So how was your Thursday? Mine was outstanding! I spent the entire day with my girls, sprinkled around some time in the office. Taking Trae to school (after some "healthy" breakfast at Krispy Kreme), lunch with Mandy and Tori, an afternoon jaunt to Ed & Suzie Planas' with the girls to visit with Trevor, our lively little Pekingnese, followed by an evening devoted to refrigerator shopping, capped off with a trip to Baskin-Robbins.

Life just doesn't get much better than that.

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It's hard for me to believe it but beginning this weekend, baseball across America takes a backseat to football. I make no bones about my passion for baseball, but a close, close second has to go to football. Growing up in the South and following the Razorbacks across the SEC, it is hard to beat the color and pageantry of college football.

With that, I give you my week one predicitions of some key games of interest across the college football landscape:

*Fresno State by 14 over Nevada (Tonight, 5:00 pm PST, ESPN). Incidentally, I tried to talk Mandy into going to the game...she wasn't too thrilled with that idea!

*West Virginia by 24 over Marshall. A pick that won't make my Thundering Herd friends too happy, but hey, predictions must be made with the head, not the heart.

*Texas by 41 over North Texas. Colt McCoy has a terrific debut at QB for the Horns as the Horns blitz the Mean Green.

*USC by 26 over Arkansas (Tomorrow, 5:45 PST, ESPN). Last year USC trounced the Hogs by 53 in Los Angeles. This year's game in Fayetteville cuts the deficit in half.

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"I commend cheerfulness to all who would win souls; not levity and frothiness, but a genial, happy spirit. There are more flies caught with honey than with vinegar, and there will be more souls led to heaven by a man who wears heaven on his face than by one who bears Tartarus in his looks." - C.H. Spurgeon (from Jimmy Mitchell's blog).