I recommend that you all watch the 4 part HBO series called 24/7 Jimmie Johnson: Race to Daytona.

For NASCAR fans, it gives us a glimpse into the psyche of Jimmie Johnson & Chad Knaus.  Until Dale Earnhardt Jr joined Hendrick Motorsports, I viewed Jimmie as an arrogant driver with way too much good luck.  He still has way too much good luck but I must say that after 4 NASCAR Sprint Cup championships in a row, his & Chad’s arrogance was confidence in what they could obviously accomplish.  (They need to get with Junior and pass on at least a bit of a confidence.  I guess that’s for another entry, though.)

For non-NASCAR fans, it gives you a glimpse at the world behind “racing in circles”.  Let me be the first to say that, if all NASCAR was was watching cars go round and round in circles, I’d be bored out of my mind and would not be a fan.  The goings on behind the scenes at the track and off the track are sometimes much more interesting than who is leading the race.  This series is giving a behind the scenes view of Hendrick Motorsports, Jimmie Johnson, & Chad Knaus as they prepare for the Daytona 500 (which is 2 weeks from today!).  Folks try to explain away NASCAR as not being a sport.  Just watching the first episode demonstrated that the drivers & the crew members work out a lot to prepare for the hard work that is driving a car for 3-4 hours during a race and also accomplishing 12 second pit stops.  Not many sports make a team member lose up to 10 pounds a game/race/etc.  That fact has always made me say Wow! when thinking of a driver’s stamina to race.

By the way…I loved the milk & cookies re-enactment with Rick Hendrick!  Rick always has the best stories to tell.

You can watch the series on Tuesdays at 9pm CST and on re-runs.  There are 3 new episodes left.

Here is the website for the show where you can see several clips of the show.

A winter storm moved into Northwest Arkansas Thursday afternoon/evening.  Until Friday morning, it was mostly freezing rain/sleet.  Once it started snowing yesterday, it didn’t let up until some point last night.  I woke up to a very pretty snow blanketing the ground this morning.  I’ve heard estimates of 5-6 inches of snow.

Like during the Ice Storm last January, there were a lot of folks tweeting the past couple of days about the weather.  The Fayetteville Flyer website has a great page set-up to display the tweets & also photos on Flickr.

The Flyer Wire

I’ve been in the house since Thursday evening when I got home from work.  I opted to work from home yesterday.  I can get quite a bit of work done at home.  I don’t think I could do it everyday because I’d probably get sidetracked but working at home a couple of days a week would be great.  Think my boss would agree?  Haha.  I’m doubting it but I guess I can do a bit of wishful thinking.

Here is a progression of the snowfall outside my front door – 1/29/10 11:54am, 1/29/10 4:15pm, and 1/30/10 8:50am.

Here is a Flickr photo album of my pictures.

I posted a blog entry in August just before I officially became a homeowner called My New House – Before.  In that entry, I showed several photos of what the house looked like at that time.  This entry shows what the house looks like now (or at least what it looked like at Christmastime).  (I apologize for the quality of a couple of the photos.  They were taken with my iPhone and I don’t have a picture like it taken with my camera yet.)

Here is a link to the Flickr photo album with these photos and more.

2009 was quite a year.  The most important and exciting thing that happened to me this year is that I bought my first home.  I’ve looked and talked and planned for several years.  The pieces all fell into place very quickly at the end of July for me to officially begin my search for a home.  The house I bought was the first one me & the realtor that assisted me looked at together.  Greg (my realtor & Lindsey’s father-in-law) found me the perfect house.

My other major purchase of 2009 was a Nikon D90 camera.  I’ve had fun playing with it this year.  Although, I haven’t ventured far from the automatic settings yet.  One of my goals for 2010 is to learn more about what all my camera can do.

Lindsey, Kelly, Hayley, & I saw the Paisley Party Tour stop in Tulsa in January.  It included Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley, & Darius Rucker.

My mom’s birthday in January marked the beginning of a very bad ice storm.  I don’t remember ever having weather like that.  The ice was crazy.

In March, Kelly & I went to San Antonio for a few days.  We saw a bit of a history at the Alamo, had dinner on the top of the world, and even visited the beach.

In April, we took our annual trip to Dallas/Fort Worth for some NASCAR.  While down there, we visited the Sixth Floor Museum & Dealey Plaza where JFK was assassinated.  Jeff Gordon finally won a race at Texas Motor Speedway.

Memorial Day weekend I traveled to Charlotte, NC to visit Penni and go to the NASCAR races that weekend.  It was a weekend full of rain but it was a great weekend of visiting old friends and meeting new ones.

In June, I went to a couple of concerts.  The first one was Casting Crowns at the Church at Pinnacle Hills.  The second one was Chuck Wicks at the Poultry Festival.  I got to meet Chuck in person twice (once by accident) that evening.  It was great!  He’s hilarious and very down-to-earth.

Lindsey, Shelby, & I made last minute plans to go to Junction, TX in July to our cousin Lacey’s wedding.  We made Mom come too.  We took our time going down to visit Mom’s brother (our uncle) Mark and also to visit Dublin for some wonderful Dr Pepper.

In the beginning of October, Shelby & I traveled to Dallas.  The University of Arkansas Razorbacks played the Texas A&M Aggies in the new Cowboys Stadium.  Shelby, our uncles Mark & Rod, and I went to the game.  It was an awesome game in an aswesome stadium.  I’m hoping we get to go again next year!

In mid-October, I traveled to Phoenix with a couple others in my department for an SAP conference.  Besides the conference, we took some time to do some sight-seeing.

The last trip I took in 2009 was with Shelby the first weekend of November.  We went back to Dallas/Fort Worth for the NASCAR race.

Here are the blog entries I wrote this year related to my year in review.

January 3, 2009 10:57 pm - The Nikon D90
January 4, 2009 5:54 pm - New Camera – Day 2
January 10, 2009 10:32 pm - New Baby
January 11, 2009 2:38 pm - The Red Coat
January 24, 2009 8:56 am - Tulsa Bound
January 26, 2009 6:40 pm - Family Tradition
January 28, 2009 1:34 pm - Be Still!
January 29, 2009 6:32 pm - Tulsa Time
January 29, 2009 8:27 pm - Ice Storm
February 1, 2009 12:02 pm - Ice Storm Aftermath
March 5, 2009 9:00 am - San Antonio Bound
March 6, 2009 9:25 pm - Where’s Dad When You Need Him?
March 7, 2009 8:31 am - 173 Years Later
March 14, 2009 3:03 pm - Life is like a box of chocolates
March 14, 2009 3:59 pm - A bit of history
March 15, 2009 6:38 pm - The San Antonio Zoo
March 15, 2009 6:57 pm - The Texas Beach
March 15, 2009 8:03 pm - Sea World
March 21, 2009 2:40 pm - Tower of the Americas
March 21, 2009 4:15 pm - San Antonio Re-Cap
April 18, 2009 4:05 pm - Who Dun It?
April 18, 2009 4:45 pm - He finally won
June 20, 2009 3:58 pm - Chuck Wicks Times 3
June 27, 2009 4:47 pm - Casting Crowns
August 9, 2009 4:58 pm - My New House
August 23, 2009 5:42 pm - My New House – Before
October 7, 2009 9:52 pm - Long Wait
November 6, 2009 3:32 pm - Shop a Little, Race a Little

As far as 2010, I don’t really have any plans for any major traveling.  I know we’ll go to both NASCAR races in Texas in April & November.  Other than that, this may be a year that I take it a bit easy as far as traveling goes.  I do need to catch up on here with some blog entries.  I really want to share what my house looks like now that I’ve gotten it painted and decorated.

This was the view out the front door of my house on Christmas morning.  While I remember a couple of Christmases where it snowed a little bit, I don’t remember actually waking up to a blanket of snow.  It was a gorgeous sight!  I was glad that everyone was coming to my house Christmas, though, because there would be no way I would drive myself anywhere in this!

As mentioned, my immediate family and my dad’s mom came over for Christmas dinner and gift exchanging.  Having a house to host dinners in is something new for this holiday season so I was excited to have everyone over.  I got some great gifts for Christmas.  My dad built me a dining room table that seats 8 with a bench that seats 3.

How were each of your Christmases?