I hope everyone had a great weekend!  The weather was great in New York – a perfect fall weekend.  Unfortunately Michigan lost to Ohio State in football, which first of all is never fun to see, but second of all means that they will not be in a bowl game this year.   It is quite disappointing, but I am sure the team will have some more fire in them next year to bounce back and redeem themselves.   I had a ton on fun watching the games this year with my friends Greg, Laura, and James.  We watched nearly every game together at Shortys, which is on 9^th between 41^st and 42^nd.  Although the season did not go as well as we would have hoped, it was great to spend Saturdays with them.

As Thanksgiving is once again upon us, I find so much to be thankful for over the course of the past year.  With so many troubles going on in our world today, I am very fortunate to have my faith, family, friends, health, a job, and so many great experiences.  I surely do not take it for granted and thank God everyday for the life I have been given.

Tuesday morning I am flying home to spend the Holiday with my family.  Wednesday night  I have my 10 year high school reunion.  I cannot believe it has been 10 years – so many great memories and friends!  It will be great to see my old classmates and reminisce on our Lansing Catholic Central days.  And then after the Turkey Trot on Thursday morning we will head over to St. Gerard to serve Thanksgiving dinner, something we started doing a few years ago and I absolutely love the time we spend there with everyone.  We will then go home and have our dinner together.   

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving!  May we truly recognize just how fortunate we are during these times.  Although everything may not be perfect in our lives (and it never is), we all have so much to be thankful for.

Love,

Joey

I hope everyone had a great weekend!  Well the Spartans are off and running!  The men’s basketball team opened up their regular season play Friday night with a 97-58 victory over Florida Gulf Coast.  For those that may not know, I grew up a HUGE Michigan State Spartan fan, but when it came time to choose a University to study and play soccer at, I ended up down the road at the University of Michigan.  Despite my Green upbringings, I began to love cheering for the Maize and Blue, but there is one Spartan team I will never let of and that is Michigan State basketball.  Of all the teams I cheer for and support – the Red Wings, Lions, Tigers, Pistons, Michigan Football, Michigan Soccer, Manchester United, etc. – Michigan State basketball is definitely my #1 team. 

From my early days in elementary to my days at Michigan, I went to as many Michigan State basketball games that I could.  When they won the National Championship in 2000, I went to all but three games.  At the time I was at University of Detroit-Mercy and drove back and forth to watch the games.  It made for some late nights, but I love that program!

This year Michigan State begins the season as the #2 team in the country, its highest preseason ranking ever.  They are coming off a NCAA National Championship run where they lost to a very strong North Carolina team in the finals, and the excitement for this season could not be higher.  But they face a long tough road to get back to the Final Four which is in Indianapolis this year – the same city that Mateen Cleaves, Morris Peterson and the rest of the 2000 Spartan team won the National Championship.  The Big Ten has a preseason ranking of #1 in terms of conferences in the country, which is great! 

Fortunately many of the State games will be on TV this year so I will be able to follow from out here in New York.  Tuesday they face a very tough opponent in Gonzaga and the game will be on ESPN at 8 pm.  To stay up on all the latest Michigan State Basketball news, go to:

http://www.msuspartans.com/sports/m-baskbl/msu-m-baskbl-body.html

Go Michigan State Basketball! 

I hope everyone has a great week!

Love,

Joey

I hope everyone had a great weekend!  Last week Molly asked me to go to the concert of one of my favorite artists, Ray Lamontagne.  He is an artist from Maine that I found out about a few years ago and been listening to him ever since.  As soon as Molly asked me, I started to watch some of his concert clips on youtube.  He is a bit shy and extremely humble, but really puts on a great concert. 

In addition to watching youtube clips, I also created a Ray Lamontagne station on my Pandora account.  I have been really addicted to Pandora lately and have made a few other stations – Christmas music, James Morrison, Kenny Chesney, Big & Rich, Dave Matthews, etc.  Essentially what you do with Pandora is type in a genre, artist, or song that you like, and it creates an entire playlist of music that is very similar to what you have chosen.

As Pandora describes themselves:

I hope everyone had a great weekend!  Halloween is always a fun time in New York.  I did not go to the parade this year – it tends to get very crazy down in the West Village, but I did see many great costumes.  Some people take it very seriously and spend a lot of time and money putting together their costumes.  I wore my typical Saturday costume – a Michigan football shirt for the game – and it turned out to quite the comical costume after an embarrassing loss to Illinois.  Michigan State had a disappointing game against Minnesota, and the Lions were turned down by the Rams.  Overall, not a great football weekend for me, but the Red Wings had a big win over Calgary despite all their injuries and the Pistons started regular season games last week, as well as MSU who began their basketball exhibition season.  The baseball season could be over as soon as tonight if the Yankees can beat Cliff Lee – should be another great match up. 

Today is All Souls’ Day in the Catholic Church.  It is always on November 2^nd and comes directly after All Saints’ Day.   I found a very thorough explanation of All Souls’ Day on www.churchyear.net :

“All Souls Day follows All Saints Day, and solemnly commemorates the faithful departed, i.e. those who die in God's faith and friendship. Catholics believe that not all those who die in God's grace are immediately ready for the Beatific vision, i.e. the reality and goodness of God and heaven, so they must be purified of "lesser faults," and the temporal effects of sin. The Catholic Church calls this purification of the elect, "purgatory." The Catholic teaching on Purgatory essentially requires belief in two realities: 1. that there will be a purification of believers prior to entering heaven and 2. that the prayers and masses of the faithful in some way benefit those in the state of purification. As to the duration, place, and exact nature of this purification, the Church has no official dogma, although Saint Augustine and others used fire as a way to explain the nature of the purification. Many faithful Catholics, including Pope Benedict XVI, grant that Purgatory may be an existential state as opposed to a temporal place. In other words, Purgatory may be something we experience instantaneously, because it is outside of the confines of created time and space. Many non-Catholics, including C.S. Lewis, have believed in Purgatory, and the official dogma of Purgatory is hardly offensive, even if the popular understanding of it has led to confusion. As a more everyday explanation, many liken Purgatory to a place or state where one gets "cleaned up" before entering into the presence of Almighty God.”

While the reasoning for the day as described above may seem complex, I use All Souls’ Day as a time to remember my family and friends who have passed.  I have been so blessed to have so many great people in my life.  It was very tough to lose some of them, but this day helps remind me that they are still near and of all the great memories I made with them.

So Happy All Souls’ Day!  I hope everyone has a great week!

Love,

Joey

I hope everyone had a great week and weekend.  Last Thursday was my birthday so I spent the end of the week celebrating with some friends.  It was definitely a lot of fun and what means the most to me about birthdays are being able to celebrate that special day with those who are close to me.  Unfortunately I was not able to be home for my actual birthday, but it was great to spend some time celebrating with family last Sunday after the marathon.

However, I was able to open up some gifts from my family in front of them on skype.  For those that do not have it, I would highly recommend downloading skype because it is such a great way to talk and see friends and family.  And as long as the other person has it, the calls are free.  So through skype and the camera on my computer, my parents were able to “be with me” on my birthday.  My company also uses skype for conference calls and I have been able to talk to Juergen all the way in Germany on it.  To download skype, click on the link below:

http://skype.com/

28 was a great year for me and I was definitely able to accomplish some things I had always wanted to do, such as the Marathon.  I also started to play hockey again, which has been a lot of fun and helped me make some new friends in the New York area.  I was fortunate enough to spend two weeks in Germany for work and really got to see what life was like there - My previous trips to Germany were very short, so the 15 day stay was great.  There are so many memories and opportunities that I am so thankful for over the last year, and I hope 29 brings the same. 

Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes and great times over the past year!

I hope everyone has a great week!

Love,

Joey

I hope everyone had a great week.  I finished off my last bit of training for the Detroit Marathon that is coming up on Sunday.  This week I just have a few short runs and rest up for the big day.  It should be a lot of fun to run it with my Dad and Adam.  It is something I have always wanted to do and will be a great personal accomplishment.  Speaking of accomplishments, President Obama achieved a big one last week

“He has done in nine months what many people would take a generation to do.”

                Mohammed Elbaradei, Director of the IAEA

President Obama received some big news on Friday.  The President won the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming just the third President to win the award while in office.  The other two were Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.  Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, but this was obviously after his time in office.  In addition to winning the Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama also receives $1.4 million, which he says he will donate all of it to charity.

"For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman," the committee said, explaining its decision.

While it does not come without controversy, I truly feel that he is well deserving of the award.  The President has arguably tackled more in his first nine months than any other President has had to so shortly into a term.  Many think he did not deserve it and it was only his star power that won him this.  They also President Obama may lose motivation and feel like he has accomplished something already, when in fact he needs to do much more.  I think President Obama’s response to winning the award sums it all up.

"I will accept this award as a call to action," Obama said. "This award must be shared with everyone who strives for justice and dignity."

I am very proud of President Obama and what he has done so far, not only for our country, but for all of mankind.  He works extremely each and every day, and that is more than I can say for many previous Presidents and influential leaders in the world.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Love,

Joey

Regardless of if you are a State or Michigan fan, you have to appreciate the great rivalry in memorable games, including this past Saturday.

I hope everyone has a great week!  GO TIGERS!

Love,

Joey

I hope everyone had a great week!  There were some great football games and the Tiger’s Division Race is making for some very exciting baseball.  They begin a 4 game series with Minnesota tomorrow that will most likely determine who wins the division and makes the playoffs.   It finally happened yesterday – after a winless streak of 19 games the Lions finally won over the Washington Redskins!  After returning to the locker room they gathered for a prayer and then went back out to shake hands with the fans…definitely a class act.  The Red Wings open up their regular season in Sweden with games against the St. Louis Blues on Friday and Saturday, so there is a lot for Michigan to cheer for.

While the sports world helps ease some of the pain of the ongoing issues in Detroit, there is a very sad situation going on.  To my surprise Detroit was on the cover of both Sports Illustrated and Time last week.  The Sports Illustrated article focused on the Tigers and how they have helped provide a distraction.  One of the coolest parts of the article was in reference to what Jim Leyland told the team at the beginning of the year…

“In his first spring training meeting manager Jim Leyland told his players, ‘People are going to be spending some of their last dollars to come to these games, and we need to give them our best effort.  This is not the year not to run out a ground ball.’ “

It is very cool how the players responded and have done a lot for the Detroit community over the course of the season.  This is definitely a great article to read.

Í have not had time to read the entire Time article, but I did read the first bit which Time explains how they are going to approach the situation over the next year.  They bought a house in Detroit where journalists will live while in Detroit writing about what is happening there…

“As a story, Detroit has been misunderstood, underreported, stereotyped, avoided and exploited for decades.  To get it right, we (Time) decided to become stakeholders.  Over the next year, we intend to flood the D-zone with journalists, photographers, videographers, and bloggers from Time, Time.com, Fortune and Fortune.com, CNNMoney.com, Money, and even Sports Illustrated.  Some will live in the house – dubbed the ‘D-Shack’ after Detroit-area native Kid Rock dropped by with a housewarming gift of a Gothic D (for the mantel) plus a keg of his Badass Beer – and others will stay there while reporting.  The house will be a gathering place and a clearing-house, we’ve already had Mayor Dave Bing over for dinner and thrown a lawn party to greet out new neighbors.”

I think it is great that people are doing things like this to hopefully help the situation in Detroit and Michigan and get us in the right direction to rebuild the area.    I hope everyone gets a chance to read both articles.

Happy belated birthday to my Uncle David who celebrated his last Tuesday, and Happy Birthday to my Aunt Gidgie who is celebrating hers today, my Uncle Dick (Wednesday) and cousin Lindsey (Saturday)!

Have a great week!

Love,

Joey

I hope every had a great week!  I had a long weekend because I had to take off Friday.  At work we have a PTO (Paid Time Off) policy that caps your vacation hours out at a certain point.  I was close to the cap so in order to keep accumulating more PTO moving forward I took the day off.  I mostly used it to run some errands and get things done around the apartment that I had been meaning to do.  It was a good football weekend as Michigan had a convincing win against Eastern Michigan, Michigan State had a great game with ND but an unfortunate result, and the Lions teased us for a bit before Minnesota ran away (literally because of Adrian Peterson) with the game.  The Tigers got out of Minnesota with a 3 game lead, which is not too bad.  I was hoping to take 2 out of 3 games there, but we play Minnesota 4 more times in Detroit so it is nice to know that the chance to be in the playoffs is in the hands of the Tigers.  Tonight I am headed to Madison Square Garden to watch the Red Wings take on the Rangers in a preseason match.  So glad hockey is starting back up!

Also this past week Dan Brown released his newest book, The Lost Symbol.   I have not gone to get it yet because I want to finish a few books I have been meaning to complete, but I am definitely hoping to start it soon.  Dan Brown is one of the most accomplished authors today.  Dan Brown is best known for writing The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, but has also authored Deception Point and Digital Fortress.  Of his books, I have only read The Da Vinci Code, but I absolutely loved it and really enjoyed how he wrote it.  He ended up selling over 80 million copies of that book. 

Because the book was released last week, Dan Brown was getting a great deal of attention in the media.  The Today Show did an interview on him that I watched and it was very interesting.  The interview was conducted in an area of Dan Brown’s house where he had copies of his book in every language that they have been sold in, which is over 51.  So needless to say, his popularity spans worldwide. 

The Lost Symbol  takes place in Washington DC.  Below is a brief synopsis of the novel from Barnes and Noble…

“Lost Symbol is a masterstroke of storytelling -- a deadly race through a real-world labyrinth of codes, secrets, and unseen truths . . . all under the watchful eye of Brown's most terrifying villain to date. Set within the hidden chambers, tunnels, and temples of Washington, D.C., The Lost Symbol accelerates through a startling landscape toward an unthinkable finale.”

To learn more about Dan Brown you can visit his own web page at:

http://www.danbrown.com

And to purchase The Lost Symbol as well as other books in his collection, you can click on the following Barnes and Noble link:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/Dan-Brown-The-Lost-Symbol-Da-Vinci-Code/379001184/?cm_re=Gateway%20B-_-F2-_-Pod%20A&cds2Pid=16444

I hope everyone has a great week!

Love,

Joey