Ah, when hope springs eternal! The smell of the grass, the crack of the bat. It’s Opening Day in the major leagues. The San Francisco Giants will try to defend their World Series title.
   For years, the Cincinnati Reds always had the honor of playing the first and only game on opening day. The reason? They’re the oldest team in baseball, starting back in 1860 as the Cincinnati Redlegs. In honor of that distinction, Major League Baseball had long set aside Opening Day just for the Reds.
   In fact, some fans in Cincinnati have been buzzing over the idea of making opening day an official Cincinnati holiday.
   Today, however, because it’s a weekday, a whole slate of games are on tap, along with the Brewers at the Reds.
Signs your baseball team isn’t ready for the regular season:
   –Your lead-off hitter is 8 months pregnant
   –Every time pitcher throws ball, catcher screams, “Ow!”
   –Outfielders distracted by big fluffy clouds that sometimes look like bunnies
   –Best hitter refuses to work weekends
   –Only time players demonstrate hustle is when they’re being chased by steroid investigators
   –Spirited locker room debates about how many strikes to an out
   –Starters ask to be excused from fielding drills to watch “The View”
   –Most promising rookie recently swallowed a rosin bag
   –Team name contains words “Pittsburgh” and “Pirates” (hard for me to write, I’m a lifelong Pirates fan – Go Buccos)
   –Nobody can keep his mind on the game with that sexy Derek Jeter running around

Good luck to the Brewers today!  And for sure now, here comes spring!!!

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  Yet another reason to get a dog…dog owners get more exercise.  A study in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health found that people who walked their pets were more likely to meet the federal standards for exercise each week.  So grab that leash and go!

     On the flip side, a Madison woman was issued a citation for walking her dog WITH HER CAR.

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Today, the 30th, is Doctor’s Day.  So named because anesthetic was first used on this day in 1842.  Insert joke here about me being there to witness that.  Actually ether was first used as an anesthetic during a minor operation.  So before that, what?  all you got was a bullet to bite?  I am old enough to have had ether, but that’s all I’m admitting to.

A new study finds that the stereotype is true:  Men don’t go to the doctor unless there’s something wrong.
It’s a small sample, just 519 participants, but the national survey commissioned by Esquire magazine found that nearly half of all men 18 to 50 years old (45 percent) don’t have a primary care physician. A third of men haven’t had a check-up in over a year. More:
–70 percent have never had a prostate exam (early detection of any cancer there can save your life)
–40 percent of men in their 40s have never had their cholesterol tested
–39 percent said they could stand to lose 20 pounds or more
–58 percent say they think about the healthiness of what they eat but indulge sometimes; 21 percent say it hardly crosses their mind
–57 percent of men eat fast food one to three times a week; a third once a month or less; six percent, never; five percent eat it daily
–43 percent say they’re sedentary, usually sitting while at work
–34 percent say they work out two to three times a week; 19  percent say they never do; 19 percent work out daily.

Editor’s note: Only time a guy starts talking medicine? When he needs Viagra.  Ok, that’s not true I just threw it in to see if you’re still reading this.

FYI:  Know what’s stunning? Reading  the online reader comments from the USA Today  article. Here’s a sample of some of the top comments:
–If you can, stay away from doctors. It’s all in the way a man lives anyway. Not going for checkups. If a man gets himself outdoors enough, does a bit of exercise, maintains a halfway decent diet, he’ll more or less be fine.
–I turned 65 last year and desided [sic] to get me a doctor. The first thing he said was in should get one of those butt probes. I think I’ll wait another 65 years and see how I feel then.
–Went to the Doctor for regular checkup last summer, blood work, EKG, etc. After all the copays from all the different labs and stuff came in, it was over $500 out of pocket. I’d rather just wait till I’m sick.
Editor’s note: Yeah, it’ll be much cheaper having a stroke instead of having that annual exam.

I’m calling for a check up right now!  I know, I also need a check up, from the neck up!

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     On tonight’s American Idol, the contestants perform Elton John songs.  And according to the wikipedia page I just linked to…there are 166 choices.  166.  What would you sing?

     Elton John is coming to La Crosse April 19th.  The show is soldout!  However, if you want to go to the concert, we are giving away a pair of tickets with the WOLX National Championship.  We’re down to the last four artists.  It’s The Beatles vs. Billy Joel and The Eagles vs. Elton John.  Vote for your favorites and register to win the tickets.

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Heard about or seen the new Brewers scoreboard?

Of course not, they just unveiled it Monday. It’s nearly 6,000 square feet of HD glory.

Among some of it’s highlights:

1. It will be a true 1080 display.
2. The scoreboard will have 2,358,720 pixels. 18x better resolution. (The current Miller Park scoreboard is 133k pixels.)
3. It will be dimmer from the perspective of the batter…aka it won’t shine in their eyes. It will be approximately 105 feet high by 168 feet wide.
4. The new video display will be nearly five times larger than the current one.
5. It would take approximately 1,500 37-inch diagonal flat-panel televisions to fill the area of the new video display.
6. The high-definition video display will be nearly 55 feet high and 110 feet wide.

Is there any chance at all that I could borrow it? I bet watching Pink Floyd’s The Wall on it would be really sweet.

- Thanks to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for the factoids.

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5.9 million people participated in ESPN’s NCAA Tournament predictions.  5.9 Million.  Just 2 people predicted the 4 remaining.  2 people.  One picked Butler.  One picked VCU to win it all.  So it could be that nobody correctly predicts a winner.  How and 5.9 million people be so wrong?  Maybe more people claim to be experts, but the 2 who remain ‘in it’ might have decided their picks with the help of a dartboard.  Or they asked their dog.  Or pick pretty colors.  Who knows.

Can you correctly predict the winner of the WOLX National Championship?  It’s down to 4 and here’s the 2 battles.  The Beatles vs Billy Joel.  No brainer.   Or The Eagles vs Elton John.  Just go to WOLX dot com and vote.
 http://wolx.upickem.net/upickem/registra…

And register to win tickets to see Elton John at his sold out concert in LaCrosse April 19th.  Free.

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With the March basketball tournament down to four teams, I think there is an easy way to pick who will take it all.

Now that Wisconsin is out, I have no vested interest in the tournament, so this should be pretty easy. We’re gonna go straight out with which mascot would win in a fight.

The Kentucky Wildcats vs The University of Connecticut Huskies.

Although I do love dogs, I think a Wild Cat would have a better edge.  More fierce, more survival skills, more instinct to fight.

Winner: Kentucky Wildcats

The Butler Bulldogs vs The Virginia Commonwealth Rams

I think this just comes down to size.  A ram is a larger creature and one direct blow to a dog would render the canine useless.   Bulldogs can be aggressive, but a ram protecting it’s territory can be deadly.

Winner: VCU Rams

That brings us to:

VCU Rams vs The Kentucky Wildcats.

As tough as a Ram can be, a wildcat has speed and agility that can’t be matched.

The clear winner: The Kentucky Wildcats

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Remember ‘Spring’?  Lazy afternoons at Monona Terrace or The Duck Pond? After a long, cold (and sometime; never-ending) winter, I’m counting down to complaining about the HEAT!

Until then, a few photo-bombs to pass the time!

Brings a whole new meaning to; Yard Work!

Like YOU never wanted to combine Guitar Hero and a Spaz attack?!?

Yep; The girl I dated…:-)

I thought they were just glad to SEE each other…

This pretty much sums up MY HISTORY of 'THRILL RIDES'…:-)

And the bratty kid to the right, is undoubtedly ME! (You'd think I'd remember…:-)

Speeding up the workday – and the WARM WEATHER! See you on the radio at 2pm!

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     As the mother of an eight year old son, I would like to thank author Jeff Kinney for the entire “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series.  His books, more than any others, hit my son at the right time.  I know that Sam would not be as into reading as he is if it weren’t for the entertaining novels by Kinney about Greg Heffley, his best friend Rowley and his family.

     The Moore family went to the movies yesterday to check out “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules”–we’d all read the book together and the movie was great too!  Just like the first, it stayed true to the book.  The acting was perfect for the film as well.  Sam gave it five stars–he loved it!

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This weekend marked a rather odd anniversary.

Baby Jessica, the 18-month-old girl who was trapped in an abandoned water well for two and a half days in 1987, turned 25 on Saturday.

That means she’s old enough to finally have access to the $800,000 trust fund left to her by thousands of strangers who followed her ordeal. Reports say she has no memory of being trapped, or of the 15 operations that followed, although she does still have a scar from her hairline to her nose and she lost a toe.

Today, Jessica is Jessica McClure Morales, a stay-at-home mother of two who lives less than two miles from that infamous well. She and her husband run a car- and truck-washing business from their home.

“That’s all Jessica has ever wanted was to be a mom and have a family,” said her father. “She’s a good mom and keeps her eyes on her kids. She’s certainly a doting mother.”

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