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Over the past few days, we decided to get into the Christmas spirit and decorate our house. It started with the pre-lit tree Ashley bought for me, and exploded into completley transforming the second floor landing. Jay and I manned the transformation, and with several (ok, 5 trips) to CVS, we finished it off.

Details to note:

• a paper angel with a picture of Beau is on top of the tree

Our whole side wall is covered in wall paper, with “WERTLAND WONDERLAND” on it

• We have a small train around the base of the tree (with snow!)

>We hung lights along the top of the wall and around the handrail.

• We hung up four stockings, for the 4 of us that live upstairs. They are Nitro (Jay), Rugby Mac (Tyler), Miz (Tessier), and .Com (me).

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an style=”font-size:100%;”> There are a few more things.. I’ve posted all the pictures on my webshots. Click here to see the rest of our decorations!

Uva accepted a bid to a bowl today.. we will be playing in the MPC Computer Bowl in Boise, Idaho! We get to travel to the smurf blue field to play a MAC opponent (likely Fresno St.). It’s disappointing that only a week ago, we had hopes for the Peach Bowl, or (even though less likely) the Sugar Bowl… and now we’re here. We are the highest rank team, #18 in the nation, to ever play in this bowl, and likely will remain the highest ranked team to have ever played in the bowl.

So, who wants to go? I heard Idaho is amazing mid-December..

What might be arguably one of the worst stretches of school, everyone returned from a great back to a disappointing reality. Thanksgiving break gives false hopes to college students, as they go home and enjoy a worry free week. Christmas music is playing, good food is all around you, people are shopping, it almost seems too good. And then Sunday rolls around, and maybe even Sunday night, and we realize we still have 3 weeks of school left.. ouch.

For most schools, it’s not that long. But the genius students of UVA decided to vote on a referendum that gave us more “reading days” throughout exams. Due to this, and the fact that school started September 1st, our exam period goes through December 21st. And wouldn’t you believe it, I have an exam the 21st.

Focus is so hard to come during this week, as well. With Christmas (or hanukkah, or whatever you celebrate), New Years, vacations, break, how are we supposed to focus on school? Not to mention the end of the classes is always dreeeeeeeadful. But – we must suck it up and get it done! Besides – it’s not like we’re at work or anything like that (direct hit to Sprad)!

I’d like to shout out a Happy Birthday to my granpa Ed Trotman (E.T.). He married my grandma some 8 or so years back, and has been an amazing addition to the family.
To celebrate, a birthday party was held at the country club in my neighborhood. The dinner was awful (being nice), and stories were long, but it was a good time. Below is a picture taken with the birthday boy and all the kids. From left to right: Brian, Holly, ET, Joy, Ross, then in the middle Sprad and Ashley.

After the completion of dinner (or lack thereof), and storytimes from all the old folk, the music began to play. Cue all the classic party songs: The Electric Slide, the YMCA, The Charlie Brown, and the Chicken Dance. Isn’t it always funny, how no matter what party, there are always those people who get up and get really into the dancing. It’s important to note there was no alcohol involved. But honestly, you know those people. So the highlight of the night is when the electric slide came on – and sprad (after incessant begging from our family) began to get into it all with those people. It was hilarious. Soon after, Sprad and I hopped on the dance floor with a bunch of young kids to partake in “The Chicken Dance”. While ridiculing ourselves, we performed the dance flawlessly and were cracking up the entire time.. that is until Ashley saw us. She was in the bathroom when the song came on, and when she came back and saw us dancing – taking in the song that was on, the way we were dancing, and the other people on the dance floor – her mouth about dropped to the floor. As sprad put it, her look was “as if she walked in on us in bed together.” Oh yea, it was that bad. Here’s a picture of Sprad, Ashley and me… Sprad for some reason thinks ashley is his :

To end this post, Sprad and I realized something tonight. In the upcoming years, at parties and weddings and such, we realize we are going to be those people. We’ll be the ones on the dance floor dancing ridiculously, standing up and giving funny speeches, and doing all the rest – all while thinking it’s hilarious to eachother and close friends – but realizing that everyone else will only think we are those people. How sad.

This website emulates the game 20 questions, and does a darn good job doing it. Try it out – and be honest – and you’ll find it’s pretty neat.

You can play the game here: http://y.20q.net/anon

VT beat UVA.. plain and simple. I won’t even make excused. Tech came out beat us in the second half.

I was really pleased at half time. While we missed a few key scoring opportunities, we held VT to under 100 yards, and were moving the ball. UVA definitley should have been up at halftime.

But UVA even came out strong in the third quarter, forcing a VT special teams turnover (rare) and converting on a 3rd and long for a TD (even rarer). But then Tech responded, and never looked back. Blah blah blah.

Unlike many wahoos (i.e. my girlfriend), I’m not bitter towards Tech. I thought they played a good, hard fought game. In my opinion, UVA lost the game for itself. I thought a lot of the coaching calls were awful, we didn’t convert twice within the redzone, our secondary gave up too many big plays, and we had stupid costly penalties. We had a few opportunities to take a strong lead, and yet we failed to convert and let Tech stay in the game. And give it to Randall and the VT D – they played well.

Overall, talent-wise, I think UVA had the better team this year. We were more prepared then any other year. But in the big picture, I think this game showed the UVA football is still a few years behind Tech’s program, and we have a ways to go. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not being a pessimist by ANY means. I’m the biggest UVA football supporter, and still so after today. But I think a lot of our expectations may be too high, and we need to realize that Groh is building what hopes to be a powerhouse program.

Now we only hope that Ahmad Brooks, Darryl Blackstock, and Heath Miller stick around for next year. We hope our recruiting class gets even stronger. And we hope for a great offseason. And oh yea, a bowl win, wherever that may be.

brittvb04: i remember when you were on your christmas break first year, you were sooooo ready to go back

brittvb04: and to be a second year

RosstaDawg: hahaha

RosstaDawg: now I just want to be a first year again

Realizing that college is more than halfway over can be pretty depressing..

For one of the first times in recent history, I actually stopped the radio to listen to country today. And not just one song, but two! I was listening to my typical 80′s/rock/rap/christmas (seasonal) music, and I came across the country station and… liked it. dont’ worry though, the phase only lasted for two songs..

And on that note: Who can’t love the South? I went to watch my cousin’s highschool wrestling tournament today, and was shown I was truly in the South (Charlotte, NC – it’s close enough). As the announcer would call out the names, he would say “Wrassler” everytime he referred to the wrestlers – which was once every 3 minutes. Wrasslin’.

On another note: A 30 year old Virginia Beach child bodes well for the youth of the 757 as he calls a hooker, then attempts to abduct her. What was this kid thinking? The story can be read here!

And finally, the UVA/VT game is only about 12 hours away, and I’m so nervous! The official spread favors VT by 4, but ESPN Insider gave a Virginia win by 4. It’s going to be interesting.. and nerve racking!

Yum, I’ve eaten my face off all day, and it couldn’t be better. Who can complain about Thanksgiving? Tons of food, resting, and relaxing! Woke up at 12:00, watched TV for a bit, ate Thanksgiving Dinner, watched the movie Elf, hanging out for a bit more, eating some more food, then going to see the movie Polar Express. What a great holiday..

And speaking of holidays, Christmas is here! It seems Christmas is always so far out of the way, and then it appears out of no where..

While the weather isn’t the best for it, I can’t wait to go snowboarding. TStall and I (and hopefully many others) are planning a trip out west for the break. We talked today, and I think I can get my sister’s time share to use out there. That’d be a hugggggggge cash saver. I’ve found that the condo would only cost us $100 (maintanence fees), a round trip plane ticket to Denver, CO from Norfolk, VA would only be $250, and 6 days of lift tickets would be around $225-250. Add in transporation fees (roughly $75/person) and food, and we could be looking at a week long trip out West for under $800! This is all tentative, but let’s hope it works out..

Enjoy the rest of Thanksgiving, as it’s almost over (but the leftovers keep on coming). School is almost out, and another great holiday is right around the corner..

I’m off to Charlotte, NC to visit family for thanksgiving. Traveling down south with 3 dogs in the car, should be a doozie. Have a great turkey day, full of family, food and football!

Only 3 more days till the UVA/VT showdown..

I’ve already written about my entire trip from Nationals, but the server decided to crash when I uploaded and I lost the entire thing. So I’m going to make this version a bit more brief.

We headed down to Austin, Texas with only 14 players. Mind you, we have over 28 players on the team. Definitley a problem. After traveling all day, we attempt to find our hotel which was booked with the girls team… but there’s a problem: The airport has never heard of it, neither have any local fast food restaurants, let alone the phone book! Upon calling Mel on the girl’s team, we find out where the hotel is (and that they checked out of the hotel already). The sight of the hotel from the outside was enough for me to switch hotels (this place was a crack whore’s dream) but our team was anxious to check it out. We looked at one room, and it had a thick green fungus all over the carpet, with moist beds and nasty bugs on the top wooden ceilings. No way. After a bit of talking/persuasion, we end up moving into the nice hotel right nextdoor.

It was then brought to our attention that all the games on the first day were postponed. Apparently it peed all over Texas the week prior, and the fields were too wet to play on (really, UT didn’t want their fields ruined). So what does NIRSA do to compensate for a missed day of games? Makes us play three 50-minute games on Friday. Ha. What a joke. We ended up winning the first game against Texas Southern 1-0, we won the second game 4-1 against Southern Illinois 4-1, and lost the third game 1-2 to Arizona State. We played our best soccer of the season, and with our record we won our tournament bracket and advanced to the quarterfinals.

The next morning we won the quarterfinals 5-1 against Texas State. I didn’t play this game, due to my ankle (see picture below). The game was close until Beau blatanly fouled a player (and recieved a yellow card) and the player retaliated (think Ben Wallace’s hit on Ron Artest). I’ve never seen a bigger flop, as Beau grabbed his face in fake agony, rolled on the ground at LEAST 5 times, and laid there in fake pain. HILARIOUS. It earned him the red card as well (soccer’s version of an Academy Award). Seth’s mom took great pictures of this, and I will post them when we get them. So, on high hopes and all, we went to lunch anxiously awaiting the semifinal game that afternoon. Coming out of lunch, it starts to storm. We drive up to the fields, and within 5 minutes, the tournament director called the tournament. No attempt at finding other fields, no attempt at waiting, just cancelled. So this year there is no national champion and over 50 teams that traveled from all over the nation and paid all this money got to play about 150 minutes of soccer. Quite a waste of a trip if you ask me.

Only one more year for me to win Nationals..

The new BCS (Bowl Championship Series) ratings came out today, and thanks to the Florida upset over Florida State, we are ranked one spot ahead Florida State. Miamia is ranked 8th, VTech is 14th, while Virginia is 17th and FSU 18th. This opens up the possibility that UVA can win the ACC and earn a BCS bowl berth. Note, it’s a slim possibility. But it’s possible. Here’s what needs to happen:

1. UVA pulls off the insane upset in Blacksburg and defeats Virginia Tech.
2. Virginia Tech, angry about their loss to instate rival UVA, defeats Miami in Coral Gables.
3. With Virginia Tech and Miami losing, UVA moves up to the top ACC team in the BCS rankings.

This would cause a three way tie in the ACC between FSU, Virginia Tech, and UVA. Since all three teams have not played eachother, the tie breaker would be the highest ranked team in the BCS. If all went as planned, that’d be UVA.

I pray that this happens, although I’m skeptical it will. Only time will tell. But please, PLEASE let’s not let Vtech win it’s next two games and win the ACC title outright.. that just can’t happen..

Got back late tonight from Austin. We made it to the semi-finals, only for the tournament to be cancelled due to rain. Who cancels the National Championship Tournament?? Anyways, I have lots of work to do and I’m exhausted. The only thing I really have to tell from the trip right now is the picture below (ouch). I’ll post more details from the trip later.

Welcome back to RossGilmore.com. It’s been a while since I’ve had anything up, a real long while. I decided to throw all my pictures on a page, including ones from this year. I’ve coined the page: RossGilmore.Com Webshots. Creative eh? I also decided to keep this page simple, and just have a blog to post to randomly. So check back, read what’s going on in my life/head/around me, and enjoy!

I’m off to Austin, Texas for club soccer nationals. I’ll be back Sunday night..