Look Ma! I'm famous!!

I hate being sick.

No, I mean I really, really hate it. I've been sick since Sunday. And it sucks. This could be one of the worst viruses I ever had. The only times I can recall in recent memory are when I had strep/mono when I was a freshman at UI and when I had the flu in February of the 2004-05 basketball season.

The following are things I've been taking to alleviate the symptoms (they aren't helping much, IMO): DayQuil gelcaps, Sudafed, ibuprofen, Excedrin, PM ibuprofen, Nyquil, Tylenol Severe Congestion, a vapor inhaler, throat spray, and some nasty cough drops. I hate cough drops, but sometimes they're the only things that can soothe and aching throat.

Anyway, I need to be better because it looks like I might be heading to the suburbs this weekend for a visitation for Ryan's grandma who met Jesus this morning. And I just want to be able to get back into my routine and enjoy the nicer weather instead of staying holed up on my couch or in bed.

What in the world is going on here?!?!

Today:
1) FBW announces he's leaving Iowa to go to New Mexico. Sounds great... then he can retire comfortably in a few years without having to go very far... Arizona is only one state away!
2) Tubby announces he's leaving KENTUCKY for MINNESOTA! Now tell me, how messed up is THAT?! It really just pisses me off because it means high caliber coaches are working their way into the B10 and we don't need bottom-feeders like the Gophers heading up to the top of the conference.

Also, on a side note, if for some reason Guenther decides to leave Illinois or is somehow booted (who boots the AD anyway? Chancellor Hermann? Stukel? NANCY CANTOR?!), I would like to put in my nomination for Mr. TwinCityIllini, aka Heath, as the new AD. He knows his stuff - coaches, players, stats, you name it. And I think Beverly would make a fabulous First AD Lady of the University of Illinois.

Also, as another side note, since we're speaking of Nancy Cantor, I have to imagine that she had SOMEthing to do with the new Syracuse unis. I mean, they're RED for crying out loud. So not only has she ousted the Orangemen, but now also the ORANGE. If she never had another say in athletic matters, it would be too soon.

I'm dying to wear my new Illini shoes to an Illini event, so I guess it will have to be baseball for the time being. You all know how much I love Illinois baseball. And then there's the Spring Game next month. WOOOOOT!! I'm secretly secretly really really ready for football season though. I know, I need to lay off the orange Kool-aid.

My brackets suck. The end.

2007 All-Superficial Basketball Teams

All-Hair
Captain: Warren Carter (Illinois) (unanimous)

Steven Hill (Arkansas)

Jamaal Tatum (SIU)

Robin Lopez (Stanford)

Tim Doyle (Northwestern)

Honorable Mention:
Raymond Sykes (Clemson)


All-Name
Idong Ibok (MSU)

Vaidotas Vokus (Missouri)

Karolis Petrukonis (Clemson)


The ‘Tom Coverdale’ Red-headed Stepchild Team:
Matt Kleinmann (Kansas)

Drew Naymick (MSU)

David Pendergraft (Gonzaga)


You Look Stupid. Period. Team:
Jon Scheyer (Duke) (Really, Jon? It’s like you take your inspiration from John Mayer doing “Your Body is a Wonderland” on stage.)

I’m sure I could have come up with more for this team, but I just was lazy. And, really, Scheyer deserves to be mocked all by himself.

All-Hot Coaches:
Anthony Grant (Virginia Commonwealth)

Jay Wright (Villanova)

Billy Gillispie (Texas A&M) (mostly because it seems that ESPN has dubbed him the most eligible bachelor in college basketball)

Nate Mast (Kansas) (simply for the hilarity factor & hometown favorite)


And a couple bonuses I didn't post anywhere else. :D
Celebrity Lookalikes:
IJKA = Christian Moody (Kansas)

Chris Rock = Kammron Taylor (Wisconsin) (of course)

It's the most wonderful time of the year!!

Ah, March Madness... it's like a warm blanket... :D

Sadly, though, I do not have the time/resources this year to just chuck it all and sit on my couch surrounded by junk food & nonstop college basketball. I am actually working today, but the good news is that my boss is taking us all out for a LOOOONG lunch at BW3 around noonish... hallelujah!!

Tomorrow, I am not working, but I'm leaving for a conference in Evanston at 10 a.m. I have all afternoon to sit around and watch what I can from my computer (PLEASE let the church have WiFi!!). The plan is for Aubrey to pick me up around 5 and we're going to run over to BW3 to watch Illinois play and then I will head back for the remainder of the conference. This means, however, that I will also be missing almost all of the games on Saturday as well. Ugh! Therefore, I have asked Facebook to please send me a final score for each game. That way I will NEVER be completely out of the loop. But, oh, how I will miss the days of sitting on my couch doing absolutely nothing.

So, provided the Illini win tomorrow (6:10 pm CST), we will play again sometime on Sunday. Rest assured, Sunday I will be going to church and then heading straight home to probably spend the rest of my day on my beloved couch with my beloved junk food watching my beloved sport with my beloved laptop right by my side in case I need to get a quick update.

Oh, March Madness. I apologize in advance for being so unfaithful to you this weekend. :( I promise to be better next year and give you my full attention for 4 straight days (it will help that my job will also bless me with additional vacation days next year!) :D

WOOO!! BRING ON THE BASKETBALL! (Oh, and I just received word that my department is leaving at 11:30! That's only 28 minutes from now!!

One last thing... GO ILLINI!

My website is finally getting somewhere!

http://www.hollybirchphotography.com/index.html will be the home page. I still need to create the subpages. What do you think (all 2 of you who have even seen this page)?

I'm not sure I'm sold on the color scheme... and the way I have it set up, it's not very easy to edit often, and I pretty much have to work on it on my work computer. And obviously, since the links don't work, I still need to get those set up. I'm hoping to somehow work on that this weekend. So I might be attempting to write some code! I think I might be able though, so set pages up in Photoshop (sample pages at least) and then create the slices in ImageReady on my work computer next week.

Wish me luck!! :-/

Well it's been an interesting 24 hours.

I actually feel pretty good about the communication that has happened thus far today. The coolest thing was when I was getting really desperate yesterday about it, and I just gave it to God and he answered my prayer in like an hour! Cool. I wish I could give more specifics, but I won't anymore gossip or rumors to be spread about the whole thing.

I'm starting to get really pumped about the Cause Conference this weekend. I'm also freaking about how I'm going to be able to watch the game. The conference officially starts at 7, but the game starts at 6:10. I think I will just have to miss the beginning.

Now I'm off to use my new Macro lens over lunch. There's a guy here at work that wants documentation of his watch collection for insurance purposes. So it'll be fun to play around with my equipment. Woohoo!

Missing bball players at BW3

So in case you were wondering exactly WHERE Jamar Smith and Brian Carlwell were during the game last night, you can rest easy knowing that they were enjoying some $.50 boneless buffalo wings at BW3 in Savoy. It was really odd hearing the commentators talk about them and why they weren't there when they were sitting like 20 feet from me. Personally, I would have stayed at home and avoided any awkwardness and public ridicule, but apparently Jamar is one tough cookie and he decided to enjoy the game with the masses. The whole thing was just really surreal for me. But I digress...

On to Indiana today. Woo!! We can beat the Hoosiers. And we can definitely beat them at the United Center. Sadly, Weber's perfect streak at the UC is going to come to an end this weekend, but we're not going to go down without a fight.

And Chester Frazier going off for 19 points last night? What was that about?! Chester, it would've been nice if you would've shown up for some of our huge B10 conference games. Ugh.

Ok, so after about 23 template changes, I finally settled on one that isn't completely awful and uncustomizable.

Since I said I needed to upload some pics, here are some shots of my recent work:

Stout-White wedding invitation


Artie's Pizza

The Big Ten Tourney starts in less than an hour!!

Are you ready to get your groove on?

That's what the front of the birthday card from my sister said, along with a picture of Napoleon Dynamite dancing.

I don't have a lot to say right at the moment, but I figure that everyone else has Blogspot and my current blog is on Wordpress, so I switched.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow when March Madness begins! (well according to me at least).

I need to get some photos on here.