I'm Blessed

Montreat, NC

The only bad thing about an excellent weekend is that it makes the Sunday night blues even bluer.

Oy Vey...

What a week for heartbreaking events, huh? First my dream-crush goes and gets engaged and then my beloved Sooners don't show up for their season opening game. I even made the trip to Dallas this past weekend - ready to cheer them on to victory! Little did I know what I was in for...

I've never considered myself a superstitious person (in the words of Michael Scott, I'm only a little-stitious). So while the fact that OU shockingly lost the last season opener I attended back in 2005 against TCU (another Mountain West Conference team) did cross my mind, I immediately dismissed it as coincidence. I even wore my OU mardi gras beads that I've worn for every big game watching party even though we've lost almost all those big games recently. There's no such thing as an unlucky necklace, right? My presence at the season opener didn't cause us to lose, right? This is the Sooners chance at redemption against the Mountain West - playing #20 BYU while we sit happily at #3, surely we will win, right?

Wrong, wrong, wrong. It was a terrible performance by the Sooners only to be outdone by a terrible occurrence right before halftime. As I'm sure you know by now Heisman winning quarterback Sam Bradford went down hard with a sprained AC shoulder joint. Out for the second half and 2-4 more weeks...Heartbreak times three. Then today it was announced our best tight end, Jermaine Gresham is out for the season with a knee injury...heartbreak times four.

If you would like to sympathize with me and read more on the extent of the disaster that is the 2009 college football season you can click here to read an article that cautiously questions how much worse it can get for the Sooners. Or you can click here for details on how we're going to try to piece together a new team.

It's safe to say it would take a miracle turnaround from Saturday's performance for the Sooners to be in the National Title hunt this year, especially without their two star players. I've accepted the fact that this will likely be a rebuilding year for my Sooners. It's coming earlier than expected but it's not avoidable - every program has to rebuild at some point. After several mental pep talks I've also started to think it could be nice to be the underdog in big games this year, maybe we can pull of an upset or two? Fingers crossed that at least one upset will come against the terrible longhorns on October 17.

To end on a positive note, here's some pictures of the amazing Dallas Cowboys Stadium. It really is incredible, especially the sideline JumboTron screens. I think they should rename them to massive-ridiculously-large screens...it's more fitting.

Endzone shot, normal JumboTrons on these ends, retractable roof

Poor Sam...but this picture does highlight how large the side screen is!

"The Pride of Oklahoma" (our band)...the leader does this crazy back-bend-while-walking thing before the game when leading the band out. It's really quite impressive

Yay for the Sooner Schooner!

So this isn't at the stadium but it was in front of a house in our neighborhood, you don't see that very often in Charlotte so I had to take the photo opp. Maybe my roommates would go for this in front of our house?

I Heart NY!

In honor of David Letterman I thought the best way to summarize my weekend trip to NYC would be a Top Ten list. I present: Top Ten Reasons I Loved my Weekend in NYC

10. The shopping, specifically H&M, Top Shop, and Canal St. (despite the rain)

9. The food - I definitely recommend Penelope's, SaraBeth's, Tramonti, Barbounia, and Magnolia Bakery for future trips. Here are the cupcake options at Magnolia:

8. The bold and aggressive waiter that hit on Kelli throughout our entire meal at Tramonti, I wanted her to go for it to (a) possibly get us a free dinner or (b) possibly get us a free place to stay in an Italian villa I'm sure he owned. Sometimes you gotta take one for the team...I'm just sayin'. (unfortunately no picture of waiter Michael was captured)

7. The never disappointing people-watching opportunities! Such a diverse city, here's batman on his bike-mobile, I'm applaud his decision to go green and dump the bat-mobile.

6. Using my new camera that takes awesome pictures! I think you can only appreciate a good camera after you have endured a not so good camera for some time. This was my first vacation with the Sony W-290 and I love it, here's one of my favorite pics from the weekend:

5. The Easter "parade" of crazy hats and seeing the Easter bunny ice skate in Rockefeller Center. The "parade" wasn't so much a parade but more like lots of people sauntering around in hats in the street. This was my favorite hat:

4. Seeing Clay Aiken's back! Here's the conversation that took place as walked right by us:

Kelli: That's Clay Aiken
Me: Oh yeah, it kind of looks like him
Kelli: No it's really him
Me: What? Dangit he's getting away!

I tried running after him to get a pic but since I was running the picture is blurry, here is his back:

3. Seeing the amazing Lauren Graham in Guys and Dolls. Here's her name on the cast listing on the wall in the theater:

2. Getting to finally experience Wicked! It was amazing and did live up to the hype and yes Kelli I'm sure it changed my life somehow.

1. Catching up with old friends, meeting new ones, and the overall excellent travel partners I got to experience the weekend with!