"LIKE"

My cousin Sean is starting his own video editing company, Phigure8 Productions. His business partner and him have entered a contest where all the colleges and high schools with wrestling programs showcase their videos and community outreach programs. The contest is called Best of Brand. They entered 2 different videos. One into the highlight tape category and another into the pure entertainment category. This week their Highlight Video was posted for voting. They're not convinced that Facebook is the end all be all of the voting process, but they are asking people to like the videos for votes. PLEASE GO "LIKE" THE VIDEO! You are already on the web anyway!

The winners will be recognized and awarded in Ft. Lauderdale, FL at the National Wrestling Coaches Association Conference. It takes less than a minute to log onto Facebook and "like" the video. You dont even have to watch it if you don't want to (though you should!). Just click "like". Voting ends at 5 pm TODAY! I have posted the link below. Their video is the one labeled 2012 Maryland Wrestling Banquet Video.

Heres the link:https://www.facebook.com/NWCAonline

Thank You! I really appreciate it! and so do they!! 

~Me, Sean & the Phigure8 Productions Team~

USA! USA! USA!

30 days until the Olympics and if you're anything like me (A proud American) then you have been watching the Olympic Trials on NBC. They are amazing, and I have a confession. I tear up almost every time someone qualifies, and I have already begun to yell at the television during the swimming trials. I am sure they are tears of happiness, because sometimes chills come with them, but I think it's also a little bit of jealousy. You best believe that if I went to the Olympics as a competitor I, immidiately following the games, would get those Olympic rings tattood on my body. What an accomplishment. The Olympics, and really all things red, white, and blue excite me. Nothing makes me happier than a loud U-S-A chant started randomly in the middle of a bar (or grocery store....still waiting for that to happen - - here's hopeing 2012 could be my year). With the 4th of July right around the corner (my favorite holiday of them all, even before Christmas and Thanksgiving) I'm starting to think about plans. It's important to not build up the holiday like New Year's normally is. But this year I have my eyes set on Beer Olympics for my day off. Only the switch-up....you have to be America. Everyone. No excuses. If I don't see a bald eagle, or some stars and stripes I could be majorly dissapointed in my friends. I'll even settle for some NASCAR gear.....maybe. I love America though....and the Olympics. My family is no different. Theme parties seem to pop up randomly at our family beach vacations, and 2 years ago we decided one afternoon to meet back at the beach for family Olympics. It's amazing what you can find at a tourist shop like WINGS. I, of course, had my sights set on being USA. All agreed to it.

But what I am really excited about is London and watching the hotness of Ryan Lochte. Ladies (and gents I would even imagine), you know what I am talking about. This good looking, tan ab'd fella, is one swift swimmer and one reason to cheer on the grand 'ol flag and the U.S. of A. Beating Michael Phelps in recent trial events, I hope he brings home a gold

medal or two. Phelps has said this is his last set of Olympic games and I think going into them with already 14 career medals is a good start. I think Ryan should just get a medal on how striking his physique is. Just saying. Anybody else see a little Channing Tatum in him? Gorgeous. Another exciting event to watch (my opinion of course) is diving. 2 brothers were in the trials together recently, 1 made it, 1 didn't. Thousandths of a point seperated 1 from going to London and the other staying at home hoping for another chance in 4 years. See where the tears can come from? Amazing. I wouldn't say I'm "swimming" in the dough, but every year I donate $20 to the
US Olympic Committee. If you love America as much as I do, I would highly recommend you doing the same. They hook you up with USA paraphanalia, and you're helping them out. I recently received a bad ass USA Olympic ring jacket. Not pictured on the left - - that was a gem I found in WINGS. The jacket they sent me was navy blue, with a classy upper left chest embroidered logo of the Olympic rings with USA above it - both in white. I have also recieved a giant Team USA flag, and a car sticker in a smaller version, to name a few. Best donation I have ever made. Hit 'em up. Follow the games. And please, feel free to start a U-S-A chant whenever and wherever you can. Extra points for grocery stores.

Give me some mushrooms

I work on Woodruff Road. A road that if you never had to go near it, you wouldn't. A road where an average lunch trip around the corner, takes no less than 20 minutes to get to. A Christmas holiday nightmare, and a connector to major highway 85. I hop on 85 for a brief couple miles to get to my exit on my trip to and from work everyday. Yesterday I got stuck behind the slowest batch of drivers I have ever witnessed and it got me thinking. As I turned towards the on ramp to 85 I suddenly wished I saw these on the road....minus
the biker of course. No offense to any hard core bikers, but "Share the road" goes to you, too. Anyway, I wanted it to be like in the days of Super Nintendo where you drive over them and it shoots you into the sky or right past your opponent (which at that moment was a girl named Natasha. I know this because it was written in stickers all over her back windshield). If the speed limit is 55, please don't go 25 down the on ramp in hopes that you won't get hit by an on-coming tractor trailer while texting, and smoking a cigarette with the windows up, all at the same time. Natasha seemed to be a real multi-tasker. Good for her. At this point I was either hoping to run onto giant yellow booster lines or find a mushroom, or perhaps the best part of the child hood game....the yellow question marked boxes. Even though it never failed, I'd always get a worthless green shell. Children of the 80's/90's you know what I mean. You'd always want a red shell, a mushroom, or a lightning bolt to make everyone

around you smaller so you could run them over. I am not a viloent driver, however I do consider my driving agressive...and that's in the best way possible. A high school friend always told my mother to 'drive fast and to take chances'. And in the Hennessey family with our somewhat "out dated" vehicles, with the occassional questionable breaklines, green means go, red means stop, and yellow means floor it! I drove an old school Volvo stationwagon in college and you just learn to take your chances...driving it sometimes was the risk in itself. I personally think it has made me a better driver. Natasha and her out dated piece, not so much.

Pitch Slapped

No, I don't have cankles....this is the most
unflattering picture of my tiny ankles.
I swear they are the tiniest part of my body.

I took a personal day on Friday. Much needed and well used. Went for a nice long walk with my friend Lisa, then we hit the pool in her in-laws neighborhood. Forgetting that school was out, we pulled up to a group of children playing the most organized game of waterpolo I have ever seen....or really seen at all. I was more of a Sharks N' Minnows type of child. Anyway, I quickly realized I wasn't a kid anymore when I was desperately waiting in the swealtering heat for "Adult Swim". I savored those 15 minutes of peace in that pool. I get so antsy when cooking in the hot, hot sun. But I will say these kids were impressive. Here in Greenville childhoods are packed with swim team practices with highly competitive neighborhood teams. I guess thats how these 50 kids knew who was on what team and such, but I'm not kidding, it was amazing. Using trashcans and chairs for the goal posts, they were really into it. At about 1pm they all scurried home, some walking, some riding bikes. I was so jealous. But none the less it was my day off and I was doing what I wanted. When I got home, I had snail mail.

Again, one of the more enjoyable and simple pleasures of life. Inside was a cute pair of neon pink shorts and a fun top from J. Crew sent to me by my "second family", The Thompson's. Robbie, one of my very best friends growing up, and his family are amazing to me and take me under their wing whenever I travel back to Centreville, Maryland, where I grew up. Ms. Barb has the best taste in clothing and sends me fun packages all the time. They are WAY to good to me!! This was just icing to the cake of a great day. Then to put the child back into me, I headed off to Kickball. An organized sport of team bonding with alcohol, intro songs when getting up to bat/kick, and of course "competitive yelling". I came in late to the season because of bowling league still in play, but I'd like to think that I was an asset to the team. Being a co-ed leauge you have to have a certain amount of girls on the field. Let's just say that some people were exremely shocked if they actually caught a ball or contributed to the team. I won't mention any names, but don't you agree Jill and/or Lindsey? We made it to the semi-finals and lost 4-3. Highlights: we had a tripple play to almost clinch the win. It was questionable, but we won the argument with the 1 umpire on-site, so it counted. Never back down. However, a loss is a loss. If we had won we would have had to stay to play another game, instead we got to head to the bars earlier. So it was a win-win.....BUT if we had won than we would have been on a trip to play in Vegas. So I'd consider that a bigger win. We still want to go to Vegas. Kemp, team leader and pre-party planner, is now team travel agent. "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas"......There's always next year Team PitchSlapped.

Ballers.
...and see, I don't have cankles.
Boom.

Like I said....

Like I said, the Biebs knows what he is doing. I get home last night, turn on the TV and there it is on NBC - - a special about Justin Bieber. You missed it? No worries friends, it was a two part special. Catch the second half tonight on NBC at 8pm EST.

I got a fever...

...Bieber fever. And it's not going away. Justin Bieber's new album, "Believe", dropped yesterday and its pretty good. Very Justin Timberlake, but still very Bieber. Which is good since Justin Timberlake forgot he had a music career. At least we still have one of them.

I have made many of my friends "Beliebers" due to the amazing, entertaining, and most importantly informational documentary, "Never Say Never", and I would like to make you one, too. Here is how. Most people think Justin Bieber is a teen heart throb and nothing more. But did you know JB is fluent in French, plays the guitar, piano, drums, and is a killer dancer? Not only that, but he's been able to play since he was a toddler. I can't express to you enough the respect you will gain for this kid after watching the documentary. I will even let you borrow it. You don't have to tell anyone you are watching it, just watch it. I made my sister, Lindsay, into a Belieber during her visit to Greenville. She was extremely hesitant, but 10 minutes in, she silenced her phone so she couldn't be interrupted. My friend Monica and I have a crush on this young talent and we made her husband Mike watch. I really thought he would still tear it to shreds at the end of the hour documentary because of his prior feelings towards the Biebs, but even he, a non-fan, said "it wasn't bad" and that he didn't know 'he did all that stuff'. I'm telling you people, there is something about the Biebs.

My friend Pam and I got to go to his concert when touring through Greenville. Never have I ever heard screams as loud as this arena got. I can't even explain the octave the sound reached. Sean Kingston opened for Justin, and Pam and I didn't really know what to expect, but we knew we'd at least enjoy it. We went in, found our beer guy, got 2 a piece, and with just one phrase, turned into a 15 year old screaming girl. Sean Kingston said, "Who here.....knows Nicki Minaj?" With that, we of course thought she was surprising Greenville with a visit, so when he again said "I said...who here....knows....Nicki! Minaj!?", Pam grabbed my arm and we were like "OMG she's herrrreeee!!!". We fit right in. Of course, she then appeared on a digital screen over head and was not there, not even close, but it got us started. Let me tell you that Justin Bieber knows how to get those little girls (and I guess, Pam, Monica, and I) going. Intro-ing his songs with lines such as "Are there any lonely girls out there?" (the Song, "One Less Lonely Girl"), etc. He really thinks he's something, and as he should. If you watch the Today show on NBC in the mornings, you recently saw the effect he has on cities. It's incredible. Watch "Never Say Never". You don't have to like him, but I promise it will change your mind about him, one way or another.
One thing that probably won't change though......his body that resembles that of Elliot from the great American classic movie, E.T. Sorry Biebs but your skinny little bod will be like that for a while. He can look at the bright side though, more than half is fan base has probably never seen or heard of the 1982 movie.

Ted

Every so often a movie comes along that you just know everyone will find funny....with the exception of maybe my mother. I can already here her say "Oh that looks so stupid". I say that only because when our family is together around holidays and we are laughing at the tube while Family Guy is playing and my brother does impressions, she's laughing more at him than the original content. Either way, I'm pumped about Ted.

Hatfields & McCoys

I've never been much of a history buff. My dad is, but the Hatfields and the McCoys were never mentioned to me. So when there was lots of buzz recently on facebook or in general conversation around me, about them, I thought people were just gossiping about some families in Greenville I didn't know. Whoops. Apparently I missed a few days in Mr. Kenna's class back in the glory days of high school. The Hatfields and the McCoys rivalry was recently depicted in a 3 episode series on the History Channel, you can also find it on Lifetime. My friend Catherine, who apparently missed the same classes as I did, graciously DVR'd the episodes and this week we took them in. Conclusions: Kevin Costner's still got it - what a bad ass, I'm totally Team Hatfield, they dipped/spit a lot back in the day, and Johnse Hatfield had a hot body...at least on screen. Oh and Roseanna McCoy got screwed (figuratively and literally, I guess). Talk about the short end of the stick. Anyway, if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It was pretty cool and now I know what all the fuss is about. A little side trivia for you - - did you know that the Hatfield's and McCoys were actually featured later on the hit TV Game show Family Feud? I read it on Wikipedia, and clearly thought it was a joke. But nope. See for yourself...still fighting over a pig.

I'm baaAaack!

I went from posting every day there for a while to not posting at all. Perhaps its because I have moved and not signed up for Internet at my new place, or perhaps I have been busy, or maybe it's because I haven't gotten the urge to write anything. Or its all of the above. So I thought I could at least fill you in on what I have been doing. I last posted on the 22nd. Since then its been Memorial Day. That weekend I missed out on a bachelorette weekend for one of my favs - Taylor D. They went to the dirty Myrtle, while I stayed in Greenville attending Freedom Weekend Aloft. Our stations have a large role in the festival and this year we were visited by Gavin DeGraw, Colbie Caillat, and Eddie Money. It was a really nice night out and good thing, since I sweat like I stole something when there's warm weather. The following weekend I went to Carolyn and Randy's wedding in Clemson. It was amazing!


Also friends who sweat profusely, Carol, Randy, and I discussed how hot we were probably going to be as the wedding was outdoors, but someone called in a nice breeze and it was gorgeous weather. Lots of 'old' friends I haven't seen in a while and quite the college reunion. I caught the bouquet for the first time at any of the million weddings I have attended. I never really "go for it" but it was like Carol through it right at me, so I embraced it. My friend Andrew caught the garter and of course, in true college fashion, we had a photo shoot.
For some reason when I go back to Clemson, whether it's for a football game or an event like this, I seem to forget that I ever graduated. Whoops. Since the weather has been nice in Greenville, a handful of us have also fully embraced Downtown Alive - a downtown festival type thing every Thursday night from 5:30-8:30p at the North end of Main Street. They shut down part of the main road and have Budweiser trailers out on-site, as well as live music. A fun thing to do after work, that occasionally leads to karaoke. See what I 'may' mean here. In other news, our little Soybean, my niece Sawyer, has been growing like crazy! Her hair is out of control and her big Buddha belly is becoming a trademark special to her. Her words are forming and she is all over the place. She thinks she doesn't like the feel of sand, but what does a 1 year old know? I am determined to change her mind at Hennessey-Barham-Gunn-Tejara beach week. Counting down the the days to mayhem.

Next on the agenda for this weekend is the wedding of Meredith and Andrew. Staying in town for this one and am super excited to see it all go down. They are so great and I know it's going to be a blast. Mer and I lived together for the past year before we both moved into new places, and now her and Andrew are settled into their new home. I have never seen 2 people so efficient at DIY projects in my life. Their new house is beautiful. Proof that hard work and patience pays off. So excited for them! So I guess that's it for now, other than that driving to work this morning I passed a woman on an electric wheelchair coming towards me on an on ramp to busy HWY 85. I laughed and then questioned what I saw. Not sure where she was coming from or going, but next time I'll see if she needs a ride.