The madness begins!

The past couple of days have been somewhat stressful as I mauled over our plans for this week. Splitting from my wife is not an easy decision to make, but abandoning the hospital in a time of need is a difficult thing to do. I can remember wanting to be in a such a place when Katrina hit. Being in such situations brings a different person to the surface. What are you capable of, and can you make a difference in a time of crisis? Two questions that may be answered over the next couple of days.

Anyway, Karen, LG, Jack, and Maggie are safe in Shreveport. It only took seven hours to get there...I think.


After watching the devastation that hurricanes can cause I decided to do some serious "hurricane preparation". Matthew, Michael, and I spent a handful of hours boarding up the Gard compound. In addition to the plywood work I decided to have two of the pines taken down...which led to the destruction of our wooden fence, but at least the chances of our house getting crushed is lessened tremendously!

You see, deClouets can be handy!

Hurricane Gustov : The Preparation

Karen is heading to Shreveport tomorrow as I stay and face the mighty Gustov...from the third floor of Opelousas General in the ICU. I'll be holed up there from Monday morning until the storm passes (assumptions are that I'll be there through Thursday).

Karen, Jack, and Maggie are heading to meet up with LG and Tom in Shreveport where they will stay hunkered down until the weather clears.

Tomorrow is a board-up-the-house day as I'll be watching two of our pine trees be taken down. Better to shell out the cash now than to regret it later!

Fantasy Crack VI...The Draft

The sixth annual Fantasy Crack Football league began this past Saturday with the infamous draft being held at the Albarodo compound. A beer fest has been the norm for the past couple of years, and this year was no different as each member brought a six pack of some micro-brewery beer. Usually a good time as people get out of hand, and draft day blunders ensue.

The winner of the best six pack went to Montes who came equip with two Budweisers, two Shiner Bock, and a bottle of water...not even a six pack. Albo is displaying the evidence below.

Montes' proud 5-pack.

Colby was the mastermind behind our draft display.

John enjoying the corn. Makes you wonder where the plates are.

The champ with his minions.

John and Mongo are on a team together. Despite owning 1/20 of the league John still demanded rule changes and voting. He'll never have his own team acting like that.

My stache!

Albo may have recorded the most draft-day blundwers as the past champion drafted Brandon Jacobs in the 1st, Marvin Harrison in the 4th, and Terry Glenn in the 11th. A bit of a reach, and it looks as though Albo will be participating in this years league as much as Terry Glenn will...but he is still the champ!

In the middle of the draft, as if there was not enough drunk talk going around, Clayton decided to spice things up by daring to eat a semi-live cicada. As if no one would call his bluff. There were twelve drunk gamblers in the room looking for entertainment. What ensued was a ten minute ordeal which ended in Clayton eating the insect for $50, and later vomiting it. All of the mayhem was caught on camera, but Clayton, unfortunately, erased it later in the evening. Believe me, it happened!

One more plus was that I decided to shave handlebars into my face. Kept it for a few days, but am now cleanly shaven. Karen loved it!

As the draft wrapped up I found myself with a pretty good team. Let me know how you feel. I'll be keeping updates on this during the season as it pretty much consumes my life for the rest of the year.

Starters in bold:

QB - Drew Brees, Phillip Rivers
RB - Ladanian Tomlinson, Ryan Grant, Ronnie Brown, Ricky Williams, Brandon Jackson
WR - Roy Williams, Bobby Engram, Bernard Barrian, Reggie Brown, Jabar Gaffney, and Darrel Jackson
TE - Tony Gonzales
K - Gosykowski
Def - San Diego

Louisiana Bayou

A little DMB to start off this Friday is only fitting. Special guest Robert Randolph has a hard time sitting through the jam session. Pretty sweet tune. Hope everyone has a good weekend, and wish me luck as tomorrow begins the seventh fantasy crack season with a beer fest at Albo's. It's going to be great!

Leroi Moore (September 7, 1961 - August 19, 2008)

The Dave Matthews Band was one of the first bands with whom I identified with late in high school and throughout college. Their lyrics are truly inspirational and their instrumentals are second to none. I guess it's no wonder that they continue to be one of the most sought after concerts year in and year out. A handful of my friends would religiously travel to the Woodlands to see them every summer for a five year period. It was at one of these shows that I had told Karen I loved her for the first time. Definitely some great memories.

Their saxophonist, Leroi Moore, unexpectedly passed away yesterday after recovering from an ATV accident. He was a founding member of the band, and could go off on an instrumental melody like no other. While I haven't been as drawn to them as I have in years past, I want to say that I was still strangely moved when I heard the news. Anyway, a sad and unfortunate day for all who appreciated his music.

Happy Birthday Sr.

Just wanted to tell Mark Sr. "Happy Birthday." Today is the only day of the year when all of your enfants' quit asking you for something (for those of you who are questioning this statement, yes, we bother him on Father's Day). Definitely a well deserved day, and I hope you enjoy it.

See you this evening for dinner.

Recon at the pool this past week.

Back to everyday life...

Well, we're back from vacation, and settling back into everyday life. The GGCC ended on a high note as my poor golf game won second place in the team competition...thanks to the brackets. Below are a few pics from the awards ceremony, and here is a link to the flickr account pics from the week.

The background to the awards stage is what this tournament is all about...striving to be as good as Tiger. Probably the funniest part of the night.

My award for second best team. Thanks John for shooting well for 2/3 of the tournament.

Too literal John. You are not Tiger.

Newbie, Michael Rich, accepting his award for second in the individual category.

And now back to everyday life.

GGCC

The GGCC might have had the shortest tournament on record this year as only 27 holes were played. Today we battled torrential rains that would have challenged the sanity of any golfers, but we are deClouet's who battled on...through the first nine.

I have a feeling that tournament newbie Michael Rich may have ran away with the individual, but we'll get back to that after tonight's awards ceremony.

After enduring a round with Big Mark, I found myself sitting next to Paul for the final nine. Talk about self destruction, but it was fun!

James completed our threesome. Unfortunately for him he was succombed by stupidity as he ran over his brand new umbrella after the first tee shot.

A better look!

A lot of this number through the round. Paul, it's all about fun, fellowship, and relaxation!

Sr. only shot two strokes better than me on today's nine. Not good.

The brave 13!

Orange Beach

The past four days have been spent in Orange Beach with the deClouet clan for the Greater Gulf Coast Invitational. It's a golf tournament that the chairman (Uncle Mike) has put on for the past 21 years in honor of our my Uncle David. Seven days of beach activity mixed in with two rounds of competitive golf make for a ton of fun, fellowship, and relaxation. Below are some pics about the beach activity. Golf will be included in a later post.

I think that I hit a milestone with Kate. She sat on my lap for thirty minutes without crying. Definitely considered to be buds as oppossed to enemies.

Albo and James sippin' on a cold one. Albo is currently in a coma from yesterday. Someone get out the defibrillator.

Jeanne and Paige catching some rays. Some exciting news about Jeanne to come in a later post.

Albo one step closer to that coma. John is putting on sun-screen for the third time that day...and it was only noon!

Matthew talking trash about his great golf game. Wonder how he shot today?

Will and John. Will and his wife Carlee domintated a new beach game, "beach golf." I believe they won seven times in a row before skipping town in the middle of the night. People were looking for rematches today, but the champs were not to be found...pretty shady!

Michael and Karen

Wish you were here Mike and Amy. Hope things are going well with Jack.

USA Basketball

I don't know what add agency created this commercial, but Nike never ceases to amaze. I don't think I can recall a better performed national anthem. Marvin was hitting on all cylinders in '83.

Can't wait to see the US bring home some gold after coming up short the last couple of opportunities. First game is August 10th at 9:15 a.m. Better set up the DVR.

The full version of Marvin displaying the pipes at the 1983 All-Star game:

A new form of transportation.

After Karen was inspired by a CBS reporting on the use of bicycles in Portland, Oregon (see below) we decided to ride our bikes to dinner Wednesday night. Not only did it make the trip more enjoyable, but we actually did a little work for our food. I'll be the first to say that I am in somewhat decent shape, but riding a bike from the house to my parents and then to Cafe Roma was a bit of an undertaking for the legs.

Just when you forgot she existed...

...Paris Hilton returns to the front page:

Going to New York

Karen and I have booked a trip trip New York to watch the Yankees play one of their final games at Yankee Stadium . Michael, Ellen, Will, and Carlee will be joining us for the weekend of September 19th to attend the Friday night game vs. the Orioles...wish you could be there Albo. It's going to be great.

Below is a poorly cropped computer-animated picture of the view from our seats, and if it rains we'll be covered.

The Dark Knight

Karen and I saw The Dark Knight on Saturday, and as it ended I found myself amazed at how great the movie was. Not only was it filled with action, explosions, and intense car scenes (motorcycle), but the dialogue and the story was tremendous. It left me on the edge of my seat for 2.5 hours. Not once did I get up to relieve myself, and a bottle of wine prior to the show was calling my name the whole time.

I had only known Heath Ledger for his ability to pull a certain young-female driven crowd to the theater, but his performance as the Joker left me in awe. I had forgotten that who he was as a person, and was completely taken over by the character. That's a rare thing for an actor of his caliber, but maybe the make-up helped. Anyway, he was great. I believe he rivals Jack Nicholson in his performance. It's unfortunate we won't have the opportunity to see him work like that again.

Enlightened

John was right. I feel as though I have had something missing for the past year-and-a-half, and now I am complete. Having the i-phone is absolutely incredible...even though I haven't had the time to figure out everything about it (one has to make a living)!

Anyway, yesterday I realized that you can play your i-pod without earphones and the sound quality that comes from the speaker is pretty good, so at the end of my shift(around 5:00) I was doing a lot of busy work in one of my sedated patient's room when I decided to play a little Josh Ritter to get through the rest of the day. A little soft music never hurt anybody. I turned on the ipod speaker, and let "Dry Spells, Hard Times" play from my back pocket. A co-worker walked in my room to give me a hand, and was completely surprised by the music.

The I-Phone is awesome! Hope everyone has a good weekend (especially Mike and Amy). A little Ritter to start the day. Definitely a great song.

"The Temptation of Adam"