charlesbreland.com

ok, where to start? hmmmm, dietze and i drove down on thursday. all was normal until we got to orlando…..at which point we ran out of gas. i had mistakenly thought that my car was green-friendly, and it being a sunny day, had assumed that solar power would take me all the way there. however, my car does indeed still run on fossil fuel. the neat part, however, was that after a school bus honked at me and i pulled over on the roadside; within 30 seconds a truck with yellow lights flashing, and a man flashing a yellow smile showed up to hook me up with some gas. it was basically like an in-flight refueling and i got two gallons of free gas.

once we arrived, we went to a thursday night game – ozzies against the venezuelans. the venezuelans had obvious talent

but the ozzies were stacked too

so we knew it was going to be a good matchup.

one highlight of the game was that we got to see the worst jersey of all time

the crowd was awesome and they loved us.

that venezuelan in the front is actually my cousin ronnie.

here we are with all of our friends again.

coming into this game, all i knew about venezuela was red wine, oil and hugo chavez (hence my trademark “viva chavez!!” cheer which drew mixed response). however, things went pretty well until bp began to incite a riot

even jeff got swept up in the revolutionary tide!

what i learned was that the venezuelans also REALLY love to play music and dance, but more than that, they REALLY REALLY loved to have their picture taken. i’m not kidding. there was no shortage of people any time a camera came out. i would love to see if this holds true in venezuela as well. it might be the best place in the world to take party shots.

anyway, here’s my video tribute to the venezuelans.

DRAFT DAY 2…..TO BE CONTINUED

All right, here are some photo’s of Brian Folse’s movie party – the premise; everyone dresses up like a character from a movie. btw, this party was held on folse’s birthday, but he denies having thrown himself a self-birthday party and instead insists it was just a scheduling conflict. anyway on with the pics….

that’s my boss and his wife. alison (spelling??) has flair. dave? not so much. however, to be completely clear, that is a bagel in his pants and he is not just happy to see you.

here’s em and me.

it was a stretch, but i went as “the jerk.” em was legally blonde. on a related note, who knew from watching “legally blonde” what an amazing performance reese would turn in as june carter cash? i think the male equivalent would be following up a “liberace” bio-pic with one about winston churchill.

and now a video of some people who aren’t necessarily good dancers.

speaking of dancing, here’s one from after my company christmas party of a couple of people you may recognize. jessica and emily are, of course, professionally trained hip hop/r&b dancers. dave is wearing the remnants of an “irish car bomb” on his shirt. mmmmmm, tasty!!

Sam is receiving full media coverage over at www.curfman.net, but i figured we should also give him some play here as well. here are some of sam’s bday photos.

here ma, pa, and baby sam hang out in anticipation of the next good nose cleaning

here i am teaching him to signal a touchdown (or a made field goal or pat). sam quickly picked this up, as he knew the importance of being ready for spring football practice.

to be completely fair though, it did take him a couple of weeks to learn the difference between offsides and illegal procedure – but i don’t think that’s anything to worry about.

one last pic of mom and baby here.

sam is now about 6 weeks old and is currently 5 feet tall.