New Creations, Rosemount, MN

I'm not one for using my blog to advertise anything. I threw a few Google ads up a while ago to cover the cost of the domain and web hosting (for when I move to WordPress) but trust me, I don't make any profit on blogging.

But I'm going to break my typical rule and put in a plug for a friend, though I suppose it doesn't really count as advertising when I'm not getting paid for it.

Steve Tuttle runs New Creations, a remodeling business out of Rosemount. I met Steve a while ago. We were in the same church and he has boy/girl twins about 2 years older than mine. I really got to know him, though, after we found out we were going to lose Kaylee. Steve and his wife Jennifer walked a very similar road when they lost their son Landon 4 years ago at 28 weeks.

The Tuttles were in the hospital with us the day after Kaylee was born. They were there when our pastor dedicated her. Steve graciously accepted the difficult task of giving a eulogy for Kaylee at her memorial service and he did a superb job.

Steve and Jennifer have become close friends very quickly. I could go on for a few paragraphs if I were to list all of the ways they have supported us over the last month and a half. We really would be a few steps behind where we are today if it weren't for them.

I have seen Steve's work with New Creations and it's impressive. If you live in the south metro of the Twin Cities, go ahead and like his Facebook page! He actually keeps it current with photos of current projects, promotions, and other updates. If you're looking for someone to tackle a project in your home, you won't find a more trustworthy, quality person to handle the job.

Super Bowl 45 wrap

First, THE PACKERS WON!!! I'm still basking in it. My kids' first Super Bowl and it was a blast!

Second, can we please stop using Roman numerals and just use the numbers? It sure would be easier than running through my mental "I, V, X, Let Caesar Destroy Mountains" routine.

Ok, onto my non-football Super Bowl wrap.

The national anthem was pathetic. I'll give Christina Aguilera credit for wearing clothes that actually covered her for a change, but her failure to remember the words to the song she was there to sing was almost as bad as her awful embellishment of the song.

The halftime show was mediocre. Props to the NFL for at least trying to entertain us with contemporary music. I'd had enough of the guys whose last big hit was 20-40 years ago. But it sounded like they used volunteer sound mixers.

My favorite commercial was Motorola's "Empower the People." As a big Android fan who likes to poke fun at iBots (people so crazy about Apple they see no wrong in Steve Jobs' machine) I loved it. Android has its flaws, as does any OS, but I love open source!

The funniest commercials were Bridgestone's "Reply All," Doritos' "The Best Part," and Coca-Cola's "Border." This top 3 says more about the lack of great humor than it does about the quality of the commercials. "Border" really wasn't so much funny as it was just good, much better than most of Coca-Cola's recent efforts.

The worst commercials went to Groupon's "Tibet" and Pepsi MAX's "First Date." The only thing worse than Pepsi MAX's male stereotype was Groupon's misguided (to say the least) use of the plight of the Tibetans to advertise its product.

The cutest commercial (do I lose my man card by having this category?) went to Volkswagen's "The Force." It already had 13 million views on YouTube before the Super Bowl even started. Great commercial, even for those of us who aren't Star Wars fans.

The best one-liner was at the end of Best Buy's "Big Game Spot with Bieber and Ozzy." Ozzy Osbourne asks, "What's a Bieber?" A disguised Justin Bieber responds, "I don't know, kind of looks like a girl." As a bona fide Justin Bieber anti-fan, I love the self-deprecation. Maybe the guy isn't all that bad.

There were a few I really didn't get. Audi's "Release the Hounds" seemed way over-done. Stella Artois' "Crying Jean" made absolutely no sense to me.

There were others that were good but this is more than enough analysis for Wide White.

I'll leave the best summary of the night to a kid from Green Bay.

Ryan Hatzenbeller, 24, of Green Bay, took off his No. 21 Charles Woodson jersey and waved it at traffic bare-chested.

"Dude! It's Green Bay, Wisconsin! We won the Super Bowl! We've got nothing better to do!" he shouted at a reporter over the din.

If I really were a socialist...

...or a communist or some kind of dictator who didn't believe in the free market, I'd ban the use of good songs in commercials.

"I've Been Everywhere" by Johnny Cash is just a great song. I didn't know much of Johnny Cash's work until I saw "Walk the Line," but I really like some of his stuff now. The best song has to be "I've Been Everywhere."

See, I'm a geography nut. I love to travel. I love to just look at maps. It's probably somewhat abnormal to enjoy just looking at maps. Conversations can be interesting.

Friend: "What's up?"

Me: "Not much."

Friend: "What are you reading?"

Me: "Oh, I'm not reading."

Friend: "But you're holding a book."

Me: "Yeah, no, it's a map."

Friend: "???"

Regardless, this song is perfect for people like me. Who else but Johnny Cash would actually write a song where most of it was simply listing geographic locations? 92 of them, to be exact. And they include "Minnesota," "Devil's Lake," and "Fond du Lac." I didn't even know anyone outside of Wisconsin had heard of Devil's Lake or Fondy, much less written them into a hit song!

Then some stupid company went and made a commercial using the song. The company is so stupid that I don't even know who it was. You know your commercial is ineffective when someone who doesn't watch TV that much actually remembers something from your commercial, and that one thing is a song that probably has nothing to do with your company.

Yet this ineffective commercial tried to ruin a great song.

I'm still in rehab over this. I'm getting to the point where I can enjoy the song again, but the stupid commercial is still in the back of my head. I'm told that I'll need another two months of rehab before the commercial is gone and I can enjoy the song for the sake of the song.

So if I were a dictator like Fidel Castro or Kim Jung Il (both excellent dictator names, by the way...I mean, how many other people do you know with those names?), my first move would be to ban the use of any popular song in a commercial. I would have the sole discretion over what wouldn't qualify as "popular." That list may include artists such as Lindsay Lohan, 50 Cent, Eminem, and Hillary Duff. Because when you're a dictator, it doesn't matter how popular it is to everyone else. All that matters is what you think.

If I were a dictator....