Category: Uncategorized

I know my 244.5 July a year ago put be atop the Fall Family weight chart but does the 178 that I weighed this morning now make me the lightest Fall brother?

Veronica and Eric secretly purchased the two tickets to the Cubs game for our 20th anniversary a few weeks bag.  It ends up it looks like today is going to be the day the Cubbies clinch.  Even though I’m a Sox fan (can you tell which one of us gets more respect), I’m really looking forward to it.  We’re leaving in just a little bit. 

Hopefully, it’ll be as exciting as we anticipate.  We’ll keep you updated.

I found this site that will map out the prevalence of your surname in countries around the world.

Here’s the map for Fall and the legend that goes with it (a real Legend of the Falls – pun intended).

This came as a real surprise to me. I have seen lots of references to Falls from Somalia, so I expected something to pop up there. I also thought Fall was of German ancestry so I would have expected an appearance there. But not Canada and Sweden. Food for thought.

NOTE: I did a little digging and discovered Africa hasn’t been indexed yet so no Somalians is understandable. Also, the name is of Celtic (Irish) origin so the United Kingdom over Germany is now understandable.

Now, for an even bigger surprise, it turns out that Larry is the most popular Fall forename (with Lisa and Christopher 2nd and 3rd). Now that I never would have guessed. I am reasonably sure that Abdou and Papa belong to the branch of the Falls who have emigrated out of Somalia.

If you go to the site, you can actual drill down to the country and state level.

and this chart that I put up for a short while

Well they were made a little over a year ago (more like 14 months to be a little more specfic)

Unfortunately, my exercise campaign only lasted a couple of months until my “unretirement” in the Beer Mile last Labor Day.

The good news was that my weight didn’t balloon back up. I pretty much fluctuated around 220-225.

At the end of last spring, I decided to try to drop some more weight.. Things get pretty quiet around State College following spring graduation (mid May) up until the kids come back for the second summer session (end of June), so around Memorial Day I decided to go into one of my “no drinking” phases for the month of June. I also started watching what I ate a little more closely (nothing too health nut serious, mostly cutting back on the amount of red meat, eating a lot more chicken and sometimes fish).

I was very please with the results. By the end of June, without too much sacrifice my weight got down to 215. Rather than end my “fast” as originally planned, I started extrapolating and figured that I could quite possibly break 200 by Labor Day.

Since then, I’ve modified the plan a little, i,e, the complete teetotaling has gone by the wayside. As often as not, I’ll have a beer or two after my men’s league golf on Wednesday and I will drink during “special occasions”, maybe every second or third weekend.

While there were a couple of moment where I wonder if I could make it, I am proud to announce that my scale read 199.5 when I stepped on it this morning. Mission accomplished. I can now go out and celebrate for the Holiday Weekend and first football game of the season (and probably recoil in horror when I get on the scale Tuesday morning but that’s a problem for another day).

I honestly don’t remember that last time that I was under 200. Has to be about 15 years ago. I know when I was training for my marathon (sometime around 1987) I was about 188 but I started putting the weight on after it.

I’m not sure how much longer, if at all, I’ll try to keep losing weight but I am at least going to try to stay under 200.

Now I have to go back and see if I can reclaim at least some of my UncleLar party image that I lost over weight loss campaign. 🙂

Today, Lex roamed centerfield at Yankee Stadium. He’s in the bright yellow T-shirt, seen clearly in the 2nd shot.

The coaches were:
Mike Torrez – Pitching
Ron Blomberg – Hitting
Micky Rivers – Fielding

Very cool day. I hope Lex enjoyed it.

WordPress, the underlying blogging software that provides the basis for this blog, has introduced a new version of their software which I’ve installed today. At first you should see no change because the new features are all behind the scene administrative changes that should only be visible to Gary and I – with one major exception.

That one exception will be that, when you go to make a post, you will see an entirely new panel. Hopefully, the new changes won’t be that significant. I would expect that most of you will be able to figure out how to make a post without too much trouble. If you are confused about something, send me an email and I’ll give you a hand.

So Eric decided he was going to try out for the tennis team at high school this year.  Tryouts were scheduled for last Saturday evening.  At about noon, a friend of his from school called to ask him if he wanted to play that afternoon as a “tune-up” before the tryout.  He asked me if I could take him there for a 2:00 appointment at a tennis club in Lincolnshire, about 30 minutes from our house.  So I said OK.

We arrived shortly before 2:00, but his friend never showed.  At about 2:15, we left the tennis club and headed home.  Just as we pulled out of the parking lot, we saw about 4 or 5 police cars on the side of the road headed the other direction.  Didn’t really think much about it.

That night when we picked up Eric from the tryout, he asked, “Remember those police cars we saw this afternoon after leaving the tennis club?”  We said, “yeah, why?”  He said that’s why Isaac couldn’t make it.  They were running late, so rather than driving, they flew their airplane and landed it on the golf course across the street from the tennis club and the police arrested them.

Mary Ann and I told him that we doubt that very much, and we think his friend is making up excuses.  We started to wonder just what kind of kid this was, because we had never met him.

This afternoon, I came across the following story in the news.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-golf-course-landing-storymar04,0,5960746.story

It ends up the kid seems OK, but I’m not so sure of the father!

G as in $Grand$!!…. OneGrand, Baby!!

Thanks Mar, et al.

I know I do not enter much into the blog. No need to get into why.

I do think about things to enter here. We are the “mundane” remember. I have mentioned twice to Mary this past week about 2 things I could enter. One was nixed by Mary.

So, two things to remember. One I did decide to post before reading Larry’s entry. Two, we are the mundane.

Anyway, here it is. It is 10:30 on a Saturday morning and for the first time in a very, very long time my entire family is up. Chris is working and Nick is going snow boarding in Wisconsin. OK, you say “what is he talking about.” Well, yesterday would have been a more typical day. Nick, got up at about 4:00 pm to get ready for work and Chris got up at about 5:00 pm for no reason. Maybe it was because I was yelling at him.

So, that’s it. A rare happening here.

Now, the one that Mary nixed since I’ve probably piqued your interest.

Nick got off on his DUI arrest. He pleaded guilty to failure to yield right of way and drinking by a minor and is on probation for a year, but no DUI. When I mentioned to Mary that we could post this on the blog she said she thought the blog was supposed to be for “happy” things. I said, “this is a happy thing. I’m VERY, VERY happy.” So anyway, that’s it.

Larry, I would appreciate if you would not pull the plug. I wll post more often and do enjoy reading about the other members of the family who do post.