From the desk (and BlackBerry) of Keith Parnell

Can you feel it? Can you feel the electricity in the air? Get your game face on. It’s time for the Tide to roll! My prediction: Bama 35 - Texas 10.

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to I Feel Free by Cream.

I had the great honor and privilege of being inducted into the Tidewater Virginia Softball Hall of Fame this weekend as part of my long time team, DHF Contractors Softball - a great group of guys lead by the best sponsor and coach in Tidewater, Dennis Fulgham.

Our softball team is off to play in the National Championship Tournament this weekend.

I’ll be out of the office for a few days having fun, relaxing and enjoying my buddies. I’ll miss the girls of course but it’ll be a good time.

Say a prayer for us that everyone stays healthy.

I hope you guys have fun and relax this Labor Day weekend! Stay safe!

Don’t sit around and hope you can make the playoffs. Small businesses don’t have that luxury. Prepare your company for success.

Do you have a marketing plan established for your business? You should. Don’t get caught without a solid strategy, goals and guidance.

“Playoffs?! Don’t talk about playoffs! Are you kidding me? Playoffs?! I’m just hoping we can win a game, another game!” - Jim Mora, Head Coach, Indianapolis Colts, November 25, 2001

I’m having coffee this morning in memory of a good man that left this world way too early. Jim was a huge KC Chiefs fan. Here’s to ya, big man. Much love.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

12 time all-star, Wade Boggs, who was inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in 2005, speaks out strongly against the cheaters in baseball. Good stuff! I wish more clean guys would speak out.

If you cant’ do it at 60 feet, 6 inches, you shouldn’t be playing the game.

If you can’t get get a guy out or you can’t get a knock off a guy without having something to enhance your performace, get out of the game.

- Wade Boggs

* Feeds reader folks: there is a video in this post. Watch it by clicking the post title.

Don’t mess with Bobby Knight! Not even if you’re Metallica, don’t mess with Bobby and his friends.

Funny stuff from Guitar Hero.

Check out this funny commercial from Nike Golf that will air next week just before Tiger’s return to dominate the world of golf again.

The video below is The Ashley Madison Agency’s proposed Super Bowl commercial to run on Canada’s CTV. In case you don’t know, Ashley Madison is a dating service that promotes affairs among committed couples. CTV denied the commercial’s run saying that it doesn’t want such adulterous filth running alongside work from “quality brands.”

What are your thoughts? Too racy for television during the Super Bowl?

I ran across this podcast on NPR. Very interesting and worth the 35 minute investment during your busy life. Listen here.

Talk of the Nation, March 28, 2008 Major League Baseball began its season this week with a series between Boston and Oakland played in Japan. Guests discuss the science behind America’s favorite pastime from statistics, to orthopedics, to the psychology of die-hard fans.

Guests:
Dan Gordon, editor of Your Brain on Cubs: Inside the Heads of Players and Fans.
Howard Zelaznik, professor of health and kinesiology at Purdue University.
William Raasch, team physician for the Milwaukee Brewers; associate professor of orthopedic surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Life is grand these days in Tuscaloosa. Unexpectedly my Crimson Tide has walked through the SEC this year. I say unexpectedly because our team is the youngest squad in the NCAA this year with only 9 senior scholarship football players.

Florida is our next obstacle on Saturday for the SEC Championship. Then on to win the BCS National Championship.

For my Auburn friends: too bad. Your day of opportunity has passed while we were on probation. I’m certain now we will have 2 more national championships under our belts before you ever win your first.

It’s football season again my friends. And the SEC has proven again that we rule college football. 5 of the top 10 teams are from the SEC. And now Bama, the number 6 SEC team, has just manhandled the best ACC squad. Can we win 3 national championships in a row? I think so!

Roll Tide Roll!

Written with my BlackBerry Pearl (8100).

Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals was reported to have been named in the Mitchell Report to Major League Baseball as being a steroids user. On Dec. 13 2007, KTVI broadcast an incorrect report, citing information posted on the website of New York television station WNBC, that linked Pujols and other players to the Mitchell report.

That’s right - and INCORRECT report. Check your facts guys before slamming a guy in public. The steroids issue is bad enough on the baseball fans and you make it worse by making up things to sell a story.

So what does Albert do about it, you ask? He asked Cardinals media relations director Brian Bartow to make a reporter and cameraman from St. Louis Fox affiliate KTVI leave the room where Pujols’ news conference was taking place on the final day of the Cardinals’ winter warmup.

Awesome! No lawsuit. No slamming in public. Just leave. I think I just became an Albert Pujols fan.

Funny stuff. Even if you’re not a Braves fan you have to admire the spunk of these Georgia Tech students and their ability to sniff out this viral video. And it doesn’t hurt that TBS gave them a plug in the middle of the Braves game today.

As always we had a great time at another Tides baseball game. We missed Sydni at this one. Here are a couple of pictures from the evening.

Jennifer and Cameron(’s back)

Leesa, Suzanne and Mark

Leesa, Suzanne, Simon and Cameron

Simon running the bases after the game

And oh yeah, there was a ball game going on between the Norfolk Tides (Baltimore Orioles AAA affiliate) and the Richmond Braves (Atlanta Braves AAA affiliate.