Secretly I hoped it would turn out this way. Didn’t want to jinx it, but yeah, I was hoping the Old Man-ning would get one more ring. Wasn’t the prettiest game I ever saw, but at least I got to see this one rather than being stuck at work as I’ve been for most Super Bowls the last decade and a half. This Super Bowl was especially sweet because it was the first one I got to watch with my son. (Well, he made about 15 minutes of it.)

This is an exciting few days at the O’Connell household. As a throwback to how we used to do it in the ’80s (before Twitter and Facebook and other useful distractions), we’ve decided this year to celebrate every minor holiday we can, and there are three in a row this week that are just perfect. Following yesterday’s “big game” we have Chinese New Year today, then tomorrow, of course, is Mardi Gras! That’s a pretty sweet trifecta right there and I plan to milk every minute of it.