Monday, December 21, 2009

Live Free or Blog Hard


I'm back. After a somewhat lengthy hiatus I am returning to the world of "blog" and like Rocky in "Rocky IV" or Bruce Willis in "Live Free or Die Hard" I may not be as quick and squirrely as I once was but I'm a little bit wiser and perhaps even a little bit more skilled at my craft. And since it snowed in the Midwest, I can put together a sweet training montage of me carrying oxen and cutting down evergreens and before you know maybe I can defeat Socialism too.

But I digress. Yes, this is my promise to be more diligent with the blog. In fact, although it isn't quite new year's just yet it is my new year's resolution to update more frequently. Just think of all the great ideas that have been swirling in my head for the last two weeks. Its actually kind of frightening.

OK, first an update on Karl. Currently he is in the state of Indiana (Side note: Indiana claims to not only be the "crossroads of America" but also "the childhood home of Lincoln. Listen Indiana, Lincoln belongs to Illinois. Period. That's like Bill Wennington and Stecey King taking credit for the Bulls six championships. You don't know who Bill Wennington or Stacey King are? Exactly. And the whole crossroads of America? Don't push your luck Indiana. You're just ahead of Connecticut right now and that's just because you produced the greatest movie of all-time. Ruth Rosentrater feel free to chime in and defend your state if you can think of a good rebuttal).

But I digress...

Karl, Alan, Jennie and Kevin are heading back from Michigan after spending the last few days with both sets of grandparents and my aunt, uncle and nephew. Its always good to see family, particularly when its close to the holidays. Overall Karl did pretty well but I think the drive was a bit much for him. I'm hoping to convince him to either go Christmas shopping with me tonight or to go see Avatar. They had to leave early this morning to make it back for Karl's treatment.

Just for the sake of review, Karl takes two chemo pills (named temodar) seven days a week. Five days a week he receives his radiation treatments. We don't know if the treatments have been "effective" just yet. Karl will get a slew of tests and scans when the five weeks is up. Today is the beginning of his third week.

Please continue to pray for Fiscally Gator (Karl's nickname. Long story...)

OK now for just general musing. Many of you know that I consider Bill Simmons to be one of the greatest readers of all time. He is. It's science. Anyways one of the things that I enjoy most of reading William is that every so often he has a mailbag. Readers are invited to email Willy their questions. So here is the launching of the karlkrassupdates.blogspot.com mailbag. And yes, I'm giddy. You can email your questions or comments to keith.krass@gmail.com or leave a comment on this blog. They can be questions regarding Karl and his treatment or how I would rank the top ten states in the US (and yes this list does exist in my head). Basically the questions can be about anything.

Before I leave, I would like to list my top five Christmas songs. Some of them are obscure, some not. All of them are awesome. Boom.

5. All I Want for Christmas if You - Mariah Carrey
4. Anything from the Nutcracker - (Saw it last Thursday. Awesome Every time. Thanks Steph!!!!!!)
3. Silver Bells - Sleeping at Last
2. Go Tell it On the Mountain - Aaron Espe
1. Oh Holy Night - Josh Groban (can we just make Josh Groban President of Christmas and grant him a monopoly on all Christmas songs?)

That's it for now. Adios.

3 comments:

  1. The rebuttal:

    First of all, purely from the perspective of a basketball coach, you should have a little more respect for Indiana. In addition to inspiring the great movie you mentioned, we also produced Larry Bird and John Wooden. Both of them are kind of a big deal. As far as Lincoln goes, he lived in Indiana until he was 22 so all of his formative years were spent here. Basically, Illinois is taking credit for a man who owes his greatness to having grown up in the Crossroads of America! And we are called that because of all the major highways that run through the state. I think the title is a little misleading though because it implies that people just pass through Indiana on their way to somewhere else. In reality, it's more like a magnet - once people get here, they want to stay, and for so many good reasons. We have Orville Redenbacher popcorn, a huge marshmallow factory, a town named Santa Claus, the NCAA headquarters, Lloy Ball (setter for the US national team), former Senator Birch Bayh (instrumental in the passing of Title IX), and we never had to change our clocks until a few years ago. I know I don't have to convince you of the superiority of the Midwest in general but these are some reasons you should rethink your apparent, and totally unfounded I might add, disdain for Indiana.

    Proudly proclaiming my Hoosier heritage,

    Ruth

    P.S. Since I was initially insulted on the main blog page, I feel that some of these thoughts should be repeated there, in order to clear my name and reputation.

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  2. Also, Sleeping at Last has a Christmas album?

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  3. It is done Josh Groban wins the title hands down :)

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