Meeting Jim Tressel on 2/2/12.

Tonight I had the honor of meeting my favorite coach of all-time, Jim Tressel.  Our meeting occurred at the Browns Training Facility as part of a fundraiser for the Berea Education Foundation.  My parents bought me a ticket to the event as a gift about a year ago.  They figured I’d enjoy this, and they were absolutely right.  The event was a thrill for me.

At the event I was given a few minutes to shake Coach Tressel’s hand, take a photo with him, and have him sign an item of my choice.  He was dressed in a suit since earlier in the day he had accepted a VP position at the University of Akron.  When it was my turn to meet him, I congratulated him on his new job, told him that my mom went to high school with him and my wife is one of his new colleagues at Akron (By the way, how cool is that?).  We took a picture together in front of a green screen, which put the image of Baldwin-Wallace stadium on the print-out of the photo.  He then signed a photograph of him standing on the sidelines at Ohio Stadium that I brought to the event.

My mind was racing and it all happened so fast, but it was awesome to speak to the man who led OSU to incredible heights over his 10-year tenure!  After I had my turn, it was interesting to watch him interact with the other fans.  It was obvious that he had the ability to turn on the charm and make you feel like you had been long-time friends, not strangers.  I imagine that skill landed him many recruits over the years.  If I was a high school kid with talent, I would absolutely want to play for the man.

Following the meet-and-greet portion of the event, which also included dinner, Coach Tressel gave a speech that covered topics from his book The Winners Manual to about 500 people at the Berea High School auditorium.  I sat front and center in the first row below the stage, took pictures, and captured about 10 mins of the 90 minute speech on video via my iPhone.  He gave an interactive presentation that highlighted his knowledge, humor, and ability to work a room.  He also invited former Buckeye center Alex Stepanovich, another Berea High grad and member of the 2002 National Champion Buckeyes, onto the stage for a Q&A session.

Following the Q&A session, Coach Tressel raffled off about 25 signed footballs and copies of his book to audience memebers.  Despite a 5% chance of winning, I actually won a signed book and got to hear Jim Tressel call out my name.  That may have been the highlight of the night right there.  It definitely felt like it was meant to be.  After all, it’s unlikely that anyone has a greater appreciation of what Coach Tressel did for OSU than me.

Following the memorabilia raffle, the presentation came to a conclusion.  Since I was in the front row, I was also able to approach Coach Tressel one more time.  Earlier I had forgotten to thank him for replying to a couple letters that I had sent him in the past few years.  I always admired that no matter how busy Coach Tressel was with the team, he always took the time to reach back out to fans.  So I told him that.  Finally, on my way out of the auditorium I was surprised to receive a third autographed item, this time a signed photo card that was passed out to all 500 attendees.

All-in-all it was a pretty amazing evening.  Coach Tressel was number one on my list of public figures I’d most like to meet (out of a very short list), and 10 years after the National Championship season I finally had that chance.  I had a blast meeting a lot of other true Buckeye fans throughout the evening as well.  I can only hope that I have this opportunity again sometime in the future.

November 2011:  Alan begins to be excited about walking and practices with Wai Po every day.  Asks everyone to hold both of his hands and help guide him as he experiments walking in the house.  Perfects furniture-walking.  Also tries using Great Grandpa’s cane for fun.

December 2011:  Alan feels brave and now only requires one of his hands to be held while practicing walking.  Realizes that having a free hand allows him to transfer toys from place to place much easier.

1/8/12:  Alan walks (with assistance) for the first time in public at the Chinese Church.  Excited to show off his new ability to anyone who will look.

Mid January 2012:  Alan starts ”running” to the door (i.e. pulling Wai Po’s hand) every time V and I come home from work.  Learns to cover ground quickly.  Eventually even lets go of Wai Po’s hand and takes final 2-3 steps on his own into our arms for a big hug (of course V and I love this).

1/23/12:  Alan celebrates the first official day of the Year of the Dragon by officially walking on his own for the first time!  Surprises me when I get home from work by walking from the living room to the kitchen on his own (boy was I really pleasantly surprised!).  Smiles the whole time to let me know how happy and proud he feels to have that break-through and take a giant step towards increased freedom.

Congratulations Alan!!

The following is V’s profile on BMD’s website:
http://www.bmdllc.com/attorneys/xu.htm

Congratulations and good luck V!

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I print out these entries and put them in a book.  Over time, as memories grow more distant, I hope that Alan, V, and I can reflect back upon these entries and recall what times were like as our family was getting started and growing up together.

And as always, I hope this blog will serve as a way for friends and family to stay connected with us, even if we can’t meet in person as often as we’d like.

Speaking of Alan, he’s been taking a few steps on his own here and there while practicing walking.  He’s so determined to walk on his own that it should happen anytime now.  His great grandparents also bought him a toy car that he can push from behind while standing up to help him gain his balance.

In other recent developments, Alan has skipped straight from using a bottle to drinking from an adult glass.  He’s not a fan of using a sippy cup, but he is always eager to drink water out of the glasses that V and I use.  I’ve also found that his hobbies now include watching Jeopardy–he LOVES when the audience applauds for Daily Double clues and correct answers–and pulling books off of shelves at home.  Every Saturday morning Alan and I go to the library to play with the toys in the children’s section and I have to keep him from rearranging the book displays.  Only a matter of time before he’ll want me to read to him!

But his favorite hobby has become playing with chopsticks!  Every meal he wants to sit on my lap and play with chopsticks while we’re eating.  It’s hard for me to hold him and eat, but he just loves it so much and has so much fun it’s hard to say no.  And every time we laugh about it, he laughs right along too. 

Merry Christmas!

https://picasaweb.google.com/miller.family.photos.1121/AlanDecember2011

Image Source: www.nytimes.com

The spotlight sure was on Ohio State this week.  On Monday Ohio State hired Urban Meyer, and then on Tuesday #2 Ohio State beat — make that routed — #3 Duke 85-63 in the biggest nonconference basketball game at the Schottenstein Center in its history.

To me the hiring of Urban Meyer was a home run for OSU.  Only Alabama’s hiring of Nick Saban in 2007 comes close to the magnitude of bringing in a two-time National Championship coach at the age of 47.  He’s got the all-important Ohio pedigree as well (How important is it?  Just look at Jim Tressel vs John Cooper).  OSU is in need of Meyer’s offensive expertise and when it comes to recruiting, he might be the best in the business.  Braxton Miller should thrive under his guidance and I expect OSU to win the Big Ten as soon as next season.   The cherry on top of this hire is knowing how angry Florida fans will feel knowing that their ex-coach chose Ohio State and the Big Ten over their perceived better-than-everyone-else SEC.

Additionally, I’m glad to hear that Coach Fickell will stay on with the Buckeyes next season.  There is no truer Buckeye and for a time I was hoping that he would be named the full-time head coach for how he took one for the program this year and held the team together during trying times.  But in the end the Buckeyes could not pass up on bringing Meyer back home.

As for the basketball game, there’s not much to say other than the highly anticipated match-up in Columbus quickly turned into a rout just after tip-off.  I didn’t expect OSU to dominate quite as easily as they did, but the Bucks do have a recent history of blowing out ranked teams at home.  The past 4 ranked opponents-Purdue and Wisconsin last year; Florida and Duke this year-have lost by an average of 20 points per game.  OSU has developed quite the homecourt advantage these days.  Let’s hope this is the year for OSU basketball…

Post swear-in reception at the Supreme Court building in Columbus, OH on 11/7/11.

First, V’s big news.

On October 28th V found out she passed the Ohio Bar Exam!!  Now she’s an attorney in not one, but two states.  So nice that her Mom was here to share the big news with us too.  The day after V saw her online score results we received a letter in the mail inviting us to the Ohio Theatre in Columbus for an induction ceremony on November 7th.  It was very short notice, but nothing was going to stop Alan, Wai Po, and I from joining V as she took her oath to become an attorney in the state of Ohio.  The ceremony was well put together and the day was capped by a reception at the Ohio Supreme Court Building.  We even got to take a self-guided tour of the building, which–to no surprise–included us taking some interesting photos.    Congratulations V!!  We’re so proud of you!!

https://picasaweb.google.com/miller.family.photos.1121/ColumbusTrip

Now onto Alan.

Alan has had several exciting developments lately!  V and I are so proud of him.  He has started walking by holding onto furniture and occasionally he experiments by standing still without holding on.  At this rate it probably won’t be long before he walks on his own!  He has also learned how to get down from the couch and bed safely now, going feet first.  What a relief that we don’t have to worry as much about him getting hurt rolling off anymore.  We already have enough to worry about with Alan grabbing and opening everything he can get his hands on.

He has also started to dance in place when he hears music–which includes a lot of head and butt shaking.      Another cute thing he does is play around with his facial expressions.  He’s become especially cognizant of his eyes and likes to play blinking games with us.  The next area of focus for Alan will have to be his eating habits though.  Most of the time he still tries to hit his food away and he closes/rubs his eyes whenever we try to feed him with food he doesn’t want to eat.  And he mostly tries to swallow food without chewing.

Currently Alan is in Chicago with V and Wai Po for the first of a 3-day trip.  V is making it a priority to take her Mom to the biggest cities in the U.S. during her stay with us.  Alan took his first trip to downtown Cleveland this morning when I dropped them off at the Megabus stop, and now he’s in downtown Chicago for the first time.  This is the first night since Alan was born that I will be separated from him.  I miss him already!

https://picasaweb.google.com/miller.family.photos.1121/AlaninChicago

https://picasaweb.google.com/miller.family.photos.1121/AlanNovember2011

Alan on Halloween night, just before going trick-or-treating.

This year on Halloween Alan went trick-or-treating for the first time!  He went as a tiger.  I took him to a few houses and then V and Wai Po took him to a few more.  We took turns so that we each had a chance to show off our little tiger!  The evening was rather cold, but Alan was bundled up pretty well.  And his tiger hat helped keep him warm.  We’re not sure he really understood what was going on, but we laid the foundation for next year.  I’m already imagining Alan walking from door-to-door!

https://picasaweb.google.com/miller.family.photos.1121/AlanOctober2011

On a side note, I never like going to that state up north, but at least we didn’t spend one dime there today!  Woody would be proud.

Our little guy turned the big ONE tonight at 7:13pm!! 

To celebrate, V, Alan, and I walked to Dairy Queen, picked up a mini ice cream cake, and videotaped us singing happy birthday to Alan.  He nearly slept through his birth time (7:13pm), so I had to violate baby rule #1 and wake up a sleeping baby.   He normally doesn’t sleep at that time, but he may have been extra tired after going to the Mayfield Heights library for storytime and to Bakers Square with his great-grandparents for lunch earlier in the day. 

Throughout the evening we also took other short videos of Alan doing the things he likes to do (including stair-climbing–his new favorite hobby) and took ink prints of his hands and feet.  We wanted to make sure to properly document this milestone in his life. 

Actually this blog has even evolved into the documentation of Alan’s early life.  I print out these entries and put them in a book so that one day Alan can read them and see what his early years were like.  So as an aside, I’m going to speak directly to Alan on his special day.

Alan, 

Your Mom and I love you very much.  You’re a beautiful boy with a loving smile.  Everyone who sees you tells us how cute you are.  I personally enjoy every time someone says you look like me when I was your age.  I joke with you and Mom that you are my twin.  And every time I tell you this in Chinese, you smile back at me, grinning from ear-to-ear. 

We’re so proud of how well you’re developing.  We can tell that you are a very persistant guy.  You worked hard to crawl, you worked hard to crawl fast, and then you worked how to learn how to climb stairs.  With your determination, I’m sure you’ll be walking in no time. 

I can’t wait to continue to share your “firsts” with you.  It’s wonderful being your Dad.   

Love,

Dad

https://picasaweb.google.com/miller.family.photos.1121/AlanSeptember2011#