"fair play to those who dream." Monday, February 25, 2008

Click HERE and skip to the 2:00 mark. :)

our baby boy is here! Saturday, February 9, 2008

memphis anderson blackney was born on friday at 8:11pm. he was 8lbs 13oz and 21in long! he has a full head of black hair, big feet, his mommy's nose and his daddy's heart.

going to have a baby... Thursday, February 7, 2008

the day is here! meg and i are going to the hospital tonight to finally meet our baby boy. we are excited, nervous and anxious. we are curious what he looks like. we are praying he is healthy. we are hopeful he will grow up to be a good kid.

we can't wait to meet him.

did you vote? Wednesday, February 6, 2008

I did. It never fails to surprise me... the feeling I get after voting. It's a weird sense of pride and solidarity. Proud of the fact that while we live in a flawed nation, culture under a flawed government - the fact remains that I have the right to enter a voting booth and cast my vote for the future.

Solidarity, because at the end of the evening as I watch the numbers scroll across the bottom of the screen I see that while the candidate that I voted for didn't win the state I live in, there are lots of people that think the same as I do about him. And across the nation... there are millions of us that are ready for change, hope and something different.

yes we can Sunday, February 3, 2008

peyton manning reminded me of something tonight

I grew up an Auburn football fan.  I loved Bo Jackson.  I also grew up about an hour south of Knoxville, Tennessee.  This geographic fact also led to my unbridled hatred for UT football and all things connected to it.  Heath Shuler.  Philip Fulmer.  And yes, Peyton Manning - and by very loose association Eli Manning.

But a funny thing has happened over the past couple of seasons... I've begun to look at Peyton Manning as a human being.  Maybe it was the clever commercials he's in that have shown him to have a sense of humor - or at least an agent with a sense of humor.  But I don't think it's that entirely.  It wasn't until tonight that I saw what it was.  Peyton is a big brother.  I see a little bit of  myself in him.  By that I mean that I see a little bit of all humanity in him.  Tonight I watched Eli Manning play the game of his life and make critical plays down the stretch.  With every must-have completion there was, courtesy of FOX, a shot of big brother Peyton in a sky box looking on with nervous energy and pride.

With the game winning touchdown pass they showed Peyton pumping his fist in the air.  

It reminded me of me and my own brother.  It feels good to be proud of someone.  It feels good to watch them grow up.

four days overdue, juno and rat poison

Here's a quick update from the Blackney household.  Meg is now four days overdue... it seems that no one told Memphis he was supposed to have a January 30 birthday.  Yesterday I finally got the old kitchen counter out of our front yard by using a chainsaw (it was fun.)  After dumping the remnants in the dumpster at habit, Meg and I went to eat at Whole Foods and then went to see JUNO (really good movie).  Meg was having contractions through the entire movie... pretty exciting.  After the movie we got in our cars to head home and start monitoring LABOR!!! Finally!

But wait just a second... We open the door and let the dogs out to do their business and I see that one of the rat poison boxes (supposedly INDESTRUCTIBLE) was in shreds on the love seat in our sitting room.  (side note:  Meg saw a rat in our house about 3 weeks ago so we invited our PET  FRIENDLY pest control agents out to take care of the problem.)  Needless to say this put a halt to the contractions (thank God!) and we immediately induce vomiting with both Sal and Charlie (not very fun!)  After doing this we took the dogs to the after hours emergency vet where both Charlie was given medicine to make him throw up... which he did (half of the block of rat poison came up with his dinner.)  

While all of this is going on, we are waiting to find out which of the two kinds of rat poison it was.  1 kind is basically an anticoagulant - this is the "good" kind... it's a blood thinner and can be treated with vitamin K injections and doses.  The second kind is bad.  It attacks the rat's brain (dog's brains too) and can be lethal.  As fate would have it the kind of poison our PET FRIENDLY pest control agent used was the second kind.

We've spent the last 24 hours aggressively treating Charlie and the vet feels like he is going to be okay and we are thinking he will be too.  Only one more charcoal treatment to go for him and then he can get back to be being a healthy dog.

Are we really ready to be responsible parents?  I still think we are, but I won't lie I'm not looking forward to the first EMERGENCY we have with little Memphis.