WINNING

Haven't posted in a long while. I guess I've been inspired by Charlie Sheen, I need to start WINNING!

Speaking of winning, I am now psyched for the Phillies. It is Spring Training, we have one of the greatest pitching squads in history, and despite not winning the World Series, won 97 games last year, and are poised to be just as good, and maybe with better pitching this year!

I could go on for a while about the Phils. They've been following the plan of WINNING! for several years now. I was at the Roy Halladay playoff no-hitter last year, which will be an amazing memory of mine for a long time to come.

Anyway, follow me on twitter (@gbert), and follow Charlie (@charliesheen), and keep on WINNING!


-G

Hey there! If anyone wants to call me, just click below. (Google Voice is so cool)....

Talk to you soon!

-G

The Eagles Win, The Eagles Win, The Eagles Win!!!!!

Being an Eagles fan is VERY often disappointing. This year, we've had our share of that.

But today....

today.....

EVERYTHING went our way! If you don't know the details, we had to have the following go our way to make the playoffs:

1) Oakland had to beat Tampa Bay (this is big). Oakland, with a whopping 4 wins (now 5) this year, was going in to beat Tampa in Tampa when they were playing to keep themselves in the playoff hunt. Not likely, huh? WRONG!!! Oakland wins!!!!!

2) Houston had to beat Chicago (again, Chicago playing for their playoff hopes). Done! Thank you Houston!

3) Not needed, but if #2 failed us, Minnesota would have had to lose. Don't worry about this, because 1 and 2 did happen!

4) We have to win against Dallas. We'll get to this later.

Going into the game, we had our "help" and it was a simple formula, Eagles win, they're in. Dallas wins, they're in. Loser goes home.

Long story short, it was exhausting to count all the times Dallas coughed up the ball, and let us score and score...and SCORE!!

Final score....44 to 6! As my friend Sean and I started in a sports bar, watching all the early games "go our way", and then watch us absolutely crush and embarras Dallas, there are not many days that have gone better for the Eagles.

Wow....absolutely EVERYTHING went the Eagles' way today. That's rare.

So....on to Minnesota to start the 2008 playoffs. Whatever happens next week, we'll always remember the AMAZING day Eagles fans had that day!

Go Birds!!!!

It's a Christmas (er, well, Hanukkah) Miracle!!!

Hello there holiday fans! I had one of the funner (I say that's a word!) holiday experiences as of late. It was me (in my Santa hat) and my wife Holly (perfect first name for Mrs. Claus, dontcha think?) in my 210 horse open sleigh (a 2001 red Toyota Solara convertible), bringing a gift to a couple of our Jewish friends and their wonderful kids on, you guessed it, Christmas Eve!

We were driving our sleigh up the New Jersey Turnpike (don't worry...Santa has E-Z-Pass), to drop off gifts for Holly's aunt and uncle to distribute to the grandparents the following day (Santa and Mrs. Claus had other plans for Christmas day). So, in the same neighborhood, live some of our Christmas-deprived Jewish friends, Dan, Meryl, Aaron and Maia. Hi guys! (They're also some of my band of few, but growing, faithful readers).

We had cookies with us that I had baked back at the workshop in North Pole, PA (a.k.a. Langhorne). Snickerdoodles and Cheesecake Chocolate Chip Cookies (yummmmmmm!). I do think the Cheesecake Choc. Chip ones needed more cream cheese....but I digress.

We planned to pay a surprise visit to our Jewish pals, smack in the middle of Hanukkah, to deliver some Christmas cheer. Turns out they were not home. (Total bummer, Santa dude.)

So, I wandered around to the kitchen door in the back, after Mrs Claus reminded me they don't always go in the front door. She reminded me this by rolling down the window a crack in the nice, cozy 72 degree heated sleigh and shouting it across the lawn. (Hey, Mrs. Claus got to be cozy, ya know).

I wandered around to the back, where the motion sensor lights illuminated the back porch, and me, a big-ol dude in a Santa hat poking around a Jewish household late at night when nobody was home. Anybody seeing this, I imagine either called the cops or needed a stiff drink. Since no police arrived, I'm assuming someone was hitting it hard on the egg-nog.

Well, I dropped the cookies, not being able to get to the chimney(little Santa joke there), just inside the back screen door. Job well done. Santa delivers again!

Just then, as I was heading back to the sleigh for the ride back, from out of the fog, what to my wondering eyes should appear? One minivan chock full of friends, kids, and cheer!

They pulled up just as I was getting ready to go. It was a Christmas (or Hanukkah) miracle!

Our friends had returned from a rousing evening of holiday Karaoke, and when they saw us, could not have been more thrilled. And so were we! Hoping to see them home, it was even nicer for both of us to get such a holiday surprise.

We came in for a quick stop, hung out and played with the kids, had hot cocoa (Santa's favorite!), and a good time was had by all.

But just to think, with me and my sleigh travelling all over the world (or at least all up and down the turnpike), for the love of 30 seconds, we would have missed them.

So, for those of you who don't believe in holiday miracles, or Santa riding around in a convertible (er...ah....open sleigh), you can take this story of the Christmas-Hanukkah-hot cocoa-cookie-karaoke miracle (in the winter wonderland that is New Jersey), and put it in your Christmas stocking or your Hanukkah, um, dreidel holder(?)....and remember there's always magic in the holiday season, and you can find it too, if you just get off at the right exit!

Love and holiday cheer to all.

George (a.k.a. Santa) and Holly (a.k.a. Mrs. "I'm staying in the sleigh, it's cold out there" Claus)


And...P.S. I couldn't let this one go...when we were travelling north to deliver our holiday goodies, all we had to eat all day was, well, cookies. So we stopped at the one place that was still open, another miracle all by itself....WAWA! And we had for dinner, as Mr. Claus likes to call them, "Ho-Ho-Hoagies"! While the staff was none-too in the holiday spirit (let's just say they needed a little Christmas cheer), the Ho-Ho-Hoagies were deeeeelicious after a long sleigh ride!

God bless you, WAWA.

Good night everybody!

Who doesn't love freebees?

Check out this site:

http://www.freestufftimes.com

And to get myself a freebee, I am adding this link to an interesting site, if you ever had to collect money for a party or something, click on the "collect dues" link below (it's called settleupp.com):

collect dues

And that give me like a free keychain, or something from here:

http://www.cengraving.com/s/free

Anyway, I'm going back into hibernation for a while...

Have a nice holiday, if I don't see you.

-G

Happy New Year (almost). This is my last post for '06. We just got back from the Bahamas. It was awesome. We just hit the beach, the pool, the lounge chairs, and that's it. Good to recharge our batteries.

Just a couple of things I want to mention before signing off for '06.

1) Congrats to the Philadelphia Eagles. They are playing Atlanta right now, but it doesn't matter, because they WON THE NFC EAST!!! Playoffs are a' comin'. Go Birds!!

2) Here's the resort we stayed at in the Bahamas. Not all-inclusive, but very beautiful and relaxing: Westin Our Lucaya Resort

and

3) And here's our photos page, with a gallery for some of our Bahamas photos: http://hollyandgeorge.smugmug.com/

Eveyone have an incredible new year, keep in touch, and I'll see ya in 2007!!

-G

Hi there, and Happy Holidays!

If you read our 2006 holiday letter and ended up here, then you obviously have some time to kill.

With that in mind, I will give you a list of 10 websites which either are good timekillers or just kind of cool.

That's all I've got for now, trying to keep it short and sweet so I'm not late for work. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!!! Peace out.

Here's your links:

1) http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail.html (these are cartoon shorts I'm addicted to, play a couple to get to know the characters, and you will be, too)

2) http://www.killsometime.com/games/games.asp (the web site name speaks for itself, I'm sure you'll find something on here to amuse you for a while)

3) http://www.thefuselage.com (OK, this is only for fans of the show LOST, of which I am one, it's one of the millions of fan sites out there. If you are not into the show, shame on you! Get the DVDs and catch up quick!)

4) http://www.123greetings.com (Send me an e-card. They're all free!)

5) http://www.google.com/intl/xx-elmer/ (It's Google translated into Elmer Fudd speak...fabuwous!)

6) http://www.google.com/intl/xx-bork/ (...and one more Google page, translated into Swedish-Chef speak, you know, from the muppets...bork, bork, bork).

7) http://www.theonion.com (Where I get all my news, when I'm not watching The Daily Show)

8) http://www.youtube.com (Most people know this one already. Search on "diet coke and mentos" or "Chad Vader" just for a couple of fun options.)

9) http://www.bored.com (Lots of stuff to do when you're um...bored)

10) http://www.thinkgeek.com (If you have not yet purchased my Christmas present, I forgive you, and this site is foolproof, being a geek, any item on here would make my year!)

I hope you find some extra fun stuff on some of these sites. Have a wonderful holiday.

See ya!

-G

Good morning.

I heard the Moody Blues song "Tuesday Afternoon" this weekend, and wondered if it was about someone who went on such a weekend bender that he finally woke up on Tuesday Afternoon. (Unusual, a rock song from the 60's about intoxication.)

Listen to a clip, why don'cha:

Tuesday Afternoon

That would really suck, because he didn't even call in sick to work Monday, and probably has to use vacation time to make up the 2 days of work he's missing.

That's all I have time for now, gotta get to the cubicle...

-G