup that took all of about 3 seconds and then Dirk misses his 3rd shot in the final 2 minutes (the epitome of not clutch) and then Carmelo makes a 3 after the crazy no call fiasco.  Cue the hearts ripping.

I always thought Chauncy was overrated after the Spurs shut him down in the 05 series, but what he has gotten these Nuggets to do is nothing short of amazing.  Between his play and his influence he's arguably the most valuable player in the league right now.

Paula Abdul's awesome drunken dance video.

I've been offended tonight.  Before I go off though, I'd like to give big ups to Supergay (Adam Lambert) because he rocked last night.  When I heard he was doing whole lotta love,  I thought no way he could pull that song off.  You just can't do Robert Plant, don't try.  I'm glad he did because that was awesome.  

However, back to the rant. How can the Idol Execs roll Paula out there and let her do that "performance" on the show.  If you are going to lip sync at least dance well;  What a trainwreck.  How can idol claim that she sang that live; her voice didn't change when she was being held in the air by her back by one of the backup dancers and when she fell backwards into 4 of her backup singers arms.  Then at the end of the song when they turned off the recording and turned on her actual mic did they not think we'd notice that her saying that final line was about twice as loud as the actual singing.  A 5 year old wouldn't be fooled by this.  

I don't like people think they can lie to me and I'm not going to notice. I've been offended. 

Brett Favre - Go away.

Yeah people, back to back Sports posts on back to back days. I couldn't resist though because I hate Brett Favre so much.

Five-game totals: Two touchdown passes, nine interceptions, no games with a passer rationg over 61.4 and one game with a completion percentage over 60.

You want that guy?

I don't. Yet apparently Josh Childress and the Vikings do? This screams of desperation to me, does he thinks he's out as coach if he doesn't win the super bowl or something.

Favre is a risk taking gunslinger, only his rifle has been replaced with a BB gun. He can't throw the ball down the field anymore and singlehandedly tanked the Jets chances at the playoffs with how he played the last 4 games of the season in 08. Plus Thomas Jones ripped him after the season and said everything short of "He sucks and I hate him". This and other comments prove he isn't even a good teammate anymore. Plus he only keeps playing just to spite the Packers for choosing Aaron Rogers over him. What's ironic is if he does play for the Vikings he will be helping the Packers win the division because he'll tank the Vikings.

So in short the Vikings want a washed up bad decision maker who is a bad teammate and spiteful. Awesome.


If I'm Adrian Peterson I'm pissed.

Playoffs round 2.

This is an email I sent out about the NBA playoffs but I thought it was good enough to include here.  Plus Shannon and I needed to get the doctor visit off the front.  I started with recapping the Bulls vs. Celtics series which was nothing short of awesome! 

I was a little disappointed that the Bulls vs. Celtics didn’t have an overtime  in the  7^th game, What a letdown.  The thing I’ll remember most is Ray Allen hitting shots over Noath even though Noah’s monkey arms and face was in his personal space.  The trajectory of it was like he was shooting it out of a phone booth.  I don’t like Ray Allen and I think he’s NOT a Hall of Fame (HOF) player but I have to give him props for some of those shots he made in this series.  Just watched the Spurs (Bowen) manhandle him too much when he was in his prime to give him HOF respect. 

 

Rockets vs. Lakers - I like the Rockets chances of injuring some Lakers players but not in challenging for the series.  People are saying they have a chance because of Artest and Battier defending Kobe; I’m actually thinking this might be a bad thing in that it will make Kobe go into another realm of competitiveness and go into destroy mode. Kobe was in coast mode against the Jazz and that's the way he has to be for you to have a chance at winning some games in the series.  Plus,  I just don’t think they can score enough to stay with the Lakers.  Sadly, I’m calling this one for the Lakers in 5.  Man I hope I’m wrong though.

 

Nuggets vs. Mavs. People are freaking about the Nuggets here and for good reason.  The Nuggets have always had a lot of talent, but they just didn’t "get it".  Now, they get it (thanks to Billups), more specifically Melo.  They can force turnovers, defend the hoop, and really score the basketball.  Plus they have the best bench I think I’ve ever seen since maybe the days of the bad boy Pistons.  Sometimes I watch the games and say “ok Karl, get the bench in so you can score some points” and then he does and then JR Smith scores 12 points in 2 minutes.  Seriously, I get excited around the 3 minute mark in the 1st period because I know Bird and JR are coming in. This team is wildly entertaining and kind of reminding me of the Cardinals postseason run.  Both are teams that are known for their playmakers and excitement but not so much for the defense; only the defense has turned it up in the playoffs in both instances.  

 

I think the Nuggets win in 5 because of the gigantic matchup problems they present for the Mavs.  They have no one that can stop Nene (Dampier is literally slower than Brett Favre) or Melo (Josh Howards ankles are all jacked) and between Bird and Kenyon Martin they have length and quickness to really bother Dirk.  I see Dallas getting game 3 but that’s it.  The Nuggets…They’re so hot right now (spoken like Will Farrell in Zoolander)!

 

Hawks vs. Lebron is YAWN.  If there was such a thing as a anti exclamation point that's what I would have put after the N in yawn. Lebron in 4.  Lebron is destroying the world right now and I don’t see that changing in this series.  

 

Magic vs. Celtics – This series is weird because I wouldn’t be surprised if  either team wins it in 5.  Seriously this series is weird.  How is Turks ankle? The Celtics could be the most tired ever and crap the bed in game 1 or they could be awesome.  In any case this much I know, Rasheed Lewis and Howard vs. Big Baby, Scalabrine, Posey et al = mismatch.  Howard needs to man up, get hype and dominate the paint and win the series.  Sadly, I think he’ll make jokes, be a gentle giant, miss foul shots, and lose in 7 games.  In any case the winner gets their doors blown off by Lebron in the conf. finals so this series has boring written all of it as well.