Wimbledon coverage starts tomorrow June 23rd on ESPN2 at 7am ET! Will Federer redeem himself after his poor showing in the French Open final 2 weeks ago or will Nadal finally defeat Roger after his 5 set loss last year in the finals? What do you think?

In one of the biggest upsets in superbowl history, the 12 point underdog NY Giants beat the 18-0 New England Patriots.  If you missed it, check out the NFL Replay of the game on the NFL Network on Wednesday.  While Eli Manning received the MVP award, I think it’s clear that the entire Giants defense were the true MVPs.  With 5 sacks and countless hits on Tom Brady, the Pats were never really able to execute the way they had planned.  I’m happy for NY and all their fans.  Go Giants!

It looks like Chicago Bears running back Thomas Jones will be traded to the N.Y. Jets for a second round draft pick (37th overall).  So Cedric Benson will be our guy.  TJ rushed for over 1200 yards last season with some key 100+ yard games in the post season.  Hopefully we’ll get our money’s worth for him.  

Not only will we miss him, but I’m going to have to replace my navy Thomas Jones jersey for someone who’s still on the team.  Ideas anyone?

Right now, I’m favoring the Browns: Alex or Mike. 

Well, we made it back from our Superbowl trip on Monday night.  And even though the Bears lost, it was quite an experience. 

First of all, the weather in South Florida was amazing.  It was a bit cloudy, about 65 degrees, and not too humid.  This was a nice break from the cold Salt Lake weather and was a very nice break for our friend John who came from the -7 degree weather in Chicago.  Each day, I went for a jog in the neighborhood of John’s Fort Myers house.  . palm trees, golf courses, cool breeze, thick clean air.  It was gorgeous. 

John’s place was about 150 miles from Miami, where all the festivities were taking place.  On Saturday, the day before the game, we drove to Miami Beach to pick up our superbowl tickets.  For those of you who don’t know (because I didn’t. . ), this is what a superbowl ticket looks like:

South Beach was a zoo on Saturday.  There was literally no place to park.  We had to drop Arvind off and circle while he went and got the tickets.  While we waited for Arvind, we were pulled over near a car that was decked out with Bears gear.  It said Woodfield Nissan on it so it was a very long way from home (click on the picture to get a better look):

Arvind had paid for 4 seats together and the ticket broker was only able to get 2 and 2 so he gave some money back.  We figured it was no problem because one set of seats were slightly better than the others and we were sure we could trade the people next to the worse seats so we could sit together.  With the extra money, Arvind bought some Johnny Walker Blue Label for our post-game celebration.  Where he got it from it was about $240 a bottle.  Here is a little blurb about JWB:

The Rarest Blend

Johnnie Walker® Blue Label ™ is our rarest blend. This isn’t a whisky for beginners. It’s challenging and an acquired taste, but like the finest rewards in life is worth it.

Created from the rarest and most expensive whiskies in the world, Blue Label™ has the authentic character and flavour of a traditional nineteenth century blend, just like those that John Walker and his son Alexander developed for their most valued customers.

Blue Label™ is made from a few exceptional whiskies with powerful flavours. Each bottle is precious to us and is individually numbered. Each contains a rare taste and gives an intense experience.

Blue Label™ is the ultimate luxury Scotch Whisky and supplies of Blue Label™ are limited by the rarity and expense of the whiskies used in the blend.

At the heart of Blue Label™ is Royal Lochnagar™a rare malt distilled near Balmoral, the Queen’s holiday home. Around 15 other mature and precious whiskies are added to balance Blue Label™ perfectly – ‘a blend that cannot be beat’ (Alexander Walker, 1888).

So anyway, after a long drive back and forth to South Beach to pick up the tickets (Scott and I had taken the red-eye to Florida and pretty much got straight in the car to go to Miami so we were traveling going on 20 hours by that point), we went to a Chicago grill restaurant for dinner.  We got the attention of all of the hostesses, waiters and bartenders when all of us walked in with our Bears jerseys.  We got some deep dish pizza to stay in the Chicago spirit and after a couple of hours, we were rejuvenated.  We stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up some supplies for our trip back to Miami on Sunday. 

The big day was almost here. . . .

So I was on the Sports Illustrated website looking to fuel my superbowl fire when I saw a little piece on celebrity superbowl picks.  Curious to see if they’re as poorly informed about sports as they are about politics, I went through the pictures.  To my total dismay, Gale Sayers, the hall of fame Chicago Bears running back, picked the Colts!  He has the score at Colts 35, Bears 28.  Traitor!  His comment was this:

“Peyton Manning is one of the best quarterbacks around so the Bears will have to score some points. I think Peyton will put up some points and if he does, we are in trouble. I just don’t think we can put up as many points as he can. But I’m not betting with my heart. I hope the Bears win but I just can’t see us beating Peyton Manning.”

At least he’s still hoping for a Bears win. 

It’s done! We’re going to the Superbowl!  Thanks Arvind and the rest of our friends who made this possible.  I’m not even sure it’s really sunk in yet.  Bears!!!!!  By the way, for some reason, the Bears are 7 point underdogs.  What an upset this is going to be!

Well things have been kind of crazy and I’ve had more than a few items of note to post here, but it just hasn’t happened. 

Last weekend we went to Vegas to get together with a bunch of our friends who do or at one time lived in Chicago.  We went to watch the Chicago Bears in the divisional playoffs.  Of course the Bears won which is now only less exciting because we just won the NFC Championship game yesterday against the New Orleans Saints.  Now we’re Superbowl bound!  BEARS!!

I could go on and on about what a great time I had in Vegas with the spectacular meals etc., but I have to move on to my Superbowl discussion.  .here’s where our best friends come in.  . .

Two of our friends, Arvind and John, had bought 4 Superbowl tickets a few months back when it really started looking like we could go all the way.  They got great seats on the lower level between the 30s for the whopping price of over $4000/ticket.  Everyone knew that they had these 2 extra tickets but it wasn’t clear what they were going to do with them . . .and of course the Bears hadn’t made it yet.  If they didn’t, they might have sold all 4. 

Anyway, it also turns out that Arvind and John are two of the several friends that were waiting for the perfect idea for a wedding gift for Scott and I.  So the day we were going to leave Vegas, they gave us our wedding gift: we had the first option to buy the remaining 2 Superbowl tickets for a deeply discounted rate. .all of our friends had gotten together to pay for a big chunk of the ticket cost.  Also, Arvind gave us some belated birthday and Christmas gifts of a very substantial bet on the Bears to win against the Saints.  If the Bears beat the Saints and went to the superbowl, we would also have another chunk of these tickets paid for.

Can you believe what great friends we have?  Despite their extremely generous offer, it was still a lot of money to talk about spending.  With heavy hearts (but confident we had done the right thing), we turned them down. 

And then ..

 The Bears won.

And earned their way to the Superbowl. . .

Now we’re reconsidering.  Stay tuned to find out what the final decision is going to be.

Well it’s over.  I lost my fantasy football playoff game and now my season’s over.  Everything just went wrong.  If my opponent’s tight end, Jeramy Stevens, didn’t catch a garbage time touchdown in the Seattle game when it didn’t mean anything, if Drew Brees didn’t have his worst game of the season, if the Bears defense didn’t have their worst game of the season, if Tony Gonzalez hadn’t dropped the touchdown pass he tipped to himself. . .the outcome would have been different. 

I lost this game by 5 points.

If I was a St. Louis Rams fan, I would have been pretty pissed off last night.  Not just because they lost or because it sounded like there were more Bears fans in their stadium than Rams fans, but because it was Bears-mania on Monday Night Football. 

The entire pre-game show was devoted to the Bears, showing behind the scenes clips of the players preparing for the game and gathering in their free time.  There was a hilarious skit by Barack Obama hinting at parallels between himself and Rex Grossman about being the new guy and all the hype.  In the end he puts on a Bears hat, says the Bears from his hometown Chicago are going all the way, and sings the Monday Night Football theme.  And the celebrity that does the MNF intro asking if you’re ready for some football was none other than Jim Belushi, widely known to be a Bears fanatic. 

And how can you blame them?  As John Madden says, there’s nothing as great as when the Bears are doing well.  He says the air in Chicago is the same it was in ‘85.  Bears!!!

Finally, the Rex Grossman that we know and love is back.  He was completed 13 of 23 passes for 200 yards, threw 2 touchdowns, and no interceptions last night against the St. Louis Rams.  As the NFL network put it, it was a Rex-urrection.  Unfortunately the defense allowed 27 points and a whopping 433 total yards, but our special teams were in top form as usual.  That is Devin Hester had 2(!) kickoff returns for TDs setting a new NFL record of 6 for the season.  My friend John, along with a huge number of Bears fans, was at the game.  Bears!!!  Miami, here we come!