random thursday: lots of ones, but no cheerleaders

-if you like the number one, this is your year!  2011 offers some pretty cool dates like 1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11, and 11/11/11.  not only that, but if you take the last two digits of the year you were born and add them to the age that you'll turn in 2011, you'll get 111 (or 11 if you were born after the year 2000). 

-here's a cool fact about the superbowl:  there won't be any cheerleaders.  according to my research, there are only three teams in the nfl that don't have official cheerleading squads (the steelers, packers and browns), although the packers cheat and use local college cheereleading squads at their home games.  still, they won't be bringing these along for the big game, so it will be a cheerleader-free super bowl, which means there will be no obligatory and gratuitous shots of scantily clad gyrating women.  i have never quite understood the purpose of cheerleaders at professional football games where 60,000+ people are in the stadium, other than the aforementioned sex appeal.  so this little tidbit of news makes me happy.  by the way, the steelers did have a cheerleading squad called the steelerettes for a total of 9 years during the 1960's.  they haven't had them for the last 50 years. 

-i just read in the news that the color-coded threat advisory system that our county has used since the september 11th, 2001 attacks is being decommissioned.  which means i will no longer be confused about what it means that the threat level is currently orange or yellow, and why we never go to have threat level lavender or raw umber.  still, i will miss the publicity for the color orange, even if it was bad publicity.  it'll be harder to keep orange in the news now. 

-shannon interviewed the boys the other day and wrote down their answers.  this is something we've done from time to time just to have something for them (and us) to look back on someday and smile at their answers and see the ways things have changed or remained the same.  she asked caedmon what he loves about daddy, and he told her, "his money."  great.  my three-year old only loves me for my money.  which really sucks because it won't be long until he's old enough to realize that i don't have any money.  ha!

-i'm preaching this sunday about hope, one of my favorite topics, which i'm passionate about.  and i'm curious, what makes you hopeful?  in a broken world full of despair and pain and bad news, what is it that stirs the embers of hope in you and can breath them into a full fire of warm expectation?  what is it in life that gives birth to (or restores) hope for you? 

-in other news of the completely unsurprising sort, jimmy buffet fell off a stage and had to get stitches.  i wonder if he was too busy looking for his lost shaker of salt?

-10 days until the bowl of superness.  i plan to enjoy each and every one of them. 

-if you like brett keisel's beard, you can go to this website and put one on a picture of yourself.  i did one for jackson:

-that's all for today.  hope you all have a great (unsnowy) day.  don't forget to hit me up in the comments about what gives you hope.