My prediction for Italy: They will make it to the quarterfinals and no further. Italy is a brilliant team full of actors and artists. By actors I mean whenever they are touched they go down, and by artists i mean they produce some of the finest goals that I have ever seen. I love to watch them, but I don't think they are as strong or will be as lucky as they were four years ago when they won it all.

Mexico. They are in for another hard time at the World Cup. My prediction: They will not make it out of the group stage. I think it will be France and Bafana Bafana coming out of Group A. Sorry Uruguay, sorry Mexico. South Africa is going to stir everything up in that group. However, I do have a lot of respect for the Mexican team, they are incredible players. Part of the reason I stopped playing soccer was when I played against a team of Mexicans in Sacramento that destroyed my team. I don't remember the final score but I am pretty sure they scored at least a dozen goals against us. After that game I thought, why am I still playing this game when there are people that much better than me. That is how I feel about Mexican soccer.

France is a wild card. I know that they are always a favorite and were the runner-ups four years ago, but my prediction for The France: They will barely make it out of the group stage and will lose in the round of 16. Reasons: They are not a cohesive team. There is a lot of dissention among the players, and really, based on recent history (last four years) when was the last time Les Bleus did anything really great. They even had to cheat Ireland to get it. Even though they can probably beat any team on “their day” with the talent they have, the loss to China last week (Who knew that China even played soccer?) has convinced me that they will not have “their days” this year.

With as much as I love French things like, crepes, Django Reinhardt, Yeves Montand, Charles Trenet, Edith Piaf, nasty smelling cheeses, macrroons, and talking with a french accent I don’t think the french are going to do well.

With the World Cup starting tomorrow I thought I would make some predictions about the tournament. I will be featuring a different country each day for the next few days and will point out why or why not I think they will win. First up is Spain.


My prediction for Spain: second place. They will make it to the final but I don't think they will win it this time around. The three reasons I think they will make it so far, first: the Spanish are legit athletes, Rafa Nadal, Alberto Contador... need I say more. Second: They are competitive people driven to win as evidenced by the two references above. Third: they are smart. If you have been to Spain and had tapas this is obvious. Everyone knows that appetizers are the best part of dinner, so they have decided to just eat appetizers for an entire meal. Brilliant.

You can forget about the loss to the US at the fed cup last year. They destroyed Poland earlier this week 6-0 and are going to destroy every team in their group. With Fernando Torres and David Villa up front they will be fun to watch as there will be a lot of goals scored. I don't think they will be challenged until at least the quarterfinals.

All of these pictures were taken in Spain except for the first picture of the Spanish flag. That was taken in Paris when Contador won the Tour de France last year.

I took these of Em and her dog Daisy a few weeks ago to finish off a roll of film. Doesn't she look great?

Happy Birthday Aunti Em!

Taken on Fuji 400H 220 with Contax 645 and 80mm f/2 lens

I almost forgot about this set. Natalie is one of Shalynna's best friends from high school. They were roommates freshman year at BYU and they had their babies about six weeks apart. It was freezing cold outside the day I took these so we almost just stayed indoors for these. I sure am glad that we didn't.