***UPDATED*** 
First of all, thanks for reading!  A reader named Ryan politely pointed out an incorrect statistic for the UCLA Bruins Men's Basketball Team, so I have corrected that!  Thanks for the comments, keep checking back!

***UPDATED***
Thanks to Lex for pointing out Kentucky Lake!  Kentucky Lake is the largest man-made lake east of the Mississippi (still Kentucky!)  The correction is reflected below as well.

I've been writing on this blog for over a year, and it's been a lot of fun.  I'm grateful and ecstatic for people who are returning readers.  If you can read between the lines, I'm from Kentucky.  I'm fairly well-traveled for a 25-yo and would like to speak of my experiences.  Louisville, the largest city in Kentucky, is known as the Northernmost Southern City and the Southernmost Northern City.  I like the former, but feel free to disagree.  We have a unique heritage, with bloody fights in the civil war and long traditions of distilling bourbon and breeding horses.  I hope this post brings non-Kentuckians closer to our state, and opens locals' eyes to the different world beyond the Bluegrass State.

You've seen the T-shirts.  Printed "Luis-ville" "Luey-ville" "Loo-i-vuhl" "Loo-uh-vuhl" and "Louisville"; we have our own pronunciations and accents, but generally, if you're from Kentucky, you lean towards the "Loo-i-vuhl" and "Loo-uh-vuhl" pronunciations.  I've lived in Kentucky, Louisiana,  and California, and I've visited countless other states, including Hawaii, Alaska, Florida, New York and Rhode Island.  When I say I'm from "Louisville" the first response is usually "What?" or "Where?".  It's not that they haven't heard of Louisville, Kentucky.  We are the 16th largest metro area in the country, with around 1.3 million people, but most recognize it as "Luey-ville".  I've found that our pronunciation of "Louisville" is comparable to the way Baltimore residents say "Baldimor".  It's a lazy and blended word that only residents can recognize and appreciate.

Remember when every Kentucky Oaks Friday gave us a day off of school?  Did you go to "Derby Parties" and talk about what you were doing for "Derby"?  "Derby" is just a generic word outside of Kentucky.  It's not a special day, kids don't get out of school, and few people even care about it outside of "Horse People" circles.  Sure, people have heard of the "Kentucky Derby"; it's a national icon, the first and most important of races in the coveted Triple Crown.  Celebrities from Hollywood and around the world visit for the sites, smells, and fun hats (remember when the Queen of England and George W. Bush sat side by side at Churchill Downs?). It's a unique race fought through mud and dust and sweat and blood and the sound of thundering hooves and screams and yells and the smell of horse and Mint Juleps, but in order to reference it outside the Bluegrass State you must put "Kentucky" in front of "Derby".  Don't even think about trying to explain the Steamboat Race, the Hot Air Balloon Race, or Thunder over Louisville.

This is one of the inspirations for my blog in general.  When I waited tables in New Orleans I would input orders of alcohol and all of the whiskeys were under the category "Bourbon".  Jack Daniels, Crown Royal and SoCo are NOT bourbon, and there are even some Kentuckians that don't quite get it, but most of us do.  Bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon.  Kentucky has a "Bourbon Trail", a stretch of two major interstate highways that touch all of the major bourbon distilleries including Woodford Reserve, Four Roses, Buffalo Trace, Maker's Mark and Jim Beam, but some folks don't know that 95% of bourbon is distilled in Kentucky, nor what makes the difference.  If it were up to me, I'd add that it must be distilled in Kentucky to the list of legal requirements for labeling your product as "bourbon".  The name comes from Bourbon County, when products were labeled by county ("bourbon whiskey") and shipped, largely by river, to be sold.  "Bourbon Whiskey" from Bourbon County, Kentucky, was shipped down the Mississippi and sold in a major port in the south, New Orleans, where a large French population had settled and they took quickly to the product with the French name.  Remember, all squares are rectangles.

When you tell people you're from Kentucky, they usually are a bit surprised.  Whether it's actual concerns over lack of footwear and incest or just that Kentuckians don't travel much (except for basketball, see below) and it's a relatively low-populous state, they don't know a whole lot about us.  The biggest thing they usually will remember is that it's absolutely gorgeous.  Even people who only briefly drove through the state or visited for short periods of time will compliment me on my home state's beauty.  We are truly the "heartland" of the U.S.  Fort Knox is famous for its gold reserves, but was chosen because of its central location to the rest of the country.  We have a mix of all the best the nation has to offer.  We have tall southern pines, eastern mountains, vast grasslands and crop fields, a large metropolitan area, long and winding waterways and all of these are complimented by a full four seasons.   We have bits of the north, south, east and midwest, but the seasons give life and color to each.  The south is just as green, but is far flatter and can't boast the rolling hills and horse-fields we do.  The north has more trees and valleys, but is far colder.  The midwest is just as flat as the south, but starts to dry out.  Lake Cumberland is the largest man-made lake on our side of the Mississippi by volume (that baby is deep!) and boasts some serious shoreline:  "The shoreline of Lake Cumberland — at the theoretically maximum possible elevation of water — is 1,255 miles.  The coastline of Florida, not including islands, is 770 miles in length.  The total Atlantic coastline of the United States from Maine to the tip of Florida is 2,069 miles.  The total Pacific coastline of the continental U.S. (California, Oregon and Washington) is 1,293 miles." - http://heartoflakecumberland.com/lake-cumberland/history/.  The only outdoorsy thing that we can't really  compete with is skiing and snowboarding. We get snow, but not nearly as much as this anomaly-winter is giving the east coast.  Go northeast, or far west.  To Colorado.  To Steamboat Springs.

You are Blue.  You are Red.  There is no in-between.  There are no others.  You have no Superbowl to yearn for, no Stanley Cup to defend, no World Series curse to overcome, you know two teams, and they are Kentucky and Louisville.  You must pick a side.  Children in the middle ages were chosen at birth to be high-born lords and ladies, knights, or blacksmiths, and Kentucky children are born to cheer for the Red or the Blue.  We are bordered by Tennessee, who has the Titans; Missouri, who has the Rams; Illinois, who has the Bears; Indiana, who has the Colts; Ohio, who has the Bengals and Browns; West Virginia, who has the Hatfields; and Virginia, who has nobody.  We don't have legitimate professional teams (I was at a San Diego Padres game once, and a friend used the "Riverbats" as trash-talk to another Kentucky native hating on the Padres), so we grew to appreciate our sports for what they were, and we excel at basketball.

Our football teams are in their own situations right now; Louisville with a seemingly waning supremacy after the loss of Charlie Strong and Kentucky's dawn on the horizon with Mark Stoops' reign, but our basketball teams have always been elite.  Louisville itself holds three NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championships, and Kentucky has 8.  UCAA has 11, winning 10 in a span of 12 years (1964-1975) with the same coach and one more in 1995; Indiana winning 5, 3 with Bobby Knight.  Those are the only teams that come close to the dominance of college basketball in Kentucky.  UK holds records in all-time winning percentage and games, NCAA tournament appearances and wins, Sweet Sixteen appearances, Elite Eight appearances, and is second in championship appearances and wins (UCLA holds the most for both).  Come March every year, we are well-known and feared, and when we stumble, people are shocked and startled.  The south (SEC schools), get the southern sports rivalries, but no one has a rivalry as deep and strong as Louisville vs Kentucky.  The SEC has strong football roots but also has professional teams, so the contrast isn't as solid, as bold, as deep.  To live in Kentucky is to Bleed Blue or Red, and that is no small claim.  Choose a side.

The Pro Bowl is an anomaly in professional sports.  It's one of the highest achievements and a noble honor to be asked to play in the Pro Bowl, and hence is a game of All Stars.  The problem is that generally nobody cares about it.  No player wants to risk injury to himself or others, and there's very little incentive to actually play hard to win the game (usually the players are paid ~$25,000 for losing and ~$50,000 each to the winning team.)  It also boasts an extremely modest viewership, both on TV and in the stadium.  It's basically a vacation in Hawaii every year and the players don't have to try hard.  This makes it boring.  

So they changed it up.  First, the uniforms were upgraded from a cheesy red, white and blue that looked like it was copy-and-pasted from an Olympic team in the 80s to the sleek, modern green and orange above.  I don't personally love the chosen colors, but it's an upgrade.  Before, the players were asked to play and if their team was in the AFC they played for the AFC, and if they were from the NFC then they played for the NFC.  Boring.

It sounded kind of ridiculous at first, but the brilliant idea was to turn it into a backyard-captain-picks style of team selection.  Many comparisons were made to a fantasy football draft.  Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders were brought in to build the teams, and they and their first three picks chose the rest of the team, alternating.  Grown men were visibly butt-hurt about being "picked last", and emotions were already heating up.  The intense rivalry between Sanders and Rice became a rallying cry for the teams, chosen by them, to play for bragging rights that went beyond a corporate logo.  It was brilliant, and the game was a lot of fun to watch.  Players from the same team were hitting each other just as hard, if not harder, than everyone else, and it was a low-scoring, action-filled football game.  I'm very excited about the future of the Pro Bowl and hope to see legends such as Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Tony Gonzales and Richard Sherman come back as honorary alumni to pick a team to play for them one day.

I was lucky enough to visit Colorado with my family this winter.  We went to Steamboat Springs, a big gorgeous mountain that's famous for its consistent "champagne powder" snow.  Even during "mild" winters when we visited there was deep powder to be found just off the beaten trails, but usually we would get fresh, dry powder dumped on us more than once during a 5-or-so-day visit.  See below.

We all (7 in our group, with 5 to join us later in one packed condo) flew into Hayden/Steamboat Springs airport, a tiny little tarmac that I think was converted from a helicopter pad.  Some 20-somethings had been drinking and talking loudly with each other throughout the flight, all with slight but noticeable Texas drawls, and when we piled into the shuttle I was slightly dismayed to find they were joining us for the 30-45 minute ride into town.  You see, Steamboat was promoting their mountain with a big Texas music festival, so there were more cowboy hats than usual (even for a western Colorado town) and these boisterous folks were in town to listen to local Texas country stars.  I thought, "Great!  I love country music!"  After my personable brother befriended and lent the group his mini-speaker to use to play music, we learned that this wasn't what we were used to hearing in the South.

You see, there is Nashville country, and there's Texas country, and now I'm sure there are plenty of other sects where the local sound differs from other regions.  I think our (somewhat ironically) favorite song that was played was called "Snake Farm" (click to watch the YouTube video and listen to this weird song).  It's kind of hard to describe sounds, but either trust me when I say this ISN'T Nashville country, or watch the video.  There were some comments about Nashville being superior, but mostly the odd western twang and the inebriated early-20s girl trying to sing every word with an exaggerated drawl drowned them out.

But we did find a diamond-in-the-rough.  The photo above is inside a ski-in bar and grill where we were gathered to watch the Florida State/Auburn BCS Championship (RIP BCS Championship, welcome NCAA Playoffs!).  The first picture has the name of one Josh Ward.  He's the guy playing in this photo.  His big album is called "Promises" and features some great songs; some of hurtin', some of cryin', some of whiskey and some of love.  There are great fiddles crescendoing throughout a western Texas twang, but I swear to you the man sounds like Travis Tritt, and that's what I loved so much about him.  I recommend "Promises," "Pony Town," and of course "Hard Whiskey."  The album is on Spotify, so if you want to hear a new country singer that you won't hear on southern radios and sounds like the guitars and pianos are echoing off of wooden slats in a small western saloon, give it a listen.  You won't regret it.  

I attached a GoPro to my helmet and snowboard while I rode on the mountain all week, and yes, it's as awesome as it sounds!  I'm currently cutting the video with some music that I hope to show to friends and family.  I'll definitely try to embed a video here when it's ready!

I'm late.  

I'm late in wishing everyone a Happy New Year, and late in updating this blog.  2013 helped me start this blog, gain a small audience, and learn a few things about my voice and style.  We explored music, football, a bit of basketball and golf, and lots and lots of bourbon.  

This is a special post for me, not just because it's been a long time since I've written, but also because now I have some history and feedback from family and friends to reflect upon.  I'm encouraged by kind words from readers and statistics showing that my website still draws modest traffic, despite my last post being in October.  

With all that being said, I'll share a few New Year's Resolutions with you.  I won't bore you too much with the standard "lose weight and work out" goals, as my resolutions are tailored to what I think is an enthusiastic and thirsting entertainment blog audience which I hope you are as excited about as I am:

• Save more; everyone probably tries this every once in a while.  I am lucky enough to have two big breaks in personal cash flow soon:  I will be writing my second to last check to Kay Jewelers this month to finish paying off the engagement ring I bought my beautiful fiance, and I will be receiving a decent pay raise from my job starting at the end of May.  It's important to save money for emergency use as well as investments and personal spending use like car and home down payments and gifts, so I will be welcoming my freed-up cash.
• Become a better sports fan.  It's hard to argue that a vocal fan is a poor one, but I've noticed that when I post sports related information on Facebook during a game, my team fares worse.  Sports fans are notoriously superstitious, and so I will make it a point to post BEFORE or AFTER a game has started, but not during.
• Create a Twitter account for this page.  I don't have a personal Twitter account, and I've been avoiding it, but I think I can improve my activity with it, make you guys aware of entertainment such as music and sports, and learn more about the world that interests us if I explore the Twitterverse a bit.  Follow me @guitarsnbourbon