all curled up in there nice and cozy

here you can see feet

BOOOOOYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!

That's right. It's a baby boy!! Jen and I went in for the ultrasound on friday. The baby was definitely shy at first and wouldn't show us the goods, but after a while we were able to see that in fact we have a boy growing in there.

It's interesting because Jen and I had already picked out several girl names that we agreed on and had absolutely no agreement on any boy names. So go figure....a boy. So over the weekend Jen and I came up with a list of 64 possible names that we could consider and in the spirit of NCAA March Madness we plugged the 64 names into an NCAA tournament bracket and have been working on narrowing the field round by round. Here it is posted, not sure if it will be legible or not. This is the original bracket. I'll post it again in the future as it gets narrowed down. In other news, Lent continues and I am still going strong. No alcohol for 4 weeks and I'm doing well!! We are closing on the house next week and can't wait to get settled in the new place. I am sooo looking forward to painting a blue and orange sports themed nursery complete with my Devin Hester fathead and multiple sports stickers.

This week....

Ugh. Well, it wasn't always that bad. On monday Matt and I went to the gym and for the first time in at least a year and a half I was able to bench 205...and i did it quite easily. I was pretty pumped about it and was looking forward to attempting 225 in a few weeks. Then disaster struck. On tuesday, i woke up with what seemed to be just a cough. A minor irritation, nothing major. I thought that I would be fine. On wednesday I woke up not feeling so good. Throat was hurting, more coughing, and I was starting to feel miserable. I made it through about a half day of work before telling my boss that i couldn't go on any longer. I came home, took a bunch of drugs and went to sleep. Waking up later it was apparent that I was catching something worse than originally anticipated. I was under all the covers wearing fleece pajama pants and a hoodie, and I was shivering. Fell back asleep and when I woke up i was blisteringly hot. Jen suggested that I take my temperature just to rule out a fever. So I took it....and immediately after putting the thermometer in my mouth I watched the digital reader just skyrocket past 98.6. It ended up at 101.8. Yup, I had a fever. Awesome.

My first concern was that I had been around Jen a lot. I really don't want her to get sick since she is having our baby. So I went to the couch and camped out there for the night. When I woke up at 6am I was terribly nauseous. A few minutes later I was calling Huey on the porcelain phone. Clenching the bowl and heaving multiple times into the depths is not my idea of a good morning. After that episode i went back to sleep. Only to return to the bowl around 8:30am for more heaving goodness. Went back to bed. Went to the doctor in the afternoon and she confirmed that I did not have strep throat or the flu, and told met that it's probably a virus that just has to run it's course. Later that evening my fever had gone away, but I was stuck with a horrible sore throat and congestion.

For the most part this morning I am feeling better. The throat is still an issue. It may be so sore due to my massive purging on thursday. I have been taking ibuprofen and sucking on throat lozengers which has seemed to help. I still have congestion, but am definitely on the mend. I hope jen doesn't get this because it's been brutal. She's been a trooper though. I definitely appreciate her tending to any need i had.

I have enjoyed the college basketball though. I filled out 2 brackets this year. One i filled out just before the games started and I am 27-5 on that one. I even had Cleveland St. beating Wake Forest, Arizona beating Utah, and Western Kentucky beating Illinois. We'll see how the rest of the weekend goes, but so far so good!! Hopefully i can enjoy the weekend!

Stanley's New York Style Deli

So I finally got around to going to Stanley's Deli with the camera. Stanley's Deli is a new restaurant at 86th and Ditch Rd. right by St. Vincent Hospital. It just opened like 2 weeks ago and I have already been there 3 times. Of course I always order the Hot Pastrami sandwich, a #22 according to their menu, with swiss cheese and spicy mustard. This deli has over 45 different sandwiches. They also have the notorious "Fat Stanley" with a pound and a half of roast beef, turkey, pastrami, and corned beef with all the fix-ins and 3 slices of bread. Tame this sandwich in their dining room and your picture goes on the wall of fame!! A future challenge for yours truly no doubt! Anyway, on this occasion I ordered the #22 with a little extra meat and it is officially my favorite sandwich. The meat is hot and juicy and the bread is a tasty rye. The mustard they use is near perfection, although I think it could be a bit spicier. The sandwich definitely wants to show off the quality of the pastrami though. It's amazing. I have found that one of the reasons I love it so much is that the meat is nearly shaved, making it possible for me to just grab the portions that have inevitably fallen out of the sandwich during the devouring phase and just pop it in my mouth. I also enjoy that the bread is not toasted. Overall I would give the sandwich a 9 out of 10, with the mustard bringing it down from a 10. A great place, you should check it out....and let me know when you are going cuz I'll meet you over there....enjoy the photos!

Pictured here is the Deli Counter where you order the awesome-ness

Some New York style Decor....Yankee Stadium....BOOOOO

The Sandwich

About to be very happy and satisfied

Chomp!

Sandwiches.....

So many of you know that I have given up alcohol for lent. So i have substituted this desire for the tastiest of tasty special brews for something new.....the perfect sandwich. This is also inspired by an episode of Man Vs. Food where the host enjoyed what appeared to be the perfect Pastrami sandwich at a New York City Deli. I will share two recent experiences I have had, and the third will be coming in a future post. I will preface this post by saying that my favorite type of sandwich is a pastrami sandwich with swiss cheese and spicy mustard. Simple. Delicious. In order to evaluate the sandwich for perfect-ness, I take into account the quality of the meat, the quantity of the meat (ideally between 12-16 ounces), the spicy-ness of the mustard, and the bread.

My first sandwich experience came at the highly recommended Shapiro's Deli. I have always heard great things about the sandwiches Shapiro's builds. I have seen pictures. But until a couple weeks ago I had not made it to either location in the indianapolis metro area. So Jen and I headed up to the Carmel location to check it out the friday after lent began. I ordered, you guessed it, the Pastrami sandwich. I was not disappointed. The meat was juicy, the mustard spicy, and the bread was good.....but i'm not a huge fan of monster sized bread. Below are pictures of the sandwich and me enjoying the sandwich. Shapiro's makes a good one, but I left feeling somewhat unsatisfied....like I hadn't found that perfect sandwich. Only 8 ounces of meat and the Mustard was lacking....

me, enjoying the pastrami

The next place I had a sandwich was at Stanley's Deli on 86th and Ditch Rd. This is the sandwich place that i will detail in a future blog because it has the best Pastrami sandwich I've eaten so far, but neither time I have gone in the past 2 weeks have I had my camera, and it deserves pictures. So that to come later.

Then on Sunday we went to Dori's apartment and walked to Boogie Burger with Dori and Tom. I have been here in Indianapolis two years almost and I found it shameful that I have not tried a burger from this closet sized burger joint. On the menu? A 1/3 pound burger with swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, and.......oh yeah......a stack of pastrami. This is called the New York New York burger. Let me just say, for a burger, it was the best burger I've ever had. Credit that to the addition of the pastrami (my favorite deli meat). The burger was awesome. I probably could have eaten another half of a burger. Delicious. Below are pictures:

New York New York Burger....Notice the stack of pastrami mid-burger

Tom chomping on his, he got the same thing I did

Very Happy

If you have a sandwich place that you would recommend for me to check out, please let me know. I am looking forward to finding that perfect sandwich.