Congratulations Are In Order!!

Well, well, well......I'm sure you all know that my Dolphins are now playoff bound as the AFC East Champions!

Led by Chad Pennington, who was exiled from the Jets after they signed the severely overrated Brett Favre, we tapped Murph's Jets out 24-17.

I don't know how Favre made it to the Pro Bowl over Pennington, but Pennington will be Comeback Player of the Year. Sporano will be Coach of the Year too.

I am hoarse now from all the screaming and yelling. I hope that none of the neighbors attempted to call the police on me while I was running around the neighborhood yelling "Miami Dolphins!", hopefully they understood my feelings.

CBS tried to hate on me by playing the sorry Jacksonville/Baltimore game, but this being the technology age, I was able to watch the first three quarters on the internet until they came to their senses and put the game on TV.

Now we've got Yo-El's Ravens next Sunday in the first round. We will probably win.

In other news, my main man Lance became in engaged to his girl Eva on Christmas Eve. Good thing she said yes! LOL. Congrats man. I will be sure to post pics in 2010 from the wedding, you know I'm going to be in it.

Aub-Rida, who spent the majority of his day hating on my Dolphins, won the 2008 Come Wit It Fantasy Football SuperBowl.

He destroyed McLean 98-74 for the win.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone from myself. I attended a great Christmas Eve service earlier this evening and just as a reminder to everyone, remember the real reason for the season. Enjoy this time with family and friends.

The days of me and my siblings waking up at 6am to run and open up presents are far gone, but I still can't wait to see what presents I'm getting!!! LOL. I know good and well I don't have anything to open up. I always ruin it when people try to get me stuff anyway because by the time they think about getting it, I've already gotten it myself! But it is true, the older you get, the more joy you get out of giving gifts than you do receiving them.

Christmas Update

That picture right there explains exactly what I have been doing basically the entire time I have been in Denver.

It's so great to be around the family. I hadn't seen my brother since this time last year and I love any chance I can get out of Orlando and see my family

I've been doing my normal thing out here, going to the mall, watching tv and sitting around joking and talking.

Sunday at Church, I was honored by the Glen Anderson Foundation for touching the associate pastor's life in a positive way. That was a shock to me, I didn't even know I was up for that.

Kelvin, Lee and myself sat around and watched the NFL games Sunday night, they both saw their dream of winning the fantasy football championship go by the wayside. K lost to Aub-Rida 86-77 and Lee took an L at the hands of McLean 116-96.

Monday, I hit the basketball game with some of the male leaders from Church, Mr. Cobb, Mr Walker and Mr. Ron Green, my mentor and someone I have always looked up to. Lee and Mr. Walker's son Jerrin accompanied us as well. We had a great time out there.

I finished up my Christmas shopping this week, I'm not usually a last minute shopper, but I didn't feel like bringing all that stuff with me. I knew exactly what I was going to get before I left Orlando, so I didn't really spend that much time out.

I'm going to resume my position, laying around like I don't have a back bone.

Disney Ultimate Hurdler

Due to the fact that I like to battle Joel at practice while running 200s, 300s and 400s, it has been a no contest so far this season. I am now calling myself Anderson Silva, the UFC #1 fighter and tap out artist because I have been tapping Yo-El Brown out in the workouts so far. He usually has the advantage on me until well in to the Spring.

We always have fun with this at practice, at the end of the day, all we are doing is getting better.

Pic courtesy of another Mclean production

What's Going On?!?!?!?!

...........A whole bunch of nothing is the answer.

I know I have set a personal record for amount of time between blog posts, but there hasn't been anything of note going on in the life and times of D.O.

Training has been going well, but these Saturday A.M. practices have been killing me!! I've went over hurdles twice and that has had my legs on fire. Trying to get that muscle memory back and the rate of turnover has me waking up asking myself why do I put myself through this?!?! That is until I walk in the living room and see that Olympic Medal.

Brooks went to some sort of camp in Las Vegas and said they had a lot of videos of your boy to dissect, so I'm sure I will have a lot of the stuff that I do in the race SWACKED (swagger jacked combined) by whomever was there. But I feel good knowing that I didn't reinvent the wheel based on someone else's performances, just invented myself by listening diligently to Brooks.

I know that I will run my first race of the year up in Gainesville at the University of Florida in late January. I'm pretty excited.

I'm also excited about getting away from Orlando for a little bit, I'm going back to Denver in a few days for the Holidays. Seeing the family is always great.

My Dolphins are tied for first in the AFC East, we've got a very good shot at the playoffs.

My Denver Nuggets are killing too, the number two seed in the West. I was happy they brought back another Denver legend in Chauncey Billups back and got rid of Allen Iverson, whom I was never a fan of.

On a sad note, my fantasy football team finished stinking the joint up this season and we missed the playoffs for the second year in a row. Maybe next year we will have a Miami Dolphin like turnaround.

The house hunt is finished, I haven't gotten a closing date yet, but it should be sometime here in the near future. That has consumed a whole lot of time as well. Gathering the necessary documents and all that due diligence is really exhaustive.

Other than that, I have spent a lot of time in my usual position, laying in the bed with the 4700 uniform on (do-rag and gym shorts). Until next time.......

12.85 (David Oliver Documentary)

Like I had written about in an earlier post, Tom Keeling and his film group from Full Sail University did a documentary on me.

He has finished up the project and I, along with the rest of the training group had the opportunity to view his final submission at practice on Monday. He did an outstanding job.

You know he received an A for the project of course! Tom has a very creative mind, I'm looking forward to what he has in store for his future projects.

You can check out his blog at Illumiscape Productions. Thanks Tom.

Brooks Johnson Blog

My coach, Brooks Johnson, has joined the blogging world. You can check his out at www.blog.spikesandflats.com. Anyone who knows Brooks should be pretty interested in reading what he has to say. I asked when does he decide to make a blog post, he replied "when somebody pisses me off!" I find myself looking forward to these posts. Check him out.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your's. I haven't had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with my family since 1999, so if you are spending time with family, thoroughly enjoy today. I am so very thankful for my family and can't wait to see them again for Christmas. It is important to be thankful for what it is that you do have instead of worrying about what you don't have because if you think you have a rough, I'm sure there are millions of people who wouldn't mind trading places with you. Take time out to reflect upon all the great things we each of been blessed with. I'm really happy for one thing, I was able to do this blog post, which means I'm still inhaling and exhaling, the opposite is clearly worse.

Back In The Game Baby!!

I got a phone call from my local Verizon and I'm back in action with my BlackBerry Storm!! Touchscreen withdrawal was getting tough for me.

Hopefully I won't mess this one up! This week keeps getting better........

Things on the Up-Swing

After a weekend to forget, things are coming around at the beginning of this week.

I got the Sub13 Air Max '90s in, they are very hot.

Kitchie has lined me up a clothing deal with CAVI clothing line. I have some very hot pieces. I will take photos and post them up after Thanksgiving. Thanks Fadie, you can check out his blog at Cavi Worldwide they have a lot of info on there, check it out.

I also had the opportunity to have a sit down with James G. Brown, one of the higher ups with the ESPN Rise. They're main focus is on celebrating high school athletics. He was a very cool guy, we talked about the upcoming events they are going to be hosting a the Wide World of Sports Complex.

He invited me to be a guest tonight at the opening ceremony for the Old Spice Tournament they are kicking off tomorrow. There are major college basketball teams coming to Disney for this event. It should be really exciting.

James and I

It's Been A Weekend To Forget.....

-Broke my BlackBerry Storm touchscreen, now I've got to wait two weeks to get another one, I am still sick on that one, but I'm a firm believer in you can't cry over self inflicted wounds. I did it, so I have to deal with the consequences.

-Dolphins got beat down by the Patriots

-My fantasy football team is on a continued downward spiral. I need a miracle to make it to the playoffs

-I got sick

The Storm is by far the hottest phone I have ever seen. The screen resolution for the video is the highest on the market, it looks like you are watching HDTV on your phone. The internet is as fast as I am. It comes with an 8gb memory card, that's a whole lot of music, pictures, videos you can hold on the phone. I'm really big on that. The only con to me is that while in portrait view, my fingers are too big for the letters, but you still don't mis-type because you have to actually press the letters, so I guess it's not too much of a con. I can't wait to get mine back, I was just starting to master it too!

Got That Blackberry Storm Action!

I had been waiting months for this phone to come out, so when it was released, you know I was first in line, literally.

The Verizon store around my way opened up at 8am, I got up at 6:45 and was at the store at 7.

The phone sold out in that store at 8:20. I'm glad I got there early or I would have been sick!! I have been on that thing all day too. It will definitely give me something to pre-occupy my time with this weekend.

I'm loving it so far too! McLean, you gotta catch up man......

Give A Laptop, Change The World

While I was sitting back enjoying an interesting episode of House that I DVR'd last night, a commercial came on that touched me a little bit.

The commercial was from the One Laptop per Child Foundation. Their mission is to create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing them with a rugged laptop full of learning content.

So I hopped on to their site at amazon.com/xo to find out more information on the foundation. I liked what their focus was and what they were about, so I bought some laptops for their cause. I have a soft spot for kids, hopefully this will help in my continued efforts to try to effect kids lives positively.

If you're interested, check the website above.

Miami Dolphins Welcome David Oliver!

Pre-game ceremony

Miami Weekend

Rida, Yo-El and I had a hell of a weekend down in the 3-0-5 this weekend. Like I said earlier, we headed down Friday and hit the beach as soon as we got down there. Our hotel was right on South Beach, two steps from the actual beach.

Friday was hot, started out with us taking a stroll down Ocean Drive of course. Had to hit our spot Wet Willie's! Joel looking at that Superman's Kryptonite like "Do I really want to do this?" LOL.
We saw the Heat beat down the Wizards later on that evening. It wasn't even a good game, but the seats were great. We had feet on the floor across from the Heat bench.

Juan Dixon was almost sitting in my lap while trying to knock down this three point attempt.I had never experienced a NBA game from this vantage point, it was a very good look. At the game, they had me up on the big screen, shouting your boy out. That was super tight. After the jumbotron love, I ended up signing a whole lot of autographs myself. Pretty cool. Thanks Nevin for the seats.
I got to holler at Micky Arison, the owner of the Heat for a hot minute after the game as well as Pat Riley earlier on.
After the game, we hit Prime 112, an exclusive, really good restaurant. I couldn't even finish all of my food, that has to be a first for me. The filet mignon I had was the worse tasting thing on the plate!
We needed to get that good meal in before we hit my party up.
It was such a hot party too. 400 Club is a very nice spot. They party for a LONG time in Miami! I don't think the party ended until well after 5am. Of course we weren't there that long. Man we had a great time.
Saturday

We had an easy morning, just sat around and watched a little college football before we rolled out to met Luther Campbell and catch one of his NFL Youth League football games. Those kids looked like they could stop right now and suit up for the Miami Hurricanes, they were that good.
That evening, there was some very hot events going on. The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show and after party that we attended at the Fountain Bleu hotel was a highlight. We saw a whole lot of beautiful people there as well as a lot of phony looking individuals which was hilarious!

We got tired of being there, so we rolled to the rooftop lounge at the Gansevoort Hotel and hung out with Ty Law for a while. We had a ball as usual.
Kitchie, Rida and myselfJoel and his new best friend Mclovin' were providing instant comedy all night
Sunday

I was looking forward to Sunday all week long! Dolphins v. Raiders. Do I need to say more? We had pregame sideline passes, so we got to see the players during their warmups

NFL legend and former track star himself James Lofton went out of his way to come and holler at your boy and congratulate me. That really meant a lot to me. Aub, a big Buffalo Bills fan, Lofton's greatest moments came while a member of the Bills, was really happy as well.They had me on the pregame run down, when I saw that, I got crunk!
I got introduced to the stadium right before the Dolphin player introductions, it was a great moment. I got to be on the field of my favorite team in front of the fans.
I got to hang with a few of the Miami Dolphins Ring of Fame members
We watched the Dolphins tap out the Raiders from Dan Marino's box seats.

Dolphin wide receiving legend O.J. McDuffie was super cool, after the game, we stopped by his postgame tailgate party for a hot minute.
After the tap out of the Raiders, we got postgame player access. Down there, I took several photos with the Dolphins and a couple with some Raiders.

Joel's homeboy Ted Ginn Jr.
Joey Porter
Akin Ayodele and Ronnie Brown
The players were cool as hell, they all signed my football and were giving me some props as well. Eventually and unfortunately we had to head back to Orlando.
Before heading back, we stopped back at Nevin's baller house! The hottest house I have ever been in in my life (until my own, eventually....) He was a great host as well.
We surely didn't want to leave. But time to get back on the grind.......until next time.

GOOD LOOKS ON EVERYTHING KITCHIE!! YOU MIGHT HAVE A PERMANENT JOB!!!! THANKS FOR MAKING ALL OF THIS POSSIBLE.

3-0-5 M-I-Yayo!!

4700 rolled down to Miami for the weekend, it has already been fun time, we got in yesterday afternoon. Pool side suites at the hotel, floor seats at the Heat v. Wizards game last night, hosted a party last night which was FIRE!!, still have a couple of more events to do before the weekend is over, culminating in the Dolphins v. Raiders game on Sunday, we've got that field pass action! Thanks to my publicist Kitchie for having all of this lined up. I will do a more thorough update when I get back home.

OCPS Tech-In Day

Today, Tiff, Joel and I were invited to Richmond Heights Elementary School for the Orange Country Public School System's annual teach-in program.

We had a great time with the classes we spoke to. We talked to them about goal setting, the importance of getting your education, believing in yourself and staying drug free. The kids were remarkably intelligent and most knew exactly what they wanted to do when they reached adulthood.

We brought in autograph cards and of course, I brought in the Medal. I traded my medal with a young girl for her hall monitor sash. We had a ball with that one. You know kids like things they can touch, so the Medal was a hit.

I really like talking to kids and sharing my experiences with them. I always believe at least one of the kids will become inspired by something I have to say.

On a lesser note, those 300s at practice today nearly killed your boy! But back at it tomorrow.

Sub13 Enterprises

The process of getting myself incorporated has finally been finished and I am now the Owner/CEO/President/CFO/COO and employee of Sub13 Enterprises.

I'm not a businessman, I am a business, man! Thanks to Marc Brodnax for getting all of this going for me and to Harold for setting all of the meetings up and being there step by step as well!

D.O. Update

As everyone knows, I started back training this past Monday. Boy hasn't waking up in the morning been a constant reminder of why I hate this time of the year.

One thing that I enjoy is those long 30+ minute runs. It sounds funny coming from a sprinter but those runs have really given me a chance to process a lot of information and really reflect upon my accomplishments to this point in my career. It also feels good to start working out again, I am really looking forward to the 2009 season, which will be my fifth as a professional, wow where has time gone? I know that this season there is a big target on my back and I will be forced to work even harder than I have in the past, this is just the beginning of a rigorous fall training cycle.

A film group from Full Sail University, led by Thomas Keeling have been shooting a documentary on me, home life, practice, etc. I'm not sure how long it will last, but when I get some footage, I will surely post it.

Off the track, I've been just as busy as on the track. Getting the incorporation thing going and house hunting have taken up a lot of free time. I think I found the house that I want, keep your fingers crossed for me.

I had some people over for the Calzaghe/Jones Jr. fight, I'm a Calzaghe fan, but everyone else was going for Jones, of course we saw what happened.

I had the painting that Dan Harris made for me custom matted and framed, I picked that up from being in the shop for a couple weeks. It looks 10 times tighter now.

My Dolphins won and are over .500 for the first time in years. My Nuggets picked up hometown hero Chauncey Billups from the Pistons, great move if you ask me. My fantasy team is currently winning as well.

Did I mention that Barack Obama is now 72 days and counting from officially taking office? This has turned out to be a great week!

CONGRATULATIONS BARACK!!!!

This is way bigger than any Olympic Medal, World Record, Superbowl, World Series or any other type of "win" you can compare this "win" to.

We have a Black President in the United States of America! He will be the 44th President of this great country. In January, 2009, he will officially go down in history.

I never thought I would see the day, this is emotionally overwhelming to me right now as I type this. Aub, Joel and I have been watching this ever since we left practice. Even though we knew he would win, it's official and it feels so good.

Congratulations Barack Obama. If we as Blacks can accomplish something this big, there is nothing that we can not do as a people, no more excuses! WE DID IT!!!

What an incredible night!

GET OUT AND VOTE!!!

No matter who it is you are voting for, get out and hit the polls if you haven't already. It's your civil duty, right and privilege. This was the third time I have gotten to vote and I feel great about it each and every time.

Let's get out and make history.

"Sub 13" Air Max 90's

These shoes are hot if I must say so, the D.O. inspired Nike Air Max 90s. I designed these, they feature a nice color combination of bronze (of course) and black. I got SUB13 written on the back and on the toe part it's got some sort of flying hurdler on it, I think Liu Xiang inspired that part. I'm guessing that David Payne has the silver ones and Liu has the gold pair. I'm pretty excited about these kicks. Good looks NIKE.

Could We Possibly Be Playoff Bound???

I had the pleasure of watching the wonderful beat down of the Denver Donkeys we administered yesterday evening. We are now back to .500 at 4-4, obviously the new regime has come in and changed the entire attitude within the organization. After the game, I sat back and thought to myself, "could we possibly win 10 games this year after only one last season?", it's quite realistic, the schedule consists of:

Week 10: Seattle (2-6)
Week 11: Oakland (2-6)
Week 12: New England (5-3, we beat them already)
Week 13: St. Louis (2-6)
Week 14: Buffalo (5-3, we beat them already)
Week 15: San Fransisco (2-6)
Week 16: Kansas City (1-7)
Week 17: NY Jets (5-3)

Is 10-6 a stretch? I don't think so, let's go Phins!!!

In other unfortunate news, this afternoon will see me return back to Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex for my first practice of the 2008-2009 season. Vacation is officially over.

2008 Opening Convocation - Acceptance Speech by David Oliver

Undefeated Week!

Shout out to McLean (wit it rock wit it), (you down with) E.P.P. and Ash (I'm going to) Jack (you up if you touch me, McLean take the picture!), but yall couldn't keep up with your boy!

I had a very successful week for myself, winning at everything:

1) Miami Dolphins win
2) I won fantasy (back to .500 baby!)
3) 3-0 in spades
4) 1-0 in tonk
5) The board game Sorry
6) Won some gwop at the blackjack table
7) Shots
8) To finish it off, won a free sandwich at McDonalds with the Monopoly game

10-0!! I'm doing better than the Tennessee Titans and Texas Longhorns so far, LOL. But remember, the pendulum never swings for or against you forever.........

Back Home Again.....But For How Long? LOL

I just returned to Orlando, I had to make an important business trip to the accountant. I received a whole lot of information on how to make my money grow and work for me.

I know I should have been up on this a little earlier, but better late than never right?

I really suggest anyone who receives 1099 tax forms instead of a W-2 to go ahead and get yourself incorporated and open a tax-free money market account. There are some real tax benefits there, you know all of us in that 36% tax bracket need all the help we can get!

That was just my little "D.O.'s Money Management Tip".

I help Mc(Fresh and so C)lean's daughter Alexis ring in her 7th birthday today too, what a cute girl, obviously she gets it from her mom!

The Howard football team once again lost today by one point to NCA&T you all already know how I feel about that.........scared of success.

Anchor's up!!!!

Saturday Update..........

Saturday's events were kicked off by the Homecoming Parade, an event that was Grand Marshaled by Terrence Howard, Brandon T. Jackson, Lance and myself. I was out there running on empty, like I said, sleep was not a priority on my list of things to do while in D.C.

The parade was fun, throwing out mini footballs to the crowd and taking pictures when the motorcade stopped. We got in to a friendly game of catch with Terrence, trying to throw the balls three car links ahead, we were very unsuccessful in those attempts, repeatedly pegging innocent bystanders with mini foam footballs. It was all in good fun.
We had a quick turnaround between the parade and the game. We ate a little McDonalds then got an escort over to Greene Stadium. They honored the 1993 team who went undefeated and made the playoffs.

The game was poppin', I did about four interviews, went to the press box and they had me do a shout out over the loud speakers at halftime. The halftime show was great as well, the bands killed it and Terrence Howard came out dressed as a Howard University drum major and performed his lead song off of his forthcoming album. It was a definitely unexpected to see that.
I thoroughly enjoyed being out there. I met a whole lot of friends, old and new. I also got to hang with Keisha Knight-Pulliam, from Cosby fame most the afternoon.

The tightest moment to me was when I was walking out of the stadium and Sean "Diddy" Combs, stopped your boy to talk to me for a minute. He was telling me how he had everybody watching the Games, how I made him proud to have went to Howard and to keep holding it down and representing. That was pretty unexpected.

The game didn't turn out in our favor, we played the Morgan St. Bears, we eventually lost by one point in double overtime. The kicker missed the extra point!!! Another case of being scared of success. When I was playing, we lost two games in that similar fashion, that's why I don't believe team sports are for me.

I was so tired after the game, I passed out in Murph's car on the way to get he and K's stuff from his house for the yacht party me and Lance were hosting that night. That was the first decent minutes of sleep I had gotten in a while. Before the yacht, we had to hit the step show.

The step show was decent, it's a pretty cool event. I admire the precision and effort it takes for those organizations to perform their acts. As an individual who has to use precision to do what I do, I can really appreciate what they do.Now the event that we had been waiting for all weekend,the yacht party. They really did it big in the set up for the event. I always much more preffer these private events to the ones that are hosted at nightclubs. I like them mainly because not everyone can just show up and come, it was advance tickets and only a set limit were to be sold. Shout out to Josh Mercer, he really held us down.

The party was off the chain, had the tailor made shirt and blazer outfit going, killin' as usual (lol, well not really). We had a very good time as expected.
That was the event that brought the 2008 Howard Homecoming to a close for us. How disappointed was I!!

A really big shout out has to go to Kevin Reed and all of his assistants, he lined up everything for the weekend for Lance and myself. They made sure we were well taken care of, I really appreciated everything. I really wish I could rewind time to last Thursday and do it all over again, we really did it BIG!!!

K. Reed between Lance and I, good looks homie!