Let the Journey Begin!

Tomorrow we start our cross country road trip from California to Kentucky!  I am very excited about moving to KY but am a little unsure about the trip itself.  We are taking two cars so we are each driving our own car out there which means I will have to drive all 2400 miles of it.  I've never driven on a long road trip like this before, I've been the passenger but never the driver.  I don't think I'll have a problem with it and we aren't doing ridiculously long days or anything like that so I hope it will be ok, but it will be one more brand new experience for me!

I will try and do a post each night especially if we go and see something exciting, but that will also depend on what time we get in in the evening and if I have wifi at the hotel.  I'm hoping this is a good way for everyone to keep up with where I'm headed!

I've got 5 books on tape (some Lee Child, Harlem Coben, Tina Fey, Chelsea Handler, and Jane Austin), a couple leftover podcasts, and hopefully I can listen to a bunch of college football over the first couple days.

Any tips and suggestions for a long cross country drive? Any must see places (we'll mostly be on 40 for the first few days once we get to Vegas)?

I'm back, and so much to talk about!

 Been a while, time for some updates:

Well I took a slight break form blogging to attempt NaNoWriMo.  Unfortunately, I didn’t complete the 50,000 words during the month of November, but I did complete just over 10,000!  Even though that number isn’t huge it’s the most I’ve ever put into one story and I feel like I have much more I want to write to finish the story, so in a way I do feel like a winner and am happy I attempted it!  Another part of the reason I did it was to help support Rob with his, but he fell apart about halfway through the month, I’m upset I didn’t try to continue to encourage him. I really hope he picks up his story again, like I plan to with mine.

The next (and probably biggest) new thing in my life is that I am moving!  I got offered a temporary job assignment and decided to accept it.  It is in Kentucky, which is a far cry from Oakland, CA, but I’m excited.  All the moving and packing is stressing me out, but living in a new place and working on a new project should be worthwhile.  The assignment will last 6-12 months and then the plan is head back to Oakland where I’ve been working for the past 4 years. 

On my last day at work in Oakland I was pretty sad to leave my office.  I’ve been there for almost 4 years and it was my first job since college so it’s all very strange to be leaving.  I’ve been in Kentucky for two weeks now and I’m heading back home for a few weeks for Christmas.  Then Rob, Angel and I are driving all the way across the country to set up home in Lexington, KY.  I’m ready to live somewhere new so I think this will be a good move for me, but at the same time I really loved everything about Oakland (except the cost of living) so I’m sure there will be a lots I will miss.

I’ve already found a place to rent!  It’s a house, which is a huge deal for us.  It’s so expensive to rent a house in California so it’s nice that we can afford one in Kentucky.  It is a perfect size for two people and we finally get to have a yard for Angel.  I’ve already been scoping out the local restaurant scene and getting advice on places to try.  One of my biggest fears was that there would only be chain restaurants, and at first glance that’s how it appeared.  But after talking to others it sounds like there are lots of local gems and I can’t wait to find them!

In other news, Michigan football had a tremendous season!  They ended the regular season at 10-2 with a win over ohio!!!  That hadn’t happened since my freshman year of college, so it was a nice weight finally lifted off our shoulders.  Our coach, Brady Hoke, was also named the B1G coach of the year, and very deservedly so.  I’m so excited about this team in the future and am proud as always to be a Michigan Wolverine.  We are headed to the Sugar Bowl against Virginia Tech.  I’ll do a more in depth bowl preview as they get closer, but just having Michigan in a BCS bowl is beyond awesome!

So that’s a lot new for me, wish me luck in my move (did I mention how crazy my life is?)  I’ll keep you all updated on my new life in Kentucky!

Football Tuesday (I know, just a little late): The Crazy Big Ten

I wanted to get one more post done before I get super involved with NaNoWriMo (which I’ve started, yay!).  I hope to keep updating the blog, but we’ll see how this month goes with all the other writing I’ll be doing.

So the last time I talked about college football I hyped up Wisconsin. Since then, they’ve lost two games in a row...yeah...so apparently my hype is the kiss of death, awesome.  For a while it looked like Wisconsin was going to run away with the big ten, win their division and totally out play the other team in the championship game.  Well, that might not happen now that they’ve lost two games. 

There are all kinds of different scenarios that would play out, causing lots of possible combinations of teams playing for the Big Ten Championship.  The teams left in the race on the Legends side are Michigan (yay!), Michigan State, Nebraska and Iowa (although after losing to Minnesota I can’t see them making it). And on the Leaders side are Penn State, Wisconsin, and Ohio State. 

kinda what it feels like...

I’ll only get into how Michigan can get there.  Mostly, they have to win out and hope Michigan State loses one more conference game.  There are some crazy scenarios if Michigan loses another game it would have to be cross division (Illinois or OSU) and hope that Michigan state loses a division game.  Michigan can’t lose to Iowa or Nebraska if they want a shot at the championship game.

All of these weird losses in the Big Ten just show that it isn’t the strongest conference out there.  This makes me sad, because the Big Ten is my favorite conference (obviously!) and its hard for others to give them respect when they can’t earn it. 

As for the rest of the country.  The big showdown is this weekend between LSU and Bama, should be a good game the only downside of it is that its on CBS.  Not sure what it is about college football on CBS but its just not as good as ESPN or ABC, I don’t feel like they capture all the greatness that is college football. 

As for the other unbeatens, it would be fun to see Stanford go undefeated and get the chance to play for a national championship (since I live close to their campus).  I think Oklahoma State will lose a game and I don’t see Boise State dropping one but if there are already two unbeatens then I don’t see them getting a shot at the title game.  However, if the only two unbeaten teams left are an SEC champ and Boise State I think Boise should definitely get the chance to play for a national championship over a one loss team.

Hopefully I’ll get a post out this Friday but no promises (that whole NaNoWriMo thing might be taking up all my free time).