Isn't this a kick in the teeth?

Looks like Baylor is losing one of its top recruits. G.J. Kinne had verbally committed to Baylor, but is now going back on that commitment and committing to the University of Texas. That's bad enough (as a good Baylor girl, I have no love lost for the Longhorns). But G.J.'s father, Gary Joe Kinne (who played at Baylor back in the day), is a Baylor coach. Talk about adding insult to injury. One of Kinne's high school teammates from Gilmer has also withdrawn his verbal commitment to Baylor.

And the perplexing thing is, UT's got a good quarterback in Colt McCoy, who will likely be the starter for the next three years or so. Sure, they just lost a backup QB, and one of their commitments fell through. But UT has another commitment from a top-rated QB prospect, and a good redshirt freshman QB already on the team. Realistically, what are the odds of G.J. ever starting a game as quarterback at UT? Maybe he sees some possibilities there that the general public doesn't, but it seems to me that playing as the starter for most if not all of your college career, even if your team doesn't win all the time or go to big bowl games, gives you a lot more opportunity to show the NFL what you've got than being the third- or fourth-string quarterback at a nationally ranked school.

And as if Christmas wasn't good enough...

The Saints win in fine fashion. It does my heart good to see them having such a good season.

How 'bout those Saints?

The Saints beat the Cowboys!

This makes me unreasonably happy. I don't post a whole lot about sports, but I'm from Louisiana - I'll be a Saints fan until I die, good, bad or ugly. And I used to like the Cowboys, but generally lost respect for the team and the owner during the Michael Irvin era - I mean, when you turn on the local news and every day it's a different story about some Cowboy or other being busted for drugs or something equally negative, you tend not to think too highly of them. So it just makes me happy to see the Saints give the Cowboys a good old-fashioned heinie whooping.

I'm telling you, one year the Saints *will* go to the Super Bowl. Oh yes, they will.

Maybe not this year

Shawn Bell is out for the season - he tore his ACL in Saturday's game against A&M. So, maybe no bowl game for Baylor this year after all. But, at least this season people have been able to mention "Baylor" and "bowl game" in the same sentence without it being a derogatory comment, so that's progress. There's always next year, right?

SIC 'EM BEARS!!!

This past weekend was Homecoming at Baylor, and Brian and I went. And what a weekend it was!

The game started out pretty slow - fairly crappy, in fact. Baylor scored first, then proceeded to play like a bunch of tiny girls until nearly halfway through the fourth quarter. Kansas led 35-17 at halftime, and Baylor was playing like their hearts just weren't in it - looking ahead to next week's game against Texas A&M, perhaps, or just not in the game. Whatever the reason, they stunk it up pretty badly. The third quarter wasn't looking to be any big improvement, and after a KU interception, the mass exodus began. Baylor fans were leaving in droves. Brian said we could stay or go, either way. I told him not to be silly, that of course we were staying.

And boy, were we glad we did! I don't know what happened, but with 10:38 left to play in the fourth quarter and it beginning to look like the Bears were out of it and we'd take another Homecoming butt-kicking, things started happening. Completed passes and blocks and yardage, oh my, and Baylor had fought back to make the score 35-30 with 4:48 left. Kansas went 3 and out, and Baylor took over on their own 42-yard line. We scored the winning touchdown with 1:08 left, and the remaining fans went wild. Kansas had already used all three of their timeouts, and then challenged the touchdown. I'm not sure that should have been allowed, as they had no timeouts left to lose when they made the challenge, but it was, and the fans were pissed. Didn't matter, though - the touchdown stood, Baylor's defense held for the last couple of plays, and WE WON!!!!

So, it was a huge, huge game. Here's the official story:

Baylor Edges Kansas in Comeback Victory

Baylor came back from being down by 18 points to score three times while keeping KU from scoring at all. We won on Homecoming. We've got a .500 winning percentage at a much later point in the season than we have in recent years. And for the first time ever, we've won three Big XII conference games. I think any team would be foolish to go into a game thinking of Baylor as an easy win, and I think this Saturday's game proved that abundantly. Our offense can score (Shawn Bell passed for 394 yards, and we had two receivers with 100-yard games), our defense can defend, and we can dig ourselves out of a pretty big hole. Anyone out there like to take us for granted? Go ahead. We are no longer the Big XII's whipping boy, so bring it on.

Oh, Aggies - y'all ready for next week? I do believe y'all beat us last year, and I think perhaps some payback is in order.

So...

It's been a while since I posted. My home computer is unworkable at the moment, and I'm trying to repair it without the need for taking it in for actual repairs that I have to pay for. I've got one more thing to try, and if that doesn't work, I may have to admit defeat and pay up for repairs. I just want all my pictures recovered. Everything else, I'm not so concerned about.

Work continues. We had a visit with the big, big, big boss last week - I think this is the first time I've seen him in my 2 1/2 years with the company. It was a short meeting, 30 minutes for him to talk and take questions. I'm no more confident about the way things stand here now than I was before that meeting.

Quarterly reviews are coming up, sometime before the end of the month. Performance reviews never made my stomach churn at any other job I've had. This one, just the thought of it makes me want to hurl.

I've been working on my enrollment for benefits for next year. My health insurance premium for me and J has gone up $26 per paycheck. With all the other little increases in the cost of our benefits, I'll be paying about $84 more each paycheck for the privilege of having the same coverage. As I've not gotten a raise and don't expect to get one, this means I'll effectively be taking a pay cut of just over $1,000 next year. Yay.

As if that wasn't reason enough to find a new job, now there's more than just a financial motivation. I've been on my two blood pressure meds for a while now, and have been taking them pretty faithfully. I've been checking my blood pressure at home. On two different days last week, taking my meds, after a day at the office, my readings were 140/105 and 136/101. YIKES. WITH the two meds. Yesterday, after taking a sick day to stay home with J, who'd been up since 4 AM and was jumping up and down on my last nerve, my reading was 117/85. Pretty darn close to normal there, even on a day that was less than relaxing (just not spent in the office). Hmm. Coincidence? I think not. So, now there's also a health motivation for finding a new job. I will not be the next heart patient at my workplace, thankyouverymuch.

And yeah, I was home with J yesterday - he woke up around 4 AM with a nasty, goopy cough that kept him from settling down and going back to sleep, and running fever of 101. So we just got up and went to see his doctor when she opened shortly after 7:00. Surprise surprise, it's a sinus infection. I figured that's what it was. Ten days of antibiotics, and hopefully we'll stay well for a bit. We stayed home yesterday in the nasty, soggy, rainy weather. He was tired - he was asleep by 8:30 last night, and I was asleep by 9:00.

Now I'm trying not to get sick. I've got the sinus ook going on, and I feel kind of lightheaded. I can't get sick, I have plans this weekend - it's Baylor Homecoming!

Speaking of Baylor, we may have lost this past weekend, but I'm proud of our team. We did way better against UT this year than we did last year, and even though we lost, I still think 31 points against an opponent as tough as UT is nothing to sneeze at. Sic 'Em Bears!