An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

Seven Time NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion! It must be my year for sports winners. First, my Cubbies lifted the curse and tonight Jimmie Johnson won his Seventh NASCAR Championship. Seven! The only others to do that are Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty. Both names that even people who don't care about NASCAR are likely to recognize. That is impressive company and he has a chance to move ahead of them both if he can get Eight. But, I get ahead of myself. I just want to enjoy Seven. I've been a fan of Jimmie's since his rookie year in 2002. I've told the story many times because it's so quintessentially me. I was dating a guy who was really into NASCAR. Really. Into. So, I thought I would get on the bandwagon so we would have something to enjoy together. During the fall race at Phoenix International Raceway, I started my research. It made sense to pick a rookie so that I would have someone to follow for a long time. It also made sense to pick someone good so I lo...

I’ve been looking forward to yesterday for so long. The last race of the NASCAR season with an incredibly close race was a big part of the excitement. Going to Tucson to see Jim Hoehn in a house concert was a big part of the excitement. It wasn’t until a few days ago that I realized those two events were actually on the same day (even though I knew they were both “on Sunday”) and even crossed the same timeline. Ugh. The race started at 11 AM and the show was at 2 PM. I had the latter in my calendar at noon but that was because that’s the latest time I needed to leave the house. Took me a while to figure that out, too. Man, that two week cold I had really killed some brain cells. I turned on my TV at 11 to catch the start of the race. Only to find my TV flashing a “no signal found” message. WTF? 11 AM on Sunday when football is starting as well as my race and the cable is out! I called into Cox and got a reset on my cable box and, after turning everything on and off a few time...

Social Networking...changing the world. Back in the day (man, that makes me sound old), I suspect a group of us would have headed out to a bar to watch the Gold Medal Olympic hockey game. We would have shared some pitchers of beer, cheered together and consoled each other after the US lost. Some of us would probably have kept an eye on the NASCAR race, too. But, with the advent of high-def, picture in picture, Facebook and Twitter, we can all stay snug in our own abodes while catching every detail of the action and still sharing our excitement and ultimate sadness. Easier on the wallet and the liver, too, as I stayed home and drank Diet Pepsi. I feel sorry for the FB folks who didn't care about the hockey game because pretty much everyone of my friends' Status updates were related to the game. In fact, I got chastised on FB for splitting my time between hockey and the Sprint Cup race because I made a race update. That's how feverish the Olympic intensity was. Despi...

In case you're not up on the Redneck news, Jimmie Johnson won his 4th consecutive Cup Championship on Nov. 22nd. Frakking awesome! I'm still flying. I've been a fan since the end of his rookie season and I couldn't have picked a better guy to root for. Great driver and a good guy. He and his wife (if only he had met me first...) are doing some wonderful charity work and, by all accounts, are decent humans. The final race was pretty stressful. We had a happy hour at Margaritaville at 2 and the race started a little around 1:30. Margaritaville is clear across town so I hopped in the car right before the race started. Trying to listen to that and drive at the same time was a challenge. Especially, since there was an Ironman race in my hood which made a mess of traffic. I was equally worried about JJ wrecking and me wrecking as it took me nearly 15 minutes to get to the freeway which is a mile from my house. I managed to get to Margaritaville without incident and th...

Oy, I feel so badly about not putting consistently witty posts out here. Or, at least consistent posts. I've got lots of them half written in my head but no time to get them posted. Here's what's going on: work, club stuff, poker, Facebook (including Mafia Wars and Pirates), Twitter (oh, that Brent Spiner!), dating, book club, family events (July is a killer - 3 birthdays and my parents' anniversary) and the usual out of town trip that I seem to take every month. Here's what else that I'm not doing because of the above: reading (unless it's for work or book club), watching or even reading about NASCAR, housework, exercising, cooking, watching TV and sleeping. Ah, sleeping. I remember when I was good to go on 6 hours a night. Now, I feel like I'm lucky if I get 5 uninterrupted hours. Another neglected activity is playing with my baby. George doesn't know if I'm coming or going but she knows the going part isn't good. When I am home, it...

I had to leave for chick poker before the race was over. I listened to it in the car but I missed a bit. It was being recorded at home but I asked Morgan to put the race on when I got to their house. Perfect timing - it was on the last lap and I got to see that Jimmie won his third consecutive championship. I was good with that so we turned it off. When I got home tonight, I watched all that I'd missed. It was sweet seeing Jimmie win and I have to give props to Carl Edwards as he did everything he could do to win. He won the race and led the most laps. You can't do anything more than that. Jimmie and Chad just didn't make any mistakes. What an awesome Chase run. I can't wait for next year!

The final race of the season started and I'm a wreck already! Jimmie started 30 th and he said he was going to take it slow to get up to the front. He's not so I hope he's very careful as he moves up. Carl Edwards is the only guy who can beat Jimmie and he's up in the front already as he started fourth. I know it's not at all sporting but I would feel a lot better if Carl cut a tire and went down a lap right away.

I hate football. My Packers lost today. My fantasy team is down 12 points...to a team that was short three players! Man, that is the depth of suckitude . I did miss only one game so far in Pick 'Em (so far). But, that one game was Green Bay so it makes me very sad. But, I had a great afternoon because Jimmie Johnson won today! The 48 team totally rocked. Jimmie won the pole, led the most laps in the race and won. The only driver left with a chance to win the Championship is Carl Edwards as everyone else has been mathematically eliminated. Jimmie needs to finish 36 th or higher next week and it's all over. Can you say three-peat? (BTW, I hope Pat Reilly doesn't read this because I think he's trademarked that word.) It will be awesome to have my driver win three championships in a row, especially since I get so much flack for supporting him. If I had a dollar for every time someone told me he wasn't that good...I could probably cover my mortgage for a month. ...

The DBacks couldn't even hold it together to make the playoffs. The Cubs are horrible. They lost the first two games of the series AT HOME! I guess I'll have plenty of time for NASCAR and football very, very soon.

For some folks, Sundays are the Lord's day, or a day to spend with the family or a day to recover from Saturday night. While I often do the latter, Sunday is Sports day for me. And, what a great Sunday it was! Football I can't tell if I'm becoming a Jets fan or if it's just Favre love or Cardinal's hatred (ok, hatred is a tad strong but I just can't root for that team even though they're from here). But, I was totally into the game yesterday. It didn't hurt that we started Favre and Jets RB Leon Washington. Washington only scored us 6.3 points but we got a whopping 45.56 from Brett. SIX TOUCHDOWNS! Yes, six touchdowns against the Cardinals kind of lessens the impact but still. The man can still play. I must now recant my, "Brett, you retired so stay retired like a man" view with a "Woo-hoo, show those guys you can still play, Brett!" We're going into tonight's game with a 86.86 to 75.98 lead over Crash. We have Hines Ward goin...

There's a bright light in sports for me, despite the Brady debacle. It's time for the Chase! I have ten races to watch Jimmie Johnson go for his third consecutive Championship. I actually missed Sunday's race at Richmond where he got his fourth win of the season. They moved the race time and day because of Hannah and The Rocket Scientist told me it was going to be at 1 on Sunday. Not really thinking about it, I assumed 1 our time so I turned on the TV to find…nothing. Doh! It was 1 EST, 10 our time and the race was over. I hopped on to NASCAR.COM and saw a victorious Jimmie on the home page. That was definitely the sports highlight of the day. By like a 1000% percent. I'm going to be much more diligent on catching the rest of the season. Jimmie's been on fire of late and I expect he's going to tear through the field like he did last year. Go Team 48!

I figure a Michael Phelps reference will come up in just about every sports show for the foreseeable future. It is an amazing happening but also will be another chance for sportscasters to use hyperbole in their commentary. It took 6 laps into the NASCAR race today before Phelps came up. They compared the punk, er, I mean Kyle Bush, to Phelps. That's not a close comparison at all. Yes, Bush is having a stellar season. But, has he broken any records for wins this year? Richard Petty holds the record with 27. Bush's 8 wins is clearly not close. Has he broken any records for wins over his career? Nope. He's only 23 so maybe, some day but that day is a long way off. Ugh. They even went to a graphic with Bush vs. Petty and Phelps vs. Spitz.

Go here . It's an online petition sponsored by Jim Beam to keep Wrigley Field named, well, Wrigley Field. Robby Gordon's paint scheme for tomorrow's race in Chicago will be promoting this, too. That Robby, he's OK. I mean, he's no Jimmie but then who could be?

I got to play Lewie and go with his daughter Ashley to the NASCAR races in Vegas earlier this month. They have great seats and it was my first time to LVMS so I was excited. They have a really cool feature at the Speedway called The Neon Garage. It's a plaza of sorts in the middle of the track and all of the garage spots are spread around it. There are plexiglass windows on two levels so you have a really intimate view of the garage stalls. It should be no surprise that there was a constant crowd by Junior's stall. I'm still trying to reconcile the fact that he's a teammate now. I'm getting close to accepting the situation. The Neon Garage from our seats. The haulers are right outside the driver's stall and we could see the cars drive in and out. The view of the 48's engine from the lower level of The Neon Garage. I never got a good picture of Jimmie nor Chad, dang it. Ashley's favorite driver is Kasey Kahne. It's not just in the Allstate commercials...

I'm not sure exactly how the plan got agreed to but The Rocket Scientist and I made beer today. We've talked about it before and it became an official plan on Friday night. He's got all of the hardware already and went to the brewery place yesterday to get the fixings. The recipe is called Midnight Marzen and it's supposed to resemble Negro Modelo . We cooked it all up while watching the Atlanta race. Good thing I had beer to concentrate on because Jimmie had a rough day which translates into Kathy having a rough day along with a big dose of profanity. Man, his car looked bad and I would have been really gloomy if all I did today was watch the race. Fortunately, I got to play with hops (they look like rabbit pellets), barley, Irish Moss and other assorted grains. It was one big science experiment to me. We have two weeks before we transfer it to a secondary fermenter then another two weeks until bottling. I can't wait to see how it turns out!

There are lots of places that I love to visit time and time again and Vegas is firmly at the top of that list. I find it hard to resist any slight offer to go. The lure of gambling for eight hours at a time is overwhelming. I'm heading off to Sin City tomorrow but I probably won't be doing much gambling at all. Seems a little blasphemous, actually. However, I'm still going to have a blast. Ashley and I are going to the NASCAR races up there. It's one of Jimmie's better tracks so I'm looking for a win for the 48 team. We're also going to see KA . I tried to put in a bid for Spamalot but I don't know of many 16 year old girls who would bite at that one. The gambling urge will still be satisfied this month. Sugar Daddy and I were at our friends' house on Saturday and they said they were going to Vegas on the weekend of the 21st. They suggested we come along. I asked SD if he was free to go and he came back with "I have no life but you...

I found an Onion meets NASCAR website. The articles are hilarious! Check out Black Flagged Online to see what I'm talking about.

I can't help myself - the butterfly is just meant to migrate. I had really good intentions of staying near home this year. I travelled a LOT last year and spent a bunch of money doing it. My focus for 2008 was to put aside some of the cash instead and do some more relaxing near the homestead. Yeah, that plan's not working out so well. This month, I've gone to Tucson (just for an overnight) and spent a long weekend in Rocky Point. Next month, I'm going to Las Vegas for the NASCAR race. Beginning of May brings PHINS To The West in Laughlin At some point, we're planning a music scouting weekend in Southern California. And, today I just booked a flight to Salt Lake City in June. Hey, Lewie's going to be on leave and there was a sale on airfare so why the hell not. I saved $60! Hmmm, wonder what's going on in Minnesota and Iowa?

Today's race at Homestead was soooooo stressful. Jimmie led the first lap so he only had to finish 19th or better to clinch the championship. I had no worries that he would screw it up. I did, however, worry that someone would crash in front of him trying to win the last race of the year. The last ten laps were brutal to watch. Turned out to be a fairly clean race, everyone stayed away from Jimmie and his 7th place finish guaranteed him his second consecutive Championship. Yay! Within few minutes of the race's conclusion, NASCAR.com emailed me an offer to buy Jimmie Championship merchandise. Being the shopper that I am, I ordered a skin for my laptop and a championship t-shirt.

I was originally supposed to go to the races at PIR this weekend but then I thought I would go to San Carlos. Then, I decided not to go to San Carlos but was still going to pass on the races because I am so very busy right now. But, then I got an offer I couldn't refuse. We recently started using FedEx at work for shipping out of our California facility and as a thank you, FedEx gave us two corporate passes and tickets to the Cup race on Sunday. Included in the deal: pit pass tour, race day scanners, seat cushion, food and drink, meet and greet with Denny Hamlin, gift bag which included a tee shirt, hat, die cast cars and race program in addition to the grandstand seats. I asked The Rocket Scientist if he wanted to go with me (of course, he said yes) and I was the crazy one to suggest we leave at 6 AM to miss the traffic. That's way too early for me but it was a good move. We got there in good time and got to spend an hour shopping at the merchandise haulers before the g...